Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

著者: Sean Sun and Andrew Askins
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  • Two agency owners and friends talk about cybersecurity, design, and the continuous small efforts it takes to build a business.
    © 2025 Sean Sun and Andrew Askins
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Two agency owners and friends talk about cybersecurity, design, and the continuous small efforts it takes to build a business.
© 2025 Sean Sun and Andrew Askins
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  • You can just record things
    2025/04/25
    Andrew is in Atlanta visiting friends and continuing to think about how to best integrate more AI features into MetaMonster to make the product stickier. Sean had his first demo of Margins and... everything broke! But that's okay!Links:Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Margins: http://margins.so/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.93SeanThis is a new background. Where are you?00:07.44AndrewOh, you can tell how well my brain is working today. Good Lord.00:11.24SeanYeah.00:12.58Andrewi am staying with one of my college roommates in Atlanta. And after four years away from the South, my body has apparently completely forgotten how to function in a land of like pollen and pollinators. Every time I come to the South now, it's like the first three days I'm here.00:30.46AndrewMy nose is just like, fuck you, dude. So... Yeah, that's where I am. Check out my sweete my suite setup. I've got my suitcase with a couple books on it.00:38.71SeanAmazing.00:41.60SeanAmazing.00:42.00AndrewLittle, know, who needs a fancy stand-up desk when you've got a suitcase desk?00:46.59SeanYeah.00:49.28SeanYou can just record things. You can just do things.00:52.52AndrewYou know, don't have the fancy mic today.00:52.93SeanYeah.00:55.88SeanYep.00:56.28Andrewknow, the MacBook microphone is shockingly decent, maybe.01:03.40SeanYeah, your audio level is better than mine for what it's worth. So maybe should just swap. Maybe I should just... Yeah.01:11.52AndrewDude, it's all it's all an illusion. It's all just, like, stuff.01:14.81SeanExactly.01:16.03AndrewAnd you don't need the stuff to do things. You can just do the things without the stuff.01:21.45SeanYeah. You just record it your vlog and on an iPhone and put on the internet. You might get a couple hundred thousand subscribers that way.01:28.08AndrewWas it...01:29.24SeanThat's the Jackie Cho way.01:30.69AndrewI just heard the other day that... Dude, do you remember Call Me Maybe?01:36.79AndrewThe song? The, like, pop song?01:38.33SeanYeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.01:40.12AndrewThat was recorded on a MacBook.01:43.03SeanWhoa.01:44.15AndrewBut yeah, that was recorded on a MacBook, like on iMovie.01:44.89SeanThat's sick. That's I didn't know that. but That's crazy.01:48.59AndrewIt was just like them holding a MacBook.01:51.86SeanI think have you heard Here With Me by David?01:58.63AndrewNo.02:00.87AndrewUh-huh.02:02.46SeanI think that guy did it on his like iPhone. With like an iPhone like digital audio workstation and just cut it up.02:10.33AndrewThat's sick.02:11.29SeanIt's pretty crazy.02:12.11AndrewThat's wild.02:12.22SeanI don't know. Kids these days, man.02:14.27AndrewThere really are no excuses. Yeah. yeah I think we might have a little bit of lag.02:18.70SeanYeah.02:20.30AndrewIt feels like we're lagging a little bit.02:22.62SeanOh, definitely. We definitely are lagging a little bit. Yeah.02:25.65AndrewOkay.02:26.21SeanOh, well, all right, if you're listening, we're sorry.02:26.53AndrewWell.02:29.21SeanWell, we'll do better.02:29.98AndrewYeah.02:30.48Seannot Not this week or next week. I'm traveling next week, so I will also have, I'll be on hotel Wi-Fi.02:34.68AndrewYeah. Also...02:39.24AndrewYeah. Zincaster's pretty good, though, at, like, cutting out pauses, so maybe there will be no lag to the user.02:40.21SeanYeah.02:45.18AndrewIt's just lag to us.02:47.08SeanMaybe, yeah.02:48.11AndrewUser, listener, what call this? Yeah. Okay.02:51.26SeanI don't know, people, friends.02:51.45AndrewAlright. What's going on with you? what's What's going on in Miscreants land?02:56.98SeanI don't know, man. Giant tax bill.03:00.15AndrewOh, yeah.03:01.44SeanThat's...03:01.85AndrewYeah. Sucks making money, huh?03:03.93SeanI know. It's the worst. i03:06.12Andrewthe03:06.64SeanLife is so much easier.03:06.85AndrewIt's so hard to be profitable.03:08.97SeanYeah. yeah Especially if all of our profits just went into last year's taxes. No, it's it's it's like...03:14.28Andrewnot all of your ta Not all of your profits went into last year's taxes.03:17.34SeanAll all of our profit this year so far are paying off the taxes from last year.03:24.24AndrewOkay, that's very different. This year so far is a quarter of the year.03:26.02SeanFor sure.03:28.38SeanFor sure. For sure. For sure. For sure. Yeah. and it's it's It's good. It's fine. We will just have more taxes to pay next year. And it'll just be this.03:36.53AndrewYeah.03:37.43SeanYeah.03:38.44AndrewOkay, wait.03:39.24AndrewControversial topic.03:40.69SeanYeah.03:41.17AndrewDo you pay estimated taxes?03:43.81SeanI would like to. hi03:46.39AndrewSo, no.03:46.59SeanYeah. I would like to. We don't.03:49.77AndrewI don't pay estimated taxes, and I don't currently have plans to start paying estimated taxes.03:55.40Seanwhy ...
