1 00:00:01,649 --> 00:00:06,320 Hello and welcome to episode number three of the Official Layers Podcast Overlay. 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:08,504 I'm the founder of Layers, Liam McCabe. 3 00:00:08,743 --> 00:00:11,864 and I am a designer and illustrator, Reijo Palmeister. 4 00:00:12,861 --> 00:00:16,264 And as you can see, this is a little different this time. 5 00:00:16,264 --> 00:00:20,849 It's only our third episode, but we thought we'd go straight into producing 6 00:00:20,849 --> 00:00:22,270 with videos. 7 00:00:22,471 --> 00:00:24,612 It seems like the modern way, right? 8 00:00:24,788 --> 00:00:25,576 Yes. 9 00:00:26,501 --> 00:00:28,802 I mean it's kind of expected these days. 10 00:00:29,322 --> 00:00:34,326 Although we're starting off in quite a very low production. 11 00:00:35,026 --> 00:00:37,288 Well, especially me, I'm just using my webcam. 12 00:00:37,288 --> 00:00:41,330 But in the future I'll use a better camera. 13 00:00:41,391 --> 00:00:46,594 But we'll see how it looks when it's finished recording and we'll upload it, 14 00:00:46,594 --> 00:00:47,655 see how it looks. 15 00:00:48,015 --> 00:00:55,540 I mean it should be at least 720, 1080p, which is... 16 00:00:56,894 --> 00:00:59,157 Yeah, and your audio is good. 17 00:00:59,157 --> 00:01:02,921 And that's great, I think. 18 00:01:04,009 --> 00:01:06,970 Yeah cool, so yeah we'll get into it. 19 00:01:06,970 --> 00:01:12,674 Like I say the past two episodes, the first half of this will just be talking 20 00:01:12,674 --> 00:01:16,756 about layers, and the second half we'll just talk about whatever comes up. 21 00:01:18,257 --> 00:01:28,683 So yeah the latest news with layers was or is, we posted on Product Hunt. 22 00:01:28,683 --> 00:01:31,124 So we launched on Product Hunt. 23 00:01:31,949 --> 00:01:36,913 last week I think it was actually was it this week I don't really know it was 24 00:01:36,913 --> 00:01:44,959 Monday it was Monday go time flies was it Monday or was it last week actually it was 25 00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:49,583 last week I know it was last week because we won a product of the week so it can't 26 00:01:49,583 --> 00:01:55,781 be this week because the well I guess it's Friday but uh 27 00:01:55,781 --> 00:01:56,762 Hahahaha. 28 00:01:58,129 --> 00:01:59,809 The Alzheimer's is coming already. 29 00:02:01,069 --> 00:02:08,251 No, we posted on Monday last week and did extremely well. 30 00:02:08,952 --> 00:02:10,372 Managed to get product of the day. 31 00:02:10,372 --> 00:02:15,313 I think, what are we on now? 32 00:02:15,594 --> 00:02:22,255 We must have got like 1500 uploads and lots of comments and so much support. 33 00:02:23,256 --> 00:02:24,756 Yeah, it was amazing. 34 00:02:24,956 --> 00:02:25,896 I shared it on... 35 00:02:26,693 --> 00:02:35,512 I shared it on Twitter or X and yeah everyone jumped in, left an update, left a 36 00:02:35,512 --> 00:02:36,272 comment. 37 00:02:36,836 --> 00:02:42,308 more validated? 38 00:02:42,409 --> 00:02:44,110 Yeah, yeah, I do actually. 39 00:02:44,110 --> 00:02:44,891 Yeah. 40 00:02:46,632 --> 00:02:47,313 Yeah, it's weird. 41 00:02:47,313 --> 00:02:52,016 I never wanted to give product hunt such 42 00:02:54,409 --> 00:02:56,478 whatever the word is such a... 43 00:02:57,086 --> 00:02:58,031 Important? 44 00:02:58,465 --> 00:03:04,349 importance, because I think it's more like a specific crowd of people that it 45 00:03:04,349 --> 00:03:10,833 attracts, and it's not like a broad range of demographics, but yeah just knowing 46 00:03:10,833 --> 00:03:16,537 that the people on it, which to be fair the people that uploaded and commented are 47 00:03:16,537 --> 00:03:22,841 a lot of our community, so it's not far from the design community in this respect. 48 00:03:24,562 --> 00:03:28,005 But yeah definitely I wasn't 49 00:03:28,005 --> 00:03:32,746 necessarily expecting product of the day, product of the week. 50 00:03:33,207 --> 00:03:37,348 I was hoping for it, but yeah, it's really nice to actually get it. 51 00:03:37,528 --> 00:03:42,651 And I'm just annoyed that we didn't post at the start of the month, because I 52 00:03:42,651 --> 00:03:47,132 didn't realize the product of the month is done by calendar month, which makes sense, 53 00:03:47,132 --> 00:03:47,892 I guess. 54 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:53,144 well, you gotta be careful there because you wouldn't know like what the because 55 00:03:53,144 --> 00:03:56,248 the awards depend on the competition as well, right? 56 00:03:56,248 --> 00:04:03,895 So the layers community pulled together, voted, left comments, but there could have 57 00:04:03,895 --> 00:04:09,501 been something else, some other upcoming product of the much greater community 58 00:04:09,501 --> 00:04:10,421 there as well. 59 00:04:10,681 --> 00:04:14,410 yeah, I mean, I think there was there was another product right, called 60 00:04:15,562 --> 00:04:17,976 It was an AI tool of some sort, right? 61 00:04:18,953 --> 00:04:29,198 I think it was like a Notion type thing, Affine Pro free plug there. 62 00:04:29,678 --> 00:04:38,323 But it's from one of the Layers members, works there, and yeah he was in the 63 00:04:38,323 --> 00:04:44,206 discord, he was like, oh thanks for posting on this day Liam, the same day. 64 00:04:44,987 --> 00:04:46,527 And I was like, I didn't know! 65 00:04:47,128 --> 00:04:48,328 So my fault! 66 00:04:48,914 --> 00:04:50,298 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 67 00:04:50,298 --> 00:04:52,001 Fair game, fair game. 68 00:04:52,727 --> 00:04:57,058 So yeah, they got the number two product of the week as well. 69 00:04:57,058 --> 00:04:59,803 So yeah, so we are. 70 00:05:00,684 --> 00:05:05,449 But they were ahead for a quite a long time, I think. 71 00:05:05,825 --> 00:05:08,885 Yeah, I think they came in guns blazing at the very beginning. 72 00:05:10,086 --> 00:05:15,407 But yeah, we had a bit more stamina, a bit more endurance. 73 00:05:16,928 --> 00:05:20,229 But I think the timing was also very good. 74 00:05:20,229 --> 00:05:28,891 Like, I had a few people telling me that I should be posting on product on just every 75 00:05:28,891 --> 00:05:31,412 other month, like months ago. 76 00:05:31,972 --> 00:05:32,892 Yeah. 77 00:05:33,353 --> 00:05:38,715 like post now post now and then you can just post more launches because with 78 00:05:38,715 --> 00:05:44,317 product hunt now you can you can post the product but then you can have multiple 79 00:05:44,317 --> 00:05:50,440 launches so like any new feature you can do like another launch basically whereas 80 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:57,023 before it's just like a single launch of a startup but then I guess people were 81 00:05:57,023 --> 00:06:00,941 posting their startup again even if they just 82 00:06:00,941 --> 00:06:04,545 added a new feature just to get the traffic, you know, so I guess they 83 00:06:04,545 --> 00:06:09,717 introduced launches to satisfy that. 84 00:06:09,717 --> 00:06:10,938 launches. 85 00:06:11,999 --> 00:06:18,043 Other than this one now are the results cumulative like to the votes sort of stack 86 00:06:18,043 --> 00:06:22,906 and collect all throughout the every launch. 87 00:06:22,906 --> 00:06:23,666 No. 88 00:06:25,427 --> 00:06:29,489 So that's like a it's like a community feedback tool. 89 00:06:29,738 --> 00:06:34,607 Like if you launch something that's not particularly interesting, that will be 90 00:06:34,607 --> 00:06:36,549 dead in the water in product hunt. 91 00:06:37,305 --> 00:06:38,706 Yeah, yeah, in a sense. 92 00:06:38,706 --> 00:06:47,872 But I don't know how future launches are favored by Product Hunt, like how much 93 00:06:47,872 --> 00:06:49,072 they're promoted. 94 00:06:50,534 --> 00:06:56,278 Because if I was Product Hunt I wouldn't give any consecutive or future launches as 95 00:06:56,278 --> 00:07:00,539 much reach as the initial launch, you know? 96 00:07:00,539 --> 00:07:01,259 For sure. 97 00:07:01,259 --> 00:07:03,801 The first one has to be prioritized for sure. 98 00:07:03,801 --> 00:07:04,682 It's like... 99 00:07:06,064 --> 00:07:06,784 Actually, never mind. 100 00:07:06,784 --> 00:07:10,207 I don't want to get into competitors already. 101 00:07:10,207 --> 00:07:15,252 Yeah, in the podcast. 102 00:07:17,214 --> 00:07:21,577 My mind was already going there because they have the debut shot. 103 00:07:23,468 --> 00:07:24,178 Yeah. 104 00:07:25,045 --> 00:07:32,852 But anyway, yeah, it was really amazing, and yeah, it was quite an intense day, 105 00:07:32,852 --> 00:07:35,073 because I obviously post... 106 00:07:37,756 --> 00:07:46,415 well, I'm in London, so GMT posts around 8am, so I was up, yeah, just 107 00:07:46,516 --> 00:07:51,925 Nervous? 108 00:07:52,026 --> 00:07:57,108 No, I just wanted to get through it without layers going down. 109 00:07:59,490 --> 00:08:01,991 But yeah, it was good. 110 00:08:04,152 --> 00:08:11,416 The morning was fine in Europe because the traffic was gradual and layers handled it 111 00:08:11,416 --> 00:08:12,477 no problem. 112 00:08:14,258 --> 00:08:19,440 But then once America started to wake up, yeah, it got a bit heated. 113 00:08:19,831 --> 00:08:20,789 Go with nuts. 114 00:08:20,789 --> 00:08:23,310 start buckling a little. 115 00:08:25,371 --> 00:08:30,053 And I noticed it was a couple of queries. 116 00:08:30,293 --> 00:08:32,194 We'll go a bit technical here just for a second. 117 00:08:32,194 --> 00:08:35,435 It was a couple of queries that were making the whole thing kind of fail. 118 00:08:35,435 --> 00:08:39,297 And it was actually prefetched queries. 119 00:08:39,297 --> 00:08:46,439 So like when you load layers, some pages are prefetched, so they load a bit quicker 120 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:47,820 potentially. 121 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:48,760 And... 122 00:08:49,185 --> 00:08:58,391 one of them was the activity page, and that query is quite intensive. 123 00:08:58,391 --> 00:09:01,914 I had to upgrade a few things to see some analytics about the database, but once I 124 00:09:01,914 --> 00:09:13,201 had that I could see the two queries that were causing this CPU 100% thing. 125 00:09:13,902 --> 00:09:17,444 So I removed those, and it performed swimmingly. 126 00:09:18,317 --> 00:09:20,858 I also actually had to upgrade the database. 127 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:23,620 I'm not sure. 128 00:09:25,963 --> 00:09:26,423 Yeah, yeah. 129 00:09:26,423 --> 00:09:28,464 Well, the site was down, right? 130 00:09:28,825 --> 00:09:32,247 The site was just down for like a while. 131 00:09:32,848 --> 00:09:34,028 Getting a five of. 132 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:35,604 Did you measure the downtime? 133 00:09:35,604 --> 00:09:38,689 Do you remember how long it was? 134 00:09:40,229 --> 00:09:43,711 No, well it wasn't short either. 135 00:09:43,711 --> 00:09:49,634 It was like it must have been at least 20-30 minutes, and it got to the point 136 00:09:49,634 --> 00:09:58,399 where I was like, well, upgrading the database does incur down time, because for 137 00:09:58,399 --> 00:10:05,563 whatever reason it must have to turn the process off to upgrade RAM or whatever. 138 00:10:07,444 --> 00:10:09,024 And if the site's already down... 139 00:10:09,477 --> 00:10:15,267 might as well do it right. 140 00:10:15,267 --> 00:10:17,691 And hope that's the main issue. 141 00:10:17,691 --> 00:10:22,158 I don't think it was the main issue, but I think it definitely did help upgrading it. 142 00:10:22,550 --> 00:10:29,780 So was that like that 20, 30 minutes, was that like your, that was your classic 143 00:10:29,961 --> 00:10:35,930 hacker movie scene where you had to like really sweat over the keyboard, make sure 144 00:10:35,930 --> 00:10:38,753 everything goes well, runs well. 145 00:10:39,665 --> 00:10:46,607 It was just one of those things where you're like calculating risk, like 146 00:10:46,707 --> 00:10:47,928 should... 147 00:10:47,968 --> 00:10:49,268 how risky is this? 148 00:10:49,268 --> 00:10:57,811 If it fails, if something goes wrong, is it better to have layers temporarily down, 149 00:10:57,912 --> 00:11:00,292 or down the rest of the day? 150 00:11:00,594 --> 00:11:01,576 Uh oh. 151 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:02,365 Yeah. 152 00:11:02,365 --> 00:11:08,248 But fortunately it went very well and the upgrade was actually very quick. 153 00:11:08,248 --> 00:11:15,412 And as soon as that upgrade hit, layers was up and it was faster than usual. 154 00:11:16,433 --> 00:11:18,253 I think it's even faster than it was. 155 00:11:20,095 --> 00:11:25,438 I upgraded the database from a medium instance to extra large. 156 00:11:27,279 --> 00:11:28,779 So there's a cost there. 157 00:11:30,797 --> 00:11:33,019 layers should be performing a lot better now. 158 00:11:34,021 --> 00:11:39,146 But yeah, so that added to the overall intensity of the day. 159 00:11:39,387 --> 00:11:45,052 But yeah, after that it was kind of smooth sailing really. 160 00:11:45,554 --> 00:11:51,929 Nothing major went wrong, I don't think. 161 00:11:52,030 --> 00:11:54,404 Yeah, and no more waitlist. 162 00:11:55,401 --> 00:11:57,042 Yes, that's true. 163 00:11:57,762 --> 00:11:59,223 I removed the waitlist. 