Podcasts about david there

As the property management industry continues to evolve, it's important to stay up to date on the latest innovations in technology. In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth expert Jason Hull sits down with David Normand from Vendoroo to talk about AI's role in the future of property management. You'll Learn [01:29] The AI Revolution [08:47] The Importance of Empathy and Human Touch [22:21] Decreasing the Cost of Maintenance Coordination [32:29] New Features Coming to Vendoroo Quotables “As any property manager believes, we know how to do it the best.” “If you're not reading articles and studying up on this, I think that's going to catch you by surprise pretty quickly.” “Empathy is the magic lubrication that makes everything better.” “Empathetic reflection and empathy is a magical ingredient.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript [00:00:00] David: If you're not building AI tools from working with your partners, from being on the ground floor with them and using the data and building tools based upon the data and their pain points and their failures, buyer beware. If somebody's coming to you and saying, Hey, we figured this all out in the lab. [00:00:14] David: Come use it. Yeah. Right. Buyer beware. [00:00:18] Jason: All right. Welcome property management entrepreneurs to the DoorGrow Show or the Property Management Growth podcast. I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, the world's leading and most comprehensive group coaching mastermind for residential property management entrepreneurs. We've been doing this for over a decade and a half. [00:00:39] Jason: I've brought innovative strategies and optimizations to the property management industry. I have spoken to thousands of property management companies. I've coached over 600 businesses. I've rebranded over 300 companies like Bar Rescue for property managers, cleaning up their businesses, and we would love to help coach you and support you and your growth. [00:01:01] Jason: We have innovative strategies for building out growth engines, for building out your operational challenges, for helping you figure out how to get to the next level in your business and one of the cool tools that I'm excited to showcase today with my guest here, David Norman, is Vendoroo. We've had you on the show before. [00:01:19] Jason: Welcome back David.  [00:01:20] David: Yeah. Thank you for having me. It felt like years ago, it was only about, I think eight months ago since we did this, so much has changed over the time, so it's great to be back. Yeah, it's great to be back.  [00:01:29] Jason: Good to have you. I know you're in the middle of this AI revolution, which AI is just innovating and changing so rapidly. It probably does feel like years ago, so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been crazy. You guys have made a lot of changes too, so, you even changed your brand name from the last time we had you on the show. Yeah. Which was I think Tulu. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah. So why don't you get us caught up on what's going on 'cause, you know, there's been a lot.  [00:01:55] David: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you first of all for having me here today, Jason, and from the entire Vendoroo group of us, which, you know, the team has grown 10 x over the past eight months, which has been awesome. And I just also wanted to start in thanking everybody from what we call our client partners who have jumped in into this great unknown that is AI and is going to be like, how is this going to work in our industry? And so that's really what we've been focusing on the past eight months. You know, it's been a unbelievable journey of both failures, successes learnings and insights. And ultimately we're getting excited here at the NARPM broker owner which is in Denver to unveil Vendoroo. Like this is the coming out party. And so we're super excited if you're going to be there. We have a massive booth that we have set up that we have the ai alliance with other people that are working in the AI space, and I really hope that you guys come over and check it out. I promise this. [00:02:53] David: You'll never see a booth or a display like we have set up. At the NARPM broker owner. So.  [00:02:58] Jason: Now I want to go attend it. Yeah. Just so I can see your booth.  [00:03:01] David: So, let me put it this way. You may see the robot from the Jetsons walking around the booth walking around the NARPM broker owner, so, okay. [00:03:07] David: Yeah. Rosie? Yeah. You may see something like that. So she'll be vacuuming with her apron? Yeah. She'll be doing a little social engagement. It'll be cool. So, okay. Okay.  [00:03:17] Jason: Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, so catch us up on what, like, let's get into the kind of the background and the overview for people that have never heard about Vendoroo and what you guys do and how you got into this. [00:03:29] Jason: Yeah. Give people kind of the backstory. Yeah.  [00:03:31] David: Yeah. Thank you for that. So really the backstory is that, you know, we know of this AI economy that's coming, right? And there was a few of us, you know, I've been in this industry for 18 years. You know, I've managed you know, portfolios of 40,000 doors. [00:03:47] David: I've managed them for governments. You know, I started off with our own property management. Much like you guys. We started off with 80 doors. We grew to 550 doors in four years. So it was exciting to know that technology that was coming that promised duplication because, you know, as any property manager believes, we know how to do it the best, right. [00:04:05] David: And so what we decided to do is to come together and say, Hey, if AI's coming, there's two things that we need to figure out. Number one is how is this going to help us show value in this new industry to this new generation of property owners that is here, that is coming, that has been raised in the technology world too, right? [00:04:25] David: And two, can it actually duplicate our efforts? Can it actually be an employee for us? Right? And I don't care what people are promising about ai, you don't know until you get into what we call like, you know, get into the weeds, you got to get into the trenches. And so that's what we did, right? We went out and we were the guys that grabbed the torch and we said, we are going to take all the risk. [00:04:46] David: We are going to jump into the mix. We're going to ask people to jump onto the bandwagon with us and we're going to figure this out. And oh my gosh, what an unbelievable eight months it has been in learning and insights. And I can't wait to get into all the things that we've learned about the property management industry. [00:05:01] David: But that's really what we've been focusing on here the past eight months, right? So we started off with well hey, can the AI assist the va? Can it turn them into a super va? Is that what it's going to be? And, you know, some people were like, yay. And some people were like nay, you know? And so, and you know, because that human failure still was there, right? [00:05:21] David: And you know, what happens if they left? There was that inconsistency. And then it was like, all right, well what can the AI own? Right? What can it do? What can it perfect? And you know, can AI actually be the last employee that I ever hire? Right. That's really, that's a really cool thing to do. [00:05:39] David: But the property managing community had some really specific demands that they said that if this is going to be the last employee that I've had, it has to do this. And that's what I'm excited about our new technology 'cause it's doing those things. You know? [00:05:52] Jason: Yeah. And now you guys have made some big moves. I know, like I've, I have clients that we've sent over to you and they've shared some incredible stories. Like one client, I think he had 154 units or something like under management, and he said in the first day you're of turning on Vendoroo, like it closed out like 80 something work orders. [00:06:12] Jason: Yeah, like, it was crazy. Another client, they had a little more doors. They said it was like 50 something work orders were closed out in the first day of turning it on. And so, I mean, you're creating some dramatic stuff. Like this is a very different thing than what people are used to in maintenance. [00:06:27] David: Yeah. Yeah. And really what the exciting part about this, Jason, is that maintenance is actually really easy. And I know people laugh when I say that it's managing communications that is extremely difficult. Okay. Okay. Right, because you have, you know what AI told us about our industry over the last eight months is when we dove in with it and it took a step back and it said, whoa, you guys don't have a data problem here. [00:06:51] David: You guys have a emotion problem here. There's very specific categories of emotion that are in this space, right? Like, how do you build a technology that senses something? And I know this relates with property managers, 'cause I know this for myself. A property manager can walk into their office, sit down at their desk, and their spidey senses go off and they know something's wrong. [00:07:15] David: There's no screen that's telling them anything. There's no spreadsheet. They know something's off. Right. And so the AI is like, well, the statuses really don't matter that much to me based upon the feedback that I'm seeing from the property managers. Because the status and the communication all seem to be in order, but there's a disruption somewhere. [00:07:35] David: So I need to know about people's emotions. I need to understand about is the resident happy? Does the owner feel supported? Is the vendor being directed? And does the property manager believe that I can own the outcome for this? And it was really cool to start seeing its learning and understanding and picking up on these cues where, you know, people say that this is a data-driven industry. [00:07:55] David: It's really in an emotion driven industry.  [00:07:57] Jason: Oh yeah. It's a relationship and emotion industry for sure. Yeah. Yeah, big time.  [00:08:01] David: And it's really cool to see, and it's really started happening over this past last 60 days, the amount of residents, I was actually just looking at one before I jumped on here, that are like thanking the system, right? [00:08:15] David: Imagine that, like think of all of us that actually worked with the chat bot at like Verizon. I've never thanked that chatbot at Verizon for being their customer service. Right.  [00:08:25] Jason: And how do I get a representative? Representative. Representative!  [00:08:28] David: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Versus you seeing people, you know, seeing individuals saying to the, you know, saying to the Vendoroo maintenance coordinator, Hey, I really appreciate feeling supported and how fast you acted because you know, there's empathy that's inside of its law and learning. So I don't want to get too much into the details on there. But yeah, these are some of the exciting things that we're working on.  [00:08:47] Jason: I mean, empathy is the magic lubrication that makes everything better. [00:08:52] David: Yeah,  [00:08:52] Jason: I mean they, they've done studies. Teams, even in working in warehouses, are more productive if the team has a higher level of empathy. Yeah. And doctors perform better. Yeah. If there's a higher level of empathy, there's less malpractice suits, like empathetic reflection and empathy is a magical ingredient. [00:09:10] Jason: I coach clients to add that in during sales. Yeah. 'cause their close rate goes up dramatically. Yeah. Right. So yeah. So leveraging and like getting the AI to actually be empathetic in its communication. Yeah. When that's probably not a natural skill for a lot of maintenance coordinators to be empathetic. [00:09:26] David: It's not, it's not a natural skill for a lot of people in the maintenance industry. Right? Yes. Especially when you talk about burnout. People begin developing views of the rental community, right? Like, oh my gosh, they're calling again, and that empathy meter goes lower and lower and lower. [00:09:41] David: Yeah. As people have been in the industry longer. But isn't it great that you have an employee now that knows that, yeah, it's my duty, rain or shine, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 a year to always operate at the highest level of empathy? I never have a bad day. I never take a day off. [00:09:57] David: I'm never upset. I'm never short with somebody on the phone, never tired, never like, oh my gosh, Susan is calling me again. I'm going to let the phone just ring because I'm annoyed of talking to her. And it just is constantly hitting that same level of standard. And this is what's exciting to me, is that there are people that that have played around with this and have been a part of what I call the pain phase, right? [00:10:20] David: The pain phase is that understanding the way that agentic AI works, right? It's input in output. Input, output, right? The more that you're putting into it, the better the results are that you're going to get out of it, okay? Right. It's just like training an employee. So over the last eight months, what we've seen is that the community has trained this to be the level of a person that has now been working in the industry for five years. [00:10:46] David: In eight months. It's got five years of learning in eight months. Okay. Wow. In the next six to 12 months, we're probably looking at somebody that has 10 to 15 years understanding in the next six to 12 months and understand the level of type of tasks that it can do, especially getting into estimates and getting some other work. [00:11:04] David: And again, just you know, having empathy in my own life towards the people that jumped in that are like, what is this all about? Like, how does AI fail? Like, you know, there's still people that are involved and it was like this big like momentous train of like, you know, all these people were jumping on and giving ideas and people are in the loop and now it's weeding everything out and the AI stepping in and saying. [00:11:27] David: Hey, I appreciate all the input that you've given me. Thank you for all your effort. I'm now ready to step up to the plate and to own the outcome. Right. And that's what we're seeing at the NARPM show that's coming out. There's five AI tools. There's a master agent, five AI tools. And you know, I'll give you a couple of pieces here that, you know, we had feedback from our property managers like number one across the board. [00:11:50] David: A property manager said, if I'm hiring AI as my last employee, that has to work in my system. Yeah. Okay. Right. Like I don't want another, I don't want another technology. Yeah.  [00:11:59] Jason: I don't want a new system I got to get every vendor to use or a new system I got to get my team to use or figure out. We don't need another tool to make our lives more difficult. [00:12:08] Jason: No. They've got to use our stuff.  [00:12:09] David: They got to use, we have our existing stack. Yeah. So now the AI is fully integrated into all the most common PMS systems. You know, you have a cool chrome extension that you can download and there's a little yellow kangaroo right right there. And it's actually reading the work order that you're working on, and you can literally just ask it a question now and just being like, Hey, did anybody express frustration or concern on this work order? [00:12:32] David: Right? Because that's the emotion behind the status that you need to know. And it's like, yeah, two days ago Sally said that, you know, she was actually really frustrated about the multiple reschedules by this vendor. And it's like, great, that's a person I should be reaching out to and that's what I should be knowing that a status is never going to tell you. [00:12:47] David: Right? Yeah. It's in your slack, right? So if I have, if I'm on my phone, I'm talking to my employee and I'm laying in bed and I have a panic attack as a property manager, and I'm like, oh my gosh, did we take care of John's refrigerator and the office is closed? I can't get ahold of my employee. Yeah, you can. [00:13:03] David: Your employee works 24 7 now. Hey, can you give me an update on the refrigerator replacement at John's place? Yeah, it was scheduled this day. I contacted John. Everything's good to go. You know, go to sleep. You know, like, like that's the power. Full audit. Full syncing. So it's in your platform. That's really cool. [00:13:21] David: The other thing, it's got to be branded, right? This is a thing that we really learned about, like how important branding is to the community of property managers, right? Yeah. So the communications that go out have to be from your area code that's done. The emails that go out have to have like, you know, your company name and your logo on it. [00:13:39] David: The AI is doing that as well too. So that's being sent out, which is really cool. So people are feeling like, you know, that loyalty to brand is super important. And also do you know now that the AI can ask the residents to give a Google Review and we can link to the Google reviews and give you instant Google reviews to your page through the ai, which is cool, like how it's, it will know that if the success of a Google review is high on the way that the work order was done, that it's probably best to ask this person and it will send them a little thing. [00:14:11] David: Hey, can we get a feedback from you? And we link up to your Google review. And it posts that Google review to generate those 'cause we know those are super, super valuable to property managers. So that's actually going out today. That's kind of a little teaser there. That's the emails out now. [00:14:23] Jason: Nice. We'll have to get you to also connect it to our gather kudos links for clients 'cause then people can pick which review sites. So it diversifies the review profile.  [00:14:32] David: Love it. Love that. I'm going to hook you up with our guy Dotan. He's running that. He's one of our head of product. He's, actually out of Israel. [00:14:39] David: He's a amazing guy. I'd love to get you connected with him. Yeah. Cool. Let's do it. Cool. And then the biggest one too is like, I need a single point of contact. Right. And we knew that before there was a lot of people were still involved. There was a lot of oversight that was going on there, having that confusion and single point of contact. [00:14:56] David: Now it's in your phone, it's in your Slack, it's in your phone extension. It doesn't matter what's going on. You have one point of contact. It's your employee. You ask the question, get the answer, Jason, you can even ask for a change. You can even say, Hey, I want to change a vendor on a job and you'll see that the vendor gets changed for you in the system. [00:15:17] David: You can even say to your ai, and this is the big one: hey how do you triage this work order? And I want you to do this, or I want you to do that. And you just do it right through Slack or right through your PM chat and it makes the change for you. And now you have custom triage and all property managers have the ability to train their own AI for their company. [00:15:36] David: Think how cool that is. A person with 75 doors now, and the product that's being released has their own AI agent customized for their company, right? Yeah. Like, that's what happened over the last eight months, so you can see my excitement. There's been a lot of hard work in this. [00:15:54] David: Yeah, that's amazing. But this has been all the effort and a huge thank you out to everybody who's tried us, you know, even said that this wasn't for them at that point in time because those learnings went into what's going to make this product the best product in the property management space and is going to help people leverage sales and leverage efficiencies and blow their owners' minds away in ways that, that we have never thought about. [00:16:15] David: Oh yeah.  [00:16:16] Jason: Yeah. So I know like initially when you rolled this out, a lot of people were nervous about AI and you guys had kind of a human layer in between the AI and any communication Yeah, initially. Yeah. And so there was like, they had like a reps and a lot of people associated, oh, I've got this rep. [00:16:33] Jason: Yeah. You know, Steven or whatever is my rep or Pedro and I've got Pedro and like, oh no, what if Pedro leaves? And they were associating with that while the AI is really doing the crux of the work. Right. And so you guys have shifted away from even that now the AI is directly communicating with people. [00:16:52] Jason: Correct? Yeah.  [00:16:53] David: Yeah. So let's talk about that. So, definitely, so in the beginning there was like, we all had like lack of trust. We believed what it was going to do, but it was like we had a ton of people still trying, like, you know, using qualified VAs, training them. Like, you know, like, you know, if it fails, like, you know, you have to have a person stepped in and so let's talk about that. [00:17:12] David: So, you know, it was definitely that human layer. And let's talk about where we're at today. It is very clear to us, and the one thing that separates us from everybody is we still believe that humans are super important in this process. Okay? Yeah. And where humans are very important in this process are going to be when the AI says, Hey, I need you to make a phone call to this person for me, right? [00:17:35] David: Hey, I've reached out to this vendor three times and they haven't responded yet. I need you to give a phone call to see what's going on. Right? Hey, I need you to recruit a vendor for me. I need you to reach out and do a recruitment for the vendor. For me. Hey, this owner is asking questions about this estimate. [00:17:51] David: I need you to give a call for me. So the AI is basically able, on a standard work order, the AI can handle 95% of the workflow, no problem. Work order comes in, gets assigned to the resident. It gets out to the vendor. It's under the NTE not to exceed. It's great. The work gets done, the resident uploads its photos, the AI says to the resident, are you happy? [00:18:14] David: Everyone's good. It closes the work order out. Cool. Right. And then if a human...  [00:18:19] Jason: and how is it communicating with the tenant and with the vendor typically? [00:18:24] David: Yep. So, it's very clear that and this isn't a surprise to anybody. Everybody loves text messages, right? Yeah. I mean, that's just, it's just what it is. [00:18:32] David: You literally, like, people will get a phone call and they won't pick up and the text will come back and like text back. Yeah, text me. What do you need? Yeah. Text me here. But, so here's the things that people don't see behind the scenes that we'll talk about. So the complexity that went into. [00:18:51] David: Mapping out how to allow vendors... so a vendor could have like 20 jobs, right? And we don't want to send him like a code that he has to text for every work order so that it links to the right work order. Like what guy wants to do that? Okay. Like that's not how he works. So we figured out how to allow a vendor through AI just to use his regular phone and text anything about this thing. And it's understanding it and it's mapping it, it's routing it to all those work orders because we knew that in order for this to be the last employee somebody would have to handle, it also means that the vendor has to be happy and the same for the resident. [00:19:30] David: They can just text that they have multiple work orders. It understands what work order it's going to. If it's not quite sure, I would ask them, Hey, is this question about this work order? And they say, yeah. And so there's not like, again, codes and links and things that they have to do. It has to be seamless if they're working with a person. [00:19:46] David: So yeah, text message is massive. Email is second, and then phone is third for sure.  [00:19:51] Jason: Got it. So is your AI system calling people yet or you or telling the property manager to make the phone call?  [00:19:58] David: Yeah. People are okay with. If they're calling in like our new front desk agent, which if a person calls in and they want to get information about a listing or if they want to get information about a work order or something like that, or, you know, they're okay with getting that type of information. [00:20:13] David: Yeah. But they are, it is very clear that they are not okay with AI calling them when they're asking for an update on a work order like that. Like that line in the sand very clear. Yeah. And so we have people on on the team. That are constantly monitoring into ai, giving feedback, hitting improvement. [00:20:31] David: I want everybody to know there is not a work order that is taking place that is not touched by a human at least twice.  [00:20:38] Jason: Okay.  [00:20:39] David: Okay. Right.  [00:20:40] Jason: So there's a little, there's some oversight there. There there's, you're watching this, there are humans involved  [00:20:45] David: And then the ai will when it hits certain fail points, right? [00:20:51] David: It then escalates those things up to what we call the human in the loop, right? So there's an AI assistant, we there's people now that we're training a whole new generation of people that are no longer going to be maintenance coordinators. They're AI assistants now, right? And so when the AI says, Hey, this work order is not going down the path that I think it should go to be successful. [00:21:12] David: I'm escalating this up to a human, and so now as a property manager, not only am I getting this AI agent workflow that's standardizing the empathy and the workflows and all the stuff that we talked about in the communications, I also now get a fractional employee that when the AI says, Hey, I need help, I already have an employee that it can reach out to that can make that phone call or call the vendor. [00:21:36] David: But it's also monitoring the AI for me on top of it. So yes, there is, and that's one of the big thing that separates us apart is that the platform comes with what we call a human in the loop, an expert in the loop and so we're training the first generation of AI assistants in the property management industry. [00:21:55] David: Yep.  [00:21:56] Jason: Got it. So the AI maintenance coordinator. Has human assistance. Yep. Underneath it.  [00:22:02] David: And before it was the other way around where Yeah. The AI was assisting the human right. And now the humans are assisting the ai. That's what's happened in the last...  [00:22:11] Jason: that may be the future of all of our roles. [00:22:12] Jason: So,  [00:22:13] David: If you're not reading articles and studying up on this I think that's going to catch you by surprise pretty quickly. Yeah. Learn how to write prompts. I'll tell everybody right now. Yes.  [00:22:21] Jason: Yeah. Interesting. So, now what about this, you know, there's the uncanny, you know, sort of stage where people get a little bit nervous about AI and what do they call it? The uncanny valley or something like this, or right where it gets, it's so close to human that it becomes creepy. And there's some people that have fear about this, that are concerned. You're going to have a lot of late, you know, adopters that are like resistant. "I'll never do ai." [00:22:49] Jason: What would you say to somebody when you get on a sales call and they're like, well, I'm really nervous about this AI stuff, you know, and they just, they don't get it.  [00:22:57] David: Yeah.  [00:22:58] Jason: I'm sure there's people listening right now. They're like, oh man, AI is going to kill us all and it's going to take over the world and it's going to take our jobs. [00:23:05] Jason: And they think it's evil.  [00:23:06] David: Yeah. Yeah. I, and you know, I really want to hear that fear and I want to like, again, have empathy towards that. 'cause I do understand that fear of change causes people to get... Change in general. Yes. Right. It's like, whoa, I like everything the way it's going to be. Right. And we are historically in one of those phases of like, you know, the industrial revolution, the renaissance, like the automobile from horse. [00:23:34] David: Like, this is what is taking place. This is, this will be written down in history. It's massive change. It's a massive change. Massive. So what I would say to them, and not to, not from a way of fear. But to inspire them is there are a lot of hungry entrepreneurs out there that are embracing this head on. [00:23:57] David: Yeah. That are pushing the boundaries and the limits to be able to bring insights and customer service to their clients at a much higher level. And if you want to compete in this new AI economy. I would definitely encourage you to understand and get in and start investing in yourself now. But understand that investing in AI means having some pain threshold. [00:24:21] David: Like you got to get in, like you, you need to be able to give the feedback. You need to understand that if it falls short, do you have to be able to give it the time and the energy and the reward and the payoff of what I'm seeing for property managers who've embraced that when they're sitting there and they're going, I don't touch maintenance at all anymore. Yeah, it's wild. Right? And those are the people that in the beginning of this relationship, and there's a few that come to my head, are the ones that were sending me emails constantly saying, David, this is failing me. I believe in this, but this is failing me. And as my technology partner, I know that you're going to help us get this better. [00:24:58] David: And there is, you know, I have this word down that struggle equals great con conversation, right? Like, and so they had a struggle and that opened up a great conversation and because of that, their technology and the technology is getting better. So yeah, I think that from a personal point of view in this industry, one thing that I want to solve with AI is I think that we can all say that over the past 15 years, we've probably yelled at a lot of vendors or yelled at a lot of VAs or yelled at a lot of people. Let's start yelling at the ai. And then hopefully that the AI will actually eliminate the need for us to ever have to yell at anybody again because it knows us. [00:25:36] David: Yeah. It never fails us.  [00:25:38] Jason: You know? It really is amazing. I mean, your company is creating freedom for the business owner from being involved in maintenance. Yeah. Really?  [00:25:46] David: Yeah.  [00:25:47] Jason: And it just, and they get used to that pretty quickly. Like maintenance is just running and they're like, yeah. It frees up so much head space for them to focus on growth. [00:25:56] Jason: It gives them a whole bunch of like just greater capacity. Yeah. So they feel like, yeah, we could handle adding any number of doors now and we know we can still fulfill and do a good job.  [00:26:07] David: Yeah. Fixed cost scaling. Right? That's a term that we came up with is now that you know that I have a price per door that will cover all my maintenance. So if I went in and brought on 75 doors, I know that I don't have to go out and hire another employee. The system just grows with it and I know exactly what my margin is for all those doors. Right. And as we know previous, before fixed cost scaling a property managers is like, I have enough people. [00:26:32] David: I don't have enough people. Someone quit, someone didn't quit. My profit margins are good. My profit margins are bad. Yeah. And now with these AI tools. You know, you have your front desk employee, you have your maintenance coordinator, you have these fixed cost scales, and now somebody calls you up and says, Hey, I want you to take on 25 doors, and you're like, I have the resource resources for maintenance, which is, we know is 80% of the workload already. I don't have to go out and hire another maintenance coordinator 'cause the system just grows with me, which is cool.  [00:27:00] Jason: So one of the things you shared at DoorGrow Live and you're our top sponsor for the upcoming... Can't wait for DoorGrow Live, can't wait to, so we're really excited to have you back so. [00:27:10] Jason: Everybody make sure you're at DoorGrow Live if you want. Our theme this year is innovating the future of property management. And we're bringing, we're going to be showcasing, innovating pricing structures that are different than how property managers have typically historically priced, that allow you to lower your operational costs and close more deals more easily at a higher price point. [00:27:30] Jason: We're, we'll be showcasing a three tier hybrid pricing model that we've innovated here at DoorGrow, and we've got clients using it. It's been a game changer. We're going to be sharing other cool things about the future hiring systems, et cetera. Right. So you guys will also be there showcasing the future. [00:27:46] Jason: One of the things you shared previously that really kind of struck me as you showed, you did some research and you showed the typical cost. Per unit that most companies had just to cover and deal with maintenance. Yeah. And and then what you were able to get it down to.  [00:28:03] David: Yeah.  [00:28:04] Jason: And that alone was just like a bit of a mind blowing. [00:28:07] Jason: Could you just share a little bit of numbers here?  [00:28:09] David: Yeah. So one of the first things that we had to do when we started way back in the day is figure out well. Like, like what's the impact of AI going to be us from like a cost perspective, right? Is it a huge change? And so we went out on a big survey mission and we were surveying property managers and asking them, what's your cost per door for managing maintenance? [00:28:30] David: How much do you spend every door to manage maintenance? Now the first thing is less than 1% of property managers knew what that cost was. Sure.  [00:28:37] Jason: Oh, sure. Right. Because, but then they got to figure out, oh, we got a maintenance coordinator and we've got these people doing phone calls and they cost this, and yeah, it's complicated. [00:28:45] David: It's complicated. So we built a calculator. Okay. And then people could start adding in that information out into the calculator, and the average person was around $13 and 50 cents a door.  [00:28:56] Jason: Okay. Okay.  [00:28:57] David: Wow. Right, right. So that was where the average person was, somewhere in the low twenties. Yeah. [00:29:01] David: And others were actually pretty good. Like, I'd say like, you know, some of the good ones that we saw were maybe around like, you know, 10, $11 a door or something along that line.  [00:29:09] Jason: They probably had a large portfolio would be my guess.  [00:29:12] David: Yeah. And also I think a lot of it's just like, you know, I don't know if they were still accounting for all their software and everything that they had. [00:29:19] David: Maybe they're not factoring everything. Yeah. No, I think if we really dug in, it'd be different. So now we know that, you know, the base package of what people are getting in. The average cost of what people are paying for 24 7 services that's emergencies around the clock is about $7 and 50 cents a door, right? [00:29:37] David: So right off the bat in AI's first swing, it said we cut the cost in half. Yeah. Okay. Right. So 50% reduction. I mean, to me as an owner, a 50% reduction in cost. That's like. You know, alarms and celebration going off, you know? For sure. And then, yeah.  [00:29:55] Jason: And that's, if everything just stayed the same, like it was still the same level of quality, cutting in half would be a solid win right there. [00:30:03] Jason: Yeah.  [00:30:03] David: Yeah. That's just like status quo stuff. And now what, with the release of the new Vendoroo product that, that's actually being announced here today. The email's going out to all of our existing clients of all the new features that are coming out now, we're starting to see that. You know that quality is now increasing to where if you were to go out and hire that person, you may have to be spending, you know, 55,000 or $65,000 a year. [00:30:29] David: Right? So now it's like saying, okay, if we can get as good as what these people are using for their VAs right, and we know what that cost is, and they're saying that's, you know, that's what their factors is. Well, what happens in the next six to 12 months when this is a seasoned person that you would've to pay $85,000 a year to? [00:30:45] David: Right. Yeah. And right, because they have knowledge of. Estimates and knowledge of vendor routing and knowledge of, you know, it can handle...  [00:30:53] Jason: you've invested so much time into them, so much attention. They know your properties and know your portfolio. They know the vendors. Like you've invested so much into this person that now they sort of have you by the balls so that they're like, Hey, I want 80 k or I walk.  [00:31:06] David: Yeah.  [00:31:06] Jason: You're like, you've got to come up with it.  [00:31:08] David: Yeah.  [00:31:09] Jason: Right. You've got to do it.  [00:31:10] David: Yeah.  [00:31:10] Jason: And you know, because that's not easy to create. And a lot of people, in order to have a good maintenance coordinator, they need a veteran of the industry. Veteran of industry. [00:31:19] Jason: They need somebody that's been doing this a long time.  [00:31:21] David: Yeah.  [00:31:22] Jason: And that's really hard to find.  [00:31:24] David: Yes. It's extremely hard to find as we know. One of the things that I think that we're doing for this industry is we're actually preserving knowledge that I don't think is necessary getting passed down. [00:31:33] David: Yeah. You know, there's a lot less people that I think are as handy as they once were in the Americas and so we have a lot of that knowledge. Like, you know, we know that the average age of an electrician is in the sixties, the average age of a plumber's in the sixties. And these guys, you know, they have wealth of knowledge that it can troubleshoot anything that's going on in a house. [00:31:54] David: And so to be able to try to preserve some of that, so maybe if a person does come in, you know, maybe there's some knowledge sharing along the lines. But let's take it even in another step forward Jason that in the future, you know, the AI is going to know the location of the hot water tank in that house. [00:32:10] David: It's going to then add it automatically to the system, like. It's going to know more knowledge than they will because it's going to have maps of every single property that's all currently sitting inside of, you know, that maintenance coordinator's head, right? And so it's going to, it's going to actually know more than them, you know. [00:32:26] Jason: Yeah. That's wild. Yeah, it is. Absolutely. It's the future. Cool. Well, you're rolling out a bunch of new features. You're announcing these today. You've told me a little bit, but why don't you tell the listeners what's changing, what's new, what innovations have come out? What are you guys launching? [00:32:41] David: Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. So, the biggest one I think is, which is the most exciting is, is Resiroo, which is the first one that actually handles all the communications with the resident and does the triage and troubleshooting. First one of what are you talking about? So we have our products. [00:32:57] David: So you have these AI tools, right? These agents. Right.  [00:33:00] Jason: And so, you know, every, so think of them like different sort of people?  [00:33:04] David: Skill sets. Yeah. Different person. Okay. Exactly. And so that's when you come and see our display at the NARPM conference, you'll actually will see these five agents kind of in their work desk and in their environments, kind of cool. [00:33:15] David: Okay. Able to see them right. So the coolest part about that one is we're doing a major product you know, update on that for not only the knowledge base, but we're actually turning that over to the company. We were talking about this a little bit before, and now they own their own AI agent and they can customize it into how they want it to ask questions or the type of questions and the mindsets when it's triaging stuff. [00:33:41] David: Triaging work orders for their portfolio. Like super cool. So fully customizable to your company, right?  [00:33:49] Jason: So now sometimes the more humans get involved, the more they mess stuff up.  [00:33:54] David: Yes. We make sure they don't mess it up. So everyone's going to learn how to write prompts and they'll submit it into us. [00:33:59] David: And we have a great team of AI engineers that when that knowledge base is written or what they're doing. We will ensure that it is put in so that it actually produces the desire outcome, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a very exciting one. The second one that I'm that I think is so cool, do you know that only 10% of all estimates get approved by the owner without one or multiple questions? [00:34:23] David: Because owners really struggle with trust when it comes to estimates. Like 10%. Like, that's a really bad number, I felt as the industry that owners only believe us one out of 10 times. Like that's the way I took that. Yeah. Right. And so, Owneroo is what I coined inside, is the estimate of the future. [00:34:41] David: That really was looking in understanding like what was, what questions was the owner asking when they were rejecting a bid that that we could proactively ask the answer for them to help guide them to understanding the value in this estimate that they're looking at in historical context of the property. [00:35:00] David: How many other people have experienced this issue? Like, like there's a whole bunch of factors that should go into an estimate and an estimate should no longer be like, here's a cost from Frank. Right? Like, like that was like, like that was...  [00:35:14] Jason: here's what Frank said it is. Yeah. Like that was like from the 1940s. [00:35:17] Jason: That's good. How do I trust that?  [00:35:18] David: How do I trust that? That was from the forties and we're still...  [00:35:21] Jason: how much went into this decision? Was this just out of the blue, like pulled out of your ass or is this like legit?  [00:35:27] David: Yeah. Yeah. What's the, you know, we live in a data-driven world, so what's the intellect behind this estimate? [00:35:33] David: And so I'm really excited about Owneroo, which is going to be the new standard for the way the estimates are created. We have the front desk agent which is coming out. So, that one is going to handle phone calls that are coming in, be able to talk about available listings, actual general questions about leases route phone calls over to property managers for you. [00:35:54] David: So again. Very human-like interaction, great AI voice. Actually. We feel it's going to be the best in the industry. So a person's calling in, just like they're calling your office able to handle all those front desk things. We, we have the PM chat, which is now the employee which is fully integrated into all of your systems. [00:36:14] David: It's in Slack. That's your employee that you get to talk to. We believe that if you're going to hire somebody, they should be inside of your communication channels. You have the Google Chrome extension that it's on right inside your AppFolio or your buildium or your Rentvine software that you can ask and talk to it. [00:36:31] David: So, yeah, so we have a lot of exciting products that have come out. And then of course the backbone of all of them in the middle is Vendoroo, which handles all the scheduling, all the communications. You know, a resident asks for an update, responds to them, an owner asks for an update, it responds to them. [00:36:48] David: And you know, it handles actually the body of the work order. So you have those five tools, we believe are what the property management industry said. If you are going to give me an employee, this is what the employee has to be. This is what makes up that employee. So we say that these tools, these agents were actually built by the property management industry. [00:37:08] David: And that excites me because if you're not building AI tools from working with your partners, from being on the ground floor with them and using the data and building tools based upon the data and their pain points and their failures, buyer beware. If somebody's coming to you and saying, Hey, we figured this all out in the lab. [00:37:25] David: Come use it. Yeah. Right. Buyer beware.  [00:37:29] Jason: Yeah. So you guys connect with Slack. They can communicate through Slack, but it slack's a paid tool. Have you guys considered Telegram? I love Telegram Messenger.  [00:37:37] Jason: Alright. Could you do that? Write it down. Telegram Messenger is like the iMessage tool that works on every device. [00:37:44] Jason: It's free. It's one of the most secure, it's not owned or controlled by Facebook. Like, WhatsApp, like, yeah. But WhatsApp might be a close second, but we use Telegram internally, so I love Telegram.  [00:37:58] David: We'll definitely take that into, into consideration for sure. Yeah, check it  [00:38:02] Jason: out. Because I, what I love is the voice message feature and I can just listen to my team and others at like high speed, but internal communications and it's free for everybody, which is great. [00:38:12] Jason: So, yeah.  [00:38:13] David: Yeah. I think a lot, for a lot of people it was like you know, who was Vendoroo in the beginning and Vendoroo was like the team of like people that were trying to figure out like how is AI going to work in this industry? [00:38:26] David: How is it going to solve the needs of our property management partners? And this is why I say to everybody, if you thought about Vendoroo, if you came in and the experience wasn't great with Vendoroo, if you're one of our existing clients that has been with us and you're and you're still moving forward, and we thank you so much for your dedication to this, the Vendoroo product, everything that we've done, everything that we worked at is being showcased at the NARPM broker owner. The email's going out today. This is who Vendoroo is. We are a team that is a technology partner for the property management industry that is helping building meaningful AI tools, specifically by demand, by our industry to help us show value and to preserve this great industry. [00:39:09] David: For the future in this new AI economy, right? Like we need to step up. We have clients that are adding doors left and right because they're showing their clients that they use an AI maintenance system and their clients are like, this is what I expect from a property management in this community. [00:39:24] David: Right? And again, Owneroo, that estimate, we believe that in the future. Like, like owners are going to say like, I'm not approving an estimate unless it's like the estimate of the future, right? Like, like that's the new standard. So you got to know what the new standards are and you got to get technology that are going to help you compete with those new standards that will be in your community and are will be in your community in the next week, the next two weeks. [00:39:46] David: And definitely some really cool products in the next six months.  [00:39:49] Jason: All right. Well, yeah, I'm really excited to see what you guys have been able to create so far. So yeah, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. All right. Well David, it's been awesome having you on the show. Sounds like you guys are really innovating the future. Everybody come to DoorGrow Live. David, are you going to be at that one? I will be there. All right, so you can come meet David in person. [00:40:08] Jason: We've got some amazing people that are going to be at this. We've got technology people. There's a gentleman there, one of the vendors they created another really cool tool, but he had a hundred million dollars exit, you know, in a previous business, like there's really amazing entrepreneurs and people at this event, so come to DoorGrow Live, get your tickets, and if you do, we have just decided that we're going to give out to anybody that registers. [00:40:34] Jason: You can pick from one of our free bonuses that are well worth the price of the ticket. Or coming or anything in and of itself, including our pricing secrets training that goes over a three tier hybrid pricing model or our sales secrets training, which goes over how we're helping property managers crush it and closing more deals more easily at a higher price point. [00:40:55] Jason: And reputation secrets, which are helping our clients get way more positive reviews by leveraging the psychology and the law of reciprocity and getting the majority of their tenants in order to give them positive feedback online. Maybe some others. So you'll be able to pick from these bonuses one of these that you might like and that's our free, most incredible free gift ever that we'll give to each person that registers for DoorGrow Live. [00:41:19] Jason: So.  [00:41:20] David: Cool. Awesome man. Always great to see you. Looking forward to seeing you at DoorGrow Live and love that you guys are working on pricing because AI is going to make people think different about pricing. It's going to be way more efficient, so you guys are ahead of the curve on that. Great job, Jason. [00:41:33] Jason: Awesome. All right, so how can they check out Vendoroo, David?  [00:41:36] David: Just visit, Vendoroo.ai, go to the website, request a demo with one of our great sales reps, and yeah they'd love to help you out. See all the new products, see how far it's come. And again, we thank everybody from the bottom of our hearts for all their effort, people who've tried us out. [00:41:52] David: Come back and see what you built and yeah. Come check us out at Vendoroo.  [00:41:57] Jason: Got it. Go check out Vendoroo, it's vendor. If you know how to spell that, V-E-N-D-O-R-O-O dot A-I, go check it out. All right? And if you're a property management entrepreneur, you want to add doors, you want to make your business scalable, you want to get out of the day to day, you want to increase the capacity so your company could easily handle another 200 plus doors without having to make any significant systems changes, reach out to us at DoorGrow. We will help you figure it out. So until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

