[0:01]
So, this video by necessity is probably
[0:04]
going to have to be longer
[0:09]
because
[0:12]
this one was my most complicated
[0:14]
freelance relationship.
[0:16]
And these are still active projects.
[0:20]
I know the team that's working on them.
[0:22]
There are people that I hired in the
[0:24]
past. So, I handed off my role to them
[0:26]
actually when I moved into this RV that
[0:29]
I'm sitting in now a year and a half
[0:31]
ago.
[0:34]
I deeply respect
[0:38]
my boss in this relationship,
[0:42]
my client.
[0:46]
But in the end, we ended up having to
[0:47]
part ways
[0:50]
because it was a toxic relationship. And
[0:52]
I need to be able to talk about my
[0:54]
experiences honestly.
[0:57]
I can't really describe my work without
[0:58]
also describing my experiences of that
[1:01]
work because that's just as important.
[1:03]
I'm looking for resonance with my
[1:04]
clients. And I learned a lot from this
[1:07]
one.
[1:08]
This one basically led to burnout.
[1:13]
I didn't think I was ever going to
[1:14]
return to programming after this. When I
[1:17]
moved into an RV, I was planning to
[1:18]
become a park ranger.
[1:21]
And it's only because
[1:23]
I started working on a personal project,
[1:25]
a very big one with artificial
[1:27]
intelligence that I'll talk about in a
[1:29]
different video,
[1:31]
that that that spark that I've had all
[1:33]
of my life since the sixth grade was
[1:36]
reignited.
[1:37]
And I felt like I could return to this
[1:39]
kind of work.
[1:41]
This relationship really strained my
[1:44]
ability
[1:46]
to be a programmer for a while.
[1:51]
I
[1:53]
came into this relationship
[1:57]
doing some simple tasks at first and
[2:00]
they had another developer who was
[2:02]
responsible for this project who was
[2:05]
leaving
[2:07]
I think under similar circumstances to
[2:09]
how I did honestly
[2:12]
and so I took over. Of course I didn't
[2:15]
know any of that at the time.
[2:20]
And we basically started from scratch
[2:22]
because the projects that had been
[2:24]
created up to that point, they were very
[2:26]
broken. They were in the middle of a
[2:28]
rewrite themselves and everything was
[2:31]
just
[2:33]
very chaotic.
[2:35]
So, we started fresh.
[2:37]
Um, throughout my time with this
[2:39]
company, I
[2:42]
hired and worked with
[2:44]
I really don't even know. I I want to
[2:46]
say hundreds. It just felt like an
[2:48]
endless stream of freelancers
[2:51]
and
[2:54]
that presented its own challenges
[2:59]
trying to
[3:01]
move these projects forward
[3:04]
with that kind of turnover.
[3:09]
And it's because we were doing some very
[3:11]
deep things here. Like this was a very
[3:13]
very big project. I had it all mapped
[3:16]
out in my mind and
[3:20]
we were working on a lot of different
[3:23]
things simultaneously.
[3:27]
But I also had a boss who
[3:32]
who
[3:34]
would get new ideas and
[3:37]
before you knew it, we were working on
[3:39]
something else before we had finished
[3:41]
the thing before that. And it was just
[3:43]
it was it was a chaotic place to work.
[3:47]
So
[3:49]
I had a lot of challenges there.
[3:53]
Um they're it's been a year and a half
[3:56]
and they still have not released these
[3:58]
projects which I think more than
[4:01]
anything else
[4:03]
shows that
[4:08]
some of the issues there
[4:12]
are systemic and unrelated to me.
[4:19]
It's
[4:21]
it's unfortunate because I think these
[4:23]
projects could have been amazing under
[4:26]
under different circumstances. I guess
[4:28]
I'll just put it that way. I
[4:32]
um I just I just feel that that's
[4:34]
important to note. I feel it's important
[4:36]
to say. So these projects
[4:39]
or music streaming service that was
[4:42]
going to be completely free. You would
[4:44]
never hear any ads while listening.
