Everyone is saying SOFTWARE IS DEAD (LIVE Q&A)

0:03What's up everyone? We are live. This is the fourth episode of SIP Live and we have a very important very important thing we need to discuss which is it feels like everyone is saying software is dead. You can no longer be an indie hacker. And that's kind of crazy to me. So I thought for this week's episode we can just break that down. and I can take you through the biggest tweets that I've seen. I can give you my opinion on them and then you chat can come in and give your opinion on this because I know that you have a thoughts on this. So, we're

0:40going to go through that today. But before we begin, I I need a little energy. So, I brought I brought two drinks and I need you I need some help. I need help from chat to tell me what I should be drinking. So, I've got a Red Bull. It's a Red Bull Juneberry flavor. And then I've got a Monster White Zero Ultra. And I must I must confess, I have never had a Monster in my life. So I've gone this far in my life and I've never had a Monster. So in chat, please let me know if I should be drinking the Red Bull and or the Monster

1:19and I will do what you say because, you know, it's fun. Let's we'll have a little fun. So, let's see what what what chat says. Um on YouTube, I see we've got Monster Red Bull. I'm not Someone says double energy drinks. I'm not having both. I'm having one, by the way. But and I should note it's 3 p.m. Eastern. I shouldn't even be having one. So, uh you know,

1:45let's uh let's see what the chat says. Uh Monster and Review. Okay. Um, so let's uh wait for a few more comments. White Monster, uh, drink the meme one. Drink the meme one. Um, okay. Keep keep going. Keep going. We got uh Red Bull and Monster together. Be safe, bro. [laughter] I will be safe. if I will be safe. Oh, some people are saying neither. Some people are saying neither, which is which is crazy. Um, which is really really crazy. All right, we're going to we'll do one more minute. Is it should it be Red Bull or um um

2:39or uh Monster?

2:50We are what we drink. That is true. That is true. I'm just looking at the comments. If you're looking at Why am I not looking at the screen? I'm just looking at the comments.

3:08Um, you made me drink cold coffee espresso. [laughter] And now you quit. I haven't quit. I have not quit. I've just I've just tr, you know, flirting with the the energy drink gods. Um, all right. It seems like uh monster this. So, this will be my first ever Monster. We're going to bust it

3:35open and then we'll get into the tweets. Uh, shout out Monster Gang. And I'll do a quick taste test. I don't even know what this tastes like. I have no idea what this tastes like. Um, super sweet. Super sweet.

4:00Super sweet. Um, delicious. Absolutely delicious. But this is huge, by the way. This is big. Um I kind of like how the the Red Bull's like petite, you know. Um yes, it it kind of tastes like Mountain Dew. Someone says Teng Collins says, you know, taste the dew. It does taste like Mountain Dew.

4:24Um so I kind of love it. Um but we'll see. Someone says, uh go with what you know. don't want to have you to go to the bathroom during the live stream, which uh could also make it interesting, right? Um could also make it interesting. Um all right, so someone says, "I'm here drinking Celsius like a peeb." Yeah, write in the chat, "What are you drinking right now? What are you drinking?" And then we'll get to it. I'm going to start uh sharing some of the some of the tweets so we can break it down. And I also want to hear I want this chat to be um like I want to

5:02hear from you and I want this chat just to be on fire. I want to feel like, you know, I should keep going. Um and we're all in this together, right? We're all seeing the same stuff and we now have a place to actually talk about this stuff. And I'm curious what other people

5:20uh are seeing out there. So uh let's get into it while you all are uh you know putting what drinks what drinks you are drinking. So this is where the um the original tweet started. So uh John Yangfuk uh he tweeted, "I got to talk about the good and the bad, right? I noticed our signups and

5:46conversions are pretty weak this month. T TLDDR everything is downstream of us getting less traffic to the site. Our Google referrals have basically have this year and the chart is below. It makes sense since anecdotally um anecdotally I find myself using uh Google less and less. Um what's the answer? There's no short-term fix. Need to explore other channels, YouTube, newsletter, creators, etc. current strategy of I just write content seems uh to be on the way out in terms of either

6:27[laughter] the monster getting team but efficacy that's it efficacy. So if you look at um his company is called Banner Bear image generation. He's at 81K MRR. And if you look at it, it's just down down down down. So levels IO, everyone's favorite indie hacker, uh including mine says, "I'm seeing a trend here of declining revenue and traffic with

6:58indie hackers on my own projects, too. Maybe big VC products, too. But I wouldn't know cuz they don't share revenue. To me, it seems clear AI is cannibalizing everything that used to be apps. Uh not bad by the way, just times are changing and we have to adapt. So, and then uh if you look at all the replies, you know, 1.8 million views, there's a ton tons of replies of people being like, "Yeah, things are over. Glad I'm not the only one. Organic Google

7:29traffic is down." uh down for everyone. We have to find a way through. Big AI is cannibalizing everything. You know, basically, if you go through the replies, people are basically saying that if you want to start a software company in 2026, you are toast. And chat, do we think we're toast? Do we think that Open AI and Anthropic and all the large labs are going to cannibalize every single piece of software that exists? Like I'm curious what people actually think. Um because if you're here, if you made it to this stream, I know that you probably are raising an eyebrow when you see something like

8:14this. So, I want to hear from the chat. What What is it? No, not at all. No way. I see what people are saying. No way. I'm continuing anyways.

8:28No, Greg, not toast.

8:37All the large labs and decent software engineing claps in Indie Hacker. Okay. No, you got to be creative now. Teng Colin says, "Yes. Yes, of course. We're going to make it. We are going to make it. And we're going to talk why through this live stream. Software super cycle incoming. Boom. I think there's smaller room for SAS. Big

9:01AI ended everything already. Um, interesting. Like that person Dor Kiscu just thinks it's over. It's done. Um, Sven Godic says the app and software is gone. Tenji Colin, first movers are the winners now. I don't necessarily agree with that. Like you can still win even if you're not first movers. Uh Miguel says, "I think teaching how to use voice engines is a good business." I mean, yes, maybe, but also like there's a lot of voice AI in general is a huge category that, you know, hasn't, if you think about like voice products, like there's been so few voice products uh over the last 15 years besides Twilio,

9:50there's so much opportunity to build on top of that. Maxology says we just need to make our a our apps AI first. In a lot of ways, he's right. And levels.io, O to his credit he says we do you know at the end he says just times are changing and we have to adapt that is right I mean if you do nothing you know and then yeah like you you are going to get your market share taken away if you know the business that you're working on specifically um relies number one on Google SEO traffic I am Sarwar says says, "Big labs cannibalize 95% of any project's worth,

10:35but the last 5% will you need independent developers to close the gap." So, let's Yeah. So, let's talk about what product you need to create in the age where there's, you know, these LLMs have become essentially operating systems and and they are a place where we're spending a lot of time. um people don't want to maintain certain