164 00:11:59,383 --> 00:12:03,245 I thought it'd be a bit silly if I posted it on Product Hunt with the waitlist 165 00:12:03,245 --> 00:12:07,186 because then all the comments might have been like, oh yeah, I signed up but I 166 00:12:07,186 --> 00:12:08,146 can't get in. 167 00:12:09,367 --> 00:12:11,328 So I kind of just removed it. 168 00:12:11,778 --> 00:12:14,380 Do you think it's gone for good now? 169 00:12:15,993 --> 00:12:16,973 I don't know. 170 00:12:18,016 --> 00:12:29,579 I haven't brought it back just yet, but I'm not opposed to bringing it back. 171 00:12:29,680 --> 00:12:30,961 But yeah, that went very well. 172 00:12:30,961 --> 00:12:38,588 Got a nice big traffic spike, got plenty of new users, plenty of new signups, and I 173 00:12:38,588 --> 00:12:42,571 think it has had a more long-term effect as well. 174 00:12:42,772 --> 00:12:48,917 So traffic is obviously not as much as the spike now, but it's more than it was 175 00:12:48,917 --> 00:12:50,178 before regularly. 176 00:12:51,660 --> 00:12:53,000 I think general 177 00:12:53,221 --> 00:12:55,222 retention and engagement is up as well. 178 00:12:55,222 --> 00:12:59,925 So like product does have a good effect. 179 00:13:00,626 --> 00:13:06,430 I think it's also just the people that browse Product Hunt right from all walks 180 00:13:06,430 --> 00:13:15,095 of life and working at various companies and they might want to share it and there 181 00:13:15,095 --> 00:13:19,258 have already been a few blog posts about layers and people sharing it on LinkedIn. 182 00:13:19,258 --> 00:13:22,820 So that kind of reach just allows people to 183 00:13:23,397 --> 00:13:26,840 C layers and if they like it they share it so all that is good. 184 00:13:30,304 --> 00:13:30,980 So yeah that's... 185 00:13:30,980 --> 00:13:35,993 the emotional impact of having a positive launch to it. 186 00:13:36,941 --> 00:13:39,929 Yeah, yeah, very true, very true. 187 00:13:39,929 --> 00:13:43,217 Yeah, if it didn't do well, what would I have done? 188 00:13:43,217 --> 00:13:48,995 Ha ha ha. 189 00:13:49,096 --> 00:13:51,037 It would have been catastrophic. 190 00:13:52,019 --> 00:13:54,860 It would have felt sad, but I think... 191 00:13:56,542 --> 00:14:03,887 Yeah, what it would have told me would have been that the community traction is 192 00:14:03,887 --> 00:14:05,608 not there just yet. 193 00:14:05,888 --> 00:14:12,473 But it was majorly successful with a lot of people... 194 00:14:13,578 --> 00:14:19,667 whose opinion at least I value a lot, supporting it, chiming in and sharing and 195 00:14:19,667 --> 00:14:22,071 trying to show support. 196 00:14:22,071 --> 00:14:24,373 So it was rewarding to see. 197 00:14:24,941 --> 00:14:27,623 Yeah, but I definitely think it was the timing. 198 00:14:27,623 --> 00:14:30,986 Like I said, I was talking earlier, people wanted me to post it earlier. 199 00:14:30,986 --> 00:14:39,253 But I think there's got to a point where it had a community already, right? 200 00:14:39,253 --> 00:14:41,634 Like Discord was at a thousand people. 201 00:14:41,815 --> 00:14:45,898 The Twitter has 20k followers. 202 00:14:45,898 --> 00:14:52,424 So it's like, if X amount of X percentage of those upvote product, you're going to 203 00:14:52,424 --> 00:14:53,361 do well, right? 204 00:14:53,361 --> 00:15:00,602 Whereas if I had done it last year, I would probably have much less of a chance. 205 00:15:00,602 --> 00:15:03,343 It would have been a much uphill battle. 206 00:15:05,584 --> 00:15:10,245 So I think we did it at the right time. 207 00:15:10,845 --> 00:15:11,545 That's product hunt. 208 00:15:11,545 --> 00:15:19,608 And then another thing that went live this week, actually, we launched a competition, 209 00:15:19,608 --> 00:15:21,368 first competition on Liz. 210 00:15:21,687 --> 00:15:22,313 Woo! 211 00:15:23,153 --> 00:15:27,658 partnered with my buddy Tobias from Supernotes, he works on Supernotes which 212 00:15:27,658 --> 00:15:29,339 is a note taking app. 213 00:15:31,062 --> 00:15:38,331 And he's just launched some complementary apps for it, so an iOS and an Android app, 214 00:15:38,331 --> 00:15:41,944 and he was... 215 00:15:42,045 --> 00:15:48,887 just seeing a lot of tweets or posts or whatever of a lot of designers like to 216 00:15:48,887 --> 00:15:54,830 make app icons for apps they really like and like it's become really popular for 217 00:15:55,050 --> 00:16:01,032 apps to have like alternative icons for people to choose and so to be us was like 218 00:16:01,032 --> 00:16:06,535 oh maybe we can do that on layers Liam we can team up and if anyone wants to make an 219 00:16:06,535 --> 00:16:11,053 app icon for super notes they can do that 220 00:16:11,053 --> 00:16:14,896 and layers can organize and facilitate that. 221 00:16:16,959 --> 00:16:18,280 Yeah, so we did that. 222 00:16:19,061 --> 00:16:20,882 And that's still ongoing. 223 00:16:23,946 --> 00:16:25,667 Yeah, I think it's a month long. 224 00:16:25,790 --> 00:16:25,990 Yeah. 225 00:16:25,990 --> 00:16:32,087 So if you're listening to this later, it's the last state is like the end of the end 226 00:16:32,087 --> 00:16:33,249 of March, right? 227 00:16:35,596 --> 00:16:40,680 Yeah, yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. 228 00:16:40,781 --> 00:16:44,584 Yeah, so I think it's going well. 229 00:16:44,584 --> 00:16:46,605 I think there's already been a few entries. 230 00:16:49,488 --> 00:16:52,110 There's a slightly new layout to the layer page now. 231 00:16:52,110 --> 00:17:01,338 I think it's kind of reverted to the sidebar version, because it works a bit 232 00:17:01,338 --> 00:17:08,283 better with showing the layer replies, or the entries in this case. 233 00:17:09,825 --> 00:17:15,308 it will help when annotations go live as well, because you'll be able to see them 234 00:17:15,308 --> 00:17:17,030 in the sidebar. 235 00:17:17,030 --> 00:17:24,275 The only thing that's lacking now is a full screen view for the layer, and really 236 00:17:24,275 --> 00:17:26,776 big portrait layers. 237 00:17:26,776 --> 00:17:33,961 They don't really suit fitting on just the viewport. 238 00:17:36,183 --> 00:17:39,364 So just a full screen view and annotations. 239 00:17:39,915 --> 00:17:41,179 We'll have to go live. 240 00:17:41,644 --> 00:17:43,170 We'll be going live, actually. 241 00:17:44,482 --> 00:17:48,169 You have a timeline? 242 00:17:48,270 --> 00:17:49,035 Hehehe 243 00:17:52,660 --> 00:17:58,843 yeah we do have time because we're going to be partnering up with an agency for 244 00:17:58,843 --> 00:18:06,867 some feedback sessions and I think they've got back to me saying end of the month 245 00:18:07,168 --> 00:18:10,509 might be good for them a Thursday end of the month. 246 00:18:12,551 --> 00:18:15,172 So yeah I was hoping to actually get them 247 00:18:16,497 --> 00:18:19,958 obviously, but a bit more before like a week or two. 248 00:18:22,459 --> 00:18:24,200 But yeah, that's exciting. 249 00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:29,702 They're going to be taking over the Work in Progress hub, if you will. 250 00:18:30,763 --> 00:18:38,306 So for half a day or a day, they'll be available and anyone who posts in the Work 251 00:18:38,306 --> 00:18:42,448 in Progress hub, they'll be able to get feedback. 252 00:18:42,448 --> 00:18:43,728 We're trying to figure out... 253 00:18:45,701 --> 00:18:52,829 how to request feedback if we need to label it with something because they 254 00:18:52,829 --> 00:18:57,715 thought that maybe some people won't want feedback and if they leave feedback and 255 00:18:57,715 --> 00:19:02,621 they don't like it they're like, but I think if it's all in the work in progress 256 00:19:02,621 --> 00:19:05,584 hub you kind of expect it now that's the whole point 257 00:19:05,698 --> 00:19:06,558 Yeah, I agree. 258 00:19:06,558 --> 00:19:07,418 I agree. 259 00:19:07,938 --> 00:19:17,622 I think that's if you post something into the work in progress, it's sort of in, I 260 00:19:17,622 --> 00:19:21,984 wouldn't say it's inviting discourse, but a discourse is something that will 261 00:19:21,984 --> 00:19:26,666 naturally happen over something because no decision is final there yet. 262 00:19:26,666 --> 00:19:35,429 You can still argue directions, you can still argue approaches. 263 00:19:35,530 --> 00:19:42,497 garbage you should have done XYZ, then it might offend somebody I think. 264 00:19:42,957 --> 00:19:49,579 Yeah, but I yeah, so there's gonna be a little redesign to the to the hub to make 265 00:19:49,579 --> 00:19:55,661 it clear like, this is, this is a feedback session is ongoing. 266 00:19:58,002 --> 00:19:59,722 But yeah, yeah. 267 00:20:02,423 --> 00:20:04,644 Yeah, I'm looking forward to it should be good. 268 00:20:04,874 --> 00:20:07,125 Yeah, I think it'll be interesting. 269 00:20:08,873 --> 00:20:15,736 Other things with layers, job postings are now paid, that's a boring one. 270 00:20:17,677 --> 00:20:24,421 Advertising interests, this is a good thing actually because I don't know who 271 00:20:24,421 --> 00:20:29,584 knows if everyone knows, but layers is obviously just run by, built by me, it's 272 00:20:29,584 --> 00:20:31,665 my solo founder and I'm bootstrapping this. 273 00:20:32,926 --> 00:20:37,548 And I have thought about raising money and looking 274 00:20:38,665 --> 00:20:44,647 It's gotten quite tight at times and it is getting quite tight currently, but 275 00:20:45,908 --> 00:20:50,549 recently there's been a bit of an uptick in advertising. 276 00:20:51,210 --> 00:20:57,472 We've had a couple of advertisers in the past which have been very, very helpful. 277 00:20:58,113 --> 00:21:03,315 But I think since the product launch may have attracted a bit more interest and got 278 00:21:03,315 --> 00:21:05,916 a few more people wanting to advertise. 279 00:21:06,390 --> 00:21:07,012 Nice. 280 00:21:08,805 --> 00:21:10,046 So that is good. 281 00:21:10,507 --> 00:21:15,770 I have a couple of sponsorship packages already, just like three tiers. 282 00:21:18,393 --> 00:21:19,954 So that is very good. 283 00:21:19,954 --> 00:21:26,439 It just means Layers is close to sustainability basically. 284 00:21:29,082 --> 00:21:30,943 Yes, breaking even. 285 00:21:32,525 --> 00:21:36,388 It's a tough thing to break even. 286 00:21:37,477 --> 00:21:41,162 as traffic obviously goes up, costs go up. 287 00:21:43,026 --> 00:21:44,650 So yeah. 288 00:21:44,650 --> 00:21:52,698 But when you talk to these advertisers, when you respond to the interest, who do 289 00:21:52,698 --> 00:22:04,209 you have in mind or what is the ideal person or company to advertise on layers? 290 00:22:06,537 --> 00:22:13,622 Yeah, so the current ones have been agencies, so creative agencies, digital 291 00:22:13,622 --> 00:22:22,248 agencies, and then more recently there's been like an inspiration gallery, as well 292 00:22:22,248 --> 00:22:27,972 as an AI tool for creating logos I think, and then 293 00:22:28,062 --> 00:22:32,287 Oh, yeah, that'll get some ruffle feathers for sure. 294 00:22:34,154 --> 00:22:42,879 And then there's another potential one which is like a no-code builder. 295 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:48,764 So they're all relevant really, and I haven't looked at any of them and been 296 00:22:48,764 --> 00:22:50,825 like, why do you want to advertise on layers? 297 00:22:50,825 --> 00:22:52,926 Does this make any sense? 298 00:22:54,648 --> 00:23:00,112 Because I mean, yeah, if it was something random, like some sporting thing, I'd be 299 00:23:00,112 --> 00:23:00,812 like... 300 00:23:02,633 --> 00:23:04,595 I probably wouldn't want to see this on layers. 301 00:23:05,738 --> 00:23:06,539 Yeah, definitely not. 302 00:23:06,539 --> 00:23:08,101 It would have to be asked at least. 303 00:23:08,456 --> 00:23:14,201 HAHAHAHAHAHA 304 00:23:14,302 --> 00:23:21,608 But yeah, so far it's just been very relevant and somewhat targeted, if that's 305 00:23:21,608 --> 00:23:22,608 the right word. 306 00:23:25,291 --> 00:23:34,098 But yeah, it hasn't got to a stage where I guess a lot of platforms have like, I 307 00:23:34,098 --> 00:23:37,180 don't want to see this ad, you know, when you... 308 00:23:37,569 --> 00:23:38,602 Mmm, yeah. 309 00:23:39,153 --> 00:23:43,180 Maybe it'll get to that stage at one point, but hopefully. 310 00:23:43,516 --> 00:23:47,342 that'll, that's one of those good problems, I think. 311 00:23:48,224 --> 00:23:51,649 When you have, when you have options to advertise. 312 00:23:52,261 --> 00:24:03,031 Yeah, also you can just get rid of ads by subscribing to Plus Pro Tip. 313 00:24:03,031 --> 00:24:03,471 Did I? 314 00:24:03,471 --> 00:24:06,674 I don't think I even did the plug at the beginning, did I? 315 00:24:06,674 --> 00:24:07,375 Oh well. 316 00:24:08,439 --> 00:24:09,643 That was a beautiful segue. 317 00:24:09,643 --> 00:24:14,957 So yeah, that was, yeah, beautiful. 318 00:24:16,445 --> 00:24:20,326 Yes, so yeah, the advertising is picking up, which is good. 319 00:24:20,586 --> 00:24:26,148 It's good for sustainability, it means layers is here to stay potentially. 320 00:24:26,449 --> 00:24:32,151 And with that, yeah, I also built a mini dashboard, so advertisers can now track 321 00:24:32,151 --> 00:24:34,112 impressions and clicks themselves. 322 00:24:34,112 --> 00:24:37,813 They can just go on layers and check out their personal dashboard. 