[00:00:10.210] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:10.700] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:11.250] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:13.120] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:15.270] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And welcome back.

[00:00:26.910] - Taylor
Welcome back. We have a new angle, a new camera angle, if you're watching the video. If you're not watching the video, then you may just want to quickly open it up, have a quick look after the episode.

[00:00:40.860] - Gordon
Well, that's assuming that they've actually watched any of the episodes. Otherwise it won't be a new angle for them; it would just be the angle.

[00:00:47.430] - Taylor
If you've never watched us before or listened to us; welcome. This is a new angle for us, which you wouldn't know otherwise if we hadn't said.

[00:00:56.050] - Gordon
So we should explain why there's a new angle really, shouldn't we? We're trying something new just to see if we can probably get our workflow in a better refinement. That's a really bad way of saying it. We're going to optimize, that's the word I was looking for! Going to optimize our workflow. And by doing that, we've got a camera that is now on top of the laptop. Do you want to explain what it is?

[00:01:28.020] - Taylor
Yes, so this kind of goes on to my topic for this week.

[00:01:30.720] - Gordon
Let's go to your topic then.

[00:01:31.910] - Taylor
So this week I went to the Apple Store and I bought a couple of things.

[00:01:37.000] - Gordon
Did you?

[00:01:38.130] - Taylor
As well, I bought some stuff from Amazon.

[00:01:42.150] - Gordon
Not from the Apple Store, though.

[00:01:43.610] - Taylor
No. Well, Amazon and Apple Store were separate.

[00:01:46.220] - Gordon
We've had lots of deliveries.

[00:01:47.530] - Taylor
They arrived and I received them on the same day. So first of all, I lost my mouse. So I use an Apple magic mouse and I lost it. So I kind of had been wanting it back. So I went to the Apple Store and I bought a new one, only to find that I found it when I got home. So I now have two, which isn't the worst thing in the world because I travel so much and I take my laptop with me places, it's nice to be able to have one that can just stay on my desk at home all the time and the other one that can sit in my bag and I don't have to take them out and swap them around.

[00:02:25.700] - Gordon
And also with Apple mice, the charging requires you to plug the cable in to the bottom of it so you can't actually use the mouse while it's charging. So it's an expensive way of doing it, but now you can have a second mouse that you can use while one of them is charging.

[00:02:45.430] - Taylor
Yeah. So I currently have an issue with my current workflow because I only have one charging cable because of the new MacBook I've got, which we spoke about in the last episode. It uses a lot more power so my power brick is 140 Watts. And so it's a lot bigger and more powerful, but it's more expensive. So I only have one of them at the moment. So it means I'm switching between plugging it in on my desk, unplugging it, putting it in my bag when I'm off going. And I used to have two. I used to have two, but because I've changed laptops, I needed a new charger, and I just haven't got around to that. The second one. The second thing I purchased was quite impulsive. I've been looking at getting a new watch strap for my Apple watch, and I got it. So I have a very small wrist. So it's like a braided cable in navy blue if you're listening. And it's really nice. It's kind of like a one strap all in one piece, so you have to slide it on and off from your wrist, you can't like as you would like a normal watch. It's really nice, fits really well. It doesn't move. It's a lot tighter than my other one was because I was kind of in between two kind of button loops when I was tightening it up. So it was always either too tight or too loose. And this one's perfect.

[00:04:13.740] - Gordon
And that's also good because you're doing lots of exercise now. And so having it attached to your wrist securely is really important.

[00:04:21.380] - Taylor
Yeah, definitely. I did have to get size 2, because I have such small wrists. And the watch strap is slightly smaller because I've got the bigger watch face; they don't actually do the watch strap size I need, for the bigger watch face, because I guess they don't think people with small wrists use the bigger watch face. So I've got tiny bits on either side where it slides in.

[00:04:48.500] - Gordon
Little gaps.

[00:04:49.150] - Taylor
Yeah, basically. So that was my two Apple purchases, and then the other two purchases from Amazon were a new phone case, which is for a MagSafe, which has MagSafe. So it's got like a massive circular magnet on the back. And that's used for the new MagSafe technology that Apple have brought out, where you can charge, similar to kind of wireless charging, but it uses a magnet as well to keep it stable, secure. You can use stuff like this if you have a car and phone Mount. It's a very, very strong magnet, so it doesn't move anywhere.

[00:05:24.460] - Gordon
I remember seeing some in McDonald's. You could sit down, have your meal, and you could charge your phone because they had charging ports.