10:59softwares so that's not going anywhere. CRM for example, people don't want to maintain that. Uh payment systems, something like a Shopify, right? That's not going anywhere. Um so, and then you can think about niching, you know, niching down, right? So, uh so one one vector is is going to be uh that another vector is just super niche products. Um that's a huge vector. The other the other vector is if you're a creator and you've you know you've built like a little media company then you're not reliant on Google SEO traffic for everything. Um, if you are able, another vector is if you're incredible at meta ads, if you know how to create uh ads

11:45and uh you can systematically find new formats, you can create them um and you're and you're able to acquire users for less than uh what the value is that you know there's a business there. Um, a lot of the people that are indie hackers, their unfair advantage and it's in the name it would the unfair advantage they had was code. They were able to raise uh write code and because of that uh they

12:16would were able to get Google traffic. um they'd write code, there would be link, you know, they'd get link links back to it and then f and from that like Google would bas basically say like, hey, some of these websites um are high quality and they they were getting traffic. Um the problem with that is

12:34code isn't the unfair advantage anymore. What's the unfair advantage? The unfair advantage is in distribution. The unfair advantage is in being super niche. The unfair advantage is if you have a data product, that's another vector, right? If you're data first, you have data that no LLM has um people would be willing to pay for it. Um another another thing is ma uh maintenance. If you're willing to maintain a piece of software that other people don't want to maintain, that's also um also an opportunity. The other big thing uh that none of these people are talking about is the fact that um these people aren't talking about that

13:18AI first version of products is a whole opportunity in mobile apps for example if you look at popular mobile apps um and think about how can I make this you know agentic first um in SAS if you look at ways to create agentic for SAS outcomebased pricing things like that there's so much opportunity to create stuff but you should know that code is not the unfair advantage that you know there's a few in pieces of uh insight that I get from this which is that um the unfair advantage is in building media building distribution it's it's in data it's in um it's in bu in network effects if create

14:06like a social network or anything like that. Um, so that's that's really uh some of the some of the big uh vectors to think about. All right, I'm looking at the comments. Uh, and let me start answering some of these. So, um, someone says, "How is data monetized even? Is it just through ad targeting?"

14:29No, it's not just through ad targeting. For example, ide.com, which is a product I work on, um, is around trends and startup ideas. Um, and a lot of the way we're able to come up with these startup ideas and trends is through proprietary data that we have. Um, and then people are willing to pay for that. Um, you know, Teng Collins says distribution is king now. Um, Madman says, uh, can you recommend the best tool to validate the product market fit and the business? I if you have product market fit, you will know you have product market fit. You won't need a tool, but you know, I use Post Hog no affiliation

15:12as an analytics tool. Um the loco plat says more companies are looking for software tools on uh uh software tools not on big AI platforms. Money will be made renting the rigs with local AI software in the medium-sized business. I think like this is the mindset to have which is like okay the world has changed. How can I adjust to this world? It's not the world has changed. There is no opportunity anymore in entrepreneurship, which is literally the vibe you get when you see the

15:46replies in here. It's just like defeated. It's defeated. And I think uh I think there's a big I I just I I I truly believe that this is the best time to be building. Pat Walls, a friend of mine says, "I go back and forth on the future of indie hacking, but I know I know one thing. Profit margins will never be like the 90% glory days. Sure, there will be more there'll be more oneperson businesses, but those businesses will be less profitable with most of most of those profits getting redirected from founders pockets to big tech, i.e. meta

16:33ads. Again, if you if you look into Pat, Pat is a software developer. So, you know, code is his, you know, I mean, he's actually he he's actually a rare breed of he's amazing at writing code and he's amazing at distribution, but like he's coming, it feels like he's coming, you know, at it from the point of view of a um

16:59developer. And uh it's not true that uh that uh there won't be businesses that hit 90% profit margins anymore. Um, now I don't what what is true in what he's saying uh is if you are a oneperson software developer and you make a tool and you call yourself an indie hacker and you're selling a tool to other indie hackers at $20 a month and you have no cost essentially because you're the developer. Uh yes, he is he's right. the pe those people the one person software engineering I make tools for other people uh in the indie hacking community uh those people are are are going to

17:48have to learn how to become marketing pros are going to like I'll say it again those people have to learn how to be marketing pros or they're just going to see uh the decline of uh whatever it is they're working on because Yeah, I agree that that's the point I do agree on it. You know, people are spending more time on chat GPT. They are spending more time on claude and places like that. So, um they'll be creating their own tools within that and they'll also just be, you know, just just as how search traffic feels like it's going down for a

18:21lot of people because of AI overviews. The same is true for chat GBT and anthropic. People are asking questions on those platforms. Let's go to chat and see what people are saying. Um, you know, people are saying it's a loser mentality. Um, you know, Miguel says there's always opportunities. I'm 60 years old and I see it. Come on, young people. See, Miguel is saying it right. Miguel gets it. Um, wealth wealth stack says uh, when a when a whole class of entrepreneurs feel defeated and burnt out, it creates opportunity for new agentic first builders. Um, with fresh

19:06eyes and ideas. Look alive, folks. Yes. Could not agree more. Could not agree more. I think like that that's what bothers me about a lot of the chatter around um software is dead is it's it's kind of sad. It's kind of sad because it's it's sad to me that I believe that there's just so many categories that are being reoriented to be AI first. There's tons of opportunity. You can use these tools to actually go and build software, uh, beautiful software, simple software, but you're going to need, like we talked about, you're going to need a point, you know, you're going to need a point of

19:51view. You're going to need, uh, some unfair advantage. And that unfair advantage won't be code anymore. That's like the insight here. The unfair advantage is not code anymore. The unfair advantage is mark is in distribution. The unfair advantage is in data. The unfair advantage is in network effects. Um so the unfair advantage has changed but I actually believe the profit margins will be you know just as good if not better. The opportunity is just as good if not better. Um there will be more people who are going to be able to create these oneperson businesses than ever ever before. Um the people that are going to lose is going

20:30to be the oneperson software engineers who are building tools. Let's keep going. Let's see what what other uh what other tweets there there there there are. Okay, so Thomas Sandless says, "Do you think indie hacking will be a thing in three to four years?" Pat Wall says, "Not really, because it's no longer an attractive new business model for incoming entrepreneurs. What made indie hacking work 10 years ago is the scarcity of technical people in the world who knew how to duct tape Rail, Stripe, and Tailwind." Yes, it's exactly what we talked about. Code has the unfair advantage. But now that skill is no longer scarce. The arbitrage is again

21:10he's right. The co but the code arbitrage is gone. It's similar to web design in the '9s. Knowing HTML was a whole business. But then Squarespace and WordPress came along and killed that. But building websites, that's a huge category. Now the real is issue here is confusing identity with entrepreneurship. No, the real issue here is that people think that there's no longer opportunity to build incredible software. That's that's the issue here. Don't call yourself an indie hacker. Don't call yourself anything. You're building a business. I couldn't agree more. The term indie hacker, uh I don't know about you, chat, but like it doesn't I don't identify

