Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

Sean Sun and Andrew Askins
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

Two founders and friends talk about cybersecurity, design, and the continuous small efforts it takes to build a business.

  1. 6d ago

    Use AI To Work Less (Not Do More)

    What if the point of AI wasn't to make more, but to work less? This is the thing everyone said AI should do that nobody's actually doing. All the capitalists want to use AI to make more money, not work less. In this episode of Small Effort (Season 4, Episode 15), Sean and Andrew dig into the team that used AI to move to a four-day week instead of squeezing out more, and the WordCamp pivot it mirrors: Andrew walking away from SEO autopilot to build content you're actually proud to publish. They cover why platform risk still burns big companies, the four pillars of content that survive after the AI tricks stop working, and why "what stays stable" beats every AEO hack. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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:00:00.95SeanHello. 00:02.69AndrewHello, my friends. 00:04.02SeanHow you doing? How was WordCamp? 00:04.96AndrewGood. WordCamp was... F*****g awesome. um interesting like This is my first WordCamp ever. WordCamp is definitely in decline. 00:14.91Seanah 00:17.37AndrewAt least Recamp US is in decline. 00:17.52SeanOh. uh-oh 00:19.76AndrewDone. ah 00:21.27Seanis there Is there other WordCamp? Is that like WordCamp Belgium? 00:23.90AndrewThey're all over the world. 00:24.30Seanor 00:25.14AndrewThere's like WordCamp Europe, my... uh my one of my new friends that i made at the conference is going to word camp manila next week Um... It's ah yeah, they have them all over the world. And I think they're. 00:38.38AndrewThey're still bigger. They're actually now bigger overseas than they are in in the US. which is interesting 00:45.15SeanThat's it. 00:45.09Andrewum we 00:46.87SeanSense. 00:47.60AndrewYeah. 00:47.49SeanIsh. Maybe. 00:48.39AndrewYeah. 00:48.20SeanI don't know. 00:48.90Andrewissue. Um, 00:49.85SeanYeah. 00:50.63AndrewI think. we're from the the cheesemade that i got from people who our repeat attendees is that WordCamp US has been in decline since something happened two years ago. What what might have happened two years ago? I can't remember. 01:06.94AndrewAmen. any Any big drama in the in the WordPress space? that you can remember? 01:13.39SeanNo. I block that out. 01:15.00Andrewfifty 01:15.04SeanFrom my memory. Um, Yeah, there was a, you know, there's... For some reason, a lot of people who are on WordPress. Um, complaining about something. 01:25.31SeanAnd it brought us a lot of Webflow customers. so 01:27.59AndrewHell yeah. Let's go. 01:29.99SeanUm, uh, 01:33.65SeanYeah. i'm I'm kind of curious. like like The shockwave that must have been across. I didn't realize there were so many word camps. So I wonder if like... 01:45.34SeanWhat happens in all those WordCamps, all the same, like... throughout that entire year that feels 01:51.35Andrewno I know. 01:51.62SeanYou know? 01:52.74Andrewum I mean, I got a little bit from my my friends who've been going for years. Okay. 01:57.64Seanahha 01:58.98AndrewUh, But. Yeah, like WordCamp US used to be like 2 ,000 to 2 ,500 people. They also they scheduled it in Phoenix in August this year, which I think. a lot of people were like i think that's part of the reason it's not doing well although At the same time, in the back of my head, I was like Black Hat and Def Conner in August every year and f**k tons of people go. 02:18.45AndrewUm. 02:19.80SeanYeah. 02:20.06AndrewSo I don't know that that really impacted it. But yeah, this year was like. I think. one of my friends saw the registered attendee list, and it was 900 people. down from like 2 ,500 a few years ago. 02:33.16SeanOh shit. God damn. 02:34.28AndrewYeah. 02:35.81SeanUm. 02:36.57AndrewNot a great sign. 02:37.93Seanfor For those not in. the web space. Um, Um, 02:46.43AndrewHe's... 02:46.39SeanThe... Do you want to, I don't know. 02:48.63AndrewI got, I got. 02:48.83SeanYou're the expert now, so. 02:50.72AndrewSo I got, I'm not an expert, but. All right. So one of the... original co-creators co-founders of wordpress um I got. 03:01.61AndrewI got yelled at by a friend, not yelled at, but like I got chastised by a friend for calling him the founder of WordPress. Someone was like. More like the forker of WordPress. um 03:10.74SeanHell yeah. 03:14.01AndrewUm, Uh, Matt. Mullenweg? Is that his name? um Uh... Anyway. WordPress mat. um a couple years ago went Like, got really... pissy at at a Word can. 03:30.22Andrewduring a keynote. Um, at WP Engine, who's like one of the largest WordPress hosts. and a competitor so like it's all complicated because like WordPress is WordPress is... 03:45.18Andrewa free open source tool. that is owned by a nonprofit. um and the WordPress trademark is owned by a nonprofit. Matt also owns... automatic which is a for-profit business that offer that owns wordpress .com a for-profit WordPress hosting service um and a bunch of other WordPress tools including WooCommerce and Pressable and some others. 04:08.67AndrewUm, and Um, Automatic. has a like perpetual license from WordPress .org, the nonprofit, to use the WordPress trademark. 04:20.96AndrewUm, And a couple years ago, he got mad at WP Engine, who's one of their biggest competitors, um who basically built their entire reputation on... 04:32.11AndrewHey, your product kind of sucks. We're going to do it better and charge more for it. And people loved them for years and years. Um, I think some people have started to leave WP Engine. I don't know. 04:43.08Andrewwhat the state of the things is right now. But like for years and years, people loved WP Engine because they were just like rock solid. Awesome support. And like they charged a premium for it. 04:53.56SeanAnd WP Engine also owns... um the custom field the advanced custom fields plugin All right. 05:00.36AndrewYes, they own a couple of like very successful WordPress plugins as well. And that got all pissy that they were like, using WP in their name. um that they even though like everyone in the wordpress community uses wp in their name Um, 05:16.26AndrewThey were using WP in their name, and he was like, you're not contributing enough to open source. You're not contributing enough to WordPress .org. and 05:24.72SeanOpen source. Oh, so the name. What I what i call my wallet. 05:28.52AndrewYes. 05:29.19Sean...

