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In Episode 543 of Startups For the Rest of Us, Rob is joined again by co-host emeritus, Mike Taber as he gives an update on all things startups and they analyze top tactics for superhero success.
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Rob: In this episode of Startups for the Rest of Us, Mike and I will talk about all things startup. This is Startups for the Rest of Us episode 543.
Welcome to Startups for the Rest of Us. The podcast that helps developers, designers, and entrepreneurs be awesome at building, launching, and growing startups. Whether you built your 5th startup or you’re thinking about your 1st. I’m rob.
Mike: And I’m Mike.
Rob: We’re here to share our experiences to help you avoid the mistakes we’ve made. Where are we this week, sir?
Mike: Not much, hanging in there. Just catching up on some TV these days and trying to relax a little bit in between various things that are going on. Have you heard about a show called For All Mankind?
Rob: I’ve heard about it on a couple of nerd podcasts I listened to, but I don’t remember what it’s about.
Mike: It’s pretty cool. Have you heard of Man In The High Castle where it’s kind of like an alternate history?
Rob: Yeah. I watched the first season of that.
Mike: It’s similar. It’s about the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The main difference is that in the very first episode, what they did is they had the Soviets end up getting to the moon first. There’s a lot of historically accurate things in there, but then they obviously take extreme creative liberty with a bunch of different historical facts or pieces of things that happened.
It’s fascinating how they put that spin on it because a lot of it is very true to history and realistic like Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong, and people whose names you would recognize. But then they changed certain aspects of history as they went along. It’s just really interesting, the way they do it. It’s got a lot of twists and turns, especially if you’re a history buff and you like history, you don’t actually know what to expect next because they are changing things.
Rob: Wow. That sounds really cool. Is it a TV show like 10 episodes?
Mike: I think it’s in its 2nd season now. We’ve watched nine episodes. It’s on Apple TV+. It’s like Disney+ but it’s Apple TV+. It’s there and we’re at the 9th episode. We just finished the 9th, and we’re about to watch the 10th. I think the 2nd season is out and that’s the only reason why I actually even tried to give it a shot. But after the 1st episode, I was hooked. I was like, wow, this is really good.
Rob: That’s super cool. I need to check it out. Sharon and I were talking and we need to find a new show. We talked about Game of Thrones a few weeks ago and it was like, I like when that was on because they had something every week during the summer or whenever it came out. We watch This Is Us as well, which is good, but it’s only 44 minutes a week and I think it’s going to end soon as well. I have to check it out. I, of course, love the sci-fi alternate-history type of stuff. I’m just a fan of that kind of thing.
Mike: Yeah. It definitely plays the whole what-if scenarios of history, obviously. You have your own preconceived notions about what could happen, but you can always discuss like, oh, how would this turn out if this happened instead?
Rob: Exactly. That reminds me actually, one of my kids watched Frozen II again, like two weeks ago. Have you seen that movie? Have you seen either of the Frozens?
Mike: I have.
Rob: Okay. The main character, Elsa, has ice powers where she can shoot ice, and make snow, and do all these things? Well, two of my kids started getting into this argument about who would win in a fight and I don’t know how they got there. It’s kids, right? Elsa or Spiderman? I was like, obviously—
Mike: —Elsa, of course.
Rob: Wait, what? Seriously?
Mike: Yeah. Why?
Rob: Because Spiderman would smoke her. Are you kidding me? He has the spider-sense. She wouldn’t be able to hit him at all. Can you imagine her trying to shoot her snow rays at him and him knowing where they’re going to be? That’s really what the spider-sense is. It’s almost like a predictive mechanism.
Mike: Yeah. But she’s got superhuman strength, and reflexes, and endurance. It’s not really a whole lot different. You could almost say that she’s got a form of spider-sense as well.
Rob: Wait, superhuman strength? Does Elsa have that?
Mike: Well, it’s superhuman agility. It’s not really a strength, but yeah.
