Episode 100: Finally, a Legitimate Podcast
Summary
Episode 100 opens with banter about checks, payment apps, and food before turning to business. Nick and Kai work through what they miss about having a day job (clear career progression, guilt-free time off, paycheck stability), then trace how Draft Revise evolved from A/B testing contractor work to C-level design consulting. The episode closes on a Thanksgiving note and a year-end review practice Kai uses: two lists, one for wins and one for what to change, with the second list feeding systems rather than resolutions.
Highlights
- Nick traces Draft Revise’s arc from ‘I’ll run A/B tests for you’ to sitting with C-level staff to determine how design can economically impact a business. That’s the reason for his current rates.
- Draft Revise launched in July 2013 at $650/month.
- Kai flags that freelancers have no built-in career progression signal. A day job gives you a path from junior to mid to senior; running your own business, the only obvious marker is years in.
- Nick observes that each consulting payment gives him a self-esteem bump a salary never did, and flags that as worth watching: seeking that validation from clients can be harmful.
- Kai misses how easy it was to call in sick at a day job. Working independently, he pushes through instead of resting, and knows that feeds burnout.
- Kai’s year-end practice: write one list of things that went well, then a separate list of things to change. The second list drives system changes, not resolutions.
- Kai finds 3-5 year goal windows far less stressful than one-year targets. The same goal that feels urgent at 12 months feels manageable at 36.
Read the transcript
It’s been a hundred episodes, dude.
I’m I’m amazed. I can’t wait till 200.
200.
God. Do numbers go that high? You know, I out of the two of us, I know one of us was a math major. I just can’t remember which one of us was.
I did I did uh the least like counting y field of math research that you could possibly imagine. Like number theory or graph theory would be one where you could figure out whether numbers go to two hundred. I figure out whether numbers fall to shit around 192.
That was basically my field of math. So what I’m hearing is we are approaching the point where your field. Directly relates to our episodes. I mean, we get to episode 190. We are well within territory of your field.
That’s probably true. It depends on whether the onset of chaos occurs before then. Have you listened to our podcast? That’s basically our podcast is just the onset of chaos. That’s what it is.
Are we the opener for the four horsemen in this? We’re the first horseman.
Bling. God. So my voice is back. Good. I can’t really hit the high notes, but like. I’m not going to get a phone call from my mom asking how badly I’m sick the instant we roll the podcast, which is what happened last week. Oh, Nick Mom. I’m really grateful that we’re finally the three-digit numbers of the podcast because finally more people than my mom are going to listen to my podcast.
Really, that’s what it takes. I mean, I feel bad that when you said, why don’t we just start at episode 400? I was like, no, no, no, we got to start at episode one. I mean, we could be at 500 episodes now.
It’s like check numbers. Really is. Could be cash as check number one. No. That’s why when you order checks, you get like $68,000 or some high number, right? I think it’s like mine in draft start at like 5,280. Business has been around a day when I get these checks. And I’m looking at this and I’m like, no one is. No one is like fooling around about this. Like, everyone knows exactly how long draft has been around. It’s like It’s really silly.
It’s really silly. It is. I mean, I had the exact same advice from my dad when I started my own business. Hey, when you open your business checking account, you know, make sure the checks don’t start 0001 because they’ll all think you’re a noob. And
I remember they don’t get cash. Really? I hear that’s the thing. Yeah, like a bank won’t take it. And I don’t know what, like. Anti-diluvian precedent exists for this. But that’s that’s real.
Like, can I just go on the record saying I’m opposed to using checks in absolutely any form? I just I’m done with it.
I actually like checks. Really? I’m I’m pro well that’s People give me checks. You know, I give I write checks. It’s free. It’s not VC funded or stupid. It’s not a system where you have like a lock-in because everybody has checks. Everybody has checks. You know it’s ubiquitous. And I actually think that’s like pretty comforting. Like until we all agree on whatever Zell, SquareCache, Venmo nonsense. ‘Cause like my young friends use Venmo and my like thirty something friends use Square Cash and my friends with Chase use whatever proprietary shitlord Chase has. And I look at that and I think like, why are we all locked into different services when we could all just agree on checks? That’s I mean checks and faxing, man.
