Joe Casabona: A common thread on this show this year has been the push and pull of finding the right tools while also balancing our time and money as solopreneurs. A while back, I invited my friend and fellow podcaster, Sarah Saint John, onto the show. She's the host of the Frugalpreneur podcast, and at first, I thought we would just share podcast war stories. But then, and thankfully before we started recording, everything went wrong. We were having both hardware and software issues. I was helping Sarah through some issues that she was unfamiliar with. So once we got everything squared away, I thought we could refocus our conversation.
See, I have a tech background, and sometimes I forget that troubleshooting and working with technology isn't everyone's cup of tea. So, we decided to dive deep into managing our tech stacks and managing your tech stack without spending a fortune. We share our top tips and personal experiences on how to choose the right tools, avoid unnecessary expenses, and leverage platforms like AppSumo for amazing lifetime deals. And I've always been kinda questionable on AppSumo, but the last few deals I bought, I use every day. So whether you're a tech newbie or a seasoned pro, I think this episode is packed with actionable advice. You know I love actionable advice to help you streamline your business operations and save money.
I want you to look for these top takeaways.
1. You should evaluate your current tools by regularly checking if your tools are still meeting your needs. 2. You should consider the cost of switching, and weigh the benefits of switching tools against the effort required
3. Balance convenience and cost. You should ensure the cost of the tool is justified by its value.
We talk a lot about jobs to be done interestingly enough. We bring that up again in this episode and the fact that you're kind of hiring an app to do something. So, I think this episode is gonna be exciting. It's a pretty raw interview, to be honest with you. Not something I often do, but we were just kind of talking through some of the tools we use, our philosophies, and things like that.
Now, this also marks another change in the show and the way I'm doing the members-only interviews. So, if you are not a member, you are getting shorter interviews and you're getting ad-supported interviews. If you become a member over at [streamlined.fm/join], you are going to get a whole extra 25 to 30 minutes. And so I wanna get into the main show because I think it's really good, but I wanna tell you how I've kind of changed this a little bit.
Previously, the members-only version was an extra 10 minutes at the end just like some footnote that we didn't hit on in the main show. But I wanna deliver more value for the members, and so as well as the ad-supported show. So I've shortened up the ad-supported show to be tighter. So in 30 minutes, less than 35 definitely, you'll get the same amount of value that you were getting in 50 minutes. Right? And then if you're a member, you'll hear more of an unstructured conversation where there will certainly be more nuggets of information, things that we didn't think to talk about in the main show, and you'll get that ad-free. So that's changing as of today. I hope you like the format. If you're not a member, you can head over to [streamlined.fm/join]. You can also get all of the show notes for this episode, and there are going to be a lot naturally because we talked about tools. You can find all of them over at [streamlined.fm/425]. But that's enough of this preamble. Let's get to the intro and then the interview.
Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, a show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you're busy, so let's get started.
Joe Casabona: All right. I am here with Sarah Saint John. She's the host of the Frugalpreneur podcast. Sarah, how are you today?
Sarah St John: I'm good. How are you?
Joe Casabona: Good. We are putting in a Sysafisian effort into making this recording happen after technology is just not our thing today. But I'm glad to be talking to you, and that's actually gonna be the main subject of our discussion, right, is how as solopreneurs we're managing the information overload and decision analysis paralysis for tools to help solopreneurs. Right?
So, first of all, we're gonna talk about why this process has been a Sysophisian effort in Streamlined Solopreneur Accelerated for members, and you can sign up for that conversation over at [streamlined.fm/join]. But I do wanna level set a little bit here. This is not how I normally open interviews, but, Sarah, tell us a little bit about your solopreneur journey or business. Like, what do you do, and what's your main focus these days?
Sarah St John: Yeah. So, well, my main focus these days is pretty much everything podcasting, and that's what I do now. I have the Frugalpreneur podcast, and then I recently launched a podcast marketing agency and go to a lot of podcast conferences, sometimes speak at them, and just I'm all in on podcasting. But, basically, my journey started in 2008. I had 6 different jobs that year, not at the same time, but throughout the course of the year. And, realized I didn't wanna work for somebody else. So I started my entrepreneurial journey, tried a bunch of different, like, online business models, drop shipping, affiliate marketing, blogging, print on demand. And it was in that process that I discovered, like, all these free or affordable tools, software to help run an online business on a budget.