323 00:24:38,574 --> 00:24:44,456 And in the future, I'm hoping that it can be completely self-serve, so anyone can go 324 00:24:44,456 --> 00:24:46,276 to the advertise page. 325 00:24:47,269 --> 00:24:53,154 put in a title tagline and a creative and then submit it for approval and then they 326 00:24:53,154 --> 00:24:57,538 can like say how many impressions they want to buy, 100,000 or whatever, and then 327 00:24:59,220 --> 00:25:07,671 it will be approved or not, and that should be a bit more automated. 328 00:25:07,772 --> 00:25:08,321 All right. 329 00:25:08,321 --> 00:25:09,422 yeah, that's advertising. 330 00:25:09,422 --> 00:25:16,108 And then the next thing is the weekly interview series we started doing called 331 00:25:16,108 --> 00:25:17,909 Behind the Mask is doing well. 332 00:25:17,909 --> 00:25:22,092 We're primarily just posting that on X. 333 00:25:23,494 --> 00:25:32,861 You may have seen a few already, but obviously X isn't that great for viewing 334 00:25:33,061 --> 00:25:36,564 previous posts, tweets, archives, that sort of thing. 335 00:25:36,638 --> 00:25:38,816 Yeah, or long form. 336 00:25:39,274 --> 00:25:40,695 things kind of get lost. 337 00:25:41,676 --> 00:25:45,620 Well, long form, they do have this article thing, which I noticed that I kind of got 338 00:25:45,620 --> 00:25:50,304 access to it after I posted a couple behind the masks. 339 00:25:50,304 --> 00:25:51,324 Have you seen that? 340 00:25:52,062 --> 00:25:54,270 No, I have not. 341 00:25:54,430 --> 00:26:01,264 It's like a long form content on Twitter, on X. 342 00:26:02,947 --> 00:26:09,215 Would it solve the archive issues as well, or the previous posts issue as well? 343 00:26:09,276 --> 00:26:13,741 Or just having a seamless long tweet? 344 00:26:15,097 --> 00:26:18,099 It might do actually because I think... 345 00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:20,641 I'm just checking the profile now. 346 00:26:20,641 --> 00:26:24,224 I think there might be a tab when you go on your profile. 347 00:26:24,224 --> 00:26:28,928 Yeah, so yeah there's a tab on your profile that's just articles. 348 00:26:30,049 --> 00:26:34,733 So I guess maybe I should start doing them as articles and then you can just go on 349 00:26:34,733 --> 00:26:36,795 the articles tab and you'll see all of them. 350 00:26:38,136 --> 00:26:39,056 Do you see it? 351 00:26:39,213 --> 00:26:42,825 yeah, you must be subscribed to Premium Plus. 352 00:26:44,046 --> 00:26:45,438 What do we even read them? 353 00:26:46,502 --> 00:26:47,636 to write them. 354 00:26:48,245 --> 00:26:49,067 write them. 355 00:26:49,246 --> 00:26:57,024 Yeah, it will be scammy if it would be for reading as well. 356 00:26:57,761 --> 00:26:58,681 Yeah true. 357 00:27:00,485 --> 00:27:07,353 So that actually might be a good solution in the interim. 358 00:27:08,275 --> 00:27:11,559 Yeah I might try that, see how it works. 359 00:27:12,130 --> 00:27:19,584 But at the same time, having like a space on layers for them, I think with that, 360 00:27:20,186 --> 00:27:22,109 holistically, it makes more sense. 361 00:27:22,437 --> 00:27:23,557 Yeah, definitely. 362 00:27:25,037 --> 00:27:29,218 Somewhat inevitable that players should have some kind of blog. 363 00:27:30,619 --> 00:27:34,020 And yeah, we're starting to produce more and more content. 364 00:27:34,020 --> 00:27:40,481 So behind the mask and even this overlay podcast, it makes sense for them to have a 365 00:27:40,481 --> 00:27:46,583 home and yes, it's good for just SEO as well, getting content out there. 366 00:27:46,743 --> 00:27:49,024 So yeah, that will be on the roadmap. 367 00:27:51,124 --> 00:27:52,097 Have to figure out. 368 00:27:52,097 --> 00:27:52,877 When... 369 00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:59,424 there's so many things, it's surprising, I mean there's so many things like to work 370 00:27:59,424 --> 00:28:05,828 on, or you could work on, and prioritizing what's... 371 00:28:05,929 --> 00:28:08,700 Because there's also, there's also, go on. 372 00:28:09,450 --> 00:28:13,373 Right now, there's obviously the plates full. 373 00:28:13,373 --> 00:28:14,734 There's tons of things to work on. 374 00:28:14,734 --> 00:28:19,217 How do you prioritize right now what to work on? 375 00:28:19,217 --> 00:28:29,772 And did the product hunt, launch, change your way of prioritizing issues? 376 00:28:29,873 --> 00:28:34,897 Well, to be honest, since product hunt, maybe a bit before, I've spent way more 377 00:28:34,897 --> 00:28:40,860 time on just business and marketing type stuff, you know, rather than dev. 378 00:28:41,221 --> 00:28:47,445 So before, 90% of my time was dev, just building out features, fixing bugs and 379 00:28:47,445 --> 00:28:47,785 stuff. 380 00:28:47,785 --> 00:28:54,150 And now, like when I wake up every morning, I'm doing like a social post, I'm 381 00:28:54,150 --> 00:28:56,011 prepping it behind the mask. 382 00:28:56,011 --> 00:28:58,432 I'm trying to get more people. 383 00:28:58,973 --> 00:29:00,054 for behind the mask. 384 00:29:00,054 --> 00:29:01,114 I'm trying to... 385 00:29:03,616 --> 00:29:10,180 I'm getting more emails, so I'm responding to advertisers, responding to potential 386 00:29:10,180 --> 00:29:11,801 partners, that sort of thing. 387 00:29:12,322 --> 00:29:20,192 And then yeah just mundane business stuff like 388 00:29:20,293 --> 00:29:24,286 Yeah, so, but I think... 389 00:29:24,722 --> 00:29:28,726 it's not that you don't want to do the dev work, it's that there's so much other 390 00:29:28,726 --> 00:29:34,871 stuff that you have to do now as well, is that sort of naturally gets deprioritized 391 00:29:34,871 --> 00:29:38,093 because the product is solid underneath, right? 392 00:29:39,965 --> 00:29:42,826 Well that's the thing, it's solid to an extent. 393 00:29:43,267 --> 00:29:49,470 It's also like I think there's quite a lot there on layers now that's like good 394 00:29:49,470 --> 00:29:56,034 enough for plenty of marketing you know, and just focusing on getting it out there. 395 00:29:56,034 --> 00:30:00,997 I mean I would, there's loads of features I want to build, but I also want to just 396 00:30:00,997 --> 00:30:10,348 like try and build it as 397 00:30:10,449 --> 00:30:12,329 Make it as stable as possible. 398 00:30:13,470 --> 00:30:18,092 I'm kind of getting a bit fed up of a lot of the bugs that exist and still exist 399 00:30:18,092 --> 00:30:18,392 now. 400 00:30:18,392 --> 00:30:25,916 And I just want it in a state where, yeah, there's just very, very few bugs. 401 00:30:27,458 --> 00:30:34,346 Is that dealing with, so you're dealing with like the business side of things, 402 00:30:34,346 --> 00:30:38,671 you're dealing with the development side of things, is it demoralizing or sort of 403 00:30:38,671 --> 00:30:48,115 affecting you, affecting your morale to deal with the bugs then as well? 404 00:30:48,216 --> 00:30:52,783 I've always hated when things aren't working or broken. 405 00:30:52,784 --> 00:30:54,245 I like... 406 00:30:55,329 --> 00:30:57,471 Like I built it, it should be perfect, right? 407 00:30:57,471 --> 00:30:59,232 Like I don't make mistakes. 408 00:31:01,033 --> 00:31:07,898 No, I mean, of course, they'll always exist, but it's the discovery of them. 409 00:31:07,898 --> 00:31:11,982 I find it somewhat embarrassing and humiliating. 410 00:31:11,982 --> 00:31:21,409 I'm like, I've worked on this so many times, and why does this bug exist? 411 00:31:21,409 --> 00:31:26,193 And then I'll find another bug and realize that I didn't even know that one existed, 412 00:31:26,193 --> 00:31:30,276 and I'm like, for God's sake, like you're telling me 413 00:31:30,481 --> 00:31:38,944 this filter hasn't worked since whenever I'm like, yeah, it does, it aggravates me. 414 00:31:40,405 --> 00:31:44,226 And then it feels like, and then it feels like there's so many, right? 415 00:31:44,226 --> 00:31:46,527 And it becomes a little overwhelming. 416 00:31:46,727 --> 00:31:49,265 And it's like, ah, yeah, it's quite, um, 417 00:31:49,265 --> 00:31:51,949 start prioritizing the bugs themselves, right? 418 00:31:51,949 --> 00:31:54,894 Like what's like what's breaking the experience? 419 00:31:54,894 --> 00:31:56,977 What's sort of like slightly annoying? 420 00:31:56,977 --> 00:32:00,501 And what's should be there is not there and stuff like that. 421 00:32:01,141 --> 00:32:04,124 Yeah, and sometimes it's not an easy fix. 422 00:32:04,124 --> 00:32:10,492 Like there's another issue with the scheduling order and I'm like, oh for 423 00:32:10,492 --> 00:32:15,577 flip's sake, I swear I fixed this and then I take another, take another. 424 00:32:16,639 --> 00:32:18,601 I'm glad you're enjoying this, bro. 425 00:32:18,661 --> 00:32:19,762 This is hell! 426 00:32:19,943 --> 00:32:20,623 Yeah. 427 00:32:21,284 --> 00:32:28,450 But I think this is also, this is, I don't, I don't know how else to say it, 428 00:32:28,450 --> 00:32:31,552 but I don't think this is something that is also going to go away. 429 00:32:31,673 --> 00:32:36,917 Because I've been like, I've been a part of startups to build products and there's 430 00:32:37,018 --> 00:32:42,162 like, you think the developer swears like this is, this is, this is foolproof. 431 00:32:42,162 --> 00:32:43,584 Like this is not going to break. 432 00:32:43,584 --> 00:32:46,125 No, you're going to find an idiot. 433 00:32:46,242 --> 00:32:49,025 who finds a way how to break the interface. 434 00:32:49,046 --> 00:32:53,773 There's gonna be someone who does something unexpected, which you guys then 435 00:32:53,773 --> 00:32:54,714 have to fix. 436 00:32:54,714 --> 00:32:57,518 So I don't think it's gonna go away. 437 00:32:57,559 --> 00:33:00,904 I think your pain tolerance will just gradually rise. 438 00:33:00,904 --> 00:33:02,305 That's the thing. 439 00:33:03,589 --> 00:33:07,375 It's just the likelihood of them finding something right, the probability you want 440 00:33:07,375 --> 00:33:09,518 to try and reduce that as much as possible. 441 00:33:09,542 --> 00:33:12,065 Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. 442 00:33:12,206 --> 00:33:15,831 And, but you, you react to the bugs quite quickly. 443 00:33:15,831 --> 00:33:16,992 You fix them. 444 00:33:17,233 --> 00:33:21,319 Like if somebody, somebody flags something on this score, do you get it fixed quite 445 00:33:21,319 --> 00:33:22,701 easily, quite quickly? 446 00:33:22,802 --> 00:33:25,845 I don't want to say it's easy, but it's you do it quickly. 447 00:33:26,149 --> 00:33:28,151 if it's an easy fix, yeah, I'll fix it right away. 448 00:33:28,151 --> 00:33:31,114 If it's not, it'll take me a bit more time. 449 00:33:31,994 --> 00:33:39,363 Have you encountered something that was something like an iceberg that you didn't 450 00:33:39,363 --> 00:33:40,504 see under the water? 451 00:33:40,504 --> 00:33:42,486 It was like, ah, it seems quick. 452 00:33:42,486 --> 00:33:44,548 Like we'll do it now. 453 00:33:44,549 --> 00:33:49,013 And then when you get into it, you start investigating it, you realize like, ah, 454 00:33:49,014 --> 00:33:52,377 maybe this is more complicated than I thought. 455 00:33:53,069 --> 00:33:58,210 Well, I can bet you know the main, one of the main bugs on layers. 456 00:33:58,371 --> 00:33:59,211 I bet you can name it. 457 00:33:59,211 --> 00:33:59,911 Come on. 458 00:33:59,911 --> 00:34:05,153 There's one bug that has been there since its inception. 459 00:34:05,393 --> 00:34:12,056 And it never, it never, I, notifications, no, they should be okay. 460 00:34:12,056 --> 00:34:14,816 Now, there's a bit there's a bigger one. 461 00:34:17,246 --> 00:34:17,406 What? 462 00:34:17,406 --> 00:34:19,471 This is good that I don't know it. 463 00:34:19,512 --> 00:34:21,837 Means that I haven't experienced it enough. 464 00:34:22,777 --> 00:34:29,176 It's basically the tags and the skill, the multi select. 465 00:34:29,374 --> 00:34:36,977 Ah, you know, I will, I will record like, this is a bug that has become a part of 466 00:34:36,977 --> 00:34:38,738 the way I use layers. 467 00:34:38,738 --> 00:34:44,461 I'm going to record the video and show you how I actually use, how I actually use the 468 00:34:44,561 --> 00:34:45,821 posting feature or layers. 469 00:34:45,821 --> 00:34:51,924 I, yeah, I glance up like it doesn't, that's how it works for me. 470 00:34:53,035 --> 00:34:55,661 That's that's see that's the worst. 471 00:34:55,661 --> 00:34:57,164 What are you talking about? 472 00:34:57,626 --> 00:34:58,974 Like yeah like peep. 473 00:34:58,974 --> 00:35:04,225 it, because that's the standard operating procedure for me. 474 00:35:05,289 --> 00:35:07,070 That's that's shit. 475 00:35:07,070 --> 00:35:08,852 That's clever shit. 476 00:35:08,892 --> 00:35:10,734 But I mean, it's good. 477 00:35:10,734 --> 00:35:11,735 It's good. 478 00:35:12,797 --> 00:35:17,822 It's good that those types of bugs exist, but it doesn't necessarily dissuade 479 00:35:17,822 --> 00:35:19,023 people, right? 480 00:35:19,023 --> 00:35:24,208 I always thought that at the beginning, like if the platform is... 481 00:35:26,405 --> 00:35:31,028 so bad but people are still returning because there's a quality there, there's 482 00:35:31,028 --> 00:35:34,790 an essence there that they're like I'm still going to return because I have faith 483 00:35:34,790 --> 00:35:39,552 that it will be fixed because it's gonna be worth it. 484 00:35:39,712 --> 00:35:45,576 I'm glad that exists but I'm ashamed that I haven't fixed that bug. 485 00:35:45,576 --> 00:35:46,496 I hate it. 486 00:35:47,136 --> 00:35:48,557 I can't replicate it at all. 487 00:35:48,557 --> 00:35:53,640 I know the issue now, but just being able to replicate it my side, 488 00:35:54,993 --> 00:35:56,813 make it much more easier to fix. 489 00:35:56,813 --> 00:36:01,834 But I'm probably just gonna end up building my own Flippin multi-select 490 00:36:01,834 --> 00:36:06,996 component, because it's just, because that's what I've done with everything 491 00:36:06,996 --> 00:36:07,756 else, right? 