Rob: Really?
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: How does she have superhuman agility?
Mike: Well, it takes that to be like sliding around on those ice runners and stuff that she puts together.
Rob: No. My kids will grab a piece of cardboard and they’ll go down the slide standing up at this park here near us.
Mike: I’m sure that looks very elegant.
Rob: At least they don’t fall and crack their head open. They’re not wearing a helmet. I disagree that she has superhuman agility. She’s not a superhero. Spiderman is. He’s the friendly neighborhood Spiderman.
Mike: She’s not a superhero? She got all these different powers. She can control ice, can create ice, and control water—
Rob: Yeah.
Mike: —manipulate the weather, freeze people’s brains and hearts. Come on.
Rob: Was that in one of the movies? Did I miss that?
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: Here’s the thing. I don’t think of her as a superhero. I think of her as like a person who can do some stuff and maybe more like Storm or Iceman—if I’m going to go back to the superhero genre. Did you read Marvel’s Secret Wars from the ‘80s? The comic series?
Mike: I did not read it. They recreated a bunch of those in the last 8 or 10 years.
Rob: Yeah. They had something called Secret Wars in the last 10 years that they published. My understanding is it’s different than the one from the ‘80s. I probably need to read some of those just so I can tell the difference because growing up for me, it’s called Marvel Superhero Secret Wars. It ran, I would guess ’84-’85-ish and it was like a 12-issue limited series. It was the best story that I had ever read in comics up to that point for me. In this, all the superheroes and supervillains get brought to this battle planet. I forgot what it’s called, Battle Planet maybe. It’s made up of all these pieces of planets from the extended universe or whatever. They’re told to fight one another by this guy called the Beyonder, the supreme being in essence like he’s god.
Mike: Cosmic entity.
Rob: Cosmic entity, yeah. In it, issue three, Spiderman is listening to the X-Men. I think I have a summary right here. He happens to come up on the X-Men—I’m reading this off of marvel.fandom.com—comes upon the X-Men who are holding private counsel with their leader, Professor X, while they discuss the distress they are receiving from the other heroes because they’re mutants.
Professor X has decided that his team is going to leave to join up with Magneto who’s actually a bad guy. Spiderman hears them and then the X-Men tries to grab him, and sir, he clowns them. It is embarrassing. It’s Storm. It’s Wolverine, Cyclops, Rogue, Colossus, and Nightcrawler, all against Spiderman. He just slaps them around like they have no idea what they’re doing. When I imagine him fighting Elsa, it’s no contest for me.
Mike: I feel like you’re glossing over a glaring detail of that whole thing which is the fact that he was infused with some of the Beyonder’s powers.
Rob: I don’t think he was.
Mike: I think he was.
Rob: You’re just saying the opposite of what I’m saying. That’s where you say, am not.
Mike: Are, too.
Rob: What evidence do you have of that? You haven’t even read it. He doesn’t have the black costume yet. This is actually in issue eight where he gets the black costume that later becomes Venom. It’s an alien costume. I’m really spoiling this 35-year-old thing. If you want to know more about Secret Wars, I can tell you how it ends, too. But no, I don’t think he had the extra powers dude. I just think, hand-to-hand combat, he clowned the X-Men, and I think he would do the same to Elsa, sir.
Mike: Direct from Wikipedia, “These tales include him receiving the Beyonder’s power and creating a new Parker City. Spiderman and the thing, spying on Dr. Doom in a story featuring Spiderman’s suspicions concerning the Hulk.”
Rob: Wait, what? That was Wikipedia? That was the Secret Wars in general or this episode?
Mike: Marvel Superhero Secret Wars. They do specifically refer to 2010. Maybe it’s not original.
Rob: Got you. Zing.
Mike: But this is also from 2010, the one, I believe, it came from Spiderman’s point of view.
Rob: That’s interesting. I do need to read that. It sounds like.
