AJ - Carrd - Spotlight - Podcast-MP3 for Audio Podcasting

Wed, 6/10 12:18PM • 38:48

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

card, people, code, build, zapier, tools, site, templates, bit, pushed, bigger, pretty, work, programming, ben, web, users, set, furloughed, embeds

SPEAKERS

AJ, Ben Tossell

Ben Tossell  00:00

Everybody, Stan here, founder of make fat, a platform teaching individuals and companies how to build custom software workflows and tools without writing code. This show explores the people behind the no code tools and the stories of folks using them to automate work and launch companies. They join me on the show is AJ from card AJ welcome. Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, it's been. It's been a long time coming, I feel. You want to just introduce yourself briefly and sort of give a quick overview of what card is? Sure. I'm AJ, I built card which launched this point, like four years ago. It is a tool for building one page websites for pretty much anything at least that's what it was originally built as. And as I'm sure Ben can attest to it has since kind of gone on to do

AJ  00:55

a lot more than just that, shall we say? So yeah, it's been One of the tools maybe not the biggest tool in the no code movement, I guess he got at this point. But it's certainly been getting some play in there. And it's been pretty cool.

Ben Tossell  01:12

Yeah, I mean, we briefly talked before we started recording that like Carla's probably the first tool that I ever used to go down this, this no code rabbit hole, and here we are, when we said four years later, I suppose.

AJ  01:31

Yeah.

Ben Tossell  01:33

So he said that people is originally billed as one page, simple one page sites. How is how is your thinking changed? You like more inclined to lean towards the no code movement?

AJ  01:49

I was happening there and stuff now as you see it, or is it still still sort of focusing on the one page sites? I mean, at this point, it's pretty much what want to use it for, I don't want to, I don't want to force it in one direction or another. I think just adding the features that users request basically is has been what I've done from the start, and it's worked very well. And so yeah, there's been a lot of requests for more no code type features. And so those are the things that I was working on up until, like, all this crazy stuffs are happening last few weeks and then had to kind of like pivot to scale because things kind of just got nuts. But yeah, the The, the, it's almost become sort of like a Swiss Army Knife of building. Just simple things that go on the web, whether it's a one page website for whatever, or something a good bit more sophisticated, you know, using you know, integrations for like air table or Zapier and whatnot. Assuming I pronounced that correctly. I'm pretty sure I didn't

Ben Tossell  02:58

know I believe is Zapier. Zapier yeah I think so let

AJ  03:04

me say yeah, safe here. Oh, I feel like such a tool man.

Ben Tossell  03:08

People say it differently I think it tends to be people from the US would call it GPO which is funny because it's, I think all of the founding team of us so.

AJ  03:21

Yeah, I mean, I mean that that is that's par for the course for us. So

03:26

don't fall.

Ben Tossell  03:28

Yeah. So I mean,

03:31

card is just

Ben Tossell  03:33

the first thing I think of when someone says to me what, how to build a website, how to build a simple site, what's the quickest way for me to build something? And like you said, there's a ton of ways to just like, spin something up really quickly. And then I feel like maybe I'm biased because I just know some of the trickier ways to use Carlos pose. I was definitely too

AJ  04:00

To put it lightly hoes definitely

Ben Tossell  04:04

pushing it to its limits for a while. I think I was like doing stuff that you just like, what is this? Like? How have you been doing this? Yeah. And actually, I did a course which is called dealt with card which basically turned into makeup ad. So it was like on the very early sort of point of when makeup I was born, but yeah, I mean there's like I've done some projects around this. The whole COVID 19 stuff right now because people need Yeah, that's been huge. I need them quickly. So even things like we've put together a big basically a presentation that shows exactly how to set up certain things and card is frequently one of the things we use in there to show people look if you need to set up an online ordering system for your garden center. You can use this I'm one of them. The ones I think is pretty interesting anyways, it's like having a card website and then having looks like two tabs. there's basically two separate sections. The

05:12

section breaks. Yeah, section breaks

Ben Tossell  05:15

on the, on the page that basically like flip between, like volunteers. And like those businesses in need. bros have been, I just have to list and it makes it feel like a two sided mini marketplace if you will. Yeah, what went on for card in this crazy time? Then you said you've sort of had to pivot some stuff and think about some some things. Yeah.