492 00:36:07,756 --> 00:36:15,318 Like the whole grid thing, I used every known package that exists, and it just 493 00:36:15,638 --> 00:36:18,259 didn't satisfy all layers requirements. 494 00:36:18,259 --> 00:36:21,220 So I'm like, oh, Flippin' out, I'll just build my own. 495 00:36:21,220 --> 00:36:23,833 Like I've tried doing it the easy, quick way, you know? 496 00:36:23,833 --> 00:36:26,236 and using stuff that's available. 497 00:36:26,918 --> 00:36:31,828 And yeah, I've gone through all of them, and it's arguably taken longer than if I 498 00:36:31,828 --> 00:36:33,230 would have just done it myself. 499 00:36:33,230 --> 00:36:33,717 So 500 00:36:33,717 --> 00:36:34,507 Right? 501 00:36:36,471 --> 00:36:37,657 So, yeah. 502 00:36:37,657 --> 00:36:39,048 Anyway, rant over. 503 00:36:39,822 --> 00:36:45,805 Well, yeah, like, but there is definitely you're totally right on the money. 504 00:36:45,805 --> 00:36:51,027 There is a silver lining with that specific bug that even though yes, it is 505 00:36:51,028 --> 00:36:57,191 like, I'm, I'm a clear example of this, like, I didn't even realize that was a bug 506 00:36:57,191 --> 00:36:58,031 anymore. 507 00:36:59,212 --> 00:37:01,893 That's just, that's just how layers works. 508 00:37:02,354 --> 00:37:09,178 But to be honest, also my browser, my browser is overloaded with like, I have 509 00:37:09,178 --> 00:37:10,538 several different outblocks. 510 00:37:10,538 --> 00:37:14,681 I have some sort of like ad trackers and stuff like that, like tons of plugins in 511 00:37:14,681 --> 00:37:15,602 the browser. 512 00:37:15,602 --> 00:37:19,564 So if something's gonna break, it's probably gonna break in this specific 513 00:37:19,564 --> 00:37:20,965 browser, I think. 514 00:37:21,145 --> 00:37:21,805 So... 515 00:37:23,203 --> 00:37:27,767 Yeah, it's just annoying that I've never had the issue. 516 00:37:28,308 --> 00:37:31,452 Like, yeah, that's just one of the things of development. 517 00:37:31,452 --> 00:37:37,459 Like some things you're, yeah, some things you'll just never experience where you 518 00:37:37,459 --> 00:37:42,504 just have to test on as many different environments as possible. 519 00:37:42,996 --> 00:37:44,038 here's the hard question. 520 00:37:44,038 --> 00:37:46,841 What's the worst browser to develop for? 521 00:37:48,461 --> 00:37:54,212 Oh well it's notoriously Internet Explorer, but I think these days Edge is 522 00:37:54,212 --> 00:37:55,233 pretty good. 523 00:37:56,878 --> 00:37:58,860 But like I don't think- 524 00:38:00,613 --> 00:38:05,598 Faray is usually fine, it sometimes acts a bit differently but compared to Internet 525 00:38:05,598 --> 00:38:09,690 Explorer, I haven't tested layers on Internet Explorer since I started. 526 00:38:09,690 --> 00:38:10,251 should. 527 00:38:10,251 --> 00:38:13,615 Like, for your own sake, of your own mental health, I don't think you need 528 00:38:13,615 --> 00:38:14,596 those kinds of worries. 529 00:38:14,596 --> 00:38:15,577 Hahahaha! 530 00:38:16,189 --> 00:38:18,750 But that's really not good though. 531 00:38:19,251 --> 00:38:20,452 I need to do more testing. 532 00:38:20,452 --> 00:38:25,296 I need to make it much better on every browser. 533 00:38:26,257 --> 00:38:31,381 I really need to, there's services that allow you to do this like browser stack, 534 00:38:31,381 --> 00:38:35,064 but it can be a bit slow, a bit of a pain in the ass. 535 00:38:35,064 --> 00:38:42,150 But I really just need to get my own virtual server, and have Windows. 536 00:38:42,831 --> 00:38:45,452 The thing is I've put it off because I have the very... 537 00:38:45,601 --> 00:38:53,607 initial like base spec M1 Mac and it's just so it's not really um it's not really 538 00:38:53,607 --> 00:38:58,351 up to a lot of tasks you know it runs out around very quickly so if anyone wants to 539 00:38:58,351 --> 00:39:09,000 donate me a an M3 MacBook no hopefully yeah like that's a thing i'll invest in if 540 00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,543 i get more money from advertisers etc i'll 541 00:39:14,937 --> 00:39:23,563 be able to run all these virtual servers with all these OSes and test everything. 542 00:39:23,664 --> 00:39:27,607 Well, for now it's just a comfortable excuse to say, Ah! 543 00:39:27,987 --> 00:39:29,428 I don't have the hardware for it. 544 00:39:29,428 --> 00:39:30,289 Fuck it. 545 00:39:30,637 --> 00:39:35,423 Yes, I do not have the finances to test Internet Explorer. 546 00:39:35,423 --> 00:39:36,444 I am sorry. 547 00:39:37,867 --> 00:39:42,854 Please, please subscribe to plus I mean, it's a cop out really, I'm sure I can find 548 00:39:42,854 --> 00:39:43,835 a way but 549 00:39:43,928 --> 00:39:48,471 Like the only people, not to paint with a too broad of a brush, but the only people 550 00:39:48,471 --> 00:39:54,433 using Internet Explorer are probably like government people of various sorts, which 551 00:39:54,433 --> 00:39:54,881 I don't know what. 552 00:39:54,881 --> 00:39:56,222 it doesn't exist anymore, does it? 553 00:39:56,222 --> 00:39:57,263 Like it's edge, right? 554 00:39:57,263 --> 00:40:03,468 I mean, unless you're using an old Windows that has Internet Explorer. 555 00:40:03,468 --> 00:40:03,751 Yeah. 556 00:40:03,751 --> 00:40:09,355 but you can imagine, you can imagine the, the hardware that's being used by like, 557 00:40:10,096 --> 00:40:16,601 for like hospitals or, or some government agencies, they use like XP still stuff 558 00:40:16,601 --> 00:40:17,501 like that. 559 00:40:17,842 --> 00:40:21,464 Uh, so have fun fixing that. 560 00:40:22,821 --> 00:40:27,809 I mean for those you just pop up a message that says, oh we do not support your 561 00:40:27,809 --> 00:40:30,032 browser, please upgrade. 562 00:40:32,165 --> 00:40:36,612 And then just hope that popup doesn't appear on like a modern browser. 563 00:40:37,758 --> 00:40:39,141 Oh yeah, oh yeah. 564 00:40:39,985 --> 00:40:43,141 Yeah. 565 00:40:43,242 --> 00:40:50,044 Yeah, so, but yeah, that was kind of a segue into investments somewhat. 566 00:40:50,624 --> 00:40:58,326 What, how I would, how I would spend money if I had it. 567 00:40:58,707 --> 00:41:00,267 Well, it's happening. 568 00:41:00,487 --> 00:41:01,768 It's, it's happening. 569 00:41:01,768 --> 00:41:02,928 It's happening slowly. 570 00:41:02,928 --> 00:41:04,688 So like we're getting money from. 571 00:41:04,933 --> 00:41:11,156 advertisers like I say we're getting more and more plus subscribers so now it's just 572 00:41:11,156 --> 00:41:19,420 a case of how do you how do you reinvest that money what do we put it in and yeah 573 00:41:19,420 --> 00:41:27,064 where to spend it like it's also been a thought of mine if I was ever to raise or 574 00:41:27,064 --> 00:41:33,508 look for funding for layers obviously where would that money go and I've had 575 00:41:33,508 --> 00:41:34,828 some initial thoughts 576 00:41:37,090 --> 00:41:43,955 The first one being just a new MacBook, which is nothing, but the other would be 577 00:41:43,955 --> 00:41:52,081 like who would I hire, what sort of team would I want to build out layers, and what 578 00:41:52,081 --> 00:41:54,682 does layers really need to grow. 579 00:41:55,203 --> 00:41:59,506 I initially thought, well there's a few features that I still want to build out 580 00:41:59,506 --> 00:42:03,568 that could potentially bring in more revenue. 581 00:42:03,685 --> 00:42:10,368 there's stuff like I eventually want to have like a portfolio feature so it's more 582 00:42:10,368 --> 00:42:18,253 of a custom profile that hides all the layers UI and you can put a custom domain 583 00:42:18,253 --> 00:42:26,497 in front of it and you can customize the layout and just make the whole thing a bit 584 00:42:26,497 --> 00:42:27,578 more personal. 585 00:42:29,459 --> 00:42:32,320 So that's something I want to do and then there's like a 586 00:42:32,705 --> 00:42:40,249 marketplace I think layers is kind of on the verge of just like adding a link that 587 00:42:40,249 --> 00:42:48,093 allows you to buy someone's pack or set or whatever so and it has been requested 588 00:42:48,093 --> 00:42:51,815 since the very start of layers as well it's like oh I just I just made this icon 589 00:42:51,815 --> 00:42:59,800 pack is there a way I can put a link to sell it on layers so I mean you might as 590 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:01,300 well just have like a whole 591 00:43:02,089 --> 00:43:06,704 whole page, a whole tab dedicated to that right, like layers marketplace and then 592 00:43:07,167 --> 00:43:08,630 layers can take commission or whatever. 593 00:43:08,630 --> 00:43:09,333 well. 594 00:43:10,750 --> 00:43:11,649 What do you mean? 595 00:43:11,762 --> 00:43:21,188 like assets like for sale or you know like you can specifically you can sort of sort 596 00:43:21,188 --> 00:43:25,151 throughout all your layers you could sort out like ah these are the things that are 597 00:43:25,151 --> 00:43:28,793 made for sale or like this is the thing these are the things you can purchase 598 00:43:29,243 --> 00:43:31,305 Yeah you can have your own little shop right. 599 00:43:33,387 --> 00:43:38,071 Yeah and then those would obviously take a cut. 600 00:43:38,472 --> 00:43:43,016 I didn't realize that the commission that some of these marketplaces are taking is 601 00:43:43,016 --> 00:43:44,257 so high these days. 602 00:43:44,257 --> 00:43:46,879 Do you know? 603 00:43:47,580 --> 00:43:52,584 Have you ever sold on a marketplace like a digital resource marketplace? 604 00:43:53,535 --> 00:43:54,276 so. 605 00:43:54,375 --> 00:43:57,304 It's like up to 50% or something ridiculous. 606 00:43:58,947 --> 00:44:00,207 That's ludicrous. 607 00:44:00,328 --> 00:44:09,135 But I think my experience with those types of things is mostly with Stripe. 608 00:44:10,577 --> 00:44:12,798 So Stripe takes a cut. 609 00:44:13,019 --> 00:44:18,464 And of course, when the sums go up, the cut gets bigger and bigger and bigger as 610 00:44:18,464 --> 00:44:20,306 you process the transaction. 611 00:44:20,306 --> 00:44:25,149 So lately I've been looking at it, at the Stripe transactions and going like. 612 00:44:25,758 --> 00:44:26,760 Like yeah, I get it. 613 00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:32,671 It's very comfortable for the client to pay by a card Super super easy and I love 614 00:44:32,671 --> 00:44:35,965 it for them fuck like stripe 615 00:44:35,965 --> 00:44:39,947 Do you not have a, do you not have whys in Estonia? 616 00:44:40,214 --> 00:44:42,958 This is great, it was made by Estonians. 617 00:44:43,359 --> 00:44:44,661 How dare you? 618 00:44:48,489 --> 00:44:51,333 Yeah, Wise was founded by two Estonians. 619 00:44:51,749 --> 00:44:52,710 my naivety. 620 00:44:52,710 --> 00:44:56,714 But I thought the whole point of WISE was much less fees, no? 621 00:44:56,855 --> 00:44:59,178 Or it's just bank transfers, there's no... 622 00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:01,340 yeah. 623 00:45:01,691 --> 00:45:03,333 It's not paying by card. 624 00:45:04,770 --> 00:45:11,364 Yeah, but surely most companies these days are used to bank transfers, or are they 625 00:45:11,364 --> 00:45:11,984 not? 626 00:45:12,414 --> 00:45:17,237 yes, but card is so much comfortable, so much more comfortable, especially like if 627 00:45:17,237 --> 00:45:24,462 you have a car saved in like in your browser and stuff like that, super easy. 628 00:45:24,462 --> 00:45:31,146 Bank transfers, when I think about making a bank transfer myself, I always, I go to 629 00:45:31,146 --> 00:45:37,249 ridiculous extents to not do a transfer and find a way to pay by a card. 630 00:45:39,053 --> 00:45:43,455 Yeah, I mean, it's a little more convoluted, but it still doesn't take that 631 00:45:43,455 --> 00:45:43,876 long. 632 00:45:43,876 --> 00:45:45,156 Like I did one the other day. 633 00:45:45,156 --> 00:45:49,039 It took less than, it took less than, took less than like two minutes. 634 00:45:49,039 --> 00:45:54,402 Like I had to create a new, I had to create a new, a new person. 635 00:45:54,402 --> 00:45:58,404 So you put the eye ban in and, and that's it. 636 00:45:58,687 --> 00:46:04,750 but I also like when you give me a payment link by card, like I know all of the 637 00:46:04,750 --> 00:46:09,192 correct details are being inserted correctly. 638 00:46:09,453 --> 00:46:14,336 With bank transfers, there's always like a go and double check everything five times, 639 00:46:14,336 --> 00:46:18,818 make sure I'm sending the right, it's the right name, it's the right I-man, it's the 640 00:46:18,818 --> 00:46:21,140 right Swift, it's the right amount. 641 00:46:21,140 --> 00:46:22,200 There's so much things there. 642 00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:24,701 There's so many places where I can make a mistake there. 