1 00:00:00,130 --> 00:00:03,487 Even if it was out of our control and we had to just walk away and we didn't 2 00:00:03,497 --> 00:00:06,537 have time to, to land the plane softly. 3 00:00:07,177 --> 00:00:11,007 I think that's the wonderful thing about Muse and its architecture is 4 00:00:11,077 --> 00:00:14,597 everyone still would have been able to use Muse and still would have 5 00:00:14,597 --> 00:00:17,337 had access to all of their data and everything still would have worked. 6 00:00:17,777 --> 00:00:21,857 Even if the sync engine had gone offline, it wouldn't have been ideal, 7 00:00:22,047 --> 00:00:26,117 but that's the wonderful thing about local-first in the architecture we 8 00:00:26,117 --> 00:00:32,612 chose is the The kind of the worst case was actually still pretty good. 9 00:00:34,006 --> 00:00:36,206 Welcome to the localfirst.fm podcast. 10 00:00:36,596 --> 00:00:39,346 I'm your host, Johannes Schickling, and I'm a web developer, a 11 00:00:39,346 --> 00:00:42,516 startup founder, and love the craft of software engineering. 12 00:00:42,806 --> 00:00:46,726 For the past few years, I've been on a journey to build a modern, high quality 13 00:00:46,726 --> 00:00:48,476 music app using web technologies. 14 00:00:48,946 --> 00:00:52,896 And in doing so, I've been falling down the rabbit hole of local-first software. 15 00:00:53,406 --> 00:00:56,416 This podcast is your invitation to join me on that journey. 16 00:00:56,970 --> 00:00:59,550 In this episode, I'm speaking to Adam Wulf. 17 00:00:59,930 --> 00:01:03,960 The engineer and solopreneur behind Muse, a local-first 18 00:01:04,050 --> 00:01:05,720 canvas based tool for thought. 19 00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:10,480 In this conversation, we talk about the evolution of Muse as a product, 20 00:01:10,690 --> 00:01:15,080 company, and the people who made it, reflecting on the joys and struggles 21 00:01:15,290 --> 00:01:17,350 of building software as a team of one. 22 00:01:17,686 --> 00:01:20,886 Later, we're diving deep into topics such as analytics and 23 00:01:20,886 --> 00:01:22,736 distribution of a local-first app. 24 00:01:23,171 --> 00:01:27,771 Before getting started, also a big thank you to Convex and Electric 25 00:01:27,771 --> 00:01:29,661 SQL for supporting this podcast. 26 00:01:30,171 --> 00:01:31,951 And now my interview with Adam. 27 00:01:33,259 --> 00:01:35,429 Hey Adam, so nice to have you on the show. 28 00:01:35,439 --> 00:01:36,139 How are you doing? 29 00:01:36,844 --> 00:01:38,044 Johannes, really good. 30 00:01:38,194 --> 00:01:39,024 thanks for having me. 31 00:01:39,064 --> 00:01:40,911 I'm thrilled to be here, frankly. 32 00:01:41,122 --> 00:01:45,733 I had you on the backlog list for this podcast for a long, long, long time. 33 00:01:46,093 --> 00:01:52,603 And frankly, without you and another Adam Wiggins and Mark from the co founding team 34 00:01:52,643 --> 00:01:57,413 of Muse, this podcast probably wouldn't exist because the MetaMuse podcast 35 00:01:57,663 --> 00:01:59,753 has been a huge inspiration for me. 36 00:01:59,973 --> 00:02:01,363 I've learned so much about it. 37 00:02:01,593 --> 00:02:02,653 I'm still a bit bummed. 38 00:02:02,788 --> 00:02:05,078 That is currently on pause. 39 00:02:05,088 --> 00:02:09,008 Hopefully it's coming back at some point, but I wanted to dig 40 00:02:09,048 --> 00:02:10,828 deeper into all things local-first. 41 00:02:10,848 --> 00:02:15,258 This is why I've started this podcast roughly a year ago, and now I'm super, 42 00:02:15,258 --> 00:02:17,678 super excited to welcome you and the show. 43 00:02:17,768 --> 00:02:21,388 So for those who are listening, who don't know who you are, would 44 00:02:21,388 --> 00:02:22,818 you mind giving a background? 45 00:02:24,228 --> 00:02:25,698 Yeah, I'm Adam Wolf. 46 00:02:25,808 --> 00:02:27,988 one of the early members of the Muse team. 47 00:02:28,468 --> 00:02:32,661 I think number five, it was Adam and Mark, Julia and Lennart. 48 00:02:32,851 --> 00:02:36,354 And then I came on board, almost five years ago now, gosh. 49 00:02:36,488 --> 00:02:39,411 so it's been quite, quite a long journey, with Muse. 50 00:02:39,451 --> 00:02:42,561 And then of course, I've been solo for a bit over a year now. 51 00:02:42,571 --> 00:02:47,241 We can, we can get into all those details, but I've been a developer, 52 00:02:47,471 --> 00:02:49,331 an entrepreneur my entire career. 53 00:02:49,441 --> 00:02:49,941 So. 54 00:02:50,711 --> 00:02:55,254 Early in my career, I started on the web, co founded a web calendar startup, 55 00:02:55,338 --> 00:02:57,138 right before Google Calendar launched. 56 00:02:58,038 --> 00:03:05,301 And then, worked in enterprise software for a while, lived in Portland, Oregon, 57 00:03:05,371 --> 00:03:10,211 which I loved, the Pacific Northwest, in the States is absolutely beautiful. 58 00:03:10,541 --> 00:03:13,181 after that adventure, moved back to Texas, worked with 59 00:03:13,751 --> 00:03:15,401 Flexbits for quite a long time. 60 00:03:15,624 --> 00:03:19,981 I don't know if many of your listeners use, Fantastical, but it's 61 00:03:19,981 --> 00:03:21,841 a wonderful calendar app on the Mac. 62 00:03:21,851 --> 00:03:25,581 So I worked with them for, I think, five or six years. 63 00:03:26,073 --> 00:03:29,926 which was wonderful until Muse and then, jumped in on the Muse train 64 00:03:30,006 --> 00:03:33,616 and have been here ever since and I've, yeah, I've been loving it. 65 00:03:34,226 --> 00:03:36,853 Yeah, boy, I mean, already 5 years. 66 00:03:36,893 --> 00:03:41,073 I remember when I was sitting down with Adam Wiggins and he's been telling 67 00:03:41,073 --> 00:03:45,343 me about this idea for, for Muse and he showed me some first prototypes 68 00:03:45,763 --> 00:03:51,581 and, I was blown away by, like, We're just coming along at this point. 69 00:03:51,591 --> 00:03:53,721 And I think there wasn't really, there wasn't really 70 00:03:53,721 --> 00:03:55,651 the killer app for iPads yet. 71 00:03:56,061 --> 00:04:01,694 And, I remember how, like almost obsessed Adam was at this point with 72 00:04:01,694 --> 00:04:03,624 like, just trying to like use the pen. 73 00:04:03,624 --> 00:04:09,299 And I was like aware of the existence of the iPad pen, but for the metum for the. 74 00:04:09,439 --> 00:04:11,739 The Muse app, this is where it really clicked for me. 75 00:04:11,739 --> 00:04:14,359 Oh, like this meeting, this, this makes so much sense. 76 00:04:14,829 --> 00:04:17,046 And, yeah, that was five years ago. 77 00:04:17,086 --> 00:04:20,646 And since then Muse has gone through quite the journey. 78 00:04:21,046 --> 00:04:26,343 So, without going too much into it myself, maybe you want to walk us through, what 79 00:04:26,353 --> 00:04:30,383 did the last five years look like on a high level through the chapters of Muse? 80 00:04:30,903 --> 00:04:31,283 Yeah. 81 00:04:31,353 --> 00:04:31,713 Yeah. 82 00:04:32,119 --> 00:04:36,049 so Muse is now on version three, I think in some ways. 83 00:04:36,314 --> 00:04:39,434 You could chop it up into Muse 1, Muse 2 and Muse 3. 84 00:04:40,654 --> 00:04:43,704 Muse 1 was, iPad only. 85 00:04:44,284 --> 00:04:51,444 It was, local-first in a very direct way because there was no sync at all. 86 00:04:51,484 --> 00:04:54,104 All of your data just lived on the iPad and that was it. 87 00:04:54,354 --> 00:04:57,034 so it was just you and your iPad and your local data. 88 00:04:57,144 --> 00:04:58,884 It was just a private thinking space. 89 00:05:00,174 --> 00:05:05,564 Muse 2, we spent a lot of time building the sync engine, which it still runs on. 90 00:05:06,104 --> 00:05:13,444 And then that brought in Muse for Mac and still with the local-first roots. 91 00:05:13,444 --> 00:05:16,654 So all of the data lives on the Mac, all of the data lives on the iPad. 92 00:05:16,654 --> 00:05:20,008 And then our Sync server, helps keep those in in track together. 93 00:05:20,918 --> 00:05:28,964 And then Muse three, which we launched, in late 2024, was collaboration. 94 00:05:29,114 --> 00:05:33,584 And so still local-first, but now not only could you sync with all your devices, but 95 00:05:33,584 --> 00:05:37,654 you could start sharing and collaborating with other people in real time as well. 96 00:05:38,409 --> 00:05:40,929 And so those are the big pieces. 97 00:05:41,203 --> 00:05:45,476 since I live in the code, I often think of the chapters of Muse in that way. 98 00:05:46,086 --> 00:05:49,176 Like, how did the code change over those chapters? 99 00:05:49,626 --> 00:05:52,006 That's not the only thing that changed really, right? 100 00:05:52,056 --> 00:05:54,396 There's also like the people behind the code. 101 00:05:54,406 --> 00:05:55,806 Yes, exactly right. 102 00:05:55,806 --> 00:05:57,166 What are the chapters there? 103 00:05:57,666 --> 00:05:58,476 Exactly right. 104 00:05:58,713 --> 00:06:01,933 so I believe the very first chapter predated me. 105 00:06:01,943 --> 00:06:03,333 It was Mark. 106 00:06:03,648 --> 00:06:09,128 Adam and Julia were the three founding members at Ink & Switch, and it 107 00:06:09,128 --> 00:06:12,248 started there as a research project. 108 00:06:13,818 --> 00:06:16,678 And then after they decided, Hey, I think this has legs. 109 00:06:16,708 --> 00:06:18,278 Let's try and productize this. 110 00:06:18,278 --> 00:06:22,488 Let's pull this out and really make a go for it is when Lennart 111 00:06:22,508 --> 00:06:24,731 joined the team, as the designer. 112 00:06:25,251 --> 00:06:28,541 And so he came in, it was the four of them. 113 00:06:29,151 --> 00:06:32,801 I want to say Lennart was there maybe three to six months 114 00:06:32,831 --> 00:06:35,221 before they reached out to me. 115 00:06:35,498 --> 00:06:36,658 Might've been there a bit longer. 116 00:06:37,151 --> 00:06:39,878 I came in, gosh, 2020. 117 00:06:40,658 --> 00:06:42,748 everyone remembers that year and nobody wants to. 118 00:06:43,654 --> 00:06:46,734 so it was, it was right as the lockdowns were starting, right. 119 00:06:46,734 --> 00:06:48,434 As everything was, was going on. 120 00:06:49,101 --> 00:06:49,671 it was funny. 121 00:06:49,671 --> 00:06:55,111 I've, I've worked remotely for gosh, 15 years now, something like that. 122 00:06:55,781 --> 00:07:01,181 And so, Of course, everything changed in 2020, but, working 123 00:07:01,181 --> 00:07:05,441 remotely for an all remote team was a very natural thing for me. 124 00:07:05,531 --> 00:07:11,088 And so, it was a wonderful, distraction from the current events, of course, 125 00:07:11,324 --> 00:07:14,864 but it was just a wonderful team and a wonderful way to work after that. 126 00:07:14,864 --> 00:07:18,464 We brought in a couple new folks. 127 00:07:18,956 --> 00:07:24,139 Linda came in and Henry came in, Linda came in as a storyteller, to really 128 00:07:24,149 --> 00:07:29,946 help Adam, especially on the, the marketing side, kind of the web content 129 00:07:29,946 --> 00:07:36,573 side, she did lots for the website and helping tell the story of Muse and 130 00:07:36,583 --> 00:07:38,263 bring the story of Muse to more people. 131 00:07:38,563 --> 00:07:43,319 She did a lot on the, with the video and with YouTube and, really great work there. 132 00:07:43,319 --> 00:07:43,859 That was. 133 00:07:44,324 --> 00:07:45,874 essential, I think, for Muse. 134 00:07:46,374 --> 00:07:52,581 And then Henry came on at an important time, building the, the Go server, which 135 00:07:52,591 --> 00:07:55,311 is the backbone of the sync engine. 136 00:07:55,821 --> 00:07:59,261 So he and Mark really carried the load on the server. 137 00:08:00,801 --> 00:08:01,451 Building that 138 00:08:01,798 --> 00:08:07,601 and I think it's worth noting that at that point, Muse, unlike the way how it 139 00:08:07,631 --> 00:08:12,021 operates today, at this point, it was really more like a traditional startup 140 00:08:12,031 --> 00:08:17,121 where, they, they brought in venture funding to build up that team and to 141 00:08:17,121 --> 00:08:21,461 get this off the ground before there was a product that had revenue, et cetera. 142 00:08:21,481 --> 00:08:25,231 So that was the foundation that this was even possible to 143 00:08:25,231 --> 00:08:26,441 bring on all of those people. 144 00:08:26,441 --> 00:08:26,671 Right. 145 00:08:27,371 --> 00:08:28,111 Yes, that's right. 146 00:08:28,391 --> 00:08:28,711 Yeah. 147 00:08:28,731 --> 00:08:30,664 I think I'm trying to remember. 148 00:08:30,944 --> 00:08:31,914 I don't remember the numbers. 149 00:08:31,914 --> 00:08:35,971 So don't ask me how much, how much we raised, but we did raise from, quite a few 150 00:08:35,981 --> 00:08:41,284 angels, Adam and Mark, at the beginning, brought in a significant portion. 151 00:08:41,474 --> 00:08:44,764 I think even by the end, they were the primary investors. 152 00:08:45,593 --> 00:08:51,093 But it was that investment money that let us grow that team and, build from, 153 00:08:51,123 --> 00:08:54,963 from scratch, which is gosh, one of the hardest things about building any 154 00:08:54,973 --> 00:09:00,093 new software product is either you don't have any investment and then 155 00:09:00,093 --> 00:09:04,223 it's just you working alone in your garage, trying as hard as you can, 156 00:09:04,263 --> 00:09:06,123 going as fast as you can, which is often 157 00:09:06,183 --> 00:09:07,093 what I'm doing right now. 158 00:09:07,123 --> 00:09:09,263 Not necessarily in a garage, but still, yeah, 159 00:09:09,873 --> 00:09:10,853 yeah, exactly. 160 00:09:10,853 --> 00:09:11,903 I think lots of people do that. 161 00:09:11,923 --> 00:09:13,763 I've done that quite a few times in my career. 162 00:09:14,253 --> 00:09:19,676 And, A lot can come from it, but of course, your, your velocity, you know, 163 00:09:19,676 --> 00:09:23,946 the speed at which you can develop is constraint with time and money. 164 00:09:24,443 --> 00:09:27,793 and so having, having those investors early on was a huge 165 00:09:27,793 --> 00:09:30,303 help to be able to grow the team and get that vision out there. 166 00:09:30,978 --> 00:09:33,198 Of Muse within those first few years 167 00:09:34,014 --> 00:09:39,644 and to kind of foreshadow already the next second big chapter in Muse's 168 00:09:39,644 --> 00:09:45,408 history at some point, Muse, the founding team, et cetera, including 169 00:09:45,408 --> 00:09:48,438 you made some pretty big changes. 170 00:09:48,508 --> 00:09:50,158 So tell me more about that. 171 00:09:51,508 --> 00:09:56,008 So it was, mid to late 2023, I think actually this whole time, 172 00:09:56,008 --> 00:09:57,018 as I've been talking, I've. 173 00:09:57,398 --> 00:09:58,568 I've had my years backwards. 174 00:09:59,258 --> 00:10:01,698 So it's 2023 when this is happening. 175 00:10:01,698 --> 00:10:03,168 Not 2024. 176 00:10:03,168 --> 00:10:06,661 2024 was, after all of this, it was mid to late 2023. 177 00:10:06,681 --> 00:10:11,244 We realized, this is not able to sustain the team. 178 00:10:11,804 --> 00:10:13,724 And so what are we going to do? 179 00:10:14,624 --> 00:10:16,054 there's a couple of different options. 180 00:10:16,314 --> 00:10:18,144 the obvious one is. 181 00:10:19,074 --> 00:10:19,694 Peace out. 182 00:10:20,474 --> 00:10:21,194 We enjoyed it. 183 00:10:21,614 --> 00:10:26,534 The whole thing shuts down and the lights turn off and good luck to everybody. 184 00:10:27,504 --> 00:10:29,164 We, we didn't want to do that. 185 00:10:29,371 --> 00:10:31,341 we know we love the app. 186 00:10:31,341 --> 00:10:34,491 We'd love to be able to continue using it, even if we just had to use it offline. 187 00:10:34,501 --> 00:10:39,171 But we wanted to at least a graceful way for all of the existing users 188 00:10:39,171 --> 00:10:41,441 to either continue using the app. 189 00:10:42,031 --> 00:10:44,991 And at the very least, like table stakes was. 190 00:10:46,071 --> 00:10:53,801 Muse is local-first, the entire purpose and premise is, is having local access 191 00:10:53,801 --> 00:10:55,231 to your data and protecting your data. 192 00:10:55,231 --> 00:10:58,921 And we want to make sure that that continues regardless of what 193 00:10:58,921 --> 00:11:01,711 happens to the app on the App Store and all the other things. 194 00:11:01,721 --> 00:11:04,598 How can we make sure that, people still have all of the 195 00:11:04,778 --> 00:11:06,058 wonderful work that they've put in 196 00:11:07,038 --> 00:11:12,324 exactly and to just, draw like one bridge to, last year's Local-First Conf, 197 00:11:12,554 --> 00:11:14,704 where Martin Klepman gave the keynote. 198 00:11:14,964 --> 00:11:16,894 I'm not sure whether you've seen the keynote. 199 00:11:17,001 --> 00:11:20,121 and I highly recommend anyone who's listening to check it 200 00:11:20,141 --> 00:11:21,171 out if they didn't see it. 201 00:11:21,466 --> 00:11:26,156 But he was pointing to one aspect of local-first, which he calls, 202 00:11:26,509 --> 00:11:28,369 our incredible journey proof. 