[00:05:31.980] - Taylor
Yeah. So that's wireless charging compared to MagSafe, which is using a magnet.

[00:05:36.050] - Gordon
It was the same thing, though. Sorry, it's not the same thing. It's Apple's version of it, but it would still work. So you could still position your phone over these chargers and it would still work.

[00:05:46.210] - Taylor
Exactly. And the reason for getting this kind of case was because I bought a new attachment for my laptop. So what this is it's actually how we're actually recording is, on the back of my laptop I have this kind of rotating arm and so I can then use the phone case and the magnet to attach to it and it kind of sits on the side or on the top of my laptop, and yeah, it kind of just floats there.

[00:06:15.540] - Gordon
That's why it rotates.

[00:06:16.680] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:06:16.980] - Gordon
So you can either have it here sitting on the side of the laptop, or you can rotate it up and it will sit on the top of the laptop. And we've currently got it on the top because then you get landscape, which is what we want. And if you wanted it portrait, you could do it this way. So why have you got this? Why is this important?

[00:06:35.320] - Taylor
So I do a lot of work when I'm out and about and I find that it's nice to be able to have that next to me. So if I need to make calls, I want to check on something, I'm watching something, whatever, if I want to watch a YouTube video, I can do that while not taking up any of my real estate on my laptop. Even though I did get more because I got a bigger screen, it allows me to have them run separately. So I'm not going to be using up any power running a YouTube video and that can just run from my phone, or I can have a checklist or to do list on there that I can then check off, reply to messages, things like that. And it's just a really nice place to be able to just put it; it's off the table so if I don't have much table space it saves on that. Yeah, it's very useful I think. And I used to have one of these but it clipped onto the side of the screen and I was always scared that because it was like a clasp close; you kind of closed it onto your screen to connect it, which was okay but I always got worried that the screen would crack or something because of it. And when I found this it just was perfect. You use '3M' tape on the back and it's really well made, solid.

[00:07:51.490] - Gordon
So the 3M tape goes on the bit that doesn't move. So it's the bit that goes onto the back of the laptop, and then the arm that moves comes out of that so that the phone is on the end.

[00:08:04.490] - Taylor
And if you're not using it you just, there's 180 degree rotation, and if you're not using it you swivel it to the other side where it's against the back of the laptop fully flush.

[00:08:15.390] - Gordon
So the one thing you do need to be aware of, is because it's only a magnet, If anybody is around you when you're in a public place and they are seeing what you're doing, it is a potential security risk because you can have someone just walk past and....

[00:08:31.390] - Taylor
Of course yes.

[00:08:31.990] - Gordon
Grab it so you just need to be aware of that.

[00:08:34.630] - Taylor
But yeah. I find that it's really useful to just have it there to be able to quickly access it if I need to. The advertisement on Amazon was quite funny. They showed how it improves your posture and things like that because you're not... Apparently a lot of people have their head on the desk and their phone in their lap when they view their phone at a table. Apparently.

[00:08:58.110] - Gordon
This is one of the sales points, wasn't it? It was saying that your spine is nice and straight if you're using your phone like this. Whereas if you're holding your phone and you're looking down, apparently you put your forehead on the desk; you're like this.

[00:09:13.810] - Taylor
Pretty much.

[00:09:14.690] - Gordon
Which was, yeah, I don't think that's...

[00:09:16.830] - Taylor
It was very funny, to be honest.

[00:09:18.810] - Gordon
I think it's exaggerated, but I think they do have a point because a lot of people do look down and that is not a good posture, but they over exaggerated it.

[00:09:29.410] - Taylor
They did indeed. So that was kind of my new stuff. This is what we're currently using to record. And the reason we say optimize workflow is because we originally were using a gorilla pod, which works really well. However, trying to get it in the right position every single time, make sure it's straight, make sure it's flat, making sure that, because we actually prop the gorilla pod on top of a centre piece for our table and there were the gaps in the middle; so making sure that it doesn't slip down, there wasn't much space for if the leg kind of slipped, the whole thing would go. So it was quite precarious and making sure it's in the same position every single time.

[00:10:15.980] - Gordon
We were always worried that during a live stream it would just fall and then we'd sort of like go 'heeellloo.'

[00:10:22.290] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly. Whereas this it's very quick, magnet; you're pretty much up and running and we know where it's going to be every single time because obviously it connects to the Mac.

[00:10:33.970] - Gordon
Yeah. We've just got to make sure the Mac is in the right sort of place each time. But yeah, let us know what you think of this new angle. Do you like it? Do you not like it? Is it quite strange to see because you're used to the other one let us know.

