[00:00:00] Kalen: I saw you posting about syn js and everything and like I, yeah, I saw some of the screenshots and you were going through some code and, and I was trying to read it. I'm like, fucking hell man. I feel like you're kind of like a developer's developer for you. It's kind of like an art, you know? It's like, it's like artwork, like you want the shit to be super fast.

[00:00:24] Like you do a bunch of open source stuff just for the sake of it. Like you want the code to like look beautiful the way it's like laid out and the syntax and shit like that.

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[00:01:22] All right, so in this episode, got a chance to talk with Panoply. That's his handle on uh, GitHub. And on Twitter's handle is Nick Avidi, N-I-K-S-A-V-V-I-D-I-S. He's a total character. He is a wild boy. He gets into shit with people on Twitter a lot, but he is done a, a bunch of cool open source stuff. So the main vs code liquid plugin is something he wrote, the one that has like a bajillion downloads and then, you know, he's done like, um.

[00:01:53] Thing called signify, which is like an alternative to the Shopify theme, CLI. And he's just done a bunch of stuff. We finally had a chance to record a little quick pod and that was a good time. So, um, hoping, enjoy. You can check him out on GitHub at github.com/panoply if you wanna check out some of his stuff.

[00:02:14] But yeah,

[00:02:15] Niko: there he is, man. Man. The slipperiest one of them all man.

[00:02:24] Kalen: Fucking panoply, dude.

[00:02:26] Niko: Yeah. How be man? It's good to hear.

[00:02:29] Kalen: Ah, yeah. Good dude. Yeah, it's, uh. It was the, the whole, uh, Toronto thing was cool, had a good time, lost my voice a couple times or the whole time.

[00:02:39] Niko: That means, that means you had a good time Indeed.

[00:02:41] Kalen: Yeah. That means had a good time. But, uh, yeah, and also just getting back into the routine, dude, it was tough. Like fucking the first like day, I was barely sleeping out there, so I was just kind of like shaky and stuff. I felt like I could barely, like, barely walk. I went to the gym and I was like falling over, just like, and uh, then so I've been kind of getting back to full strength, you know?

[00:03:10] Niko: Yeah. But you're also got the kids, man. You've got the family too. So for you. Yeah. It's like those weekends they take it outta you, brother.

[00:03:18] Kalen: Yeah, dude. Plus I'm all as shit. So that's the, that's the other problem. Fucking August Augustus loo.

[00:03:29] Niko: Are you a gossip glue?

[00:03:34] But you are. Are you Gena? Yeah. You are Gena? Yeah.

[00:03:37] Kalen: Yeah, I'm four three. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:40] Niko: God, man.

[00:03:41] Kalen: God. Yeah. It's, I like, you know, I like fucking, you know, I like hanging out with younger people. They keep your mind right. Keep you young. Yeah.

[00:03:49] Niko: You know, but I, but the limit man, like the, the Gen X are, they're a bit wild.

[00:03:54] Yeah. I feel like, how so? I feel like millennials a limit for me. Like, uh, yeah,

[00:04:03] Kalen: no, actually I'm actually, I always forget, I'm within like one year. I'm actually a millennial technically, but like right at the upper limit.

[00:04:12] Niko: Um, yeah. See, you like my girlfriend, man. My girlfriend is like borderline Gen X. She's 41.

[00:04:17] Damn, dude, that's

[00:04:19] Kalen: wild. You, you're the

[00:04:20] Niko: type of dude to have an older girlfriend, man. That's crazy. Yeah, man. She got me on. She, she, she, uh. Or bucked to me when I was full young man, you know, 35. And you're what in your twenties name, man? I'm, oh man. I'm 35, brother. I'm old boy.

[00:04:35] Kalen: Oh no

[00:04:35] Niko: shit.

[00:04:36] Kalen: Oh, okay. Damn.

[00:04:37] Niko: I don't know why I thought you were.

[00:04:39] Yeah, that's because I act like a child acting like a fucking

[00:04:43] Kalen: savage, fucking mad man. I get so psychopath.

[00:04:52] Niko: I feel like the Shopify community, like you know, there, there's only a few that actually like me. The rest of them are just like, no, we don't like him. We don't like the SLE guy. Uh, I, I'm, I'm, I'm misunderstood.

[00:05:05] I'm misunderstood.

[00:05:06] Kalen: You're very, you're very misunderstood. Uh, dude, so much of the time in like a business context or like a professional context, like everything is so, like, everybody just always, you know, says the right thing. And like, you know, there's no, like, people just really saying what they think, you know?

[00:05:27] So I like it even when it gets a little outta hand. Like I still, I like the, you know, I like the wildness of it. Um,

[00:05:40] Niko: the biggest man, like, I think a lot of people in the Shopify community are like, this is like their everything. Yeah. Yeah. So they don't want to like upset or rustle the, I don't know the term like, um, the

[00:05:52] Kalen: apple cart.

[00:05:53] Niko: Yeah. Correct. They're like, oh, you know. And I, and I just sort of like, that's just like, it's always been like a side hobby for me.

[00:05:59] Yeah. So for me it's like, ah, I'll definitely tell you how it is, but to my own detriment, that is man, you know? Yeah.

[00:06:07] Kalen: Yeah. So you've been kind of chilling out a little bit more lately.

[00:06:11] Niko: Yeah, man. Like I was with my company for like 10 years, my old agency. Yeah. And I recently like left them. And now I'm with a new, a new company now, man.

[00:06:19] So I'm not really doing much e-commerce. So for me's, like, yeah, it's actually kind of nice, man. Like, I'm mean through like a lot of other sort of different areas now, which is dope, man, you know? Yeah. It, I still sort of miss e-commerce though, man. 'cause it's like, it is chill, you know? Yeah. You can just sort of like, hack out.

[00:06:37] It's good to do what, you know. So now almost like a new, new area.

[00:06:40] Kalen: Yeah. There's comfort in doing what, you know, but then when you, you get out, you do something new and then you're like a little nervous and then you get into it and you're like, oh shit, this is cool. I, I'm like, you're learning new stuff and Exactly right,

[00:06:53] Niko: man.

[00:06:54] Kalen: Yeah, I saw you posting about syn js and everything, and like I, yeah, I saw some of the screenshots and you were going through some code and, and I was trying to read it. I'm like, fucking hell man. I feel like you're kind of like a developer's developer for you. It's kind of like an art, you know, it's like, it's like artwork.

[00:07:16] Like you want the shit to be super fast. Like you do a bunch of open source stuff just for the sake of it. Like you want the code to like look beautiful the way it's like laid out and the syntax and shit like that. And I am like the, sort of the opposite of that. Like, I'm more of like a generalist, a pragmatist, like, and not to mention now it's even worse with ai, like I'm just fucking generating co.

[00:07:44] But I mean, I read it, you know, and then I, I'll refactor it. Like I, I understand what's going on, but. If it works, you know what I mean? I'm happy and then I'm onto the next like business. Yeah. You know what I mean? I appreciate when somebody, you know, like it's like an art form. I think that's awesome.

[00:08:03] Niko: You know?

[00:08:03] Yeah. And you know, it, it is interesting, man, because for me, like I feel like with, with me and, and have anything to do with tech or like programming, if everyone likes it, like, if it's like everyone's like, this is great. I'll be like, this is, this is slow. Fuck it. Yeah. I hate it.

[00:08:18] Kalen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:08:20] Niko: And so, like for me, man, like I used to like really be into the mainstream stuff.

[00:08:24] Like, you know, I used to be all about the JSX and the React. And, and then one day, like I found this, like this framework called Miral js. Yeah. And I was like, I started like using it and um, I joined the community online of other people that use this framework. Yeah. And it was like a bunch of like, just totally skilled developers, like highly.