Mike: Yeah. I think you’re wrong sir.
Rob: I don’t think so. Okay. From Quora, “Who would win, Spiderman or Iceman?”
Mike: Yeah, probably Spiderman.
Rob: Well, actually this is funny. Really the only main answer since this is a hypothetical scenario which I just laughed about, of course, it is. It’s two superheroes.
Mike: No, it’s not.
Rob: Since this is a hypothetical scenario, I’ll be ignoring the morality, the core of these characters, et cetera. Basically, who would win if it was a fight to the death? First things first, analyzing their powers. Spiderman can easily lift 10-30 tons and can run and move at a speed above 200 miles an hour. I didn’t know that. Spiderman is faster, stronger, more agile, more intelligent, and more skilled than Iceman. Also, his spider-sense warns him of any danger and he also has a near-omnipotent awareness about his surroundings. He can also jump up to 7-10 stories across or upwards. How are you feeling about Elsa now, sir?
Mike: Elsa has the ability to strike a person with an icy blast that does not harm them physically, but magically freezes their heart or mind.
Rob: That could be a problem.
Mike: Magically freezes their heart or mind.
Rob: What range does that attack have?
Mike: I don’t know, but given that she turned the entire countryside into a frozen wasteland, I feel like it’s probably fairly high.
Rob: Yeah, if it’s in D&D, terms at 60/120, 12/24 squares, how is she going to get close enough to throw anything?
Mike: I think it boils down to who wins initiative combat.
Rob: Yeah. No doubt. They rolled D20s, they’re at their dexterity. I’m going to give him a big dexterity bonus. Hey Mike, do you think people know what day it is?
Mike: I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not.
Rob: If not, they should look at their calendar.
Mike: That’s probably a good idea.
Rob: This is not a regular episode of Startups for the Rest of Us.
Mike: It’s not?
Rob: It’s not.
Mike: I’m going to stop. Should I come back tomorrow?
Rob: Yes. Come back tomorrow. Let’s tell them the backstory. This stemmed out of a conversation that we had two MicroConf Europe’s ago? The last one was in Croatia, right? 2019?
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: And because there wasn’t one in 2020, obviously, due to the pandemic. We were at dinner, special thanks to Benedict and Christoph for treating us to dinner that evening, and somehow you and I after a couple of old fashions, wound up getting into this conversation for real. Do you remember that? I have no idea how we got there though.
Mike: I vaguely remember, but I know you were wrong. I remember that.
Rob: I remember. I was completely sober and you weren’t. It makes sense why you wouldn’t remember.
Mike: Oh sir.
Rob: But yeah, and we started arguing this, and it was funny, and then the people around us were laughing. We got way nerded out. We didn’t even bring up Wikipedia and Fandom. But I think it was Christoph or Benedict who said, you guys should really record that at some point. We said we should do it next April 1st. Somehow, we missed last year’s. Probably the pandemic stressed us. I wasn’t paying attention, but I’m glad that we were able to finally get that out, Mike. I still think Spiderman would win unless she just froze his heart. If she could freeze his heart or his brain, that feels like cheating.
Mike: Cheating in a battle of the death?
Rob: Cheating in a battle of the death.
Mike: A hypothetical battle of the death? Okay.
Rob: I want it to be hand-to-hand.
Mike: That wasn’t in the guidelines. It was not in the rule book.
Rob: No.
Mike: Page 7, section 35B.
Rob: For what? The outline for this conversation? Yeah.
Mike: No, the battle of the death handbook.
Rob: Yeah. Thanks for spending some time with us and lighting in the feed up here. I appreciate you taking the time. I really enjoyed chatting about this. That was fun.
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: Take it easy.
Mike: Alright, take it easy. Bye.
Rob: Thanks again to Mike for joining me on today’s episode. In case you’re listening to this years down the road, this episode was released on April 1st of 2021 and that is April Fool’s Day celebrated in 11 countries around the world. I hope you enjoyed this slight deviation from our normally serious content and I’ll be back in your earbuds again next Tuesday morning.
