Pablo González Day

Introduction

Matthew Munger: ​Hey Pablo. Thank you for joining me.

Pablo González Day: Hey, Matthew, happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me on.

Matthew Munger: My pleasure. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are?

Pablo González Day: Yeah, of course. So, I'm a Webflow developer, currently working at Edgar Allan. I live in Buenos Aires in Argentina, so very southern in the world. I live at home in an apartment with my dog and my girlfriend. It's a big apartment. We moved during Covid to a bigger place with an office myself, which is where I'm calling you from. Then my girlfriend has another office for herself, so everything is nice and separated, which is great. Honestly it’s such a blessing to be working from home in this comfort.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Matthew Munger: So you said you're located there in Buenos Aires. What is it like living there?

Pablo González Day: I guess it's like any big city, right? It's Argentina's Capital city. So it's super hectic. Everyone comes here, and every tourist, of course, comes here, so it's super popular. What I like about this city in particular is the food, and the diversity, and just how many different kinds of places you can go to. I'm a particular fan of Japanese food, so we always try to taste all the different Japanese restaurants around town, and there's always a new one popping up.

So honestly, that's kind of the thing I love about the city, the most.

Matthew Munger: Other than restaurants, what else do you like to do around the city?

Pablo González Day: Just hanging out with my friends, playing football, soccer for you guys. So I do that every week with my friends. Going to the gym, just hanging around with my friends and family. So my parents live in the same city as I do, and my brothers also live in the same city. So we are not super spread out. It’s great to be able to hang out with my grandmother and my parents and my brothers and sisters, every other week. So that is something that I also really like.

Workspace

Matthew Munger: What does your workspace look like?

Pablo González Day: I have a white wall behind me, and that is the least interesting part of my setup, because I couldn't bother to make it look nice, honestly. But what you don't see, which is what I have in front of me, it's pretty cool. I have a standing desk, which is fairly large, to just have all my stuff lying around.

I'm really organized at the beginning of the day and then the chaos ensues throughout the day. So I have a lot of places to just stuff in pens and sketches and the iPad and the phone, et cetera. But then at the end of the day, I always try and clean it up so that I start the day fresh.

But yeah, I have a standing desk, a 27-inch 4K Dell monitor. I have my MacBook Pro. I have a stand for that, so I have the two monitor sort of situation going. I have a couple of hue lights to just make some cool lighting scenarios. Then I have a huge soft box because I sometimes stream for Edgar Allan, so I wanna make sure to have good lighting. 

And yeah, a microphone and then just a big set of speakers. I got all this stuff, honestly. And this is– like I was mentioning it, two years ago or a year and a half ago, we moved to this place, and I was just really looking forward to finally having my cool desk setup as you see on YouTube, you know?

Matthew Munger: Yeah, you've got that full streamer set up now.

Pablo González Day: Yeah. So I have a couple of things I collect from when I travel. We travel as often as we can. So whenever I travel, I like buying, like, different things. So I have this little can of, like, Japanese candy that, of course, I ate all the candy, but the can was good looking. So I kept it for the setup. I got also a miniature arcade machine that actually works. So this is one I grab every now and again when I'm just bored or just need to pass the time. And I just play a couple of games of Space Invaders.

So I just like buying little trinkets here and there and having them around. And also another thing you would find around in my office is a lot of tech. Because I have a YouTube channel, where I review phones, computers, et cetera. And so I work with the different brands and they send me stuff my way. So I always have the latest phone from like, whatever, Samsung or the latest ROG laptop or whatever that is. So it's always kind of a big mess.

Matthew Munger: Do you like to listen to anything while you work?

Pablo González Day: Yeah. I actually tweeted out the other day about this, where I have this very annoying habit of listening to an album on repeat all day, or maybe for an entire week. I change the album, of course, it's not always the same album, but my girlfriend just hates me because of this. Because I have my speakers here, and every now and again she's like, “Just put your headphones on because I've been hearing into this song for,like, five hours already.” But it just really helps me get in the zone or whatever, to just have an album on repeat. Just one song is too much repeat. But an album is 10,12 songs, so it's enough variety that it gets you going like for an hour and then it repeats again. And it just keeps me focused.

Matthew Munger: Do you have a window there in your office?

Pablo González Day: Yeah. I have one here on my right. The view is essentially just a cityscape, you know, I just see a bunch of buildings, nothing special. It's nice because the window points to the east, so the sun comes out every morning here, and I start work around 9 or 10. So it's always really sunny here and the entire room is kind of lit up and kind of gives you the energy to start working.

Hobbies

Matthew Munger: Do you have any hobbies or interests?

