Hi, this is the Daily Overpass. My name is
Eric and I make apps. And today, I just
want to say "I'm not looking for Steve
Jobs".
Alright, so a couples days ago, I did that video where I was a bit sarcastic and I was trying
to pretend like we were having a
discussion about a big- huge-  the biggest
app idea in the world. And you guys
left so many good comments.
A few of you said you have this kind of
conversation all the time, which really
made me feel good because I had this
conversation a lot with people. And
then, uhh- and then some of you pointed out the fact that-  that was a topic of a
black mirror episode. I didn't know
that, but that kind of just shows the
fact that when you think you
have a unique app idea, it's not really
all that unique. I mean, there's probably
people that think of it, but do.
Shivam Pandey asked a question, he said,
well actually, didn't ask a question but
he said was, "My name is Erik and I just
did sarcasm without explanation.
And Shivam, when it comes to sarcasm-
 touche! Very nicely done.
And then he clarified afterwards he said, by
explanation I meant the event that
inspired you for the sarcasm. So, it
wasn't a really an offense basically. What
happened was, I was- I've been
on Upwork like all week,
you know, hiring somebody. When you're
on Upwork, you're looking at reviews and
ratings and everything and you're really relying on that. Then I was thinking,
it's a lot like you Amazon, products or apps especially, or
everything else, you're relying on other people to rate and review.
You're trying to get all that stuff
done and then I was thinking
what if you had that in real life
and all this kind of stuff. Which was
just sort of this thing and then I sort
of stopped myself thinking, "You know Eric,
that's a stupid idea. That's the kind of thing somebody would bring
to you. That's where it started and
basically, and then I just kind of
ran away with that. I was just gonna talk
about that, now I kind of ran away with
it trying to throw everything in there. That I hear over and over again from you.
When I have these kind of mize with
people, and it wasn't so much to be
mean because it's basically-  every
app has to start with an idea. There's
nothing wrong with having an app idea.
But there's a lot of things like touched
on in there. First of all, trying to get
somebody else to do it for you for free,
you know, try to get somebody
else to do it for
you for free and then giving them a
percentage of the riches, promising them
riches, all these kind of things I've
heard before. You know,
when you say what kind of platform do
you want, they say-  they
choose the one that they use or their
friends use. They talk about
having done market research, but it's not
really  market research.
It's more just asking people
they know and then you know the people.
and you know the people that they know
told them they don't want to be
rude, so they said- yeah- no-  that's a good
idea and all this kind of stuff.
And then also, when you ask the something
that's a bit more on the technical side
like how would you monetize it, then it's
just I'll let you handle handle the
the monetization part.That's the
technical bit. I'm more of an ideas man.
So, there was those all that
kind of stuff. And then also-
mainly it was just the app idea
which we've talked about before. And it's
just a whole how much is a billion dollar idea worth.
It's a trick question because the billion dollar app
idea is worth nothing. In fact, an idea
itself is worth nothing unless you
implement it. But the main thing I
was trying to - or the main thing in it,
it didn't start out this way. I just
sort of I think, I just kind of got a bit
worked up. We're just trying to you know
convey the condescension. There.
Sometimes, yeah- I don't have a
problem with somebody pitching me.
They write their idea because that's
how things are done.
You know people come to you with an idea
and they won't even want to see if it
will work. But you know having done this
for a long time, you know
the idea itself is it's worth nothing. And when they're asking you to do
all the work and they do nothing or
they'll do something that's like-
I'll handle the marketing or
something like that which we'll get to
that in a minute. So they say I'll
handle the business side of things, which
could be anything. They say you
build it and what they're asking
you to do is invest in their company and
sometimes you have to turn the tables on
them and say, well this is- my time is worth this
amount of money. So yeah, Or you know, I
hired developers so I'm gonna have to
pay them. I'm gonna be investing, let's say ten thousand. Ten thousand
dollars . I'm- I'll be investing
ten thousand dollars into this prod.
Do you have any other investors besides
me? And that usually- yeah then you
the answer to the question.
it's no, but then they'll say
I suppose I could, whatever.
Anyway, but that's fine right there.
There's nothing wrong. A lot of
partnerships start out this way.
But the main thing I wanted to convey
there was the condescension.
A lot of times, when I'm talking to
somebody, I'm actually-  it's not a lot of
times-  a few times. I get the
impression that they see themselves as
the Steve Jobs and they're looking for
their Steve Wozniak. They see
themselves as the visionary who's going
to build great things and all they need
is somebody to do all that annoying little technical stuff,
the unimportant technical stuff. But
they're the ideal person,
they're the dream man. And this
is something that I notice a
lot. Like none of us- there's that song by Nina- 99 Red Balloons,
where she says everyone's a
superhero, everyone's a Captain Kirk.
Now, everyone's a Steve Jobs.
