Episodi

  • Big News | Ep.25

    Big News | Ep.25
    Aug 25 2021
    • Adam has joined the team at LegendKeeper
    • Adam published his thought process on finding a team on his blog.
    • Summary of Adam's thought process of why he wanted to find a team. His story so far.
    • Why Adam did not join Codex
    • Worldbuilding software is highly competitive within the TTRPG software niche.
    • The big jumps in business maturity Adam has to go through now. Feelings of overwhelm.
    • The importance of taking a step back to look at the big picture. The shift to LegendKeeper was not driven by daily pain.
    • The effect on Brandon of moving to Vancouver.
    • Brandon has joined Y Combinator to accelerate Codex
    • Recent IndieHackers podcast gives some insight into what YC is actually like.
    • The importance of peer pressure.
    • Brandon's take on YC so far.
    • The magic of deadlines when you have a great team.
    • Adam's first ever Angel Investment. The joy of placing asymmetric bets.
    • Stats on how likely you are to succeed as an angel investor.
    • The scary truth of B2C odds when focusing on profit.
    • SaaS has benchmarks which are useful.
    • Quantitative VS Qualitative definitions of Product-Market Fit.
    • Differences in milestones for VC-track VS boostrap companies.
    • Subtleties of retention.
    • The LK business impressions so far.
    • Brandon's Request: Make the recipes of the worldbuilders in LegendKeeper and film it on YouTube.
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    1 ora e 36 min
  • Creating a marketing strategy | Ep.24

    Creating a marketing strategy | Ep.24
    Jun 11 2021
    • Certain laws restrict what you can say about fundraising.
    • Fundraising is going really well. Brandon gives it a score of 13/10.
    • Line tracking in VSCode gets tricky when the file is in an 'edited' state.
    • Waiting list of 20 teams for Codex.
    • Comparing the fintech whitepaper that Dignified created with the one that Accenture created.
    • The rationale for creating an in-depth whitepaper on fintech.
    • How to leverage a whitepaper when Dignified has moved past its original goal.
    • The "reverse pyramid" content strategy.
    • Considering the Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering as a content pillar.
    • Trust signals matter. "Badges are unreasonably effective" in marketplaces.
    • "Dignified" the agency is a brand that Brandon has built up but now they are shifting all their energy to Codex. How do you make a decision to let go of that kind of asset?
    • The compounding effect of focusing in one market as a solo founder. This makes it hard to consider projects in other markets - even when they are promising.
    • The difficulty of starting at 0 with no audience or distribution.
    • The power of building relationships in a market. How it helped launch the Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering.
    • Why so many technical founders make dev tools.
    • The big vision of Codex.
    • Adam is heads down on building a Town generator for Here Be Taverns
    • Adam writing a couple guest posts to promote the guide.
    • Breakdown of the launch of the Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering.
    • When all was said and done, the guide was not as well received as Here Be Taverns.
    • Considering who the addressable market is for the Guide vs HBT.
    • What the data suggests about reader behaviour on the guide.
    • Starting to think about marketing strategy for Sword & Source products. Sales for HBT have slowed down significantly.
    • The same old problem: lots of good ideas and not enough time to do them all.
    • A "66 days of marketing" build in public stunt.
    • How fun it would be to hire for Sword & Source.
    • A breakdown of the Traction framework for creating a marketing strategy.
    • Detailed deep dive and Brandon's take on what Adam should do for his marketing strategy.
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    1 ora e 36 min
  • I made my first software sale!! | Ep.23

