Makers.dev

Makers.dev

By Chris Achard and Christian GencoBusinessEntrepreneurshipMarketing
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Makers.dev episodes

  • 22 Refocusing on SaaS

    Both of us refocus on the businesses we had when we started makers.dev, and we become each other's boss again. 


     00:00 Intro 
     01:38 Taking breaks is good for work 
     03:52 Chris's update - AI plus WIP 
     09:25 Specific marketing next steps 
     21:39 A tool for finding "watering holes" 
     23:54 Make specific next steps and cultivate long term habits 
     31:12 Chris might buy a computer 
     34:12 The most effective way to allocate money 
     44:17 Should Christian transition to serverless? 
     49:44 Making plugins for every site building app 
     56:20 OneDrive and SharePoint integrations 
     01:03:58 Want us to "Hot Take" your business idea? 
     
     Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco 
     
     
     🧠 https://www.kaggle.com/c/indoor-location-navigation/ 
     🚀 joinwip.com 
     🔎 https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ 
     🤑 The Killer Combo of Free Content with Paid Promotion – Jordan Gal – MicroConf Growth 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9aLKqRuS7A 
     🎤 https://softwaresocial.dev/
    30x500 query generator: https://gen.co/qgen/

    1 hr 5 min
  • 21 Graphics Cards and Hot Takes

    Chris dives deeper into data science and complains that crypto currency miners are buying all the graphics cards. Christian talks about how to decide what to work on, plus has 6 new business ideas to think about.



    00:00 Intro

    01:11 Chris's projects

    03:43 When to buy vs rent (graphics cards and more)

    12:34 Trying to rise in a Kaggle competition

    16:44 MeetingPlace - what to do next, committing to action

    23:55 Mining Ethereum

    30:40 Hot take 1: better YouTube suggestions

    35:08 *YouTube history tip*

    36:34 Hot take 2: solar system Oculus Quest app

    39:23 Hot take 3: selling physical products

    42:45 Hot take 4: a better way to read ebooks

    51:51 How to parse an epub

    53:35 Hot take 5: non-birthday cards

    59:29 Hot take 6: paid coaching calls


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    Links from the show:


    📖 Permutation City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

    📄 How to Read a Paper https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee384m/Handouts/HowtoReadPaper.pdf
    1 hr 5 min
  • 20 It's never as good as it seems, it's never as bad as it seems

    Chris enters a Kaggle competition to expand his data science skills, and Christian tries to figure out what to work on and how to prioritize time. We also talk about personality and learning traits, and how we get things done.



    00:00 Intro

    01:23 Data science update

    02:37 Kaggle indoor positioning competition

    11:51 How Chris dives into learning a new topic

    14:18 Balancing short term vs long term

    17:02 ADHD styles of getting things done

    22:53 Studying personality

    27:06 Christian defeats email mountain

    32:47 It's never as good as it seems, it's never as bad as it seems

    39:47 3D printers are SO FREAKING COOL

    45:59 How to choose what to work on

    49:43 Selling a SaaS?

    55:49 Recapturing attention by streamlining processes

    57:07 Hot Take: online grocery ordering


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
    1 hr 2 min
  • 19 Living in the Future

    Chris talks about learning more AI and ML, and how learning that is helping as he teaches others. Christian is about to get a new 3D printer, and talks about how it's so cool that we can just download and print real things - we're living in the future.



    00:00 Intro

    02:15 Doing things under your own name vs a new domain name

    07:18 Learning new things makes you a better educator

    09:27 Consuming the content you create is important in business

    14:33 Penny wise and pound foolish

    19:11 Paying money for human experts to cover your blindspots

    21:39 Updates on Chris's projects

    24:14 Solutions for reducing the support load of a SaaS

    29:27 3D printer + CNC + laser cutter

    39:50 Openscad as a programmable 3D modeling software

    42:16 Living in the future

    46:07 NFTs


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    Links mentioned:


    🖨 https://snapmaker.com/

    💻 https://www.openscad.org/

    📖 https://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/1469246864

    💎 Diamond Age: https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Age-Illustrated-Primer-Spectra/dp/0553380966

    📱 Kindle Fire Kids Edition: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-HD-10-Kids-Edition/dp/B07KD7K4B1

    🎨 https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/
    59 min
  • 18 Leaky abstractions, ML, and email mountain

    "Christian just do your emails"



    00:00 Plumbing problems

    01:31 When do you outsource vs. do it yourself?