Everyone wants to-  they want to
be the visionary and they're looking for somebody to just carry out
their vision. And they're trying to sell
you on their vision which is fine.
Yeah, it's fine. But I just don't bite. There's been one time when I
partnered with somebody and it didn't go
well. I mean, it went like they brought-
they actually brought more to the table
than I did. They have more like
loads of stuff, loads of graphic assets,
they have intellectual
property, all this kind of stuff .And then they said they would do all the
marketing and we do the building. Then once we started building it
for free, from you know, for 50/50
split, not 80/20. 50/50 and
we built it. It was just- it was tough because then they became a
perfectionist. So everything
became really, really difficult. I thought
it would take us- I honestly thought it
would take us six weeks. And that was
really conservative estimate thinking
it'd probably take us like two. But we'll
say six  and hope and then it took
us- I mean we've worked on this thing for
months. My developers working on this
for months. It was very infuriating.
To date I have made about, hmmm.. 14- 14 pounds
off that project. I mean, it's hugely embarrassing.
A few years ago, I was working in a job, I
won't tell you when or where because I
don't want to talk about the other
person in a bad way. But I had this
manager, so I was a contractor. I'm
still doing Overpass stuff on the side.
But it's like, I'm not
really fully committed to it. I'm still
like one day, I'd like to do this stuff.
So I still have Overpass off to the
side. And the manager, he kind of
takes me aside one day, and he-
because I speak Chinese, yeah-
alright, I spoke Chinese in the army. I
learned to speak Chinese and I'm a
software developer, everything. He took me
aside, he said, "Eric, you know, what you
just want to put this out there, but you
know you and I should go into business
together." And I said, "Really ?Why?" He goes,
"Well with your Chinese ability and
software development skills and my
management skills, we could really do
great things." And immediately I
thought, it took me a long time to learn
Chinese and it took me a hell of a long
time to learn software development. You
know,  a lot years of experience.
You guys know, if you're
software developers, it's not just
reading a book. Then you know it it's
reading a book.
And then trying things and spending
hours on Stack Overflow, looking for some
irritating little bug that finally when you find it you're all the
more- you're all the smarter and
everything. And all that
experience, your time is worth more
than- then people seem to think
it is. You have to tell them that. You know, I'm thinking
all those years of learning
Chinese, all those years of software
development and what do you bring to the
table? Management experience. At
which I suppose would be actually-  I
suppose it would be important, but I'm
pretty sure I can learn management
experience too.
It wasn't like-  it was wasn't
this kind of thing that it was, "Oh,
please somebody come to me with
management experience." I'm thinking like
if we're on a rowboat and I'm rowing the
boat, you're gonna stand there and say
row faster. I don't need that guy. I'm also not a technical
genius that's waiting for a visionary to
come along and point me in the right
direction. I, and again most
people, that's not what they mean.
I don't want to like dissuade
anybody from coming to me. I'm
not saying I would never work with-  I
would never partner with anybody again. I
mean, that's not the case, but if somebody
wants to partner with me,
they have to bring more to the table
than I do or at least the same amount.
When you see Tom Hanks had an app.
Was it last year or something, called
Hanks Writer. Kevin Hart has had an
app, Those- if somebody
with a huge following came to me
and said you know I want to partner with
you on an app, I say, "Hey, you obviously know the marketing side of
things. You know how to bring people in, all this kind of stuff. You
don't have the potential to do it, you're
actually doing it on a daily basis. But a
lot of times, people when they want to
partner with me, they say, "Oh, don't worry
I'll handle the marketing side, then you look, then you start asking some
questions like how many Twitter
followers, you have how many Instagram
followers, all this kind of stuff. And
usually the answer is and I'm not
really into that social media stuff, but I know a lot of people all.
You start thinking if you have not
been able to promote yourself,
why would you think that you could
be able to promote this product even
better? You don't have any of the
experience that you haven't
built up anything. I mean, I'm sure you
have the potential to do it, but I'm not
willing to risk that. Anyway, I put
so that's kind of what what led me
thinking that way it was a bit of a the
condescension and you know the kind of
looking down on you just do that you
just do that technical stuff and ah and
don't worry I'll fail
I'll have the big ideas right that said
more than once to me is like you and I
mean I could think of God I could think
about at least half a dozen times where
somebody said you and I should get
together because I just I'm gonna have
great ideas all the time and you we
would just work really well together and
I'm thinking you know what I have great
ideas all the time too I mean not that
whole your radar thing but you know I
have other great ideas too anyway so I
didn't need to explain the video but
that's kind of what I was going into
right I'm not looking for Steve Jobs I
don't think you should either but it you
know if somebody comes to you with the
caliber - that actually looks like they
can deliver on their promises then yeah
I mean I would partner with them you
know but anyway that's it for today I'll
talk to you guys tomorrow