AJ  05:42

So I mean, card's been kind of like a natural incline over the last year since it launched pretty much. But in the recent, you know, because of all the stuff that's going on right now, I think it's just been this. I wasn't honestly I wasn't expecting a massive surge. I was like, Oh, you know, We might see a bit more, a bit more traffic a bit more, you know, a few more signups and whatnot. But like, we're up 100% over last year, like, it's insane. And like I mentioned earlier, I was kind of working on these other features that I had laid out earlier. I think in January, I tweeted out some of the big things I was working off of this year. But then this came along. And I had to, like, out of nowhere, you know, because I still handle support myself. Out of nowhere, though, like my support load, like doubled pretty much overnight, like I was getting way more inquiries. I'm like, What the hell is happening here. And then I noticed like, revenue was doubling everything was just doubling the number of sites, the number of new users. And I was like, Oh, this has happened a lot. Again, I mentioned we're on a linear incline, but then suddenly, it just kind of shut up. And so some of my plans had to be reorganized. Around accommodating the scale so me handling support on my own right now I don't think that's tenable if it's going to keep up like this, so I had to build out a proper support ticket system, all the stuff that goes with that probably gonna be hiring someone soon to take over some of that, you know, it's just, and you know, earlier had to upgrade our server capacity to deal with stuff, it was just really unexpected in kind of a good way. But it really did change kind of just the, my immediate focus. So now that a lot of stuff has been taken care of, I can hopefully go back to, you know, working on the actual feature that I wanted to work on.

Ben Tossell  07:42

Yeah, and I mean, for listeners who may not know of some of the card numbers, we're not talking about small numbers here either when you say hundred percent, it's not like going from two to four users that I remember like I used to do tweets about the number of users and isn't it was like up to kind of a them.

AJ  08:00

Yeah, well, we're we're, I can I can tell you right now we're up to about 680,000 sites and about 470,000 users. So we're adding like, let's see what we're adding. I mean, we're at it. It's the numbers, like, it's like, three to 4000 new site today and about, you know, over 1000 new users a day, like it's just racking up, especially this month is just because of all the stuff that's been going on, I think people have just been either either they lost their jobs or they're furloughed or they're, you know, not having to work in a, you know, the usual capacity that they previously worked out. So they have a lot of free time. So they're all spinning up a little side projects or trying to hustle and get something going. And as you mentioned, card is a pretty fast way to do that. I mean, it's not, I would say, compared to some other tools, it's might not be the most elaborate or the most powerful, but it is certainly fast. And I think if that is your goal right now, card is, you know, probably at the top of your list that just jump in and get something up there. And then you can move to a different tool later on if your needs outgrow what card can do. So we've been seeing a ton of that, and it's been interesting trying to keep up with it on my end.

09:23

Yeah, I mean,

Ben Tossell  09:26

we'll get to some other stuff in a second. But you mentioned that you were like, going to be building out a complete support ticket system and stuff why not use some no code knowledge and try and build something with what you've got, like,

AJ  09:43

Where is he then I'm, I'm dumb. All I know, is code. So it's very difficult for me to like, you know, think outside the box in that way. I can also also, to some extent I need to be some of the integration has to be a bit tighter because if I'm going to start hiring people, I need them to be able to access other parts of kind of the administrative side of card so you know help with you know something goes wrong with the site so just building out any only took me like two or three days to actually do it but like the actually building this a bit deeper, deeply integrated in this particular sense made sense. again like I guess it only took a few days to do it really the the upgrading server infrastructure stuff was a lot more tricky and taxing just to get not so much financially but just coordinating moving everything to heavier duty stuff. So that wasn't fun, but it's done now.