  2. Aug 21

    Why AI Can't Write Good Content Alone

    Can AI actually write, or is it just remixing what humans already think? A human has to be involved. Right now, robots can't go out and have their own experiences. That's not how LLMs work. In this episode of Small Effort (Season 4, Episode 14), Sean and Andrew cut through the AI-writing hype and land on the uncomfortable truth: good writing is good thinking, and good thinking still comes from humans. They cover where AI writing genuinely helps, where it quietly fails, and why the "AI will replace writers" panic gets the whole thing backwards. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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/.

  3. May 25

    We Built a Client Site Live on a Sales Call

    Sean and Andrew stop by to chat about what happens when you build a client website live on a sales call 20 minutes into the presentation. We get into Andrew's cold outreach restart for MetaMonster, the report card angle they are testing with SEO agencies, and somehow end up debating whether Astro or Next.js is the right call for a SaaS marketing site. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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: 00:01.20SeanWhat's up? 00:01.85AndrewThree, two, Oh, shit. Sorry. ah Awkward. 00:05.68SeanAll good. 00:06.14AndrewEmbarrassing. 00:07.26SeanAll good. Jesus. ah 00:12.34AndrewDude, every day that goes by without Metamonster closing a new customer, i just get more and more insecure about my abilities to be a SaaS founder. 00:25.30SeanIs that like... 00:27.14SeanLike every day, like you have a sales call and they don't buy right away or like, I see. 00:31.78AndrewI'm not even like having sales calls is the problem. Yeah, I we we do actually like you know, we've been working on the product when I when I started like breaking it down. 00:43.58SeanYeah. 00:44.04AndrewI'm like, okay, it makes sense. um It's not like that shocking, but I'm still just like, ah like, is there demand for this thing? Are we wasting our time? What's going on? 00:55.96Andrewah um but 01:00.21AndrewLike, so what we're doing right now, I do think the product has gotten a lot better. 01:06.46SeanYeah. 01:06.55AndrewIt still, like, has rough edges, but it is, like, it is way better than it used to be. 01:06.56SeanOK. 01:15.31Andrewum And um I think it's, like, in a sellable place now. What we're doing right now um is we're trying to spin up cold outreach again and start doing cold outreach. 01:33.04Andrewum And i think we've gotten clearer on our ICP. I think we've gotten clearer on like the problem we're trying to solve. um And so hopefully clearer on like the kind of signals we can look for to find good fit customers. 01:52.44Andrewum and so and'm like cautiously optimistic about this round of outreach that like and then jade's also almost officially on board so like i will have her to work with and to like help hold me accountable and i think we make a good team bouncing ideas off of each other and just like pushing building momentum together yeah um they 02:04.33SeanNice. 02:13.65SeanYeah, wait, didn't last time when we spoke, didn't Jade have like 25 demos lined up though or something like that? 02:23.19AndrewThey haven't really been converting. um She's only done, i think she's done eight or so, and one may turn into a customer. 02:34.04Andrewum But she also hasn't really been pitching and because they're it's largely just like friends of hers, and so she didn't want to come in pitching too hard. 02:38.21SeanYeah. 02:42.84AndrewIt was more like more approaching them from a feedback standpoint. 02:43.16SeanRight, right. but Yeah, I meant like how is how's the feedback going? 02:49.49AndrewFeedback has been good, I think. i think But it's it's again, it's that like kind of mom test. it's the kind of It's a lot of feedback that kind of fails the mom test where it's like it's like people like the tool, but they're not adopting the tool. 03:01.93SeanHmm. 03:07.44Andrewum And I think there's like a million reasons that can be. so like one of the one of the simple things that Jade's starting to do is um when people tell her like hey i'm interested in using this she's going to start scheduling a follow-up meeting to be like great why don't you use it for two weeks and then we'll talk again in two weeks and like create some accountability create a little bit of social pressure um and then in that second call i think we can more think she'll feel more comfortable asking for a sale 03:36.05SeanRight. Right. 03:44.02SeanYeah, I mean, that makes sense. 03:45.17AndrewYeah, because like at that point, they've shown interest. 03:45.69SeanYeah. 03:47.29AndrewAnd it's like, OK, now it's time to ask for a sale. 03:47.81SeanRight. 03:50.23Andrewum 03:50.31SeanRight. Right. I mean, at that point, they've like actually, if they've actually used it and found it useful, and if they haven't, it's also useful to just know. 03:57.68AndrewFigure out why. Try to figure out why. 03:58.76SeanYeah. 03:59.50AndrewYeah. 04:00.44SeanYeah, 04:00.47Andrewum And then we're trying to, like, it's like, OK, we also need to prove we can get demos outside of her network. And so let's... 04:12.30Andrewbut scale up cold outreach, get that going again. We're doing it manually. When I say scale it up, I just mean, i basically just mean turn it on. I mean, start doing it. 04:22.26Seanyeah yeah 04:22.96Andrewum We're not like worried about scale. We're trying to do it very manually, very personably do it. My friend also challenged me to do not just like email or LinkedIn, but cold call people. 04:39.08SeanOh, cool. 04:40.31AndrewWhich, which is terrifying, which probably means I should try it. 04:45.20Seanah Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I have a cold call video video to send you. like 04:49.72AndrewOkay. Send it to me. 04:50.52Seanyou know there's a lot of scammy like this is how you cold call people and whatever i forget his name he's now with like a cold calling sas product but like he like live records his cold cold calls about like sas apps or like trucking whatever and like you you hear the guys go like no you or like whatever um like he's using it a demo the platform but like 04:50.76AndrewMm-hmm. 04:54.92AndrewMm-hmm. 05:01.25AndrewMm-hmm. 05:15.12SeanIt's probably one of the better, like repeatable sales motion type things that he follows. And it's, yeah, I want to say the app is called Glen Coco, but I don't remember if I'm just making Uh, 05:29.70AndrewIsn't Glen Coco like some pop culture reference? 05:33.96Seansure. Uh, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Oh yeah. Glenn Coco for, for you, Glenn Coco, you go Glenn Coco. All right. Uh, uh, Mean Girls. 05:43.98AndrewWhat's that from? Mean Girls. Okay, that's right. 05:47.04SeanUm, yeah, it is, it is, it is, it is from, it's yeah, it's Glenn Coco. 05:47.58AndrewThat's right. That's right. 05:53.72SeanUm, 05:54.35AndrewWell, he named his app after a Mean Girls reference. 05:56.98SeanI guess so. I don't know if if it's his app or if he's just, it probabl...