And so then I decided to write a book in 2019 called Frugalpreneur. And then I launched the podcast, also Frugalpreneur, to coincide with the book. It was just gonna be maybe like 10 episodes to kinda help promote the book or like an extra marketing avenue. But I got more leverage and interaction with the podcast than the book and loved the networking and connections and everything. So what was supposed to be, you know, like a miniseries, like a 10-episode type thing turned into what's now over 5 years going. And now I'm in the podcast industry and, yeah, it took on its own thing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's awesome. And so this is great. I because I didn't wanna just, like, kind of, like, authority set for a minute, like, what is Sarah doing these days? And so I think the impetus for this conversation, right, was some of the technical issues we're having. But also I asked you what you were using for your website and then you rattled off like and again, for people who are relatively new to the show, I was a Web Developer for 20 years. And so it's very interesting to me what tools people choose. And you ended up rattling off just like a number of different things that you're using. Right?
And so I wanna talk to you about first, let's talk about your current tech stack. And when I say tech stack here, I'm gonna say, like, what are maybe, like, the top 5 tools you're using to run your business? And then I'll kind of list mine off because there's, like, so many. Right? I guess this is gonna be, like, an affiliate link-rich show notes page. Yeah. Which I didn't do that on purpose, but it's maybe working out. Hopefully. If you, if the tools you use are affiliate programs I'm a part of, obviously, I'll use them, but I'm not gonna, like, go off and sign up for all of them just for this show. So, yeah, maybe give me, like, your top 5 tools that you use to run your business.
Sarah St John: Yeah. So, I mean, like, for my podcast hosting, I use Captivate. And then I use Descript for a bunch of stuff, editing, and transcripts and all that.
Let's see. I use system.io. It's like systeme.io for landing pages and sales funnels. I use SendFox for email, and TidyCal for calendar booking or scheduling.
Let's see. I've recently started using, like to create video clips and stuff for social media from, like, podcast episodes, I've been using both Vizard and Minvo. Minvo was on AppSumo, so I was like, okay. Well, yeah, a lifetime deal. And then, like, for show notes and all that kind of stuff, I use either Castmagic. Well, that's the main 1 I use, but I've also been kind of experimenting with Podium and PodSqueeze. Yeah. This is a lot more than 10, but that's okay.
Joe Casabona: Actually, let's unless there's, like, something else. Is there something crucial?
Sarah St John: Yeah. Oh, my community, my new online community amp my pod, I use the school platform, SKOOL. Yeah. I think that's pretty much summarizes everything.
Joe Casabona: Nice. So I noticed here, like, you mentioned that Menvo was an AppSumo deal. I think you mentioned that system.io in the preshow was an AppSumo deal.
Sarah St John: But, no, that one's not an AppSumo.
Joe Casabona: Oh, that one's not. Okay. You mentioned another landing page builder. That was me or maybe you were just doing a lifetime deal?
Sarah St John: Oh, yeah. Well, okay. So go high-level.
Joe Casabona: Okay.
Sarah St John: Well, Clickslow is like a white-label version, and they had a lifetime deal, but they're using the Go high-level platform.
Joe Casabona: I see.
Sarah St John: Yeah. And I've used WordPress before, and I've thought about using I think you recommended it. What is that 1 that's like 1 page?
Joe Casabona: Carrd. Is that right?
Sarah St John: Yes. Carrd.
Joe Casabona: C-A-R-R-D. Yeah.
Sarah St John: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So, I mean, right there, we just named, like, 4 or 5 landing page tools. Right? Well, WordPress, it's probably, like, a gross understatement to call. That's just a landing page tool. Right. But, and then SendFox, TidyCal, and Castmagic, I know we're also Appsumo.
Sarah St John: AppSumo deals.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I use Castmagic from thanks to the AppSumo deal as well. And so this is 1 of the main reasons I wanna have this conversation. Right? I would give a completely different version of the list that you gave. Right? So, like, the things that I think are crucial to my business. Right?
Podcasting is like a subset of it. Right? And so, like, Riverside certainly is crucial to my business for recording interviews. But, like, I have an editor who does all the editing. Like, the tool that I'm in the most often is Notion. Right? That's like, that's big project organization. I just got into Obsidian, which I'm using for, like, general notes and for writing my next book.
Ulysses is where I write even though, like, the other 2 apps I just mentioned are also for writing things I use for task management. And then some of the things that you mentioned here, I use Transistor for hosting this podcast. I don't really use Descript anymore because in the Descript versus Riverside Battle, Riverside won for me. I use WordPress for all of my websites because I was a WordPress Developer, but I always kind of get the itch to try something else before going, I just know WordPress so well. It's fastest for me there. I use ConvertKit for email. I use Calendly for scheduling, though cal.com may usurp Calendly.
Sarah St John: Okay.