643 00:46:26,613 --> 00:46:30,715 Yeah, there was a famous example of that. 644 00:46:30,715 --> 00:46:38,659 I think it was some person at Citibank, if you heard of Citibank, huge bank. 645 00:46:38,659 --> 00:46:44,921 They were tasked to transferring some inordinate amount of money, like 800 646 00:46:44,921 --> 00:46:49,283 million, and they just had to fill in this form and send it to whoever they're 647 00:46:49,283 --> 00:46:51,844 sending it to, and they sent it to the wrong person. 648 00:46:53,978 --> 00:46:55,301 Good lord. 649 00:46:55,536 --> 00:46:59,204 And the person that received it or the company that received it was like, yeah, 650 00:46:59,204 --> 00:47:00,226 we're not sending this back. 651 00:47:00,226 --> 00:47:00,926 Yeah. 652 00:47:01,877 --> 00:47:02,665 Right? 653 00:47:04,950 --> 00:47:05,810 You snooze, you lose. 654 00:47:05,810 --> 00:47:16,373 But like, I don't, there has to be, there has to be some sort of a clause. 655 00:47:16,633 --> 00:47:21,494 Like when the sums go that big, like I understand if you make a mistake within 656 00:47:21,494 --> 00:47:26,696 like 500 euros or 500 pounds, like the bank is not going to waste their time on 657 00:47:26,696 --> 00:47:33,696 trying to untangle this, but 800 million. 658 00:47:33,797 --> 00:47:36,948 Yeah, you'd think that they would just send it back immediately. 659 00:47:37,410 --> 00:47:43,939 But you would also think that they would get the details correctly for 800 million. 660 00:47:44,700 --> 00:47:48,685 You would think that there would be many people double checking that transfer. 661 00:47:49,537 --> 00:47:51,763 Yeah, I don't know. 662 00:47:51,763 --> 00:47:55,552 I mean these catastrophes happen. 663 00:47:57,150 --> 00:47:59,679 It would be good to be on the receiving end of it. 664 00:48:00,905 --> 00:48:04,409 Yeah, but can you imagine being the person that did it though? 665 00:48:04,409 --> 00:48:09,055 God, you'd try and remove that from your memory, right? 666 00:48:09,055 --> 00:48:09,936 Otherwise you just... 667 00:48:09,936 --> 00:48:10,856 oh god. 668 00:48:12,142 --> 00:48:14,610 Yeah, you would not be able to live that down. 669 00:48:14,610 --> 00:48:17,398 Yeah, I lost my company 100 million. 670 00:48:17,777 --> 00:48:20,304 like what you'd been known for. 671 00:48:20,906 --> 00:48:25,889 Yeah, you can't even sue, like, what are you gonna do? 672 00:48:25,889 --> 00:48:27,310 Gonna sue that person? 673 00:48:27,310 --> 00:48:31,292 You're not gonna recover 800 million pounds from that person. 674 00:48:33,033 --> 00:48:33,953 It's done. 675 00:48:34,777 --> 00:48:40,503 I'll have to try and find the link to that, hopefully it is, I think it was 676 00:48:40,503 --> 00:48:42,324 quite a large amount of money like that. 677 00:48:43,118 --> 00:48:43,919 Anyway... 678 00:48:44,153 --> 00:48:45,474 I will put it in the show notes. 679 00:48:45,474 --> 00:48:55,342 But yeah, anyway, we got into this because, yeah, how would you spend money, 680 00:48:55,383 --> 00:49:00,687 well I'll ask you, Ray, how would you spend money on layers to grow it or 681 00:49:00,687 --> 00:49:09,806 maintain it or whatever? 682 00:49:09,907 --> 00:49:17,249 I don't know what the 10 next steps would be for after receiving an investment, but 683 00:49:17,249 --> 00:49:20,290 I would agree with your first couple of steps. 684 00:49:20,290 --> 00:49:21,971 I think those are right steps. 685 00:49:21,971 --> 00:49:29,033 First being hiring somebody, hiring an extra developer, so somebody who helps you 686 00:49:29,033 --> 00:49:30,453 develop the features. 687 00:49:30,453 --> 00:49:31,873 So you get... 688 00:49:31,882 --> 00:49:35,122 more time to run the business and develop the business. 689 00:49:35,683 --> 00:49:40,624 And then the next hire would be again taking something off your plate, which is 690 00:49:40,624 --> 00:49:44,425 growth and handling growth, four layers as well. 691 00:49:45,925 --> 00:49:51,807 So you get more time to come up with the features of some sort. 692 00:49:51,807 --> 00:49:52,547 What sort? 693 00:49:52,547 --> 00:49:54,228 I don't exactly know. 694 00:49:54,688 --> 00:49:56,288 Yeah, a growth hacker. 695 00:49:56,809 --> 00:49:57,409 Right? 696 00:49:57,409 --> 00:50:00,629 So yeah. 697 00:50:02,126 --> 00:50:03,787 I don't, I'm not a marketing person. 698 00:50:03,787 --> 00:50:04,127 I don't know. 699 00:50:04,127 --> 00:50:04,888 Fuck sweet. 700 00:50:04,888 --> 00:50:06,148 Fuck all about marketing. 701 00:50:06,148 --> 00:50:12,632 Uh, but it's clear to me that whatever you've been doing so far has worked. 702 00:50:12,833 --> 00:50:17,836 So I trust your judgment to find that person to continue to do, continue doing 703 00:50:17,836 --> 00:50:18,556 so. 704 00:50:19,036 --> 00:50:21,217 And for the same for development as well. 705 00:50:21,682 --> 00:50:23,985 that's a common thing with a lot of founders. 706 00:50:23,985 --> 00:50:29,351 They're like, Oh, I just want to hire another me, which is very arrogant, and 707 00:50:29,351 --> 00:50:30,572 egotistical. 708 00:50:31,926 --> 00:50:37,051 Well, listen, if it like, without you the product wouldn't be there. 709 00:50:37,351 --> 00:50:39,893 So there's a reason to be egotistical here. 710 00:50:41,049 --> 00:50:43,669 Yeah, to an extent. 711 00:50:43,669 --> 00:50:50,111 But also, I would love a team, but also I don't want a team that just does nothing, 712 00:50:50,111 --> 00:50:55,893 and well, not nothing, but like tasks that aren't real, really crucial. 713 00:50:55,893 --> 00:51:00,354 Like, because you can build features till the clouds come home, right? 714 00:51:00,354 --> 00:51:06,656 You can hire 10, 50 devs and like build every feature known to man, but will that 715 00:51:06,656 --> 00:51:08,416 help in the long run? 716 00:51:09,989 --> 00:51:11,132 Yeah, I guess you don't know. 717 00:51:11,132 --> 00:51:12,174 You don't know. 718 00:51:12,838 --> 00:51:13,839 It's all about expert. 719 00:51:13,839 --> 00:51:18,045 But it sounds like an expensive adventure. 720 00:51:18,045 --> 00:51:24,652 But I don't know if it's a necessary adventure. 721 00:51:24,753 --> 00:51:36,085 you're very wise very wise I keep thinking of that wise meme no 722 00:51:36,186 --> 00:51:38,148 Would it make you feel good? 723 00:51:38,308 --> 00:51:39,490 I think it would make you feel good. 724 00:51:39,490 --> 00:51:42,313 Like, yeah, I've got all these developers helping me. 725 00:51:42,313 --> 00:51:44,615 We're building all these great features. 726 00:51:44,695 --> 00:51:46,557 Does it actually move the needle? 727 00:51:46,557 --> 00:51:49,360 I don't know. 728 00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:50,681 Feels good though. 729 00:51:51,489 --> 00:51:56,332 I don't know that's the thing that's what concerns me like I don't I don't like 730 00:51:56,332 --> 00:52:02,815 wasting cash and like a lot of tech is essentially not wasting cash but that 731 00:52:02,815 --> 00:52:06,236 maybe they would argue it's just research and development like you don't you don't 732 00:52:06,236 --> 00:52:10,738 know what's gonna click you don't know what might work so you work on you work on 733 00:52:10,738 --> 00:52:15,300 loads of features and then the one the one that works you obviously prioritize and 734 00:52:15,300 --> 00:52:16,140 get rid of 735 00:52:16,477 --> 00:52:20,163 the others, which is a good way to work really, because it's kind of what Google 736 00:52:20,163 --> 00:52:23,448 has done throughout the existence. 737 00:52:24,290 --> 00:52:31,041 They've worked on so many things and sunset it like most of them. 738 00:52:31,142 --> 00:52:38,465 Well, to a point where it's a known part of the product ecosystem. 739 00:52:38,566 --> 00:52:42,888 It's like when you buy into the product, whatever the thing is that they've made, 740 00:52:42,888 --> 00:52:48,130 you can almost expect like, ah, let's give it 12 months and then it'll be done. 741 00:52:49,331 --> 00:52:53,673 Which is not a good, I don't think that's a good thing to acquire as a company. 742 00:52:54,993 --> 00:52:55,933 No, no. 743 00:52:55,933 --> 00:52:57,614 So yeah, so there is that. 744 00:52:57,614 --> 00:53:04,158 But yeah, like I said, there's definitely a few features that I'd love to build out 745 00:53:04,158 --> 00:53:11,463 and having an extra dev, an extra pair of hands building those would be incredible. 746 00:53:12,524 --> 00:53:21,236 And especially having maybe another dev as well, just to... 747 00:53:21,337 --> 00:53:28,882 maintain the codebase, the infrastructure, making it super performant and stable. 748 00:53:29,603 --> 00:53:31,043 That would also be incredible. 749 00:53:32,718 --> 00:53:41,946 Do you think, from a development perspective, me speaking, knowing almost 750 00:53:41,946 --> 00:53:48,491 nothing about development, I'm assuming that the next hires, or let's say, the 751 00:53:48,491 --> 00:53:55,157 next steps for the product are going to be more critical because they're going to 752 00:53:55,157 --> 00:54:00,140 happen before a larger scale operation? 753 00:54:01,987 --> 00:54:06,375 it's more important to get the fundamentals right now before things start 754 00:54:06,375 --> 00:54:11,705 breaking later on when you have tons more traffic transport interactions and users. 755 00:54:12,653 --> 00:54:14,353 Yeah, it's a tough one. 756 00:54:14,354 --> 00:54:15,274 It's really a tough one. 757 00:54:15,274 --> 00:54:22,058 Like I don't think any developer ever wants to have to rebuild, basically, start 758 00:54:22,058 --> 00:54:22,819 again. 759 00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,362 And every developer wants to have the best foundations possible. 760 00:54:28,963 --> 00:54:31,124 But at the same time, it's kind of like 761 00:54:32,534 --> 00:54:34,925 What's the cost of those foundations? 762 00:54:36,613 --> 00:54:40,765 Well, it's more like what's the plausibility that you can just predict the 763 00:54:40,765 --> 00:54:43,293 future. 764 00:54:43,293 --> 00:54:44,629 Like, how do you... 765 00:54:44,629 --> 00:54:51,739 make an educated guess in that sense then 766 00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:59,586 The codebase grows in kind of like an agile way and it needs to be flexible in 767 00:54:59,586 --> 00:55:04,890 the regard that whatever the customer wants, you can build that feature. 768 00:55:05,650 --> 00:55:12,695 And that might not be a part of some grand plan, some grand foundation. 769 00:55:14,269 --> 00:55:22,251 which can result in a codebase that's all over the place, but you can still slowly 770 00:55:23,331 --> 00:55:27,172 grow the foundation basically, rather than throwing it out. 771 00:55:27,452 --> 00:55:34,094 I think it's important to continually review and upgrade existing things just so 772 00:55:34,094 --> 00:55:39,596 they don't go too out of date, and I probably need to do that myself actually 773 00:55:39,596 --> 00:55:43,016 because I haven't upgraded a lot of things, because if 774 00:55:43,293 --> 00:55:48,780 like if it ain't broke don't fix it for example, but at the same time, at the same 775 00:55:48,780 --> 00:55:59,855 time that's how things just get really old and tired and less performant in the long 776 00:55:59,855 --> 00:56:00,875 run let's say. 777 00:56:02,047 --> 00:56:02,769 Yeah. 778 00:56:03,873 --> 00:56:12,857 But yeah, it would be good to have a rock solid foundation. 779 00:56:12,997 --> 00:56:14,518 I think there is one there. 780 00:56:15,438 --> 00:56:20,921 But like you say, at a larger scale, who knows if that will be the main foundation, 781 00:56:20,921 --> 00:56:27,024 or whatever this foundation is, this core essence of the codebase. 782 00:56:27,445 --> 00:56:28,245 Okay. 783 00:56:28,646 --> 00:56:34,832 But so but stepping back from that, what like how much do you think you would need 784 00:56:34,993 --> 00:56:36,474 in terms of investments? 785 00:56:36,514 --> 00:56:42,881 Like if you had to put a number like give me a give me an amount of years and amount 786 00:56:42,881 --> 00:56:43,821 of pounds. 787 00:56:45,462 --> 00:56:47,513 Like, make a prediction. 788 00:56:47,869 --> 00:56:49,430 This is what I'm trying to figure out. 789 00:56:49,430 --> 00:56:57,152 If I was to hire a couple of devs, the cost of devs obviously varies globally. 790 00:56:57,152 --> 00:57:07,915 I mean, if I was hiring someone in the US, a decent one might be upwards of 200-300 791 00:57:08,275 --> 00:57:16,244 grand, whereas in Europe it'd probably be a third of that. 792 00:57:16,345 --> 00:57:22,227 maybe further west or further east, sorry, it might be even lesser than that. 793 00:57:22,227 --> 00:57:27,668 So it's like, and I don't necessarily care where they're from, you know, I just want 794 00:57:27,668 --> 00:57:28,908 them to be decent. 795 00:57:30,109 --> 00:57:33,910 But maybe, I don't know, maybe you start with the max and be like, oh yeah, I want 796 00:57:33,910 --> 00:57:40,812 to hire a design engineer, so the market rate, the max is x, so if I have that, 797 00:57:40,812 --> 00:57:43,812 then at least I can, I have 798 00:57:43,973 --> 00:57:49,475 I have that money to find whoever I can, because I've got the market rate. 799 00:57:51,296 --> 00:57:56,998 So, and then, I always had the idea for growth. 800 00:57:57,659 --> 00:58:04,842 I'd want someone to help with just maintaining steady growth in the sense 801 00:58:04,842 --> 00:58:09,404 that, of like targets, reaching targets. 802 00:58:11,017 --> 00:58:14,620 Because I think a lot of people want layers to grow and they want more people 803 00:58:14,620 --> 00:58:16,121 on it so they can like... 804 00:58:17,944 --> 00:58:20,467 I guess people want more reach, right? 