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2023-08-29. A Very Soft Launch
Episode 6929th August 2023 • Reqless • Aboard
00:00:00 00:16:17

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Rich and Paul have launched their product! - quietly though... In this episode Rich and Paul discuss, the meaning of launch and the fact that it's just the beginning-- that there is no finality to it. Check out the launch of Aboard.

Transcripts

Paul Ford:

Richard!

Rich Ziade:

Paul Ford, it's good to see

Paul Ford:

What's new?

Rich Ziade:

Not too much.

Paul Ford:

Good, good, just kind of roll along, just living your life.

Rich Ziade:

No, this is uh, it's an important week for us.

Paul Ford:

It is.

Rich Ziade:

We have been...

Rich Ziade:

Telling people about this great thing that they can't touch or see for almost a year

Paul Ford:

This is the closest I've ever come to serious mental illness.

Paul Ford:

The state of this product and having to, having to talk about it.

Rich Ziade:

Oh, we can't even, yeah,

Paul Ford:

let's get into it.

Rich Ziade:

get into it.

Paul Ford:

It's launch day.

Rich Ziade:

It's launch week as I like to call it, but you can call it

Paul Ford:

Launch, launch year.

Paul Ford:

Um, so first of all, okay.

Paul Ford:

We have a product, it's called Aboard.

Paul Ford:

It's like if you took the parts of Google Sheets that you manage data

Paul Ford:

with and the best bookmarking engineer.

Paul Ford:

you've ever seen and a little bit of, uh, Trello and a little bit of chat

Paul Ford:

and put them all together and just made one sweet casserole of software.

Paul Ford:

Just delicious.

Paul Ford:

And it's really good, frankly, like people use it.

Rich Ziade:

It's very

Paul Ford:

we have gaps, but hundreds of people have been in there regularly

Paul Ford:

using it for several months and it's now time to open the doors.

Paul Ford:

Anyone can come in.

Rich Ziade:

Anyone can sign up at Aboard.

Rich Ziade:

com.

Rich Ziade:

You can log in with your Google account or you could sign in from scratch.

Rich Ziade:

You can also log in with your Apple ID if you like.

Rich Ziade:

Um,

Paul Ford:

a new marketing website that explains it a little more thoroughly.

Paul Ford:

Like, we did all the stuff.

Paul Ford:

We're good at this part.

Rich Ziade:

there is a lot there.

Rich Ziade:

Take your time on the marketing site.

Rich Ziade:

Um, read over how it can be useful to you.

Rich Ziade:

Um, we are still in beta.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, it is still currently free.

Paul Ford:

no, I thought we were done.

Paul Ford:

We launched.

Rich Ziade:

be in beta for another five years.

Paul Ford:

Yeah, this is like Gmail.

Paul Ford:

This is the thing.

Paul Ford:

It's...

Paul Ford:

Launches used to be so exciting to me in my life.

Rich Ziade:

Oh, I don't think launches matter that

Paul Ford:

They don't, they don't.

Paul Ford:

And it used to be when I, like, like years ago, I'd be like, here goes

Paul Ford:

the website, world's gonna change!

Rich Ziade:

Yeah, some of the best software I've ever

Rich Ziade:

used, um, got better later.

Rich Ziade:

Some of the best software I've

Paul Ford:

all of the software gets better later, because then

Paul Ford:

it actually meets its users.

Rich Ziade:

it meets its users.

Rich Ziade:

And, and you know, I think people equate the launch of a software

Rich Ziade:

product, uh, like the launch of, uh, an album, dropping an album or the

Rich Ziade:

release of a movie, which is just...

Rich Ziade:

It is an event.

Rich Ziade:

It is a moment, but all I have to say is Cyberpunk 2077?

Rich Ziade:

Is that

Paul Ford:

Yeah, that was the one that, that's, so, tell the people

Paul Ford:

the story of Cyberpunk 2077.

Rich Ziade:

this was

Paul Ford:

It's a video

Rich Ziade:

it's a video game that looked,

Paul Ford:

The Witcher, right?

Paul Ford:

So like a really big studio.

Rich Ziade:

Big Studio took a look at like, the computing power of

Rich Ziade:

GPUs and said, let's make a game that can't run well on any existing

Rich Ziade:

hardware unless you have the very...

Rich Ziade:

They just aimed for the moon.

