#283 – Lukas和Liz Hermann夫妇通过StageTimer.io实现月入8千美元，目标年入1亿美元

嘿，伙计，最近怎么样？今天都有谁来了？丽兹和卢卡斯·赫尔曼夫妇。

What's up dude? Yo, what's going on man? Who who do we got today? Liz Today. And Lucas Herman.

我对此感到非常兴奋。赫尔曼夫妇，你知道我为什么对卢卡感到兴奋吗？他和他的妻子丽兹一起经营这家公司，他们就像一个团队一样。

I'm excited about this. The Hermans. You know what I'm excited about Luke? And his wife Liz, they're sort of a team running this this company together.

嗯。

Mhmm.

他们的应用程序，我记得他们每月能赚8000美元，那是今年一月份的数据，现在可能更多了。他们做的工具非常简单，我觉得随便谁看到都会觉得，这东西一个周末就能做出来，对吧？我自己也能做出来，你知道的。

Their app, I think they make $8,000 a month. That was back in January, maybe it's more now. They have like this very simple tool that I think anybody would look at and be like, could build this in, like, a weekend. You know? I could build this in, like you know?

当然，实际上通常不是一个周末，而是六个月左右。但我自己也能很轻松地把它做出来，但他们靠这个每年能赚10万美元。没错，而且，你知道，这就像他以前做软件工程师的工作一样。

And usually, it's not a weekend. Like, six months or something. But I could build this very easily by myself, but they're making, like, a 100 k a year from it. Right. And also, like, that's, like I mean, he was working as a software engineer.

我想他上过大学，之前是个软件工程师，在一家初创公司年薪大概8万美元。你知道的，初创公司给的工资不高，他辞职之后现在作为一个独立开发者赚得更多。他和妻子一起从零开始做了这个非常简单的产品，而且他不欠任何人一分钱。

I think he went to college. He was a software engineer. He making like 80 k a year at a startup. You know, getting underpaid by a startup, and he quit that, and now he's making more than that as an Andy Hacker. From something very simple that he bootstrapped with his wife, and he doesn't owe anybody any money.

他基本上就是自由了，过着独立开发者的梦想生活。

He's just basically free. He's living the Andy hacker dream.

是的，是的。顺便说一句，这种产品看起来表面上非常简单，我最近到处都能看到。比如，我们发布过一些关于人们创建AI公司的故事，每篇文章的评论区都有一两个人说：等等。

Yeah. Yeah. By the way, feel like that detail of, like, it looks really simple on the from the surface. I've been seeing that everywhere lately. Like, I've we posted a couple of stories of people that are building AI companies, and every single comment section has one or two people going, wait a minute.

这不就是调用了两个API吗？

This is just two API calls?

就这？对，就是这么简单。AI现在简直到了下一个层次。前几天我还在发关于AI的内容，因为我刚做了个新机器人，安德森·库普机器人，它就像一个AI记者，会给我们发一些关于用户投稿的小评论和写作反馈，并告诉我们

That's it? Yeah. Super simple. Well, AI is like next level. Like, I was posting about AI, I a think couple days ago, because I've got this, like, new bot or Anderson Koop bot, who basically is like an AI journalist who sends us, like, like, little reviews of people's submissions and writing and tells us

你在弄清楚这些机器人的名字和实际构建机器人上花费的时间比例各是多少？

How what ratio of your time are you spending figuring out the names of these bots versus actually building the bots?

是的。我觉得大概是五五开吧。想出好的机器人名字很难。不过我认为

Yeah. It's like fifty fifty, I would say. It's hard to come up with good bot names. But I think

你为什么不使用机器人来给机器人起名字呢？

Why don't you use the bots to name the bots?

我应该这么做。我试过了。我发誓，我把名字输入给了GPT四号模型。但效果很糟糕。我的意思是，你肯定也试过用它来进行创意写作。

I should. I've tried it. I swear to god, I put names in the GPT four. It sucks. I mean, you've tried to use it for creative writing.

它并不擅长创意写作。它也不擅长搞笑。

It's not that good at No. Coming up with, creative writing. It's not that good at being funny.

部分问题在于提示词，是的，创意写作

It's part partially is in the prompt, but, yeah, creative writing

是的。它会激发你的创造力，适合头脑风暴。不过，我发布了关于这个机器人的内容，人们一直问我，比如，开源吧，写个指南吧。我心想，不行不行，它其实没那么多代码。

is Yeah. It'll it'll like get your creative juices flowing. It's, like, good for brainstorming. But anyway, I mean I I posted about this bot and people keep asking me like, oh, open source it, write a guide. I'm like, no no no, like it's like not that much code.

大部分工作都是由OpenAI完成的。所以现在你可以构建很多很酷的东西，而且非常简单。你知道卢卡斯和他的妻子还酷在哪儿吗？不仅仅是他们在做非常简单的东西，而是他们有着极高的抱负。他让我发这个推文串给你。

Like the vast majority of the work is done by OpenAI. So there's a lot of cool stuff you could build nowadays that's super simple. You know what also is cool about Lucas and his wife? It's not just that they're building something really simple, but that they are incredibly ambitious. So he has let me send you this thread.

我想你已经看过这个推文串了。就在这里，是他的推文串。这是这个推文串的第一条推文。对，就是这条。

I think you've you've seen this thread. Here. It's like his Twitter thread. The very first tweet of this thread. Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

我要发财了，我就是这样做的。他不是那种会说，哦，你知道的，我希望赚点钱的人。他是那种会说，不，我要变得极其富有，并且就像贝比·鲁斯指着外野确切的位置示意自己会把球击向那里一样。

I'm going to get rich, and this is how I'm gonna do it. He's not he's not like, oh, I'm, you know, I hope to make some money. He's like, no, I'm gonna get like insanely wealthy, and like, I am he's like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield exactly where he's gonna hit the ball.

他不是，他不是。嘿，大家。我做了一些东西。#公开建造（hashtag building in public）。哦，他来了。

He's not he's not. Hey, guys. I made something. Hashtag building in public. Oh, here he is.

嗨，卢卡斯，最近怎么样？你好，莉兹。

What's up, Lucas? Hi, Liz.

嘿，大家。你好。

Hey, guys. Hello.

我们刚刚在谈论你的推文线程，卢卡斯。我觉得太棒了。绝大多数独立开发者没有这么大的野心。比如 My First Million 的 Sean Perry 很近一次来我们节目时，他说你们做的只是小打小闹，而我们 My First Million 只关注大手笔。

We were just talking about your Twitter thread, Lucas. And I think it's amazing. The vast majority of indie hackers are not that ambitious. Like Sean Perry from My First Million came on our show, like, very recently, he was kinda like, you guys are doing small boy stuff, know. We're all about big boy stuff on My First Million.

当我看到你的推文时，我觉得你的态度和他一样。对吧？你开发了这个应用，非常酷。但你才刚刚起步而已。

And like I look at your tweet and like you're like the same attitude. Right? You've got this app. It's very cool. You're just getting started though.

甚至你的 Twitter 背景，你画了三座山。第一座山是一个小火柴人正在往上爬，它代表年收入一百万美元。之后还有一座更大的山，代表年收入一亿美元。第三座山则是一些疯狂的目标。甚至你的进度条，每个独立开发者都在 Twitter 简介下面放着类似的进度条，左边是零美元，右边是你的目标金额，你每接近一步就把方框涂成绿色。我们大多数人可能觉得，每月赚一万美元是我的目标，或者两万美元，而你的目标是一百万美元。

I mean even your Twitter background, you've got like these three mountains and the first mountain is like a little stick figure walking up it and it's like a million dollars a year in revenue. And there's another mountain after that, it's a little bigger and it's like a $100,000,000 a year in revenue. And the third mountain is like something crazy. And then even like your progress bar, like every indie hacker has like same progress bar under like their Twitter profile, like where you've got like the boxes and on the left it's like zero dollars, on the right it's your goal and you color the boxes green, the further you get. And most of us are like, yeah, $10,000 a month is like my goal or, 20 you thousand and yours is like a million dollars.

所以我们只是坐在那里，只有一个目标，而且还没完成

So we're just sitting there with like one And by the

顺便说一句，我们不能就这样放过他们。我想读一下这条精彩线程中的几个亮点。首先，你写道：我取消了面试，我不再找工作了，因为虽然我被裁员了，但我打算发财。

way and by the way, we can't we can't let them off the hook. Like, I wanna I wanna like read a couple of highlights from this sick thread. So number one, you're like, alright. I canceled my interviews. I stopped looking for for work because you had gotten laid off and you're like, but I'm going to be rich.

首先，我不会再用时间换金钱。然后我会自力更生做一个产品，解决我自己的痛点。你大概就是一步步地讲述：我会赚很多钱，然后我会创办我的第二家公司。接着你做了一件特别有趣的事，你预测了一个很多人在创业旅程中都会遇到、却总是出乎他们意料之外的节点。

First, I'm gonna stop selling my time for money. Then I'll bootstrap a a product. I'll scratch my edge. You kinda like go through, I'm gonna make a lot of money, then I'm gonna start my second company. And then you do something that's so funny, which is you predict a point that happens in a lot of people's journey that they that always blindsides them.

你特意去做了，然后我就要经历中年危机了。我到底在干什么？我已经实现了我的伙伴目标，我已经过上了想要的生活，我父母的退休也得到了保障。

You specifically go, then I'll have a midlife crisis. What am I even doing? I reached my buddy goals. I've lived the life. My parents' retirement is secured.

那接下来呢？然后我想起来了，现在我拥有了财务自由。我对我的SpaceX感到非常兴奋。对吧？你会用一种完全不同的方式来规划这件事，甚至那些真正实现了这些目标的人，也看不到像你这样一步步清晰规划出来的未来。

What next? Then I remember, like, now I have my financial freedom. I'm excited about my SpaceX. Right? Like, you you completely draw this thing out in a way that, like, even the people who do reach these goals don't see, like, all the steps coming the way that you've, laid it out.

是的，这真的很酷。

Yeah. It's pretty cool.

有趣的是，我们一直是我的第一个反派角色的超级粉丝。但有一天，山姆突然莫名其妙地关注了我。而我也是山姆的忠实粉丝，他是肖恩的忠实粉丝。我当时就震惊了，心想：哇，山姆居然关注我了。我甚至发过一条推文说，可能是他不小心关注了我。

The funny thing here is we are big fans of my first villain. And then one day, out of the blue, Sam started following me. And I'm a big Sam fan, and he is a big Sean fan. And then I was like, ah, Sam followed me. And I even tweeted, oh, I think it was by mistake.

后来山姆回复了我，他说：不不不，我喜欢你正在做的事情，所以我才关注你。几周后，他发了一条推文，说他将要接受关于“我的第一百万”的采访。然后我们也开始关注他。我当时就想，好吧，我们已经走上同一条路了。

But and then he answered, Sam answered and said, no, no, I like what you're doing and that's why I followed you. And then a few weeks later, he tweeted something actually saying, and then I'm going to be interviewed on my first million. And then we started following him. I was like, okay. We are on the path here.

是的，我当时就想，我要发一条超级棒的推文。我甚至查了迪士尼的故事结构，你知道的，就是那种‘一直以来都是这样，然后发生了这件事，然后又发生了那件事’的模式。但有一天，情况不同了，然后就这样了。我觉得，好，我就按照皮克斯的剧情结构来写这条推文。

Yeah. So I I was going, like, I I'm gonna make this killer tweet. And I even looked up the Disney story spine that's like, you know, things all the time and then happens this and then happens this. But one day, and then and it's like, okay. I'm gonna write a tweet exactly like the the the Pixar storyline.

皮克斯的结构。

The Pixar.