  4. May 12

    I Built an AI That Thinks For Me

    Andrew is back from two weeks of Spanish immersion in Puebla, and the conversation picks up right where it always does. We get into MetaMonster's 100-demo sprint with their new co-founder, why AI keeps producing bad content for founders (and what Sean shipped to fix it), and somehow end up deep in a conversation about outcome-based agency pricing and why it is a finance nightmare in practice. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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:00:00.41SeanWelcome back to Mexico City. 00:02.26AndrewWhat a 00:06.90SeanAnd let's get 00:07.11Andrewup? I still can't remember how, I still don't know how to say, can never remember how to say like, good to see you. I think it's like, mucho gusto verte, or like, con gusto. 00:20.02AndrewI think con gusto is like the the simplest way to say it, but... um 00:24.79Seancon gusto my friend um me amigo um 00:30.58AndrewAsking Claude, how do I say nice to see you in Mexico? 00:37.71AndrewI've been using Claude a bunch for, did i have I talked about this in a past episode? 00:40.96Seanyeah yeah yeah but no it's it's it's good it's like um 00:42.08AndrewOkay, my bad. 00:46.01AndrewQue bueno verte, me da gusto verte. Que gusto verte, que gusto verte is the most natural way. Literally, what a pleasure to see you. Que gusto verte. 00:58.77SeanI feel like that's not a thing people say. I feel like. 01:02.84AndrewI don't know how often how often people say it yeah 01:08.67SeanYeah. Interesting. um how was How was your trip? 01:14.97AndrewIt was awesome. um Just going from using Spanish maybe anywhere from half an hour to like two or three hours a day to using Spanish from 9 nine am until like five every day and then sometimes for another couple hours at night. 01:34.68Andrewdepending on what plans I had with friends and stuff, um was definitely like much needed. Like I felt my vocabulary improving. i felt myself building some confidence, speaking Spanish, getting a little bit more comfortable. 01:50.14Andrewum Also underscored how much I still don't know and like how far I am from where I actually want to be, which is like kind confusing. good and frustrating at the same time. 02:03.32Andrewum But overall, really fun and also just nice to see a new part of Mexico. Like, Puebla is really beautiful. um It's a smaller city, a little bit more chill. 02:16.06Andrewum but has a really beautiful historic center with porticos that reminded me of like the porticos in Bologna in Italy. um And really good food. 02:29.66Andrewum I ate something and like f****d up my stomach for like a week. So that was a bummer, but also just part of being a gringo living in Mexico. um So it comes with the territory. 02:44.76SeanYou were going for, I want to say it was two weeks, but it feels like it's been a very long time since we've talked. 02:47.10AndrewJust two weeks. 02:50.35Seanyeah, I miss you as well. 02:50.68AndrewOh, I miss you too. Nah, it was just two weeks. Yeah, but super fun. 02:58.52SeanGood. Good, good, good. Yeah. That was a good picture from your group. 03:03.93AndrewOh, of the of the class. 03:05.53SeanYeah, yeah. That's good. 03:06.56AndrewYeah, the school does a really good job of like, so you take classes from nine to one every day, and then you have lunch with the other students. um And you're strongly encouraged to speak only in Spanish while you're at the school. 03:21.82Andrewum So you're you're speaking to other students who are at different levels, but speaking in Spanish. 03:21.96SeanNice. 03:28.48AndrewAnd then in the afternoons, Monday through Wednesday, you're paired one-on-one with a guide who's just a local. um And you walk around Puebla and go visit museums and tour different parts of the city with your guide. um ah The second Monday I was there, i got two of the other students and their guides to come with me to a board game store and we just played board games and talked in Spanish and it was super fun. 03:57.64AndrewMuy lindo, very cute. 03:59.72SeanNice. 03:59.77Andrewum And, ah but yeah, so you get like a lot of one-on-one time with your guide. And then on Thursday, you do like a bigger expedition with the group to a city, you know, a small town or city nearby to Puebla. Yeah. 04:15.04AndrewAnd then, ah yeah, Friday afternoons you get off. 04:15.40SeanNice. 04:18.78AndrewSo, 04:19.82SeanIt's like a full immersion type of thing. I like it. 04:22.43Andrewyeah, exactly. 04:23.14SeanYeah. Cool. 04:24.44Andrewum Yeah, super fun. 04:25.43SeanYou feel like you are drastically better at speaking the language now? 04:31.52AndrewNo, I would not say drastically better. um I would say... 04:36.90Andrewmarginally better. Like definitely, like i like I said, like definitely improved my vocab and my confidence, but like still two weeks just isn't enough to like for a drastic change. 04:46.47SeanRight, right. 04:47.76AndrewI, um yeah, i I need, I wish I could have spent 04:49.21SeanGotcha. 04:55.55Andrewyou know, two months there, because I think that would have been the kind of time I need to, like, really take a step forward. um Although I found this funny thing. i've I've spent some time on the language learning subreddit over the last, like, six months or whatever. 05:11.77AndrewAnd I found this funny joke where like every level thinks they're six months away from being fluent. Like every level of speaker is like, yeah, with like six more months of study, I'll be fluent. 05:21.25SeanYeah. 05:23.68AndrewAnd it's like, you also just realize the more you learn, like, and Fluent is not easy to define and is kind of a shifting goalpost. um There's like true native speaker fluency. And then there's like, you know, understanding scientific terms. And um so like, you know, I think my goal is just conversational fluency, like be able to meet people who speak with a slightly different accent and not panic and like ah be able to like hang out in a crowd of like, you know, locals and like carry a conversation without being super stressed or watch a movie in Spanish and understand it without subtitles. 06:12.37SeanCool. 06:15.19SeanCool. 06:19.13SeanMy brain's going into, like I forget what it's called, but there's like, a I don't know this is like i don't know if this is for like all languages, but like there's something like from what I understand, but Japanese, there's like an N1 or N2. 06:31.96Andrew...