Last week's Monday Morning Memo included a photograph of a diamond pendant and the promise of a $1,000 cash prize to whoever could use AI to write the 60-second radio ad that would sell the largest number of that pendant for Valentine's Day.I was given that photo by a jewelry client. In a moment we will look at the 60-second radio ad I wrote for the client before I issued the AI prompter challenge. But first, here are 10 things I have learned from the advertising results (and lack of results) I have seen during my 40 years as an ad writer.The most effective ads don't sound like ads.Most jewelry ads are filled with cliches and schmaltz.The Large Language Models used by AI are educated by the most often used phrases.This is why jewelry ads written by AI are filled with cliches and schmaltz.Most of the ads written by AI are better than what the average citizen would write.The average citizen has not received specific data about the results delivered by each of the thousands of ads they have written during the past 40 years.My challenge to AI prompters included a photograph of the pendant, but none of the ads written by AI were specific to that pendant.Specifics are more persuasive than generalities.The non-specific ads written by AI sold only the idea of a diamond pendant; an idea that can be fulfilled by any diamond pendant sold by any jewelry store, anywhere.Advertisers who use these “generalized” ads are not advertising for their store alone, but for all their competitors as well.Q: Would the AI radio ads “work”?A: If what you mean is, “Would they generate a result?” Then yes, but that result would not be the highest and best use of your ad dollars. Not by a long shot.AI is great at a lot of things, but effective ad writing is not among them.Radio cannot reveal visual images except in the imagination. That's what makes radio the perfect medium to deliver this ad. It is the radio ad I wrote to sell that specific pendant:JACOB: David, have you seen it?DAVID: Oh yes! I've seen it.JACOB: What did it say to you?DAVID: There is only one thing it CAN say.JACOB: Sometimes an artist will say something incredibly specific without using any words at all.DAVID: We've all heard music that can tell a story without words.JACOB: And we've all seen paintings that can tell a story without words.DAVID: But this time a jewelry designer did it.JACOB: The moment you see it, you know what it is saying.DAVID: I understood the message immediately.JACOB: [slowly] “The long and the short of it is we're in this together.”DAVID: “The long and the short of it is we're in this together.”JACOB: It has wit, and whimsy, and humor, and warmthDAVID: and commitment.JACOB: It made me smile when I saw it.DAVID: Me, too.MONICA: [SFX cell phone ring] Hello.SARAH: Did they see it?MONICA: Oh yes, they saw...

We continued our reading and discussion of the treatment and cures that the spiritual father must understand for every malady that afflicts a person in the spiritual life. He must understand not only how to apply them but also the manner they are applied to each individual person with their unique needs. No person is the same and in the spiritual battle the elder must understand the subtle manifestations of spiritual illness and the manner in which various cures might be applied. One of the most striking aspects of tonight's discussion was on the capacity of the elder to be free from and endure nausea and to be able to untiringly strive to dispel the stench of vomit. Of course, St. John is speaking about sin itself and the willingness of the elder to enter into the darkness in which the other person finds himself; to descend into their hell and to endure the stench of sin itself. The capacity to do this comes through engaging in the spiritual battle throughout the course of one's life and attending in obedience to the counsel of one's own spiritual father. The lack of nausea and the ability to endure the stench of the vomit of sin comes from having long been immersed in it through one's own struggles. Compassion is born in a powerful way through the experience of common trials.  Beyond this, St. John tells that the shepherd must experience blessed dispassion. In other words, he must be free of the passions that would blind him and his ability to discern the particular needs of those in his care. This discernment allows the elder to illuminate the path that leads to repentance and so gives him the capacity to “resurrect every dead soul”. This is the identity that every Christian soul should seek to embrace. While it's true that not everyone is called to be a spiritual elder, every Christian by virtue of their baptism is called to the holiness described here and given the responsibility for the care of souls in their midst. We are responsible for the salvation and goodwill of those around us as much as we are responsible for our own. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:04:47 Anna Lalonde: Well my kids learned to walk up our hallway wall today so you up for that Father?

In this episode, we explore findings from a groundbreaking study recently published in Nature which revealed potential targets for bowel cancer prevention and treatment. The study provides the most detailed understanding yet of bowel cancer's genetic makeup. The research, which used data from the 100,000 Genomes Project identified over 250 genes that play a crucial role in the condition, driver genes and potential drug targets. Our guests discuss the potential impact of these findings on patient outcomes, screening for bowel cancer, and future prevention strategies. Helen White, Participant Panel Vice-Chair for Cancer at Genomics England is joined by Professor Ian Tomlinson, Professor of Cancer Genetics at the University of Oxford, Claire Coughlan, Clinical Lead for Bowel Cancer UK and consultant nurse in colorectal cancer, and Dr David Church, a clinical scientist fellow and a medical doctor specialising in oncology at Oxford University. "The people that were kind enough to donate samples to the 100,000 Genomes Project, they did so knowing that they almost certainly wouldn't benefit personally from their donation from their gift and that any benefits would be some way down the line and hopefully benefit others which is what we're seeking to realise now. But, you know, it's not a given when we treat people in the clinic so we're very, very grateful to those individuals." You can read more about the study in our colorectal cancer blog and our study findings news story. You can download the transcript or read it below. Helen: Welcome to Behind the Genes. Ian: One of the great hopes is that some of these new genes that we've found could be useful in preventing cancer and it doesn't necessarily matter that they're rare, even if they're only 1% of cancers, by using those and changing those in the normal individual before they have had cancer then we may be able to reduce that risk. So, there are lots of potential new targets for prevention that are coming through.  My name is Helen White and I'm the Participant Panel Vice-Chair for Cancer at Genomics England. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Ian Tomlinson, Professor of Cancer Genetics at the University of Oxford, Claire Coughlan, Clinical Lead for Bowel Cancer UK and consultant nurse in colorectal cancer, and Dr David Church, a clinical scientist fellow and a medical doctor specialising in oncology at Oxford University.   Today we will be discussing a pioneering colorectal cancer study which using data from the 100,000 Genomes Project has uncovered new insights that could transform diagnosis and treatment for patients with bowel cancer. If you enjoyed today's episode we would love your support, please like, share and rate us on wherever you listen to your podcast.  Thank you for joining me today. We're going to be discussing the findings from a landmark study that has been published in nature. This study used data generously donated by people with bowel cancer who took part in the 100,000 Genomes Project giving us the most detailed look yet at the genetic makeup of colorectal cancer better known as bowel cancer. But before we get into that let's start by hearing from my guests. Could each of you please introduce yourselves.  Ian: I'm Ian Tomlinson, I work at the University of Oxford and most of my work is research into bowel cancer, it's genetic causes, the genes that are involved in actually causing the cancer to grow which may be different from genetic causes and also the use of that data to help patients whether guiding future treatments or potentially helping to prevent bowel cancer which would obviously be our optimum strategy to have the biggest impact on the disease and its incidents.   Claire: So, I'm Claire Coughlan, I'm the clinical lead for Bowel Cancer UK and my remit at the charity is to ensure that everything we do is clinically relevant and that we're providing services that meet the needs of those affected by bowel cancer and the educational needs of those health professionals that work with people affected by bowel cancer. I'm also a nurse consultant in colorectal cancer at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and I lead an urgent referral service there and also work with patients with late effects of bowel cancer.  David: I'm David Church, I'm a medical oncologist and Cancer Research UK advanced clinician scientist at the University of Oxford. I treat bowel cancer clinically and do research on bowel cancer and womb cancer including a lot of research using samples and data from Genomics England data service we're discussing today of course.  Helen: Great, thank you. Now let's turn to Claire to learn more about bowel cancer. Claire, can you share with us how common it is, how treatable it is and if there are any trends in terms of which groups of people are affected?  Claire: Of course, bowel cancer is a relatively common cancer, there are about 46,000 people each year in the UK diagnosed with bowel cancer so that is quite a large number. The thing that really drives us forward in bowel cancer is that the earlier stage you're diagnosed at the greater chance of survival. So, the figures for that are quite stark, we stage bowel cancer through stage one to 4 with one being the earliest stage and 4 being the most advanced.   If you are diagnosed with bowel cancer at stage one you have a 9 in 10 chance of being alive and well 5 years after your diagnosis of bowel cancer. And if you're diagnosed at the other end of the spectrum at stage 4 that drops to a 1 in 10 and should people survive after a diagnosis of stage 4, which more people than before do they will have had a lot of treatment for their bowel cancer so the burden of the treatment will also be with them after that. So, it's really important that we diagnose at the earliest possible stage which is why studies such as the one we're going to talk about today are so important.   We have noticed that there has been a slight increase in being diagnosed at a younger age. That said the latest statistic is 2,600 people were diagnosed under the age 50 in the UK last year so it's still a disease of older people, you still have a greater chance of getting bowel cancer as you get older but it's really, really important that we're aware that you can still get bowel cancer as a younger person.   Probably one of the most exciting things that has happened for bowel cancer of recent years is our bowel cancer screening programme and the age for that now has been brought down to 50, we're not quite there all over the country, but in the UK that is the aim that everyone will be screened for bowel cancer at the age of 50. So, yes it's a common disease and staging an early detection is vital. Helen: That's lovely Claire, thank you very much for that. David, turning to you could you please explain to us how bowel cancer typically develops? David: Yes, so we know compared with many cancer types quite a lot about how bowel cancer develops because the bowel is accessible to collect samples by a technique called endoscopy which is putting a camera into the bowel from which you can sample tumours or lumps. And so from genetic research done in the last 10 years we know that, or we've known for many years actually, for much longer, that cancer is a genetic disease, it's a disease caused by alterations in genes and particularly genes that control whether the cells in our bowel grow normally and die normally as they should do. And collectively when there are alterations in genes that regulate those processes you can have a cell or collection of cells which are able to grow without restraint and don't die when they should do which are some of the hallmarks of a cancer and they also require the ability to spread elsewhere in the body which is what kills people with cancer including bowel cancer. We know from research done in the last 10 to 15 years that some of the alterations in genes that can cause bowel cancer in combination occur very early in our life, even in the first and second decade of life, but don't cause cancer. The earliest detectable abnormality is typically a polyp which is a tumour, a lump within the bowel which is detectable and if removed is almost certainly cured by removal alone but if it's not detected then as that grows and acquires more alterations in genes then it can become a cancer and cancers develop the ability to invade the bowel wall, to spread to what we call lymph nodes or glands nearby and also to spread further afield, most commonly to the liver or to the lungs.   And for most people whom bowel cancer has spread to the liver or to the lungs or elsewhere unfortunately we're not able to cure their disease which as Claire has said is why there is such an importance in detecting cancers and pre-cancers as we call them so that the tumours are not actually cancerous but come before bowel cancer as early as possible.  Helen: Thank you David. Moving on to the study, Ian perhaps you can take this, in the study that you carried out my understanding is that the whole genome sequencing was used to investigate the genetic changes that lead to the development and growth of bowel cancer. And for this participants with bowel cancer in the 100,000 Genomes Project donated both a blood sample and a tumour sample while those with rare conditions only provided a blood sample, can you explain why that is?  Ian: As you said the study really looked at 2 quite separate arms albeit with a little bit of overlap as we'll see. So, one very important aim was to look at individuals, both children and adults, who had medical problems or other conditions that were unexplained but which had some features that suggested that they weren't necessarily inherited but there may be some variation in their genes that had caused them, and roughly half of the programme was dedicated to that.   Within that there was a small number of people who had a strong family history of bowel cancer or who had large numbers of polyps in the bowel and they were analysed in a separate part of the project from what we're mostly discussing. Within the cancer arm there was a collection really throughout England of patients who had most of the common types of cancer and a few with less common cancers.   And because when we're looking at genetic and related changes in cancers we need to make sure that those changes have actually occurred in the cancer as it started growing from its earliest stages with a small number of cells in the body that were slightly abnormal and then progressing. We need to look at what genetic variation the patient has in all the cells of their body. We don't want to look at patients and say that looks an interesting change, we may be able to use that if it's present in all of the normal cells in that patient's system.   We want to make sure the change is specific to the cancer itself and therefore we have to sequence both a sample probably taken from blood and a sample taken from the actual cancer. And in a way we subtract out the changes in the blood to identify the changes that have actually occurred in the cancer itself.  Helen: That's a very helpful explanation. Does this research show that there is a role for whole genome sequencing in clinical care?  Ian: I think my own view is it is all a question of cost. I think the advantages it provides it can assess multiple types of genetic change at once. It is relatively consistent across each cancer's genome between cancers, even between centres mean that it is the method of choice. There are undoubtedly developments that will happen in the future, maybe being able to sequence longer stretches of DNA in one go that will help the analysis.   And some of the computational methods are likely to develop to identify some of the slightly difficult to identify genetic changes but it ought to be the standard of choice. There are issues and potential difficulties in collecting the high-quality samples that have been needed from pathology laboratory and that will be difficult going forward with current budges and there are lots of challenges but ultimately it in some form has to be the method of choice. What wasn't done is to look at other molecule tests or essays, looking at RNA wasn't really done on a big scale as well as DNA and other changes to DNA apart from the genetic changes were not looked at.   So, there are certainly ways it could be improved if you had limitless money but I think the project, 100,000 Genomes has shown the whole genomes are. They have a lot of advantages and ultimately probably will be adopted by the NHS and similar organisations.  Helen: David, could you now tell us about the findings of this pioneering study and what impact these findings might have on people with bowel cancer in the future?  David: So, this is the largest study to date to analyse the entire genome of bowel cancer by some margin and the fact that we've done whole genome sequencing and in so many people it has really given us an unprecedented ability to identify the genetic alterations that drive bowel cancer. And within bowel cancer we've known for some time it is not a homogeneous entity that bowel cancer is not all created equal, that there are sub-groups of bowel cancer and we have been able to refine those over previous efforts. And I guess if you were to ask what the biggest take home for me from the study is it's just the complexity of the disease.   So, as we've mentioned we know that cancer is a genetic disease, that it's driven by genetic alterations, alterations in genes which regulate the growth of cells or the death of cells or the spread of cells. And we've known for many years that there is a modest number of genes which are commonly malfunctioning in bowel cancer and they would be in the tens to dozens really. But with this work we've hugely extended our understanding of the genes that drive bowel cancer and in fact we've discovered nearly 250 genes which are altered in bowel cancer and appear to drive the growth of the cancer.   Now we know that not all of those will be validated and by that I mean that there are associations that we find at the moment, not all of which will be biologically relevant but interpreted in the data we know a large number that are previously undiscovered are or we can be fairly confident of that. And one of the take homes from that is that many of these are only altered in a small fraction of bowel cancers.   So, rather than being perhaps half of bowel cancers or a third of bowel cancers there are a good number of genes, a very substantial number of genes, which are altered in say 3 to even 1% of bowel cancers. And if we think about how we go about targeting those and perhaps we'll come onto treatment later that poses really challenges for how we work and we would think about treating patients with bowel cancer who have those particular alterations in their cancers.  Helen: Thank you David, yes we'll come onto treatment shortly, but I think Claire has a question for you.   Claire: Yes, thank you. For me as somebody who works in this every day this is such an exciting and interesting study, particularly in light of what we said earlier about early detection and how critically important that is for improving outcomes in people with bowel cancer. So, in your view do you think this research could help shape future screening programmes or prevention strategies?  David: That's a great question, I suppose in terms of screening at the moment the majority of screening is done in the UK at least by testing for blood in the stool which is relatively non-specific so I'm not sure that that would be directly impacted by this research. But one area of early cancer detection that is perhaps more relevant is quite a lot of work including from Oxford actually in recent years looking at blood tests. So, testing blood samples for early detection of cancer whereby you can test for genetic alterations, fragments of DNA that have alterations from the bowel cancer or any cancer that circulates in the blood and that tends to rely on a small number of common alterations.   And with this data I could see that we might be able to refine those tests and in so doing improve our early detection of cancer but that would need quite some work before we could actually say look that had real potential I think. And in terms of prevention there are, I think Ian may want to come in on this, one or 2 sub-groups which you might think that you could try to prevent but of course that needs a lot of extra work really.   But I think we have some clues of the biology of bowel cancer and particularly some of the sub-groups where you might think well this drug would work better in terms of preventing that sub-group or that sub-group but that will need to be the subject of future study.  Helen: Ian, did you want to come in on that at all?  Ian: So, at the moment prevention is a fairly new way of helping to reduce the number of people with bowel cancer at the level of the whole population which is what we have in the UK above a certain age group as we heard from Claire earlier. The methods used, again as we heard, are screening for occult blood in the stool and then colonoscopy to identify either hopefully early cancers or polyps and remove those. But when we think about the methods that we use for preventing other diseases then normally where they're successful using a more easily delivered and I have to say less expensive method.   So, high blood pressure is treated to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and there are other diseases where those what you might call molecularly-based prevented strategies are coming in. We really lack that for bowel cancer in particular, it does happen for some other cancers, but one of the great hopes is that some of these new genes that we've found could be useful in preventing cancer. And it doesn't necessarily matter that they're rare, even if there are only 1% of cancers, by using those and changing those in a normal individual before they have had cancer then we may be able to reduce that risk.   So, there are lots of potential new targets for prevention that are coming through and as David said it is going to take a lot of work to work out which of those are deliverable and who will benefit. But we have quite a lot of opportunities in that space and although that may not be us that takes that forward, it may be, but it may not be. We think it is a lot of material for those interested in chemo prevention using drugs of cancer that they can work on and with luck deliver some new ways of preventing cancer that may be simply popping a pill every morning to take your risk right down to as close as zero as we can.  Helen: Thank you Ian. David, I think you had something to add here.  David: Thanks Helen. One area of prevention that we're really interested in Oxford and many others are is using the genetic alterations that we find in bowel cancers and other cancers as targets for vaccination. Now we know that gene alterations will cause abnormal proteins which while they might drive the cancer, make it grow or not die, can also be recognised by the immune system so the abnormal proteins can be recognised by the immune system as being foreign and as foreign they can be targeted by the immune system so the immune system will try and kill the cells carrying those alterations. And we know for some sub-sets of bowel cancers those alterations can be relatively predictable actually, they occur in quite a sizeable fraction of some sub-groups of bowel cancers.   And one area that we're particularly interested in at the moment and actively pursuing is using those targets where you need some additional work to demonstrate when they are particularly recognisable by the immune system. But to use these genetic alterations is potential targets for vaccination with the intention ultimately of preventing bowel cancer in at risk individuals or ideally in the full-term time the whole population. And we've received some funding from Cancer Research UK to pursue this line of research and we have a group working on this in Oxford and as I say many others do elsewhere.  Helen: Thank you David, yes I have a vested interest in this because my understanding is this work is aimed primarily at people with a genetic condition called lynch syndrome which predisposes the people who have inherited this gene change alteration to bowel cancer, womb cancer and other cancer. And I had womb cancer, as I think David you know, a few years back and discovered it was due to lynch syndrome and so it's really exciting that you're now looking at vaccinating preventing because yes I take aspirin every day, I have my colonoscopy every 2 years which have some effect on preventing these cancers but it's not 100% guaranteed. And I don't suppose it ever will be but having the vaccination in that armoury would be fantastic I think for future generations, it's very exciting and we look forward to hearing more about it.   Thank you Ian and David. I mean we've heard a lot there about preventing bowel cancer but I think moving back now to potential treatments, you know, we've heard from David how this study has shown a number of actionable findings but what are the next steps towards treatment? How can these findings be turned into real actions that will benefit those people diagnosed with bowel cancer in the future? Ian, perhaps you would like to pick up on this to start.  Ian: That step is one, you know, in which I'm not personally an expert but a lot of the newer treatments are based on the finding of so called driving mutations which are simply genetic changes that occur as the cancer grows and contribute to that growth and ultimately if it's not treated to the spread and dissemination of a cancer. And the fact that we have reported 250 which need validation but of which a large proportion are likely to be true drivers means that anyone of those can be a potential new target.   The criteria to be used for which of those mutations to pursue, which of those driver genes to chase up are quite complicated normally, depend on many things such as the interest of research groups and small and larger drug companies. And the similarity of those genes to other genes that have evolved and the processes that they make to go slightly wrong in the cancer.   So, there is also the issue that because these are uncommon, everybody talks a lot about personalised medicine or precision medicine, this would be truly precision or personalised medicine because a genetic change that was driving the cancer in only 1% of patients is obviously not a huge number of patients although bowel cancer is a common cancer so it's not a tiny number either. But it would mean investment at that level to benefit let's say 1 to 2% potentially of all patients with bowel cancer but I think that's a nettle we have to grasp. And I think our results are showing that most of the really common drug changes either have not yet been successfully targeted in treatment or are too difficult to target.   So, we're going to have to start looking at these less common genetic drivers and design strategies, inhibitors, you know, again that can be delivered to patients relatively straightforwardly in order to see whether they benefit the patients concerned. But there is this problem of getting enough patients enrolled in clinical trials where a change is only present in a relatively small proportion of all the patients with that cancer type.   Helen: Thank you Ian. Presumably if there is a relatively small number of patients the people who are looking at running these trials might be looking at perhaps international trials, would that be one way to go?  Ian: So, I think David can speak with more personal knowledge but there are international trial networks and there are collaborations along these lines already under way. I would hope that those could be made use of even more than they are already. There is, you know, a financial consideration for those developing new anticancer treatments which are, you know, high risk work and also the costs of setting up trials and enrolling people is not a trivial thing. So, I think those are hurdles that can be overcome but it would need a concerted effort to do that. Patients will play a major role in that and patient organisations as well as 100,00 Genomes and other similar projects.  Helen: Yes, thank you, David I don't know if you want to come in on that.  David: Yes, the challenge of testing therapies in small groups is a very real one and there is lots of interest at the moment in exploring alternatives to conventional clinical trials. And as we use more electronic patient records and we have pharmacy records so there is the potential to get those data from routine clinical practice and there is lots of investments and attention on that at the moment so called real world data which is always an interesting term as if patients in clinical trials aren't in the real world which of course they are.   But it's perhaps a little more cost effective sometimes in clinical trials, of course it does pose its own challenges in how you disentangle true treatment effect from other factors because there are many factors impacting on how long people with cancer live. But there is a lot of investment and effort going into that at the moment and it will be interesting to see how that develops over the coming years.  Helen: Turning to you Claire based on your experience how well do you think people with bowel cancer understand how genomes can help with their care and what support is currently available to them in this area?  Claire: I think the answer, as it is so often is, it's dependent on individuals and not just one individual. So, I think some patients are very motivated to know as much about this as possible and to understand and to know what the next steps may be in their own treatment that may be helped by this. Others don't want to have the same knowledge and want to be guided very much by their medical teams but I think oncologists obviously are at the forefront of this and we see at the charity … we have services at the charity that supports patients and we see lots of queries into our ask the nurse service where people have been given variable information about I suppose personalised medicine as Ian alluded to and how their very specific bowel cancer may be treated, so I think it varies from patient to patient.   There is support available so we have the ask the nurse service I alluded to. We have a brilliant patient forum actually and everybody in clinical practice will have seen this, patients often become more expert than anybody and they share advice and they're moderated forums that are a very safe place for people to ask questions where there is a moderator to ensure that it is made really clear that circumstances are individual.   And the same with the ask the nurse service because you don't have all the clinical information so it is about empowering people, so there is support available. I think the other thing that is really important is equipping specialist nurses with the knowledge that they need to support their patients. This is a really exciting area of evolution for bowel cancer particularly I think in all cancers at the moment but for bowel cancer I think things have changed fairly rapidly in recent years and specialist nurses really need support in knowing that they have up-to-date information to give their patients.   So, that's another challenge for us and any specialist nurses that might be listening to this podcast we have online education on genomics for specialist nurses. Just while we're talking about that and you mentioned lynch syndrome earlier, so there has been a lynch syndrome project as I'm sure you're aware where we're trying to get testing for lynch syndrome brought into local hospitals.   So, there was some funding via NHS England so that the testing be done at time of diagnosis, so a pre-test and then a final test if that's appropriate, for everybody diagnosed with bowel cancer to see if they have lynch syndrome. And in some trusts that has been done and in others it hasn't yet and the funding hasn't quite followed in the way that we need it to enable that to happen. It's vitally important, we think there are about 175,000 people in the UK with lynch syndrome and we only know about 5% of them. And this is a gene change that is an inherited gene change so we can do what we call cascade testing where we test family members and we can then employ preventative strategies to prevent people from developing bowel cancer.   So, it's a really important project, so I think as well as supporting patients with the information around the changes that are happening in this area we also need to ensure that we support the workforce and have investment there to enable the support of all the changes and the genomic landscape.  Helen: Absolutely Claire and so much resonates there with what you've said. Having myself had cancer discovered that was due to lynch syndrome, cascade testing offered to my family members so valuable. It turns out I inherited my change from my mum who is 83, has never had cancer, so I think that's a very good example of, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will get cancer but actually on that point that you made about empowering patients I always have a right smile because there is my mum going off to all her other medical appointments because at 83 she sees quite a few people and she is always the one telling them about lynch syndrome and educating them because most of them haven't heard of it, so yes it's really, really important.   And that patient forum, you're probably aware of Lynch Syndrome UK, I don't have any involvement in that other than being a member but that is so valuable for people with a particular condition to go somewhere where they can talk to or listen to other people with a similar condition, really, really valuable.   Right, well I think circling back really to the 100,000 Genomes Project I think you touched on this earlier David but reflecting on what you and Ian have told us about your study what is it about the 100,000 Genomes Project bowel cancer dataset that made this work possible?  David: There are a few things, one of which and not least of which is the sheer size of the effort. So, to have whole genome sequencing for more than 2,000 individuals is previously unprecedented and we'll be seeing more of this now as we scale up our research efforts but at the inception of the project it was very, very ambitious and to be able to deliver that is a huge achievement. And the quality and breadth of the analysis is very strong as well.   And ultimately, you know, the former gives thanks to the people that were kind enough to donate samples to the 100,000 Genomes Project, they did so knowing that they almost certainly wouldn't benefit personally from their donation from their gift and that any benefits would be some way down the line and hopefully benefit others which is what we're seeking to realise now. But, you know, it's not a given when we treat people in the clinic so we're very, very grateful to those individuals.   And I think also to the scientists who worked incredibly hard over the last 5 years to deliver this work actually. So, having been part of the team and being lucky enough to be part of the team along with Ian we've had hugely motivated individuals that really have dedicated a large fraction of their working lives to delivering this project which I think is a fantastic achievement as well.  Helen: Thank you, thank you to all those participants who at a time when their lives probably were turned completely upside down by a cancer diagnosis were offered the chance to join the 100,000 Genomes Project and said yes. As you say most of them will have known that it won't have helped them but by donating their data, you know, it has allowed this work to happen and potentially it could change lots of people's lives in the future, so thank you to them.  Ian: Could I also just emphasise and agree with what David has said, I won't go through all the individuals by name, but if anybody wants to read the published report of the work there are several people on there, Alex Cornish is the first author, but many colleagues from an institute of Cancer Research, The University of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, other universities in London that all contributed, but also colleagues in the NHS and/or universities who recruited patients, collected samples, processed them etc and of course the people who did the preparation of the samples in genetics laboratories and actually did the sequencing and basic analysis too.   So, it is a truly huge effort across particularly all the cancer types which is particularly a complex collection given the fact the tumour is needed and a blood sample. It's quite difficult in a way to find a formal way of thanking them for all of this but without them it wouldn't have happened.  Helen: On that note I think we'll wrap up there. A huge thank you to our guests, Professor Ian Tomlinson, Clare Coughlan and Dr David Church for an enlightening discussion on the groundbreaking study published in nature. This research is set to reshape our understanding of colorectal cancer and pave the way for new possibilities in treatment and patient care.   If you would like to hear more like this please subscribe to Behind the Genes on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for listening. I have been your host, Helen White. This podcast was edited by Bill Griffin at Ventoux Digital and produced by Naimah Callachand. 