805 00:58:20,467 --> 00:58:23,910 I'd like to think people want more connections, but it's probably reach that 806 00:58:23,910 --> 00:58:24,291 they want. 807 00:58:24,291 --> 00:58:27,093 Like a lot of people say... 808 00:58:27,654 --> 00:58:28,916 Yeah, they want an audience. 809 00:58:28,916 --> 00:58:32,399 Yeah, a lot of people say that like, yeah, layers is great, the engagement isn't that 810 00:58:32,399 --> 00:58:35,951 much. 811 00:58:36,052 --> 00:58:36,939 It's smoke. 812 00:58:37,470 --> 00:58:44,373 yeah it's small, it's not gonna be a dribble, a behance overnight. 813 00:58:44,494 --> 00:58:57,281 It took them 10 years to do that, but I would like someone to be able to manage 814 00:58:57,281 --> 00:59:02,264 that, and just basically set specific goals, like monthly goals, to try and 815 00:59:02,264 --> 00:59:03,044 reach. 816 00:59:04,409 --> 00:59:13,833 and one angle to take is SEO and just making sure layers is optimized for search 817 00:59:13,833 --> 00:59:19,195 engines because otherwise you're just missing out on people trying to find 818 00:59:19,195 --> 00:59:27,298 things right I think layers already has one side of it which is good word of mouth 819 00:59:27,298 --> 00:59:32,160 like people like the product they want to share it they're already telling people 820 00:59:32,160 --> 00:59:33,160 about it 821 00:59:33,740 --> 00:59:34,001 Yeah. 822 00:59:34,001 --> 00:59:41,065 So it's how do you get the people that don't know another person two or three 823 00:59:41,065 --> 00:59:43,427 times removed that is on it, right? 824 00:59:43,767 --> 00:59:46,889 If they're like 10 times removed, how do you get those people? 825 00:59:47,149 --> 00:59:53,854 So the main source for a lot of traffic is still search engines. 826 00:59:54,094 --> 01:00:00,699 So just giving yourself that chance, layers the chance to appear in the search 827 01:00:00,699 --> 01:00:03,800 results is, 828 01:00:04,013 --> 01:00:09,776 I think worth an investment because you can also just do paid ads, which I've 829 01:00:09,776 --> 01:00:11,637 actually started trying. 830 01:00:12,157 --> 01:00:19,321 Because yeah, you get a lot of services offering free credits. 831 01:00:20,582 --> 01:00:25,025 So that's kind of why I just jumped on them just to try and get the free credits. 832 01:00:25,025 --> 01:00:33,756 Like X, for example, for a verified organization. 833 01:00:33,857 --> 01:00:40,238 an obscene amount, I think like 200 bucks a month, but currently you get the same 834 01:00:40,238 --> 01:00:42,719 amount in ad credits. 835 01:00:42,839 --> 01:00:47,480 So it's essentially like you're just buying ads plus the benefits of the 836 01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:51,342 verified organization, which I haven't necessarily measured, but I'd like to 837 01:00:51,342 --> 01:00:53,362 think maybe it gives you a bit more reach. 838 01:00:55,363 --> 01:00:57,143 But I think the ads definitely do. 839 01:00:57,443 --> 01:01:00,704 The ads give you more reach and I've just been using the ads to promote. 840 01:01:02,725 --> 01:01:09,008 layers posts, so like anyone's work that we feature, if it's doing well, I'll boost 841 01:01:09,008 --> 01:01:14,711 it up and then I'll boost like, I'll boost the behind the mask interviews. 842 01:01:15,032 --> 01:01:17,553 So yeah, there's that. 843 01:01:17,553 --> 01:01:23,397 And then recently just started trying Reddit as well, ads on Reddit, because 844 01:01:23,397 --> 01:01:29,440 they also offer a free, I think it's either 100, 100. 845 01:01:30,545 --> 01:01:34,949 dollars or two hundred dollars free credits if you spend a hundred quid so I'm 846 01:01:34,949 --> 01:01:39,112 like why not might as well try it so 847 01:01:39,222 --> 01:01:50,090 because really to me, in the context of design or tech, it almost feels like a 848 01:01:50,090 --> 01:01:53,792 separate kind of an organization like Layers already. 849 01:01:53,792 --> 01:01:58,516 People sharing what they make and people commenting on it and uploading it. 850 01:01:58,516 --> 01:02:02,558 There's already a community aspect there. 851 01:02:03,179 --> 01:02:06,954 So I'm interested in how those would... 852 01:02:06,954 --> 01:02:10,721 perform or how those would do on Reddit, those ads. 853 01:02:12,954 --> 01:02:14,234 Yeah exactly, same. 854 01:02:14,434 --> 01:02:21,238 There's a few big subreddits there, like Rdesign and Rwebdesign and RgraphicDesign, 855 01:02:21,238 --> 01:02:27,542 which there's millions of people on, but you don't really know how active they are. 856 01:02:27,542 --> 01:02:29,262 I don't think they are that active. 857 01:02:31,184 --> 01:02:35,206 But it's more just getting the word out there, you know? 858 01:02:35,206 --> 01:02:40,322 It doesn't... 859 01:02:40,533 --> 01:02:44,634 someone that just browses reddit regularly and is looking for a design community but 860 01:02:44,634 --> 01:02:49,315 doesn't know where to find one, it's like oh I browse reddit but it's dead. 861 01:02:50,536 --> 01:02:55,478 I'm a bit fed up of Behance or Dribbble or whatever, is there another one? 862 01:02:55,478 --> 01:03:02,160 And up appears layers and they're like eww what's this? 863 01:03:03,889 --> 01:03:05,893 And no more waitlists, so... 864 01:03:06,596 --> 01:03:07,697 Fire away! 865 01:03:10,770 --> 01:03:16,771 Yeah so yeah that's where I would invest some money initially. 866 01:03:17,172 --> 01:03:22,073 Oh and also the other thing was I've always wanted to... 867 01:03:23,333 --> 01:03:29,295 I've always wanted the members of layers to somewhat own layers as well. 868 01:03:29,295 --> 01:03:33,496 So the way you can do that would be some sort of crowdfunding, not just 869 01:03:33,496 --> 01:03:35,036 crowdfunding but allowing... 870 01:03:35,453 --> 01:03:39,935 people to buy shares, so kind of like a public company where you can just buy 871 01:03:39,935 --> 01:03:40,815 shares. 872 01:03:41,196 --> 01:03:45,638 You can kind of do the same thing privately, you just need to have a process 873 01:03:45,638 --> 01:03:47,058 that allows it. 874 01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:53,362 And I could do all the research myself, but it would also be good to have just 875 01:03:53,362 --> 01:03:56,984 some general consultation there, making sure I do it right. 876 01:03:59,482 --> 01:04:01,162 It sounds very... 877 01:04:01,482 --> 01:04:04,103 That idea I think sounds very interesting. 878 01:04:04,103 --> 01:04:10,945 And I think that idea comes, at least from my perspective, it comes at the right 879 01:04:10,945 --> 01:04:11,845 time. 880 01:04:12,945 --> 01:04:22,488 When a lot of people are, as you said, fed up, I think, with the status quo or with 881 01:04:22,488 --> 01:04:26,449 certain monopolies, like Tribble or Behance or stuff like that. 882 01:04:28,406 --> 01:04:33,969 people want an alternative and then there's an option to get even more 883 01:04:33,969 --> 01:04:34,869 involved. 884 01:04:34,869 --> 01:04:37,830 Really put your money where your mouth is. 885 01:04:38,311 --> 01:04:39,571 I think it's good. 886 01:04:39,572 --> 01:04:47,196 However, how do you execute this in the most correct, reasonable way so it works 887 01:04:47,196 --> 01:04:47,916 out? 888 01:04:49,817 --> 01:04:52,418 That sounds like a kind of worms to me. 889 01:04:52,899 --> 01:04:57,714 But also I'm not versed in lore or how... 890 01:04:57,714 --> 01:05:00,261 investments or how to do things like this. 891 01:05:00,261 --> 01:05:02,445 So sounds sketchy to me. 892 01:05:03,118 --> 01:05:09,342 but it also just gets very fundamental very quickly, right? 893 01:05:09,342 --> 01:05:13,003 Like what makes a good community. 894 01:05:14,945 --> 01:05:22,069 And I always thought surely the better communities or the best communities would 895 01:05:22,069 --> 01:05:23,710 be owned by its members. 896 01:05:23,710 --> 01:05:25,651 Like I don't think any of them actually are. 897 01:05:25,651 --> 01:05:28,772 Like if you think of the main social medias, they're all privately owned, 898 01:05:28,772 --> 01:05:29,492 right? 899 01:05:29,613 --> 01:05:32,679 Actually, are there any public ones? 900 01:05:32,679 --> 01:05:34,822 I can't remember. 901 01:05:35,283 --> 01:05:35,804 I don't know. 902 01:05:35,804 --> 01:05:39,210 Actually Twitter was public and then Elon bought it right so it went private again. 903 01:05:39,906 --> 01:05:44,794 So he literally wanted, he that's owned by the community. 904 01:05:44,794 --> 01:05:46,015 That's what he did. 905 01:05:46,436 --> 01:05:47,025 He bought it. 906 01:05:47,025 --> 01:05:48,728 Mmm, yep. 907 01:05:49,130 --> 01:05:49,900 Heh, yeah. 908 01:05:49,900 --> 01:05:53,532 it worked out or not, that's still up to be decided, I think. 909 01:05:54,577 --> 01:05:57,824 God that is true actually because it was public and then 910 01:06:00,017 --> 01:06:06,781 Yeah, because anyone could buy any amount of shares he bought, a majority of shares 911 01:06:06,781 --> 01:06:08,282 compared to everyone else. 912 01:06:09,543 --> 01:06:17,809 Yeah, but yeah, I just want layers to be, I don't know, democratic and like people 913 01:06:17,809 --> 01:06:19,810 vote on features and they... 914 01:06:21,872 --> 01:06:27,195 The roadmap or the direction of layers is down to the community itself and not 915 01:06:27,195 --> 01:06:27,996 just... 916 01:06:29,849 --> 01:06:35,157 I mean, I think it's good to have experienced individuals pointing people in 917 01:06:35,157 --> 01:06:36,378 the right direction. 918 01:06:38,262 --> 01:06:40,264 But, dunno. 919 01:06:40,511 --> 01:06:42,952 Yeah, I agree with you. 920 01:06:44,994 --> 01:06:51,977 What I'm in my head, what I'm concerned about is not making it look like it's paid 921 01:06:51,977 --> 01:06:55,139 to win or it's paid to play. 922 01:06:55,139 --> 01:07:06,305 So, let's say you open up the doors for personal investments so people can buy 923 01:07:06,305 --> 01:07:07,185 shares. 924 01:07:07,434 --> 01:07:09,515 What do they get for those shares? 925 01:07:09,515 --> 01:07:10,256 I don't know. 926 01:07:10,256 --> 01:07:16,180 Uh, but let's say there's a, there's an organization, let's say, uh, a large 927 01:07:16,180 --> 01:07:22,083 design studio or a tech company that buys a huge, huge amount of shares. 928 01:07:22,324 --> 01:07:30,109 Does that give them then some sort of this more deciding power or just like, or, or 929 01:07:30,490 --> 01:07:34,272 what it, what it should give them is just an, it's just an option to DM you 930 01:07:34,272 --> 01:07:34,753 directly. 931 01:07:34,753 --> 01:07:35,633 That's it. 932 01:07:37,174 --> 01:07:38,103 That's it. 933 01:07:38,473 --> 01:07:45,240 I think in my head it doesn't give you any more power or voting power. 934 01:07:45,240 --> 01:07:51,226 I think every member should probably just get a share by default, like one share, 935 01:07:51,226 --> 01:07:53,348 and that gives them voting rights. 936 01:07:53,529 --> 01:08:02,696 But buying more shares is more just... 937 01:08:02,797 --> 01:08:05,759 I want to invest in layers because I think it will do well. 938 01:08:05,759 --> 01:08:10,163 I want it to do well and I think I can get a return from it. 939 01:08:10,964 --> 01:08:13,826 I think it should be... 940 01:08:14,687 --> 01:08:19,611 I mean I've not really thought about it a huge amount, but buying more shares would 941 01:08:19,611 --> 01:08:25,875 be more about just believing in layers and wanting a bigger return. 942 01:08:26,336 --> 01:08:31,820 Rather than having the power of deciding the direction of layers. 943 01:08:31,848 --> 01:08:32,029 Yeah. 944 01:08:32,029 --> 01:08:38,515 that should still be a majority voting percentage system. 945 01:08:38,515 --> 01:08:41,076 I mean, which can also be gained. 946 01:08:41,334 --> 01:08:42,694 Yeah, exactly. 947 01:08:42,974 --> 01:08:51,496 I would like, I would put a hard line there to say to say to say that, like all 948 01:08:51,496 --> 01:08:57,498 you can buy shares, you can expect a return on the investment, you can vote on 949 01:08:57,498 --> 01:09:01,619 things that you think like the community things are important. 950 01:09:01,619 --> 01:09:07,281 Whether any of that is actually then brought into action is will be up to you 951 01:09:07,281 --> 01:09:08,641 or people who you 952 01:09:10,254 --> 01:09:13,799 specified to do those things. 953 01:09:13,900 --> 01:09:22,056 I would not trust the community to make the right decisions. 954 01:09:22,157 --> 01:09:25,950 Oh shit, you're not a believer in pure democracy. 955 01:09:25,950 --> 01:09:28,012 Absolutely not. 956 01:09:28,153 --> 01:09:29,855 To an extent, yes. 957 01:09:30,096 --> 01:09:37,106 I think that's the truest way to do things is democracy. 958 01:09:39,545 --> 01:09:45,517 I mean, I kind of agree because democracy voted for Brexit and Trump and stuff like 959 01:09:45,517 --> 01:09:45,778 that. 960 01:09:45,778 --> 01:09:47,959 That was my next example. 961 01:09:48,060 --> 01:09:52,923 You got you fucking got Brexit and you're talking about democracy. 962 01:09:54,024 --> 01:09:57,567 The Americans got Trump and they're not talking about democracy. 963 01:09:57,567 --> 01:10:00,049 So. 964 01:10:00,049 --> 01:10:01,129 Bon Appetit. 