Joe Casabona: I've heard of it. Yeah. I've been considering SavvyCal as well because I think that's the nicest interface, and I have a blog post that ranks it like Calendly versus SavvyCal is number 1 or 2 under the sponsored posts on Google. It's crazy.
Sarah St John: Oh, wow.
Joe Casabona: But I love that cal.com has, like, a bunch of features, and it's open source, which, like, that pushes 1 of my buttons because it's like and I think, like, there are people who are, like, super into AppSumo deals. Right?
Sarah St John: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: And then there are people who are, like, super into every tool I use has to be open source because, like, what happens if they disappear. Right? I'm, like, never like that. I don't wanna think about managing my own SaaS tool. Right? But the fact that cal.com, like, is open source and looks really nice is pretty cool. And then I use Castmagic and a couple of other things. But I just think it's really interesting. Right? We just rattled off, like, 20 tools.
Sarah St John: Yeah. I did forget to mention StreamYard. That's what I've been using. Okay. Oh, which, by the way, here's my little Nice. Very nice. StreamYard. Oh, there we go.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Cool.
Sarah St John: I got that for free at podcast movement.
Joe Casabona: Nice. That's awesome. Which I will be, this episode's coming up before the podcast movement. I'll be there in DC this year. Anybody who's listening who wants to say hi. But yeah. So you mentioned StreamYard. And then for streaming, for me, I use Ecamm Live. Right? So, like Okay. Again, so many tools that I wanna get into the like, this next section of the way that the rest of this episode is gonna work, right, is kind of how do we evaluate, how many tools are too many tools, what do you look for. Right? I'm a pay-for-convenience kind of guy.
Sarah St John: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: And I think just by virtue of the name of your podcast, you're taking a better approach to bootstrapping a business than I am. So, you know, I'd love to, like, talk about our philosophies there. How many tools are too many and then, like, how do we go through the decision-making process for anyone who's listening? Right? Because, again, if they just heard all the tools, we meant they're like, well, just tell me which 1 we use. But before we do that, I do wanna take a quick break for our sponsors.
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Joe Casabona: And we're back. Okay. So let's get into the first question. 1st, how many tools is too many tools?
Sarah St John: Oh, probably 20. No. Maybe less than I'm a big fan of, like, tools that have multiple things within it to like, for example, system.io. I mean, it has a lot of features in it that I actually don't use, like the email marketing calendar or whatever because I use other tools for it. But I like, you know, it has landing pages, sales funnels, whatever. I just I like as many things as possible to be under 1 roof so that you can eliminate a few.
But at the same time, I kind of, sometimes I feel like if it's a platform that like, okay. So, like, go high level. That's another, I mean, they're both kind of like ClickFunnels, which you're probably more familiar with, but, like, I think Go High Level has even more features and stuff. But it's like, okay. They might have 20 or 50 different features, and you can eliminate all these other softwares, but they don't always do all the features well. And so sometimes I still prefer like, I still use TidyCal for my calendar, SendFox for my email, this, that, or the other thing. Like, I know there's a lot of, like, podcast platforms now. I think Podcastle, and there's some others where, like, it has your host and I think Asha has your, like, your hosting and your I mean, it has just everything. Podcasts are linked under Waterloo.
Joe Casabona: [Inaudible 18:56.01] the same thing. Right?
Sarah St John: Yeah. But I'm like I don't know. I think once you get used to a particular platform for something, like, for example, I use Captivate for my hosting. Like, I can't imagine, like, switching to a platform that offers hosting and a bunch of other things because I like Captivate so much or you know what I mean? It's kind of like at a certain point.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. There I mean, in software engineering, we'll call it like technical debt. Right? Or there's another theory called the mythical man month, which is the idea that throwing more people at a problem will solve the problem faster, which is not true. Right? That's why it's mythical. At some point, you get diminishing returns. Right? And I almost see that for these platforms that try to be all in 1. Right? It's like, yeah, you'd I mean, let's take Notion for example. I'm a recent Notion convert, like, within the last year. I'm from Airtable, and there are some things I really like about Notion. It's very user-friendly. It's easy to share stuff. It's like notes and a database sort of thing.
And while I love and miss Airtable sometimes, Airtable made some decisions at, like, the company level that bothered me which is why I ended up jumping ship. But Notion rolled out automation basically right before or right around, like, when, like, AI fever hit every software company. And it feels like they abandoned developing their automation tools to develop some AI companion inside Notion. And as a result, we are, like, Notion's automation tools are more or less useless. Like, there's, like, some features in there that my friend and I legitimately thought for a few minutes about, like, what could a possible use case for this be besides just saying it's there? And for people who are listening, who use Notion, it's the ability to create a record when another record changes, except the record you create only accepts static data. So, like, I can't say if I mark this record as complete, copy the title and the URL into a new record. It's very dumb. Like, I had to make a Zapier automation to do what I wanted to do even though it's basically table stakes.