    13:18 Chris's AI research

    17:38 Overview of Machine Learning

    22:24 PyTorch vs. TensorFlow

    26:02 Python, Javascript, and Ruby

    29:41 Slogging through email

    33:34 Email systems

    40:43 Bookmark bankruptcy

    41:44 Zettelkasten Google Search browser plugin HOT TAKE

    44:34 Just do your emails Christian


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    9️⃣MNIST number dataset AI practice: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1369313924970143749

    🌊TensorFlow: https://www.tensorflow.org/

    🔥PyTorch: https://pytorch.org/

    🏃🏻fast.ai: https://www.fast.ai/

    🌭Not a Hotdog app from Silicon Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIci3C4JkL0

    ☕TensorFlow.js: https://www.tensorflow.org/js

    🎒Learn X in Y minutes: https://learnxinyminutes.com/

    🐍Effective Python: https://amzn.to/30t9fOS

    🐓Data Science from Scratch: https://amzn.to/3t476pd

    🤘🏻Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw: https://amzn.to/3t6u8f5

    🚶🏻StumbleUpon: https://www.stumbleupon.com/

    ⛰Email Mountain: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1369407654809001986
    51 min
  • 17 Doings things you shouldn't do

    Apparently makers.dev is now the #1 Entrepreneurship podcast in Albania



    00:00 Intro

    01:45 2^4 episodes and the #1 Albanian Entrepreneurship Podcast

    04:00 Chris's GAN AI research

    09:32 How hard is it to make a GAN?

    14:56 Feeling like you should be working on something else

    21:31 EMAIL

    24:56 Building a book reader in public

    28:47 Orders of magnitude of views vs. engagement

    31:12 Letting projects incubate

    36:28 Boutique paper scanning business idea #HOTTAKES

    41:40 Google lockout insurance #HOTTAKES

    45:57 Chrome Extensions, npm, and other dangerous ecosystems #HOTTAKES

    56:59 Christian spends several minutes reinventing Squarespace

    01:08:04 gen.co domain name


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    🇦🇱 #1 Entrepreneurship podcast in Albania: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1366427624659185664

    🎓Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/generative-adversarial-networks-gans

    🆒Tesseract OCR: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract

    👻This Person Does Not Exist: https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/

    🏫 fast.ai: https://www.fast.ai/

    📖Christian making an ebook reader in public: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1365354786422460419

    🐦Use AI summarizations to help summarize a book: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1365681397365628934

    🗻Iron Mountain enterprise scanning: https://www.ironmountain.com/

    🖌Tom Sawyer painting a fence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAHXwLRI88Q

    🤨"I no longer trust The Great Suspender": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25846504

    ❌"The Great Suspender extension has been removed from Chrome Web Store for containing malware": https://9to5google.com/2021/02/04/the-great-suspender-extension-has-been-removed-from-chrome-web-store-for-containing-malware/

    🏚"How one developer just broke Node, Babel and thousands of projects in 11 lines of JavaScript

    ": https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/

    🍔"McDonald’s Didn’t Know What the Internet Was in the 90’s

    ": http://www.factfiend.com/mcdonalds-didnt-know-internet-90s/

    🚗Nissan.com: https://nissan.com/
    1 hr 10 min
  • 16 SNOVID ideas and #hottakes

    Eight new ideas hot and fresh from a week of impromptu urban camping in Dallas, Texas.



    00:00 SNOVID

    02:39 Iceballs

    03:43 Acorn Chat

    04:44 Standard landing page vs. Long Form Copy

    09:52 AB testing

    14:55 SNOVID idea #HOTTAKES

    16:30 Amazon mobile app for all Shopify stores idea

    19:07 donotcall.dev API idea

    22:13 ffmpeg as a service idea

    27:47 transcriptions with a good API idea

    32:43 Every YouTube channel is a podcast idea

    35:18 Custom email frontend idea

    40:18 Positive feedback hotline idea

    44:50 Audiobook/ebook note taking app idea

    50:11 Generative Adversarial Networks


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    ⏲Noko time tracker: https://nokotime.com/

    📈Fileinbox long form copy AB test: https://imgur.com/KDfDYmi

    🛍Main Street Fights Back: https://justinjackson.ca/main-street-fights-back

    🚚air.com searching network of independent stores: https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1363648414882271233