From the perceived control in everyday activities like driving, to the dread associated with nuclear accidents, we discuss how emotional responses can sometimes skew our rational assessments of risk. Finally, we explore the ethical and practical challenges of balancing emotional and analytical approaches in risk communication, especially in high-stakes scenarios like terrorism and public safety. The conversation touches on real-world examples, such as the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the controversial discussions around gun ownership. We emphasize the importance of framing and narrative in conveying risk information effectively, ensuring that it resonates with and is clearly understood by diverse audiences.  Discussion Points:Understanding risk perception, Paul Slovic's work and how it has shaped safety practices and decisions in everyday life“Affect heuristic” in decision making, influenced by emotions and past experiences, leading to inconsistencies in risk perception.Feeling in-control vs. “scary concepts”, risks are perceived differently due to emotions, control, and misunderstandings of probabilities, as seen in driving Risks are assessed differently based on probabilities, outcomes, framing, and context, influencing decision-makingOther studies, looking at how people see risk, assessing your personal fear or risk from causes of death from cancer to stroke to car accidents to shark attacks vs. your own bathroomBalance between emotional and analytical risk evaluationMath and statistical examples of how risk is presented and perceivedPost 9/11 terrorist fears vs. statistics Ethical considerations in communication, and challenges in conveying risk informationTakeaways The answer to our episode's question: “the short answer is both” Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions! Quotes:“Risk is analysis where we bring logic, reason, and science or data or facts, and bring it to bear on hazard management.” - David“There may not be a perfect representation of any risk.” - Drew“If that's the important bit, then blow it up to the entire slide and get rid of the diagram and just show us the important bit.”- Drew“It's probably a bit unfair on humans to say that using feeling and emotion isn't a rational thing to do.” - David“The authors are almost saying here that for some types of risks and situations, risk as a feeling is great.” - David Resources:The Paper: Risk as Analysis and Risk as Feelings: Some thoughts about Affect, Reason, Risk and RationalityThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT There is a lot of glass in public and commercial spaces, and the pro AV and digital signage industries have been applying all kinds of technologies to turn things like windows and dividers into part-time or full-time displays. In most cases, those jobs have come with compromises. There are films that might start curling at the corners, or discolouring. Mesh systems that look pretty good from the front, but terrible from the rear. And most recently, super-thin foils that need to be adhered to one side of glass panes. So what if the LED display was actually part of architectural-grade glass? That's the premise of a company called Clear Motion Glass - a Pennsylvania-based technology start-up that comes at the business from the angle of commercial glass. Clear Motion is a spin-out from William Penn Performance Glass, which has for many years been making and supplying laminated and tempered glass for commercial buildings. Unlike other products on the market, Clear Motion's LED displays are sandwiched inside sheets of laminated safety glass - so when a building goes up or is being retrofitted, the glass panels that go in are also active, highly-transparent displays. I had a good chat with Todd Stahl, a glass industry veteran who runs both the established and start-up businesses. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT David: Todd, thank you for joining me.  Todd Stahl: Hey Dave. Yeah, I appreciate you having us on. It's going to be a pleasure to talk about some LED glass with you.  David: Yeah, tell me about the company. I saw you guys at DSE back in December. You were busy almost the whole time. So I didn't really have the time or the chance to have any kind of a detailed LED conversation, but I know that the company has not been around that long, but it's grown out of a pretty well-established “performance glass company.” Todd Stahl: Yeah. A little bit about the history there. So, at Clear Motion Glass, we're making the LEDs inside of the glass. I came across the LED glass around June of 2022, so I've had it for just about two years. The parent company is William Penn Performance Glass, and that's another company I started in 2011. We deal with high-end architectural Glass.  So, a cliffnote version: We go to the top architects in the country, and they're like, “Hey, who are you designing for?” And they'll say to us, “Hey, we want some really cool glass to go in the elevators for the Empire State Building.” So we got into the architectural space with glass, and actually, we'll William Penn, who was just voted one of the top 50 glass producers in North of North America. So something that we're definitely pretty proud of around here.  Then I came across LED glass around 2022, I thought it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen put inside a glass, and I wanted to be a part of it. David: So when you say you came across it, what do you mean by that?  Todd Stahl: So, there's another product in glass, another glass product that's been around, I'm going to say right around since 2000. It's a glass that goes frosted to clear from the turn of a switch, Switchable glass. So there's a company called Smart Film Blinds, and they were an applied film company that would actually take that, what we would call switch glass, but they just took the film and applied it to existing glass, and it was owned by Alan and Tracy Ackerman, and then they had this connection with LED Glass they weren't quite sure what to do with it. They knew it was really cool. And it had a chance to be really something big, but they were more of a film company, and then he and I got introduced, through a need that we had for some smart film, the switchable film, and then eventually we had a partnership for a while. Then we decided basically that I'll stick with the glass part, what I'm best at, and he'll stick with the film part, which was what they were best with. But that's how I got introduced to it, right around two years ago.  David: What you're marketing now is Clear Motion Glass. Is that your own product or are you reselling somebody else's manufactured product?  Todd Stahl: We have partners overseas, such as a company called Filmbase. That's where we get the actual LED grid or LED mesh. We bring that to my facility in York, Pennsylvania, which is in the south-central Pennsylvania area, we're 20 minutes south of Hershey, close to Harrisburg, and then we actually fabricate everything as a finished panel here. So we'll make the glass, we'll get the interlayer components. We have a laminating machine that actually works by pulling a vacuum and heating it up to certain temperatures. After that, it comes out, and we have a clear LED glass display.  David: So laminated glass is something that's been around forever. So this is just basically sandwiching the mesh in between sheets of laminated glass?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. We're definitely making a sandwich component. We start with a piece of glass, say that's your component number one. Then, we start with the inner layer materials.  In a case like this, we use a couple of different techniques, but we use EVA, which is ethyl vinyl acetate. Then we'll actually put the LED mesh grid on top of that, then we put another piece of EVA, then we go with the finished component of the sandwich, another piece of glass, and we stick them in an oven, we run a certain cycle, and about four hours later, we have a laminated piece of glass, exactly how you described. It's a sandwich makeup for sure.  David: Was there a lot of R&D work involved in it? Because I would imagine if you're putting an LED mesh inside of an oven, then going to a very high temperature and all that, I'm thinking if I didn't know much about this stuff, I'd be wondering, what's all that heat going to do to this thing? Todd Stahl: Yeah. You know, we have to make sure that it can withstand certain temperatures, obviously, and if you don't heat, and just in general, if you don't get laminated glass hot enough, it doesn't bond, it does not bond correctly. What you have to achieve is cross-linking and cross-linking is basically the interlayer material to the glass itself, and that happens at a temperature of around 110 degrees Celsius, so it's not getting hot enough to cook a Turkey in there, so we're not really dealing with extremes. I think a lot of people might think when you're actually making glass out of what we call a batch, you know that's where the glass is heated up to 2000 degrees and you're really dealing with some extreme temperatures. It's not quite the same extremes at all when you're dealing with laminated glass.  David: So tell me what performance glass is, and what high-end performance glass is because I don't know the glass world terribly well.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, sure. So, so what William Penn performance glass is the performance name kind of all started because our glass looks great and it, but it's an all safety rated glass. So that's kind of the performance part of the glass. So, if you're looking at our glass, say that's used for glass handrails, that's a very specific glass that's chosen to withstand the certain load requirements of a structural application, and typically most of our handrails are tempered, and laminated glass. So there are two ways on this planet to make a piece of glass safety-rated. You either temper it or you laminate it. We happen to do both of those things in a lot of our projects, and it's kind of funny like obviously safety-rated glass is strong, but the only thing that's really taken into consideration when you're referring to safety glass are you automatically assume it's going to break and what happens when it breaks, right? So with tempered glass, you put a lot of stress on the glass itself through a heating and cooling process, and whenever that glass breaks, it breaks into small panels that would not be able to potentially cause a life-threatening wound, and then you have the exact opposite with laminated where if a rock hits your car, if that's ever happened to you the rock doesn't come through and the pieces of the glass, the shards don't come through, they stay together. So you got those two things to the requirements when you're thinking about what is safety rated glass.  David: With the Clear Motion product, is it an indoor product only, an outdoor facing product, or what are the use cases?  Todd Stahl: So what's really cool about our LED glass is that almost wherever you're using architectural glass right now, you can now use our LED displays. So it can be used in exterior applications, a building facade, glass canopies, and railings that may be exterior. All of the components are kind of encapsulated inside that glass, and that glass is making a nice, really safe, cozy home for the LED display inside of it. David: And it's bright enough that it can be on a glass curtain wall like an auto dealer?  Todd Stahl: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that's one of the really cool applications for it. In fact, you had mentioned at the trade show and boy, were we busy? I think I was just talking about this yesterday. We scanned around 450 people in that short show. Our voices were a little strained by the end of the evening. So, the brightness of our display at the show, Dave, was only running around 4%, and I thought that was one of the more amazing things about the product because it was still kind of bright at 4%. Later we started bringing that up because a few potential clients wanted to see it at 50-60% brightness. So yeah, you can totally use this as an exterior sign and get whatever brightness you need. I think some of the products are well over 10,000 nits depending on the needs, and I think one actually lasted up to 15,000 nits, so plenty bright for the outside.  David: Yeah, once you get to 3,500, you're good.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, exactly. David: On transparency. I see on your website that it says there is up to 90 percent transparency.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, so when you get to some of the pixel pitches that are viewed from say, a distance of around a hundred feet, I think the pixel pitch at a 20, I believe that one may allow up to 90 percent of light to come through. It's really cool. I mean, you have this really great display, and then you're just getting all this, and you're not cutting off any spaces so if you have a traditional LED display, you can only view that from one side and I think that's kind of what's really amazing about this product and a lot of times when you're looking at the product, you don't even realize that it's transparent until the image would say it's rotating from one image to the next. And you're like, Oh, wow, that's clear, there are people behind there. So I think, yeah, it's really cool in that application.  David: From what I saw, because it's this mesh material, with super thin wiring in between each of the LED lights.  The challenge I've had with a lot of trans or “transparent products” is that they look good from the front side, particularly at a distance, but when you look at the back end of the things, there's a mesh, like a metallic mesh or something like that, a grid system that kind of makes it look like crap. Todd Stahl: Yeah. With a lot of the applied films that have been out there before, and there's not a whole lot of them, but there are a few, certainly from that backside, it doesn't look at all like the front, and the same thing, with the LED actual metal meshes, again, they look phenomenal from the front, and you get behind, and you're like, man, what am I looking at here? So with our product, what's really cool about that is you get a little bit of the halo effect, from the image that's playing on it, that you can see from, say, the view side of the glass, and then you get a slight reflection off of that front piece of glass that kind of bounces back through. So you see a little bit of a glow or a halo in the background, but it is not an eyesore, and it looks pretty good. You can see out, and you have a very clear picture of the people that you're looking through or whatever object you would be doing from the back of the product. It looks really good. It's a good look from the backside.  David: Yeah, there are numerous products out there that now do this kind of foil mesh effect, and you have to adhere it to the inside of a sheet of glass, which is all fine and everything else, but it doesn't look that good from the inside, does it? Todd Stahl: No, it really doesn't. The concept here, we touched on hockey a little bit, earlier, but you know, we have, you have all these hockey nets in the arena to protect the fans that a puck doesn't hit them, and most of those meshes are black. It's harder for our eyes to kind of pick up the black mesh than it is for white. There are some that have whites, but not many, and the black is blended in a lot easier. I'm a big hockey fan, so I've been to a few arenas, and the white ones are a little harder to, I think it takes away from the image more, and that's why we're using a black LED mesh.  When we first started, it was white, and it just didn't have as good of a; again, I thought it took away from the product from the backside.  David: So presumably there are limits in terms of the size of a glass panel that you can do because you've got a laminate in an oven of some kind and that they're only so big. So if you have, to use the example I mentioned earlier of, an auto dealer's glass curtain wall where the sheet of glass might be pretty darn big. How do you put multiple units together? And what does that look like in terms of cabling and everything?  Todd Stahl: Yeah. So we're always kind of limited in size by a couple of different things. Sometimes it might be the actual raw product glass that we're using. Some sheets are available to us, bigger and smaller, the width of the laminating materials, and then our oven as well. So basically, in our oven here in Pennsylvania, we can laminate an LED panel roughly about 6x10 feet. You know, that's a pretty sizable piece of glass, and then what we can do, if you're doing a glass facade it kind of gets into a little bit more of how the glass is installed, but you're basically stacking the panels. there's a control unit. That attaches to each panel of glass, and then those control units are all tied together and then that gives you one cohesive image plane from one panel to the next.  David: Do you have much of a seam in between them?  Todd Stahl: So, if you remember, at the trade show, I think we had two panels out there and we had a seam in the middle. So I'll see the seam, you'll see the seam, but when the image is playing, you really don't even notice it's there. A lot of times, depending on the application, a glass facade is a little different, because you're going to have all most likely all four edges of the glass covered, but, we have a lot of applications where the panels are being butt jointed together and it's a nice polished edge there. So, yeah, with the image running and stuff, you really don't even see it unless you get within a couple of feet of it.  David: So we're talking millimeters, not inches, in terms of a gap.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. You know, a gap's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of three, three-sixteenths of an inch, plus or minus. David: So not much at all.  Todd Stahl: Yeah, not much at all. Like I said, it's pretty cool. When that image is going, you're like, it just looks like one big piece of glass.  David: And there are technical limits, like if, let's say, an airport curtain wall that might be like 80 feet high for the side of a terminal or something like that. Can you do that?  Todd Stahl: Absolutely. That can all be tied in. You'd have several zones there, and depending on how you're handling the programming from a laptop, and something like that, you just say zone one's the entire thing, and then you might break it down into individual zones if you want different things playing at different times, but yeah, we this is definitely designed to do entire glass facades or, curtain walls. David: All those little lights generate some heat. How does the heat get out?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, so we've been working with these products for about two years now, and I always expect when I put my hand on the glass to touch it, that it's going to be nice and warm, but it really isn't. The heat definitely dissipates quickly. There is some energy consumption, and we have charts for that. So once we get into a building design, we can get in there and say, “Hey, this is what you're going to need for your power requirements.” But it has very similar power requirements to current LED displays that have been around for a while. But yeah, it doesn't really create much heat. You would think it creates more, and I'm telling you, whenever anybody sees it, one of the first things that they almost always do is, “Oh, I expected that to be warm” and they touch it, and it really isn't.  David: Well, one of the criticisms or let's say what a naysayer might say about this, is, “All right, if I buy this, glass panel with the LED mesh embedded inside of it, what happens if there's a dead pixel? I'm stuck with that forever. It can't be repaired because it's sandwiched in between two sheets of glass.”  Todd Stahl: You know, it was my biggest concern. We spent a good bit of time.  I think the lifespan of the LED bulbs we're using is right under 11 years. So we found the biggest problem that we've encountered, and this took us a while before we were going to bring it to market because that's by far the biggest concern; anyone looks at that and goes, it's not the first time I've ever seen a bulb, you know? So there's a couple of things. There's been a lot of research and development to make sure when it comes out of lamination that we've already caused any bulbs to fail before those processes, and we actually have a little bit of a protocol we've developed. So, one of the biggest reasons a light bulb is going to fail is the heat and pressure in that vacuum. It's not so much the heat, but the pressure because there's a little bit of movement in there. So if all those connection points aren't just right, you're going to get a bulb that may come out after you've done all of the work, and then you fire it up, and you know, there's a lot of bulbs, and a diode and only one is bad, it's not good. So we actually have a pre-laminating process we run to actually replicate what is going to go through the stressors of the lamination process. And if we find a bulb or a diode that might not be working, we can replace it after that pre-cycle of lamination.  Now, on the flip side, let's say it's out there, it's in the field. If we use annealed glass on the front surface, so, annealed is not tempered, but the backlight would be tempered, so you're still dealing with a, fully safety rated tempered and laminated makeup. We actually have a drilling process where we can drill a core out of the glass, and we can actually replace that LED diode. What our experience is that once they come through lamination so far, with all the panels we've been working on we have not had one go out and we've put them in some areas of our glass production facility near our tempering oven, which is a really cool piece of equipment. It has a 600 horsepower blower that when the tempered glass comes through, it cools it to dissipate the heat, but it draws some dust, there's some heat back there. We've had a panel running there for two years in that condition without any issues. But yes, you can actually replace the bulbs if you need to, if one goes out.  David: So I'm curious when an architect and a general contractor puts a building up, they're thinking in terms of being there for decades, with maybe the exception of football stadiums, which seem to need to be replaced every five years or so. Is 11 years an acceptable operating lifespan for a sheet of glass for a builder or for a building owner?  Todd Stahl: Yeah. I mean, our interlayers, they last 20-30 years. The interlayers and the glass products, yeah, they're going to last a very long time. When we've been bringing this product to market I think, the event back to the switch light is one of the first times you're us glass guys are introducing electricity into the mix. And at first that back in 2000, I mean, it was really cool. It had the wow factor, but it didn't quite last as long for me. I didn't really get into the product until recently. But you know, that product will last around 10 years as well, and we don't get a whole lot of callbacks very often with any of our glass products.  But it seems like most clients are happy with a 10-year usage. That's been pretty good for the Switch Lite product. We talk about a decade out there to the architects and designers now that, that's a number that they all seem to be very happy  David: Let's say a car dealer goes in, they're fine, they're thinking in terms of the glass that they put in is there for 10 years, and they may switch it out anyways?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, I think you know that everybody wants to be fresh and new. So we found a lot of these high-end retail stores that we've designed with, for instance, a high-end jewelry line, and let's say they have started in California with a new design. They take that design and they move it east to New York City. By the time they get to New York City, whether that's been five to eight years, and they redesign the whole thing over again. So there's a cycle and I think, especially with retail, and a lot of these buildings, they always want to have a new, fresh look, and I think a lot of times they're redesigning in under ten years for a lot of applications.  David: I'm guessing I could be wrong here, but I'm guessing that there's hyper-competition from China for, what I would say is conventional LED displays and so on; you're probably going to have less competition for what you're doing because of the sheer weight of, even if they can make glass cheaper over in China, shipping glass panels over here would be just ghastly expensive, right? Todd Stahl: Yeah, definitely. It's pretty heavy to air freight glass, so it's always nice that there's this thing called the ocean between us and China, especially us being we've been a manufacturer forever, and thankfully, it is a little expensive to ship a finished product like that and take some time. So, yeah, and you know, right now, we're kind of pretty far ahead of the curve in how to actually laminate this properly. Our feeling was when we got involved with this, all right, we got the LED technology. Now we'll just throw it in some glass, and we got a home run and it wasn't quite as easy to just throw it in glass and end up with a finished product, you know? There are still some areas. We are not the only ones in the world laminating this product, but there are, from what I know, under five; we're the only ones who can do it with thin and large panels. We're the only ones that I know of that are actually doing some of the very specific things to make sure it's going to perform properly in these laminated glass applications. In our process, we are patent protected in our process where I think we're just like in the first phase, I don't know all the legal terminology, but we're going through the patent process for the way we laminate it.  David: Which will help you over here, won't help you with Chinese products, but again, there's that ocean thing in between. Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. We have a few intellectual properties here and I'm not one to get into too many legal battles, but we would have some type of recourse if someone does come and is trying to laminate in a similar technique the way we do it. David: I suspect you're kind of looking around the corner as to where this is going and the types of technologies that are emerging. Do you kind of see this as, what you have right now is Gen 1, and over time the light emitters will get smaller, the wiring will be even thinner and so on? Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's exactly the way I see it going. I mentioned earlier: I really am a glass guy, and this is a glass company by people who absolutely love glass. Now, that's a Will Penn. Clear Motion, we have that same feeling as well, but this is more of a technology company. And what we're talking about today, like you said, generation one. We're going to revisit this in under five years, and it's going to look, I think, a whole lot different.  David: Who's buying it right now? And are you in the field with this?  Todd Stahl: So we're working on probably over 50 to 60 current projects right now in the design phase. Almost everyone we're working with has signed NDAs. So we can't necessarily say the clients that we're designing with right now. But one's a high-end fast food restaurant. They want one of these in each restaurant and that's actually for an exterior application.  David: Are these proposals or purchase orders?  Todd Stahl: They are proposals right now, so a lot of verbal commitments. We have a project we're working on in the Middle East in the design phase right now, that's 18 months out, the funding has been approved. They're designing it in the UK and then we're working with the audio visual company, I think in Texas. So this is really brand new.  David: You're in startup mode!  Todd Stahl: We really are, and this is the third company I've started literally from scratch, and I think it'll be the last one because boy, it is challenging. It takes a lot of energy. There's this great energy when you're starting it, and this is a little extra challenging because this is brand new. No one has ever seen clear LED glass displays like they just did not exist four years ago.  People might've thought they saw something similar. Like you said, it was a film or a grid that was put behind the glass. But when people are seeing this now, we're creating a new market, we're educating people to that market, and we're educating ourselves.  David: I'm guessing when people come to a stand at a trade show, you're at, the architects and the people who design physical spaces are the ones who are going, this is more like it. They haven't really liked the idea of films or foils and all that because of how they look at the back end or they're worried about a film sort of, particularly if it's exposed to UV light and all that, it's going to yellow and on and on…  Todd Stahl: So what the feedback from the A&D community has been? We did an AIA show in San Francisco last June, and we had one or two clients, say, “Hey Todd, we have the budget for this. We have clients who want this product, and we've been looking for it for years.” Then we start designing the project with them, and that's the thing: once I shake hands with an architect, we might not actually have that project begin production for 24 months to a year. So, depending if the building's coming out of the ground or if it's just a remodel of an existing one, it's a very long cycle until we actually get orders placed, and you know, something I've been dealing with for 30 years. It's kind of the way the industry is.  David: Infrastructure projects are never quick, are they?  Todd Stahl: No, they really aren't, but the A&D world is kind of our background. It's where we've been for a very long time in that space, and we've definitely noticed that companies, individuals in the audio-visual world respond to this entirely differently. This doesn't have as many questions in their minds. They're more educated because we've been used to dealing with LEDs for a very long period of time. So it's kind of interesting how the two markets work together, like the DSE show where we introduced the product, I would say more to the audio-visual world if I'm using the right terminology there, it was received just as with that much energy, a lot of more understanding right away, not as many technical questions. David: It's a variation on stuff they've been seen before, but maybe a better variation. Todd Stahl: Yeah, absolutely, and the architects, like you were saying, and even in general, I think even though LG makes an applied film. The North American President of, I forgot the gentleman's name, he was in my shop a little over a year ago, and we were working with his film, and then we showed him our LED glass, and he was blown away by it. David: “There goes my business”  Todd Stahl: Well, I think he was like, I'm going to make that too. I don't think he was worried about his business, but that applied film that they had been using, again, from a very long viewing distance, the product looks great. It's not yet ready to be viewed in shorter viewing distances, but the fact that it's applied, I do think that there is something like when you're buying a high-end product, you don't want people to be able to come up and pick it off, and I mean that definitely happens with every piece of film, I think I've ever worked with in my life. The first thing people do is take their fingernails, and they try to scrape the edge of it. It's just something that is instinctual about humans. But I think if you take that film now, I always say, if you put a piece of film on glass, it's just film. Once you laminate that film inside of the glass, you now have a glass product that protects it.  It does what you were saying. It prevents it from being yellowed over time because the inner layer blocks out almost 100 percent of the UV rays. So I think it's a great home for the LED mesh.  David: So does William Penn and Clear Motion Glass, do they operate separately, or are you kind of in the same office, the same building, and everything else, it's just different business cards? Todd Stahl: No, actually, we are in the same overall building complex, but we're not connected physically. So Clear Motion, basically has the equivalent of its own social security number, which down here in the business and for business, the IRS wants us to have EIN numbers for our businesses. So Clear Motion has an EIN number. Will Penn has an EIN number, obviously, but they definitely operate as two companies but obviously very close connections.  David: And you are running both?  Todd Stahl: I am running both right now, and spoiler alert: two's a lot harder to run than one.  David: Yes, I bet. If people want to find you online, they just go to ClearMotionGlass.com?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, that's it. They can find us there. There are some emails there. They can shoot an email to us and we'd love to talk to anybody if this product's right for them we're really excited about it and definitely creating a lot of energy with it. David: Are you at a trade show anytime soon?  Todd Stahl: Yeah, so we're doing Infocomm, I believe. It's the middle of June out in Vegas. Are you going to be there?  David: Yes.  Todd Stahl: Awesome, man. We get to meet in person, then. We'll carve out some time for that, Dave.  David: Absolutely, yeah, and that's a good show for you. There are tons of pro-AV people there. Todd Stahl: Yeah, I love that. That's a new space for us. So we're a little extra excited cause that's definitely not like a glass trade show is.  David: All right. Todd, thank you so much for your time.  Todd Stahl: All right. Yeah. I appreciate it, Dave. It was a pleasure.  