21:51with it. It feels like it feels like, you know, RIP if if we're saying RIP to anything, it's RIP to the indie hacker. It's RIP to you have this unfair advantage to build code. You build this little tool and you sell it for $20 a month to other indie hackers. Um, slow Chaz says 37 Signals has proved profit margins depend on how you uh run

22:17your business more than anything else. Yes, I couldn't agree more. 37 Signals is an inspiration to us. I would never think that uh the 37 signals team would consider themselves indie hackers. No, they have a very strong point of view and story that they craft around building products. Uh they have a a strong mission and you know they generate millions of dollars of profit profit per year because other people customers identify with that. They're not going and being like and tweeting and writing posts being like it's all over. Um

22:54because it isn't. It isn't. Um looking at more uh uh more more comments and chat. Um it's the era of organic marketing and community. Ashley says, "Couldn't agree more uh couldn't agree more. Like community is the moat, right? like you it's the it's the time to invest in thinking about distribution. Um N3WAI says, "Greg, what's the way to build a support system as a solo AI entrepreneur in their early uh 20s?" Um

23:34that's a good question. There's a bunch that you know, ideally you can meet with other people in your city, in your town. Um, if if that doesn't exist, like host a local meetup and make it. Um, if that doesn't exist in your city or town, like it's it's around finding people online, reaching out to people on X, finding people in this live chat. Um, and just reaching out to people. Um, but I agree like you need this group um of people. Um, if if you don't if you don't have one, make it in your city. if it doesn't exist in your city, find people on the internet,

24:10reach out to them, help them, set up calls. You know, some of my closest friends are people I actually met on the internet. Literally like cold reached out to them or or met them uh yeah, just met them on X and stuff like that. So, um yeah, the uh X over LinkedIn. Yes, I think for this for the for for people into building software businesses, I do

24:33believe X is is where it's at. Um, all right. Looking looking at chat. More and more niche. So, Quazar Junior Music, welcome. More and more niche ideas, more and more niche communities. Gaming on demand. Can we actually organize as a broader society if we're so siloed? Yeah. I mean, you have music in your name and it's kind of interesting cuz if you think about, you know, 50 years ago, everyone kind of

25:03listened to the same songs on the radio. Now, everyone has a discover weekly on their Spotify. It's catered to them. Um, so it is interesting that people's have the are are crafting these hyperpersonalized taste, you know, does it does it create silos? It's tough to say. It's tough to say. Uh Teng Collins says going live is now the moat. I mean kind of in a way like in a way you know look at what we saw with the TVPN people uh team like they did such a good job every day going live crafting an audience around them for SIP live like I don't know if this this is

25:45my last time doing I don't know you know I'm just doing it as much as I enjoy it um and as much as it's helpful for people. Um but uh you know you should think about when when you're thinking about distribution you think should think about two things. Uh how do I earn attention and how do I craft affinity? Attention is how do you get people to scroll stop so they

26:11actually consume some of your content? And then uh the affinity piece is really uh more around trust, more around oh that person like whenever you in the future whenever they post something or whatever I have this affinity to them I I connect with them in some form or fashion and and because of that uh you know there's there'll be opportunities that you can sell them uh products and services down the road. I mean, the greatest recent example of that is what Alex Hermoszi did. You know, if you watch the first like hund like like the first hundred plus videos of Alex Herozi, what was the first line he would

26:49say in every video? My name is Alex Herozi and I've got nothing to sell you. Now, go watch his videos. It's he's he's certainly got many things to sell you. So, you know, he did that for a while and then he had when he had something that he thought was valuable, he ended up sell, you know, selling people. Um,

27:13so there's a comment here on YouTube. Uh, AO says, "Is learning Python from scratch still worth it in 2026?" I'll take that comment um and just extract it uh into sort of the the bigger question which is do I need to learn how to code in 2026 in a world where you can ask cloud code to build you things do I need to learn how to code and the answer is um you know everyone is different like if you know but I think that if you're technical now you do uh it I wouldn't say it's the unfair advantage because we talked about all the reasons why it's not an unfair

27:55advantage. But I I do think it's helpful because uh you know the the gap between I have an idea to it's now shipped and published and scalable and secure if you're technical is is obviously lower than if you're non-technical. So um I think it's helpful to know. I also think that the most helpful thing for you is to learn how to be um you don't necessarily need to be this super technical but understand how these pieces play a role play a role. So understand like the main concepts of you know building software what is an API what is an MCP you know h how would you

28:39create a web app what's the different stack you'd use how do they play play along what are data structures what are basic algorithms what is a link list what is a for loop like all the you know a lot of the basic stuff I think is super helpful I also think by the way we haven't talked about it but hardware is also a huge opportunity hardware plus AI. In a world where uh in a world where you can go on to hugging face and just like download these open-source AIs and plug it into, you know, physical products now. There's going to be a ton of opportunity uh a

29:21ton of opportunity there. Um, let's see into chat. In ancient, uh, who says this? MJ Jukeboxer. In ancient history, humans used to walk for thousands of years, and then they discovered the ho horse and boats, and at last they found wheels and then planes. Traveling has grown forever. Okay. Um, Quazar Jr. Music says, "Understanding architecture."

29:52Also, Mr. B said it best. Find a mentor. This is the biggest cheat code. Um, yes, it is. Um, Teng Collins says, "Hermosi now ends with, "I'm Alex Hermoszi. Come to Vegas for a workshop to learn more." I love him though. That's funny. Yeah. And by the way, I think there's a lot of people here who are going to be like, I don't want to create an audience. And that's totally fine. like you know you don't need to create a personal audience. doesn't need to be a personal brand, but you in this age if you want to build a startup um and you want to figure out how you can you know get to

30:39some significant amount of revenue and and scale um you know having a media component to it is just necessary in the same way that in the indie hacker era uh understanding how to code was was crucial. So I think it's really important. Um the new mainstream says you don't need to create an audience. There's tons of inbound and outbound methods. Yes. But I do think that you know organic systems uh like if you know how to create organic content that ends up uh connecting in a niche that means that you're able to create uh content that might go uh that might have good ROI on meta ads. So between

31:25organic and meta ads or or even you just buck it into paid ads. Uh there's just tons of opportunity there. Uh MJ Jukeboxer says in my opinion demand of software will increase now. I mean that's really you know I I I tend to think that's correct too. I think like in a world where agents um could do things for us now uh the total addressable market of software has just gotten bigger. Now is not the time to be like, "It's over." Now is the time to be like, "What can I be building and how

31:58can I be building it?" Let's look at um some more tweets. Tony Den says, "I don't think AI will eliminate indie hackers. It is it's true that my 10 years of software engineering experience has become more and more irrelevant because AI can do most of it. But looking back, my software engineering skills were only a small part of being an indie hacker. The most important part is still solving valuable