And my whole point of this, right, is, like you said, there's a lot of software that tries to be all in 1, but they don't do everything well. And so, How many tools is too many is really a question of do the tools you use to accomplish the job that you like hired them to do. Right? Like this the jobs to be done framework is really an interesting 1 to me that, like, I was introduced to again probably within the last year. Well, I really, like, dug into it in the last year. I've, like, heard people say it for a long time, and I just I was like, yeah. Whatever, jobs it make that feels intuitive. Right? But the principle is really good.
So, I guess the next question is how many tools is too many? When do you feel like, what encourages you, let's say, to look for a new tool?
Sarah St John: Oh, man. So, I mean, okay, a new tool, like, you're already using a tool for something and you're looking for a new tool to use instead of that, or do you mean, like, now you have a new need and you're looking for a tool to fit that need?
Joe Casabona: Okay. So let's do both. Let's yes and this. Let's start with the first 1. Right? You have a tool that currently fulfills this need. When do you start to look for a new 1 or a different 1?
Sarah St John: Yeah. I would say if the tool starts breaking, Or isn't consistent, and I guess the tool meaning software. You know, it's funny because I've experienced so many times where I find something and I'm like, oh, this is the best software for this thing, and I just love it. But then, like, a couple of months down the line, it's, like, buggy and breaking and, like, you know, and I'm like, oh, great. Now I have to, like, shop around now for a new tool or whatever. So I would say that's, it's rarely for me, it's rarely monetary. Because some people will be like, oh, well, I just need to find a cheaper tool.
Well, the thing with me is most of the tools I use are either free or 1-time fees. I do pay monthly for, like, Descript.
And You have to be [Inaudible 23:19.01], I imagine.
Sarah St John: Yeah. But a lot of the things I use, either on the free plan or most of them are actually AppSumo 1 time deals or whatever. And so sometimes, like, I will buy an AppSumo deal to something, and it works great for a while, and then it stops working so great. And then they have a different deal for a very similar kind of product. And so then I buy that 1 and start using that 1, and then, yeah, it's kind of sometimes it's jumping around for just to find something that doesn't break is really what it comes down to for me.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is really interesting. Right? Because I think I wrote a blog post last year called, when do you burn down all of your processes and start over? Because I was really feeling limitations. And it's like limitations in, like, the cost, but also in, like, the tools I was using. And so within, like, a month of each other, I switched from Airtable to Notion, which cut my costs in half. I switched from Riverside to SquadCast, and we know now that I switched back to Riverside. But, like, I was already paying for Descript, and so I thought Why not just use SquadCast 2? I switched from Todoist to Things 3. This is like my friends will chuckle because they, I switched tasks managers, like, constantly. And I considered switching from Calendly to SavvyCal, which I never pulled the trigger on.
And it's because of this, like, technical debt/level of effort for switching. Right? It's like, here's a perfect example. I use Hover for most of my domains that were purchased before 2022. Since then, I've been using Namecheap, and I find that Namecheap is about 3 to $4 less per year for a dotcom, at least than Hover is for the same feature set. And so I said to my friend, I'm like, am I gonna have to switch all of my domains to Namecheap? And he basically said, I would rather walk on glass than switch 40 domains. Like, switch registrar for 40 domains to save $3 per domain. Right? Like, the pain of switching your domain is so great that I would have to save 100 of dollars. Because if you've never switched registrars, there's like a 4 step process and then you need to make sure nothing breaks. Right?
Sarah St John: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: And so, like, that alone was enough of a deterrent. Right? But maybe if I just had 1 domain with hover, maybe I would make the switch. Maybe if I had, like, less than 5 domains. But, like, almost all of my domains are with hover. So, like, it would be a process and then I have to time each 1 to be, like, close to the expiration, so I'm not paying for, like, 2 years or whatever. So it's like, There's the…
Sarah St John: technically, I use Namecheap.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Namecheap is great. Hover was great. I loved Hover because they were like the first 1 to recommend or to include who is privacy for free without an upsell. Right? Now, everybody does that and Hover has been slowly increasing the cost of their domains, which is very frustrating. And, like, they'll say it's because, like, then I can, whatever that, like, whatever that stands for. The people who control the domains are also increasing the price, but, like, Namecheap is still living up to its name. Right? So…
Sarah St John: Right.