结果完全奏效了。

And and and totally worked.

那我们来给大家介绍一下你们到底在做什么。你们的应用，就像我之前说的那样，非常简单但非常好，名字叫stagetimer.io。举个例子，如果我正在组织一个会议或活动，有几位演讲者，我需要让每位演讲者清楚地知道，他们还剩多少时间可以讲完。

So let's let's clue people into what you guys are doing here. Your app, as I mentioned earlier, it's very simple, but it's very good. It's called stagetimer.io. So let's say I'm running a conference or an event where I've got speakers. I want my speakers to all know, like, pretty simple, how much time do they have left in their talk.

是十分钟？还是三十分钟？我希望这个时间提示能显示在某个笔记本电脑、屏幕或iPad上，让演讲者在讲话时能够看到，这样他们就不会超时。但我也希望我自己坐在座位上就能完全控制这个计时器的所有设置，而不需要跑到舞台上去告诉他们还剩多少时间，或者亲自去按暂停键。

Is it ten minutes? Is it thirty minutes? And I want it to be, like, on some sort of laptop or screen or iPad that they can see while they're talking, so they don't go over time. But I wanna also be able to control that pretty much everything about that timer from like the comfort of my seat. I don't wanna have be running up to the stage, telling them how much time is left, or pressing pause on the screen.

这就是stagetimer.io的基本功能。你基本上就是登录到你的网站，创建一个计时器，然后你就会得到一个完整的控制面板，里面有各种很酷的控制功能。我可以给计时器增加时间、重置它、让它闪烁，我可以有多个计时器，我可以显示消息，我想做什么都可以。然后我可以给其他人另一个链接，这是为我的演讲者特别设置的视图。他们只能看到我设置的计时器，以及我发送的任何我能控制的消息。

And so that's basically what stagetimer.io is. You basically sign on to your website, you create a timer, you get this whole dashboard with all these cool controls to control a timer. I can add time to it, reset it, make it flash, I can have multiple timers, I can show messages, whatever I want I can do. And then there's another link I can give people, it's like a special view to the timer that I set up for my speakers. And that will just show them the timer, and it will just show them any messages I send to the timer that I can control.

据我所知，基本上就是这样。而且我记得你们这个服务每月收费大概20或30美元，据我上次看到的数据，你们每月的收入已经达到8000美元左右。

And that's, as far as I can tell, that's pretty much it. And I think you're charging like $20 a month, $30 a month for this, And you are at, last I saw, $8,000 a month in revenue.

是的，现在已经稍微多一些了。

Yeah, a bit a bit more already.

是的，没错。

Yeah, yes.

这其实就是创业的旅程。Jenny，我跟你聊过，在你上线之前，每个人都想打造一个简单、容易理解但又能养活自己的产品。而你通过这个项目赚的钱已经超过了你在初创公司的工作收入，Lucas。

I mean this is the journey. Jenny I were talking before you came on, everybody wants to build something that's simple, that's easy to understand, but that, like, makes you a living. I mean, you're making more from this than you're making at your startup job, Lucas.

是的，这其实有点疯狂。如果你仔细想想，一个倒计时器，这可能是最没人愿意花钱买的东西，但它带给我的收入却超过了初创公司。所以这真的是一件非常不可思议的事情。

Yeah. It's it's actually a bit wild. If you think if if you think that a a countdown timer, like, un the most unlikely thing that anybody would pay money for makes me more money than than a than a startup. So it it's a great it's it's a crazy thing.

是的，我之前看到过你们发的一篇帖子，讲你们是怎么想到这个创意的。我觉得你们想出这个点子的过程特别有趣，因为你们遵循的是最常见不过的创业建议：睁大眼睛观察世界，总有一天你会发现一个值得解决的问题，然后去解决它。但实际上几乎没人这么做。

Yeah. I saw a post actually where you guys talked about coming up with your idea. I think it's really funny how you came up with your idea because this is, the the most generic startup advice ever. It's like, keep your eyes open for problems in the world and like one day you'll find a problem that's worth solving and then solve it. And like almost nobody does that.

要做到这一点真的很难。要偶然发现一个创意是极其困难的。但你们恰恰就是这样做的。我记得Lucas，你当时在一个朋友的录音棚里，对吧？

It's so hard to do that. It's like incredibly hard to just stumble across an idea. But that's exactly what you did. You were at, I think Lucas, a friend's recording studio. Yeah.

然后你看到他用iPad启动了一个计时器，然后跑到控制区去操作它。他没有遥控器，必须亲自冲过整个录音棚去操作计时器。

And then you saw them, like, start a timer on their iPad and then run to the control area to start controlling it. Like, he didn't have a remote. He had to, like, physically sprint across the studio to do his timer.

没错，是的。我当时看到他跑来跑去，按下笔记本上的一个按钮，然后又跑出去，心想一定有更好的解决方案。很多人在Twitter上说，要解决自己的痛点，做你自己需要的产品。

Exactly. Yeah. It's like I'm I'm I see him running running in, you know, like clicking this one button on the laptop, running back out, seeing if there must be a better solution for this. You know, many people say on Twitter, like, scratch your own itch. Do you know, build a business that that you that you yourself like.

我环顾四周，心想，我也想解决别人的痛点。你知道吗？我看到这个人，心想我能为他打造一个解决方案吗？首先，我觉得肯定有人已经做过类似的东西了。每当你看到一个似乎显而易见的解决方案时，可能是因为你有相关的背景，而其他人却没意识到，这可能是一个完美的生意。

And I looked around, was like, I wanna scratch somebody else's itch. You know? I see this guy, like, can can I build something that that is a solution for him? First of all, I I thought, surely, surely, somebody else has has made a has made something. I feel like whenever you look in the world and it's like, there's such an obvious solution to this problem that maybe you see because you have the background and everybody else just, like, doesn't know that that's a perfect business.

我当时想，我一个周末就能把这个做出来。当然，就是非常简单。把它放到网上，发到Reddit上。心想，谁会在乎呢？看看大家是不是真的需要这个东西。

And I was like, I'm gonna bill this in one weekend. And, of course, like, know, like, just very simple. Put it on the Internet, put it on Reddit. It's like, you know, who who cares? Let's see if people want this.

如果有人想用它，我只是把它作为一个

If people wanna use it, I I just did it as a

嗯，我

Well, I

我看到一些看起来很明显的东西时，我会持怀疑态度。我会想，哦，我一个周末就能把它做出来。然后又想，肯定有人已经解决了这个问题。可能只是我的朋友不懂。他就像从计时器跑到控制器那边。

get, like, I get skeptical when I see things that are obvious. I'm like, oh, I can just build this on a weekend. And I'm like, somebody has to have already solved this problem. Like, it must be my friend who doesn't understand. He's like running from the timer to the controller.

他根本不懂。他肯定没去谷歌搜索过。但话说回来，现在是2023年，不可能没人做过一个计时器吧。你有没有做过研究？有没有回头去找一找，比如，这个东西真的不存在吗？

Like, he doesn't understand. He's never googled this, but like, there's no way, you know, it's 2023 and nobody's built like a timer. Did you do any research? Did you go back and try to find out, like, hey, like, does this exist?

有啊。我当时就在原地尝试找这个解决方案，但没找到。我只是想找一个简单的网页，打开后能有一个半计时器，并且可以远程控制。所以我做了出来，后来才发现，有两三个类似的解决方案是老的Windows应用程序。

Yeah. So I like, on the very spot, I tried to find this solution, and I couldn't. I you know, just a simple website that you open half a timer. That is remote controlled. So I I build it, and afterwards, I find, like, two or three solutions that are old Windows apps.

有趣的是，你做了一件和保罗·格雷厄姆说的相反的事。就在几天前，他发推文说，当年轻的创业者做了一些他们自己并不需要的东西，而只是相信某个群体需要它时，90%的情况下他们做的是没人需要的东西。连埃隆·马斯克都回应了，说确实如此。

What's interesting is you did the you did something that's the opposite of what Paul Graham said. Just a couple of days he ago, he tweeted, when young founders build something that they don't want themselves, but that they believe some group of other people want, 90% of the time they're building something that nobody wants. Even Elon Musk responded. Yeah. It was like like true.

但我想说的是，关于百分比的问题，对吧？还有那10%的情况。你说是9%，那至少还有10%。

But I I would say also, this is the thing about percentages. Right? There was still the 10%. You said 9%. So there was still 10%.

对吧？我不是说别人也应该这么做，我只是说在卢卡的案例中聪明的地方在于，他总是会总结一下，当然这样故事也讲得更快。但事实是，他去了Reddit，问大家如果有一个可以远程控制的倒计时计时器，你们希望它具备哪些功能？根据这些反馈，他做出了第一个版本。然后Autoraid又回到Reddit告诉大家他做出来了。

Right? And I'm not saying that other people should do it, but I'm just saying that the smart thing in in Luca's case is that he he always summarizes, you know, of course so so the story goes fast. But the truth is that he went on on Reddit and he asked, you know, if if he could use countdown timer that would be controlled remotely, what would this need to have? And from that feedback, he actually created the first one. And then Autoraid went back to Reddit and told people that he had created that.

所以这就是他获得第一个用户的方式。所以我想

So that's how he got the first user. So I want

从一个不同的角度来看这个Graham树。他说得对，对吧？但我感觉在我们的科技圈里，每个人都了解这些技术的东西。比如，所有的技术问题都已经用开源代码解决了五次了。

to shine a bit of different light on this on this Graham tree. He's right. Right? But I feel like in our tech bubble, everybody knows about these tech things. Like, all the tech problems have been solved with open source code and and five times already.

但当你看看其他行业，尤其是传统行业，比如金属制造业，还有像这个案例中的活动组织和媒体录制行业。这些领域里还有很多唾手可得的机会。作为一名来自初创公司背景的开发者，你看到这些的时候会觉得，我应该自动化这个流程，我应该改进这个环节，我可以让它变得更好。那里有太多唾手可得的机会。

But then you look at other industries, especially old industries, you know, metal manufacturing, and in this case, like event organizing and media recording. There's so much low hanging fruit that you as a as a developer coming from a, like, start up, you look at it, it's like, I I would automate this. I would change this. I would make this better. There's so much low hanging fruit.

我觉得在其他行业中，还有很多开发者可以解决的远程问题。

I feel there's a lot of, like, remote problems to be solved for developers in other industries.

说得很对。

That's spot on.

直到今天，我们一直都有这样的发现：人们实际上写信给我们，是因为他们非常喜欢StageTime的界面。他们会写信说，你们有没有类似StageTime这样的产品，但用于某某场景？我们一直收到这样的邮件，人们一直在问，比如，你们有没有类似StageTime的提词器？你们有没有类似StageTime的其他产品？然后他们总是提到一些需求，我们就会觉得，天啊，这个行业里我们能做的事情实在太多了。

Until today, we see that all the time that people actually write us because they love so much the interface of StageTime. They write and say, okay, do you have something like StageTime but for this in So the we get emails all the time, people asking like, okay, but do you have something like StageTime before teleprompter? Do you have something like StageTime? You know? And then they are always mentioning things and we're like, man, there are so many things that we could do in this industry.

再说一遍，这些都是仍然存在、等待被抓住的唾手可得的机会。

Again, these are low hanging fruits that are still there to be taken.