965 01:10:02,398 --> 01:10:08,542 someone famous said like whether it was Twain or Winston that democracy is the 966 01:10:08,542 --> 01:10:12,324 worst kind of government but it's better than all the rest 967 01:10:12,658 --> 01:10:14,893 Exactly, exactly, exactly. 968 01:10:14,893 --> 01:10:17,574 only system that we have that's half decent. 969 01:10:18,495 --> 01:10:22,717 But yeah, it'll be an ongoing challenge. 970 01:10:22,717 --> 01:10:28,921 And like, players isn't a flippin' parliamentary house. 971 01:10:28,921 --> 01:10:30,402 It's still just a design platform. 972 01:10:30,402 --> 01:10:35,664 It won't hold much responsibility, but at the same time, you still want to try and 973 01:10:35,664 --> 01:10:42,686 keep it fair and less, try and prevent spam and gaming and that sort of stuff. 974 01:10:42,686 --> 01:10:48,009 but there's a reason why you created the platform, right? 975 01:10:48,009 --> 01:10:49,670 There is a meaning behind this. 976 01:10:49,670 --> 01:10:56,675 There's a, there has to be a meaning in the work. 977 01:10:56,675 --> 01:10:59,736 And you don't want that to go to waste. 978 01:11:01,798 --> 01:11:08,521 To waste that on working on things that are not beneficial for the platform. 979 01:11:09,769 --> 01:11:12,140 Do you know my main reasons? 980 01:11:12,140 --> 01:11:14,770 Do you know my core values for layers? 981 01:11:15,469 --> 01:11:16,963 Please, do explain. 982 01:11:17,573 --> 01:11:18,596 No, do you know them? 983 01:11:18,596 --> 01:11:22,229 I'm just wondering if I've ever made them clear or... 984 01:11:22,229 --> 01:11:26,975 This is this is also something that should go on to the same place where like the 985 01:11:26,975 --> 01:11:28,997 behind the mask and stuff like that. 986 01:11:28,997 --> 01:11:34,403 Not to get into like writing like writing manifestos, but this is something that 987 01:11:34,403 --> 01:11:36,705 should be clear to the community I think. 988 01:11:37,053 --> 01:11:40,134 Well yeah, it should also just be on the about page, right? 989 01:11:40,134 --> 01:11:43,595 I should spend some time creating an about page. 990 01:11:45,616 --> 01:11:50,178 But no, I think the main values I have for layers would be... 991 01:11:52,359 --> 01:11:57,681 I got a bit fed up of all these existing communities and the short-term reward 992 01:11:57,681 --> 01:11:58,801 systems. 993 01:11:59,982 --> 01:12:06,144 So I blurted on about those for a while, just like vanity metrics in general. 994 01:12:06,341 --> 01:12:07,901 I don't think they're good. 995 01:12:08,302 --> 01:12:15,748 I don't think they're bad in some ways, but in the long term I don't necessarily 996 01:12:15,748 --> 01:12:17,150 see a lot of benefits. 997 01:12:17,150 --> 01:12:30,241 So there's a lot of short term focus with these platforms, and I want to see what a 998 01:12:30,241 --> 01:12:31,962 long term focus might look like. 999 01:12:31,962 --> 01:12:33,863 I want to try and invest in... 1000 01:12:35,925 --> 01:12:39,707 long-term connections and relationships, because I think those are way more 1001 01:12:39,707 --> 01:12:42,168 beneficial, and they have been in my life. 1002 01:12:43,769 --> 01:12:51,113 I've received lots of, well arguably, it's all relative likes and views on previous 1003 01:12:51,113 --> 01:12:56,896 platforms in the past, and yeah it's been great back then, but it's more what they 1004 01:12:57,616 --> 01:12:58,897 led to, right? 1005 01:12:59,117 --> 01:13:03,596 The longer term relationships, the people I met through those platforms. 1006 01:13:03,596 --> 01:13:04,264 Yeah. 1007 01:13:06,173 --> 01:13:16,421 just finding a way to focus on those rather than these numbers, which can all 1008 01:13:16,421 --> 01:13:24,568 these short term likes and stuff that kind of go away really quickly, right? 1009 01:13:24,568 --> 01:13:27,991 You receive a like, I was like, oh, awesome, I received a lot of likes, even 1010 01:13:27,991 --> 01:13:31,154 product time, like we see a lot of votes, this is incredible, but the next day 1011 01:13:31,154 --> 01:13:34,969 you're like, I guess I do feel. 1012 01:13:34,969 --> 01:13:39,787 I do feel validated, but in the long run, what's the actual substance? 1013 01:13:40,338 --> 01:13:45,701 Well, I think you're a little bit comparing apples to oranges. 1014 01:13:45,701 --> 01:13:53,747 I feel like having success with a tweet, just a single tweet, and having success 1015 01:13:53,747 --> 01:13:59,791 with a launch on Product Hunt, I think those are two different things. 1016 01:13:59,791 --> 01:14:07,497 I think the Product Hunt launch, yes, it still is just upvoting, but commenting the 1017 01:14:07,497 --> 01:14:08,877 community support. 1018 01:14:08,922 --> 01:14:13,884 having that moment product of the week, product of the day, whatever, I think 1019 01:14:13,884 --> 01:14:20,786 that's much more significant than just a semi-successful tweet, which is very 1020 01:14:21,087 --> 01:14:22,607 ethereal. 1021 01:14:24,388 --> 01:14:27,709 It's an addiction, I think, another healthy one. 1022 01:14:28,617 --> 01:14:30,699 Yes, yes. 1023 01:14:31,140 --> 01:14:36,427 And I think, I think, yeah, so that's, that's one of them. 1024 01:14:36,629 --> 01:14:39,433 Yeah, I think, yeah, that's, that's the main one, I guess. 1025 01:14:39,433 --> 01:14:45,140 It's more, I want layers to focus on long term reward, not short term reward. 1026 01:14:46,346 --> 01:14:52,807 This is some and to stress this, this is exactly the shit you should write about in 1027 01:14:52,807 --> 01:14:54,148 the about page. 1028 01:14:54,628 --> 01:14:57,689 That's exactly what people should understand. 1029 01:14:58,989 --> 01:15:05,971 And that will also nip a lot of comments or feedback in the in the pod. 1030 01:15:06,911 --> 01:15:09,172 Like, why don't I see activity? 1031 01:15:09,172 --> 01:15:10,692 Like, why don't I see my likes? 1032 01:15:10,692 --> 01:15:12,113 Why don't I see my followers? 1033 01:15:12,113 --> 01:15:15,353 Like, why don't I get all of that sort of. 1034 01:15:15,646 --> 01:15:18,450 immediate dopamine that I've been used to. 1035 01:15:18,671 --> 01:15:24,941 There's a deep conceptual reason why you don't see those. 1036 01:15:24,941 --> 01:15:29,826 Unless you're a plus, which is you should get plus if you want to. 1037 01:15:29,826 --> 01:15:38,078 but it's also like I'm not necessarily against those, and the gamification can be 1038 01:15:38,078 --> 01:15:42,589 a lot of fun. 1039 01:15:42,690 --> 01:15:47,761 It's a way of leveraging, but it cannot be the end goal, I think. 1040 01:15:49,261 --> 01:15:54,463 Yeah, because well, like ultimately, like the only winners are the people that are 1041 01:15:54,463 --> 01:16:01,887 good at gaming the system, right, like, and figuring out what gets the most, 1042 01:16:01,967 --> 01:16:04,268 whatever the gamified metric is. 1043 01:16:06,350 --> 01:16:10,272 It's not about actual core values. 1044 01:16:10,272 --> 01:16:16,088 It's just the system. 1045 01:16:16,189 --> 01:16:16,938 So. 1046 01:16:17,466 --> 01:16:25,709 I would like, but it's a, it's a, to me, these two ideas of having, focusing more 1047 01:16:25,709 --> 01:16:33,153 on focusing more on long, let's say long term interactions, but, and communication, 1048 01:16:33,153 --> 01:16:39,935 gamification are two concepts that sound opposite to me a little bit. 1049 01:16:39,995 --> 01:16:44,597 We have gamification, at least typically into this product design context is very 1050 01:16:44,597 --> 01:16:45,314 much. 1051 01:16:45,314 --> 01:16:52,195 They want to get you to the next immediate step, which is like, like for Duolingo, 1052 01:16:52,195 --> 01:16:54,876 for example, is a great example of gamification. 1053 01:16:54,876 --> 01:17:00,878 Um, but I think they also go way, way too far in my opinion. 1054 01:17:00,878 --> 01:17:03,338 So my, I tried to learn Spanish. 1055 01:17:03,338 --> 01:17:08,060 Uh, but now I just hate Duolingo because they keep pestering me. 1056 01:17:09,140 --> 01:17:13,681 And now I specifically don't want to learn Spanish because fucking Duolingo. 1057 01:17:15,711 --> 01:17:16,092 Uh... 1058 01:17:16,092 --> 01:17:20,901 Yeah Duolingo is a great example, it's the most gamified app ever. 1059 01:17:21,034 --> 01:17:28,219 Yeah, it tries to guilt trip me into learning a new language, which maybe works 1060 01:17:28,219 --> 01:17:31,341 on some people, but doesn't work on me. 1061 01:17:32,381 --> 01:17:39,105 I don't think it's as bad because it's not comparing you to other people necessarily. 1062 01:17:39,105 --> 01:17:43,147 It's still just a singular game. 1063 01:17:44,728 --> 01:17:52,981 I think they may have introduced some leaderboards, but yeah. 1064 01:17:53,082 --> 01:17:59,364 So how do you square gamification with long-term rewards? 1065 01:18:00,865 --> 01:18:05,807 Is there, you're not going to introduce a streak counter, you're not going to 1066 01:18:05,807 --> 01:18:09,488 introduce lead rewards. 1067 01:18:09,609 --> 01:18:10,869 What is it? 1068 01:18:10,869 --> 01:18:15,706 How are you going to measure that? 1069 01:18:15,807 --> 01:18:17,491 yes that is the question 1070 01:18:17,994 --> 01:18:22,757 Like is it going to be jobs acquired? 1071 01:18:22,757 --> 01:18:25,459 Is it going to be projects completed? 1072 01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:31,424 Like true interaction, truly true relationship created between clients and 1073 01:18:31,424 --> 01:18:32,404 designers? 1074 01:18:34,893 --> 01:18:41,296 I mean, I guess one milestone is, eventually, I want the community to get to 1075 01:18:41,296 --> 01:18:43,796 a size where people are having meetups, right? 1076 01:18:44,777 --> 01:18:52,320 And I think in real life, meetups are very valuable, and just way more valuable than 1077 01:18:53,901 --> 01:18:55,442 how many likes you have on layers. 1078 01:18:55,442 --> 01:18:58,584 Like you're meeting people, you're getting to know people, you're building a network, 1079 01:18:58,584 --> 01:19:00,124 you're building connections. 1080 01:19:00,610 --> 01:19:01,763 Probably, I think. 1081 01:19:01,763 --> 01:19:04,409 that is going to be far more or can be far more valuable. 1082 01:19:04,409 --> 01:19:07,796 Well, I'd like to think it is I'd like to think it is 1083 01:19:08,110 --> 01:19:10,835 Yeah, that's a very good way to put it. 1084 01:19:10,835 --> 01:19:12,898 I would like to think that it is as well. 1085 01:19:12,898 --> 01:19:14,901 I'm not a meetups person. 1086 01:19:15,342 --> 01:19:21,072 I don't like them personally, but that doesn't mean that I see the value in them 1087 01:19:21,072 --> 01:19:22,493 for other people, I think. 1088 01:19:22,673 --> 01:19:24,076 Hmm. 1089 01:19:24,076 --> 01:19:28,087 Well, but you maybe not in real life meetups, but just remote meetups as well. 1090 01:19:28,087 --> 01:19:29,128 Just online. 1091 01:19:29,334 --> 01:19:29,798 That's true. 1092 01:19:29,798 --> 01:19:30,888 Yeah, that's, that's fine. 1093 01:19:30,888 --> 01:19:31,696 I think. 1094 01:19:31,696 --> 01:19:36,428 Yeah. 1095 01:19:36,529 --> 01:19:44,095 But yeah, anyway, we might be having a guest in the next podcast to talk about 1096 01:19:44,095 --> 01:19:54,403 this a bit more, on how to grow layers and how to just maintain and manage a 1097 01:19:54,403 --> 01:20:03,210 community and try and prevent or how to avoid all the pitfalls that current 1098 01:20:03,210 --> 01:20:05,232 communities have gone through. 1099 01:20:05,414 --> 01:20:06,136 Yeah. 1100 01:20:07,829 --> 01:20:09,533 if that is possible. 1101 01:20:10,337 --> 01:20:11,751 I mean, Les, Les! 1102 01:20:11,751 --> 01:20:12,754 for sure. 1103 01:20:14,309 --> 01:20:20,041 Yeah, there's benefits from being small at the moment, but obviously when you're 1104 01:20:20,041 --> 01:20:22,806 large, the problems grow. 1105 01:20:24,038 --> 01:20:28,882 There's those like, I think there's also a layers are small. 1106 01:20:28,882 --> 01:20:32,204 So it's, so it's easy to cross correct for you, I think. 1107 01:20:32,725 --> 01:20:40,652 Uh, and B, um, there's, I think there's definitely a, uh, an argument of a lesser 1108 01:20:40,652 --> 01:20:41,273 evil. 1109 01:20:41,273 --> 01:20:43,434 Like I really, really don't like. 1110 01:20:43,535 --> 01:20:49,080 Tribble, but I don't particularly like layers, but it's a lesser kind of a, like 1111 01:20:49,080 --> 01:20:51,634 I'm a willing to accept layers as a platform. 1112 01:20:51,634 --> 01:20:54,735 even if I don't like it, because I really don't like Dribbble. 1113 01:20:55,255 --> 01:20:58,716 I think that's like the competition. 1114 01:21:00,797 --> 01:21:07,800 I think that could be an argument that's made, that people are just trying to find 1115 01:21:07,800 --> 01:21:13,402 an alternative and Layers is at the right time in the right place. 1116 01:21:13,402 --> 01:21:16,083 Even though it's a great platform, it's just... 1117 01:21:17,184 --> 01:21:17,984 Yes. 1118 01:21:17,984 --> 01:21:21,305 I think that's what it is right now. 1119 01:21:21,330 --> 01:21:25,513 And that's, I think that's very temporary also, because if you, once it grows, you 1120 01:21:25,513 --> 01:21:29,957 develop, inevitably community problems will develop in some way. 1121 01:21:29,957 --> 01:21:34,461 Not sure which, how that will sort of express itself in layers, but community 1122 01:21:34,461 --> 01:21:35,862 problems will develop. 