32:27problems and looking for customers. Absolutely. That's the thing. If you just maniacally focus on uh your ICP uh your target market and driving insane amounts of value for your customer, nothing has changed. Um if anything, AI has created a whole new class of problems that are now open for people to explore and solve. Exactly. Entrepreneurship at its core is solving people's problems and getting paid to get to solve those problems. How many problems now exist because of AI and AI agents? So many. Indie hackers are

33:05problem solvers and entrepreneurs. Removing the coding part means removing a lot of friction and it will enable indie hackers to do 10x more at 10x speed. I think a lot of indie hackers are going to you know give up basically. Um and then I think some of them will be like all right I need to cross the chasm and not just be a engineer and be a marketer and those ones are going to do so well in this era. Let's see what some of the uh comments say. 10 years of software engineering is your unfair advantage today. AI is great for finding customers too. Or is that copium on my part too? I

33:46think that's totally right. AI is great at finding customers, too. So, um I think there's something there. Uh let's keep going. Okay, I saw this and this this this meme just completely completely explains exactly how I'm feeling about this whole state of where we're in today. Uh on the left hand side you have build a business. On the right hand side you have build a business. In the middle you have indie hacking is dead. Creator economy is dead. SAS is dead. Building a public is dead. Product

34:25hunt is dead. SAS SAS apocalypse. It's about just focusing on building a business and driving insane amounts of value and figuring out some marketing channels to help get people to see uh what you're doing. That's what this game is. Yes. Funniest meme template. It's amazing. Jam Daniel says, "Funnest meme templates."

34:56Quazar Jr. Music says, "Greg, thoughts on Corey Ganim's tactic of borrowed attention and borrowed trust by partnering with creators with larger audiences." I don't know specifically about Corey Ganim's like what he does does in particular, but I will say like yes, find find uh creators with audiences or find media companies with audiences and figure out

35:22how you can build businesses for them. Uh we have a question here that says uh that says, "Greg, what do we what do we do about the public sentiment about AI? It's all negative outside tech field outside San Francisco. Yes, this is a real problem. Most people, if you ask the average person, they hate AI. What does AI mean to them? It means AI is going to uh come for their job. It means AI is building a data center next door to them and it's going to ruin a river or a forest. Um, so they they have this feeling, this, you know, existential uh bad feeling around AI. I think that

36:02if you're creating a software business, a software startup, um, you know, maybe the copy shouldn't be AI powered. You know, I shouldn't say AI powered, right? I think ultimately the mistake a lot of people make when they're building startups um, is it just has a lot of AI speak on the copy and in the marketing. And that's not the way to think about it. I think that what people ultimately care about is the out outcome. How are you going to make my life easier? And these are like micro moments. Like if you're if you if you come across a meta ad or you come across a piece of organic

36:44content and and you click on it and it's it's explaining to you how you have this problem and you're like, "Yeah, I do have this problem." you know, maybe it's like a email marketing software for, you know, the for nurses and and you're in charge of it around this, you know, nursing business or center for older adults or something like that. You'll you might hate AI, but you have this problem and you want it to get solved and in and how the sausage is made is via AI. That's the way to think about

37:17it. Quaazar Music says, "Why do you look like Zack Brass better-l looking brother?" Now, that is just the nicest comment and nicest chat I have ever heard. So, thank you very much. Um, I appreciate that um for for for hyping me up like that. Uh, Wealth Stack says, "AI data center and data centers have a terrible rep because the big labs fired or never hired all the creatives and storytellers who used to help CEOs speak to the public." Um, yes. Um, sure. I think like I I try not I try not to think too much about you know what the big labs are doing or or the politics behind a particular

38:07thing. I I think about I'm trying to be as helpful as I can to everyone who's listening on the micro level. And I think a lot of if you're here and you're listening to this, you care about starting companies and building companies and scaling companies. My job, I feel like my job is to give you the tactics, thoughts, frameworks for thinking about how I can actually uh build something. And I think if you're building something, all you need to know about public sentiment around AI is that it's negative. So on your copy and branding and storytelling, I think it's downplaying the AI and and not downplaying how incredible the output

38:49and outcome is and how incredible your service is.

38:57Duer Kiscu says, "Greg, please read this comment and give your opinion on it. I think we have one last option to turn our app into an MCP." Yes, there are tons of validated apps, specifically in SAS, that uh if you create them into MCPs, uh they can be extremely extremely valuable. So yes,

39:26um the co-ran says, "What do you think has a better moat creator or personal brand businesses or micro software factories?" Um they're both they both uh they both have if I had to pick probably like you know creator or personal brand or media brand you know media businesses. Um, the ideal is if you marry the two, like you have a media business, like you create media to get attention and you buckle on a software factory that ultimat that you know that you're just pumping out

40:04incredible software.

40:11Um, this is not related to SAS at all. Software is dead at all, but Quazar says, "Greg, what is one thing about your current daily routine that you are most excited about?" Honestly, uh, buil, you know, waking up and buil and and and making coffee uh, in my home office in my espresso machine, I I love I just, you know, I get really excited

40:35about. That's just like my first thing. I wake up and I'm like so excited about doing that. Um, and uh, the second thing is I I do really enjoy just like making videos, tutorials, content about whatever it is I'm excited about this week. Things are changing so quick uh, as you know. Um, that like you know yesterday I posted a video on about Jack Dorsey's buzz. Like it was fun to like explore that. So, um, you know, now I'm like doing, uh, some research on graph engineering. It's fun to explore that. There's so much happening right now that I'm just having fun exploring

41:17all these different topics. By the way, this monster is absolutely delicious. Absolutely delicious. So, cheers to you all. All right, I'm gonna look at X. I've been giving all the love to YouTube. Let me look at X. Um, what's my take on Claude Fable 5 Max versus Ultra Code? I'm actually doing a episode on this, so there's more there. What beans do I use? Um, right now I'm using I'm on the subscription to Phil's Coffee and I just get uh Taura Beans

42:03from Phil's Coffee.