这很有趣，因为在技术世界里，如果你是一名开发者，你是在为其他开发者构建工具，你去GitHub上，那里有数不清的各种产品。程序员几乎解决了每一件小事。有人开发了一个库，然后又有人开发另一个库来解决这个库的问题，就这样不断叠加，数量非常庞大。即使软件工程师和独立开发者已经进入了一些其他行业，比如保险业，并且已经在那儿构建了一些工具，他们在那里所做的事情也远远比不上他们为软件工程师所构建的东西。因此，那里肯定还有你可以构建的东西。有时候这些机会非常明显，比如，嘿，你应该能用遥控器来控制这个计时器，而不是这个老旧又糟糕的Windows应用程序。

It's fascinating because it's like in the world of technology, like if you're a developer, you're building tools for other developers, you go on GitHub, there's like millions of products. Like programmers are solving every single little thing about every single thing. And somebody builds a library, then somebody comes and builds another library to solve the problems with that library, and it's just like tons and tons of stuff. So even if software engineers and indie hackers have already gotten to some other industry, like let's say insurance, and they've already built some tools there, They haven't built anything near what they built for software engineers, and so there's, like, guaranteed to be, like, something that you can build. And sometimes it's as obvious as, like, hey, like, you should be able to control this timer with a remote and this old shitty Windows app.

这些工具还不够好。但有时候问题会更深入一些，我认为人们可以在这里多探索一下，试着弄清楚其他行业到底发生了什么。

It's not good enough. But sometimes it's a little bit deeper, and I I think that people could explore a little bit more here and and try to figure out what's going on in other industries.

绝对是这样。当然，也有一些大的行业问题可能已经有人在处理了，但总有一些小众的领域，这些是独立开发者可以涉足的，是一些小问题，没人真正愿意去解决，因为其中没有足够的利润。但对于像我这样的人，或者我们来说，这些就是完美的机会，足够发展出一个不错的业务。

Absolutely. And there's, of course, there's the the big the big industry problems that probably are worked on, but there's always these little niches for indie hackers that are little problems that nobody really wants to solve because there's just not enough money in it. But for a single person like like me, like us, it's just, like, perfect and enough to grow a a good business.

之前有个叫Patio Eleven的团队为老师开发了一个非常简单的应用。我忘了它叫什么了。

What was, Patio eleven had a a really simple app for teachers. I forget what it's called.

Bingo Card Creator（宾果卡制作工具）。

Bingo card creator.

对，Bingo Card Creator。那是2007年2月的时候，同样的情况。这个产品并不是特别特别复杂或者高级。当他跟开发者或者程序员谈起它时，大家都会挑眉表示怀疑。

Yeah. Bingo card creator. Seven. Back in back in 02/2007, and and it was the exact same story where, you know, it's not a super super, you know, sophisticated product. And when he's talking to developers or to coders, like, you know, eyebrows would go up.

就像在说，真的吗？你打算拿这个做一款产品？他一直强调的一点是，对我们来说，这只是一个简单的应用，但对老师或不懂技术的人来说，这就是魔法，对吧？

Like, really? You're you're making a product out of that. And the thing that he hammered the drum about all the time is, like, look, to us, this is just a simple app. But to teachers or people who are not technical, this is magic. Right?

没错。他们真的是手工为这些孩子制作宾果卡，要花好几个小时。我们用代码一分钟就能搞定。但没人帮他们做这件事，因为程序员只做给程序员用的应用。你提到你是在Reddit上发布的。

Yeah. They're literally creating bingo cards by hand for these kids. It's taking them hours. We could, you know, use code to do this in a minute and like, no one's doing it for them because programmers are only making apps for other programmers. You mentioned that you launched on Reddit.

这并不是一个突然的时刻，砰的一下就推出一个应用。这是一个持续六个月的过程。我找到了你在Reddit上发布的那篇帖子。我觉得你发的方式非常聪明，因为大多数独立开发者都会说，别在Reddit上发布，你不能在那里做广告，你会被封禁的，在很多子版块都被踢出去过，等等。但他们可能只是方法不对。

This wasn't just like a singular moment, boom, have an app. It was like a six month process. And I found the post where you launched on Reddit. Thought it was so smart how you did it, because the vast majority of indie hackers like, oh, can't launch on Reddit, you can't advertise on Reddit, you're gonna get banned, I've been kicked out of so many subreddits, blah blah blah. But I think they're just doing it wrong.

我觉得，Lucas，你的方式才是对的。你去了一个叫/r/CommercialAV的子版块，发了一篇帖子，标题是“正在开发中的演示计时器应用，求建议”。光是这个标题你就做得特别棒，因为你并没有像其他人那样说，嘿，大家都来用我的东西吧，我来打广告了，垃圾垃圾垃圾。

And I think, Lucas, the way you did it was the right way. So you went to there's a subreddit, it's called slash r slash commercial a v, and he made this post called advice for presentation timer app in the making. And just with your title, like, think you you killed it. Because you're like, you're not like, hey, everybody come use my thing. I'm advertising blah blah blah, spam, spam, spam.

你只是说，嘿，我需要一些建议。你们这些聪明绝顶的人，能不能给我一些提示？这种方式让人感觉很放松。然后你在帖子里写得很简短也很简单：大家好，我正在做一个可以在浏览器中运行的演示计时器应用，等等。

You're like, hey, I need some advice. All of you, like, smart genius people out there, I could really just use some, like, some tips. So it's like disarming in a way. And then in your post, you kept it real short and simple. You're like, hey everybody, I'm building a presentation timer app that runs in the browser, blah blah blah.

你能给我一些建议，告诉我这种应用需要哪些功能吗？然后你展示了当前版本，并放了一个链接到你的应用。你几乎就是在帖子里完成了所有该做的事情。你放了链接，告诉大家你在开发，然后你就得到了大量来自网友的免费反馈，可能还收获了第一批用户。

Can you give me some feedback about the features necessary for such an app? Here's the current version and then you like literally put a link to your app. So you've done like all the things you need to do. You put a link to your app, you told people you're building it, and now you get like all this free feedback from people and probably like some of your first users in just that one post.

首先我得去找这个子版块，如果你对Reddit不熟悉的话，真的很难找到合适的子版块。后来我发现了一个工具，输入一个子版块，它就能给你推荐所有相关的其他子版块，所以我就通过这个工具找到了。

So I actually first of all, had to look for the subreddit. It's so hard to find a subreddit if you're not knowledgeable. So I found this tool where you put one subreddit and it gives you all the connection to the other ones, so how how they

关联。

relate.

是吗？

Is it

是像那样，比如说网络图那种东西吗？我觉得我好像见过那种可视化展示。

like that, like, network graph thing? I think I've seen like, that visualization.

对，它就像是一个物品关系的网络图。

Yeah. It's like a network graph of stuff.

是Reddit。太酷了，就像是Reddit的地图一样。

Reddit. It's so cool. It's like a map of Reddit.

它真的很棒。所以我就去了那里，心想，对，我应该怎么做才能让别人真的想读并回应呢？对吧？

It's it's amazing. And so I go there, and exactly, I thought, okay. How do you can you post this? So people actually wanna read it and wanna respond. Right?

在Reddit上，你很快就会耗尽热情。有趣的是，还有另一个工具，一年后在同一个子版块发布了。我看到这些帖子，它是开源工具。他第一次发的时候，大家都很兴奋，然后他几乎每周都发一次，后来就渐渐没人关注了。你在Reddit上不能这么做，你只能发一次。

Reddit, you can exhaust very quickly. And funny, there's another tool, another timer that launched like a year later in the same subreddit, and I I read these posts, it was open source tool. And he posted first one, everybody was excited, and he posted, like, every single like, every week he posted, and it petered out. You can't do that. On Reddit, it's like one you've got one post.

你要把内容写得简短，直奔主题，提出问题，不要做广告，这样才行。

You make it short. You make it to the point. You ask for questions. You don't advertise. You got it.

然后，大约六个月后，我说，好了，我现在做到了。嘿，借助你的帮助，我完成了。快来看看。

And then, like, six months later, I was like, okay. Now I did it. Like, hey. With your help, I did it. Check it out.

你觉得怎么样？

What do you think?

哦，那真是个聪明的办法。

Oh, that's smart.

就在那时我们推出了付费版本。

And that was when we launched the paid version.

就是在那时我们推出了付费版本。但我并没有提到付费版本。我只是说，嘿，谢谢你的帮助。我做了这个东西，现在它真的做成了，而且非常棒。

That's when we launched the paid version. But I didn't mention the paid version. I just said, like, hey, thanks thanks for your help. I built this thing, and now it's a thing, and it's awesome.

你在Reddit上的第一篇帖子下面有一条评论特别搞笑，我很喜欢。有人提到一个不同的时间路线，他们发现比如，演讲者有十分钟，但你可以实际上加快计时器的速度，这样实际上只过了九分钟，但倒计时看起来像是在数到十。这简直是个最棒的小技巧，能确保演讲者不超时，一切顺利进行。你们有这个功能吗？

There's a hilarious comment on your first Reddit post that I liked. It was like someone someone's basically talking about a different time route that they found where, you know, a speaker might have ten minutes, but you can actually speed up the timer. So really only nine minutes go by, but the countdown looks like it's counting to ten. And it's like the most amazing trick for basically making so your speakers don't go over time and everything runs smoothly. Do you guys have that?

你们最后有没有在你们的应用里加上这个功能？

Did you end up adding that feature to your app?

这实际上是我们待办清单里最老的一个需求了。

This literally the one oldest feature in our

哇。

Wow.

但我们还没有把它做出来，因为这是一个在分布式系统上非常令人头疼的难题。

Our backlog and I have not and I have not built it yet because it's such a mind boggling hard task on a distributed

服务器上，没错。

server. True.

我们确实收到过一些非常有趣的请求，但也有一些近乎最后通牒的要求。现在已经没有了，但在最开始的时候，开发StageTimer的时候真的挺搞笑的，因为我们对行业一无所知，所以只能认真听用户的需求。对吧？我们根本不知道这个行业的规则。我记得第一次收到一封邮件，对方说，你们能不能加个功能，让我能用StageTime来做一个流程表？

We get some very funny requests actually, but we also get some ultimatums. I mean, not anymore, but in the beginning, it was really funny building StageTimer, really listening to the users because we didn't know any better. Right? We didn't know how industry works. So I remember the first time I got an email and the person said like, oh, can you add this and this so I can build a rundown with StageTime?

我当时就懵了，什么是 rundown？然后我就问他们，但他们也完全不知道。所以带着先前的知识进入对话其实挺有趣的，同时用户群体也在教我们、在教育我们。有一位特别有意思的人，我想应该是我们最早的年度订阅用户之一。

And I was like, what is a rundown? And then I asked them because they have no idea. So it was really funny entering prior knowledge, but then also the user base, right? Teaching us and educating There was this one guy that was really funny. I think it was one of our first yearly subscriptions.

他写得非常直接，他说：我非常喜欢 StageTimer，这是我想在 StageTimer 上看到的功能。如果明年没有这些功能，那我就不会再续费了。

And he wrote very, like, straightforward. He said, I love StageTimer, and here are the things that I would like to see on StageTimer because if you don't have these things by next year, then I'm not going to renew my subscription.

这就像是对我说：我刚刚才给了你钱，明年你最好把这些做出来。

Like, for us Like, I just gave you money. You better have this next year.

这简直就像黑手党一样。他非常明确，是的。他特别有条理，因为他正好提到了制作人最需要的东西，你知道吗？

That's like the mafia. They were deliberate. Yeah. He was zoned because then we had exactly what a producer needs. You know?

他真的很有条理，并且提到了最关键的内容。我们非常感谢这位用户以及许多其他给我们留言的用户，因为在此之前，我们并不清楚他们在活动制作领域到底需要什么。

He was really organized, and he mentioned the most important things. And we are very thankful for the the input of this guy and many other people that wrote us because we didn't know what they needed for the event production space.

有时候我们就直接打个电话说：嘿，Kat，我们可以跟你通个电话吗？

Sometimes we just hopped on a call like, hey, Kat. Can we have a call with you?