Rich Ziade:

It was like, it was akin to like a movie director obsessing for way too

Rich Ziade:

long on a movie and going over budget.

Paul Ford:

you know about this?

Paul Ford:

Francis Ford Coppola is making one of these.

Paul Ford:

Do you know about this?

Paul Ford:

He's making like a whole, it's like a whole city, like he's got a whole thing

Paul Ford:

where he's making this movie for years.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, uh, Scorsese in Gangs of New York ran out of money, called the

Rich Ziade:

studio, decided to build downtown.

Rich Ziade:

Downtown New York City in Italy.

Paul Ford:

Yeah, this, this, what do you think about that movie?

Rich Ziade:

I think that's a very good movie.

Rich Ziade:

I think it's a ridiculous movie.

Paul Ford:

saw it in the theater and it was like, what the hell?

Paul Ford:

What is happening?

Paul Ford:

Yeah,

Rich Ziade:

Look, there is a comic book quality to Scorsese

Rich Ziade:

movies that is just what it is.

Rich Ziade:

But we're not going to get into that.

Rich Ziade:

But what happened to Cyberpunk?

Rich Ziade:

It was a mess.

Rich Ziade:

It was buggy.

Rich Ziade:

It was really buggy.

Rich Ziade:

And

Paul Ford:

let's be clear, the users are gamers.

Rich Ziade:

gamers, I mean, if you look historically, um, The software, the

Rich Ziade:

quality insurance around games used to have to be airtight because you were

Rich Ziade:

shipping physical CDs and DVDs to...

Paul Ford:

The worst people in the world.

Rich Ziade:

You can't just patch it the next week.

Paul Ford:

just patch it today.

Paul Ford:

The worst people in the world.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Rich Ziade:

So this game comes out, it's a sloppy mess, it's

Rich Ziade:

buggy, it's weird, but...

Rich Ziade:

They kept at it, credit to them.

Rich Ziade:

I think there was a major update that was almost as big of an announcement

Rich Ziade:

as the game, like five months later or whatever it was, that kind of

Rich Ziade:

ironed out a lot of the stuff.

Rich Ziade:

And now that game has an avid following.

Rich Ziade:

It's a very cinematic, beautiful game.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, it's for adults.

Rich Ziade:

It's like, it's like a movie.

Rich Ziade:

I mean, and you know,

Paul Ford:

Well, this is what's tricky, right?

Paul Ford:

So you think about a game, and you think about it as an artifact.

Paul Ford:

It's actually a platform.

Paul Ford:

Like, they're going to keep doing Cyberpunk 2077 stuff

Rich Ziade:

fact, you can buy add ons and mods, and there's all, it's a community

Rich Ziade:

that's just sort of taking the thing

Paul Ford:

So there's tremendous tension in the gaming community because you're

Paul Ford:

trying to ship this entire platform, but people just want to be able to run

Paul Ford:

around and grab all the loot, right?

Paul Ford:

And so, obviously our product doesn't have that tension.

Paul Ford:

We are shipping a platform.

Paul Ford:

We're shipping a data management tool at its core.

Rich Ziade:

and, and look, I think you have to come to peace with two things.

Rich Ziade:

Three things.

Rich Ziade:

Number one, nobody cares.

Paul Ford:

No, this is what's amazing.

Rich Ziade:

you're not gonna plaster this on Times Square.

Rich Ziade:

Nobody cares, right?

Rich Ziade:

And so don't take that personally.

Rich Ziade:

That has nothing to do with it, because your software is not

Rich Ziade:

going to land in living rooms and change people's lives on day

Paul Ford:

You know what is, you know what is exhausting though is like people

Paul Ford:

getting in touch and they're like, So it's Squiggle with a mix of Flurrity Bloop.

Paul Ford:

And I'm like, well, actually we, we've been thinking about

Paul Ford:

it for quite a long time.

Paul Ford:

So it's not simply just those two things.

Rich Ziade:

you, when strong opinions come in, very like...

Rich Ziade:

Assertive, as if almost, that's a very promising sign.

Rich Ziade:

That means people are now appropriated this thing and are making it theirs and

Rich Ziade:

they feel emotionally invested in it.

Rich Ziade:

So number one, nobody cares.

Rich Ziade:

Nobody cares.