42:09What's the most exciting business you're actively building right now? That's tough. It's like they're all my they're my children, you know? It's tough to pick a favorite. Where do you see web agencies going? I think the idea I think they're going to go up up market like more premium. I think the small ones kind of go away. I think in general agencies are going to go more premium. We have we have an agency uh called lay checkout agency LCA. Um so we actually design some of the world's biggest AI apps and aentic apps. Um tons of demand for stuff like that but it's super premium too. So it's

42:49like good niche. A lot of companies are trying to figure out AI, don't know how, need a, you know, a dream team, product team to go figure that out for them. Design, strategy, engineering. And then, uh, going up, you know, working with the biggest companies on the planet, so going premium. So, highly recommend

43:06that. Uh, one thing I'm realizing when creating meaningful work, when everyone can make anything they want, maybe the mode is the stuff you wanted to create from the heart. Um, you know, there's the the classic recommendation when you're starting when you're doing anything in life is follow your passion. Um, I'm not necessarily a buyer of that idea, but I think a part of it is true. The way I see it is it's like a uh ven diagram. It's like what the world needs and then that's one circle and then what you're passionate about. Um, sometimes you end up and and I would start with what the world needs. Like

43:59that's what you you can't start with like I don't think you can start with what you know what you're passionate about. Um because I mean you could but I think that uh when you start with what the world needs or what you're what you know what a target market you like needs you end up you can fall in love with who you're serving and how you're serving

44:22them. And then you're also building something that's validated that they they actually want. Wealth stack says, "If you if you want if you Greg, if you had to start over and make your first 25K be before fall 2026, how would you proceed today?" Um 25K service business. Service business. Do I would start I would I wouldn't what we were talking about with agencies. I said pick a niche and then go premium. Uh I wouldn't go premium to start, but I would go niche and I would pick a a niche that I understood. We talked about uh centers for older adults. Uh maybe it's I understand that. And then I

45:08would build I think I would sell them AI or sell them web design or sell them mobile um it just some service that I understood and I would do a onetime charge plus a a monthly fee. Ian Fug says you you talking a guy here? I don't I don't really know. I know that's like the Japanese framework for how you should uh live your life. I don't I don't

45:38exactly know it. Um I don't exactly know it. Um but I think it I think I I do believe my version is like a simpler version of that. That's why I I created ideabrowser.com because or co-created it is because I was like uh there's a lot of really good ideas but the best ideas the best startup ideas are the ones that are backed by data um and trends. So how do we go and find those and give those to people? Um okay I'm I'm answering questions. Let me look. I got one screen on YouTube over here and one screen on X over here. So, let me just make sure

46:27Let me just make sure I'm I'm uh I'm hitting both. All right, YouTube. You guys are amazing. By the way, if you're on YouTube and you're watching this, just do me a favor and hit like so I know that I should do this more often. Um, also more more videos like this will come into your feed. So, just stop what you're doing, hit like. Um, and then I'll check after to see if

46:57uh if I should keep doing these. Um, what's my workflow for designing YouTube thumbnails? Uh, I work with a producer. He's amazing. Um, we work together uh on on well actually he like kind of gives me some ideas to react to and I I give him feedback and we make a great team. Madman says, "When do you think AI

47:22tokens will start to get expensive?" I saw a video today uh by Cat GPT who was saying that if you're buying a $200 a month Claude plan, the cost of that plan to Anthropic is really 40x. So, they're basically like giving it away. Like they're losing thousands of dollars um on it. I don't know if that's true or not. Um I h I didn't fact check it but uh that's generally what happens with ventureback startups is uh in order to eat a market um you know they call it blitzkrieging you just like in order to win a market mind share land share uh you subsidize initially and then once

48:08you're hooked onto the workflow then you increase the price. So, we'll see uh you know when it will get expensive. That being said, the models are getting so much better and better and better. I do believe that they'll be a $20 a month, a $200 a month, um and then more expensive over time. And and by the way, in a year from now, those plans are going to be so, you know, the the $20 month is going to be way better than the

48:36$200 month we have right now. Um, Quazar says, "Can users actually pay for the true cost of tokens when it happens?" Um, I don't know. Um, the new mainstream says it's kind of like crack versus first hit free. Um, scenic piece. How do I make an app more sticky for users? Um, one way to do it is it's hard. Well, it's first of all, I should say it's hard to give you advice. I don't know what you're building, but one way to do it is you make it more personalized. you know, quizzes, for example, you you you you ask people questions about um who they are and in a quiz way, like in

49:34a fun way, and then you uh you get them more invested in your in your product, so they end up becoming more sticky. A great book on that is the the hook method, I think it's called, by near worth reading. Uh, do Greg, do you have do you have content on how to get clients as an agency owner? The classic engineer like me feels totally like a fish out of water. I don't uh I have a ton, you know, check my YouTube. I don't have like a specific video around agencies. Maybe I should. Um but uh certainly some some of my vibe marketing or or marketing related

50:26uh episodes will be uh helpful for you. There's an episode I think I did with Jonathan Courtney called the million-dollar funnel which is the one that comes to mind around how you can craft an offer. How do you get people into that offer? Um, and he comes from an agency background. So, that one I think will be best for you. I'm trying to market uh Petty Po says, "I'm trying to market to local

50:59businesses. Any tips?" Oo, such a broad question. Hard hard to say. Um, I mean, ultimately, you know, I have this framework. I talk about it a lot but like if you want to build a business in 2026 um the framework is really ACP audience community product. So I think about how can I build an audience for these for local people and then uh then I would give them then I would promote my product through that. So, you know, maybe you're creating a meme page, maybe you're creating short form video reviews. Um, but you know, looking at different formats that work, creating an audience, probably Instagram first, and

51:45then I would market through that. Um, looking at the time, let's go see what I bookmarked. Um, gonna do a quick chug of the monster.

52:09By the way, keep uh keep this chat going on YouTube especially like feels very very bumping on YouTube. Keep it going. Um, this was a good tweet. Rob, who's a co-founder of a company called SuperX. Guys, building SAS for X is dead. Don't do it. I'm only making 22K a month. I'm basically broke. And he quote retweeted this. SAS is dead, said the SAS founder who wanted to

52:43eliminate any potential competition. Sort of how I feel. I think a lot of people are just like scared of competition. So they're being negative.

53:03How much of it is profit? I think he's a one-man show.

53:13Don't believe the hype. SAS is not dead. Software is not dead. There is tons of opportunity. Okay, here's a good one. All right, Sabah says, first of all, let's let's see what he's he's quote retweeting uh levels io saying, "I'm seeing a trend here of declining revenue and traffic with indie hackers on my own projects, too." So, he's he's quote tweeting that and he says, "The old SAS book uh playbook is breaking. I see three new rules replacing it. Building one product is better than building five." By the way, this has always been the case uh in the sense of you want to build one product to get product market fit and

53:56then once you hit product market fit, then you can go and build another product. Um that's always been the case. Bar of creation has dropped. Anyone could choose something simple. Agreed. Solving one painful problem deeply for one type of user is better than solving five at the surface for hundred. Always been true. Going deep is the real moat. Put another way, like we talked about in the stream, driving insane amounts of value is the real moat. Two, bolting AI into an old product doesn't work. In 2025, everyone bolted AI into their product. In 2026, the smartest founders are rebuilding. Adding an engine to a horse doesn't make it a car. If you can

54:39confidently say you have a great AI product in 2026, you will fail. I won't get over to the semantics of this. I think the most important point here is that is this. If you can't confidently say you have a great AI product in 2026, you will fail. Yes, you have to create a AI first product in 2026, it needs to be great. Otherwise, you will fail. These tools that indie hackers are creating that have been around for years and it in in this day and age, maybe they're not that good if the revenue keeps going

55:12down. Number three, demand capture has become harder. The biggest loss that everyone is experiencing is how demand is being captured. Historically, it was Google, but that's changing faster than you think. Many founders aren't as aggressive as they should be. TBH, if you're not number one on YouTube and Google for your top keywords, you need to try way harder. Also, the fastest growing companies I see don't just compete for existing demand, they they create it. Um, yeah, I mean, demand, how demand is being captured has changed fundamentally and that's what I think a lot of these a lot of the indie hackers are noticing. Um, and it's

56:00changing faster than a lot of us thought. Agreed. Um, I would say I would say uh, you know, obviously you might not be able to make it to number one on certain search terms. I think even if you're number two, three, four, five, six, you can still create an incredible business, but like we talked about before, your unfair advantage shouldn't be reliant on just YouTube or just Google. uh specifically YouTube to me is like in the audience building uh and affinity uh stuff. So when we talked about media companies and how to build media companies around your software, I think that's what I that's what I think

56:41is really interesting. Um so so yeah, I would say uh this is this is this is an interesting tweet. Let's look at the replies.

