Software Development and Entrepreneurship With BrandGhost

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Hey folks, I figured I'd do a quicker video on Brand Ghost and where things are at. So, if you're new to the channel or you don't know what Brand Ghost is, Brand Ghost is something I build on the side of work and it powers like all of my content creation. And so, just a brief background on that. Um, when I started getting more serious about content creation after a 10-year break, the uh the thing that I I told myself was like I it it needs to be systemized in order for me to be able to uh to create content uh in a way and distribute it the way that I want to. Uh otherwise, I'll I'll burn out and not enjoy it and then it sucks. So doing something like code commute when I film these videos is awesome for me because I can just turn on the camera, film content and uh and focus on the part that I want to focus on which is the content.

I don't I don't want to spend time on literally any other part of it. And so um I mean the the thing that ultimately needs to happen otherwise is like uh engaging with people, right? And that's the part that I want to do as a, you know, as an individual, I want to be able to do that. But if I'm feeling burnt out or whatever, I can not go respond to comments. I can not do that stuff and still feel okay because the content will continue to flow. So, Brand Ghost is the system I build that allows me to do that. And uh we we've been selling it on the side uh for a little bit now. And uh it's been challenging, right?

And it's been challenging because uh well actually I can't say I know exactly why it's been challenging but I think it's a combination of uh sort of technical founders uh really wanting like we we we think in engineering speak we we think about features that kind of stuff and uh I think the target audience we've been chasing is people like me right it's like you're a you're a content creator in particular we were focusing more on tech content creators and it's Like if you if you have a problem in this space like this is literally how I've been solving it for myself and if you want evidence of it working like just you know you can see the the amount of content I put out the uh sort of the cadence of it the volume and quality is TBD because that comes down to the creator of course but the cool thing is over time like if you were to go look at my earlier your content versus now.

Like the the quality only goes up and it only goes up because I have more time to make better content. So, I've been able to grow and scale and distribute uh because Brand Ghost does that part for me and I focus on content. So, we've been, you know, hitting roadblocks with this where we go to explain the value prop to people. Some people get it right away and they're like, "Wow, cool. Makes sense, but like unfortunately, you know, as a content creator, I'm not even making money." So, like, it seems really cool. Seems like I would love to use it, but like I I can't even afford to pay like anything per month because like it doesn't make sense for me right now, right? I create the content. They might not have courses. They might not have a digital product. they might not have uh you know whether it's seminars, events, speaking, that kind of stuff they're charging for it.

It makes it hard for them to justify spending any amount of money, right? Whether it's 10, 20, 50 bucks a month, it's like it's just costing me. So they're not at a point where uh it makes sense for them to trade time uh or like you know money for time back or they they haven't realized and it's a could be whatever right they haven't realized that if they had more time then they could go chase those other opportunities. So, it's been pretty difficult and it's been like it's been slower than I think we want, but it's also like it's uh it's been steadily improving, which is great, right? Like that's good news, but for us, we've definitely felt like, hey, this is a lot of friction to try uh try and sell and market.

But I always go back to how much of that is like I suck at doing it uh and I'm trying to get better and how much of that is like uh are we kind of either approaching it the wrong way, talking to the wrong people, that kind of thing. And so more recently kind of switched our audience up a little bit. And um it's been it's been completely a complete inversion of uh of like what's the I don't even know the right way to say it like uh of like hesitation, friction, anything else. It's almost like people jumping at the opportunity to go like cool like how how soon can we start? It's not a question of like seems nice, but like I don't know if I could, you know, consider paying anything for something like that. Uh it's it's literally like, yep, like name your price and and let's get going.

And the the really really interesting part is that uh I think when I reflect on this um the audience that we were trying to align with like I said as people like me content creators uh and in particular tech content creators I I think that it probably looked like we were trying to I don't almost like solve solve the or approach the the thing that they actually didn't need help with. So they're they're spending time making the content, right? Like that's their pain point is all the time going into the content or at least that's their what they're perceiving. It takes time to film a YouTube video. It takes time to to edit it. takes time to to come up with the series of uh ideas that you want to talk about in in posts or uh to make shorts or to make the the

images whatever it is like the actual content what these people are focused on is the part that is taking all their time um at least that's the you know I I think the the focus and so when it comes to hey like we can help distribute your content more automatically for you I don't think that's landing for them. So, like for me, that's what it was. Uh, and I I think for a lot of the people we've been talking to, like that's that's not jumping right out at them. Whereas for some of the other people that we've started talking to, different audience, it's like um they're in a position where they're like, "We just we don't even do any of that. We know we need it. We don't there's none of it's happening. And so it's immediately for them this pain point or for them to invest any effort into it.

It's almost like the like an activation energy problem where they're like we don't have time or skill experience. So, like it's not going to happen. Or we have to go like find an an agency and outsource it and and pay whatever um whatever outrageous cost it's going to be to have a whole other like business do this for us. And so I think that we've found an opportunity where like the the technology we've built is solving a problem a lot more specifically uh for this target audience. And really it just came down to framing. And so I know this channel is a lot about like obviously software engineering career development but one of the things that like we don't focus on a lot is I guess two parts.

one uh people that are I don't know like solo devs kind of doing it on their own not going uh the corporate ladder that kind of stuff you know spend a lot of time on that uh and then entrepreneurial stuff right like I try to sprinkle it in periodically but um I'm not sitting here being like I'm a successful entrepreneur with like 10 exits like listen to my I'm not Alex her from you know I'm not I'm not giving you advice from that angle, but it's uh it is actually a part of software engineering, right? There's plenty of people that have software companies and that looks different like whether it's consulting or building something as a platform or a product or service and selling it. And so I want to try to mix some of this stuff in where I can because I think that it's uh it is relevant.