    I made my first software sale!! | Ep.23
    May 21 2021
    Show notes
    • Closing out agency work was surprisingly hard because of the demand for talent.
    • Pushing to ship a VS Code extension for Codex to gain early traction from a waitlist
    • Basic Job to be Done for Codex
    • Fitting into customers current tooling seems important for Codex
    • The expectation for real time communication when sharing context at work
    • VS Code's liveshare mode
    • Fundraising went above expectations but Brandon needs to show at least 1 big customer using Codex in production
    • VCs are worried about being able to sell to developer market because devs are skeptical about products
    • Adam concerned Brandon will get lots of usage data within his 1 month of runway. Optimistic about getting installs.
    • What happens if Brandon runs out of runway? He will still push forward on Codex
    • Adam officially made his first sale and now has revenue in his business.
    • Successfully launched Here Be Taverns Premium with only 1 generator. 2 remain to be built.
    • Review of launch email, pricing, and discount
    • Sales tip: give people a chance to make the purchase decision before launch day
    • Time spent on clarifying the early-access nature of the premium sale
    • Ask for the sale
    • Review of sales numbers so far
    • The joy of decoupling time from income
    • Adam is extremely optimistic because sales keep trickling in even though he has not done a full launch or started real marketing
    • Next steps for Here Be Taverns
    • Always test in production!! Adam's rule for when to rollback.
    • The power of chat ops
    • User count on Here Be Taverns far exceeds sales count (97 vs 15). Tons of potential for next group of customers.
    • Brandon breaks down Adam's email where he described possible future features for Here Be Taverns
    • Brandon says "I told you so" again
    • Brandon seems impressed with Adam's numbers
    • Comparing Here Be Taverns to other consumer products like videogames
    • Shoutout to Ben Barbersmith for helping Adam set a higher launch price
    • Trying to understand the value of Here Be Taverns.
    • The business model for D&D Beyond.
    • Adam's theory about price anchors for Here Be Taverns and how it helps him charge more. Comparison to price anchors for iphone games.
    • Leader in generators is donjon
    • Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering Launched!!
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    1 ora e 36 min
  • How much should I charge? | Ep.22

    How much should I charge? | Ep.22
    May 13 2021
    • Focus on building new generators for Here Be Taverns Premium
    • Adam's process is design and build at the same time
    • Adam's approach to interlinking products together and how his projects drive traffic to each other
    • Emotion driven development
    • Heraldry generator
    • The potential for GPT-3 for Here Be Taverns
    • Can AI do visual design?
    • Decisions that needs to be made: When should I launch the premium pass?
    • Adam's rationale for his prices
    • Launching sooner so that you don't sit on value you've created
    • Using the D&D core books as a price anchor
    • Launch discount strategies
    • Think of your business goals and how your prices reflect them
    • Adam's wish to make Sword & Source a premiumish brand that differentiates on quality
    • Buying power in RPG industry
    • The Sandi Metz approach to giving away products
    • Software products can still learn a lot from retailers
    • The lameness of the gaming industry business models built around microtransactions
    • Brandon's advice to buy a trophy when you make your first sale
    • Quick update on Codex fundraise
    • Focusing on the most important type of risk when pitching
    • The chicken and egg problem of fundraising
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    48 min
  • Pitching Tier 1 venture funds and ideal workdays | Ep.21

    Pitching Tier 1 venture funds and ideal workdays | Ep.21
    May 6 2021
    • Finding the ideal customer for Codex
    • Tier 1 funds are interested in Codex which surprises Brandon. He assumed he needed to play a long game but got invited to pitch.
    • Founders used to need investors. Now investors need founders.
    • What's the one thing Brandon can't screw up in the pitch meeting.
    • Brandon discusses mistakes he made in a pitch recently.
    • Adam grills Brandon on the question: What's your mission? What connects the big vision to his current tactics.
    • Adam is focused on premium offering for Here Be Taverns
    • Adam's main pricing decision is focused around "what is simplest?".
    • Adam's new shortened workday schedule: Fast to desk, focus on one thing, end at 1pm. Surprisingly, shortening his hours has increased his output.
    • Brandon shares his typical work rhythm.
    • Adam asks Brandon to workshop the actual roll-out plan for Here Be Taverns Premium. He is not certain when he should ship and how that might affect price point.
    • Potential customers are already telling Adam they are interested in premium. Putting an email signup on a coming soon page was very effective for validation and new subscribers
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    41 min
  • Finding quick wins to get out of a rut | Ep.20

    Finding quick wins to get out of a rut | Ep.20
    May 4 2021
    • Fundraising update on Codex
    • 🎉 Brandon is structuring an LOI (Letter of Intent) for Codex.
    • Adam is back in his groove. Discusses a slump he has been in recently.
    • Alpha readers have delivered their feedback on The Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering
    • Adam reviews the launch phases for the guide and his rationale.
    • Adam walks through his current build of the Guide.
    • Plan for scaling the guide to other game systems IF the project has traction.
    • Brandon advertises the Holloway guides again.
    • The surprising quality of the alpha readers and what they taught Adam.
    • Musing on a spin-off project for Game Master "Case Studies".
    • Adam shares how his reflection on the need to ship fast lead him to his next idea for revenue. Realizes the potential for Here Be Taverns
    • Walks through his idea to add a premium offering to Here Be Taverns.
    • The complexity of user login and payments. Lot's of people selling products around just that problem. Adam was approached by tons of people in Twitter DMs.
    • Adam sidesteps all the work and complexity by deciding to just ship a password to access the site.
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    37 min
  • On Writing | Ep.19