Rich Ziade:

Your job is to get them to care, by the way, over time and to

Rich Ziade:

become advocates of your product.

Rich Ziade:

Number one, nobody cares.

Rich Ziade:

Number two...

Rich Ziade:

Successful software, successful platforms, uh, are only partly due to the software.

Rich Ziade:

There is very successful bad software in the world.

Rich Ziade:

There is very good

Paul Ford:

Most of it.

Paul Ford:

Most of the successful software is actually bad, buggy, difficult

Paul Ford:

to use, doesn't help you out.

Rich Ziade:

And

Paul Ford:

You have to watch like a four hour YouTube video to get good at

Rich Ziade:

That's right.

Rich Ziade:

And if you look back on the history of like the mega successes of

Rich Ziade:

software, they married two things.

Rich Ziade:

One was...

Rich Ziade:

You had to have software and flexibility around the software.

Rich Ziade:

But the other was you had to have that sales culture, that people connection

Rich Ziade:

culture that went out to the world.

Rich Ziade:

Steve Ballmer is a huge, like is not the technologist at Microsoft, but

Rich Ziade:

he created the sales culture there.

Rich Ziade:

He created the idea of seeing success as connecting people

Rich Ziade:

to a thing rather than just.

Rich Ziade:

How many features got into Windows 98 or whatever it was.

Rich Ziade:

That pairing is huge.

Rich Ziade:

Benioff at Salesforce is pure people.

Paul Ford:

Both of these are two of the most exhausting

Paul Ford:

human beings who've ever lived.

Paul Ford:

God bless them, I mean, I think they're great,

Rich Ziade:

That's true.

Rich Ziade:

And, and they, they, you know, Salesforce is probably a better example of someone

Rich Ziade:

that, like, really software has become very much secondary to the relationships

Rich Ziade:

they've built and the brand they've built around those relationships around the

Paul Ford:

Wait a minute, we've built good software that looks good, that's fun to

Rich Ziade:

You have to go out and look into people's

Paul Ford:

Well, that's fine, I'm happy to do that, but let's be clear,

Paul Ford:

like, you know, you just described, like, Windows 98 and Salesforce.

Paul Ford:

I don't want to be either one of those

Rich Ziade:

You don't want to be either one of those things, but the

Rich Ziade:

component beyond the software side of it, which is the human side of it,

Rich Ziade:

which the engineers find exhausting.

Paul Ford:

but here's the thing, we had to build, so one of the big things

Paul Ford:

we did when we rebooted this almost a year ago, was figure out how to make

Paul Ford:

something that was really good and almost tactile, like just felt good, right?

Paul Ford:

Here's why.

Paul Ford:

It's going to be a lot easier to look people in the eye

Paul Ford:

and say, I love this thing.

Paul Ford:

That's what they want to hear first.

Paul Ford:

They don't want to hear, this is for you.

Paul Ford:

They want to hear, I love this

Rich Ziade:

Absolutely.

Paul Ford:

They want to hear, this is, I use this all day.

Paul Ford:

I like it.

Paul Ford:

I'm proud of it.

Paul Ford:

And then they'll go, Oh, maybe I'll give it five seconds of my time.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah, that's right.

Rich Ziade:

And, and you might not get them the first go around.

Rich Ziade:

I have visited.

Rich Ziade:

So I try everything like I hear about new software.

Rich Ziade:

I try it.

Rich Ziade:

And I've, I give it a minute.

Rich Ziade:

And then I move on and then it somehow comes back around to me

Rich Ziade:

through some other path, right?

Rich Ziade:

And that usually means the software is evolved.

Rich Ziade:

And it's also coming to me not as a cell, but rather as a connection

Rich Ziade:

point between me and others.

Rich Ziade:

Either I got shared into a space of some kind, or a document, or a whatever.

Rich Ziade:

And you're like, huh, what is this tool?

Rich Ziade:

Right?

Rich Ziade:

And we're not talking about companies, by the way.

Rich Ziade:

Companies tell you what software to use to do your job.

Rich Ziade:

That's different than...

Paul Ford:

going to use Concur for your expenses and good old Concur sits there

Paul Ford:

and they have a feature roadmap and they're like, Hey, we're going to make it

Paul Ford:

even harder to file expenses next year.

Rich Ziade:

Forever,

Paul Ford:

going to just ruin everybody's

Rich Ziade:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Paul Ford:

everybody stands up and applauds and they put the tickets

Rich Ziade:

People don't have to use anything.