[00:08:46] And it changed my perspective on programming, like completely. Mm-hmm. And then I started like adopting the practices that I, I sort of learned in that community. Mm-hmm. And it's such an, they, they're so, so different to like, what everyone else does. And with sin, like sin was created by like this 10 Xer, his name's Ssus.

[00:09:05] He's the guy that, um, maintains like the Postgres. All

[00:09:08] Kalen: the fucking 10 X devs are named Rasmus. I feel like half of them.

[00:09:12] Niko: Like, like man, this guy man, like, he does like a side quest the other day. He like built like this encoder, this binary encoder that is faster than sea bor a message packet. Like, it's just insanity, man.

[00:09:27] Kalen: Yeah. And it makes

[00:09:27] Niko: me feel DI mean, it's text man, like, um, he basically built this new framework, this new like virtual dom called sin and it's out control. Beautiful man. Yeah. Like it, it's like CSS in Js. It does like all the bells and whistles, man, I've gotta show you. Yeah.

[00:09:43] Kalen: All right.

[00:09:44] Niko: I've gotta show, I've gotta show you.

[00:09:46] Kalen: Yeah. When I see your posts on it, I try to kind of follow along a little bit, but it's a little above my pay grade, you know?

[00:09:53] Niko: Yeah, yeah. But the thing, it's understandable though, man, like if I think it's above your pay grade, I think it's more so like, it's in the Shopify ecosystem, like going against the grain, it's not gonna help you, like, it's not gonna help you be productive.

[00:10:06] Uh, where like doing what the Shopify recommends everyone does is probably the best option. Yeah. But then, but then there's like, there's idiots like me that are like, everything you do sucks. So I'll do my own thing. But it's also, again, to my own detriment because, you know, I'm not doing what everyone else does or, and that makes my life harder.

[00:10:26] When it came to Shopify related Yeah. Engineering or whatever it was.

[00:10:31] Kalen: It's like you're saying, like you do it because you like for the sake of it. You know, like the, I really feel like it's an art, it's like an art form, you know, it's like, yeah, it's about, you're right. You know what I mean? It's about having a, like a unique way of doing things.

[00:10:47] I

[00:10:47] Niko: think also, man, like I, I do get, I do very much enjoy, I mean, with Shopify. Yeah. So like, originally the reason I got into Shopify development was, it's a funny story, man. So, uh, you know, Carl, who is the, uh, guy behind Shop Pay, right? Carl Shop

[00:11:03] Kalen: Pay? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. So he's,

[00:11:05] Niko: yeah. So many years ago, this guy Carl, he's one of the higher ups at Shopify.

[00:11:09] Okay. He started this e-commerce platform called Tictail. This is like 2012. And um, Shopify ended up buying Tick Tail and consumed it, and Carl's the Mind. He's the mind behind Shop Pay. Anyway, the reason of Shopify, yeah. The reason Shopify is because I was using Tick Tail and then they were purchased by Shopify.

[00:11:29] And I started using Shopify 'cause of that. Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah. And ever since then, man, it's just been like an evolution. I feel like for many years, the, the, the development ecosystem in Shopify was pretty, like, lost it. And then it's like, I went about, went about creating my own solutions and then Shopify started creating their own.

[00:11:50] But every time they created something, I just didn't like it. I never liked it. They've really created, you know what I mean? I just, right. There's nothing and, and I feel like that's sort of why I became the me man. Like, like a bit of an art form in the sense you are, right? Yeah. 'cause I wanted, I was chasing like something different, something new.

[00:12:06] Kalen: Like an ideal, like chasing an ideal versus not. Yeah. Like a pragmatic, you know? Yeah. So there's like, there's the Shopify li like liquid part, uh, vs. Code plugin, and then there's yours, you know, like you're always fucking, there's the, there's the Shopify CLI sink, and then you built, you know, signify, which I did take a little crack at that, and I know it was a, I was a couple versions behind, but I swear to God, every time I try to use any kind of a hot modular reload on a Shopify theme, something doesn't work.

[00:12:41] I end up falling back to just. Doing page refreshes because accounts don't work. Something funny happens. And, and I was like, fuck, it'd be so nice to just, you know, have something that just works and you know, you can just Oh yeah. Build stuff faster. And, uh, the thing

[00:12:56] Niko: is, like, the thing with like, the web Shopify's handled the approach mom, but like, um, pop reloading is, it's so different to the way I, I went about it.

[00:13:05] So like if Okay. Say if you're using Shopify backed or maintained, like themes, like if you're using Dawn or the new ones Horizon Yeah. It's gonna be a little bit, bit of a headache. Yeah. But then if you, if you use the theme structures that I sort of created, it's flawless, like inify, you can do a hot, it's, it's basically instant.

[00:13:23] The longest you'd wait for a reload would be 500 milliseconds. But again, it's only experienced if you're not using the Shopify back stuff. And that's where like, I think the, the divergence happens. Ah,

[00:13:35] Kalen: so you have, you have some of your own theme? Yeah, I'm on that. Okay. I probably haven't seen those yet.

[00:13:41] Niko: Yeah. Yeah. So. So I built like a, I built like a framework called SPX, single page XHR. And what that does mean is essentially just like you only ever load in the content for header slop a single dime. And then after that it just doesn't get loaded in again. And that means per page visits, essentially instant, because they're only doing like, yeah.

[00:14:04] Partial page replacements. It's hard to explain. Like, it's called dom morphing. Okay. Uh, and yeah, I'm getting technical now, but dude, I love

[00:14:14] Kalen: it. I love it. Yeah.

[00:14:15] Niko: Yeah. So I mean, like, I built Sify to work with SBX. Um,

[00:14:20] Kalen: okay.

[00:14:21] Niko: And that's what the, our, our, our little brother, what's his name? Um, tox. Eric. Yeah. Little T

[00:14:26] Kalen: Tox.

[00:14:26] The brother

[00:14:26] Niko: tox. Yeah. Little co little. He's a little legend. This one man, he just. He hacks on that. He's smart little kid, mom. Yeah. But he'd been using my stuff. It's funny,

[00:14:36] Kalen: I brought him into this project. I was, I was doing some backend stuff and then the client was like, Hey, we need a front end developer.

[00:14:42] And then, you know, he came to mind and, you know, he was looking on Upwork for fucking people and stuff. The client, the client was, and so brought him in and then, you know, we'd be talking with the client and I thought Tasha was like just a front end developer. And we'd be talking, like, the client would ask me something backend related and I'd be like, oh, he had this, this, this and that.

[00:15:02] And fucking T knew all that shit too. And then he'd be, he'd be chiming in on like, and stuff. And I'd be like, bro, like, you know, he, but he's go getts mind

[00:15:14] Niko: man. He's one of those moments, like, I spoke to him like a year, about 18 months ago. Yeah. And t's like, I want use sfi. I was like, nah buddy. I was like, look, it's just not for you.

[00:15:24] And he's, this is, he's like, he's like, oh, really? I was like, yeah. And six months later, man, he's like, contributing to the project. Nice. And I was like, I'm gonna shut my big mouth. I was like, damn, that's cool. These kids, it's, it's rare to see man these days, you know? Because a lot of people just don't advance that fast in, in the code game.

[00:15:43] Kalen: Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I remember seeing you post about like the, uh, with signify about like, I think you were looking at the fucking packet compression libraries to like, something like that, to like make the sync really fast and, yeah. And yeah, I just, I remember seeing you post about it. I'm like, I, I've never fucking looked into, you know, packet compression fucking, you know what I mean?