Oh God, I’m hanging up right now. Faxing. I once lost a $10,000 check in my office, and it took me four weeks to find it. That’s not okay.
No, that’s why you hate checks. It’s because a check kicked your mom in the crop. Yes. Yes. That’s the problem. I’ve checks have only done well by me.
Mm-hmm.
We’re good.
Me and check. I haven’t experienced it yet, but I’m really excited for it. I think on the new iPhones or with the new iOS 11, you’re able to do Apple Pay peer-to-peer.
So 11. 2. And it’s not just the new iPhones, it’s everywhere.
Everything touch ID, everything with Apple Wallet.
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s like iOS 6 it’s it’s it’s iPhone 6 and above, I think, or 6s, something like that. I have an iPhone SE and it will get it. That’s wonderful. Which is great. So, like, you know, I’ll trust that. And then it’s going to be my like three sad friends on Android who fucked up and haven’t upgraded their phones yet. They’re all going to be writing me checks. And then I’m going to be like, why are you giving me checks? I hate checks in like six weeks. Like after this thing launches.
I’m right there with you. When I discovered in my local friend group, we All somehow settled on Venmo is once a certain threshold of money got into that collective pot that was being passed around, it just satisfied all debts and no new money had to enter. There was like 400 bucks and like just passing it between each other took care of like, oh, you bought dinner, let me pay you back. Oh, you bought the tickets for the thing, let me pay you back. And it was absolutely fascinating, especially with two economists in the group. They analyzed it deeply.
Yeah, I like when I go and this has nothing to do with Venmo in particular, but when I go to like a restaurant with like 12 other people and we split the bill, everybody always puts in a paranoiac amount of money. And they always give me the bill because math, right? And so, and nobody else knows how to math. So, I go and I do it all in my head because math, and I And I come out and I’m like, we have like 800 extra dollars. We have like some preposterous amount of extra dollars. And I’m like, and And they’re like, everybody like locks up and gets a panic attack. And in practice, what that means is like everybody gets $2. But what they really want is justice. They want Dave to get $3 while Emily gets $1 because Dave grievously overpaid and Emily didn’t, and she’s skint this week or whatever. And in practice, I don’t care because it’s a dollar. And so I’m just there like two dollars, two dollars, two dollars, two dollars, and everyone throws a panic attack and I hand to build the the Clerk guy, and he’s like, Thank you so much. And I get up and leave. And that’s the last impression you get of me at every major group dinner. It’s a really good look. I’m fun at parties. Are you going to MicroConf this year? It’s not that kind of party. I have terrible news. MicroConf, is it still in fucking Vegas? It is in Vegas. I ask this every year.
It is still, alas, in Vegas. And my favorite steakhouse brand, long talked about I make money online, has shut down. So. I can’t even.
You know, we have steakhouses in Chicago.
I know, but like 20. You never forget your first love. Gene and Judes. That’s my first love. I’ve tried to think if I’ve had a steak in Chicago. You made me a steak. I don’t think I’ve gone out to a Chicago steakhouse. I’ve had way too much beef. At Kuma’s, but that doesn’t quite count as a stake. That just counts as a status is not a terrible life choice.
Kuma’s is a decision that you did to yourself. Ah, wonderful decision.
A decision I will gleefully make again.
I hope someday. Yeah, I uh well, the thing about steakhouses, I was talking with Jarvis about this. Of all people, he’s like the ultra vegan, but um Steakhouses are such palaces of excess, and the only thing that’s good at steakhouses is the steak. Like even the sides that they put next to the steak, like don’t eat those. You’re there for the steak. You might, might be there for the dessert. Like Morton’s does a decent flourless chocolate cake. I can’t believe I know that. But that’s that’s about it. That’s about it. Yeah. Like, no. Steakhouses, steakhouses have one purpose. And for me, that’s like. The um power lunch, that’s what they call it. Like you go to you go to a lunch with usually a white man. who’s old and needs to feel like they’re indulging in excess at lunch and drinking rye. And I don’t really do this very often. I don’t have occasion to go downtown, much less have lunch in this capacity. But that’s a very good time for a steakhouse. Very appropriate. When you invite somebody who’s like twice your age to Rosebud or Jeans, it’s great, you know. Gene Giorgetti, not Gene and Jude. Gene and Jude is the hot dog stand. I regret the error. Thank you.