[4:46]
uh there was a monetization structure
[4:48]
that
[4:50]
prevented the need for them
[4:53]
and a music distribution service.
[4:57]
So if you were an artist and you had
[4:59]
music that you wanted to deploy to
[5:01]
Spotify or to Apple Music or somewhere
[5:03]
else, you could use our service for
[5:05]
that. That was Soundlock.
[5:08]
When I started working on this, I
[5:10]
started with the rain music,
[5:12]
but only, you know, somewhere maybe 20%
[5:15]
of the way through, I ended up having to
[5:18]
work on Soundlock and at the same time
[5:20]
built an admin panel called Arena
[5:23]
Office. Did a whole bunch of stuff
[5:25]
there. um built support ticket systems,
[5:30]
um
[5:32]
all the tools needed to manage the music
[5:34]
distribution service,
[5:37]
user management tools, just everything
[5:40]
that you would expect a very large
[5:42]
operation to have. We were a small team,
[5:44]
but um I was thinking about
[5:49]
the future of this company always.
[5:52]
And so,
[5:54]
you know, no corners were cut.
[5:56]
Everything I did, I did with um great
[5:58]
care.
[6:01]
Uh he also owns a m a merchandising
[6:03]
business. So, that was a big part of how
[6:06]
the monetization works. So, um creating
[6:10]
custom t-shirts and things like that on
[6:12]
demand. Uh he has a merchandising
[6:14]
company for that. And so, I'd have to
[6:16]
manage those properties also.
[6:22]
And so yeah, so that's the that's the
[6:25]
the intro to it. So um
[6:30]
these projects we went through a bunch
[6:32]
of different technologies
[6:37]
I actually chose to use Angular as a
[6:39]
front end on this one even though I
[6:41]
didn't personally know that one because
[6:42]
it just felt aligned with what my client
[6:44]
was trying to do. Uh we use Laravel as a
[6:47]
as a backend.
[6:49]
We had a bunch of Python tools.
[6:52]
Um
[6:54]
everything was on AWS so was
[6:56]
containerized
[6:58]
and um
[7:02]
yeah just yeah
[7:05]
this is hard for me. This is um
[7:13]
there's a lot here. So, I can't really
[7:15]
show you this uh the music streaming
[7:17]
service cuz it looks like that still
[7:19]
behind um you know signin form and for
[7:23]
ethical reason I'm just not going to log
[7:25]
into that. That front page is different
[7:27]
than than what I created. So, this is
[7:29]
something new that they've made. Um the
[7:31]
old one would have been at
[7:33]
music.arena.com.
[7:36]
So, that's redirecting or it's still my
[7:39]
technology though. I can tell by the
[7:41]
earls. That's that's actually pretty
[7:43]
cool. Um,
[7:46]
but I have no idea what the music
[7:47]
streaming service looks like now, but
[7:49]
the main project that I worked on right
[7:51]
before leaving was Sound Block, and I've
[7:53]
already signed into this. Uh, looks to
[7:56]
me like they might have abandoned it.
[7:58]
It's a lot of things in here are broken.
[8:01]
um the
[8:06]
the UI for it, you know, I don't think
[8:09]
is great. I think that, you know, um
[8:13]
like I said in an earlier video, front
[8:15]
ends aren't my strongest skill. We
[8:18]
didn't have a designer for this. So,
[8:19]
this is just what I came up with, just a
[8:21]
theme with purple and blue and, you
[8:24]
know, just some kind of reactivity.