  5. Apr 22

    Why AI Makes It Harder to Ship Good Products

    Andrew and Sean dig into Clawdgate, the growing developer complaints that Anthropic has been quietly throttling Claude's default thinking power after locking in enterprise deals. They also get into Sean's Salvo orchestration system, why waterfall specs do not work even with AI, and why scope creep is the silent killer hiding inside every AI coding workflow. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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: 00:00.76SeanWhat is up? My phone is gigantic. 00:02.84AndrewI want to throw Claude out of the window. 00:06.04SeanWhy? What's going on? How dare you speak about my boy, Claude? 00:13.07AndrewHave you seen all the chatter online? Like there, I don't know if it's like just my feed or what, but I'm seeing a bunch of people complaining about Claude getting worse. 00:15.63SeanYeah. 00:23.62AndrewLike, uh, and like the, the hypothesis I've seen is that, that, um, 00:23.98SeanTotally. 00:30.65Andrewis that Anthropic has been kind of throttling down Claude's default thinking power, or like like basically how much time and resources it spends thinking to save money. 00:45.99Andrewlike they The theory is that they like used the masses to get people excited and build hype for Claude so they could sell enterprise deals. And now that they've got the enterprise deals, they're like throttling down how good Claude is for the masses by default. 01:03.27Andrewbut But I think you can still like adjust the settings to get it back to where it was. i haven't really tried to tinker with it. 01:10.37SeanYou gotta make an ultra think, man. You gotta turn on ultra think. 01:15.65AndrewWait, is that a thing? Is that a setting, UltraThink? Or is this... 01:21.16SeanIf you type in ultra think, something will happen. But I think it's just called slash effort max now, not ultra think. 01:26.29Andrewyeah, yeah, yeah. 01:27.67Andrewyeah 01:28.95Seanmaybe ultra think is still a thing though I'm not super sure I know that all of Facebook uses ultra think do you see that Facebook's and internally has a competition of like how like they're all token maxing because there's a leaderboard of how many tokens you're burning and one guy's burnt like 01:44.88AndrewIs this why people are like making fun of, I've seen a bunch of people talking about how stupid it is to like reward people for like maximizing tokens. 01:52.34Seanyeah 01:53.92AndrewIs this where this is coming from? 01:55.41SeanYeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. 100% it is. Yeah. But have you turned on your Claude buddy? Do you have your Claude buddy yet? 02:05.24AndrewSo no, is this, is this like a default cloud thing or is it something you have to install? 02:08.36SeanYeah. Yeah, yeah. No, Claude code, just type in slash buddy. You got like a random buddy. I got a common turtle. his name is His name is Flukish, but I like to call him fuckish. 02:23.08Seanhe' He's kind of an a*****e. Like, it tells you, like, a personality rating, and it's, like, everything else is not helpful. Like, ability to debug, like, zero. Ability to whatever, zero. Snarky, 95. Yeah. 02:36.12AndrewSo sounds like you, they they cloned you. 02:37.69Seanyeah I know. 02:39.68Andrewthey somehow just interpreted you. 02:42.32SeanI'm just a common turtle, man. 02:43.62SeanHmm. 02:44.22Andrewand So I use i exclusively use Claude inside of Conductor. And so I've never actually like looking directly at the Claude metal. Like I'm not and the Claude code interface. 02:55.56AndrewI'm always seeing it inside of just the sort of conductor wrapping. 02:58.95SeanYeah. Yeah. 03:02.35AndrewAustin was just showing me a version, like an yet another 03:07.92SeanYeah. 03:08.88Andrewuh one of these things it's called superset which is apparently like conductor but you're more you're getting more of the direct cloud code experience which i don't know if i need or want 03:13.18SeanOh, I saw that. Yeah, yeah. 03:23.47SeanYeah. 03:25.69AndrewBut yeah, what i have also i have not tinkered with my like default fault Clawed settings at all. 03:25.81SeanYeah. 03:35.42Andrewlike i I haven't done the EffortMax thing yet. I haven't messed around with my ClawedMD file. I've just been like just been rolling with with what I get out of the box. Austin also raves about a set of skills called superpowers that I heard Ian Lanceman talking about some recently too. 03:56.24SeanHave you seen people talk about like impeccable? Okay. 03:59.16AndrewOh, is this the is this kind of like the UI? 03:59.36SeanU-I-S-H. 04:02.80AndrewWell, I still don't, yeah, so no one knows what UiASH is going to actually be, but it seems like similar vibes. 04:03.00SeanYeah. yeah 04:10.84SeanYeah, someone... i saw a post yesterday about someone talking about how, like, a before and after they got to use UISH. 04:19.21AndrewOh, sick. Yeah, I guess maybe they've started rolling out some invites, but it's still pretty small. 04:20.21SeanYeah, yeah. 04:24.92SeanYeah, it just looks like it knows how to use Tailwind. 04:29.41AndrewIt's, yeah. I'm curious how they're going to charge for it, how they're going to charge for UISH, because if it is just a set of skills, it seems like that's going to be a hard thing to charge an ongoing subscription for, because like once people have the skills and 04:30.51SeanYeah. 04:33.07SeanYeah. 04:46.68AndrewUnless the skills the skill files, unless you never actually get access to the skill files, it's like all remote. 04:53.42SeanThat's terrible. I would not use, I would not use that. That's like, I would just, yeah. 04:57.49AndrewYeah, it seems like it would be really slow. 05:00.10Seanoh So I don't know how you would stop it from like just me going or just me going rebuild yourself, you know? 05:02.79AndrewDownloading the files. 05:08.24AndrewYeah. 05:08.53SeanYeah. yeah 05:10.96Andrewi It seems like there's gonna be a piece beyond, because I've also heard them talking about it kind of like a tool, so I'm wondering if there's more to it than just skill files. 05:21.94SeanMaybe it's like, you know how like a lot of those like styled component libraries have like theme creators. I mean, you can download it. Maybe it's like you get access to that. You get to like theme tailwind and you download it as like a specialized skill just for you. 05:36.66AndrewMaybe.