I think it’s fascinating where associations come from. My strongest in initial association with steakhouses is From the Magic the Gathering scene, since there always was a tradition after a large event, a qualifying event or a pro tour, a big group going out to a steakhouse and just Having all the meat. And magic players make the best, worst type of degenerate gamblers. And so be people like betting each other amounts of meat they have to eat if they do or don’t do this proposition bet. Absolutely wonderful, absolutely terrible. I remember San Diego Comic-Con, I think this was 2007 or 8, I went out to a Fogo de Chow with. 35 folks? It wasn’t a show. It was a different.
Okay. Okay. Brazilian steakhouses are such a different genre than normal steakhouses.
But go on. Go on. No, no, I mean, that’s it. Just large groups.
You just. Towards the association bit, I have a weird association that I should talk about. I was um I know this will shock all of you listening to this podcast, but I was the captain of the math team. Had a varsity letter and everything. It was beautiful and I know, right? We were middling. We kept getting destroyed by the math and science magnet that was Had a junior varsity adversity team, and it was like this phenomenally competitive thing. Yo, God, yeah. But you know, every Wednesday night we’d go out for practice and we’d do some math problems, talk about math. You know, make fun of the jocks because you’re on the math team and that’s what you fucking do. They can’t multiply. And then you leave. What are you going to do? It’s high school. You’re not going home, you’re going out with the rest of the team. And the nearest restaurant to our high school, we were in the middle of a forest, which was weird for the suburbs, right? Like you’re supposed to be around other houses. But right past this clearing of trees was the highway, and right next to the highway was a Hooters. And so my association with Hooters, and I want to be abundantly clear here. This was not like a gross nerd, like pimply man thing. Two-thirds of the math team was female. They just had really good wings. Hooters probably still has really good wings. decent fries, and that’s all you need when you’re a high schooler. So we would go there and get a bucket full of wings. And definitely not look at any women and then go home because we’re the math team and we have no lives. Oh, that is wonderful. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s That’s it. I don’t have anything else to say about that. It has nothing to do with bootstrapping.
No, no. I’ve never once in my life eaten at a Hooters. I’ve had multiple opportunities in Vegas. I stayed in so many hotels in Vegas that have hooters inside them. That’s just weird to me. And where was I? I was somewhere on vacation recently, where there were like a lot of opportunities, a lot of hooters around. Oh, Hawaii! Hawaii! There are a ton of hooters in Hawaii.
There’s a hooter’s on Erie and Wells downtown, apparently. I’m looking this up in an incognito tab, which is why God invented incognito tabs. And that’s like right around the corner from a a pretty decent steakhouse. So what you and I are gonna do the next time you’re here is we’re gonna go to a steakhouse for dinner, and then we’re gonna have dessert at Hooters. And then I’m going to cry myself to sleep.
I’m just going to be crying during the entire experience because so much meat. Oh, God. The tears make it go down easier. A lot of meat. Like a lot of meat.
A lot of meat.
Last time I went to a Brazilian steakhouse, the two folks that were there with me, I think I’ve told the story on the show before. They said our emotional journey during the meer started out. The meal started out at excitement. Ah, we’re at a steakhouse together. To fear, how is he eating so much meat? To curiosity. How is he eating so much meat? Apparently, the amount of flem mignon I was able to eat just scared my party members to death. No apologies, no regrets, no fucks given.
Okay, so Brazilian steakhouses. I actually go And I just raid the salad bar. Have you ever been to the salad bar of a Brazilian steakhouse? Like Fogo de Chau is like the er one, but like any Brazilian steakhouse. They have the most bonker salad bars you’ve ever seen. Four kinds of bacon bits. Some of them are vegan. Every dressing. Name a dressing. They have five kinds of it. It is a staggering achievement. It is and I go there and I just eat my body weight and salad, and it’s amazing. And then I might have some meat. Brazilian steakhouses are so weird. They’re so weird. They’re this genre. I have to imagine if I actually went to Brazil and went to a steakhouse, like. like a legitimate neighborhood joint steakhouse in Brazil, it would probably be nothing like Fogo de Chau.
