Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

Season 2: Episode 3
It's a Small Efforts Double Header! We were late getting this episode out, so we decided to go ahead and publish two weeks of episodes at once. In this episode Andrew is coming straight from a tattoo session, and talks about fighting bugs with ChartJuice. Meanwhile, Sean has gotten over 300 APPLICATIONS to his open job post, almost all from Dribbble. And he previews the consumer SaaS/community he's building on the side. Andrew and Sean discuss the strategy behind the new ConvertKit rebrand, and finally debate whether AI-generated book notes can be a good growth strategy for Andrew's personal blog.
Differences between serverless functions and edge functions according to Claude:
Execution Location: Serverless functions run on the cloud provider's servers centralized in large data centers, while edge functions run on edge servers distributed across multiple locations closer to the user.Latency: Edge functions have lower latency compared to serverless functions due to their proximity to the user.Scalability and resource constraints: Serverless functions scale automatically based on demand, while edge functions have a more limited scalability. Edge servers generally have less compute power and storage compared to cloud servers.Use Cases: Serverless functions are better suited for compute-intensive tasks, while edge functions are more efficient for data processing and content delivery near the user.Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:00:00:00.69
Sean
What's up?

00:00:02.02
Andrew
Not much, just got back from a little tattoo session, got some fresh ink.

00:00:06.48
Sean
Very cool. What did what you get?

00:00:08.97
Andrew
Uh, got a piece of flash. So I was at a fundraiser for, um, a friend's, a friend was organizing the fundraiser. He's part of this group called prism, um, that raises money to support, uh, GSAs in schools, which used to stand for gay straight alliances.

00:00:19.32
Sean
Cool.

00:00:27.96
Andrew
Now I think stand for gender sexuality alliances.

00:00:31.21
Sean
Okay.

00:00:31.48
Andrew
Um, so he's part of this group prism. They were doing a fundraiser and they had a raffle as part of the fundraiser.

00:00:38.18
Sean
Hmm.

00:00:38.43
Andrew
And they were raffling off three flash tattoos. Um, so it was like a design and you could put. ticket in, and if you won, you would get that tattoo. And um I like two of them. And so I put a ticket in each one and was like, well, let fate decide. And I got picked. And so I went and got this cool vase with, it's like kind of an abstract vase with monstera leaves sticking out.

00:01:04.13
Sean
Yeah.

00:01:06.90
Andrew
And it's my first leg tattoo, got it on my thigh. um it will be very visible when I wear shorts.

00:01:14.20
Sean
Hell yeah.

00:01:14.51
Andrew
um So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:01:15.18
Sean
Five inch the blue velvet shorts.

00:01:18.18
Andrew
When I wear my short shorts, which is all I wear.

00:01:19.60
Sean
Nice.

00:01:20.58
Andrew
So, um yeah, I'm pretty into it.

00:01:20.75
Sean
Nice.

00:01:23.87
Andrew
It was cool. This was my first, I guess it was my second flash tattoo. um But the artist, she was great. Her name was Ali Gostella, I think. Super chill, super welcoming, had a great time, made the experience fantastic.

00:01:40.32
Sean
Hmm.

00:01:41.67
Andrew
And one of the cool parts was she really was stoked about this design, which was so much fun because she was having fun tattooing it and was really hyped and excited about it. And that made it more fun and made me more excited about getting it. And so it was just like just good energy.

00:01:55.53
Sean
Nice.

00:01:58.07
Sean
I like it. Congrats.

00:01:59.08
Andrew
Yeah.

00:01:59.96
Sean
Yeah, congr

Season 2: Episode 2
It's a Small Efforts Double Header! We were late getting this episode out, so we decided to go ahead and publish two weeks of episodes at once. In this episode Andrew talks about quietly pushing ChartJuice live, and raves about his new favorite podcast. Meanwhile Sean drops some knowledge about the intricacies of swag supply chains, and the guys discuss the trap of being an expert beginner vs a true expert. Finally, Sean talk about a leadership retreat he's going on soon.
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:00:00.00
Sean Sun
Yeah, hey doing sorry late.

00:00.64
Andrew
All good man I've just been over here sipping on my in Zony Happy as can be.

00:06.41
Sean Sun
Ah, there you good there Good How's your week been. What's you been up to.

00:13.49
Andrew
Um, not a bad week. Um, let's see I haven't been hella productive this week but I've been making steady progress. So um.

00:29.64
Andrew
Think this happened after last week's pod. Um, so I sent out chart juice for feedback to a small group of friends you um, awesome price Greg um, handful of people and.

00:49.48
Andrew
My friends are super generous and so a bunch of people took the time to create an account and give me some feedback and a lot of feedback I got was like hey this is cool. Um, you know Austin understandably spent a bunch time on the ux and was like hey you know you should left a line. Your text anytime you have more than a line or two because it becomes harder to read when it's center aligned and I was like dope didn't know that that's a really helpful rule of thumb. Thanks for telling me um and then like Greg um in very Greg fashion pointed out. Hey on the signup form you should really have a couple of statements about the value props and like what people are going to get out of this to help encourage them to finish the signup process which is very Greg always thinking from the perspective of the user and thinking about like how do we optimize this. Um, so that was super helpful. My friend Kevin who is one of the original partners in crit and a super talented engineer took a very engineer's approach to it and he was like hey just so you know if you put in a ah. Width of greater than a hundred thousand pixels it breaks and I was like cool I don't care and like he obviously knew I wouldn't care but you know took took a very engineer approach to it and.