[00:16:07] So, yeah,

[00:16:08] Niko: man. Well, the thing is like, I mean, with signify Yeah, like the approaches to like hot reloading and the functionality like Shopify, I feel like the way they approached everything to do with theme development, man is just, it's missing the mark. It's a disconnect. And this is why you have like constant rewrites and stuff like that with signify like, I was just thinking about how it could be done and I was like, yeah, well, all you have to do is essentially just inject a script in the theme and then you just, we use like web sockets to communicate back and forth.

[00:16:38] So if a change happens locally, it'll just send over a, basically a message of, of web sockets and just trigger a refresh. But it does it partially, I've actually gotta show you probably properly, man. It's probably a, it's probably best to do like a, a get a

[00:16:54] Kalen: proper, get a proper demo. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:56] Niko: Because I mean, I feel like once, I mean to this day, and I, I wish someone would be able to show me something better, but I've never seen anyone get a theme as fast per page rendering as the solution I've got.

[00:17:09] And that sort of upsets me, man. 'cause it's like, I wish that that could be overcome.

[00:17:13] Kalen: Yeah.

[00:17:13] Niko: But there's, there's no one that's been out there and the plugin parasites man who just constantly using. They're constantly using all these third party apps and whatnot. It just, it becomes a dial up modem man. These workshops.

[00:17:27] Yeah. And that's the plug that's upsetting.

[00:17:29] Kalen: The plug in pairs. You mean just like, just when stores have just a shit load of apps and stuff? Yeah,

[00:17:35] Niko: yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, even like the Klaviyo, the Klaviyo stuff, man, like, I mean, it's wild. The amount of JavaScript they inject, it makes the stores just lag, man.

[00:17:46] Like when you can do most of this stuff without ever doing any, like, I mean, I don't think I've ever installed an app. I've never needed an app for the, for the client, for the, for the front end. Um, right.

[00:17:57] Kalen: Just never installed a single app. Never,

[00:18:01] Niko: never. Nevermind. And I feel like, um, I love that

[00:18:04] Kalen: so much, dude.

[00:18:08] Niko: I feel like Shopify does enough damage with, with the slot they put into content that. I mean, they're outta control, man. They're, they're, I get so bothered by it, you know?

[00:18:18] Kalen: What about liquid itself? Do you like think that's a good architecture?

[00:18:22] Niko: I love Liquid Man. I think liquid is, I think like what the Boss Man created with Liquid is beautiful as a template language.

[00:18:29] I think it does everything. I'm not really a fan of the new stuff. Like the doc tag was a bit of, it was ridiculous in my, in my opinion. Okay. Um, but I mean, in terms of liquid template language, it does, it's the perfect consumer facing language in the, but the thing is, I feel, I mean, I think if I had to predict, I think in the next five to 10 years they'll be liquid will, it'll be all done locally.

[00:18:53] Like I feel as if Shopify will move towards like a static approach to like web, web store generation. Like instead of having that, um, remote connection, it'll work like 11 or a static site generator. I. I think that would be the Oh, okay. The next step. And that's what I'd like to see with them. But like liquid is also so flexible, man, it's actually quite elegant.

[00:19:14] Nice. At the same time, man, it can also be like if you write bad liquid code. Yeah. Like it can get, it can get really messy, man. Like it can get super, I mean, put this way, if I was to approach a theme, man, I'll use a little liquid as possible, like as little, and I don't use like style sheet tags and this type of slop name.

[00:19:32] No way, man. Like I would never use a style sheet tag. I would never use a JavaScript tag like I do, like a single bundle. Loaded in and she good to go.

[00:19:43] Kalen: I think I saw something recently that with the style tags, they're starting to do something like dynamically where they can optimize, like where the style tag actually gets loaded and like which pages it gets loaded on or like per components or something like that.

[00:19:59] I remember seeing somebody say that like they're gonna start like testing, so if if everything's in a style tag, they can basically automatically kind of test and optimize the way that they get served to the end user, which I thought was kind of cool.

[00:20:16] Niko: It's cool man, that I feel like, I mean with, from my understanding, and I could be wrong, but last time I checked, I mean the star sheet tag just injects within content for header.

[00:20:26] Now I could be wrong. Um, yeah, no, I

[00:20:28] Kalen: think it's like they're gonna like start at some point in the future to make it more dynamic or something like that. Something like

[00:20:33] Niko: that. Yeah. So one of the things to signify man is like one of the modules in it. Is it, what, what it will do is it will read, it will extract all style sheets on a template basis, and then it'll generate like bundles to be injected automatically for you.

[00:20:49] So that, that's the exact same approach. Mm-hmm. Um, it just, it just introduced that build step. Mm-hmm. And then there's like, so I mean, like, for me, yeah, anything to do with, like, when it comes to liquid, as long as it's like nothing to do with asset related stuff like job script or star sheets, I'm down.

[00:21:05] Mm-hmm. But I never was a fan, never was a fan of that. But it'd be, it'd be interesting to see where they go with him, man. I mean, they've got a new team now. They've got that. The Benny boy. The Benny guy. He's a good guy, man. Benny guy's a good guy. Yeah, he's man, he's cool,

[00:21:17] Kalen: man. I like him. What do you like about him,

[00:21:20] Niko: Ben?

[00:21:20] You know what? Manny's, cheeky man, you know, like, like he definitely, like, he's got a good, he can joke around Manny, he's down to earth. I think like a lot of the old engineers, man, like if I argue with them, they'd be like, Ooh.

[00:21:35] Kalen: Yeah.

[00:21:35] Niko: You know, Benny like, can sort of give you a bit of banter.

[00:21:38] Kalen: Got

[00:21:39] Niko: it. I like giving for that.

[00:21:40] Got it. We'll see man. We'll see. So where's David? Matt? You seen all coming on this pod for you?

[00:21:45] Kalen: Nah, dude, just the on the fly. Uh, just, just me and you. But nah, we hung out in Toronto a bit. It was cool. I hadn't, I hadn't actually seen him in person in a long time and uh, yeah.

[00:21:57] Niko: So what was it like then there?

[00:21:59] Gimme the 4 1 1 on this one. Like, I mean, for me, I, I mean I could not go to those things I don't think. But like, what was the vibe like, I mean, what, what was me and some of the boys like.

[00:22:11] Kalen: It was just cool, man. Like I get into like, 'cause I don't, you know, like when I'm at home, like I don't talk to a lot of people.

[00:22:18] Like I'm fucking just working, fucking playing pickleball, going to the gym and, and, um, and so I get into a totally different zone where I'm just like, like I didn't eat dude for like, two days straight. I was just drinking and like fucking walking around talking to people and it just, it's, it's just, it's fun.

[00:22:40] It's fun for me. And then, you know, you run into some, like, I had a couple cool conversations with some of the Shopify people that I was, I walked away being really like, pumped about, like I, this one guy who's in charge of the app store analytics. Yeah. And he was the guy that did like the app store purge, the review purge.

[00:23:00] Yeah. And he had a screen where they charted out all the different app categories, which ones are most susceptible to being either augmented by AI or like reimagined by ai, like basically replaced. Mm-hmm. And they fucking mapped it all out. So I thought that was, I thought that was interesting. And then also I, like, I, I was asking about the reviews because, you know, everybody was pissed off about that.

[00:23:28] And the way he explained it, like, at first I thought that they kind of just deleted a bunch of reviews, didn't really think it through. And after talking to him I was like, oh yeah, no, it makes sense. Like, for example, even a review that is like, is a legit merchant and they say something short like, yeah, it was great, great support.