Ben Tossell  10:40

Yeah, I bet that wasn't. That was what you want to spend the time on. What are some of the most popular things you're seeing people spin up then

AJ  10:51

like a lot of stuff related to COVID. So just like informative, he like even even really simple things just like schools putting up quickly As explained to the students, here's, you know, here's how you can access resources that we offer regarding this, or here's, you know, what's happening, you know, with respect to your education, things like that. And then, as far as non COVID stuff, I mean, it's just, it's like everything just increased doesn't matter what it is all the stuff that card has been useful, but just dialed up. People starting like little mini Simon's little ideas that they had, you've been seeing those just pop up, I mean, people really, I think you're just trying to find ways to spend their time or ways to make money out of their time, you know, whether, you know, either for fun or out of necessity and it's been really cool being a sort of a conduit for some of that. Again, you know, card isn't, you know, as powerful as some of these other tools, but I think it can serve as a good gateway. If you're just Starting out, and I've absolutely been seeing a lot of that and it's been kind of an honor to be part of that, I guess response to this whole situation. Yeah, I'm

Ben Tossell  12:12

imagine just like so many people thinking, well, there was that idea I was going to do if I ever left my job and maybe I'm in that situation now. Or like, right, trying to trying something, I think. Yeah, I think maybe some people don't even realize what card could actually do. It like I I've done a few tours with card and it's in our it's one of the tools we use in our boot camp. For one of the one of the lessons and one of the projects and missions I think

12:45

I've built stuff that's like a

Ben Tossell  12:48

actual online shop so you can have you could do a thing when the cones was what was it was like a my was that thing called Dollar Shave Club. It was basically like You can buy up to a product that you sell, like physically, but you just integrate gumroad. And because if you have gumroad kind of buttons on your site, it just always wants to be popped up within that site, right? Neil's like a very integrated solution. So there's like you can purchase stuff. Or you set up the gift card system with cards, like the front end, right? Recently, which is like, really, really simple.

AJ  13:31

I mean, it's funny, you mentioned stuff, like, it's like the stuff that, especially that, that you were building, especially early on, like is, I mean, it really pushed me to actually implement features to make that stuff better. So I mean, what seeing what people like you and other people have done with it has actually been what's expanded its its use cases. And, you know, it's like a feedback loop. You do you do stuff that kind of pushed it to its limits. I see what those limits are and I try to build things into the system that would At least make it better or add functionality. So you can do even more with it. But as far as like the use cases that you're mentioning, like, yeah, you can do a lot with it. I think one of the problems I've had is I've not been very good at surfacing some of the like the, I won't say crazy use cases, but let's say more elaborate use cases of card just to show people really what it can do. So I mean, not having things out there like maker pad has been really great. So just kind of show people's like, yeah, this is what you can do with this. I mean, AJ may suck at explaining it, but we do a good job. So like, it's just, it's great. Having people out there who can do that, you know, so I'm not having to do that myself. Although I certainly need to be Yeah. And just some of the stuff that I've seen you build I've seen I've seen the sites that have come up from the courses that you've done. Those pop occasionally I know, it's like wow, this is this is incredible. Like, I I'm blown away by what people are doing with it, especially with people like yourself pushing the boundaries even further beyond what I thought was possible.

Ben Tossell  15:10

Yeah, well, we appreciate the support and I think like I said, I mean, I wouldn't we wouldn't be doing make by this car wasn't around in the first place. So it's sort of which which is so cool. Just to know that like, Well, that's it is one of the things that keeps keeps people like me going. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, so I think me in the early days trying to do a bunch of things like Zapier stuff and linking things together, I think I can't remember which way around it was but then I started seeing you have like the direct to air table integrations and those were those were the things I definitely noticed that you were obviously seeing what I was building and then going okay, I'll just make this a bit easier for Ben to do. Yeah,

AJ  15:55

thanks. Well, cuz I mean, I didn't I never really thought like it. If you go back to like, I have that whole making a thing I wrote years ago, where when I was planning out cards, really the main thing I thought it'd be useful is just like, Hey, I'm gonna set up a quick little kind of pseudo business card type thing where I link to you know my crap everywhere or I've got like a small business I just want to get a you know, a small quick presence spun up, or whatever and then as soon as that kind of started moving along, I saw the potential myself have some stuff beyond that, but then once it launched now, like when people like you came along, but it just, I was like, well, I really did not set my sights high enough to what this thing can do. And that's really been like I said, driving ever since. Yeah, I just thought Nope, I can I can do more with it. I'm gonna push this to whatever I want it to be like.