是啊。

Like Yeah.

你能告诉我们你到底在做什么吗？就给我们展示一下。

Can you tell us what you're actually doing? Like, just show us.

当然，有趣的是，当你和早期采用者打交道时，他们真的非常兴奋。是的，他们甚至会因为我们花时间跟他们交流而感谢我们。他们觉得能跟 Stage Dart 的人对话是一件很棒的事。直到今天，我们还会收到消息，有人甚至说：请帮我向整个团队转达我的感谢。然后我就直接转达给 Luden，说：谢谢。

And, of course, the cool thing is that when you were dealing with early adopters, they're super excited. Right? So they were actually thanking us for the time. They were feeling so good, you know, for talking to to people that work for Stage Dart. And till today, we get messages and even people saying, please send my thanks to the team, you know, and then I just turned to Luden and was like, thank you.

而且他们真的以为我们是一个很大的团队。最近我遇到一个人，他说：哦，你是工程师之一吗？我当时就回答：是的，不过其实我还做了更多事情。

And that's it because people actually believe that we are a larger team. And recently, you even met a person and the person said, oh, you are one of the engineers? And I was like, yeah, wow, did more than that.

这很酷，因为其实你在做的事情就是在证明，你其实不必解决自己的问题，对吧？我认为解决自己的问题有点被高估了，因为归根结底，你还是要寻找其他客户，而他们无论如何都会和你不同。

It's cool because like what you're doing is basically proving that, like, you don't have to solve your own problem. Right? And I think solving your own problem is a little bit overrated because at end of the day, like, you're you're trying to find like other customers. Right? And they're gonna be different than you no matter what.

即使你对某个领域了如指掌，其他人也终究和你不一样。如果你不保持耳听八方、眼观六路，去倾听他们遇到的问题和他们想要的东西，那你一定会失败。所以，你不妨从第一天起就养成这个习惯，从解决别人的问题开始。我很欣赏你发帖到子版块的做法，就像你所说的，你又重新发了一次。

Like even if you know an area inside and out, other people are gonna be different than you. And if you don't keep your ears and eyes open to listen to what like they have as problems and what they want, you're gonna be dead. And so you might as well get in the habit of doing that from day one by solving like other people's problems. And I like that you posted on the subreddit. And like you said, you posted like again.

后来你回来发帖说，嘿，已经过去六个月了，这是我的旧帖子的链接，非常感谢。你再次表现得非常聪明，非常感谢你的建议。

So you later on like came back and you were like, okay, hey, it's been six months. Here's a link to my old post. Thank you. And you were super smart again with how you did it. Thank you so much for the advice, you know.

真是太棒了，非常有帮助。就是让你知道一下，比如，这是加入了你所有建议之后的新产品是什么样的。所以你不是在做广告，而只是以社区成员的身份参与其中。

It was so great. It's so helpful. Just so you you know, like, here's what the new product is like with all your advice added. So you're not like advertising. You're just like participating as a community member.

我长期以来一直试图让ND黑客们这么做，但真的很难。当你把一群ND黑客或创始人聚集在一个论坛上时，每个人都只想做广告，虽然我觉得大家都很关心自己在做的事情，但其实没人关心你在做什么。

I've tried to get people to do this for ND hackers for so long. It's so hard. You get like a group of ND hackers or founders together, put them on a forum. Everybody just wants to advertise, and I think everybody cares about what they're doing. It's like nobody cares about what you're doing.

他们只关心自己，他们想觉得自己聪明，觉得自己重要，觉得自己有帮助。我觉得你是为数不多真正做对了的人之一。

They care about themselves. They wanna feel smart. They wanna feel important. They wanna feel helpful. And, like, I feel like you're one of the few people who did that right.

所以我认为就是在那次第二次Reddit发帖之后，你就获得了第一个付费客户，对吧？

And so I think after that second Reddit post is when you got is that when you got your very first paying customer?

是的。我当时在Twitter上发布了消息，那时候我只有300个关注者。没人会去看，但你知道，你还是得这么做，公开地建立并发布出去。

Yeah. So I pushed out on Twitter, and I had, like, 300 followers at that time. Like, nobody's gonna read it, but, you know, that's what you do. Build it public. Push it out.

对吧？发个推文。但就在那天晚上，就有人购买了。我当时觉得太不可思议了，你知道，第一次在网上赚到第一美元是一个非常神奇的时刻。

You know? Tweet it out. And but just the same night, somebody purchased it. I was like, this is incredible. If, you know, your first dollar online is some magical moment.

我就联系了那个人，我在Twitter上给他发消息，问他，嘿，你为什么买我的东西？他说，我是在之前的那个Reddit帖子上认识你的。

Like, I contact the guy. I write him on Twitter. He's like, hey. Like, why did you buy my thing? He's like, I I I know you from this first Reddit post.

嗯嗯。

Mhmm.

我一看到你就关注了你，我太喜欢了。我喜欢新事物，我喜欢你正在做的事情。我立刻就购买了。其实这一切都始于那条Reddit帖子，有人购买后分享了出来，这让我感到非常惊讶。

And I just followed you, and I I love it. I love new things. I love what you're doing. I bought it right away. And it just it just it it knocked me off that it's from this first Reddit post actually somebody purchased.

你们平时发多少条推文啊？我知道我们之前看过你的一条Twitter帖子，但我自己其实没怎么关注过，我刚刚才关注了你们俩。Twitter在你们的营销和增长策略中占多大比重呢？

Are you guys are you like, how much do you tweet? I know we were reading that one Twitter thread that you have, but I haven't really, like I just followed both of you. How big is Twitter in your, like, marketing and growth strategies?

几乎没用。是的，因为Twitter上的人……在这个重叠区域里，使用Twitter的人和那些做视频、直播以及活动的人之间几乎是不重合的。

Nothing. Yeah. Because all the people on Twitter like, there's in the Venn diagram between the people on Twitter and the people that do video video live video recording and and events, it's like there's two almost no over

他们根本不碰。

the don't touch.

我们实际上现在为StageTimer创建了一个Twitter账号，但这完全不是我们的重点，甚至不是我们的用户获取渠道。所以对我们来说，这根本不是重点。正如卢卡所说，第一批用户来自Reddit。最棒的是，它最初主要是通过口口相传增长的。因为这个行业的联系非常紧密，所以自然而然就传播开了。

We just created actually now a a Twitter for Stage Timer, but it is not at all our it's not even a customer acquisition channel for us. So it's not a focus at all for us. And then as Luca said, the first users came from Reddit. And then the coolest part is that it grew mainly through word-of-mouth in the beginning. So because this industry is so tightly knitted, so it's just the way it is for them.

他们一旦发现了好东西，就会马上告诉别人。这个行业最神奇的地方在于，正如你所能想象的那样，他们都非常擅长视频制作。我认为这些人中90%其实都是YouTubers。后来就发生了人们开始制作关于StageTimer的视频的事情。我们看到的这些视频都非常酷，而且都不是我们委托制作的。

As soon as they find something, they tell others. And the most amazing part about this industry is, as you can imagine, they are great with video. So I think 90% of these people are actually YouTubers. What happened that people started making videos about StageTimer. And then we have these really cool videos made about StageTimer that we didn't even commission.

仅仅是因为他们感到兴奋，想要分享给别人。所以时不时地，我们会收到用户发来的邮件说，哦，我刚刚看到某某提到了你们，然后他们就会附上一个视频链接，还提醒我一定要看。慢慢地，StageTimer在这个圈子里已经变成一个被大家经常提到的工具，甚至已经有点像一个品牌了。举个例子，前几天我看到这个领域的一位大创作者提到了StageTimer。实际上他正在使用StageTimer，然后他说他想做一个和计时器相关的功能。

It's just because they're excited and they want to share with other people. So every now and then we get an email from a user that said, oh, I just saw that so and so mentioned you and then they send the video with a minute already, you know, that I should watch. And it's becoming this this tool in the space where people even reference already as if it's like a a house brand. And and then, for example, the other day, saw that a big creator in the space, he mentioned StageTimer. Actually, he he was using StageTimer, and then he mentioned that he wanted to do something related to to a timer.

然后在YouTube直播的评论区里，有两个人说：是啊，你应该去看看，因为StageTimer其实已经可以实现这个功能了。那一刻对我来说非常震撼，就像：哇，他们竟然像提到耐克一样提到StageTimer。这就像这个领域的耐克一样。

And two people on the comments on the live on YouTube said, yeah. But you should check because stage timer actually allows you to do that. It was such a moment for me because, like, oh, look at that. They actually mentioned stage time as, like, Nike, you know? It's like the Nike of the space.

就是那种，你不需要再多说什么了，只要提到StageTimer就够了。看到它在这个行业里以这样的方式发展，真的非常酷。

It's just like, you don't have to say anything else. It's just stage time. That's really cool to see that is developing like this in the industry.

那太棒了。而且口碑传播，我认为是最好的营销方式之一，因为说到底，你的客户并不是在被强行推销。但它的缺点是相对缓慢。所以你有了第一个来自Reddit的客户，但在你的收入通过口碑传播增长的过程中，你当时在做什么呢？就像，卢卡斯，我知道一开始你在一家初创公司工作。

That's awesome. And word-of-mouth is I mean, it's I think it's the best type of marketing because it's, you know, your customers aren't being marketed at. The downside of it is that it's relatively slow. And so you had your first you had your first, Reddit customer, but what were you doing while your revenue grew by word-of-mouth? And like, Lucas, I I know that at first you were working at a start up.

莉兹，你当时在做什么？

Liz, what were you doing?

实际上，我是在他推出付费版本几个月之后才加入的。在此之前，我从事人道主义工作，也做过社会发展相关的事情。2021年9月我和卢卡斯一起工作后，我开始帮助他一起推动增长。卢卡斯做的一件非常聪明的事情，再次体现了他的工作方式，就是他把产品直接称为‘阶段计时器（Stage Timer）’。

So actually, I only joined a few months after he created the the paid version. Before, I was working in in humanitarian work, and I was working social development and so on. And when I joined Lucas in September 2021, I started helping him exactly to grow the two. One thing that Lucas did that was quite genius, and this again comes from the way he functions, is that he called the thing stage timer.

没错。

Right.

这就像是把钟叫做钟一样直白，对吧？因为他把产品叫做阶段计时器，所以搜索引擎优化（SEO）自然而然就生效了。当人们搜索阶段计时器时，我们很快就出现在搜索结果的第一页上，这都要归功于这个名字。

It's just like calling a clock a clock. Right? So because he called stage timer stage timer, SEO came by default. Right? So when people were stage timer, then you would show we we were already on the first page pretty fast because of that.

因此，SEO自然而然地成为了我们最大的增长渠道，可以说，口碑传播是第二大的增长渠道。当我们意识到SEO是我们的方向之后，我们就开始更有意识地进行SEO优化，并发现在这个技术性很强的行业中，最好的方法就是撰写技术博客，甚至文档更好。因为那些泛泛的、通常适用于其他项目的顶部漏斗式博客在这里并不适用。如果我写那些内容，反而会引来错误的流量。

So this was already SEO then became the the largest, actually. Word-of-mouth was the second largest growth channel, so to say. And then since we saw that SEO would be the way for us, then we started tackling SEO more intentionally and found out that the best way, because it's such a technical industry, is to just do technical blogs or documentation even better. Because these top of funnel silly blogs, you know, that usually you can do other projects doesn't work in this case. Because if I make those, we bring the wrong traffic.

