Wazel Brothers Build

By: Brandon Waselnuk Adam Waselnuk
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  • Summary

  • Two brothers have honest conversations about how they are building businesses on the internet. Brandon is the Co-Founder of usecodex.com, a dev tool that makes sharing code context easy. Adam is the founder of swordandsource.ca, a company helping people connect through storytelling games like Dungeons & Dragons.
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Episodes
  • Big News | Ep.25

    Big News | Ep.25
    Aug 25 2021
    • Adam has joined the team at LegendKeeper
    • Adam published his thought process on finding a team on his blog.
    • Summary of Adam's thought process of why he wanted to find a team. His story so far.
    • Why Adam did not join Codex
    • Worldbuilding software is highly competitive within the TTRPG software niche.
    • The big jumps in business maturity Adam has to go through now. Feelings of overwhelm.
    • The importance of taking a step back to look at the big picture. The shift to LegendKeeper was not driven by daily pain.
    • The effect on Brandon of moving to Vancouver.
    • Brandon has joined Y Combinator to accelerate Codex
    • Recent IndieHackers podcast gives some insight into what YC is actually like.
    • The importance of peer pressure.
    • Brandon's take on YC so far.
    • The magic of deadlines when you have a great team.
    • Adam's first ever Angel Investment. The joy of placing asymmetric bets.
    • Stats on how likely you are to succeed as an angel investor.
    • The scary truth of B2C odds when focusing on profit.
    • SaaS has benchmarks which are useful.
    • Quantitative VS Qualitative definitions of Product-Market Fit.
    • Differences in milestones for VC-track VS boostrap companies.
    • Subtleties of retention.
    • The LK business impressions so far.
    • Brandon's Request: Make the recipes of the worldbuilders in LegendKeeper and film it on YouTube.
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    1 hr and 36 mins
  • Creating a marketing strategy | Ep.24

    Creating a marketing strategy | Ep.24
    Jun 11 2021
    • Certain laws restrict what you can say about fundraising.
    • Fundraising is going really well. Brandon gives it a score of 13/10.
    • Line tracking in VSCode gets tricky when the file is in an 'edited' state.
    • Waiting list of 20 teams for Codex.
    • Comparing the fintech whitepaper that Dignified created with the one that Accenture created.
    • The rationale for creating an in-depth whitepaper on fintech.
    • How to leverage a whitepaper when Dignified has moved past its original goal.
    • The "reverse pyramid" content strategy.
    • Considering the Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering as a content pillar.
    • Trust signals matter. "Badges are unreasonably effective" in marketplaces.
    • "Dignified" the agency is a brand that Brandon has built up but now they are shifting all their energy to Codex. How do you make a decision to let go of that kind of asset?
    • The compounding effect of focusing in one market as a solo founder. This makes it hard to consider projects in other markets - even when they are promising.
    • The difficulty of starting at 0 with no audience or distribution.
    • The power of building relationships in a market. How it helped launch the Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering.
    • Why so many technical founders make dev tools.
    • The big vision of Codex.
    • Adam is heads down on building a Town generator for Here Be Taverns
    • Adam writing a couple guest posts to promote the guide.
    • Breakdown of the launch of the Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering.
    • When all was said and done, the guide was not as well received as Here Be Taverns.
    • Considering who the addressable market is for the Guide vs HBT.
    • What the data suggests about reader behaviour on the guide.
    • Starting to think about marketing strategy for Sword & Source products. Sales for HBT have slowed down significantly.
    • The same old problem: lots of good ideas and not enough time to do them all.
    • A "66 days of marketing" build in public stunt.
    • How fun it would be to hire for Sword & Source.
    • A breakdown of the Traction framework for creating a marketing strategy.
    • Detailed deep dive and Brandon's take on what Adam should do for his marketing strategy.
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    1 hr and 36 mins
  • I made my first software sale!! | Ep.23

    I made my first software sale!! | Ep.23
    May 21 2021
    Show notes
    • Closing out agency work was surprisingly hard because of the demand for talent.
    • Pushing to ship a VS Code extension for Codex to gain early traction from a waitlist
    • Basic Job to be Done for Codex
    • Fitting into customers current tooling seems important for Codex
    • The expectation for real time communication when sharing context at work
    • VS Code's liveshare mode
    • Fundraising went above expectations but Brandon needs to show at least 1 big customer using Codex in production
    • VCs are worried about being able to sell to developer market because devs are skeptical about products
    • Adam concerned Brandon will get lots of usage data within his 1 month of runway. Optimistic about getting installs.
    • What happens if Brandon runs out of runway? He will still push forward on Codex
    • Adam officially made his first sale and now has revenue in his business.
    • Successfully launched Here Be Taverns Premium with only 1 generator. 2 remain to be built.
    • Review of launch email, pricing, and discount
    • Sales tip: give people a chance to make the purchase decision before launch day
    • Time spent on clarifying the early-access nature of the premium sale
    • Ask for the sale
    • Review of sales numbers so far
    • The joy of decoupling time from income
    • Adam is extremely optimistic because sales keep trickling in even though he has not done a full launch or started real marketing
    • Next steps for Here Be Taverns
    • Always test in production!! Adam's rule for when to rollback.
    • The power of chat ops
    • User count on Here Be Taverns far exceeds sales count (97 vs 15). Tons of potential for next group of customers.
    • Brandon breaks down Adam's email where he described possible future features for Here Be Taverns
    • Brandon says "I told you so" again
    • Brandon seems impressed with Adam's numbers
    • Comparing Here Be Taverns to other consumer products like videogames
    • Shoutout to Ben Barbersmith for helping Adam set a higher launch price
    • Trying to understand the value of Here Be Taverns.
    • The business model for D&D Beyond.
    • Adam's theory about price anchors for Here Be Taverns and how it helps him charge more. Comparison to price anchors for iphone games.
    • Leader in generators is donjon
    • Quickstart Guide to Game Mastering Launched!!
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    1 hr and 36 mins
Leadership Economics
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