Welcome to Startups for the Rest of Us. The podcast that helps developers, designers, and entrepreneurs be awesome at building, launching, and growing startups. Whether you built your 5th startup or you’re thinking about your 1st. I’m rob.
Mike: And I’m Mike.
Rob: We’re here to share our experiences to help you avoid the mistakes we’ve made. Where are we this week, sir?
Mike: Not much, hanging in there. Just catching up on some TV these days and trying to relax a little bit in between various things that are going on. Have you heard about a show called For All Mankind?
Rob: I’ve heard about it on a couple of nerd podcasts I listened to, but I don’t remember what it’s about.
Mike: It’s pretty cool. Have you heard of Man In The High Castle where it’s kind of like an alternate history?
Rob: Yeah. I watched the first season of that.
Mike: It’s similar. It’s about the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The main difference is that in the very first episode, what they did is they had the Soviets end up getting to the moon first. There’s a lot of historically accurate things in there, but then they obviously take extreme creative liberty with a bunch of different historical facts or pieces of things that happened.
It’s fascinating how they put that spin on it because a lot of it is very true to history and realistic like Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong, and people whose names you would recognize. But then they changed certain aspects of history as they went along. It’s just really interesting, the way they do it. It’s got a lot of twists and turns, especially if you’re a history buff and you like history, you don’t actually know what to expect next because they are changing things.
Rob: Wow. That sounds really cool. Is it a TV show like 10 episodes?
Mike: I think it’s in its 2nd season now. We’ve watched nine episodes. It’s on Apple TV+. It’s like Disney+ but it’s Apple TV+. It’s there and we’re at the 9th episode. We just finished the 9th, and we’re about to watch the 10th. I think the 2nd season is out and that’s the only reason why I actually even tried to give it a shot. But after the 1st episode, I was hooked. I was like, wow, this is really good.
Rob: That’s super cool. I need to check it out. Sharon and I were talking and we need to find a new show. We talked about Game of Thrones a few weeks ago and it was like, I like when that was on because they had something every week during the summer or whenever it came out. We watch This Is Us as well, which is good, but it’s only 44 minutes a week and I think it’s going to end soon as well. I have to check it out. I, of course, love the sci-fi alternate-history type of stuff. I’m just a fan of that kind of thing.
Mike: Yeah. It definitely plays the whole what-if scenarios of history, obviously. You have your own preconceived notions about what could happen, but you can always discuss like, oh, how would this turn out if this happened instead?
Rob: Exactly. That reminds me actually, one of my kids watched Frozen II again, like two weeks ago. Have you seen that movie? Have you seen either of the Frozens?
Mike: I have.
Rob: Okay. The main character, Elsa, has ice powers where she can shoot ice, and make snow, and do all these things? Well, two of my kids started getting into this argument about who would win in a fight and I don’t know how they got there. It’s kids, right? Elsa or Spiderman? I was like, obviously—
Mike: —Elsa, of course.
Rob: Wait, what? Seriously?
Mike: Yeah. Why?
Rob: Because Spiderman would smoke her. Are you kidding me? He has the spider-sense. She wouldn’t be able to hit him at all. Can you imagine her trying to shoot her snow rays at him and him knowing where they’re going to be? That’s really what the spider-sense is. It’s almost like a predictive mechanism.
Mike: Yeah. But she’s got superhuman strength, and reflexes, and endurance. It’s not really a whole lot different. You could almost say that she’s got a form of spider-sense as well.
Rob: Wait, superhuman strength? Does Elsa have that?
Mike: Well, it’s superhuman agility. It’s not really a strength, but yeah.
Rob: Really?
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: How does she have superhuman agility?
Mike: Well, it takes that to be like sliding around on those ice runners and stuff that she puts together.