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    37 分
  • One week in
    2025/04/18
    Andrew and Sean have a bet to see who can write the best cold email copy for MetaMonster, and early results are in. Sean has a name and domain for his new product - Margins and is letting the Miscreants team handle the branding. Links:Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Margins: http://margins.so/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:01.15SeanWhat up, what up, what up?00:02.64AndrewI got some stats for you.00:04.12SeanYeah, tell me. Hit me. but yeah We should probably give some context first.00:08.26AndrewAll right. So Thursday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, some night, there was a night last week when, I lured Sean into giving me a bunch of free consulting advice, in under the pretense of let's cowork and like work on things side by side.00:11.90SeanI don't know. I can't remember. One of the nights. Uh-huh.00:26.76AndrewAnd instead I just like for three hours was like, what do you think about this cold email idea? What do you think about this cold email idea?00:34.37SeanWe co-worked. We co-worked on your cold emails. You didn't lie to me.00:41.45AndrewFair, fair. I'll take it. I'll take it. So got some cold emails spun up. I knew this was something I wanted to do again now that the product was live. And it's early, early days, but i have, I've sent 200 emails.00:57.98AndrewAnd so I have some early results and01:00.84SeanDo we want to tell everyone what the five different emails were?01:05.39AndrewYeah, I narrowed it down to four after day one. I just canceled. There were two that were almost identical. And so I just killed one of them.01:12.61SeanOkay.01:13.75AndrewProbably shouldn't have, but like I'm incredibly impatient and no, no, it wasn't one of the ones that affects your bets.01:16.85SeanDoes it affect my bets? Oh, good, good, good. Sweet. That's what matters.01:22.88AndrewOkay.01:23.01SeanOkay, go.01:24.34AndrewYeah, yeah, yeah. So we've got four cold email templates. going these are meta monster cold email templates if that isn't blatantly obvious first one is just like classic sales email the uh the subject line is ai powered screaming frog and then it's just like hey i built this thing do you want to demo it i want to sell it to you classic sales uh sales pitch second one01:45.84SeanYep. Yep.01:52.92Andrewis almost the exact same, only instead of presenting it as a sales pitch, presenting it as, hey, I'm looking for feedback, which is true. i At this stage, I just want feedback and information, especially on our pricing, which I want to talk about later. Third one is one of your ideas that you pitched me, which is kind of like Try to write... i think your your pitch was try to write your cold email like you're writing a newsletter.02:25.14AndrewSo try to write it so that you're teaching the recipient something and then just also happen to be have to have this product that is connected to the thing you're teaching that you want but to try to sell.02:39.34AndrewAnd then the the fourth one was more of like a... Classic kind of growth hacky play, which is, hey, I want to interview you for our blog.02:55.21AndrewAnd so you and I placed a bet on this. Your bet, what did you bet?02:57.76SeanYep.02:59.95SeanSo I bet that the AI powered Screaming Frog, the first one, the traditional sales email would have the most opens because not because I believe in those, but because specifically AI powered Screaming Frog alternative is just a great subject header.03:04.78AndrewYep.03:07.11AndrewYep.03:09.83AndrewYeah.03:16.15Seanand then i also bet that the one that would bring you the most value quote unquote whatever that however we want to define that and is the newsletter one value isn't like you know someone actually demos most qualified leads basically you bet uh that the interview one would have the most opens and replies but the most valuable responses would come from the feedback yeah the feedback letter and whoever wins the other person to buy that the other person the up03:23.39AndrewYes. Yeah.03:37.69AndrewYes.03:44.46SeanThe loser has to buy the winner on Chick-fil-A.03:46.44AndrewYep.03:47.24SeanSo the stakes are high.03:47.32AndrewAll right. are you03:48.38SeanIt depends.03:48.87Andrewwhen are When are we cutting off the results, by the way? What's...03:51.67SeanWhat are the results that?03:54.65AndrewSo, currently, in fourth place in open rates, and tied for lowest response rate, I think.04:03.73Andrewoh i There's an asterisk on response rates that I'll explain later.04:06.58SeanOK.04:09.17AndrewNewsletter.04:10.39SeanOh, damn.04:11.29AndrewBut all of these have gotten crazy good open rates for cold email.04:16.19SeanOK.04:16.80AndrewThat is the lowest open rate at a 42% open rate so far.04:20.22SeanWhat's the highest?04:21.26AndrewHighest...