203 00:11:29,009 --> 00:11:34,266 So since for a lot of ambitious startups, at some point, the lights go out and 204 00:11:34,266 --> 00:11:38,216 there's a last block post that comes along with it, which is our incredible 205 00:11:38,246 --> 00:11:42,696 journey, either being acquired by company X and the product gets shut down or 206 00:11:42,716 --> 00:11:44,596 product just gets shut down like that. 207 00:11:45,166 --> 00:11:45,746 And. 208 00:11:46,031 --> 00:11:51,261 Martin framed it as such that local-first apps should be in our incredible journey 209 00:11:51,281 --> 00:11:54,471 proof, which is a very nice way to put it. 210 00:11:54,521 --> 00:11:58,281 And I think that's exactly the bar that you've just meant that 211 00:11:58,291 --> 00:12:01,981 you've motivated that you want to hold yourself accountable to. 212 00:12:02,494 --> 00:12:03,634 Exactly, exactly. 213 00:12:03,634 --> 00:12:05,779 And I think even if, you know. 214 00:12:06,819 --> 00:12:10,176 Even if it was out of our control and we had to just walk away and we didn't 215 00:12:10,186 --> 00:12:13,226 have time to, to land the plane softly. 216 00:12:13,866 --> 00:12:17,696 I think that's the wonderful thing about Muse and its architecture is 217 00:12:17,766 --> 00:12:21,286 everyone still would have been able to use Muse and still would have 218 00:12:21,286 --> 00:12:24,026 had access to all of their data and everything still would have worked. 219 00:12:24,466 --> 00:12:28,546 Even if the sync engine had gone offline, it wouldn't have been ideal, 220 00:12:28,736 --> 00:12:32,806 but that's the wonderful thing about local-first in the architecture we 221 00:12:32,806 --> 00:12:39,301 chose is the The kind of the worst case was actually still pretty good. 222 00:12:40,184 --> 00:12:41,744 The worst case was actually still pretty good. 223 00:12:41,774 --> 00:12:47,101 And it was way better than kind of the usual, startup company that disappears. 224 00:12:48,161 --> 00:12:50,821 But we really talked about, okay, how, how can we actually do even better? 225 00:12:50,821 --> 00:12:52,271 How can we land this plane softly? 226 00:12:52,581 --> 00:12:54,721 How can we make sure that everyone gets the data they need? 227 00:12:55,231 --> 00:13:00,474 We could, spend the last few months building export tools and integration 228 00:13:00,474 --> 00:13:02,504 tools to help people get their data out. 229 00:13:02,824 --> 00:13:05,164 Before the server shuts down. 230 00:13:05,688 --> 00:13:09,378 and I offered and said, I'm entrepreneurial. 231 00:13:09,398 --> 00:13:10,808 I've done this sort of thing a lot. 232 00:13:11,128 --> 00:13:15,318 I know we haven't been able to build legs enough to carry the whole team, 233 00:13:15,858 --> 00:13:20,928 but I think that as a single person, I can keep this alive and I can 234 00:13:20,928 --> 00:13:24,328 keep this, I can keep carrying that torch and keep carrying that dream. 235 00:13:24,821 --> 00:13:26,361 so I put, I put my name in the hat. 236 00:13:26,641 --> 00:13:27,281 We. 237 00:13:27,673 --> 00:13:31,049 kept looking, we looked, we talked with, some potential acquirers. 238 00:13:31,089 --> 00:13:33,419 We talked with, of course, Ink & Switch. 239 00:13:33,826 --> 00:13:36,409 we tried lots of different things. 240 00:13:36,449 --> 00:13:43,083 Adam Wiggins has a blog post that really talks through, the whole story of Muse 241 00:13:43,083 --> 00:13:45,243 and especially that last chapter of Muse. 242 00:13:45,243 --> 00:13:48,563 So if people haven't read that, you can look, find that on his website too. 243 00:13:49,066 --> 00:13:51,499 and so, the team talked and. 244 00:13:52,264 --> 00:13:53,444 That's what we decided to do. 245 00:13:53,444 --> 00:13:55,954 We decided to say, hey, if there's a chance that we can keep this thing 246 00:13:55,954 --> 00:14:01,814 alive, then yeah, let's, let's find a way to, to be able to hand it over to, 247 00:14:02,044 --> 00:14:04,494 to me, to try and keep carrying forward. 248 00:14:04,504 --> 00:14:07,928 And so, the official transition date. 249 00:14:08,408 --> 00:14:11,618 was early October 2023. 250 00:14:11,958 --> 00:14:13,128 I got the year right this time. 251 00:14:13,858 --> 00:14:16,148 So, yeah, about 15, 16 months ago. 252 00:14:16,148 --> 00:14:19,818 So it's been, it's been a long time and I was thinking just recently, 253 00:14:19,818 --> 00:14:23,008 like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe it's been over a year already. 254 00:14:23,571 --> 00:14:27,268 but yeah, I've been, it went from a team of 7 to a team of. 255 00:14:27,498 --> 00:14:33,424 Just me, that, that early October and, that was a transition. 256 00:14:33,434 --> 00:14:34,314 I can tell you that. 257 00:14:34,844 --> 00:14:38,424 That was, it was, it was rough for all sorts of reasons. 258 00:14:39,301 --> 00:14:44,921 I think it's super fascinating because this has given Muse a second life 259 00:14:45,481 --> 00:14:50,764 and a second life that, I really haven't heard of other startups, 260 00:14:50,794 --> 00:14:53,014 products, et cetera, who've. 261 00:14:53,259 --> 00:14:54,899 been on a similar path. 262 00:14:55,143 --> 00:15:00,983 I thought about it in a way where the initial joint team effort, the 263 00:15:00,993 --> 00:15:07,163 investment resources, et cetera, has kind of gotten Muse into escape velocity 264 00:15:07,473 --> 00:15:10,086 and on some sort of, trajectory. 265 00:15:10,411 --> 00:15:15,558 That now, that you're out in outer space where you need less resources 266 00:15:15,558 --> 00:15:17,958 to just keep, keep on the path. 267 00:15:18,461 --> 00:15:20,151 now you can keep going by yourself. 268 00:15:20,181 --> 00:15:23,421 That's obviously not something that can be easily repeated 269 00:15:23,781 --> 00:15:28,954 since typically the intention of investment is to make a big multiple. 270 00:15:29,569 --> 00:15:33,139 And I think that might be no longer the assumed path for yourself. 271 00:15:33,379 --> 00:15:36,219 So, I think you're now in a much more sustainable path. 272 00:15:36,669 --> 00:15:39,863 So, in a way that gave you a unique opportunity. 273 00:15:40,183 --> 00:15:44,475 So, I'm, I'm curious, what were the most surprising things for you over the 274 00:15:44,475 --> 00:15:47,335 last year or so since that transition? 275 00:15:47,926 --> 00:15:49,006 Man, so many things. 276 00:15:49,016 --> 00:15:53,370 It has been, such a wonderful year and such an incredibly tough year. 277 00:15:53,510 --> 00:15:58,476 And I think there's so many things throughout the entire five years 278 00:15:58,486 --> 00:16:01,246 that I can look at and really enjoy. 279 00:16:01,316 --> 00:16:06,091 And the older I get, the more I realize that You know, life has chapters and 280 00:16:06,091 --> 00:16:09,431 that there are moments in time and then those, you know, enjoy them or you don't. 281 00:16:09,471 --> 00:16:10,641 And then the moment is gone. 282 00:16:11,831 --> 00:16:18,588 And so I, I look back and, the early years with the team was amazing. 283 00:16:18,765 --> 00:16:22,751 the Muse team by far has been the best group of folks I've ever worked with. 284 00:16:22,925 --> 00:16:27,468 just an incredible team in terms of just the people, but also the 285 00:16:27,468 --> 00:16:31,895 interesting technical, problems that we all over came together and, 286 00:16:32,348 --> 00:16:38,858 Transitioning from that very supportive team, and just very efficient team. 287 00:16:38,868 --> 00:16:40,718 We worked, we worked really well together. 288 00:16:40,718 --> 00:16:43,986 we made decisions well together and we moved forward together. 289 00:16:43,986 --> 00:16:50,776 Well, to suddenly be solo was, it was a tough transition And, kind of 290 00:16:50,776 --> 00:16:56,070 to use that metaphor where, because it's local-first, and because we're 291 00:16:56,745 --> 00:16:58,285 You know, a small scrappy team. 292 00:16:58,285 --> 00:17:01,435 We're not, you know, professional house builders that build 293 00:17:02,045 --> 00:17:03,855 neighborhoods every week. 294 00:17:04,255 --> 00:17:06,025 Like, we're a bespoke house builder. 295 00:17:06,985 --> 00:17:10,285 And so then, we've built this wonderful house, and then 296 00:17:10,285 --> 00:17:11,505 the rest of the team leaves. 297 00:17:12,205 --> 00:17:17,478 And, I suddenly have to find out, like, huh, why, why is that pipe knocking? 298 00:17:17,498 --> 00:17:19,328 Or, oh, there's this weird leak over here. 299 00:17:19,358 --> 00:17:21,198 Or, huh, yeah, I forgot. 300 00:17:21,198 --> 00:17:23,028 I do need to vacuum this room once a week. 301 00:17:23,028 --> 00:17:26,878 Or, you know, like, I I don't know where the metaphor ends, but you see 302 00:17:26,878 --> 00:17:31,028 where I'm going there's, it used to be able to be maintained and, and held 303 00:17:31,028 --> 00:17:33,828 up by the team of seven that we were. 304 00:17:34,498 --> 00:17:38,738 And then suddenly to be holding it all by myself, because this happened 305 00:17:38,738 --> 00:17:41,278 right at the time we launched Muse 3. 306 00:17:41,278 --> 00:17:46,638 So right as collaboration changed, that came with a pretty 307 00:17:46,638 --> 00:17:48,328 sizable database migration. 308 00:17:48,838 --> 00:17:55,228 For users where the local corpus, the local database they had on 309 00:17:55,228 --> 00:18:00,538 their devices needed to be migrated as well as their synced data on 310 00:18:00,538 --> 00:18:01,888 the server needs to be migrated. 311 00:18:01,888 --> 00:18:07,318 So there are lots of new moving parts and any big new release comes with. 312 00:18:07,978 --> 00:18:09,568 You know, exciting new bugs. 313 00:18:10,124 --> 00:18:16,037 that, that was by far the, one of the hardest transitions ever was, everyone 314 00:18:16,047 --> 00:18:20,227 packed it up really nicely and handed me the box and said, good luck out there. 315 00:18:20,792 --> 00:18:24,061 but then suddenly to be standing there holding the box with all the stuff and 316 00:18:24,061 --> 00:18:29,161 realizing, okay, like, I've got to do this, you know, I've got to hold on. 317 00:18:29,161 --> 00:18:32,157 And so it was, it was a big transition those first few months. 318 00:18:32,819 --> 00:18:37,812 Lots of support tickets, lots of code, lots of bug fixes and all the usual 319 00:18:37,812 --> 00:18:42,872 suspects, in terms of a big new release, none of the bugs were huge or terrible. 320 00:18:42,902 --> 00:18:44,612 It was just lots of little bitty things 321 00:18:44,956 --> 00:18:49,666 and typically Just after launch, this is where you have increased everything. 322 00:18:49,676 --> 00:18:52,422 Like you have increased bugs, bug reports. 323 00:18:52,442 --> 00:18:57,802 You have increased messages that you need to respond to increased public 324 00:18:58,042 --> 00:19:03,182 things that you need to comment on, like make sure to leverage the 325 00:19:03,192 --> 00:19:07,562 positive buzz, et cetera, respond to more critical things, et cetera. 326 00:19:07,572 --> 00:19:08,822 And that would have been hard enough. 327 00:19:09,207 --> 00:19:14,021 To pull off, with, the full house, but now you've got to take on like all of 328 00:19:14,021 --> 00:19:16,667 those increased, issues by yourself. 329 00:19:17,027 --> 00:19:21,137 So hats off to, to having, obviously having gone through that. 330 00:19:21,484 --> 00:19:21,934 Yeah. 331 00:19:22,014 --> 00:19:22,254 Yeah. 332 00:19:22,254 --> 00:19:22,674 Thanks. 333 00:19:22,674 --> 00:19:27,684 And, I mean, hats off to the team as well for, for helping that transition 334 00:19:27,684 --> 00:19:31,524 because every single one of them knew that this was the process, you know, that 335 00:19:31,524 --> 00:19:34,194 last month, that last two months and. 336 00:19:35,204 --> 00:19:39,814 Everyone put in a tremendous amount of work to help that transition go smoothly. 337 00:19:39,884 --> 00:19:46,224 And so I owe, so much to their work through that transition. 338 00:19:46,581 --> 00:19:47,621 to make that possible. 339 00:19:47,681 --> 00:19:48,701 I mean, it was huge. 340 00:19:48,701 --> 00:19:50,441 It couldn't have been done literally by just me. 341 00:19:50,451 --> 00:19:54,701 It was the team that helped that transition go through and. 342 00:19:55,711 --> 00:19:58,341 Yeah, it was, but it was a, yeah, it was a tough spot because of course, 343 00:19:58,341 --> 00:20:03,203 there's a huge, a huge blog announcement of "Muse is closing", but not really. 344 00:20:03,203 --> 00:20:04,411 We're not closing. 345 00:20:04,671 --> 00:20:06,441 By the way, here's a giant new release. 346 00:20:06,801 --> 00:20:09,381 By the way, here's a bunch of new press and here's a bunch of new 347 00:20:09,451 --> 00:20:12,391 users and feedback and questions and all that kind of stuff. 348 00:20:12,431 --> 00:20:13,641 And so, yeah, it was. 349 00:20:13,811 --> 00:20:19,841 It was a lot to, reply to all of those things and fix the bugs and try and 350 00:20:20,224 --> 00:20:22,394 prioritize as, as best as I could. 351 00:20:22,934 --> 00:20:27,994 So, like you say that that's a, that was a long and big transition, but I think 352 00:20:28,044 --> 00:20:33,884 now you seem to have made it quite cozy for yourself in that, new old house. 353 00:20:34,164 --> 00:20:39,317 so how did you go about just making things sustainable for yourself where 354 00:20:39,317 --> 00:20:44,192 I think you just need to Come to grips to like a new kind of pace and cadence 355 00:20:44,442 --> 00:20:46,332 for what is a realistic roadmap? 356 00:20:46,642 --> 00:20:52,742 How do you slice and dice your week into, this is the time I allocate to support. 357 00:20:52,942 --> 00:20:55,372 This is the time I allocate to marketing. 358 00:20:55,372 --> 00:20:58,432 This time I allocate to bugs. 359 00:20:58,566 --> 00:21:03,216 sometimes just unexpected things happen and you might be suddenly 360 00:21:03,346 --> 00:21:05,816 facing a bug that is really critical. 361 00:21:06,056 --> 00:21:09,306 But might be like of the shape of three weeks. 362 00:21:09,586 --> 00:21:11,616 how did you handle those sort of situations? 363 00:21:12,052 --> 00:21:20,586 Yeah, I think, I think the biggest change was as a team, we were fighting for scale. 364 00:21:21,019 --> 00:21:28,069 And so the biggest thing that we needed to do was find large numbers of people. 365 00:21:28,654 --> 00:21:32,551 That fit Muse, so that we could grow revenue dramatically. 366 00:21:32,921 --> 00:21:37,807 So that means the kinds of things that we're focused on are broadly 367 00:21:37,807 --> 00:21:42,214 speaking, of course, new outreach, new features, of course, we said like 368 00:21:42,214 --> 00:21:47,974 the majority of 2023 was focused on teams and that was in collaboration. 369 00:21:48,414 --> 00:21:51,454 And that was because that gave us an entirely new customer segment. 370 00:21:51,854 --> 00:21:56,681 That we could potentially go after everything has trade offs and so in, 371 00:21:57,611 --> 00:22:02,367 in reaching for those new, customer segments, we're building new features, 372 00:22:02,940 --> 00:22:10,137 which necessarily means that time spent on bug fixes or small improvements or 373 00:22:10,137 --> 00:22:15,161 small tweaks, things like that, are second place to the big new features 374 00:22:16,371 --> 00:22:18,001 because the big new features bring in. 375 00:22:18,693 --> 00:22:24,334 A bigger quantity of new people than the incremental smaller fixes would. 376 00:22:25,071 --> 00:22:30,301 That I think is the biggest thing that has changed because then going solo, I 377 00:22:30,301 --> 00:22:36,221 don't, I don't have the resources to try and reach for enormous new audiences. 378 00:22:36,711 --> 00:22:41,871 The most important thing to me going solo is, okay, I built this house. 379 00:22:41,901 --> 00:22:43,741 Let me make sure everyone's happy living here. 380 00:22:43,801 --> 00:22:45,821 Let me make sure all of the current customers are happy. 381 00:22:46,224 --> 00:22:46,944 the. 382 00:22:47,559 --> 00:22:52,059 Kind of professional user, the solo user who kind of thinks 383 00:22:52,069 --> 00:22:53,979 privately and deep thinks in Muse. 384 00:22:55,459 --> 00:23:00,109 That's their, their cozy place to kind of retreat to and think through. 385 00:23:00,629 --> 00:23:01,849 That's my core customer. 386 00:23:01,899 --> 00:23:03,769 I don't need to expand beyond that. 387 00:23:04,289 --> 00:23:11,062 And so the big shift was, then focusing on, okay, let me take every time a 388 00:23:11,062 --> 00:23:16,522 support ticket comes in, that's a priority because as a single person, 389 00:23:17,112 --> 00:23:19,102 I don't have near as much time. 390 00:23:19,574 --> 00:23:21,224 To handle support tickets. 391 00:23:21,234 --> 00:23:26,864 What was a very low percentage of support time for seven people became a very 392 00:23:26,864 --> 00:23:29,104 high percentage for one person, right? 393 00:23:29,374 --> 00:23:33,954 And so, so as a single person, I can't, I just can't dedicate that 394 00:23:33,954 --> 00:23:39,247 much time to support, which means I needed to prioritize all of those 395 00:23:39,257 --> 00:23:41,627 little things that people would. 396 00:23:42,062 --> 00:23:46,292 email in about, man, I can't even think of them now, but you know, just small little 397 00:23:46,292 --> 00:23:49,902 like, huh, isn't it weird that when I tap over here, this other thing lights up. 398 00:23:50,062 --> 00:23:51,372 Can we just not have that happen? 