Pablo: Well, like I said, the YouTube channel is definitely one. It takes a lot of time. So you might imagine, you’re creating content so you know what that is. But yeah, that's definitely a hobby. One that I really enjoy. I've gotten a lot into working out lately, the last couple of years. Honestly, it's now already, you know, a full blown habit. I just work out four to six times a week.

And yeah, just playing soccer with my friends. So yeah, those are the ones, really, just exercise and YouTube. 

Surprise

Matthew Munger: What is something that would surprise people to learn about you?

Pablo González Day: One thing that I do a lot is, sorry to go morbid, but I am very aware of just death and how it looms upon all of us. And I always bring this up to people when they stress out about something. so people know me as the guy that they come to sometimes if they are, like, stressing out about something. I always just bring up that it's like, you're just gonna die. So there's really nothing worse than that.

You're not dead, everything is better. So just put that in perspective. A weird fact about me: I think about death a lot.

Role

Matthew Munger: What is your role and what do you do every day?

Pablo González Day: So my role is a senior Webflow developer. I work at Edgar Allan, which is a Webflow development agency. You know, it's also a branding agency, content writing, we do a bunch of stuff. The main work we do is developing websites for clients. We also do the web design for them, their branding. 

But my role is I'm in the development team. So a project goes through UX, uh, you know, wireframing, designs, et cetera, content writing. And it gets to us when it's a nice Figma file that is ready to be built. Most of the times. Sometimes there's things to figure out as we build.

So what I do, like, on a daily basis is just I get assigned a project. Like I said, like a Figma file. Just build this out. So I work with the designer. Okay, so what decisions were made here? What do we need? What kind of functionality? Are we filtering? Are we, you know, searching for stuff? What's the connection with any APIs, et cetera. And I just build that out, you know, day in and day out. That's kind of the definition of my role, really. 

But as I’ve gotten into working at Edgar Allan, I've started covering some more areas. Right now I'm trying to improve our QA and UAT process. So building out that process with some team members, kind of making sure we have the right automations and have the process written out. And explainer videos and how we share things with our client, how we transition from QA to UAT, et cetera.

So I'm really kind of diving deep into the process too, and trying to improve it for everyone in the company. So I would say that's another big responsibility. 

And lastly, I do some community work for Edgar Allan, too. I sometimes stream, it's been a bit less so for the last month or two due to just very big, you know, client projects coming in and kind of having all my time busy on that.

So it's like an extra thing on top of the other responsibilities. There's not, like, a massive stress about it, because it's not like if you don't do it, that was part of your role. It's more like it's something I put myself up to do, and whenever I can, I do. And then we try to have a healthy Spanish-speaking community for Webflow, with our Webflow Cafe Discord. 

So, yeah, just trying to help out. And for me it's just letting more people know what Webflow is and how it changed my life and how it's an awesome tool. So if I can have someone else get onto that, I’m always happy to help.

Matthew Munger: Yeah. That's a great thing that y'all are doing to really help Spanish speakers onboard to Webflow and development. Because obviously the tool is not localized, so, you know, it's not always easy when you see error messages in a language that you're maybe not as familiar with.

Pablo González Day: Yeah.

Motivation

Matthew Munger: What would you say excites and motivates you about what you're doing and kind of keeps you going?

Pablo González Day: I actually had that moment today. I am working on a client project I just couldn't figure out. And it was something to do with, like, playing audio clips on hover or on click, showing different things, like lots of audio stuff, which I had never done before. And it's always fun when you get something that you've never done before. 

So going back to your question, it just motivates me and it excites me to work on things that I don't know how to do. So whenever I maybe work on a project that is a bit too straightforward, it's kind of boring in a way. Or I kind of know the ending so I can anticipate it, and it's not, like, exciting.

Matthew Munger: Right.

Pablo González Day: Or it’s like when I get some projects that are truly complex and I've never worked on before, it's just fun to just poke around the internet, read posts and cloneables and ChatGPT, and just try some code and have it fail and then try again. And I had the moment today, which is kind of going back to what I was saying, where I made it work. 

Today, like an hour ago, I was stressing out. I was like, “Man, tomorrow's Friday. I am getting on the plane. I really need to get this sorted out.” And then I just– you know when you just click two things, you write something out and you just publish and it works and you're like, “Oh my God.” And then it's just smooth sailing after that because then you know, like, what you gotta do to get to the finish line. But as you heard before, like, I do a million things every day. Like, I wake up early, I go to sleep late. In a weird way, I love the stress of just going at 110%. 

So I think that's what motivates me about this work. Because it's hard, you know? As you Progress, of course, you're always trying to push yourself. Just looking at my progress and seeing the developer I've become in the last couple of years, that's, like, super motivating for me.