Joe Casabona: So I find that really interesting. Right? I think, like like you said, like, if you're using a tool and it's breaking or for me, like, if it's no longer adequately fulfilling the job or the cost is worth moving, Then like, okay. Calendly. Right? I'm looking at cal.com.cal.com is free. Like, it's free for, I think, everything I would need it for. I need to double-check that. But, like, free versus $15 a month, if I could just, like, drop that into my I call it the Calendly router because, like, I have an automation that's completely based on what event gets filled out. So, like, if I could just dropcal.com into that, then, yeah, I will switch. Because that's a considerable savings for parity and, like, for a feature that's, like, if you have a no-show, like, you can charge for no-shows.
Sarah St John: Oh, with Cal?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. With cal.com. Yeah. Which is huge. So, like right? Like, that would be worth the switch for me.
So, now let's look at the other side of it. You know, we both use copious amounts of tools like I assume any digital solopreneur these days. When you have, let's say, a new job to be done. Right? You have a new thing that you need to do, how do you evaluate, like, is this something that 1 of my current tools can fulfill, or do I need to find another 1, and where do you usually look for another 1? Like, what's that process look like for you?
Sarah St John: Yeah. I would see if my current tool would do it, but usually, I would know kind of off the top of my head if it does or not. So I'm trying to think of an example of, I don't know. A lot of times, I'll just, like I might know of the name of, like, 1 type of software that does whatever. And then I'll say like, I'll do a Google search that says, like, alternatives to whatever the name of it. And then so then I can get a good list of, like and I usually don't read the reviews or anything. I just want a list of options. And then I go to those individual websites, compare the pricing and features, and all that kind of stuff.
And usually, as long as it's something that does what I needed to do, I'll usually pick either something that's if they have a free plan or whatever the cheapest is. Although a lot of the times, I get my software and stuff through AppSumo. So, yeah, and sometimes it's like you don't even know that you might need something until you see it on AppSumo.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So that's another thing I wanna talk about in the pro show. I'm sorry. Accelerated is our AppSumo graveyards. Right? Because I assume you have 1. I definitely have 1. So, yeah, so I think that'll be like a fun exercise to do for the members. Again, if you wanna hear that, streamline.fm/join.
But I think this is smart. Right? Like, you probably know the tools you have. Now I will say, like, there have been some times where have you ever bought a book that you already owned and you didn't realize it.
Sarah St John: A couple of times.
Joe Casabona: Okay. This is why I buy almost all of my books on Amazon because when I go to the page it's like you bought this and I'm like, oh, right. Did this the other day. Like, I I'm like, oh, I gotta read this book. And I went to buy it, and it's like, hey, you bought a version of this book. And I'm like, oh, I feel like, if you have 1 of these all in 1 tools, like, you can get into that. Like, okay, I bought so we both use Castmagic. They just rolled out like a special deal a little while ago for AppSumo customers to increase the maximum number of minutes from 600 to a 1000. And I wasn't gonna do that because I don't really use AI tools, but my VA uses it as the starting point for transcribing the episode. So she'll have it transcribed and then she'll go back and correct.
And so I hit that limit, I bought it, and then I kinda realized, like an idiot, that I use Riverside which creates the transcripts, and now they have Castmagic integration. I assume it's Castmagic integration, but it's like there's a button that's like AI generates show notes, and it looks suspiciously like Castmagic. Oh. And so I'm like, oh, man. I just spent this money. I definitely didn't have to spend. And I think this is, like, my problem is, I think I said this earlier, I pay I'm happy to pay for convenience. And so if I see something and I'm like, it's money, I'll pay for it. But that gets me into trouble sometimes.
So wrapping up here, I wanna talk a little bit about tool purchasing philosophy. And since I like to give our listeners takeaways, maybe we can do, like, a lightning round of, like, how to pick the right tool. Maybe we'll, I'll come up with a real use case for this. Right? And say like..
Sarah St John: oh, okay.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So but let's talk tool purchasing philosophies. Right? Because I think we have different philosophies here. You said you usually go to AppSumo first. Tell me a little bit about like that, like how you view purchasing a tool and why you go to AppSumo and things like that.
Sarah St John: Well, I mean, I go to AppSumo every, see, it's not usually even me thinking, oh, I need a tool for this. It's more like I go to AppSumo literally every day, and I'll sort by newest. So whatever they release like that day or week or whatever. And then if I see something well, okay. Let me use this example. There was something I saw someone use on, like, a demo of a platform called Dripify, which is like an automatic LinkedIn lead generation type, like…
Joe Casabona: Okay.
