The Holiday Buying Guide For freelancers, side-hustlers and entrepreneurs E67

With the holiday season fast approaching, we thought it would be a good idea to once again record a gift buying guide for our listeners. Unlike last year’s instalment, however, this episode will focus much more on functional products that will help our community achieve their personal and professional goals. Throughout this episode, our hosts touch on the best hardware and software money can buy, as well as some other tips you can use to find some great deals this holiday season. 

 

Hardware recommendations:

• Computer components
  • Second hand 1080ti 
    • https://www.ebay.com.au/b/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1080-Ti-NVIDIA-Computer-Graphics-Video-Cards/27386/bn_7116470191
• Laptops
  • Laptops with Ryzen 4800h processor
    • Lenovo Legion 5 - https://futr.link/legion-5
    • Hp Omen -  https://futr.link/hp-omen
    • ASUS TUF - https://futr.link/asus-TUF
  • Apple’s M1 chip
    • Apple MacBook Air M1 - https://futr.link/macbook-air-m1
    • Apple MacBook Pro M1 - https://futr.link/macbook-pro-m1

• Phones
  • iPhone 11 - https://futr.link/iphone-11
  • Google Pixel - https://futr.link/pixel-4a

• Headphones
  • Airpods - https://www.apple.com/au/airpods/ 
  • Galaxy Buds - https://futr.link/galaxy-buds
  • Galaxy Buds+ - https://futr.link/galaxy-buds-plus
  • Galaxy Buds Live - https://futr.link/galaxy-buds-live
  • Sony 1000xm4 - https://futr.link/wh-1000xm4 

• Cameras and recording equipment  (Don’t know what links to put for these)
  • Look at eBay for cheap studio equipment 
  • Any Canon Camera that will fit a 50mm portrait lens
  • Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 - https://futr.link/canon-50mm
  • Sony RX100 series - https://futr.link/rx100vii
  • HyperX Quadcast - https://futr.link/HyperX-QuadCast
  • Logitech c922 webcam - https://futr.link/logitech-c922

 

Software/Sites:

• Team organisation tools /Workflow management systems 
  • Plutio - https://www.plutio.com/
  • Google Workspace - https://workspace.google.com.au 
  • Asana - https://asana.com/
• Graphic design and editing suites
  • Adobe Creative Cloud - https://www.adobe.com/au/creativecloud.html
  • Crello - https://futr.link/crello
  • Final Cut Pro - https://www.apple.com/au/final-cut-pro/  
• Website development
  • Local by Flywheel - https://localwp.com/ 
  • WordPress - https://wordpress.org/ 
  • Shopify - https://www.shopify.com.au/
  • Squarespace - https://www.squarespace.com/ 
• Email marketing software
  • Mailchimp - https://mailchimp.com/ 
  • Mailpoet (WordPress plugin) - https://www.mailpoet.com/  
• Royalty-free music/image providers
  • Our favourite free stock photo sites: https://futuretheory.com.au/4-best-free-stock-photo-sites/
  • Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/ 

• Online portfolios
  • Behance - https://www.behance.net/ 
  • Dribble - https://dribbble.com/
  • Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/

 

Transcript 

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors

 

Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, Future Tribe. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. On this episode, we've got the second episode of this season, featuring a Futureheory. Staff members. So this time around it's Hayden, who is our podcast manager, and he's going to be editing this podcast this episode right afterwards. But how are you today?
[00:01:08] Hayden: [00:01:08] Yeah, not too bad. Germaine. How are you doing 
[00:01:10] Germaine: [00:01:10] good. Thanks. He used to feature a lot more, um, on the broadcast. Yeah. Thanks. Hopefully I haven't 
[00:01:16] Hayden: [00:01:16] lost my touch. 
[00:01:17] Germaine: [00:01:17] Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully you haven't lost your podcast persona. 
[00:01:22] Hayden: [00:01:22] I listened to enough of them. I'm sure that I can get 
[00:01:24] Germaine: [00:01:24] it back 
[00:01:25] Hayden: [00:01:25] the rest off and I'll be, I'll 
[00:01:27] Germaine: [00:01:27] be here.
[00:01:27] Be good to go. Um, yeah, this, this episode is a bit of a different one from what you're used to. Um, we wanted to that the team had a chat and we wanted to come up with an episode that was a bit of a buyer's guide so that if you're buying. Something for the, for the festive season, for Christmas, for someone special or for yourself, you had something to go off, but then as an extension as well, we wanted to have an episode that would give you ideas around software tools, recommendations that you can use.
[00:01:56] Um, no matter what sort of. Project you're working on. So, you know, whether it's the new year's resolution that you want to start your own podcast, um, or whether it's in new year's resolution that you want to start a side business or go go full time into your business. We hope that this episode essentially is it's just sort of cast a wide net and suggest things that are based off our experience based off using, using a lot of these tools, all of these tools, these are the things that we can vouch for ourselves and stand behind that, you know, You should go out there, buy these, buy these for like, I was just having a chat with some of the team earlier today that I think for a long time and you went there hadn't you hadn't got, gotten to work yet, but for a long time, and even now we, we sort of buy people, physical objects for, for Christmas or as gifts.
[00:02:43] And I know games are technically software, but I feel like surely sooner, rather than later, people should start buying. They loved ones, software, like, you know what, why aren't we buying? Like I know it's not as cool, but why aren't you buying like a 12 month subscription to an accounting package for, you know, someone, someone who's really always thought about going into business, but had no idea because there's such a 
[00:03:05] Hayden: [00:03:05] stigma around it.
[00:03:06] I think like giving the physical gift is still what. Do you 
[00:03:09] Germaine: [00:03:09] do at Christmas time? 
[00:03:11] Hayden: [00:03:11] Yeah, because I mean, if you unwrapped like a card that says, you've just like got 12 months of like an Adobe creative suite subscription, I'd be like, wow, awesome. 
[00:03:23] Germaine: [00:03:23] Maybe, maybe you're not enough of a nerd or a geek because I'd be so ecstatic if I got that.
[00:03:28] Yeah. 
[00:03:30] Hayden: [00:03:30] That is true. Yeah, 
[00:03:31] Germaine: [00:03:31] it might be. I mean, saying that like, even in, even in sort of that more, I don't know how, how do you classify those people who would appreciate it? I don't know how to classify it. I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't want to put a label 
[00:03:43] Hayden: [00:03:43] notice such a yeah. nerd is such an all encompassing term.
[00:03:47] I feel like, Oh, there's like a marketing jargan and term for it. Like the early adopters. I feel like those are the people that really speaks to. 
[00:03:54] Germaine: [00:03:54] Yeah. Good. I don't think software still is an acceptable present or an acceptable gift. I've never gifted software hard and about you. 
[00:04:04] Hayden: [00:04:04] Uh, I've never done it either.
[00:04:05] I've gifted games. And as you said, that's technically software, but I think a lot of these companies need to do a better job of making their software a bit more tangible. 
[00:04:14] Germaine: [00:04:14] To be honest. Yeah. I mean, I find it weird when you can buy like a Google play. Like it's effectively a gift card, but you can buy like the Spotify subscription or the Google play subscription from, from your local supermarket.
[00:04:26] I always see it. And I always think that's, that's so weird. Like we're buying a physical thing for something that is completely digital, completely intangible, but, um, Yeah, you would think that marketers would have sort of come up, come up with a solution for this? Um, much sooner, like, I don't know. I don't know if you can buy like a, even if you could buy like a 3d fortify logo with a coupon 
[00:04:48] Hayden: [00:04:48] or just like, um, the same sort of, uh, Technology that they use in like contact lists, like Cod 
[00:04:54] Germaine: [00:04:54] payments and stuff like that.
[00:04:56] Hayden: [00:04:56] Yeah. That's the word I was looking for. The things that they put in like a may bows and stuff that you could just tap it and, you know, you're free up your subscription for six months. If you tap it to your phone or something, that would be interesting. We've given up, we've given up the good ideas, 
[00:05:09] Germaine: [00:05:09] but that's the whole point of the podcast, right?
[00:05:11] We always want to give it, give away ideas for free and. That's the whole point. Um, we've digressed a little bit, but before we roll into the actual crux of this, this episode, I should mention, I'm actually recording this episode on the new Mac book pro with the M one processor and Hayden's, um, on his end, um, basically where I'm normally quoting from.
[00:05:31] So he's using a CNI 22 Logitech webcam and a hyper, um, HyperX quad cost microphone. Yeah, I was originally going to go with, so I'm going with a webcam from the Mac book, just to see how that looks. Um, we were going to use the microphone from the Mac book, but Hayden on his sensitive was a very echo-y. So I'm just using the Logitech G pro headset and the in-built microphone.
[00:05:55] So this can be a bit of a test for that one. I'm actually interested to see though, is what the processing here does. Cause we, this Mac book prior, and one we actually replaced, or this is replacing an Intel MacBook pro the, basically what happened was that the Intel MacBook pro was just overheating a lot and it was quite disappointing, um, especially made zoom calls and this is supposed to run much cooler.
[00:06:21] So. We'll talk about it more in, in sort of the middle, middle section of the, um, uh, episode, but just wanted to give that as a heads up. So if you want to check out the video for this episode, go to our YouTube channel link will be in the description. You'll see a comparison of quality. Um, I don't know if you were seeing this on your end, Hayden, but there's a lot of background flickering.
[00:06:42] Yeah. 
[00:06:43] Hayden: [00:06:43] I was going to bring that up and that's sort of like a problem. They still haven't fixed with the inbuilt Canberra is that they don't deal with background light very well. Especially with the person of your complexion. There's a lot of just like contrast between the background and stuff. It's sorta like when you wear a pinstripe shirts.
[00:06:59] Germaine: [00:06:59] Yeah. Yeah. It starts to do something weird with the image. 
[00:07:02] Hayden: [00:07:02] Yeah, exactly. So it's 
[00:07:04] Germaine: [00:07:04] like I'm coming across fairly, like they're shocked. My skin's coming across fairly well. I, I must say I've seen other like webcams that would, um, sort of darken me a lot because the backgrounds, why am I coming through is clear on this than I am on my end.
[00:07:19] Hayden: [00:07:19] You are, you are definitely, but the background is. As I said, quite distracting. So hopefully you need one of those backgrounds that you can do in the zoom call. So it won't be a problem. You can just look on the background, the Paris background, and 
[00:07:33] Germaine: [00:07:33] you want to use your MacBook pro I mean, it might be the fluorescent lights above us.
[00:07:38] We are in an office, so it might be that flicker, but, um, just something to keep you in mind. And as I mentioned, if you want to. Watch the video and see what we're talking about. Go to the YouTube channel, but rolling into it. We were already mentioned the microphone and webcam that we use. Um, Hayden you'll want to quickly talk about, um, the audio HyperX quad cast microphone, really solid audio.
