Sean's trip got ruined by dev work, and Andrew is getting traction with a new product

Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

Sean just got back from two weeks in Korea and Japan. His trip got derailed when he had to jump in to put out fires and finish some Webflow dev work for a client. He and Andrew talk about the challenges of removing yourself from the day-to-day as an agency owner and how to balance work and time off.

Andrew gives an update on the client work he's doing with Miscreants, his decision to put ChartJuice on the backburner, and the traction he's seeing with a new product (MetaMonster) he's working on with a partner. MetaMonster helps SEO agencies automate metadata cleanup using AI. He already has 3 agencies/consultants signed on to be design partners and is working on getting more.
We wrap up with an outsider's explanation of all the Wordpress drama going on right now.

Links:

• Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins
• Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/
• MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/
• ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/
• Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun
• Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/
• StackWise: Coming soon...
• FigTree: Coming soon...

For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

Transcript:
00:00:01.77

Sean

What's up? I wanna go see.

00:00:03.30

Andrew

Miss you.

00:00:04.17

Sean

I wanna see you too. I wanna see you too.

00:00:05.85

Andrew

How are you?

00:00:06.85

Sean

Good. I feel like I saw you in person and then all of a sudden I was in Korea and Japan and then I...

00:00:13.69

Andrew

Yeah, shit. That was like not, not far apart, was it?

00:00:14.59

Sean

So... It wasn't... My last memory of the US was being at your place and drinking cocktails. So, yeah.

00:00:26.00

Andrew

That's a good night.

00:00:26.91

Sean

It was a good night. It was a good night. We played basketball.

00:00:30.25

Andrew

but that was Oh my God.

00:00:32.10

Sean

Play is a strong word. We attempted basketball.

00:00:35.25

Andrew

We threw basketballs around in the dark and like one or two of them went into a basket.

00:00:40.26

Sean

Yeah.

00:00:40.26

Andrew

Oh my God. You made me feel a lot better though. Cause I was like, I was like, Sean's going to smoke me. Like he's going to be so embarrassed at how bad at basketball I am and you are just as bad as I am.

00:00:51.77

Andrew

So I was like, okay, cool.

00:00:56.81

Sean

Yeah. I think about like how like my first million has that basketball camp. Just like there's no way all these people are that good at basketball.

00:01:08.14

Andrew

I love the image of like Sean Burry is just like, you know, making people like, uh, like bring over a step stool or something so he can dunk. He's like, but then he he goes on my first million and talks about it and he's like, yeah, it was awesome.

00:01:17.33

Sean

Yeah.

00:01:23.65

Sean

Yeah, I hit every sh- I hit- I banked every shot.

00:01:26.87

Andrew

No, I think like there are a lot of people in tech who are actually athletic because they played sports at some point in their life.

00:01:35.34

Sean

Yeah, probably.

00:01:35.70

Andrew

And then, and then there's the rest of us who got into tech because we were nerds and liked computers.

00:01:42.01

Sean

Yeah. Oh. Plus, I mean, you rock climb. Like, you're pretty athletic.

00:01:47.12

Andrew

I haven't been rock climbing in like two months.

00:01:47.27

Sean

You- you just suck the best at work.

00:01:51.37

Sean

Oh.

00:01:51.95

Andrew

I am actually going rock climbing outside in with some friends in two weeks, and I'm like, I should probably go climb a wall in the gym before I go, because I haven't climbed in like two or three months, so.

00:01:51.93

Sean

Okay.

00:01:55.81

Sean

Oh, cool.

00:02:00.09

Sean

Yeah.

00:02:02.82

Sean

and Get those forearm muscles pumping again.

00:02:05.99

Andrew

I gotta get my skin. My skin's gonna.

00:02:07.90

Sean

Right.

00:02:09.20

Andrew

like be shredded if I if I don't climb at all and then go try to climb outside so I feel like it takes me like two or three climbs before my skin starts to thicken up again

00:02:19.51

Sean

you know what you can do there's this guy on tiktok he pours i don't know what it is but something really sticky on his hands so he like is like a martial artist or something and it's like it's like epoxy or something and he basically just rubs it on his hand and or like sand papers down his hand basically and until it gets super super rough he just does it every single day on tiktok it's gross.

00:02:40.15

Sean

It's terrible. And you can like, oh, oh, it's, uh, it's like floor wax.

00:02:43.18

Andrew

And so then it like grows back thicker or something?

00:02:45.40

Sean

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like floor wax basically.

00:02:47.63

Andrew

Wait, wait, wait. We were talking about the wrong thing. How was your fucking trip?

00:02:48.09

Sean

he just like, and he also puts his hand next to the microphone and it's like the worst version of ASMR you've ever heard in your life. It's like worst at misophonia. Um.

00:02:57.48

Andrew

wait wait wait we're talking about the wrong thing how was your fucking trip

00:03:03.02

Sean

Well, much like listening to really shit awful man hands. It was. It was good to attempt a vacation.

00:03:17.29

Andrew

Oh, no.

00:03:18.12

Sean

It was not it is it is not what I would call a vacation.

00:03:18.68

Andrew

Oh, no, Sean.

00:03:23.61

Sean

It sucked. It sucked to be honest with you. It was like it.

00:03:26.96

Andrew

Brutal.

00:03:26.33

Sean

Yeah, yeah, y...