Defcon, apparel sales, and Google ads

Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

In this episode, Sean gives a recap on shirt sales, his annual Korean BBQ dinner, and more from DEF CON. Andrew shares some feedback he got from the client project he's been working on, and dives into the early results he's seeing from running Google Ads for ChartJuice. Andrew reveals his latest mile times from his half marathon training, and the guys talk about how much impact you could make in congressional elections with some basic digital marketing chops.

Links:

• Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins
• Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/
• 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:
00:00:00.75

Sean

What up, what up? Long time no see.

00:00:02.71

Andrew

Yeah, how's it going? Can't wait to hear all about Defcon.

00:00:07.02

Sean

Good. I can't wait to tell you all about DEFCON. A little sniffly. Definitely have conflu.

00:00:14.04

Andrew

Concrud.

00:00:14.49

Sean

Yeah, a couple friends. A couple friends I've also got in COVID. There's, I think, all that stuff.

00:00:19.25

Andrew

Ouch.

00:00:20.33

Sean

um I'll test again later. So far, so good. But ah yeah, we'll see. um Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been hectic.

00:00:31.74

Sean

Got back yesterday at 5am because my plane got delayed, and that was brutal. But it's the first time I've ever used my priority pass for a lounge. So that was kind of cool. um But before we get into Defcon, what have you been up to?

00:00:43.45

Andrew

pun What?

00:00:45.64

Sean

What's been, what's been going on?

00:00:47.21

Andrew

what No, no, no, no, no. We got to start with Defcon.

00:00:48.83

Sean

Okay.

00:00:49.58

Andrew

and Defcon is is the big news here.

00:00:50.65

Sean

All right, fine.

00:00:51.69

Andrew

I've got i've got some some little tattoo stuff to talk about, but ah yeah no you I want to start with Defcon.

00:00:54.82

Sean

Okay.

00:00:58.31

Andrew

and

00:00:58.87

Sean

All right, okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. Defend was good, Black Hat was good, Black, I'll start with the Black Hat. I went to the, shout out to Lucas Nelson, and he handed me to the Investors and Innovators Summit. um So first I'm going to like a summit at Black Hat.

00:01:14.64

Sean

um

00:01:14.94

Andrew

Huh.

00:01:15.56

Sean

ah ah like I got to go that to that basically like for free which is cool and so I just decided not to pay for an expo pass this year terrible idea by the way like I really want to pay for an expo pass it's 800 bucks and like I don't really like it's not like I go for sales so I kind of just go to meet our clients but probably should have paid a hundred bucks to just go like like go to a booth

00:01:25.56

Andrew

Oh no.

00:01:37.19

Andrew

Why? Why do you say that?

00:01:39.28

Sean

Um, I think I felt, okay, one, I think I felt a little bit of FOMO not seeing stuff at Black Hat and the expo floor. Um, I mean, in part didn't have like that much time to walk the floor.

00:01:53.41

Sean

Definitely met people outside of the expo floor. So it was fine overall. I think it was just felt very weird not to like go do the whole expo thing that I always done every year. Um,

00:02:05.12

Andrew

You all have never set up like a booth at Black Hat, have you?

00:02:08.15

Sean

No, not for us, only for our clients.

00:02:08.79

Andrew

Yeah.

00:02:10.64

Sean

um But I think it's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we would never we would never like be black hat booth wise, that would be, actually, that would be very, very interesting.

00:02:10.67

Andrew

Yeah. That shit is expensive, right?

00:02:18.97

Andrew

Yeah.

00:02:21.00

Sean

I don't think black hat would ever let us do that, now that I think of that.

00:02:22.17

Andrew

Oh really?

00:02:24.51

Sean

I mean, we're not a security vendor, so it'd be very weird to do it.

00:02:26.65

Andrew

Hmm.

00:02:29.87

Sean

I don't know, it'd be weird. i like That's not that's not like a terrible idea. actually it'd be very interesting i wonder if there's something we could do there but anyway we like uh uh i didn't get to wander it which means i didn't get to like i think i think one of the things i missed out on and what's kind of sad about it is i didn't get to get them i didn't get to go pick up merchandise that we made for our clients that they printed and that was probably the biggest thing i was bummed out about

00:02:51.17

Andrew

Hmm.

00:02:56.29

Sean

Uh, but the innovator summit was super cool.

00:02:56.53

Andrew

That's a bummer.

00:02:59.57

Sean

Uh, shout out to Mike Privet and Ross. Uh, you know, they were, they were both on a panel together. That was super good.

00:03:04.65

Andrew

Cool.

00:03:06.02

Sean

Um, um, and that was fun. Def Con was Oh, so very fun. A lot of good pictures. We ah including me brought six people out this year.

00:03:15.41

Andrew

Tick.

00:03:19.17

Sean

um More like extended team members rather than like team core team members. It's been kind of like extended team members slash friends basically coming to help.

00:03:30.92

Sean

It's just a lot cheaper than flying out our design staff um from from a like

00:03:37.44

Andrew

Oh, because so that design staff can keep like doing design work for clients.

00:03:41.34

Sean

doing yeah yeah um yeah exactly um which is like i don't know it's something i like it's something it's been always the biggest issue of this like agency plus merchandise model right they're two separate businesses so flying out on...