[00:08:00] Would you say. 
[00:08:01] Hayden: [00:08:01] Yeah, it's awesome. Um, couldn't recommend it highly enough. Uh, and just for anecdotal evidence, a lot of the stream is a YouTube is I use, I actually see this mic more often than not. And, um, I just find that an interesting tidbit considering that these guys' whole livelihood is based off, um, audio visual content, and they use it all the time.
[00:08:21] I've I had an issue with your audio. Every time I have an issue with audio, it's always guests, um, because of the internet connection, but now this is an awesome. Machine super easy to set up. You just literally plug it in and plop it right in front of you. And you're basically ready to go. 
[00:08:34] Germaine: [00:08:34] Yeah. Wonderful.
[00:08:35] We've talked about it in the past as well. So those are our first two recommendations and that includes the logic, Mike, sorry. 
[00:08:42] Hayden: [00:08:42] Hm. How much did the micand the webcam cost respectively? 
[00:08:46] Germaine: [00:08:46] I think the Mike's around the $300 Australian dollar Mark and the webcams around the $200 Australian dollar Mark. So they're not small investments, but they're very, I would say very noticeable, um, investments, especially if you can get enough, enough use out of them.
[00:09:01] So if you're going to podcast or, um, stream, I could definitely recommend it. But if you're, you know, hopping on a zoom call once in a while, maybe a notch. 
[00:09:10] Hayden: [00:09:10] Mm. Hmm. But I mean, even then like $300, I feel like with the way tech prices have inflated recently over the past, you know, 24 months, like $300 is not that big of an investment.
[00:09:22] As you said, if you intend to use it. Outside of just calling nun for zoom dinner with them. 
[00:09:28] Germaine: [00:09:28] Exactly. Exactly. If you can get the use out of it, I think it's very, very much worth it. And, um, I could argue that, you know, rather than spending $150 on a subpar mic, you might as well go all the way and invest into a better quality mic and go from there.
[00:09:41] Rolling into further, let's get into sort of hardware first sort of off the bat. We also sort of talked about, or I want to talk about. Computer components. So if you've got someone in your life who likes to build their own systems, if you, if you have to use high powered computers, um, and you like to build like actual PCs, because you can't build your own Macs, the big thing that people think about our graphics cards and CPU's, AMD's new range of CPU's are fantastic for the money.
[00:10:06] We just built a new system it's way overkill the new system that we built. Um, Hayden's heard and seen all about it, but if you'll, if you're looking at, you know, computer parts, AMD is the way to go. Um, and then. Graphics cards wise, just look for secondhand graphics cards. If you're in the market, you will know that these graphics cards just like the new gaming consoles, everything's just struggling to stay in stock.
[00:10:27] People can't build them fast enough, make them fast enough. So I mean, my, my graphics card in the computer that I use day in, day out for video editing and so on and so forth. He's a two generation old Nvidia 10 80 graphics card. And now at the time it was the top of the line or one below the top of the line.
[00:10:43] And those cards are still reiterate really strong. Um, and you can pick them up, you know, for $400, I think in the secondhand market, which is not bad at all 
[00:10:53] Hayden: [00:10:53] shelf life on a graphics card. Like if you were to say, buy a secondhand middle to high tier graphics card, that's two years old. Like how long can you expect that to last.
[00:11:03] Germaine: [00:11:03] Good question. I think you can expect that to last for another two or three years, and it all depends on what you're doing, right? Like if you're gonna, if you're not going to go past, like, you know, maybe like 3d map browsing on a, on a Chrome sort of instance or on Chrome and, or even if you're doing video editing, I think it could, it can very well last year.
[00:11:22] Up to 10 years, these things, you know, at some point you might have to go in and update the thermal compound, used to transfer the heat away from the chip itself to the, to the, you know, um, thermal solution, whatever it may be. But, um, I'm not from that. Like even CPU is like, we, we have a bunch of systems that are really quite old, where they were really.
[00:11:43] Top of the line back then and they've held out really, really well even today. So secondhand, I think is a really good bet. Um, depending on what components you can get, especially cause everything's sort of out of stock these days, um, you might have better luck sort of looking into the secondhand market.
[00:12:00] Um, yeah. Going into more of it then laptops as well. Look for the AMD Ryzen 4,800 H in your laptop. Obviously I'm talking on the PC side, on the Mac book side, the M one chips just came out. I think they're really, really good so far, um, saying that, I mean, Apple did a bit of a dodgy thing with, um, the Intel Mac books.
[00:12:22] Um, they didn't really, they basically didn't hook up the, the thermal solution or the cooling solution properly. Um, so they sort of. You know, I hope Apple doesn't Sue me, but they, they artificially restricted the thermal capacity of the Intel laptops with the  it's their own solution. Um, and, and, you know, It's looking pretty good so far.
[00:12:48] Like we're running zoom right now. There's I mean, there's not even a, I can't even feel any sort of, I'm just feeling around the keyboard. There's just no hate nothing. Wherever the entails. All I have to do, it was booted up and it starts heating up. So, um, yeah, the M ones, I, I, I can't speak highly enough at this point.
[00:13:06] Um, yeah. 
[00:13:07] Hayden: [00:13:07] Um, in saying that though, cause I was talking to you cause I need to upgrade my laptop, but I'll probably buy a Mac at the chagrin of view and everyone around me. But you said to hold off into the second generation, um, and one chip. Okay. Can you talk a bit about that? 
[00:13:21] Germaine: [00:13:21] Can you speak to that? A little good point.
[00:13:23] Good point. So with a lot of technology coming out and this is true, I think about it a little bit because I feel like it's not quite as true with gaming consoles as well with the  and the new X-Box is coming out, but yeah. With most technologies just hold off for the first gen, you talked about the early adopters Haden, early adopters, often pay attacks, attacks, um, in air quotes, um, meaning that they usually pay a lot more for the same tech for the technology.
[00:13:50] Um, absolutely. But then there was a lot of like there also the testimonials. Right? So that is one thing to look out for. Like if we had our way, I wouldn't have got a first gen M one, but we got to swap. The old laptop or the new one, and might as well go with the M one, considering that we know the older ones are heating up too much, but the suggestion is, and the recommendation is to wait for usually it's within six to 12 months, there's a new version out or the second iteration out.
[00:14:17] And by that second iteration, they've learnt so much more. So. These new laptops, the new Mac book pro and ones process with the M one processor. They're the same industrial designer. They're the same physical laptop as the previous generation, which means that Apple haven't thought about, you know, how can we make it slimmer?
[00:14:34] How can we add even 
[00:14:36] Hayden: [00:14:36] optimize and around Al you know, a new processing core. Yeah. 
[00:14:39] Germaine: [00:14:39] Exactly exactly. And they, they, you know, the next generation could be like, okay, apples, realize we have a lot more room to play with now because X, Y, Z, we'll put in better speakers. We'll put in better microphones or we'll upgrade X, Y, Z features.
[00:14:54] So that's, that's what I usually suggest. And that's why I suggested to you Hayden, like, Just hold out and wait until that second gen is out. Yeah. Especially cause you come across to me as the kind of guy, the kind of person to buy something and just, you know, use it for the, for as long as possible, basically till till it breaks.
[00:15:14] Hayden: [00:15:14] I mean, that's the thing, that's sort of why I personally have always bought Mac laptops because, because for years and years, all I bought was, you know, lower to mid tier PCs. Um, that didn't last very well, just because the build I found never. It was really what I wanted. It I'm pretty fast and loose with my technology.