Sarah St John: Something like…
Joe Casabona: Waileaxy
Sarah St John: Yeah. And I was like…
Joe Casabona: Youtube video well, LinkedIn premium, whatever. Business Sales Navigator? That's it.
Sarah St John: Yeah. But it was like a way to, like, search for people's profiles with certain keywords or industries or whatever, and then, like, set up automated, like, messages and replies and, like, this whole thing. And I'm like, oh, man. This is amazing. But it was like, I don't know, $80 a month or something. I was like, oh, I wish there's something like this existed, like, on AppSumo. And then lo and behold, shortly after, an AppSumo deal pops up for a thing called Closely.
Joe Casabona: Okay.
Sarah St John: Which basically does the same thing, but it was a 1-time deal, so I got that. And now there's also 1 for something called Canbox, which I might get as well. Because it's like they both do that and they're both 1 time fee. So I'm like, I might just get both and try.
Because I do a lot of kind of like testing, like, trying different tools and seeing like, right before we go on the call, actually, my most recent episode of Frugalpreneur, you know, I put the video up on YouTube and then I took the YouTube link and put it in both wizard and Minvo to create, like, little clips for, like, reels and stuff. And I put it actually in both to, like I'm like, I'm gonna compare the 2. Right. And see what I get. So I like to do a lot of that, but I don't know if that answered the question. I kinda went off thrilled.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so if we were kind of to distill your philosophy, it's almost like if you can get a lifetime deal, you go for it. Right?
Sarah St John: Yeah. Yeah. If it's something that I have either already thought about needing or could see where it would be beneficial, like, 1 of the lifetime deals I got was called Messenger Bot Which is like an automated Facebook, but I haven't actually used it yet.
And then there's several that I've gotten that I haven't actually even used yet, but more like for the future because I'm like, oh, okay. I can see in the future that I might need this type thing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I can see that. Now, do you worry about these products becoming like vaporware? Right? Where like they, 1 of my biggest concerns, right, and maybe this is just something I have from being in software is they do the lifetime deal, they grow their user base, and then they're not actually making enough money to do continued support and they disappear. So, yeah.
Sarah St John: Yeah. So I haven't yet run into an issue where the company or software has completely disappeared, but I've definitely run into issues where it seems like they aren't as well, and this is where kinda coming back to, like, software breaking. It seems like they're not maybe keeping it up to date or something is happening to where it's not working as well as it did back when the AppSumo deal was going on.
And, yeah, I would almost think, like, for a software company who puts a deal on AppSumo and then, of course, they get a big influx of money at 1 time, But then it's like, okay. Now what's the motivation to, like I don't know. Because then I guess future people, they'd have to charge monthly. Otherwise, it wouldn't.
Joe Casabona: Right. And that's, like, the thing. Right? Like, so AppSumo's whole thing, right, is taking advantage of a really good deal and then also scarcity. Right? Like, people who want Castmagic today cannot pay, like, $80 or whatever we paid for it. Right? 1 time. Right?
Now, for me, because of the worry that I just stated, my philosophy is I am happy to pay for apps that are or software or tools or whatever that are truly useful to me as long as they are useful to me. Right? And so, like, I happily paid $20 a month for Airtable for as long as I could, as long as it made sense because I was in that app every day. Right? And the reason I left is because they added something to their free plan, like you get a free collaborator on the free plan, but then for every other plan, like you had to pay, like, per extra user. It was crazy because, like, it doubled my costs to add my VA when I just set up a free, like, a separate free plan that she was able to use. Right? It was like like things like that and some of the chain like, they limited some of the features. Right? You could tell that they were trying to figure out how to make more money without necessarily raising the plan for every like, raising the price for everybody across the board.
And I would have much rather they did that because I felt like they were screwing the people who were there the longest. And so I moved to Notion. I cut my cost in half because, the other thing is, like, my VA didn't need access to my entire Airtable date, like, all of my Airtable stuff. She needed access to 2, maybe 3 tables. And so, like, with Notion, you can give access on a, like, a per-database basis for free up to, I think, like, a 100 accesses. Right?. And so, like, yeah, if my VA needs access to a 100 databases, I'll add her. I'll pay for her to be in the, but she only needs access to 3, and I'm glad that I'm not doubling my cost for that. Right? So but I am happy to support the tools that I find most crucial to me.