It's just maybe not exactly direct career advice, so to speak. So, reason I wanted to talk about this was like it's a it's a very interesting situation to not be like um like it's not like oh it must be because our technology sucks or we're not actually solving a problem. This entire time with Brand Ghost I I have been confident since day one uh when I was the only person using it and there was no like website for it. It was all just like code. Like I'm very very confident I'm solving a problem that other people have. And I know it. And I know it because it's literally the the reason that I gave up. And I know that there are tons of people that try creating content in whatever capacity, right? just to to be helpful, learning in public, whatever.

And then they just kind of give up cuz they're like, it takes time, it takes effort, and it it's not always it's not like you, you know, post once on LinkedIn and you have Mr. Beast like revenue coming in from your content. It's not it's not like that. I I don't have stats, but I would wager most content creators uh don't make money, right? It's just it's not it's not glamorous. I'm sure the ones that you see that are really popular, it's glamorous for them. Um, or at least it looks that way, but not for, you know, most content creators. So, I know this solves a problem. And, uh, I think the the very interesting part is this reframe, different different audience. Um, technology, no change. In fact, uh, maybe I'll take a step back.

some of the some of the change is not a change in technology but um what some of our offering is when we tell people there's some capabilities that uh that I had in that I had in Brand Ghost before it was Brand Ghost that I kind of parked parked for a long time and we've been starting to introduce them into Brand Ghost in different ways recently and uh for this new audience, it's like that actually that actually would be something that they're interested in. So, we don't have to change our technology uh we can kind of uh start investing into some other feature areas, but uh taking a framework, taking technology that is solving a problem and we've just shifted the audience a little bit more in terms of who we're speaking to, right? In terms of who we're trying to um have conversations with. and it's dramatically dramatically different in terms of the uh the response.

So that doesn't mean that Brand Ghost now can't be used by like content creators. It's not what that means at all. I still I'm using it right as we speak, right? Before I left for work, it was posting my my reels and stuff. Um so that that doesn't change. But instead of us trying to chase down people uh being like, "Hey, I really think this is going to solve a problem for you." and kind of being met with like a I don't know hesitation or whatever it is. It's it's almost the inverse happening. I also think too that part of the challenge is that like it's it's perhaps the circle of of people that we're interacting with the original sort of creators. We might not have um even the right audience there to be to be close with.

So for example, there's some competitor tools or tools that are in like the a similar space that uh that have you know thousands and thousands of users and when we look at what we offer versus what they do like sure they have some things that that we don't but like in terms of like a a package I'm like I feel pretty good about what we have and I see other people talking about those products that are creators so I'm like I feel I feel like we might not have gotten into the right like cluster uh when we're trying to to do that marketing. And that's okay. We can always go back and revisit that and push uh but I think we've kind of landed on a new group for now uh to at least uh start kind of chasing down and finding those opportunities. And so what this means for us in this moment is that uh it's not a a reset on tech.

It's a a bit of a reset for our framing because we're noticing even how we talk about the product and service. Um because it's a new audience, we're we're learning more about like what they're after, if that makes sense. And so how we speak to the problems we're able to solve uh shifts a little bit. Technology hasn't changed. Technology solves sets of problems but we can apply the technology in more uh at least in our language we can apply the technology in more obvious ways. So for us, it's a learning opportunity about the end user. And if you want to bring this back to more general software engineering, uh I I've said this in other videos, I think some people go through their software engineering career and almost don't have to ever think about end users depending on what part of uh you know software systems you're working on.

like I work on platform teams at Microsoft and uh it's not that there's no concept of end user but it's uh it's not like you're building a feature that you know someone outside of Microsoft is directly going to interact with. So uh I I think some people go through their whole careers or a majority of their career without it. Being able to think about what customers need and factor that kind of stuff in uh in software engineering I think is a ridiculously powerful skill and you need you know such opportunities to be able to do so but it can really really help shape and uh assist with prioritization how you build things right it's not not just because that makes cleaner code. It's not just because test coverage goes from 89 to 90%. It's not because it's just your favorite tech stack. It's because this is literally what uh is going to solve problems for customers.

So for us it's in this in this part it's kind of learning more about about this customer which is exciting. Um, and it's also the other sort of thing I'll add in is that I've uh made a video at least one on this channel before about uh doing things that don't scale. And we're kind of back in that mode. Um, because engaging with a newer market segment means that there's probably a little bit more handholding and interaction uh for for some of the new customers. And totally fine. Like we're we're happy to do it. We're excited to do it. So it's not a complaint. It's just like that's kind of what needs to happen. We need to do a little bit more of you know things that don't scale immediately so we can learn we can learn where the pain points are. We can understand the user better and then uh then once we have the traction then we say okay like how do we how do we scale this properly?

So just wanted to share that um because it's a slightly different lens on some things that happen in in software development right this is uh not your typical path for most people but this is uh stuff that I do on the side and it's uh it's been so far a bit of a bit of a journey for and most days are not easy with it. Uh, but we're excited. So, hope that is interesting lens into stuff. Be curious if folks are building things on the side and you have a do you have a business? Do you have a product or service you're trying to sell? Like do you have a consulting firm? Like what what has been working for you? What do you struggle with? Be very curious to hear if you don't mind sharing in the comments.

Uh, and otherwise if you have, you know, stuff you want to share, want me to talk through more on this, just go to codecute.com and you can submit a question or ask for a topic or a deep dive on some aspects. But happy to share. Hope it helps and see you in the next video.