[00:15:31] I'll throw it around a little bit and it would break and it would just get slow over time. Um, and that didn't really happen until with my Mac book until very recently. But speaking to the point you were talking about before, I think there's also something to be said about software, not being optimized for.
[00:15:45] Um, new hardware initially. So, I mean, I can't imagine that all the web browsers that you use currently are already optimized for the M one chip. 
[00:15:54] Germaine: [00:15:54] Yeah. So Chrome actually had a lot of issues. So, um, Apple has to. Basically what happens is the new M one ships actually fundamentally different a different platform.
[00:16:04] So the way you ride ride programs for it, it's different. It's, it's using the technology that it's from a company called arm based out of, um, the UK. And basically it's, it's just a lower power consumption. Cause it's less overhead sort of. When it comes to Korea. So it's what, it's the technology that our, all our phones run on or smart phones run on, which means that when it comes to the older technology or the older software, Apple has had to add a layer of translation.
[00:16:30] So basically it translates the old code and lets it run on the new, new sort of. Versus the first, when, when Chrome first came out, it was actually really, really buggy. It was really slow. It was almost like we had, we had, uh, an internet connection that just like a dial up connection saying that Google has been really good and released a native version or a version that doesn't require that sort of coding layer.
[00:16:53] Um, yeah. And that has just resulted in a, in a really good experience so far. Now we haven't tried any of the. Creative cloud services or any sort of really hardcore apps. So, no, we haven't tried video editing or anything like that yet. And it'll be interesting to see how that goes on, on this new system.
[00:17:10] Hayden: [00:17:10] Well, I mean, they claim that video processing is now seven times faster with the new chip and, uh, image processing is around four times faster. So yeah. It'll be interesting to say how accurate those claims are because Apple having the POS been known to hyperinflate the statistics that they benchmark for their laptops, especially in the battery department.
[00:17:29] Germaine: [00:17:29] Oh man. Like even before you get to that, like at the announcement, they, they use graphs at the announcement that didn't label either of the axes. What are you showing by that point? Right? Like books. 
[00:17:43] Hayden: [00:17:43] Yes. Everything 
[00:17:44] Germaine: [00:17:44] is going well, actually, funny enough on this graph on one of the graphs, the new processor was trending positive and then it started to taper off and they just cut it off just as it 
[00:17:57] Hayden: [00:17:57] started.
[00:17:57] For example, the diminishing returns. 
[00:18:00] Germaine: [00:18:00] It doesn't make any sense. So you do make a good point about that. Like they've claimed United five times, five times, days, three times that only time will tell. We also just don't know how people are going to be able to cope for this platform yet. We don't know what sort of limits they're going to hit.
[00:18:16] Um, if any, so we'll just have to have to wait and see, but moving on from that, let's talk about phones now. The. New iPhone just came out. Are you on an iPhone 10 or an iPhone X or iPhone 11? Aiden. 
[00:18:30] Hayden: [00:18:30] I'm on a iPhone Xs, but I've had a good play around with the new iPhone, actually just over the weekend. And men, I'm very tempted to ask Santa for a new iPhone because the camera, the new camera is crazy.
[00:18:44] It's easily the best. And I've used the S 20 as well. It is the best camera I've ever. Used on a phone device, like a smartphone, just like the colors are popping out at you. It is so much more lifelike. Um, 
[00:18:56] Germaine: [00:18:56] what are you probably noticing Hayden also though, just, just as a sort of jumping they're jumping, running, um, apples finally.
[00:19:05] Upgraded their devices to have oil panels, um, or led is this technology that you will see in TVs, um, sort of 1500 to $2,000 up. Um, yeah, so that technology is what Sams are being using in their phones for a long time. And a lot of other food manufacturers use as well. It does, it does have like more deeper contrast.
[00:19:24] So you're probably noticing that a little bit as well, swapping from your iPhone to, to this new iPhone. Cause your iPhone would be running LCD technology, but yeah, I mean, I must say the iPhone, the new iPhone 12 has looked pretty good, especially because they have a legitimate, like with the 12 mini illegitimate phone that is sort of the old-school small foreign, but take the latest technology.
[00:19:43] Um, Saying that we've got an iPhone 11 for the office again, you know, runs fine. Runs. Great. Um, yeah, we saved a fair bit of money just cause I think the cheapest iPhone 11 is $300 cheaper than the cheapest offering 12 from memory 
[00:20:00] Hayden: [00:20:00] still isn't shaped like that is the thing to keep in mind. I mean, it's, it's ridiculous.
[00:20:05] You don't even think about it. Cause I, in my mind still think that if you were to buy a phone outright, it would be a thousand dollars, but now it's almost two and a half times at three times that even nearly four times that if you really want to bump up the Macquarie. Yup. Yup. Yup. Um, but I mean, that's sort of been true of.
[00:20:20] All Apple products recently, I can't really think of a time where you weren't paying top dollar for the ubiquity of the product. The design of it, you know, 
[00:20:29] Germaine: [00:20:29] was sort of the status symbol to an extent as well of having an Apple product, but, you know, switching lanes for something a bit more affordable. Um, if you, if you're happy to go for an Android phone, I think.
[00:20:40] The mid range is the real value sort of proposition at this point. Um, I mean, obviously you can buy an older iPhone as well. I think that's, that's a really smart, smart move. Um, because Apple guarantees, um, software updates for years and years, I think it's about five years. So that's a good bet. Any of the mid range, Samsung's a really good bet.
[00:20:57] And the pixel phones by Google, in my opinion, the Google pixels are sort of a nice. I mean, they still run Android, but they're sort of a bit more simplified. So it's almost having like an Apple device and it's a happy medium 
[00:21:11] Hayden: [00:21:11] for sure. Yeah, 
[00:21:12] Germaine: [00:21:12] yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's yeah, it's sort of a nice balance, right?
[00:21:15] It's it takes good photos. It's a smaller device. Um, it's fast enough. And the best thing, um, I think about them is that you can get one for around the thousand dollar Mark, which. As you sort of alluded to, can't be said for even newer Samsungs itself, over a thousand bucks. And that's the thing it does.
[00:21:34] Hayden: [00:21:34] Well, they do serve like an, uh, an important part of the market because lack a lot of things in hardware. The middle is falling out where you either get something that just does his job. That's worth like $200, $300, or you're paying for the top of the line, um, smartphone with the best processes, or you have to go to the secondhand market, which a lot of people are uncomfortable with for obvious reasons.
[00:21:56] Germaine: [00:21:56] Yeah. And, and then you look at, you know, the telco providers and the way all the, all the new find plants have shaken up. And there's just not, not a lot of value there. So yeah, a lot of decisions to make on that front. But I think, you know, if you wanted something for, I think the cheapest pixel sells for about $800.
[00:22:14] It's not cheap, still. That's a lot of money. Um, um, and if you had to pick, I think between, uh, Good laptop and a good, good phone. I would pick the good laptop personally, just cause you can be a lot more productive on there. Um, and being smart about what you, what are going to use the device for, I would always go a laptop and we'll talk about some software recommendations, um, later on as well.
[00:22:34] That'll let you again, I think you can really capitalize on that software on a good laptop. Phones are really, really good, but at the end of the day, you're limited by screen size and you're limited just by the amount of productivity that you can push. 
[00:22:48] Hayden: [00:22:48] Well, if you were going to give someone advice on, you know, I'm starting on my business, um, it's not necessarily like what you do in terms of like design and marketing, but it is like a consumer facing business where you're going to have to, you know, use zero.