[00:10:46.780] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, the only difference is we're using the front facing camera, which is actually quite nice. It's quite nice to be able to see our face and see the video.

[00:10:54.860] - Gordon
And then we are flipping it in the software before it gets streamed.

[00:10:59.560] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:11:00.520] - Gordon
So you should see me on the normal side on the left hand side, whereas we're looking at this and I'm on the right hand side in the screen that we're looking at.

[00:11:11.870] - Taylor
Yeah. You can run it through things like OBS, which we do. We just flip it.

[00:11:17.310] - Gordon
What's quite interesting, actually looking at it this way is I can see the timer, so I know how long we're going for, which we've never been able to do before.

[00:11:27.810] - Taylor
Well, we have the sound...

[00:11:27.810] - Gordon
Yes, the sound is coming through and we're seeing the timer on the screen, but to do that I've got to look down, whereas this way I'm actually looking at the camera effectively. I'm not looking at the camera, I'm actually looking at the screen. But the way that Apple have made their phones, they've made it so that it looks like you're looking straight into the camera when you're looking at yourself, which is really good, and there's a timer just here which you can't see, but it's just here and we can see it and it's quite useful.

[00:11:55.000] - Taylor
Yeah, it is. Tell us what you think of the quality, because obviously this is the front facing camera, which people, they say is worse quality, but I don't think because of technology and how far.

[00:12:07.400] - Gordon
Oh, it definitely is worse quality, but we're only doing it in HD, so it shouldn't make a difference.

[00:12:13.130] - Taylor
That's what I mean.

[00:12:13.910] - Gordon
Although I believe the sensor is a slightly different size, or the camera lenses are slightly... I'm not entirely sure what the differences are. I do know the back camera's better.

[00:12:24.400] - Taylor
Is it noticeable enough for the everyday watcher?

[00:12:27.650] - Gordon
You tell us, what do you think?

[00:12:29.740] - Taylor
That's our question for this week.

[00:12:31.260] - Gordon
Yeah. Leave your comments below, either on Facebook or YouTube.

[00:12:36.280] - Taylor
So that was it for me. What about you for this week?

[00:12:39.120] - Gordon
So this week I want to talk about lifetime deals. Now, we have spoken about lifetime deals for software in the past, and there's been a few things that have been happening in the lifetime deal space recently. The main one being that people who have been offering lifetime deals have been changing the rules on us.

[00:13:03.770] - Taylor
Conditions.

[00:13:04.870] - Gordon
So it could be that they've just decided to close down because they've realized that it's actually not profitable for them to offer these lifetime deals and it's costing them more money, and the service isn't taking off the way they wanted it to so they're not getting MMR or monthly... What is MMR? MRR? "Monthly Reoccurring Revenue," that's not coming in because they're not getting subscribers, because they've got a load of lifetime deal people who've paid once and they're no longer paying and they haven't managed to convert people to paying monthly. Whether that be lifetime deal people that they want to have more resources or more allowances on the software, or just brand new customers. And so they're just choosing to shut the service down, which means that after maybe a year or two, maybe not even that long, these services that people have invested money in, and in some respects have spent quite a bit of money on, because with lifetime deals, the way we purchase them, you can normally stack, which means you get better allowances and limits and maybe more features. And so people stack and so you have a certain amount of money per code and you can stack those codes normally up to sort of ten codes. So one code might be $79. Ten codes is going to be $790. So you're investing $790 with some people and you're getting maybe a year, maybe two years worth of use out of it. Now, that's not great. It depends on the service. It depends if you're earning money from it. But if you've put all your time and effort and money into learning this system and putting it into your workflow, into your business, and then all of a sudden they decide it's not profitable and they pull the plug on it; all of a sudden, all of the things you've put in place stop working. And if you've got automation set up with other services like 'Pabli' or 'Integromat' or 'IFTTT' or 'Zapier' or whatever it is, and the service just stops working, all of those automations that you've set up and spent time setting up, they're not going to work anymore. And you're basically back to square one and you've paid a great deal of money to not get anywhere. You're back to where you were. The other thing that can happen is that a service could be purchased by another company. Now, sadly, there doesn't seem to be any sort of protection for lifetime customers when a service is purchased by a third party. And so you're sort of at their mercy. They might give you a lifetime deal continuation with what you already have; they might give you...

[00:16:10.750] - Taylor
Discounts on...