Today's guest is David Sepulveda.   David is a U.S. Air Force retired Master Sergeant with a strong track record in leadership & discipline. Transitioned into real estate investor & commercial broker.   Show summary: In this podcast episode, retired US Air Force Master Sergeant David Sepulveda shares his journey in real estate and discusses his expertise in commercial real estate. He emphasizes the importance of considering factors like inflation and the cost of living when investing in real estate. David also talks about the challenges he faced in the industry and how he overcame them by obtaining his license as a commercial broker. He specializes in retail and multifamily properties and discusses the current market trends in Southwest Florida. The episode also touches on David's military background and the leadership skills he learned in the military. Overall, it highlights David's commitment to integrity and client satisfaction in his real estate career.   -------------------------------------------------------------- Starting Real Estate Journey [00:01:02]   Breaking into Commercial Real Estate [00:02:03]   Southwest Florida Real Estate Market [00:05:02]   The military rank structure [00:10:13]   Leadership skills developed in the military [00:12:19]   Impact of insurance market changes in Florida [00:15:35]   David's journey in real estate [00:20:48]   Becoming a commercial real estate broker [00:21:22]   Contacting David [00:21:30] -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with David: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/commercialrealestatedave/   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: DAvid Sepulveda (00:00:00) - I tried to explain to them, Well, you're not taking into account, number one, inflation. You're not taking into account, you know, increase in cost of goods. You're not taking into account just increase in cost of living, you know. So all of those things, I think, are important factors that a lot of people kind of. Bypass. They don't they don't take it into consideration as much as I think they should.   Intro (00:00:25) - Welcome to the how to scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:38) - David Sepulveda is a US Air Force retired master sergeant with a strong track record in leadership and discipline. He is a real estate investor and also now a commercial broker. David, welcome to the show.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:00:49) - Thank you for having me, Sam. Absolutely.   Sam Wilson (00:00:51) - The pleasure is mine. David There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:01:00) - 90s All right.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:01:02) - Well, I honestly started back in 2013. That's where I started my real estate journey. I started out as an investor. It was really my focus to just try to grow my wealth, take care of my family, try to figure out how to get a piece of that American dream, if you will. Um, so got into tax lien investing. From there. I graduated to tax deed investing from tax deed investing scaled up to the single family. Did a very light flip. Then I scaled it up to a major flip. And then I said, Well, you know, the natural progression is to get into commercial real estate. What I noticed when I got into commercial real estate is that it's a little bit more difficult to kind of that entry to barrier, if you will. Um, you have a lot of people that if you don't already have a proven track record, they don't want to play with you, you know, they don't want to allow you to, to come to their sandbox.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:02:03) - So I had to do is I had to figure out, well, hey, if this is a space that I really want to be and how do I break into that? And that's what led me to get my license as a commercial broker, because I still wanted to be an investor. But since nobody else wanted me to play, I was going to play the way That's awesome.   Sam Wilson (00:02:21) - So did you skip the residential brokerage side altogether?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:02:27) - I did. And that's that's not something that normally happens, right? I will say that most brokers and to be honest with you, when I got my license, they didn't even want to talk to me. Right. I actually had to go in person into the different brokerages and say, Hey, here I am, this is who I am. Because commercial real estate is a completely different language than residential real estate. But once I went into the office and I started speaking the language, they were like, Oh, he does know what he's talking about. We can allow him to play with us.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:03:01) - So that's really what it took, was the persistence and that just resilience, you know, that that that thing that we get taught in the military being resilient be resilient.   Sam Wilson (00:03:10) - Absolutely when you so yeah one of the things that sound like you did right was to understand who it was you were talking to when you went to these brokerages and say, hey, look, I've already done my homework. I know. I know this industry. I mean, a lot of times, like you said, you got to have some sort of experience or something to kind of break in or allow get your foot in the door. What what did you do once you got into the commercial real estate world to really solidify your position?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:03:39) - I really had to market myself as an expert. I had to make sure that I conveyed not only the confidence, but the knowledge. You know, because you can have all the confidence in the world. But if you don't have the knowledge to back it, you're still going to look like a fool.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:03:54) - You know, So it was nice to come back home to southwest Florida because I know the area I grew up here. So it was very easy for me to already have a good working knowledge of the area. So then all I had to do was really express to all of the different business owners and the different landlords and whatnot that I do understand the market as well as the market product itself.   Sam Wilson (00:04:20) - Got it. Got it. Very, very cool. So what year was it then that you got your or you became a commercial real estate broker?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:04:28) - I actually got my license back in 21, 2021.   Sam Wilson (00:04:33) - Okay. License in 2021. And you specialize. We talked about this off air, so I'll ask a little bit of leading question. But you specialize in retail and multifamily. Things have changed incredibly in both of those asset classes from 2020, especially in the retail side. And multifamily has gone hot and heavy. And then, you know, we've seen quite a bit of slowdown on the transaction side on that.   Sam Wilson (00:04:56) - Is that something you're also seeing in your market or are things still just running wide open where you are?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:05:02) - Southwest Florida is a very hot market. We're actually seeing growth in a lot of different sectors. So unfortunately, don't get to capitalize on the the downturn as everybody else may be able to in other areas of the of the continent. But southwest Florida is just the growth. Has been phenomenal. We're talking, last I checked, a thousand people moving to Florida daily. And out of that thousand we were capturing here in southwest Florida, I believe it was maybe, you know, 10 to 15% of that.   Sam Wilson (00:05:39) - Wow. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's really interesting. So you haven't seen the transaction volume slow down at all on the multifamily side?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:05:48) - No, we saw a little bit of a pause because of Hurricane Ian. So a lot of people were, you know, kind of holding on to their money, both on the buyer side and seller side. The buyers were trying to see what the sellers were going to do with the properties, if they were going to fix it up with the insurance money, they were going to take the insurance money and run.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:06:06) - So we saw a bit of a pause there. But man, southwest Florida is so strong and so resilient. Man. They just came back and, you know, a year later and it's as if, you know, obviously we have areas where you can see the the damage. But, I mean, everybody's going strong, man.   Sam Wilson (00:06:23) - That's great. I think it's one of those things that, you know, we hear it, but you don't if you listen to the national conversation, it's going to say, man, you know, transaction volume in multifamily is down, what, 75% year over year on a national level. But real estate is indeed local. So I think that's the other part of it is, you know, for you guys, it's almost as if interest rates it sounds like interest rates have risen, but you guys haven't taken notice.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:06:49) - No, not as bad as that. Other parts mean. There might have been a bit of a slowdown, but not enough for me to be like, Hey, there's just an abundance of multifamily come shopping here, you know.   Sam Wilson (00:07:01) - Come shopping and say, Well, let's talk about then what are people buying right now that makes sense for you guys?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:07:09) - Man, Let me tell you, we can't keep multifamily on the shelf. We can't keep industrial on the shelf. Um, even retail now is starting to pick it back up. You know, now that Covid has slowed down and we're getting the tourism back into Florida. So a lot of different sectors, especially like I said, here in southwest Florida, we're seeing a good increase.   Sam Wilson (00:07:30) - Wow, That's awesome. That's awesome. Let's talk about what you invest in personally. Now, you've been you talked about this early on. You know, in 2013, you were buying tax liens and tax deeds, which I think is kind of an advanced strategy, to be honest with you, for your kind of intro into real estate. Most people don't start with deals with that much hair on them. We won't go down that rabbit hole, but that's someday maybe we'll have you back on and we can talk about that journey because I think that's a very interesting one.   Sam Wilson (00:07:57) - But what are you personally investing in now?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:08:02) - Now I am still investing in multifamily. I'm investing in small retail as well as small businesses.   Sam Wilson (00:08:11) - Interesting. Okay. How do you as a broker tell me this from a not from an ethical standpoint, but just from a working with your client standpoint to know that you're putting their interests first? I'm sure that's something that you have to think about when you see deals come across your desk, you say, Hey, man, that's a great opportunity. But should you know, you don't want to eat the best and leave the leftovers for your clients. So how does that work with you both as an investor and as a broker?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:08:41) - It's all about just open and honest communication, right? One of the things that we've learned in the military is integrity first. And I always try to make sure that I'm open and honest with my clients. Let them know, listen, I. Understand that you're trying to sell this property and I may have an interest in this property.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:08:59) - Here's what I could offer you. And to be fair, I will also let you know that if we were to take this to market, you would get X amount. And there's quite a delta between my offer and X amount, but I can close quickly. You know, it'll be a smooth transaction as opposed to us being on the market and allowing the market to tell us when it will close.   Sam Wilson (00:09:23) - Right, right. Yeah, that's that's really, really interesting. Yeah. But that would be and that's, I mean, that's, that's the beauty of doing what you do is that you can offer, offer people deals that make sense for them in order to avoid a lot of those pains of taking deals there to market. Well tell me this, David, as a master sergeant in the military and I will openly say I knew nothing about the military. I was not in the military. I'm often accused of it just because I was raised by a marine. And so I know what it's like to grow up in one of those houses where it's, you know, be seated by X number of times and out the door by this very, very regimented.   Sam Wilson (00:10:00) - But what does a master sergeant do and what are some of the things from a leadership and leadership development perspective, I think that you learned inside of the military that still guide what you do today.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:10:13) - Well. So when you're looking at the military, it's really broken down into two different sectors. You have your enlisted sector and you have your officer sector. Being a master sergeant, which is equivalent to E7, is an enlisted sector rank. E7, Master Sergeant is one of the higher ranks. It is part of what they call the top three, the highest rank you can achieve as an enlisted members and E9, which is a chief master sergeant in the Air Force. And then you have below that the senior master sergeant, and then you have the master sergeant. Now depending on your in the Air Force, we call it AFS in the different branches, they call it by a different name. For example, in the army is Mos. But basically what it is, it's your job in the military. So depending on your job in the military can really determine what your responsibilities and your roles are.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:11:08) - You could be in charge of a whole section of airmen and it could be include 20 or 30 people as well as a certain number of civilians. Or you could be in a very small shop and only be responsible for 2 or 3 people. A lot of my time as a master sergeant, I spent it in what they call the commander support staff. So the general has an admin staff and that admin staff is responsible for making sure that the airmen are taken care of. Whether we're talking about their vacation time, which we call leave, we're talking about any pay issues that they may have, um, making sure that they're, I don't know what you call them on the civilian side, but we call them enlisted performance reports, so their PRs. So that's really where I spent a lot of my time as a master sergeant is making sure that the airmen were taken care of.   Sam Wilson (00:12:08) - Wow, that's really, really awesome. What are some of the things I guess that you felt like were developed in you as a leader in that role?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:12:19) - Well, um, there's really a lot of things that you learn being in the military, right? You learned teamwork, you learned, um, the discipline and the core values, which is the the integrity, first excellence and everything we do, you know, and I think a lot of that has carried over into civilian sector for me now is making sure that, you know, like I stated before, I'm open and honest with my communication.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:12:47) - I'm letting you know, letting my clients know, like, listen. I can purchase this, but it's going to be significantly lower than if you were to take it to market. However, it's a lot quicker. So that integrity, just being that, you know, that honest dealings with people and you know, the discipline because real estate is really a disciplined game, you have to continuously do the cold calling. You have to continuously do the door knocking. You have to continuously look at the market, the market trends, see what's going on, see what changes are coming into place, whether we're talking about, you know, new policies, new laws, you know, different, you know, companies coming in that may affect other sectors of your businesses. So it's just the discipline of doing the thing over and over again, no matter how much you might dread it.   Sam Wilson (00:13:43) - And man, there is plenty of that to go around, I think for all of us, there's there's plenty of those things where you go, yep, I don't really want to do that today, but it's something you just got to put your head down and go.   Sam Wilson (00:13:55) - It's probably easier in the military when there's somebody, you know, yelling at you if you don't get it done than it is when you just can, you know, hide it under your own to do list. You're like, you know, maybe tomorrow we'll get that done. But either way, I like both things that you said there was the adaptability is the way I would summarize that when you said, you know, being open to changes and looking at what changes are coming and then the open and honest communication side of things, I think I was speaking with somebody yesterday and they said, man, you know, I just I'm just not very I'm pretty non-confrontational. I'm like, man, like, just one stop saying that. I said, Because that's negative self-talk. And two, we can rephrase this into something where that open and honest communication like you're talking about can become part of who, who that person is. And they're significantly younger than me. But I think it was it was it was just a great conversation, a reminder that we can constantly be improving the way that we communicate.   Sam Wilson (00:14:50) - Let's go back, I guess one of the things I thought about when you were saying looking at changes and we're going to take a real left turn here in conversation, so I apologize, but I wrote it down here as a note. The the Florida market, you're on the brink of, I think what's the name of the next hurricane potentially heading your way right now. They named that.   Sam Wilson (00:15:07) - Yet Adelia.   Sam Wilson (00:15:09) - Amelia okay so that's that's and we're recording this at the end of August here in 2023 hopefully hopefully that passes by without much to talk about. But the insurance market's for what you guys deal with in Florida. I mean, that's a hot topic. Like what are you advising from the brokerage side? Like how are you advising your clients and your own portfolio right now? What are you doing on the insurance side of stuff?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:15:35) - I mean, that has been a thorn in everyone's side because so many insurance companies have pulled out of Florida altogether, which, you know, by the law of supply and demand, the ones that have stayed are able to jack up their prices and have I mean, you're talking about people used to pay, you know, let's just say 100 grand annually.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:16:00) - Now they're looking at almost half a million annually, you know, So the increase is definitely hurting a lot of people's pockets. Unfortunately, it's a necessary evil. You know, because being here in Florida, you can't just go without flood insurance. You can't just go without, you know, any insurances to cover your assets. So, unfortunately, you know, I try to make sure that I have surrounded myself with the best team so that my clients can win. So I do work with a good insurance broker who goes out there and finds my clients the best insurance coverage that they can.   Sam Wilson (00:16:43) - What are people doing to offset some of those just astronomical rate increases?   Sam Wilson (00:16:50) - Well.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:16:51) - I mean, you're seeing a lot of. A lot of adjustments, whether we're talking scaling back on their inventory in the retail sector, whether they're talking. Increasing the rents in the multifamily sector. So you're seeing a lot of. Passed as being passed, you know, passed down, which it's understandable, but unfortunately when you're in a market.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:17:20) - That you have a mix of fixed income and disposable income. Those with the fixed income really feel the pain of those, you know, costs being passed down.   Sam Wilson (00:17:34) - And there's really nothing. There's nothing you could do about it. I mean, it's just it is. I mean, you can't you can't continue to absorb those astronomical rate increases without then eventually, you know, passing that on down to the to the end user. And that's I just I don't see a way any other way around that. Especially, again, as you said, you know, the the insurers are leaving the market, leaving just a few there to choose from. And I guess that's just something probably to think through as you look at investing in Florida or markets like Florida that have some of these associated natural disaster risk where it's like, okay. Do you see people underwriting a continued increase in insurance costs where they say, okay, you know, it was 100, now we are 500. But you know what? We're going to go ahead and budget for a million.   Sam Wilson (00:18:26) - I mean, is that part of people's equation now?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:18:31) - I think it's always smart to make sure that when you're underwriting any asset class that you always increase cost. I think, you know, whether we're talking about a increase of 3% or whether we're talking an increase based on prime rate or even the CPI. I think it's it's wise to I don't see it a lot. I think I'm seeing it more now. You know, now that has skyrocketed. But prior to Hurricane Ian, when I would talk to my clients and I would, you know, see where their mindset was and try to pick their brains as to how they're coming to the numbers that they're coming. I tried to explain to them, Well, you're not taking into account, number one, inflation. You're not taking into account, you know, increase in cost of goods. You're not taking into account just increase in cost of living, you know. So all of those things, I think, are important factors that a lot of people kind of.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:19:29) - Bypass. They don't they don't take it into consideration as much as I think they should.   Sam Wilson (00:19:34) - Interesting. Interesting. Well, there's there's the nugget for the day. If this is something you haven't been considering in your underwriting, David just laid it out for you. Make sure you're including those things and really probably padding those stats, especially in higher risk markets such as Florida on some of those variable costs that you have. I mean, that's the bummer about it. It's like you have no absolutely no control over it. It's like, oh, by the way, your insurance went up 400 grand and you did nothing wrong. It's not like it's not like half of your property burned down. You rebuilt it and they're like, okay, well, you're a terrible manager. It's like, by the way, you're just we're going to quintuple the cost of your insurance and you're just kind of stuck. So that's, you know, preparing for some of those things can be a difficult thing to do and put in your underwriting because it might might kill more deals than than you would like.   Sam Wilson (00:20:26) - But then again, yeah.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:20:28) - And I think that's what a lot of people think. That's the deterrent for a lot of people. I think they're so caught up in the momentum of trying to get a deal that they don't look at the fact like, well, what are the factors that will make this a good deal? Because in the long run, if you don't take those things into consideration, even a good deal today may not be a good deal tomorrow.   Sam Wilson (00:20:48) - Right. Right. Absolutely. Well said. David, thank you for taking the time here to come on the show today. Certainly enjoyed learning about what a master sergeant is in the military, what your leadership skills there that you had in the military and how you translate those over into what you've done. I love the go get them attitude in 2013, just jumping right into tax liens and tax deeds. I think that's that's that's really, really cool. And then and then, like you said, positioning yourself as an expert, jumping out there and saying, hey, look, I'm going to be a commercial real estate broker becoming an expert there in your market and in your space.   Sam Wilson (00:21:22) - You've shared a lot of great things with us today. Certainly appreciate that. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?   DAvid Sepulveda (00:21:30) - Honestly, you can find me on most social media under commercial real estate. Dave Or you can look up David Sepulveda with con consultants in Fort Myers, and that'd be the best way to get hold of me.   Sam Wilson (00:21:41) - Fantastic. David, thank you again for your time today. I certainly appreciate it.   DAvid Sepulveda (00:21:46) - Absolutely. Thank you for having me.   Sam Wilson (00:21:47) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

What is your biggest challenge? I get many questions about all facets of podcasting. Today we are going to overcome a variety of listener challenges. Cathy wants to know how long her podcast should be. Behiye is stuggling with echo in the audio. Dave just wants to get started. And Kate's challenge is getting clients. If you have a challenge with your podcast journey, you can always email me at Coach@PodcastTalentCoach.com. I would love to help you overcome that challenge right here on the show.   HOW LONG Cathy's challenge: How long should my podcast be?   There is not such thing as too long, only too boring. My radio coaches have told me that for decades. It is true in every area of life. Have you ever been in a conversation wondering if it will ever end? You're wondering if there is a point to the story they are telling. That's what I'm talking about. When I was getting my architecture degree, we had to take Architectural History. Not just one, but three levels of history. If you love architecture, you love architectural history. The cathedrals, the Greek classics, the modern movement. There is so much beauty. When I took Architectural History, it was a completely different story. The professor would stand at the podium at the front of the tiered lecture hall. He would turn off the lights and turn on the slides. For the next hour and fifteen minutes, he would proceed to read his notes in a monotone voice for each slide as we took notes and sketched the building on the screen. There was no story. No engagement. Just facts in a monotone voice. To make it worse, the class was at 8 in the morning. As a college kid, that was never good. I would sometimes leave class to get a soda from the machine upstairs just to stay awake. Twice a week, it was the longest hour of my life. BROADCASTING In my fourth year of school, I took Broadcast Management as I was considering a degree change to journalism. Dr. Walklin taught Broadcast Management. Every class, he would tell us about a great station that created a unique experience for their fans. Dr. Walklin would tell stories of stations that got in trouble or got sued for something they did. But, people were still talking about it 30 years later. In that class, we got to design our own fantasy radio station. We discussed why it would work and why it wouldn't. We learned about other station launches. The conversations in that class were electric. That's the difference between too long and too boring. Tell stories and be engaging. As long as the momentum of the show is moving forward and keeping your listeners engaged, length doesn't matter. Audio host Libsyn did a study of the top podcasts on the platform. They found that half of the podcasts were longer than an hour and half of the shows were shorter than an hour. There is no magic number. Engage your audience and be consistent.   GARBAGE IN Behiye's challenge: It's about reverb. Twofold need; How to avoid echo in the room from happening and how to edit it once it happened? Best regards. Behiye   Unfortunately, you can't do much with audio that is recorded poorly. You can clean it up a bit with some effects. But, you can't make it perfect. Garbage in equals garbage out. I once did an interview with Natalie Merchant. It was an opportunity that came my way while I was working at a station that played her solo stuff after she left 10,000 Maniacs. Natalie was coming to town, and I had the chance to interview her over the phone. After we completed the chat and I let her go, I listened back to the audio. It was horrible. There was a lot of hiss and fuzz from the phone line. There was very little I could do to save the conversation. I used bits and pieces that you could understand, but had to throw most of it away. If you record poor audio, you're stuck with it. So, make sure your audio is clean with a test recording before you do the full show. CLEAN AUDIO CHALLENGE Once the echo is recorded, it is difficult to remove it. There are 3 things you can do to get better audio. 1. Record in a room with soft surfaces. Hard, parallel surfaces like hard countertops, tile floors and bare walls create the echo. If your room has hard surfaces, hang some blankets in front of you to absorb the sound. I sometimes hang a sleeping bag over a stepladder in front of me to help. 2. Work the mic closely. The microphone should nearly be touching your lips or chin. No more than the width of two fingers away. 3. Ensure the mic is a directional mic and set up properly. This will prevent it from picking up room noise. Use those tips and your audio should be much cleaner.   JUST START Dave's challenge: Just getting started. That's what I'm struggling with. Cheers, -Dave   The first step is the first step. Don't get overwhelmed by the entire process. Just take the first step. In the Winter of 2015 and again in the Summer 2016, I stop podcasting. For about 8 weeks there was no new episode of Podcast Talent Coach. Life just got in the way. We were traveling, and it cause me to miss a week. That week turned into two. Two weeks turned into four. Next thing I know, I hadn't published for 2 months. I knew I needed to get back at it. But the outline, the topic, the content, the recording, the editing, the posting, the promoting... it all seemed daunting. Where was I going to find the time. Well, I just took the first step. I brainstormed 50 different topics. It wasn't about the entire process. I only wanted to get the first step done. Once I had 50 topics, I selected 3 that really sparked my interest. I created outlines for those 3. It was a matter of taking the next step. I wasn't concerned with every step. Just the next step. Let one step lead to the next. Soon, you'll have your episode published. Just take the first step. Open the mic and start. Schedule it, and get it done.   CONFIDENCE Greg's challenge: Time and self confidence are big for me. If it isn't scheduled it didn't happen and we tend to focus on the easy things first. Got my intro done that took about 5 takes now don't seem to find time for first episode and when I do I draw a blank on content.   My Godson plays high school baseball. He is a big boy who plays first base and can really crush the ball. He was at bat in the first game of the season with bases loaded and jacked a grand slam homerun. 4 runs. There were two guys on base for his next at bat. He hit another homerun. 3 more runs. 7 runs in two at bats. You don't need to know baseball to know that is pretty good. He's in another game in the middle of the season a few months later. For his first at bat, he hit a long drive to right center field. The right fielder makes an incredible dive to catch the ball for an out. On his next at bat, he drive the ball straight up the middle just like you want to do as a batter. The ball ends up hitting the pitchers glove enough to slow it down. The pitcher throws him out at first. Then for his third and last at bat, he hit a long ball all the way to the center field wall. The center fielder catches it about five feet in front of the fence for another out. After hitting zero for three in that game, he tells his dad he doesn't believe he is good enough to play college baseball. His dad made a great point. He said we often compare our results to the highlights of others. On paper, Joseph went zero for three. Evaluating the game, he nearly went three for three with a home run. It was all a matter of inches. We are often our toughest critics. Speak to your younger self. Create content for the person you were a few years ago. Help that person get to where you are without all of the struggles.   RESOURCES David's Challenge: I haven't started a podcast yet but have plans to do so soon. Any resources you can share will be truly appreciated. Thanks. -David   There are few resources you can use. First, visit www.podcasttalentcoach.com/launch. You can find my free podcast launch minicourse. That will show you what it takes. Next, check out www.podcasttalentcoach.com/workshop. I am holding a podcast fast workshop to help a group of people launch their podcast in a weekend. Bruce came to me for some coaching. He wanted to launch a podcast around a book he had written. As we do during my podcast strategy calls, we started talking about his goals. Bruce really wanted to help the world get healthier. Our next step was to determine where he is today. Bruce tells me he purchased his microphone two years ago and has wanted to start his podcast ever since. Sometimes the learning can get overwhelming. The more YouTube videos you find, the more different ways to create a podcast you'll find. To launch, purchase a USB microphone. A Samson Q2U will cost you about $70 in the U.S. Plug the mic into your computer. Download Audacity. It is free software. You'll record your episode there. Export it as an .mp3. Upload it to an audio host like Libsyn. Share the RSS feed with the podcast platforms like Apple and Spotify. That's the basic process. During the Podcast Fast Workshop, I'll answer your questions and refine the nuances of your process. We'll eliminate the guessing.   WHAT MAKES A PODCAST Gary's challenge: I'm struggling with how to actually deploy a podcast. Can I call it a podcast if I do a series of LinkedIn Lives or Facebook Lives interviewing experts offering services to my target market?   Technically, as podcast is distributed through an RSS feed. It stands for real simple syndication. By definition, a podcast is a digital audio file made available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically. The automatic part comes through subscription via an RSS feed. You can do a series of LinkedIn Lives or Facebook Lives and call it a podcast. But it won't technically be a podcast, because people can't subscribe and have it automatically show up on their phone or computer. To distribute a podcast, you will use an audio host. I am an affiliate for Libsyn. You can get your first month for free at Libsyn.com with the promo code PTC. An audio host is like a storage unit for your audio. And your RSS feed is like the address to your storage unit. You give your RSS feed, or your address, to all of the podcast players like Apple and Spotify. Then each time you upload a new episode to your audio host, it is automatically ingested into the podcast players via the RSS feed. We cover all of that during the Podcast Fast Workshop. You can see all the details at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/workshop.   GET CLIENTS Kate's challenge: I have no idea how to convert listeners into clients. I use the books I have written as "sponsors" of the show, but am not sure what else to do without blatantly saying in a show, "I am a brain health coach".   I'm not sure why it's bad to blatantly tell people you're a brain health coach. It is what you do. As long as you serve people and give them value, it is perfectly acceptable to give them the opportunity to go deeper with you. In fact, you owe it to them to get more if they want it. I had known my friend Dave for about six months when he mentioned his book. "Whoa, wait! You have a book?" Dave says, "Yeah, it has been out for about a year now." I ask him how I didn't know about that and why he has never mentioned it. He tells me, "I don't mention it much, because I don't want people to feel I'm beating them over the head with it." I say, "Dave, you've never mentioned it. How do you expect people to buy it and benefit from it if you never tell them it's available?" To turn your listeners into clients, offer your listeners value on your show. Inspire them with the why. Then, give them a chance to go deeper with you if they choose. As long as they benefit from the first part of the show, there is no guilt in giving them the chance to get even more. I have a great resource for you. It is 7 ways to attract your ideal clients. You can download it for free at www.podcasttalentcoach.com/attract.   LET ME HELP If you don't have a mentor who can take your hand and walk you every step of the way, go to www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/apply, click the button and apply to have a chat with me. We will develop your plan and see how I can help and support you to achieve your podcast goals.