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    48 分
  • The MetaMonster launch, pricing, and naming a product
    2025/04/14
    Andrew just launched MetaMonster! Andrew and Sean dig into how the launch is going so far (spoiler alert: not great), whether the product is overpriced, and what to try next. Then the guys talk about the demo for Sean's new product and what to name it. Links:Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.75SeanWelcome back. How is robotics?00:00:02.92AndrewRobotics was good and bad. Bad good? Good bad?00:00:07.35SeanOkay.00:00:08.00AndrewSo we got our butts kicked. Like, plain out, got our butts kicked.00:00:10.85SeanOh.00:00:12.28AndrewWe got there. The robots were insanely good, all of them. We played well. Like, there's this crazy advanced stats thing in robotics.00:00:22.25AndrewSome probably, like, 20-year-old or something.00:00:22.12SeanYeah.00:00:26.42Andrewbuilt a website called StatBotics that pulls the live data from... All the live data is published through the site called the Blue Alliance from every match.00:00:36.61AndrewAnd he runs that through some sort of equation, statistical...00:00:40.43SeanCool.00:00:41.28Andrewthingy and creates he calls it EPA estimated points added which is supposed to because like robots always compete in teams of three and so EPA is like how much of your total score did you actually contribute to the the team estimated points added so anyway this is a long rambly way to say that like throughout the competition so we were00:00:47.18SeanOK.00:00:56.35SeanOh, what what does what does EPA stand for?00:01:00.84SeanOK, OK, gotcha. OK.00:01:09.00AndrewThere were 40 robots in on our field. 160 robots at the competition total, by the way. Four fields going simultaneously all right next to each other. So it's like pure chaos. It's wild. It's really fun and interesting and crazy.00:01:22.28SeanYeah. Sweet. sweet00:01:23.97AndrewWe go into the the weekend ranked top 20 in EPA, like maybe 17 or something like that. And our goal was to end up like around that range at the end of qualifiers like if we had ended up around that range gotten picked for playoffs we would have been a lock for worlds uh our epa stayed around that range like we were at one point as high as like 11 we finished 22 in epa and then like fluctuated kind of between that range so we were playing well our driver was driving well00:02:00.39AndrewBut we just got our butts kicked in the actual matches. And EPA is definitely not perfect. It's not everything. like you know It has a bunch of obvious flaws. And so like you know just because our EPA was good didn't mean we were doing well. but But like we had some hiccups here and there.00:02:12.63SeanYeah.00:02:15.77AndrewBut like objectively, I think the team, like the kids drove well. I think they played well. But we ended up ranked out 40th. so we just got whooped we hit we won one match the entire weekend00:02:25.28SeanDamn.00:02:30.61SeanBut out of the top 40. Yeah.00:02:34.09Andrewuh well top 160 like top 40 we there were 40 in our field 160 robots there total and most of the robots never play each other so you don't really know who the top 40 are00:02:37.13Seanokay00:02:46.33SeanI just meant like of the state.00:02:48.19Seancause00:02:48.29AndrewYeah.00:02:48.68Seanbecause00:02:49.17AndrewWe were top 160. sixty Again, what I'm saying is like, 160 the state.00:02:51.79SeanYeah.00:02:54.51Seangod i Got it, got it, got it.00:02:55.25Andrewyeah00:02:55.52SeanMakes sense.00:02:57.41AndrewAnd so like that part sucked. like It sucked to lose a bunch of matches. it really You could tell it was like wearing on the kids. After a while, we had a little bit of drama that we had to work through with the team. like some you know you know it It was sort of getting to people, and it was causing some conflict and tension and stuff.00:03:15.63AndrewBut the good side of it is we worked through all of that. We got our first win. We celebrated the heck out of that.00:03:25.17AndrewCelebrated the heck out of the seniors, you know, just, you know, making it to states and their senior season and all of that. And then really cool on Saturday.00:03:35.58AndrewSo that we didn't get picked for playoffs. so we just had Saturday to chill, which was honestly really nice and fun. And like, just got to spend a lot of time. Like the team got spend a lot of time bonding and hanging out and watching robots do cool robot shit.00:03:49.53Andrewand then we were one of four teams who won an award called the rising all-stars award which is given to a team that is like has grown drastically and is on an upward trajectory which is exactly what we are and so that was really cool it was it was really cool to get that and so like00:03:55.32SeanSick. I love it.00:04:03.57Seanlove it00:04:10.31AndrewFinal rankings in the state, which ...
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    1 時間 13 分

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