[00:23:01] You're going to have to use word processing software. What would you suggest they get is a computer solution? Would they get a desktop? Would they get a laptop? Would that like one custom built. 
[00:23:12] Germaine: [00:23:12] So I go, I would say a laptop, unless just because you can buy one product that has a keyboard and is portable, has a monitor in build.
[00:23:21] So you're good keyboard. It's two to $300. A good monitor is at least $300. So you're saving $600 just, just straight off the bat. I think you can spend. You know, early two thousands, like as in 1000 and something dollars under 1500 and ended up with something that is just a work horse, especially if you look for something with the, with the new AMD processes.
[00:23:43] I mean, even the new Intel processes are really good, but that's what I would recommend. Um, okay. And, you know, and then we can touch on and we will touch on some of the software that you, that you mentioned as well, Hayden, that, you know, the software that you can run on this new device, this hypothetical device, we will try and maybe look around and recommend some, um, some devices in the description as well.
[00:24:04] Or just find some links from an eye on the place, keeping in mind that when this episode goes out, You'll be seeing black Friday sales already coming up. If not, if not, you know, coming up very soon. So, um, just something to keep in mind. They're now rolling into headphones. Um, I see sort of three categories here.
[00:24:21] One is headphones for like voice and for calling another, for like wireless earphones that you can just pocket and then the other for headphones for like an audio listening experience. Yep. Getting getting to the first one with the audio sort of microphone. Good audio kind of if gaming headset or voice calling headset.
[00:24:43] Um, I couldn't recommend these logic decks in half. Um, same logic J pro. I think it's been replaced with a new version, just really good, really comfortable for long periods of use steel series make really good headsets as well. So if you've got a game or in your life or someone who does a lot of, um, sort of phone calls and you know, are looking for.
[00:25:04] Just really good audio solution. So because with a lot of the wireless headsets, they're so far away from your mouth, that the audio is okay, but it's, you know, it's nowhere near like world-class or you really need something. That's going to run a boom mic right near your mouth and get the audio that way.
[00:25:22] So those are the recommendations there. The steel series Octa series is really, really fantastic. I went through sort of a month to two months of trying to find these act like the right headset for me. And logic just came out on top for that. Wireless headsets. Do you have airports yourself, Hayden? 
[00:25:38] Hayden: [00:25:38] Yeah, I do.
[00:25:38] I do have AirPods. Um, I think they're really good are a lot. They honestly exceeded my expectations. I didn't buy them personally. I got them as a gift, but awesome battery life. I have to charge them maybe once a week, twice a week. And I use them all the time. Use them exercising, have got them wet. Um, like they're just awesome.
[00:25:57] The only problem that I'm having now, it seems is. As I've used the product a lot, the Bluetooth connectivity starts to get a bit messed up. I don't know whether that's because I'm constantly swapping between my car Bluetooth and to the AirPods. Cause they don't disconnect once another Bluetooth device is connected.
[00:26:17] So that gets a bit mixed up and I'll have to reset the AirPods and disconnect them. But that's really my only complaint. About them so far. They're awesome. They're really fragile. They're really easy to lose the find my iPhone integration with the AirPods is terrible because it only shows the laws. It only shows you the last place that you've connected.
[00:26:36] To the, like, to the earphones, which would be when you had them in your ear, you know, it's a bit like your mom, your mom's saying like, Oh, when was the, when was the last time you saw the thing that you lost? It's like, well, if I knew mum, they wouldn't be lost. 
[00:26:49] Germaine: [00:26:49] Exactly. No, that's a fair point, 
[00:26:51] Hayden: [00:26:51] but they're good, but definitely not the value for money solution.
[00:26:55] I think if you wanted, if you weren't married to the Apple brand and you didn't want to pay that premium, I would go the Sony, a wireless ones. I forget the name, but. I think they are feel some dead air while I look at these. 
[00:27:08] Germaine: [00:27:08] Yeah. What, what, what, what are you looking at? I think if you're on the Android side, I had the original galaxy buds.
[00:27:14] Um, when I got my new phone, I got the new galaxy buds, plus again, I could not recommend them enough. I think they're really, really good. People have spoken about poor noise canceling on the galaxy buds live. I just don't find that to be true. I will wear it like while mowing the lawn. Um, and like, it really cuts out a lot of the noise.
[00:27:32] It's not, it's not beautiful. Like it's not perfect. It's not sort of going to drown everything out, but they're really nice. Um, and then the original galaxy buds, I think you can pick up for around 150 Australian dollars, which I just think for that sort of money, you really can't go wrong. It's not cheap.
[00:27:47] But you're getting a product from a, um, a really good company, um, a trusted company and I would say really quite good, good solution. What were the headwinds? 
[00:27:59] Hayden: [00:27:59] Uh, the, sorry.  uh, really good. Um, data's a pair of them. They're awesome. He's the most of the time, uh, when he's walking and stuff and he uses them for zoom calls.
[00:28:10] Yeah. Awesome. Um, and the thing is. Speaking to your point that you just brought up. I actually don't mind investing a lot of money into my audio experience just because, I mean, I put it down to, if you listen to music for four hours a day, you know, or you just listen to podcasts, audio stuff, YouTube videos, Netflix, on your phone for four hours a day.
[00:28:30] I mean, that's 28 hours a week. You put that over a year. That's a lot of time that you're going to be listening to stuff you want a good experience and this stuff typically, if you don't lose it and you keep it in good Nick. It'll last you two to three is 
[00:28:43] Germaine: [00:28:43] exactly. Yeah. I mean, I've spent originally when I got into the wireless ear phones, I spent $120 on a, on a blue rant product.
[00:28:51] That just, just was so bad that JB Hi-Fi actually just refunded me the money on that one. Um, yeah. So for another $30, you can get something that you know is going to give you a good experience. Good battery life. I agree with you. You might as well sort of go, go that route. Um, moving on to cameras, um, and studio equipment, I think with cameras again, if you're, if you really want good quality, I would go for a DSLR, my, my personal preferences for anything from cannon.
[00:29:20] Um, if you can get something that you can fit the Canon 50 mil. Portrait lens for like $200 for the, for the lens itself, you end up with a really good sort of base. Uh, photography solution. Um, yeah, some of the canons for very, very little money, you can get 4k video as well, I think for under the thousand dollar Mark.
[00:29:42] So yeah, couldn't recommend that enough. 
[00:29:44] Hayden: [00:29:44] So why Canon over Nikon? And there are the main competitors, cause I noticed that you're pretty married to the brand and you have been busy. 
[00:29:52] Germaine: [00:29:52] My first camera was a Nikon, but that was, and then I got a. Cannon. And I haven't looked back since, so since that first cannon we've got another two or three cannons, um, they've burnt tens of thousands of dollars from us.
[00:30:05] But, um, the beauty with cannon is that they've got an extensive, extensive, I guess, ecosystem of lenses. So yeah. That's the big thing. 
[00:30:14] Hayden: [00:30:14] The ancillary products you would call them? Yeah. 
[00:30:17] Germaine: [00:30:17] The products that re I mean, you know, I would argue that the law, when it comes to a camera, you're buying sort of the camera.
[00:30:24] Is only enabling you to use a lens at the end of the day, that lens. 
[00:30:29] Hayden: [00:30:29] Yeah, 
[00:30:29] Germaine: [00:30:29] exactly. And I mean, you know, a good lens. I prefer a good lens over a good camera body every single day, because that's going to be a better product. Right? Like you, you don't want necessarily a good printer if you bought bad ink for it, you'd want.
[00:30:43] Yeah. But you might prefer good ink over a better printer because at the end of the day, if the. Blacks are going to be deeper, even if it takes longer to print, it's going to be a better solution than a quick printing. 