Ben Tossell  16:52

I mean, I mean, yeah, it's just, it's this small steps as well that like you understand, okay. This is how a site A simple form wouldn't be okay. If you want like a form to do something else, you sort of see the pieces that then you and you start, you start understanding how things talk to each other and how things like

AJ  17:13

right in this way set. But this is why I joked about me, I'm serious when I said, I'm dumb. That's why I built my own ticket system. The issue is, like, I tweeted recently that people who write code should try no code, because I think it's a very different set of skills that you're making use of, and it's actually I think, in some ways, using different parts of your brain because when you're coding, you pretty much have the ability to do whatever you you can bring whatever it is that you need, into existence, like you can, you know, the basic building blocks are all there. You can code it, you can make it from scratch, when you're no code, the there's a, you're improvising what based on what's already out there, which I think is very different from for me, like I said, when I'm programming, I can do anything I want. But when you're no code, you're using no code to build a product. You're having to look at what's already out there and kind of say, Okay, I can use this can't connect to this to this and all this stuff, like you have to use what's already in existence. And I think that's almost better, in many ways, because you're sort of dealing with the situation that you have, versus someone who's programming who can kind of manifest a specific situation. But that takes longer and has a lot of its own pitfalls. Does that make sense? I mean, that sounds a little. Yeah, I think. I

Ben Tossell  18:38

think it does, because it's like, well, I can build this thing that if I could code, I would build this whole like payment system and have all these things that would like allow me to do something on this site. But the first payment system I ever used was, is payment.co, which is a card site that just has a type form embedded there that you pay That was and that was that you

AJ  19:02

get it done, you get it done faster through instead of like, Alright, we're gonna have to, you know, draw up all these plans to build this elaborate system from scratch versus the I'm just gonna crap this out in 15 minutes and be done with it move on to the next thing so it's like you're operating at a different level which is why I think I have all these blind spots as to what car could be used for us because I don't think that way even though I think I really need to that makes sense.

Ben Tossell  19:28

Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just been the like ideas and then having things that do someone's like, just having the tools that did that 80% of what you needed and then you need you needed that extra tool to bring it in and then figuring out so embeds work like this, and then oh, Zapier works like this. And then from that, you just, there are so many steps that you just take, like three at a time if you go Okay, now I realized what Zapier Is it like connects API's. together. And then you start learning about, okay, I can figure out what a web hook is. And, like, you get more and more technical, but so quickly, when you're in the no code rabbit hole, that you don't really realize it, I think,

AJ  20:13

yeah, and I think when you're, when you're when you're coding, I think you get kind of stuck in your own world and you don't look outside of it. So you're looking very much inward. Whereas I think with no code, you're having to look outward by design, like you can't just stick with one. So you can't just stick with card, you've got to look at other things like webflow whatnots. Target. Like if you're if your car can do so much, but if you insist on only using card, you're going to be stuck in that world, but everyone who knows codes doesn't just use cars, they use other tools too, and can you know, use the right set of tools to solve different problems, whether it's card webflow or, you know, Zapier or you know, where to you know, whatever you can, you have the I guess mental flexibility to use whatever it is you need to use where I think when you're programming, that's a little harder, it gets a bit more dogmatic. You insist on using your, your language, your platform, your framework, whatever it is that you typically use. And so it's hard to get out of that space.

Ben Tossell  21:19

Yeah, I do think there's, there's probably a lot of that and no code. Like, I think people probably know that I use workflows up here, member stack and air table, and I talk about them a lot. It's just because that's what I think about is built in. So when you're in, it's probably different. When you have like a business and it's running and you have things that you have to do. It's then like, Well, I have to use these tools. And I am constrained with the limitations of these tools because like everything's on here am I going to explore like a flat 1400 users onto something else? Yeah. 200 tutorials from this CMS to something else. I'm Probably not because with, with like programming you, you build up some like technical debt and things like that and processes in place that you're sort of like, yeah, just just don't ever let anyone touch that piece. I just know how to do it because I get it that way. It's exactly the same with no code. Like if I had to pass this web flow site to someone else and said, run it. This is how I've set it up. If they knew how, like things should be set up, they think, yeah, I wouldn't have done it this way. This is a bit of a mess. Like it's better to start from scratch, but you didn't do that. He first start, I think it's probably similar with both.