399 00:23:51,752 --> 00:23:55,192 And that's been a bug that's been there for three or four years, but kind of 400 00:23:55,192 --> 00:23:58,212 doesn't matter because it's just a little thing and people work around it. 401 00:23:58,539 --> 00:23:58,979 But. 402 00:23:59,214 --> 00:24:02,834 When it's a, you know, a little burr on the edge, when it's, when it's just a 403 00:24:02,844 --> 00:24:08,235 little rough area that kind of collects support tickets, that's what I focused 404 00:24:08,245 --> 00:24:11,875 my attention on those first few months was, okay, how can I smooth out all of 405 00:24:11,875 --> 00:24:18,844 these edges that we had known about, but we're never the priority of the 406 00:24:18,844 --> 00:24:23,776 team because as a team, we were focused on the bigger sustainability question. 407 00:24:24,014 --> 00:24:27,964 And now that that big sustainability question had essentially been answered, 408 00:24:28,324 --> 00:24:31,664 that's what I needed to focus on was all of the small little tasks. 409 00:24:31,664 --> 00:24:34,674 And so, you know, card alignment was one. 410 00:24:34,724 --> 00:24:37,882 And so now there's a little keyboard command to just, shift 411 00:24:37,902 --> 00:24:39,622 cards and into card alignment. 412 00:24:39,702 --> 00:24:41,542 Um, a few. 413 00:24:41,802 --> 00:24:46,432 You know, small little bugs with selection or with the way of the cards worked or, 414 00:24:46,693 --> 00:24:52,604 one that, that I, put out, I don't know, relatively recently was, links to apps, 415 00:24:52,634 --> 00:24:54,444 app links, as opposed to web links. 416 00:24:54,574 --> 00:24:59,679 So there's a handful of other apps that quite a few folks use with Muse that have. 417 00:25:00,069 --> 00:25:03,189 Local app links, and they'd like to be able to drag those in and create cards. 418 00:25:03,374 --> 00:25:08,384 And so smoothing out the URL card, the link card flow in Muse to better support, 419 00:25:08,466 --> 00:25:09,914 various things, things like that, right? 420 00:25:09,924 --> 00:25:14,702 Like it's taken individually, no one would notice them, but then taken collectively, 421 00:25:14,702 --> 00:25:18,422 it actually makes a significant impact on the support load, which then frees 422 00:25:18,422 --> 00:25:21,132 up a bunch of time to say, okay, now, now what do I want to think about? 423 00:25:21,582 --> 00:25:22,732 What's the next big step, 424 00:25:23,268 --> 00:25:25,278 but that makes so much sense to me. 425 00:25:25,318 --> 00:25:29,408 And just to reflect on this also a little bit in regards to, to my 426 00:25:29,408 --> 00:25:34,017 personal journey, working on Overtone and working on, on Livestore. 427 00:25:34,367 --> 00:25:37,763 I also didn't have the luxury to work on all of this, kind of 428 00:25:37,913 --> 00:25:41,592 in parallel with, distributing the work across an entire team. 429 00:25:42,112 --> 00:25:43,822 I think of myself as single threaded. 430 00:25:44,912 --> 00:25:47,502 I need to work on things sequentially. 431 00:25:47,572 --> 00:25:51,772 And the longer I'm working on one thing, the more I'm starving another thing. 432 00:25:51,772 --> 00:25:55,682 So I need to be like very, very careful of what I'm putting my 433 00:25:55,682 --> 00:25:57,392 effort on and what I'm taking on. 434 00:25:57,892 --> 00:25:59,905 And, also, if. 435 00:26:00,170 --> 00:26:04,310 What I'm working on, if my attention is sort of like a bucket, if there's 436 00:26:04,310 --> 00:26:08,090 like, if there are holes in it, and every time I'm trying to do something, 437 00:26:08,090 --> 00:26:12,370 but it's constantly dragging me down, I need to plug those holes first, since 438 00:26:12,410 --> 00:26:16,760 it's not just hurting maybe someone else who has a bad time using this, but I'm 439 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,930 also having a bad time and one thing I've really noticed about myself is 440 00:26:20,930 --> 00:26:26,550 like, I really need to, prioritize for my own velocity and my own happiness. 441 00:26:26,780 --> 00:26:30,960 Working on this only with that, I can build momentum and keep the energy up 442 00:26:30,970 --> 00:26:35,596 since I think that's probably also, something that, you've experienced 443 00:26:35,616 --> 00:26:37,906 going from a team to working solo. 444 00:26:37,936 --> 00:26:43,626 Like a team provides sure, like, sometimes a team can be, there can be some things 445 00:26:43,626 --> 00:26:47,620 that, take energy away from you, but a good team and you had a fabulous team. 446 00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:52,340 Gives you so much energy and now you need to, be sort of like on 447 00:26:52,531 --> 00:26:57,166 subsistence, economy for like, you need to, make sure that you bring 448 00:26:57,166 --> 00:27:01,976 in your own energy and anything that erodes that energy is so critical. 449 00:27:02,521 --> 00:27:07,208 So, yeah, I have a huge amount of admiration for like, how you've been 450 00:27:07,208 --> 00:27:11,871 able to, to go, and what you've been mentioning in terms of maybe you didn't 451 00:27:11,871 --> 00:27:17,151 for the longer time work on some bigger parts, but just making all of those, 452 00:27:17,161 --> 00:27:21,456 you already had a big part done in the past as the foundation of Muse. 453 00:27:21,660 --> 00:27:27,360 And now working on like making everything smooth, ironing out the little kinks. 454 00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:32,053 And I think that's the best case scenario for Muse users because 455 00:27:32,053 --> 00:27:33,273 now things are getting better. 456 00:27:33,333 --> 00:27:37,203 It's already in a shape that as a Muse user, that's what I wanted. 457 00:27:37,723 --> 00:27:41,910 And, I think also one of the biggest, question marks of like, 458 00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:45,320 is this app going to go away long term has also been answered. 459 00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,653 So I think Muse, as long as it's sustainable for you, I 460 00:27:48,653 --> 00:27:53,130 think it's a fantastic outcome for, a product like Muse. 461 00:27:53,140 --> 00:27:54,990 So I'm, I'm very happy about that. 462 00:27:55,196 --> 00:27:56,046 Yeah, exactly. 463 00:27:56,046 --> 00:27:57,646 I think you've summed it up perfectly. 464 00:27:57,734 --> 00:27:58,864 it's as much about. 465 00:27:59,829 --> 00:28:04,516 Muse the business, of course, and to make sure that that stays sustainable, but. 466 00:28:04,661 --> 00:28:06,081 It has to be sustainable. 467 00:28:06,341 --> 00:28:08,491 for me as a single person as well. 468 00:28:08,541 --> 00:28:13,764 And so prioritizing which of the holes in the bucket do I need to prioritize 469 00:28:14,284 --> 00:28:17,664 for my own sanity sake, regardless of what everyone else needs, right? 470 00:28:17,694 --> 00:28:20,574 It's just either taking up too much of my time or it's too much of a drain. 471 00:28:20,981 --> 00:28:23,101 the community has been wonderful. 472 00:28:23,278 --> 00:28:27,496 and, there's a discord community where, lots of the folks chat. 473 00:28:27,526 --> 00:28:28,586 And so they'll bring up. 474 00:28:29,571 --> 00:28:30,821 Some really great ideas. 475 00:28:30,851 --> 00:28:35,111 They've been a wonderful way for me to bounce my own ideas off of to 476 00:28:35,111 --> 00:28:36,481 say, Hey, I'm thinking about this. 477 00:28:36,481 --> 00:28:37,441 What do we think about this? 478 00:28:37,441 --> 00:28:38,991 I've noticed people have asked about this. 479 00:28:39,291 --> 00:28:43,795 because the biggest part for me of losing that team is, losing 480 00:28:43,805 --> 00:28:46,014 the people to talk with right? 481 00:28:46,031 --> 00:28:49,751 Like, when you live on a deserted Island all by yourself, you go crazy. 482 00:28:49,751 --> 00:28:53,121 You need other people to talk with. 483 00:28:53,521 --> 00:28:59,071 And so the community has, has helped fill that role for me in many ways to, to be 484 00:28:59,071 --> 00:29:01,001 the sounding board, which has been great. 485 00:29:01,641 --> 00:29:02,141 And 486 00:29:05,251 --> 00:29:08,251 then prioritizing those gave me my time back. 487 00:29:08,465 --> 00:29:11,975 In terms of the support load, because those are the tickets I prioritize first, 488 00:29:12,535 --> 00:29:17,145 and then I was able to say, okay, now, from the business standpoint, what is 489 00:29:17,145 --> 00:29:23,738 it I need to do for Muse as a business, as opposed to Muse as a customer for 490 00:29:23,738 --> 00:29:29,814 customer support or personally or anything else and this past year, 2024, 491 00:29:30,094 --> 00:29:32,574 I focused on two things primarily. 492 00:29:32,832 --> 00:29:38,245 The first one was Setapp integration, so I don't know if your listeners 493 00:29:38,245 --> 00:29:39,265 are familiar with Setapp. 494 00:29:39,285 --> 00:29:41,555 It is essentially an alternative App Store. 495 00:29:42,175 --> 00:29:48,015 You subscribe for a monthly fee and then for that single monthly 496 00:29:48,015 --> 00:29:51,659 subscription, you get access to everything in their library, every app. 497 00:29:51,659 --> 00:29:54,349 So Muse is now one of those apps. 498 00:29:54,599 --> 00:29:59,215 And the way that's, that's Setapp, I don't want to get into the weeds about 499 00:29:59,215 --> 00:30:03,505 the, how they manage the business and revenue share and all that kind of stuff. 500 00:30:03,505 --> 00:30:07,075 But the point is, is out of that monthly subscription, it is revenue 501 00:30:07,075 --> 00:30:11,315 shared with the applications that that user actually uses. 502 00:30:11,855 --> 00:30:15,412 And so if they change what they use months, month to month, the 503 00:30:15,422 --> 00:30:17,362 revenue share changes month to month. 504 00:30:18,102 --> 00:30:20,712 And so it feels fair to you as the app creator. 505 00:30:21,477 --> 00:30:25,437 Yeah, so it's fair to me as the app creator because I get paid based on usage. 506 00:30:26,050 --> 00:30:29,200 it's also fair based on kind of the type of app. 507 00:30:29,790 --> 00:30:31,640 And so what would be. 508 00:30:32,170 --> 00:30:38,404 A 99 cents a year menu bar app in the App Store, takes a smaller share than Muse, 509 00:30:38,424 --> 00:30:40,967 which is a significant, subscription. 510 00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:47,000 And so it's fair, both for time spent and for, the revenue split. 511 00:30:47,367 --> 00:30:47,977 Which is great. 512 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:54,177 And so that has been wonderful because it has brought in an entirely new wave 513 00:30:54,207 --> 00:31:01,307 of subscribers who would otherwise never purchase a subscription because 514 00:31:01,307 --> 00:31:04,767 they're on Setapp specifically because they don't like subscriptions. 515 00:31:05,417 --> 00:31:09,292 So they're going to have one to Setapp and use everything inside of Setapp 516 00:31:09,312 --> 00:31:14,702 instead of having 7 or 10 or 12 on the App Store that they manage individually. 517 00:31:15,722 --> 00:31:18,982 And then similarly, the people that do have individual subscriptions are 518 00:31:18,982 --> 00:31:22,232 typically not the people that are going to have a Setapp subscription. 519 00:31:22,282 --> 00:31:25,662 And so it's really, you know, the Venn diagram has very little 520 00:31:25,662 --> 00:31:28,635 overlap, which, brought in a. 521 00:31:29,045 --> 00:31:32,075 completely new segment of customers, which was helpful. 522 00:31:32,562 --> 00:31:38,622 Where do you, yourself fall into this Venn diagram and how did you arrive at that? 523 00:31:38,692 --> 00:31:43,569 This is integrating with Setapp actually deserves to be like on 524 00:31:43,569 --> 00:31:46,929 your roadmap for a given year, since there's only so many things you can do. 525 00:31:46,929 --> 00:31:50,289 So choosing your priorities is really, really important. 526 00:31:50,419 --> 00:31:54,395 How did you arrive at, prioritizing working on a Setapp integration? 527 00:31:54,995 --> 00:32:00,712 Yeah, it was an important piece because so throughout the life of Muse, the early 528 00:32:00,712 --> 00:32:07,512 years revenue grew and then that last probably year and a half revenue declined. 529 00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:13,520 and so as I took Muse over solo revenues, declining month over month. 530 00:32:13,904 --> 00:32:18,144 And so every time I'd wake up on the first of a month, I would have less 531 00:32:18,144 --> 00:32:19,584 money coming in than the month before. 532 00:32:20,494 --> 00:32:20,814 Right. 533 00:32:21,247 --> 00:32:26,490 which is fine in the short term, but obviously like everyone knows 534 00:32:26,490 --> 00:32:28,410 where the, where the slope intersect. 535 00:32:28,677 --> 00:32:30,517 hits the zero axis. 536 00:32:31,117 --> 00:32:35,047 So that that was a big priority was okay. 537 00:32:35,047 --> 00:32:39,637 How can I, how can I change this trajectory? 538 00:32:40,510 --> 00:32:41,840 it needs to not be going down. 539 00:32:42,570 --> 00:32:49,007 And so focused on, new revenue and new customers was a very important. 540 00:32:49,307 --> 00:32:50,697 Piece of solving that. 541 00:32:51,497 --> 00:32:57,180 And that has been, really my guiding principle over the past year was out of 542 00:32:57,190 --> 00:33:04,110 all of the App Store users, how can I. You know, take a very kind of traditional 543 00:33:04,380 --> 00:33:07,430 product management approach and measure. 544 00:33:08,490 --> 00:33:10,910 I get this many people from App Store browse. 545 00:33:10,990 --> 00:33:13,330 I get this many people on the product page in the App Store. 546 00:33:13,390 --> 00:33:14,530 I get this many downloads. 547 00:33:14,570 --> 00:33:16,550 I get this many people putting their email address in. 548 00:33:16,620 --> 00:33:17,590 I get this right. 549 00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,620 Like you can go down the entire, the entire funnel. 550 00:33:21,205 --> 00:33:24,922 And where people getting stuck, where is it confusing? 551 00:33:24,922 --> 00:33:27,822 Where's the biggest drop off between people who think, oh, yeah, maybe 552 00:33:27,822 --> 00:33:29,682 I'll get this thing Muse a try. 553 00:33:29,782 --> 00:33:30,552 Oh, it looks neat. 554 00:33:31,192 --> 00:33:34,132 And then sometime later they go, eh, no, thanks. 555 00:33:34,352 --> 00:33:34,562 Right? 556 00:33:34,792 --> 00:33:35,822 Like, why did, why did they go? 557 00:33:35,822 --> 00:33:36,392 No, thanks. 558 00:33:36,422 --> 00:33:37,742 Like, what, what was the miss? 559 00:33:38,172 --> 00:33:43,022 So I focused a lot on, that on what's called the bottom of the funnel. 560 00:33:43,347 --> 00:33:47,077 So after they download, after they log in, what is that first time user experience? 561 00:33:47,127 --> 00:33:50,207 And there's still quite a bit more that I'm, I'm still focused on there. 562 00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:55,670 And the other thing I worked on this past year was Setapp, which was top of the 563 00:33:55,670 --> 00:34:01,090 funnel, bringing in a completely new pile of users that had otherwise essentially 564 00:34:01,090 --> 00:34:04,580 not had access to Muse because they would never use it on the App Store. 565 00:34:05,035 --> 00:34:10,822 And so the combination of those two things has really helped flatten that decline. 566 00:34:10,862 --> 00:34:14,942 And so the Muse revenue over the past year has stopped, declining so 567 00:34:14,942 --> 00:34:18,192 dramatically and has really started to level off, which is important. 568 00:34:18,582 --> 00:34:24,102 So from use going forward over this coming year, the goal, of course, is to 569 00:34:24,262 --> 00:34:28,662 continue that trend and start growing again, start growing that user base. 570 00:34:28,682 --> 00:34:31,959 And that's going to be, more of that same strategy more, of course, 571 00:34:31,959 --> 00:34:32,949 at the bottom of the funnel. 572 00:34:33,374 --> 00:34:35,994 There's lots of things I still want to improve about the first time user 573 00:34:35,994 --> 00:34:42,387 experience, first time onboarding, kind of early customer education with a website. 574 00:34:42,481 --> 00:34:46,330 we used to have a, a wonderful video handbook that showed all of 575 00:34:46,330 --> 00:34:47,970 the fantastic gestures in Muse. 576 00:34:48,254 --> 00:34:51,074 So building something like that again to help, to help new users 577 00:34:51,074 --> 00:34:53,607 become familiar with the very unique. 578 00:34:53,804 --> 00:34:57,497 interactions that Muse has, as well as some things at the top of the funnel 579 00:34:57,497 --> 00:34:59,447 to bring in more, more customers. 580 00:34:59,894 --> 00:35:03,337 but I think holding all of those perspectives in my mind has been one 581 00:35:03,337 --> 00:35:07,327 of the weirdest things and I think is one of the most difficult things about 582 00:35:07,337 --> 00:35:13,134 being a solo entrepreneur because with a team, of course, you can say, okay, 583 00:35:13,454 --> 00:35:17,264 this other person is going to handle, you know, broadly speaking, they're 584 00:35:17,264 --> 00:35:18,334 going to be the marketing person. 585 00:35:18,344 --> 00:35:19,284 They're going to handle the funnel. 586 00:35:19,284 --> 00:35:20,604 They're going to think about partnerships. 587 00:35:20,604 --> 00:35:23,844 They're going to think about content, marketing and social 588 00:35:23,844 --> 00:35:25,024 media and all that kind of stuff. 589 00:35:25,564 --> 00:35:29,684 I get to focus as an engineer on just the sync engine and just a lot of the problems 590 00:35:29,684 --> 00:35:31,544 and just bugs and customer support. 