[00:30:55] Hayden: [00:30:55] Exactly. Yeah. 
[00:30:56] Germaine: [00:30:56] So 
[00:30:57] Hayden: [00:30:57] what's the starting price. 
[00:30:58] Germaine: [00:30:58] Oh, I mean, I think you're looking at about $800 for the body with cannons.
[00:31:03] I mean, all DSLRs, they're all sort of whether you go cannon or whether you go Nick on you're going to be spending at least a thousand dollars, but that's, that's just where I would start. I mean, you can get the, you can get a Canon with a. With a lens for about six 50, but that's just bottom of the barrel.
[00:31:20] That's sort of, you know, Canon sort of almost predatory like, Oh, you know, um, someone wanted their first camera heard the DSLRs are good and heard the Canon's good. So we're going to have a really, really cheap product. Yeah, step it up from there. I mean, even if you get that and get one of those 15 mil portrait lenses, I just feel like you can't go wrong.
[00:31:38] Just that lens just changes how an image looks through whatever camera is shooting from. So, yeah, that's, that's my big recommendation there. And then the, uh, Sony RX 100 series, if you're looking for something more pocketable, but still quite capable. So those are the two there. And then if you're looking at.
[00:31:56] Studio equipment. I would tell you to turn to Amazon or eBay and just start off with like a hundred, 150 bucks for a kit, like a bunch of lens. Um, a bunch of lights. I just think as a starting point, we use that for, I think about two years before we really started to upgrade our equipment. And when it gets to that, similar to that 50 mil lens that I mentioned.
[00:32:16] That lends us 200 bucks. The next step up from that was $2,000. So you're looking at a huge chasm. Um, with the lights, you know, we bought a lighting kit for, I think it was 150 bucks. The next light, just the light alone was 500. And then you had to buy a stand for three 50. So you're looking at it. And that was just a single.
[00:32:36] Light. Right. So you look at 10 times more for, for more or less the same thing. But you know, obviously by that point, we, we 
[00:32:45] Hayden: [00:32:45] need, you would hope to be like, yeah, you'd have to be generating some revenue off a purchase that big, or you would just filthy rich and you can afford, 
[00:32:53] Germaine: [00:32:53] well, w what, for us, it was, and I have this theory of you use something and when you start to push, push the boundaries of that thing, if it takes you two years, I think that's worth it.
[00:33:02] Obviously, if you start to use something and then we didn't. Two weeks you start pushing the boundaries. You're just wasting money by that point, 
[00:33:08] Hayden: [00:33:08] which is probably what you'd be doing with those entry level products you were talking about before, you know, the, the 600 old cameras versus the $800 cameras.
[00:33:16] Germaine: [00:33:16] Exactly. So you might as well spend another 30, 40% end up with something that's going to last. She like that first Nikon. I outgrew that within six months. But then the DSLR that I bought, um, I think I didn't upgrade it for five years. Um, and even, even now it's still within the family. My brother uses it, you know, so that, that's just something to keep in mind that.
[00:34:24] Now Hayden, this one's quicker. Hopefully. Um, the first one that we'd want to talk about was sort of workflow organization tools, um, uh, is, is really, really good. I've heard good things about monday.com as well, but we use Pluto in a house. Pluto has just fantastic, really affordable and really good. If you actually look at getting into business for yourself, because it has like invoicing time tracking.
[00:34:48] All that built in. So that's sort of a big one, not much else to say there, we use it. We like it. The phone apps, aren't that great. But saying that when we're billing and when we're doing work, we're in front of a computer. So we use it through that. That means anyway, then sort of getting into the email side of things and getting into chat messaging tools within the team.
[00:35:08] We're really embedded into G suite. Google Hangouts. Do you have Google Hangouts on your iPhone Hayden? 
[00:35:14] Hayden: [00:35:14] And it works perfectly. Um, the messaging, the messaging is basically as well optimized as any messaging app I have on my phone. Um, the video conferencing functionality works. Very well, I mean, it's good as FaceTime, so, which is Apple's, 
[00:35:30] Germaine: [00:35:30] you know?
[00:35:32] Hayden: [00:35:32] Yeah. I can't speak highly enough of it. Uh, yeah, I say all that to say, Google Hangouts, Google, basically the G suite, the extension of it they've done and how well it integrates with docs, uh, which we already use a fair bit is just so awesome. That would be my goal. If you, if you weren't as ingrained in Google's ecosystem.
[00:35:51] Maybe it would not be as valuable to you if you didn't use Gmail, if you didn't use all these other products, but it's just another good extension of their current product line. 
[00:36:00] Germaine: [00:36:00] Yeah, definitely. And we like, we've really like, instead of using Slack and then an email solution, and then some then zoom, we've really sort of, when I say invested, we've really invested time because you, you play or pay like for Google workspaces as, as they re-read the G suite now, and you get access to a base amount of all those apps anyway.
[00:36:22] So you might as well use it. We're not, we're not going to pay more or less. You can pay more, but that's for more like more storage and things like that. So. Definitely definitely recommended. Um, yeah. 
[00:36:33] Hayden: [00:36:33] Oh, I just quickly, before I jump off, I think there is something to be said about. Having your workflow management systems all centralized in one place because I find it pretty ironic that at one point we were using all these different programs basically to organize ourselves, but then we'd have to organize the organizing programs.
[00:36:50] Like we'd have to, you know, all tab between three different things. And I was getting lost in where the passwords were held versus where, you know, my tasks were and you know, where w where I would put. You know, my completed task and it was all very confusing. But now that we use, uh, J suede or what do they call it now?
[00:37:08] Sorry, 
[00:37:08] Germaine: [00:37:08] go workspaces. 
[00:37:10] Hayden: [00:37:10] Workspaces. It's a good solution. 
[00:37:12] Germaine: [00:37:12] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you just, it just makes a lot of sense. I think there's something that could be said for minimalism when it comes to task management and that's, I think what we're getting at next one, sort of a few things in one, which is graphic design, video editing, photo editing.
[00:37:28] You've heard this before. You're going to hear it again. Adobe creative cloud. There's just no way to get past. Adobe creative cloud. If you want all those things, it's not the cheapest thing out there, but you know, just looking at again, integrated solution that works together. Um, and if you want to, you know, if you.
[00:37:46] Put some actual money in that time saving and that like just integration. I think creative cloud is the way to go saying that for video editing, DaVinci resolve is fantastic. And then final cut is final cut of paid program. 
[00:38:03] Hayden: [00:38:03] Hates it is. 
[00:38:04] Germaine: [00:38:04] Yeah. Okay. So, you know, you've got to spend a bit of money there, I guess, 
[00:38:07] Hayden: [00:38:07] and it is quite expensive.
[00:38:09] I will double check that, but the last time I checked, which was pretty recently, it was. A paid program, 
[00:38:15] Germaine: [00:38:15] a pay program. Yeah, that's what it's looking like now I'm just looking it up myself. Wow. Four 99. Yeah. Okay. And then that's what annual is it? 
[00:38:24] Hayden: [00:38:24] No. No. 
[00:38:25] Germaine: [00:38:25] Okay. That's okay. At least, but that's a lot of money.
[00:38:28] Hayden: [00:38:28] Yeah. Um, but I think with all these high end editing software suites, they got to be expensive. And I think that's why you're seeing so many middle tier sort of solutions come in and say shape people's needs for a very quick branded content creation, um, you know, 
[00:38:44] Germaine: [00:38:44] market material. 
[00:38:46] Hayden: [00:38:46] Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of, because not only do, is there a money investment in using the Adobe suite and the other software suites that you mentioned, there is actually a time investment to getting to know these programs, because you could use them for six months for a couple of hours a day, and you still wouldn't know even half maybe of the whole functionality.