这些访客不会转化，因为他们并不需要如此复杂的计时器，对吧？有趣的是，给我们带来最多付费客户的内容之一，竟然是一篇关于如何在OBS中使用倒计时计时器的技术文档。我们开始意识到，我们必须深入技术层面，尽管我们对这个行业的技术细节了解并不深入。但正是通过这种方式，我们开始不断增长，当然之后也引入了广告，并持续扩展以获得更多客户。

These are the people that won't convert because they don't need such a complex timer, right? So funnily enough, one of the things that brings us the most paying customers is a documentation about how to use a countdown timer with OBS. So we started to realize, okay, we have to go very technical, which is hard because we don't know the technicalities of the industry so well. But that's how we we then started growing, of course, then ads and we keep expanding to to get more and more customers.

再回过头来说一下。对吧？你问我现在都做些什么，我当时也处于同样的处境，可能很多人都跟我一样，心想，First Dollar（一个健康账户平台），我该做些什么呢？

So pathing back a little bit. Right? You asked, what what do you do with your time now? And I was in the same position, probably many people in the same position like, oh, First Dollar, what do you do? What do you do?

于是，像很多人一样，我去推特上提问，问如何为这个工具做营销？我该写什么内容？该发布哪些文章？完全没头绪。然后有人提了一个非常聪明的建议。

So as one does, I go on Twitter and I ask, how do I do marketing for this tool? What do I write? What articles do I publish? You know, no idea. And somebody said something like genius.

他说，有些产品非常简单。比如你卖一匹马，你就直接写‘卖马’就行了，就是直接说明产品是什么。我当时就想，对，我的产品也很简单，所以我开始写博客文章和类似文档的内容，直接告诉用户如何使用我的工具。

They said, you know, some products are so simple. Like, if you sell a horse, just say horse for sale. Like, just say what it is. And I'm like, yeah, I think mine is so simple. So I I just created blog posts or kind of documentation that says, here's how you use my tool.

嗯。第一步，这个步骤，那个步骤，点击这个按钮，做这件事，你知道的，这些是在目前为止我们点击率和转化率最高的文章类型。

Mhmm. First step, this step, this step, click this button, do this thing, you know, and and these are to date the the most kinda clicked and converting articles that we have.

对，对。我想我经营了一个爱彼迎（Airbnb），它有点类似，属于同一个类别。这可以说是我卖过最简单的东西了。我就是觉得，嘿。

Yeah. Yeah. I think I I run an Airbnb, and it's kind of in the same same, like, bucket. It's, like, the easiest thing I've ever sold. Like, I'm just like, hey.

我有个地方。你可以住在那里。每晚就这个价格，把它放到Airbnb上。结果就像，啊，我每个月轻轻松松就能赚5000美元。这比卖那些绝大多数极其复杂的科技产品要容易太多了，那些产品大家都热衷于做。

I got a place. You can sleep in it. It costs this much per night, here it is, put on Airbnb. And it's like, ah, I'm just making like $5,000 a month, like, instantly. And it's so much easier than selling like the vast majority of like, super complicated tech products that like, everybody's addicted to making.

比如你卖一个舞台计时器。就像你说的，你想给活动计时吗？看，这就是一个舞台计时器。你说你们在SEO方面做得很好。

Like, you sell a stage timer. It's like, You wanna time your events? Like, here it is. It's literally called stage timer. You said you're killing it at SEO.

我去谷歌搜了“stage timer”，你们是排名第一的结果，这已经

I googled stage timer and you guys are the number one result, which is

是个相当不错的位置了。这也是进入一个竞争不那么激烈的细分市场的好处之一，对吧？你真的可以做到这一点，比如说，拿到那个域名。

a pretty good place to be. That's also one of the benefits of moving into a niche that doesn't have a lot of competition. Right? You actually can get that, you know, for example, that domain name.

没错。我的意思是，反过来说，你去Ahrefs上看，查你的关键词，发现几乎没有任何流量。但那是因为几乎没人在竞争这个关键词，然后你开始做一些内容，你会发现，哦，好的，每天有一百、两百、三百人来访问，而且他们的购买意图非常高。对，这就足够了，没错。

Exactly. And, I mean, the flip side is you go on Ahrefs, you look for your keywords, and there's, like, zero traffic. But it's just like almost nobody's ranking for it, and then you kind of start doing content, and you realize, okay, there there are hundred, two hundred, 300 people coming, and they have really high purchasing intent. Yeah. So these are enough Yeah.

对我们来说。

For

所以你们一起工作是什么感觉？因为你们两个是夫妻，对吧？是的。

us. So what's it like working together? Because you two are you're married. Right? Yeah.

我和查宁（Channing）不是夫妻，但我们有亲属关系。有时候我们想掐死对方，但有时候合作得又特别好。我觉得，最老套的建议就是，别和朋友或家人一起做生意。但我们四个人都在做完全相反的事。你们两个看起来挺……你们都在笑。

Channing and I aren't married, but we're related. Sometimes we wanna kill each other, you know, sometimes works out really well. I think, like, the the most stereotypical advice is like, don't, you know, get into business with your friends and your family. We're all four of us are doing like literally the exact opposite. You two seem pretty You're both smiling.

你们就像是彼此互补的。你们还没把对方弄死，对吧？进展如何？

You're like, mutually complimentary. You haven't killed each other yet. How's it how's it going?

嗯，我想我可以多说一些，原因如下。卢卡斯在笑，是因为这样。前几天我甚至在推特上调侃说，和你的联合创始人结婚真的很棒，因为你们散步或者外出吃饭的时候也能开会。然后就有一个非常居高临下的男人对我说，是啊，等你们的粉红色眼镜掉了以后，你们就会明白的。

Well, I think I can say more about that because of the following. Lucas is laughing, it's because of the following. The other day I even made fun on Twitter and said, that is awesome, you know, being married to your co founder because you can have meetings as you go for a walk or or as you go out to eat. And then some very patronizing guy comes to me and says, like, yeah. Once the pink colored glasses, you know, fall, you're going to.

我当时就想，我们已经在一起十年了，结婚七年了，从第一天起就一起工作，因为我们是在做志愿者的时候认识的。

And I'm like, We had been together for ten years, married for seven, had worked together since the day one, because we met while volunteering.

所以

So

我们一见面就开始一起工作了，在人道主义援助领域一起做了很多项目。卢卡斯来到巴西，我们一起工作过。所以这并不是我们第一次合作。我认为这之所以如此顺利，正是因为我们在低风险的环境中已经检验过彼此的合作能力，我们早就知道我们能很好地一起工作。所以当卢卡斯邀请我加入StageTime的时候，我就觉得，嗯，这没问题。

as soon as we met, we started working together and we did a ton of projects together while we were working in humanitarian aid. Lucas came to Brazil, we worked together. So this is not our first thing. And I think it works so well exactly because of that, because we tested in the like low risk environments before, and we knew that we work well together. And then when Lucas invited me to just join StageTime, I was like, yeah.

这个合作是经过验证的。所以

This this is tried and and tested. So

我是说，我得好好算一算。对吧？毕竟最后是我邀请她的。我当时就在想，这是个明智的主意吗？这是个好主意吗？

I mean, I had to do a calculation. Right? Because I invited her eventually. And I was like, is it a wise idea? Is this a good idea?

你知道，这事儿没法回头。就像生孩子一样。和你老婆一起创业。所以我在想，当你看一个家庭的时候，大多数家庭，他们一开始各自有各自的工作，然后他们之间就没啥可聊的了，最后只能聊聊看的电视剧。

Like, you know, you can't step back from that. It's like having a kid. Yeah. Cofounder your wife. So I thought, you know, when when you look at families, most of them, they they kinda they build up the different jobs, and then they they lose the things that they talk about, and then they end up talking about the series that they watch.

然后他们有了孩子，就只能聊孩子。我当时觉得，如果我们一起工作的话，我们至少有一些共同的兴趣或话题，比如有一个共同的世界，我们可以用它来作为晚餐的谈资。事实证明，效果非常好。举个例子，我们有一个锻炼方式，就是一起出去散步，看到一些小生意，比如说一个老人在卖奶酪或者卖肉什么的。我们就想，如果我们是老板，我们会怎么振兴或者扩大这个生意？

And then they get kids and then talk about their kids. And we thought I thought, you know, if we do work together, we have some like, we have a common interest or common topic, so, like, a world that overlaps that we can use for dinner conversations. And it works great. Just an example, one exercise that we do when we walk we take a walk outside and and we we see businesses like, you know, an old, like, selling cheese or selling meat or something. And we think, how would we how would you revitalize or how would you grow this business?

对。

Yeah.

就是存在这样一个挑战。它让彼此都面临这个挑战。而且因为我们都在这个世界上，对方可以，嗯，好吧。我会这么做，会这么做。

There's just this challenge. It gives this challenge to each other. And because we're both in this world, the other one can, like, okay. I would do this. Would do this.

不，我会这么做。聪明点。

No. I would do this. Smart.

我甚至都不知道其他情侣都聊些什么，但我们就像……我们会谈论电视剧。好了，我们刚刚追完我们最喜欢的剧《继承之战》，我们一直都在谈论它。

I don't even know what other couples talk about, but we we are like, we do talk about series. Okay. We just finished our favorite series, a succession and we talk about it all the time.

太喜欢了。

Love it.

但事实是，因为我们有共同的兴趣来发展这项事业，我们有更多的话题可以聊，待在一起也更有趣。我们玩了一个游戏，已经玩了相当长一段时间了。这个游戏就是，我们四处看看，思考如果我们来经营，会如何改进，会如何应对。有时候我们看到一家企业失败了，就会想，我们本可以做些什么？或者我们如何能利用这个净资产效应？我们一直在玩这个游戏。

But the truth is that because we have the same interest to grow this one business, know, we have way more things to talk about it's more fun, you know, to be in each other's company. And this game that we do, we have been doing that for quite a while already. And this game of just looking around and seeing how we would improve, how we would because sometimes we see a business fail and then we're like, what could we have done? Or how could we actually take advantage of this net worth effect here? And we are all the time playing this game.

我也发现，这正是让我们关系更紧密的原因之一。因为我们还有副业项目“Stage Timer”，而这些点子通常都来自这些练习和对话。所以真的很酷。

And I see that this is also what makes us because we are we have side projects to stage timer and we we usually get these ideas from these exercises and these conversations. So it's pretty cool.

你刚才说的一点非常被低估了：不仅仅是你们两个人拥有十年的感情，你知道彼此一起生活是什么样子的，而是你们还专门一起做过志愿工作。所以我认为，当你谈到与朋友、家人一起工作时，有时会产生紧张关系，是因为你们与彼此的关系类型完全不同。说起来，就拿朋友来说吧，比如克兰顿、文森特·吴，他是我们播客的朋友，也是我们共同的朋友。他以前经营过一家叫 Coderpad 的公司，教别人如何编程，他还教了他的女朋友编程。据他说，我不确定我该不该分享这件事，但这最终成为他们关系中一个巨大的转折点。

One thing you said that's really underrated is it's not merely that both of you, you know, had a, you know, ten year relationship that you were you you knew what it was like to live together and to, you know, just be together. It's that you also started specifically, you did volunteering work together. And so I think that one of the things when it comes to like, you know, working with friends, working with family, and there being tension that sometimes arises is because you have totally different types of relationships with people. And so you might be like actually speaking of friends, Cortland, Vincent Wu, one of a friend of the pod and a and a friend of both of ours used to run this this company where he called Coderpad where he taught people how to code, and he taught his girlfriend how to code. And according to him, I don't know if I'm supposed to share this, but, like, that ended up being, like, this huge transition in their relationship.

他们最后并没有在一起。我曾经问他要建议，我说，嘿，我女朋友想学编程，我应该教她吗？你有什么建议给我吗？

They ended up not working out well. And I asked him for advice. I said, hey, my girlfriend wants to learn how to code. Should I teach her? Do you have any advice for me?

