Podcast appearances and mentions of andy well

In today's episode of the IC-DISC show, I sit down with Andy Hein of Patent Veritas. Andy shares his impressive journey from chemical engineering and law firms to establishing his firm. He reveals how Patent Veritas helps businesses secure their intellectual property through strategic patent licensing. I learn how industries like restaurants and stock trading benefit from robust patent protection. Andy demystifies securing patent licenses through the secondary market, allowing businesses access to a vast portfolio. Tailored solutions are key to understanding clients' needs. For business owners, Andy discusses using patent licensing for long-term investment and coupling it with Private Placement Life Insurance. Andy offers valuable insights as we discuss real cases that illustrate high stakes, even in seemingly simple industries. We also touch on ethical considerations in competitive landscapes and ensure personalized services.     SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Andy Hein shares his background in chemical engineering and patent law, discussing his experience at Skadden Arps and Sidley Austin before founding Patent Veritas. We discuss the role of Patent Veritas in helping businesses secure their intellectual property through strategic patent licensing, particularly focusing on mitigating litigation risks from patent trolls. Andy explains how Patent Veritas acquires patents from the secondary market and licenses them to clients, allowing companies to preempt costly legal battles and enhance their IP portfolios. We delve into the benefits of understanding clients' revenue streams and technological processes to offer tailored patent protection solutions, applicable to various industries, including non-high-tech sectors like restaurant chains and stock trading operations. Andy elaborates on the concept of Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) for accredited investors, highlighting its dual benefits for business owners in protecting both their business and personal interests. We explore real-world cases, such as a litigation involving used car sales companies, to illustrate the high stakes of patent protection and the strategic moves companies can make to safeguard their operations. Andy discusses the ethical considerations and strategic advantages of having a robust patent portfolio to counteract competitor lawsuits, emphasizing the value of being proactive rather than reactive. We reflect on the rewarding aspects of offering personalized legal services and the importance of ensuring a good fit between clients and Patent Veritas' offerings, with a unique fee structure based on patent licenses rather than hourly rates. Andy provides insights into the competitive dynamics of the patent marketplace, explaining how companies can leverage patent licensing as a long-term investment to enhance their business value. We conclude with advice for entrepreneurs and business owners, stressing the importance of being hardworking, available, and respectful in building successful client relationships, and offering complimentary initial consultations to make the first step towards collaboration accessible.   Contact Details Email Andy (mailto:ahein@patentveritas.com) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyhein1) LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Patent Veritas GUEST Andy HeinAbout Andy TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dave: Hi, this is David Spray and welcome to another episode of the IC-DISC Show. My guest today is Andy Hein, a founder of a company called Cotton. Andy has a legal background. He's an attorney and worked at some of the top law firms in the world out of law school and then he saw an opportunity and started this business and it's really fascinating. And started this business and it's really fascinating. Apparently, almost every company, every privately held company, has exposure to being sued by patent trolls or competitors that use patents as a tool to extract money out of a company, and virtually every privately held, closely held company is at risk for this. And they have a solution that addresses this, by which the company can license or have a subscription that allows them to have access to tens of thousands of patents in the company's portfolio. So you don't need to own the patents, you can just license the necessary ones to protect you and your company. Andy: Anyway. Dave: Andy's a really dynamic guy, interesting guy, interesting service, and they can also wrap it in an estate planning wrapper to make it even more appealing. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Good afternoon Andy. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, good afternoon Dave. Andy: How are you doing? Dave: I'm doing great, thank you. So where are you calling in from today? Andy: You know I'm in the great town of Carmel, Indiana, so just right outside Indianapolis. Dave: I think you have more roundabouts than any city in the country, if my knowledge is correct on that. Andy: We do. I think we still have one or two stop signs and stoplights to take out, but they're getting thinner by the day. So, yeah, we have a lot of them Now are you a native of Indiana? Dave: I am, yeah, I'm originally from Crown Point, which is in Northwest corner of Indiana, and then eventually migrated our way down to central Indiana here, okay, well, my my all-time favorite basketball player is from Southern Indiana. Andy: Oh, who's that? Dave: That would be Larry. Andy: Legend, of course, yeah, no, obviously a great player, pretty famous around these parts too. Dave: Now you, you're an attorney. Where did you go to law school? Andy: So I went over to Georgetown Law Center over in DC and studied there, focusing mostly on patent law, but a bit on finance as well. Dave: And your undergraduate degree, I believe, is in engineering. Is that right? Andy: It is. Yeah, it's in chemical engineering from Trine University, which is a school just in northeast Indiana. Dave: Okay, yeah, it seems like most IP attorneys I know have a technical undergraduate degree. It seems to kind of go together. Yeah, it's like peas and carrots. Andy: You know, especially when you go to law school, they ask well, what do you study? A lot of folks study history or philosophy, and when you say engineering, they say you know you should think about being a patent attorney. And so you go into that and you think that's kind of interesting. Actually it's a lot of fun. So yeah, we all kind of end up there for the most part. Dave: Now, right after law school. Did you launch your own firm then, or did you take a different path? Andy: Yeah, no, I took a kind of a traditional path. So I started my career at a firm called Skadden Arps and I was in the Chicago office. There I worked on actually finance work, doing supporting M&A and chapter 11 bankruptcy, and then also did litigation there as well. So spent a few years there and then went over to another firm called Sidley Austin and there I concentrated just on patent litigation. Doing deals and litigation work is a lot of fun on paper but eventually you have to pick a horse to ride on. So I picked the litigation one, so just stuck with patent litigation and worked there for a number of years before setting out on my own. Dave: Yeah, and those are I mean arguably two of the top 10 law firms in the country, right by many metrics or top 20, you know very kind of traditional white shoe law firms right by many metrics or top 20, you know very kind of traditional white shoe law firms right. Andy: Yeah, they're up there for sure. So yeah, great place, great experience at both firms. It was a wonderful time there. Dave: So let's come up to the current time. So tell me about and off the top of my head, I don't even remember the name of the company. Tell me the name of the company and why you started it and what you guys do. Andy: Yeah, so our company is Patent Veritas. What we do is we help, for the most part, privately held businesses of all sizes with their IP litigation risk as well as enhancing their IP functionality within their business. It's kind of the culmination of what I've been doing over a number of years. We're very client focused and this is one where it kind of pulls together a lot of the past experience and work that I've done and my colleague Nick Stabinski and partner Nick Stabinski has done. So we formed that and the neat part about that is it addresses a real concern that some companies know about. Just actually had a conversation this morning where someone was very aware of what we're trying to do and trying to help the company with and others haven't heard of it. But it's a risk that's out there and a very real one that we're trying to help companies with. Dave: So I know what patent means. Veritas, I think is Latin, but I don't recall off the top of my head what does Veritas mean? Andy: So it's just patent truth. It just sounded pretty good Good Latin word in there, so we have to. We put it in there. Dave: That is great and it sounds like that you saw some opportunity in this space based on your prior experience or clients. Like was there a specific situation that made you say, hey, you know there needs, there's a hole in the market here and I think I'm the guy that needs to fill it. Was there anything in particular? Andy: Yeah, no, that's a great question and there was, it's. Mostly clients were coming to us. Two things we noticed over the years, and then also, more directly, folks were asking us On the patent side. Two things would happen, because what we do is the particular IP risk is against patent trolls. These are folks that buy patents. They don't make a product or otherwise, they just buy buckets of patents and they sue operating companies for licensing revenue. So we saw a number of clients getting sued that way, and patent lawsuits are expensive. I mean a cheap one. According to the AIPLA, which is an association of IP attorneys, a relatively lower cost one, or average one, is about $6 million if you're going to trial, which is, yes, it's a lot of money. We've had clients upwards of 50, spend 50 million plus on legal fees. So patent litigation is not cheap, and so a lot of the folks that are the patent trolls are also called non-practicing entities. These folks, they know that arbitrage costs right and so they'll come in, they'll buy the patents. A lot of times then they go to these companies and they ask for a license that's below the cost of the litigation and so that's their business model. So we saw that happening to a number of our clients and these are especially targeted now are oftentimes small and medium enterprises right, privately held businesses, because that's their money right, and so they're going to make a decision, perhaps different than a bigger company like a Samsung will make or otherwise, to say hey we have the money. Dave: Yeah, they may just make a more pragmatic decision, right, because they may not have $6 million to spend. Andy: Exactly so. The decision process by an Apple or Samsung, which has a much larger litigation budget, is a lot different than when you're targeting, say, privately held manufacturer or maybe a restaurant chain or something like that Very successful businesses and oftentimes making many millions of dollars, but their decision with that money is a lot different than an Apple. As to saying I'm just going to fight all this, we're just going to fight everything that comes our way which isn't really possible for these companies because they don't have that deep of pockets, and so we thought of a solution for that, which I'm sure we'll talk about soon. But it came from that. And then also in our work, we buy and sell patents. That's how we kind of got into forming Patent Veritas, and that comes into play here as well, where we see this secondary market of patent purchases and sales going through and oftentimes those patents ending up in the hands of these non-practicing entities or patent trolls, and then they go off and license that. So we see that market as well, and I think we're able to. We formed a company here to kind of make a difference for that and help folks out. Additionally, what we also saw a lot of times were our privately held clients again, successful businesses, all ranges of things but they didn't necessarily devote the resources or have the capability really in the IP space and so we also address that with Patent Veritas, which is helping companies have almost an instant patent portfolio when they work with us. That's also expensive to develop. You know it can cost several millions of dollars to develop your own patents organically and grow it, which is a great thing to do, but it takes money and time. It often takes several years as well. So our company kind of marries all that together, the experiences we've had with our privately held business clients, and put this together in a really neat service that we can provide to people. Dave: Okay, so I think, if my recollection is correct, I think it was in 1899 that the head of the patent office announced everything that could be invented had already been invented. Is this true? I think it was a moratorium on new patents for some period of time. Andy: Well, I think he wanted to. I don't know if he did, he might have, but that was definitely said and everyone always points to that as oh geez, you know, when everything is done, everything all the inventions are made, they point to this, you know. Some other interesting things were the patent office had kind of a list I think they still do of potential inventions or products that are impossible. One was heavier than air flight impossible right Until the Wright brothers came up with it. That didn't happen, so that was on the list. Another one that was on the list was I think this is funny hair growth for men. Almost impossible, right Until someone created it. So yeah, I think since 1899, we've had one or two inventions that have really helped us out, so I'm glad. Dave: Oh, that's funny. So you're saying so to kind of simplify things. The patent examiners just kind of had a cheat sheet of the 50 kinds of impossible things that some scam artist is going to try to patent and you can just automatically reject those when you just look at the impossible. Andy: That's right yeah. Dave: Well, talk to me about the patent, the secondary patent market. Andy: How large? Dave: like how many patents change hands a year, or what's the? How do you measure the size of that market? Andy: You know, honestly I'm not sure it's a private market. It's one where it's not there's metrics. But you know, this is one where companies buy and sell patents for strategic reasons. So it's not like the NYSE where you can go in and see how many million shares were traded. So it's one where it really is kind of a bespoke market. There's, I would say, several hundred thousand patents change hands maybe, or tens of thousands of patents maybe each year. It's quite a few, yeah. But it's a mixture between strategic players your Samsungs, your Apples, your Googles of the world maybe filling holes and doing deals with each other or other companies. And then it's also a combination of, say, these non-patent, non-practicing entities or patent trolls purchasing patents and that kind of makes this whole marketplace go. And it's a global market. People are buying and selling, especially you know some of the changes in Europe where they have a new patent court for the entire European Union, you know. So that made all these European patents change hands more often. So it really is one where there's no marketplace, single marketplace you go to and say I want to buy a patent. It's more of just folks brokering patents and just being part of the marketplace more of just folks brokering patents and just being part of the marketplace Gotcha. Dave: And then, in addition to the actual tens or hundreds of thousands of patents that are changing hands, you then have licensing deals, which are probably of a similar magnitude, I'm guessing. Andy: Yeah, oh, definitely. So there's a lot of licenses, yeah, and those now the patents, don't necessarily change hands, but certainly value does, right. So you'll see a lot of companies cross-license patents where they can have access to each other's portfolio, and then there's different degrees of licensing where, for example, at a university, you can license patents out on an exclusive basis. So you have every right as the licensee, almost every right except ownership of the patent itself, and so that too, even though that's a license, that's really closer to being a sale because of how many rights transfer over to the person. So, yeah, the patents are it's a little bit of a complicated business. Just because it's property, but it's intangible properties, you can do a lot of different things without actually changing hands, or you can change, actually have the property change hands. Dave: Fascinating. I wanted I'm really anxious to dive into this. I know you speak on the subject a lot. How do you want to kind of lay this out for the listeners? Andy: What kind of? Dave: sequence of events. Andy: You kind of want to go through to explain in more detail your services, your product and such yeah, we can just take it from the top of how we normally or folks will approach us because there's some, as you know, there's some interesting estate planning opportunities as well that we can put together with this. So, on the front end, with the businesses, a lot of times we'll be approached or we'll approach clients, or what have you usually referred over to? They're referred over to us and the ideal client is someone who's a privately held business, successful privately held business and it can be of a variety of. You know, a lot of times people think that the folks who need patents or use them are high tech, and that's not necessarily the case, especially in the fact of the non-patent. You know, the patent trolling side right, the patent trolls really like to have kind of simpler businesses to target, because even those simpler businesses use a lot of technology today. So our clients come to us all the way from their restaurant owners, successful restaurant chains, all the way to maybe trading operations where they're doing stock trading and they have their own software or sell software in that To, of course, you know your traditional high tech companies that are privately held, of which there's many, and then some people in between, so the metal benders of the world that you know are very. We have in the Midwest right A lot of manufacturing companies, so all those are great clients because they all use technology. Even real estate developers nowadays are using some really high-tech stuff and they're not just digging dirt and building houses. So really any of those clients are interesting folks to talk to and could use our services. So what we do is we'll sit down with them, talk about what we do, like we're doing, and then also just understand some of the risks they face, namely like what do you do to make money? How do you earn income? So we figure that out, because that's where the patent trolls are going to target. Then what we'll be able to do is match up. We have patents and then we can also purchase patents in the secondary market if we don't have the right ones for them. And then for the most part we'll figure that out and then we'll right size the license amount to see, okay, how many services of ours can we really help? What can we do? And then we'll get a patent license over to them, or the license or the patents from us. Because what we do is I didn't even mention this, I skipped ahead but we go in the marketplace, our marketplace that we're in every day, and we see these patents that are there that might be good patent, troll patents or targets, and we'll buy them before the trolls do. And then we own those patents, we put them essentially can think of in a bucket and then we license those out to our clients. So we have access whether we own them or have access to many tens of thousands of patents that can work for the client's purposes. So we do that client gets a license to this, and the longer they subscribe with us, the better. The value is because we'll charge a flat fee and we're going out there and buying patents all over the place for them. Also, what we'll do is kind of understand, okay, what are the risks that you face from competitors and what are some of your goals in the IP space. Like, do you have a patent portfolio? Do you want one? Should we have one? And then we can also use our own patents to provide that kind of starting point for them if they want to build their own portfolio or if they're sued by a competitor, which happens a lot, which is one of the reasons why we formed Patent Veritas, because we can instantly help them out and say hey, we have the following three or four patents you should probably use. You can sue the competitor, because the worst thing you can have is to be sued for patent litigation and not have a patent to sue back to somebody. They have a gun, you don't? That's a pretty bad fight and we get called a lot of times Again. One of the impetus, one of the reasons we started Patent Veritas we were getting calls from people to say hey, we have a patent lawsuit against us. I don't have any patents. Usually the lawyers would call us and say can you get us patents quickly? How fast do you need them, like in a day or two? Well, that's not going to happen. It takes a while to get these patents, to purchase the right ones. So now we can have these patents available in case they're sued by a competitor, and that really helps out a case. Dave: So that's on the front end. I was going to ask you, so your clients, are they licensing, like your whole portfolio of patents or just certain patents? How do you typically do that? Andy: Yeah, just the ones that are going to be of value to them. So we'll have groups of patents that are of value to almost any companies. I call them process workflow patents. So almost every business has some sort of process workflow that they go through, and it usually involves software. These are the most typical ones, but that's almost every company everything from a restaurant where you're purchasing you know you don't think about it, but if you order from a restaurant online on your phone, there's a process workflow that goes from start to finish, or even when you sit down. A lot of times restaurants are automated, especially some of the bigger, not necessarily publicly changed, but some of the better, even kind of privately held chained restaurants. They're going to have a process workflow from when you sit down, you order, you do this and there's going to be software and automation involved in that. So those sorts of patents, generally everybody should probably have a license to, and we're on the lookout for those all the time, because those are prime patent troll patents. So we want to buy those and at the same time then there's going to be some that are a little more bespoke to their industry, right. So if you're in the manufacturing business, you're going to have a certain need of different patents versus if you do, say, crypto trading, right, you're going to have a different set of patents that are more crypto specific. The metal benders of the world, the manufacturers of the world, are going to be over here. They're going to have a different group of patents, so we'll include those as appropriate. Or, if you're a restaurant, you're going to have different online ordering patents that are probably very relevant to your business, not so much to the crypto guys. So that's how we usually do that and kind of right size, which ones are going to work best for who? Dave: And you mentioned the scenario that an attorney representing a defendant will call you saying, hey, my client needs some patents. Can you help us out? It seems like, from what I know about litigation, it seems like it's almost too late by then. Is that true? Is it better, even if it was the day before they were sued, if they had the license in place? Yeah, oh yeah. Andy: Whenever, if you're the defendant and you're calling us looking for patents, it's on the late side and that's tough to get in place. We can do it, but it's going to take a while and that's not the position you want to be in, because the case isn't going to be stayed just because you don't have any defenses. It's going to keep moving. In fact, the plaintiff is going to be really happy. The adversary is happy that you don't have patents and to move that case along quickly because it's going to force you into a settlement. That's not very favorable. So yeah, so that's why we always try and get the word out, try and talk with people, like we're doing here, like, hey, guys, we can offer this, let's talk now, as opposed to when you're sued by a patent troll or you're sued by a competitor. Let's talk now and get this in place and let's get that access to the IP in place now. Dave: Okay, so let me just recap to make sure I have it. So you're having proactive conversations with these privately held companies and you're kind of assessing their current IP portfolio and then you're deciding if it should be supplemented with some patents licenses to patents that you own and then you kind of get them set up as a client to patents that you own. And then you kind of get them set up as a client and then over time you'll acquire more patents that they may just automatically benefit from. And then if they then do get sued, they have a really strong defense because they have access to all of the licenses or all the patents that they've licensed from you. So now, all of a sudden, instead of coming back saying, hey, you've infringed on the plaintiff's patent, they can say no, we haven't, and in fact we actually have intellectual property that protects what we're doing. Is that kind of the idea? Andy: Yeah. Well, it's even more than that they can use the patents to sue the other party. It's not so much it protects what they're doing, it's more of hey. They're going to say. The plaintiff is going to say, hey, you're using my patent. Look at this, You're manufacturing tires a certain way. That's fine. What they're going to say is now our client is going to be able to say fine, but we have five other patents that you're using right now, so we're going to sue you back, so we can either go through with this. We can either go through with this whole lawsuit and I'm probably going to make more money off this than you are or we can resolve this suit, Because the goal is to actually bring the suit to a close as quickly as possible for our client. And by doing that by having your own weapons, you can do that. Dave: Now with a patent troll, you won't have as much of an offensive approach. Right, that's really more if it's a competitor suing you. Andy: That's correct. Yeah, if it's a competitor, you have that. If it's a patent troll, the goal here is to try and starve the trolls of as many patents as possible and minimize that risk. So it's a double part that we're able to provide for that. Dave: Okay, okay, all right. Well, let's move on to kind of the next part of the process or the business. Andy: Yeah, no, I mentioned some really neat tax and estate planning opportunities here as well. So the way the business is structured is that, if we're able to allow our clients, this is kind of a longer term solution for them with their IP side, and that allows us to do some really neat things as well, because the most common, most popular thing is for us to actually then look at insurance and insuring our deal, if you will, and that is. There's a couple of different ways to do it and it really depends on the client's own estate planning. A lot of the folks that we work with are pretty well-off folks, pretty affluent folks from their businesses, but the simplest thing would be that we could take out a life insurance policy on the business owner who's of the company, and the reason we want to do that is because we want to make sure our deal goes through. So a lot of clients are going to sign a multi-year deal, three five-year deals, ideally even longer. We'll have you as a client as long as you want, but something in that order and then we're able to take out a policy and purchase a policy where we pay the premiums, and this is a whole life policy, and so the cash value is going to accumulate in that as we pay those premiums, and then if at a certain time the client decides to end the relationship with us, we're able to transfer that policy over to them in an efficient way however that works for them. Again, that's kind of bespoke to the particular client, but we can move that policy over to them. So the advantage is twofold. Now is that by working with us, their business is getting access to all these different patents, access to our portfolio able to counterclaim against adversaries if they're threatened or sued threatened or sued and at the same time now we can help them out with a life insurance policy where they name the beneficiaries, they do those sorts of things and then ultimately that policy will be sent over to them when our relationship with us ends. And so now they have a hopefully fully paid up whole life policy with cash value that they can use for whatever purpose they want. So it's a really neat way that it's structured. There's some other types of insurance as well. If folks qualify for that, it's called private placement life insurance, and with private placement life insurance that's for accredited investors. But that's another possibility where we can work with them via PPLI, or some of our clients have PPLI it's private placement life insurance is called PPLI. They have that in place already and so we can do something similar with that slightly different structure for our backend. But again, if it's already set up or if they want to set that up, that's a different form of life insurance and it really depends on what the client. What's best for the client as to their particular situation. But the neat part about that is is that they get a double. You know, they get both benefits, not just the. Their business gets the benefit and then they get the benefit as well. Personally for some of these in life insurance. So it's a neat system. We're able to work with that and to offer our clients. Dave: Okay. So let me just let me check for understanding there. So the client signs some, some contract with you, you know you, for some period of time three, five more years to basically have a subscription to the various bespoke combination of patents that they are licensing Because of that contractual relationship and the receivable that your company has, that gives you an insurable interest, because if the owner of that business were to die suddenly, that might jeopardize the ongoing nature of the business, which might jeopardize your ability to collect on this long-term contract, right? So that's what creates the insurable interest. And then, in theory, every client wants your product. They just maybe don't want to pay for it. Well, and it's not just your product, it's a lot of things, right? Most people want lots of stuff, they just don't want to pay for it. And so by using this structure, by adding the additional layer of the life insurance, it makes it a more attractive value proposition for them, and not only in the short run, but even in the long run. Andy: That does no well, said Absolutely, because, yeah, this is an extra benefit from working with us. It's not just, you know, especially privately held businesses, right, it's again, this is those owners money, right, and they're working hard for that. So they may want this service, but they say, like you said, geez, this is kind of expensive, because patent licenses are not cheap. There's several hundreds of thousands of dollars often. So this is a way, though, to provide an additional incentive for working with us over the long haul. Right, making a commitment with us will help make a commitment with you as well and provide a real benefit to you and your family from working with us, in addition to a client for the long term. And that's where the value can really accumulate for the business as well, because each year, we're going out, we're buying, we're bird dogging more patents, we're buying more patents, so that bucket, so to speak, just keeps getting bigger for that price. So it's a great thing for their business too, because the longer you work with us, the more patents you're going to have a license to, and the more value you're going to realize for your license, the more patents you're going to have a license to and the more value you're going to realize for your license. Dave: How do you decide, like, let's look at a hypothetical industry that has 10 players in it? Let's say it's some niche industry and there's 10 companies that all manufacture something similar? Well, obviously you can't go sell your solution to all 10 of the companies. I mean, I guess you could. It would at least protect all of them from the patent trolls, right? Give them any protection from one another. How do you? What's your strategy there? Is it kind of a once you know? In a situation like this, once you have one client in this space, do you not take on any more? Or by yeah, and I guess it depends on which risks they're trying to ensure. If it's the patent troll risk, in theory the 10 of them are all better off teaming up, if you will, to combine their resources, and it would be more cost-effective for you to license the same group of patents 10 times or sell 10 subscriptions instead of just one. Tell me about how you strategically look at that situation. Andy: Yeah, situations like that I mean you have to be careful on because you don't want to have where you know you start having kind of clients suing each other and both of them coming to you for patents to use against each other. So it's a great point made and we assess that on kind of a case by case basis. But it really is looking out for kind of a conflict of interest. We haven't had that happen, but if it is, we would look at that and say, okay, we'd be careful about what rights each party would have. Like you said, if they all want patent troll protection, that's not as big of a deal. But if folks want to have that access as well to the patent portfolio, now we really need to look at it and say, okay, what could happen if these guys sue each other and what should we do? And the right answer there is to not take conflicting positions. That's a pretty straightforward thing. Dave: Well, that's another reason. When you're talking to a potential client in this hypothetical scenario of 10 players in this industry, the fact that you're talking to one of them implies you don't have the other nine as a client. And if they say no to you in the back of their mind they have to be thinking well, you know who are they going to call next. Right, yeah no, that's. Andy: Yeah, we've had something not exactly similar but like that happened in other, and that's right. You know it's a Coke or Pepsi thing, so if Coke says no, we go to Pepsi, then Coke knows that. Well geez, that wasn't maybe the best thing. So yeah, that's absolutely right. It's a little incentive, I guess, for the client who we're talking to to sign up for us, in addition to all the benefits we just talked about. Maybe they don't want to see we'll be behind the scenes and all of a sudden get whacked over the head with some patents. That's never a fun day, sure. Dave: So can you for the listeners. I find that, like case studies, examples are really helpful to help learn. Do you have like an example or two you could give us and I'm sure you'll? You know they'll be anonymous, but maybe just an example of you know of maybe somebody who was a client who got sued and the outcome because of this? Or could you give us some kind of examples or a blended example of several things, a hypothetical, whatever you're most comfortable with? Andy: Yeah, we can do a couple different ones. I mean, we haven't had yet where a client was sued and had to access the portfolio. We haven't had that yet, but we have had in the past where we will get. As I mentioned, folks are sued, they don't have patents, their adversary does, and this was in an area where you wouldn't even think of as being like there's patents on this. Car sales, okay, used car sales, oh wow. No one thinks of this like that. But there is actually. There are patents out there. I know for a fact there are patents out there in the used car sales market at reaching pricing and reaching distribution and how to optimize inventory, all that. Those are real patents and they were issued by the United States government. And we were in the middle of that case won't name parties but where two competitors used car salespeople, big ones, very large companies, both privately held one sued the other. Not surprisingly, we got a phone call from their attorney and they said listen, we have a bit of a situation on our hands. These two companies are suing each other. Their competitor just sued them. They have a patent that pretty much covers 100% of their revenue, which is never a good position to be in, because that means that all of your businesses is at risk. We need patents. We need them now. We were able to help them and we were able to locate and find used car patents which was a great win. And they were very happy and were able to do that in a way that, in a timely fashion. However, that was a fire drill that I don't ever want to go through again and really did set this whole business of patent veritas in motion. One of the reasons because Nick and I Nick Stabinski and I looked at each other and thought there has to be a better way than this and so we formed this. So that's a great case study. Because, again, if I were to tell you before Dave, hey, a great case study. Because, again, if I were to tell you before Dave, hey, there's patents on used car sales, you'd think I'm crazy. But there is, and there's a lot of them out there. So that's a great example of that. And then, in terms of other folks just clients of signing up, how that works, sure, there's one. I'll give a more traditional role. They do they sell software, partially as a reseller of software and partially their own, and they have different process workflows that they have. They realize the value. I talked with these folks. They realize the value of our services and, fairly straightforward, just what I mentioned, which is you look, we sit down and say how do you earn your revenue, how do you make your money, what does your workflow look like? And you get a license in place relatively quickly. That only takes a license after we understand how the business works. It really only takes if the client's ready a day. It's very simple to have that we have, you know, our licenses we like to use. It's very simple to put one of these up and running, and so that was great. And then they also realized the value of the life insurance. And now that of course takes a little longer but the two can be done separately. We can get the license in place first and then let the process play out for the life insurance piece, because of course there's some underwriting for our client there personally to do and I should mention, there's at the same time depending on the carrier and provider. You know cause. Sometimes the question is well, what if I can't get insurance? Excuse me, there's actually ways, there's actually carriers that you can insure different groups and the like and still receive the benefit of some of those insurance things like cash value and the like that they might care about. You don't get all the benefits, but you can get some of the value still out of it. So you know, that wasn't this instance, the folks are going through the underwriting, no problem, but that's out there. So that's a fairly straightforward situation. Dave: Now, you're probably not going to like this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway, In this hypothetical example of the 10 companies in this one niche, and you're talking to one of them and they think might this be a strategy for me to weaken my other nine competitors? Might I be a little patent trollish, like, but this is at least a legitimate operating company and the patents that we would be seeking to enforce, I mean, actually revolve around our business. They're not the non. What did you call the patent trolls? Non-operating entities. Andy: Yeah, non-practicing entities Sure. Dave: So if somebody did that and let's just say they didn't even have the conversation, or a year into it, this idea suddenly strikes them and they get an aggressive attorney and they start suing these other folks. Is that a problem on your end, or whether they use their service offensively or defensively? Are you neutral to? Andy: that. So if they're a client and they come to us and say, hey, we want to use the patents offensively, we'd have to look at it and really think it might be best to even just sell them the patents at that point. So there's different ways. Yeah, we would talk with the client and understand their goals as to why they need it or otherwise, because, again, that's a competitive position. You know, it's obviously like in the example I gave with used car sales. The one company felt strong enough that they wanted to sue another used car sales company because maybe, it's you know, they're gaining market share or a whole bunch of reasons why companies might use patents, right. So you know, that's really a conversation we'd have to have with the client to understand is this the best way? Is this what you need for your goals? And then we'll kind of help them out as best as possible. Dave: Yeah, and especially with the Department of Labor. I think it was the Department of Labor that basically invalidated non-competes. So it could be, if this competitor is very good at stealing their top car sales people and they can't really use a non-compete to stop that any longer, maybe this would be another way to shut that off. Andy: Yeah, it could. I mean, these are kind of case-by-case examples that you want to really talk with the client. But yeah, that's correct. Especially it would be one where maybe they've stolen the IP that you have, they're implementing it in their system or whatever. Then you know, you really that's something that you, that's what patents are for, right, that's what we're here for. So we want to have that conversation, we want to talk with them and work with them to help our clients. Dave: What do you enjoy most about what you're doing now with Patent Veritas and your role within the company? What do you enjoy most? Andy: and a lot of money. And it's neat to see a lot of these folks grew the business from the ground up. Most of our clients are so. They started their businesses and have grown it the entire time, and in a whole bunch, like I said, everything from restaurants all the way to really complicated software that just boggles the mind when you look at it. But every single person is interesting because they all have some insight into their work that really has allowed them to be successful. And it's neat working with people like that. It's really a privilege. It's really fun because you learn something and you say why didn't I think of that? But then we're able to help them out and really help their business, protect their business with this and then help them personally as well, right With some of their estate planning, their tax and estate planning, with some of these insurance needs. So it's pretty cool to combine all that together. And it's never a dull day On the patent side, even you know, when we're out there in the market bird dogging and trying to buy patents, it's always interesting because you know you're always learning something off the patents themselves too. You get to read through those and kind of see is this something that's going to work for us, is it not? And you know, have the team kind of weigh in on all that, and that's a lot of fun too. So it's a really neat. It's a really neat business. It's every day is a little different. Every company definitely is a little different and every client's a little different, so it's always kind of cool. There's no, it's not a cookie cutter business where every day we're just like, okay, I mean, we have a nice workflow to get folks signed up, but it's always interesting to meet them and to learn more about what they do, like everything from the used car sales guys to, you know, the more traditional software folks and guys that manufacture, you know, boats. Dave: So it's kind of cool to just see like I can appreciate it, because that's really what I love about my role. You know, with my companies I'm working with the same type of clients. You are Mine just are in a niche where they export at least a portion of their product, and I love working with those folks because you know they're the lifeblood of our economy. You know there's just a, they're dynamic, you know ambitious, they're visionaries, they're successful. I mean just. You know there's a saying that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and I can think of no better group of five people to spend the most time with than successful entrepreneurs. So I love that as well. Andy: It really is the best. I mean people I tell other, my friends or whatever, and I'm like it's pretty, it's just pretty cool, it's inspiring, like you said, just to be around these folks and to and then be able to help them. It's kind of neat Like hey, we're able to help your business just a little bit be more successful. That's pretty cool, it's a real privilege. Dave: Sure, Okay. So then that's the one side, that's the part you like some of the things your clients tell you. You know, like, once they become a client, you know they've started working with you. What are the things they tell you that they say that they really like working with your firm? What do they tell you makes your firm special and unique? Andy: You know, I we've been told a couple of different things. One is we're very, we're very hardworking. We're always working on their behalf, always going hard for them. That's always good, available. You know, we're very available to call folks like that and punctual, and also just actually had a nice award and they said you know, we treat people with respect and so it's. I think that's a big deal nowadays especially, so that's a wonderful thing. So folks like that as well, just I guess it's just we're hardworking, put our nose down for them and treat the folks with respect and be there for them. I think that's what I've heard. Dave: So that's great. That is great. Well, as we wrap up, I have three more questions. One is if somebody wants to reach out to you to explore the services, what's the best way for them to reach you? Linkedin, call you, email you. Andy: You know, email is always good, or a phone call, or LinkedIn, any of those. Dave: So I'll give you all three, yeah, the LinkedIn we'll put in the show notes so they'll have access to that. So what's the email? Andy: Sure, it's ahin ahein@patentveritas.com P-A-T-E-N-T-V-E-R-I-T-A-S.com, and then you can also phone. If you're so inclined to give a call, you can do so. It's oh geez, I just blanked that number because I don't call my own number. Dave: I know. Andy: But I'll give you another one 312-371-6578 is a direct number for me, so you can call that as well. Dave: It's kind of funny. I don't call myself, so I hear you Okay. Well, that's one of the three questions. The second one is there anything I didn't ask you that you wish I had? Andy: No, I think we covered a lot of information, so this is great. I'm sure I'll think about that an hour from now, but no. I think it's good Okay. Dave: Well, the last one. It's kind of a fun one and it's a question you may be don't get asked every day. So if you could go back in time and give advice to your 25-year-old self, when you were graduating from law school, what advice might you give to yourself? Andy: Wow, those are always that's tough to look back. I'd say you know it's going to. It all works out It'll work out Some things that happen to you. You don't realize why they do, but then later on, looking back, you understand that needed to happen. So some really good things happen later. Dave: So it works out and just keep moving forward, I and Well, that sounds like great advice for anybody, not just your 25 year old self. So that is great. Well, andy, I and Well, that sounds like great advice for anybody, not just your 25 year old self. So that is great. Well, andy I, this has really been fun and I've learned a lot and I think our listeners and my clients could really benefit from from knowing your company. Oh, I guess. The one other question so if somebody is interested in your service, you know you can take the law you're out of the law firm, but can you take the law firm out of the attorney? Does the clock start ticking, you know, the moment they call you, or how does your process work there? Do you have an introductory conversation? That's complimentary, or what's your? Andy: We don't. I mean we don't charge by the hour or anything like that. So all of this is the upfront work is done, just upfront work, just to see. Is this a good client? Is this a the person we're talking with? Would this be a good client, right? Would we be a good fit for them? Are we going to be able to provide the value that I just talked about and we just talked about? Are we going to be able to provide that value for you? Occasionally, the answer is no, because the business might not support it, and so that's simple. But no, our fees come from the patent license. That's how we make our money, and so we want to make sure that this is the right person that we're working with, because the right person. We can provide value to that person, we can actually add to their business. So there's no hourly rate, there's no anything that you know just to understand their business and otherwise have plenty of conversations, and if we're not the good fit, we'll tell you it's not going to be good for anybody. So we let folks know. Dave: That is great. Well, andy, again, thank you so much for your time. This has really been fun and you know, being from the Midwest myself, I'm from another one of those. I states Iowa. I always joke that, even though I've been in Texas for 40 years, I always joke. People in the West or the South, they all think Iowa, idaho, ohio and Indiana are the same place. All those states that start with a vowel end with a vowel somewhere up in the Midwest. They think they're all like the same place. Andy: Yeah, I've been asked if I like to ski in Colorado before, even though it's about a 12-hour drive, which the answer is yes, but I don't get there too often Understood. Dave: Well, hey, thanks again, Andy, and I hope you have a great afternoon. Andy: Cool Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me, really appreciate it. Special Guest: Andy Hein.