56:59Yeah, basically what he says, new rules, going deep into one product. I mean, my my take here, go deep into one product, get product market fit, and then create another product, get product market fit, and then ultimately the dream is to have a portfolio of companies generating revenue, generating profit month over month, uh independent from uh each other. Two, go agent first. Yes, this is where a lot of the opportunity is. And three, build distribution as a part of uh as a part of it's as a core part of what

57:34you're doing. Tommy says, "Great AI products in 2026 is probably MCP first. We don't want more AI subscriptions." Um, I mean, there's a ton of opportunity in creating MCP first products. That being said, how many people have installed MCPS? small now. There's big opportunity as things go. I wouldn't say that people don't want subscriptions. If there's

58:00value there, people will pay for it. Focus on one thing rather than 10. We talked about that. This is good. Going deep is the real mo. Why do you think Jensen has been the CEO of Nvidia for 32 years straight? He was convinced there was value in what he was doing. AI should be used to build great products, great value companies that outlast its founder, not to be the product. A GBT rapper doesn't work

58:27anymore. There are thousands of them. Bring back real creative ideas and innovation. Find something that hasn't been solved yet and think long term. I just don't necessarily agree with this for a lot of people who are trying to build businesses in the, you know, $1 million to hund00 million AR range. I I think you could create a rapper business with a good um with the right story and the right niche and the right data that does work for people and does create an insane amount of value for people. So I I don't agree with this at all. I don't know if chat you agree with it, but I

59:06don't agree with it at all. Um I think uh you do you know the winners of this era are going to be people who are super creative people who um can craft stories around products who understand how to uh get people excited about products branding a lot of that is going to be is going to be big. All right let me look at the uh the chat

59:35and see what what people are saying. Um, why doesn't Greg interview SAS vibe co vibe coders and those starting off? Um, I have interviewed uh SAS vibe coders. I've interviewed people like Billy Howell and a bunch. Um, I could always interview more. Um, feel free to let me know of uh people who are just starting off, just starting to scale and who have something they can share with the audience. I don't want to waste the time of of the audience. So, they do

1:00:10need to have something to share. Man, these monsters are pretty these these are these are scary. They're they're they're that good. Um, everyone here, I have a question. How did you discover Greg? For me, it was Sam Parr. Interesting. Someone worked with late checkout in 2023. Um, can we get some reaction content from Greg Eisenberg? The new JMA video video is hilarious. I'm building an app to 10K a month. Episode two. Uh, yeah, that could be interesting. Um, I'll go check that out. Um, and yeah, maybe in the future I'll do some reaction video stuff. What do I mean? uh at techflow

1:00:58CTS is what do I mean by agent first? Um so when you're building software now you're you're you don't necessarily need to craft the business around a human is going around clicking things. A human around is going and adding to card. A human is going and uh you know building you know doing things. Basically you're building it agent first. So you're building it knowing that uh agents can do a lot of things, can complete tasks, the agent even might be the customer. Uh that's thinking of about it agent first in the same way that you know Instagram

1:01:41was a mobile first version of Facebook. What's the difference between Facebook and um Instagram? At the end of the day, the core value prop when they both when Instagram first came out, it was very similar, right? Facebook was a photo sharing site. Mobile was a photosharing app. What was the difference? Instagram was native to mobile. Everything about it felt native. It felt good. And Facebook was native to desktop and it was a website. So, uh there's just a lot of opportunity to look at categories and be like, what does the agent first version of this look like? Um, and that's why when I when I see these

1:02:24posts around like, you know, it's done, you know, uh, entrepreneurship is done, I get I'm like confused because I think it's just a really good time to be building. Let's look at this uh this tweet here. It's a quote retweet. Um, yes, but indie hackers are generally technical developers. So they always sucked at marketing, but many still made it because they were good at building products and just okay at marketing. By the way, I think a lot of indie hackers made it because SEO is technical. So they were really good at SEO, aka marketing. Um, but now the arbitrage on the building side is gone. Yes, the

1:03:09arbitrage on the building side is gone. You have to be really, really, really good at marketing now. And it's not native to technical people. Yeah, this is what we talked about before. If you're an indie hacker, you're a technical person, you have to learn how to become a marketer. Uh, Peter Levelvel says, "Exactly. Before you need to be technical to make something, and that plus okay marketing costs a lot of money. Now you don't need to be technical at all to make something. So if you're okay at marketing, you're now competing with

1:03:40people who are great at marketing." TLDDR, it's marketing week every week. Yes, he's completely right. Um, we are all marketers now.

1:03:58Um, looking at chat over here. Greg, have you Marty Markinson, what's up, man? Have you dabbled with FB Marketplace? I'm thinking this is an undercover opportunity people are sleeping on. It's the only reason my friends are on FB. Yeah, tons of opportunity here. Um, underrated uh ways to use agents to to scour marketplace, too. Um, so yes, stories by Will says, "I guess JC is somewhere sipping on gin and tonics and and and and eating shrimp." Yes, Jonathan Courtney, my my my co-host. He's an

1:04:39occasional co-host or co-host to this. Um, I do miss him dearly. He's not here this week, but hopefully he'll come back soon. Tar says, "Cloud servers crashed. Time to touch grass." Oh, I didn't know that. So, CL, maybe that's why so many people are watching right now because Claude is down. Stories by Will says, "We have created loads of tool thanks to AI to help creators." Exactly. Tons of opportunity to help your the target market um and drive value for them. Payton says, "Let's go, Greg." Let's go. Uh Marty says, "Fable's cooking for me right now." Okay. Jam Daniel says, "Time to go

1:05:18back to codeex." Brian J. Rice says Claude who people here grock 4.5

1:05:33here in yes on X says do you think using Grock 4.5 is a good place to start building websites yeah absolutely I think Grock build is underrated.