他看着我，直接说，别教。千万别这么做。

And he just looked at me across the table and was like, yeah, don't. Don't do it.

别教。

Don't do it.

你还是做了。而且，我当时特别说这是一次有用的对话，因为我说，嘿，Natalie，这是Vincent告诉我的。我们会给这件事设定一个三个月的时间窗口。然后我有点像，你知道的那样，设定了各种前提条件，但最后结果还不错。

You did it anyway. And and I and I what I specific that was a useful conversation because I was like, hey, Natalie, here's what Vincent told me. We're gonna put, like, a three month window on this. And I I kinda, like, you know, sort of created all of these caveats and ended up working out well.

我得说，另外一点是，并不是说我当时有工作，然后Lucas说服我成为一名创业者。我认为这是另一个部分。有时候我在推特上谈到和联合创始人结婚有多酷时，人们会问，哦，我怎样才能说服我女朋友？我认为这就有问题了。情况是一样的。

I gotta say the other thing also is that it's not like I was employed, you know, and then Lucas convinced me to become an entrepreneur. I think that's the other part. Sometimes when I tweet about, you know, how cool it is to be married to your cofounder, people say, oh, how can I convince my girlfriend? And I think this is the problem. It's the same.

我记得是Elon Musk最近在一次采访中被问到，当人们说，哦，你会给那些想鼓励别人成为创业者的人什么建议？他说，不，如果一个人需要被鼓励，那就不会成功。我认为问题就在这里。如果你需要说服你的伴侣去做这件事，那它就不会成功。

I think it was Elon Musk that drew on an interview, like recently, when people say, oh, what what would you say to to, like, incentivize to encourage a person to become an entrepreneur? And he was like, no. If you need encouragement, don't don't because this doesn't work. And I think it's the fault. You need to convince your partner to do it, then it doesn't work.

我有自己的生意。我来自巴西。所以以前我的生意都在巴西。所以我并不是突然心血来潮说，哦，试试看吧，然后我丈夫说服了我。

I have businesses of my own. I'm from Brazil. So my businesses were in Brazil in the past. So I'm not coming like, oh, let me give this a try. And my husband convinced me.

我认为这是另一个重要的点，我们之前就已经有过一起工作的经历。我们之前就已经各自和共同创办过一些项目。所以我们其实已经测试这种合作模式很久了，而且效果也不错。

And I think that's another important point here is just that we already had prior experiences working together. We already had started things of our own and together. So we have been testing this concept for quite a while and was was fine too.

我要在这里给一些肯定，因为当时我在一家初创公司工作，他们后来裁员了，停止了我正在做的项目。他们给了我几个月的额外补偿，让我去找新工作或者自己创业。而Liz就是那个鼓励我的人。她说，嘿，你现在有了一个完美的机会可以全职投入自己的工具开发。

And I'm gonna give this this credit here because I was working for a start up and they kind of rolled rolled out and, like, like, stop this project that I was working on. And they gave me a few months extra pay to to find a new job or fine. And Liz kinda was the one that encouraged me. Hey. You have this perfect opportunity now to go full time on your own tool.

没错，当时规模很小，我没赚多少钱，但我心想，你知道吗？我现在有几个月的收入保障，不如好好利用一下。

Right? It was very small. I didn't make a lot of money back then, but I thought, you know what? I have a few paid months now. Let let's use it.

那就干吧。如果没有她的鼓励，我可能就不会这么做，我们也就不会这样了。所以这是一个很好的例子。

Let's do it. And she was the one I without her encouragement, I might have not done it, and we might you know? So this is a good good case.

等你们有了很多孩子的时候，你们基本上就会像《继承之战》里的那个家庭一样，孩子们会为了你们的事业而争斗。

Long until you guys have a bunch of kids, and you're basically the family on succession, And you've got kids fighting for your empire. That

就是这个问题。我们经常谈到这个，挺有趣的。其实我以前一直不想要自己的孩子。所以我们必须讨论很多关于是否要自己生育的问题。我一直想领养，但我们一直推迟。正如我所说，我们照顾Meredith已经七年了，他总是说，嗯，我觉得两年后我们就能准备好要自己的孩子了。

that's the thing. We talk so much about that funnily enough. The things that I never wanted to to actually have kids of my own. So we we had to talk a lot about even, you know, having kids of our own, I always wanted to adopt and we keep postponing. So we having Meredith, as I said, for seven years, and he's always like, yeah, I think in two years we can have you.

我们本来应该开始认真谈了，你知道的。我们上周刚谈过，他们说，再等两年吧。我们一直在推迟。说实话，我们确实想把它当作一项事业来对待。我觉得对我们来说也不会有什么不同。

And we were supposed to to start, you know, like talking seriously now. And we just talked last week, they were like, let's give another two years. We keep postponing. We we do wanna approach it like a business, to be honest. I think it wouldn't be any different for us.

我真心希望我们不会接连生四个孩子，因为那样会让我们崩溃。

I really hope that we don't end up having four kids, like, in succession because that would break

我很喜欢那个节目。老实说，我就是喜欢这个节目，虽然有时候又不是那么喜欢。喜欢一个节目和模仿它是两件完全不同的事情。我觉得是的，我真的很喜欢和自己喜欢的人一起工作。

I love that show. Honestly, it's like I'm I don't I love the show, but I don't yeah. It is Loving the show and emulating it, two two wildly different things. I think Yeah. I I really love the idea of working with the people that you like.

比如说，我和我弟弟一起工作。我们妈妈总是在我们的电报群聊里说，你们两个人一起共事。我只是喜欢身边围绕着我在乎的人。你知道的，公司失败的最大原因之一就是联合创始人相处不好。

Like, I mean, I work with my brother. Our mom's always like in our our telegram chat chat with us. Two of you work together. I just like surrounding myself with the people that I care about, you know. And like, one of the biggest reasons that companies fail is because co founders don't get along.

对吧？他们之间不兼容，也不擅长解决问题。而你们两个，就像有经验一样。对，就像我和查宁就有过这样的练习。

Right? Like, they don't, they're not compatible, they're not good at problem resolution. Whereas like, just like the two of you guys had like, you had practice. Right? Channing and I had practice.

我们曾经吵了好几年，但最后都解决了。然后我们才发现，其实我们相处得还不错，不管发生什么，我们都不会因为钱而闹翻。我们会一直是兄弟。所以我看了《继承之战》，但还没看完。你们说你们看完了，而我还在慢慢看。

Like we fought for years and resolved everything. And we're like, oh actually, know, we get along pretty well, like no matter what happens, we're not gonna, like, break up over money. Like, we're gonna always be brothers. And so I watched Succession, I'm not as far as you. You guys said you finished the show, I'm like, I'm taking my sweet time.

我不想像你们那样看完，不想那么快就结束。但我看了整个家族的故事，他们非常不和睦，真的很糟糕，这简直就是一个关于坏人的节目。不过我也在想，如果我身边有这么一群人，他们不用我劝说就愿意加入我的事业，那该有多酷。因为他们都真心想参与我创造的这个很酷的项目。

I don't wanna be where you are. I don't wanna be, like, done. But I watched, like, this whole family, and it's, like, they're terribly dysfunctional, it's awful, like, it's it's really like a show about bad people. But also I'm like, oh, it would be so cool if I had like all these people around me who I I don't have to convince them to join my stuff. Like, they all want to be a part of the thing that I created because it's so badass.

我不想剧透剧情，但我认为等你看到后面，你会重新考虑这个想法的。

I I don't wanna spoil how it goes, but like, I think you're going to re rethink that once you get

去睡觉吧。

to bed.

比如，所有人都死了。我还没看到那部分。

Like, everybody dies. I haven't seen

那一集节目。Cortland，你说服我了。我觉得你，比如说，有不错的电视剧品味，所以我会去看看的。但我确定的一件事是，我想妈妈可能也没看过这个节目，但她应该会喜欢这个节目的理念。因为在你看这个节目之前，我一直觉得你肯定不想生孩子。但现在你也染上了这种，就像想拥有我自己的家族帝国的瘾

a single episode of that show. Cortland, you've convinced me. I think you've got I think you've got good, like, TV show taste, so I'll check it out. But one thing I do know is that I think probably mom hasn't seen it either, but she probably loves the idea of that show because until you watch that show, I was convinced that you never wanted to have kids. And now this this, like, bug of I just wanna run my own family empire

已经成为了最糟糕的理由

has been And worst thing to have

都是因为那个节目。比如，你多次提到了这些理由。

you because of that show. Like, you brought up All the reasons multiple times.

在最不应当生孩子的十大理由中，它简直就像是被写在了第11位。就在列表的最底部，全新的理由就是我看完了《继承之战》，而且觉得它很棒。所以我觉得你还有一个特质，或者另一个属性，我觉得和《继承之战》中的那个家庭很像，那就是你的那种赤裸裸的野心。所以我想Channing之前，读到了你早些时候发的一些推文。但我想读一读，比如，我想读一读你写的实际推文，更详细一些，因为这让我几乎想直接读完你整个Twitter帖子，然后我们再来好好聊聊这件事。

Out of, the 10 worst reasons to have kids, it's like, we've it was just, like, written in number 11. The bottom of the list, the whole new I watched Succession, and it looked it was great. So I think you have another property that I think or another attribute that I think is similar to, like, the family from Succession, which is, like, just your raw ambition. So we are I think Channing was, like, reading parts of your tweet earlier. But I wanna read, like, I wanna read, like, actual tweets that you wrote, like, in more detail, because it's it's I almost wanna just read, like, your whole Twitter thread, and then, like, talk about this whole thing.

所以你说过，我要变得富有，这就是我的方法。别误会，我现在还没富。你是在去年三月发的这条推文，大约是一年前。

So you said, I'm gonna get rich, and this is how I'm gonna do it. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not rich yet. And you tweeted this last March. It was about a year ago.

所以我完成了我的计算机科学学位。我做了一份软件开发的工作，就像我父母期望的那样。每天我拿着8万美元年薪的初创公司工作。但上个月我被裁员了。因此，我开始寻找新的工作。

So I did my CS degree. I worked as a software developer just like my parents expected. Every day I worked for my 80 k a year start up job. Then last month I was laid off. And because of that, I started looking for another job.

但我不想再找一份工作了。给别人打工让我感到痛苦，所以我取消了所有的面试。你经常谈论你的财务状况，对吧？比如，你银行里也没有太多存款。

But I don't wanna have another job. Working for someone else makes me miserable, so I canceled my interviews. And you're usually talking about your finances. Right? Like you don't have a ton of money in the bank.

对吧？这还不足以让你变得富有。他说，但我一定会变得富有。第一个方法就是不再把自己的时间换成金钱。我要自己打造一个产品。

Right? It's not enough to make you rich. He said, but I'm gonna become rich. And the first one is stop selling my time for money. I'm gonna bootstrap a product.

我要解决自己的问题。一开始我会赚点小钱，我会做一些自由职业，但只是偶尔。这样我才有足够的精力去改进我的产品。虽然有更快更赚钱的方法，但我不会选择那条路。

I'm gonna scratch my own itch. And I'll make a little money at first, I'll do some freelancing, but only some. So I have enough energy to improve my product. There are better ways to make more money more quickly. But I'm not gonna do this way.

这个产品会教会我如何经营一家公司、如何打造一个产品，以及如何做市场营销。这是一场长期的游戏，我要学会它的规则。两年后，当我靠这个产品赚到足够生活的钱时，我就会停止自由职业。我现在生活很简朴，没有车，没有任何奢华开销。所以我想你们俩现在也是生活得很简朴吧。

This product will teach me about how to run a company, how to build a product, and how to do marketing. It's a long term game, and I'm gonna learn the rules. After two years making enough money to get by, because of that I'll stop freelancing. I'm living cheap, no car, no frills. So I guess the two of you are living cheap.