Oh, nothing at all. Nothing at all.
Nothing at all like Fogo de Chao. Right. Yeah, it’s like getting Panda Express here. Like, no. First off, no. Second off, continued, no. Oh, that orange chicken. General So, man, he’s gonna conquer us. It’s finally coming. Oh, mercy! Oh, God, what have we gotten ourselves into? Somebody asked me, I talked about this, I think, on Make Money Online at some point, how I ate ants once. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody asked me how it was that I came about eating ants, and the answer was, no pun intended. I went to a restaurant Not expecting there to be ants on the menu. There was a menu item that contained ants, and I ordered it. That’s the end of it. There was not, there was no soul journey that led me to this. There was. There was me going and getting some Thai food. That’s it. There’s nothing special about this.
Yeah. Still haven’t had ants on my side. I haven’t had a lot of bugs.
Once you get to the bugs, that’s kind of the extreme food bit. Everybody always asks you, what’s the most extreme food you’ve had? And once you start to mention crickets or. Worms.
Worms. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah.
Brains. Brains can be a really severe one. Yeah.
They’re out there.
Yeah. A carl. I think we’re just rehashing the old episode at this point.
Yeah. Business freelancing.
Hashtag freelancing. What do you think the Warrior Forum, do they say that was the first episode we talked about, the Warriors? I actually went back and listened to it before this. First off, we were pretty rusty. We’ve gotten better. Good. We’ve gotten better. Which is great. But the warrior types, um what do you think they s do they say anything about our podcast? Have you like investigated like what I don’t really know what people say about our podcast. Do they Favorable? Do you think we’re bullshit? Do people hate listen on podcasts?
Oh, people often hate listening. Hate listening is a very big thing. About 25% of all podcast listens are actually hate listens. If you once dated somebody associated with the show, easily 50% of your listens could be hate listens.
They just keep listening to you over and over and over. Yes. Thinking. Yes. Thinking that smug voice. Of Kai.
Definitely not Mick D. People say good things. People say good things. Is Kelly still deleting all the listener feedback email that you get sent?
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t know. Right. Fair. No, it’s good. Kelly, if you’re listening to this, um Please notify me whether you’re deleting all the listener feedback email. Thank you.
Ah, no, we just hit a new milestone in monthly traffic. I think month over month for the last three months, we’ve been growing. We’re doing well. We are making podcasting great again. Oh, no. I know. Oh, no. It’s terrible. I don’t want that guy. Episode two is still our most popular of all time episode. No shit. Yeah.
Wasn’t that the title episode? We just called it Make Money Online. Yep. So why? What did he even talk about? Was it because it’s called Make Money Online? What if we name every episode? It’s like an artist practice where every work is called untitled. Like there are certain artists that do that. Like Bonticu does that, I think. And they’re all called untitled. And I look at that and think like, okay, well, maybe we should just call all of our episodes Make Money Online. And that way, you don’t know how much money you’re going to make that day, or from where, how.
But but yeah, I really like this. I’m getting a strong vibe of like some sort of secret agent being left a message, and no, this is their weekly instruction on what they need to do for their business. Yeah. Can we have their phone explode after they listen to the episode?
You know, that would that would actually up the ante because then they would have to make enough money to buy back a new phone.
Keeps the most loyal listeners. If somebody says, Hey, if my phone explodes, I’m not going to listen to their podcast anymore.
Well, and if your phone explodes and you never bother to replace it, or you never bother to listen to our podcast at the end of it. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re not loyal enough to us. Maybe you don’t care enough about the practice of making money online. To really realistically listen to us anymore. And you know what? That’s fine. That’s fine. If you don’t want to listen to us, there are a million things you can spend your time and attention on right now that Don’t involve your phone exploding or me. Have I told you about the leaderboard yet?
Oh, no, there’s a leaderboard. Oh, yeah, we well, we have the Make Money Online leaderboard where we’re tracking the number of about pages each person has purchased. I think. First play or for the leader right now is around 13 about pages.