In this episode, Andy shares a live recorded Demo of the IRRISketch design software and the potential that it may have to disrupt the industry. Learn more here: IRRISketch === Andy: When I see something new, I like to check it out. I like to learn about it. And I, I'm a strong believer that every irrigation system proposal should have a drawing. I just, that's what I believe. And using a lot of the design software, it's not that particularly great. Now there's some software like LandFX that is really actually fantastic, but it offers sort of a level that is a lot more, I would say, than the average irrigation or the average landscape contractor needs. It's really, in my opinion, designed more for that architect engineer because it can provide you with some really, really It's just above and beyond what the average design build contractor needs. So I had a web meeting, sort of training overview, actually not training demonstration, let's call it a demo of the Erisketch software and I'm playing, I'm going to play that for you today. We, we probably spoke for about an hour and a half and this episode's only. Maybe 35 minutes. So I did my best to cut it down, not to bore you since you can't see the screen. So you can't really see the demo, but I wanted you to hear the conversation and some of the things that we were talking about and what's really fascinating or what, what. What makes me inspired and excited about this company is where we started when we started the conversation was about iris sketch irrigation design, but when we ended this conversation, it was actually more about building a stack of software that could help you. If you're the contractor, from beginning to end, and what I mean by that is, it can help you from the design of the system, to the materialist, to the pricing, to the proposal, to the ordering of supplies. And this is something that I have been, I have been waiting for. I feel like we play in separate buckets right now, we play in the buckets of irrigation design software, we play in the [00:02:00] buckets of um, Business management software like ServiceTitan, then we play in the buckets of, of distribution. And there really isn't anything as of today that can tie things end to end. And Errorsketch does not do that today, but I, I just have this hunch that what they're building and what you'll hear in this episode is the first attempt to try to tie a lot of this together. And it really does start with you. You're the one out there meeting with the client, residential or commercial. You're the one out there designing the system, determining what the materials are going to be. And then you're the one that has to place the order, install the material, and then deliver that customer with the final project. And so what, what you'll hear today is Iris sketch sort of combining all of these things together in a potentially very disruptive way, which is why I played that clip in the beginning, because I think our industry needs more disruption. If you look at the consumer goods industry, like Instacart. Instacart is filing for their IPO right now at the time of this recording, and it's disrupting the, the grocery business. There is a good chance that era, uh, not era sketch. Instacart is driving down the price of the goods and they're going to roll an advertising platform on top and offer upsells, offer brand manufacturers, a direct channel to the consumer through their software layered. Uh, layered on top of the grocery store. And I think that that could happen right here in our industry. So a couple of pointers, a couple of quick, um, want to see this a little bit so that you do listen. And if it, if it by any means starts to bore you, just hit that 30 second skip ahead because there is a lot of good, interesting meat in here. And this was not recorded as a podcast. So I should preface that this was recorded. I just recorded my demo. And then I asked for their permission to use some of it on today's episode. So I [00:04:00] want to have these guys back to have a real sort of more legitimate actual podcast discussion because this was just sort of a behind the scenes look at the demonstration. So a couple, a couple things you're going to learn today. You're going to learn how Erisketch, their main goal is quick and easy. They want to provide design software that is quick, easy. Of course it has to be accurate. But what I noticed the most, it was actually a beautiful presentation and a lot of irrigation design software that's out there. The goal of the software isn't to be beautiful. And the goal of the software is not, not necessarily to be quick or easy. It's mostly to be accurate. But I'm a strong believer that you got to sell the project. You can kind of figure out some of the details later. So I really liked the idea of having to be quick, easy, and a beautiful presentation so that you can use it to sell. Then they have an integration with Mosher. So I went ahead just this morning, ordered myself a Mosher. On the stick, because I want to start playing with this. I want to use Mosier to do a full site, take off, load it into the era sketch software and learn how to design with it. And then you're going to learn how you can. Potentially use it to build your bill of materials. So you can load in your own pricing libraries, your own parts lists, and you can make changes on the fly. So let's say you design it one way, the customer wants some changes. When you change it live in Erisketch, it is going to automatically update that bill of material and potentially that proposal. In real time, you don't have to do all those, those three steps separately. You can add five heads. You can move material right on the drawing with the customer if you would like to, and it will update the rest of it for you. So I just think that there's, man, there's just so much good [00:06:00] opportunity with this, with this software. I can't wait to try it out. I haven't used it myself. So please don't necessarily consider this to be any kind of an endorsement. I'm just excited about. The possibility. I'm excited about what these guys, how these guys think, how they are thinking longterm and what it could bring to what it could bring to the industry as far as efficiency value innovation. And when those three things come in, there's going to be some people that their cheese gets moved. And if that's you, that's okay. You got it. Everybody's cheese is often always moving and you got to be looking in new places for new opportunities. So I guess, I guess that's all I have for this intro. Let's, uh, let's just jump right in and roll the episode with my conversation with the founders of Eerie Sketch and Eerie Cellar. Theo: Uh, as you mentioned that I introduce, invite also my colleague, my partner, Philip, he's the, uh, inventor of Erie sketch, the design software. And I think, uh, the right conversation should only. With both  Andy: of us sure together. Yeah. Thank  Philiph: you. Yeah. Okay, how to proceed? I want  Theo: I want Philip maybe to explain what's the idea? For Iris sketch for our program. So he's the inventor. I only came up with him two years after the first launch of every sketch and Yes,  Philiph: Philip. Let's go. Yeah, so let's start with the proper pronunciation. It's Erie sketch. I am I think that it's not properly, uh, trans, uh, transposed to English. Yes,  Andy: it's. Oh, no, it's good. Yeah. You're a sketch. I get it. Absolutely.  Philiph: Okay. So it's about irrigation and sketch. It means that, uh, you make a sketch of irrigation design without any effort and, uh, you can start, [00:08:00] uh, as fast as you can with, uh, Making a proposal to the customer that started when I started doing irrigation. Actually, I'm from the ground. Uh, I was mounting the systems and I understood that there is a big problem with the projects and making them is takes a lot of time from my life and from my personal life. And, uh, I Couldn't find any, uh, good, uh, software for this. So I, uh, searched the rain card, tested it, but it was too complicated for me. And, uh, I thought that, uh, with my knowledge of basics of web development and, um, so on, I can, uh, make for me, for myself, the proper. tool that will be fast and easy and, you know, in the cloud. So that was my, uh, um, I wanted it very much, so it will be available through all devices and, uh, everything will be stored there. So, uh, that's why I started with this. It was three or four years ago already. Uh, and the idea is to make it fast so, uh, I can show you, I can show my screen and what it can do. So, yeah. That would be  Andy: great. Yeah. Everything. Wow. So what were you doing? You said you were doing irrigation before you started this. Um, I  Philiph: was working from 2012 at irrigation and, uh, it's like six or five or six years. I, I was in the field, um, and in the winter we had no occupation, so I tested out my skills and the development. So, yeah, no, I  Andy: think it's really important because I shouldn't say, I don't know the number, but I would say most contractors don't deliver the homeowner a, or the client, commercial or residential, a drawing. You know, some places they have to because it's mandatory. Other places they may add another fee or maybe it was done by a designer, but just for like the average home. You know, they might sketch [00:10:00] something on a piece of paper perhaps and leave it with the client, but there's nothing that's a true kind of record drawing. And, um, you know, a brand new system doesn't really matter. But then as time goes on and somebody wants to make some modifications or something's not working, that's when having a drawing. Really helps  Philiph: the maintenance and support for the project. Yeah, it's crucial to have something where our pipes laid at least. So, uh, that was also my idea because I'm, uh, was making, yeah, 50% on my knee with the paper and, uh, I said, I tried to deliver the customer, uh, belief that I can do it, uh, in a good way. So, and, uh, I thought that. So this will be really professional if I can do it fast and with some present, uh, presentation that is good looking, uh, like an output from the ear sketch now. So, uh, then you start, uh, the basic drawing when you create new projects. So you can, uh, measure the field or you can use the new tool, the Mosher, uh, that is used, um, Oh,  Andy: in U. S. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that. You can actually tell me, tell me how that works.  Philiph: Uh, that works very simple. You have your Mosher measurements, and when you start drawing a new polygon, you can import, I don't know where I have, uh, some Mosher. Yeah.  Andy: Okay. So you use your Mosher, and you get your exported file, and then you can import it into here? Yeah, definitely. Ah,  Philiph: exactly. So, uh, for example, this is a measurement from the Mosher. Uh, ported to the Iriscage, uh, drawing with a one to one scale. So, uh, when you measure, uh, measure this, you can export as CSV file and there is all data and you just need to start drawing a polygon and  Andy: say, yeah. So now you just gave me a reason to go buy the Mosier. I'm going to buy the Mosier. I'm going to test this out and make it work because I think that combining those together. That is, what a great  Philiph: [00:12:00] idea. Yes, that's really, uh, making, improving the speed, uh, of the delivery. Oh, maybe it's  Theo: always, uh, possibility, possible to, to add some underlayers. So we can add  Philiph: photos of  Andy: drawings. Okay, cool. I was going to ask you that. Could I screen capture something out of Google Earth, maybe? And then just put it in here and then take the Mosier and put it on there.  Philiph: Yeah, actually, I don't know some, uh, I don't have some, uh, images here on the computer, but, uh, you can, uh, input anything that is in raster or in PDF file. So it will be, uh, in the Erie sketch. Also you can, uh, for example, export from, uh, AutoCAD or more, uh, sustainable software, more,  Andy: more big. And I love the trees because typically an irrigation drawing is very flat. It is, you know, an engineered file. There's no pizzazz, there's no like sexiness to it. It doesn't sell, but this is giving you the ability to, you know, add some sales appeal to the drawing. Yes.  Philiph: Yes. That was made especially for Iris Cage by the, uh, the artist. So he will, he's drawing, uh, actually the nature and I asked him to make some stuff like this so you can then make some, for example, the flowers. I'm not so big  Andy: designer. Hey, it's all good. Even just dropping a couple specimen trees around the property could make it, could enhance the drawing, you know? Yeah,  Philiph: definitely. Yeah. So it can be curved as you want. So you can, um. Use it as a simple sketch tool for a landscape also to deliver the concept of the garden, for example, uh, it's why not when you switch to irrigation tab, everything is more, uh, a pack. Yeah. And, uh, uh, so you can now, uh, focus on your irrigation. You set up your, uh, water source, you set up your. Uh, manifolds or [00:14:00] you don't start with the manifolds, of course, you now, uh, need to understand which nozzle you need to draw. Yeah. There is a wide range of the nozzles. If  Andy: you could, maybe we just, um, remove those layers, you know, start with that polygon and then let's just, you know, let me just give you, could I just give you some parameters? Like here's how many gallons a minute we have, uh, here's what our pressure is. And then we can kind of go from there. Uh,  Philiph: no, actually, there is the, uh, the other, uh, way of thinking for us. So you'd first you need to cover this area at any, uh, you know, with your, uh, with your, uh, sprinklers. So you need to cover to deliver the precipitation. And, uh, by knowing the precipitation, uh, by knowing the amount of flow, uh, then you make zoning, uh, uh, based on your, um, pump, you know, your pump, or for example, the wood designer, uh, knows every time what is the water source, uh, so he can calculate it in, uh, in mind how much of the water flow he. He will have for one, uh, zone, yes, for one, uh, great zone. So when he starts to make in the, uh, drawing the nozzles, we, uh, we focus mostly on the covering area with the nozzles. It's very handy tool here that automatically fits, uh, your, uh,  Andy: Now, the nozzle though is subject to the pressure. So how are you getting a coverage if you don't necessarily know your pressure? Philiph: Uh, the, uh, currently when you start drawing the standard pressure is applied. So it's, uh, for example, for MP rotator, it's 45 PCI. Yeah. So, uh, and then of course, uh, when you realize that, um, we have. Flow, for example, uh, 87, uh, gallons per hour, and it's not enough for [00:16:00] us. Uh, our pump won't, uh,  Andy: Can we switch that? Cause in the U S we don't think in gallons per hour, it's gallons per minute, gallons  Philiph: per minute. Okay. Just a second. Because we also don't think even in gallons, that's just my attempt  Andy: here. Like an emitter is gallons per hour on micro, but otherwise it's yeah. Gallons per  Philiph: minute. So, yeah, we have the, for example, 1. 5 gallons per minute. Let's  Andy: go ahead and put the other ones in there. You know, let's fill that in.  Philiph: Let's do it. So you select the type of nozzle, not actually the, you can select the proper nozzle that you know, but I have also auto drawing system that you can choose. Uh, in, uh, in a whole range of that class of nozzles. So for example, MP Rotator provides you with MP3 5000, uh, so it's very easy to draw the nozzles with this tool. You can, you  Andy: need to try it on your own. And it's, um, how is it determining the distance? And the spacing, or you?  Philiph: First, you start with placing the nozzle, then you set the needed radius that you can see on the drawing. And when you click, Then, uh, by the, uh, based on the angle you said, and based on availability of nozzles, you can see that, uh, the proper nozzle is chosen. Okay. So that's how it works. Okay. Okay. Now you can see the whole, uh, consumption and it's five gallon per minute. So it's a tool that is meant for designers. For advanced designers, not for like customers who want to design their garden irrigation or something. So they should know how it will behave on which pressure it will work with this, with this consumption. And, uh, When you start to make zoning for, uh, for example, [00:18:00] if our pump can do, uh, needed pressure only for two gallons per minute, we need, we know that we need at least three zones here. Uh, yeah, two zones. Yeah,  Andy: let's just say we want to do two zones for this instance. For example,  Philiph: yeah, we, we're making two zones and we see how to properly cut, uh, uh, the, into two pieces of this. So for example, we have. Almost five, uh, gallon per minute. Uh, no, I didn't select 5. 15. And when you start to take off one side, you can see it's decreasing up to three. And if we remove also this, it will have a 2. 5. So this will be definitely one zone, this line and the center. So, and then you just, uh, can draw the pipe. And then if we know the, uh, the source of water will be here, the next pipe would of course go. Something from here. Maybe in this direction and to offload that one side, maybe it will go like this. So, uh, when you have your, uh, piping, you set up the manifold, the better place, I think near the source or somewhere near, so now you're attached to the manifold. You can do it in many ways, but I think the schematic way is better because you don't care. You understand where you will dig also.  Andy: Yeah. And it sounds like the idea for this is a quick sketch. That's a great presentation. That also shows the crew, which sprinklers are going together on the same zone, where approximately the pipes are going, but it's not meant to give you. Like all the exact materials and the exact pipe and the friction loss from this point to that point and all of that. It's a, it's a quick sketch, which is actually really helpful because most of the like engineered software out there, although it can be easy to use, there's a lot [00:20:00] more involved, so it doesn't become quick and easy. You may get potentially better engineering results. But it's not quick and easy for this purpose.  Philiph: Definitely. Yes. It, uh, will automate something, but not everything that, uh, that we want, but we are moving into this direction. Maybe the one day we have more, uh, You know, past and more precise, uh, system, but, uh, currently it works like this  Andy: and you should But this is actually okay. I mean, really you could take this and generate a pretty accurate, um, not full materialist, but bid based on some other input. So somebody wanted to take this and then generate a price quote. You know, this would be enough, I think, to get that started.  Theo: Yes, we are able, we are able to create a complete, uh, material list out of these, and we are now in a, uh, an area for private people, for private lawn, for private yards. Philiph: Residential, yeah,  Theo: residential area. And the friction losses during the pipe, it's not so necessary in the smaller cases of gardens. If you are going on golf courses, friction losses are definitely important, but on small private yards, it's not so not so important.  Andy: And it just depends because it can be if somebody uses the wrong size pipe, right? If they use three quarter inch pipe everywhere and they don't realize what the friction loss is. And because a lot of homes in the U S don't all. could have low pressure to start. So somebody has low pressure to start and they don't want to purchase a pump, then they need to carefully consider pipe size because they're trying to, you know, conserve pressure, I guess. Philiph: I will show you this a little bit later, but what I want to show you now is the, how we calculate the pipe diameter. So, uh, here is now Get some information about the diameter the direction of the flow and velocity of the of your flow so for [00:22:00] example It calculated that we need These diameters of pipe and this will be the speed inside and this will be the flow. Andy: Okay. So it says four inch, then we need to go to two inch, three inch, two inch, an inch and a half. Yeah. If you want. Yes. Or, or you could just stay at two inch cause a bigger pipe is fine. You don't have to go down, but sometimes, sometimes contractors don't downsize cause then they need a whole bunch of other fittings. So they'll just use whatever the largest pipe is all the way to the end, even though it costs more money, it's just easier.  Philiph: Now we have, uh, the basic system set up here. So let's continue with, uh, the basic, uh, controller with the wiring. You of course, making the wiring, uh, here in the Erisk Edge. So it, Yeah,  Andy: wiring is not something that's typically included on an irrigation drawing. Yeah.  Philiph: Um, on a drawing, you can, uh, save everything you need because this is like design, uh, step. And when, uh, then you finish with this. For example, we've made a basic design, then we switch to layouts. Layouts will hold as many, uh,  Andy: Oh, layout is like your, your, uh, planned, uh, page.  Philiph: Yes, like, uh, viewports of your, uh, draw. So you can... Uh, choose what you want to show on viewport, uh, Will that put a scale  Andy: in there? Um, yes.  Philiph: Okay. Yeah. The scale, of course, we can set, uh, for example, uh, one inch or it's one foot or, uh, Yeah, like one inch in 10, five. Let it be five for our scale. It will be good. Okay. And then you choose your, uh, sizes of everything of texts. And, uh, you say,  Andy: Gosh, I'm really thinking that, um, if you could, first of all, this is fantastic for the purpose of quick and easy presentation, you know, a drawing, it's good enough for the guys to know what they're going to [00:24:00] do and for the client to know what they're going to get. Uh, if there was a way to layer this on top of Google Earth or bring it in where you could just type in the address of the client. Do this remotely. You don't even need to visit the site. You could have a couple conditions and you could probably sell the system without visiting the site. At, at the end  Theo: you could, yes. Um, depends on the quality of the mapping service, of course, uh, Google, Google maps. It's in Germany. It's not so nice. So we have, it depends on  Andy: the tree cover and stuff. And again, this is like, you could say, Hey, here's what it could. Here's what it looks like it's going to be. Here's a couple unknowns, you know, Hey, we don't know if you have an extra flower bed. So you could ask a few questions to help clarify at least get it in the ballpark. And you could probably double the amount of quotes that a contractor could put out there if they don't have to travel to each site to wow the customer, get them to buy in. And then you have a. kickoff meeting with the client, go over it, see how close it is, then find out if there's anything that might be missing and how that might change the scope, if at all.  Theo: Definitely. You can work in this way. Yeah. For a first quote, you can do it in exactly this way. At the end, we also implement a service that the homeowner can prepare the planning for yourself. So you have the, we have the ErieSketch design studio. That's a smaller version of the ErieSketch professional tool that homeowners can upload their own satellite photo or their own sketch or their own drawing. And Uh, send it to you to, uh, asking for, for, for, or for, for  Philiph: irrigation. Yeah. You create the design, uh, link that anyone can access even without having some, uh, Eurosketch account. And, uh, this link. We'll open the Erisk edge, uh, with another tabs. It [00:26:00] will only be the drawer where you place your loan, your irrigated zone, not irrigated zone, whereas your controller will be located sensor, location of water source. And then you. Uh, make a quick survey with a project name, with your bucket test, for example, or with your climate conditions, or you cannot. And you can  Andy: even say like, upload a picture of your water source. I want to see the pipe where it comes in, in your basement. You need to upload that picture, right? I want so that it's like you're being there and people with their phone can just snap a picture.  Philiph: That's fair. Yeah. Well, but it's in development  Andy: now. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying I can make my own form, you know, that I could get the project information from clients. That's great.  Philiph: Yes. That's, uh, you, you inspiring us to speed up the development of this feature. Yeah.  Andy: So yeah. Now, uh, would this be, so it's interesting too, is because it's web based, it means there's a lot you can do with it or cloud with, is this something that, um, like, could I embed this? I guess I could just do like, um, A window, like a frame, iframe. Could I embed this in my website? So customers coming to sprinkler supply store could design their own system and not even necessarily, well, maybe they would know it's Errorsketch, but just beyond all on my domain.  Philiph: No, we, we are not restricting from this. So you can embed these in, uh, iframe of course on your website. So that's not a problem. You just provide this link and it's, uh, embeddable. You don't need to do anything but just type a code that's iframe and it will open.  Andy: So anyone could come to Sprinkler Supply Store and design their own system. Why  Philiph: not? That's great. And, uh, you create as many links as you want and, uh, for example, track there, uh, from the other, uh, places of your website or from other platforms, uh, that you need. So, for example, you place it on Instagram, this link, or in your, on your website within, within an iframe and, uh, you [00:28:00] can, uh, Uh, you, then you get the requests that's on up to you, up to the contractor who's using this design. Yeah.  Andy: So you've got rotors and sprays and different nozzles. How does this software handle drip irrigation?  Philiph: Uh, drip irrigation is all, uh, also handed, handled, and, uh, you can choose between the 16 and 17 millimeter drip. Uh, you have, uh, every, uh, drip line we had on the market, but not maybe everything, but from main, uh, uh. Andy: And sometimes it really, you know, it doesn't even need the brand because if somebody knows they're going to use a 0. 6 by 18 inch spacing. You know, it doesn't matter what the brand is because it's 0. 6 by 18. The math is the same regardless of the brand.  Philiph: So, uh, we, we also have the feature with, uh, to cover some drip area dripped. Uh, for example, you check the, your preferred, uh, drip line here, and then you draw up something, some area, some perimeter. And before you finish, you can, uh, set the step of the, of your, uh, future, future. Lines. And the angle? And then when you finish, uh, your drip line will be, uh, created and you can see the water flow. So it's 3. 5 GPM, the length, total length of the pipes. Uh, and then you connect it to the water source with the same type, but with a special drip start, uh, drip start, uh, node. It's it can contain anything you want, like the tap, the,  Andy: yeah, I just think, uh, for And for contractors that are. Involved in the sales process, this is a fantastic tool. I mean, talk about a differentiator. No, no one's using it yet. Clients, they may not expect this, but they want a higher level of [00:30:00] technology to be used in the sales process. They don't want a back of the napkin sketch on a carbon copy quote form. You know, this is, this is amazing. And you could produce this in, you know, less than one hour. Philiph: Yes, we are. We produce in this online. So, uh, also you can. Create some sprinkler, uh, coloring and To show the zones where the zones are belonging, the drip line, everything, some information about this, so length and flow, precipitation, what is on the zone, so, uh, the covered area and so on. So you, you have your, even you can calculate the timing of the controller. Uh, because you have all the information needed,  Andy: uh, Oh, I see like a runtime to produce one inch of  Philiph: water. Yeah. Based on the water demand, based on the infiltration rate of the soil, you can set it up in the special windows.  Andy: So you also have a scheduling engine then it sounds like,  Philiph: yes, that's a calculated. Yeah. By, uh, so it gives out your time per run and daily consumption for the, for all your cycles  Andy: and runs. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. This is really what, um, This is really what our industry needs because we're still doing it more or less the way it's been done for the last 20 or 30 years, basically.  Philiph: Same, same in Europe and  Theo: the same in Europe. So most of the, uh, contractors don't plan by itself. They leave planning for big companies, which also provide parts and  Andy: they go to their distributor. And then they say, I need this. And then, and then not only does the contractor have to make multiple visits to the site, right? One visit to make the measurements, the second visit to produce, you know, to sell the proposal, if you will, then they have to go to their distributor and the distributor draws it with no guaranteeing that the contractor is even going to get the sale. So all this work is being done for no. no purpose. Um, and I've always been under the belief that a contractor should do their [00:32:00] own work, not use a supplier for anything other than purchasing parts because it's their drawing. They should be responsible for it. And this really does put the power into the hands of the contractor  Theo: and quality of drawing. It's much better if contractor is on the same location. Because when you, uh, discussing with your disproducer is also over email, over phone. So he's sitting maybe a hundred kilometers or a hundred miles away from you and he never sees the garden at itself. And it's always a better design if somebody was really there. Philiph: I don't  Andy: know. This is so great. My mind is, my mind has so many other things here because I'm looking at you take this list down. So let's say we're done. Boom. Now my question would be, how could I feed my pricing in here to generate a quote? Because I could give you a feed, you know, with all the exact pricing or, or different libraries. And then the user could say, no, no, no, show me, is there another option that would automatically change these parts to, to be 10% less?  Philiph: That's what we deliver. Of course, the, we were thinking on this and we are, uh, created the, another piece of software that is named Iris Seller. And, uh. IrisCache is drawing, and IrisSeller is for selling. So, uh, when you have your setup in IrisCache, you can, uh, easily, uh, create it into your outlay with only your, uh, real life, uh, goods and, uh, stock. So that's, uh, I will show you how it work. I, I see that you are interested in this, so that's why I will, uh, take time. Yeah,  Andy: no, and I'm, uh, and it's interesting because I think people are afraid This so they're not, no one's doing it, but this is what needs to be done. And it basically becomes a marketplace, right? Where a, if a contractor uses your tool, number one, they can get a price for a Rainbird or Hunter or whatever dynamically they want right at [00:34:00] that moment. And then they could say. So, show me the price from site one, show me the price from Ewing, show me the price from Horizon, show me the price from sprinklersupplystore. com. Let me get a real live marketplace, you know, pricing on this material. Yeah.  Philiph: To compare and choose the best options.  Andy: Yeah. And again, if it's just showing up in your doorstep and it's delivered, the supplier becomes less relevant because you're doing the work. You're doing the value, you know, and they're just buying it and it ships in a box. Philiph: Of course. You are free to  Theo: choose what you want, where you  Andy: get it from. Yeah, and then the, and then the client, you know, if they say, Hey, is there any way, you know, we could, or how could we take like 10% off this price? You know, I had a budget of 4, 500, but this came in at 5, 000. Then the contractor can say, you know what, let me go through and see if there's any parts we could swap out that wouldn't affect the integrity of the system. And then rerun the quote, like in real time, not have to go back to the supplier, make five phone calls, right?  Philiph: Welcome to E Risk Etch. Yeah, that's cool that we are trying to do the same that you're saying. And, uh, yeah, I'm really proud now of it.  Andy: Because yeah, because somebody's got to poke the bear. There's too many big bears in this industry controlling the entire supply chain. From a couple of big distributors and a couple of big manufacturers. And it's time that somebody, you know, shook up the snow globe  Philiph: should come into the deal. Yeah. So, uh, for a manifold, uh, you can set up the valves there.  Andy: Yeah, and I mean really, sorry to interrupt you, really if you had, um, one way of, um, providing labor is to do a like per sprinkler, let's say it's 15 minutes per sprinkler and it, you know, how long is it per foot of one inch pipe, inch and a half, two inch pipe. If you could get your labor factors, which is, which are known. You can get your labor factors per [00:36:00] piece. Then you just put it on that quote and you can calculate out the installed price that like, and I have some of this data, you know, and then you got the installed price.  Theo: We have,  Philiph: we have. Well, why do, uh, why he knows how Eriskitch works? Yeah. Did you  Andy: tell him? Interesting. No, I've just been, it's what, what happens when you. I mean, basically 20 years ago, my buddy and I had an Excel sheet that did all this and every part had a price. And at the end you get your costs and then you can figure out what kind of margin you want to cover your overhead, but it's just. Database info. Super.  Philiph: That's what we really created. And this irrigation equipment configuration is just the beginning. Uh, here you set the, uh, most, uh, crucial parts of your system. It's like nozzles, uh, the drip pipe connections and valve manifolds, automation. Uh, you also have here the main pipe, a lateral pipe with, uh, they are fittings, uh, elbows, tees, crosses, whatever you need, uh, that, uh, end caps, if they are, they are here. Also the wiring, wiring calculation is, uh, another thing that, uh, you need to understand how you calculate, uh, your wiring because someone used cables, uh, multi cord cables. Someone used wires. And,  Andy: uh, the reason we used to do, but it was like half the number of zones times the length of the main line or something like that. It was  Philiph: just like, uh, yeah, multiplicative outlay, but here you, whether you can calculate it, uh, on your own or you can, uh, give every sketch opportunity to do this. So, uh, if you get used to it, you will be, uh, more, uh, more free to make any kind of assumptions. So. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, this step is finished. So here you have two options, whether you want to give a list to someone to calculate you the stock, uh, and [00:38:00] to give the, um, proposal for the materials list and, uh, to pay for, or you can go a way that we call iris seller. And when you have your stock or when you have, um, Your distributor that you are bound to and he has his stock in the Erie sketch system You can easily turn this everything out in the in your outlay. That is very configured with your own elements and Okay, let's switch to it and I will  Andy: show you how yeah. Yeah. I mean again, I think if even just If it didn't, you don't even have to put the price of the labor, just having labor hours in here would be helpful so that a contractor that's using it could look and say, okay, I see here that's 30 labor hours, you know, so if I bring a four man crew, I can do that in one day. Right? Or, or they can just break it down by, by labor hours and then if they know what they pay their laborers and they know what kind of margin they need on the labor, they can calculate their own, you know, labor price, but the labor time would be really valuable.  Philiph: I think, um, that labor, uh, times can be calculated based on amount of work, yes. Amount of sprinklers. Yeah.  Andy: And then you could have to say, okay, are we pulling this pipe? Are we trenching? Is this sand? Is this clay? There are things that affect. that, but, but it's nothing that you can't, you know, uh, build around. So,  Philiph: uh, here we, uh, uh, went this way. We provide this, um, feature is adding the price list and you can create your personal price list, or you can share your prices, price list, and, uh, become a like kind of distributor in terms of Erisk Edge, for example, we have on the. Hold on,  Andy: let me stop you. So I could take a price list, put it on Eurosketch and make it public? Yes. Oh,  Philiph: badass. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. So you can create your own price and share it. Yes. And ideally,  Andy: I could tie [00:40:00] you in on API and it could generate the order on my website. Why not? And then you can make a commission, you know, like Instacart 10% commission. Philiph: Things are increasing. Yeah. This speed. And yeah, we will think on this, everything step by step. I would just want you to show that, um, what we've developed by the moment and, um, how it, how it give you the ability to, um, output your data and how it's connected with the  Andy: project. That's why I'm just happy that you're thinking bigger. You know, you, you've, obviously as an entrepreneur, sometimes you just keep thinking, right? You're like, Oh, and if we did this, then we could do that. And if we did that, then we could do this other thing. And it just keeps going. And that's important because the schedule by itself that has some value, but if you can tie it all the way through the supply chain and the market and the end user and get them all together, now you've really. Got something.  