  6. Apr 13

    Why We Stopped Paying for Cursor and Switched to Claude Max

    Andrew ditched Cursor for Claude Max and the economics made it an easy call. In this episode they get into the Meta Monster pivot toward content optimization, why Claude hallucinated an entire Wix API, and what the switch to Conductor actually looks like day to day. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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: 00:00.47SeanCool. Thanks. What's up? 00:03.03AndrewNot much. I haven't seen you in like three f*****g months. 00:06.58SeanYeah. 00:06.74AndrewHow are you? 00:08.06Seanah I'm good. Q1 is finally over. RSA is finally over. So now it's time to worry about Black Hat. 00:15.45AndrewJesus. 00:17.14Seanum But. 00:19.03AndrewQ1 being finally over means we're like even closer to the death day for Metamonster. 00:19.26Seanah 00:25.67SeanOh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 00:27.03AndrewHave I told you this, that like Austin and I were like, if if it's not working by the middle of the summer, we're gonna, we need to like pull the plug. 00:34.90SeanYou have. You have. yeah What would you do if you pulled the plug? Would you start a new thing, or can I finally hire you again? 00:43.25AndrewDude, i I have, I don't know, is the short answer, but I have lots of thoughts. Like part of me wants to to buy a trad business, which is what I've been calling brick and mortar businesses lately. 00:53.78AndrewAnd every time I say it, it makes people cringe, which is why I continue to say it. 00:56.04SeanThat's horrible. du't That's disgusting. Mexico City is changing you. i can't believe you'd say that. 01:02.13AndrewWhoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. 01:03.16Seanforpin 01:05.14AndrewNo, that's just me having a stupid sense of humor. You can't blame Mexico City for that. 01:07.90SeanNo, no, it's good. 01:09.10AndrewMexico City way too beautiful a place to blame for that. 01:09.88SeanIt's good. Speaking, speaking of trad related things, have you seen the documentary? 01:14.26AndrewOh God, where is this going? 01:18.45SeanHave you been, ah have you been, ah did you watch the Manosphere documentary on Netflix with Louis Thoreau? 01:24.79AndrewNo, but my little sister did and she was like, you have to watch it. 01:28.22SeanIt's so good. 01:28.28AndrewAnd i I haven't watched it yet. Yeah. 01:30.15SeanIt's so good. It's all Ben and I could talk about at RSA. 01:34.26AndrewNice. 01:34.32SeanSorry. 01:35.00AndrewHave you seen Project Hail Mary yet? 01:37.11SeanNo, I hear it's good, but i don't know what it's about. 01:38.71AndrewI hear it's really good. Yeah. Oh, you didn't read the book? 01:42.21SeanNo, I don't read. 01:43.86AndrewI forgot. 01:44.73Seanyeah i think I think if all books were in AI chat bubbles, I would read all of it, but they're not. so that's 01:52.77AndrewThat's the lamest thing you've ever said to me. It's almost as bad as trad businesses. 01:59.32Seanit's It's probably worse. 02:02.68Seanum How you been? 02:03.89AndrewDude, I've been good. 02:04.43SeanHow's life? 02:06.32Andrewum We are working on a pivot for Metamonster. i am becoming, I'm embracing the fully AI-pilled by boy life. 02:10.74SeanOK. 02:18.71SeanOK. 02:18.81Andrewum i still love Mexico. Yeah. 02:23.66SeanGood. 02:26.68Andrewyeah 02:28.11SeanOK, can you tell me, can you just tell me what you're pivoting to before I like rip my hair out? Because I really need you to build some features at the moment. 02:35.48AndrewSo it's I call it a pivot part somewhat facetiously. um 02:39.31SeanOK. 02:40.45Andrewwe're We're not really pivoting, like the tool is still going to work the same way it does now, um but we're going deep on content optimization. 02:46.03SeanCool. 02:51.03AndrewSo we're building we're building a single page view where you can still update metadata, but we also do SERP analysis and content recommendations for you and help you auto apply them. 03:04.79Andrewum And so we're we're going to be adjusting our positioning to more directly take on ClearScope and Surfer. um 03:15.96Seanand air ops. 03:16.09AndrewSo the Yeah, air ops a little bit. I think of air ops as a little bit different. I think of air ops more as content orchestration, um like generate content at scale, whereas we're more content optimization. 03:30.78AndrewSo like take your existing content or like new pieces of content and help you optimize it. Yeah. 03:38.01SeanSick. 03:39.39AndrewYep. 03:40.43SeanCool. 03:40.44Andrewum 03:41.18Seanis Is this like a like like an editor that I'm writing in? And then, OK, cool. And then you can publish the web flow. 03:49.05Andrewah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 03:50.40SeanOh, good, good, good, good. 03:50.74AndrewTotally, totally. 03:52.44SeanYou should do it. You should do it so I can use it. i don't I don't care. 03:55.22AndrewYeah. 03:56.00SeanNo. What? 03:56.73AndrewSo, the um I, did you see my LinkedIn post by chance? Dude, I spent like half of last week vibing with Claude on a Wix integration, and then I finally go to test it. 04:13.21Andrewit It shouldn't have taken me a a whole week to test it. I just got distracted by like three other things. um And I finally go to test it, and I'm like, huh, it's not working. Why isn't it working? 04:23.70AndrewAnd Claude goes, oh yeah, the Wix API I was using was purely speculative. Like, I just made it up. I was like, m**********r Are you f*****g kidding me? um And it turns out like Wix, like Squarespace does not support us updating SEO metadata for anything except blog posts. So I just scrapped the whole thing and was like, f**k this. 04:48.31Andrewum 04:49.72SeanWell, but you could do like cloud code browser use types of things to like manually. 04:55.80AndrewI could and I did and it took for f*****g ever. It took like two hours to update 30 pages. It was painfully slow and eventually ran out of context. 05:04.43SeanGotcha. 05:07.72SeanGotcha. 05:07.77Andrewum 05:08.57SeanDamn. 05:08.92AndrewAnd I was just like, this is horrible. um So ah yeah, my hope is that like Wix and Squarespace wake the f**k up and realize what century they're living in and build a decent hal...