I always joke with my girlfriend that she tells friends, or whatever, it's like, “Yeah, he's a developer.” I'm like, “Don't say that, I am not a real developer,” you know? So then the other day I was talking to her and I'm like, “Finally I feel like I can say I'm a developer.”

You know, after like eight years doing this, I finally feel like I can just call myself that. So just improving upon my skills and just being better every day, that's honestly what excites me.

Resources

Matthew Munger: What is a resource that you think more people in the community should know about?

Pablo González Day: Edgar Allan has released an app called Slater. It's Slater dot app. And it's essentially a development platform for Webflow developers, right, or no-code developers, where you can just inject a simple, just one line of a script into your site, and then it just manages all your custom code across your different pages. 

And it's a really powerful tool that we are building here internally. And honestly, I wanna name it as a resource because I’ve been using it every single day.

It has an integration with ChatGPT, so you can use that. It's incredible. It's sped up my development significantly. So although it's like a shameless plug, I do wanna call it out because it's a great resource.

Matthew Munger: And also, I'll just back it up by, you know, everyone that I hear that's used it has said the same thing. So definitely a resource that if anyone listening is interested in, you should definitely check out. Any other resources or things you wanna mention?

Pablo González Day: I think the classics are worth mentioning. I was, actually, today watching a Timothy Ricks video. A tutorial where,like, the silliest thing was a rolling marquee of text. But I was just, “I don't wanna try and build it myself because I know he’s done it, and he has considered it and how to do it.”

And sometimes it's just faster to go to the people that know what they're doing. Similar to, like, you know, ChatGPT where, like, sometimes you know how to write something, but it's just– it's faster if it writes it for you. 

So I really always just go to Timothy's channel, and yeah, subscribe to him on YouTube, and anything posts, it's always just incredible. But yeah, I wanna call him out because I think he's provided such a massive amount of value to the community.

Inspiration

Matthew Munger: Who in the Webflow community inspires you?

Pablo González Day: Yeah, well, definitely him, of course. And, you know, I do wanna give a call out to Nelson. He recently announced he's moving on from Webflow. I haven't read much more into that and what he's doing next, et cetera. But I mean, what a guy, you know? Honestly, one of the first people I saw a video from using Webflow. And I wouldn't say single-handedly, but you know, him and, like, a bunch of people you can count with one hand I think are the ones that have built this community. And then all of us, we just helped out from the sidelines. But he’s been such a massive inspiration of just doing good work, doing it with care, it with candor and doing it with consistency. It’s just beautiful what all he's done. So massive, massive inspiration.

Advice

Matthew Munger: Shout out to Nelson for sure. He's inspired many of us, and like you said, has been there from the beginning, helping to really build the community into just this amazing kind of resource and organism that it is today. 

Is there any advice that you'd like to share?

Pablo González Day: So definitely use a lot of the tools that are available for you. Sometimes it feels like if we’re not building it ourselves, we’re not good enough or whatever. But to my comment before about, like, we publish stuff and it's stuff that people use and work and, you know, makes money for businesses.

The work you're doing, it doesn't matter necessarily how much you've sweat to do it, it matters that you've done it, and that it's out there, and that it's working. So I do encourage you to, like I said, find, you know, videos from people that are doing great work and just copy that. You know, you'll get the hang of it by doing a lot of imitation. 

So really just go ahead and do what the people that know what they're doing are doing, and then you'll be one of those people. Use, you know, tools like ChatGPT. Some people think maybe that's like cheating. But I write every single line of code that I'm doing currently, and for the last couple of months, everything has gone through ChatGPT. And it has improved how I think about code, how I think about structuring different, you know, scripts and just stuff that happens on the site. I'm noticing myself, I'm thinking a lot more like a developer. Because whenever I ask something of ChatGPT, then I read its explanation, I'm like, “Okay, I didn't know you could do that.” So then the next time, you know something new. 

So my advice is really to just lean on the tools and the people that have been here enough that they know what they're doing. It's kind of like standing on the shoulders of giants, right? If you wanna start from scratch, you're not gonna get that far. But if you start from where others have left off the baton, you can go even farther.

Matthew Munger: Yeah, every generation stands on top of the previous generation.

Pablo González Day: Yeah.

Connect

Matthew Munger: All right, Pablo, how can others in the community reach out and connect with you?

Pablo González Day: So I'm on Twitter still, as long as it continues to exist. At Pablo G Day. And honestly, that's, I think,the only place where I'm doing anything online. 

Uh, well, I have the YouTube channel, that's IB tech team. That's In Spanish, but that's all about tech. There's no Webflow-related things there. 

But honestly, if, like, you wanna chat with me about anything, just send me a DM on Twitter and we can meet for a couple of minutes online and just chat. If you're around in Buenos Aires, I'm happy to meet. But that's really the only place where I'm active and we'll see a message if it comes in.

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