Philiph: So, yes, I agree with you totally. So that's, that's our idea. And so, uh, it's, uh, I showed you how fast and how easy the changes are made to the outlay. So you just change something in the project and when you set up everything, you have a freedom to make fast recalculation of this stuff. And when you have everything, everything prepared for this, like pricelist from your beloved distributor, who are you working with and your calculations of labors, you are very fast with this outlay. So it takes how money, how much time till it takes for you to make this kind of cycle. The standard small one  Theo: 30 minutes. Yeah.  Andy: Once it's all, once you do the work and you enter it all in it, it's all gonna be done at the time you do the drawing ? Yes. Yeah,  Philiph: that's fair. But you will take time to attach proper prices, uh, select them from your list, and that's all. I think it's like five minutes for the outlay. Yeah. [00:42:00] So, yeah. That's what we showed in short story.  Andy: Very cool. Well, uh, this is great. I think I want to, I want to experiment with it, run, you know, do some, do some real live drawing with it and then, uh, see how to embed it on, on the website. So if we have any customers at sprinkler supply store that want to design their own system, then we can direct them there. Maybe I could like, um, make a little video that shows them how to use it and, um, see how we can use it to support our customers. Yeah. I  Philiph: think the first thing is what we need to make all internals work, internal work, preparing the price list from your stock, uh, creating them in Erisk Edge. Uh, and then when you have a request, we have to be very fast by, uh, processing it with your price list and your labor's work, but, uh, we, of course we don't show to the customer, everything that is internal and we can show just, uh, Amount of, uh, the price for the, uh, equipment and one price for the labors, for example, how much it will be cost. But you know that this price is very precise because you took time to calculate, to prepare all these prices and you can rely on it. That's the case when you risk it. Yeah.  Andy: Yeah. Fantastic. Cool. All right. Well, I will, uh, you know, right now we just got some other things happening, but I want, I'm very excited by this. And like I said, I, I mostly excited because you guys thought you thought further than just the design and, and I don't know why, uh, other existing companies aren't, aren't Doing this because it's something that, um, I, I, in a weird way predicted like many years ago that why doesn't the irrigation design software, they know all the parts and pieces, they're just missing the pricing and then they're just missing the labor and they could take more of a bite out of the service that they're the value that they're adding and [00:44:00] therefore charge additional fees. Okay. Do you want to include pricing that has another plan? Do you want to include labor that has another plan? ?  Philiph: Yes. That's what we are working, uh, with because, uh, we are in one person, the developer, and uh, the user. Uh, that's,  Andy: uh, the main thing. That's amazing. You guys have built all this. It's a lot. I, I know how much work this is and it you, this is a lot of work. Philiph: Yes. And we are making this, uh, very live and. We are continuing with this work, improving the Erie sketch almost every day. We are adding some equipment and we have also the future plans for the second version and so many, uh, so many things. And I'm  Andy: going to buy the Mosier. Um, and I also have, uh, I can't remember the name of it. It's the, it's the wheel that you can put your iPhone on and you can, so it's got a GPS file. Oh, that was my question. What file are you looking for to import? What type of a file?  Philiph: Uh, for Mosher, it's CSV file. It's a standard export of the Mosher, uh, layered export. It's, uh, previously it named CSV plus plus. So it's  Andy: not a GPX or a GPS file.  Philiph: No, uh, actually it's just a set of coordinates, it's like X, Y, Z coordinates, columns, and the points of that, uh, as a rows, you just, uh, input, uh, uh, you can see that, uh, you can generate. From any type of software, uh,  Andy: yeah, I'm going to, um, get a Mosier and to do a real life demo, like, uh, measure out a house, put it in here and, and use the software. I think that'd be fantastic. Um, it also would be some good content. If I can figure out how to turn that into a YouTube video, you know, how to design, you know, an irrigation system in less than 30 minutes.  Philiph: Yes, that's the point. We also have this, uh, like promo or maybe you saw this on the website. [00:46:00] It's, uh, do you see this? Do you hear the sound or not? No, it's okay though. Oh, then I will share you in the chat and you can see it when you have time. So it's like a small explanation of what we have here. I don't know. I don't see the chat actually.  Andy: That's okay. I can look, I can look at it on your website.  Philiph: Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's on the main page. So, uh, that's what, what I was talking about is, uh, I don't remember what I was talking about. I don't know,  Theo: but I have some other question, maybe directly to Andy for us. It's interesting. I think so. As you know, as you recognize the set, uh, Philip come from Russia. At the moment, he's located in Germany. He's, uh, come, uh, one year ago to Germany. Now we are both at the same place in Germany and, uh, we develop Irisketch and, uh, wanted to start, of course, uh, to spread Irisketch over the whole world. So we are now at the moment strong in Russia, of course, and we are strong in Germany. With distribution of our software. And of course, US market is the main goal of us to reach, um, all, uh, contractors from your market. But what we are missing is a partner at the US market at the moment. And especially somebody which really knows how the market works in the US.  Philiph: So, um,  Theo: we think we know, but it's better if you can explain what to say. U. S. irrigation market on who is contractor, what did contractor actually do? You just told us that mostly nobody tried to design their own. Uh, when we look on websites of contractors, we only see something like renovation and retrofit systems, but  Philiph: nobody offers  Andy: new systems. Oh, [00:48:00] no, no, no, no. New is, um. Yeah. So let's see. Uh, I'd be happy to tell you everything I know about the U S market. Um, we would need, we need a little bit more time, but, um, there are generally two types of contractors install and service some do. And then each of those do a little crossover. So some contractors do only new install. and a little bit of service, and that's commercial. And some contractors do a lot of residential service and some install. And it's different on the West, the Western United States versus, let me take you off spotlight here, versus the Eastern United States. So the Western United States, most irrigation systems are drawn by a professional engineer. Or a  Theo: garden architect.  Andy: Uh huh. Uh, commercial, anyway. Commercial. Okay, yeah. And, uh, on the eastern United States, it's mostly contractor design build. And so contractors go to the distributor, the distributor draws it, uh, and maybe 20% of the time it's an engineer. So there's a difference between the East Coast and the West Coast. And then you have your distributors where there's like four or five really, really big distributors. And then there's a handful of smaller, you know, family owned businesses and the family owned businesses are now selling to larger businesses and the market is consolidating. Um, because it's maturing and, uh, from the contractor's perspective, there really aren't any national franchises. There's one growing called Conserva and they're probably, they're really like the only franchise. And this could be a good tool for a franchise, you know, because it would differentiate the franchise. So that is the thought that I have is, hey, that's a great opportunity because you sell it to a [00:50:00] franchise and then the franchise owner requires all of the franchisees to use the software and then they have access to it. Then they see all the like it's all It's all tied in. Um, and after that you  Philiph: have a small franchise. Yeah. Yeah.  Andy: You have small contractors all over the United States. Um, and that's part of the, the problem and the opportunity with irrigation. You don't need any education. You don't need any formal licenses other than whatever is required in your town or your state. Yet at the same time, that just means any old guy can throw some stuff in his truck and now he's an irrigation contractor and he comes in at a lower price. And a lot of the times, these contractors don't know how to compete against somebody who has a low price because they're not any, any, any value themselves. And so I try to really educate contractors to don't worry about price. Make sure you're the most professional. You show up on time. You, Like do everything right. And then you should be able to have a higher price system, right? It's obvious if it's one guy in a truck, his price should be less. So you don't have to compete against that. Um, and then you've got some landscapers that do irrigation. Right. So you have some landscape companies that also do irrigation and some landscape companies have landscape architects that could use this software and include it in their drawing. And in the U. S. we only have one company called Land FX. Land FX. Yes. They own the market now outside of people just using AutoCAD and  Philiph: some templates and what about Pro Contractor, uh, isn't used it in the terms of irrigation, uh, Pro Contractor Or you mean Land FX is a, uh, uh, uh,  Andy: complete. That's the largest irrigation software provider of, of, uh, irrigation drawing Land FX. Philiph: Land FX and Kamatsu Studio Pro Contractor is, uh,  Andy: [00:52:00] And their software is used by the largest engineers in the world. Great company. Very nice guys. I know Jeremiah, the owner pretty well. Um, but it's not something that you can just, uh, design in 30 minutes. It's not quick and easy.  Philiph: It's complicated and very precise. Andy: And it, yeah, it's very precise. And it sounds expensive. And it is expensive. Yep. Yes. But if you are working with engineers and architects and drawing big CAD drawings, that is the software to use. Yeah, so it's just land fx. com. Yeah,  Philiph: I've been there. I also Investigated about all the software  Andy: and they don't do anything that you're doing. There's no seller They really just stick in their wheelhouse because I think business is pretty good for them And they don't have the need necessarily to upset the applecart like to chase something new but in my opinion what you're building is really the direction that they They should be going. Um, you know, and then you have, you have some contenders like, uh, that are coming in from the business software, the business management software side of things like service Titan and aspire where contractors are using their software to run their business schedule, service calls, um, prepare quotes, you know, do invoicing and this stuff doesn't. Like land effects doesn't integrate but it could like yours is built for that because it's all it's all tied together So there's no reason that once the customer signs that Agreement that that design should flow right in to the business management software. They have all the parts and pieces and material Um,  Philiph: yeah. Really that's what we are thinking about is integration of the, uh, of the whole process of, uh, irrigation contractor, uh, starting from the [00:54:00] design and, uh, up to the main tenants. And, uh, also we are thinking on the how, uh, we can, uh, the, for the whole lifetime of the project, Uh, be helpful, be handy for the contractor because sometime you need to go to the site and check what's happening and you should know where it's all located. So it's like the working documentation on the project and the risk edge.  Andy: Yeah, yeah. And then my business, um, sprinkler supply store is, um, also I have a, uh, partnership with site one landscape supply. So they're an investor in Sprinkler Supply Store and I, let me see how to describe this. I think of Sprinkler Supply Store as a digital layer on top of wholesale distribution, really on top of site one. So they're sending me, um. Data every 15 minutes from 10 of their stores all over the United States. So when somebody places an order, if they're in Texas, I will have that fulfilled from the location in Texas. If they're in Florida, I'll have that filled from Florida. And then what we can do is also split orders in group order. So if not one single location has all the parts, we'll split it up to get it to the customer fast. But I could, I could drop ship out of like 50 of their locations. And so there's this real opportunity for like, for me to vend you the product data. And if somebody wants it, we can get it to them quickly because we built the stack, you know, the integration stack where site one directly. They're not set up for this yet. And  Philiph: interested, uh, how do you, uh, proceed the prices because you are providing the prices for a special, your customers and, uh, who should know these prices? Because if you put some price in the E Risk Edge, it becomes, uh, public. The  Andy: whole world. I'm, I'm kind of a believer in pricing transparency, right? We're kind of moving past the [00:56:00] days of this guy's price and this guy's price and this guy's price. I mean, maybe you could say like, Hey, here's a 10% discount or something, but I think that it really just needs to be. And right now the prices are somebody out there on the Internet is already selling that part for less. Of course. Somebody wants to take the time and search. They'll find it for less.  Philiph: Don't fancy it. But the question is how he delivers it, which services he provide and so on.  Andy: Yeah, and the bigger distributors, they still believe in pricing tiers. They don't want. That pricing transparency, because what it really means is everything has to drop a bit. Um, but that also means their overhead might have to drop a bit, but that's where the efficiency of what you're providing comes into play. Because if that contractor no longer knocks on their door for a design every week, then they don't need to provide that. So they should lower their price because they're not doing as much work. Philiph: Yeah,  Andy: so that's kind of why I think some of this could be done, not grassroots, but going to the biggest players, they're not going to be interested because it's too, it's a bit too disruptive for them yet. They don't even know how to like sell their own parts on the internet. Yeah. That's why we But because I ship through SiteOne, SiteOne just wants business, right? They, they know that orders land in their system automatically. There's no effort on them. So I get, I have really, really good pricing. So we have a doorway basically into, you know, I would love to figure out how I could sell 50 million of parts and, you know, just flows through the system, right? It's like, that's why you could take a transaction fee. Added on there service value added transaction fee or commission from me and I could do the same It's like we can be really competitive if if the system works and the user comes in and then it just flows through with little Input [00:58:00] then everything can be, you know streamlined  Philiph: Mm hmm without any intentions  Andy: Super  Philiph: anyway. Yeah, I just will Impressed how progressive your vision and uh, yeah, I think we met the wrong, the right guy we need.  Andy: Well, there's, you know, I'm only doing this cause no one else is cause there's not very many other people like you, there's really only, uh, you know, a handful of people I come across once in a while that, um, have any type of a vision other than like what's Just right in front of them. That's cool.  Philiph: Yeah. But we are at the start, we  Theo: all was with the same problem that we need a proper way to make design for irrigation. So, uh, we also do many time, many years irrigation. And, uh, from the start, I thought that we have to do design by ourself, not by this polluters. And, uh, in this case, I met Philip three years ago and start with. together with him to develop a resketch. And here we are. So our main goal is to bring irrigation design to contractors, not to the big players. Uh, we also had some discussions with the big players in Europe, also with big manufacturers like Hunter and Rainbird. And all what they're asking for was, okay, make a ErieSketch version of our products. So they want an ErieSketch version only with Hunter products. They want  Andy: exclusive, only put Rainbird on your stuff. I know. Exactly. That's part of the problem is that those guys want to control everything end to end. And they're not wrong, they used to be able to do that, but that's not what the future looks like. The future might not even look like making any money on their parts. It's like, it's a, the value is, is always, you know, moving and if guys want to use Rainbird, they should pick [01:00:00] Rainbird because not because they have to, not because it's the only one in this software. But  Philiph: because it's working the best way and the proper way. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The best way.  Theo: And we don't agree with them and we kick them out. Uh, we had many offers or we had offers of these big players and we, no, we don't want this. We want to bring irrigation design. To people to constructors,  Andy: especially if you're building a marketplace, which I think at the end of the day, you're kind of building, you know, that marketplace and the marketplace needs lots of suppliers, you know, and you need, of course, it's  Philiph: not every time that's that's centralized sources. Yeah, yeah,  Andy: yeah, um, on the supply. Yeah. And we're working on some, uh, since you guys are in Europe, there's, there's, you guys might know about the Laura technology,  Philiph: Laura. We have a solar solution from France. It uses Laura, uh, communication from in the field.  Andy: Yeah. So we're building, I've got a couple other partners on a startup that, um, basically building a Laura, uh, analytics, uh, platform so that contractors can add wireless sensors out into the landscape or the building and then control the irrigation system, you know, with, with that. And we've got some wireless valve equipment, but I think  Philiph: that. Valves. Do you have output relays for, to connect this  Andy: valves? Yeah. So wireless adapters, it can go right in the valve and you can go a mile or more. So I, we kind of see the future is actually, the future of irrigation is here. It's just not built and distributed yet, but there's no need for wires and there's no need for a controller. Yeah.  Philiph: Future will be no,  Theo: no need for water. Philiph: Yeah. The water. Yeah.  Andy: Can you tell me about your pricing fees? How do you guys charge for the system? Uh,  Philiph: for the [01:02:00] EuroSketch, it's a subscription type. Uh, we charge for the period of subscription. Uh, in Europe, it's 450, uh, in net, uh, Euros. So, and  Andy: that Euro is kind of one to one now for the U. S., almost, right? Almost.  Philiph: Yeah, it's almost the same, yeah. Four, 450 for the year? For 50s for the year and a bit more if you purchase by the monthly subscription.  Andy: Okay, and is that per company per user? How does  Philiph: that work? Uh, it now working for a user, so if this is a company and it has Uh, two or more, three seats, they can use it, uh, in, uh, but they will have the same workshop where, uh, the place where the projects are stored. So if they, uh, open one project simultaneously make changes, there will be an, uh, conflict in the saving. So, uh, I'm not, uh, restricting by the number of seats. Currently, but, uh, in future versions, I plan to do the licensing per seat, but now it's not needed because we need to grow now and to catch the market, uh, with our,  Andy: Yeah. You need people coming in. Right. And it's like, you know, I could even see there being like, um, yeah, it's 4. 50 a year, but maybe your first five sketches are free. So it's like you have a trial, but it never ends. You just can make five. Like if it takes you a month, or a year, or whatever the number is, two, one, ten, you know. Philiph: Our system is, works like this. We have a trial period of two weeks. It's almost full featured trial period. So you can every time renew your account or, uh, remove and create new one. So the guys are, uh, someone using this feature because they are creating and for 12, uh, two weeks, they have almost full functionality. But, uh, then they see that it was very handy tool and they are just buying it most of the time. So, uh, we have a very good conversion out of our old [01:04:00] registration. It's like, uh, 10 to 15% of. Purchases. So, uh, it's, it's normal conversion rate. So we have in Russia, we have now it's like 6, 000 accounts of contractors. So it's very big amount in Europe. It's, we are starting now to grow. It's almost thousand. We caught, I think I need to see the statistics. Yeah. I'm just  Andy: thinking too. It's like if, um, It's one thing if a contractor uses it and likes it. It's another thing if it helps them sell a project. So it's like, all right, how can we. And I'm thinking of what would it be like if I was trying to sell this? You're like, here it is. Go use this. And once you sell your first system, you'll be like, Oh shit, I got to pay for that. And add 10% to your price when you use this software and see what happens. So  Philiph: our, our,  Theo: um, way to market ErieSketch is that we are searching for represent each country in the world, or maybe each language area in the world. So at the moment in Europe, we have the, the German speaking. Uh, area, what I cover, we have some guys from Croatia, we have some guys for the Netherland, we have some guys from Lithuania and these guys helping us to develop EruSketch in case of languages, especially. So do translation, do, uh, tutorial videos and do the support after. Um, and for this work, they get a discount on the annual subscription for customers. So they sell it one time to the customer, so to the contractor, and they get discount on the, uh, subscription price and they get it each year, year by year by year.  Philiph: Yeah. So that's how we market. You're risking our, uh,  Andy: country. Yeah. How difficult is it to control the features that people have? Buy like, you know what they've paid for like is there is there [01:06:00] some super light version you could give to somebody that's great And it's just always free to just keep people coming in um  Philiph: We have the free version fully free version and it's perpetual. So you have you will have every time you're um, features like drawing, like drawing landscape, like drawing irrigation on top of it and even layouts. You will have one list of layout, but you don't have access to the outlay to the iris seller. That's the case of the easy version of free version, but every time you can. It's for a short period of time, switch on the paid version for a month, make everything needed with your project that you created on a free version. And then, uh, stop with the subscription. For example, when the season comes to the, some countries, they have a season for like three or four months. Yeah. That's what  Andy: it's like here too. And that's why I like the annual plan because the first question someone's going to say is, do I still have to pay in the winter? But when it's yearly, it's like, this is what it is.  Philiph: It's yearly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's cheaper than if you purchase it by month or by, uh, so contractor will think, okay, well, maybe I will have some projects in the winter to work on and to create some designs or requests or,  Andy: uh, you know, do some marketing, you know, and kick out some designs and some proposals all winter  Philiph: long. Maybe you can provide to your customer and customer and say in the winter, your project will be cheaper and less.  Andy: And there's nothing wrong with it. I'm good. I'm thinking out loud with, um, The contractor doesn't have to give this away for free, right? To me, the drawing's worth a minimum 100. So either they charge, either using it to maintain the highest price in the market or, you know, they're being competitive, but then right away they say, would you like a drawing like this upon completion? And they're, Oh, I absolutely want that. Okay, cool. It's just a hundred bucks for that drawing that they make their money, you know, easily. [01:08:00]  Philiph: Yes. And it depends on what kind of information they share with in this project, because they can, uh, for example, uh, hide every pipe and just show the sprinklers or hide, uh, I don't know, uh, the, how the wiring manifolds and say, this is the free. project, just see, uh, and decide if you want more, uh, detailed project, pay for it. And that's how it works in Russia because, uh, we have a bunch of contractors that provide free, uh, designs and that's, uh, the very big sheet in this case, because they are first, they dumped the price to the almost the lowest price for the project. And now they are providing them for free. And, um, that's the big case when the big players now. Also have to lower the prices for the design. So it's like a chain reaction. I don't know how it's, how it's named. So now we are thinking in Russia about association and they are created some, uh, two associations of irrigators that are now. We'll take it into control or something. I don't know. I heard that in the U. S. there's an irrigation association that is licensing everyone.  Andy: Well, they don't have any licensing, right? I mean, they have certifications, but it doesn't mean anything to anyone. Uh  Philiph: huh. So it's not really a licensing, so you  Andy: can work without it. doesn't, they might care, they might not. It's just a way, it's important, don't get me wrong, and it's the education and the training, but It's not required by any state. Uh, I shouldn't say that there might be a couple jurisdictions where they use that, but, but not, not really. And that's part of the problem is it's more like just saying, well, I'm smarter than you because I'm certified in this and you're not. And that guy's like, well, my business is twice as big as yours and I don't have that certification. So  Philiph: yeah, I thought it's more strict there [01:10:00] than, than we  Andy: have, but no, it's more strict on a backflow. Some places where the plumbing union is, uh, strong, you know, the irrigation contractors can't put in backflows. Or the contractor has to have a certified plumber at their compan

In this Episode, Andy talks with OptConnect CEO Chris Baird, and National Sales Justin Nichols. www.OptConnect.com ========== Andy: For those of you listening that this might be the first time you've heard about OptConnect, I encourage you to go listen to Episode #73 that Justin and I recorded probably a year and a half ago. Something like that year and a half ago, two years ago, and that'll be kind of like level one cellular connectivity intro, how it works, the benefits, all those sorts of things. What I want to do today is kind of hear from both Justin and Chris on where things, where their business has evolved since kind of. Entering the irrigation market. Justin: Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, you know, we entered the irrigation market about three years ago and we knew that we had a very good value prop based on, you know, other markets that were very active in, in our market leaders. And, and over the last two and a half, three years, you know, we've really started to scale in the irrigation market. I think today we have about. Four out of five of the large, you know, national distributors set up to be able to supply OpConnect hardware and services and about a dozen, uh, regional distributors as well. So if you haven't heard of us, chances are it is locally available at your, you know, landscape irrigation supply house. Uh, also just recently during smart irrigation month. We launched our brand new Ascend Dura device. And what's really cool about the Ascend Dura is it basically functions like a wifi hotspot on your phone. And so for the last couple of years, you know, we've really, uh, tried to penetrate the central control market. Uh, and now we have a new tool in our tool belt that allows us to connect to wifi only type of controllers. So you're. Your Hydra wise, your beehives, your ratios and any other type of wifi only type of gateway, uh, to be able to provide the same type of high level managed service to be able to troubleshoot. Now, not only the cellular side of that, but also the wifi side of that. So you can now bring your own wifi solution, plug and play and let us. Hit the easy button for you. Andy: Okay. Wow. So there's a whole bunch happening there and some of this I wasn't quite aware of. So why don't we step back? Because I had always thought of OpConnect as, as cellular, but you just said a bunch of wifi. So how does cellular and wifi come together? Justin: Yeah. So basically the wifi allows you to connect locally to a piece of equipment, just like you would in your house. Uh, and so we're able to make a local network connection via wifi. to that wifi only irrigation controller that allows the user to connect with a cellular device when otherwise they would have no means or way of connecting that external device. So we collect connect locally via the wifi network. But then all the communication is done on the cellular side. So when you're trying to do remote management, uh, Monitoring of a site like this, that's using a wifi only controller, whether it's light commercial, your own personal property, a vacation rental. We're able to manage that now remotely over the cellular network. And because of our managed service value prop, we can actually troubleshoot. Both types of those connections with the wifi. Andy: So can we like get a tangible example? Let's name a controller just to give this some context. Could we say like a Hunter Hydrawise controller? Would that make sense to talk about that? And just to try to, you know, have it more tangible. Justin: Yeah, absolutely. So you have a Hunter Hydrawise controller. Uh, you know, has 48 plus zones. If I remember correctly, they can go on a lot of light commercial properties. The cost is a little bit less expensive than that commercial unit, but you're relying on that property owner or that site's wifi connection. Perhaps they won't let you on their network. Perhaps the wifi signal isn't strong enough. We're able to put a cellular device that acts as a Wi-Fi hotspot inside that controller or right next to it and allow any type of Hydrawise user to manage that system remotely over an OpConnect cellular network. Andy: Okay. So you bring another device, your brand new device, and let's talk about that device. Is it one device? Is it two devices? How do you get from the cellular cloud down to the Wi-Fi LAN or local Wi-Fi? Justin: Yeah, it's all it's just one device. So basically, we have the, the Wi-Fi technology and the cellular technology baked into a single device. It's fully plug and play, we can provide a NEMA 4x enclosure. So if it's You know, an outdoor install and you don't want to mount it inside that Hydrawise controller cabinet. We can just install it right next to it. There's no wiring that you would have to run between the two. And it's, it's very simple. It's, it's activated, ready to go out of the box. The Wi-Fi is turned on. We give you, you know, the SSID and password to manage that. We can change that on your behalf. Uh, you really don't have to worry about anything when it comes to setting up that local Wi-Fi network or managing it over the cellular network. Hmm. Andy: Wow. Wow. Okay. A couple of things I'm thinking, is this a single controller device or can you connect multiple controllers or even other devices to it? Justin: Yeah, absolutely. So just like you would with your iPhone, if you're traveling and you and your work colleague are trying to get on a Zoom call or check your email. We can connect multiple wifi devices to this single device. Uh, it also has four ethernet ports. So if we wanted to, we could actually hardwire four controllers into it as well. Uh, but yes, any type of wifi equipment that the landscape property manager or whoever it is. Uh, is, is utilizing at that site. We can connect everything that they have at that site, uh, within a, within a reasonable distance, obviously, uh, to the wifi, to the Ascendera device. Hmm. Andy: Does that change, you know, so thinking historically irrigation controllers don't really use a lot of bandwidth, right? There's just not a lot of bandwidth. What is the bandwidth of this device? And I ask because I'm just curious. Because somebody may want to, you know, get on their phone and watch YouTube, and from an irrigation perspective, that's a lot of data that historically hasn't been required. But how does that translate to the new device? Yeah, so the new Justin: device is called a LTE Cat 4. So that is kind of your baseline fast type of device, uh, similar speed to, you know, web browsing or, or app browsing on an iPhone. And so it's going to have the speed and bandwidth to connect multiple controllers or pieces of, you know, equipment that, that communicate via wifi. Simultaneously, so you're not going to have any lag, any delay, uh, any timeouts in your communication probably wouldn't, uh, advocate for them to use it as a hotspot to, to stream, you know, YouTube on just because there are data plans on the cellular side associated with that. Uh, and you don't want to, uh, get dinged for, for using a couple of gigs of data when your irrigation controllers are maybe set up for, you know. 250, 500 megabytes of data Andy: online. And I was kind of asking, not because I think someone's gonna get out their phone and start watching YouTube, but maybe there's an opportunity for a contractor to mention this to maybe, um, a municipality or a school district, something like that, so that they, the, you know, the client can get extra usage out of the device. Absolutely. And use it to operate other equipment that happens to be on the site. Yeah, Justin: absolutely. And so when you get into some of these commercial installs, you know, outside of just the wifi-only type controllers, you may have four or five, six controllers in a utility room, and we could connect all of those with a single device Andy: now. Wow. Cool. So I'm, I'm wondering if this would be a good time to discuss if a, if a contractor or a client, you know, is thinking of a control system, you know, XYZ, let's not name any names, controller XYZ, and that. The brand manufacturer offers on their own, both wifi and cellular, you know, how, what type of decision would they make or how would they make the decision to use OptConnect and choose, you know, this device that you're talking about the wifi hotspot or just your, you know, standard cellular device. Justin: Yeah, it would probably be a decision based on what their current infrastructure, you know, is in that area. Um, the device can support five Ethernet-based connections. No, I would probably still advocate for hardwiring it in. Um, but otherwise, yeah, uh, they would have the ability now with multiple tools in the tool belt to make an even more informed decision as to how they're going to connect their equipment or other equipment. Uh, in their room that they want to be able to remotely manage. Andy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. As well as I'm just thinking, uh, you know, my brain's just turning here. I'm thinking that there's a benefit to knowing that OptConnect is, you know, supporting the brand manufacturer with the installation so that the client doesn't have to worry about how reliable is the brand manufacturer's cellular. This takes that question away because now they can look at Your company OptConnect and see that this is what you do. So it almost like may reduce the risk of using, you know, an irrigation brand manufacturer. Cellular service. Chris: You, you bring up a really good point, Andy. And, and in our world, you know, we think of connectivity as more than just connecting it to a, uh, to a cellular tower and then allowing that to, to roam. If you were to use OptConnect over a different solution, say one of the brand manufacturers, there's an entire team at OptConnect that's dedicated to watching for certain events like overages and outages. We're watching to make sure that that device has a healthy connection. We're taking autonomous action. If it doesn't, uh, we're on the back end providing support in the event that, uh, the, the installer or the end user has additional questions or needs support. You know, anybody can pick up our phone and be talking to an agent in 30 seconds or less, get live technical support, single call resolution. There's the, uh, a layer that OpConnect brings, uh, professionalism. and satisfaction, if you will, to an operator that they might not get anywhere else so that they don't have to think about it. We know that in the world of IOT internet of things. If there is not a reliable eye, there is not a reliable tee. And we try to bring that stability so that an operator can go do what they're best. They're not best at sitting behind a computer screen watching for connectivity to drop. We are. They love to be out moving on to the next deal, making sure the grass is green, the client's happy and that everybody is, uh, is satisfied at knowing. That, that controller's connected reliably to the internet. Mm hmm, mm Andy: hmm. And I think as soon as, um, a contractor or client experiences an outage, uh, or when I say outage, I mean the controller's offline, let's, let's say it that way. The device is offline. A lot of the time, brand manufacturers can't tell the user why. It's just offline. You know, you got to roll a truck out there. It could be, uh, the power's out. It could be it lost, uh, uh, the connection and it timed out. You got to roll your truck out there. And from what I've experienced using OpConnect, one of the greatest benefits is to be able to explain, help explain why the controller is offline. Because just because the controller is offline doesn't mean it lost its cellular connection. Your device could be still connected and it's a great way to troubleshoot