Rob: No. My kids will grab a piece of cardboard and they’ll go down the slide standing up at this park here near us.
Mike: I’m sure that looks very elegant.
Rob: At least they don’t fall and crack their head open. They’re not wearing a helmet. I disagree that she has superhuman agility. She’s not a superhero. Spiderman is. He’s the friendly neighborhood Spiderman.
Mike: She’s not a superhero? She got all these different powers. She can control ice, can create ice, and control water—
Rob: Yeah.
Mike: —manipulate the weather, freeze people’s brains and hearts. Come on.
Rob: Was that in one of the movies? Did I miss that?
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: Here’s the thing. I don’t think of her as a superhero. I think of her as like a person who can do some stuff and maybe more like Storm or Iceman—if I’m going to go back to the superhero genre. Did you read Marvel’s Secret Wars from the ‘80s? The comic series?
Mike: I did not read it. They recreated a bunch of those in the last 8 or 10 years.
Rob: Yeah. They had something called Secret Wars in the last 10 years that they published. My understanding is it’s different than the one from the ‘80s. I probably need to read some of those just so I can tell the difference because growing up for me, it’s called Marvel Superhero Secret Wars. It ran, I would guess ’84-’85-ish and it was like a 12-issue limited series. It was the best story that I had ever read in comics up to that point for me. In this, all the superheroes and supervillains get brought to this battle planet. I forgot what it’s called, Battle Planet maybe. It’s made up of all these pieces of planets from the extended universe or whatever. They’re told to fight one another by this guy called the Beyonder, the supreme being in essence like he’s god.
Mike: Cosmic entity.
Rob: Cosmic entity, yeah. In it, issue three, Spiderman is listening to the X-Men. I think I have a summary right here. He happens to come up on the X-Men—I’m reading this off of marvel.fandom.com—comes upon the X-Men who are holding private counsel with their leader, Professor X, while they discuss the distress they are receiving from the other heroes because they’re mutants.
Professor X has decided that his team is going to leave to join up with Magneto who’s actually a bad guy. Spiderman hears them and then the X-Men tries to grab him, and sir, he clowns them. It is embarrassing. It’s Storm. It’s Wolverine, Cyclops, Rogue, Colossus, and Nightcrawler, all against Spiderman. He just slaps them around like they have no idea what they’re doing. When I imagine him fighting Elsa, it’s no contest for me.
Mike: I feel like you’re glossing over a glaring detail of that whole thing which is the fact that he was infused with some of the Beyonder’s powers.
Rob: I don’t think he was.
Mike: I think he was.
Rob: You’re just saying the opposite of what I’m saying. That’s where you say, am not.
Mike: Are, too.
Rob: What evidence do you have of that? You haven’t even read it. He doesn’t have the black costume yet. This is actually in issue eight where he gets the black costume that later becomes Venom. It’s an alien costume. I’m really spoiling this 35-year-old thing. If you want to know more about Secret Wars, I can tell you how it ends, too. But no, I don’t think he had the extra powers dude. I just think, hand-to-hand combat, he clowned the X-Men, and I think he would do the same to Elsa, sir.
Mike: Direct from Wikipedia, “These tales include him receiving the Beyonder’s power and creating a new Parker City. Spiderman and the thing, spying on Dr. Doom in a story featuring Spiderman’s suspicions concerning the Hulk.”
Rob: Wait, what? That was Wikipedia? That was the Secret Wars in general or this episode?
Mike: Marvel Superhero Secret Wars. They do specifically refer to 2010. Maybe it’s not original.
Rob: Got you. Zing.
Mike: But this is also from 2010, the one, I believe, it came from Spiderman’s point of view.
Rob: That’s interesting. I do need to read that. It sounds like.
Mike: Yeah. I think you’re wrong sir.
Rob: I don’t think so. Okay. From Quora, “Who would win, Spiderman or Iceman?”
Mike: Yeah, probably Spiderman.