Welcome to The Dr. Brian's Health Show, a weekly podcast where Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler uses his decades of experience in medicine and ability as an expert researcher to provide a light-hearted approach and share health trends popular on TikTok. In this episode, Dr. Brian welcomes Lung Transplant Specialist, Dr. David Weill to the show to discuss how Dr. David is helping patients, patient's families, and transplant teams navigate their transplantation journey to reach optimal outcomes. What is emphysema and what causes it? Is vaping safe? What can we all do to keep our lungs as healthy as possible? Find out in today's episode! If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you leave the show a Rating & Review at RateThisPodcast.com/NoCap Key Takeaways 01:16 – Dr. Brian introduces today's guest, Dr. David Weill, who join the show to share his expertise as a transplant pulmonologist and the top reasons people need a lung transplant 07:08 – What is emphysema and what causes it? 09:26 – A fun fact about our lungs 10:28 – The dangers of vaping and the risk of lung re-transplants 17:55 – Tips for keeping your lungs as healthy as possible 21:04 – Dr. David's book, Exhale 25:44 – Empathy, caring and separating emotion from outcome 28:58 – The decision to transition out of clinical practice 32:00 – Finding common ground among differing personalities 36:24 – Where listeners can connect with Dr. David and find his book 37:39 – Dr. Brian thanks Dr. David for joining the show to share his expertise Tweetable Quotes “One in five patients who are listed for a lung transplant will die on the waiting list. So, there's a real shortage not only in lung, but in the other organs as well.” (04:37) (Dr. David) “A smoking related lung disease, emphysema is a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Some people may have heard of COPD. That's essentially the same thing.” (07:43) (Dr. David) “There's a vast array of chemicals in a vape and what goes into the lung. But even more than that, it's thermal energy. So, in other words, it produces very high heat in the lung, and the lung is quite sensitive to very high temperatures. The damage can not only come from the chemicals that are contained in the vape oil, but also from the heat that's generated. It's much hotter than cigarette smoke.” (10:52) (Dr. David) “As marijuana increasingly becomes more mainstream in our society, we're seeing more and more research that it's not quite the benign drug that we thought it was maybe early on, mainly because there wasn't much research on it when it was illegal.” (18:19) (Dr. David) “It was very difficult for me to separate how much I cared from accepting an outcome that was not good. And, I don't think I ever really learned how to do that well over the course of my career.” (25:25) (Dr. David) “What I try to do now is coach the teams through everything and try to figure out a way to get on the same page. That's probably the number one value that I can bring to programs now.” (31:46) (Dr. David) Resources Mentioned Dr. David's Website Dr. David's Book Dr. David's Instagram Dr. David's Twitter Dr. David's Facebook Dr. David's LinkedIn DM Dr. Brian your questions and he will respond back with answers⁠ ⁠Dr. Brian's Website⁠ ⁠Dr. Brian's TikTok⁠ ⁠Dr. Brian's Instagram⁠ Please remember, Dr. Brian is a doctor, but he is not your doctor. He is here to provide general information, not medical advice, so you should always check with your doctor before relying on any information. Podcast Production & Marketing provided by FullCast

Sentry is an application monitoring tool that surfaces errors and performance problems. It minimizes the need to manually look at logs or dashboards by identifying common problems across applications and frameworks. David Cramer is the co-founder and CTO of Sentry. This episode originally aired on Software Engineering Radio. Topics covered: What's Sentry? Treating performance problems as errors Why you might no need logs Identifying common problems in applications and frameworks Issues with Open Telemetry data Why front-end applications are difficult to instrument The evolution of Sentry's architecture Switching from a permissive license to the Business Source License Related Links Sentry David's Blog Sentry 9.1 and Upcoming Changes Re-Licensing Sentry Transcript You can help edit this transcript on GitHub. [00:00:00] Jeremy: Today I'm talking to David Kramer. He's the founder and CTO of Sentry. David, welcome to Software Engineering Radio. [00:00:08] David: Thanks for having me. Excited for today's conversation. What's Sentry? [00:00:11] Jeremy: I think the first thing we could start with is defining what Sentry is. I know some people refer to it as an error tracker. Some people have referred to it as, an application performance monitoring tool. I wonder if you could kind of describe in, in your words what it is. [00:00:30] David: You know, as somebody who doesn't work in marketing, I just tell it how it is. So Sentry started out doing error monitoring, which. You know, dependent on who you talk to, you might just think of as logging, right? Like that's the honest truth. It is just logging just a different shape or form. these days it's hard to not classify us as just an APM tool that's like the industry that exists. It's like the tools people understand. So I would just say it's an APM tool, right? We do a bunch of things within that space, and maybe it's not, you know, item for item the same as say a product like New Relic. but a lot of the overlap's there, so it's like errors performance, which is like latency and sort of throughput. And then we have some stuff that just goes a little bit deeper within that. The, the one thing i would say that is different for us versus a lot of these tools is we actually only do application monitoring. So we don't do any since like systems or infrastructure monitoring. Meaning Sentry is not gonna tell you when you need to replace a hard drive or even that you need new hard, like more disk space or something like that because it's just, it's a domain that we don't think is relevant for sort of our customers and product. Application Performance Monitoring is about finding crashes and performance problems that users would associate with bugs [00:01:31] Jeremy: For people who aren't familiar with the term application performance monitoring, what is that compared to just error tracking? [00:01:41] David: The way I always reason about it, this is what I tell new hires and what I would tell, like my mother, if I had to explain what I do, is like, you load Uber and it crashes. We all know that's bad, right? That's error monitoring. We capture the crash report, we send it to developers. You load Uber and it's a 30 second spinner, like a loading indicator as a customer. Same outcome for me. I assume the app is broken, right? So we also know that's bad. Um, but that's different than a crash. Okay. Sentry captures that same thing and send it to developers. lastly the third example we use, which is a little bit more. I think, untraditional, but a non-traditional rather, uh, you load the Uber app and it's like a blank screen or there's no button to submit, like log in or something like this. So it's kind of like a, it's broken, but it maybe isn't erroring and it's not like a slow thing. Right. Same outcome. It's probably a bug of some sorts. Like it's what an end user would describe it as a bug. So for me, APM just translates to there are bugs, user perceived bugs in your application and we're able to monitor and, and help the software teams sort of prioritize and resolve those, those concerns. [00:02:42] Jeremy: Earlier you were talking about actual crashes, and then your second case is, may be more of if the app is running slowly, then that's not necessarily a crash, but it's still something that an APM would monitor. [00:02:57] David: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think to be fair, APM, historically, it's not a very meaningful term. Like I as a, when I was more of just an individual contributor, I would associate APM to, like, there's a dashboard that will tell me what's slow in my application, which it does. And that is kind of core to APM, but it would also, none of the traditional tools, pre sentry would actually tell you why it's broken, like when there's an error, a crash. It was like most of those tools were kind of useless. And I don't know, I do actually know, but I'm gonna pretend I don't know about most people and just say for myself. But most of the time my problems are errors. They are not like it's fast or slow, you know? and so we just think of it as like it's a holistic thing to say, when I've changed the application and something's broken, or it's a bug, you know, what is that bug? How do we help people fix it? And that comes from a lot of different, like data signals and things like that. the end result is still the same. You either are gonna fix it or it's not important and you ignore it. I don't know. So it's a pretty straightforward, premise for us. But again, most companies in the space, like the traditional company is when you grow a big company, what happens is like you build one thing and then you build lots of check boxes to sell more things. And so I think a lot of the APM vendors, like they've created a lot of different products. Like RUM is a good example of another acronym that lives with an APM. And I would tell you RUM is completely meaningless. It, it stands for real user monitoring. And so I'm like, well, what's not real about monitoring the application? Well, nothing's not real, but like they created a new category because that's how marketing engines work. And that new category is more like analytics than it is like application telemetry. And it's only because they couldn't collect the app, the application telemetry at the time. And so there's just a lot of fluff, i would say. But at the end of the day too, like developers or engineering teams, it's like new version of the application. You broke something, let's tell you about it so you can fix it. You might not need logging or performance monitoring [00:04:40] Jeremy: And, and so earlier you were saying how this is a kind of logging, but there's also other companies, other products that are considered like logging infrastructure. Like I, I would think of companies like Paper Trail or Log Tail. So what space does Sentry fill that's that's different than that kind of logging? [00:05:03] David: Um, so the way I always think about it, and this is both personally true, and what I advise other folks is when you're building something new, when you start from zero, right, you can often take Sentry put it in, and that's good enough. You don't even need performance monitoring. You just need like errors, right? Like you're just causing bugs all the time. And you could do that with logging, but like the delta between air monitoring and logging is night and day. From a user experience, like error monitoring for us, or what we built at the very least, aggregates the errors. It, it helps you understand the frequency. It helps you when they're new versus old. it really gives you a lot of detail where logs don't, and so you don't need logging often. And I will tell you today at Sentry. Engineers do not use logs for the most part. Uh, I had a debate with one of our, our team members about it, like, why does he use logs recently? But you should not need them because logs serve a different purpose. Like if you have traces which tell you like, like fast and slow in a bunch of other network data and you have this sort of crash report collection or error monitoring thing, logs become like a compliance or an audit trail or like a security forensics, tool, and there's just not a lot of value that you would get out of them otherwise, like once in a while, maybe there's like some weird obscure use case, but generally speaking, you can just pretend that you don't need logs most days. Um, and to me that's like an evolution of the industry. And so when, when Sentry is getting started, most people were still logs. And if you go talk to SRE teams, they're like, oh, login is what we know. Some of that's changed a little bit, but. But at the end of the day, they should only be needed for more complicated audit trails because they're just not a good solution to the problem. It's just free form data. Structured or not, doesn't really matter. It's not aggregated. It's not something that you can really use. And it's why whenever you see logging tools, um, not even the papertrails of the world, but the bigger ones like Splunk or Cabana, it's like this weird, what we describe as choose your own adventure. Like go have fun, build your dashboards and try to make the logs useful kind of story. Whereas like something like Sentry, it's just like, why would you waste any time trying to build dashboards when we can just tell you when something new is broken? Like that's the ideal situation. [00:06:59] Jeremy: So it sounds like maybe the distinction is with a more general logging tool, like you mentioned Splunk and Kibana it's a collection of all this information. of things happening, even though nothing's necessarily wrong, whereas Sentry is more Sentry is it's going to log things, but it's only going to log things if Sentry believes something is wrong, either because of a crash or because of some kind of performance issue. People don't want to dig through logs or dashboards, they want to be told when something is wrong and whyMost software is built the same way, so we know common problems [00:07:28] David: Yeah. I, i would say it's about like actionability, right? Like, like nobody wants to spend their time digging through logs, digging through dashboards. Metrics are another good example of this. Like just charts with metrics on them. Yeah. They tell me something's happening. If there's lots of log statements, they tell me something's going on, but they're not, they're not optimized to like, help me solve a problem, right? And so our philosophy was always like, we haven't necessarily nailed this in all cases for what it's worth, but. It was like, the goal is we identify an actual problem, like close to like a root cause kind of problem, and we escalate that up and that's it. Uh, versus asking somebody to like go have to like build these dashboards, build these things, figure out what data matters and all this because most software looks exactly the same. Like if you have a web service, it doesn't matter what language it's written in, it doesn't matter how different you think your architecture is from somebody else's, they're all the same. It's like you've got a request, you've got a database, you've got some cache, you've got all these like known, known quantity things, and the slowness comes from the same places. Errors are structured while logs are not [00:08:25] David: The errors come from the same places. They're all exhibiting the same kinds of behavior. So logging is very unstructured. And what I mean by that is like there's no schema. Like you can hypothetically like make it JSON and everybody does that, but it's still unstructured. Whereas like errors, it's, it's a tight schema. It's like there's a type of error, there's a message for the error, there's a stack trace, there's all these things that you know. Right. And as soon as you know and you define those things, you can just build better products. And so distributed tracing is similar. Hypothetically, it's a little bit abstract to be fair, but hypothetically, distributed tracing is creating a schema out of basically network annotations. And somebody will yell at me for just simplifying it to that. I would tell 'em that's what it is. But, same goal in mind. If you know what the data is, you can take action on it. It's not quite entirely true. Um, because tracing is much more freeform. For example, it doesn't say if you have a SQL statement, it should be like this, it should be formatted this way, things like that. whereas like stack traces, there's a file name, there's there's a line number, there's like all these things, right? And so that's how I think about the delta between what is useful information and what isn't, I guess. And what allows you to actually build things like Sentry versus just build abstract exploration. Inferring problems rather than having user identify them [00:09:36] Jeremy: Kind of paint the picture of how someone would get started with a tool like Sentry. Do they need to tell Sentry anything about their application? Do they need to modify their source code at all? give us a picture of how that works. [00:09:50] David: Yeah, like one of our fundamentals, which I think applies for any real business these days is you've gotta like reduce user friction, right? Like you've gotta make it dead simple to use. Uh, and for us there were, there was like kind of a fundamental driving constraint behind that. So in many situations, um, APM vendors especially will require you to run an agent a basically like some kind of process that runs on your servers somewhere. Well, if you look at modern tech stacks, that doesn't really work because I don't run the servers half my stuff's in the browser, or it's a mobile app or a desktop app, and. Even if I do have those servers, it's like an entirely different team that controls them. So deploying like a sidecar, an agent is actually like much more complicated. And so we, we looked at that and also because like, it's much easier to have control if you just ship within the application. We're like, okay, let's build like an SDK and dependency that just injects into the, the application that runs, set an API key and then you're done. And so what that translates for Sentry is we spend a lot of time knowing what Django is or what Rails is or what expresses like all these frameworks. And just knowing how to plug into the right signals in those frameworks. And then at that point, like the user doesn't have to do anything. And so like the ideal outcome for Sentry is like you install the dependency in whatever language makes sense, right? You somehow configure the API key and maybe there's a couple other minor settings you add and that gives you the bare bones and that's it. Like it should just work from there. Now there's a lot you can do on top of that to enrich data and whatnot, but for the most part, especially for errors, like that's good enough. And that, that's always been a fundamental goal of ours. And I, I think we actually do it phenomenally well. [00:11:23] Jeremy: So it sounds like it infers things about the application without manual configuration. Can you give some examples of the kind of things that Sentry knows without the user having to tell it? [00:11:38] David: Yeah. So a good example. So on the errors side, we know literally everything because an error object in each language has all these attributes with it. It, it gives you the stack trace, it gives you a lot of these things. So that one's straightforward. On the performance side, we use a combination of leveraging some like open source, I guess implementations, like open telemetry where it's got all this instrumentation already and we can just soak that in, um, as well as we automatically instrument a bunch of stuff. So for example, say you've got like a Python application and you're using, let's say like SQL Alchemy or something. I don't actually know if this is how our SDK works right now, but, we will build something that's aware of that library and make sure it can automatically instrument the things it needs to get the right information out of it. And be fair. That's always been true for like APM vendors and stuff like that. The delta is, we've often gone a lot deeper. And so for Python for example, you plug it into an application, we'll capture things like the error, error object, which is like exception class name exception value, right? Stack trace, file, name, line number, all those normal things, function name. We'll also collect source code. So we'll, we'll give you sort of surrounding source code blocks for each line in the stack trace, which makes it infinitely easier to consume. And then in Python and, and php, and I forget if we do this anywhere else right now, we'll actually even allow you to collect what are called stack locals. So it'll, it'll give you basically the variables that are defined almost like a debugger. And that is actually, actually like game changing from a development point of view. Because if I can go look in production when there's an incident or a bug and I can actually see the state of the application. , I, I never need to know like, oh, what was going on here? Oh, what if like, do I need to go reproduce this somehow? I always have the right information. And so all of that for us is automatic and we only succeed like, it, it's, it's like by definition inside of Sentry, it has to be automatic. Like if we ask the user to do anything whatsoever, we're failing. And so whenever we design any product or anything, and to be fair, this is how every product company should operate. it's gotta be with as little user input as humanly possible. And so you can't always pull that off. Sometimes you have to have users configure stuff, but the goal should always be no input. Detecting errors through unhandled exceptions [00:13:42] Jeremy: So you, you're talking about getting a stack trace, getting, the state of variables, source code. That sounds like that's primarily gonna be through unhandled exceptions. Would you say that's, that's the primary way that you get error? [00:13:58] David: Yeah, you can integrate in other ways. So you can like trigger our API to capture an, uh, an exception. You can also, for better or worse, it's not always good. You can integrate through logging adapters. So if you're already using a logging framework and you log their errors there, we can often capture those. However, I will say in most cases, people use the logging APIs wrong and the data becomes junk. A good, a good example of this is like, uh, it varies per language. So I'm just gonna go to Python because Python is like sort of core to Sentry. Um, in Python you have the ability to log messages, you can log them as errors, you can log like actual error objects as errors. But what usually happens is somebody does a try-catch. They, they capture the error they rescue from it. They create a logging call, like log dot error or something, put the, the error message or value in there. And then they send that upstream. And what happens is the stack trace is gone because we don't know that it's an error object. And so for example, in Python, there's actually an an A flag. You pass the logging call to make sure that stack trace stays present. But if you don't know that the data becomes junk all of a sudden, and if we don't have a stack trace, we can't actually aggregate data because like there's just not enough information to like, to run hashing on it. And so, so there are a lot of ways, I guess, to capture the information, but there are like good ways and there are bad ways and I think it, it's in everybody's benefit when they design their, their apt to like build some of these abstractions. And so like as an example, when, whenever I would start a new project these days, I will add some kind of helper function for me to like log an exception when I like, try catch and then I can just plug in whatever I need later if I want to enrich the data or if I wanna send that to Sentry manually or send it to logs manually. And it just makes life a lot easier versus having to go back and like augment every single call in the code base. [00:15:37] Jeremy: So it, it sounds like. When you're using a tool like Sentry, there's gonna be the, the unhandled exceptions, which are ones that you weren't expecting. So those should I guess happen without you catching them. And then the ones that you perhaps do anticipate, but you still consider to be a problem, you would catch that and then you would add some kind of logging statement to your code that talks to Sentry directly. Finding issues like performance problems (N+1 queries) that are not explicit errorsz [00:16:05] David: Potentially. Yeah. It becomes a, a personal choice to be fair at that, at that point. but yeah, the, the way, one of the ways we've been thinking about this lately, because we've been changing our error monitoring product to not just be about errors, so we call it issues, and that's in the guise of like, it's like an issue tracker, a bug tracker. And so we started, we started putting what are effectively like, almost like static analysis concerns inside of this issue tracker. So for example, In our performance monitor, we'll do something called like detect n plus one queries, which is where you execute a, a duplicate query in a loop. It's not necessarily an error. It might not be causing a problem, but it could be causing a problem in the future. But it's like, you know, the, the, the qualities of it are not the same as an error. Like it's not necessarily causing the user to experience a bug. And so we've started thinking more about this, and, and this is the same as like logging errors that you handle. It's like, well, they're not really, they're not really bugs. It's like expected behavior, but maybe you still want to keep it like tracking somewhere. And I think about like, you know, Lins and things like that, where it's like, well, I've got some things that I definitely should be fixing. Then I've got a bunch of other stuff that's like informing me that maybe I should take action on or not. But only I, the human can really know at the end of the day, right, if I, if I should prioritize that or not. And so that's how I kind of think about like, if I'm gonna try catch and then log. Yeah, you should probably collect that data. It's probably less important than like the, these other concerns, like, like an actual unhandled exception. But you do, you do want to know that they're happening and whatnot. And so, I dunno, Sentry has not had a strong opinion on this historically. We're just like, send us whatever you want to capture in this regard, and you can pay for it, that's fine. It's like usage based, you know? we're starting to think a lot more about what should that look like if we, if we go back to like, what's the, what's the opinion we have for how you should use the product or how you should solve these kinds of software problems. [00:17:46] Jeremy: So you gave the example of detecting n plus one queries is, is that like being aware of the framework or the ORM the person is using and that's how you're determining this? Or is it at more of a lower level than that? [00:18:03] David: it is, yeah. It's at the framework level. So this is actually where Open Telemetry causes a lot of harm, uh, for us because we need to know what a database query is. Uh, we need to know like the structure of the query because we actually wanna parse it out in a lot of cases. Cause we actually need to identify if it's duplicate, right? And we need to know that it's a database query, not a random annotation that you've added. Um, and so what we do is within these traces, which is like if you, if you don't know what a trace is, it's basically just like, it's a tree, like a tree structure. So it's like A calls B, calls C, B also calls D and E and et cetera, right? And so you just, you know, it's a trace. Um, and so we actually just look at that trace data. We try to find these patterns, which is like, okay, B was a, a SQL query or something. And every single sibling of B is that same SQL query, but sort of removing certain parameters and stuff for the value. So we'll look at that data and we'll try to pull out anomalies. So m plus one is an example of like a fairly obvious anti pattern that everybody knows is bad and can be optimized. Uh, but there's a lot of other that are a little bit more subjective. I'll give you an example. If you execute three SQL statements back to back, one could argue that you could just batch those SQL statements together. I would argue most of the time it doesn't matter and I don't need to do that. And also it's not guaranteed that that is better. So it becomes much more like, well, in my particular situation this is valuable, but in this other situation it might not be. And that's where I go back to like, it's almost like a linter, you know? But we're trying to infer all of that from the data stream. So, so Sentry's kind of, we're kind of a backwards product company. So we build our product from a technology vision, not from customers want this, or we have this great product vision or anything like that. And so in our case, the technology vision is like, there's a lot of application data that comes in, a lot of telemetry, right? Errors, traces. We have a bunch of other streams now. within that telemetry there is like signal. And so one, it's all structured data so we know what it is so we can actually interpret it. And then we can identify that signal that might be a problem. And that signal in our case is often going to translate to like this issue concept. And then the goal is like, well, can we identify these problems for people and surface them versus the choose your own adventure model, which is like, we'll just capture everything and feed it to the user and they can figure out what matters. Because again, a web service is a web service. A database is a database. They're all the same problems for everybody. All you know, it's just, and so that's kind of the model we've built and are continuing to evolve on and, and so far works pretty well to, to curate a lot of these workflows. Want to infer everything, but there are challenges [00:20:26] Jeremy: You talked a little bit about how people will sometimes use tracing. And in cases like that, they may need some kind of session ID to track. Somebody making a call to a service and that talks to a database and that talks to other services. And you, inside of your application, you have to instrument some way of tracking. This all came from this one request. Is that something that Sentry can infer or is there something that the developer has to put into play so that you can track that sort of thing? [00:21:01] David: Yeah, so it's, it's like a bit of both. And i would say our goal is that we can infer everything. The reality is there is so much complexity and there's too much of a, like, too many technologies in the world. Like I was complaining about this the other day, like, the classic example on web service is if we have a middleware hook, We kind of know request response, usually that's how middleware would work, right? And so we can infer a lot from there. Like basically we can infer the boundaries, which is a really big deal. Okay. That's one thing is boundaries is a problem. What we, we describe that as a transaction. So like when the request starts. When the request ends, right? That's a very important boundary for everybody to understand because when I'm working on the api, I care about the API boundary. I actually don't care about what the database is doing at its low level or what the JavaScript application might be doing above it. I want my boundary. So that's one that we kind of can do. But it's hard in a lot of situations because of the way frameworks and technology has been designed, but at least traditional stuff like a, a traditional web stack, it works like a Rails app or a DDjango app or PHP app kind of thing, right? And then within that it becomes, well, how do you actually build a trace versus just have a bunch of arbitrary labels? And so we have a bunch of complicated tech within each language that tries to establish that tree. and then we annotate a lot of things along the way. And so we will either leverage Open Telemetry, which is an open format spec that ideally has very high quality data. Ideally, not realistically, but ideally it has high quality data. Every library author implements it great, everybody's happy. We don't have to do anything ever again. The reality is that data is like all over the map because there's not like strict requirements for what, how the data should be labeled and stuff. And not everything even has that data. Like not everything's instrumented with open telemetry. So we also have a bunch of stuff that, unrelated to using that we'll say, okay, we know what this library is, we're gonna try to infer some characteristics from this library, or we know what maybe like the DDjango template engine is. So we're gonna try to infer like when the template renders so you can capture that block of information. it is a very imperfect science and I would tell you like it's not, even though like Open Telemetry is a very fun topic for people. It is not necessarily good, like it's not in a good state. Could will it ever be good? I don't know in all honesty, but like the data quality is like all over the map and so that's honestly one of our biggest challenges to making this experience that, you know, tells you what's going on in your database so it tells you what's going on with the cash or things like this is like, I dunno, the cash might be called something completely random in one implementation and something totally different in another. And so it's a lot of like, like data normalization that you have to deal with. But for the most part, those libraries of things you don't control can and will be instrumented. Now the other interesting thing, which we'll see how this works out, so, so one thing Sentry tries to do there, we have all these layers of telemetry, so we have errors and traces, right? Those are pretty high level concepts. We also have profiling data, which is very, very, very, very low level. So it's usually only if you have like disc. I like. It's where is all the CPU time being spent in my application? Mostly not waiting. Like waiting's usually like a network call, right? But it's like, okay, I have a loop that's doing a lot of math, or I'm writing a bunch of stuff to disc and that's really slow. Like often those are not instrumented or it's like these black box areas of a performance. And so what we're trying to do with profiling data, instead of just showing you flame charts and stuff, is actually say, could we fill in these gaps in these traces? Like basically like, Hey, I've got a long period of time where the app's doing something. You know, here's an API call, here's the database stuff. But then there's this block, okay, what's that function or something? Can we pull that out of the profiling data? And so in that case, again, that's just automatic because the profile actually knows everything about the application and know it. It has full access to the function and the stack and everything, right? And so the dream is that you would just always have everything filled in the, the customer never has to do anything with one minor asterisk. And the asterisk is what I would call like business context. So a good example would be, You might wanna associate requests with a specific customer or something like that. Like you might wanna say, well it's uh, I don't know, Goldman Sachs or one of these big companies or something. So you can know like, well when Goldman Sachs is having performance issues or whatever it is, oh maybe I should focus on them cuz maybe they pay you a lot of money or something. Right. Sentry would never know that at the end of the day. So we also have these like kind of tagging contextual APIs that will say like, tell us some informations, maybe it's like customer, maybe it's something else that's relevant to your application. And we'll keep that data associated with the telemetry that's like present, you know, um, but the, at least the telemetry, like again, application's just worth the same, should be, there should be a day in the next few years that it's just all automatic. and again, the only challenge today is like, can it be high quality and automatic? And so that, that's like to be determined. [00:25:50] Jeremy: What you're kind of saying is the ideal is being able to look at this profiling information and be able to build a full picture of. a, a call from beginning to end, all the different things to talk to, but I guess what's the, what's the reality today? Like, what, what is Sentry able to determine, in the world we live in right now? [00:26:11] David: So we've done a lot of this like performance detection stuff already. So we actually can do a lot now. We put a lot of time into it and I, I will tell you, if you look at other tools trying to do tracing, their approach is much more abstract. It's like your traditional monitoring tool that's like, we're just gonna collect a lot of signals and maybe we'll find magic anomaly detection or something going on in it, which, you know, props, but that can figure that out. But, a lot of what we've done is like, okay, we kind of know what this data looks like. Let's go after this very like known quantity problem. Let's normalize the data. And let's make it happen like that's today. Um, the enrichment of profiles is new for us, but it, we actually can already do it. It's not perfect. Detection of blocking the UI thread in mobile apps [00:26:49] David: Um, and I think we're launching something in April or May, something around the, that timeframe where hopefully for the, the technologies we can instrument, we're actually able to surface that in a useful way. but as an example that, that concept that I was talking about, like with n plus one queries, the team built something using profiling data. and I think this, this might be for like a mobile app more so than anything where mobile apps have this problem of, it's, you've got a main thread and if you block that main thread, the app is basically frozen. You see this on desktop apps all the time. You, you very rarely see it on web apps anymore. But, but it's a really big problem when you have a web, uh, a mobile or desktop app because you don't want that like thing to be non-responsive. Right? And so one of the things they did was detect when you're doing like file io on the main thread, you know, right. When you're writing a disc, which is probably a slow thing or something like that, that's gonna block the whole thing. Because you should just do it on a separate thread. It's like an easy fix, potentially may not be a problem, but it could become a problem. Same thing as n plus one. But what's really interesting about it is what the team did is like they used the profiling data to detect it because we already know threads and everything in there, and then they actually recreated a stack trace out of that profiling data when it's surfaced. So it's actually like useful data with that. You could like that I or you as a developer might know how to take and actually be like, oh, this is where it happens at the source code. I can actually figure it out and go fix it myself. And to me, like as like I, I'm still very much in the weeds with software that is like one of the biggest gaps to most things. Is it just, it doesn't make it easy to consume or like take action on, right? Like if I've got a, a chart that says my error rate is high, what am I gonna do with that? I'm like, okay, what's breaking? That's immediately my next question. Right? Okay. This is the error. Where is that error happening at? Again, my next question, it, it's literally just root cause analysis, right? Um, and so that, that to me is very exciting. and I, I don't know that we're the first people to do that, I'm not sure. But like, if we can make that kind of data, that level of actionable and consumable, that's like a big deal for me because I will tell you is like I have 20 years of software experience. I still hate flame charts and like I struggle to use them. Like they're not a friendly visualization. They're almost like a, a hypothetically necessary evil. But I also think one where nobody said like, do we even need to use that? Do we need that to be like the way we operate? and so anyways, like I guess that's my long-winded way of saying like, I'm very excited for how we can leverage that data and change how it's used. [00:29:10] Jeremy: Yeah. So it sounds like in this example, both in the mobile app blocking the UI or the n plus one query is the Sentry, suppose, SDK or instrumentation that's hooked inside of your application. There are certain behaviors that it knows are, are not like ideal I guess, just based on. people's prior experience, like your own developers know that, hey, if you block the UI thread in this mobile application, then you're gonna have performance problems. And so that way, rather than just telling you, Hey, your app is slow, it can tell you your app is slow and it's because you're blocking the UI thread. Don't just aggregate metrics, the error tracker should have an opinion on what actual problems are [00:29:55] David: Exactly, and I, and I actually think, I don't know why so many people don't recognize this gap, because at the end of the day, like, I don't know, I don't need more people to tell me response times are bad or anything. I need you to have an opinion about what's good because. The only way it's like math education, right? Like, yeah, you learn the basics, but you're not expected to say, go to calc, but, and then like, do all the fundamentals. You're like, don't get a calculator and start simplifying the problem. Like, yeah, we're gonna teach you a few of these things so you understand it. We're gonna teach you how to use a calculator and then just use the calculator and then make it easier for everybody else. But we're also not teaching you how to build a calculator because who cares? Like, that's not the purpose of it. And so for me, this is like, we should be helping people sort of get to the finish line instead of making them run the entirety of the race over and over if they don't need to. I don't, I don't know if that's a good analogy, but that has been the biggest gap, I think, in so much of this software throughout the industry. And it's, it's, it's common everywhere. And there's no reason for that gap to exist these days. Like the technology's fine. And the technology's been fine for like 10 years. Like Sentry started in oh eight at this point. And I think there was only one other company I recall at the time that was doing anything that was even similar to like air monitoring and Sentry when we built it, we're just like, what if we just go deeper? What if we collect all this information that will help you debug the problem instead of just stopping it like a log aggregator or something kind of thing, so we can actually have an opinion about it. And I, I genuinely, it baffles me that more people do not think this way because it was not a hard problem at the time. It's certainly not hard these days, but there's still very, I mean, a lot more people do it now. They've seen Sentry successful and there's a lot of similar implementations, but it's, it's just amazes me. It's like, why don't you, why don't people try to make the data more actionable and more useful, the teams versus just collect more of it, you know? 40 people working on learning the common issues with languages and frameworks [00:31:41] Jeremy: it, it sounds like maybe the, the popularity of the stack the person is using or of the framework means that you're gonna have better insights, right? Like if somebody makes a, a Django application or a Rails application, there's all these lessons that your team has picked up in terms of, Hey, if you use the ORM this way, your application is gonna be slow. Whereas if somebody builds something totally homegrown, you won't know these patterns and you won't be able to like help as much basically. [00:32:18] David: Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly, and, and you might think that that is a challenge, but then you look at how many employees exist at like large tech companies and it's, it's not that big of a deal, like, , you might even think collecting all the information for each, like programming, runtime or framework is a challenge. We have like 40 people that work on that and it's totally fine. Like, and, and so I think actually all these scale just fine. Um, but you do have to understand like the domain, right? And so the counter version of this is if you look at say like browser applications, like very rich, uh, single page application type experiences. It's not really obvious like what the opinions are. Like, like if, if you, and this is like real, like if you go to Sentry, it's, it's kind of slow, like the app is kind of slow. Uh, we even make fun of ourselves for how slow it is cuz it's a lot of JavaScript and stuff. If you ask somebody internally, Hey, how would we make pick a page fast? They're gonna have no clue. Like, even if they have like infinite domain experience, they're gonna be like, I'm not entirely sure. Because there's a lot of like moving parts and it's not even clear what like, like good is right? Like we know n plus one is bad. So we can say not doing that is the better solution. And so if you have a JavaScript app, which is like where a lot of the slowness will come from is like the render times itself. Like how do you fix it? You, you can't actually build a product that tells you what to fix without knowing how to fix it, right? And so some of these newer and very fast moving targets are, are frankly very difficult for us. Um, and so that's one thing that I think is a challenge for the entire industry. And so, like, as an example, a lot of the browser folks have latched onto web vitals, which are just metrics that hopefully tell you something about the application, but they're not always actionable either. It'll be like, the idea with like web vitals is like, okay, time to interactive is an an important metric. It's like how long until the page loads that a user can do what they're probably there to do. Okay. Like abstractly, it makes sense to us, but like put into action. How do I optimize time to interactive? Don't block the page. That's one thing. I don't know. Defer assets, that's another thing. Okay. So you've gotta like, you've gotta build a technology that knows these assets could be deferred and aren't. Okay, which ones can be deferred? I don't know. Like, it, it, it's like such a deep rabbit hole. And then the problem is, six months from now, the tech will have completely changed, right? And it won't have like, necessarily solved some of these problems. It will just have changed and they're now a completely different shape of problem. But still the same fundamental like user experience is the same, you know? Um, and to me that's like the biggest challenge in the industry right now is that like dilemma of the browser at the end of the day. And so even from our end, we're like, okay, maybe we should step back, focus on servers again, focus on web services. Those are known quantities. We can do that really well. We can sort of change that to be better than it's been in the past and easier to consume with things like our n plus one detections. Um, and then take like a holistic, fresh look at browser and say, okay, now how would we solve this to make sure we can actually really latch onto the problems that like people have and, and we understand, right? And, you know, we'll see when we get there. I don't think any product does a great job these days for helping, uh, solve those problems. . But I think even without the, the products, like I said, like even our team would be like, fixing this is gonna take months because it's gonna take months just to figure out exactly where the, the common bottlenecks are and all these other things within an application. And so I, I guess what I mean to say with that is there's a lot of opportunity, I think with the moving landscape of technology, we can find a way to, whether it's standardized or Sentry, can find a way to make that data actionable want it something in between there. There are many ways to build things on the frontend with JavaScript which makes it harder to detect common problems compared to backend [00:35:52] Jeremy: So it sounds like what you're saying, With the, the back end, there's almost like a standard way of doing things or a way that a lot of people do it the same way. Whereas on the front end, even if you're looking at a React application, you could look at tenant react applications and they could all be doing state management a totally different way. They could be like the, the way that the application is structured could be totally different, and that makes it difficult for you to infer sort of these standard patterns on the front end side. [00:36:32] David: Yeah, that's definitely true. And it, it goes, it's even worse than that because well, one, there's just like the nature of JavaScript, which is asynchronous in the sense of like, it's a lot of callbacks and things like that. And so that already makes it hard to understand what's going on, uh, where things are happening. And then you have these abstractions like React, which are very good, but like they pull a lot of that away. And so, as an example of a common problem, you load the application, it has to do a lot of stuff to make the page render. You might call that hydration or whatever. Okay. And then there's a completely different state, which is going from, it's already hydrated. Page one, I, I've done an interaction or something. Or maybe I've navigated a page too, that's an entirely different, like, sort of performance problem. But that hydration time, that's like a known thing. That's kind of like time to interactive, right? But if the problem is in your framework, which a lot of it is like a lot of the problems today exist because of frameworks, not because of the technology's bad or the framework's bad, but just because it's abstracted and it's really hard to make it work in all these situations, it's complicated. And again, they have the same problem where it's like changing non sem. And so if the problem is the framework is somehow incorrectly re rendering the page as an example, and this came up recently, for some big technology stack, it's re rendering the page. That's a really bad problem for the, the customer because it's making the, it's probably actually causing a lot of CPU seconds. This is why like your Chrome browser tabs are using so much memory in cpu, right? How do you fix that? Can you even fix that? Do you just say, I don't know, blame the technology? Is that the solution? Maybe that is right, but how would we even blame the technology like that alone, just to identify why it's happening. and you need to know the why. Right? Like, that is such a hard problem these days. And, and personally, I think the only solution is if the industry sort of almost like standardizes on a way to like, on a belief of how this should be optimized and how it should be measured and monitored kind of thing. Because like how errors work is like a standardization effectively. It may not be like a formal like declaration of like, this is what an error is, but more or less they always have the same attributes because we've all kind of understood that. Like those are the valuable things, right? Okay. I've got a server rendered application that has client interaction, which is sort of the current generation of the technology. We need to standardize on what, like that web request, like response life cycle is, right? and what are the moving targets within there. And it just, to me, I, I honestly feel like a lot of what we use every day in technology is like beta. Right. And it's, I think it's one of the reasons why we're constantly always having to up, like upgrade and, and refactor and, and, and shift dependencies and things like that because it is not, it's very much a prototype, right? It's a moving target, which I personally do not think is great for the industry because like customers do not care. They do not care that you're using some technology that like needs a change every few months and things like that. now it has improved things to be fair. Like web applications are much more like interactive and responsive sometimes. Um, but it is a very hard problem I think for a lot of people in the world. [00:39:26] Jeremy: And, and when you refer to, to things feeling like beta, I suppose, are, are you referring to the frameworks people are using or the libraries they're using to support their front end development? I, I'm curious what you're, you're thinking there. [00:39:41] David: Um, I think it's everything. Even like the browser APIs are constantly shifting. It's, that's gotten a little bit better. But even the idea like type script and stuff, it's just like we're running like basically compilers to make all this code work. And, and so the, even that they're constantly adding features just because they can, which means behaviors are constantly changing. But like, if you look at a real world example, like React is like the, the most dominant technology. It's very well designed for managing the dom. It's basically just a rendering engine at the end of the day. It's like it's managed to process updates to the dom. Okay. Makes sense. But we've all learned that these massive single page applications where you build all your application logic and loaded into a bundle is a problem. Like, like, I don't know how big Sentry's bundle is, but it's multiple megs in size and it takes a little while for like a, even on fast fiber here in the Bay Area, it takes a, you know, several seconds for the UI to load. And that's not ideal. Like, it's like at some point half of us became okay with this. So we're like, okay, what we need to do is go back, literally just go back 10 years and we need to render it on the server. And then we need some stuff that makes interactions, you know, highly responsive in the UI or dynamic content in the ui, you know, bring, it's like bringing back jQuery or something. And so we're kind of going full circle, but that is actually like very complicated because the way people are trying to do is like, okay, we wanna, we wanna have the rendering engine operate the same on the server and is on as on the client, right? So it's like we just write one, path of code that basically it's like a template engine to some degree, right? And okay, that makes sense. Like we can all get behind that kind of model. But that is actually really hard to make work with a lot of people's software and, and I think the challenge and framers have adopted it, right? So they've taken this, so for example, it's like, uh, react server components, which is basically just like, can we render it on the server and then also keep that same interaction in the ui. But the problem is like frameworks take that, they abstract it and so it's another layer of complexity on something that is already enormously complex. And then they add their own flavor onto it, like their own opinions for maybe what the world way the world is going. And I will say like personally, I find those. Those flavors to be very hard to adapt to like things that are tried and true or importantly in this context, things that we know how to monitor and fix, right? And so I, I don't know what, what the be all end all is, but my thesis on this is you need to treat the UI like a template engine, and that's it. Remove all like complexity behind it. And so if you think about that, the term I've labeled it as, which I did not come up with, I saw this from somebody at some point, is like, it's like your front end as a service. Like you need to take that application that renders on the server and the front end, and it's just an entirely different application, which is annoying. and it just calls your APIs and that's how it gets the data it needs. So you're literally just treating it as if it's like a single page application that can't connect to your database. But the frameworks have not quite done that. And they're like, no, no, no. We'll connect to the database and we'll do all this stuff, but then it doesn't work because you've got, like, it works this way on the back end and this way on the front end anyways. Again, long winded way of saying like, it's very complicated. I don't think the technology can solve it today. I think the technology has to change before these problems can actually genuinely become solvable. And that's why I think the whole thing is like a beta, it's like, it's very much like a moving target that we're eventually we'll get there and it's definitely had value, but I don't know that, um, responsiveness for low latency connections is where the value has been created. You know, for like folks with bad internet and say remote Africa or something, like I'm sure the internet is not a very fun place for them to use these days. Some frontend code runs on the server and some in the browser which creates challenges [00:43:05] Jeremy: I guess one of the things you mentioned is there's this, almost like this split where you have the application running on the server. It has its own set of rules because it, like you said, has access to the database and it can do things that you can't do in the browser, and then you have to sort of run the same application in the browser, but it's not quite the same application because it doesn't have access to the same things in the browser. So you have this weird disconnect, I suppose. [00:43:35] David: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and then the challenges is like a developer that's actually complicated for you from the experience point of view, cuz you have to know somehow, okay, these things are ta, these are actually running on the server and only on the server. And like, so I think the two biggest technologies that try to do this, um, or at least do it well enough, or the two that I've used, there might be some others, um, are NextJS and remix and they have very different takes on how to do this. But, remix is the one I use most recently. So I, I'll comment on that. But like, there's a, a way that you kind of say, well, this only runs on, I think the client as an example. And that helps you a little bit. You're like, okay, this is only gonna render on the client. I can, I actually can think about that and reason about that. But then there's this thing like, okay, sometimes this runs on the server, only this part runs on the server. And it's, it just becomes like the mental capacity to figure out what's going on and debug it is like so difficult. And that database problem is like the, the normal problem, right? Like of like, I can only query the database on the server because I need secure credentials or something. Okay. I understand that as a developer, but I don't understand how to make sure the application is doing what I expect it to do and how to fix it if something goes wrong. And that, that's why I think. , I'm a, I'm a believer in constraints. The only way you make progress is you simplify problems. Like you just give up on solving the complicated thing and you make the problem simpler. Right? And so for me, that's why I'm like, just take the database outta the equation. We can create APIs from the client, from the server, same security levels. Okay? Make it so it can only do that and it has to be run as almost like a UI only thing. Now that creates complexity cuz you have to run this other service, right? And, and like I personally do not wanna have to spin up a bunch of containers just to write like a simple like web application. but again, I, I think the problem has not been simplified yet for a lot of folks. Like React did this to be fair, um, it made it a lot easier to, to build UI that was responsive and, and just updated values when they changed, you know, which was a big deal for a long period of time. But I feel like everything after has not quite reached that that area, whereas it's simple and even react is hard to debug when it doesn't do what you want it to do. So I don't know, there, there's so gaps I guess is what i would say. And. Hopefully, hopefully, you know, in the next five years we'll kind of see this come to completion because it does feel like it's, it's getting closer to that compromise. You know, where like we used to have pure server rendered apps with some weird janky JavaScript on top. Now we've got this bridge of really complicated, you know, JavaScript on top, and the server apps are also complicated and it's just, it's a nightmare. And then this newer generation of these frameworks that work for some types of technology, but not all. And, and we're kind of almost coming full circle to like server rendered, you know, everything. But with like allowing the same level of interactions that we've been desiring, I guess, on the web. So, and I, fingers crossed this gets better, but right now I do not see like a clear like, oh, it's definitely there. I can see it coming. I'm like, well, we're kind of making progress. I don't love being the beta tester of the whole thing, but we're kind of getting there. And so, you know, we'll see. There are multiple ways to write mobile apps as well (flutter, react native, web views) [00:46:36] Jeremy: I guess you, you've been saying this whole shifting landscape of how Front End works has made it difficult for Sentry to provide like automatic instrumentation and things like that for, for mobile apps. Is that a different story? Like is it pretty standardized in terms of how do you instrument an Android app or an iOS app. [00:46:58] David: Sort of, but also, no, like, a good example here is like early days mobile, it's a native application. You ship a binary known quantity, right? Or maybe you embedded a web browser, but like, that was like a very different thing. Okay. And then they did things where like, okay, more of it's like embedded web browser type stuff, or dynamically render content. So that's now a moving target. the current version of that, which I'm not a mobile dev so like people have strong opinions on both sides of this fence, but it's like, okay, do you use like a, a hybrid framework which allows you to build. Say, uh, react native, which is like arou you to sort of write a JavaScript ish thing and it runs on both Android and mobile, but not really well on either. Um, or do you write a native, native app, which is like a known quantity, but then you may maintain like two code bases, have two degrees of expertise and stuff. Flutters the same thing. so there's still that version of complexity that goes on within it. And I, I think people care less about mobile cuz it impacts people less. Like, you know, there's that whole generation of like, oh, mobile's the future, everything's gonna be mobile, let's not become true. Uh, mobile's very important, but like we have desktops still. We use web software all the time, half the time on mobile. We're just using the web software at the end of the day, so at least we know that's a thing. And I think, so I think that investment in mobile has died down some. Um, but some companies like mobile is like their main experience or one of their driving experience is like a, like a company like DoorDash, mobile is as important as web, if not more, right? Because of like the types of customers. Spotify probably same thing, but I don't know, Sentry. We don't need a mobile app, who cares? It's irrelevant to the problem space, right? And so I, I think it's just not quite taken on. And so mobile is still like this secondary citizen at a lot of companies, and I think the evolution of it has been like complicated. And so I, I think a lot of the problems are known, but maybe people care less or there's just less customers. And so the weight doesn't, like, the weight is wildly different. Like JavaScript's probably like a hundred times the size from an investment point of view for everyone in the world than say mobile applications are, is how I would think about it. And so whether mobile is or isn't solved is almost irrelevant to the, the, the like general problem at hand. and I think at the very least, like mobile applications, there's like, there's like a tool chain where you can debug a lot of stuff that works fairly well and hasn't changed over the years, whereas like the web you have like browser tools, but that's about it. So. Mobile apps can have large binaries or pull in lots of dependencies at runtime [00:49:16] Jeremy: So I guess with mobile. Um, I was initially thinking of native apps, but you're, you're bringing up that there's actually people who would make a native app that's just a web view for a webpage, or there's React native or there's flutters, so there's actually, it really isn't standard how to make a mobile app. [00:49:36] David: Yeah. And even within those, it comes back to like, okay, is it now the same problem where we're loading in a bunch of JavaScript or downloading a bunch of JavaScript and content remotely and stuff? And like, you'll see this when you install a mobile app, and sometimes the binaries are huge, right? Sometimes they're really small, and then you load it up and it's downloading like several gigs of data and stuff, right? And those are completely different patterns. And even within those like subsets, I'm sure the implementations are wildly different, right? And so, you know, I, that may not be the same as like the runtime kind of changing, but I remember there was this, uh, this must be a decade ago. I, I used, I still am a gamer, but. Um, early in my career I worked a lot with like games like World of Warcraft and stuff, and I remember when games started launching progressive loading where it's like you could download a small chunk of the game and actually start playing and maybe the textures were lower, uh, like resolution and everything was lower fidelity and, and you could only go so far until the game fully installed. But like, imagine like if you're like focused on performance or something like that, measuring it there is completely different than measuring it once, say everything's installed, you know? And so I think those often become very complex use cases. And I think that used to be like an extreme edge case that was like such a, a hyper-specific optimization for like what The Warcraft, which is like one of the biggest games of all time that it made sense, you know, okay, whatever. They can build their own custom tooling and figure it out from there. And now we've taken that degree of complexity and tried to apply it to everything in the world. And it's like uhoh, like nobody has the teams or the, the, the talent or the, the experience to necessarily debug a lot of these complicated problems just like Sentry like. You know, we're not dealing with React internals. If something's wrong in the React internals, it's like somebody might be able to figure it out, but it's gonna take us so much time to figure out what's going on, versus, oh, we're rendering some html. Cool. We understand how it works. It's, it's a known, known problem. We can debug it. Like there's nothing to even debug most of the time. Right. And so, I, I don't know, I think the industry has to get to a place where you can reason about the software, where you have the calculator, right. And you don't have to figure out how the calculator works. You just can trust that it's gonna work for you. How Sentry's stack has become more complex over time [00:51:35] Jeremy: so kind of. Shifting over a little bit to Sentry's internals. You, you said that Sentry started in, was it 2008 you said? [00:51:47] David: Uh, the open source project was in 2008. Yeah. [00:51:50] Jeremy: The stack that's used in Sentry has evolved. Like I remembered that there was a period where I think you could run it with a pretty minimal stack, like I think it may have even supported SQLite. [00:52:02] David: Yeah. [00:52:03] Jeremy: And so it was something that people could run pretty easily on their own. But things have, have obviously changed a lot. And so I, I wonder if you could speak to sort of the evolution of that process. Like when do you decide like, Hey, this thing that I built in 2008, Is, you know, not gonna cut it. And I really need to re-architect what this system is. [00:52:25] David: Yeah, so I don't know if that's actually the reality of why things have changed, that it's like, oh, this doesn't work anymore. We've definitely introduced complexity in the sense of like, probably the biggest shift for Sentry was like, it used to be everything, and it was a SQL database, and everything was kind of optional. I think half that was maintainable because it was mostly built by. And so I could maintain like an architectural vision that kept it minimal. I had the experience to figure it out and duct tape the right things. Um, so that was one thing. And I think eventually, you know, that doesn't scale as you're trying to do more and build more into the product. So there's some complexity there. but for the most part you can, it can still