[00:23:49] They remove those because, because like, it doesn't really give you any information. Yeah. Which, which I totally like, I agree with, you know. Fair. It's a fair call. Yeah. Yeah. And so after that I was like, cool, man. Like, they're thinking it through and

[00:24:05] Niko: they're proactive about that aspect. I mean, I feel like the up stories and they're doing good.

[00:24:09] They're making a a, a good step forward though. Yeah. But then, but then again, man, like, I feel like, I mean, you are buck wild on the ai Yeah. So you are like, yeah. Plugged in. Yeah. Dude, you are plugged in, man.

[00:24:21] Kalen: Buck wild. This is you, man. I'm just s slanging code in cursor all day long, dude.

[00:24:29] Niko: It's,

[00:24:29] Kalen: I can't,

[00:24:30] Niko: it's

[00:24:30] Kalen: madness.

[00:24:32] I mean,

[00:24:32] Niko: like, I just feel like, I mean, well you're

[00:24:34] Kalen: a purist, you know, you're more of a purist. And I, and I like that when people are, you know what I mean? Like when they're more a purist. Yeah.

[00:24:41] Niko: I mean, may, may, but maybe it's probably the wrong choice, mate. You know, look, I suppose if I could turn back time, I wouldn't have gone this route.

[00:24:46] But I'm too much of a. Arrogant prick, I suppose. Like, uh, like whatever, like whatever the AI does, I'm like, ah, it's shit. Yeah, it just, it's, it's, yeah, it's what it is, but okay. So yeah. So they're actually making really good moves in that front. And then did you meet any, I mean, there's a few that've gotten that team now at Shopify, which is like, they've made some very good hires recently.

[00:25:09] Yeah. Like, they got in the brother, what's his name? I forget his name. Um, king.

[00:25:13] Kalen: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Harsh, deep. Yeah. I ran in him. Yeah. You a good guy, man. He's fucking tall as shit, dude. He's like, paint like it hurts your neck, type of levels of fucking tall. Absurd. But yeah, no, I, I got, I saw him, we, we chatted kind of, kind of briefly.

[00:25:29] He's always cool to, to, to, he always chill. Tag

[00:25:31] Niko: out with. Yeah. They got another dev van man, a guy called Dave Waddington, man, now this guy, super skilled dev. I've been talking to him a couple years. Yeah, they got him on Shopify now, which I'm super happy with. So they're teams around all the stuff they're doing.

[00:25:45] For the first time, a long time. And I'm like super, like, okay, we've definitely got, well, yeah, there's definitely some good people there behind the scenes making good movements. And in terms of the app stuff, man, I'm not too well versed in it, but from what I've seen, well, you've never

[00:25:59] Kalen: installed an app before, so that'll, that'll do it.

[00:26:06] It's just No, Nate, do you know what I mean? Yeah.

[00:26:11] Fucking

[00:26:11] Niko: no Nate, no need.

[00:26:15] Kalen: Fuck 'em all. I can't, I

[00:26:16] Niko: can't do it. I can't do it. And I

[00:26:18] Kalen: don't know if you know the guy sad science on Twitter. Uh, na na. You don't know that. Oh, he's fucking cool, man. Yeah, I saw him my follow, I saw him and yeah, dude. Ah, man. Just a, just a bunch of people, man. It was, it was a good time.

[00:26:35] Um, it was a good time though.

[00:26:36] Niko: Yeah. And did, did you get to, did you get to see, um, David, David Azar?

[00:26:42] Kalen: No, I didn't bump. No, I didn't bump into him. I bumped into him last year, but I didn't, I didn't bump into him this year,

[00:26:48] Niko: man. He is probably my favorite. Yeah. The old school shit, man. The old school Shopify Forum.

[00:26:53] I'm sorry.

[00:26:53] Kalen: Yeah, dude. He has like 97,000 posts, dude, in the forums.

[00:26:59] Niko: Listen, I have

[00:27:02] Kalen: dudes put in work, man. I,

[00:27:05] Niko: I have got like a sick little fetish for going and reading his responses with people. He is. It is delicious, man. Like it is. Yeah. The simplicity and the humor, man. I love his humor. That guy. He is just an absolute legend.

[00:27:21] Kalen: Yeah, it's very absolute legend, very consistent. Like, I, I didn't even, I didn't even know he was on the forums. Like I just knew him from Twitter and then I saw him on the forums once and I was like, holy shit. He has the same like, you know, sarcastic like, response to everything. Like to a fault. It's like, like, dude, just fucking answer the question.

[00:27:41] But, um, but when I met him last year, it was a trip because. I just randomly bumped into him and actually, like, I expected him to be like kind of grumpy and, you know what I mean? But he was just like, like the happiest guy, like the type of dude that just probably goes fishing all the time and like, oh yeah, was retired and like, was super like smiling the whole time.

[00:28:08] So that kind of surprised me, you

[00:28:10] Niko: know? Oh yeah. He's a vibe man. He, he's a vibe. He's a straight up vibe. Yeah. And then this one, yeah,

[00:28:16] Kalen: this other guy, William something, he, um, had like a completely different personality from what I, William Belk from, from, do you know that guy you follow? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So his Twitter personality to me seemed very dry and in person.

[00:28:37] He's completely different dude. He's like funny. It was wild. It was, it was like, yeah.

[00:28:44] Niko: Weird. Like difference. I think. I think I was chatting with William just recently, man, I think, um, gave me a shot. He is like, yo. Uh, yeah, I think he messaged me. He is like, yo, are you gonna be here? Because I think I was supposed to, yeah, he, yeah, I have, man, I'm just looking at messages now.

[00:28:56] He wanted me to message him and chat with him about like, some of my approaches, but I never got back to him 'cause Yeah. Oh man, I what I am. Yeah. But, um, I, I'll had to give him a call then and after, after definitely catch up with him. So he's

[00:29:08] Kalen: cool. Yeah, he's cool. He was mad as shit about the reviews and like, we were standing together when I was talking to the guy about the reviews and for me, 'cause he, 'cause William has an app and for me, I was talking to the guy and I was like, oh, this is great.

[00:29:21] Like, this makes so much sense. I really respected his whole approach. And then William was just like super pissed about the, like five reviews he had deleted. So he like talked his ear off for like 30 minutes and then, uh, but I mean, I would, I shared that I would feel the exact same way if I, because like when you do an app, you put blood, sweat, and tears into it.

[00:29:45] Every review is like so hard to get no matter. No matter if it is just the, like, no information, one sentence review, like that took a lot of work to get that. So I'd be mad as hell, you know, if I had an app.

[00:29:59] Niko: Yeah. But I mean, like, are you gonna go down that route? You gonna, like, are you gonna hit the app store or

[00:30:05] Kalen: That's the plan.

[00:30:05] Like when I was doing Magento back in the day, I built a little app and I wanna, I want to do that. I wanna try to do that again at some point. But I, I think I just gotta give it some time and kind of let it come to me, because I was kind of like every little idea I had, like, this is it, this is it, this is it.

[00:30:21] And I think I just needed to put some time into it and just, you know, just do some work. Mm-hmm. Even if it takes a few years, I mean, that's still fast, you know, like, yeah, fair. It's not necessarily gonna happen in a few months or a year. And, um, so

[00:30:39] Niko: but isn't, but isn't there that, that thing, man, when I was up, whenever I see like the up developers, man, they're just on their own little island.

[00:30:44] Like they're just th for a nice review. I feel like that's just, that's the hectic, the hectic existence.

[00:30:51] Kalen: It's, it's, it's

[00:30:52] Niko: like it is and it's like, uh, I couldn't do it. One, I couldn't do it. Yeah.