[00:39:07] Germaine: [00:39:07] Exactly. Which is crazy. But, but, but you know, they've got a lot of fun, like, like you say, like. There's a reason they can justify that sort of spend, I would say. Oh 
[00:39:18] Hayden: [00:39:18] yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And do you get a discount if you use them for business purposes? Like if you do private, 
[00:39:25] Germaine: [00:39:25] no pay, you pay full price for business.
[00:39:27] Um, you do get a discount if you're using it as student though. So there shouldn't be discounts. Like really get into that. 
[00:39:34] Hayden: [00:39:34] And that's the same with the laptops as well. Just quickly going to say 
[00:39:37] Germaine: [00:39:37] yes, Apple education store, uh, sampling education as well. You can get, um, I mean, most Apple products have a, have a student discount of, I think 10%, um, which is.
[00:39:47] Hayden: [00:39:47] Oh, which is in some cases like $250, $300, which I can buy you. Extended warranty or 
[00:39:54] Germaine: [00:39:54] Apple capitalism. Yeah, one recommended I think, I think, you know, quickly talking about the warranty side of things, generally speaking, um, there's a proven to be like in business models where. You know, if you upset a warranty, there's a commission involved, the person selling it.
[00:40:10] They commission usually ends up being like 80% of the value sometimes. So yeah, it, that goes to show that there's not real, like they're no expecting to actually spend, or that that warranty is not going to cost them money. So it's something to keep in mind, but, you know, 
[00:40:24] Hayden: [00:40:24] and they have really cracked down on what's claimable.
[00:40:27] And what's not, I knew a couple of friends who have had like water damaged laptops that. Back in 2016, that would just send you a new phone that would send you basically something from the door. There wouldn't be a big rigmarole about filling out forms or getting police reports. But now it's a bit, it's a lot more, a lot more of a process they've really cracked it down.
[00:40:49] So it's probably not worth well, 
[00:40:52] Germaine: [00:40:52] I would say instead look into getting a credit card that, you know yeah. Um, ads warranty on like when you make a purchase through it. That's what, that's what I did. I, I struck it lucky and got one that for the life of the card would have no annual fee. I think traditionally it would be like $150, 300 annual dollar annual fee.
[00:41:09] And that's what I do. That's what I, um, that's what I sort of use to buy everything, even if the business, and then I just pay myself back because there's just a lot of value there. Moving moving on from that. If you look at getting a website set up, now we love WordPress. We are WordPress advocates, but again, it's one of those tools where just like creative cloud, unless you know, really what to do with it.
[00:41:32] You barely scratch the surface and WordPress is free. But I think where you, where you pay for lack of a better word in air quotes is in time. If you don't know what you're doing, it took me. I think. Five to 10 years to get, you know, get a full understanding of WordPress and what it's capable of. And I still don't, I personally don't necessarily know how to use it, get to talk to Damien who's our lead developer to really start sort of leveraging WordPress.
[00:41:58] And even then he's sort of like, there's still more to go. So, um, WordPress is amazing. It's super powerful, but you know, just, just something that you need to upskill yourself with. 
[00:42:10] Hayden: [00:42:10] So what do you start if you want to. Basically learn. You don't have to get into the weeds of it, but you know, I've come up to you.
[00:42:18] I want to get into it. Where do I stop? 
[00:42:20] Germaine: [00:42:20] I would say, um, get something like a flywheel, um, yeah, local by flywheel, which is like a local yeah. Aggressive development environment. Or just sign up for like a free, free web hosting account. Yeah. It get installed WordPress on there and just start playing around.
[00:42:36] That's that's my recommendation. Yeah. Turned to the YouTube, like not just for WordPress, for, for anything turned to YouTube. There's some really good free tutorials and content up there that you should look into. And if you don't want to go down that road, turn to something like Shopify or Squarespace, um, to, to build your website.
[00:42:53] But you know, don't touch weeks Weebly, I would say, you know, no offense to anyone using it, but yeah. Uh, I would pick Shopify and Squarespace before those other solutions, 
[00:43:02] Hayden: [00:43:02] just, yeah, especially, um, a lot of the people who we've talked to have run pretty successful e-commerce businesses who have actually, you know, I would not call them small businesses now with the amount of revenue they generate, a lot of them just use Shopify and basically link to that store from Instagram.
[00:43:20] And have basically found a lot of success doing that. So, and, and I sort of stop gap solution until you get to a point where you need a custom built website, that's going to do a better job of. Generating traffic and making sure the leads you generate are actually turned into sales. I think Shopify is a totally fine solution and it's pretty inexpensive.
[00:43:41] Germaine: [00:43:41] Exactly. Compare. Yeah. Given what you, what you get out of it it's yeah. It's, it's an expensive for sure. And especially if you look at, you know, comparing that against, um, a custom sort of development solution, um, Oh yeah. That you know, but then again, by the time you look at customer solutions, I think you need to have a proven business model generating really good revenue.
[00:44:02] And you're now looking at, you know, let's take this thing up a notch rather than, um, let's get a web presence for my business. 
[00:44:10] Hayden: [00:44:10] So how much would you say, like taking it up a notch would cause say that I've, I've hit the end of the road with my Shopify business. I actually want to get something custom built for me and.
[00:44:23] You know, it's not going to be extravagant, but it's going to be your basic e-commerce site. How much would that cost 
[00:44:29] Germaine: [00:44:29] now? How long has a piece of string, but, but yeah, just ballpark of an average, average sort of website and you look at a custom developed solution. Locally. So not outsourced, you know, not, not sort of getting coded by questionable people who have access to your website that you're, you know, that has financial information of your customers.
[00:44:47] Things like that locally, you're looking at at least $10,000. So at least the five figure Mark, you can very comfortably get way up there. Um, So that's what I mean, like, you need to be generating revenue. You need to be looking at this as an investment. It's not sort of the 30, 40, $50 that you'd be paying to something like Shopify or Squarespace, um, by, but by this point, you know, you need to be so time poor, that it doesn't make sense for you to mess around with a website.
[00:45:14] You need to. Be so time poor because you're selling you're, you know, you're working so much in your business that you need to worry more about how can I, um, you know, optimize my checkout process? How can I make sure that customers are really happy getting, getting what they want shipped in time? You know, by the time you're talking about like an e-commerce or a custom solution, Your you've you've legitimized.
[00:45:37] I legitimatized your business. Um, 
[00:45:40] Hayden: [00:45:40] rather than top 10% of online businesses, if you 
[00:45:45] Germaine: [00:45:45] you're generating proper revenue, right. You're earning like a folk full-time income. You're not, you're not sort of, um, yeah. 
[00:45:53] Hayden: [00:45:53] Yeah. Which is in the top top of people who sell stuff online. 
[00:45:57] Germaine: [00:45:57] I mean, it's very rare. Very difficult 
[00:45:59] to 
[00:45:59] Hayden: [00:45:59] do.
[00:45:59] Yeah, yeah, 
[00:46:00] Germaine: [00:46:00] yeah, yeah. Um, Moving on from that as an extension, I guess is email marketing solutions. Now, straight off the bat, if you've got a WordPress site, um, male poet is this amazing plugin that you can use to send emails off your WordPress site. Um, but for the most, for the most part, you'll be using something like MailChimp, which we still recommend.
[00:46:20] We have a client who sends, I think they've got maybe 20,000 contacts on their email list. So, um, these MailChimp. Amazing tool really like, you know, the, these guys send, I think, five to 10,000 emails a day. So very robust, very, very cheap. Given how many emails you can send out of that and how many people you can reach as well.