Kai has a thing. Kai has a thing. The thing involves How do I put this? The way to motivate Kai to do anything, build a leaderboard and put Kai’s name at the bottom. This is Achilles’ heel, everybody. This is the way that you hack Kai. It’s the way that you finally like exploit him and get him to do what you want. Build a leaderboard, put him at the bottom, tell him how to get to the top. Can be a lie. That’s fine.
No, I mean, that as a habit-building system works incredibly well for me. Just tracking progress, tracking streaks. When I had the iPhone business, I had a number of iPhones that I wanted to buy each month and each week. And I just had a whiteboard up, and I just said, okay, I have this many boxes to fill in. Great. Let me fill them in. When I do sales outreach, it’s a similar process. Hey, I need to contact this many people or be told no by this many prospects. Let me get to my target number. Hey, I want to hit this target weight or lift this much weight. Okay, give me a leaderboard. Let me work my way towards there. I think there’s a lot of motivation and incentive around them. I mean, when we look at Career track progression in a standard job, a 40-hour week jobby job, you have a sort of leaderboard that you don’t have as an independent worker. How do you really know that you’re progressing forward as a freelancer other than, well, I’ve been doing this for five years? Well, I’ve been doing it for 10 years. There’s no real hierarchy or way to know, hey, I’ve gone from like a junior to a mid-level to a senior. But you do have that leaderboard and that progression sense in a day job. That is something I miss, like that clarity on how to progress and how far I’ve progressed.
Yeah, and like I think the lazy answer is like, oh, my bank account’s up. Well, yeah, but your bank account can be up. Your personal satisfaction could be down. Or your bank account could be up and you’ve plateaued as a business and you’re running out of clients, right? Or you have a whale client and that’s a structural problem with your business. And we’ve talked about those sorts of problems a lot, not because we like haranguing people about it, but because they’re common and very difficult to resolve. Yeah. I don’t know where to go from here. I mean, what other things do we miss having a full-time job? I miss. I’ll say something. So, I read a piece recently about how people get like a tremendous amount of validation from their job, and How unemployment, it’s not like leisure at all. And if you stop looking for work, it’s actually a major problem. And I looked at that and I thought, well, I have a fake invented job. And I essentially every time people pay me in any capacity for especially consulting, but also my books or anything, it’s actually like a self-esteem bump. And I used to not have that in a full-time job, and I think it’s a little fucked up and weird that I have it right now. And I don’t really know what to do with it right now, but I’m kind of acknowledging it and just kind of placing it here and thinking about it. But seeking that sort of validation from others, I think, can be really problematic. Also, never trust anyone else. So, you know, potentially really harmful for your own self. That’s one thing I miss with the job. The stab like having the paycheck is probably results in having higher self-esteem, but having the stability around it, having the comfort around it, that’s actually tremendously valuable.
Yeah. One thing that I miss is, I don’t know how to phrase this without it sounding wonky and weird, but I’ll try my best. I miss how it felt easier to take time off or slack off in a day job and still get the thing done. But working for myself, I feel like there’s always a drive to get more done. And where at a day job, I might say, you know what? I feel burnt out. I need to spend three hours just doing like Low value things and get to the end of the day and then stop. Working for myself, I always feel like I need to push through. And I know that’s a contribution to burnout. I know it’s sort of an anti-pattern and it’s something I’m actively trying to break, but it feels. It feels so much harder to take the time I need to rest and reset. When I’m independent than when I was at a day job, I never felt any qualms about saying, like, hey, you know what, I’m sick. I’m calling in and using a sick day, and I’m just going to sit on the couch or go for a walk in the park. But as an independent business owner, how often do I take mental health days or sick days like that? Not as often as I did as an employee. And I think that says something.
Yeah, that’s rough, right? Like, not being able to have the right amount of vacation. I’m almost taking too much vacation at this point. I’m going to Copenhagen. I went to Copenhagen for a week. I’m taking holidays off, obviously, and then come back for a week, one week, and then go to Japan for two weeks. Wonderful. Oh God, why do I bring this on myself? It’ll be fun. I’ll have a good time when I’m in Japan.
And is this your AFK vacation or one of your AFK vacations?