1:05:49So, uh, Quazar says, "Who do you consider the best AI philosophers right now?" I don't even know what an AI philosopher is. I don't even know what an AI philosopher is. I'm going to share a couple uh more tweets. Check this out. So, okay, before I even get into this, I know you've seen some crazy vibecoded games with Opus 5, and you're probably sick and tired of it. and I am also sick and tired of of it. That being said, this isn't a oneprompt game that someone created. So, this is a little bit different. This person took nine hours and 4 million tokens and claude code. Opus did the whole thing

1:06:33planning the architecture, writing the web GPU, profiling the performance, and iterating uh off screenshots of its own output. And this is what it what it came to be. So this isn't uh a one prompt. So it took a lot of time, a lot of time. It took a day. But I think how do you not look at this and be like this is the greatest opportunity in entrepreneurship

1:06:59of all time. You just have to be creative. It's now the age of creatives. It's not the age of indie hacking. It's the age of being creative. You need to come up. It's the age of the idea person. You need to come up with great ideas and you need to figure out how to get those ideas to

1:07:16people uh so that they care about it. Like, are you watching this? This is insane.

1:07:36This is actually insane. Someone in the comments might be like, "Okay, wow." Oh, so it's a game. Where's the, you know, how is this an opportunity? Okay, you want to market your product, build a game around it and, you know, get attention that way. Or, hey, maybe you should create an indie game. Maybe there's an opportunity

1:07:56to build revenue generating indie games. Someone says, "No, I am Sarwire. No wonder Grand Theft Auto 6 is delayed so much. They saw what they made and was like, "Someone could vibe code our whole game in an afternoon." That's hilarious.

1:08:22Uh, unfiltered Bball. Are we going to shift from consumers to creators? How would that impact ca capitalism? Uh, I think there's always going to be consumers and creatives. uh creators. But in in in a way like we we have already made that shift. Think about how many active users on the creation side are on Instagram and and WhatsApp, you know, and all these platform on all social networks like you're a creator even if you share stories to your 500 followers or 200

1:09:00followers. Madman says, "What what's my take on Elon's timeline on AI from the Economist interview?" I haven't I haven't read it. I think I saw a quote from it though that he said money is going to be like money is going to be like over by like 2030 something. Oh yeah, money won't be

1:09:25important anymore. I don't know. Hard to believe. That's my take. My take is like, okay, even in a world where there's complete abundance, you're going to want to own assets, real estate or um owning pieces of this isn't financial advice, but owning pieces of of some of the big labs and stuff like that,

1:09:57chip companies.

1:10:03What's my thoughts on agency owner versus SAS founder for the long term? I personally prefer preer software uh long term, but I think the ideal is you have a mix of agency and software. Ry says money will be more important than ever in 2036. That's a hot take. That's a hot take. Stories by Will. The governments need money for the shady

1:10:31activities. LOL.

1:10:40Madness versus Claude Code. I prefer Claude Code. Although Madness Mattis is OG and and is underrated, but I do prefer Claude Code. when you're when you're picking a uh something as foundational in your workflow like a clawed code, you you're kind of like betting on the company so and the ecosystem. Can we give our SA uh Dale says can we give our SAS for free and how can we make money from it? um you know that you can you could have a free product uh you just don't want that to like bankrupt you. Um like for us for example with idea browser we give away a free startup idea

1:11:30every single day. It's a free product. We spend money to actually like send it out and get an incredible daily email around it. A lot of you are already signed up to ideaber.com gives people an idea, a trend, stuff like that. Um, but you have to pay if you want to go deeper on some of the ideas. So, you can think about a similar thing like a daily email or just like a a portion of the

1:11:59SAS for free, not the whole thing. MJ Jukeboxer says, "I'm a native Codeex user and I haven't used Cloud Code yet." That's fine. Like, if you're happy, you know, there's there's nothing wrong with with that.

1:12:23Allen Gene Alen says, "SAS is becoming very hard. Try cloud workspaces like AWS, GCP, and Azer." That's really interesting. stories by will. We've had a lead magnet which got us 700 emails in the last 30 days. And that's real like opportun like real value. Like a if you think of an email is worth $5, like you just created $3,500 of value. Just like $3,500 a month monthly of of of value. It's

1:12:53incredible. Out of all the people I've interviewed, is there a common theme of the people that are successful? I think they're a lot of them have a lot of grit and they're able to sustain grit. I would say any interview that stuck out that you that you would give to your child. Wow. No one's ever asked me that.

1:13:25I'd have to think about that. That's a really good question. Imran says, "Do you think it's better to sell agents to companies or sell the service and fulfill it with agents instead?" I think I would start with the service. That's what we we do on some of our our businesses. We start with the

1:13:46service and let the agent fulfill.

1:13:55Expand on the monetization of email lists. New to the space, don't get the weight. There's very clear ways to monetize email lists. You can either do by ads or affiliate or stuff like that. So you you'll know pretty uh well and you're also could sell your own product through it. So there's just known ways

1:14:14that are easy to monetize an email list. Dale says, "I have given my SAS with one month free on Facebook advertisement boost with no sign up. It's like a Shopify." Cool.

1:14:34Quazar says, "Would you be willing to talk about a few of your failures to encourage people that we all fail and we just have to keep trying? There's no one who fails more than me. I try a million things. You can go back. I've been like uh my whole career, but it's basically my whole life. I've been building apps, software since I've been 13, you know, young person, 13 maybe, like websites and apps. So, I've got tons of things

1:15:02that never worked out. One time I started a company. I was like a teenager with these older guys who were well known in the industry and we built like the concept was basically uh a marketing agency that got paid for performance in social gaming. So, this is around 2009 when Mafia Wars and Farmville and all these games were coming out and they would um they would pay per install. So, they would say like, "Oh, we'll give you $3 for every install." And we started this company and uh started scaling and doing really well. And then all of a sudden like we had we had we had like a

1:15:51handshake deal and it was like I was going to be the you know I own like 30% and they were going to own you know it was like a third a third a third and then all of a sudden like because we started scaling they didn't want to sign the paperwork and they basically locked me out of it. It was two it was a brother and a brother-in-law and because I wasn't family or something uh they they kicked me out of it. So I I felt really betrayed um because I trusted them. Um but I didn't

1:16:24I I also didn't even know them really. Um so you know so many lessons in that which is like if you're going to get into business with someone, get to know them well first. Um, but yeah, it did suck because we had a a really a business that had product market fit that was crushing it and I was working on it for a really long time and then basically they locked up the office, you know? Um, where are they now? I don't know. I I don't I look forward not not not in the past. Like I don't I don't really think about it too much. They don't they don't

1:17:05want to. These aren't people I want to be surrounding myself with and I don't follow them or anything. Mac says, "Similar story happened to me. Didn't see the value I was bringing until they kicked me out an hour struggling." There you go. Karma, through every failure, it's corny to say, but through every failure, you do learn something. If you're lucky enough that you have health and that you can can continue to be motivated, you will make a great living in in this

1:17:41world. You just got to keep going. Your your job is to find problems and solve problems and build media to get people to see the things. And if something's not working, then then either your your product doesn't really solve a problem, your media is not good enough. Oh, wow. Steve just donated $5 super chat on YouTube. I That's crazy. Thank

1:18:16you so much. Thank you so much. That's cool. Well, that that pays for my uh my my monster budget.