591 00:35:32,134 --> 00:35:35,744 And this other team member gets to write, like, obviously you separate your 592 00:35:35,744 --> 00:35:40,090 concerns, but when you're working on your own, You have all of those concerns 593 00:35:40,090 --> 00:35:43,370 in your head at the same time and a lot of times those compete with each other. 594 00:35:43,681 --> 00:35:46,835 that's been a very, I don't know that there's a correct answer. 595 00:35:46,971 --> 00:35:53,916 I've kind of, come to my, my Zen place and realized that I cannot do it all. 596 00:35:54,336 --> 00:35:55,576 I cannot do what I want. 597 00:35:55,636 --> 00:35:57,276 I don't have enough time to do what I want. 598 00:35:57,816 --> 00:35:59,786 And frankly, I don't have enough time to do what I need. 599 00:36:00,756 --> 00:36:04,566 So it's, you know, I, I can only prioritize as best I can, but 600 00:36:04,566 --> 00:36:08,856 there is way too much on the plate. 601 00:36:09,481 --> 00:36:12,998 And so I, I've just had to accept that, you know, sometimes I'm going 602 00:36:12,998 --> 00:36:15,578 to pick stuff up off the plate and it's going to be a mistake. 603 00:36:16,178 --> 00:36:16,808 Oops. 604 00:36:17,218 --> 00:36:20,748 Let's get back to it and go to the next thing and keep pushing forward and 605 00:36:20,748 --> 00:36:25,851 prioritize as best I can, which, was another kind of realization over this past 606 00:36:25,851 --> 00:36:28,091 year was just the act of prioritizing. 607 00:36:28,276 --> 00:36:31,676 Takes away from the time you have to do right? 608 00:36:32,146 --> 00:36:34,936 And so everything, everything is a trade off. 609 00:36:34,936 --> 00:36:36,666 Deciding what to work on is a trade off. 610 00:36:36,706 --> 00:36:38,076 Working on it is a trade off. 611 00:36:38,076 --> 00:36:39,476 Like you're always giving up something. 612 00:36:39,896 --> 00:36:40,716 that has been. 613 00:36:41,086 --> 00:36:44,606 Easily the hardest, the hardest piece of doing this alone, 614 00:36:44,980 --> 00:36:49,230 there's a few aspects to this that might not be super intuitive unless you've done 615 00:36:49,230 --> 00:36:55,390 them, which is if you are so far, mostly like the engineer, or you're mostly, 616 00:36:55,586 --> 00:36:59,806 someone who's working in marketing or doing something else, you don't really 617 00:36:59,826 --> 00:37:04,056 do like the context switching between switching between the entire modes. 618 00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:08,350 I think this might be most intuitive to a founder who has started out by 619 00:37:08,350 --> 00:37:12,190 themselves or with a very small founding team in the early days where you're 620 00:37:12,190 --> 00:37:13,990 switching between the hats constantly. 621 00:37:14,260 --> 00:37:16,870 But that context switching is a double-edged sword. 622 00:37:17,250 --> 00:37:23,050 It might, the positive side is that through the perspective of engineering. 623 00:37:23,260 --> 00:37:27,620 You might have a much more informed perspective now to be more effective 624 00:37:27,673 --> 00:37:32,320 with your marketing hat on, but also that context switch, doesn't come 625 00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:36,110 for free that might, when you come back into engineering, you might've 626 00:37:36,130 --> 00:37:39,740 already forgotten a lot about the context that you had before. 627 00:37:40,210 --> 00:37:43,540 and another thing that I've actually for my own health. 628 00:37:43,705 --> 00:37:48,388 sake, mental health sake, I actually give a quite a bit of weight in 629 00:37:48,388 --> 00:37:50,288 terms of prioritizing what I work on. 630 00:37:50,688 --> 00:37:55,738 in terms of what I feel I have the most energy for, what do I feel like 631 00:37:55,738 --> 00:37:57,958 I have the most inspiration for? 632 00:37:57,958 --> 00:38:03,645 This might be not the most, if, if someone is like super structured, like 633 00:38:03,695 --> 00:38:08,487 a very rational mathematical in terms of like, okay, by all of those metrics, 634 00:38:08,487 --> 00:38:10,245 this is the most important thing. 635 00:38:10,525 --> 00:38:11,585 I might still work on this. 636 00:38:12,060 --> 00:38:16,530 Second or third, most important thing, just because I know I'm going to have 637 00:38:16,530 --> 00:38:20,720 so much more energy working on that and I can build up momentum this way. 638 00:38:20,740 --> 00:38:25,393 So this is something I've, I've seen for myself that this works the best 639 00:38:25,713 --> 00:38:29,993 factoring into, into my decision making on like what to prioritize. 640 00:38:30,255 --> 00:38:34,525 I can totally see how this is one of the hardest things in, in your journey. 641 00:38:35,268 --> 00:38:39,998 but given that you're still on this journey, I assume you're, the kind of 642 00:38:39,998 --> 00:38:42,218 person who sees the glass half full. 643 00:38:42,698 --> 00:38:47,105 So, I'm curious, like, what were some of the highlights of the last, or 644 00:38:47,105 --> 00:38:51,965 since this new chapter, transitioning from Muse as a team to Muse as a 645 00:38:51,965 --> 00:38:55,215 solo endeavor, what have been some of the, like, the true highlights? 646 00:38:56,119 --> 00:38:59,615 the piece over the past year, year and a half that I have loved the 647 00:38:59,615 --> 00:39:04,165 most by far is, I've started two things and they're, they're related. 648 00:39:04,165 --> 00:39:06,555 So, in some ways, they're just one big thing. 649 00:39:06,935 --> 00:39:08,615 I call it the Muse for Muse interviews. 650 00:39:10,565 --> 00:39:13,825 And so Muse, of course, means inspiration, right? 651 00:39:13,825 --> 00:39:15,655 So, like, who is the inspiration for Muse? 652 00:39:16,115 --> 00:39:19,655 It is all of the people that are, that are using Muse. 653 00:39:19,695 --> 00:39:23,815 It is the new people that are just finding it and are excited to get that, 654 00:39:23,850 --> 00:39:25,142 where it just really fits for them. 655 00:39:25,758 --> 00:39:31,398 there are still so many that have used Muse since, you know, version one, since 656 00:39:31,398 --> 00:39:36,645 it was just a, twinkle in the eye and test flight and hadn't even been out to the App 657 00:39:36,655 --> 00:39:38,545 Store yet, but were the very, very first. 658 00:39:38,855 --> 00:39:39,745 Kind of test users. 659 00:39:40,415 --> 00:39:41,705 Do you call them users? 660 00:39:42,415 --> 00:39:43,815 Uh, yeah. 661 00:39:43,845 --> 00:39:47,485 So I was talking with my wife and she, she called them Musers 662 00:39:47,555 --> 00:39:49,821 instead of users, which is fun. 663 00:39:50,121 --> 00:39:55,298 So yeah, but I've started, scheduling interviews and saying 664 00:39:55,298 --> 00:39:57,328 like, Hey, I just love to, to learn. 665 00:39:57,358 --> 00:39:58,328 What do you do every day? 666 00:39:58,718 --> 00:40:00,818 How does Muse fit into your workflow? 667 00:40:01,225 --> 00:40:02,925 what else, what other apps do you use? 668 00:40:02,925 --> 00:40:04,225 What have you also, have you tried? 669 00:40:04,295 --> 00:40:07,553 What really grinds your gears? 670 00:40:07,553 --> 00:40:11,763 What are those little rough edges for you that are just annoying, but kind of don't 671 00:40:11,763 --> 00:40:13,877 matter, but just take you out of the flow. 672 00:40:13,877 --> 00:40:14,627 Maybe a little bit. 673 00:40:14,883 --> 00:40:19,433 Those have been wonderful, both just for the energy and the excitement 674 00:40:19,893 --> 00:40:24,167 to hear from them and, to hear how Muse is making a difference in 675 00:40:24,167 --> 00:40:25,577 their workday and in their flow. 676 00:40:25,707 --> 00:40:30,154 And then, and it's also, wonderful because you can start seeing patterns 677 00:40:30,588 --> 00:40:35,388 and the way that, people react and that the types of things that they bring 678 00:40:35,388 --> 00:40:37,565 up dark mode is a common one, right? 679 00:40:37,595 --> 00:40:41,535 Like there's so many times in support where I still get requests for dark mode. 680 00:40:41,575 --> 00:40:44,705 And so this coming year, I would love to do something for dark mode. 681 00:40:45,105 --> 00:40:47,365 but as an example, as I'll talk with somebody on one of these 682 00:40:47,365 --> 00:40:51,585 interviews, maybe it'll be 30 minutes, sometimes an hour on a zoom call. 683 00:40:52,005 --> 00:40:56,165 It won't just be an email that says, dear Adam, please make dark mode. 684 00:40:56,615 --> 00:40:56,875 Thanks. 685 00:40:56,875 --> 00:40:57,115 Bye. 686 00:40:57,945 --> 00:40:58,255 Right. 687 00:40:58,575 --> 00:41:01,795 But I, I actually hear, Oh, this is where they're doing it. 688 00:41:02,015 --> 00:41:05,965 This is why they want dark mode because they're in this library or 689 00:41:05,965 --> 00:41:09,198 in this class, or they have this thing or who knows what, right? 690 00:41:09,208 --> 00:41:12,898 Like, another one I get is, Oh, please enable more zoom options. 691 00:41:13,638 --> 00:41:14,198 Okay, great. 692 00:41:14,258 --> 00:41:14,498 Right. 693 00:41:14,538 --> 00:41:15,878 Like that's, that's a neat feature. 694 00:41:16,378 --> 00:41:19,248 But then when you're talking with somebody and they're talking about how, 695 00:41:19,658 --> 00:41:24,418 Oh, The font size in this scenario is actually a bit too small or sometimes 696 00:41:24,888 --> 00:41:28,048 when I don't have my glasses on or my readers on the other side of the room, 697 00:41:28,048 --> 00:41:29,088 I'd really like to be able to zoom. 698 00:41:29,158 --> 00:41:34,272 And so you start hearing how the accessibility feature that 699 00:41:34,272 --> 00:41:38,645 to an engineer's mind is just a feature really fits into the day 700 00:41:38,655 --> 00:41:40,155 and really fits into the flow. 701 00:41:40,578 --> 00:41:42,298 And so that's been super inspiring. 702 00:41:42,783 --> 00:41:46,900 And you might also find some things that were just, you as an engineer 703 00:41:46,900 --> 00:41:48,520 note, oh, this is such a small thing. 704 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:49,670 You just haven't done it yet. 705 00:41:49,780 --> 00:41:55,010 And it might for someone who's using it, just make all the world of a difference 706 00:41:55,030 --> 00:41:57,450 to them from taking the app from like. 707 00:41:57,595 --> 00:42:03,505 being wished for that they couldn't use it to actually using it on a daily basis. 708 00:42:03,865 --> 00:42:07,855 And it brings, like I say, it brings so much energy and motivation to you 709 00:42:07,855 --> 00:42:12,795 as a builder to hear those stories and like, knowing, okay, here's Alexandra 710 00:42:12,795 --> 00:42:17,355 over there and Alexandra is like loving it in this use case, and I didn't 711 00:42:17,415 --> 00:42:19,665 ever, plan for that and it's happening. 712 00:42:19,675 --> 00:42:20,685 And that, that's great. 713 00:42:21,403 --> 00:42:22,223 Yeah, exactly. 714 00:42:22,233 --> 00:42:22,803 Exactly. 715 00:42:23,103 --> 00:42:26,943 And so that's something that, mean, early in Muse's life, of course, it 716 00:42:26,943 --> 00:42:32,053 came from research and so user studies and user interviews and interactions 717 00:42:32,053 --> 00:42:36,587 and stuff were a huge part of early Muse's life and, and really a huge 718 00:42:36,587 --> 00:42:38,887 part of, of its early success. 719 00:42:39,210 --> 00:42:42,250 I started doing these interviews, probably about four months 720 00:42:42,250 --> 00:42:43,950 ago, something like that. 721 00:42:44,250 --> 00:42:47,957 And gosh, with the impact they've already had over those four months, 722 00:42:47,957 --> 00:42:49,067 I wish I'd done it on day one. 723 00:42:49,317 --> 00:42:52,153 You know, and I wish we'd done it, every day since then. 724 00:42:52,193 --> 00:42:59,143 And so a big piece of going forward is how can I get a consistent flow, especially 725 00:42:59,143 --> 00:43:01,603 a brand new users coming into Muse? 726 00:43:01,753 --> 00:43:05,763 And what is that brand new user experience and then a consistent flow 727 00:43:05,803 --> 00:43:11,075 of longer term users, because I don't want to over optimize for the long 728 00:43:11,075 --> 00:43:14,875 term users, because then no new people are ever going to be able to fit. 729 00:43:15,405 --> 00:43:17,995 But I also don't want to over optimize for the new users, because then 730 00:43:17,995 --> 00:43:21,785 they're going to be super happy for 6 months until they're a long term user. 731 00:43:21,785 --> 00:43:24,655 And they find out that long term user problems are never solved. 732 00:43:25,265 --> 00:43:27,915 So it's a balance of making sure that I'm. 733 00:43:28,715 --> 00:43:32,285 Like, I mean, like we said, a thousand times already, it's trade offs kind 734 00:43:32,285 --> 00:43:37,125 of all the way down, but having those interviews with real people using 735 00:43:37,125 --> 00:43:40,755 the app in a real experience and just talking to them about their life and 736 00:43:40,765 --> 00:43:45,795 about their flow, no matter what stage they're at, whether it's earlier or long 737 00:43:45,795 --> 00:43:48,228 term has been really, really valuable. 738 00:43:48,525 --> 00:43:53,385 And I think that the second thing that I'll bring up that has been. 739 00:43:53,885 --> 00:43:57,785 Just a big joy and kind of a wonderful, wonderful new thing. 740 00:43:58,268 --> 00:44:02,915 I'm starting, highlights for how different people use Muse. 741 00:44:03,388 --> 00:44:06,578 And so we have one, that was just posted. 742 00:44:06,698 --> 00:44:07,838 that's up on our YouTube. 743 00:44:08,049 --> 00:44:12,641 the Muse YouTube channel with, Conrad Levely, and how he uses 744 00:44:12,641 --> 00:44:15,121 Muse as part of his, research. 745 00:44:15,401 --> 00:44:18,271 So he has a whole handful of different apps that he uses to 746 00:44:18,271 --> 00:44:20,161 explore various different topics. 747 00:44:20,794 --> 00:44:25,421 he's retired and as part of his day now, he just loves learning and 748 00:44:25,431 --> 00:44:26,981 loves researching and loves reading. 749 00:44:27,001 --> 00:44:33,484 And so it is about how he uses Muse in that workflow and over the coming 750 00:44:33,484 --> 00:44:36,351 months, I'm going to be releasing more of these and inviting more, both 751 00:44:36,351 --> 00:44:41,778 long term and, and new Muse users, to share how Muse fits into their life. 752 00:44:41,828 --> 00:44:46,078 Cause that's something I've heard consistently from folks is boy, I really 753 00:44:46,078 --> 00:44:47,738 love Muse, but I'm really curious. 754 00:44:48,144 --> 00:44:49,944 it's such kind of an abstract tool. 755 00:44:50,604 --> 00:44:51,574 Am I using it right? 756 00:44:52,298 --> 00:44:58,988 I think this makes such a huge difference that someone is aware of a certain product 757 00:44:59,048 --> 00:45:03,518 and think it's cool, but then they think, okay, what does it have to do with me? 758 00:45:04,153 --> 00:45:09,703 And then move on and just seeing sort of the usage scenarios, since like, 759 00:45:10,033 --> 00:45:14,403 obviously that person who's using it seems to have figured something 760 00:45:14,403 --> 00:45:20,876 out, that makes them more effective, productive, joyful, more in the flow. 761 00:45:21,196 --> 00:45:26,136 And, I want to be like that, but, I need to see it first before I can 762 00:45:26,326 --> 00:45:30,106 connect the dots and say, ah, yeah, this is how it fits into my life. 763 00:45:30,368 --> 00:45:30,928 Exactly. 764 00:45:30,948 --> 00:45:31,438 Exactly. 765 00:45:31,438 --> 00:45:31,658 Yeah. 766 00:45:31,658 --> 00:45:33,098 Muse is such a flexible tool. 767 00:45:33,098 --> 00:45:36,904 It's a, you know, you hand somebody a stack of paper and everyone's going to 768 00:45:36,914 --> 00:45:38,294 do something different with that paper. 769 00:45:38,294 --> 00:45:41,004 Someone's going to bind a book and someone's going to make post it notes and 770 00:45:41,004 --> 00:45:43,954 someone's going to make a small journal and someone's going to sketch, you know? 771 00:45:43,954 --> 00:45:47,214 And so, I think there's a lot of inspiration that can happen seeing 772 00:45:47,214 --> 00:45:50,324 how different people, use Muse and seeing all of the different 773 00:45:50,324 --> 00:45:51,774 ways it can fit into your flow. 774 00:45:51,993 --> 00:45:53,073 And fit into your day. 775 00:45:53,143 --> 00:45:57,593 So, yeah, I think those 2 things have been the biggest piece for me is interviewing 776 00:45:58,233 --> 00:46:03,047 and then, also just highlighting and then being able to share, how community 777 00:46:03,047 --> 00:46:06,937 members use Muse with the rest of the community has been wonderful. 778 00:46:07,657 --> 00:46:13,267 So both the interviews as well as the highlights are very strong on terms of 779 00:46:13,287 --> 00:46:18,587 the anecdotes of a particular person and you can still remember that. 780 00:46:18,987 --> 00:46:20,007 But the. 781 00:46:20,227 --> 00:46:25,395 flip side, that's the anecdotes and then the other part is like actual data, 782 00:46:25,751 --> 00:46:30,212 that can inform how you're prioritizing, working on something, et cetera. 783 00:46:30,445 --> 00:46:36,985 And that can be, I, for me, anecdotes are a lot more intuitive and I've tried to 784 00:46:36,985 --> 00:46:39,788 measure enough things that I know, okay. 785 00:46:40,083 --> 00:46:43,780 Those measurements are always, only like a partial picture. 