[00:30:56] Kalen: It seems like a hectic existence. I just want to get, 'cause I used to have like that, that sweet MRR and, and I want to get back to that, you know, like, uh, it's, it's nice to have the money just coming in, but even when it is, it's like you're still working all the time.

[00:31:14] And it's funny, all the people I talked to with apps that, like, in my head I'm like, dude, I'm so jealous. Like, one, one person I talked to had just gone full time with their app after like three years. And I was like, I fucking hate you. I was like, congratulations and I fucking hate you. You know, because, you know, that's what I'm, but at the same time, like they're.

[00:31:35] Super stressed out, especially now with ai, da da da da. And, and they're super stressed out about like, oh, maybe we gotta get acquired like as soon as possible before it all goes to shit. And so everybody is stressed. They're all stressed out about something that,

[00:31:52] Niko: you know, that's what I've noticed. That's what I mean.

[00:31:53] The thing is, like, I, I've thought about it a lot 'cause there's a couple apps. I mean, I, I, I was like, I've built a lot of, in like, in-house applications for the stuff that I've knitted in the past, and then I'm just like, ugh, if I could go, I mean, it just feels like such, like I said, a stressful undertaking man.

[00:32:10] And it's like there's a whole new set of, uh, worries that come along with an app. Yeah. And Shopify meant they are like, they're the Gestapo man. Like they are proper Gestapo with what they're, you know, you do your naming conventions. Yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. Shopify app. Like that's ah, not have app.

[00:32:28] Yeah. But then again it pays, man, it pays off. What are they taking now? Yeah. What do they take? Like 30%? Are they still just, uh,

[00:32:34] Kalen: I don't know. I thought, I think it might be 15, but I'm not, I really don't, I really don't know. Um, oof. But I've actually started putting more stuff out. Open source, you know, kind of inspired by like your approach and also.

[00:32:50] Like back when I was doing Magento, like everybody just did almost everything open source by default. Yeah. And it was like, SaaS wasn't really as much of a thing back then. And like everybody, there was just a culture of just, that's like a pure developer culture of just sharing the shit you're doing because you want to, because why not?

[00:33:15] Like, so by default, if somebody was working on something, you know, you'd open source it and they'd be like, oh yeah, this guy has this open source thing. I, we used that and, and then I built a SaaS app, had a little bit of, you know, had a little tiny bit of success with it. Yeah. And then from then on it's like you get your fucking monetization hat on and it's like you're always looking to monetize everything.

[00:33:37] Niko: Yeah. Gotcha.

[00:33:38] Kalen: So that's kind of what my approach has been since getting into Shopify. I was like, how quickly can I start like making money and. So recently I was just like, you know what dude? I'm gonna just like open source. If I'm working on something, I'll just throw it up. Probably be, probably sucks anyways, but throw it up.

[00:33:56] Somebody likes it, great. If not, it doesn't take much work to just throw it up. I've been doing more of that. Yeah,

[00:34:03] Niko: I mean, but that, that's also, that that keeps like the independent solutions alive. Like man, there's so much like there's so much power to open source and this is part in part why I've got the shits for Shopify.

[00:34:13] 'cause I mean they've just monopolized it man. They have, they killed off so many good independent projects because of, they hired a bunch of people to essentially do open source for Shopify. And that's in part like why I'm a bit of a, yeah, I'm a bit harsh on Shopify themselves. I'm like, it should be, in my opinion, like you've said, man, like you build something, you think it's dope, open source it, if someone likes it, you know what I mean?

[00:34:38] That use it. And then that sort of evolves to better opportunities. Like, yeah. But then again, at the same time, man, I can't really argue. Like I feel like it's a dying art form. It's a dying approach because eventually, man, like AI is just gonna come in and swoop all that type of thing. Like there's got, so there's already so many applic, like in terms of like MPM and package and JavaScript.

[00:35:00] There's so many AI already generated packages out there. Oh, really? So I feel like ev yeah, man, it's a shit show, but I feel like in the end, man, it's gonna go that route. And uh, yeah,

[00:35:11] Kalen: it's hard to even imagine where it's all gonna go in the end, you know? I mean, it is getting so, it's getting so good, so fast and it's like changing.

[00:35:20] Niko: But Which of Dicker are you using? Are you Cha Chippy t are you running? Um, I use,

[00:35:25] Kalen: I use Cursor mostly, and then I started using Chad GPT Codex a little bit, and then I'll use Claude Terminal from time to time. That one's the most expensive, but Okay. It's probably the best, and I'll whip that out if I have something like complicated.

[00:35:42] But like Gil is fucking, he's just ripping Claude Terminal all day, you know? I mean, for real, for real. I think Shopify pays for it for them, so he doesn't probably even have to think about the cost. And I shouldn't be thinking about the cost either. It's like, you know what I mean? If you're gonna spend $50 a day on it, like it's probably gonna make you way more.

[00:36:03] I probably shouldn't even be worrying about the cost, but I'm just, I'm more comfortable in cursor. 'cause it's like right there in your IDE, so you can easily like go see what the code, what the changes are it's doing, and get in there and tweak things and stuff like that. So,

[00:36:17] Niko: but I mean Okay. But you have to break this down a bit.

[00:36:20] Don't you feel like, I mean, in my experience with like these models, I, I've used them and they never understand that the patterns or approaches I choose. Yeah. So like, if I write code a certain way and these models just, they don't understand the, how it's being written and they always just default to using these patterns, which I, I feel are like terrible.

[00:36:43] Mm-hmm. But I feel like you are just blindly trusting these models to just generate the code. Yeah.

[00:36:49] Kalen: No, no, like I read all the code and like if it's like sloppy or something like that, I'll be like, no, let's refactor it. Let's do it this other way. Or if it does it in like a confusing way, I'll have it do it in a different way.

[00:37:01] But I, when it, like, when it comes to like patterns and stuff, I'm again like pretty, pretty basic. I don't have like, like a lot of re like real preferences there. It's kind of like whatever, you know, if something, if it generates some code and it makes sense to me and it doesn't seem like super weird, I'll be like, let's go.

[00:37:22] Let's go with it, you know? But I'm not as like, first of all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been learning more about better patterns to use through it, because I'm not really like that. Knowledgeable when it comes to like which pattern to use and which scenario and stuff like that. Like mm-hmm. I stopped coding for like five years before I started again.

[00:37:46] Like a year. Oh, for real? Like about a year ago. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:50] Niko: Why was that? Mad Spillt.

[00:37:52] Kalen: I was a developer ever since, you know, I was like 15 and then I built this app and then I was just kind of maintaining it and I was coding like, I don't know, like an hour a day on like a little random bug fix and just answering a couple emails and that was it.

[00:38:08] And then I sold that app. And then I built like a hiring marketplace for like an Upwork for Magento developers kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. And I built that and then that kind of weirdly fucking turned into like recruiting. And then I was kind of like doing like more manual, like just i'd, I'd be like, honestly, all I need to do is email back and forth.

[00:38:32] I don't even really need to build this platform. So it turned into just like email, LinkedIn, recruiting. It was fucking weird. Oh, okay. I gotcha. And then that, and then with that I was like, I. I got to the point where I was like barely working at all. I was like just sending a couple emails a day and like the recurring money was coming in.

[00:38:55] I was kind of lost. Like I was kind of like, I didn't know what to do with all the free time. I was like feeling depressed and it was weird. Like it on paper it doesn't make sense, but I was like, and then my skillset was kind of gone and then I started and then over time and I wasn't really working hard.