Yeah, that’s that’s the 20. So the weird thing is. So Japan isn’t the AFK vacation. I’m going to be like half online then. It’s going to be one of those where like you can still get a hold of me if there are emergencies and A-B tests are going to be running. The actual AFK vacation is going to be in April, which is way too soon. It was in February last year and it worked out okay. But yeah, it’s. I guess it’s okay because it’s not like a big optimizey time, but it’s also a big New Year’s like we’re actually going to act on things time, so we shall see. But that’s just how the vacation is working out this year. And then I stay at home for the next nine months. Good. No, that’s not good. It’s the opposite of good. But thank you.
Do you like extended periods where you’re able to be at home in Chicago and sort of think of multi-week or multi-month projects you’re working on for your business that aren’t interrupted by travel?
No. Okay. I think travel is a really good mental reset. I think it’s like very helpful for my life. I get in a rut when I’m here. And that’s not a slag on Chicago. It’s more slag on me just being a creature of routine. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It would happen in any other city. But it’s also like Chicago’s a big city and it’s stressful to live in a place like this, you know. Like I don’t live in I don’t live in like Naperville or Bowling Brook where it’s like peaceful and quiet and I sit in a car all day. I live in Avondale where people are trying to murder me. So, like, that’s a little, that’s a little much, you know? Like, it can be stressful. But, you know, I think getting away is helpful on that front. I think it’s you know, I’m looking forward to all of my travels. I’m looking forward to going to Japan for two weeks. Be good.
Yeah. I want to head to Amsterdam. Amsterdam. You would love Amsterdam. I would love it. I love Copenhagen, which means I love Amsterdam. But at the same time, like. Yep. I really, I was just in Tucson and it was nice. It was warm. It was 80 degrees every day. And I constantly felt like I wish it was 10 degrees warmer. I kind of feel like, I know, right? I kind of feel like. Don’t go to Amsterdam. Come on. Southern Spain? Like. I just want heat. I just want to lay in the heat on the Mediterranean and just let it bake into my body. Like, that is what I want. Maybe Southern Spain’s the answer. I mean, I’d be in Puerto Rico right now. I think I said to you over text a couple of days ago, I’d be planning on moving to Puerto Rico had they not been hit by a hurricane.
Right. The whole like Puerto Rico getting destroyed thing is kind of a slight small wrench in my plan to move there. Small wrench in your plan to move there. 10-year delay. You just like the tropics, man. All you need to, I mean, like, I love the tropics.
I love the ability to be like, I’m at home. 15 minutes pass. I am now in the water at the beach. Like, That’s heaven for me. I mean, that was what Puerto Rico was like this year. I, uh, Bali? Maybe. I keep thinking about the digital nomad route and Like, as Bolly, huh? Bali. As weird as it to say, I keep thinking of that line in Fight Club about your objects owning you and. God, it feels so weird and vulnerable to say on a podcast like this, but one of the biggest hesitations I have around just saying, YOLO, I’m single. Let’s move somewhere tropical and exciting and do it is. Well, I have a really nice couch, and what am I going to do with that couch? And I have a really nice bed frame, I have to store it someplace, I’m going to miss it. And like It’s very interesting to feel like for the first time the possessions I have, in a way, limiting the decisions I could make. And like I see that the clear path is Take the things you don’t want to sell, put them in storage unit end of discussion. But at the same time, there is some amount of cognitive overhead to sift through and just Figure out how to separate myself from that and decide what makes the most sense.
If you went to the grocery store one day and you came home, and all of a sudden I had put all of your things in a storage unit for you. This would be a lot easier.
Yeah, yeah. But at the same but at the same time, like, I know that. I don’t do my best level of work when I’m rapidly traveling between places. I do it best. I work best when I’m. In one spot for an extended period, and I’m able to become a creature of habit. I know what my routine is, I know what my writing time is, I know where the grocery store is, I know what I’m doing, I know what my off-time and hobbies look like. When I do rapid travel between places, it’s almost like context switching and the getting things done since it takes me three or five days to like settle down and ramp into a spot and be like, okay, I’m chill. I could actually create here. But if I’m jumping between spots, it’s harder. And so, I don’t know, when I look at like Bali or Thailand or any place that’s tropical land. used for digital nomadism this way, one of the hesitations I have is, well, am I throwing myself into something that’s going to like cost me a couple of points in terms of what I’m able to produce or the energy I have? And does it make sense to say, well, Yes, do that, but do it on a one-to-two-year timeframe. Like, do you necessarily need to be living in Thailand in four months? No, there’s no reason I have to. Would I like to make it a goal to be living in Thailand within two years and see what that two-year plan looks like? That seems a bit more reasonable as a way to approach it.