Rob: Well, actually this is funny. Really the only main answer since this is a hypothetical scenario which I just laughed about, of course, it is. It’s two superheroes.
Mike: No, it’s not.
Rob: Since this is a hypothetical scenario, I’ll be ignoring the morality, the core of these characters, et cetera. Basically, who would win if it was a fight to the death? First things first, analyzing their powers. Spiderman can easily lift 10-30 tons and can run and move at a speed above 200 miles an hour. I didn’t know that. Spiderman is faster, stronger, more agile, more intelligent, and more skilled than Iceman. Also, his spider-sense warns him of any danger and he also has a near-omnipotent awareness about his surroundings. He can also jump up to 7-10 stories across or upwards. How are you feeling about Elsa now, sir?
Mike: Elsa has the ability to strike a person with an icy blast that does not harm them physically, but magically freezes their heart or mind.
Rob: That could be a problem.
Mike: Magically freezes their heart or mind.
Rob: What range does that attack have?
Mike: I don’t know, but given that she turned the entire countryside into a frozen wasteland, I feel like it’s probably fairly high.
Rob: Yeah, if it’s in D&D, terms at 60/120, 12/24 squares, how is she going to get close enough to throw anything?
Mike: I think it boils down to who wins initiative combat.
Rob: Yeah. No doubt. They rolled D20s, they’re at their dexterity. I’m going to give him a big dexterity bonus. Hey Mike, do you think people know what day it is?
Mike: I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not.
Rob: If not, they should look at their calendar.
Mike: That’s probably a good idea.
Rob: This is not a regular episode of Startups for the Rest of Us.
Mike: It’s not?
Rob: It’s not.
Mike: I’m going to stop. Should I come back tomorrow?
Rob: Yes. Come back tomorrow. Let’s tell them the backstory. This stemmed out of a conversation that we had two MicroConf Europe’s ago? The last one was in Croatia, right? 2019?
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: And because there wasn’t one in 2020, obviously, due to the pandemic. We were at dinner, special thanks to Benedict and Christoph for treating us to dinner that evening, and somehow you and I after a couple of old fashions, wound up getting into this conversation for real. Do you remember that? I have no idea how we got there though.
Mike: I vaguely remember, but I know you were wrong. I remember that.
Rob: I remember. I was completely sober and you weren’t. It makes sense why you wouldn’t remember.
Mike: Oh sir.
Rob: But yeah, and we started arguing this, and it was funny, and then the people around us were laughing. We got way nerded out. We didn’t even bring up Wikipedia and Fandom. But I think it was Christoph or Benedict who said, you guys should really record that at some point. We said we should do it next April 1st. Somehow, we missed last year’s. Probably the pandemic stressed us. I wasn’t paying attention, but I’m glad that we were able to finally get that out, Mike. I still think Spiderman would win unless she just froze his heart. If she could freeze his heart or his brain, that feels like cheating.
Mike: Cheating in a battle of the death?
Rob: Cheating in a battle of the death.
Mike: A hypothetical battle of the death? Okay.
Rob: I want it to be hand-to-hand.
Mike: That wasn’t in the guidelines. It was not in the rule book.
Rob: No.
Mike: Page 7, section 35B.
Rob: For what? The outline for this conversation? Yeah.
Mike: No, the battle of the death handbook.
Rob: Yeah. Thanks for spending some time with us and lighting in the feed up here. I appreciate you taking the time. I really enjoyed chatting about this. That was fun.
Mike: Yeah.
Rob: Take it easy.
Mike: Alright, take it easy. Bye.
Rob: Thanks again to Mike for joining me on today’s episode. In case you’re listening to this years down the road, this episode was released on April 1st of 2021 and that is April Fool’s Day celebrated in 11 countries around the world. I hope you enjoyed this slight deviation from our normally serious content and I’ll be back in your earbuds again next Tuesday morning.
Well played gentlemen, well played.
Happy 4/1