That said, like, I think if Castmagic didn't have a lifetime deal, I would not use any AI, any of those AI tools because I don't and I had Greg Wasserman on the show a couple weeks ago With thoughts about this. I didn't say this to him point blank because I'm not, like, rude to my guests, but I don't find and this is not just a Castmagic thing either. I don't find the output for those tools particularly useful. For, like, production ready copy. Right?
What I do find them useful for is surfacing clips or highlighting things that maybe I forgot about in the conversation, but the pain point for me is not so great that I'd be willing to pay 50, $60 a month for it.
Sarah St John: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Because if that was the case, I'd be paying for Captcha. Like, I think Captcha was probably the best tool out there. Deirdre Tshien’s a friend, but I definitely don't use those tools. Whereas, like, ConvertKit, I'm in every day and I use that to sell and make money. And so, like, yes, I pay whatever it is for me right now. Right? 100 of dollars a year for that. My list is not so big as 1, 000 of dollars yet.
And then the same thing with Transistor. I think Transistor is expensive. Right? Like, I think for Captivate at $20 a month, You get what I get at Transistor for $50 a month.
Sarah St John: Oh, wow.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. But I hopped on Transistor last year before I kinda teamed up with rss.com as an evangelist for them. And Transistor offers dynamic ads, and they offered it at that time.
And then private podcast feeds. But if I was comparing you know, if I was looking to jump ship again, knowing that rss.com doesn't have those 2 features, I'd probably actually go to Captivate because it's again, that's, like, 50% savings for me. Is the technical debt worth it, though?
Sarah St John: Yeah. Well and I also like with Captivate, and maybe Transistor does this, is that you can have multiple podcasts under 1 plan so you don't have to pay per podcast.
Joe Casabona: Yes. Transistor does do that. Okay. And so, like, that allowed me to consolidate because I had, like, Castos, which became not very good. Like, things started breaking. And then I was on Buzzsprout for 1 show, and I was able to consolidate to just Transistor. Right?
Again, like, rss.com gives you all of that for, like, $15 a month. The feature that I would need and maybe if I was starting again today, I would, like, have my shows on rss.com and just pay for, like, either Supercast or Hello Audio for the private feeds. But, like, I know that I am spending more than I need to with Transistor, and I'm trying to make a determination on whether or not it's worth moving, and that's the hard part.
Sarah St John: I feel like as far as well, in my opinion, when it comes to software switching, the 1 that I'm the most hesitant about would be podcast hosting just because so much crap could happen
Joe Casabona: Right.
Sarah St John: With switching the feed.
Joe Casabona: Right. And I did that in the year 2023. Right? And as we record, it's 2024. Do I really wanna do that twice in less than 2 years? Not really.
Sarah St John: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: Because, like, yeah, you could set up a feed-forward, but, like, if I'll be honest. Like, I didn't trust Castos to keep that forward around. Right? Like, when I moved from Castos to Transistor, I didn't trust Castos to keep that forward around. So, like, I had the forward, and then I went in and, like, manually changed in Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and anywhere else I thought about. So, like, that's a tough thing to consider. Right? So it would have to be very compelling for me to wanna change again so close to the last time I changed.
Sarah St John: Yeah. I've only changed once because when I first started podcasting in 2019, I was on Spreaker because I believe at that time they had a free plan. But then once it was getting to the point where but I think it was only free up to a certain number of episodes or something. And so then once it got up to the point where I was gonna oh, no. I think I did do the paid plan after that, which was like, I don't know, $7 a month or something. But anyway, I ultimately switched to Captivate. I don't know. I wanna say that was probably 2020 and have stuck with them ever since.
And anytime I hear of another podcast host that sounds interesting because they include all these other features or whatever, I'm just like, okay. Yeah. I don't wanna do the RSS feeds switcheroo again because there were some kinda issues, but they all got taken care of. But now being 5 years in and 250 episodes, I'm like, yeah. I don't wanna mess with it.
Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah. I was originally on Lipsyn. So I've done 2 moves now. Right? I was originally on Lipsyn, and then as everybody who's been podcasting before 2016 or 2012 who was on Lipson, they make the move, right, or most people do at least. I moved to Castos, and, like, they're like, yeah. We'lll help. And I should've known. Right? Because that was a little bumpy. The import, the feed was a little bit bumpy. And so I was really hesitant again, but, again, like, things started breaking at Castos, and so I moved to Transistor.
Sarah St John: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: And that was a very smooth import. I was pretty impressed. And they were even able to import, like, my private feed, which they usually don't do, but, like, Justin got in support and, like, helped me. And so, like, I was pretty impressed there. Right? But so it's not I guess it's not just a cost thing. Right?