  7. Mar 13

    The 'Bring Your Own Agent' Shift Is Coming for Every Agency

    Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/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: 00:00.85AndrewDude, your notifications are non-f*****g-stop. 00:04.50SeanYeah, they are. I know. It's terrible. 00:08.08AndrewBefore you muted it, it was just like, what's... Your Slack noise is like a click clack. It's like a... Okay. 00:13.94SeanYeah, the knock, the Slack knock. 00:15.92Andrewdid it did 00:16.09SeanYeah. 00:16.75Andrewokay I don't ever have noises turned on for anything. It drives me crazy. 00:22.67SeanYeah, I mean, don't know. You used to it, I guess. What are you going to and You know what notifications does drive crazy? 00:27.94AndrewSicko. 00:32.16SeanMessages. Yeah, 00:34.98AndrewMessages, like iMessage or like Facebook Messenger or... 00:36.68Seanyeah, yeah. No, sorry. 00:40.30AndrewiMessage. 00:40.84SeaniMessage. Yeah, iMessage. 00:41.87AndrewYeah, yeah. 00:42.99SeanNoises drive me insane. Slag is okay. 00:46.20AndrewIt's kind of like a little like bubble burst, right? It's like a bubbly thing, sounding thing. 00:52.18SeanOh, mine is a ding. 00:54.12AndrewNo, maybe maybe the bubble is something else. 00:54.20SeanMine is like a shark. 00:56.16AndrewI don't know. 00:56.88SeanThe bubble is like when you send a message. 00:56.97Andrewsome Somebody. Oh, maybe. Yeah. 01:00.56SeanYeah. Yeah. 01:01.36AndrewYeah. Dude, did you get any sleep last night? We were chatting at like 1.30 a.m. 01:09.48AndrewSecret pod. 01:13.37SeanYeah. I still have like three hours. It's not that bad. 01:17.44AndrewMan, that's so much sleep. what You must be wide awake f*****g alert. 01:21.96Seanyeah Well, I was going to ask you if you had any sleep last night, but you know. 01:33.12AndrewI actually didn't fall asleep until like 3, 4 a.m., something like that. 01:33.70SeanYeah, 01:38.72AndrewI have a new favorite Dropout show. can't you You know Dropout, right? We've talked about Dropout.tv, best streaming service the internet. 01:44.46Seanyeah, yeah. Yeah, college humor. 01:49.32Andrewon the internet 01:52.82SeanOh, 01:52.96Andrewuh they have a it's not a new show i've but i i was finally catching up uh what is it called the parlor room where it's like a they played board comedians played board games and you watch so it's like right up my f*****g alley i'm cursing a lot today sorry 02:05.75Seancool. 02:07.93SeanNice. It's okay. It's because don't have any sleep. I get it. 02:13.93SeanUnlike me, who slept a lot. 02:18.89Andrewuh have you ever heard of blood on the clock tower 02:21.94SeanNo, no, no, 02:22.83AndrewIt's like a deception game, kind of like mafia kind of vibes, but more complicated and there's, it looks really fun. The thing that makes it, I think, complicated is like the players, the roles that players get can change every time. 02:37.96AndrewAnd you, there are multiple players who can have roles where they think they're one thing, but they're actually something else. They're getting, false information. 02:44.69Seanno. 02:46.28AndrewSo you can be the marionette, which is like you're controlled by like the big bad. You can be a drunk. You can also like get poisoned or something. And then there's like so there's all this stuff where you're like trying to piece things together, but you have to also consider the fact that you might have incorrect information. 03:08.46Andrewlike the stuff you think you know about yourself might be wrong. It's chaotic as hell. 03:12.93Seanthat's pretty cool that's pretty yeah that's pretty cool interesting okay that's it every time i hear deception game and i hear like mafia i kind of roll my eyes and internally just because i can't like there's there's just so many you know there's just so many of this like but but i think i think that's a nice that's like a 03:14.95AndrewSuper fun. Yeah. 03:25.54AndrewSure. 03:29.61AndrewI know. 03:35.68Seanan Actually, interesting spin on it. 03:35.71Andrewyeah Some of them are a lot better than others. 03:37.95SeanYeah. 03:37.98Andrewlike kuup is pretty fun. Secret Hitler is pretty fun. Generally I don't love deception games though because I like i hate lying, I'm a terrible liar. 03:47.70AndrewBut my strategy is usually just to be as chao like as chaotic and suspicious as hell even when I'm not the the like person so that that way if I do get the like big bad, everyone's just like Andrew's just being Andrew, he's just an idiot. 03:55.67SeanI see. 04:02.77Andrewlike Ignore him. 04:03.10SeanNice. Nice. 04:05.49Andrewi have to like access access because i know i'm going to access when i'm uh actually in trouble 04:13.25Seanit's like It's like the opposite of like just always pretending you're bad at lying. So everyone thinks always telling the truth. 04:22.08Andrewit's kind of the same thing it's kind of the same thing right yeah 04:22.31SeanAnyway. you have you yeah okay anyway do you have do have a favorite game? 04:29.48AndrewUh, yes, but it's like kind of niche. I think my favorite board game is Everdell. 04:33.68SeanOK. 04:36.62SeanI've heard of that. 04:36.95Andrewit it's It's an engine builder where you're living in like kind of like a Redwall-esque world where you've got you're playing as little forest creatures and you're building your little forest like forest kingdom machine thing. 04:51.88AndrewAnd and and it's fun because it's like you can't be that cutthroat with the other players. You're kind of playing your own game and there's a little bit of like sabotage and stuff. 04:58.23SeanMm. 05:01.71Andrewbut For someone who's very competitive, and it you know my friends tend to get pissed off at me when we play like really cutthroat games, like Settlers or you know something. 05:11.80SeanGotcha. 05:13.03AndrewAnd so it's nice because it keeps keeps everybody happier. Also a big fan of, oh, what's the haunted house on the hill? Betrayal at the house on the hill. 05:25.57AndrewSo much fun. Campy, kitschy, good vibes. 05:31.24SeanNice. The PvE one doesn't sound fun at all. Just saying. As as also as Everdell. 05:37.77AndrewThe which one? 05:40.20Seanlike you You just completely sold me again...