Rich Ziade:

They don't have to use anything.

Rich Ziade:

And, and, and I think one of the things that has been such a journey for us was

Rich Ziade:

figuring out how to make something that could connect, that people can connect

Rich Ziade:

with personally, and I'm going to say the word emotionally, like they find it

Rich Ziade:

something they can invest their time in.

Rich Ziade:

That's hard,

Paul Ford:

all, all we've done for the last year is take

Paul Ford:

features away from this product.

Paul Ford:

Be and try to make, using the web and using a computer suck less along the way.

Rich Ziade:

That's kind of it.

Rich Ziade:

It is also a tribute.

Rich Ziade:

I'm trying to think of like an actor, you know, there's always that move

Rich Ziade:

where the actor shows up 10 years later, they've kind of fallen off

Rich Ziade:

the radar, and they wow you with the return role, like Jamie Lee Curtis just

Rich Ziade:

did it in that Everything Everywhere

Paul Ford:

No.

Paul Ford:

And um, uh, the big one was, uh, Travolta and Pulp Fiction.

Rich Ziade:

Pulp

Paul Ford:

Everybody's like, oh my god, John Travolta.

Rich Ziade:

That's right.

Rich Ziade:

That's right.

Rich Ziade:

And, uh, for us, I don't, you know, I don't think If you bet on the

Rich Ziade:

homerun out of the gate and then absolute love forever, that's,

Paul Ford:

no, no, no.

Paul Ford:

We're, we're launched.

Paul Ford:

Launching means that you tear down one part of the wall.

Paul Ford:

And people can now come in and look around the garden.

Rich Ziade:

right.

Rich Ziade:

That's

Paul Ford:

that's, that's it.

Rich Ziade:

What's the advice here?

Rich Ziade:

The advice here is that it feels very anticlimactic.

Rich Ziade:

The work ahead is the work ahead.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

no, it's, it's, the advice is really straightforward, which is

Paul Ford:

you build up to launch in your brain, usually through the beginning of

Paul Ford:

your career, you get really excited about things and you chase a high.

Paul Ford:

Uh, you can't do that.

Paul Ford:

You actually, if you're, if you're going to launch things for the long haul,

Paul Ford:

invest in them and build teams around them, it has to be just another day.

Paul Ford:

Now that doesn't mean that people who, Some people pulled like good

Paul Ford:

long weekends to get us here, right?

Paul Ford:

Like it that doesn't mean that like there isn't an element of launch here.

Paul Ford:

Like, okay, it's real.

Paul Ford:

Here we go We celebrate the team.

Paul Ford:

We're grateful to them at the same time.

Paul Ford:

It's Monday

Rich Ziade:

Yes, it is Monday and it is, and

Paul Ford:

I'm gonna tell you something the one thing you can

Paul Ford:

the advice to take the meta advice.

Paul Ford:

It's always Monday It doesn't matter what you're doing.

Paul Ford:

It's always gonna be Monday If you if you I remember once I was with a very

Paul Ford:

great editor a very famous editor and he was being honored for something and

Paul Ford:

you can see it was the most depressing day of his life because it was just

Paul Ford:

basically We want to tell you how great you are meaning your career is over.

Paul Ford:

You're no longer relevant We can put you in a box and you can you're gonna get the

Paul Ford:

big award and you're gonna get a little plaque Yeah, and you're gonna get up there

Paul Ford:

and you're gonna say some funny things.

Paul Ford:

You're dead You're a dead person

Rich Ziade:

Yeah.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

and it was breaking his heart

Rich Ziade:

Interesting.

Paul Ford:

that's real.

Rich Ziade:

the adoration.

Paul Ford:

Who wants to be told that you're great?

Paul Ford:

It means you're over.

Paul Ford:

Being complimented means you're done.

Paul Ford:

I have people, because I've had a very lovely career, and I've done

Paul Ford:

some interesting things, definitely have people reach out thinking to

Paul Ford:

themselves, I should talk to Paul before something happens to him.

Paul Ford:

I want to register how much I care about his work.

Paul Ford:

And I'm like, Oh, really?

Paul Ford:

You made a list of the people who are going to die, especially

Paul Ford:

when I was really fat.