Yeah. Well, if you need to travel slowly, you know what the answer is. Travel slowly? Container ship. I’ve always fantasized about that. That would be an amazing experience. I’ve fantasized about that like a nightmare, man. I just need to get on an airplane. Like, no. Container ship.
Like a nightmare because you’re stuck on the container ship or because the ocean?
Um, because I’m on the ocean and there’s no internet. Yeah. And there’s no and the people I don’t know what the people would be like on a container ship. I would probably be Stir crazy. It would be so much time.
Man, I think about that and I love it just from the sense of I love to take a container ship for like two to three weeks and just use it as writing time. Like Have it be a retreat. I want to get out and meditate or relax. I get to stare at the ocean and think and figure out what the next thing I want to write is. Like, yeah, I don’t know. I’m sort of stuck up on this as a cool idea. Something for the bucket list at least.
The container ship bucket list. The container ship bucket list.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would recommend that you actually swim over there, but that seems like too slow of travel.
Oh yeah. Yes. It’ll be interesting to see what uh uh Yeah, what the next five years bring. I like thinking about blocks of time and life in five years, and after reading The One Thing and Deep Work and 12-week year. Even more so, I like thinking about what’s the larger master goal? What am I playing towards for five years? And one thing I realized is a lot of the things I want to do, if I put them on a one-year timeframe. I feel so much anxiety about it or stress, or like, oh God, I have to get this done in this period. But if I put it on like a three to five-year time frame, it feels a lot less stressful. If I want to weigh 200 pounds and I say, okay, I want to weigh 200 pounds in a year, I’m like, ah, how am I going to do that? If I say, hey, you know what? In three years I want to be at this point. I’m like, okay, so I’ll be 34. I’ll hit this point. I’ll have positive progress along the way. Huh, that seems a lot more reasonable and manageable. So, I don’t know. I’ve very much enjoyed mapping my goals or the things I wanted to achieve into three to five-year segments and just thinking about them that way. It’s been an easier way to think about what I want to accomplish.
Yeah, the um I kind of do one year plans, but I find that that might actually be too narrow of a time scale. Like maybe Two-year plans. I don’t know.
It is interesting, like the different types of objectives you could think about when you think about it in a one-year window versus a two-year or three, four, five-year window. There is a constraint in terms of time and some amount of limitation when you just think about a year. But when you think about five years, like I think back to what I was doing five years ago and like the change that has happened and the growth that has happened, I’m like, holy shit, if that. continues forward for another five, I’m going to be in a much different place and doing like different adventures. And I’m so excited for it. I think there’s value to thinking about it in terms of that five year plan, just when you see how much change has happened over five years.
Yeah, yeah. I like that. I think about where I was five years ago and um man, my business sucked. That’s the real thing. Yeah. Now it doesn’t. That’s it. The goal with this podcast is to make your business not suck. Just failing less, like marginally less.
Yeah. How long has Draft Revise been around? Since that was really like an inflection point.
2013. July 2013. Okay. Yeah. So yes, that would be what? That would be four and a half years? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Come upon five. That’s amazing.
Was $650 a month.
Remember that. Now it’s not. I’m going to travel back in time and just buy up a couple slots. Futures.
That would be the investment on a draft revised slot would be very high. Yes. Very high. Oh my God.
I’ve been thinking more and more about how to launch different productized or packaged services since I think you did so many things correct when it came to launching DraftRevise. And so many things correct as you evolved draft revise. In my mind, at least, it started out as: hey, I’m going to do A-B testing for you and manage your optimize your VWO account for you. But you’ve been able to ramp up the value of it for your clients by focusing on the outcomes of these engagements. You’re still performing the same specialization and the same discipline. You’re still focusing on the same core skills, but Adapted in different ways where it’s less. Hey, I’m just going to do A-B testing for you and more. Let’s talk about the economic impact of design on your business.