然后我会开始创办我的第二家公司。我会寻找一个有潜力的市场，我会思考分销渠道，我会解决别人的痛点——我们之前讨论过，你要解决的是别人的痛点，而不是自己的。我会去做一个创始人该做的事，打造一个可以上市的产品。我可以创办更有利可图的企业，但我不在乎。

And then I'm gonna start my second company. I'll look for a good market, I'll think about distribution, I'll scratch somebody else's itch, which we talked about, you're scratching somebody else's itch, not your own. And I'll do the thing that a founder is supposed to do, I'll build a marketable product. There are more lucrative businesses I could build. I don't care.

我想学习如何管理员工、风险投资的钱是怎么运作的，以及如何退出。我会把这家公司做到年营收一千万美元。这很有野心。一旦我找到了稳定增长的方法，我就会接受风投资金。我会雇用那些会继续招人的人。

I wanna learn how to manage people, how VC money works, and how to exit. I'm gonna grow this business to $10,000,000 a year. So that's ambitious. I'll take the VC money once I find a way to grow reliably. I'll hire people who hire people.

直到我最终完成一次大的退出，那时我就有钱了。My First Million 的 Sean 和 Sam 会邀请我去他们的播客。生活很美好。然后就像 Channing 早些时候提到的那样，我会经历中年危机：我到底在做什么？

Until I finally have a big exit, I'm now rich. Sean and Sam from My First Million will invite me to the pod. Life is great. Then as Channing mentioned earlier, I have a midlife crisis. What am I even doing?

我已经实现了财富目标，正在过着理想的生活，父母的退休也没有后顾之忧，那接下来该做什么呢？然后我想起来了。现在我有了财务自由，有了经验，也有了存款。是时候迈出最后一步，创办我的公司了。我认为这就是你 Twitter 简介里提到的第三座山峰，那个像登月计划一样的目标。

I've reached my money goals, I'm living the life, my parents retirement insecure, what's next? Then I remember. Now I have financial freedom, I have experience, I have a bank account. It's time for the final step to build my company. And I think this is the third mountain in your Twitter profile, the one that's like the moonshot.

一家让我感到兴奋的公司，我自己的 SpaceX。这家公司将会打造一个我认为应该存在，但没人愿意去建造或投资的产品。比如3D食物打印机、大气碳清除装置、光合作用加密货币矿机，到那时我才真正变得富有。别误会，我对财富本身并不感兴趣，我只是无法为别人打工了。新的挑战会让我每天早上起床。

A company I'm excited about, my own SpaceX. This company will build a product I think should exist, but nobody's willing to build or invest into. The three d food printer, the atmospheric carbon scrubber, the photosynthesis crypto miner, then I am really truly wealthy. Don't get me wrong, I don't care for riches, I just can't work for somebody else. New challenges will get me out of bed in the morning.

赚钱只是一个副产品。如果你想看我成功或失败，就关注我吧。我很喜欢这句话。这是我在节目中读到的最酷的一条推文。每一部分都既有趣又富有洞见。

Getting rich is just a side effect. Follow me if you wanna see me succeed or fail. I love that. That's like the most badass tweet I read out loud on the show. Every single part of it is hilarious, fun, insightful.

而你某种程度上已经在做了。我的意思是，你已经走在路上了。你觉得 StageTime 是那个能让你年入一千万美元的产品吗？

And you're kinda doing it. I mean, you're, like, on the path. Like, you're on do you think Stage timer is the one that gets you to $10,000,000 a year?

不是。我认为一百万美元是可能的，而且我已经在筹划下一个项目了。现在有了人工智能，整个领域都扩展了，比如我们是否应该加入 AI？这可能有潜力。但我依然相信我们目前所了解的行业，并且我相信我能在这一领域打造一个能赚这么多钱的产品。

No. 1,000,000 is I think 1,000,000 is possible, and and I have I have the next one in in the works. I mean, now with AI, there's a whole the whole form more, like, oh, should we do AI? Could be have potential. But I also believe in the industry that we know now, and I believe I can we can build a product in this industry that makes that kind of money.

你要怎么让 StageTime 达到一百万美元的营收？目前你每月的收入略高于 8000 美元。我认为一百万美元是每个独立黑客都知道的那个神奇数字，也就是每月 83,333 美元。那才是一百万。

How do you get StageTime to a million? Right now, you're at, you know, a little over 8 k a month. I think a million is like, you know, the magic number every indie hacker knows. $83,333 a month. That's a million.

所以基本上你需要增长 10 倍，这并不离谱，也不疯狂，对吧？这是一个现实的目标，只是一个数量级的提升。你有实现这个目标的计划吗？

So basically, you need 10 x, which is not unreal not not not crazy. Right? That's a realistic goal. One order of magnitude. You got a plan to get there?

所以这个月，我们在 Google 表格里做了一个预测。当我们说，好吧，每月的增长率大概是多少？然后我们把这些增长率应用到未来。而这个月我们基本上达到了目标，差不多差了 50 美元左右。

So this month, we have a we have a a projection in our in our Google Sheet. And we when we say, okay. What what was kind of the growth rates per month? And we apply them into the future. And we basically hit the mark this month by, like, by, like, $50.

继续不断达成甚至超过目标。因此，目前我们的增长相当可预测。所以，实际上，我们不会偏离这个状态太远。

Keep hitting and actually passing the the mark. And so we have a quite predictable growth right now. So, yeah, we shouldn't be too far from that, actually.

当然，当你做月度经常性收入（MRR）的时候，总会遇到一个天花板，对吧？你有客户流失率，而最终，因为流失率是针对你所有客户的，最终你的客户流失会抵消新增客户，增长就会趋于平稳。因此我们在思考，我们能做些什么？其中一个方法就是转向附加功能，比如企业级产品，对吧？

So, yeah, there there is, of course, there is a a ceiling when you do MRR, right? There is, like, you have your churn rate, and eventually, because the churn rate applies on the entirety of of your customers, eventually your churn rate will cancel out your new customers and your and your level off. So we thought, what what can we do? And one approach we will take is is go into, like, kind of add on, an enterprise style. Right?

所以不只是你自己使用这个产品，而是你说，好吧，你想和你的团队一起用，那就推出一个企业计划。

So instead of you just having it for yourself, you say, okay, you you wanna share with your team, so so make an enterprise plan

或者

or

做一个团队计划，从一个用户身上获取比廉价版本更多的价值，而不是不断获取更多客户，而是从单个客户那里赚取更多收入。就是这样。

do, like, a team plan, kind of get more from one person than than having than having a cheap one and trying to get more and more customers, get more money from one customer. This is kinda yeah.

是的，我们已经有一些企业级交易了，但之前也有一些交易失败了，因为我们还没有准备好所有的法律文件。这就是为什么我们再给自己几个月的时间，完成一些其他重要的功能和事项，然后我们真正想在业务的这个方向上发力，从而可以达成更多的企业级交易。这将是另一个发展方向。

Yeah. We we have a few enterprise deals already, but we had already deals falling through because we don't have all the legal stuff So is that's why we are just giving a few more months for us to finish some other features and some other things that are important And the then we want to actually work on that side of the business so I can do more enterprise deals. So that would be another way also.

刚才是一段比较严肃的讨论。现在我们回到这条推文。从一开始我就一直说，这将会是一场游戏。就像每款游戏一样，比如大富翁，你必须学习规则，有概率机制。

So that was a serious talk. Now let's go back to this tweet. From the very beginning, I always said this is gonna be a game. Like like every game, monopoly, you have to learn the rules. There's probabilities.

有一些像地基一样的街道，对吧？一旦你掌握了规则，你就会比别人更优秀。生活也是如此，生活也有很多规则。

There's, like, bedrock streets. There's that's right? Once you learn once you hack the rules, you'd be objectively better than others. And life is the same. Life has a lot of rules.

它们很难学，但你可以学会。所以我说，我想学习商业的规则。一个 SaaS 业务是如何运作的？一个以服务优先的在线业务是如何运作的？这就是我们正在通过 Stage Timers 所做的事情。有时候我们只是把一些想法扔到墙上，看看能不能粘住。嗯哼。

They're very hard to learn, but you can learn them. So I say, I wanna learn the rules of business. How does a SaaS business, how does a does a online business with prioritized service work? And that's what we are doing with stage timers. So sometimes we just throw a bit of spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks Mhmm.

涉及营销啊，还有这样那样的事情。而且我觉得这本身就是其中的一部分。比如说，好的，我们已经做过自助服务了。现在我们来试试企业级市场。

With marketing and this and that. And and I think this is kind of part of it. Say, okay. We have done, you know, like, self-service. Now let's try enterprise.

我们不知道它是否有效。可能会失败，也可能结果很糟糕。

We don't know if it works. It could fail. It could be terrible.

只有一种办法能知道结果。

There's only one way to find out.

只有一种办法能知道结果，而这将教会我们很多关于下一个产品的知识。

One way to find out will teach us a lot about our next product.

是的。我们非常热衷于尝试各种方法，并看看我们能把它们发展到什么程度。对我来说，现在的情况就是这样。我们一直在做的所有事情，所有的副业项目，所有的一切，都只是为了测试一些想法，看看我们能做成什么，你知道的，看看能取得什么成果，能把一件事做到多远。所以我最近启动了一个副业项目，我告诉卢卡斯，我想专攻社交媒体营销。

Yeah. The thing that we are very big into trying stuff and and just seeing how far we can we can grow it. So for me right now, it's like that. Everything we have been doing, all the side projects, everything is just to test a bunch of things and see what can we do, you know, what can be accomplished, how far can we go with something. So I recently started a side project and I told Lucas, I wanna hack, social media marketing.

就是，我就是想了解并实践它，把它做到极致，这样我就能随心所欲地做任何事情。于是我启动了这个副业项目，并发展了我的D2C品牌Instagram账号。我开了一家D2C公司，然后在不到六个月的时间里，我的Instagram账号从零粉丝增长到了6000粉丝。然后我就想，你看，我确实能做到。我现在要开始深入研究这个方向了。所以……

Like, I I just wanna know and do it, like, so well that I can do whatever So I I started this side project and I grew my D2C Instagram account. I started a D2C business, and then I grew my Instagram account from zero followers to 6,000 in less than six months. And then I was like, you see, I can do it. I'm going to now go and explore this thing. So

我得说，她的账号没有任何真人照片。是的。而且我从来没有展示过我的品牌账号的个人形象，只是一个品牌logo。

I we have to say, there's no pictures of her. Yeah. And I never showed my Brand account is a brand logo.

是的。我从来没有露过脸，也没有在镜头前跳过舞，或者做类似的事情。这确实就是我们的工作方式，你知道的，这就是我们的运作方式。我们尝试各种事情，只是因为我们喜欢把事情做到极致。

Yeah. I never I never showed my face. I never danced in front of the camera, nothing like this. And it's it's really this is how we we work, you know, that's how we function. We try things just because we we like to excel at things.

我们喜欢把事情做到极限。是的，这肯定就是我们打算对StageTimer做的事情，从一开始就是这样。嗯，不是一开始一开始，最开始的时候我们甚至没想过这个项目会有什么成果。但是一旦我们意识到它可能有前景的时候，我们就说，好吧，我们只想通过StageTimer过上舒适的生活，这样我们就可以去追求其他感兴趣的事情，尝试其他项目。所以我们现在已经在这样做了，因为它已经可以负担我们的生活开支，甚至支付了过去六个月我们的公路旅行费用。

We we like to push as far as it can get, you know. So that's certainly what we are going to do with stage timer, but it was from the beginning. Well, not the beginning, the beginning, beginning, we didn't even think that this would go anywhere. But as soon as we noticed that this could go somewhere, we said, okay, we just want to make a comfortable living with StageTimer, So it allows us to pursue other interests and things that we want to try. So this is what we are doing already because it pays for our life, even paid for our road trip these past six months.

