34 - Touch, don't look

Hosts: Pete and AndyPete and Andy reflect on their first "Touch Don't Look" workshop—getting people hands-on with AI tools by building custom to-do apps in 60-90 minutes. They unveil their complete business model: Touch Don't Look (taster workshops), Speedrun (day-long build sessions), and Marginal Gains (SME community gym). The conversation explores why Excel rules enterprise, energy management over time management, the Advent Calendar games project, and why Context VM is one of the most important primitives in Nostr.## Key Moments:* [02:00] Steve Irwin wrestling crocodiles—the perfect icon for their AI workshop philosophy* [03:30] Andy replicates Basecamp's new to-do app in 60-90 minutes during the workshop* [05:00] The "aha moment": taking people from never having coded to deploying their own mobile app in an hour* [07:00] Why we never really talk about what Other Stuff actually does on this podcast* [10:00] Touch Don't Look explained: zero to custom to-do app in one hour, no GitHub required* [12:00] The barrier isn't technical anymore—it's the chat box paradigm constraining what people think is possible* [15:00] Speedrun unveiled: build a complete CRM, marketing website, and agent-powered funnel in one day* [20:00] Marginal Gains introduced: the small business gym with monthly rapid prototyping and community events* [22:00] "We've circled back to the plan from a year and a half ago"—staying true to core values* [25:00] The craft debate: AI doesn't dumb you down, it gives you more agency* [27:00] Why they're focusing on high-agency SME owners who should learn the tools themselves* [30:00] The uncomfortable truth: people don't understand their own problems until they start building* [32:00] Low-stakes sandbox environments before touching high-stakes business processes* [35:00] Energy management over time management: listening to your body, not hyper-organizing every hour* [37:00] AI as the thing that scaffolds what drains your energy so you can focus on craft* [40:00] The Advent Calendar project: building 25 games in 25 days as proof of work over talking* [42:00] "Should I be shitposting on LinkedIn? No. I should build 30 websites in a month instead."* [44:00] Energy states shape decision-making: doing work that keeps you in higher energy* [47:00] Why vibe coding is the right term (and why people misunderstand it)* [50:00] The one-shot fallacy: nothing good emerges that way, everything is iterative* [52:00] Excel runs the world: the most critical business processes are customized spreadsheets* [55:00] The $50 million Access database replacement that didn't work* [57:00] Why they won't be extractive with marginal gains: open source, take your toys if you leave* [1:00:00] Progressive overload for business: small considered steps, building muscle month by month* [1:03:00] The primitives approach: get encryption and architecture right, let users customize the process* [1:06:00] Winamp nostalgia: when the internet was quirkier with custom skins everywhere* [1:08:00] Why they're keeping all 25 advent games up forever (basically no overhead to run)* [1:10:00] Context VM explained: MCP over Nostr, solving self-hosting, security, and hole-punching* [1:14:00] The trust model: three different people run wallet, keys, and AI—user chooses who to trust* [1:16:00] Bring your own database to any app: front end on the internet, data on your Mac Mini at home