that remotely. Justin: Yeah, absolutely. We're able to eliminate a lot of variables without having to roll that truck roll, which is very costly. Andy: Well, Chris, since we have you joining us today, I would love for you to share, you know, I guess as much as you are willing to share in terms of how OpConnect kind of, um, got started or sort of the foundation of OpConnect, you know, before you guys entered this industry, could you share a little bit about that? Chris: Sure. It's a, it's a good story. I'll see if I condense it, can condense it here for us. Uh, there's a really interesting part of this story, which is, uh, I think there was some timing involved here and being a little bit lucky and having some, uh, some insights that were coming. We really cut our teeth. In another industry, uh, not in, uh, in agriculture, if you will, or in irrigation, we actually cut our teeth over in the retail industry, which, uh, specifically we were serving locations that were unattended, such as kiosks, ATMs, and signage. And what we learned in that space is that connectivity was becoming increasingly important, more and more difficult to procure and less and less reliable for people that were doing it themselves. So we set out to Perfect. A solution that ultimately became OptConnect. And over the course of a few years, we refined that and product ties that in a way that allowed us to take that same solution to dozens of industries, which we do today, we take each of these industries serious. We try to serve those industries in meaningful capacities. We try to be good stewards and participants of trade shows and organizations. We try to be thought leaders or partner with thought leaders to help enable them. But really what we learned through it all is that we had an opportunity to become an expert at something everybody else took for granted or thought as an afterthought. Thanks to the advent of the iPhone, everybody thinks that IOT connectivity can be as simple as an out of the box, powered on, uh, walk away solution. And we know the reality is, we've worked very, very hard to make that experience true. But otherwise, it generally doesn't happen, or it certainly doesn't scale to that, that capacity. So, when we started, uh, serving these various industries, our goal was simple. We want to make a out of the box experience, make it as easy as possible for anybody in any industry. to open a device, plug it into power, hook up the antenna, plug in the Ethernet cable and walk away. 30 second install. Uh, or we're not doing it right. And I'll tell you, it's taken a team pretty significant team. Uh, you know, a long time to perfect that to make that a reality. And that's what we've done today. Uh, the company really has evolved over, over the last couple of years, but we've really hit a stride as well. And we know where we provide value. We know where we sit in the supply chain, if you will, of our customers and how critical internet connectivity is. And, uh, you know, we just come to work every day loving what we do. Andy: That's great. I love how you mentioned, I think you use the word unmanned devices, something to that effect, and I couldn't agree more because there's a difference between something working all the time, or let me step back, there's a difference between when something fails, but there's a dude one door down that can just go, you know, restart it versus something that's unmanned. When it's unmanned, it really needs to work all the time because there's nobody around to fix it. And I think that's a, that's a great differentiator. And if you can achieve, uh, you know, close to a hundred percent success and an unmanned environment, that's, Chris: that's amazing. Yeah. You know, that's, that's just the reality of, uh, of where we're headed today. And especially if you fast forward in the history of the company through the pandemic. We learned that a lot of businesses turned to technology when the workforce sort of dried up, if you will. They turned to connectivity as a means by which they could be in multiple places at once. Uh, we learned through the pandemic as a nation and as a world, the importance of connection. And we certainly learned in the business world the importance of connectivity and OpConnect serves that and sits directly in that value proposition of being able to allow our customers to magnify their efforts and to be in multiple places at once, if you will, by essentially replacing the man on the edge with a device that allows our customers to see what's going on. And, uh, to, to trust and know that somebody's behind the scenes making sure everything's working how it needs to all the time. That's fantastic. Andy: I'd like to ask if you're willing to share how you came to the company, Chris: Chris. Yeah, I, that's a great story. I've actually been here since the beginning, since day one. And, uh, I was in a, an adjacent market, if you will, uh, working. Happily in that market, when the opportunity came about to take this, what we call our proverbial duct tape solution of a router, this is in 2006 when IOT wasn't even a word, right? Yeah. If you will, or even M to M it was all. what we would call telemetry, uh, and pull that together. And over the course of a couple of months, what we found is that there was a solution out there for the oil and gas industry that allowed for that remote telemetry to be collected. via a cellular gateway and transmitted to the cloud, if you will. Uh, and I, I think even then calling in a cloud was a big stretch. Uh, like I think about today, right? Very, very expensive solution. So I set out to, to, to find a way to get the cost down and to productize that, to standardize on what we did. And, and about two years later, after having some. Pretty phenomenal success, just word of mouth. We made the strategic decision that, that this could not only be a product, but it could actually be a business. And not only could it be a business, it could serve dozens of industries. And not only could it serve dozens of industries, but we saw the writing on the wall years and years ago that we were going to be moving towards an ever connected world that relied on the ability to connect ubiquitously anywhere, almost anywhere that you are. There's, we call them cellular deserts. There's very few of those that exist in the country these days. Uh, you know, connectivity is essentially everywhere. And, uh, we set out to. Find a way to to meaningfully connect our customers to the Internet, uh, and it's just it's been a lot of fun. We have had so many extreme use cases and different examples of things that have come to us over the years. And, uh, you know, irrigation is just one of dozens, but a perfect example of where we can add value to something that may have had a legacy solution that's either old, decaying or going away. You know, radio controllers and, and, uh, you know, traditional, uh, boring of, uh, and laying cable and, and copper underground, you know, those are days of past and, uh, with everything moved to connectivity wirelessly or cellularly, you were, we're in a perfect position to help. Andy: So over the last 15 years, has it just been smooth sailing, easy peasy, lemon squeezy, the business just grew, or were there times when. It was tough going and you questioned whether you were making the right decisions with the company. I love to hear kind of how the progression went. Chris: Yeah, you know, as we look back, it's really clear to see that we've always been under some meaningful growth tension. Whether we recognized it in the moment or not, uh, there were always things that we were learning and adjusting. And I've always been fond of a business that can, can look back in retrospect and make a statement, uh, something that's happened in the past. And for us, I, it's very clear to see that there were a few pivotal, what I call DNA altering moments that were make or break, lay it all on the line, uh, opportunities for the company to go after. Uh, I remember. Uh, particularly a number of years ago, a situation that occurred globally on on the Internet. There was a a vulnerability introduced to the Internet called Heartbleed in 2014. OpConnect was not personally, uh, you know, affected by Heartbleed directly. We didn't have any vulnerabilities in our system and there was no data exfiltrations. We never got hacked like was happening everywhere. to major companies. Uh, you know, if you had a online log in with the whether it was to an email account or social media account, almost everything was vulnerable. But what we saw as a result were a number of inbound inquiries, uh, testing our systems to see if they were vulnerable. And it was breaking the system. It was causing things to not be able to get out. And that was a make or break moment for us where we had to make a couple of decisions to move forward. 40, 000 customers to a new platform that was protected behind a firewall. We had to do that in the course of a couple of hours, which was unprecedented. That was like a six or a nine month effort that we, we got done in about a little over 24 hours. It's amazing what you can actually Andy: do when you constrain time. Isn't it? Chris: Oh yeah, Andy: absolutely. You tell your team to do something and they're going to tell you, Oh, six months. And you say, no, can you do it in 24 hours? Like, it's just amazing when you layer time onto something. Chris: Yeah. We, we learned that we're best when our backs against the wall. That's when, when the best in us comes out. Uh, you know, and then fast forward a number of years, I think every organization went through this reflective moment as. The reality of the pandemic was setting in quickly and, uh, you know, as businesses were getting shut down and people were getting sent home, you know, we, we look at that very, uh, very fortuitously. We had months earlier made the decision to enable a remote workforce. Everybody had a laptop. We had already fully adopted technology that allowed us to stay connected. Through, uh, back office systems and, and, uh, zoom and teams and, uh, and think chats, uh, chat tools. So it was a seamless transition for us that allowed us to get to a position where we could be not reactive to the situation, but actually helpful to our customers that they were trying to navigate, you know, sending remote employees home and figuring out how to keep them connected. You know, we quickly developed a solution that allowed our customers to send their. cut their employees home using our connectivity so that they could stay connected, get their job done. Every day. So there's there. It certainly has not been smooth sailing, Andy, but as we look back, we are also grateful for those experiences because they're where we stretched and learned the most. We have a saying on our wall that alludes to the fact that stretching is while it might be painful, it's where we learn the most. We believe that learning happens on the edge. And if we can keep our company on that edge of learning and catastrophe, but always stay to this side of it, we're always going to be in a helpful growth position. Andy: Fantastic words of wisdom. Love that. Thank you for, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for giving us a little bit of a history of the company. And I think maybe since we have Five minutes or so left. You could tell us, uh, what's on the horizon. Let's assume you guys got great market share and irrigation. Everybody's using your product. What's Chris: next? You know, I love this question and I love to put it into perspective too. If we kind of zoom out of the business world and just look at what's happening globally, the electrification of everything, uh, connectivity, you know, I knew that we were onto something at OpConnect in the business world. When I got a phone call from my parents saying they have a washer and dryer that needs to connect to the internet and needed help, I thought, okay, there's, there's the rest of the world kind of catching up and making it here. But if we look at fast forward, there's a couple of macro trends that we look at that I think are really important. Number one is the importance of scarce resources. Uh, as a country, for example, uh, it happens to be raining outside for us today, yesterday, we got an entire summer's worth of rain and about four hours, uh, people tend to think of water as free cause it falls from the sky. We know better if we look and step back. It's a scarce resource. We need to manage it appropriately. Where else does that happen? Well, it happens with energy. It happens, uh, in, in a number of, of different, uh, industries. It's going to happen with electricity. So if we can identify these macro trends. That are likely to either get regulated or just out of necessity be managed differently, and we can position ourselves to help facilitate the collection of data to help customers make actionable real time decisions that can be our guiding star on where we take the company next, um, as Thank you The world connects EVs. We're going to have to do that really smartly. There's just not enough electricity to supply. If you were to replace every, every internal combustion engine with electric vehicles today, we would be kind of crippled, if you will, as a nation. So we, that has to be built out as that's built out. It needs to be managed differently. It needs to be monitored. Uh, there may be times where it may need to be routed, certainly needs to be secure. So we know that's a macro trend that we can look at, uh, that will help, uh, drive, you know, not only growth, but meaningful adoption of connectivity and technology that allows us to use our resources better. We look at things like security, all types of applications of security, you know, regrettably, we live in a world where Where that is more important than it's perhaps ever been. There are more and more assets being deployed to more and more unattended locations that are vulnerable to various types of nefarious activity. Those need to be protected. They need to be monitored and, uh, and managed accordingly. So those, those are some of the ways that we try to think about. You know, macro tailwinds that could help guide us long term as an organization. Now, by no means does that mean we're willing to turn our back on some of the industries that we serve today. In fact, our plan is to continue to land and serve those industries long term, be experts, become a trusted household name, if you will. Um, the the OptConnected and the Kleenex of the of the world, if you will. And, uh, and that's our goal to just provide meaningful connectivity anywhere possible. It's great, Andy: uh, great plan and I think you guys are well on the way. I know I certainly trust your devices because I've used them and have experienced with them and the people that I've suggested to use them feel exactly the same way. It's kind of like once somebody tries one, they go, all right, I'm just using this. For all my stuff. I don't, I don't want to have to worry about brand manufacturer, ABCD ease devices. I just want one portfolio with all my devices. So I appreciate what you guys are doing and I appreciate how it is also kind of raising the bar in our industry and providing, you know, more contractors with more access to technology so that they can learn faster and maybe to use your words, you know, run their business on the edge a little bit as well. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. Uh, we are running out of time and Justin, maybe on another, maybe we can do a, a sequel to the second episode and talk a little bit more about some particular, some other industries that, um, that you're involved with that are also, you know, water related, looking Justin: forward to it. Andy, thanks for having us Andy: back. Thank you very Chris: much.

In this episode, Andy chats with Kevin Williams an expert in ChatGPT and A.I. ========== References: www.SprinklerNerd.com/inkworks www.InkWorks.ai ========== Kevin: You know, it's not going to be AI that replaces you as the employee or, or supplants you, your company. It's going to be a company that knows how to use AI or a person who knows how to use AI that's going to disrupt things. Andy: Hello my friends. This is Andy. Welcome to episode 129. Of the Sprinkler Nerd Show, where it's my job to speak with world-class water and technology innovators from all walks of life so that it may inspire you and your business. My guest today is Kevin Williams. Who is Kevin Williams? Kevin has been featured in Inc.Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and even as a Shark Tank business. Before starting his current company, www.inkworks.ai, Kevin was the former operating partner and CEO of www.balls.co. And before that, Kevin was the founder and CEO of Brush Hero, which is the product you may have seen on shark tank. Our conversation today will be focused on AI tools like Chat GPT, and how you can implement these tools in your business. So with that, Kevin, welcome to the show.  Kevin: Thanks so much for having me, Andy.  Andy: I cannot wait to talk about AI and how service businesses, contractors, irrigators, and landscapers can learn a little bit from you, who has spent a lot of time, uh, really becoming an expert in this field. And I think that before we jump into that, I'd like to ask how you got your start in business and as an entrepreneur.  Kevin: It's, it's funny. I actually come from a family of entrepreneurs ever since I was about 10 or 12. My family was traveling all over the country with various business ideas and it was just part of the fabric of my life. Kevin: Sadly, that story doesn't actually end particularly well. So sometimes I, I, I glib about it that I come from a family of failed entrepreneurs because in a period in my adolescence, my parents lost their business, they lost their house. They lost their marriage, like all of this horrible stuff. So young Kevin decides that a good idea is to not be an entrepreneur and instead go be a chemist. Kevin: Well, fates have a way of, uh, of messing with plans like that. Um, I went on the straight and narrow path. I did a bunch of interesting stuff and I ended up at pretty good business school. And in business school, I entered a business plan competition just as a part of a, like an elective entrepreneurship class. Kevin: And I won. And I won a bunch of money that came along with it for seed funding. Um, so I ended up starting my first business having done everything in my power not to be an entrepreneur. I was like, oh heck, here's an opportunity. I'm just going to take a left turn in my life and chase this now. Um, that business didn't necessarily go anywhere, but it introduced me to the angel and venture community in my town in Washington DC and uh I ended up operating businesses for a high net worth, uh, individuals for a bunch of years and my own entrepreneurial journey kicked in again, where I saw that there was just so much waste in a lot of startup companies that people really didn't know how to demonstrate. Kevin: What we marketers would call product market fit, and instead they just dump bucket loads of money into things trying to prove a concept. Uh, and when I saw the rise of social media, I saw an opportunity to rapidly test concepts, um, without necessarily spending a lot of money. And that pivoted into a whole series of businesses where I would either license or buy intellectual property. Kevin: And my dirty little secret was that when a patent was pitched to me, I could go out onto social media and test some concept around that product. I could throw a bunch of traffic at it, see if anybody cared. If people cared about the idea, then I would license the patent and then I would already know that I could get on to first base with the product. Kevin: Was it going to be a home run? Who knows, but I could get on to first base. So that led to the Brush Hero product, which I had licensed. I'd licensed the underlying IP from a gentleman in the UK, um, and several other patents in homewares and kitchenwares. Uh, I sold, um, or I, yeah, I exited Brush Hero in about 2019. Kevin: And, um, then I ended up running, uh, a large international brand. Usually I don't say, but yes, it was Balls. co.  Andy: Fuck it, you can say it on this channel, on this show.  Kevin: Yes, I was a manscaper. Um, so Balls was the largest, uh, manscaping company in Europe. Uh, you can probably already tell I'm not the guy who tells Balls jokes all day. Kevin: So it was, it was pretty fun to dive into a brand like that. British sensibility, really cheeky humor. And, um, our goal was to drive it into, uh, the U S with that sort of humor. Um, the realities of running a UK European based business from the West coast of the U S not so great. A lot of early mornings, a lot of late nights. Kevin: So, mm-hmm. , in part when I saw just the I I, I, I like to think that I immediately saw the opportunities that generative AI would represent when G P T launched in November of last year, and I left and dove feet first into generative AI and practical applications of it. Um, And I've been rooting around for business models in my M. Kevin: O. You know, test some ideas, test a lot of different things, um, to see what might take root. And from there, ink works is one of several different products, projects that I'm working on, um, as well as doing executive coaching and executive coaching oriented around a I capacity development within organizations. Kevin: Because one challenge of all of this Is that coming up with a one size fits all solution just isn't practical. So business leaders need to develop a framework around the way that they think about AI and how they're going to safely lever it in their business. Um, as opposed to just looking for a magic bullet type. Kevin: Platform that they can just buy. That's going to solve all of their problems. Um, that's going to be very interesting to, to, to see how that develops. And it's been fun to, to, to work with other business leaders to try and identify how their particular business, be it, you know, in landscaping or direct consumer or. Kevin: Business to business SAS type stuff. Well, how can they actually deploy this stuff right away to make changes in their business? Because, you know, the, the adage has become. You know, it's not going to be AI that, that replaces you as the employee or, or supplants you, your company. It's going to be a company that knows how to use AI or a person who knows how to use AI that's going to disrupt things. Andy: I love that. So there's a couple takeaways. I'm going to start with the last thing you said, because it reminds me of a great expression that I can't remember who the author is, but I use it all the time. And that is the company that kills you will look nothing like you. So when you said AI may not replace the person, it's going to be a company that knows how to use AI that becomes your competitor. Andy: That's a great example of another company that It looks nothing like you, but could end up killing your business and you were running balls. co and this is not the right time to talk about balls. co, but we don't actually talk about a lot of balls in this industry. We do talk about a lot of nipples though. Andy: There are many different types of nipples in the irrigation industry, believe it or not. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to put that out there inside joke for those that are listening. We don't talk about balls, but we like to talk about nipples, talk about  Kevin: turf.  Andy: And turf. Yep. Totally. You can talk about turf. Andy: There's a lot to, a lot to play with there. Not last week. It's been probably three weeks now. Kevin and I both went to a conference. I would say that's just for shark tank companies, just for those who have. been on Shark Tank, whether it aired or whether it was just taped, because we know that most of the businesses that tape don't actually go to air. Andy: So we were both at the conference, and that's when I was learning about what you were doing in the AI space, because Kevin was actually presenting at the conference. And I thought this would be great, Kevin, to have you come and share some of your Uh, real practical world experience with AI, you know, and how you are coaching people to use it, some of the value that it has, and maybe even some of the best practices or things you should do first, second, third, or even how do you optimize the responses of, let's say, chat GPT versus a beginner that just goes in and asks it a basic question. Andy: So very, very excited, and especially because this industry is tends to lag behind.  Kevin: So first, just to back up, I we were sort of operating on the assumption that everybody knows what this is, and I'm pretty sure everybody has at least heard of it at this point. That is this magic machine that can that you can talk to, and it can it can come up with responses. Kevin: Um, but it is actually a success story. That's it's one of those overnight successes. That's eight years in the making that billions and billions of dollars has been poured into what are called neural networks that allow So Uh, highly abstract patterns to to interact with each other such that the magic machine can output based on a predictive model. Kevin: What might come next from a thought? So that's essentially what it's doing. It's predicting from the sum of the human Internet knowledge. What? The next likely thought can be, and it is absolutely amazing what it can do, but the underlying fundamentals of neural networks have been around for a long time. Kevin: The novelty and what was just completely mind blowing for most of us was the Interaction, the interactive effect. Like if you leave a bunch of wonky people together who are studying neural networks, they know how neural networks work. They don't need this chat functionality. What the chat functionality did is it made it much more accessible for we mere mortals to be able to lever these tools, um, on on even on a basic level, as opposed to going through a whole machine learning type process. Kevin: So These are predictive models. They're taking the sum of human knowledge and they are outputting the next likely. So the first thing to understand about them is that They don't necessarily know or care if anything is particularly accurate. So, this is what you hear about in terms of hallucinations. And hallucinations are just wrong facts. Kevin: Like, the AI is not particularly good with facts. It's very good at expressing A dubious fact in a very convincing way, which should be a giant red flag for most of us who produce any sort of content that particularly in a subject matter that's relatively technical like what you guys are talking about, um, it could easily. Kevin: It could easily just lie to you. So the first thing that I tell people from a, from a mindset perspective is that you need to calibrate what you're doing with the AI based on who you are and what you know, so picture like a Venn diagram, you've got this. One circle, that's the size of my house, that is the sum total of human knowledge. Kevin: And then you have this intersecting circle that's much smaller, which is the sum total of who you are and what you know and what you know about irrigation and, uh, and lawn care and everything else. Right? And the intersection of those two circles is where the power really lies. So If you, the farther you drift away from that, the more likely you are to get into dangerous territory. Kevin: So, I know a lot about digital marketing. I know a lot about business operations and such. That is a core of who I am. But, if I drift away and I start talking with the AI about neuropsychology, I might get interesting results, but I have no way of calibrating whether or not those results are actually useful or, or practical or not. Kevin: I'm just leaving it to the AI. So when you say  Andy: calibrate, what does, what does that mean? What does calibrate mean? So  Kevin: it's you know what you know. So imagine, you know, most of us have have businesses that are large enough that you have developing staff like there. There are other people that are involved in the business and you you take, let's just say a new sales guy and You, The way If you're the senior sales guy or you're the business owner, you might tell the sales guy to go off and do X, Y, and Z. Kevin: And then you're going to look at the output and you're going to, you're going to coach them, you're going to push them towards an output that you know is going to work in because you have this expertise in the knowledge. It's the same as true for the AI. The AI doesn't necessarily know what it's talking about, but if you were to look at the output. Kevin: Your art as a business person and just as an individual is being able to identify the value in that output. And if it's something you don't know anything about, that's going to be really hard to do. So if you're, if you're looking at, at creating something that's entirely new that you don't know anything about, there are ways to use AI that you can do that. Kevin: But it's not as effective as Amplifying things that you already do know. So in a lot of organizations, let's just take a lawyer, for example, like you could you could call a lawyer and say, Hey, I need to set up a trust document and whatever. And right now the M. O. would be that lawyer would probably record the call or take notes on the call. Kevin: They would go to their associate. Their associate would look through their templates about it. Trust. They'd adapt it to Wyoming. They put it back to the senior attorney who would then approve it, edit it, give it red lines, hand it back to the guy or gal and then process it and then finalize it and then send it out because that senior attorney really knows their stuff or you hope they really know their stuff. Kevin: They can do that. That is their art. That is their job. That is their profession. But now you can bypass all of that, that associates job. Not so good for the associate, right? But you could output that document and be able to read it and have it done in 15 seconds, but you can't abdicate your professionalism and your art. Kevin: You can't just trust it. You're going to get 80% of the way there in 15 seconds, but that last 20% of editing and clarifying and redlining, um, you still own that at least at the moment. So. The lawyer knows a lot about law. The business guy has actually read a ton of contracts, right? Like, I've probably read a thousand contracts in my career. Kevin: I'm not a lawyer. I happen to be married to one. But, I... Not a lawyer, but if I need to create a new contract I can actually get 90% of the way there So let's just say 70% of the way there Because I know how contracts are written right and I can read it and I can interpret Okay, this indemnification clause makes sense to me The smart move is to then send it on to the lawyer, but I didn't have to spend the 500 for him to draft the first version. Kevin: I just need to spend the 250 for him to take a pass at it at the other side, because I know enough to be dangerous. Now, if it were to get into case law, statutes, regulations, things like that, it could easily lie to you, and that's out of my realm. Like the lawyer might recognize that that case isn't a real case or that that statute isn't accurate, but dang, if the AI isn't going to be very, very compelling in its, it's sort of its defense of its own facts that it's putting forward, but that's the. Andy: So, so would it be. Would it be safe to say that an attorney who uses Chet GPT, if Chet GPT or the AI can do the 70% as you describe, but because they're the expert in that field, they can review that 30% and get it right. So that if it's lying, they can correct it because they have the expert knowledge in that core business. Kevin: Exactly, exactly. And this is where I like to focus when I'm talking to people about it. There's a lot of water is wet out there. Oh, you can just. Have it write a giant blog post for you. Okay. That's cool. You know, it's cool to watch it do its output. It's like, it's sort of mind blowing if you haven't seen it by all means, totally go sign up and see that because it's really cool, but that doesn't allow you to abdicate from your art and your expertise. Kevin: So, you know, your audience knows a lot about lawn care and it like, like you can have it create a blog post about certain patterns of irrigation and you're going to be able to decide whether or not those are accurate or not. But if you want to reach into topics that you don't know much about, even if they're close to you, you can. Kevin: But you have to have either some sort of validation mechanism such that you can determine whether it's accurate or not, um, or not care, so. Because  Andy: then if somebody who is an expert in that category reads it, they may think, Oh my gosh, what is Kevin talking about here? He doesn't know what he's talking about. Andy: This is not accurate.  Kevin: Exactly. Like imagine, you know, I, as I understand it, that, uh, you know, grass varietals change by different continents and there's expertise in South America and they're, you know, sprinkler nerds in South America and like you pontificating about, you know, Argentine varieties of. Kevin: Bermuda grass, like that person is going to be able to smell a rat because that's their, their expertise. And worse, this is sort of meta as there's an industrial scale opportunity for content production. If all of us. I'm not going to get noble about this, but like if all of us are out there producing bad content, the AIs will be trained on the bad content. Kevin: So there is going to be value. Is that the  Andy: garbage in garbage out analogy? Yes.  Kevin: Garbage in garbage out. And at some point it all reverts to the mean. So from the segment of your audience that is out there and doing direct to consumer type marketing, don't be, don't be tempted to do just. Industrial scale output. Kevin: Your art has to be producing new information from somewhere. But what AI can do is it can make some of that new information really accessible. Like there's a lot of geeky in this sort of field, right? And there's scholarly articles about soil density and all this other stuff. One really cool use of AI is to be able to contextualize something like a scholarly document and make it accessible to people who have expertise that can do something interesting to it. Kevin: So, you know, somebody comes out with a paper from the university of Florida, as far as water absorption rates, whatever it is, and you can then use the AI to simplify that overly complicated document to a way that it falls into that zone of expertise and art. And then you can actually. Add to the corpus of information that's out there on the web in an additive way because that paper was never really going to get found. Kevin: It was somebody's PhD thesis or whatever. But now you Andy can like actually make that accessible in a way that increases the store of human knowledge and from a Strategic perspective, I do suspect that, that, that brands, particularly in the internet who can truly add novel value are going to be rewarded by search engines, by advertising platforms, et cetera, and that those who simply put it out like high volume garbage are going to get severely punished. Kevin: And, and I'm  Andy: thinking that likely the level one knowledge. Which may address the most frequently asked questions about lawn care on the internet will probably be garbage in garbage out and stuff that everybody talks about. I love what you said about finding a scholarly article and what came to my mind is that there actually are scholarly articles from, I believe, University of Florida on, you know, lawn care and let's say soil moisture sensor technology. Andy: And my question would be, number one, Perhaps this would be a great training example for us to do live like, Hey, let's grab a couple articles and use that to produce some really awesome content using AI. And could we do that? You know, could we take an article of a research on soil moisture sensor, not right now about soil moisture sensor technology, real case studies and recreate it in a, in a, in a way that everybody could understand it simplified, but on a deep topic  Kevin: like that. Kevin: So this is, let's walk through the practical example. The example is yes, that would be really cool, right? So first you're going to find the article and then let's just be practical. First, if you're not paying for GPT, pay for it. It's 20 bucks a month and it gives you access to GPT 4, but more importantly, it gives you advanced access to advanced processing. Kevin: So the, the 3. 5 was the first model 4. 0 is where it is now. 4. 