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?David: There's a part of what I do, taking complex ideas, taking complex things and simplifying them and making them digestible.“When we looked at investment Crowdfunding, we saw a massive industry that was at its inception,” says Assurely CEO and co-founder David Carpentier, explaining the context for launching the company's innovative directors and officers insurance coverage for Regulation Crowdfunding offerings.He continues, “When we take $1.7 trillion of private securities in the United States, that is starting to migrate towards digitization, leveraging technology, the internet to accomplish all of the operations, all the value propositions, all the stuff of why private securities exist, we said, ‘Okay, cool. This is new; this is interesting.'”He adds, “When new and interesting industries and markets evolve, all the relevant service providers need to adjust to that; insurance doesn't get a pass on that.”“Tiger Mark was simply an adjustment of the relevant insurance and protections needed to help enable an industry to grow, flourish and be safer for all the various participants,” he says, naming Assurely's coverage for crowdfunding campaigns.As new as the crowdfunding industry is, until Assurely hit the scene, no coverage was available for offerings.David hastens to add, “The symbol of Tiger Mark, when you see it on an offering page, is not investment advice and should not be treated as such.”He describes the coverage in lay terms for us, speaking to the investor considering an offering with coverage:Hey, don't worry about them lying, stealing, cheating. You're investing in somebody online that you might not know. They might be a stranger. Get confident that those things are controlled for. Get excited about the business. Is that a business you want to support? Is that a business that is going to reach your goal as an investor? The rest of it can be neutralized.As an aside, that is why I was excited to add the coverage to my crowdfunding campaign for The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation in which many readers have now invested.To build Assurely and the Tiger Mark product, David deployed his superpower—his ability to simplify complexity.AI Podcast Summary1. David Carpentier speaks about Assurely, a venture-backed insurance company.2. Assurely provides D&O insurance to crowdfunding issuers.3. The insurance policy, Tiger Mark, offers comprehensive coverage of investor claims not seen in other policies.4. Tiger Mark gives investors confidence to invest and protects companies from frivolous lawsuits.5. David discusses Assurely's new product, TigerMark, aimed at the crowdfunding industry.6. TigerMark provides insurance to small businesses against potential lawsuits from failed crowdfunding offerings.7. It also provides protection to investors concerned about the legitimacy of the investment.8. David believes that insurance can provide assurance to both sides of the transaction, especially for new, untested ideas.9. David emphasizes the importance of caring and increasing intimacy with customers to better understand their needs and improve communication.10. Customers can access TigerMark through their crowdfunding portal, platform attorney or Assurely's website.How to Develop Simplifying Complexity As a SuperpowerSeeing the opportunity to provide and building the company to offer Tiger Mark is a great example of David's ability to simplify complexity.David offers two tips for developing this ability:First, he says, “You've got to give a crap.”Second, he says, “There's something a little more tangible: the personas. If you can increase the intimacy with the counterparty, the person you're communicating with, or you're building a product for, right? When you humanize them, when you have empathy for them, you can now describe the thing as it relates to them.”By following David's example and his advice, you can increase your ability to simplify complexity and make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.Guest-Provided ProfileDavid Carpentier (he/him):Co-founder/ CEO, AssurelyAbout Assurely: Assurely creates and distributes insurance for changing industries and innovative companies. Assurely's technology and data-driven platform offers both new, custom-built, and traditional insurance products designed to be embedded into marketplaces and SaaS platforms or accessed directly by end insurance customers. Primarily serving companies, marketplaces and platforms in the construction industry, fintech/private securities,  SMB platform, among many others, Assurely is the next generation of insurance focused on creating value for each stakeholder in the insurance system. For more information, visit assurely.com. Website: www.assurely.comTwitter Handle: @assurelyBiographical Information: David Carpentier is the co-founder and CEO of Assurely, a venture-backed, high-growth InsurTech that builds and delivers insurance for changing industries and innovative companies. He is considered one of the top forward-thinking, innovative, and strategic professionals in the insurance industry. From early on in his career to today, David is known for taking on and solving emerging insurance problems that no one else can solve.   Prior to Assurely, David saw success in the corporate space, as a founding team member at a healthtech startup, and as a professional hockey player. Away from work, you can find him skating around the ice, discovering new music, or adventuring outdoors. Originally from Minnesota, he currently resides in Austin, TX, after his tenure in New York City. Twitter Handle: @DaveCarpentierLinkedin: linkedin.com/in/david-carpentier Get full access to Superpowers for Good at devinthorpe.substack.com/subscribe