786 00:46:43,790 --> 00:46:48,060 Sometimes you, particularly in a local-first context, you don't 787 00:46:48,060 --> 00:46:52,930 want to just like flip on telemetry for every user where privacy 788 00:46:52,930 --> 00:46:54,350 is really important, et cetera. 789 00:46:54,360 --> 00:47:00,440 So how do you modulate between or prioritize between anecdotes versus 790 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:05,380 data and how do you even have you done anything to measure things? 791 00:47:05,420 --> 00:47:08,960 And how did you go about that in a local-first context? 792 00:47:09,362 --> 00:47:09,802 Yes. 793 00:47:09,802 --> 00:47:14,235 So data is interesting because It's so easy to collect 794 00:47:14,715 --> 00:47:16,715 enormous amounts of usage data. 795 00:47:17,735 --> 00:47:18,635 Was this feature used? 796 00:47:18,785 --> 00:47:19,335 Yes or no. 797 00:47:19,875 --> 00:47:21,305 How many times per day was it used? 798 00:47:21,615 --> 00:47:22,565 Was it used this week? 799 00:47:22,925 --> 00:47:25,505 You know, was it used in the first month of the person? 800 00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,990 Doing it or only after a month to, you know, like you can, you can slice 801 00:47:28,990 --> 00:47:30,530 things a million different ways. 802 00:47:30,798 --> 00:47:37,094 so in products past, I have often said, well, I don't know what's important. 803 00:47:37,104 --> 00:47:39,624 So I'm just going to collect a bunch of data and I'll figure it out later. 804 00:47:39,907 --> 00:47:43,157 And then later comes around and I have a huge pile of data that 805 00:47:43,937 --> 00:47:45,117 I don't know how to look at. 806 00:47:45,237 --> 00:47:46,417 And it's just overwhelming. 807 00:47:46,792 --> 00:47:53,036 So I wanted a completely different path this time on, this was December, 2023. 808 00:47:53,036 --> 00:47:59,072 So a handful of months after taking over Muse, I'd already done a lot on bug fixes. 809 00:47:59,102 --> 00:48:03,612 It was starting to kind of get, okay, new users are happy, existing users are 810 00:48:03,612 --> 00:48:07,439 happy, the fires small as they were, they've been put out for the new release. 811 00:48:08,066 --> 00:48:10,926 Let's look at the data and figure out what's important. 812 00:48:10,946 --> 00:48:11,816 What do I need to look at? 813 00:48:12,126 --> 00:48:17,236 so in times past, I've had way too much data and I didn't know how 814 00:48:17,236 --> 00:48:18,416 to pull out the answers from it. 815 00:48:19,036 --> 00:48:23,732 And so this time with Muse, I've been very purposeful about saying, what are 816 00:48:23,732 --> 00:48:25,312 the important questions I need answered? 817 00:48:25,509 --> 00:48:27,469 Let me clarify to myself. 818 00:48:27,929 --> 00:48:29,539 What do I actually care about? 819 00:48:30,219 --> 00:48:32,009 What is the most important thing that I need? 820 00:48:32,549 --> 00:48:36,089 And then let me go collect data specifically to answer this question. 821 00:48:36,467 --> 00:48:37,227 And that's it. 822 00:48:37,477 --> 00:48:39,737 And maybe that data could be used for other questions too. 823 00:48:39,737 --> 00:48:43,737 And there's all sorts of different stuff there, but I'm very purposefully 824 00:48:43,747 --> 00:48:49,917 limiting what I look at to only the questions I know matter. 825 00:48:50,117 --> 00:48:55,284 And so the biggest question, that I had initially going into it was that customer 826 00:48:55,284 --> 00:48:59,497 funnel, how many people hit, hit the App Store page, how many people download, 827 00:48:59,507 --> 00:49:01,887 how many people log in, how many people. 828 00:49:02,179 --> 00:49:06,204 subscribe, and then there's kind of a, a middle one, which I call activation. 829 00:49:06,214 --> 00:49:10,604 So between logging in and subscribing, it's, are they 830 00:49:10,604 --> 00:49:11,734 getting value out of from Muse? 831 00:49:12,554 --> 00:49:17,334 Like, have they done something that they've at least played with it enough 832 00:49:17,384 --> 00:49:20,684 that yeah, it seems to be, they understand what they're saying yes or no to. 833 00:49:21,211 --> 00:49:25,864 So the first thing I did is I downloaded, We, we don't use 834 00:49:26,137 --> 00:49:28,337 generally any third party trackers. 835 00:49:28,817 --> 00:49:33,807 So all of the data we have about user behavior is on the Muse server 836 00:49:33,827 --> 00:49:35,507 and is not shared with anyone else. 837 00:49:35,507 --> 00:49:40,047 So it's not used for advertising or for, you know, various other things. 838 00:49:40,327 --> 00:49:41,657 that's been a very important piece. 839 00:49:42,207 --> 00:49:43,857 And so I've been able to look at that. 840 00:49:44,292 --> 00:49:45,822 Kind of feature usage data. 841 00:49:46,522 --> 00:49:51,152 We don't collect any data in terms of what are you physically typing into Muse? 842 00:49:51,442 --> 00:49:53,088 It's all about, did you use note cards? 843 00:49:53,232 --> 00:49:54,082 Did you use links? 844 00:49:54,122 --> 00:49:55,002 Did you use boards? 845 00:49:55,022 --> 00:49:55,962 That sort of stuff, right? 846 00:49:56,692 --> 00:50:01,602 Do you pull this out out of the sync data or is that a separate thing that's 847 00:50:01,612 --> 00:50:03,412 completely separate from the sync? 848 00:50:03,422 --> 00:50:05,352 It is completely separate. 849 00:50:05,492 --> 00:50:11,012 And so, and there are no circumstance in my poking around inside of sync data. 850 00:50:11,379 --> 00:50:13,069 that is a hundred percent kind of. 851 00:50:13,339 --> 00:50:14,829 Private tucked away. 852 00:50:15,329 --> 00:50:19,709 And then there's a separate piece that is just product usage data. 853 00:50:20,339 --> 00:50:24,839 And so that, and that collects none of the personal information 854 00:50:24,849 --> 00:50:25,899 that you're putting into Muse. 855 00:50:25,909 --> 00:50:27,009 It's only collecting. 856 00:50:27,389 --> 00:50:31,536 You know, sort of, did you click this button or not kinds of data so the 857 00:50:31,536 --> 00:50:35,199 first thing I did is I downloaded, did people use this feature? 858 00:50:35,199 --> 00:50:40,809 Yes or no, across 30 different features, 30 different, 40 different things. 859 00:50:41,429 --> 00:50:43,219 And then did this person subscribe or not? 860 00:50:43,599 --> 00:50:47,419 And I gave me a giant table of data that I looked into and 861 00:50:47,419 --> 00:50:50,219 said, okay, which of these. 862 00:50:50,686 --> 00:50:56,116 features using which of these features is or is not correlated with subscribing 863 00:50:56,392 --> 00:51:01,902 and I narrowed it down to, I think, six and so if people use all six of 864 00:51:01,902 --> 00:51:07,052 these features, then they are more likely to subscribe than not and. 865 00:51:07,517 --> 00:51:13,457 What that means to me is, it's obviously not just, okay, great, let me go force 866 00:51:13,457 --> 00:51:16,747 everyone to do these six things and then clearly they're going to subscribe more. 867 00:51:17,007 --> 00:51:21,057 No, what it means is that, okay, doing these six things gives them a 868 00:51:21,057 --> 00:51:23,097 real good feeling for what Muse is. 869 00:51:23,767 --> 00:51:26,937 And once they have a good feeling for what Muse is, those kinds of people are 870 00:51:26,937 --> 00:51:28,517 going to more often than not subscribe. 871 00:51:29,537 --> 00:51:30,707 So I have that activation. 872 00:51:31,012 --> 00:51:32,052 That's what I call activation. 873 00:51:32,806 --> 00:51:36,856 so the report that I run connects to, app figures, which connects to 874 00:51:36,856 --> 00:51:38,586 the App Store for App Store metrics. 875 00:51:38,899 --> 00:51:42,259 I can also connect to the App Store directly because there are sometimes 876 00:51:42,299 --> 00:51:45,349 information that I want to get kind of the raw data for instead 877 00:51:45,349 --> 00:51:47,189 of app figures, aggregated data. 878 00:51:47,639 --> 00:51:52,812 I connect to the Muse server to get, more detailed analytics about subscription and 879 00:51:52,822 --> 00:51:54,342 about activation and things like that. 880 00:51:54,524 --> 00:51:58,892 and I connect to the, we use Fathom for website analytics. 881 00:51:59,032 --> 00:52:03,922 So it is a very privacy conscious website analytics tracker. 882 00:52:04,352 --> 00:52:06,762 And so that gives me number of visits, number of click 883 00:52:06,762 --> 00:52:07,812 throughs, things like that. 884 00:52:08,166 --> 00:52:11,596 so I pull all this data from three or four or five different sources. 885 00:52:11,896 --> 00:52:17,606 And then together that gives me full visibility from number who see the 886 00:52:17,606 --> 00:52:21,116 website, click through the App Store, download link all the way down. 887 00:52:21,452 --> 00:52:25,289 And so once I have that data, that's when I can say, okay, let 888 00:52:25,289 --> 00:52:26,469 me look at new user onboarding. 889 00:52:27,179 --> 00:52:33,147 What happens if I provide this kind of video, or if I provide this kind of 890 00:52:33,147 --> 00:52:39,157 tutorial, or if I change this kind of thing, is that better or worse for this 891 00:52:39,157 --> 00:52:41,417 single step from download to activation? 892 00:52:42,017 --> 00:52:45,507 Not even caring how it affects subscriptions or anything else, but 893 00:52:45,507 --> 00:52:48,397 like, can I just change this metric? 894 00:52:48,811 --> 00:52:52,521 and so the times I've done this over the past year, year and a half 895 00:52:53,041 --> 00:52:55,461 have been for onboarding, of course. 896 00:52:55,501 --> 00:52:57,791 So the first tutorials that people can get. 897 00:52:58,721 --> 00:53:05,364 Also, Setapp has helped because Setapp takes out the subscription altogether. 898 00:53:05,874 --> 00:53:09,894 And so then that very last step from download to log in to 899 00:53:09,894 --> 00:53:12,737 activation to subscription p user. 900 00:53:12,757 --> 00:53:16,677 The only thing I need to care about is download to log in to 901 00:53:16,677 --> 00:53:20,597 activation once they're using these consistently, then that's when 902 00:53:20,597 --> 00:53:22,257 Setapp recurring revenue comes in. 903 00:53:22,841 --> 00:53:24,551 so that was important on the Setapp side. 904 00:53:24,986 --> 00:53:31,319 On the App Store side, I implemented, sign in with Apple because Muse requires 905 00:53:31,319 --> 00:53:33,509 an account, for the sync server. 906 00:53:34,079 --> 00:53:38,449 That means the first time download experience, people load up Muse and they 907 00:53:38,449 --> 00:53:40,149 see, hi, give me your email address. 908 00:53:40,702 --> 00:53:45,042 Muse is very conscious more than I think almost any other company I've 909 00:53:45,212 --> 00:53:46,902 seen or worked with about privacy. 910 00:53:47,612 --> 00:53:49,852 But when the first time user experiences. 911 00:53:50,302 --> 00:53:51,632 Hey, buddy, give me your email address. 912 00:53:52,182 --> 00:53:54,722 It doesn't, it doesn't inspire confidence. 913 00:53:54,939 --> 00:53:57,619 and so I implemented sign in with Apple and then that lets people 914 00:53:57,619 --> 00:53:59,389 say, okay, let me use that. 915 00:53:59,579 --> 00:54:01,389 I can choose a private email address. 916 00:54:01,789 --> 00:54:06,529 I can maintain my privacy, but still kind of create the account that allows 917 00:54:06,529 --> 00:54:08,719 for them use sync service to work. 918 00:54:09,089 --> 00:54:14,962 So that helps the download to login step of that entire funnel flow. 919 00:54:15,042 --> 00:54:17,412 And so it's been rewarding to. 920 00:54:17,814 --> 00:54:23,464 focus on very specific places in that funnel and say, okay, this piece right 921 00:54:23,464 --> 00:54:26,781 here, right after the download, what kind of context does that person have? 922 00:54:27,161 --> 00:54:28,021 What do they need? 923 00:54:28,321 --> 00:54:29,401 What would be helpful? 924 00:54:29,667 --> 00:54:32,557 maybe new images in the App Store or maybe. 925 00:54:32,856 --> 00:54:37,231 better tutorials on the website, or maybe, you know, fill in the blank, but how 926 00:54:37,231 --> 00:54:41,360 can I get this from 92 percent to 96%? 927 00:54:42,041 --> 00:54:45,421 And then in theory, that will also have downstream effects at the bottom of the 928 00:54:45,421 --> 00:54:50,221 funnel, but if for whatever piece that I'm looking at, that is the biggest. 929 00:54:50,549 --> 00:54:55,336 problem that has been very helpful from a prioritization standpoint. 930 00:54:55,776 --> 00:55:00,732 And that has been very helpful, to keep me focused because they're, you know, 931 00:55:00,742 --> 00:55:04,509 like I've said before, there's too many things for me to work on that I 932 00:55:04,519 --> 00:55:07,099 have time in my life to physically do. 933 00:55:07,419 --> 00:55:11,632 And so when I am building, it can be motivating and really helpful 934 00:55:11,632 --> 00:55:15,277 for me to say, Okay, Adam, remember, you're focused on helping this 935 00:55:15,287 --> 00:55:17,427 person at this step in their journey. 936 00:55:17,811 --> 00:55:21,021 they would love to use Muse, but they can't because they're stuck. 937 00:55:21,501 --> 00:55:22,661 And so you're going to help them. 938 00:55:22,681 --> 00:55:24,927 How how can you help this kind of person get unstuck? 939 00:55:25,432 --> 00:55:28,472 and see what Muse is so that they can decide whether it's a good fit for their 940 00:55:28,472 --> 00:55:29,952 life or not and for their workflow or not. 941 00:55:30,682 --> 00:55:36,196 and so that's been very helpful to collect very specific, and still 942 00:55:36,196 --> 00:55:40,916 privacy preserving data that helped me make decisions in terms of that. 943 00:55:41,234 --> 00:55:44,664 That flow, there's a handful of other statistics I look at in terms 944 00:55:44,664 --> 00:55:49,164 of like App Store revenue or Setapp revenue, subscription counts, 945 00:55:49,174 --> 00:55:51,454 cancellations, those sorts of things. 946 00:55:51,454 --> 00:55:55,381 But broadly speaking, that funnel data has been the most important and 947 00:55:55,481 --> 00:56:00,307 for prioritizing my, my work and in the world of data, it's a very small 948 00:56:00,307 --> 00:56:03,464 piece, compared to the data pile. 949 00:56:03,484 --> 00:56:07,204 I've seen at other companies or in previous things, it's it's 950 00:56:07,204 --> 00:56:09,334 really helped keep me focused. 951 00:56:09,787 --> 00:56:14,681 In terms of Muse being a local-first app, as opposed to being like a more 952 00:56:14,741 --> 00:56:17,804 traditional, cloud based SaaS app. 953 00:56:18,174 --> 00:56:22,827 Is there anything that you thought about different when it comes to, 954 00:56:23,177 --> 00:56:27,327 getting better insights through data into how users are using it? 955 00:56:27,367 --> 00:56:31,991 So, there's this interesting balance between, uh, local-first really tries to 956 00:56:31,991 --> 00:56:37,981 preserve the privacy, a user and you with the best intentions of like, Building this 957 00:56:38,001 --> 00:56:40,731 app for the people who you want to serve. 958 00:56:41,041 --> 00:56:43,791 And yet you need a little bit of visibility into this. 959 00:56:44,151 --> 00:56:48,671 Have you thought about this for Muse differently than for previous apps? 960 00:56:49,091 --> 00:56:52,841 And did you build the analytics stack from a technological 961 00:56:52,841 --> 00:56:56,761 perspective in any different way than you've built previous ones? 962 00:56:57,177 --> 00:56:57,507 Yeah. 963 00:56:57,507 --> 00:57:02,494 So when I, joined Muse, in 2020, the analytics stack that's still being 964 00:57:02,494 --> 00:57:08,511 used was built already and that was, implemented entirely on the Muse server. 965 00:57:09,101 --> 00:57:12,761 So that way, none of the analytics data went to a third party. 966 00:57:13,241 --> 00:57:14,961 It kind of stayed within Muse. 967 00:57:15,481 --> 00:57:16,831 And so that was very helpful. 968 00:57:16,931 --> 00:57:22,391 And then, like I mentioned before, that analytics data that we collect is 969 00:57:22,421 --> 00:57:29,775 entirely separate from the actual synced data of a person's library in Muse. 970 00:57:30,530 --> 00:57:34,280 Is there still like the same sort of identity behind it or 971 00:57:34,340 --> 00:57:38,843 how does, user privacy preserving look like at that point? 972 00:57:38,863 --> 00:57:43,450 Do you, for example, like have something that is, identifying a user, but you 973 00:57:43,460 --> 00:57:48,540 hash it so you can't like, correlate it anymore or, how are you going about that? 974 00:57:49,110 --> 00:57:53,530 Yeah, so it does use the same user ID. 975 00:57:54,110 --> 00:57:57,626 And so I can see, which is helpful for our support tickets. 976 00:57:57,676 --> 00:58:02,736 And so when a support ticket comes in, I can see, obviously, when the person 977 00:58:02,736 --> 00:58:04,796 signed up, if they're subscribed or not. 978 00:58:05,113 --> 00:58:11,340 And I can also see, which devices they have synced to the sync server and how 979 00:58:11,340 --> 00:58:13,260 recently those devices were connected. 980 00:58:13,940 --> 00:58:18,160 Because far and away one of the most common support requests I get 981 00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:21,479 is Usually a one line email that says: Hey, sync, is it working? 