0 is roughly 10 times. It's more powerful as far as the level of connections. It's also slower, um, which can be a little bit agonizing in a demo because it writes really slowly. Um, but it allows you to contextualize. These are, these are all terms that are going to be so common in the next few years, but right now we're all kind of bending our heads around it that you have to set context. Kevin: Like, uh, I like this particular example, like you go, you stand at the top of a, of a building at, uh, you know, Times Square, you stand in the middle of Times Square and you say, what should I read? And people are going to have all kinds of opinions. They're going to have like, Oh, you should read the Bible. Kevin: You should read, you know, Tom Clancy. You should read, you know, the, the sprinkler digest of 2022. The Idiot's Guide to Landscaping. But that's because, yes, of course, you know, scintillating reading, right? But that's because nobody knows anything about you. So one of the first keys here is you have to set the context of the conversation such that you're narrowing, you're narrowing what you're after. Kevin: So from a practical perspective in GPT 4, you can start out a conversation by saying, I'm a landscaping expert. Um, I'm interested in expanding my knowledge of lawn care practices using scholarly articles. And it's going to say something like, yay. Next you set the context for the conversation because you could just. Kevin: Continue. And this is where it gets dangerous. Like, let's just chat about lawn care. And you're going to come up with all kinds of interesting stuff. In the back and forth that it's, it's, as you're, you're expanding. It knows who you are. It kind of knows what you're looking for. But now, you want to refine that context further. Kevin: And the way that you do that is by contextualizing something like a scholarly article. And there are tools, they're called plug ins within GPT 4, that allow you to do that. And that's simply by Letting it ingest the PDF, and now this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about the body of the knowledge, of world knowledge about lawn care. Kevin: We now have established minimal context that you have expertise in lawn care, and now specifically what we're going to talk about is this scholarly article. Like, use, oh mighty GPT, use your chat based functionality to make this easy, but this is what we're talking about. So now you've set the context for it. Kevin: And you're going to do something like, let's ask for a summary, um, that would be applicable and interesting information for an audience that is focused in on lawn care science. And it's going to come up with a bunch of ideas. Okay, cool. Now. Let's say, oh, okay, I like idea number three, that, um, you know, I don't know, relative humidity and the impact of, uh, water absorption rates on whatever it is. Kevin: Now let's dive into that, and let's put a marketing hat on. Okay, let's produce content, a blog post about this that, that, that incorporates interesting facts from the scholarly, the scholarly doc, document, and dresses it up with a little bit of marketing speak. Okay, cool. Now, because we're a marketer, we need to put headlines on it. Kevin: So let's come up with 10 possible headlines for this. So now you have 10 possible headlines for the article. Now let's get a little bit wonky because this is a scholarly article. Scholarly articles often come along with data sets. Okay. So you could actually ingest a dataset using the, the, the code interpreter function within GPT and say something completely simple, like some giant dataset, and just say, help me visualize the data in this dataset in a few different ways that would be interesting to my audience, my audience. Kevin: Like you've already defined who your audience is, right? It's another cool part. Like it has permanence. Um, So it's remembering  Andy: what you gave it earlier when you said, you know, my audience is homeowners, you know, interested in black, it, it,  Kevin: it, it stores that. So we've, we all, we all, I'm not going to say the name because it'll trigger, but the S device on a, on an Apple, if I were to say the name and I would say, Hey, what's, what's the weather in park city tomorrow? Kevin: It's going to have an answer. And if I simply said, what's the weather on Saturday? It's going to say, what are you talking about? Because it has no permanence to it at all. You have to start over in that conversation. Permanence in GPT is so cool. So just a practical tip. You have chats. that maintain that context. Kevin: And some of my chats are now hundreds of pages along because I'm chatting through specific business models and it knows that that's what we're talking about. It doesn't need to like remind itself. I can go back months later and bring something up and all that context is set and you get much better results once the context is set. Kevin: So what you've done with that. So if you, if you have a  Andy: thought. Or you have another question, but it's really related to some other things you've already asked that you'll instead of starting a new conversation, if that's what it's called, you'll go back to your other one and add it into the dialogue. Andy: Yep,  Kevin: exactly. Just write, don't even need to be like, do you remember what we're talking about? No, of course it remembers what it's talking about. It's a machine, right? Um, but imagine you've put out that blog post and, um, somebody now in the community has some insightful question and you're like, I don't know what the answer is. Kevin: Dump the question in and say, this was a community conversation. Can you, can, can you come up with some sort of, can you help me answer this question? And it's going to use the context of your chat. The conversation you have, it's going to use the document that's been set as context. And it's going to try and answer that question within that much narrower context, um, than just the wild west of the internet. Kevin: So taking it like just taking it to the logical conclusion again, as a marketer, you need visuals. So now we haven't talked about the visual tools at all. I've been very GPT focused and GPT is not the only language model out there. I just, it currently is the strongest, but. In my opinion, but there will be many, there's no real barriers to this except gazillions of dollars, which people like Mark Zuckerberg have. Kevin: So you're gonna see a lot of different models and this is just, it's going, they're all gonna be out there. So people will choose their poison. Do you know,  top  Andy: of mind what a couple other models are that we could share list in the,  Kevin: so Google Bard is quite powerful, and it's not like Google wasn't working on this. Kevin: They missed a tick. They have business model problems with this that are pretty obvious. You know, they make 160 billion a year off of advertising. And what does advertising mean if. Like you get the answer, it's not so great. So they  Andy: also not perusing the internet and clicking lots of times and visiting lots of pages and getting served. Andy: Lots of visuals. We're  Kevin: in that space, right? Yeah. So it's, it's, it's going to be an interesting existential crisis for them. They seem confident about it. So I think they have a plan, but they're constrained. My, my worry is big brands like that get more constrained by reputational impact. We all have heard the stories of the New York times, I think. Kevin: Kevin Roos, um, who like the AI tried to convince him to leave his wife and stuff. Um, like open AI, which is GPT can kind of get away with that with its. I'm a 10 billion startup thing, but Google has to worry about that. So naturally they've limited their model more. So there are all these instructions and there's a term that's, that's, that's. Kevin: It may be permanent, but at the moment, I'm not quite sure it's called a constitution. And it's this idea that there's, there's an operating, we call the, the, the, the, anytime you type something into a LLM, it's a prompt, but there are all these hidden prompts that are behind the scenes. And those hidden prompts are, let  Andy: me catch you right there. Andy: You, you, you mentioned a buzzword that I want to make sure everybody knows you said.  Kevin: Large language model. So a GPT is one of the large language models. Um, Lama from Meta and Facebook is another one. Um, Google has its own that, that underpins BARD. Um, these are all, they've all done the similar thing where they've subsumed. Kevin: The Internet and are making these connections. Um, and then, yeah, that's a GPT is not the generalized term term. It's that it has that has to do with technical language transformation. So GPT is actually a technical term. Yeah. So anytime you put a prompt into these things, that's a set of instructions that the AI is then trying to follow. Kevin: But there's a whole set of hidden prompts behind the scenes that are basically don't be psychotic, like Try not to say like racist stuff. Try not to like incite violence. Like, don't try, don't answer legal questions in a way that could be misleading. Like, it's, it's, it's like this whole giant set of things and, you know, building that constitution into the model, um, the, the, sort of the strength of that constitution ties into, this is slightly wonky, but it ties into the, the, the, how crazy the outputs can be. Kevin: And there's another term in there that's called temperature. So the higher the temperature, the more likely it is to go batshit. That it's going to start making And what does a high  Andy: temperature mean? What,  Kevin: what is that? So it's a, it's like a continuum, like low temperature is cold. Just the facts, man. And stick to the fact Right. Kevin: This is what Okay, I see. High temperature is, we're going to loosen up. That loose that that that neural network and you know, I'm being I'm trying to paraphrase a little bit But like it's gonna loosen up the neural network and allow the network to make kind of wilder connections between things  Andy: Okay, so it's called something that's extremely factual like one plus one is two would that be very very cold  Kevin: not factual So that you got to be super careful like it's pretty okay. Kevin: All right high level of probability that 1 plus 1 is 2, but, but some of these models are very bad at math. Um, because they don't, that's not what they do. They're, they're predicting that one thought follows the golden rule. Okay, we have a lot of information about the golden rule. We, we are really, really comfortable that the golden rule is due unto others, right? Kevin: So that low temperature, it's going to connect this extremely high temperature. It may come up with something like Hmm. Maybe that means something different. Hmm. Let's just like connect things. So it gets creative on its own? It's creative. Don't anthropomorphize, but it's, it's easy to do, but it is, um, it just gets looser in its neural connections and it can be very powerful in terms of being extremely creative. Kevin: There's an example that's, uh, I like that. So a high  Andy: temperature means more creative.  Kevin: Yes. And most of the models by default operate at a relatively low temperature because, That's where the you should leave your life wife and marry me stuff comes in where it starts like It's crazy. Like, don't get me wrong. Kevin: Like, researchers in this space, they anthropomorphize it because it's doing stuff that they don't understand.  Andy: Well, I'm just wondering, um, number one, I'll ask you, and you could answer it now or later, is this, is this regulated? Because if it's high temp and it's super creative, which means it may not be accurate, should there be a disclaimer in the response that must be included if you use the tool? Andy: Because the answer may or may not be correct because it's high temp and where, where do we draw the line? Or is there a line being drawn on telling someone disclosing the use of the tool?  Kevin: So this is where Europe is heading. Europe is heading to a disclosure of AI, and I think we may see something similar. Kevin: To this in the U S at some point, but it's a commons issue. Like that sort of disclosure is only as good as the compliance of the community and the enforcement mechanisms that make that happen. And I have doubts having lived in the digital marketing trends as long as I have that. If there's an edge to be had, people don't have to use these models. Kevin: So that's, we haven't really talked  Andy: about that. And right now I can write a blog post about whatever I want, factual or not. It's up to someone else to actually decide if it's right or not. I don't have to, there's no disclosure I have to put on it currently.  Kevin: And you bury it in your terms anyway, in the bottom of the fine print somewhere. Kevin: Yeah. It's like an affiliate disclosure that, um, it is possible that artificial intelligence was in some way used to construct this particular note, this particular route. Right. So maybe by  Andy: default, someone would have to trust the author, i. e. trust Kevin, trust Andy, trust the author. Then you'll trust the words, but don't trust the words. Andy: All by themselves, unless you trust the source, which is essentially where we're at today anyway.  Kevin: Yep, exactly. Do you trust the source? So authority, you have a lot of authority in this space, because you have such a great community, and you know, there's a lot of energy and output and such. That is why search engines reward you, or I assume reward you for that output. Kevin: Mm hmm. The same will be true in these models that, that, and that's the winners will be those who have a lot of authority and a lot of credibility and that will make it very hard for new entrants to, to batter through. In my opinion, there will always be shenanigans or tactics that are designed to like break through the model and try and get something that to get attention. Kevin: Um, but I think it's going to be a lot harder than it has been with a search engine optimization SEO over the years.  Andy: Let me ask you a quick question. Do you think a service business? Landscape contractor, landscape maintenance, service business, irrigation, you know, they could write an article about, let's say, turf grass management, and they could write that article with the audience being the world, yet that, with the audience being the world, that pool is extremely competitive, which makes me think that they should use That's AI to write something more hyperlocal so that they're found with somebody in their service area, and that's what matters. Andy: It's like lawn care maintenance in Peoria, Illinois, and being the expert there, but not Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Kevin: So I think, would that be the right way to think of it? I think it would. And you and I chatted briefly about Sunday. I mean, that might be a polarizing company in your world, but they do from a sales mechanism. Kevin: They're very, very good about using satellite imagery and sort of loose connections about soil density and soil construction in order to get you into their marketing funnel. And they can do that because they were extremely well funded. And, you know, they, they spent a lot of money trying to figure this out. Kevin: And the fact is there's really nothing right now preventing a Peoria, Illinois provider who knows about soil to be able to output like sort of micro geo content. Based on the information that they have to, to educate the Peoria, Illinois population about the very specific aspects of their soil on a level that someday can never touch because it's just microform. Kevin: They're too  Andy: big, right? Exactly. They're the authority in this particular area based on their experience just in this area, which someone who lives in that area, they would want to hire someone. That knows a thing or two about that specific location.  Kevin: So imagine you have your scholarly article, let's put a few of them in there that are about like how to manage, you know, pH, whatever it is, and then you can put a data set or even even sort of qualitative information. Kevin: Well, I happen to know that Be embarrassed to show you guys my lawn, but the, uh, like I happen to know I'm in a high clay area and like, I don't really know what that means, but like, you, if you feed all of this in, you could come up with a very practical micro guide that's very effective without necessarily having to do the whole lift of, of, of doing the brain dump. Kevin: Of everything, you know, about high clay environments. Um, you could use the AI as your assistant to relatively rapidly output that information. So, I mean, honestly, that's, that's very practical. Like anybody listening to this. If you're that hypothetical Peoria, Illinois, like provider, you should totally do this. Kevin: There's SEO value to that, like as far as having content that, that a local, like long care tips in Peoria, you know, right now you might actually find, if you were to type that in, there are all of the dynamically generated, like SEO articles about there that do that. But that's kind of crap content on the inside. Kevin: If you have authority as somebody who's in that community. Plus, you know, being a professional organization there, plus offering this micro content that's useful to people. You wouldn't have bothered before this. Now you can do it. You can do it this in like a half an hour. Like this is, it's, it's way easier than it, than it would have been. Kevin: And. Is it going to change your business, but is it going to, on the edges, allow you to build out just this, this corpus of credibility that, that in a very SEO sort of way can follow you over the years? Yeah, that's very plausible. Wow, this  Andy: is really hands on. I mean, I think we could, there could be a ton of value in actually doing a live workshop that could be recorded for people to see later, but take similar businesses, i. Andy: e. irrigation, contracting companies that number one, all have to have a website. I'll know exactly the type of work that they do and all know exactly their, who their best customer ideally is create some content, you know, copy pasted onto their blog, you know, know what the traffic is now. And then over. Andy: let's say three, six months, what happens after the end of six months? Could we get a cohort together that becomes like number one ranked in all of their local areas through a quick training demo seminar?  Kevin: There's value in that. I think that'd be  Andy: fun. Wow. Okay. Well, we can't show people actually how to use chat GPT today, but I love how you talked about some of the context because I feel like that's what I've had to learn the most about is not just asking it a simple question, but creating that frame. Andy: Um, and believe it or not, I learned it from my son, who was apparently was taught how to use this in college, and he's a computer science major, and you know, he uses it actually to correct some of his code when it doesn't work, uh, among other things, but he was the one that taught me you got to basically, you know, tell it who it is, what its job is, all those sorts of things to frame it. Andy: Which I had no idea about and I think that a lot of people may use again Just chat GPT and then say, you know, I tried it, but it didn't give me the results. So yeah,  Kevin: I'm done And so let's let's wrap a little bit of truth practical other practical ways that I think that everybody should be using it and cool, it's you know ranging from just dead simple to much more complicated but the Most simple bit is none of us have any excuse to have blank page syndrome again Like, some people are talented content creators. Kevin: A lot of people aren't. I am not. I, I actually can write, but it is an agonizing process for me. I'm not that guy who just can hammer something. And I have blank page syndrome. I sit there, I look at the page, and I kind of play with some words, and I'm like, eh. We  Andy: don't have that. Then your mind starts to hurt, and you'll go, eh, I'll, I'll try it again tomorrow. Andy: And then it's just repeat, repeat, repeat, and you never frickin do it.  Kevin: So now it's like I need to write a letter to X, Y, and Z client, and this is the sort of stuff that it can't contain, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and bam, you've got a draft. And then my art and my effort is spent on revising that draft and personalizing it and putting the me into that draft. Kevin: But I'm already, I've gone from zero to eight, like in 15 seconds or, you know, it's spending a little bit of time. Going back and forth with it working on tone, you know, bringing that down a little bit. So that's one It's just you you don't need blank page syndrome again Like you just start with something and then work them in related is a brainstorming partner is like Trying to isolate good ideas. Kevin: What's a bad omnipotent Personal assistant, um, next to you who knows everything about everything and occasionally lies to you, but they're very enthusiastic about it. So pretty cool to have like this brilliant thing that you can like bounce ideas off of and none of it's perfect, but boy, does it come up with some just interesting things, particularly if you, if it's like come 10 actionable headlines for this topic, like, oh, that's kind of interesting. Kevin: Like, Oh, that's neat. Let's explore this a little bit more. Um, also related. Um, you know, I think a lot of small companies struggle with creative design and creative development and are frankly beholden to a lot of creative like people and agencies out there that charge a lot of money for it. Being able to use this as sort of a creative designer assistant, again, you're not going to get to eight or nine in this case, if you're not already creative, but being able to use it to get to, you know, six, seven, eight, and like maybe script out a video or a piece of content and have an idea of what that's going to take to get it done. Kevin: Oh, you know, what sort of camera angles might I use? And then you walk into the conversation. with that creative partner, and you're way more equipped. You have a good idea of what the storyboard looks like and what it feels like. And then their art is layered on top of that because they don't know your business. Kevin: Like as much as we all love the idea of having a creative agency that knows everything about us, they're busy and they might know something about your business, but you will always know your business better than they will. So if you can kind of skip that phase and get to the, the, the creative production part. Kevin: That can be super, super useful, um, correcting documents, um, or assessing documents rapidly. Just, just being able to absorb information like in your guy's world, like every time a new regulation comes out or if, uh, you know, scholarly articles, if you're a real geek, you know, whatever it is, being able to rapidly ingest that information in a way that, that you just, you have it in your to do list. Kevin: Okay. Like I have family members who love to send me Atlantic articles. Like they're always like. 15 pages long and like, I just can't, I like don't have the bandwidth to read it. So I'll put the article in GPT. I'll summarize it. I'll frame who I am, uh, and like be able to come up with a summary that, uh, that, that, that is appropriate for who I am, that, and then I can decide if I'm going to engage in whatever, wow. Kevin: The first thing  Andy: I think of when you say that is, could we take, let's say the national plumbing code and use it to help understand what the requirements are for irrigators as it relates to the national plumbing code on what you can and can't do and what the laws and regulations are.  Kevin: Theoretically. Yeah, you could. Kevin: Wow. Your art. Don't forget your art. Like, you know, there's a code inspectors, like even you guys probably don't totally know, like, Where that line is, and it would make me a little nervous, um, to do that, but I bet you'd get some pretty meaningful output from it. Um, it would be an interesting test actually. Kevin: And just maybe  Andy: a summary format, like, Hey, can you summarize the national plumbing code and what irrigation companies should know are responsible for, you know, in a  Kevin: summary. So I literally did something like this. It was an OSHA regulation for scissor lift safety. And, um, I put in the OSHA reg and I asked it questions about like, this is not something I was doing as a hobby. Kevin: There's, I have a client who is in this world, just to be clear that I, yeah. You  Andy: weren't just going to rent a, yeah,  Kevin: a lift and go out there. But I was, I was, I was. Clean your windows. About like, you know, I have this situation, like there's a two 20, um, junction right here. Like how far away does the scissor lift need to be? Kevin: And it did an ad, it did a very good job. And I think let's think ahead a little bit. Well, what, like this is all cool. Right. But. Man, this is going to be powerful. Like you imagine that you're an onsite contractor and you've run into X, Y, and Z scenario, like right on your phone, like, Hey, I've run into this. Kevin: You know, there's a T junction of whatever flow rate. And how does this apply to, um, you know, the code of. Peoria, Illinois and flow rates that will yeah, no doubt about it. Right.  Andy: Exactly. So today, uh, we've got something called friction loss, uh, friction loss charts. So those listening likely know what a friction loss chart is. Andy: It'll tell you what the PSI loss is per hundred feet based on a specific flow rate and a specific pipe. And if somebody were out in the field today, it's very hard to have all of those things memorized. It's actually. probably impossible to have them all recalled in your head, but just to be able to ask, ask it, Hey, what's the PSI loss on 2. Andy: 5 inch PVC pipe or a hundred feet. Cause you want to make a change to your design. You need some quick engineering facts.  Kevin: Sounds interesting. That's going to be a thing. It will, it may already be like, that's, this is changing. So, so fast. I mean, I literally was in the middle of the presentation and when Andy and I were in Vegas and a new feature was released in GPT. Kevin: As I refreshed my screen, and I was like, Oh, that's new. Yeah, it's, it's very hard to keep up with. Um, and the possibilities are virtually endless. So, yeah. So what other things? So business businesses, you all have a bunch of customers. You could dump your customer data into it and ask it to visualize it and visualize where the clusters, you know, you have sales staff that are out and they're, they're covering things. Kevin: Um, It's a bit of a lift to do some sort of geographic sales analysis of how effective you're being. But if you dump the data in and you can tell it to visualize, um, where all your customers are, like almost do like word cloud type type. Deals, it'll do that. You can see that, you know, 85022, like you're doing really well in that zip code. Kevin: So kudos to that salesperson. But these other zip codes, you know, they're not, or maybe they have a lot of customers, but revenue is lower. Identify  Andy: opportunities. That was my next thought is I think that. Contractors probably have revenue per customer because that's the account. They may not have profitability per customer because they may not job cost down to that level of detail. Andy: But could you, you know, do what you just said? Say, show me geographically where, you know, a majority of our revenue comes from or where our profit comes from.  Kevin: You absolutely could, and easily, easily you could. Major caveat. You're putting your data out there, and you've got to decide if you care. Um, I have a very practical, uh, attitude about this. Kevin: That... There. The, the LLMs are not in the business of yielding your data, but there is evidence that they are porous at the moment. So if you put highly sensitive data in there that you know, the formula for Coke or something like that, it is possible that the MO model. maybe training itself on that. So if somebody somewhere then asks for the formula for Coke, um, since you've put it in there, it can connect the dots, but we're not talking about,  Andy: so you might not want to disclose the name or the address, but maybe just the zip code. Andy: And that might be good enough. The first column was a zip code.  Kevin: So, but I'm, I'm not too stressed about it. You can turn some of these tracking features off and the training features off. But somebody would have to. Like the data would have to be meaningful, right? That, that, that somebody would be interested in it and like be able to put it together and whatnot. Kevin: So know that and you're going to start to see micro LLMs develop. Um, I don't think in this scale of business so much, but in medium sized businesses, you're going to start to see captive this is just Kevin pontificating, but you're going to start to see captive LLMs such that they are walled. Such that the organization can play with the LLM, but it's not necessarily getting out into the corpus of the world. Andy: I mean, I think it, uh, you're right, is we don't know how the data could be used now, but if, if the engine, if that's what you call it, the, the machine ends up with, if everybody uploads all of their sales data by zip code, then potentially the machine knows where people are spending money on outdoor, you know, services. Andy: So if we had a new, business we wanted to sell into a brand new greenfield market. It's a startup and we could ask it, show me the areas that spend the most on irrigation systems and it could provide that to us. Then we would have a target on how to go sell holiday lights or ponds or landscape lighting or something else, patios. Kevin: Yeah, we could. And it's pulling from all kinds of different data sources as well. So, um, so other practical things. So let's talk about images.  Andy: I was gonna say, um, that's what I wanted to get into next, just briefly, because we are kind of running out of time. But could we talk a little bit about images? Andy: Sure,  Kevin: uh, so In much the same way that the language models can predict what word comes next, image models do the same thing on a pixel level. So they're predicting, based on their neural network, what could actually come out next. And this can allow you to enter prompts, in a similar way as GPT, into a model like MidJourney. Kevin: is, uh, the one that I prefer, but there's also Dolly, uh, stable diffusion. There's a few, a few others that are out there that allow you to visualize things. So here you've done your blog. Um, now you need, uh, an image to go along with the blog. You could go to Getty or one of the other image provider things and find a dude squatting next to a sprinkler. Kevin: Or you could ask the The image generator to come up with, you know, middle aged guy working on a sprinkler in their yard mountains in the background and come up with a plausible image that you can use very, very quickly. That's adapted to what you need on a professional and you and I did  Andy: this. Briefly, like with a five, a five minute, you know, demo. Andy: And I'm, I'm curious, do you still have the copy of that image that we created with  Kevin: AI? Which one that does the discord image? Yeah, I do.  Andy: Yeah. Cause maybe what we could do is if you could email that to me, I will, you know what, I may use it as the cover of this article. I'm not article, but of this podcast, uh, on sprinkler nerds so that you guys can see an example of an AI generated image that Kevin made with me with a couple prompts. Andy: So if we still have it, let's, let's  Kevin: pull it up on my screen. So it's, uh, yeah, cool. Um, so it's, it's like a guy, I think, what's the, what's the prompt? Let me read the prompt. It was, uh, If you're  Andy: listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify or something to see the cover art, I think you will need to go to this episode on sprinklernerd. Andy: com. That's where you'll see the actual graphic that Kevin's talking about.  Kevin: So the prompt is 30 year old energetic man checking a sprinkler in a deep green lawn. Nikon photorealistic and the trigger there is I'm trying to get it. It knows what a Nikon photorealistic image should look like, so it's not going to be some wild cartoon like, you know, psychedelic type thing. Kevin: It's trying to get it to be as real as possible. And sure enough, there's a guy squatting next to a sprinkler that is pretty well unusable. Now, from a processing perspective, you know, just let's just talk more work a day like you don't know what's going on. I, I've always advised, so I guest lecture on the stuff, um, entrepreneurship in general. Kevin: And I've always told my classes that, you know, you need to know basic Photoshop if you want to be a, a group by base level entrepreneur, because if you're not a creative person, you're going to be beholden to those agencies and it takes a long time, even if you're outsourced. So you're waiting for the student. Kevin: So things like practical things, like I need to remove a background. So, you know, I see Andy's logo behind him. I need, I need a transparency of this logo. Like there's an app for that, that, you know, for basically nothing. You can go to remove BG and it's going to pull out the background or image correction or image resizing. Kevin: And what you're going to see is a lot of these tools are going to be baked into the image processing software, like. Photoshop and Illustrator. Uh, I highly recommend if you're graphically oriented that you check out Adobe Firefly, uh, because it is magic. Like. I want a picture of a deer. Okay, now let's put the deer in an alley. Kevin: Oh, let's make the alley dark and add a sign over this door. And it's just on the fly creating all of this stuff. Which should make any graphic design oriented person tremble in their boots because... The most graphic designers make their, most of their income off of the stupid little stuff. The image correction and things. Kevin: It's not the big creative projects. And you're going to see that's going to be an industry that's going to be highly disrupted as a result of this. But yeah, even  Andy: Canva today is really disruptive, but not nearly what you're talking about. But Canva  Kevin: will implement this stuff too. So you can also do video voiceover. Kevin: I mean, be very afraid about voiceover and deep fake potential. Like we're not going to get political, but the next few years in this country should be very, very interesting. That way it's an election cycle and we're going to see all kinds of crazy stuff. And just to get, you know, philosophical for a second, we're going to end up in a place where you can't trust things and that's not a good place to be at all. Kevin: But just know that you can replicate your own voice in 15 minutes. Like I do a lot of podcasts, my voice is out there. So I had this bit of an epiphany and I called my, you know, 83 year old mother and I said, look, it is entirely possible that somebody could call you with my voice and try and get access to your bank accounts. Kevin: Like. That is actually possible right now and I gave her a safe word, like, you know, if you ever feel weirded out, whether or not it's actually me, um, just ask and, um, you know, we can verify, right? Don't say your safe  Andy: word. Don't say it. Andy: That's a great tip, actually. I think I'll, I'll, uh, with my family, come up with a safe word for all of us in the event that somebody does this. I think that's a really good  Kevin: tip. And it's awful, but people, it's already happening where people will get calls from their kids. I've been kidnapped. You need to send, you know, 10 grand right now. Kevin: Like that is happening. Now the positive side is like you're very soon you're going to have the ability to have these virtual customer service agents that can actually talk to people. Um, it's also terrifying, but. Like that's, let's just stay on the positive, right? That these are, these are, these, we are going to be able to offer such a personalized experience to our customers that we are going to just be able to blow them away. Kevin: Like when you, right now you're busy, you're running around, you got all your crews, you maybe have one person answering your phone, maybe you have nobody answering your phone. The phone can be answered. Chats can be responded to like, this is an whole aspect of practical applications that you, you all should be thinking about that. Kevin: How can I, how can I create a better experience on a creepy experience, but a better experience for my customer using some of these tools to get them to what they need instead of the endless frustrating, like back and forth. So, so  Andy: this might be a good point. Two are a good time for me to mention. I would like to run an experiment. Andy: So if you've made it to the end of the episode here, I would like to run an experiment based on what Kevin just said about personalization. And I think I would like to I'm kind of just spitballing this as as I go. I'd like to put a form on my website. So let's just say I'm going to go with sprinkler. Andy: com forward slash Ink Works, I N K W O R K S. Ink Works. I'm gonna put a form there with a few questions, including your address and when you fill out the form, I'm gonna use one of Kevin's projects, ink works.ai to send you a personalized letter handwritten from me based on the input, personalized based on the inputs that you enter in the form. Andy: How's that  Kevin: sound? That sounds awesome. So, and that's, that's my, and  Andy: I'm going to pay for it. It comes with a fee and that's Kevin's project right now, inkworks. ai. So I'd like to actually test it in real time with you guys listening and, um, you know, give you, give you a taste of what Kevin's  Kevin: working on. So we do, we're using, uh, LLM technology to interpret messages. Kevin: And then we're using pen wielding robots to handwrite notes. So, let's imagine you did a big landscaping project for a customer. Like, you know you should send them a thank you note. Or a Christmas card, or whatever it is. But you never get around to it, because it's, it's, it's time consuming. Um, using Inkworks, you can produce that letter. Kevin: And it comes out handwritten, absolutely unique. Um, I of course have them piled around here. They look like they're written by... And, um, it's remarkable efficacy and very ironic that I'm using multiple layers of AI to create something that's so highly personalized specifically because people are craving that personalization that we're all bombarded by all of this information constantly with emails and SMS and all this stuff and people just ignore it and it's just going to get worse as AI continues to advance. Kevin: Um, so. Ironically that my, one of the first toeholds I have is doing something analog with something amazingly complex.  Andy: So great. So great. Can't wait to run this experiment. Uh, on that note, you know, Kevin does, uh, coach businesses in this field. If you would like to, uh, hire Kevin to, you know, help you with your business, coach your employees, give you tips. Andy: How can somebody reach out to you, Kevin?  Kevin: Yeah, the easiest is, uh, Kevin at www. inkworks. ai. Um. Or I'm relatively easy to find on, on LinkedIn. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm out there.  Andy: Very cool. Very cool. And hopefully we can maybe find a time to do a little online training as well. And again, visit sprinkler. com forward slash inkworks and let's test out Kevin's software. Andy: I'm really excited to do that. And. You know, Kevin, I think that from all the people who I have met that are into AI and use the tool, I don't think I've met someone as knowledgeable as yourself, and I really appreciate you sharing  Kevin: this with us today. Thank you. I'm clearly passionate about it. This is the future, guys. Kevin: Okay,  Andy: well, until our next AI conversation. Thanks so much, Kevin. Have a great one.  