[8:27]
This could have always been reskinned
[8:28]
into the future, you know. So um the
[8:32]
main
[8:35]
the majority of the work was definitely
[8:37]
on the back end. So this is a very very
[8:40]
complicated system. I'm going to try to
[8:42]
walk you through it as best I can. Uh
[8:45]
the music distribution service. So,
[8:48]
in order to help build build trust in
[8:52]
the music industry, we used
[8:55]
uh blockchain contracts for smart
[8:57]
contracts for um
[9:01]
for all of our users. So, if you were a
[9:04]
band, every user would have their own
[9:09]
they would each have to sign this
[9:10]
contract and you could put in their
[9:12]
custom
[9:14]
uh royalty splits for everybody and then
[9:16]
when we would receive your royalties, we
[9:18]
would we would pay that out to each of
[9:21]
the band members based on what the smart
[9:24]
contract said. And that was the primary
[9:28]
premise behind this site. And we did
[9:30]
that for probably a couple of years. We
[9:33]
had a small number of of customers. Um
[9:37]
that was going really well. It would
[9:38]
have to ingest data from multiple
[9:41]
sources, you know, like Spotify, you
[9:43]
know, we'd have to to create reports and
[9:44]
things like that. Um
[9:49]
just a whole bunch of systems behind.
[9:50]
I'll just try to walk you through it.
[9:52]
Actually, it's been a good while since
[9:53]
I've been on here. So, um you know, it
[9:57]
all starts with a project. So, you would
[9:58]
create a project for one of your
[10:00]
accounts.
[10:02]
Maybe you're an artist who has um a solo
[10:06]
career and is also with a band or you
[10:08]
just have different reasons for just
[10:10]
having multiple accounts. So, the whole
[10:12]
system I built allowed you to have
[10:14]
multiple accounts and multiple projects.
[10:16]
So, um you would just create your
[10:18]
project here and then once you had a
[10:21]
project show up in this list.
[10:24]
These are all of course just test
[10:26]
projects. I use this one the most.
[10:29]
Um, this tells you where they were
[10:31]
deployed to. So, this project's already
[10:33]
been deployed to different platforms.
[10:37]
You would upload all your music because
[10:39]
we would have to distribute that. All of
[10:41]
this is in the blockchain, too. So,
[10:43]
there are blockchain records. Um, looks
[10:45]
like you can't. So, I guess I'm on a
[10:48]
free account now and I can't show you
[10:49]
that. But, this would have showed you
[10:50]
the blockchain records,
[10:52]
the actual records for that. You could
[10:55]
download your music, edit the metadata
[10:57]
for it.
[10:59]
Um, this history is it's a blockchain
[11:02]
history. I guess they can't see that
[11:04]
either. That's what all these records
[11:06]
are.
[11:08]
Here's the smart contract. So, um, you
[11:11]
just you can modify a contract that
[11:13]
you've already created. You know, maybe
[11:15]
you add a new a new team member and you
[11:18]
just need to adjust this. If that
[11:19]
happens, then every single person on the
[11:21]
contract has to um approve it, of
[11:24]
course. Um so there was a complete chain
[11:27]
of record for that.
[11:29]
Uh you'd have to collect a lot of
[11:31]
information on the tracks. So um
[11:35]
created this UI for that. Preview the
[11:38]
music from here. Enter different
[11:40]
artists, different types of artists so
[11:42]
that it shows up right in the metadata
[11:44]
on different platforms.
[11:46]
Um, that's what contributed is for also.
[11:50]
So there was a lot of data you can enter
[11:51]
on your projects. Then when you did all
[11:54]
of that, you would do the deployment
[11:55]
part. So you would just say where you
[11:57]
want to put it.
[11:59]
It's quite a while since I did this. So
[12:01]
yeah, um, order your tracks, make sure
[12:03]
they're in the right order, all that
[12:04]
kind of stuff, and then pick where you
[12:07]
want to deploy it to.
[12:10]
And then that would go into Arena
[12:12]
Office. And the deployments actually
[12:13]
happened on the back end. It was manual.