    🥊Fight Amazon: https://justinjackson.ca/fight-amazon

    🏦Mastering Modern Payments: https://www.masteringmodernpayments.com/

    🤖GPT-3 beta: https://openai.com/blog/openai-api/

    🏋️‍♀️Jane Fonda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM3SslJP31Y

    🎧Pocket Casts podcast app: https://www.pocketcasts.com/

    🎓Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/generative-adversarial-networks-gans

    💀"I tried to warn them": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPgL8O5mwLg
    59 min
  • 15 Building Acorn Chat in a week

    Perfect is the enemy of good, show your work, and get more of yourself out there.



    00:00 Keeping the monkey healthy

    03:00 Crunched audio?

    05:02 Building Acorn Chat in a week

    13:15 Why have separate app. and www. subdomains?

    18:44 Embedded customizable .ejs templates per customer

    21:13 Perfect is the enemy of good

    24:00 The next 48 hours for Acorn Chat

    27:08 Clips.marketing goals were CRUSHED

    31:29 Show your work

    42:56 Acorn Chat on Fileinbox?

    46:20 Next week


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    💬 Building a SaaS in a week: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1357029859046875137

    🐦 "Something easy to fix now and hard to fix later is to separate out your marketing site from your backend app": https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1358147298979627008

    ⛪ Perfect is the enemy of good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good

    ✂️ Clips.marketing: https://clips.marketing/

    🎞 API for video clipping and encoding: https://cloud.qencode.com/

    🤩 A moderately popular tweet about clips.marketing that only took 25 minutes to make: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1357476125228871681

    🐉 fluent-ffmpeg: https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg
    51 min
  • 14 Gotta make the monkey happy

    Virtual Reality, project prioritization, and smart but upset tummies



    00:00 Intro

    00:56 Syndicating makers.dev clips

    03:35 Clips.marketing as a consultancy vs. SaaS

    13:58 Avoidant attachment style

    16:00 Virtual Reality and the Oculus Quest 2

    19:21 Unity VR development

    21:23 Chris's 17 projects from 2020

    26:02 How do you prioritize what to work on next?

    31:22 Optimizing for fun work is important

    34:23 Runway anxiety and optimization

    39:31 Kids are productively challenging

    42:14 Is your stomach or your brain in charge?

    43:00 Gotta make the monkey happy

    44:43 Camhead.app as a profitable Tamagotchi

    48:38 Clips.marketing architecture


    Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco


    🐦 Clip retweeted by @arvidkahl: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1355180904235188229

    💡 Making the Most of Social Media with Whitney Hansen on the Run With It podcast: https://share.transistor.fm/s/75366d71

    🍯 Parable of the Pottery Class: https://aliabdaal.com/pottery/

    📚 The Artist's Way: https://amzn.to/39LFYEy

    🧠 "The second brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/

    💔 Heartbleed SSL vulnerability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed
    57 min
  • 13 Converging styles, products over blog posts, clips.marketing next steps

    00:00 Christian and Chris are converging
     00:40 Maker.dev interactions on twitter
     01:47 Audio quality is bad and it's not the microphone's fault
     04:56 Chris's talking head videos
     08:46 Why is Facebook's moneymaker backend so bad?
     15:01 What's the plan for clips.marketing?
     20:52 Build your audience first (unless you can build really quickly and cheaply)
     26:16 Manually onboard to make sure you talk to customers
     28:24 Talk to dirty messy humans about their FeElInGs 
    30:48 Clips.marketing as a productized service? 
    37:22 Christian's next week 
    39:36 Chris's next week 


     Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco 
     
     🎙 Our new matching microphones: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1352332392367841280 
     💛 Positive twitter feedback for makers.dev: https://twitter.com/petersuhm/status/1353368545715863553 
     🐦 Some of Chris's talking head videos: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1352376272878493699 
     💡 Making the Most of Social Media with Whitney Hansen on the Run With It 
     podcast: https://share.transistor.fm/s/75366d71 
     🦓 How To Use Jobs To Be Done To Perfect Your Positioning by Claire Suellentrop: https://microconf.gen.co/claire-suellentrop/

    44 min

About Makers.dev

From the publisher's feed

Chris and Christian build some software businesses.