PromEvil Part 3:  "What a doll!" Trapped in Polk High with some kind of murderer, Hal, Lyn, Gee (and all the rest) must fight for survival!!  Find out who's doing the killing!    A lot of people put their heart and soul into producing this memorable event: STUDENTS Hal - Mathias Rebne-Morgan Lyn - Molly Tollefson Todd - Eli Nilsson Gee - Melissa Bartell Barb - Beverly Poole Andy - Mike Campbell Bud - Jasper Loovis Tina - Chandra Wade Missy - Jade Thomson Jake - Michael Faigenblum other students - Sky Iolta, Shelbi MacIntyre, Henry Mark FACULTY Principal Peabody - Reynaud LeBoeuf Mr. Ervin Carpel, Woodshop - Gene Thorkildsen Ms. Angela Wellesly, Crafts - Gwendolyn Jensen-Woodard Mrs. Snodgrass, Lunchroom - Robyn Keyes P.A. Announcements - Julie Hoverson Rent-a-cop Bob - The Caretaker OTHERS Cop 1 - Glen Hallstrom Cop 2 - Joel Harvey 911 Voice - Julie Hoverson STAFF Writer - Julie Hoverson Doll Wranglers - Julie Hoverson, Kimberly Poole (Warp'd Space) Sound and Mastering - Julie Hoverson Stock sound effects - Soundsnap.com; sonomic.com Music - Prom - Sinkhole Music - background - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ____________________________________________________________________   Prom Evil - part 3 PART 3 1. LOUNGE SOUND          MUFFLED PANICKED SLAMMING AT DOOR SCREAM MEDLEY BARB           [PANIC!] ANDY           [PANIC!] LYN            Do something! GEE            Help Me! HAL            Don't - don't come in here! BARB           [PANIC!] ANDY           [PANIC!] MUSIC   2. hallway [silence] BUD            DEATH RATTLE SOUND          TINY TAPPING FEET MOVE AWAY MAJORETTE      clicking SOUND          BLOOD DROPS MUSIC   3. lounge AMB - LOUNGE BARB / ANDY    [still screaming out in hall] LYN            That sounds like Barb!  Something terrible could be happening! GEE            We can dream. HAL            Shh.  I'll look.  Stay back. SOUND          DOOR QUIETLY OPENS SOUND          SCREAMING AND SLAMMING GETS LOUDER BARB           Get it open!  Let us out! ANDY           [just screaming hoarsely and incoherent] HAL            Hey?  Who's after-- SOUND          ANDY STOPS SLAMMING ON DOOR, TURNS AND SLAMS HAL INTO WALL ANDY           [attack noise] SOUND          SCUFFLE, LONG TEAR OF FABRIC HAL            Oof! SOUND          LYN RUNS OUT LYN            [worried] Hal?   [yelling] Stop it! Andy! GEE            Here! LYN            [to gee] Thanks! [yelling]  Stop it! SOUND          HITS HIM WITH GEE'S UMBRELLA BARB           [collapsing into tears] Have to get out! LYN            [calming] Shh, Barb!  [sharp] Andy!  Hal's on our side! SOUND          SCUFFLE, LETS GO. SOUND          STRAIGHTENING CLOTHING, MORE RIPPING HAL            Man, the drama club is gonna be pissed. ANDY           The drama club can kiss my ass.  We're locked in, you stupid fuck! HAL            Locked in?  But we just came in.  SOUND          A FEW STEPS, TRIES DOOR - LOCKED HAL            [worried but quiet] Hmm.  [deep breath, then up, trying to stay positive] What a time for the teachers to realize they left the darn door unlocked. LYN            [hopeful] D'you think that's what happened? HAL            [false confidence] Had to be.  Who else could have locked it? BARB           Maybe... the murderer? LYN            Oh, gosh, did you see it too? BARB           [becoming less coherent as she continues] Oh, man... she was dead, and it was all gross, and I was right there!  She was all making these disgusting noises, and I didn't even know she was being killed... LYN            [completely baffled] What? HAL            She needs to sit down. ANDY           [growls] I got this.  [softer] C'mon babe. MUSIC   4. hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          QUIET FOOTSTEPS TODD           [distant, whispered call] Laurel?  MAJORETTE      [close, clicking angrily] LAUREL         [clearly negative noise] [laurel is protecting todd from being attacked by the others] MAJORETTE      [CLICKS AWAY IN A HUFF] MUSIC   5. lounge AMB            LOUNGE LYN            We need to do something constructive.  Could we phone the Gym, maybe, and get someone to come unlock the door? GEE            Nah.  All the regular phones are turned off at night.  Too many calls to 1-800-H-O-T-T. HAL            How do you know that? GEE            [smug] I broke that story three weeks ago. ANDY           Man, we should find some weapons...if Barb's right, Tina only just died, so I bet the fucker's still around. SOUND          DOOR SLAMS OPEN BARB           [screams] TODD           The door's locked! ANDY           [yelling] Tell us something we don't know! HAL            [to Andy] Chill!  [to Todd] Last time I saw you, you were gibbering by the punch bowl... suddenly you're coherent-boy again.  What's up with that? TODD           It was awful, but...I... I just got over it.  That's all. LYN            Mr. Carpel and Missy?  We saw them too. TODD           [comes to a decision] You saw the bodies.  But... did you see the dolls? ANDY           Dolls?  What the fuck?   6. flashback TODD's FLASHBACK [NOTE:         Much of what Todd says is misleading, so some of what happens contradicts the Voice Over] TODD [VO]      I went to the Wood Shop this evening... [clearly lying] Mr. Carpel was expecting me. SOUND          LOCKPICKS, DOOR UNLOCKS TODD [VO]      The door was...uh...unlocked.  I opened it and... saw Mr. Carpel's body. TODD           [under] Ohmigod!  Laurel?  SOUND          DOLL FEET APPROACH LEDERHOSEN     [threatening noise] DUDE           huh-huh-huh TODD [VO]      And then THEY ran at me.  The DOLLS. TODD           [under, intrigued] You're... alive! SOUND          STICKY NOISE AS AWL IS PULLED OUT SOUND          SMALL FEET APPROACH MAJORETTE      [clicking and approaching] TODD [VO]      [choked up] They attacked me.  They knocked me down. SOUND          BODY DROP MONKEY HEAD    [screech] DUDE           [huh hu huh] MONKEY HEAD    [screech] SOUND          WOODEN THOK TODD           [under] Ow! SOUND          METAL BEING DRAGGED CLOSER TODD           [under] No, I don't--  Please!  I love you, Laurel! SOUND          THE DOLL NOISES CLOSE IN TODD           Ow! LAUREL         [sharp noise] SOUND          DOLL NOISES STOP SOUND          CREAK OF L's HEAD TURN LEDERHOSEN     [angry query] LAUREL         Uh-uh [no] TODD           [in the flashback] Laurel? LAUREL         [rueful noise] SOUND          ALL THE DOLLS RUN OFF DOWN THE HALL SOUND          TODD BREATHING.  SLOWLY GETS TO HIS FEET [End of flashback.]   7. lounge TODD           I don't know why they didn't kill me.  Maybe I'm just lucky...or they realized I wasn't any kind of threat. SOUND          STRUGGLE, BODY SLAMMED AGAINST WALL TODD           [gasp] ANDY           So YOU let them out, you little shit! LYN            Andy?  Andy!  [calming him] Weapons - like you were saying - is a really good idea.  [frantic, looking for support] Hal? HAL            Yeah!  C'mon, Andy.  We'll hit the-- GEE            Kitchen? HAL            Yeah, the kitchen!  You all stay here...it's safer in a group. BARB           [sullen] If it's safer in a group, why don't we ALL go? LYN            [under her breath]  Todd's in no shape to go anywhere.  We can't just leave him! BARB           [disgusted noise]  Fine. MUSIC   8. hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          METAL FILE SAWING ON METAL LEDERHOSEN     [EXASPERATED NOISE] SOUND          CHAIN SWINGS BACK AGAINST DOOR SOUND          SMALL WOODEN IMPACT AGAINST DOOR LEDERHOSEN     [snarl] SOUND          HIS FEET TAP AWAY MUSIC   9. kitchen AMB            KITCHEN SOUND          DOOR SLOWLY OPENS HAL            Hello? ANDY           Shh! HAL            [urgent whisper] The lights are on!  Someone must be in here! ANDY           Why aren't they saying anything? HAL            Cuz we're whispering?  [up, but cautious] Hello? SOUND          DOOR FARTHER OPEN, A COUPLE OF FOOTSTEPS HAL            Looks clear.  Come on. ANDY           Dude, I'm guarding the rear. HAL            Fine.  [sigh] SOUND          DOOR STARTS TO SWING SHUT, BUT IS STOPPED ANDY           [sniffs, then sharp] What's that?  HAL            Dunno.  Alcohol? ANDY           [long sniff]  Smells like bourbon.  [a bit happier]  Dude.  Just point me at it! SOUND          WALKS IN WITH CONFIDENCE HAL            We're not here for-- ANDY           [screams] SOUND          RUNNING FEET LEAVE HAL            What is it--?  Where?  Hello?  [angry sigh]  [muttered] I better see what-- SOUND          SLOW FOOTSTEPS HAL            [gasp]  Mrs. Snodgrass! SOUND          SCUFFLE, PATS, TRYING TO WAKE HER HAL            [revulsion noise]  Oh man! SOUND          TINY HANDS TAPPING ON GLASS HAL            [scared gasp] What the hell? DUDE           [muffled huh huhs rising] SOUND          FIRE IN THE OVEN HAL            [awed whisper]  Dolls.  MUSIC   10.         lounge AMB            LOUNGE SOUND          PACING SOUND          PAGE TURNS GEE            This is one weird book.  I can make out bits of it, but I think it's really old, and the words are all mixed up and spelled wrong... kinda like middle English.  Is there such a thing as middle French? LYN            Where are they? TODD           [duh] The Kitchen? LYN            Not them.  The police! SOUND          PAGES TURN BARB           [spacing out, talking to herself]  Andy is cute... TODD           Police?  [worried] Oh... GEE            The motivating...or maybe moving... of the ... unmoving? BARB           ...and he's pretty well off. SOUND          CHAIR SQUEAKS TODD           I have to go. SOUND          FOOTSTEPS - HIS AND LYN'S BARB           He would beat the crap out of someone for me. LYN            What? TODD           I have to go.  And... and get something. SOUND          PAGE TURNS GEE            [musing] Preparation of the mannequin? TODD           [lying] I... I think there's something in my... locker that I can use as a weapon. LYN            We need to stay together! GEE            [louder, but not in a different tone] Anointment of the offering. LYN and TODD    What? GEE            I think I mighta found something... Anointment of the offering.  [unsure] Maybe.  I REALLY need my dictionary.  SOUND          BOOK SLAPS SHUT GEE            [excited and a little creepy] And I want to see the bodies. MUSIC   11.         hallway AMB            HALLWAYS SOUND          FOOTSTEPS, WOODEN CLUNK ANDY           Don't tell 'em I was all getting sick back there, will ya? HAL            Huh? ANDY           With the dead lunch lady and all.  It'd make me look kinda ...you know. HAL            [exasperated]  Yeah, whatever.  It's our secret. MUSIC   12.         lounge LYN            Look!  Both of you!  Wait til they get back.  We don't know how many of them [not quite believing] ...the dolls... there are. TODD and GEE    Five. TODD           Why do you know?  GEE            Who do you think takes the photos for the annual? BARB           I thought you were a reporter for the nerdletter. GEE            [pissed] I wear many hats. LYN            Too bad we don't have the photos-- GEE            Oh, that's easy. SOUND          PURSE OPENED, CAMERA ON, BUTTONS PUSHED GEE            Oh, good.  I haven't overwritten them all. BARB           If that's a phone, can't we call--? GEE            It's not.  I prefer not to wear a tether. LYN            Let me see. GEE            Besides, where's your phone? BARB           [muttered] I dropped it...somewhere. TODD           Do you have one of Laurel - um, my project? GEE            You can look after Lyn's done. SOUND          CLICKING THROUGH PICS LYN            And these ...dolls are somehow up and running around? GEE            Shh!  [beat, then whispered] Something's coming! SOUND          VAGUE TAPPING, MUFFLED AND DISTANT LYN            Shit! SOUND          A MOMENT OF TENSE SILENCE TODD           [whispered] Can I see the camera? LYN            Ssh! SOUND          ANOTHER DISTANT WOODEN CLUNK LYN            There must be something in here we can fight with! BARB           Yeah, lotta pockets on a prom dress! GEE            Stand back. SOUND          DOOR THROWN OPEN SOUND          FEET GEE            Yaah! SOUND          THUMP OF UMBRELLA ANDY           Ow!  Crazy bitch!  That's my kicking leg! SOUND          STICK SWINGS, MISSES, SMACKS WALL LYN            Andy! HAL            Dude! GEE            [gleeful] Stee-rike! BARB           Andy?! SOUND          CLICKY HEELS DASH ACROSS THE ROOM, IMPACT, SOMETHING WOOD CLATTERS TO THE FLOOR BARB AND ANDY   [mushy kissing] HAL            Can you guys move that ... um... touching reunion out of the doorway?  I'd rather not just stand around in the hallway ...by myself... like this.  [sigh] TODD           [petulant] Can I see the camera, now? MUSIC   13.         punchbowl AMB            GYM, MUSIC, CROWD SOUND          PUNCHBOWL POURS PEABODY        What in heaven's name is all this, Angela? ANGELA         [snarky] Someone called the cops.  Again. PEABODY        If it's a question of the noise--? COP1           Sir, we had an emergency call-- PEABODY        [sigh]  Officer [reads] Trask?  You have to understand my position-- RENTACOP BOB    what's all this? PEABODY        sh-sh-sh. COP2           We received a report over 9-1-1 of a possible homicide in the school. PEABODY        A what? COP1           A possible double homicide. RENTACOP BOB    [huffy] Inside?  School's locked up tight.  Ain't nobody in there - live or dead. PEABODY        Calm down, Bob.  [to the cops]  May I make a suggestion, officers?  Prom night is a notorious time for practical jokes...and though I realize you MUST take any such report seriously-- COP2           We can't just-- PEABODY        Yes, yes.  I understand completely.  [confidential]  However, if we can prove to you that the building is secure, and there's no possible way anyone might have managed to get inside, will that be acceptable?  COP1           Well... COP2           As long as it's all locked up. PEABODY        You're more than welcome to return in the morning, when the school is open, to perform a thorough search.   14.         Hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          LOCKER SLAMS SHUT GEE            You coming? LYN            I'll watch the door. GEE            Hold these, then. SOUND          LOADS HER DOWN WITH BOOKS, UMBRELLA LYN            Oof! SOUND          TURNS ON CAMERA TODD           Don't erase the picture of Laurel! GEE            Chill, dweebula.  I have them all on my hard drive. TODD           Oh! SOUND          DOOR OPENS, CLOSES SOUND          ANOTHER NEARBY DOOR OPENS SOUND          CLANKING OF METAL - ROLLING OF HAND TRUCK ANDY           Sweet.  SOUND          CLICKING OF STRIKER ANDY           Nuke 'em from orbit! TODD           You're not going to burn them all, are you?  Not ... Laurel? HAL            Laurel? TODD           She's... it's... the doll I carved.  She wouldn't hurt anyone. ANDY           Well now they're all living, breathing Chuckeys, and I say fry every last one of them. SOUND          STRIKES THE STRIKER MENACINGLY ANDY           [explosion noise] TODD           [Weakening] No! ANDY           No, that's "Nooooooo" [bruce willis running scream] [chuckles] HAL            Let's focus on getting out of here.  Gee? LYN            In... there. SOUND          WHEELING OF HAND TRUCK ANDY           I'll take the big truck.  You get the value menu. HAL            Whatever. SOUND          HAND TRUCK PARKS, FEET MOVE, DOOR OPENS A CRACK HAL            Gee? GEE            [muttering] This is just like that game I was in last week... HAL            What? GEE            Just thinking... Extreme case of short-timer's curse. LYN            What? GEE            Poor bastard was this close to retirement. MUSIC   15.         Outside AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          FEET ON GRAVEL COP2           Are you sure this Mr. Carpel isn't in the building?  His name was given as one of the victims. PEABODY        Ervin Carpel?  Nonsense...he's already turned in his building keys.  We had to let him go, you see.  As of the end of the school year.  His safety record was ... unsatisfactory. COP1           So he might have a good reason to participate in a prank?  I see. MUSIC   16.         Hallway outside wood shop AMB            HALLWAY ANDY           So do we just wait for those tiny sons-of-birches to come to us? SOUND          DOOR OPENS, FEET COME OUT GEE            Now I need a place to do some reading. MUSIC   17.         Outside, parking lot AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          POLICE CRUISER DRIVES AWAY RENTACOP BOB    I'll go take a look around.  No problem. PEABODY        [dismissively] Nonsense.  No reason to justify our merry degenerates by taking their ploy seriously. SOUND          THEY WALK MR. PEABODY     We can perform a complete walk-through before we open the school in the morning to make sure there are no ... surprises.   18.         Hallway AMB            HALLWAY SOUND          SNEAKING FOOTSTEPS, SQUEAK OF HAL's SNEAKERS HAL            [cautious, but trying to be heard]  Hello?  [louder, but still muffled]  Hellllooo? SOUND          FEET AND VOICE STOP, LISTEN SOUND          DISTANT TAPPING HAL            Oh, shit.  [sucks in a breath, up]  Hello? SOUND          ONE FOOTSTEP TODD           Which one is it? HAL            [completely stunned]  Yah!!!   [coming down]  Oh, shit!  Todd! TODD           Why are you in the polky costume? HAL            I have my reasons.  Get your ass back to the craft shop. TODD           I'll... uh... watch your back? HAL            [quiet] I don't trust you. TODD           Why not? HAL            Forget it.  Look, just stay the hell out of my way or I'll run your ass over. TODD           I can run. HAL            I'll bet. SOUND          SNEAKING FEET BEGIN MUSIC   19.         Craft shop AMB            CRAFT SHOP LYN            [pleased]  Oh!  There it goes!  I thought it would never warm up. GEE            I told you it would just take some time.  A kiln isn't a microwave. BARB           Oh, Andy, you're so strong and protective. GEE            [quiet gagging noise]  You guys!  Someone made that quilt, and they won't appreciate you getting it all sticky. LYN            Anything? GEE            Apart from nausea? LYN            The book? GEE            Well, I'm pretty sure this is the "spell" he used to animate the dolls.  I may even have a clue why they turned on Carpel... the spell says the master's supposed to carve the dolls himself.  LYN            Todd says... Todd?  Oh, hell, where'd he get to? ANDY           Dumbass wants to get himself killed, who are we to stop him? SOUND          IDLY CLICKING THE STRIKER GEE            Anyway, there's this other incantation thing which... [very dubious] if I'm reading this right... should make them freeze back up. LYN            [plaintive] You're not sure? GEE            I'm having to make a lot of guesses, here. The dictionary just don't cover everything. I mean, the incantation isn't even FRENCH... just... gibberish, far as I can tell. MUSIC   20.         Hallways TODD           I heard something over there! HAL            Stay the hell back! TODD           Do you have a plan? HAL            Well, it was to sneak up on them, but there's this person talking. TODD           Oh. SOUND          FOOTSTEPS SOUND          [DISTANT] SCRATCHING NOISES MONKEYHEAD     [distant] annoyed screech TODD           Do dolls make noise? HAL            I'm dressed as a giant purple polka-dot.  Do I look like an expert? TODD           Uhh... HAL            Shh! SOUND          SNEAKING STEPS MONKEYHEAD     screech, closer TODD           Soon as you see it, tell me-- SOUND          RUNNING FEET, GOING AWAY TODD           What it looks like... MUSIC   21.         punchbowl AMB            GYM ANGELA         Bob?  Can you do something? RENTACOP BOB    [swaggering]  I can do anything.  Whatcha need? ANGELA         Marge went into the building for something, and she's been gone for just ages.  [simpering]  Could you go and look for her?  As long as I'm stuck at the punch bowl, I can't even get in one itsy bitsy weensy dance. RENTACOP BOB    I gotcha covered, babe.  [clears his throat]  That was a quote.  Not meant in any sort of harassing way.  ANGELA         I understand.  SOUND          DOOR OPENS, HE GOES OUT AMB            RAIN, CRICKETS BOB            I'll check it out, but first...  [chuckles] MUSIC   22.         hallway SOUND          PELTING FOOTSTEPS TODD           [breathless] wait!  I need to know if it's Laurel! HAL            [panting, stays ahead] [yelling] Get ready!! SOUND          DOOR OPENS, AHEAD LYN            Come on! HAL            [gasping mutter] God I hope this works. [up] Out of the way! SOUND          BATTERS THROUGH DOOR LYN            Over here! SOUND          LID OPENS TODD           [still outside] No!  Check first! SOUND          DOOR SHUTS SOUND          POUNDING ON DOOR GEE            Do it quick!  We have to know if this will work! SOUND          RUSTLE OF HEAVY FABRIC, CLATTER OF WOOD MONKEYHEAD     [SCREECH] SOUND          POUNDING OF WOOD ON METAL TODD           [from outside]  Don't leave me out here by myself! GEE            [to him] Just a sec!  Come on! LYN            It's climbing out! HAL            [groan, slump] MUSIC   23.         Parking lot AMB            OUTSIDE SOUND          RUMMAGING IN STUFF RENTACOP BOB    [chuckles] Not on MY watch. SOUND          ZAPZAP OF TASER.  PUT IN CASE. RENTACOP BOB    Little shits deserve a scare. SOUND          REVOLVER CYLINDER SPINS, GUN INTO HOLSTER RENTACOP BOB    Let's see your little pranks now. SOUND          TRUNK SLAMS HUT SOUND          FEET SET OFF ACROSS GRAVEL MUSIC   24.         Craft shop LYN            Oh!  [noise as she smacks the doll]  Uh!  Uh! UH!!! MONKEYHEAD     [SCREECH, dwindling] SOUND          IT FALLS BACK, SHE SLAMS LID! LYN            [Breathing heavily]  Done. SOUND          DOOR OPENS, TODD RUNS IN, DOOR SHUTS TODD           Noooo! GEE            Did yours have a monkey's head? TODD           Huh?  [gasp of relief] No!  Ahhh. LYN            You could have helped. HAL            I - I don't.... LYN            Oh no!  He's bleeding! BARB           [screams] END OF PART 3  

Andy Well's grew up in an evangelical Christian home, and embraced his love of God, and Jesus. Problems started to arise when Andy realized he was attracted to men, and the church and family values that he was indoctrinated in, told him Homosexuality was wrong. In this utterly absorbing episode, Andy tells us about his years in denial, his failed conversation therapy, and his double life, and all the quilt and shame that came with it. Finally, Andy realized that there was a world where he could retain his christian faith, and come out as a gay man! Join us on an amazing journey as Andy navigates his faith, sexuality, alcoholism, and self esteem issues. We love this episode so much, and Andy we are happy you are here to tell your story to help others!Links from Andy:Site: www.triedtobestraight.comAmazon (for the book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09D8KNLXFAInstagram, TikTok, and Youtube: @triedtobestraightSupport the show

Highlights from this episode include:  Key market drivers that are causing Cloud Comrade's clients to containerize applications — including the role that the global pandemic is playing.   The pitfalls of approaching cloud migration with a cost-first strategy, and why Andy doesn't believe in this approach.  Common misconceptions that can arise when comparing cloud TCO to on-premise infrastructure. How today's enterprises tend to view cloud computing versus cloud-native. Andy also mentions a key requirement that companies have to have when integrating cloud services. Andy's thoughts on build versus buy when integrating cloud services at the enterprise level. Why cloud migration is a relatively safe undertaking for companies because it's easy to correct mistakes. Why businesses need to re-think AI and to be more realistic in terms of what can actually be automated.  Andy's must-have engineering tool, which may surprise you. Links: Cloud Comrade LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloud-comrade/ Follow Andy on Twitter: @andywaroma Connect with Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyw/ TranscriptEmily: Hi everyone. I'm Emily Omier, your host, and my day job is helping companies position themselves in the cloud-native ecosystem so that their product's value is obvious to end-users. I started this podcast because organizations embark on the cloud naive journey for business reasons, but in general, the industry doesn't talk about them. Instead, we talk a lot about technical reasons. I'm hoping that with this podcast, we focus more on the business goals and business motivations that lead organizations to adopt cloud-native and Kubernetes. I hope you'll join me.Emily: Welcome to The Business of Cloud Native. I'm Emily Omier, your host, and today I'm here with Andy Waroma. Andy, I just wanted to start with having you introduce yourself.Andy: Yeah, hi. Thanks, Emily for having me on your podcast. My name is Andy Waroma, and I'm based in Singapore, but originally from Finland. I've been [unintelligible] in Singapore for about 20 years, and for 11 years I spent with a company called SAP focusing on business software applications. And then more recently, about six years ago, I co-founded together with my ex-colleague from SAP, a company called Cloud Comrade, and we have been running Cloud Comrade now for six years and Cloud Comrade focuses on two things: number one, on cloud migrations; and number two, on cloud managed services across the Southeast Asia region.Emily: What kind of things do you help companies understand when you're helping with cloud migrations? Is this like, like, a lift and shift? To what extent are you helping them change the architecture of their applications?Andy: Good question. So, typically, if you look at the Southeast Asian market, we are probably anywhere between one to two years behind that of the US market. And I always like to say that the benefit that we have in Southeast Asia is that we have a time machine at our disposal. So, whatever has happened in the US in the past 18 months or so it's going to be happening also in Singapore and Southeast Asia. And for the first three to four years of this business, we saw a lot of lift and shift migrations, but more recently, we have been asked to go and containerize applications to microservices, revamp applications from monolithic approach to a much more flexible and cloud-native approach, and we just see those requirements increasing as companies understand what kind of innovation they can do on different cloud platforms.Emily: And what do you think is driving, for your clients, this desire to containerize applications?Andy: Well, if you asked me three months ago, I probably would have said it's about innovation, and business advantage, and getting ahead in the market, and investing in the future. Now, with the global pandemic situation, I would say that most companies are looking at two things: they're looking at cost savings, and they are also looking at automation. And I think cost savings is quite obvious; most companies need to know how they can reduce on their IT expenditure, how they can move from CAPEX to OPEX, how they can be targeting their resources up and down depending on the business demand what they have. And at the same time, they're also not looking to hire a lot of new people into their internal IT organization. So, therefore, most of our customers want to see their applications to be as automated as possible. And of course, microservices, CI/CD pipelines, and everything else helps them to achieve that somewhat. But first and foremost, of course, it's about all services that Cloud provides in general. And then once they have been moving some of those applications and getting positive experiences, that's where we typically see the phase two kicking in, going into cloud-native microservices, containers, Kubernetes, Docker, and so forth.Emily: And do you think when companies are going into this, thinking, “Oh, I'm going to really reduce my costs.” Do you think they're generally successful?Andy: I don't think in a way that they think they are. So, especially if I'm looking at the Southeast Asian markets: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and perhaps other countries like Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia, it's a very cost-conscious market, and I always, also like to say that when we go into a meeting, the first question that we get from the customers, “How much?” It is not even what are we going to be delivering, but how much it's going to cost them. That's the first gate of assessment. So, it's very much of an on-premise versus clouds comparison in the beginning.And I think if companies go in with that type of a mindset, that's not necessarily the winning strategy for them. What they will come to know after a while is that, for example, setting up disaster recovery systems on an on-premise environment, especially when a separate location is extremely expensive, and doing something like that on the Cloud is going to be very cost-efficient. And that's when they start seeing cost savings. But typically, what they will start seeing on Cloud is a process cost-saving, so how they can do things faster, quicker, and be more flexible in terms of responding to end-user demands.Emily: At the beginning of the process, how much do you think your customers generally understand about how different the cost structure is going to be?Andy: So, we have more than 200 customers, and we have done more than 500 projects over the six years, and there's a vast range of customers. We have done work with companies with a few people; we have done companies with Fortune 10 organizations, and everything in between, in all kinds of different industries: manufacturing, finance, insurance, public sector, industrial level things, nonprofits, research organizations. So, we can't really say that each customer are same. There are customers who are very sophisticated and they know exactly what they want when going to a cloud platform, but then there are, of course, many other customers who need to be advised much more in the beginning, and that's where we typically have tools and processes in place where we can assess what is the right proposed strategy for our customers. And then we discuss these ideas in our workshops, and then let the customer decide what will be the best way for them forward, [unintelligible] cost, timelines, and then also potential product risks.Emily: Are there any common themes around things that companies tend to not understand correctly, or misconceptions that let's say, just come up often; maybe not all the time, but frequently?Andy: Yeah. I think the most common misconception is that we work a lot with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and other cloud platform providers. And typically, when customers are looking to migrate across, they might have virtualized their on-premise environment, and they're looking at the virtual machine to virtual machine cost comparison: how much does it cost them to run one virtual machine on on-premise versus running it on clouds. And when they do that, usually the TCO calculations, they will start breaking down the cost the customer's not taking into consideration all the security that they get with these cloud platforms, the network aspects of it, the compliance aspects, like for example, compliance certifications, regulatory aspects, and all of these things. So, if the customer was to a total TCO of what they're getting on cloud versus what they're getting on their on-premise environment, then they would actually see the huge cost-saving benefits that they are getting. But, at the moment, many of the customers just look at virtual machine to virtual machine comparison, which in our opinion, is wrong.Emily: So, it can be really hard for companies to do this, sort of, apples to apples comparison because they're not taking everything into account?Andy: Yeah, to be fair to them, many times you only start getting some of those benefits, of Cloud if you completely decommission your on-premise data center, but if you still the on-premise data center costs and you have to cloud costs, then you can't fully exploit the benefits of Cloud.Emily: Do you see any common misconceptions related to how you would have answered three months ago, where related to innovation, or agility?Andy: I think we have seen a huge influx of projects coming to us right now, and I see that a lot of companies who have been sitting on the fence in the previous years, they have now realized that the economic situation is changing very, very rapidly. And it doesn't matter if they have been the market leader, or one of the challengers, they need to do something. And previously, many companies felt that the best approach would be to go to, maybe, one of the large consulting providers, and just get something from them regardless of the price, or alternatively, go and shop around with 10, 15, 20 different vendors and try and squeeze the best price out of them, and [unintelligible] the implementation at the lowest possible cost. I think now, with the pandemic and economic situation, I feel that many companies have been rationalizing their IT strategy, their strategy they're suspending, and what they are doing is that they are trying to find what is the most suitable vendor given the current situation, forego lengthy RFP processes, do something quickly on Cloud, do some kind of TOC, if it looks good for them, then let's just get going, don't waste internal resources, don't waste external resources, and try to achieve something quickly.Emily: Do you feel like, in general, your clients tend to understand the difference between just cloud computing and cloud-native?Andy: Um, I think that definition is probably hazy. I think it's probably also maybe somehow hazy for me, [laughs], and I think in some cases, the cloud platform providers want to keep it that way as well. Typically, the customers that we are dealing with is relatively traditional enterprises, and we always advise them that rather than doing a lot of transformation on on-premise first, why don't we just help you to lift and shift and move you to cloud, and once you're on Cloud, you can start doing all kinds of experimentation there with cloud-native services. And it's not just about moving these companies to cloud-native services, which have certain benefits, like for example, serverless technologies that reduces the costs a lot, it also requires the companies to have a pretty clear understanding of their internal processes, and then also, critically, an understanding of the roles and responsibilities within those organizations because when you start deploying software and applications in a different way onto a cloud platform, the technology is one part of it, but the process and people is the other part of it, and if the organizations internally are not ready to change the process, they won't be able to reap the benefits of cloud-native services, otherwise.Emily: And how challenging do you think it is for companies to do the sort of, organizational work to match this sort of change in the way they work together with a different technology?Andy: I think it is very challenging, and we see a big skill gap there. Many companies, even large companies, they might have issues of attracting talent. And typically, one of the reasons is that even if the companies are wanting to do something on Cloud, they typically choose one Cloud Platform only, and many IT people who are wanting to get into this space or wanting to be in cloud computing. They don't want to focus just on one cloud platform. They want to be focused on multiple different platforms, and they want to understand what are the differences between, let's say, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other providers, and that's why people who are really skilled, they probably end up in consulting companies like ours and other companies. And that's, I believe, is the whole reason of our existence is that many companies cannot do these things in-house, and therefore, they would like to outsource the initial work, and then also the ongoing work terms of managed services to the companies like us.Emily: Do companies often ask you, “Should we build this internally? Should we outsource this for somebody else to do? Should we buy a tool that does this automatically?” Is that a question that they have, and how do you sort of evaluate an answer?Andy: [unintelligible] this depends a little bit on the industry. So, for example, there are a number of so-called unicorns, in the region, and these companies have very big IT departments, in-house development department, in-house, they might have thousands of developers, and they feel that the best way for those companies to create differentiation in the market is to build by themselves. But we deal also with a lot of, like I mentioned before, with traditional manufacturing companies, for instance, and there they will go for packaged applications such as SAP, Oracle, .NET applications, and I think that's the best approach for them, rather than start building something in-house, which would not necessarily make sense for them, given the fact that these costs are not in IT industry, but they are in, let's say, in food and beverages industry. But they've certainly built, and like to build some services on top of those traditional software packages, and analytics and analytical reports, for example, predictive forecasting, and that's something that will bring about uniqueness to their organization, to their process, and competitive advantage. And that are mostly things that they're exploring on the Cloud, and weighing those options for that make sense to buy something prebuilt, or develop it in-house, or outsource it to some organization.Emily: What do you think your clients tend to be pleasantly surprised about? What ends up being a lot easier than they expect?Andy: First of all, IT has always been notorious for failed projects. There has been too many of those, and if you look at Cloud implementations, we really haven't had any. I think Cloud is safe in the sense that even if you have estimated, these are the compute requirements, or the storage requirements, or whatever it might be at the initial phase, and it turns out that assessment is wrong, then it's very easy to actually rectify