[00:39:13] Like I was, yeah, I was working on my health and stuff like that and I did, you know, I went and I learned to surf. Like I was working on my getting healthier and stuff like that, but I wasn't like really. I was just being LA lazy. And so then the business eventually kind of just died down. And then when it eventually died out, I was like, fuck, I need to get a job.

[00:39:36] I hadn't had a job for like 10 years. I was like self-employed for like 10 years with my own things. And then I had just like my skills had just kind of eroded and that was when my buddy gave me a job with his company in the Shopify. Yeah, space. And I was doing kind of like marketing for this company.

[00:39:59] Mesa was like an automation platform and I was doing like videos and stuff like that. And then, and then I started doing more complicated work. Like I started gravitating back towards coding again. So I would try to build out workflow automation demos that were a little more complicated, required some code steps, and then I left there, and then I just started coding.

[00:40:20] Then now I've been coding full-time for like, I guess about a year. Year or just, oh, you know, so it's like, gotcha. I took a fucking long ass hiatus, you know?

[00:40:30] Niko: Yeah. But do you find now that you're like, now you're sort of back into it a year? Yeah. Is it faster for you? Like the iteration versus be Yeah. Yeah, A lot.

[00:40:38] Now I'm

[00:40:39] Kalen: like, why did I stop? Like I love coding since I was 15, you know? But it's like I got lazy when I had sometimes May having too much money like is bad because you get lazy and Oh yeah. You know, it fucks with your head and it doesn't make any sense. But it's a weird, and then I was just like, so then I got back to it and I'm like, why did I stop?

[00:41:02] Like, I like, I love this, but I, you know, I didn't know JavaScript. Like I had always been a PhD p developer, so I didn't know JavaScript, I didn't know Node. So it's been, yeah, so yeah, so absolutely. I didn't know React, when I'm writing React, like half the time I'm like, I don't know what the fuck this is. I don't know what this hydration error is, you know, but I just get it, you know, to work and I'm just barely hanging on by a thread, like trying to

[00:41:29] Niko: understand,

[00:41:30] Kalen: you know, that's,

[00:41:31] Niko: but that, that's interesting though.

[00:41:31] So like you went, had a little bit of a break. I've got a bit of cash in the bank. You are like, I'm gonna chill, do my thing. And then, yeah. So do you feel like it was like the fact that like 'cause with the code Yeah. It's like it's fucking problem solving at the end of the day. Right. That's why I feel like it all it, all it is.

[00:41:47] And when you don't have that continuation of just have this error or I have this thing have to work out, I feel like that it life gets kind of dull. Yeah. I, I will say that man. Even like in my experience with it and that's fascinating. And then you jump back into the Shopify game and then you're just basically like, yeah, this is the future.

[00:42:04] Fuck man. I wish you had just jumped on the centra train with me.

[00:42:08] Kalen: Yeah, I know, I know. You're always talking about ra.

[00:42:11] Niko: Listen man, it is. I fucking love Centra. Yeah, Centra is my, it's a vibe. It's, I like a so much problem in Shopify and yeah, I wish more people would use it. But the problem is you also came back in that it's also react based.

[00:42:26] That's, that sort of makes a big problem for me. I don't like it with react. Yeah. So for you, when you say to me that you like had to like come back into the code game and it's like react the virtual dom hydration. Yeah. Ugh. Disgusting. You hate all that?

[00:42:40] Kalen: Yeah.

[00:42:41] Niko: Ugh. I couldn't do it. Yeah.

[00:42:45] Kalen: I don't really understand it at like a low, a low enough level to really, you know, have too much of an opinion on it.

[00:42:52] But what do you like about ra? It's just more like sophisticated on the front end.

[00:42:58] Niko: Yeah. So for, I tell this man like Sentra. Like Sentra started out, oh, years ago, man, like years ago. Like I did a project many years ago when I was living in Sweden for this company and we basically like were going to use, at the time it was called Silk and they changed the company to Century, but we're gonna use Cent.

[00:43:15] And back then it was like this e-commerce system that just did like B2B and a little bit of like DTC. But anyway, it's evolved since then. And essentially it's like, I think it's like a decade ahead of any platform out there, man. Late. It's so advanced, like you can create your own Shopify on Sentra essentially.

[00:43:33] It's wild, man. So put it into, I, I couldn't even summarize it in, in, in a couple sentences. Okay. It is a headless platform, so you wouldn't have anything like, you know what I mean, the theme ecosystem, that, that type of thing. But it's just a more powerful platform altogether. I mean, if it's also private too, so like all the, there's big brands that use it, man.

[00:43:53] And it tends to win out against Shopify when you actually expand on scale. Yeah. Like enterprise. Enterprise man. Like you're not going to, Shopify wouldn't, I mean of course it can and it does, but if you really want to get down to the down a dirty man, I feel like Century is the only sort of platform out there that really delivers with Enterprise.

[00:44:12] And we're talking like, you know, if you're doing like 50 K orders a day, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's when you jump onto the Sentra, where it's possible in Shopify, but also Shopify's, I don't know, unbiased man, but Century is like. I mean, it is just a, in, in my opinion, a more superior system. But that's a lot of the Scandinavian tech man.

[00:44:31] Like, I suppose, like I'm a bit, I'm very much into Scandinavian tech. I feel like there's a lot of, uh, really high quality stuff coming out of like, yeah. Sweden, Denmark, um, yeah, specifically. And a lot it, it's different, you know, RA is like, they had markets like five, six years ago. You know, they had all that stuff before Shopify sort of adopted it.

[00:44:55] Kalen: Right. But one,

[00:44:55] Niko: I, I'll have to show you one day, man, like, I mean, I still have a couple of partners that are still using, uh, I still work with, that are Oncentra and it's, yeah, it's next level, man. It just sucks that it's not any, it's not open source solution for it really. It's not like Shopify, sort of like in your face, that type thing.

[00:45:11] Yeah. That's interesting. So you're into surfing. So you're into surfing, whatnot. So you came to Shopify a year back after a bit of a, um, delay. Mid midlife

[00:45:19] Kalen: crisis in progress. Midlife crisis, yeah. God. Yeah. I mean, but I love it. Like, you know, when I was doing Magento, I like, I really loved the whole community.

[00:45:33] I, you know, hanging out with people at conferences, Twitter and all that, it is been a similar thing for me. Like there's a mixture of business and personal, like, like I had a ton of conversations at Additions where I'm just talking for like an hour to somebody I barely met about some per like, personal thing, you know?

[00:45:51] Yeah. And I don't know if it's just me. I, I just like, for me there's like a connection with people that is a bit of both, you know, so, yeah.

[00:46:00] Niko: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, so it's, I suppose, man, I mean like, there are a couple like really good people I've met the Shopify community over the years that I, I'd say it's the same thing, man.

[00:46:09] Like, it's more than just like a, um, you know, we're writing code together, but it is that personal level to it. I think that that is the beauty of the Shopify community.

[00:46:16] Kalen: Yeah.

[00:46:17] Niko: But, and I feel like that's far and few too. There's only a, a lot of people are. They're fucking e sufferable, but at the same time,

[00:46:25] Kalen: yeah, there are, there are.

[00:46:26] I mean, there are, it's, it's, it's a mix, but, um, yeah. Yeah. It's a decent chunk of people. Fascinating.

[00:46:33] Niko: Yeah. Fascinating man.

[00:46:35] Kalen: Yeah, man.

[00:46:36] Niko: And your thoughts on the New Horizon and this type of stuff?

[00:46:39] Kalen: I haven't looked at it at all, but I thought just from seeing the de like the demos and stuff, I thought it looked pretty, pretty cool.

[00:46:47] Have you looked at it?