David Colebatch, CEO at Tidal.cloud, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how Tidal is demystifying cloud migration strategy. David and Corey discuss the pros and cons of a hybrid cloud migration strategy, and David reveals the approach that Tidal takes to ensure they're setting their customers up for success. David also discusses the human element to cloud migration initiatives, and how to overcome roadblocks when handling the people side of migrations. Corey and David also expand on all the capabilities cloud migration unlocks, and David explains how that translates to a distributed product team approach.About DavidDavid is the CEO & Founder of Tidal.  Tidal is empowering businesses to transform from traditional on-premises IT-run organizations to lean-agile-cloud powered machines.Links Referenced: Tidal.cloud: https://tidal.cloud Twitter: https://twitter.com/dcolebatch LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidcolebatch/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey:  LANs of the late 90's and early 2000's were a magical place to learn about computers, hang out with your friends, and do cool stuff like share files, run websites & game servers, and occasionally bring the whole thing down with some ill-conceived software or network configuration. That's not how things are done anymore, but what if we could have a 90's style LAN experience along with the best parts of the 21st century internet? (Most of which are very hard to find these days.) Tailscale thinks we can, and I'm inclined to agree. With Tailscale I can use trusted identity providers like Google, or Okta, or GitHub to authenticate users, and automatically generate & rotate keys to authenticate devices I've added to my network. I can also share access to those devices with friends and teammates, or tag devices to give my team broader access. And that's the magic of it, your data is protected by the simple yet powerful social dynamics of small groups that you trust.Try now - it's free forever for personal use. I've been using it for almost two years personally, and am moderately annoyed that they haven't attempted to charge me for what's become an essential-to-my-workflow service.Corey: Have you listened to the new season of Traceroute yet? Traceroute is a tech podcast that peels back the layers of the stack to tell the real, human stories about how the inner workings of our digital world affect our lives in ways you may have never thought of before. Listen and follow Traceroute on your favorite platform, or learn more about Traceroute at origins.dev. My thanks to them for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast. Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Every once in a while at The Duckbill Group, I like to branch out and try something a little bit different before getting smashed vocally, right back into the box I find myself in for a variety of excellent reasons. One of these areas has been for a while, the idea of working with migrations on getting folks into cloud. There's a lot of cost impact to it, but there's also a lot of things that I generally consider to be unpleasant nonsense with which to deal. My guest today sort of takes a different philosophy to this. David Colebatch is the CEO and founder of Tidal.cloud. David, thank you for joining me.David: Oh, thanks for having me, Corey.Corey: Now, cloud migrations tend to be something that is, I want to say contentious, and for good reason. You have all the cloud providers who are ranting that cloud is the way and the light, as if they've just found religion, and yeah, the fact that it basically turns into a money-printing machine for them has nothing to do with their newfound advocacy for this approach. Now, I do understand that we all have positions that we come from that shape our perspective. You do run and did found a cloud migration company. What's your take on it? Is this as big as the cloud providers say it is, is it overhyped, or is it underhyped?David: I think it's probably in the middle of this stage of the hype cycle. But the reason that that Tidal exists and why I founded it was that many customers were approaching cloud just for cloud's sake, you know, and they were looking at cloud as a place to park VMs. And our philosophy as software engineers at Tidal is that customers were missing out on all the new capabilities that cloud provided, you know, cloud is a new paradigm in compute. And so, our take on it is the customer should not look at cloud as a place to migrate to, but rather as a place to transform to and embrace all the new capabilities that are on offer.Corey: I've been saying for a while that if you sit there and run a total cost analysis for going down the path of a cloud migration, you will not save money in the short term, call it five years or whatnot. So, if you're migrating to the cloud specifically to save money, in the common case, it should be for a capability story, not because it's going to save you money off of what you're currently doing in the data center. Agree, disagree, or it's complicated?David: It's complicated, but you're right in one case: you need to work backwards from the outcomes, I think that much is pretty simple and clear, but many teams overlook that. And again, when you look at cloud for the sake of cloud, you generally do overlook that. But when we work with customers and they log into to our platform, what we find is that they're often articulating their intent as I want to improve business agility, I want to improve staff productivity, and it's less about just moving workloads to the cloud. Anyone can run a VM somewhere. And so, I think, when we work backwards from what the customer is trying to achieve and we look at TCO holistically, not just about how much a computer costs to run and operate in a colo facility, look at it holistically from a staff productivity perspective as well, then the business case for cloud becomes very profound.Corey: I've been saying for a while that I can make a good-faith Total Cost of Ownership analysis—or TCO analysis—in either direction, so tell me what outcome you want and I can come up with a very good-faith effort answer that gives you what you want. I don't think I've seen too many TCO analyses, especially around cloud migrations, that were not justification exercises. They were very rarely open questions. It was, we've decided what we want to do. Now, let's build a business case to do that thing. Agree, disagree?David: [laugh]. Agree. I've seen that. Yeah, we again, like to understand the true picture of total cost of ownership on-premises first, and many customers, depending on who you're engaging with, but on the IT side, might actually shield a few of those costs or they might just not know them. And I'm talking about things like in the facilities, insurance costs, utility bills, and things like that, that might not bubble up.We need to get all those cards on the table in order to conduct a full TCO analysis. And then in the cloud side, we need to look at multiple scenarios per workload. So, we want to understand that lift-and-shift base case that many people come from, but also that transformative migration case which says, I might be running in a server-ful architecture today on-premises, but based on the source code and database analysis that we've done, we can see an easy lift to think like Lambda and serverless frameworks on the cloud. And so, when you take that transformative approach, you may spend some time upfront doing that transformation, or if it's tight fit, it might be really easy; it might actually be faster than reverse-engineering firewall rules and doing a lift-and-shift. And in that case, you can save up to 97% in annual OPEX, which is a huge savings, of course.Corey: You said the magic words, lift-and-shift, which means all right, the gloves come off. Let's have this conversation.David: Oh yeah.Corey: I work on AWS bills for a living. Cloud cost and architecture are fundamentally the same thing, and when I start looking at a company's monthly bill, I can start to see the architectural patterns emerge with no further information than what's shown in the exploded bill view, at least at a high level. It starts to be indicative of different things. And you can generally tell, on some level, when companies have come from a data center environment or at least a data center mentality, in what they've built. And I've talked to a number of companies where they have effectively completely lifted their data center into the cloud and the only real change that they have gotten in terms of value for it has been that machines are going down a lot less because the hard drive failed and they were really bad at replacing hard drives.Now, for companies in that position who have that challenge, yeah, the value is there and it's apparent because I promise, whoever you are, the cloud providers are better at replacing failed hard drives than you are, full stop. And if that's the value proposition you want, great, but it also feels like that is just scratching the surface of what the benefit of cloud providers can be.David: Absolutely. I mean, we look at cloud as a way to unlock new ways of working and it's totally aligned with the new distributed product team approach that many enterprises are pursuing. You know, the rise of Agile and DevOps has sort of facilitated this movement away from single choke points of IT service delivery, like we used to with ITIL, into much more modern ways of working. And so, I imagine when you're looking at those cloud bills, you might see a whole host of workloads centered into one or two accounts, like they've just replicated a data center into one or two accounts and lifted-and-shifted a bunch of EC2 to it. And yeah, that is not the most ideal architectural pattern to follow in the cloud. If you're working backwards from, “I want to improve staff productivity; I want to improve business agility,” you need to do things like limit your blast radius and have a multi-account strategy that supports that.Corey: We've seen this as well and born-in-the-cloud companies, too, because for a long time, that was AWS's guidance of put everything in a single AWS account. The end. And then just, you know, get good with IAM issues. Like, “Well okay, I found that developer environments impacted production.” Then, “Sounds like a skill issue.”Great, but then you also have things that cannot be allocated, like service quotas. When you have something in development run amok and exhaust service quotas for number of EC2 get instance info requests, suddenly, load balancers don't anymore and auto-scaling is kind of aspirational when everything explodes on you. It's the right path, but very often, people got there through following the best advice that AWS offers. I am in the middle of a migration myself from the quote-unquote, “Legacy” AWS account, I built a bunch of stuff in 2016 into its own dedicated account and honestly, it's about as challenging as some data center moves that I've done historically.David: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the cobwebs build up over time and you have a lot of dependencies on services, you completely forget about.Corey: “How do I move this S3 bucket to another account?” “That's the neat part. You don't.”David: [laugh]. We shouldn't just limit that to AWS. I mean, the other cloud providers have similar issues to deal with through their older cloud adoption frameworks which are now playing out. And some of those guidance points were due to technology limitations in the underlying platform, too, and so you know, at the time, that was the best way to go to cloud. But as I think customers have demanded more agility and more control over their blast radiuses and enabling self-service teams, this has forced everyone to sort of come along and embrace this multi-account strategy. Where the challenge is, with a lot of our enterprise clients, and especially in the public—Corey: Embrace it or you'll be made to embrace it.David: Yeah [laugh]. We see with both our enterprise accounts that were early adopters, they certainly have that issue with too much concentration on one or two accounts, but public sector accounts as well, which we're seeing a lot of momentum in, they come from a place where they're heavily regulated and follow heavy architectural standards which dictate some of these things. And so, in order for those clients to be successful in the cloud, they have to have real leadership and real champions that are able to, sort of, forge through some of those issues and break outside of the mold in order to demonstrate success.Corey: On some level, when I see a lift that failed to shift, it's an intentional choice in some cases where the company has decided to improve their data center environment at the cost of their cloud environment. And it feels, on some level, like it's a transitional step, but then it's almost a question that I always have is, was this the grand plan? So, I guess my question for you is, when you see a company that has some workloads in a data center and some living in the cloud provider in what most people call hybrid, is that outcome intentional or is it accidental, where midway through, they realize that some workloads are super hard to migrate? They have a mainframe and there is no AWS/400 available for their use, so they're going to give up halfway, declare victory, and yep we're hybrid now. How did they get there?David: I think it's intentional, quite often that they see hybrid cloud as a stepping stone to going full cloud. And this just comes down to project scoping and governance, too. So, many leaders will draw a ring around the workloads that are easy to migrate and they'll claim success at the end of that and move on to another job quite often. But the visionary leaders will actually chart a path to course that has a hundred percent adoption, full data center closure, off the mainframe, off AS/400, you know, refactored usually, but they'll chart that course at a rate of change that the organization can accept. Because, you know, cloud being a new paradigm, cloud requiring new ways of working, they can't just ram that kind of change through in their enterprise in one or two years; they really need to make sure that it's being absorbed and adopted and embraced by the teams and not alienating the whole company as they go through. And so, I do see it as intentional, but that stepping stone that many companies take is also an okay thing in my mind.Corey: And to be clear, I should bound what I'm saying from the perspective that I'm talking about this from a platonic ideal perspective. I am not suggesting that, “Oh, this thing that you built at your company is crappy,” I mean, any more so than anything else is. I've never yet seen any infrastructure that the people running it would step back and say, “This is amazing and perfect.” Everyone thinks it's a burning dumpster fire of sadness and regret and I'm not entirely sure that they're wrong.I mean, designing an architecture—cloud or otherwise—on a whiteboard is relatively straightforward, for a junior employee, even. The problem is most people don't get to start from scratch and build that thing. There's existing stuff that needs to be migrated in and most of us don't get the luxury of taking two years of downtime for that service while we wind up rebuilding it from scratch. So, it's one of those how do you rebuild a car without taking it off the highway to do it type of questions.David: Well, you want to have a phased migration approach, quite often. Your business can't stop and start because you're doing a migration, so you want to build momentum with the early adopters that are easy to migrate and don't require big interruptions to business. And then for those mission-critical workloads that do need to migrate—and you mentioned mainframe and AS/400 before—they might be areas where you introduce, like, a strangler fig pattern, you know, draw a ring around it, start replicating some services into cloud, and then phase that migration over a year or two, depending on your timeline and scale. And so, we're very much pragmatic in this business that we want to make sure we're doing everything for the right reasons, for the business-led reasons, and fitting in migrations around business objectives and strategies is super critical to success.Corey: What I'm curious about is when we talk about migrations, in fact, when I invited you on the show, and it was like, well, Tidal migrations—one thing I love about calling it that for the domain, in some cases, as well as other things is, “Huh, says right in the tin what it is. Awesome.” But it's migrations, which I assumed to be, you know, from data centers into cloud. That's great. But then you've got the question of, is that what your work looks like? Is it migrations in the other direction? Is cloud repatriation a thing that people are doing, and no one bothered to actually ever bother to demonstrate that to me? Is cloud to cloud? What are you migrating from and to?David: Well, that's great. And we actually dropped migrations from the name.Corey: Oh, my apologies. Events, once again, outpace me.David: Tidal.cloud is our URL and essentially, Corey, the business of migration is something that's only becoming increasingly frequent. Customers are not just migrating from on-premises data centers to cloud, they're also migrating in between their cloud accounts like you are, but also from one cloud provider to another. And our business hypothesis here Tidal is that that innovation cycle is continuing to shrink, and so whereas when I was in the data center automation business, we used to have a 10 and 15-year investment cycle, now customers have embraced continuous delivery of their applications and so there's this huge shift of investment horizons, bringing it down to an almost an annual event for many of the applications that we touch.Corey: You are in fact correct. Tidal.cloud does have a banner at the top that says, “Tidal Migrations is now Tidal.” Yep, you're correct, not that I'm here to like incorrect you on the name of your own company, for God's sake. That's a new level of mansplaining I dare not delve into.But it does say, “Migration made modern,” right at the top, which is great because there's a sense that I've always had that lift-and-shift is poo-pooed as a bad approach to migrating, but I've done it other ways and it becomes disastrous. I've always liked the approach of take something in a data center, migrated into cloud, in the process, changing as few things as possible, and then just get it stable and working there, and step two becomes the transformation because if you try and transform while it moves, yeah, that gets you a little closer to outcome in theory, but when things don't work right—and their computers; let's not kid ourselves, nothing works right—it's a question now of was it my changes? Is it the cloud environment? Is there an unknown dependency that assumes things in the data center that are not true in cloud? It becomes very hard to track down the why of these things.David: There's no one-size-fits-all for migration. It's why we have the seven-hour assessment capabilities. You know, if one application, like you've just talked about, that one application might be better to lift and shift than modernize, there might be real business reasons for doing that. But what we've seen over the years is the customers generally have one migration budget. Now, IT gets one migration budget and they get to end a job in a lift-and-shift scenario and the business says, “Well, what changed? Nothing, my apps still run the same, I don't notice any new capabilities.” And IT then says, “Yeah, yeah. Now, we need the modernization budget to finish.” And they said, “No, no, no. We've just given you a bunch of money. You're not getting any more.”And so, that's what quite often the migrate as a lift-and-shift kind of stalls and you see an exodus of talent out of those organizations, people leave to go on to the next migration project elsewhere and that organization really didn't embrace any of the cloud-native changes that were required. We'd like to really say that—and you saw this on our header—that migrations made modern, we'd like to dispel the myth that you can either migrate or modernize. It's really not an either/or. There's a full spectrum of our methods, like replatform, and refactor, rehosting, in the middle there. And when we work backwards from customers, we want to understand their core objectives for going to cloud, their intent, their, “Why cloud?”We want to understand how it aligns on the cloud value framework, so business agility gains, staff productivity gains, total cost of ownership is important, of course. And then for each of their application workloads, choose the right 6R based on those business outcomes. And it can seem like a complicated or comprehensive problem, but if you automate it like we do, you can get very consistent results very quickly. And that's really the accelerant that we give customers to accelerate their migration to cloud.Corey: One thing that I've noticed—and maybe this makes me cynical—but when I see companies doing lift-and-shift, often they will neglect to do the shift portion of it. Because there's a compelling reason to do a migration to get out of a data center and into a cloud, and often that is a data center contract expiry coming up. But companies are very rarely going to invest the time, energy, and money—which all become the same thing, effectively, at company scale—in refactoring existing applications if they're not already broken.I see that all the time in my work, I don't make recommendations to folks very often have the form, “Oh, just migrate this entire application to serverless and you'll save 80% or more on it.” And it's, “That's great, but that's 18 months' worth of work and it doesn't actually get us closer to our business milestones, so yeah, we're not going to do that.” Cost directly is very rarely a compelling reason to make a migration, but when you're rebuilding something for business purposes, factoring cost concerns into it seems to be a much better way to gain adoption and traction of those ideals.David: Yeah, yeah. Counterpoint on that, when we look at a portfolio of applications, like, hundreds or thousands of applications in an enterprise and we do this type of analysis on them with the customers, what we've learned is that they may refactor and replatform ten, 20% of their workloads, they may rehost 40%, and they'll often turn off the rest, retire them, not migrate them. And many of our enterprise customers that we've spoken to have gone through rationalizations as they've gone to cloud and saved, you know, 59%, just turned off that 59% of an infrastructure, and the apps that they do end up refactoring and modernizing are the ones where either there's a very easy path for them, like, the code is super compatible and written in a way that's fitting with Lambda and so they've done that, or they've got, like you said, business needs coming up. So, the business is already investigating making some changes to the application, they already want to embrace CI/CD pipelines where they haven't today. And for those applications, what we see teams doing is actually building new in the cloud and then managing that as an application migration, like, cutting over that.But in the scheme of an entire portfolio of hundreds or thousands of applications that might be 5, 10, 20% of the portfolio. It won't be all of them. And that's what we say, there's a full spectrum of migration methods and we want to make sure we apply the right ones to each workload.Corey: Yeah, I want to be clear that there are different personas. I find that most of my customers tend to fall into two buckets. The first is that you have the born-in-the-cloud SaaS companies, and that's the world I come from, where you have basically one workload that's 80% of your application spend, your revenue, et cetera. Like, they are not a customer, but take Datadog as an example. Like, the Datadog monitoring application suite would be a good example of this, and then you have a bunch of longtail stuff.Conversely, you've got a large enterprise that might be spending $100 million or so every year, but their largest single application is a couple million bucks because it just has thousands upon thousands of them. And at that point, it becomes much more of a central IT planning problem. In one of those use cases, spending significant effort refactoring and rebuilding things, from an optimization perspective, can pay dividends. In other cases, it tends not to work in quite the same way, just because the economies of scale aren't there. Do you find that most of your customers fall into one of those two buckets? Do you take a different view of the world? How do you see the market?David: Same view, we do. Enterprise customers are generally the areas that we find the most fit with, the ISVs, you know, that have one or two primary applications. Born in the cloud, they don't need to do portfolio assessments. And with the enterprise customers, the central IT bit used to be a blocker and impediment for cloud. We're increasingly seeing more interest from central IT who is trying to lead their organization to cloud, which is great, that's a great sign.But in the past, it had been more of a business-led conversation where one business unit within an enterprise wants to branch away from central IT, and so they take it upon themselves to do an application assessment, they take it upon themselves to get their own cloud accounts, you know, a shadow IT move, in a way. And that had a lot of success because the business would always tie it back to business outcomes that they were trying to achieve. Now, into IT, doing mass migration, mass portfolio assessment, this does require them to engage deeply with the business areas and sometimes we're seeing that happening for the very first time. There's no longer IT at the end of a chain, but rather it's a joint partnership as they go to cloud, which is really cool to see.Corey: When I go to Tidal.cloud, you have a gif—yes, that's how it's pronounced, I'm not going to take debates on that matter—but you have a gif at the top of your site a showing a command line tool that runs an analyze command on an application. What are you looking at to establish an application or workload's suitability for migration? Because I have opinions on this, but you have, you know, a business around this and I'm not going to assume that my strongly-held opinions informed by several weeks of work are going to trump, you know, the thing that your entire company is built around.David: Thanks, Corey. Yeah, you're looking at our command-line utilities there. It's an accompanying part of our product suite. We have a web application and the command-line utilities are what customers use behind their firewall to analyze their applications. The data points that we look at are infrastructure, as you can imagine, you might plug into VMware and discover VMs that are running, we'll look for non-x86 workloads on the network.So, infrastructure is sort of bread and butter; everyone does that. Where Tidal differentiates is going up the stack, analyzing source code, analyzing database technologies, and looking at the schema usage within your on-premises database, for example, which features and functionality are using, and then how that fits to more cloud-native database offerings. And then we'll look at the technology age as well. And when you combine all of those technology factors together, we sort of form a view of what the migration difficulty to cloud will be on various migration outcomes, be it rehost, replatform, or refactor.The other thing that we add there is on the business side and the business intent. So, we want to understand from leadership what their intent is with cloud, and there's some levers they pull in the Tidal platform there. But then we also want to understand from each application owner how they think about their applications, what the value of those applications are to them and what their forward-looking plans are. We capture all these things in our tool, we then run it through our recommendation engine, and that's how we come up with a bespoke migration plan per client.Corey: One of the challenges I have in the cost arena around a lot of these tools that oh, we're going to look at your various infrastructure-as-code situation and see what that's going to cost you for a given change. It's like, sure, that that's not hard from a baseline of I want to spin up ten more EC2 instances. Yes, that is the tricky part of cloud economics known as basic arithmetic. The problem where I see is that okay, and then they're going to run Kubernetes, which has no sense of zone affinity, so it's going to wind up putting nondeterministic amounts of traffic across a AZ boundary and that's going to spike data transfer in some use cases, but none of these tools have any conception as to what those workloads look like. Now, that's a purely cost perspective, but that does have architectural approaches. Do you factor things like that in when you move up the stack?David: Absolutely. And really understanding on a Tidal inventory basis, understanding what the intent is of each of those workloads really does help you, from a cloud economics basics, to work out how much is reasonable in terms of cloud costs. So, for example, in Tidal, if you're doing app assessment, you're capturing any revenue to business that it generates, any staff productivity that it creates. And so, you've got the income side of that application workload. When you map that to on-premises costs and then later to cloud costs, your FinOps job becomes a lot easier because now you have the business context of those workloads too.Corey: So, one of the things that I have found is that you can judge the actual success of a project by how many people who work at the company claimed credit for it on LinkedIn, whereas conversely, when things don't work out super well, it's sort of a crickets moment. I'm curious as to your perspective on whether there is such a thing as a migration failure, or is it simply a, “Oh, we're going to iterate on this in a new direction. We've replaced a failing part, which turned out, from our perspective, to be our CIO, but we have a new one who's going to move us into cloud in the proper time and space.” We go through more of those things than some people do underwear. My God. But is there such a thing as a failed cloud migration?David: There absolutely is. And I get your point that success has many fathers. You know, when clients have brought us in for that success party at the end, you don't recognize everybody there. But you know, failure can be, you know, you've missed on time, scope, or budget, and by those measures, I think 76% of IT projects were failing in 2018, when we ran those numbers.So absolutely, by those metrics, there are failed cloud migrations. What tends to happen is people claim success on the workloads that did migrate. They may then kick it out into a new project scope, the organizational change bit. So, we've had many customers who viewed the cloud migration as a lift-and-shift exercise and failed to execute on the organizational change and then months later realized, oh, that is important in order for my day two operations to really hum, and so then have embarked on that under a separate initiative. So, there's certainly a lot of rescoping that goes on with these things.And what we like to make sure we're teaching people—and we do this for free—is those lessons learned and pitfalls with cloud early on because we don't want to see all those headlines of failed projects under that; we want to make sure that customers are armed with here are the things you should consider to execute on as you go to cloud.Corey: Do you ever run an analysis on a workload when a customer is asking, “So, how should we go about migrating this?” And your answer is, “You should absolutely not?”David: Well, all applications can go to cloud, it's just a matter of how much elbow grease you want to put into it. And so, the absolutely not call comes from when that app doesn't provide any utility to the business or maybe it has a useful life of six more months and the data center is going to be alive for seven. So, that's when those types of judgment calls come in. Other times we've seen, you know, there's already a replacement initiative underway by the business. IT wasn't aware of it, but through our process and methodology, they engaged with the business for the first time and learned about it. And so, that helps them to avoid needing to migrate workloads because the business is already moving to Salesforce, for example.Corey: I imagine you're also relatively used to the sinking realization that customers often have when they're used to data center thinking and you ask them a question, like, “How many gigabytes a month does your application server send back and forth to your database server?” And their response, very reasonably, is, “Why on earth would I know the answer to that quest—oh, God. You mean, that's how it bills?” It's the sense of everything is different in cloud, sometimes, subtly, sometimes massively. But it's a different way of thinking.So, I guess my last real big question for you on this is, moving technology is relatively straightforward but migrating people is very challenging. How do you find that the people and the processes that have grown up in data center environments with people whose identities are inextricably linked the technology they work on, being faced with the idea of it is now time to pick up and move these things into an environment where things that were incredibly valuable guardrails in a data center environment no longer serve you well?David: Yeah. The people side of cloud migration is the more challenging part. It's actually one of the reasons we introduced a service offering around people change management. The general strategy is sort of the Kotter change process of creating that guiding coalition, the people who want to do something different, get them outside of IT, reporting out to the executives directly, so they're unencumbered by the traditional processes. And once they start to demonstrate some success of a new way of working, a new paradigm, you kind of sell that back into the organization in order to drive that change.It's getting a lot easier to position that organizational change aspects with customers. There's enough horror stories out there of people that did not take that approach. And quite rightly. I mean, it's tough to imagine, as a customer, like, if I'm applying my legacy processes to cloud migration, why would I expect to get anything but a legacy result? You know, and most of the customers that we talk to that are going to cloud want a transformational outcome, they want more business agility and greater staff productivity, and so they need to recognize that that doesn't come without change to people and change the organization. It doesn't mean you have to change the people out individually, but skilling the way we work, those types of things, are really important to invest in and I'd say even more so than the technology aspects of any cloud migration.Corey: David, I really want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me about something that is, I'd say near and dear to my heart, except I'm trying desperately not to deal with it more than I absolutely have to. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you?David: Sure. I mean, tidalcloud.com is our website. I'm also on Twitter @dcolebatch. I like to tweet there a little bit, increasingly these days. I'm not on Bluesky yet, though, so I won't see you there. And also on LinkedIn, of course.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:29:57]. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.David: Thanks, Corey. Great to be here.Corey: David Colebatch, CEO and founder of Tidal.cloud. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment that you will then struggle to migrate to a different podcast platform of your choice.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

When a business is sold, it can create a lot of anxiety and challenges for both the existing team and the new owners. Communication is critical to making the transition as smooth as possible so the business can continue and grow. Today's guest, David Nemes, is an entrepreneur and an active business investor who's been part of several acquisitions.On this episode of The Clarity Advisors Show, David and host Ken Trupke discuss the challenges that come with the transition to new ownership, and David talks about his experience working on bank closures.Timestamps(00:59): David's background(03:01): Ensuring a smooth transition(04:38): Communicating before the deal's done(05:58): Mistakes David's made and what he's learned(07:51): Building internal support(13:13): How David got into bank closures(17:38): Explaining loss share(20:19): Things that work and don't work(23:44): David's recommended reading and listening(27:10): Ways to connect with David Nemes Episode Quotes“Walking in on Day One, you're not the smartest person in the room.” (David)“It's always an awkward kind of moment because there's fear. So, you've just got to really be warm and tell them it's going to be okay and we're going to do the right things.” (David)“One of the things that I've learned is to have some industry expertise that you can bring in with you, whether that's just someone advising or the old owner sticking around. But you need a plan for leadership transition.” (David)“I like to say I'm a mile wide and inch deep on a lot of things, and I'm a quick learner. But there's nuance to every industry.” (David)“In my experience, coming into companies as an advisor, it's helpful to build some kind of internal champions – people you can count on to tell you what's happening. They don't necessarily have a position, but they've been around long enough, or they've just got the respect of the people.” (Ken)“We're not going to be successful doing nothing. We are going to be successful doing something, even if it's not exactly right. At least we're trying.” (David)“The phrase I like to use is, ‘We can't steer a parked car,' so let's at least get the car moving.” (Ken)“You have to first understand how you think and what drives you and your behaviors.  You have to be comfortable in your own skin about who you are and how you operate and understand that not everyone's going to operate there, no matter what you try to force them to do.” (David)“There's capital, there's opportunity, and there's operators. I am not an operator. I help operators reach success.” (David) Recommended Reading and ListeningInsights from Oak Tree Capital by Howard MarksWarren Buffet's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholdersThe Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando De SotoConnect with David NemesDavid Nemes on LinkedIn  

The hosts welcome Rob Spencer from Blackrose Angus Ranch in Culbertson, NE to discuss the often-intimidating concept of vertical integration. They explore its impact and what it means for industries, specifically in the context of the cattle industry with contract and ownership integration. Rob shares his personal experience with vertical integration in the pork industry and how it affected his operation. Listen in to gain a better understanding of what vertical integration looks like in various industries and what the future of the cattle industry may hold.Mentioned in this Episode:ShadyBrookAngusFarm.comInsureMyBull.comMontanaRanchAngus.comLegacy FarmsFacebook @AngusUndergroundInstagram @AngusUndergroundBlackrose Angus RanchContact AngusUnderground@Yahoo.com or call (406) 210-1366 if you are interested in becoming a sponsor for Angus Underground. Quotes:“We've come a long way in this breed because I don't think I could tolerate the frustration that he (dad) dealt with at that time.” — Rob“I judge a lot of people that I want to deal with by their breeding philosophy. I think that's very important.” — Rob“I think part of my philosophy is that I set my bar very high for my cows. The cows are the most important thing that I do.” — Rob“We've had these multi-generational relationships with ranchers who are in our local to regional area. That plays very much into where I think this is going and how one should set themselves up to succeed.” — David“There's nothing like the independent producer to keep us resilient through our diversity of thought or diversity of production.” — Joe

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Full Transcript: Eliezer Yudkowsky on the Bankless podcast, published by remember on February 23, 2023 on LessWrong. This podcast has gotten a lot of traction, so we're posting a full transcript of it, lightly edited with ads removed, for those who prefer reading over audio. Eliezer Yudkowsky: I think that we are hearing the last winds start to blow, the fabric of reality start to fray. This thing alone cannot end the world, but I think that probably some of the vast quantities of money being blindly and helplessly piled into here are going to end up actually accomplishing something. Ryan Sean Adams: Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is how to get started, how to get better, how to front run the opportunity. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Okay, guys, we wanted to do an episode on AI at Bankless, but I feel like David... David: Got what we asked for. Ryan: We accidentally waded into the deep end of the pool here. And I think before we get into this episode, it probably warrants a few comments. I'm going to say a few things I'd like to hear from you too. But one thing I want to tell the listener is, don't listen to this episode if you're not ready for an existential crisis. Okay? I'm kind of serious about this. I'm leaving this episode shaken. And I don't say that lightly. In fact, David, I think you and I will have some things to discuss in the debrief as far as how this impacted you. But this was an impactful one. It sort of hit me during the recording, and I didn't know fully how to react. I honestly am coming out of this episode wanting to refute some of the claims made in this episode by our guest, Eliezer Yudkowsky, who makes the claim that humanity is on the cusp of developing an AI that's going to destroy us, and that there's really not much we can do to stop it. David: There's no way around it. Ryan: Yeah. I have a lot of respect for this guest. Let me say that. So it's not as if I have some sort of big brain technical disagreement here. In fact, I don't even know enough to fully disagree with anything he's saying. But the conclusion is so dire and so existentially heavy that I'm worried about it impacting you, listener, if we don't give you this warning going in. I also feel like, David, as interviewers, maybe we could have done a better job. I'll say this on behalf of myself. Sometimes I peppered him with a lot of questions in one fell swoop, and he was probably only ready to synthesize one at a time. I also feel like we got caught flat-footed at times. I wasn't expecting his answers to be so frank and so dire, David. It was just a rift of hope. I appreciated very much the honesty, as we always do on Bankless, but I appreciated it almost in the way that a patient might appreciate the honesty of their doctor telling them that their illness is terminal. It's still really heavy news, isn't it? So that is the context going into this episode. I will say one thing. In good news, for our failings as interviewers in this episode, they might be remedied because at the end of this episode, after we finished with Hit the Record Button to Stop Recording, Eliezer said, he'd be willing to provide an additional Q&A episode with the Bankless community. So if you guys have questions, and if there's sufficient interest for Eliezer to answer, tweet us to express that interest. Hit us in Discord. Get those messages over to us and let us know if you have some follow-up questions. He said, if there's enough interest in the crypto community, I'll say he'd be willing to come on and do another episode with follow-up Q&A. Maybe even a Vitalik and Eliezer episode is in store. That's a possibility that we threw to him. We've not talked to Vitalik about t...

In this episode of How to Manifest Anything Podcast, we'll be sent through a series of activities regarding NPL power activities. We're here to experience NLP energetics and psychology to become greater versions of ourselves. Today, David shares all about the law of attraction and how we can utilize it to make ourselves more lucky. Standout Quotes: “Some people just kind of, that everything they touch turns to gold.” [David] “There's some people in life that are the schlep rocks of the world.” [David] “I want to get playful, I want to have a good time because we need to in order to manifest and use the Law of Attraction”. [David] Key Takeaways: The law of attraction tells us that you will attract things into your life that are in harmony with the frequency you stand out to step out to the universe. At some point you started to use your imagination you started to pretend you started to get absorbed and focused in the processes in the experience of playing pretend as a little kid. There's a little part of you, on the outside, going through all those motions, we call that smart person syndrome. Episode Timeline: [00:38] David Snyder's backstory [01:01] The law of attraction [01:44] David's goals in tonight's episode [02:54] Being playful [03:32] How feelings relate to the law of attraction [04:29] How to change perceptual filters [05:05] Power Poses by Amy Cudd [06:03] Masters of our body [06:50] Activity for the audience [09:09] Using imagination and play-pretend [11:18] Smart person syndrome [16:42] Magic manifests when neurology works together [17:32] Energy as a phenomena [19:59] Intuitive interface [20:25] The concept of physiology [24:15] How postures affect our emotional state [24:49] Willpower Depletion Theory [26:24] Changing your frequency [27:14] A book called emotions [28:37] The negative state [29:20] A research on people with serendipitous events [31:15] Identifying lucky people [32:22] The levels of belief of the self [36:43] The nervous system [38:50] Thoughts make us [40:00] 60% of people are visual dominant [41:07] What are people's mental syntax? [42:34] Neuroscience [44:39] The coding system of the neurology [45:50] NLP'S internal representation [50:13] Feelings are analogous to vibrational frequencies [51:07] Two competing things in law of attraction [52:23] Mapping Across [53:45] Semantic Engagement [55:42] Being self-aware [56:32] Lucky people are action takers [58:07] A clinic at Solana Beach [58:47] Free 30-minute consultation offer

The paper's abstract reads:Healthcare systems are under stress as never before. An aging population, increasing complexity and comorbidities, continual innovation, the ambition to allow unfettered access to care, and the demands on professionals contrast sharply with the limited capacity of healthcare systems and the realities of financial austerity. This tension inevitably brings new and potentially serious hazards for patients and means that the overall quality of care frequently falls short of the standard expected by both patients and professionals. The early ambition of achieving consistently safe and high-quality care for all has not been realised and patients continue to be placed at risk. In this paper, we ask what strategies we might adopt to protect patients when healthcare systems and organisations are under stress and simply cannot provide the standard of care they aspire to. Discussion Points:Extrapolating out from the healthcare focus to other businessesThis paper was published pre-pandemicAdaptations during times of extreme stress or lack of resources - team responses will varyPeople under pressure adapt, and sometimes the new conditions become the new normalGuided adaptability to maintain safetySubstandard care in French hospitals in the studyThe dynamic adjustment for times of crisis vs. long-term solutionsShort-term adaptations can impede development of long-term solutionsFour basic principles in the paper:Giving up hope of returning to normalWe can never eliminate all risks and threatsPrincipal focus should be on expected problemsManagement of risk requires engagement and action at all managerial levelsGriffith university's rules on asking for an extension…expected surprisesMiddle management liaising between frontlines and executivesManaging operations in “degraded mode” and minimum equipment listsAbsolute safety - we can't aim for 100% - we need to write in what “second best” coversTakeaways:Most industries are facing more pressure today than in the past, focus on the current risksAll industries have constant risks and tradeoffs - how to address at each levelUnderstand how pressures are being faced by teams, what adaptations are acceptable for short and long term?For expected conditions and hazards, what does “second best” look like?Research is needed around “degraded operations”Answering our episode question: The wrong answer is to only rely on the highest standards which may not be achievable in degraded operations Quotes:“I think it's a good reflection for professionals and organistions to say, “Oh, okay - what if the current state of stress is the ‘new normal' or what if things become more stressed? Is what we're doing now the right thing to be doing?” - David“There is also the moral injury when people who are in a ‘caring' profession and they can't provide the standard of care that they believe to be right standard.” - Drew“None of these authors share how often these improvised solutions have been successful or unsuccessful, and these short-term fixes often impede the development of longer-term solutions.” - David“We tend to set safety up almost as a standard of perfection that we don't expect people to achieve all the time, but we expect those deviations to be rare and correctable.” - Drew Resources:The Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork

Physiognomy, often known as face reading, is the art of determining temperament and character based on external appearance and the facial features considered to reveal mental or personality attributes through their arrangement or expression. In this episode, Dr. David Snyder talks more about psychological tips on how you can understand others using Chinese face reading. Standout Quotes: “When you actually clear a trauma based on the markings on the face, those markings actually change, sometimes they fade away completely, sometimes you'll see a facial feature, literally get larger or broader that colorations will change.” [David] “A lot of modern neuroscientists, as well as social psychologists are discovering the Large amounts of correlation between certain markings and architectures of the face with certain behavioral and emotional predispositions.” [David] “The things we can see when we look at a person's gene, we can see their overall health, we can look at their lifestyle in their constitution, we can assess their trauma history, we can, we can see if they've inherited a lot of traits from their ancestors.” [David] “There are certain more esoteric, little-known schools in China that say yes, it is possible to make more Jing but it's not easy. And you have to live a life lifestyle a certain way.” [David] Key Takeaways: Chinese face reading has a long and illustrious history in Chinese medicine and throughout other regions of Asia, including Malaysia, Japan, and Korea. Pattern recognition is the ability to see underlying patterns of thought, emotion, behavior, and movement in a process or person. It is based on cycles, rhythms, and practices within the human being and the microcosmos and macro cosmos. Jing is a form of natural life force. It's like your body's material, energetic foundation; it builds your bones, soft tissues, and everything else. This material substance also contains the energy components, directions, and instructions for the material side of you, which we inherit from our parents. Episode Timeline: [10:00] Chinese Face Reading [12:06] About Dr. David Snyder [14:03] Pattern Recognition [19:47] The Three Chinese Words [20:28] The Three Elements in Face Reading [22:36] The "Young Chang" [27:49] The Shen [34:28] The Taoist Approach [41:31] The Pragmatics [43:26] The book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell [49:46] The surface area of your brain [50:50] The "Original Face." [59:21] The Similarity Phenomenon and The Identification Phenomenon. Learn more about Dr. David Snyder and NPL Power at: Website: http://www.nlppower.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsnydernlp/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidSnyderNLP Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidsnyderhypnosis YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/davidsnydernlp

My guest this week, film maker David Marsh, is healing from the inside out.  From what? You'll need to listen to this episode to find out.   As he continues to heal, he's tried many things and realized through life experiences, the universe is even bigger than he originally perceived.   He's a story teller, made with love.  Along the way, he believes that so many things weave together to make up our perspective.   And as we go along, we should get comfortable trusting.   Because there really is no certainty. Ever.   So, when you're wondering what's next, try to let it unfold.  This has been one of my big lessons this year.    Letting it unfold, like everything on the planet, is easier said than done.  (When people say "easier said than done", remind them that, of course it's easier said than done.) What isn't?   But if we are to really supposed to figure out what this thing called life means, we must.  It's the only thing that we can really do.    Control is an illusion.   A few more tips from David: There's no way to mess up this life! Let go of control Connecting with your joy space is very important   And some questions to ask along your journey: What can't you imagine stopping? How will you get there?   He's overcome so much, and now he's simply adapting to life. We could learn a lot from him.   More about David: David Marsh is a Filmmaker and his latest film, Adapting To Dive, is available now on Amazon. Seven days before leaving to make a documentary with Diveheart, his son dies of a drug overdose. He decides to go anyway but doesn't tell anyone about his loss. He learns about healing and adapting from these adaptive divers. David loves to create documentaries and tell stories that connect to the heart. He loves to explore the human journey and document it through video. His latest film is the Winner of Feature Documentary in the 2022 Orlando International Film Festival. He has found that satisfaction in your career comes best when you are following your enthusiasm and creating things you're passionate about.    Current Documentaries online: ADAPTING TO DIVE (Amazon, TubiTV, LookhuTV) HEALING FROM THE INSIDE OUT (Amazon, TubiTV, XUMO) SOULBLAZE YOUR LIFE (TubiTV)   And check out my bestselling book: Peace, Possibilities, and Perspective: 8 Secrets to Serenity and Satisfaction in Your Life and Career https://2possibilityandbeyond.com/my-book

The ongoing interaction of temperament, character, and environment shapes one's personality. However, is it true that possessing certain facial features has a significant impact in determining which qualities are prominent? Join Dr. David Snyder as he reveals everything you need to know about reading people's personalities by looking at their faces. Standout Quotes: “When people are happy and the body is healthy, they're doing the things that are on their building path, there's a glow that emanates from under their skin, there's a vitality and a radiance that streams from the eyes.” [David] “There is a reason why human beings are biased towards physical appearance, it's just that we don't consciously know all the things that go into it.” [David] “Anytime you see eyes that should be big but are held super close like that. You have got somebody who's got a big ball of secretiveness in there he is evaluating everything you say he is paying he is rehearsing his words and running them backward and forwards to make sure that you get exactly what he wants to send.” [David] “Just because somebody has a bulgy eye doesn't make them possessed by an evil spirit or a ghost. You have to evaluate based on the kinds of behaviors they engage in.” [David] Key Takeaways: When people are in pain, their Shin does not want to enter the body as much as it should. So, the eyes get flatter, and they get a flatter and flatter endeavor, with less and less light emanating from the eyes until they become entirely disconnected from their body, which we call Shin doubt. It can be seen in those who have been through a lot of trauma. The lights are turned on, but no one is at home. They've avoided each other and separated themselves. When you establish a baseline with someone, you will notice that the Shen dims, and the light behind their eyes darkens slightly. That's one of the things we watch for when we're talking to someone, and they start to feel uncomfortable or start lying to you, and the Shin leaves the body. Deep-set eyes have a more incredible elemental energy to them. Eyes protrude out in a beedi sort of way simultaneously, but the effect is relatively flat—someone who is dealing with some mental issues. A double shin is a sign that someone is dealing with some internal issues. Whether you call it multiple personalities, dissociative identity, or schizophrenia, the fundamental truth is that they act as if they had an additional person in their head.