that, and change the services, and if we brought up, let's say, an SAP on a certain types of instances and two days later, we find out that no, this instance was too big or too small, we can easily go and change that. That also, if I'm taking that SAP example, SAPs customers are typically wanting to move to SAP HANA at some point of the time, but they're unsure whether that makes sense for them from the organizational point of view and business point of view, and we tell them that why don't you just move to Cloud, and then we can provision new instances with SAP HANA. We can migrate your test environment to an SAP HANA environment, and then you can give it a go. So, Cloud allows you to do a lot of this experimentation, which then leads back to the pleasant surprise that there aren't really any failed IP projects, or even if they are failures, the failures are quite minute compared to some of the IT failures they might have seen in the past.Emily: Interesting. That's a pretty big upside.Andy: Definitely it is, and we have had some tough, difficult implementations in the past, big migration projects, but with the [unintelligible] from the customer side, and also internal resources, we have always been able to overcome them. And then, even if things are heated at some point of time, usually at the end of the day, the final project sign-off meetings are relatively pleasant and joyous.Emily: Do you see a major difference in strategy by industry? So, a technically sophisticated company versus a traditional manufacturing company, are they going to follow dramatically different strategies to build competitive advantage using technology?Andy: Mmm. So, we are really focused on the infrastructure, so when it comes to infrastructure, mine services, [security mine] services, and I'm looking at the infrastructure layer, typically the customers either just choosing to use something on Linux was choosing to use something on Windows. Maybe they use some server technologies and others, but from that point of view, you can't really tell, if you're looking to a customer's cloud console, whether they are a manufacturing company, or whether they are a finance organization. So, in that sense, there is no difference. Where the differences come in, though, is that we, for example, look at financial industries like banks, and insurance companies, that's where the governmental rules, and regulations, and compliance comes in, and there's a lot of paperwork outside of the cloud implementations that need to be done. There's a lot of guidelines that we need to follow, how to provision the infrastructure to be compliant to, let's say, banking or insurance regulations. That's one industry which is different from the others. Healthcare in the US, for example, there is HIPAA compliance, so how HIPAA compliant applications need to be built all the way from ground up, so that's also a significant difference. Third one is public sector. And so, like I mentioned before, almost half of our business is coming from public sector, and that's where, for instance, security, and compliance is extremely important, and it sometimes almost goes overboard to a certain extent, but I can understand why. And the security and networking requirements are extreme, and that's probably, for me, the most different industry out of all of them, customer-based that we have. And then the last one is multinational companies. Multinational companies have to adhere to their own IT policies, and audit requirements and they also have, many times, a lot of requirements that are relatively unique that they need to follow. Those are also different types of projects from the rest of them. Whether it's a media company, whether it's a manufacturing company, whether it's a research company or organization, I don't see too much differences in the way that they put the demands, and requirements on the infrastructure platform.Emily: And what do you say is something that your clients sometimes come to you looking for help with, that you still, kind of, don't have a great answer for?Andy: Machine learning. AI. A lot of companies talk about it, a lot of companies have been pitched about it, a lot of companies come to us, and said we want to do a machine learning project, and I said, “Well, fine. But what do you want to get out of those machine learning algorithms, and what do you want to build?” And essentially, once you start drilling down, what they want to have is this one red button when they press, and everything else can happen magically underneath to resolve all of their business problems. And I think all of us know that that's not how machine learning works. That's not how AI works, or at least it doesn't work like that right now. So, the expectations that vendors are setting what can be done with machine learning and AI, I think need to be revised. And also, customers need to be a bit more realistic in terms of the expectations what can be automated, what can be done through these new technologies versus what they've been doing in the past.Emily: Basically, if you want machine learning, you have to know it won't answer all of your questions. You have to know what you want answered, otherwise, you're not even asking the right questions.Andy: Pretty much. And also, machine learning, just like, also, analytics is that you require vast data sets that need to be ready from the organization, and the data sets need to be relatively clean as well, otherwise, it's hard to come up with models that are accurate, and the old fashioned saying of garbage in, garbage out is also very true, not just in analytics space, but also in the machine learning space.Emily: Is there anything else that you'd like to add about the topic of cloud-native and what companies get out of it in a business sense?Andy: I believe that we are living right now in 2020 in a very unique time, and at some point of time, when we start looking back, maybe in a few years from now, we'll start seeing that actually cloud-native started rocketing and taking off like no one expected in this year, is right now, it's happening. Every company is focusing on it one way or the other, and I think those companies that are taking advantage in this difficult economic times will be the winners once we come out of this economic and pandemic situation.Emily: I've actually heard that sentiment from many people, so that makes me think it's probably correct. Oh, my last question for you—I almost forgot—what is your can't-live-without engineering tool? So, is there a tool that you would find it difficult to impossible to do your job without?Andy: It still, after 30 years, its email. So, from that point of view it's, you know—but if I'm looking at our team, and what they're really focusing on right now, so working on things, like for example, Terraform, or an AWS site on CloudFormation tools, and that brings about automation. And the difficulty, sometimes, in Cloud is that there's so many different things that you can do. So, customers have a perception, when they go to Cloud, they do a one-off project, and then they're kind of done and dusted, and off they go and think about the next thing, but there's new services coming in all the time, and there is drift that happens on the cloud platform in terms of security, and ports, and network settings, and instances that gets loaded up and everything else, so you can only manage the cloud platform if you manage the [unintelligible] to automation. And I think that some of the [conflict] tools right now for us are starting to become tools like Terraform, from HashiCorp, CloudFormation from AWS, and similar kind of services from Google, and Microsoft that allows us to keep the platform in the kind of a compliance that the customer originally intended the platform to be.Emily: Where could listeners connect with you, or follow you?Andy: We have a pretty strong presence on LinkedIn. So, if you just search for Cloud Comrade on LinkedIn. So, that's where we post news about our industry, and our company, and our people, and our customers on a daily basis, and I would be looking forward to also connecting with your listeners.Emily: Well, thank you so much, Andy. That was very interesting to learn about what you do, and the types of companies that you work with, and what the Southeast Asian market, kind of, looks like.Andy: Thank you so much, Emily, for your invitation.Emily: Thanks for listening. I hope you've learned just a little bit more about the business of cloud native. If you'd like to connect with me or learn more about my positioning services, look me up on LinkedIn: I'm Emily Omier, that's O-M-I-E-R, or visit my website which is emilyomier.com. Thank you, and until next time.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Hello and welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast. It's Martine here, thank you so much for joining me. Today, I'm excited to bring you an interview with a very nice man called Andy Sammons. Martine: Andy, welcome to the show. Andy: Hi, nice to be on. Martine: It's very nice to have you here. Why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners? Andy: I've been teaching for seven or eight years in secondary school as an English teacher. I've been a main scale teacher, worked towards being a lead teacher, a lead practitioner. I've coordinated from key stages three up to five, I've worked as a second in English, as well as now as a head of English. Everything was pretty much plain sailing for the first few years, it was fantastic. It was only last academic year where things really got difficult for me, and that's what's let me down this path of focusing more on well-being and teacher psychology, and things like that. As a result of that, I decided to put my ideas down into a book, and luckily someone's been mad enough to take it up and publish it for me. That's why I'm talking in this space and beginning to operate in this space as well because I am really interested in teachers' mental health and well-being. Martine: Fantastic. Well, it's really nice to have you on the show. In today's episode we're going to be talking about poor mental health amongst teachers, and it's something that I'm really passionate about in terms of helping teachers improve their well-being, and their work-life balance. That's how we got chatting really because we have that in common, I think, don't we? Andy: Yeah. Martine: Tell me, what's going on with this wave of poor mental health that we seem to be seeing amongst teachers and trainers at the moment? Why is this happening? Andy: I think it's an interesting question. I feel I'm in a pretty decent place to answer that because over the last seven years or so I think that the profession that I now see, and I am experiencing is completely different to the one I came into seven years ago or so, it really is. I think, not to blame the government completely about this, but it ties into austerity and the coalition government, and all the rest of it, if you think about a broader political and economic narrative. I think when I spoke to Emma Keller about this for the book she said, we were talking about this seven years ago when we were all starting to go on strike over pay and pensions, and I suppose back then I was just too much in love with teaching to realize what was going on, but I think what we've seen is since then, the last seven years, a really so slow process of attrition, of wearing away, of accountability, of squeezing over funding, and that kind of divorce of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I think all of these things has now reared its head in manifest in the numbers leaving and the recruitment problems we're seeing. What I think this happened is a lot of the underlying factors ... because teaching if you do it properly it's really quite a stressful job, at any level there's no escape from that, but I think what's happened is a number of the contextual factors have unearthed a lot of that stress, and have brought it to the surface a bit more. I think the reason we're beginning to see the narrative now around even Ofsted mentioning now about work load and manageability, and even the new Ofsted framework, for example, about not just outcomes, but about the curriculum I think in some way indirectly or directly that's a response to what we're seeing to make the profession less toxic, I suppose, in lots of places. I think what we've got is we've got a combination of things, which are now slowly starting to come together and that's why we are starting to hear more about it than before. Actually, I think things feel like they're coming to a bit of a head at the moment. Martine: I think even though I'm based in Guernsey in the Channel Islands and my government is different to your government, but my government is often influenced by the things that your government does, so I can certainly relate to what you're saying about everyone feeling a bit squeezed. Ultimately, the people in charge are wanting more for less, and the people that impacts on are the teachers because we do not want it to impact on our learners, so I know exactly what you're saying. Andy: No. The other thing of course, is not to generalize too much, but I think people go into teaching because they have a love of either teaching young people, or they have a love of teaching or their subject itself. There's something intrinsically passion focused there, I think, for people to go into teaching and education. I think if you're going to put such squeezed accountability measures on people, of course there should be accountability, but if you take it to the level that I think some places seem to be then I think that's misappropriating what accountability is for because actually if you want to improve your share price for a company that's a certain context that works for that context to generate a profit, but improving people's lives in the way that education is attempting to do and needs to do that's more nuanced than just an outcome in any way you measure just an outcome. I think what's happened, certainly, in the last 7/8 years or so is that this drive for measures, and this drive for proof is actually having a profoundly damaging effect on teachers, and the profession itself is well. That's my feeling on it. Martine: Definitely. That's evidenced by the numbers of people leaving the profession very early on in their careers. It makes it so tragic when you say about that intrinsic motivation to help people, and to help young people and learners, and things like that. Then, for them to get into their dream job and go, "You know what? I just can't hack this, this is too much," that's just really tragic. Andy: What you say there's really interesting actually because a lot of research I've been doing recently is that actually the people leaving the profession, age isn't a particular predictor of people leaving the profession, it's not so much young people, or old people. The real correlation is a lack of experience, so most people seem to be leaving within the first three years of starting teaching. Martine: That doesn't surprise me. Andy: Which is says something about, in terms of teacher training, the lack of actual meaningful support that's going on for those inexperienced teachers. I'll be honest, I'm happy to say I'm not sure if I would survive in teaching had I come into it in the last couple of years. I was lucky that I found myself in an incredible school for my first couple of years that just completely nurtured my joy of my subject, but also teaching itself. I feel so thankful for that because if I was just dumped into a difficult class and said, "Off you go son," that wouldn't have worked for me, and that's what we're doing to too many people nowadays, I think. Martine: If I just reflect for a moment on when I went into teaching, I'm coming up to 10 years now teaching, and I'm in a different area to you I'm in further education, but I started teaching 16 to 19-year-olds. Prior to that I'd been working in a senior position in the financial sector, I was a director of a trust company, and the massive transition between that roll into teaching. I have never worked so hard in my life during that first year of teaching. I can vividly remember in the first week sitting in bed with my husband going, "What have I done? What have I done?!" It was such a shock. I'm thankful that I had really supportive colleagues around me and, like you, I was with great organisations, and I'm with the same organisation. It's about having that support network, and the support from your employer, that certainly helps. Andy: I think also a lot of the stress that we're talking about well, I noticed ... I’m married now and I've got a young boy, and what I found is that the stress has been appalling for me over the last year and a half since I've had children because your life is so much more pinched in terms of your time and resources, and all the rest of it. Whereas before my wife and I would just work into the evenings, and we'd have a bit of a chat, and we'd spend all that time together. Whereas now, because our resources, our time, and our energy, and our emotional resources are so much more squeezed because we've got children as well as our responsibility in our jobs I feel that that ‘unsustainability’ is there particularly for people who have got families that they're looking after and they've got commitments outside of work as well. So if work is expanding it needs to go somewhere, it needs to fit that space and, ultimately, it's leading to people taking too much home, which is great in the short term for schools because it might mean better results, but in the long term it's catastrophic for not just schools, but the industry because people leave because they can't cope. Martine: What it's forcing you to do, ultimately, is to try to do your job within the hours that are allocated to that job and people are struggling to do it. There's a fundamental problem there. Andy: We're asking too much pf people who want to give the best of themselves, but they can't give the best of themselves, and as you say, in that sustainable way if they're not that person outside of school as well, if they're not that person outside of the building because, ultimately, we're in a room with people teaching and imparting knowledge, and that's not just about reading from a textbook. That's about being a human whose well rested and who understands the complexities of their subject, as well as human interaction. If you're too knackered to give yourself it doesn't work in whichever way you look at it, I don't think. Martine: I know it's a bit of a cliche, but I often like to say about teachers' mental health and well-being is when you're on a plane and they do safety announcement and they're saying, "In the event of an emergency you need with your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else with theirs." That's the same as being in the classroom, if you're not looking after yourself and your well-being then you are not best placed to look after other people i.e. your students. I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it really hits home to me, you got to look after yourself first. Andy: I know we'll probably touch on this later, but there is a real misunderstanding about the metaphor of that putting on the oxygen mask. There is a real misunderstanding about what that entails I think, and that's that's a real danger, that's a real problem I think. Martine: Let's talk about how we can improve well-being amongst teachers. It is not as simple as ... I saw this meme recently, it was about compulsory yoga. Teachers don't have time for compulsory yoga. Andy: Let me go and buy my books instead. Martine: Yeah exactly. It's entirely the wrong thing. It sounds like it's well-being personified, but it just isn't what the teachers need right now. What are your thoughts on improving well-being amongst teachers? Andy: I think there's two things that we need to understand, both of which involve education around this actual term. As you've hit upon, well-being isn't an afternoon off every six weeks, or a yoga class, or bringing in someone to paint nails while there's a quiz going on in the next room. That's not what it is, and I think that represents, as you have alluded to, a profound misunderstanding about how we should look after ourselves. I think that's something that we need to get away from. I think that the key to that is understanding that whatever we understand by well-being should be deeply personal to the individual, and we need to understand about what makes a person, what makes you as a person well mentally, what is that? I think we need to encourage professionals, teachers to stand back and understand what those small things are that make a difference to us. Only when we can fully understand what it is that makes us feel well can we really begin to create space for ourselves around our stress to separate ourselves from our stressful thoughts, our negative thought, and things like that. A silly little thing for me is coffee. It's silly, but it's not just drinking coffee, it's what's that represents. It's that time and that space to taste something, to be present in the moment, to engage with what's happening around me as I exist as a person in this moment. I know that sounds almost hippie-ish… Martine: No, not at all. Andy: I think it's about presence. When I was doing some work for the book, and I've done lots of reading around this, there was really sound evidence to suggest that we should, I don't if this is the right phrase, but we should sweat the small stuff. We should be bothered about having breakfast in the morning. We should be bothered about making sure we've got a drink when we're at work in the daytime. We should be bothered about carving time out, leaving at 4 o'clock one day a week if we can, if that doesn't create too much stress elsewhere to create that space to go to the gym, or for whatever it is for that person. If well-being for one person looks like getting in at 6:30, so they can leave at 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock of a day then that's fine for that person, and I think part of the dialogue we need to improve in schools is about recognizing that in each other, and recognizing that that person goes home early, but that's fine. That's nothing to sneer at, that's to be commended because they're managing their work load in a different way. Often our hackles go up when we don't see the hero teacher, and this cult of hero teacher that celebrates marking until 12. That's not funny, that's not heroic, and that's damaging actually for me, for the profession, and I think we need to try, and reclaim health for ourselves actually. If working until 12 ... to retract that a little bit I suppose, if working until 12 is what works for one person then that's fine, but that doesn't mean to say that's what everyone should be doing. I think that's what I mean by that. Martine: I know exactly what you mean, yeah. Andy: In a nutshell, I think we need to improve our education and our understanding about what it means to be well, and how we can do that, how can we achieve that. Martine: I love what you said about focusing on the individual, and that it's not a one-size fits all approach. When you really unpick this it's mildly ironic that we, as teachers, forget that because what we do in our classrooms is before we even meet our students we identify their individual needs, and work out what they want to get from their education experience, and then work out how we're going to accommodate those needs. We know, as educators, it's not one-size fits all, but when it comes to ourselves suddenly we forget, which is just mildly ironic. Andy: It's one of those things, I think everything about our world, particularly in the Western World is almost directly or indirectly designed to make us feel like we're not an evolved animal. We think we're somehow above the evolutionary chain in some way, and we think that ... I don't know, we think that we don't have to look after ourselves. As teachers, we don't have to worry about all that because we'll just do, and we'll never run out of energy. Actually, there's fairly sound evidence, there's more than sound evidence about this in terms of making sure that we need to look after ourselves, and not just keep shutting the box on that, and about acknowledging about when our body and when our mind is telling us that things aren't okay. The more we neglect that of ourselves, and we put our students first well, I would argue that actually if we keep putting our students first and neglecting ourselves we're actually doing, as you alluded to before, we're doing our students a disservice. Then, what we're doing is we're showing a complete misunderstanding about our own selves at the same time as well because if we don't listen to when our heart rate goes up, or when we're beginning to sweat because we feel anxious or we're feeling anger, or whatever, or even apathy about certain things if we don't acknowledge those thoughts and where they came from, and what caused them, and we keep neglecting to understand that we are an evolved entity then that's really damaging for your mental health, I think. Martine: It is. Also, you're not setting a great example for your learners, are you? Andy: No. Martine: The students, obviously, play a role in all of this, and regardless of the age you teach students are intuitive things, and they will pick up on the fact that you aren't looking after yourself. Andy: Students smell fear, can't they? Martine: Oh they do. Oh they definitely did in that first week of work that I remembered earlier. Andy: Absolutely. They do. I was a very middle-of-the-road student at school, but you can sense it a mile off when a teacher's not prepared, or when a teacher's not in control. As you say, one thing students are, all different students they can see that you are first and foremost a human, and the moment that you aren't credible with them in terms of ... and you don't show credibility and integrity in front of them then something goes off in that room straightaway. There is something out of kilter in that room straightaway, and I think that's dangerous. Martine: Definitely. Andy: At least for the learning anyway. Martine: Yeah, it is for sure. How else do students fit into this equation of teacher well-being? Andy: Well, I think that's a really interesting question. I'm really interested in this idea of compassion, and I think there's a difference here between being compassionate with people, and being sympathetic with people in this sense. What I mean by that is, rather than with our students being sympathetic with them and saying, "Oh, that's really rubbish or that must be really difficult," or something like that. I think in terms of well-being, I think, we need to model well-being with them. I think what that means is ... There's a really good analogy about this. If someone's in a well and they're upset sympathy would be shouting down saying, "Hey, that looks really rubbish down there, doesn't it? I'm really sorry that you're down there, that's rubbish." Whereas compassion is about climbing down into that well with the person and saying, "Yeah, I can understand why that's difficult. I can understand whether it's emotion, whether it's something to do with the subject, I can understand that," and it's about going on that journey with the young people really. I think it's about, first and foremost, what we touched on before, about modeling that honesty and integrity with regard to emotional intelligence, with regards to what it means to look after ourselves. I think it's really important that for silly things if you mention to the students that you're watching ... I'm a football fan so I'm watching the football tonight I'll mention that. I'll mention that I took my little boy to the park at the weekend. I think it's really important that students see that human side of you, and even if for whatever reason, the photocopier's blown up and you haven't got your resources, I think it's really good just to acknowledge it with the students, and just show that you're a real human. I think we need to be human with our students, but I think in terms of more direct educational sense I think we need to educate our students more about well-being. I think that's a lot more difficult than you might expect because one of the downsides to what we've discussed about education, as we see it now, is that this obsession with outcomes, this obsession with league tables I think there's this creeping insidiousness about, if you can't measure it we're not bothered. Inadvertently, I think teachers pass that on to students. It struck me because once I was listening to a teacher deliver a session on well-being about exam stress to their class, and this teacher's probably one of the most inspirational teachers of ever worked with, she's just phenomenal, but the session was just dry. There was nothing in it because I don't think she was passionate about it, about that particular topic, I don't think the students were passionate about it because I think the students thought, "Yeah, you don't really get it anyway. We have to go through the hell of these exams, you don't." I think there was a real disconnect and I think educating students about what well-being means, all the things we've talked about in the last half an hour or so, it's more difficult than just saying, "Make sure you have a drink, and make sure you chunk your revision up into 30 minute sections." I think we need to go back to the start with students too, and that means when they're younger educating them when they're younger about emotional literacy, about emotional well-being too. I think to summarize there, I think there's two parts to it. I think, firstly, it's about modeling honesty and integrity with our students. Secondly, I do think there are some curriculum implications in terms of helping students understand what well-being means, but there needs to be a culture change because if you can't measure it, and it's not a result I think people aren't motivated by it, which is one of the unfortunate byproducts of our current education system. Martine: Do you see change on the horizon in terms of the if you can't measure it it's not important type approach? You mentioned the new Ofsted framework, and things like that. Do you get a sense that there's going to be improvements in that area? Andy: That's interesting because I get a sense from having a couple of conversations with people off the record, and speaking to people about this in and around the hierarchy of education, I do think that what we see with Ofsted and this new framework is there's a couple of really good people at the top of Ofsted at the minute, I think. I think Amanda Spielman and Sean Harford are banging the right drum from what I can understand by people who are around them, and people who have spoken to me about those particular individuals. I think that's really important, and so I think there's going to be change in that sense. I'm not sure whether or not we're going to be looking much longer term before we see a real change beyond that though. What I can say, but I do feel is that this new framework definitely is a step in the right direction, and I think it'd be foolish to turn our noses up at this new framework because I think at least it is, from what I can see I know it's in the consultation phase, but what I can see is that it's acknowledging that it's about the richness of the curriculum rather than just the outcome. One of the things that I like as, certainly, a middle to senior leader is that when Ofsted are coming into the school I think as a middle leader you should be able to walk around with them and justify what's happening in the classroom in terms of the direction of the curriculum, what you're doing and why and the rationale. Yes, I think baby steps would be the short version to that answer. Baby steps, but I think there needs to be a lot more done, and it takes a long time to unpick a culture. When I was at school, if it was PSHE I didn't care, if it was general studies without something that was going to go on my UCAS form, I didn't care. I think there's a lot of that in schools nowadays, and that's what we need to turn round, I think, and that starts right from Primary whether or not that's on the agenda for change in the future I couldn't say. Martine: It's a case of coming at it from all angles, isn't it? Andy: I think so. Martine: Whether you're senior leadership, whether you're one teacher starting this well-being journey, whether you are Ofsted. Whoever you are, it's coming at it from all angles, and that's the way we're, ultimately, going to achieve positive change. Andy: The sad thing is that I'm not sure what's motivated the inspection framework change, but the fantastic book written by Becky Allen, The Teacher Gap really explores what's going on with teaching in terms of what we need for our students, and what we're providing them as a profession at the moment. Those hemorrhaging numbers are a problem. I think these hemorrhaging numbers in terms of profession, and not the numbers but the quality that we see in front of the students at every level, I think that's going to be felt for a good few years, unfortunately. What we can do in the meantime is take ownership over our own well-being, and make sure that we are the best for our students in front of us everything every day, that's what I think we can do. Martine: Definitely. One of the ways that people can make a start in the right direction is your book. Tell me about a bit about your book, Andy . Did you like that segue? That was beautifully timed wasn't it? Andy: Yeah, that was fantastic. Yeah, that was beautiful. It's a bucket list of mine to write a book, and actually I've had a fairly difficult 2018. Actually, it was really difficult, and as part of my coming back from where I was emotionally I went through a form of therapy called compassion focused therapy. Effectively, what it does is it's an evolutionary psychology model that helps us to understand what motivates how we see the world. What is it that we see as threatening about the world, and how can we unpick that in order to be kinder and be more productive with ourselves? The source of helpful things we can say to ourselves rather than keep having these unhelpful voices in our minds almost, this critical voice. Once I really began to emerge from how awful I was feeling in 2018 I began to think about well, actually does this model of compassion focused therapy about threats and drives and soothes, which you can find out more about in the book, does this apply to education as a whole? As a culture, as an educational culture have we become plagued by threats, have we become plagued by drive, drive, drive to get results and threats if you're going to lose your job, or whatever is going to happen if we don't get these results rather than actually being on the soothe drive axis? This axis where you feel safe, and you feel content, but actually you're able to go to work and feel passionate, and feel safe, and be the best version of yourself. I began to start with that model, and then branch off into all other kinds of psychology and things in the book. What it is, is a bit of a frank disclosure of what happened with me before, in Chapter 2, it goes on to thinking about the wider education system and how it is, in some sense, it's almost wired for poor mental health. In the second half of the book it's much more practical, it's much more how we can see ourselves in schools in a much more healthier way and the relationships with our colleagues and students. Then, in Chapter 4 it's much more about practical methods to cut the work load and be well, but also be effective in the classroom. It's around the topic trip in terms of mental health in schools, and how we can be productive as best we can be. That's the book in a nutshell, if that's at all clear. I hope that's clear. Martine: No, that sounds fantastic. Where can we get a hold of a copy of it? What's it called and where do we find it? Andy: It's called The Compassionate Teacher and you can find it on Amazon, and you can also find my blog and there's a couple of excerpts from the book put up on the blog, and that's compassionteach.weebly.com, and you can find it on there. If you go through Amazon you'll be able to find a little bit about the book as well, and things like that, and that's going to be out on the 15th of March in paperback and Kindle as well, so I'm excited. Martine: Congratulations on the book, that's quite an achievement. It's so good to hear you've come out the other side of not such a great year last year, and you've put all of your energy into something so positive helping other teachers who are struggling with their mental health. I think that's fantastic Andy, you must feel really good about it. Andy: Yeah. It felt really great to start the year as it started, but then finish it towards the end of 2018 being able to put something together. Actually, the way the book shaped up it was quite cathartic disclosing everything that happened with me, and how the theoretical approach of compassion focused therapy help me. I think anyone who might want to buy it would be pleased to know it's not my autobiography. It's a disclosure about what happened with me, and then the model, but then it goes into a thorough, fully contextual understanding about education in this country, and all the rest of it. I do sincerely hope it helps at least one person, if it does then it's not in time wasted. Even if it doesn't then all I wanted to do was add to the literature, add to the debate in some way. I'm thrilled that someone's actually said they'd like to publish it, and the final manuscript's gone in now, so it's just off to them to do it now. Martine: Fantastic stuff. Andy, it's been a real pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me. Any final words to listeners of The Teaching Space Podcast? Andy: I would say, be very clear about what your soothe is, be very clear about what things relax you, hold them close, make space for them because if you don't you'll pay it back somehow later, I think. I think it's really important to treasure the things that make you feel safe, and make you feel happy. Wrap Up Massive thanks to Andy for the interview. Don’t forget to check out his book and whist you’re at it why not hop over to The Teaching Space Facebook page here.