[00:46:48] Niko: I have looked at it, but I'm Now, I'm curious if they're gonna deprecate Dawn.

[00:46:52] Kalen: Right.

[00:46:53] Niko: I'm now curious what they're gonna do, because I'd imagine

[00:46:55] Kalen: they probably will.

[00:46:57] Niko: Yeah. They'd have to, right? Yeah. And because this sort of like changes the approach, and this is sort of what I, I spoke to Ben about three or four months ago and yeah, I was like, he's like, oh, what are your thoughts on Dawn?

[00:47:09] I was like, fuck, I fucking hate it. And he is like, yeah, okay, okay. But then it's like, now this like additions. I genuinely like criticize everything they do. But I was like, okay, I, I do like the fact they've got the skeleton. I do like that when it comes to horizon, I don't like a few of the things they've done, but at the same time, I feel like there is a good step forward in what's happening with it.

[00:47:30] Well see. Man will say, don't hold your breath. Don't hold your

[00:47:33] Kalen: breath. What do you mean when you say the skeleton?

[00:47:37] Niko: So the skeleton, they actually brought back a, um, skeleton theme, which is just like a bare bones. They've got no content, nothing. It's just like,

[00:47:44] Kalen: oh, right, right,

[00:47:46] Niko: right. The base files that you need for a theme and you can start building a theme from the ground up.

[00:47:52] And they basically, they're basically just like, let that die for a period of time. And now they've brought this back, which I think is a good step. Oh,

[00:47:58] Kalen: right.

[00:47:59] Niko: Because the problem with Deb's man is they like, take solutions like Dawn and then they start tweaking Dawn. Yeah. And it just makes it a mess. Yeah.

[00:48:08] So by giving like a solution like skeleton, which is like bare bones, nothing in it, they can start building from the top. Yeah. And that's, I mean, Horizon's also good, but it also, like, there's a couple things I really don't like about it. I don't know, I haven't looked at it in depth that much.

[00:48:26] Kalen: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:27] It's because it seems, it seems like everybody, like, like all the good front end developers have their own little base theme that they build off of that's like a lightweight skeleton type deal. Correct. Um, so I guess if this one becomes more of a standard that people could use, then, you know, that'd be cool.

[00:48:48] But, yeah. Yeah. What, like, what differences are there between Horizon and Dawn? Like, I really, I still haven't

[00:48:54] Niko: really, so yeah. I mean like from what I've, from what I've sourced so far Horizon's just a bit more leaner. A bit more pluggable, but I, I don't think it's open source yet. I think it's just like you can download the theme source.

[00:49:04] Oh, okay. That, that type of thing. I think it's more focused on just for, for the merchant itself, I suppose opposed to the, the developer. But we see now, I mean, I suppose I'm talking outta my Rs 'cause I mean, I haven't looked at it in depth. I've only looked at the code briefly, right from one of the guys sent me the source, right.

[00:49:19] And I was like, already scrunching my nose up and going, Ugh. Right, right.

[00:49:24] Kalen: What are you working on now? It's not an e-commerce company

[00:49:27] Niko: name on. So like, um, basically like, I basically jumped shiftman. Now I'm working on like completely different things altogether. Like I'm using syn js, which is a, it's yet to be released.

[00:49:37] It's a virtual dom that is better than reactive view. All of them. And essentially like we work with like music and signage. It's hard to explain. Mostly it's just like application development. It's pretty dope, man. Like, it's really, really cool stuff. I'm doing a lot of the UI stuff I'm doing. Uh, but yeah, it's without, yeah, I couldn't really even explain it, man, because at the point, it's not even released this framework, but a lot of it's just like JavaScript, a little bit of Postgres, so a bit of Postgres hal, but I love it.

[00:50:06] Yeah. You were saying

[00:50:07] Kalen: you're in Postgres Hell today?

[00:50:09] Niko: Oh yeah. Just migration. Hell. But the thing is, like the, the guy I'm working with, man, like he's a 10 X dude and he, he is like Postgres everything. So if I have like a problem, he can just hold my hand and be like, ah, it's this, it's that. But it's also good man.

[00:50:23] 'cause for a period of time they kind like, I, I, I mean I was just like, is this it? Is this the peak like of, of programming? And I was like, and now I'm just feel like I'm back at the beginning. 'cause like when you're with people who are so intelligent and so who operate so fast, you're like, oh fuck, I don't even understand anything.

[00:50:41] And that it sort of humbles you and brings you back. And like one of the things we have like go to the pipeline is like I spoke to a couple of the boys at Centra and we have like a side sort of side quest side project with like building our own sort of, um, think of it like, uh, hydrogen. Yeah, it's like that, but it's using syn js and it's showcasing a ra headless front end.

[00:51:05] Ah, we're using syn. So that's one of the side projects we're doing. Which is gonna be super cool, man, to get that out eventually. Uh, nice dude. But yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be different, man. It's gonna be different. Nice. And did

[00:51:16] Kalen: you move somewhere else to work at that company or you just

[00:51:19] Niko: Nah, yeah. So like, man, like my, I mean, I live in Amsterdam.

[00:51:21] Yeah. But my, I've been working for a Swedish company or Swedish fashion agency, man, for like 10 years longer. Right, right. So I basically travel between like Amsterdam and Sweden, uh, every, every, every month, man. And now the company I work with is in Denmark, so it's just like one down. So I'll go from Denmark to Amsterdam, Amsterdam and Denmark.

[00:51:40] I travel a lot, man. I gypsy around, but I love that man. You know, I've been in Europe for so many years now, man. Like Yeah, I know. Staying in one place is sort of hectic, man. You know? And Yeah. Yeah. I've got, I've got very, very lucky man, like with this new role and yeah, it's, it's super chill, man. I'm very happy, man.

[00:51:58] You know, very happy.

[00:51:59] Kalen: Yeah. Yeah. I was on the flight back, I was randomly talking to this dude that was visiting for, and he lived in Amsterdam and he was just talking about it. And I was like, fuck man, I gotta, you've gotta come. I gotta, yeah. I was like, I gotta get out there at some point. And then, yeah, man, it was funny because we were flying from Canada to the US and you gotta go through like customs and stuff like that.

[00:52:21] And he was, he was like, man, in Europe, like you just, you barely have to show any id you go from one country to another. Like it's, no, it's no big deal. Oh yeah. It was like so weird to him that it's such a hassle over here.

[00:52:33] Niko: Oh yeah, man. It is wild, man. I've been to us a couple times and I mean, I love the US but uh, when it comes to airport and securities like that, it is, it is.

[00:52:41] Yeah. It's wild man. But then again, like, it's understandable 'cause there's a lot more people and a lot more you gotta under Yeah. In Europe there, I mean, I, I don't even fly with my id, I just jump on a fly. Oh, really? And I, I travel a fuck lot, man. Like I go a lot of places. Yeah. Yeah. And I just jump on a flight in and out.

[00:52:58] If, if you're in the European Union, you happy days. You can travel anywhere, but you gotta come to Amster. If, if you come to Amsterdam, man, I'll probably take you out to prepare. Like, prepare. That sounds,

[00:53:07] Kalen: that sounds like trouble, brother. Oh man, I sounds like trouble.

[00:53:12] Niko: I'll organize a good night. Bet. What we do in the morning, man, we get like nad drips, so we do like a nad Yeah.

[00:53:17] And we get rehydration. Yeah, brother. Get that biohack and man, you need to get that in, man. It's pop get,

[00:53:24] Kalen: get restored up. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You were posting about tremble loan or something like that? Oh yeah. So I, I,

[00:53:32] Niko: I do a cycle every, you know, every so often I call him my doctor. He's not a doctor, but I call him my doctor.