AJ  22:37

Yeah, no, I think you're right. I just it just seems like the people I've seen who do know code tend to not get so deep into a stack. Like I think that maybe I don't know, maybe it's just by virtue of the fact that no code is relatively new. And so they haven't had a chance to get really deeply entrenched in you know, a specific stack or methodology or something. But at least right now, I'm really liking what I'm seeing with people just kind of bouncing between tools, you know, using what they need to use to get the job done, which I think is how it should be across the board, you know, whether you're no code or code.

Ben Tossell  23:13

Yeah, I think there's like a quick feedback loop as well with no code. That means, Okay, can I plug type form in on card? Yes, that works, or no, it doesn't work. Let me try it with forms. Yes, that works. No, it doesn't work and has taken me like 20 minutes to figure out where's

AJ  23:29

it maybe that maybe that's the difference. It's like the the reduced amount of time the feedback loop can move a lot quicker. So you're not like you're not getting over invested. Like if you're programming to an API, which if you've done that, you're, you know that you're having to read API documentation and kind of get in the heads of the developers who put that API together. So you can work out your implementation to interact with it and that takes that takes time. It's not something you can do and like, Well, some people probably can't, but you don't do it like five minutes or 10 minutes, that's a few hours at least. Whereas with no code, like what you just described, that can take 15 minutes, and you're done, you know, you can switch switch between providers, you know, just like that. Like it's nothing. And I think that may be the differentiating factor overall. Yeah, also did what you said was like you're not as invested in. So go spend, I spent months writing all this code. I don't want to, like I can't let it go. And same ideas. You've seen how many like sites I've had on card or have on card? There's hundreds now but like I saw you have quite a few.

Ben Tossell  24:40

Yeah, there's so many I tried in the early days because I was like, I was actually just using card as the thing I used to build the websites to spin up other ideas that maybe one day would take off, which I never did, but it was like, Okay, well let me spend 20 minutes, half an hour and a couple of hours. Like putting this together. I just did it in a different style, like sort of, I looked at this other website and just copied what occurred. I tried, like, one of the, I think one of the sites I did in the initial card course was like the stripe site, because then we merged stripe. I was like, oh, we're trying to get this, like the the diagonal line that they have, and all that sort of Yeah. I'm definitely gonna try and do that. And again, in the end, which is great.

25:25

But it was,

Ben Tossell  25:26

yeah, I mean, you could bounce

AJ  25:29

like you don't, you don't have to over invest in even an idea like, Yeah, that makes sense. And then you're not. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You spent 15 minutes or an hour or half hour, maybe an hour, throwing it together, launching it whatever and seeing what happens, as opposed to weeks or months and tons of money invested and time and then like if even halfway through that process, you realize the idea may not have legs, but you've already made it this far. You have to break and then it's just like, oh, you just wasted six months of your life. Something that someone else could have spent 15 minutes on and gone over with, you know, they could have built it, tried it out, launched it. If it failed, then you know, they've wasted, you know, an hour or so. But they've gained a lot more knowledge to offset that they can move to the next thing.

Ben Tossell  26:16

Yeah, exactly. I think it's the opposite of like, okay, the knowledge I gained in this hour comparatively, even if it even if it fails, is a way bigger. Like, it's way bigger than if I spent six months Yes, I did learn something. But it was like it was more like a pane of glass, but at what cost? Right.

AJ  26:37

Six months of the embarrassment, the money you know, everything else and all the and the realization that how many other projects and things could you have done in that time? Have you taken a different approach?

Ben Tossell  26:48

Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's, there's pros and cons to be able to do this because just because you can build it maybe you shouldn't have but that's like

AJ  26:56

what I mean that is actually the thing I'm seeing Now is because so many people are, you know, like I said, stuck at home or furloughed or, you know, worse, you know, laid off. They can, with very little investment, just spin something up just to see what happens, you know, like it is, this is like the optimal time for no code, I think because, yeah, especially if you're, you know, you're strapped for cash, you're not gonna be able to, you know, pay developers or take the time to, you know, learn the code after, you know, six months or something to build something to, you know, to build your idea. Whereas with no code, you don't have to invest a whole lot. You can do it very quickly. And I don't think the emotional burden of over investing in something is there because like you said, it's like, take an hour, get it done. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's just an hour. And you didn't you know, you weren't trying to find the next thing that's going to feed your kids. Yeah, exactly.