A private equity firm is in the business of buying, growing, and exiting companies, hopefully for more than they bought it for. For every industry there is a private equity firm out there. As private equity diversifies, what are the key trends changing the nature of the deal? Today we are discussing where private equity firms come into play in the buying and selling space. Today's guest, Andy Jones, is the founder and owner of PrivateEquityInfo, a private equity database that helps investment bankers and private equity firms close more deals by taking a look at the top trends to look out for when scouting an acquisition target. One major trend we discuss is the holding periods for private equity and how those can often reveal the direction of the overall economy. Studying these and other trends are useful for potential buyers to understand what to look out for in an acquisition deal. Episode Highlights: Andy's history with Private Equity Info. A look at a typical private equity deal. What sellers should know about the private equity industry. Buyers don't want the ugly marbles. Why buyers prefer asset deals over stock deals. What ebita sizes private equity firms are looking for and why the size requirements are in place. Smaller ebitas and add-on investment trends in the private equity arena. Why larger acquisitions still make more sense. Best ways to find the private equity for your business. We touch on the topic of microfunds; what they are and how they work. Typical deal structures that Andy comes across. Why business founders don't have the same appetite for risk as PE firms. The typical holding period before an exit. How long is it? Exuberance trends typically show up when those holding periods experience a decline. Andy shares his top ten trend list for 2018. Transcription: Joe: Mark, I understand you had a great conversation with Andy Jones from PrivateEquityInfo.com. Mark: Yeah private equity is one of these things that buyers and clients that we talk to and even … I'm sorry sellers and clients that we talk to and buyers as well often ask us about. Is private equity buying online businesses? Are they buying Amazon businesses? Are they buying SaaS businesses? Where do they start buying? When do they … what are the lines for it? How does it work? Andy Jones is somebody that I've known now for probably seven, eight years. He's always been very primed by complimenting me on the content we put out. So anyone that complements me is immediately somebody I like and so we talked about having him on the podcast- Joe: Hold on just a second, you're awesome Mark. You're a really good guy and I'm proud to be your partner. Mark: I thought you're stopping the podcast here. Joe: No, I'm just complementing you; that's all. Like you see I just wanted to be liked by you today. Mark: Okay well continuing … thank you, Joe. We will talk about increasing your equity stake in Quiet Light Brokerage after this call. Joe: Awesome. Mark: It's kind of easy guys, it's really that easy. And so Andy has PrivateEquityInfo.com. It's a fantastic database of private equity activity across the spectrum. So anything from manufacturing to the online world but something that they do at PrivateEquityInfo.com is they take a look at the trends and what is going on in the world of private equity and these can be leading economic indicators. And he gave me one trend in particular, I'm going to let him get into the details of it but it's the holding period for private equity. Because private equity, what they typically do for anyone that may not know that they're going to make a lot of investments with the goal of growing these businesses but then exiting these businesses as well or at least a portion of these businesses that they're building up. And the holding period, how long they hold them can really tell us a lot about the direction of the economy and what to anticipate next. And so they look at this holding period, the average number of years that a private equity is hanging on to business before they exit it. Right after the recession that holding period went up to like a number of I think it was like eight or nine because they bought at the peak and they had to wait for the economy to recover before they could exit. So I'm going to tease here and just say listen to the podcast to see what the average holding period is right now, what number we want to look out for to be able to understand okay maybe the economy is going to start to retract a little bit and use that for the decisions we want to make. Joe: This is going to be fascinating. I think we're going to learn about the future of the economy here as well. Hey before we move to the podcast I just want to give a shout out to Mike Nuñez from affiliate manager. Mike, you're probably out riding your bike right now listening to this podcast, I appreciate all the positive feedback you've given us in the last few months. Thank you very much. Let's go to the podcast with Andy Jones. Mark: Andy thanks for joining me. Andy: Thanks for having me. Mark: All right let's start off with a little bit of background on yourself and where you come from. I'll let you do that part. Andy: Yeah I'd be happy to. So my name is Andy Jones. I'm the founder and owner of Private Equity Info. We're an Austin, Texas based company. We own several websites but our flagship website is really PrivateEquityInfo.com and this is where we provide and emanate research database that helps investment bankers and private equity firms and even the corporates close more deals. So I have an engineering background and investment banking background that's kind of what lead me onto this journey of entrepreneurship 14 years ago. Mark: Yeah pretty cool and you are one of the people … I will confess you feed my ego whenever we send out messages by saying really great content Mark. I'm like hey, I like this Andy guy. Andy: Yeah yeah. Mark: Good stuff, I like that. Well cool. We're going to talk about private equity today because you have PrivateEquityInfo.com and really good information through that site. How long have you had that now? Andy: So yeah we launched 14 years ago, January of '05 so this year is our fourteenth. Mark: I remember when everybody's site is full. It was like three, four years old and somebody who had like an eight year old site it was like ancient. Andy: I know I'm that guy. Mark: You know you're that guy right? I own a 20 plus year old site and then Quiet Light Brokerage this is going to be our 11th anniversary coming up next month. Andy: Wow. Mark: Actually by the time this episode airs we've surpassed 11 years so … really really cool. So again private equity was what we're going to talk about today. We get this question all the time from buyers. People want to know things like who's buying online businesses and would private equity be interested? At what levels are private equity interested in and how do those deals sort of differ from other deals? And you've got a pulse in the industry more so than anybody else that I know so I thought hey let's talk about this. I think this is- Andy: Sounds good. Mark: -sort of thing to go into. So let's talk about just kind of the typical private equity deals from what you are seeing and from your experience. I mean what is a good intro for somebody who owns a business that might be thinking about selling and they think well maybe private equity would be interested? What should they know about this industry in general and the different PE firms out there? Andy: Okay. Well, that's a pretty broad question; let me see if I can tackle it from the few angles there. So I'm going to come at this from the assumption that there is some general knowledge of private equity but maybe some inexact knowledge and I'll just kind of ram a little bit and we can flesh it out. But essentially let me just start with the basics what a private equity firm is. A private equity firm, they're in the business of buying growing and exiting companies for hopefully more than they bought it for. And the way they do that is they typically raise a fund through their limited partners. And limited partners are typically institutional money, pensions and retirements, high net worth individuals, [inaudible 00:06:43.1] and such. They raise a fund that has a 7 to 10 year lifetime and the private equity firm then puts that money to work by buying companies. And their hope is to grow those companies, produce cash flow, and exit at a good return on investment for their limited partners and also for themselves. So that's kind of the mechanism of how they work. We can create … we can talk about how they create value later if you want to but you know is a private equity firm the right buyer for your company? Well now that depends on a lot of factors; primarily size but also industry. So by way of size, there's a huge range of private equity firms out there and they go from billions of dollars of interest in price value, company size down to single digit millions. And so there's a long tale of the firms out there. But at some point, the transactions get small enough that it's not really just logistically practical to make investments of small sizes for a platform investment. But I will also say that for add-on investments, you know private equity firms often have this model whereby they buy a platform investment and then we have add-on investments to it. Most private equity firms have size criteria for platforms but for add-ons, it can be more strategic interest rather than size. And so usually there's not a lower limit on the add-on acquisitions. Process size is one limitation, geography being another, and industry. If you have an industry there is a private equity firm interested in it. There's a lot of private equity firms out there. The trick is finding which ones are interested in your company and that's where we come in. Mark: Yeah so I want to talk a little bit about these different sizes because we … as a broker I get these emails all the time from private equity firms that are out there. They're reaching out to just these large databases of brokers and they typically are saying hey we're looking for investment opportunities in manufacturing with this, that, the other thing. A lot of times it just does not fit what we do at all. Obviously, there's no reason but they always list a minimum EBIDTA that they want to see. And typically what we're seeing from the ones that reach out to us would be EBIDTAs of a minimum of 10 million, 5 million, 2.5, and in some rare cases 1 million but almost never below that. Andy: That sounds about right. Mark: Yeah. So what do you see with that? I mean, first of all, I think we can ask the question why, [inaudible 00:08:58.2] the listeners of everything we're all … it's obvious but for those that may not be cashing out of that why do they have these size requirements in there? And then second of all if you comment on that breakdown I mean are private equities looking for these [inaudible 00:09:10.6] smaller in the world of bootstrapped entrepreneurs a million dollars EBIDTAS is a decent deal but for private equity firm that's tiny little bits of money there. How does that break down? Andy: Yeah let me answer those in reverse. So the spread you kind of set it right. Yeah most of them are 10, 25 million in EBIDTas that's for the bigger firms. In the upper middle market, firms are going to be and middle market firms is targeting down the 5 million down to 1 million in EBIDTA [inaudible 00:09:36.7]. But there are firms that will do it. And I think really the trick there is if you're operating in that size range, the trick is not to be considered a platform investment. You want to be considered an add-on investment. And the single best way to find the right private equity firm for your company if you're selling it and if you're down in that range … even half a million, a million dollars in EBIDTA it's getting pretty low. But it is to use a database like ours to keyword search based on keywords that describe your company the portfolio companies that are owned by private equity firms and we allow you to do this. You can search almost 80 … I guess a little over an 80,000 of them now and find those portfolio companies that are currently owned by private equity firms and that is … yeah, they look like your company. So that's the single best gauge to determine a private equity firm's fit or interest in your firm and your company is if they've already made a platform investment and you might be a likely add-on. So that's the process I would go about to discover the sort of rifle shot hits that you're looking for and you can use a tool like ours to find that. Why the size limitations? Well, they have a fund and they have to deploy that money. And if you have a hundred million dollar fund and you're deploying it at single digit millions at a time it is too much work. You'll never get it deployed. And that's really just driving your limitations there. Mark: Right. I think we have addressed this at the podcast topic a while ago on should you buy big or should you buy small. I've addressed this topic in a number of times as well where if you have the resources available to be able to run a larger enterprise from just making your dollars work; the larger acquisitions make so much more sense. The workload, the resources that go into a lot of internet companies doesn't really scale at the same rate as the revenues do. And so it makes sense to do that. So for a private equity firm to come in and try and buy out a company doing 250,000 in EBIDTA just doesn't make much sense. They're not going to reach the goals that they're looking for. And also the capitalization rights, I mean how large are these private equity firms when … how much capital are they trying to deploy through acquisitions? Andy: It really depends on the firm. You know if you wanted to … I don't know off the top of my head but I've done studies on this based on our data. And I've done some data size and probably shoot to our blog. So if people want to visit our blog you can read more about it but it's very typical to have fund sizes and it'd be hundreds of millions of dollars. Mark: Right. So let me take a little bit of a diversion real quick. I want to ask you a question that a trend that I've seen in our space here in the online acquisitions space, I call them micro funds because I don't really have another word for them. Andy: Okay. Mark: But these people that are raising 10 to 15 to 20 million dollars and they're doing it following that private equity sort of model of bringing in those investors. Their goal is to bring in a few companies, have some synergies between those companies, grow them, and hopefully sell them off. Are you guys tracking those at all at this point? Andy: So at that level what we typically see is a firm that has raised capital because they have an operating partner with very specific industry experience and they're looking to buy a company or two. In that case, they're likely not in our database and it's not because we don't know about them, it's just for fit reasons. Most of our customers that we serve are middle market investment bankers and because of that, we want to provide them a data set of firms that are likely going to close the deal. And if you're buying one or two companies the probability of you closing that deal is pretty small especially if you've already closed one. Mark: Right. Andy: So the firms in our database are only those firms that have committed capital that are closing deals in the marketplace. Or sometimes they're from a sponsor but they have to demonstrate that they're actually closing deals. Because at the end of the day investment bankers and firms like yours you want to close a deal so you want to make sure that the people that you're approaching from our database have some probability of making that happen. Mark: Yeah that makes complete sense. All right let's talk a little bit about … and again you've said this a couple of times so I'm going to reiterate it but talk in generalities when I'm asking you some of these questions. Every firm operates differently. Some like the sort of incubator method … you really it's going to be different from one from the next but I want to talk about typical deal structures. And let's say that we have somebody who … they built up a company and let's say that they're in that seven figure EBIDTA range or low eight figure EBIDTA range as well. I know I'm working with people on that low eight figure EBIDTA range, they're looking for an exit down the road and they're definitely in that private equity territory where that's what makes most sense. Andy: Okay. Mark: So when you're approaching private equity firms with a business … let's just focus mainly on the seven figure EBIDTA range, the one to five million, say that we have some people there, some PE firms there. What sort of deal structures do you typically see? Are they completely asset based acquisitions, are they stock, are they management buy-outs with the managers staying on and if there's no general rule that's fine too of course. Andy: There's no general rule but there are some factors as you know that sway the rules. Let me organize my thoughts on how to answer that. So asset deals versus equity deals, there's no all encompassing rule for that. Generally speaking, let me just sort of educate the audience a little bit and there's a good analogy for this. If you think about your company as a bag with a bunch of marbles in it and marbles are the assets, buyers like to come in and pick out the marbles they want. That's an asset deal. I want this marble, this marble, and this marble and that's what I want; that's an asset deal. You keep the corporate entity and all the other marbles I don't want. Whereas a start deal … equity deals says I will just buy the bag and all the marbles in it; good, bad and ugly. Well as a general rule, buyers prefer an asset deal and sellers prefer start deals because it's just [inaudible 00:15:21.8]. Buyers don't want the ugly marbles; the litigation, the potential liabilities … you know that stuff, so just for your audience though typically we find that the buyer wins because they're the ones with the money. So if you want a deal done you're going to do an asset deal. So there's not a hard and fast rule, the exception to that is often times when there's customer contracts in place that you don't want to have to renegotiate, you don't want to create a new corporate entity and then often times those become start deals just for just the core purposes. That's the other part of your question, you're looking at a seven figure in EBIDTA deal. Mark: So the basic structure of it. I know we've run into some cases where we've worked with private equity firms but they wanted to have a management team in place before. Andy: Right. Mark: Or the structure of the deal you know as a cash or as a cash financing and as a- Andy: All right, again it's going to be all over the place but generally speaking if the owner is retiring … owner-founder is retiring, the seller that's one case whereas if they're wanting to stay on and run it and grow it that's another case. If they're retiring it's going to be more … mostly a cash out kind of deal. But if there's a continuity there and they're selling the vast majority of their equity to a private equity firm retaining a small minority stake on the order of 10, 20% that's a different sort of deal. And that's probably the preference for most private equity firms. Again we're talking generalities. All firms operate differently. If you have a strong management team that wants to stay on the private equity firms are going to be interested in that. If they're interested in your company because of its industry, its size, its growth trajectory, and its promise to go on forward they want that management to stay on and they want them properly incentivize and aligned. So typically what we'll see it's not unusual at all to see a certain sort of enterprise value established at the exit of the majority of your stake. And then the private equity firm infusing that company with capital and all sorts of tools to create value. And then having a subsequent accurate equity exit whereby the original owner's second exit is as much as or more the first exit. It happens quite frequently. It doesn't mean it will happen obviously but it's not so unusual. Mark: Yeah and I think that falls in this territory of thinking outside the box of some of the regular deals that most people think of. I talk to a lot of sellers who they want that 100% exit, they got in love with the market but they moved on. But sometimes a really good deal is if you do find that good firm involved just getting that partial exit or that first exit and then that second exit later on can be like you said just as lucrative or if not more lucrative as you got this thing behind you. Let's talk a little bit about 2018 and some of the trends in the- Andy: Let me add … I'm going to add on to that a little bit before we move on. Mark: Yeah, please. Andy: So one of the things that people I guess wonder is how … why is it a private equity firm can come in buy a majority position the equity and create value where I couldn't? A lot of that stems from they're just … they don't have their entire net worth tied up in that company or a huge swath of it whereas an owner and founder does. So they can come in and infuse it with capital where an owner would go I don't know if I want to throw the rest of my [inaudible 00:18:29.6] that I got in the basket. The same basket is already all in. And so a private equity firm and can take greater risks because it's a small percentage of their portfolio in total. And you know and as a bootstrapped operation there's a mathematical limit to how much you can grow your company without outside capital. It has to do with your profit margins, there's a straight mathematical relationship. Your profit margins are X your growth can be Y and no more. So your opportunity for outside capital is debt or equity and founders oftentimes don't have the appetite for debt and this is where private equity can come in and infuse the company with capital at a risk for them that's much more acceptable than it is for the owner-founder and try some things that are maybe riskier and get that company to grow through multiple expansion and taking on your projects and what not. So that's kind of why they're able to do that whereas an owner sometimes isn't going to take that leap of faith. Mark: I think there's another aspect to that as well. I think … I'm glad you stopped me with that, we talk a lot on this podcast and conferences, just people that we talk to in general; entrepreneurs. These bootstrapped entrepreneurs or even the guys that have come in and maybe bought something smaller and that growing it. I put them in that same category of this bootstrapped entrepreneur who this is their livelihood and if it's not 100% of the livelihood it makes up a good part of it. A lot of people are not operating with an aim towards an exit. Maybe it's in the back of their mind so a few things here and there and they do this but a private equity firm has this holding period. They have this goal of we're growing this, we're going to get the cash flow from this, and in most cases … in a lot of cases, they're looking for that exit with that company as well where they could profit from it. Andy: That's right and it drives a huge sense of urgency day after day after day. And once you're owned by a private equity firm, it's hit the ground running. It really is because they're driving that growth because they need to grow the company and exit it before their fund timeframe runs out and so it's a bit of a race. With that comes a lot of operational efficiencies, they'll add to your institutionalizing the company in terms of process fees and measurement and systems in short governance and it's all the stuff that you should do as a company but sometimes that stuff falls and kind of cracks. Mark: I'm going to make a plug so Walker Diebel who works with Quiet Light Brokerage and how he's the executive producer of a number of documentaries and one of them is Print the Legend on Netflix. And it's about the 3D printing industry. There's a really cool part in there where you see [inaudible 00:20:58.0] go through this transition of bootstrapped you know the classic starting in the warehouse garage everybody is really agile doing what they have to do and then they take outside money and it becomes institutionalized. And one of them … I cannot remember what her name was but she said just like I call this part trying to put the skeleton into the jellyfish, trying to get it back on in a jellyfish. Andy: That's a great analogy. Mark: It is. It's a great movie by the way. Print the Legend, you can get on Netflix and again that's my genius plug for Walker. Andy: I love it. Mark: Yeah. So let's talk about 2018, let's talk about some of the trends that you're seeing in 2018. Actually no let's back up we're going to talk about that in a minute because we've just said that they buy these companies with a goal of exit. What is a typical timeframe? What is the holding period that most companies are … most of the private equity firms are looking to hold companies before doing that exit? Andy: We do a report about every six months to update the holding period and we say well of all the companies that have exited in 2018 how long were they held and we compare it to six months ago and 2017, 2016, going back in time. And I set you a graph of this beforehand and we can post that if you want to or whatever or make it or you can visit our blog and see that study. But generally speaking, I think most people would say look the general private equity holding period is 3 to 7 years. That's the right answer. It's fairly generic and that's kind of all-encompassing but I wrote down some stats here. The medium holding period right now as of a couple months ago is 4.8 years. So of all the companies that have exited in 2018, they were held just shy of five years. By way of comparison, we saw a max holding period of 5.6 years in 2014. Well, why was it so long then? Well if you think 2014 and you subtract out 5.6 years, if you're looking at companies [inaudible 00:22:48.7] and say you're looking at companies that were bought at a peak of evaluations right before the recession. So those are companies that are portfolio companies owned by private equity firms that got bought at the beginning of 2008, unfortunate timing, and then just hit the recession and they just had to hold a lot longer to either breakeven or realize any value. So that increased the hold rate. And we saw a minimum conversely in the year 2000 when we have a .com boom out of 3.0 years. And we saw another minimum in 2008 you know at the peak of that it bubbled there at 3 ½ years. So that leads me to think that if you start getting around … I'm going to say holding periods of 4 years or less it might … maybe it's an indicator of a little bit of exuberance in the market. And so right now we're at 4.8 years and it is declining. It is consistently going down every time we track. So we're aiming to the 4, we're not there yet. Mark: That's fascinating data. We've actually had that conversation internally quite a bit as far as the trends in the market and what we're thinking. And what we're seeing right now we're seeing one of the more aggressive markets in the 11 year history of Quiet Light. Now granted Quiet Light Brokerage when I first started it was 2007 and we were really just getting our feet wet and getting go-ins. So we didn't have a lot of data … real useful data then we hit a recession. So you take the first six, seven years it's pretty bearish. They [inaudible 00:24:13.3] are working with. Andy: Right. Mark: So comparatively like this is the time that we're in right now feels really good and strong and that [inaudible 00:24:19.9]. Andy: And we can talk about statistics because one of the great things about having a database is that it learns itself to this during data studies and slicing and dicing a data. It really pops out interesting trends. Right now valuations are high. No secret I think everyone in your industry knows valuations are high and I'll actually tell of you guys a little bit here or your world of investment banking and business brokerage. If you are a company owner and you are thinking about selling in the next 3 to 4 years and it's even on your horizon there may not be another time that is this good for valuations. It is as good as it gets. I mean there are a couple of economic factors there. There is sort of meta … macro-economic factors that are happening that are making this as sort of sustained seller market but that'll change. Those factors are just real quickly … money is cheap right now. Monetary policy has made interest rates low. It's cheap to borrow money. It's fueling a lot of growth. Companies are growing but consequently, those people with money are looking for where can they get a better return on my capital instead of CD's and treasuries and stuff like that. So they're looking at the alternative asset space. They're putting money into private equity which has created more private equity firms than ever before, larger funds than ever before, looking for the same deals as everybody else. So there's a huge … from a financial buyer perspective there's a huge demand. And then the other factor that plays with that is a social factor and that is you probably thought this as the eye. When the baby boomers were going to retire and then we had 60's we thought that there would be these huge influx businesses for sale as they start to retire and that largely didn't happen. They just kept working. The baby boomers just kept working and that only eventually come out a buy plan but right now because they've held their businesses longer they've built up a pent up demand because they're limiting the supply. So, on the one hand, you have money in trying to chase deals, on the other hand, you have fewer deals. That's what's creating this sustained seller's market where valuations are high. It will change. It will go back down and we're going to remain. You cannot … this is my opinion not data, but you cannot make money on the assumption that someone else is going to over pay in the future years like you did today. Mark: Right … no I think that's absolutely right that when … last year on this time I wrote one of the last blog post that I personally wrote. We started the podcast instead. Before we started recording here I was telling you that I like doing this [inaudible 00:26:49.6] Andy: Yeah, right. Mark: But I talked about the history of what we've seen over the years and during those recessionary years boy if you've got a 2.7 or 2.8 discretionary earnings for a business it was a really solid deal. And today people are looking that and saying why would I ever sell for that. Understanding multiples, they're relative to the time, they're relative to the supply and demand within the marketplace and what money out there and what other investment vehicles are out there as well. Even when you're thinking about when to exit when you're thinking about buying and growing and turning this around in the case of a private equity firm that's crucial data to really kind of hone in on and understand. What are you seeing trending this year? I know I was contacted by Buzz Feed a while ago about private equity firms starting to get into the Amazon space and really looking more towards e-commerce specifically within the Amazon Marketplace. What are you seeing as far as different trends in the private equity space or is there any industries that seem to be popping up right now? Andy: There are you know we studied the portfolio companies and what's changing over time. I sort of have a top 10 list for 2018 that I'll run down with you. On top of the list has always been and maybe always will be manufacturing. Mark: I see that all the time. Andy: Everyone likes a solid just basic manufacturing company, no frills just consistent cash flow, consistent growth; predictable money. With that said manufacturing as a percentage of the portfolio companies is way less than it used to be. So coming hot on its heels are … number two and three and four positions which number two is software. So far this year software deals are a big deal. At number three is technology. This kind of go together and it makes sense. Anything that you can scale like you can with a software and technology private equity firms are interested in the ability to find the concept that scales with very low capex which software and technology tend to do. And also have this component of recurring revenue also a big theme for the private equity firms. The others I'll run down … number four was health care. Interestingly enough number five was data businesses, information services which I'm on. Six would be oil and gas which is interesting because there for a while that went away. When it went down so cheap and thus nobody … everybody was losing money in all the oil and gas services companies and the PE firms just weren't doing that but it's coming back. Seventh is medical. Eighth, construction which has been interesting, traditionally we would not see much construction related private equity investments mostly because it tends to be very capex heavy. Number nine was transportation and logistics. And number ten was engineering so another kind of services company. Mark: Fascinating. The software I presume SaaS businesses with kind of all that- Andy: Well that's the preferred. Yeah, that's the preferred model. Not always but that's where everybody's going. Everyone's going to SaaS and everyone's going to the club. Mark: Right. What about consumer products? I mean that's obviously not in your top ten list. Andy: You know off the top of my head I don't know where it is. There are a number of private equity firms that specifically build consumer product brands and focus on that exclusively. Some well-known firms they have done really well. I know that for a while food and sort of ingredient businesses we're pretty hot. I don't know if that trend is still as hot as it used to be but consumer brands is definitely a hot industry it's just not on our top ten. I hear it all the time. Mark: Sure. But what are some of the things that private equity firms just love to see when they're looking for an acquisition target? Andy: Some of the things we already touched on recurring revenue. I mean it's all about stability of cash flow. So I would say stability of cash flow spur the quality of earnings kind of companies. Scalable businesses that have strong cash flow and a track record of growth. And those firms that are maybe a little more venture capital minded might say you know what's the opportunity here in terms of can this just blow up as a trend or is this software tool just meeting this huge demand in the cloud space that's going to be the next revolution of software so that sort of thing. But really it's all about cash flow stability or scalability. Mark: All right then what are some of the things … I mean people will probably come up with conclusions but what are some of the things that they'd want to avoid? Andy: Yeah so in addition to just like the opposite of those private equity firms it would be difficult to find firms that will do project based financing as opposed to just an outright purchase acquisition. They don't want to finance your projects. They typically will not do projects that require a lot of capex. With that said I did say construction was in the top 10 so I am not sure about that but traditionally it's just hard to scale companies when you have to put a lot of money on upfront for property client equipment. And then lastly at least for the firms that we track, we do not track those that are not in this particular data site those that invest in real estate. In a traditional buyout M&A private equity firms, we just need a longer time horizon than seven or 10 years to make sure that real estate pays off like it should. So what we do track in another data model institutional real estate investor, that's a different animal altogether and probably outside of this group but … out of this conversation but they typically are just not going to buy real estate. Mark: I've got a question for you on general multiples and let's talk software and tech and if you don't have this data right now I know I'm kind of … I'm springing this on you, I didn't prep you on this one. Andy: That's all right. Mark: But we talk often that there's a bit of a multiple shift when you get to certain levels in EBIDTA. Andy: Yeah that's right. Mark: This is something that companies don't typically get the strongest multiples as you move up we see these multiple shifts. What are some of the demarcation lines that you see for EBIDTA as one of these multiples that you start to inch up? Or is it just kind of a gradual scale where you're seeing that happen? Andy: You know I don't know if there is definite lines and I don't know if I'm going to know the answer to that question but just let me talk kind of about a hand waving principles around. Mark: Sure. Andy: I think it just kind of scales generally with size. Companies that are bigger tend to be more stable. And when you're more stable that's perceived to be less risk for a buyer and therefore more valuable and hence a higher multiple. And so that is why one of the methodologies that private equity firms use is this buy and build platform an add-on strategy. It is you buy the platform company, you take a smaller add-on investment, you buy it for … I'm just going to make up a number, 6X EBIDTA and suddenly you put it in, you fold it into a bigger company and that same sort of producing asset is now repaid X because it's part of a bigger company. So you got a 2X sort of free value out of that built on. And I can remember meeting with … I won't name the name, but a private equity firm we're meeting with one time we we're working on a deal back when we used to do deals and he was outlining that strategy for me. He's like yes it's really not just rocket science, that's what we do. It's pretty simple and you buy it for a five and you get seven automatically; free money. Mark: Right. I have these conversations with buyers over the years that their first footsteps into the space of buying … in our case online businesses start with maybe on Flippa and buy me [inaudible 00:33:51.5] out of $20,000 $30,000 sites and that was their appetite. The next thing you know they're doing an SBA loan and they're buying something bigger. Andy: Right. Mark: In variable … invariably once they have enough success that light bulb goes off in their head where they look at that and say wait a minute I can bolt on my company over here which is more valuable, a company that is less valuable here and if I can fill them in I'm getting this multiple jump and I'm adding value immediately. And in addition especially with the sizes that we're looking at I can buy something with EBIDTAs of 500,000 but if I buy four of these, combined them, now I'm not buying at a multiple of 2.8 or three. I'm buying at a multiple … I'm now able to sell it maybe at 3.3, 3.5 or whatever the case maybe for that industry. Andy: Right. Mark: It's this double whammy of the valuations that go up. And as that light bulb with them goes off for where then the next thing I know they're building their fund around to be able to do that. Andy: Now it's easy for us to say it's much harder to implement. So you can say you are just free money. Yeah, there's a lot of hoops you got to jump there to make that happen and integrations and all that. And it's hard work and that's why not everyone is doing it. But if it is kind of conceptually not that difficult to understand. Mark: Right, okay where can people find you if they want more information and if they want to start kind of exploring this world of private equity outside of the blog that'd be a great place to start but what if they're finding for more information? Andy: So you can go to our website PrivateEquityInfo.com at the bottom there's contact us, you'll see my phone number and my email. I'm happy to take calls. I'm happy to answer your emails. If you have questions about private equity, questions about your business and [inaudible 00:35:32.0]. Just pick my brain that's fine. We're happy to do that. We love to talk to customers and potential customers and help people. Mark: Very good. Hey, thanks so much for coming on. I can see you having [inaudible 00:35:42.3] 2019 rolls around and we get in to some of the trends there. Start paying attention to these holding periods that are happening I think that's a really cool stat to be able to be tracking here. And also just kind of see where the trends are with these top industries that are kind of popping up as time goes by here. Andy: Yeah well thanks for having me. It has been fun. Let's do it again. Mark: Yeah thanks, bye. Andy: All right bye-bye.   Links and Resources: Andy's LinkedIn Andy's Company PrivateEquityInfo blog  

托福雅思口语太难？快来和安迪一起学习地道的美语来征服雅思托福口语吧！ 欢迎大家留言并且加关注哈！ 今日话题：Do you prefer to use plastic bags or paper bags? 解题方案：Problem+Solution Do you prefer to use plastic bags or paper bags? Andy: I’d go for paper bags. Why? Andy: ‘cause it's eco-friendly（对环境友好）. Can you give me an example? Andy: Well, think about it. If everyone uses plastic bags, a lot of wasted ones（浪费的塑料袋） will go into the soil（土壤） which is gonna cause pollution since it’s not bio-degradable（不可生物降解）. As a result, the soil is not gonna sustain（生长） plant growths including wheat（小麦）, corns（玉米） or rice（米）, which is gonna lead to a shortage of food（食物短缺） and even starvation（饥饿） around the world. How do you think about it? Andy: I think it’s terrible as our world is already deeply polluted. We have water pollution（水污染）, air pollut...

托福雅思口语太难？快来和安迪一起学习地道的美语来征服雅思托福口语吧！ 今日话题：Should we go vegetarian/vegan（素食主义／纯素食主义） or not? 解题方案：Reasons+ Examples. Should we go vegetarian? Andy: Yes Why should we do it? Andy: ‘cause a vegetarian diet delivers complete nutrition and can provide health benefits.(素食有全面的营养） Can you give me an example? Andy: Well, according to the American Dietetic Association (美国饮食协会）, a plant-based diet（植物饮食）, including all the fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds can meet all the protein requirements（蛋白质需求）, including all the essential amino-acids（必要氨基酸）, thus improving overall health. It also can provide all the necessary vitamins（维生素）, fats（脂肪), minerals（矿物质）, phytonutrients（植物营养素）and antioxidants（抗氧化剂）, therefore it can improve one’s health. However, a meat-based diet （动物肉食）such as pork, beef, chicken contains a hug...

托福雅思口语太难？快来和安迪一起学习地道的美语来征服雅思托福口语吧！ 今日话题：Should animal testing be legalized? 解题方案：观点+举例（实验研究报告） Should animal testing be legalized? Andy: Nope, definitely. Why should it be banned? Andy: ‘cause animal tests do not reliably predict results in human beings（无法可靠地在人体预测结果）. Can you give me an example? Andy: Well, for example, 94% of drugs that had passed animal tests failed in human clinical trials（临床试验）. According to neurologist （神经科医生）Aysha Akhtar, over 100 stroke drugs（治疗中风的药物） that were effective when tested on animals have failed in humans, and over 85 HIV vaccines（HIV疫苗） failed in humans after working well in primates（灵长类动物）like monkeys and chimpanzees(猩猩）. Do you have another reason? Andy: Drugs that pass animal tests are not necessarily safe. What’s the example? Andy:...

托福雅思口语太难？快来和安迪一起学习地道的美语来征服雅思托福口语吧！ 今日话题：Should smoking be banned? 你同意全民禁烟吗？ 解题方案：Problem+ Solution Should smoking be banned? Andy: Yes, definitely. Why should it be banned? Andy: ‘cause not only does it pose threat to the smoker him or herself, but also it’s gonna be bad for others around. Can you give me an example? Andy: Well, you know, say you are at a bar, a cafe or a lounge and there are smokers around. You are to be exposed to（暴露于） lots of poisonous carcinogens（有毒致癌物） including carbon monoxide（一氧化碳）, tar （焦油）and so on, so overtime, you might develop some life-threatening diseases such as bronchitis（支气管炎）, tumor（肿瘤） or even lung cancer（肺癌）! Gosh, how scary it is, isn’t it? It’s not responsible for those smokers to do that. What are the solutions Andy: ...

The week's show covers the McCrory Administration's lawsuit filing against the US Justice Department seeking a federal judicial decision on HB2 and whether it violates the US Civil Rights Act. Interviews with Sen. Andy Wells (R-Catawba & Alexander) and Rep. Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe)

(Segment 1) Trending Topics with Marcus Hunter. (Segment 2) Andy Well and Christin Yates join the show to discuss Breakfest. (Segment 3) Seth Agranov hops on for a discussion about Best Memphis Burger Fest.