[00:16:11.910] - Gordon
They might give you a limited version of what you've paid for. They might give you a discount to purchase their service on a monthly basis or annual basis. The thing is that lifetime deal customers normally do lifetime deals because they don't like renting software, and that's effectively what you do if you pay monthly or annually, you're renting the service. And it would seem that at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any contractual rules in place that require a company, if they sell their service to someone else, to make sure that lifetime deal customers are getting what they paid for. And so this has happened several times now for me, I've got a lot of lifetime deals, and some of them have just gone sour, and we've lost them. And some of them have been really really disappointing. We've got really used to the service and using it a lot and all of a sudden we can't use it anymore because the service doesn't exist, or it's been taken over by someone who doesn't want to give us that benefit. Which is, to be honest, a really bad move because all the lifetime deal customers get really angry. Rightly so. They've invested in a product that they're no longer able to use. And so what they do is they go onto all of the 'Trust Pilot' and all of the different services where you can leave reviews and they leave really bad reviews saying this company doesn't understand what loyalty's all about. They don't understand what contracts have been put in place beforehand. They're not willing to continue them. Don't do business with these people because you might find that they'll just change the rules on you halfway through and all of a sudden, even if you're paying monthly, you can't use the service anymore.

[00:18:17.610] - Taylor
It's a grey area really, isn't it?

[00:18:19.380] - Gordon
It's a big grey area. And there's a lot of dramas going on at the moment when people are sort of... The way that it's being looked at from the people who've purchased it is a money grab. So the companies are coming on, they're selling their services as a lifetime deal, and then sort of as soon as the refund period is over, they might stop the service or just send an email saying, "so sorry guys, we've decided that it's not going to be profitable for us, so we're just going to pull the plug." And all of a sudden they've got a tonne of money from all these people who've invested in it and it could be looked at as being a scam. And this is why you need to be so careful when you purchase a lifetime deal; you have to do your own due diligence, just to make sure that the company that is offering the deal has some sort of track record. Because if it's a brand new startup, well, it's really a punt that you are taking on it.

[00:19:20.590] - Taylor
Unless you've got a track record of previous companies that you've started or products that you've built and stuff like that, it can be, like you said, a punt where there is nothing that you know about this company or these people to prove that they're not going to run away with your money.

[00:19:40.190] - Gordon
It's a gamble. I mean, if you buy a lifetime deal at the moment, it's a gamble. You don't know how long that lifetime is going to be. It's not your lifetime. It's the lifetime of the software. And the lifetime of the software could be eight months, it could be ten years. The other thing is you quite often get lifetime deal customers who are left out of new features. So a new feature might come into the software that you've purchased and they decide that they're not going to give you that feature because it costs them money, or because they want you to become a monthly customer. And again, you feel like, 'why am I purchasing things and giving you investment to help you build your business and your company, if you're then going to just pull the rug from underneath me and just say, "want to use our service, just pay more money."' It's like, that's really not how it's supposed to work.

[00:20:41.600] - Taylor
I think it can be seen from a, if you run lifetime deals I can understand why you may not want to give features for new people, especially if you say, for example, if it's a product and you say, look, you have access to all of the services, or all of the features when you buy the product. I think that's perfectly acceptable.

[00:21:06.870] - Gordon
I think it's fine as long as they make it clear at the time of purchase, that not all features or any features from now on will be included. But they don't. Most of them say 'all future updates will be included,' and then you sort of expect anything new to come along to be part of that deal.

[00:21:27.110] - Taylor
But again, you can also, I guess sometimes you have unexpected features or costs that you just don't inherit. For example, if you have a new super duper feature that you implement, but it actually costs £5 a day per user, then it's just not something that I think is feasible for you to offer in the lifetime deal. I think for that I think it could be seen as acceptable.

[00:21:54.870] - Gordon
But just be upfront at the time of making the lifetime deal, just say, "look, I cannot guarantee that anything in the future is going to be included. It really depends on the cost to us." There's one I purchased recently called 'Hexowatch,' which is great. And they have said there are premium integrations that they're making, and those premium integrations are not included in your lifetime deal. And they say that right at the beginning, before you purchase. So we know, we know that that's not included. They've set expectations. We know to expect that if there's something that we need with the premium, they're giving us a discount on premium credits, which is lovely. So if we do specifically need to use a premium feature, we know it's going to cost money.

[00:22:42.210] - Taylor
That's a good way to do it.

[00:22:43.660] - Gordon
And that's the good way to do it. The other red flag to watch out for with lifetime deals is, when a lifetime deal comes back again and again and again.