982 00:58:21,479 --> 00:58:25,561 Or, Hey, there's a problem with my iPhone. 983 00:58:25,721 --> 00:58:26,901 Uh, how can I fix it? 984 00:58:27,791 --> 00:58:30,431 And so I can immediately look and say, okay, I don't see an 985 00:58:30,431 --> 00:58:34,381 iPhone on their account, clearly it's not connected correctly. 986 00:58:34,391 --> 00:58:35,851 And so that helps me reply. 987 00:58:36,528 --> 00:58:39,868 but that, that is kind of the only connection is that user ID. 988 00:58:39,968 --> 00:58:40,878 So I do see. 989 00:58:41,326 --> 00:58:45,766 User behavior, and then there's a separate bucket that has all the user synced data. 990 00:58:46,426 --> 00:58:51,343 But the most important guiding principle through the entire life of Muse has 991 00:58:51,353 --> 00:58:58,043 always been, the user's synced data, their library data is off limits. 992 00:58:58,813 --> 00:59:00,763 It, there's just, it's just never looked at. 993 00:59:01,293 --> 00:59:06,023 It's never looked at by a human and it's never looked at by a robot either. 994 00:59:06,033 --> 00:59:08,513 Like we don't run analytics on it. 995 00:59:08,553 --> 00:59:11,993 We don't run scripts to see how things do like it is. 996 00:59:13,063 --> 00:59:17,083 It is its own little box in the closet that is not touched. 997 00:59:17,333 --> 00:59:21,933 And then that way, the only data that we see that is used for analytics 998 00:59:22,243 --> 00:59:27,990 is, the feature usage data that we specifically send, that does not 999 00:59:27,990 --> 00:59:30,340 contain any of the actual library data. 1000 00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:33,970 None of the text, none of the ink, none of the boars, none of the content, 1001 00:59:33,970 --> 00:59:35,480 none of that kind of stuff lands there. 1002 00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:37,723 It's just, oh, they made a board card. 1003 00:59:37,953 --> 00:59:38,463 Okay, great. 1004 00:59:39,048 --> 00:59:41,058 I need to know if people make board cards or not, because if 1005 00:59:41,058 --> 00:59:42,861 they don't, what are they doing? 1006 00:59:42,891 --> 00:59:45,281 Because Muse is based around boards and whiteboards. 1007 00:59:45,348 --> 00:59:50,018 Yeah, I think it's this interesting balance where with local-first, we 1008 00:59:50,048 --> 00:59:54,898 obviously want to move beyond the status quo of how software is being 1009 00:59:54,898 --> 01:00:00,368 built traditionally yet, or in terms of how software is deployed and 1010 01:00:00,388 --> 01:00:05,478 architected in a way traditionally, but yet a lot of the more traditional. 1011 01:00:05,758 --> 01:00:08,898 Product management learning still apply. 1012 01:00:08,908 --> 01:00:10,868 Like we still don't want to fly blind. 1013 01:00:11,128 --> 01:00:14,498 We still need to understand what the users are doing, et cetera. 1014 01:00:14,498 --> 01:00:19,981 So there is a slight tension there between still like knowing how are 1015 01:00:20,171 --> 01:00:21,901 our users successful with the app? 1016 01:00:21,921 --> 01:00:23,101 Are they struggling? 1017 01:00:23,101 --> 01:00:24,401 Where are they falling off? 1018 01:00:24,751 --> 01:00:29,645 And yet, The, that the user's private data is sacred and you don't touch it yet. 1019 01:00:29,655 --> 01:00:34,135 You don't even have a way to look into it as it's encrypted, et cetera. 1020 01:00:34,585 --> 01:00:39,836 So I'm curious, like what will the ideal analytics stack for local-first 1021 01:00:39,856 --> 01:00:44,073 apps, maybe look like in the coming years to have some intuitions or some 1022 01:00:44,083 --> 01:00:48,023 wishes for like, this is what the ideal stack there would look like. 1023 01:00:48,023 --> 01:00:49,243 And someone should build it. 1024 01:00:49,764 --> 01:00:53,317 I think the way that we've done it at Muse, is a really good 1025 01:00:53,317 --> 01:00:55,247 first step and is, is really good. 1026 01:00:55,247 --> 01:00:59,850 I think it's, table stakes for the way that any business should operate where 1027 01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:05,750 the user's private data is on one side of the world and the data you use for 1028 01:01:05,750 --> 01:01:09,100 analytics and for product decisions is on the other side of the world. 1029 01:01:09,540 --> 01:01:10,950 And those two just never meet. 1030 01:01:11,410 --> 01:01:15,845 because there's no, situation where any kind of product person should 1031 01:01:15,855 --> 01:01:20,315 have any kind of visibility at all into someone's private data. 1032 01:01:20,682 --> 01:01:25,375 And so that, I think, is the most important piece, that was there from day 1033 01:01:25,375 --> 01:01:28,205 one at Muse and continues today at Muse. 1034 01:01:28,482 --> 01:01:31,572 collecting as little as possible, I think, is also important. 1035 01:01:31,862 --> 01:01:38,835 And, that's been true with Muse where the third, it's so easy to 1036 01:01:38,855 --> 01:01:40,785 say, Oh, look, a new data provider. 1037 01:01:40,965 --> 01:01:43,985 Let me just go like, let me go integrate mix panel. 1038 01:01:44,225 --> 01:01:45,545 Let me go integrate apps fire. 1039 01:01:45,555 --> 01:01:49,465 Let me go integrate, you know, you could put in four or five SDKs and 1040 01:01:49,465 --> 01:01:54,325 suddenly start sending out analytics to five different advertising companies 1041 01:01:54,925 --> 01:01:56,785 with like three lines of code, right? 1042 01:01:56,785 --> 01:01:58,685 Like it's very easy to do. 1043 01:01:59,222 --> 01:02:04,092 and I think being very cautious and purposeful about what kind of data 1044 01:02:04,222 --> 01:02:08,412 you're collecting and making sure you're doing it to answer specific 1045 01:02:08,412 --> 01:02:10,522 questions is really important. 1046 01:02:10,775 --> 01:02:14,175 And that's what I've done at Muse over the past year and a half. 1047 01:02:14,175 --> 01:02:19,195 And that's what we did at Muse in the years before that as well is making 1048 01:02:19,195 --> 01:02:21,065 sure that we, the data we do collect. 1049 01:02:21,435 --> 01:02:26,265 stays just within Muse and doesn't leak off to other third party 1050 01:02:26,265 --> 01:02:32,719 advertising, firms, and that we use that data responsibly and that one 1051 01:02:32,719 --> 01:02:36,349 of the ways that we do that is that we don't collect more than we need 1052 01:02:36,349 --> 01:02:37,939 and we don't collect private things. 1053 01:02:38,029 --> 01:02:43,117 Your private data doesn't land in the product decision repository, and 1054 01:02:43,117 --> 01:02:47,047 that's, I think should be table stakes for any company, but especially for 1055 01:02:47,047 --> 01:02:52,327 local-first, where, where privacy is, is job number 1 and is really purpose number 1056 01:02:52,327 --> 01:02:54,507 1 in many ways of local for software. 1057 01:02:54,967 --> 01:03:00,067 So slightly shifting gears a little bit to another aspect where we need to 1058 01:03:00,067 --> 01:03:04,937 kind of reinvent the wheel, a little bit for local-first software, which 1059 01:03:04,967 --> 01:03:07,067 is how do you charge for software? 1060 01:03:07,067 --> 01:03:13,770 And I think in your case, I think you have a somewhat easier, foundation 1061 01:03:13,770 --> 01:03:17,980 for that already, given that you started in the Apple ecosystem where 1062 01:03:18,120 --> 01:03:22,297 you can say many things about the Apple App Store, et cetera, like 1063 01:03:22,297 --> 01:03:24,387 how it charges an arm and a leg. 1064 01:03:24,762 --> 01:03:29,792 But, at least from the user perspective, there's already a well trotting path 1065 01:03:30,212 --> 01:03:36,452 for how are you going to get some money and now you've extended on top of that 1066 01:03:36,522 --> 01:03:42,057 with Setapp, I think a lot of other local-first apps are built primarily 1067 01:03:42,067 --> 01:03:47,387 starting from the web, where I think it's a lot more challenging, but yeah, how 1068 01:03:47,397 --> 01:03:54,137 much of a easy versus difficult part was the getting actually paid for working 1069 01:03:54,137 --> 01:03:59,074 on the app and, do you have thoughts on, what that could have looked like 1070 01:03:59,084 --> 01:04:00,964 when you would have started in the web? 1071 01:04:01,450 --> 01:04:02,060 Yeah. 1072 01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:07,217 I think my default is to always think about things in terms of the almost 1073 01:04:07,217 --> 01:04:10,217 every single time I go back to the customer funnel, which is essentially 1074 01:04:10,217 --> 01:04:11,817 what it was, the customer experience. 1075 01:04:12,294 --> 01:04:14,854 As you mentioned, the nice thing about the Apple ecosystem 1076 01:04:14,984 --> 01:04:16,724 is the customer experiences. 1077 01:04:16,814 --> 01:04:17,804 Oh, do I want this or not? 1078 01:04:19,254 --> 01:04:22,364 One tap on the subscribe button, the prompt comes up and it's 1079 01:04:22,364 --> 01:04:24,254 either face ID or a fingerprint. 1080 01:04:24,794 --> 01:04:25,324 And then, 1081 01:04:27,944 --> 01:04:33,607 so it's essentially like one and a half steps from decision to money on the web. 1082 01:04:33,952 --> 01:04:37,732 It's often significantly harder, and that is, okay. 1083 01:04:37,732 --> 01:04:38,432 Do I want to do it? 1084 01:04:38,522 --> 01:04:38,862 Okay. 1085 01:04:38,862 --> 01:04:39,022 Yeah. 1086 01:04:39,022 --> 01:04:39,872 Let me go click in. 1087 01:04:40,132 --> 01:04:40,562 Okay. 1088 01:04:40,750 --> 01:04:42,019 probably have to choose a plan. 1089 01:04:42,272 --> 01:04:43,202 Let me choose a plan. 1090 01:04:43,432 --> 01:04:43,852 Okay. 1091 01:04:43,852 --> 01:04:46,122 Well, now I have to enter my credit card information. 1092 01:04:46,545 --> 01:04:46,805 Okay. 1093 01:04:46,805 --> 01:04:47,915 Now it wants my address. 1094 01:04:47,955 --> 01:04:51,315 Well, now it wants my billing address, which is the same as my address, but 1095 01:04:51,325 --> 01:04:52,535 it has a separate, separate field. 1096 01:04:52,535 --> 01:04:54,825 And so then I click okay, and then it gives me the summary 1097 01:04:54,825 --> 01:04:55,695 and then I click checkout. 1098 01:04:55,715 --> 01:04:55,905 Right? 1099 01:04:56,305 --> 01:04:58,025 So suddenly that's like a four or five step 1100 01:05:00,549 --> 01:05:04,555 regardless of the, even separate from the decision of, is this a 1101 01:05:04,655 --> 01:05:08,845 subscription or is this a one time payment or relatively one time payment? 1102 01:05:09,259 --> 01:05:11,929 so the biggest thing that I think about is how can you make 1103 01:05:11,929 --> 01:05:14,129 that experience much simpler? 1104 01:05:14,835 --> 01:05:20,545 and how can you make that experience trustworthy and the nice thing about 1105 01:05:20,545 --> 01:05:22,255 the App Store is it gives you both. 1106 01:05:22,449 --> 01:05:25,879 It is trustworthy because it, the purchase is the exact same every 1107 01:05:25,879 --> 01:05:27,779 single time and it goes through Apple. 1108 01:05:28,209 --> 01:05:30,689 So people don't have to trust me. 1109 01:05:30,739 --> 01:05:35,215 They can just trust Apple and on the web, you have to overcome both barriers. 1110 01:05:35,345 --> 01:05:39,095 You have to become trustworthy enough that someone says, why should I put 1111 01:05:39,095 --> 01:05:40,575 my credit card in this random website? 1112 01:05:41,505 --> 01:05:44,335 And you have to make it simple enough that. 1113 01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:49,390 On step three out of seven, they don't say, man, this is so much trouble. 1114 01:05:49,627 --> 01:05:50,547 actually nevermind. 1115 01:05:51,047 --> 01:05:54,327 part of it, some, I think Patreon helps with some of that, 1116 01:05:54,830 --> 01:05:56,800 subscriptions help with some of that. 1117 01:05:57,004 --> 01:06:02,137 sometimes even if it's a web based service, there might be, iPhone app 1118 01:06:02,137 --> 01:06:06,437 components to it or Android app components to it, or native Mac components to 1119 01:06:06,437 --> 01:06:08,300 it, helper apps, things like that. 1120 01:06:08,660 --> 01:06:12,050 And sometimes those could be paid for even when the web is free. 1121 01:06:12,534 --> 01:06:16,564 it, it really depends per business, but it's difficult. 1122 01:06:16,654 --> 01:06:19,964 Like that's, that's one of the hardest things, especially as an independent 1123 01:06:20,004 --> 01:06:27,030 software developer to decide what your business model is, is a difficult 1124 01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:31,474 decision to physically implement all of the infrastructure to make that business 1125 01:06:31,474 --> 01:06:33,064 model possible to take someone's money. 1126 01:06:33,554 --> 01:06:40,017 Is difficult and then finding out, huh, this payment provider has four steps, but 1127 01:06:40,017 --> 01:06:43,147 if I'd use this other payment provider, it would have been two and a half steps. 1128 01:06:43,474 --> 01:06:45,534 Should I spend another 2 months moving? 1129 01:06:45,990 --> 01:06:51,257 I think this is sort of a reoccurring theme that, to pull off local-first. 1130 01:06:51,362 --> 01:06:57,712 is very hard and to pull it off in the web is the hardest mode so far, since, 1131 01:06:57,762 --> 01:07:03,972 not just from the perspective of having all of the technical capabilities that 1132 01:07:03,982 --> 01:07:07,902 a native platform provides that you have it in the web, it gets increasingly 1133 01:07:07,912 --> 01:07:14,332 better with things like the file system APIs, WASM, et cetera, but on macOS. 1134 01:07:14,577 --> 01:07:18,607 At some point you click on that download button, maybe you've paid before, maybe 1135 01:07:18,617 --> 01:07:20,967 afterwards, and now you have a DMG file. 1136 01:07:21,287 --> 01:07:24,767 And that is, you can still put it on a floppy drive if 1137 01:07:24,767 --> 01:07:26,897 you want to, and that's yours. 1138 01:07:27,057 --> 01:07:28,807 That's hopefully still gonna work. 1139 01:07:28,837 --> 01:07:32,357 It's most likely still gonna work unless it's like all sassified. 1140 01:07:32,857 --> 01:07:38,587 But in the web, you have like, Visited a website before and in Safari, if you 1141 01:07:38,587 --> 01:07:43,797 haven't visited that in so long, it's going to like wipe all of your cash. 1142 01:07:44,087 --> 01:07:46,377 So what is the equivalent of a DMG? 1143 01:07:46,527 --> 01:07:48,727 And then you haven't even started about payment. 1144 01:07:49,154 --> 01:07:50,554 so that's a lot harder. 1145 01:07:50,584 --> 01:07:55,680 And I think you've been, smart about choosing, or I guess that's just 1146 01:07:55,680 --> 01:08:00,729 been inherently an implication of The beginnings of Muse to start in 1147 01:08:00,739 --> 01:08:06,255 the Apple ecosystem where you could, sort of sidestep a bunch of the still 1148 01:08:06,375 --> 01:08:12,039 open questions around local-first software by, like piggybacking on a 1149 01:08:12,049 --> 01:08:14,559 more mature ecosystem in many regards. 1150 01:08:14,935 --> 01:08:15,785 Yeah, absolutely. 1151 01:08:15,785 --> 01:08:19,265 I think that's the, that's easily the hardest part about. 1152 01:08:19,705 --> 01:08:23,805 Building any new product is the technical challenges of whatever platform 1153 01:08:23,805 --> 01:08:28,079 you're on, the customer challenges of finding a way for them to pay. 1154 01:08:28,529 --> 01:08:32,134 in a way that is fair for them, and they are comfortable 1155 01:08:32,134 --> 01:08:33,544 with, and that is trustworthy. 1156 01:08:34,174 --> 01:08:41,160 And whatever that process is, is going to carry its own technical ballot baggage 1157 01:08:41,390 --> 01:08:43,987 of implementation that you have to carry. 1158 01:08:44,307 --> 01:08:48,047 and so it's just a difficult thing to balance. 1159 01:08:48,460 --> 01:08:50,030 what is that business model? 1160 01:08:50,337 --> 01:08:52,677 how can I implement this business model in a way that the 1161 01:08:52,677 --> 01:08:53,502 customers are comfortable with? 1162 01:08:54,252 --> 01:08:58,462 Are comfortable with and even if you figured out those first two, 1163 01:08:58,542 --> 01:09:02,832 sometimes the technical hurdle to implement it is too big. 1164 01:09:03,305 --> 01:09:06,705 You know, like we said before, it's trade offs all the way down and that 1165 01:09:06,985 --> 01:09:10,255 sometimes those, those trade offs, even affect that business model 1166 01:09:10,255 --> 01:09:11,525 or even affect the payment model. 1167 01:09:12,036 --> 01:09:17,176 in terms of the platforms, given there's multiple platforms and more than we 1168 01:09:17,176 --> 01:09:22,706 talked about so far, looking at the history of Muse, you started on the iPad. 1169 01:09:22,961 --> 01:09:25,291 A bit later, there was a Mac app. 1170 01:09:25,671 --> 01:09:29,911 And, if I'm not mistaken, there are at least plans to conquer a 1171 01:09:29,911 --> 01:09:31,941 few more platforms going forward. 1172 01:09:32,341 --> 01:09:36,561 I'm curious whether looking back, you think this was the right sequencing 1173 01:09:36,601 --> 01:09:42,451 of platforms or whether you could have seen like an entirely different path, 1174 01:09:42,491 --> 01:09:47,265 maybe going all the way with the web first, looking at, I'm sure whether 1175 01:09:47,265 --> 01:09:50,875 you see it as a competitor or as a similar app, something like TLdraw. 