02:09.31
Sean Sun
Yeah, yeah.

02:19.44
Sean Sun
Um, yeah.

02:21.86
Andrew
Ah, like looked for the edge cases the weird extreme edge cases. The other one was like if you add more than 21 elements to a pie chart then the legend gets really wonky like create. Um, so.

02:39.40
Sean Sun
I think that's a hold on I just want to point out I don't think I think that's a feature not a bug I think no one should be adding 21 elements to a pie chart like a pizza doesn't have 21 slices yeah um

02:41.61
Andrew
Yeah.

02:49.77
Andrew
I Love it? Yeah yeah, yeah, we we intentionally make your chart look like shit past a certain point because like why stop.

02:56.87
Sean Sun
Right? right? Exactly There's a hidden feature that if you make it look like it'll all turn brown and.

03:03.80
Andrew
I mean the good thing to do would be if you use more than 8 elements or something in your pie chart. We just automatically start combining the smallest ones that would be nifty but um, but my favorite piece of advice came from my friend ramy um, who is an indie hacker.

03:13.12
Sean Sun
Um.

03:21.69
Andrew
Um, based out of the Uk and repeat founder has a few successful small products under his belt and his advice was basically good enough ship it and I was like that's you're so fucking right? so.

03:33.50
Sean Sun
Nice.

03:41.60
Andrew
Um, yeah, the first half of this we

Andrew and Sean are back for Season 2! In Season 2 they'll get transparent about the highs and lows of building their businesses (with plenty of goofing around too). Same concept, new businesses.
In this episode we recap WHERE THE HELL WE'VE BEEN FOR TWO YEARS. Plus we talk about the projects we're working on now, how to market and validate Andrew's new startup, and Sean's search for founder friends. 
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00.73SeanAll right? don't scream this time. Maybe I'll cut that front part out. Um, okay, take 4 episode 1 season 2 small efforts like no see oh yeah, me too.
00:11.35AndrewAh, but what's up man Glad to be back. Ah back on the pod with you.
00:18.76SeanToo I'm excited to be doing this again. It's been a fun 6 ones of a dry run. Um, so ah.
00:22.92AndrewIt wouldn't be us if we didn't record for six months and then finally describe decide to scrap all of those recordings and just say fuck it. Let's go live or as close to live as we can get.
00:32.53SeanYeah, yeah, yeah, it's literally how I've built the michigans website every single iteration actually I spent months on it and then I'm like fuck. And I just do it in the black in my hotel room right? before blackhead starts in a day like yeah, good enough I don't care if it's not perfect. Um, what's been going on. Why have we disappeared what happened you know what happened to season 1 I'm sure everyone wants to know.
01:02.54AndrewAh, yeah, um, yeah, it's been 2 years almost to the day like pretty close to it. So um, we were running the podcast before and had set it up in a way to be like.
01:05.75SeanOur 11 listeners.
01:22.00AndrewFairly highly highly produced and um in a way that required as little involvement from us after recording as possible so we had an awesome producer and an editing team who would take care of everything for us. Um, but that also meant it was. A little bit expensive to create um and then I went and sold my business and that meant that half of our funding disappeared. So I sold crit almost two years ago exactly um, sold the company to.
01:47.45SeanHell yeah, a girl. Yeah, he did.
01:58.77AndrewOf our longtime clients grayyno which was an awesome experience. I still haven't really written about the experience of going through this sale process. It might be hard to do now I've I'm sure I've already forgotten a lot. Um, but it was it was a really. Really fascinating experience to go through I think our sale was really pretty easy and pretty fast compared to a lot of people because we already knew each other really well um, and structured it in a way that that due diligence was pretty simple. So um, yeah, sold crit two years ago
02:23.90SeanA 5
02:36.57AndrewThen went to work at graynoy for a year um so learned a ton in that time about security and technology and what it's like to be part of a larger team as hilarious as it is a 50 person team is like by far the biggest team I'd ever been a part of.
02:53.75SeanYeah.
02:55.78AndrewUm, and ah learned about management and it was like a year of speed learning. Um, it was really interesting. Had a lot of fun. Um, and then ultimately got fired which was kind of. Ah, shock and kind of not a shock. Um, ultimately I think it just wasn't as good a fit on either side as either of us were were hoping for um, still have a ton of friends there and still am rooting for them all to be successful. Um, you know it's funny I've mentioned that I got fired to. Entrepreneur friends and to like non-onpreneur friends and non-onreneur friends are generally like oh my god are you? okay like what's ah, what's wrong. What can I do to help and then all my entrepreneur friends are like yeah I kind of expected that we're just ah.
03:46.18SeanYeah, yeah,

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