  8. Feb 27

    The Marketing Strategy Behind Multi-Million Dollar Brands

    We found a cheat code for learning Spanish using Claude and Anki (without studying grammar). Plus, the Cult Brand marketing framework that turns customers into superfans. In this episode, Andrew reveals why he is moving to Mexico City and going all in on his startup. Sean breaks down how he scaled his agency to 18 employees and the specific Positioning Strategy he uses to charge premium prices. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Shipletter: https://shipletter.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: 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,200I've had several situations where I just like make stupid mistakes. I feel very envious of the 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:10,800ability to like, spend all your time and energy on like one thing, we kind of made a mistake that I 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:15,200think I've seen a lot of people make. Ever felt like you're stuck making the same mistakes or on 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:20,480the verge of something big but held back? Today we explore founder struggles, mistakes, burnout, and 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:25,239focusing on real growth. We'll discuss creating content for people, not algorithms, and staying 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:29,640grounded in what matters. I'm Andrew Askins, founder of meta monster, and I'm Sean's son 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:34,000founder of miscreants. Let's dive into the journey. Like I think a lot of founders like, identify that 800:00:34,000 --> 00:00:38,559by accident and build a product around that. I don't give it. AI thinks I'm stupid. AI already 900:00:38,560 --> 00:00:43,199knows I'm stupid. You are selling a methodology where your solution is the only product that 1000:00:43,200 --> 00:00:47,240actually fits said methodology. Learning a language is a lot of work. Demand is a fluid 1100:00:47,240 --> 00:00:52,600substance. My biggest thing is like social anxiety of picking up and making mistakes. Every small 1200:00:52,600 --> 00:00:54,400move is how we can. 1300:00:59,970 --> 00:01:06,489How's your Spanish going? Pretend I was in Spanish. Um. 1400:01:07,050 --> 00:01:13,769Not something smart. So menos lento is is muy, uh. Muy Modesto. 1500:01:13,809 --> 00:01:20,729Muy, muy Modesto. Um, I, uh, I have been texting a lot in Spanish lately, so, like, my 1600:01:20,730 --> 00:01:27,449reading and writing has been getting a lot better. Faster than my speaking and listening. Um, 1700:01:27,449 --> 00:01:33,009I still, I was just hanging out with a bunch of friends last night. Um, and to be fair, uh, four of 1800:01:33,010 --> 00:01:39,650my friends, um, were were ganging up on one of their boyfriends. And so it was, 1900:01:39,809 --> 00:01:46,689uh, there was a lot of very rapid Spanish, um, and a lot of, like, g. Longo slang flying around, so, 2000:01:46,730 --> 00:01:51,089like, not the easiest to understand, but I was just, like, I was just sitting back laughing, like, I 2100:01:51,089 --> 00:01:55,929don't understand any of this. Although, interestingly enough, understood everything at the 2200:01:55,929 --> 00:02:02,830same time. You know, like the universal language. It was pretty obvious what was happening. Nice. 2300:02:03,550 --> 00:02:10,470Also, I heard you have a new, uh, nickname in Mexico City. Yeah, we don't need to go into that. 2400:02:10,470 --> 00:02:17,270That's fine. I feel like. Yeah. Okay. All right. Fine. Am I? My friends, Rosa and Wyatt. Uh, 2500:02:17,270 --> 00:02:23,710Rosa's from here. Um. Uh, and, uh, she's dating my my good friend Wyatt. Um, 2600:02:23,750 --> 00:02:30,629and one night, I may have had a little too much fun, and, uh, they had to take care of me a bit, 2700:02:30,630 --> 00:02:37,630and I got got dubbed El Polito clause. Um, which means, uh, the little colored chick. 