1176 01:09:51,306 --> 01:09:54,556 they have obviously started out their journey all the way in the web. 1177 01:09:54,576 --> 01:09:59,296 And I think they're embracing the openness and the, like, everyone 1178 01:09:59,296 --> 01:10:00,576 knows what to do with the link. 1179 01:10:00,606 --> 01:10:04,926 You click it and then you're already in a new app without having to install it. 1180 01:10:04,926 --> 01:10:08,406 So entirely different possibilities, trade offs. 1181 01:10:08,856 --> 01:10:12,836 So how did you think about the sequencing of the platforms 1182 01:10:12,836 --> 01:10:16,106 and any regrets in that regard? 1183 01:10:16,350 --> 01:10:17,840 So we started out on the iPad. 1184 01:10:18,290 --> 01:10:24,666 And this was in the time, right before I arrived at Muse where Inside of 1185 01:10:24,666 --> 01:10:28,316 Ink & Switch as part of its research and as part of its kind of human computer 1186 01:10:28,316 --> 01:10:33,596 interaction design research was, what does that tablet experience look like? 1187 01:10:34,316 --> 01:10:40,530 And what does it mean to have that form factor to have a pencil where you 1188 01:10:40,530 --> 01:10:44,000 can write ink and to still be able to type and manipulate with your hands? 1189 01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:45,870 How can we, how can we make this interesting thing? 1190 01:10:46,400 --> 01:10:52,730 And so starting out on the, as the tablet was really the heart and soul of Muse and 1191 01:10:52,730 --> 01:10:54,800 I, I can't see a way that you would get. 1192 01:10:55,750 --> 01:10:58,970 Muse without starting with that seed. 1193 01:10:59,580 --> 01:11:03,340 So I think that was, and yeah, in many ways that, yeah, that was 1194 01:11:03,340 --> 01:11:05,860 the important place from there. 1195 01:11:05,860 --> 01:11:06,620 Where do we go? 1196 01:11:06,770 --> 01:11:11,120 I think, I think we did make the correct decision to go to Mac next. 1197 01:11:11,695 --> 01:11:16,835 The iPhone was always kind of a helper tool, for, collecting content and 1198 01:11:16,835 --> 01:11:18,891 for bringing things into your Muse. 1199 01:11:19,365 --> 01:11:22,175 The next big workhorse was the Mac app. 1200 01:11:22,855 --> 01:11:27,928 And I remember us thinking quite a bit, we had some experiments for publish to web. 1201 01:11:28,558 --> 01:11:32,478 We had some experiments for what would a web sync look like. 1202 01:11:33,898 --> 01:11:38,128 And this was one of the, I mean, really one of the business and 1203 01:11:38,128 --> 01:11:40,731 resource, decisions and constraints. 1204 01:11:41,731 --> 01:11:43,361 In some ways forced our hands. 1205 01:11:43,535 --> 01:11:49,835 it definitely made the decision much easier because the Muse Mac app shares. 1206 01:11:50,400 --> 01:11:54,673 95 percent of the code base, with the iPad, the entire sync 1207 01:11:54,673 --> 01:11:57,040 engine code base, is the same. 1208 01:11:57,496 --> 01:12:00,126 all of the board rendering and navigation is the same. 1209 01:12:00,206 --> 01:12:04,446 It has some differences in window management and tabs and 1210 01:12:04,706 --> 01:12:05,876 toolbars and that sort of thing. 1211 01:12:05,896 --> 01:12:11,686 But broadly speaking, the code base is able to be shared, which, 1212 01:12:11,686 --> 01:12:16,156 of course, dramatically lowers the maintenance cost for our small team. 1213 01:12:16,623 --> 01:12:21,706 We thought about web for all the reasons you've mentioned, but of course, that 1214 01:12:21,706 --> 01:12:26,686 would mean an entirely new code base or an entirely new way to share the code base. 1215 01:12:26,686 --> 01:12:30,616 You can kind of cross compile swift sometimes in certain circumstances, 1216 01:12:31,323 --> 01:12:36,833 but it was a much, much heavier lift to have a full web sync platform. 1217 01:12:37,133 --> 01:12:40,800 We experimented with publish to web, which has. 1218 01:12:41,133 --> 01:12:45,163 come on and off of the back burner a handful of times over the years, and 1219 01:12:45,163 --> 01:12:48,413 it's something I would still love to do so that way it would, it's easier 1220 01:12:48,413 --> 01:12:53,823 to share out content at the very least, even if it's not a full Muse local-first 1221 01:12:53,843 --> 01:12:57,596 client on the web, there's at least a way to take your local content 1222 01:12:57,626 --> 01:12:59,716 and publish it out for other people. 1223 01:12:59,726 --> 01:13:00,976 I think there's still value in that. 1224 01:13:01,508 --> 01:13:02,228 let me put it this way. 1225 01:13:02,258 --> 01:13:07,188 I think for us to be able to have gone to a full web local-first 1226 01:13:07,208 --> 01:13:12,175 client, we would have had to have taken dramatically more, investment 1227 01:13:12,175 --> 01:13:17,991 money, which would have dramatically changed the entire shape of the app. 1228 01:13:18,486 --> 01:13:22,660 And audience for the app and purpose for the app, in a way that might even 1229 01:13:22,660 --> 01:13:26,216 be, antithetical to, to Muse as a whole, 1230 01:13:26,470 --> 01:13:26,930 right. 1231 01:13:26,950 --> 01:13:33,690 Since I think the overlap of the audience that Muse has as users and customers, 1232 01:13:34,060 --> 01:13:39,820 and the folks who use Apple products, I think that's not a coincidence. 1233 01:13:40,136 --> 01:13:40,946 I think. 1234 01:13:41,108 --> 01:13:45,738 there's a lot of similarities and the values, and sort of the pursuits 1235 01:13:45,778 --> 01:13:48,048 as the bicycle for the mind. 1236 01:13:48,058 --> 01:13:51,738 Like you've really like started pulling on the thread a lot since like this 1237 01:13:51,758 --> 01:13:57,563 entire product is sort of a foundation for the mind to be more powerful. 1238 01:13:58,228 --> 01:14:01,248 Yeah, I think if we had started today instead of started, you know, five 1239 01:14:01,248 --> 01:14:04,468 years ago, six years ago, I think we would probably make different decisions 1240 01:14:04,468 --> 01:14:07,088 just because we're in a different world now than we were five years ago. 1241 01:14:07,658 --> 01:14:11,838 one thing that's very exciting is the daylight computer, which was, android 1242 01:14:11,838 --> 01:14:20,698 based tablet, but share so many of the Muse principles of, you know, calm, quiet. 1243 01:14:21,188 --> 01:14:23,228 Space, safe computing. 1244 01:14:23,238 --> 01:14:24,608 It's not advertising based. 1245 01:14:24,608 --> 01:14:29,278 It's not, you know, in your face, pop up notifications and red badges and that sort 1246 01:14:29,278 --> 01:14:35,312 of thing, but it's very much designed for kind of, purposeful, quiet contemplation. 1247 01:14:36,102 --> 01:14:39,172 So that device fits the Muse. 1248 01:14:39,885 --> 01:14:43,635 Principles and values perfectly, but is, of course, android. 1249 01:14:44,045 --> 01:14:48,695 And so if we started today, I think we have a very different discussion of, okay, 1250 01:14:48,695 --> 01:14:50,895 should we start on that device on android? 1251 01:14:51,265 --> 01:14:52,505 Should we start on ipad? 1252 01:14:52,995 --> 01:14:53,955 should we? 1253 01:14:54,415 --> 01:14:56,755 Use some sort of technology that could cross compile. 1254 01:14:56,765 --> 01:14:57,965 So we can share code. 1255 01:14:58,015 --> 01:15:00,855 Like, I, I think it would be a very, very different discussion than it was 1256 01:15:01,345 --> 01:15:03,875 with the options that we had 5 years ago. 1257 01:15:04,247 --> 01:15:08,967 the downstream implications of choosing 1 platform or another are 1258 01:15:08,967 --> 01:15:11,987 just on such an enormous scale. 1259 01:15:12,617 --> 01:15:15,640 I've heard from a friend who's been briefly working 1260 01:15:15,670 --> 01:15:18,260 at Humane where like Humane. 1261 01:15:18,644 --> 01:15:22,964 are all like ex Apple people, like really brilliant ex Apple people. 1262 01:15:23,394 --> 01:15:27,687 And, well, it turns out the software platform they've built is 1263 01:15:27,687 --> 01:15:30,387 on top of Android of all things. 1264 01:15:30,877 --> 01:15:33,697 So, and that has many, many consequences. 1265 01:15:34,472 --> 01:15:39,599 But, coming back to the, to the web, just because that is, typically been my, my 1266 01:15:39,613 --> 01:15:45,525 home where I started computering and where I'm still, spending most of my time on. 1267 01:15:45,942 --> 01:15:49,112 I'm wondering, how did, even though you didn't get yet to 1268 01:15:49,122 --> 01:15:51,077 fully build it and ship it. 1269 01:15:51,197 --> 01:15:55,707 Given that the sync architecture, as I understand it of Muse, it 1270 01:15:55,707 --> 01:15:58,267 started, as a local only app. 1271 01:15:58,297 --> 01:16:02,457 So all data was created and lived on one device. 1272 01:16:02,777 --> 01:16:08,730 And with Muse 2, you've introduced a sync server and that data could then, didn't 1273 01:16:08,740 --> 01:16:14,370 originate in the server still originates on one device, but now through a server. 1274 01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:19,450 Is able to flow from 1 device to another, but the server really has 1275 01:16:19,460 --> 01:16:25,007 no further role than to facilitate, this transition and, maybe also 1276 01:16:25,017 --> 01:16:28,027 facilitates a backup in case a device. 1277 01:16:28,439 --> 01:16:31,572 gets lost or, something else happens to it. 1278 01:16:32,202 --> 01:16:35,912 so in regards to the, to the web, how did you think about 1279 01:16:35,982 --> 01:16:38,482 implementing that published web? 1280 01:16:38,872 --> 01:16:45,039 Since, one way I could imagine, where you don't really, preserve user privacy 1281 01:16:45,039 --> 01:16:50,079 as much is that the server facilitates this, that the server kind of like looks 1282 01:16:50,099 --> 01:16:54,959 at the sync information and compiles a kind of like a snapshot out of that. 1283 01:16:55,454 --> 01:16:58,884 But I don't think you have that option because everything is encrypted. 1284 01:16:59,314 --> 01:17:04,190 So is the logical implication of that, that the snapshot that you want to 1285 01:17:04,190 --> 01:17:06,720 publish is actually created on the client? 1286 01:17:07,180 --> 01:17:07,700 Yes. 1287 01:17:07,710 --> 01:17:09,030 So there's a couple of different things. 1288 01:17:09,030 --> 01:17:13,034 So the Muse server right now is not encrypted at rest. 1289 01:17:13,220 --> 01:17:14,750 So it's not end to end encrypted. 1290 01:17:15,070 --> 01:17:17,420 Although it, the sync protocol is designed for that. 1291 01:17:17,440 --> 01:17:21,390 We, we kind of put that option in there for the future, but it was too heavy 1292 01:17:21,390 --> 01:17:23,340 of a lift at the time to fully do. 1293 01:17:23,360 --> 01:17:28,960 So theoretically, there would be the ability to add web as a sync 1294 01:17:28,960 --> 01:17:30,650 option and connect into that. 1295 01:17:31,103 --> 01:17:34,463 however, it's still really important to keep that end to end encryption as the 1296 01:17:34,463 --> 01:17:36,723 correct architecture and allow for it. 1297 01:17:36,957 --> 01:17:40,563 it's something we planned, to build the entire time we had the team. 1298 01:17:40,563 --> 01:17:43,283 And it's something that's still on my mind that I would love to be able to implement. 1299 01:17:43,690 --> 01:17:46,870 So that limits what we thought about for the web. 1300 01:17:47,590 --> 01:17:53,357 One was that, we could share the link and within the link that you share, Is. 1301 01:17:53,687 --> 01:17:59,737 The information for the key to decrypt on the web, and then in your 1302 01:17:59,737 --> 01:18:03,637 account, you would be able to revoke that key whenever you need it to. 1303 01:18:03,747 --> 01:18:04,857 So then you could share it. 1304 01:18:05,487 --> 01:18:07,704 Somebody with the link would be able to load up, in the browser. 1305 01:18:08,174 --> 01:18:10,824 The browser would connect, pull down the encrypted data. 1306 01:18:11,254 --> 01:18:14,534 It would have the key locally, be able to decrypt in the browser and 1307 01:18:14,534 --> 01:18:15,654 show everything that you needed. 1308 01:18:16,074 --> 01:18:20,527 or later on you could, revoke that key and then, anyone who loaded it up would 1309 01:18:20,537 --> 01:18:23,307 be able to download encrypted content, but their key would no longer work. 1310 01:18:23,657 --> 01:18:25,537 So that was idea number one. 1311 01:18:25,847 --> 01:18:31,281 That strategy generally requires the browser to load. 1312 01:18:31,562 --> 01:18:37,219 Your entire library or the entire shared piece, which for quick 1313 01:18:37,219 --> 01:18:40,619 sharing of, Oh, Hey, let me send you this thing real quick. 1314 01:18:40,909 --> 01:18:42,769 Let me just create a link real quick, send it over to you. 1315 01:18:43,139 --> 01:18:45,829 You load it up in your browser thinking we're going to collaborate 1316 01:18:45,829 --> 01:18:47,359 real quickly on this document I made. 1317 01:18:47,609 --> 01:18:50,784 and then you have to sit there for seven minutes while it downloads all sorts of. 1318 01:18:51,004 --> 01:18:52,084 Encrypted things. 1319 01:18:52,694 --> 01:18:56,108 So your browser can decrypt it and actually decide what's useful or not. 1320 01:18:56,108 --> 01:18:56,477 Right? 1321 01:18:56,811 --> 01:19:04,121 there's a whole other big pile of, very difficult, local-first encryption, key 1322 01:19:04,121 --> 01:19:07,221 sharing problems that are a part of that. 1323 01:19:07,654 --> 01:19:10,844 And especially when you have lots and lots of data, which many of the. 1324 01:19:11,084 --> 01:19:15,944 You know, Muse customers have lots and lots of data that just makes that 1325 01:19:15,944 --> 01:19:17,504 problem exponentially more difficult 1326 01:19:17,613 --> 01:19:22,093 it's one thing if you wouldn't have launched Muse yet and you can basically 1327 01:19:22,123 --> 01:19:26,463 design the system from scratch with like all you can leverage all 1328 01:19:26,473 --> 01:19:30,107 the degrees of freedom how you can build it but you don't just need to 1329 01:19:30,117 --> 01:19:36,107 build it all by yourself but now you also need to migrate a live system. 1330 01:19:36,490 --> 01:19:42,840 from place A to place B and migrating data, I think is still one of the 1331 01:19:42,880 --> 01:19:47,710 hardest things and one of the scariest things that's even tricky to do it 1332 01:19:47,710 --> 01:19:52,160 with the comfort of a team setting, but then doing this all by yourself, 1333 01:19:53,123 --> 01:19:54,963 that is no small undertaking. 1334 01:19:55,363 --> 01:19:59,233 Yeah, and I think it's as much about the, you know, the kind of time in life 1335 01:19:59,233 --> 01:20:03,587 we are with local-first, trying to do that today is going to be a lot easier 1336 01:20:03,587 --> 01:20:07,297 than it was trying to do it four or five years ago and doing that five years 1337 01:20:07,297 --> 01:20:09,017 from now is going to be even easier. 1338 01:20:09,347 --> 01:20:14,597 And so, having the tooling and having the patterns from other software and 1339 01:20:14,597 --> 01:20:19,253 having the systems built from other software is really going to help. 1340 01:20:19,473 --> 01:20:21,943 Future creators kind of stand on their shoulders. 1341 01:20:22,423 --> 01:20:25,173 So much of the new sync engine we had to build from scratch. 1342 01:20:25,753 --> 01:20:29,503 And if we did encryption, we'd have to build that from scratch, which is of 1343 01:20:29,503 --> 01:20:34,103 course, a huge, a huge lift and then building multiple platforms from scratch. 1344 01:20:34,113 --> 01:20:38,400 So being able to use, Automerge now, or some of the other libraries 1345 01:20:38,400 --> 01:20:41,113 now, lets folks start off in a much. 1346 01:20:41,592 --> 01:20:46,228 more comfortable place, or capable place, than the starting 1347 01:20:46,228 --> 01:20:48,228 point we had five years ago. 1348 01:20:48,258 --> 01:20:49,678 And so that, that makes a difference too. 1349 01:20:50,025 --> 01:20:50,355 Right. 1350 01:20:50,375 --> 01:20:53,755 Which I mean, that's the question you've been already paying so 1351 01:20:53,755 --> 01:20:56,375 much of the innovators tax here. 1352 01:20:56,615 --> 01:21:00,365 You've been had to innovate and pioneer so much. 1353 01:21:00,365 --> 01:21:05,565 You had to roll your entire own sync system, both client side server 1354 01:21:05,565 --> 01:21:08,555 side had to solve other problems. 1355 01:21:09,260 --> 01:21:14,280 Sometimes just without any reference points where aside from using an off the 1356 01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:18,030 shelf technology, you couldn't even talk to someone like, Hey, how, Hey, team 1357 01:21:18,030 --> 01:21:20,030 X, how did you, how did you solve that? 1358 01:21:20,720 --> 01:21:25,010 Looking back, maybe you would have been faster not building 1359 01:21:25,010 --> 01:21:26,420 this in a local-first way. 1360 01:21:26,750 --> 01:21:30,970 Do you sometimes think about was this the right decision to, to 1361 01:21:30,970 --> 01:21:33,390 build back then already local-first? 