Sean has new momentum, and Andrew gets feedback on designs

Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

In this episode, Sean discusses the challenges he is facing (and his new momentum) with his project Stackwise, including finding the right developer and getting the project scope defined. He talks about discovering a no-code tool called Subframe that has helped streamline his design process. Andrew shares his progress building the MetaMonster website with Astro and SpinalCMS, and gets feedback from Sean on the first round of MetaMonster wireframes. They also discuss pricing models and ideas for holding company names.

Links:

• Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins
• Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/
• New MetaMonster website built with Astro: https://metamonster.ai/
• MetaMonster prototype designs: Click here
• ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/
• Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun
• Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/
• StackWise: Coming soon...
• FigTree: Coming soon...
• Podscan: https://podscan.fm/

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

Transcript:
00:00.76

Sean

The yeah motivation for the podcast is brought to you by Arvid Kahl, the creator of Podscan.

00:09.01

Andrew

Hi, Arvid.

00:10.02

Sean

Hi Arvid. Shout out to Arvid.

00:13.06

Andrew

Podscan, Podscan, Podscan.

00:14.76

Sean

Yeah, the creator of Podscan, excellent tool, doesn't sponsor us, but but has been the reason why we've had three founders reach out to us on Twitter now.

00:25.94

Sean

So that's pretty cool. It's kind of just like a modern day summoning ritual at this point, Beatlejuice.

00:33.81

Andrew

By the way, what did you say is brought to you by podscan? Did you say like, did you say this podcast sounded like you said like the wrong name of our podcast?

00:39.44

Sean

Oh, the oh this episode no, the motivation, the motivation for ah ah for for this podcast, the the the motivation to do today's episode.

00:47.14

Andrew

Oh, okay.

00:50.86

Sean

Yeah, yeah.

00:51.40

Andrew

Got it. Got it.

00:52.63

Sean

Yeah. Now that we are a full minute in.

00:54.17

Andrew

Cool, man.

00:55.65

Sean

but

00:57.34

Andrew

How are you? What's going on?

00:58.79

Sean

I'm good. I'm good. Remember how I was super stressed last week about stack-wise and the lack of movement on it?

01:08.93

Andrew

Mm hmm.

01:10.11

Sean

So I I put some more budget towards it, a little bit more, and just or like a ah you know mentally committed more budget to it.

01:17.41

Andrew

Cool.

01:21.40

Sean

And checked out Lemon.io. a little bit more expensive than I think. We'll see. I don't know. I checked Alumni.

01:29.78

Andrew

Yeah, fair.

01:30.22

Sean

I also went on Upwork to look for devs. Had some like interesting proposals come in. Then I was talking to a dev and He looked really promising. He was like 75 bucks an hour, is like about lemon I.O. prices. So and you know, he he like like takes supplements and and whatnot. So he has some realm of understanding. And then he hit me with a he'd so he reviewed the he reviewed the current code and everything. And then he hit me with a yeah, if you want me to like fully scope it, I'm going to need you to like actually give me user stories and like better Figma wireframes.

02:10.35

Andrew

Like actually project manage and like build a scope and everything like via products manager.

02:11.90

Sean

Yeah, yeah, like actually do it. I know, I know. And then I was like, wow, that's really annoying. I guess that's kind of fair, I guess. um It's hard to so like really feel like I've put my foot best foot forward on this project without having done that. So I did it. I wrote a PRD. I wrote a bunch of user stories. I mean, I had one in the past that was like a loose bullet pointed list, but this was like a little bit more official.

02:35.52

Andrew

Yeah.

02:37.13

Sean

and then I, and then I sort of wireframe, like rewire framing some stuff in Figma. and, uh, you know, that, that, that for a little bit was pushing back my timeline.

02:48.31

Sean

i have a day job which takes more time out of my which takes more than just my regular day so it's like ah like I got maybe like two screens into the fig into the Figma part and I was like damn I really don't want to go like do this all over again because like I have shitty wireframes right I don't um um uh and oh oh and and in the meantime like as as these guys were like reviewing it i i kind of felt a little bit uh like uh like like i don't know at a just like an informational disadvantage a little bit so

03:24.97

Sean

I've also just watched a shit ton of Laravel tutorials and Laravel things. now now I kind of like mostly understand Laravel and PHP, not to a degree that I can write it, but to a degree that I can read it and know what's going on and and like and make edits and stuff.

03:39.55

Andrew

Mm hmm.

03:42.17

Sean

So, you know, I was able to kind of review the proposals a little bit better. That's been my last week until yesterday. And then I remembered that there is this thing I saw, which was a no code frontend React, like build at with tailwind components, or build with like like React components export as React code and tailwind. And it's called subframe, YC startup, super, super small. I don't know how small they are, but very small following.

04:12.66

Sean

Excellent product. God, it's so good.

04:15.69

Andrew

Cool.

04:15.54

Sean

And not only is it good, it feels like a mix between Figma and Webflow, except I'm kind of working with like components. And i if I want more components, I have to make more make them on my own.

04:25.92

Sean

But there's a long list of just basically subframe versions of Tailwind components. And it makes me way happier to be designing in this than designing in Figma, mainly because I hate the idea that if I'm going to desi...