2800:02:37,830 --> 00:02:44,589Um, the the backstory is in Mexico City. Like, I don't know, 10 or 20 years 2900:02:44,589 --> 00:02:49,550ago. Uh, there used to be markets everywhere where you could get these little baby chicks that had 3000:02:49,550 --> 00:02:55,710been dyed like neon colors. And the dye was very bad for the chicks. And so, um, you would, like, buy 3100:02:55,710 --> 00:03:01,319them for your kid, and they would inevitably die within two weeks. Um, and so they were like, just 3200:03:01,320 --> 00:03:08,240very hard to keep alive. And so, Polito declares, is a, uh, is a joke you 3300:03:08,240 --> 00:03:14,720make about someone when they can't take care of themselves, when they when they need, need help. You 3400:03:14,720 --> 00:03:20,319know, I don't think you told me. Did I not give you the context? No, that was way more morbid than I 3500:03:20,320 --> 00:03:27,320thought. I thought it was just like. Like it meant, like ugly duckling or like. I mean, it kind of does. 3600:03:27,320 --> 00:03:33,640It has a morbid start, but it basically just means, like, are you dumb little thing you need, like, 3700:03:34,440 --> 00:03:40,839we got you. It's okay. Um, 3800:03:41,600 --> 00:03:48,159sorry. I'm just. I'm trying to imagine I got it all in neon, baby chick. Oh. 3900:03:49,240 --> 00:03:56,179Um. Oh, that's. Did you find them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're kind of like peeps, you know? they're 4000:03:56,179 --> 00:04:02,979like poop colored. Yeah, but, like living beings. Yeah. So very, very. Oh, wow. Okay. They 4100:04:02,979 --> 00:04:09,899got. All right. Next topic. Um. One thing I've been doing, though, that's been fun. Um, 4200:04:10,099 --> 00:04:15,499so to try to work on my Spanish, I there's this app that all the, like, language learning nerds use 4300:04:15,500 --> 00:04:22,499called Anki. Um, it's a spaced repetition flashcard app. So basically you practice words and then like 4400:04:22,499 --> 00:04:26,858when you get them right, it's depending on how easy or hard it was. It'll like space out how 4500:04:26,859 --> 00:04:30,859often it shows it to you. So like as you learn words you see them less often. The new words 4600:04:30,859 --> 00:04:36,699you're struggling with. You see them more often. Um, and so I've been wanting to use Anki for a really 4700:04:36,700 --> 00:04:41,379long time. Um, but like, their interface is atrocious. It's a great app. It's all open source, 4800:04:41,379 --> 00:04:46,339but it's like the most painful thing to enter stuff. And they have this, like, incredible 4900:04:46,339 --> 00:04:53,299community of, um, of like pe...

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Two founders and friends talk about cybersecurity, design, and the continuous small efforts it takes to build a business.

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  • Creator
    Sean Sun and Andrew Askins
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    75
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Sean Sun and Andrew Askins