[00:22:57.720] - Taylor
Only certain, because I can think of at least one where it's, I guess it's just a good way to have more cash flow. So, for example, we have a service that we use called "Short Pixel," and every single year they do a lifetime.

[00:23:13.960] - Gordon
Not every year, but they have done recently.

[00:23:16.190] - Taylor
For the past couple of years at least, they've done lifetime deals around Black Friday, where they allow you to buy more lifetime credits, you get more lifetime...

[00:23:27.180] - Gordon
Certain monthly credit allowance.

[00:23:31.570] - Taylor
And that could be seen as maybe they need more money. But from what I've seen is every single year they're bringing out new features and I'm guessing that they use a lot of the money they gain through the Black Friday lifetime deals that they have run for the past couple of years, to kind of fund the development.

[00:23:49.070] - Gordon
Yeah, but that's a big problem there, because if they can't fund new features from the monthly reoccurring revenue people, then they're getting to a point when they're relying on the lifetime deal customers. And if you bring a deal back again and you've got somebody who's already a monthly customer and suddenly they see that there's a lifetime deal and they jump on the lifetime deal, you've just lost all that monthly income, and all your current customers will potentially know about this lifetime deal, jump onto that; and so all of a sudden you don't have any monthly customers anymore. You've just got lifetime deal customers who paid once, and now you've got to start again, building up your monthly income to allow you to sustain the company and keep it running. And that is a big problem. So you've got to just be very aware of how profitable a company is after they go lifetime and whether they come back again and do another lifetime. And if the service or product that they're selling is good enough to attract new customers when it's not a lifetime deal, so that they can grow the business. That is a big issue.

[00:25:10.460] - Taylor
Do you think that there's kind of like a toxic environment where people now expect a lifetime deal? And then if you don't offer that, people get upset and angry because you don't offer it. Because a lot of new products I've seen, people haven't released a lifetime deal and people are going, "well why not?" You know, I guess because of the increase in the last couple of years of lifetime deals, the popularity, people are kind of expecting; and if you don't do that, you kind of maybe get bad reviews or bad mouthed just because you don't offer it. Whereas it's not something that should be a given. And do you think people feel the pressure that, "okay, we're not offering a lifetime deal. Are people going to start talking bad about us?"

[00:26:05.480] - Gordon
Yeah, it's difficult because it's a really good way to launch a product, because if you've got a product you want to get out in the market and you know that there's going to be a certain number of people who would be willing to spend X amount of money and get the service for free forever. Not for free, but lifetime deal forever. It's a really good way to bring in a load of cash right at the beginning and then shut it down and don't offer it ever again. If you say you're not going to offer it ever again, you need to stick to that, because there's other companies who've said that, and then they've come back like a year later and offered another deal. It's like, "no, the reason I purchased is because you said there wasn't going to be another deal and now you're giving everyone else the same opportunity." It's not consistent.

[00:26:55.650] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, it depends because if you've got a service that does cost for usage. So it's not just a running cost, it's an actual when you use it it's costing, that's when it may not make sense to have a lifetime deal because you're forever going to be indebted to a user, especially if they use it heavily, and people can get, you know...

[00:27:18.130] - Gordon
It's a gamble for the company as well, because if they don't offer a lifetime deal, it's not going to be a big launch as such, unless you build a lot of hype about it. The lifetime deal is a good way of doing that, but you need to basically make sure that your business is good enough to make people want to pay annually or monthly for the service. Because if it's not, then you're not going to survive anyway. That's got to be the first thing to aim for when you're building a new service or product.

[00:27:57.050] - Taylor
But definitely something interesting.

[00:27:59.270] - Gordon
So yes, my advice is just be careful of lifetime deals and check them out. Make sure you're happy, and also make sure that you're willing to throw the money away should the service stop after a few months time. Because if you're not and that money is important to you, don't spend it. Because it doesn't matter what they're offering, don't... Never buy on a roadmap, because sometimes that never happens. You want to buy on what's there at the time of purchase and make sure you're happy with that. That's the advice for today. That's it from me.

[00:28:39.300] - Taylor
That's it from me as well.

[00:28:40.980] - Gordon
So, as always, you can like, share, and subscribe. We're on YouTube and on Facebook.

[00:28:47.890] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes and any topics we may have spoken about.

[00:28:54.970] - Gordon
So thank you for joining us. We are back again next week at 1pm. Until then, my name's Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:29:04.050] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:29:06.720] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:29:07.280] - Taylor
Bye.

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