[00:53:37] He came around, he's like, yeah, I got some trend. I was like, it's been years. I was like, let give some, give him some trend.

[00:53:43] Kalen: Yeah. So

[00:53:43] Niko: did a little, did a little cycle of trend. Yeah. Like talent. I was at it, it was wild, man. I was just like. Like, I went to the store, man, I was like, are we looking at man? Like I was just fucking, I would never again am like, I'm back on the sus two 50 now, which is plain, it's, my body loves it, man.

[00:54:00] But the trend just shook me. It fucking jacked you

[00:54:03] Kalen: up.

[00:54:04] Niko: Um, I was, I was a puff fish. Yeah, puff fish full of water retention, man. Like I was, it was wild. Never again. I mean, maybe again, who knows? It was good.

[00:54:16] Kalen: Yeah. Yeah. 'cause I started doing you just like TRT, you know, a few years ago and Yeah. Oh, you gotta to, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:24] You have to.

[00:54:25] Niko: You

[00:54:25] Kalen: gotta to, you have to.

[00:54:26] Niko: It's because like, I feel like a lot of lot people these days, man, like, they're like a little bit like, 'cause of the old, eh, you know, it's bad for it. It's like, nah man, I'm right into it. Like, gimme a bit of trinity there. Bit of sauce, bit bit of nad drips. Hit the B twelves, the mal man.

[00:54:40] I'm a walking concoction of just all the good stuff, man. And I feel great. Like I feel fucking fantastic.

[00:54:50] Kalen: What are multis you're talking about, you're not talking about multivitamins, are you?

[00:54:55] Niko: Yeah, man, you got, we do that, so we do is we get like multivitamin injections in the barn. Oh, the eject.

[00:55:00] Kalen: Yeah.

[00:55:01] Niko: B12 injections.

[00:55:02] You can do a NAD drip every month. Right, right, right, right. So I've never, I've

[00:55:06] Kalen: never gotten one of those, but I keep hearing about 'em.

[00:55:08] Niko: Oh, you've very indulge man. Yeah. Like what is there one, one of the boys man I speak to online, he is a Shopify engineer, not for Shopify, but he's a really good engineer. He like, he was like, uh, I'm feeling really down and sad.

[00:55:19] I was like, listen brother. I was like, I got him an appointment at like a, in a Californian clinic. I was like, God, yeah, right. Get this shit. He's like, he's alright, I'll do it. And I was like, stop being a pan. So he goes, there man, has a shot. He, I feel fantastic. He got his wife pregnant

[00:55:42] and now, now it's expect, he's like, God damn man. I say, I told you, I told you big dog. You gotta just, you gotta indulge. Yeah. I think it's about, I've had that for years, man. Like even when I was boxing, man, like I wasn't using when I was boxing, like, uh, steroids, but like. Ever since I was a young man, like, you gotta keep that health, fitness, you gotta keep it always up.

[00:56:00] Yeah. That's so, so important.

[00:56:01] Kalen: I was like getting depressed, you know, like when my last business started to tail off and, you know, I wasn't really working hard at it. I was kind of like, I, you know, I kept going kind of lower and lower in like, you know, mentally and Yeah. Till it got to a point where I was like, fuck man.

[00:56:19] Like, I, I, you know, I was not in a good spot and I, to me, I attributed a lot of it to the testosterone because

[00:56:27] Niko: Oh yeah,

[00:56:28] Kalen: yeah. It makes you focused and, you know, confident, all that kind of stuff. So a hundred percent I think it really, I think it really turned it around for me.

[00:56:37] Niko: Um, oh yeah. You know, definitely.

[00:56:40] I feel like, but it's also meant were you becoming a fatty bomb batty, or were you like also good? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, dude. Yeah.

[00:56:46] Kalen: That will get you, man. I was fat as shit. Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, and you know, that's gotten better. We're not to the six pack territory yet, but we're getting there.

[00:56:55] Getting, we're getting there, brother. We're getting You gotta,

[00:56:58] Niko: you gotta get the pic brother, get the ozempic. I've heard, I've heard, I've heard

[00:57:02] Kalen: hit the combo.

[00:57:04] Niko: Yeah. There's many years ago, many years ago, they had this pill called Romine. And Romine was like this weight loss drug. And these, a lot of people were getting on it.

[00:57:14] This is many years ago. And it, and it, it would just strip the fat, it would strip it off. Yeah. But also you've got, like, Clem Clem will also help. Mm-hmm. If you wanna lose the weight, which is not as, you know, hectic as, as pic. Mm-hmm. If you wanna get stripped down, man, look, if you come to Amsterdam, man, like, and there's no need for any weight loss, it'll be, it'll, it'll go right off.

[00:57:34] You know, it's happy days,

[00:57:36] Kalen: just fucking riding bikes. Oh yeah. Riding bikes all day. Do you ride a bike all over the place? Well, I can't imagine you on a bike, dude. I feel like you'd be like, fuck bikes bike. I don't fucking ride bikes. I don't believe in that shit.

[00:57:48] Niko: So you're not wrong. So fucking, so they're fucking insufferable, right?

[00:57:54] So here's I, in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, right? You could like, just, you could, bikes are

[00:57:58] Kalen: for pussies.

[00:58:00] Niko: This is what these animals did, man. In Amsterdam, it was like you could just ride a scoot. I used to have a scooter. You could just like a moped, you could ride it around their problem. You know, you could, the maximum was 25 kilometers per hour.

[00:58:12] I dunno what that is in miles, but I had it modified. Yeah, so you could go a little bit faster. And then these, then these fucking savages, man, they're like, oh, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna introduce helmets. I was like, you're not gonna, I'm not gonna wear a helmet.

[00:58:26] Kalen: No,

[00:58:27] Niko: you can't wear, you can't wear a helmet.

[00:58:28] So I sell the scooter, right? So I sell the moped, get rid of that thing. And now I just recently purchased a fat bike, right. Which is this.

[00:58:36] Kalen: Yeah,

[00:58:37] Niko: it's like an electrical bicycle ride, but it goes yeah, 50 kilometers per hour, no helmet. And I'm, now, I'm back on, I'm back on the road. I'm back on these roads, mom, I'm back on these roads.

[00:58:46] So nice. And, but cycling never that, that is just pleb territory. Can't do it. And they're all, they've always like, there's just no way. They've got that funny colored hair. They're always like,

[00:58:59] Kalen: eh,

[00:58:59] Niko: nut with the little bowels. No, we can't do it. Can't do

[00:59:03] Kalen: it. Can't do it

[00:59:05] Niko: as like, so my, my, my girlfriend van, she used to like, she like used to run the, the two main ese bars here in Amsterdam.

[00:59:12] And so like, all the people, all my, my, my friends here in Amsterdam, they're just like, there's like certain, they've got like the, the full like leftist, like liberal, like

[00:59:23] Kalen: woo,

[00:59:23] Niko: um, I some people. And then you've got like the mid-level people, like me and my friends. Then you've got the other side. But it's so funny now because.

[00:59:31] Only like super rich people will like ride bicycles. Oh, it's super interesting. And then you've got like the Yeah, it's a vibe. Man's a vibe. You gotta calm man. If you do come, I'll take you out in the boat, man. We go around the canals. It's fucking gorgeous man. And then also, if you come here, man, like you come to Stockholm.

[00:59:52] 'cause I'm always in Stockholm. Have a place in Stockholm. So, and take you around man. Come here. All right. All come visit

[01:00:00] Kalen: sounds brother.

[01:00:01] Niko: Sounds good for sure,

[01:00:02] Kalen: man.