1362 01:21:33,760 --> 01:21:34,090 Yeah. 1363 01:21:34,090 --> 01:21:39,680 It's something I think about a lot because we, We paid a huge cost in terms 1364 01:21:39,680 --> 01:21:45,760 of developer time to build our sync back end to build a sync on the iPad. 1365 01:21:46,157 --> 01:21:52,107 we're essentially building the network protocol and an entire database layer, 1366 01:21:52,610 --> 01:21:54,140 just to get off the ground, right? 1367 01:21:54,150 --> 01:21:56,270 Just to start building the product features on top of that. 1368 01:21:56,593 --> 01:21:57,843 So it's a huge cost. 1369 01:21:58,213 --> 01:21:59,183 There's probably. 1370 01:21:59,583 --> 01:22:01,163 A different path we could have taken. 1371 01:22:01,423 --> 01:22:06,020 if we had not gotten local-first, the way that I think about almost everything is, 1372 01:22:06,127 --> 01:22:07,597 it would not have solved our problems. 1373 01:22:07,597 --> 01:22:09,197 It just would have changed our problems. 1374 01:22:09,777 --> 01:22:11,417 We, so we would just have different problems. 1375 01:22:11,993 --> 01:22:16,553 I think it would have probably given us some time back, but at the expense of. 1376 01:22:16,928 --> 01:22:19,868 a different sync issues because sync is hard. 1377 01:22:20,508 --> 01:22:24,315 Sync is hard for local-first, sync is hard for not local-first. 1378 01:22:24,735 --> 01:22:30,992 and I think for what Muse is, offline capabilities and 1379 01:22:30,992 --> 01:22:33,542 a really fast local feeling. 1380 01:22:33,877 --> 01:22:39,067 Experience, were paramount, no matter how that data got synchronized, whether 1381 01:22:39,067 --> 01:22:45,417 it was kind of a traditional sass app, we would still want, a very reliable 1382 01:22:45,477 --> 01:22:48,367 and thorough cash on the local device. 1383 01:22:48,930 --> 01:22:52,050 so it would have just changed the problems, but I, I don't know, I, 1384 01:22:52,100 --> 01:22:55,673 I, I think about this every couple of months, but I always kind of land 1385 01:22:55,683 --> 01:22:57,463 on, I think we made the right call. 1386 01:22:58,288 --> 01:22:59,518 This was the right decision. 1387 01:23:00,098 --> 01:23:01,398 It was a difficult decision. 1388 01:23:01,855 --> 01:23:04,975 In the end, it didn't work out for the company, you know, essentially in many 1389 01:23:04,975 --> 01:23:11,278 ways, which is unfortunate, but I'm, I'm not sure that that was the, crux of it. 1390 01:23:11,578 --> 01:23:14,088 I don't think that was the reason. 1391 01:23:14,743 --> 01:23:15,873 That it couldn't work out 1392 01:23:16,577 --> 01:23:22,707 well, I'm very, very thankful and happy that the Muse team early 1393 01:23:22,707 --> 01:23:24,797 on made all of those decisions. 1394 01:23:24,913 --> 01:23:31,747 it brought me on as someone who is just, I came for the values and for the mission. 1395 01:23:32,167 --> 01:23:36,017 And for me, it would have, I use like Miro and the past, et cetera, 1396 01:23:36,367 --> 01:23:40,893 like what really captured my attention was sort of like the, yeah, 1397 01:23:40,893 --> 01:23:42,583 the thinking different about it. 1398 01:23:43,123 --> 01:23:45,433 And, I think you've stayed true to this. 1399 01:23:45,483 --> 01:23:50,213 And even though you had to pay so much of that innovators tax and 1400 01:23:50,243 --> 01:23:53,283 surely, if you would have started out today, like something like 1401 01:23:53,283 --> 01:23:55,563 Automerge is a, in a fantastic spot. 1402 01:23:55,850 --> 01:24:00,650 so you, the giant shoulders are already in a pretty comfortable 1403 01:24:00,840 --> 01:24:02,807 spot to build on top off. 1404 01:24:03,227 --> 01:24:07,207 And yet there's other unsolved problems today, particularly for the web. 1405 01:24:07,583 --> 01:24:10,033 so I think it's never the perfect time. 1406 01:24:10,303 --> 01:24:12,233 I think it's a matter of like, is it a fit? 1407 01:24:12,528 --> 01:24:18,165 For who someone as a builder is, do they feel comfortable, paying 1408 01:24:18,165 --> 01:24:21,625 a bit of that innovators tax and then also reaping the benefits? 1409 01:24:22,025 --> 01:24:25,535 and I think ultimately it's a, it's a journey that you're on and you should 1410 01:24:25,535 --> 01:24:31,677 figure out what is the sort of, the analogy of the problem founder fit is 1411 01:24:31,687 --> 01:24:34,757 sort of like the journey builder fit. 1412 01:24:35,227 --> 01:24:40,090 And, that's something I think a lot about, and I'm paying that, tax a big 1413 01:24:40,110 --> 01:24:44,283 time right now while trying to build the actual product, the music app, I 1414 01:24:44,283 --> 01:24:48,433 also roll my entire data layer, which includes the database, which includes 1415 01:24:48,433 --> 01:24:53,173 the sync system, includes networking, cross platform and for the web. 1416 01:24:53,173 --> 01:24:54,733 So everything on hard mode. 1417 01:24:55,333 --> 01:24:58,283 But for me, the most important thing is like enjoying it, enjoying the 1418 01:24:58,293 --> 01:25:02,353 journey and doing something that, that feels like has a purpose. 1419 01:25:02,837 --> 01:25:04,607 so I'm, I'm very happy about that. 1420 01:25:04,993 --> 01:25:05,853 Yeah, exactly. 1421 01:25:05,853 --> 01:25:06,333 Exactly. 1422 01:25:06,333 --> 01:25:08,973 And I think that's really what keeps me back coming to the, 1423 01:25:09,303 --> 01:25:10,473 yes, we made the right decision. 1424 01:25:10,945 --> 01:25:15,665 Because building that local-first sync, was the right option at the time for 1425 01:25:15,665 --> 01:25:18,915 the technology options that were in front of us that were on the table. 1426 01:25:19,395 --> 01:25:24,455 it really fit our values for the kind of app we wanted, but also the 1427 01:25:24,455 --> 01:25:28,465 kind of data safety and privacy that we want to be able to offer people. 1428 01:25:28,806 --> 01:25:31,252 I mean, like I said, even in that worst case where I was not able 1429 01:25:31,252 --> 01:25:36,055 to carry Muse forward, the Muse apps would have continued to be. 1430 01:25:36,385 --> 01:25:41,815 Functional and useful long into the future because it was built on local-first. 1431 01:25:42,308 --> 01:25:46,575 And so that's the most important thing for me to carry forward as a solo developer 1432 01:25:46,595 --> 01:25:53,152 is to keep those values, keep that local-first value of this is your data. 1433 01:25:53,212 --> 01:25:56,832 It's on your device and you can use it for as long as that device 1434 01:25:56,842 --> 01:25:58,982 still has a battery inside of it. 1435 01:25:59,435 --> 01:26:03,145 And, I think the benefits you get from local-first, you do pay the huge 1436 01:26:03,145 --> 01:26:07,825 tax, but you get such a wonderful reward for the capabilities that 1437 01:26:07,825 --> 01:26:10,528 local-first software, enables for you. 1438 01:26:10,679 --> 01:26:12,685 I think it's worth the trade off then. 1439 01:26:12,695 --> 01:26:16,202 I think it's worth the trade off now and it's. 1440 01:26:16,570 --> 01:26:20,070 How I want to build software in the future, you know, it's just 1441 01:26:20,070 --> 01:26:21,400 a wonderful world to live in. 1442 01:26:21,903 --> 01:26:23,003 I totally agree. 1443 01:26:23,003 --> 01:26:27,253 And the good news there is like more and more of the hard problems, 1444 01:26:27,560 --> 01:26:32,310 have already been solved and are continuously being addressed and solved. 1445 01:26:32,520 --> 01:26:35,010 So the entry ticket is cheaper and cheaper. 1446 01:26:35,400 --> 01:26:40,170 And we are getting closer and closer to that dream where all of like the caveats 1447 01:26:40,190 --> 01:26:42,290 are getting chopped off one by one. 1448 01:26:42,695 --> 01:26:45,945 Year after year, month after month, this is also one of the big things 1449 01:26:45,945 --> 01:26:51,875 that has drawn me into the local-first space that has just attracted for me. 1450 01:26:52,008 --> 01:26:55,495 already had the smartest, and brightest minds. 1451 01:26:55,555 --> 01:27:01,533 And this is what really, gets me so excited that there is just such a wealth 1452 01:27:01,553 --> 01:27:06,733 of problems that are worth solving that the 2nd order effects of all of those 1453 01:27:06,753 --> 01:27:12,920 being solved, materially change software and technology for humans in a way. 1454 01:27:13,310 --> 01:27:16,660 That I think almost no other technology solves. 1455 01:27:17,170 --> 01:27:22,640 So, and yeah, thank you again for being the inspiration that brought 1456 01:27:22,670 --> 01:27:25,123 me in and, brings in other people. 1457 01:27:25,583 --> 01:27:30,020 So, maybe ending on a note, what are, what are you most looking 1458 01:27:30,020 --> 01:27:32,150 forward to for, for the year ahead? 1459 01:27:32,677 --> 01:27:33,807 well, I'm an engineer at heart. 1460 01:27:33,827 --> 01:27:36,247 So a lot of things that get me excited are things that I want to build. 1461 01:27:36,610 --> 01:27:38,793 And, end to end encryption is exciting. 1462 01:27:39,123 --> 01:27:40,153 It's super difficult. 1463 01:27:40,393 --> 01:27:42,810 And it's one of those things that, whenever you build, if you're 1464 01:27:42,810 --> 01:27:46,190 building encryption yourself, you're doing it wrong, generally speaking. 1465 01:27:46,707 --> 01:27:50,637 so I think I probably won't be doing end to end encryption anytime soon. 1466 01:27:50,667 --> 01:27:51,717 But instead, yeah. 1467 01:27:52,165 --> 01:27:55,065 I still want to solve the problem of privacy. 1468 01:27:55,255 --> 01:28:00,318 I've had lots, in terms of people being scared or uncomfortable or. 1469 01:28:00,718 --> 01:28:03,252 Unable to use a third party sync server. 1470 01:28:03,612 --> 01:28:07,818 I've had, lawyers reach out, psychologists reach out, doctors 1471 01:28:07,818 --> 01:28:09,618 reach out and say, Hey, I love Muse. 1472 01:28:09,628 --> 01:28:11,198 It's super helpful for my work. 1473 01:28:11,498 --> 01:28:15,758 it is physically impossible for me to put patient data in a thing 1474 01:28:15,798 --> 01:28:17,258 that lands on a third party server. 1475 01:28:17,852 --> 01:28:21,352 And in some cases it remains impossible. 1476 01:28:22,122 --> 01:28:25,855 Even if there's end to end encryption, just solving that technical problem does 1477 01:28:25,855 --> 01:28:29,915 not necessarily solve their business and privacy problem for their patients. 1478 01:28:30,465 --> 01:28:34,645 So instead, something I'm really excited for is, peer to peer sync. 1479 01:28:35,102 --> 01:28:39,132 And so instead of going through a Muse server at all, you can have 1480 01:28:39,132 --> 01:28:45,038 your iPad and your Mac synchronize their full data together entirely 1481 01:28:45,058 --> 01:28:47,728 over local encrypted connections. 1482 01:28:48,312 --> 01:28:49,982 And so it's not talking to a server. 1483 01:28:50,192 --> 01:28:51,562 It's not talking to my server. 1484 01:28:51,572 --> 01:28:53,112 It's not talking to Amazon server. 1485 01:28:53,122 --> 01:28:54,492 It's not talking to anybody's server. 1486 01:28:54,962 --> 01:29:01,282 It is your devices inside of your home on your Wi Fi talking encrypted over your 1487 01:29:01,282 --> 01:29:03,242 local Wi Fi to stay in sync together. 1488 01:29:03,825 --> 01:29:08,595 I think that to me really embodies local-first and opens 1489 01:29:08,595 --> 01:29:10,965 up, even more opportunities. 1490 01:29:11,605 --> 01:29:16,922 For workflows and customers, that have privacy considerations, I think that 1491 01:29:16,922 --> 01:29:22,082 solves the problem even more than kind of a traditional SAS end to end encryption 1492 01:29:22,302 --> 01:29:28,088 would in many ways, because it fully decouples Muse the app from Muse the 1493 01:29:28,088 --> 01:29:32,635 sync server, which is, I think the gold standard for local for software is to 1494 01:29:32,635 --> 01:29:36,065 say, Hey, this is your, your device, your stuff, your software, your data. 1495 01:29:36,720 --> 01:29:39,240 It syncs between your devices like you don't need anybody else. 1496 01:29:39,250 --> 01:29:41,130 You just need to download the software and away you go. 1497 01:29:41,530 --> 01:29:45,280 and so I, I love that vision for the future for local-first 1498 01:29:45,300 --> 01:29:46,880 generally, but especially from you. 1499 01:29:46,880 --> 01:29:50,610 So I'm really hoping I can dig into that this year. 1500 01:29:50,620 --> 01:29:52,310 I would love to, to be building on that. 1501 01:29:53,065 --> 01:29:58,995 I'm super, super excited to hear you say that since it always just 1502 01:29:58,995 --> 01:30:06,285 like drives me crazy to have devices have like my iPhone and one hand 1503 01:30:06,305 --> 01:30:08,562 and have maybe an iPad on my table. 1504 01:30:08,832 --> 01:30:12,722 Maybe there's some hiccup in the internet connection right now. 1505 01:30:13,052 --> 01:30:16,022 And those two things, they're not even separated by a meter. 1506 01:30:16,293 --> 01:30:21,206 they're just like completely ignorant of each other existence. 1507 01:30:21,726 --> 01:30:28,341 And, with an app like Muse solving that and allowing those to Talk 1508 01:30:28,341 --> 01:30:31,791 to each other who are clearly in proximity to each other. 1509 01:30:32,311 --> 01:30:37,141 That should be both an inspiration and also a provocation to 1510 01:30:37,191 --> 01:30:38,631 other apps to do better. 1511 01:30:39,491 --> 01:30:44,451 And I'm really, really excited about not just for the sake of Muse users 1512 01:30:44,451 --> 01:30:47,221 who have a better time because of that. 1513 01:30:47,241 --> 01:30:50,641 And I think that's one of the coolest things in terms of 1514 01:30:50,641 --> 01:30:52,071 like a new product version. 1515 01:30:52,441 --> 01:30:57,311 That all the features that you know, in love before are still 1516 01:30:57,311 --> 01:31:01,871 working the same way, but now an inherent limitation is just gone. 1517 01:31:01,881 --> 01:31:02,291 And it's like. 1518 01:31:02,736 --> 01:31:07,789 Obviously, it should have been like that all along and, ideally inspiring 1519 01:31:07,799 --> 01:31:12,999 and provoking more apps, more builders into falling on the same path. 1520 01:31:13,482 --> 01:31:14,582 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 1521 01:31:14,582 --> 01:31:19,596 I think it's the, I'm a big believer in local-first software and, there's 1522 01:31:19,596 --> 01:31:25,342 really no reason that, like you said, my laptop sitting here should send its data 1523 01:31:25,392 --> 01:31:32,137 encrypted or otherwise to the Amazon U. E. US East data center, just to have it 1524 01:31:32,137 --> 01:31:34,127 sent back to my phone, three feet away. 1525 01:31:34,817 --> 01:31:35,297 I like it. 1526 01:31:35,337 --> 01:31:36,997 We, we don't need to be doing that. 1527 01:31:37,204 --> 01:31:37,974 it's kind of silly. 1528 01:31:38,317 --> 01:31:42,264 And so keeping that data private and keeping it local, I think you 1529 01:31:42,264 --> 01:31:43,504 end up getting better performance. 1530 01:31:43,504 --> 01:31:44,504 You get better privacy. 1531 01:31:44,504 --> 01:31:45,244 You get better. 1532 01:31:45,721 --> 01:31:48,031 you get better everything in so many ways. 1533 01:31:49,261 --> 01:31:50,031 I'm excited for it. 1534 01:31:51,126 --> 01:31:56,589 Hey, Adam, thank you so much for sharing so much about your journey, 1535 01:31:57,116 --> 01:32:02,802 for five years now with Muse, I've learned a lot more about the journey, 1536 01:32:03,109 --> 01:32:07,885 that has led to Muse and has led through the various chapters of Muse. 1537 01:32:08,479 --> 01:32:12,637 I've taken away a lot here for, for my personal journey, see a lot of 1538 01:32:12,637 --> 01:32:17,671 similarities, have a lot of empathy for your journey and hopefully some 1539 01:32:17,671 --> 01:32:21,217 of the audience who are thinking about, starting a similar journey. 1540 01:32:21,217 --> 01:32:23,947 Maybe there are on a, on a similar journey already. 1541 01:32:24,301 --> 01:32:25,191 I've learned a lot. 1542 01:32:25,381 --> 01:32:30,151 I'm, I'm sure folks who are listening have learned a lot and yeah, just 1543 01:32:30,171 --> 01:32:31,491 thank you for sharing all of that. 1544 01:32:32,176 --> 01:32:32,456 Yeah. 1545 01:32:32,456 --> 01:32:33,526 Thank you so much for having me. 1546 01:32:33,789 --> 01:32:37,449 always happy to chat and always, especially to another, uh, local-first 1547 01:32:37,469 --> 01:32:39,359 developer, I empathize with you. 1548 01:32:39,359 --> 01:32:43,599 It's always wonderful to chat with someone who a understand software, but B 1549 01:32:43,709 --> 01:32:45,859 understands, no, I don't work for Apple. 1550 01:32:45,889 --> 01:32:48,949 I know I'm, I have an app on the App Store, but no, I just 1551 01:32:49,959 --> 01:32:52,019 understands the world that I live in. 1552 01:32:52,019 --> 01:32:53,339 So it's been wonderful. 1553 01:32:53,359 --> 01:32:54,119 Thanks for having me. 1554 01:32:55,052 --> 01:32:57,472 Thank you for listening to the localfirst.fm podcast. 1555 01:32:57,702 --> 01:33:00,152 If you've enjoyed this episode and haven't done so already, please 1556 01:33:00,422 --> 01:33:02,132 Please subscribe and leave a review. 1557 01:33:02,572 --> 01:33:05,132 Please also share this episode with your friends and colleagues. 1558 01:33:05,502 --> 01:33:08,492 Spreading the word about the podcast is a great way to support 1559 01:33:08,492 --> 01:33:10,372 it and to help me keep it going. 1560 01:33:10,882 --> 01:33:15,382 A special thanks again to Convex and ElectricSQL for supporting this podcast. 1561 01:33:15,782 --> 01:33:16,542 See you next time.