Yeah, yeah. And it’s gone from well, it went from contractor work to consultative work. That’s the real difference, right? Like that’s the summary of it. Is it went from me being like, I’m gonna run A B test teeth for you to I’m gonna sit with the C level All of them and determine how design can economically impact your business. That’s it. That’s what draft revise has turned into. Just why I charge what I currently do for it. It’s definitely a thing. So, yeah.
No, it’s interesting to see that progression. I think there’s value in my life for any listener in just looking back at your last five years and seeing where you were five years ago, where you are now. And one exercise I always love doing at around this time of year is saying, okay, for the last year or the last five years, let me just make a list of things that went well. Since it’s fun to celebrate our victory, celebrate what went well. You launched a thing, you did a thing, you went independent, you hit a revenue target, you did XYZ. Celebrate those things. And I love to write down a separate list of things that I would change. And it’s not that they’re things that went poorly or negatives, but instead I’m focusing on just what went well and what I want to change moving forward. And that gives a lot of clarity for me as I think about the coming year, less for New Year’s resolution type goals, but more for systems we want to put in place. Hey. I’m not getting enough leads, or I feel stressed out about this thing, or I want to see XYZ happen. Okay, well, what are systems you can put in place to help fix these things as you’re identifying that are wrong? I think that question of what would you change that happened this past year is really a valuable one to ask as you enter into a new year, just to say, oh, this type of thing happened and I hated it. Okay, let me be really intentional about making sure that never happens again, or at least has as low a probability of happening as possible.
Yeah, I feel that. I’ve got one of those that’s just like a dumb thing that happened. Like, just And it was a big distraction and stupid, but it it made the business better, you know? Like it’s one of those things that probably had to happen because it was instructive, which is fine. Yeah.
You learn. Yeah.
You learn and you try and do better.
Yeah, there’s that I don’t know what it’s sourced from, but that Mike Montero print I have in my office, Let’s Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow. And I think that applies well in most business. We’re each individually doing the best we can, and we’re going to make mistakes, and we’re going to make better mistakes tomorrow and see what happens. My uh
My Mike Bontero print in the back of my room says, May the bridges I burn light the way, which I appreciate.
I wanted a print of that one so bad, but I haven’t been able to find it on the secondary market. Hmm.
It’s on a 20 by 200 site.
Oh, I thought I had sold out there. I’ll have to check after this episode.
I don’t know. Yeah.
Yeah. Computers. Yeah.
We’re pretty lucky, aren’t we?
We really are. It’s nice to recognize that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it’s funny, we’re recording this. It’s going to be Thanksgiving tomorrow. So, yeah, I don’t know. What are you thankful for, man?
Huh, friends. Definitely friends. Friends like you, friends like my friends in Eugene, connections like that, communities that I belong to and am part of, my family. This is a top three, and I’d say probably one additional one is the ability to run an independent business like I do. I’m very, very thankful that I was able to build something like this and it continues to support me. It’s, it’s. It’s unique and it’s magical, and it’s something that I’ve always wanted and will continue to work on.
How about for you? Yeah, that’s important. That’s all really good. I’m grateful for dog snuggles. I’m grateful for my family and the time that I’ve had to Like, thoughtfully build a new business. I’m thankful for not having a commute. That feels really good, especially on a day like today when it’s like 30 degrees outside. right. I’m grateful for the good food I ate this year and the good places I traveled to. But I’m also really thankful for the freedom that this has given me. Not only of like logistics and schedule and client portfolio, but also of like it’s helped free my mind to actually do good creative things. And it’s helped me feel freer in other parts of my life and make that as as good and simple and beautiful as I possibly can. And I’m really thankful for that. I am every day. And it’s really cool to be able to To be able to come in and do this weird thing I invented for myself every day that seems to be marginally successful.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I completely agree. On the commute one, especially, I keep wanting to get an office outside of the house. But then I keep realizing that means I’ll have some amount of commute. And it’s nice to not have the commute. It’s nice to be able to come down and work from my home office in my pajamas. It’s that’s a blessing.