现在它已经可以负担我们的生活方式了，我们就可以去尝试其他事情。卢卡已经和你的朋友一起开始了一个新项目，而我也有其他的副业项目在做。所以我们一直在不断突破极限，尝试看看能把事情做到多远。

And and now that it pays for our lifestyle, we can try other stuff. So Luca is already starting a new business with your friends, and I I have this this other side project and so on. So we are constantly pushing the limits, trying to see how far can we go with things.

卢卡斯，我看到你发了一条推文，说我们总是美化单打独斗的创业生活。对吧？每个刚开始创业的人都会觉得，伙计，我只想过那种只有我和我的电脑、我的事业在一起的生活，每一天都会是我生命中最棒的一天。但你说，其实大多数时候，都是悄无声息的。对吧？

Lucas, I saw you made a tweet where you're like, look, we glorify the solopreneur life. Right? Everyone who's getting started, they're like, man, I I just wanna live that dream where it's just me and my computer and my business, and every day is just gonna be the best day of my life. And you're like, well, but, you know, most days are crickets. Right?

大多数时候，如果你做了一些不错的事情，也没有人会拍拍你的背鼓励你。你没有一个庞大的团队。你是在沉默中工作的。你刚才提到的做法，几乎就像是对这种状况的一种回应，就像是解决这个问题的一种方法。

Most days, if you if you do something good, there's no one to pat you on the back. You don't have this big team. You're working in silence. And it's funny what you just mentioned is almost like a a reaction to that. It's like a way to solve that problem.

这几乎就像是你找到了一些方法，把它变成一场游戏。我几乎可以把它称为“游戏化设计”，比如你总是在寻找新的东西去学习，或者寻找新的技能去掌握，然后再联系到鲁珀特·默多克。我还没看过《继承之战》，但我确实推荐一本类似传记的书，叫做《默多克方法》。这是他的其中一位共事了二十年的顾问或咨询师写的，他与默多克保持了一定的距离，因此不需要征求许可，就可以把他所知道的一切都写下来。

It's almost like you find ways to turn it into a game. I almost call it gameful design where, like, you're you're you're always finding something new to learn or you're finding something something new to master and then to bring it back to Rupert Murdoch. So I haven't watched Succession. I haven't seen that show, but I do have a a book, kinda like a biography I recommend that it's called the Murdoch method. Like, his one of his, you know, twenty year long advisers or consultants kept enough of a distance relationship with him that he didn't have to ask permission to, like, write down everything that he know that he knew.

他对鲁珀特·默多克的评价之一是，他之所以能登上第三座大山——成为拥有庞大媒体帝国的巨富，就是因为他真的非常热爱他所做的事。首先，他极具竞争意识。据说他多年来一直紧盯《华尔街日报》，他想要得到《纽约邮报》。他当时的想法就是，我要打败《纽约时报》。

And one of the things that he says about Rupert Murdoch is, like, the way that he's reached that third mountain of being this massive billionaire with this, you know, this huge media empire is that he just fucking loves what he does. He's you know, it's like, number one, he's super competitive. They said that he stalked the Wall Street Journal for many years. He wanted the New York Post. So he was like, I I wanna, you know, beat the New York Times.

对他来说，这本身就是一场游戏。他还非常、非常好奇。他的一位朋友说，你永远不可能和他聊同样的主题，而这正是经营新闻帝国的关键。所以我认为，一个有趣的矛盾之处在于，如果你想做一件事，并且能够长期坚持下去，能够攀登一座巨大的山峰，你几乎必须不是为了到达山顶而去做这件事。

And that was a game in and of itself to him. He's also just really, really curious. One of his friends is like, no. He just knows, you know, you'll never ever get the same topic with him, and that's key to running a news empire. And so I think that the sort of funny catch 22 is that if you want to do something where it's a, like, sustained run and you're gonna, you know, you're gonna climb this huge mountain, it almost has to be the case that you're not doing it so that you can get to the top of the mountain.

你之所以做这件事，是因为你真的非常热爱那些奇怪的小岔路、实验和你所掌握的小细节。

You're doing it you like, to get there, you have to just really, really love, like, these weird, you know, turn offs and, you know, sort of experiments and small things that you master.

第一步是这样。第二步是你必须完全不为你的继任者做接班计划，然后鼓励你的孩子们为了成为你的继任者而互相争斗、竞争

That's step one. And then step two is you have to have absolutely no succession planning for who your successor's gonna be, and then encourage your children to fight and compete with

彼此竞争成为你的继任者。没错。

each other to be your successor. Yes.

是的。这正是鲁珀特·默多克所做的，你知道还有谁也这么做了吗？成吉思汗，以及一群其他人

Yeah. Which is exactly what Rupert Murdoch has done, And you know who also did that, Genghis Khan and like a whole group

的

of

历史上其他疯狂的人。我不知道为什么这如此常见。我不知道人们为什么这么做。

other crazy people throughout history. I don't know why that's so common. I don't know why people do that.

这一点在很多发明家身上都存在，比如爱迪生。如果你读过关于他的传记，你会发现他非常热爱发明。他就喜欢睡在自己的工作室里，几乎从不在家。他的妻子因此很讨厌他，但他就是热爱发明。我现在正在读一本关于达·芬奇的书，莱昂纳多的

And this is true for many like inventors if you like Edison, if you read a baronager of him, he he loves inventing. He just he he sleeps in in his workshop. He's like, he's never at home. His wife hates him for that, but he just he loves inventing. And I'm I'm reading right now a book about da Vinci, Leonardo

达·芬奇。

da Vinci.

他总是喜欢去探索一些事情，比如，人体是如何运作的？衣服是怎么流动的？画作是怎么创作的？一旦他搞清楚了某个问题，他就不想把它完成

Just finding out things, like, does a human body work? How, like, how does clothes flow? How do you paint something? And he he so far, he once he figured something out, he doesn't wanna finish

他的画作。

his painting.

达·芬奇留下了很多未完成的作品，因为一旦他找到了方法，一旦他搞清楚了一幅画该怎么画，他就觉得无聊了，他想去做

There's so many unfinished of Leonardo da Vinci because it's just as soon as he find out the method, as soon as he figured out a painting, he's like it gets it gets boring, and he wants to do the

最初的安迪·哈克也是一直在启动新项目，但从不发布它们。

original Andy Hacker just kept starting side projects and then never never launching them.

你提到这一点了，丽兹，他没能说服你，你也无法说服别人去做这样的事情。我对此也很感兴趣，我现在也在读伊萨克森·沃尔特·伊萨克森写的达·芬奇传记，对吧？所以我也在读那本书。当你看到那些被人们认为伟大的人物时，你会发现这真的很有趣。

You mentioned that, Liz, he didn't convince you and you can't convince someone to do something like this. And I'm I'm interestingly, I'm also it's the Isaacson Walter Isaacson biography of of Da Vinci. Right? So I'm I'm reading that too. And it's so funny when you look at these pretty much anyone who's done things that people consider them great for.

从他们与工作的关系来看，我把人分成三类：按比例来说，有一成十成的，有八成二成的，还有五成五成的。五成五成的意思是，哦，我们到时候看心情再说。八成二成就是所谓的帕累托法则，意思是，啊，好吧，你知道，我怎么才能更高效？

I put people into three buckets in terms of, like, their relationship to their work. You have and it's by numbers that you have you have the one tens, the 80 twenties, and the 50 fifties. 5050 is like, oh, we'll see how I feel about this thing. 8020 is the Pareto principle. It's like, ah, well, you know, how do I be efficient?

我的投资回报率是多少？我如何用20%的努力完成80%的工作？但所有这些其他的人，比如默多克家族，比如达·芬奇，还有你所知道的几乎所有做出伟大成就的人，他们都是百分之一百一十的人。关于达·芬奇有趣的一点是，他会画风景画，还会去了解某种特定的鸟。

What's my ROI? How do I do the 20% of the work that can get the 80% out? But all these other people, the Murdochs, you know, the the Da Vinci's, pretty much anyone that you know who who's doing something great, they're the one hundred and ten percents. Right? The funny thing about Da Vinci is he'd paint landscapes and he would, you know, sort of go and learn about a certain bird.

而且他总是会亲自前往实地。当他们有地图集和图片的时候，他就会像横跨全国那样去参观这些东西。他有一种方法可以研究它们。当有人质疑他的时候，他们通常会问，你为什么不直接看看百科全书呢？为什么不直接读一下相关内容呢？而他的回答是，当你可以亲自去看真实的东西时，永远不要只读百科全书。

And he would always travel to the location. He would, like, go cross country and go visit the thing when they had, like, atlases and they had images. Like, there's a way that he could study it. And he very specifically, when someone questioned him, were they like, why don't you just look at the, you know, why don't you just read the, you know, the encyclopedia on the thing? And he's like, you should never read an encyclopedia when you can go and see the thing in real life.

对吧？而且几乎可以肯定的是，这种方式效率非常低。比如投资回报率，就像Cortland刚才提到的，他有很多浪费掉的图片，但他就是全身心投入其中。

Right? And almost certainly, that's highly inefficient. Right? Like the the return on investment, like Cortland just mentioned, he had tons of, like, wasted images, but, like, he was all in.

我们其实非常欣赏这种心态。我认为这就是一种好奇心。你知道，我们一直努力效仿的品质之一就是保持好奇心。当我读到那些我现在非常钦佩的人的生活故事时，他们总是充满好奇心的人，他们从不停止提问，而我们也一直努力让自己越来越像他们那样。

We we actually appreciate a lot this this kind of mentality. And I think it's this curiosity. You know, one thing that we always try to emulate is is being curious. When I read about the people that now I I admire after reading about their lives and so on, it's always these very curious people. They never stop asking questions, and and we have been trying to to really become more and more like this.

你们两个看起来天生就充满好奇心。你们看起来对事物有天然的兴趣。你们似乎天生就对成为企业家感到非常兴奋。你们在启动副项目，也在发展自己的主业。

You two seem naturally curious. You seem naturally interested. You seem naturally really excited to be entrepreneurs. You're launching side projects. You're growing your normal thing.

希望到时候你们能再回来做客，当你们实现年收入一百万美元的目标时，当你们达到一千万、一亿美元收入时，当你们拥有自己的SpaceX时，当你们成为真正成功的企业家时，我就在这里支持你们。

Hopefully, we'll have you two back on when you've, you know, you hit your million dollar a year goal. When you hit 10,000,000, you hit a 100,000,000, and then when you got your own SpaceX. When you get two believers right here, I

我相信你们一定会成功的。

think you're gonna get there.

你们可以告诉听众，他们可以去哪里了解更多关于你们正在做的StageTimer以及其他项目的信息吗？

Can you tell listeners where they can go to find out more about what you're up to with StageTimer and your other projects as well?

我认为最好的方式是在Twitter上关注我们。

So I think the best way is to follow us on Twitter.

对，来Twitter上找我们吧，账号是@underscore_l_herman_one_r_two_n。这个名字很糟糕，但在节目备注出来之前你们能找到。

Yeah. Go go come on Twitter. At underscore l herman one r two n. Terrible name. But you'll find it before we put in the show notes.

是的，我想我的账号是@Liz_m_herman。

Yeah. And I think I am at Liz m herman also.

太棒了。再次感谢，伙计们。

Perfect. Thanks again, guys.