Ben Tossell  27:59

Yeah. I think yeah, I mean, we've definitely seen an uptick in the last six weeks of people joining me for PAL and things like that. So I think people are really paying attention to what can be done with no code.

AJ  28:13

Yeah, I think it's not even just sorry. I don't think it's not just us either. I mean, I saw things like, I'm sure web flows, I think Wix is I think everybody in this space has kind of, you know, felt this surge as people try to get into this. So it's definitely a universal thing right now. Yeah, for sure.

Ben Tossell  28:34

So what would the remind me what the big updates were that you were working on?

AJ  28:41

pre pre pre COVID-19 what I was going to do, which I will be getting back to you soon, thankfully. Yeah. Yeah. So uh, there were three major things. I would say the most pertinent to know code was the data sources thing, which I think I talked to you about a few months ago. Yeah. The idea being in lieu of only using like iframes or something to pull in content there would actually be a built in way into car that would let you dynamically pull in content from like air table or other sources. So you know, if you if you wanted to present content from a an air table, you can do so in like a native card style using elements and stuff that are already there as opposed to just dumping in an iframe and, and relying on the styling of that. And I think I have a good chunk of that already planned out like how I'm going to implement it. And I was about ready to start on like really diving into it and all this stuff hit so that was not great. But you know, like I said, things are kind of getting a little bit more settled now so I can finally get back to work on that. The other two, there are two other things. One of those ones more features for kind of agency setups, because I see a lot of people now using card to build sites for clients. And there's a lot of stuff that comes with managing that type of arrangement that card doesn't have right now that people are kind of figuring their workarounds for. So I'm going to try to cater to that a bit better with some of the stuff that that's associated with that. And the final thing is the ability for people to create their own templates for their own use, and for other people's use. So you can build a template, you can use it yourself. So when you go to the little template selection screen, you can see your own templates that you've created. And you can also share those with other people on card or sell them which is a big thing because I've seen people selling templates on card, which I think is fantastic. It's just a there's no formal process in there to do that. So they again had to come up with their own workarounds to make up for deficiencies in the platform, which I think is both cool and kind of sad that I have these deficiencies there, but I'll address them. And part of the template thing will go a long way to do that. So it will, I think it will initially manifest in people just having the ability to kind of set up their own mini template stores. And then I think it will culminate in having a an official card template marketplace on site with kind of like a curated selection of stuff. So pretty big things coming.

Ben Tossell  31:35

Yeah, they're not three more features. And yeah, I when I did that card course, part of my offering there was I'll give you the, this is, I think is a December 2018. And I was like I'll send people the templates if they there was like 20 templates, so

AJ  31:57

Oh, yeah, I remember that though.

Ben Tossell  32:00

person who

32:01

signed up,

Ben Tossell  32:02

they would have to like say, Yeah, I want all the templates. So I'd have to copy like duplicate each template.

AJ  32:09

Send Indiana transfer. Yeah. Yeah, it seemed that love and that that is actually seeing that. And then I think there were some issues sometimes when people like didn't have enough like site slots left on their accounts like I couldn't get all the templates what's going on like, oh crap No, I

Ben Tossell  32:26

I definitely address that with my own system and air table just like to show who'd been sent them and who accepted them and all that sort of stuff. Well

AJ  32:35

see, Ben like you've been on the forefront of pushing me into doing things I didn't think about so it's been a while appreciate. What if I was pushing this the wrong thing. I just thought Batman's card is what just what Ben? Ben's been asked him to have. But well, the interesting thing is that, I mean, a lot of the things that you've pushed in, I mean, I think you may have been one of the few people who like pushed for a lot of different things that I didn't think of the There have been other people who have pushed smaller pieces of what you've been pushing for. So it's like it. It's funny how there's almost like this universal view of what card should be that spans across a whole bunch of different users. And it's almost like a the same thing, which is really strange. But yeah, just be that it could just be coincidence, but I don't know. It's pretty cool.

