Andrew is back from two weeks of Spanish immersion in Puebla, and the conversation picks up right where it always does. We get into MetaMonster's 100-demo sprint with their new co-founder, why AI keeps producing bad content for founders (and what Sean shipped to fix it), and somehow end up deep in a conversation about outcome-based agency pricing and why it is a finance nightmare in practice.

Links:

• Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins
• Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/
• MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/
• Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/
• Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun
• Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/
• Margins: http://margins.so/
• Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/

For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

Transcript:
00:00.41
Sean
Welcome back to Mexico City.

00:02.26
Andrew
What a

00:06.90
Sean
And let's get

00:07.11
Andrew
up? I still can't remember how, I still don't know how to say, can never remember how to say like, good to see you. I think it's like, mucho gusto verte, or like, con gusto.

00:20.02
Andrew
I think con gusto is like the the simplest way to say it, but... um

00:24.79
Sean
con gusto my friend um me amigo um

00:30.58
Andrew
Asking Claude, how do I say nice to see you in Mexico?

00:37.71
Andrew
I've been using Claude a bunch for, did i have I talked about this in a past episode?

00:40.96
Sean
yeah yeah yeah but no it's it's it's good it's like um

00:42.08
Andrew
Okay, my bad.

00:46.01
Andrew
Que bueno verte, me da gusto verte. Que gusto verte, que gusto verte is the most natural way. Literally, what a pleasure to see you. Que gusto verte.

00:58.77
Sean
I feel like that's not a thing people say. I feel like.

01:02.84
Andrew
I don't know how often how often people say it yeah

01:08.67
Sean
Yeah. Interesting. um how was How was your trip?

01:14.97
Andrew
It was awesome. um Just going from using Spanish maybe anywhere from half an hour to like two or three hours a day to using Spanish from 9 nine am until like five every day and then sometimes for another couple hours at night.

01:34.68
Andrew
depending on what plans I had with friends and stuff, um was definitely like much needed. Like I felt my vocabulary improving. i felt myself building some confidence, speaking Spanish, getting a little bit more comfortable.

01:50.14
Andrew
um Also underscored how much I still don't know and like how far I am from where I actually want to be, which is like kind confusing. good and frustrating at the same time.

02:03.32
Andrew
um But overall, really fun and also just nice to see a new part of Mexico. Like, Puebla is really beautiful. um It's a smaller city, a little bit more chill.

02:16.06
Andrew
um but has a really beautiful historic center with porticos that reminded me of like the porticos in Bologna in Italy. um And really good food.

02:29.66
Andrew
um I ate something and like fucked up my stomach for like a week. So that was a bummer, but also just part of being a gringo living in Mexico. um So it comes with the territory.

02:44.76
Sean
You were going for, I want to say it was two weeks, but it feels like it's been a very long time since we've talked.

02:47.10
Andrew
Just two weeks.

02:50.35
Sean
yeah, I miss you as well.

02:50.68
Andrew
Oh, I miss you too. Nah, it was just two weeks. Yeah, but super fun.

02:58.52
Sean
Good. Good, good, good. Yeah. That was a good picture from your group.

03:03.93
Andrew
Oh, of the of the class.

03:05.53
Sean
Yeah, yeah. That's good.

03:06.56
Andrew
Yeah, the school does a really good job of like, so you take classes from nine to one every day, and then you have lunch with the other students. um And you're strongly encouraged to speak only in Spanish while you're at the school.

03:21.82
Andrew
um So you're you're speaking to other students who are at different levels, but speaking in Spanish.

03:21.96
Sean
Nice.

03:28.48
Andrew
And then in the afternoons, Monday through Wednesday, you're paired one-on-one with a guide who's just a local. um And you walk around Puebla and go visit museums and tour different parts of the city with your guide. um ah The second Monday I was there, i got two of the other students and their guides to come with me to a board game store and we just played board games and talked in Spanish and it was super fun.

03:57.64
Andrew
Muy lindo, very cute.

03:59.72
Sean
Nice.

03:59.77
Andrew
um And, ah but yeah, so you get like a lot of one-on-one time with your guide. And then on Thursday, you do like a bigger expedition with the group to a city, you know, a small town or city nearby to Puebla. Yeah.

04:15.04
Andrew
And then, ah yeah, Friday afternoons you get off.

04:15.40
Sean
Nice.

04:18.78
Andrew
So,

04:19.82
Sean
It's like a full immersion type of thing. I like it.

04:22.43
Andrew
yeah, exactly.

04:23.14
Sean
Yeah. Cool.

04:24.44
Andrew
um Yeah, super fun.

04:25.43
Sean
You feel like you are drastically better at speaking the language now?

04:31.52
Andrew
No, I would not say drastically better. um I would say...

04:36.90
Andrew
marginally better. Like definitely, like i like I said, like definitely improved my vocab and my confidence, but like still two weeks just isn't enough to like for a drastic change.

04:46.47
Sean
Right, right.

04:47.76
Andrew
I, um yeah, i I need, I wish I could have spent

04:49.21
Sean
Gotcha.

04:55.55
Andrew
you know, two months there, because I think that would have been the kind of time I need to, like, really take a step forward. um Although I found this funny thing. i've I've spent some time on the language learning subreddit over the last, like, six months or whatever.

05:11.77
Andrew
And I found this funny joke where like every level thinks they're six months away from being fluent. Like every level of speaker is like, yeah, with like six more months of study, I'll be fluent.

05:21.25
Sean
Yeah.

05:23.68
Andrew
And it's like, you also just realize the more you learn, like, and Fluent is not easy to define and is kind of a shifting goalpost. um There's like true native speaker fluency. And then there's like, you know, understanding scientific terms. And um so like, you know, I think my goal is just conversational fluency, like be able to meet people who speak with a slightly different accent and not panic and like ah be able to like hang out in a crowd of like, you know, locals and like carry a conversation without being super stressed or watch a movie in Spanish and understand it without subtitles.

06:12.37
Sean
Cool.

06:15.19
Sean
Cool.

06:19.13
Sean
My brain's going into, like I forget what it's called, but there's like, a I don't know this is like i don't know if this is for like all languages, but like there's something like from what I understand, but Japanese, there's like an N1 or N2.

06:31.96
Andrew...