    On Writing | Ep.19
    Apr 12 2021
    • Clearing the creativity faucet as a metaphor for writing from David Perell
    • How to improve at writing
      • Writing prompts
      • Writing every day
    • Creative writing VS Business writing
    • Brandon's experience using a pre-written adventure module for our D&D game
    • Adam is learning about "adventure writing" which is a unique format that combines game design, utility, and creative writing
    • Adam started an "Adventure Reading Club" to learn more about the format
    • Product Managers should take more notes to practice writing
    • Writing skills matter a lot if you want to be effective within an organization. Especially if you have manager in your title.
    • Product Managers are needed at scale, not at the beginning
    • Telling people to "get better at writing" is bad advice because it is not actionable.
    • How Adam actually became a better writer:
      • Writing every day
      • Running everything through a self-edit round in hemingwayapp.com
      • Separate the writing and editing phase. Don't do them at the same time.
      • Separate the writing and editing phase by at least one day if you are working on something substantial.
      • Business writing should be strong by being concise and clear. You want maximum impact for minimum word count.
    • Brandon has 3 real teams using Codex
    • Derek Sivers on present VS future focused people
    • Sequence of moving across the country and launching Codex seemed off
    • Future focused people have a hard time estimating the amount of mental energy things in the present will require
    • You have to understand attention management in order to improve time management
    • Adam underestimated how much attention his projects with freelancers would take
    • Brandon believes he made the right choice to ship sooner even though he was moving
    • Rough timeline of the next month for Codex
    • The way raising money while building really works
    • The raising process explains why so many founders flocked to silicon valley
    • The Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering has completed Alpha phase
    • Tightening up the intended audience will lead to a more effective guide
    • Write useful books by Rob Fitzpatrick
    • Applying product thinking to book writing
    • Holloway makes awesome books
    • Adam really wants you to just ship sooner. Big question: "How did he not internalize this even after a career at Shopify?"
    • Code Quality Challenge by Ben Orenstein
    • Cargo culting home feeds
    • Dev anxiety around Pull Requests
    • Our companies are too small for OKRs. Do or do not.
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    1 ora e 24 min
  • Adam's most important lesson of entrepreneurship | Ep.18

    Adam's most important lesson of entrepreneurship | Ep.18
    Apr 9 2021
    • Brandon's caffeine intake cycle and the dangers of caffeine intake.
    • Opportunity for a business focused on decaf?
    • "The brightest flame burns quickest"
    • Adam's death-consciousness
    • What is a life well lived?
    • Putting in too many hours is a bad strategy when you do knowledge work
    • Consider the review process when you need to launch on a platform like the Google App store
    • 🎊 Codex is now available in the chrome store!
    • Brandon's favourite Codex feature: "Request context"
    • Capturing an engineer's reply to questions is a differentiator for Codex
    • Using documentation to systemize and scale your time
    • Adam still has concerned about the level of abstraction Codex is focused on
    • Context in code should focus on the 'unexpected moments'
    • Most important next step for Codex: have teams use it so they can hone in on ideal customer
    • The Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering is going out to alpha readers
    • Adam will use Google Docs for the alpha review so that he doesn't have to ask people to sign up for Notion
    • After alpha review the guide will be an 'open beta'. It will be soft launched so that Adam can see more new GMs try it before pouring on marketing efforts.
    • Adam discusses his biggest realization of entrepreneurship: Ship often
    • Adam seriously doubts people's ability to understand and change complex systems
    • Reflection on how waiting to ship the guide was a failure
    • Example of shipping fast: Free Fantasy Stock Art built with airtable.
    • Chess is a useful example for clarifying just how impossible it is for you to understand every variable in business.
    • Adam is learning to trust himself more as a founder in the gaming space
    • Adam keeps almost falling into the trap of going after something big and ambitious.
    • Project HearthQuest
    • "I can help people sooner by starting smaller" - Adam
    • The pain of having a big vision but sharing a small, scrappy piece with the world and hearing the feedback.
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    1 ora e 21 min