Ben Tossell  33:28

Yes, it's funny, actually, because I think even something like web flow. So I mean, web flow in Canada, definitely not like, in my eyes, competing products, because I think they're just completely different things. They both have to build websites. That's like, probably one of the only things they share together. And I think there's just different use cases for both but I think there is like, there's some level of functionality on the card side that people are like, Yo, I could do this in web flow. It's like it's bigger and clunkier than I need it to be, because I just needed it small and sleek to, to do this thing in, right, in minutes, rather than maybe taking a couple of hours and perfecting some of the stuff. I, I think some of those use cases like the things that we've been talking about and what you're building, probably towards that goal. There's like, this is just a mini a smaller version of this, and then you can build out the bigger version. And I think it's just me,

AJ  34:32

and I've been I've been pretty open about the idea. Look, card is not meant for everything, like you can push it pretty far. But at some point, you got to graduate to something bigger, you know, like that's it. And that's why even the way cards pricing works. Like I don't try to lock you in. Like there's the full expectation that you may use card for a while, but then you may move on to something else because it will no longer meet your needs because your knees have grown which I think is Fair as opposed to me trying to trap you and say, well, you can kind of get this complex thing working. But you've got to go through these insane hoops using embeds and stuff like this. No, just just use web flow, use, you know, square, go use something that's more appropriate for what you want to do. I'm not going to try to keep you here and force you to do things in a subpar manner when I know some other service out there can do it better. And I think that's, that's why it works so well. And I think that's why people continue to use card because they know they can use it for the smaller things and eventually move on to something bigger if they want.

Ben Tossell  35:36

Yeah, exactly. And it's and it's also like, surely for your sanity for your work or for everything else. You don't want to have to then like you're still a one man. shop right? And you don't have to

AJ  35:47

for now, actually, so my business partner from other projects is pretty much ready to go full time on card as well handling content moderation, like he handles that entire thing though, which you don't think about it either. So, actually, when a card launch on Product Hunt is actually when I realized content moderation would be a very large factor. Because in the span of like 24 hours, I think we had, at that point, there was like maybe 10 or 20 new sites per day, which is hilarious compared to what we get now. But in the span of like, a couple days, we had like 1000 or 2000 new sites. And I was like, Well, what if someone posts something they shouldn't, you know, we need to have systems in place with that. So that's actually where the genesis of the moderation stuff comes in. So my business partner has now fully taken over that entire aspects of it. So it technically card is still one man isn't myself building this thing. But that is very quickly going to change because just the scale is not going to permit that to go on.

Ben Tossell  36:48

Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it's like it's still for what you want to build the company. You want to build these Silliman like make trade offs on you, you want to be the tool that can do it. thing for everyone just like right carving out the smaller piece that you like. And you get surprised by and sort of has helped facilitate.

AJ  37:10

Yeah, which I think is true for anyone wanting to build a product. That's what you need to do. Don't try to be all things to all people pick a niche and just go for it, like just carve out your niche, and we'll work on it and you know, don't, don't fall into the trap of feature creep, because that will take you out because then you just won't have enough time and resources to to do those things properly. me unless you do get the time and resources, which is another thing. And then you'll just kind of dilute what you're good at. So if card tried to be a web flow or something wouldn't work just wouldn't work. It would just be better to look at what card is good at and really just enhance it and perfect it which is what I've been trying to do.

Ben Tossell  37:52

Yeah, well, it certainly certainly shows the product. Really appreciate you coming on Southern Africa. birth.

38:00

If people are trying to find you, that was my fault for not understanding timezones.

AJ  38:05

So sorry about that.

Ben Tossell  38:08

Just tell people where to find you when they find card.

AJ  38:11

Sure. So you can find card at card CO, CA, rr d.co. And you can find me pretty much just on twitter at AJ lk n, which is. Yeah, that's about where you can find me. It's

38:28

also Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.

AJ  38:31

Hey, Ben. Really appreciate it. Man. It's been an honor. Thank you.

Ben Tossell  38:33

Thanks so much for listening. You can find us online at maker pad.co or on Twitter app maker that we'd love to hear if you enjoyed this episode, and what

38:43

we should do next.

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