1123 01:21:36,263 --> 01:21:42,368 And then it will become that sort of like, it will take triples position in being 1124 01:21:42,368 --> 01:21:44,389 the, being the bigger evil. 1125 01:21:45,061 --> 01:21:50,166 guess it doesn't have to grow to its full potential. 1126 01:21:50,166 --> 01:21:58,354 I mean you could keep it small, you could keep it somewhat gate-cubed. 1127 01:21:58,475 --> 01:21:59,787 I mean basically... 1128 01:21:59,787 --> 01:22:05,230 a it's a when you say it out loud, it's a horrible concept, I think. 1129 01:22:06,111 --> 01:22:13,677 You need like, um, implement implementing, yeah, implementing gatekeeping, I think. 1130 01:22:13,898 --> 01:22:20,482 However, there is some sort of I don't know how to do it. 1131 01:22:20,703 --> 01:22:22,084 I'm not the person to do it. 1132 01:22:22,084 --> 01:22:24,545 I shouldn't be even having an opinion on it. 1133 01:22:24,598 --> 01:22:28,787 But how do you maintain some sort of quality in the community? 1134 01:22:28,809 --> 01:22:32,597 Because it's clearly, very clearly not worked out for Dribbble. 1135 01:22:34,777 --> 01:22:35,380 Mmm 1136 01:22:35,442 --> 01:22:36,331 I don't know. 1137 01:22:37,073 --> 01:22:39,233 Hmm. 1138 01:22:39,233 --> 01:22:39,450 Yeah. 1139 01:22:39,450 --> 01:22:40,371 you enforce that? 1140 01:22:40,371 --> 01:22:42,313 Well, I don't know. 1141 01:22:43,856 --> 01:22:45,357 But it will be a problem. 1142 01:22:45,570 --> 01:22:47,735 it's more how do you please everyone, right? 1143 01:22:48,398 --> 01:22:49,039 Like the more... 1144 01:22:49,039 --> 01:22:49,760 on arrival. 1145 01:22:49,760 --> 01:22:53,666 Like you won't be, that's not something you will be able to do. 1146 01:22:53,666 --> 01:22:55,388 Like you can have all the lives you want. 1147 01:22:55,388 --> 01:22:56,850 That's not going to be happening. 1148 01:22:56,850 --> 01:22:59,593 I think there's still people who will be like, nah. 1149 01:23:00,507 --> 01:23:01,336 Mm-mm. 1150 01:23:01,506 --> 01:23:04,068 There's still one free stuff for free. 1151 01:23:06,110 --> 01:23:12,304 There won't be that moment where you please everyone. 1152 01:23:12,405 --> 01:23:18,531 there's so many companies and agencies who have done so well on Dribbble and got so 1153 01:23:18,531 --> 01:23:26,037 many clients and are used to a lot of reach right, but it's just not physically 1154 01:23:26,037 --> 01:23:32,843 possible to split the reach to everyone equally and evenly right. 1155 01:23:32,884 --> 01:23:40,975 yeah, when I have to, when I think about analogy, I would use is like, layers is 1156 01:23:40,975 --> 01:23:44,985 like, like 1157 01:23:45,086 --> 01:23:50,108 like organically grown dribble, like farm grown, like it's not industrialized. 1158 01:23:50,108 --> 01:23:52,689 It's not like a machine of death, right? 1159 01:23:52,689 --> 01:23:56,311 It's sort of like, you know, the farmer, like, you know, where the meat and milk is 1160 01:23:56,311 --> 01:23:57,032 coming from. 1161 01:23:57,032 --> 01:23:59,373 That's how I imagine layers to be. 1162 01:24:01,408 --> 01:24:02,575 How wholesome. 1163 01:24:04,054 --> 01:24:07,676 Well, this is like this is but this is where the community is at, right? 1164 01:24:07,676 --> 01:24:13,279 It's very it's right now is at least it's sort of tight knit somewhat. 1165 01:24:13,379 --> 01:24:15,680 It's growing by word of mouth. 1166 01:24:15,680 --> 01:24:17,001 People like it. 1167 01:24:18,302 --> 01:24:24,765 But it's not reached a tipping point yet where it's just an avalanche of spam and 1168 01:24:24,765 --> 01:24:25,665 garbage. 1169 01:24:25,993 --> 01:24:29,133 Hmm. 1170 01:24:29,133 --> 01:24:41,337 Yeah, I mean, I always saw that as a problem as like feeds, algorithms, and 1171 01:24:41,757 --> 01:24:46,038 making sure people see what they want to see, as opposed to a data problem. 1172 01:24:46,038 --> 01:24:50,259 I mean, you can also fix it with just like trying to keep the community small and 1173 01:24:50,259 --> 01:24:55,320 tighten it and waitlisted and you know, and knowing everyone in the community. 1174 01:24:56,077 --> 01:24:57,538 That's one way of doing it. 1175 01:24:58,079 --> 01:25:02,563 But the other way is having an open tool and just ensuring that people see what 1176 01:25:02,563 --> 01:25:07,006 they want to see. 1177 01:25:07,107 --> 01:25:13,072 By simply getting rid of the recent feed, for example, you can get rid of spam. 1178 01:25:13,072 --> 01:25:15,734 It'll still be there. 1179 01:25:16,054 --> 01:25:17,254 No one will see it. 1180 01:25:17,254 --> 01:25:19,238 Yeah, it'll just cost you... 1181 01:25:19,238 --> 01:25:21,223 It'll cost you hosting. 1182 01:25:21,223 --> 01:25:22,605 That's what it'll do. 1183 01:25:23,845 --> 01:25:26,887 Well, if no one sees it, the cost is minimal. 1184 01:25:27,087 --> 01:25:28,488 The bandwidth is minimal. 1185 01:25:29,349 --> 01:25:32,611 But it does mean, I mean, I have thought about it. 1186 01:25:32,832 --> 01:25:35,994 It does mean that people have to do their own discovery. 1187 01:25:35,994 --> 01:25:41,258 Or you have a separate discovery page, which is more curated, right? 1188 01:25:43,260 --> 01:25:48,645 Which I do kind of like, because it means, well, I do and I don't. 1189 01:25:48,645 --> 01:25:52,068 It means you have to put more effort yourself into discovery. 1190 01:25:52,068 --> 01:25:53,628 Things aren't handed for you. 1191 01:25:54,342 --> 01:25:57,844 This is a yes, it'll be more difficult. 1192 01:25:57,844 --> 01:25:59,805 It won't be spoon fed to you. 1193 01:26:00,446 --> 01:26:03,968 But I feel like there's an interesting, there has to be some sort of an 1194 01:26:03,968 --> 01:26:10,072 interesting way here how to solve it in sort of like a natural way. 1195 01:26:10,072 --> 01:26:16,857 For example, what I have in my head is I follow people on layers who I think whose 1196 01:26:16,857 --> 01:26:18,538 work I think is worthy. 1197 01:26:18,999 --> 01:26:23,269 Worthy is a bad word to use, but it's like, you know, 1198 01:26:23,269 --> 01:26:25,322 Worthy of the great, Rayo! 1199 01:26:26,210 --> 01:26:31,677 of quality that I want to replicate. 1200 01:26:31,677 --> 01:26:33,980 I want to be as good as they are. 1201 01:26:34,281 --> 01:26:35,549 But how do you find them? 1202 01:26:35,549 --> 01:26:37,342 On the recent page or Twitter or what? 1203 01:26:37,342 --> 01:26:38,491 Uhhh 1204 01:26:39,409 --> 01:26:40,679 on the popular page. 1205 01:26:40,690 --> 01:26:42,170 This is a good question. 1206 01:26:43,451 --> 01:26:44,631 Maybe recent. 1207 01:26:45,632 --> 01:26:48,433 But let's say recent goes away. 1208 01:26:48,473 --> 01:26:51,634 So I only see people who I follow right now. 1209 01:26:52,334 --> 01:26:58,857 Now, I would be incredibly interested in the people who those people follow. 1210 01:26:58,857 --> 01:27:08,521 Like the people who I look up to, who do great work, who I want to I'm inspired by. 1211 01:27:08,521 --> 01:27:10,221 Like who are they inspired by? 1212 01:27:10,918 --> 01:27:12,619 Who do they look up to? 1213 01:27:12,680 --> 01:27:14,421 Who are those people they follow? 1214 01:27:14,421 --> 01:27:15,982 I'd be interested in that. 1215 01:27:16,123 --> 01:27:23,289 So having a very, very customized niche understanding. 1216 01:27:23,575 --> 01:27:26,397 I think that's a common, that's common feature, that's a common feature that 1217 01:27:26,397 --> 01:27:27,677 layers should do eventually. 1218 01:27:27,677 --> 01:27:31,040 Like if you go on any social media platform, there's always suggested 1219 01:27:31,040 --> 01:27:32,401 follows, right? 1220 01:27:32,401 --> 01:27:37,098 And that's based on, it's based on who's following your followers, et cetera. 1221 01:27:37,098 --> 01:27:46,265 Yeah, but it's, it's tricky in design because some people would like to only 1222 01:27:46,265 --> 01:27:47,226 follow illustrators. 1223 01:27:47,226 --> 01:27:51,770 Some people would only like to follow web designers or product designers or like 1224 01:27:51,770 --> 01:27:54,572 type people only would want to follow type people. 1225 01:27:54,612 --> 01:28:00,917 And there would be like, like areas that don't match together well, even though, 1226 01:28:00,917 --> 01:28:04,940 yes, I think this, this person's work is great. 1227 01:28:06,602 --> 01:28:12,277 the people they follow are not that actually relevant to me because I'm not 1228 01:28:12,277 --> 01:28:14,261 interested in that specific area. 1229 01:28:14,885 --> 01:28:25,619 Yeah, I think the other problem is you're discouraging people to join the platform 1230 01:28:25,619 --> 01:28:29,044 because they won't be discoverable, right? 1231 01:28:29,044 --> 01:28:30,024 New people. 1232 01:28:30,477 --> 01:28:31,166 Yeah. 1233 01:28:33,470 --> 01:28:35,271 Yes, that's a problem. 1234 01:28:35,571 --> 01:28:41,637 So it would work best if you're transferring a community, right? 1235 01:28:41,637 --> 01:28:46,301 If you already have a community on X or people you follow, people who follow you 1236 01:28:46,301 --> 01:28:51,264 on X, then you create a profile on layers as well, share that on Twitter. 1237 01:28:51,525 --> 01:28:54,967 Then that sort of sparks the growth in some way. 1238 01:28:55,568 --> 01:28:59,151 But starting from scratch, but to be honest, starting from scratch on any 1239 01:28:59,151 --> 01:29:01,933 platform is kind of a, that's a rough deal anyway. 1240 01:29:02,666 --> 01:29:07,881 But it's, it's not going to be easy. 1241 01:29:08,023 --> 01:29:08,604 Yeah. 1242 01:29:08,604 --> 01:29:08,852 So. 1243 01:29:08,852 --> 01:29:14,335 And then the other problem which always annoys me is you amass all these people 1244 01:29:14,335 --> 01:29:18,377 that you follow, but you never review, you never review them. 1245 01:29:19,198 --> 01:29:23,020 So like some, you've some people you've just been following for like five, 10 1246 01:29:23,020 --> 01:29:27,802 years, which you wouldn't even want to follow if you actually saw them in the 1247 01:29:27,802 --> 01:29:30,284 list again, I think. 1248 01:29:31,284 --> 01:29:31,904 No. 1249 01:29:32,140 --> 01:29:37,744 I feel like maybe I have a distorted perspective on this, but I feel like even 1250 01:29:37,864 --> 01:29:43,729 if I've been following for somebody for many years and their work has transformed 1251 01:29:43,729 --> 01:29:48,233 into something that I'm not inherently interested in, I'm not going to unfollow 1252 01:29:48,233 --> 01:29:53,357 them because it's very interesting to see for me how, because I've sort of been 1253 01:29:53,357 --> 01:29:54,758 along for the journey. 1254 01:29:55,599 --> 01:29:59,402 It's very interesting for me to see how they've gone through different... 1255 01:29:59,402 --> 01:30:00,602 different phrases. 1256 01:30:01,563 --> 01:30:07,067 So unless they turn into something that's completely like over some red lines for 1257 01:30:07,067 --> 01:30:11,510 me, I'm not gonna unfold them just because they don't make the work that I want to 1258 01:30:11,510 --> 01:30:12,250 see. 1259 01:30:12,431 --> 01:30:16,013 It's just a different type of thing. 1260 01:30:16,013 --> 01:30:17,133 But that's just me. 1261 01:30:18,705 --> 01:30:28,571 But yeah, basically we're hoping to have a much deeper discussion about this next 1262 01:30:28,571 --> 01:30:29,311 time. 1263 01:30:29,651 --> 01:30:35,234 And it will be our first guest, so yeah, hopefully it goes ahead. 1264 01:30:36,175 --> 01:30:40,297 If it doesn't, we're still hoping to have guests on in the future. 1265 01:30:41,118 --> 01:30:43,459 If you have anyone in mind, just let us know. 1266 01:30:44,040 --> 01:30:44,820 And 1267 01:30:45,521 --> 01:30:47,822 Yeah, I guess we'll call it there. 1268 01:30:47,822 --> 01:30:49,364 It's been an hour and a half. 1269 01:30:49,364 --> 01:30:53,066 So yeah, thanks for listening. 1270 01:30:54,128 --> 01:30:59,772 If you have any questions or feedback for us, for Rayo or I, we've got an email. 1271 01:30:59,772 --> 01:31:03,375 You can just send us an email to overlay at layers.to. 1272 01:31:04,196 --> 01:31:06,238 We're also on Twitter. 1273 01:31:06,238 --> 01:31:11,802 You can just message the layers account or you can message my account, Liam P. 1274 01:31:11,802 --> 01:31:14,944 McCabe or Rayo's account, which is... 1275 01:31:15,649 --> 01:31:17,960 Ray of Rites or next. 1276 01:31:18,873 --> 01:31:23,115 And yeah, Overlay is also available everywhere. 1277 01:31:23,115 --> 01:31:28,397 So whatever podcasting app or service that you use, you should be able to leave a 1278 01:31:28,397 --> 01:31:32,179 rating, a review and subscribe, please do. 1279 01:31:32,179 --> 01:31:33,419 Yeah, it really helps. 1280 01:31:34,920 --> 01:31:40,922 And yeah, we're hoping current schedule is, we put out one every two weeks. 1281 01:31:42,443 --> 01:31:45,264 And yeah, we'll be doing. 1282 01:31:46,589 --> 01:31:49,432 Moving forward I think we'll be doing video as well. 1283 01:31:49,753 --> 01:31:53,137 And actually we didn't even use our screens this time but in the future we're 1284 01:31:53,137 --> 01:32:01,846 probably, we're hoping to just go through layers features directly on the podcast as 1285 01:32:01,846 --> 01:32:06,872 well as I don't know, reviewing layers, that sort of stuff, making use of actual 1286 01:32:06,872 --> 01:32:07,952 screen recording. 1287 01:32:08,075 --> 01:32:08,823 Nice. 1288 01:32:10,109 --> 01:32:11,652 Cool, and that's it. 1289 01:32:12,276 --> 01:32:13,398 Thanks so much guys. 1290 01:32:14,102 --> 01:32:14,842 Ciao. 1291 01:32:15,426 --> 01:32:16,287 See you later.