Paul Ford:

I was like, Oh, here we

Rich Ziade:

Oh, no,

Paul Ford:

When you tell me that I've been really important to

Paul Ford:

you, what I hear is you're making sure to express that before I die.

Rich Ziade:

the darkest launch podcast ever.

Paul Ford:

No, so what I'm saying is, I really celebrate this product as

Paul Ford:

a journey that is both, it is, and it's not just, this isn't just the

Paul Ford:

beginning, this is the culmination of a tremendous amount of work.

Paul Ford:

It's not, it's not day zero, it's not day one, it's, it's, you know, not day 5, 000.

Paul Ford:

Here we are and celebrate this moment, which is, I mean, frankly, we built

Paul Ford:

something I am excited to show people.

Paul Ford:

And one thing I've learned is that I see the gaps.

Paul Ford:

And so will they.

Paul Ford:

We have to celebrate that together and just kind of get

Paul Ford:

in there and make it better.

Rich Ziade:

together and we are taking feedback.

Paul Ford:

Oh my god, are we?

Paul Ford:

Yeah,

Rich Ziade:

at aboard.

Rich Ziade:

com.

Rich Ziade:

We look at all the emails.

Rich Ziade:

Um, we're, we're curious what you think of it.

Rich Ziade:

Share it out.

Rich Ziade:

Invite others onto it.

Rich Ziade:

It's a social product, uh, tight social product.

Rich Ziade:

You can publish your boards to the world.

Rich Ziade:

There's a lot.

Rich Ziade:

It's a long list of features.

Rich Ziade:

You should go check it

Paul Ford:

It's an unusual and powerful tool that lets you make

Paul Ford:

your own little version of the internet with your own data and the

Paul Ford:

internet's data for you and your peers.

Rich Ziade:

and it looks good.

Paul Ford:

It looks good.

Paul Ford:

It's planned the family reunion.

Paul Ford:

That's what it's for.

Rich Ziade:

Um, We've gonna have, we're gonna have a lot more to talk about.

Rich Ziade:

I think you said it right.

Rich Ziade:

If you're looking for finality, this isn't, the launch is not that.

Rich Ziade:

If you want finality, shut it

Paul Ford:

There's no

Rich Ziade:

real

Paul Ford:

no finality in life.

Paul Ford:

Yes.

Paul Ford:

That the, the shutdown of the startup, this, when they sell

Paul Ford:

the Aron chairs, that's finality.

Rich Ziade:

finality.

Rich Ziade:

That's not what this

Paul Ford:

everything else is just another day.

Paul Ford:

Hurdling into the future.

Rich Ziade:

you said you use the word journey.

Rich Ziade:

It is the journey, right?

Rich Ziade:

That's where we're on.

Paul Ford:

Well, here we go.

Paul Ford:

Well, we did good.

Paul Ford:

You and I, we've had probably like three fights in the last two years.

Paul Ford:

We're doing pretty.

Rich Ziade:

We're doing real good.

Rich Ziade:

I think we know when to walk away from each other and let some

Rich Ziade:

time pass and then we reconnect.

Paul Ford:

that's right.

Paul Ford:

That's right.

Paul Ford:

So I'll see you in about two weeks.

Rich Ziade:

Um, uh, this is the Ziade and Ford podcast.

Rich Ziade:

We were just debating whether this should be just be the aboard podcast.

Rich Ziade:

We'll talk

Paul Ford:

That's too weird.

Paul Ford:

We're bringing people into the process

Rich Ziade:

Let's do

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

All right.

Paul Ford:

All right.

Paul Ford:

All right.

Paul Ford:

Like nobody

Rich Ziade:

all this.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, hit us up at Ziade Ford on Twitter slash X.

Rich Ziade:

I say Twitter slash X now.

Rich Ziade:

And,

Paul Ford:

it's so stupid.

Paul Ford:

I'll never call.

Paul Ford:

I don't want to call it anything.

Paul Ford:

I just want it to go away.

Paul Ford:

Look, all this aside, all the marketing for Ziade Ford.

Paul Ford:

The real favor you could do us is try a board, beat it up and tell

Paul Ford:

us what you really think about it.

Paul Ford:

What you really think about it.

Paul Ford:

We want to know.

Rich Ziade:

we would love to know.

Rich Ziade:

Have a lovely week.

Rich Ziade:

Check it out.

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