[00:46:43] So, um, MailChimp and then mail poet, if you're on a WordPress site, um, Going into the other few things that we've noted, social media management platforms. I'm not a huge fan of necessarily using those platforms. I could switch for things like that, especially just starting off, just, just, just post natively.
[00:47:03] A lot of platforms prefer when you just go on Facebook and post onto Facebook. Yeah. But just keep that in mind. Um, Yep. 
[00:47:11] Hayden: [00:47:11] I think engage, I think engagement is a big thing when it comes to social media, because that's the whole point of using the platform. Right. And I think at least me personally, when I've used scheduling, uh, sweets, the big problem I find is that when you set it and forget it, you're not going back to.
[00:47:27] Be part of the conversation and actually interact, which is going to not only help you do better in the algorithms of these platforms, but it's actually going to create meaningful dialogue between you and, you know, the whole point of content marketing basically is to create that like value exchange.
[00:47:43] And if you're not there. To be part of that exchange is sort of failing, um, the whole point. 
[00:47:48] Germaine: [00:47:48] Exactly. And then w when you just set and forget as well, I think you compromise, um, the timeliness of, of what you're saying as well. Like you don't take into account, um, Sort of everything that's happening around you.
[00:48:02] So just, just sort of a bit of a, a word of caution, not necessarily saying don't do it, but just saying, just keep that in mind as something getting into royalty-free music and image providers, there are. Bunch of websites, especially for images and stock video as well. Um, like Pixabay, Pexels, there's a lot, we'll again, we've written an article about it in the past.
[00:48:25] So we'll link to that in the description, um, in the show notes. So you will be able to just click through and find, find the, um, Image providers that we recommend. Um, royalty-free music is a little bit harder. YouTube has a really good, um, library there that, again, we'll link to that YouTube library of audio that you can use for, um, your YouTube videos.
[00:48:47] I believe rural to fee music is a bit harder to find it, but it's sort of thing where you can find people on SoundCloud or on YouTube and just say, Hey, you know, I'll give you a credit. Can I use, use your audio. That's what I would recommend. Anything that you can add to that one? 
[00:49:02] Hayden: [00:49:02] Um, I think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to.
[00:49:05] If you want to find a royalty free music, you're going to have to go digging and find producers and artists who are not well-known, um, are putting this stuff out on band camp, on SoundCloud who are just happy for the look. Um, and if you can sort of paint it like that, if you have a platform where a lot of people will be listening to their stuff, they usually more than happy to help you out, but be very careful about making sure that the music that you're actually using is royalty free and that it's not.
[00:49:36] Uh, a redo of someone else's stuff, and then they 
[00:49:39] Germaine: [00:49:39] could get color or something like that, 
[00:49:41] Hayden: [00:49:41] because that's the thing, like if you were to use. Someone's music for, you know, in your podcast, for example, when your podcasts inter um, from my understanding, they would basically be able to get a good cut of the revenue of all the revenue generated from that RSS feed, which would be pretty bad.
[00:49:59] If you realize, you know, a hundred episodes into the show that you created. Um, that was your baby. 
[00:50:05] Germaine: [00:50:05] Yeah. And you've been using illegal music essentially. Um, and you know, depending on how good their lawyer is, like Hayden said, they can turn around and go, listen, you, you profited from my work. Now pay me. How much did you make?
[00:50:18] I'll take X percentage of, of that and, you know, legal fees or whatever it may be now. So treat that when it comes to the logos images, I mean, anything that someone else created, please. Please respect that work that they've done and treat that as, you know, physical, like, like physical theft, just, just because it's intellectual or digital doesn't mean it's not theft.
[00:50:39] It is that 
[00:50:41] Hayden: [00:50:41] I, and that goes for everything now. Um, even if you have reposting someone's, you know, artwork that they did, um, you gotta make sure you credit them because I feel like now in the, in the climate, in the online climate that we're facing in 2020, um, people are going to get up for that and it really makes your brand look.
[00:50:58] Um, quite shocking if you're just taking people's stuff and we're trying to pass it off as your own. 
[00:51:02] Germaine: [00:51:02] Exactly. Like even someone's Instagram images, like respect it, even if it has your product in it, just reach out and say, Hey, you know, you bought from me, you posted about this. I really liked it. Like your post.
[00:51:15] Can I use that image on my own feed? I'll credit you? Um, or yeah, if you don't credit them, can I use my image and that image on my feed? Um, yeah, the last one is a bit of a. Bit of a favorite of mine, which is online portfolios or, um, like websites that you can turn to there's websites out there that basically rank other websites or are a hub for really interesting looking websites.
[00:51:38] Um, interesting logos people essentially have their, um, have their like portfolios on there. 
[00:51:46] Hayden: [00:51:46] Yeah. It's, it's a place basically where you can get inspiration from other creators and basically a way to curate your content and hopefully. Get people to look at it and like your stuff, and then you can generate, you know, freelance work for yourself or for your business.
[00:52:00] Um, that's their ultimate purpose. 
[00:52:02] Germaine: [00:52:02] Exactly. And, and, you know, th th those sites are, are be hands and dribble. Again, we'll link to them. Um, if you're in this space, you've probably heard of them already. The hands was, yeah. Purchased by Adobe a little while ago. So, um, it's clear that there's a lot of value in those sites, um, or someplace to look for inspiration or some place as well to see if someone else has come up with the idea before.
[00:52:24] Um, or if you're stuck, like if you're stuck for a color palette, a nice place to look at for inspiration, and then there's brand new, which is an awesome blog fit, basically daily posts about new logos and new branding so that you can sort of stay. Stay up on what's happening in that space and educate self and inform yourself 
[00:52:45] Hayden: [00:52:45] and just jumping off from that.
[00:52:46] I always think, uh, Look at subreddits for information on, you know, your, your specific discipline, um, whether it be brand logo creation, whether it be website design, there's a subreddit for everything. And they usually have a weekly showcase link where you can put your stuff and you can get feedback from people who have, you know, industry veterans who are able to give you actionable advice on, you know, why your stuff might not be good, whether it is good, whether you should be charging.
[00:53:14] For your stuff at this point, like how much you can charge. Uh, I can't recommend that sort of stuff highly enough. 
[00:53:20] Germaine: [00:53:20] I think the beauty with, um, Reddit especially is that it's user generated content and it's not necessarily like it's not a business generated content. Um, so there's a lot of value to be placed in being able to talk and being able to have a conversation and engage with.
[00:53:36] People who are in the same boat as you, um, or work in that same position as you and have that expertise. So I think that's a, it's a fantastic way to end this absurd Hayden. Um, everything that we talked about will be in the show notes, we'll be in the description. You can go check it out, um, check out the links, um, and let us know what you think.
[00:53:56] Let us, let us know if we, if we missed some, some website or some app that you really like, and you use all the time, um, Let us know. Um, that's, that's it from me. Any parting words from you? Hayden, 
[00:54:11] Hayden: [00:54:11] have a happy holidays guys. Um, don't go crazy shopping out there. Uh, on the black Friday on the black Friday sales, don't get trampled, 
[00:54:19] Germaine: [00:54:19] save, save some money for the new year and, um, being your resolutions come true.
[00:54:24] All right. Yep. Exactly. Thanks. Thanks for that, Hayden. Um, and thanks for listening. Talk to you on the next episode.