[12:15]
We were working on an automated process
[12:17]
for that but hadn't hadn't finished that
[12:18]
yet. We had a small area for just um
[12:22]
storing files of any type
[12:26]
called this database. This is just where
[12:27]
all your data is so that you can manage
[12:29]
that.
[12:31]
Then you can manage your teams.
[12:34]
Depending on your user permissions, you
[12:37]
know, you might be able to edit these or
[12:39]
not. spent on.
[12:42]
So, this is somebody else that's on my
[12:44]
project. Like, they're assuming it was a
[12:46]
different band member. Um, change the
[12:48]
permissions to what they see on their
[12:50]
Soundwalk account for you cuz you can be
[12:53]
part of multiple accounts.
[12:56]
A lot of this other stuff I don't some
[12:58]
of it I was looking through when I
[13:00]
before I got on the camera and it looks
[13:02]
like it was broken. But, let's just see
[13:03]
what's available here. So, just
[13:04]
collecting the normal information you
[13:06]
would need.
[13:09]
Uh the report section was not working
[13:12]
unfortunately. There was there's so much
[13:14]
involved in that too.
[13:17]
Somewhere we should have
[13:20]
so if there were um my account just
[13:23]
doesn't show I never populated the data
[13:26]
for it but you would see a history of
[13:27]
all the transactions. So whenever
[13:30]
Spotify would tell us, okay, this this
[13:32]
project made this much money, it would
[13:34]
show up here and you know, you could
[13:36]
withdraw your balance and stuff like
[13:37]
that,
[13:43]
support system. And
[13:49]
so I feel like that's probably the most
[13:51]
I can show you for Sound Block. Um,
[13:56]
and the other things that I did for
[13:57]
Arena worked with them for 5 years. We
[14:00]
built all kinds of back-end technology
[14:04]
and
[14:07]
even after this was in a working place
[14:08]
where Sandbox was in beta. Uh, it never
[14:12]
got marketed.
[14:15]
I feel like that was
[14:19]
I never really understood that decision
[14:21]
because
[14:22]
it was something that we had to offer
[14:24]
and it and it's a valuable service but
[14:27]
it just was never
[14:30]
it was never marketed and then we had to
[14:34]
move on to other things
[14:36]
that was just this endless cycle. I just
[14:38]
I just
[14:41]
Yeah. I mean,
[14:44]
really not much more I can say about
[14:45]
that.
[14:49]
There
[15:07]
I deeply loved working on these
[15:09]
projects.
[15:12]
I just never had good alignment with
[15:16]
with the company I was
[15:19]
contracted to.
[15:24]
Didn't always have the resources I
[15:25]
needed. Often didn't. I would hire
[15:28]
somebody and then be forced to let them
[15:31]
go a couple weeks later because we
[15:32]
didn't have the money for them anymore.
[15:36]
Um,
[15:41]
I was
[15:45]
misaligned with what I'm trying to do
[15:47]
with my life and that's why I made new
[15:49]
choices. But
[15:51]
this was the last major project I worked
[15:53]
on before, just my personal stuff that
[15:55]
I'm doing now. And I'll talk about that
[15:56]
in a different video.
[15:59]
I know it seems like I'm meandering. I
[16:01]
just um for me this is more than just
[16:04]
some kind of marketing video. I'm
[16:08]
trying to
[16:11]
authentically express
[16:15]
how I feel about each of these projects
[16:18]
because
[16:20]
it gives you a window into me and I'm
[16:23]
looking for alignment with everything I
[16:25]
do in life and that includes the
[16:26]
projects I work on and the relationships
[16:28]
I have. And this one was just very
[16:31]
misaligned. I feel like this one had the
[16:33]
most potential
[16:35]
and it was frustrating that we we never
[16:40]
we never fulfilled the potential it had.
[16:44]
So
[16:48]
it's forced to move on.
[16:51]
I'm just going to go through these
[16:52]
slides so that you can at least read
[16:53]
them if you want to.
[16:59]
on this one here.