So as we kinda wrap up here, the main show at least, let's pick something super relevant here. Do you use any of the wait. What are they called? Like, ChatGPT or Claude or any of those where you can, like, talk to an AI and get it to do stuff for you?
Sarah St John: Yeah. I use ChatGPT here and there, and then Castmagic does have like a chat kind of where you could be more specific about the prompts and Mhmm. What you want them to do. Yeah. But yeah. Because most of my AI stuff, I get through Castmagic. But if it's I'll use ChatGPT for things that are, like, maybe not podcast related because, like, all my podcast stuff then goes through Castmagic. But if it's like something else, then I use ChatGPT.
Joe Casabona: Okay. And so how did you land on ChatGPT? Right? Because did you just, like, pick that because everyone was using it or, like, did you try a couple and, like, this is the best? Because, like, there's a lot of variety out there now, a lot of flavors of these, like, conversational chatbot things or AI bot things.
Sarah St John: Yeah. I mean, I think because it was I don't know if it was the first 1, but the first biggest 1 that I had heard of. And everybody was talking about it, and everyone I knew used it. And so that's what I tried. And I actually haven't really tried any others, which normally I do try other things. But I'm not like a huge AI person in general. It's more like I'll do it if I'm, like, stuck or, like, need to get something done quickly
Joe Casabona: Mhmm.
Sarah St John: Or something like that. And I'm just on the free version of ChatGPT. Everyone tells me I need to upgrade to the $20 a month version, but I'm like, I don't know.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's a toughie. Right? I was paying for the $ 20-a-month version. But I found, like, as you alluded to, like, I felt that I mean, and they just as we record this, they recently released the ChatGPT 4, oh, shoot. We're gonna get sued by Scarlett Johansson.
Sarah St John: Wait. What does Scarlett Johansson have to do with it?
Joe Casabona: Oh my gosh. Have you not seen this? This is crazy.
Sarah St John: No.
Joe Casabona: Okay. We're gonna talk about that and accelerate it too.
Sarah St John: Okay.
Joe Casabona: So if you don't know what I'm talking about, my friends, [streamlined.fm/join].
So, they just rolled out the latest version, but I felt like it was degrading, and I'm already like a snob about like, I am bullish on ChatGPT cannot write for you. If you write mostly by prompting ChatGPT or some other AI, you're not writing. Like, you don't care about your writing.
But at CEX, I was compelled to try to make a digital doppelganger. Andrew Davis was a speaker and he that's what he called it. And I found Perplexity Pro, which was recommended to me by, like, another tool I use called Raycast. And the thing I like about Plexity Pro is that it plugs into multiple different AI tools. So it plugs into Claude and ChatGPT and its own version of AI, but Claude is very good for writing. And so it's kinda like a supercharged tool that I assume is leveraging economies of scale because it's also $20 a month, but Claude separately is $20 a month and ChatGbt separately is $20 a month.
So I assume they're saving money on the API and charging for the interface and the additional schools. But, yeah, I'll, like, I'll put these through the wringer. I will pay $20 for 1 month Just to see, like, how much I use it. And Perplexity Pro has been really good because it's versatile. I can basically say, oh, rewrite this answer using a different AI model. So I think that's really interesting.
Oh. Yeah. I'll definitely check it out. Yeah.
And that's what I would say to our listeners. Right? If you're, like, trying to figure out a tool, when I hired my VA, I basically sent the same job to 4 or 5 VAs and determine which 1 did it best. I think you probably wanna do that with your tools too. Right? Like, have a list of have a list of nonnegotiable things that the tool has to do, and then try a couple and see which 1 does it best.
Sarah St John: Yeah. I agree with that. I do that quite a bit as well.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Awesome.
Well, Sarah, this has been great. We're gonna have an extra long streamline solopreneur accelerated. I'm experimenting with trying to make those closer to half and half, so we'll see what the feedback is like. But I did wanna deliver a full conversation, which I think we did here. Sarah, if people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Sarah St John: Yeah. So Frugalpreneur, any podcast app, you should be able to find it, or you can just go to the website, which is [frugal.show]. And then if you have a podcast yourself and are looking for a community about marketing and growing it, amp my pod.com is the free community, and [podcastmarketing.agency] is the done-for-you services.
Joe Casabona: Awesome. And I will link to that and everything mentioned here. It's gonna be a link-rich show note over at [streamlined.fm/425]. That's [streamlined.fm/425] for episode 425.
Sarah, it's been great talking to you. Thanks so much for hanging out with us today.
Sarah St John: Well, thank you for having me.
Joe Casabona: And thank you for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. And until next time, I'll see you out there.