1:18:33I appreciate you, Steve. Thank you for your help, man. You said I watch all your videos. It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. Honestly, I love I love doing it. And like I appreciate you saying that because it lights me up. I could be on a beach somewhere and just not be doing this and I do it because of people like you, Steve. Honestly, uh, more game demos. Yeah, this is this

1:19:09is kind of fun, right? Stories by Will. Greg, you got me into this Hermes rabbit hole. Oh my god. Yeah, as soon as I'm done after this, by the way, I'm going to play with Hermes. I'm trying to I'm setting some stuff up.

1:19:27Yeah, maybe next time I'll do Celsius versus Red Bull. I don't know. This was uh I I'm still interested in this one. Sven says or Techflow CTO. What's up? What's up, man? Sip live at the beach. Only if you're coming. Only if you're coming.

1:19:50Steve says, "My intro to app development was taking your videos and automating them to be read by Gemini and have it recommend ideas and strategies." Well, sorry, not sorry. L Sorry, not sorry. You don't need to be sorry at all. Um, I love that. I absolutely love that. Tarouche says, "Do you think freelancing has have scope in coming years?" I think you mean do you think freelancer is

1:20:19there's opportunity to be a freelancer? Yes. Do tons of opportunity to be to create services in the coming years. Let me go back to X and see. Jackie Jackie says, "Keep going, Greg. I'm almost there." Congratulations, Jackie, on purchasing your house. by the way, I saw that and it's inspirational. Very inspirational. Jackie is a guy who uh you know didn't raise venture capital, build software, SAS, and made millions of dollars doing so and reinvested into real estate and other things. He's done a lot of good good

1:20:57stuff there. So, um congrats.

1:21:06Really cool to see in the chat on X. Rosandro learned the bud from SIP. A lot of love for SIP. I love this. Very cool. Madman says, "Can we afford to operate at a loss today assuming AI token costs will continue to decline while subscription prices remain unchanged?" I think it's hard. you you can't um you you the assumption I have is that AI token costs will decline. Um but I don't I don't recommend operating at a loss ever. So how can you operate at a profit? I know it sounds like so obvious, but like is there a way to do it? like what what is what about your

1:21:57product doesn't allow you to to operate at a profit? I think every business should operate at a profit to create something sustainable. Um Ann says, "I got two video game ideas from the stream alone." Amazing. Steve says, "I built my first MVP in Madness that I actually plan to ship to my industry, but it looks kind of loud. How do I get Madness to simplify the UI

1:22:28flow without breaking my playrights?" Um, I'm not sure. I haven't actually uh spent a lot of time uh with that, but could you use claw design or replet design just came out today? Can you use that and just integrate it into Madness

1:22:56Stories by Will Greg? Would you ever review viewers products? Yes, I think that could be fun.

1:23:06I think it'll be fun.

1:23:16Blueberry Muffin says, "Greg, what do you like about Hermes agent?" Um, I was just talking about this actually this morning. I don't think most people should use Hermes. Uh, unless they have gotten good at either codecs or cloud code, but it's let's, you know, that's sort of level one. Level one is get good at codec or cloud code. Once you've done that, you you can confidently say you're good at it, then Hermes and having a self-ho hosted option, which uh a self-hosted. Wow. Sorry, I just I see Kendrick just gave me $5. Thank you so much. Uh I I'm going to get to your comment in a second. Um,

1:24:04so having a self-hosted option with incredible memory, that's where Hermes is amazing. So, uh, you know, that's that's the way to think about it. Get good at codecs or cloud code first. Once once once you've gotten there, download the Hermes desktop app. Um, and then start uh start playing with different models. Right? If you're going to work with Anthropic, you're only getting Anthropic's model. But when you download Hermes, you can play with multiple models. Memory is extremely good. Um, and it's local, right? So, that's

1:24:40awesome. All right. Thank you so much, Kenrich, for the donation. Um, it's just I can't even believe people do that. It's so nice and I appreciate you so much. Um, Kenriick says, "Hey, Greg. I'm building a a Harbby a Harbby a workspace where teams run reliable connected AI agents. How would you position it in today's market? H I think uh what's working in general is just being like the anti the like the anti-ositioning. I feel like

1:25:17anti-ositioning is working really well. So I would I would in general I would down I would look I would download copy of your five biggest competitors and like upload it to Claude and be like this is my five biggest competitors. This is this is how they how they speak. If I wanted to be like the anti version

1:25:35of them, how would you write copy? Oh, he meant Harvey AI. Yeah. So I would just like what's the opposite of like how Harvey positions themselves? I'll give you an example of what I mean. It's like when Robin Hood came out, it just the brand and the story was everything like so much different than uh for example, you know, TD Ameritrade or Erade just felt completely different. How can you do that from a positioning and

1:26:08branding perspective?

1:26:18Greg, what was your first success? My first success was honestly creating a blog that was live on the internet. I think I was 13 or 14. And it was successful because I took an idea out of my brain and I put it on the internet and people went to it. That it didn't make a difference if it made one sense or zero sense. That that to me was a success. Success is like a ladder, you know? It's like e every experience you learn one thing

1:26:52and to me that's success.

1:26:59All right. What do you think? Should we end the stream? Is this it? I want to thank everyone for coming to this uh the stream. Um this has been really fun. Uh, like I said, I'm going to go check uh YouTube afterwards and see if you all liked it. Um, hit that like to know that, you know, I should keep doing this. Um, I don't know really even know what this is besides me answering questions, me talking about how I'm feeling about certain things. Um, but I'll leave you with this. I know you've seen a lot of tweets saying SAS is over, software is

1:27:43done, you missed the boat. It reminds me of when I went to a fish show, the band fish in 2008, I think, in Saratoga Springs. When I went to that show, I showed up and everyone told me to go back. They were like, they were at the show, but they were like, "You missed it. the golden era of fish is

1:28:08over. Um, and I was really bummed out because I had traveled to go see this show and I was really excited about it. And it was the most incredible show. I had such a good time, such a fun time. And uh, it's funny because I, you know, I ran into someone recently and who's

1:28:31like a fish head. He was saying the golden era golden era was actually around that time. You don't know you're in the golden era when you're in the golden era. Really? But I will say one good sign to know you're in the golden era is if everyone told you you missed it. You didn't miss it. There's an incredible amount of opportunity that exists right now. AI is retooling absolutely everything. Um, yes, it might be. It might be and is harder for indie hackers to create a moat and to create a business that is sustainable because their unfair advantage is code. But for the people who who are un whose unfair

1:29:15advantage is being creative, marketing, distribution, connecting with people, driving value, talking to customers, this is your time. So, you know, keep going. Don't and and keep experimenting. Be creative. Have fun. And uh I'll see you next time. All right. Thank you.