Listen to learn:- The major announcement - the trenches team is expanding How changing your firms purpose can win the war of talent in the accounting industry  Why it is hard to establish relationships in the accounting sector How the world would be if it only had accountants Governments blaming accountants for their forecasting faults Why tech companies need to separate bookkeeper and accounting messaging  Why top line growth doesn't make you happy David explains the plan and session for the Trenches GPS Summit on May 2022 Best on Ground  Paul  Real time dashboards are overkillhttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/lukalovosevic_data-automation-realtimeanalytics-activity-6889545309546938368-XEzY/   ReckonOne is more popular than most of us think, great results from Reckon https://www.reckon.com/au/media/half-year-financial-report-2021-reckon-delivers-strong-results/ The IPA SHOULD host their tax deductible junket conferences in Fiji otherwise we can't justify any benefit at all to Australian members for this https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/business/16650-ipa-and-the-fiji-institute-of-accountants-announce-partnership    David Baker Tilly Changes it's purpose away from lodging tax returns https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alan-whitman-357ab91_purpose-nowfortomorrow-activity-6896447373279911936-9rV3/  We don't celebrate raises often but HNRY raising 16m at a 100m valuation is good for Australian Accountants https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/127646547/wellington-startup-hnry-eyes-expansion-after-securing-16m-investment  The IRS joins Tik Tik - hilariously https://twitter.com/dhtoomey/status/1488270707406614528  Poor accounting leads to $5billion in extra rail payments https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-09/nsw-government-criticised-over-accounting-by-auditor-general/100816682  and Lance Rubin responds https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6897288212595798016/    Worst on Ground Paul  More traditional accountant bashing: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6897992721726795776?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A6897992721726795776%2C6898074647389175808%29   David The busted client https://twitter.com/IraGilligan/status/1487146713949343753  The connected/Xero/Tech Savvy accountant is still news to the average business owner even though it's ten years old https://digitalmag.theceomagazine.com/anz/march-2022/innovate/nick-urry/  Outdated Hiring Practices - We are not who we worked for we are what we do https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6897313048122544128-qS8U  Quotes from the Episode “I don't know how people can attract anyone to the profession when for 20 years they said the profession is not going to exist.” Paul  “One thing that's hard to replicate in the accounting industry is the relationship.” David “Financial models are wrong because the drivers are wrong” David “There's a difference between a model being wrong and the actual application of accounting standards.” David “We are not who we worked for. We are what we do.” Tyler    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What you'll learn in this episode: How David earned the nickname the “100-carat man” for selling some of the most expensive jewels in history What type of buyers are interested in eight-figure gems How David got the opportunity to write “Understanding Jewelry” with Daniela Mascetti Why the most incredible jewelry may be off the beaten path Why 18th century jewelry is so rare, and why people have refashioned old jewelry throughout history About David Bennett Regarded internationally as a leading authority in the field of precious stones and jewelry, David Bennett is best known in his role as Worldwide Chairman of Sotheby's Jewelry Division, a post he held until 2020, after a brilliant 42 years career at Sotheby's. During his prestigious career David sold three of the five most expensive jewels in auction history and as well as seven 100-carat diamonds – earning him the nickname the ‘100-carat man'. David has also presided over many legendary, record-breaking auctions such as the Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor (1987), The Princely Collections of Thurn und Taxis (1992) and Royal Jewels from the Bourbon-Parma Family (2018). Among the many records achieved during his career as an auctioneer is that for the highest price ever paid for a gemstone, the CTF Pink Star, a 59.60ct Vivid Pink diamond which sold for $71.2 million in 2017, and the world record for any jewelry sale where he achieved a total of $175.1 million in May 2016. David was named among the top 10 most powerful people in the art world in December 2013 by the international magazine Art + Auction. In June 2014, Swiss financial and business magazine Bilan named him among the top 50 “most influential people in Switzerland”. David Bennett is co-author, with Daniela Mascetti, of the best-selling reference book Understanding Jewelry, in print since 1989. They have also co-written Celebrating Jewelry, published in 2012. In 2021, David and Daniela launched a unique website showcasing their unparalleled experience and knowledge in the field of jewelry. David Bennett grew up in London and graduated from university with a degree in Philosophy, a subject about which he is still passionate, alongside alchemy and hermetic astrology. Additional Resources: Website: https://www.understanding-jewellery.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/understandingjewellery/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnderstandingJewellery Twitter: https://twitter.com/UJewellery_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/19192787 Photos: Transcript: Whether you know his name or not, David Bennett is responsible for some of the most significant jewelry auctions in history. Before retiring from Sotheby's in 2020, David sold the Pink Star, the most expensive gem ever sold at auction, and whopping seven 100-carat diamonds. He's also the co-author of the jewelry bible “Understanding Jewelry” with his colleague Daniela Mascetti. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about his new business with Daniela; what it was like to handle some of the world's most precious jewels; and why he thinks gemstones hold incredible power. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. Today, my guest is David Bennett, who you may be familiar with. He coauthored with Daniela Mascetti what is often referred to as the Bible of the jewelry industry, and that is the ubiquitous book, “Understanding Jewelry.” David spent his 40-year at the international auction house Sotheby's. When he left, he held the position of Worldwide Chairman of International Jewelry. He's a veteran of gemstones and is often called the “100-carat man” because of his multiple sales of hundred-carat diamonds at record-breaking prices. Welcome back.   So, you have hidden gems. Now, are the hidden treasures, the hidden gems, the ones you say, “We think this is a great piece of jewelry,” are those available for people to buy?   David: Yeah, not through us. Basically, we're offering to be the eyes for collectors. Let's say in London at a certain resale, we might find a great piece of 1925 Cartier. We'll photograph it and write what we think about it. It'll be an appraisal, as it were. This is what you wouldn't see if you went down the main streets. I think in London the most important resales of collectible jewelry are of the 19th century, early 20th century jewelry. Our offices are not at street level, only shop fronts. We hope at least it'll be used to appeal to collectors from the Far East who, if they arrive in London or Geneva or Paris, don't quite know where to go.    Daniela is an excellent lecturer and a great jewelry historian, so she's been doing these online courses. For example, one recently was on Art Deco. We're going to be offering those. That's the other rung, the other important part of Understanding Jewelry, the website we want to do. It's an education thing as well, not because it's just education, but also because I think the more you know about something, the more interesting it becomes. You could have some very beautiful jewelry, but the more you know about it, the more interesting it becomes. When you're wearing it, you know more about it. Does that make sense?   Sharon: Yes, it makes a lot of sense. She is an excellent lecturer. I took the Art Deco class online, and I'm looking forward to more of your educational classes.   David: Absolutely, yeah.   Sharon: You mentioned that when you started out in the auction world, it wasn't collectors or private individuals who came; it was people in the trade, and they'd break up the jewels and that sort of thing. Why did it change? How did it change? What happened?   David: This is back in 1974 with the first sales in London. It's difficult to imagine now, but there was absolutely no market for 1930s jewelry. If you had big, 1930s diamond bracelets, believe it or not, they were sold and immediately broken up. The stems were taken out and reused, very often poor or bizarrely. The cushion-shaped diamonds in the set were then recut. It's a modern brilliance. Everything changes. Nowadays people will pay premiums for the old stems and of course, as you know, 1930s jewelry is very, very sought after now.   Sharon: Yes, it's very hard to find, the 30s. You can find some 40s and of course 50s, but not the 30s. So, what changed?   David: It changes all the time. It happens. This is not something new. In the 19th century, jewelry was being broken up and redesigned all the time. Up until about the 1840s, all the gold had to be reused because they weren't finding gold—you had the California Gold Rush and then South Africa and everywhere else. In fact, it's been estimated that something like 90 or 80 percent of the gold in use in 1800 had been in use since Roman times. The other thing is that jewelry is set with stones that are very hard, very durable. Gold doesn't oxidize. It can be melted down very easily into this basal moss. So, all of this made it very susceptible to being remodeled and restyled.    In the 19th century, this was happening all the time. If you were a fashionable lady in the 1850s, you wouldn't want to wear, if you could avoid it, an 1830s or 1820s brooch because it would be out of fashion. Everything was in check. This is, of course, very good news for the jewelers who were reusing things, but it made jewelry from before that period much rarer. 18th century jewelry is really, really rare. Diamond jewelry is as rare as hen's teeth, but most of it, if you think about the great 18th century diamond jewelry, is in the Kremlin from the Catherine the Great period, even though they sold most of it. The Soviets sold it in the 1920s.    The point I'm trying to make is that refashioning and redesigning jewelry is nothing new. In the 20th century, the phenomenon I was watching was the grand jewelry. When you think about it, by the end of the decade—I'm talking about the 1970s—Art Deco jewelry was already becoming collected, so they weren't breaking them up anymore; they were trying to keep them. But who knows how many bracelets and jewels from that period disappeared. That was from the 1930s to the 1980s, about 50 years.    What we've noticed is that the gap between when something is out of fashion and then becomes a classic and returns to fashion has become shorter and shorter. Nowadays people are talking about how desirable 80s jewelry is. It is shortening. So, I think there's still a lot of room for new collectors to decide where they would like to position themselves. By the mid-90s, there was only one buying public; she was in the Middle East before the fortunes being made from the oil industry. It's significantly changed the whole look of jewelry, and it started at the end of the 70s. In 1970, you'd walk around Place Vendome in Paris, the great address, and see the great French jewelry. Everything in the windows would have been in platinum and diamonds and so forth, but by the end of the decade, you wouldn't really see platinum and diamonds; everything would be in yellow gold, which the Middle East likes. There would be colored stones. It would be very colorful. There was a mad scramble during the 70s and 80s to redesign everything for this new market, which had very clear ideas about what they wanted.    The one thing about jewelry, as I say, is that it can be designed relatively quickly, but the invention is the problem, coming up with these new designs, having a style. That's why everybody looks back to the great years from the middle of the 19th century to 1960, when all these wonderful, new designs were changing. They were really groundbreaking designs.   Sharon: What were your thoughts when you started seeing private individuals at auctions as well as dealers? Did they start trickling in? How did it happen?   David: There were very few private individuals that came to the London jewelry sales in the 70s. They were collectors, so they would argue as to what was coming up. There were a few, a handful of them probably. I can't think of exactly the date, but around this time, Sotheby's had purchased a New York brand, Park Van Ness. Very few offices existed at that time. I think there were offices in Florence and Paris when I was there, but there wasn't this massive expansion that happened in the 80s, which made Sotheby's increase worldwide.    It was a massive change, and I had my sales like the Duchess of Windsor's jewels, which was a career-defining moment for me. By then, you had people bidding by telephone from all over the world. It was completely different. The auction room was packed with private individuals clamoring to buy a piece of history, the jewelry where the King of England had given up his throne for the love of a woman. What an amazing story! It caught the imagination of every newspaper in the world. It was fantastic, and it was great jewelry.    The Duke of Windsor, before he was crowned—because he wasn't crowned—and Wallis Simpson, the American socialite, they both absolutely adored jewelry and had very clear ideas of what they wanted, so the collection was just stunning. I remember when I was doing the catalogue, interviewing Jacques Arpels of Van Cleef & Arpels. He was recounting these extraordinary stories about how the Duke and Duchess would come into Van Cleef & Arpels, and he, as a young man, would have participated in the design of these jewels because they knew clearly what they wanted. If you look at some of the designs in the catalogue, they really are museum pieces. They transformed the look of jewelry in the 20th century, so it was wonderful stuff. That catalogue was a memorable moment.   Sharon: Wow! I can understand that. That would definitely be seared in your mind. I was reading one of the interviews with you in the New York Times. You talk about the fact that with your new business, you wanted to instill a sense of wonder in jewelry. Do you think that has been lost a little?   David: I guess what I was trying to say was that you get to an age—I'm coming to 70 soon, if I make it, very soon actually, alarmingly soon—and you start thinking, “I ought to try to give back some of the pleasure that I've got out of this totally unexpected path that I've trodden for the last 46 years, or however long it is.” One of the things that used to amaze me, and still does, is the power. The world-record ruby that I sold, I named it the Sunrise Ruby after this wonderful poem by Rumi, the 14th century poet. The owner showed it to me and it literally took my breath away. I was so shocked by it. First of all, it was 25 carats, a huge size for a Burma ruby, the top color. Everything about it was absolutely sensational, magnificent, towering, sterling. I wanted to try to communicate the effects that stone had on me and why, and what I think some people miss. The reason a lot of people miss it is because they haven't been as fortunate as I have of seeing something like that. You wouldn't see it walking down Madison Avenue. It wouldn't be in a window.    Nevertheless, if you can imagine the most wonderful ruby you've ever seen, the most wonderful red, a stone like that has infinite power. I made a little video about the Sunrise Ruby. If you look at it online on the Understanding Jewelry site, I talk about why this is so important, particularly to me. It enters into this thing I have with astrology. Rubies, like all gemstones, are related to very important spiritual centers in the body. So, the effect, at least what I sensed, is really felt in the body. The ruby particularly, is known in India as the rise of the king of gemstones, more than diamonds, more than anything else, because it is so powerful. A lot of people say, “Yeah, a ruby's powerful.” It sounds a bit new age, doesn't it? But I promise you—like I said, I'm not telling a story; this is true—a ruby of that quality and that size and that color is unspeakable. It's a wonderful thing. What I wanted to try to communicate is a sense of wonder, because when you're looking at it, it's like there's nothing else; there is only that stone.    Sharon: Did working with gems lead to astrology, or was it philosophy and then to astrology? How did that work?   David: Actually, it's very interesting. As an astrologer, I was constantly look at patterns, looking backward, looking at the past. Where was it coming from? Where is it leading? Why did it go off in that direction and then come back? Because everything in the end is linked. There's nothing random about anybody's life. Nothing happens to you, none of the people you meet, none of the people you marry, none of the places you go are by chance. There's a reason why I know all of that—and actually, if you think about it, it's pretty obvious—but what's not obvious is what the reasons are and what the patterns are.    Let's say I'd been halfway through 20 years into working with jewelry at auction and at the same time, I was doing more and more in astrology, more and more consulting. I don't do astrology for money. I don't charge; I refuse to charge, but I also refuse to do somebody's chart if there's anything with which I can help. That's the playoff, but actually I don't need to charge. If ever I need somebody to feed myself, then maybe I would. It's as simple as that. I received it freely, and I'm very pleased to give it back freely. I began to say, “Look, I've spent 20 years in jewelry and gemstones out of the blue” when really, if you had asked me at the beginning what I was going do, I would have thought it would be something to do with astrology, making films about it, something like that.   Sharon: I think philosophy is such a brain twister just from my limited exposure to it. I just say, “I'm not good at puzzles.” I admire the fact that it was of such interest to you because for me, it was like, “Oh my god!”   David: Oh, really? I've got this property I'm setting out in Burgundy. It's quite a large, rambling place, and it has a room I'm making into a lecture room. The last two years, of course, nothing has happened. So, I've organized with a group of friends some seminars on various subjects. The last one was about ayurveda.   Sharon: It was about what? I'm sorry.   David: Ayurveda.   Sharon: Oh, ayurveda, O.K.   David: And we invited David Frawley, who has written more than 50 books about ayurveda. He's the great guru of ayurveda, and we built a seminar around him. That's just one example, but I've been doing them maybe once or twice a year, and we've done many things. 20 years ago, the first one I gave was about sacred geometry, for example, but more recently they've been about healing plants, wild healing herbs and so forth. That's been great fun. It's nonprofit. It's just for fun. Well, more than fun; hopefully people get more than fun out of it, but it's a different type of learning. It's trying to get people to look more inwards rather than outwards, if you know what I mean. It's been a great success, and it's a great success largely because people have made it a success. It's a great pleasure for me to be able to share this place with other people to make it work. Sharon: I'll have to look at my jewelry again and think about what I was thinking at the time. Sometimes I do ask myself, “What was I thinking?” David, thank you so much for being with us today. It's great to talk with you.   David: I was interested and it's good fun. Thank you.   Sharon: Thank you so much.    Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.  

The paper results center on a survey sent to a multitude of French industries, and although the sampling is from only one country, 15 years ago, the findings are very illustrative of common issues among safety professionals within their organizations.  David used this paper as a reference for his PhD thesis, and we are going to dig into each section to discuss. The paper's abstract introduction reads: What are the training needs of company preventionists? An apparently straightforward question, but one that will very quickly run into a number of difficulties. The first involves the extreme variability of situations and functions concealed behind the term preventionist and which stretch way beyond the term's polysemous nature. Moreover, analysis of the literature reveals that very few research papers have endeavoured to analyse the activities associated with prevention practices, especially those of preventionists. This is a fact, even though prevention-related issues and preventionist responsibilities are becoming increasingly important. Discussion Points:The paper, reported from French industries, focuses heavily on safety in areas like occupational therapies, ergonomics, pesticides, hygiene, etc.The downside of any “survey” result is that we can only capture what the respondents “say” or self-report about their experiencesMost of the survey participants were not originally trained as safety professionalsThere are three subgroups within the survey:High school grads with little safety trainingPost high school with two-year tech training program paths to safety workUniversity-educated levels including engineers and managersThere were six main positions isolated within this study:Prevention Specialists - hold a degree in safety, high status in safety managementField Preventionists - lesser status, operations level, closer to front linesPrevention Managers - executive status, senior management, engineers/project managersPreventionist Proxies - may be establishing safety programs, in opposition to the organization, chaotic positionsBasic Coordinators - mainly focused on training othersUnstructured - no established safety procedures, may have been thrown into this roleSo many of the respondents felt isolated and frustrated within the organizations– which continues to be true in the safety professionThere is evidence in this paper and others that a large portion of safety professionals “hate their bosses” and feel ‘great distress' in their positionsOnly 2.5% felt comfortable negotiating safety with managementTakeaways:Safety professionals come from widely diverse backgroundsTraining and education are imperativeThese are complex jobs that often are not on siteRole clarity is very low, leading to frustration and job dissatisfactionSend us your suggestions for future episodes, we are actively looking! Quotes:“I think this study was quite a coordinated effort across the French industry that involved a lot of different professional associations.” - David“It might be interesting for our readers/listeners to sort of think about which of these six groups do you fit into and how well do you reckon that is a description of what you do.” - Drew“I thought it was worth highlighting just how much these different [job] categories are determined by the organization, not by the background or skill of the safety practitioner.” - Drew“[I read a paper that stated:] There is a significant proportion of safety professionals that hate their bosses …and it was one of the top five professions that hate their bosses and managers.” - David“You don't have to go too far in the safety profession to find frustrated professionals.” - David“There's a lot to think on and reflect on…it's one sample in one country 15 years ago, but these are useful reflections as we get to the practical takeaways.” - David “The activity that I like safety professionals to do is to think about the really important parts of their role that add the most value to the safety of work, and then go and ask questions of their stakeholders of what they think are the most valuable parts of the role, …and work toward alignment.” - David“Getting that role clarity makes you feel that you're doing better in your job.” - Drew Resources:Link to the Safety Science ArticleThe Safety of Work PodcastThe Safety of Work on LinkedInFeedback@safetyofwork.com

Episode Notes:This episode's guest is David Rennie, the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist and author of the weekly Chaguan column. Our topic is online discourse, nationalism, the intensifying contest for global discourse power and US-China relations.Excerpts:I spoke to some very serious NGO people who've been in China a long time, Chinese and foreigners who said that this was the worst time for NGOs since 1989, and the kind of mentions of espionage and national security was a very serious thing. So then I had to make a decision, was I going to try and speak to someone like Sai Lei. Clearly he is an extremely aggressive nationalist, some would call him a troll and there are risks involved in talking to someone like him. But I felt, I'm one of the few English language media still in China, if I'm going to add value, I need to speak to these people.I had a very interesting conversation with a CGTN commentator…He said, I can't tell you how many Western diplomats, or Western journalists they whine. And they moan. And they say, how aggressive China is now and how upset all this Wolf warrior stuff is and how China is doing itself damage. And he goes, we're not, it's working. You in the Western media, used to routinely say that the national people's Congress was a rubber stamp parliament. And because we went after you again and again, you see news organizations no longer as quick to use that. Because we went after you calling us a dictatorship, you're now slower to use that term because we went after you about human rights and how it has different meanings in different countries. We think it's having an effect…One of the things I think is a value of being here is you have these conversations where the fact that we in the West think that China is inevitably making a mistake by being much more aggressive. I don't think that's how a big part of the machine here sees it. I think they think it worked….To simplify and exaggerate a bit, I think that China, and this is not just a guess, this is based on off the record conversations with some pretty senior Chinese figures, they believe that the Western world, but in particular, the United States is too ignorant and unimaginative and Western centric, and probably too racist to understand that China is going to succeed, that China is winning and that the West is in really decadent decline…I think that what they believe they are doing is delivering an educational dose of pain and I'm quoting a Chinese official with the word pain. And it is to shock us because we are too mule headed and thick to understand that China is winning and we are losing. And so they're going to keep delivering educational doses of pain until we get it…The fundamental message and I'm quoting a smart friend of mine in Beijing here is China's rise is inevitable. Resistance is futile…And if you accommodate us, we'll make it worth your while. It's the key message. And they think that some people are proving dimmer and slower and more reluctant to pick that message up and above all Americans and Anglo-Saxons.On US-China relations:The general trend of U.S. China relations. to be of optimistic about the trend of U.S. China relations I'd have to be more optimistic than I currently am about the state of U.S. Politics. And there's a kind of general observation, which is that I think that American democracy is in very bad shape right now. And I wish that some of the China hawks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, who are also willing to imply, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen, that there was massive fraud every time they say that stuff, they're making an in-kind contribution to the budget of the Chinese propaganda department…You cannot be a patriotic American political leader and tell lies about the state of American democracy. And then say that you are concerned about China's rise…..their message about Joe Biden is that he is weak and old and lacks control of Congress. And that he is, this is from scholars rather than officials, I should say, but their view is, why would China spend political capital on the guy who's going to lose the next election?…The one thing that I will say about the U.S. China relationship, and I'm very, very pessimistic about the fact that the two sides, they don't share a vision of how this ends well.Links:China’s online nationalists turn paranoia into clickbait | The Economist 赛雷：我接受了英国《经济学人》采访，切身体验了深深的恶意 David Rennie on Twitter @DSORennieTranscript:You may notice a couple of choppy spots. We had some Beijing-VPN issues and so had to restart the discussion three times. Bill:Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the `Sinocism podcast. It's been a bit of a break, but we are back and we will continue going forward on a fairly regular schedule today. For the fourth episode, I'm really happy to be able to chat with David Rennie, the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist and author of the weekly Chaguan column. Our topic today is online discourse, nationalism, and the intensifying contest for global discourse power.Bill:I've long been a fan of David's work and the approximate cause for inviting him to join the podcast today was an article on the January 8th issue of The Economist on online nationalism. Welcome David.David:Hello.Bill:So just to start, could you tell us how you got to where you are today?David:I've been a foreign correspondent for frighteningly long time, 24 years. And it's my second China posting. I've been out there so long. I've done two Chinas, two Washingtons, five years in Brussels. I was here in the '90s and then I went off, spent a total of nine years in Washington, DC. And then I came back here in 2018 and I was asked to launch a new column about China called Chaguan, because previously I wrote our Lexington column and our Bagehot column about Britain and our Charlemagne column about Europe. They all have strange names, but that's what we do. And so this is my fourth column for The Economist.Bill:We last met, I think in 2018 in Beijing in what seems like before times in many ways at The Opposite House, I believe.David:And the days when we had visitors, people came from the outside world, all of those things.Bill:Yes. You are quite the survivor, as they say. Although there are advantages to not worry about walking outside and getting sick all the time. Although it's better here in DC now.David:It's a very safe bubble. It's a very large bubble, but it's a bubble.Bill:So let's talk about your article, the January 8th issue. It was titled “China's online nationalist turned paranoia into click bait”. And I thought it was a very good distillation of the surge in nationalists and anti foreign content that is really flooding or was flooded the internet in China. And you interviewed one of the people who's profiting from it because it turns out that not only is it good from a sort of a sentiment perspective, but it's also good from a business perspective.Bill:And that person Sai Lei, interestingly enough, then recorded your conversation and turned it into a whole new post and video about the whole experience of talking to a foreign correspondent. Can you tell us a little about the story and why you chose to write it and just to add the links to David's article and the Sai Lei article will be in the podcast notes.David:So I heard from friends and colleagues, a couple of things in two directions. One was that in the world of private sector media, a couple of reasonably well known explainer sites, popular science video companies had been taken out of business by nationalist attacks. One was called Paperclip, the other called Elephant Union. And their crime in the eyes of online nationalists had been to talk about things which are fairly uncontroversial in Western media, that eating beef from the Amazon or eating beef that is fed soy grown in the Amazon is potentially bad for the rainforest and maybe we should eat less meat.David:But because this was in the Chinese context, that China is the biggest buyer of soybeans, this explainer video was attacked as a plot to deny the Chinese people the protein that they need to be strong, that this was a race traitor attack on the Chinese. And it was outrageous because the West eats so much more meat than China. And so that was one element of it. And I heard that these companies had been shut down. The other was that I'd been picking up that this was an extremely bad time for NGOs, particularly Chinese NGOs that get money from overseas. And we'd seen some really nasty attacks, not just on the idea that they were getting money from overseas, but that they were somehow guilty of espionage.David:And there was an NGO that did incredibly benign work. Tracking maritime and Marine trash, as it floats around the coasts of China based in Shanghai, Rendu Ocean. I'd done a column on them the year before I'd been out with their volunteers. It was a bunch of pensioners and retirees and school kids picking up styrofoam and trash off beaches, weighing it, tracking where it came from and then uploading this data to try and track the fact that China is a big generator of the plastic and other trash in the oceans. They were accused of espionage and taking foreign money to track ocean currents that would help foreign militaries, attack China, that they were guilty of grave national security crimes.David:And they were attacked in a press conference, including at the national defense ministry. And they're basically now in a world of pain. They're still just about clinging on. And so these two things, you have these NGOs under really serious attack, and you also have this attack on online explainer videos. The common theme was that the nationalist attack, they were somehow portraying the country and its national security was a weird combination of not just the security forces, but also private sector, Chinese online nationalists. And in particularly I was told there was a guy called Sai Lei. That's his non to plume who was one of the people making videos taking on these people. He went after celebrities who talked about China should be more careful about eating seafood.David:This was again, sort of race traitors. And he was using this really horrible language about these celebrities who talked about eating more sustainable seafood that they were ‘er guizi”, which is this time about the collaborationist police officers who worked with the Japanese during the World War II. He calls them Hanjian, the s-called traitors to the Chinese race. Very, very loaded language. Went after a group that’s working with Africans down in the south of China, talking about how they faced discrimination. This got them attacked. They had talked also about the role of Chinese merchants in the illegal ivory trade that got them attacked by the nationalists.David:So I thought this question of whether the government is behind this or whether this is a private sector attack on that. There's the profits to be made from this online nationalism struck me something I should write about. So I talked to some of the people whose organizations and companies had been taken down, they were very clear that they thought that was a unholy nexus of profit, clickbait and things like the communist youth league really liking the way that they can turbocharge some of these attacks-Bill:Especially on bilibili, they use that a lot.David:Especially on... Yeah. And so there's this weird sort of sense that, and I spoke to some very serious NGO people who've been in China a long time, Chinese and foreigners who said that this was the worst time for NGOs since 1989, and the kind of mentions of espionage and national security was a very serious thing. So then I had to make a decision, was I going to try and speak to someone like Sai Lei. Clearly he is an extremely aggressive nationalist, some would call him a troll and there are risks involved in talking to someone like him. But I felt, I'm one of the few English language media still in China, if I'm going to add value, I need to speak to these people.David:Yes. And so I reached out to the founder of a big, well known nationalist website who I happen to know. And I said, do you know this guy Sai Lei? And he said, I do, I'll get in touch with him. Sai Lei was very, very anxious about speaking to the Western media. Thought I was going to misquote him. And so eventually we did this deal that he was going to record the whole thing. And that if he thought I had misquoted him, that he was going to run the entire transcript on full on this other very well known nationalist website that had made the introduction. So I said, okay, fine. I have nothing to hide. That's all good. I wrote the column. I quoted Sai Lei. I didn't quote a tremendous amount of Sai Lei because what he said was not especially revealing.David:He was just an extremely paranoid guy. And there was a lot of whataboutism and he was saying, well, how would the American public react if they were told that what they eat damages the Amazon rainforest? And I said, well, they're told that all the time-Bill:All the time.David:It was an incredibly familiar argument. It's on the front page of America newspapers all the time. And so he wasn't willing to engage. And so, I ran this. He then put out this attack on me. It's fair. Look, I make a living handing out my opinions. I knew he was recording me, was it a bit disappointing that he cut and edited it to make me sound as bad as possible rather than running the full transcript. I mean, I interviewed a troll and that was the thing. He attacked me on the basis of my family, which then triggered a whole bunch of stuff that was pretty familiar to me, a lot of wet and journalists get a lot of attacks and it was an unpleasant experience, but I feel that the added value of being here is to talk to people, who The Economist does not agree with.David:And his fundamental problem was that I was using online as a disapproving time. But my line with people like him, or with some of the very prominent nationalists online academics, media entrepreneurs, also with the Chinese foreign ministry, when I'm called in is my job in China is to try to explain how China sees the world. To speak to people in China to let their voices be heard in The Economist. And I absolutely undertake to try and reflect their views faithfully, but I do not promise to agree with them, because The Economist does not hide the fact that we are a Western liberal newspaper. We're not anti-China, we are liberal. And so, if we see illiberall things happening in Abu Ghraib or in Guantanamo Bay or-Bill:DC.David:Being done by Donald Trump or being done by Boris Johnson or Brexit, or Viktor Orbán or in China, we will criticize them because we are what we say we are. We are a liberal newspaper. We have been since 1843. And what's interesting is that online, the reaction was... For a while, I was trending on Bilibili. And that was new. And I take that on the chin. I mean, I'm here, I'm attacking nationalists. They're going to attack back. I think what's interesting is that the online of nationalist attacks were, I hope that the ministry of state security arrest this guy, he should be thrown out of China. Why is he in China? They should be expelled. This guy has no right to be in China.David:I think that at some level, some parts of the central government machinery do still see a value to having newspapers like The Economist, reasonably well read Western media in China. And it's this conversation I've had a lot with the foreign ministry, with the State Council Information Office, which is as you know, it's the front name plate for the propaganda bureau. And I say to them, we are liberals.David:We are not anti-China any more than we're anti-American because we criticize Donald Trump, but you know where we're coming from, but I do believe that if China is concerned about how it's covered, if they throw all of us out, they're not going to get better coverage. I mean, some of the most aggressive coverage about China in the states comes from journalists who never go to China and economists who never go to China. And I think that, that argument resonates with some parts of the machine, to the people whose job is to deal with people like me.David:What I worry about is that there are other parts of the machine, whether it's the Communist Youth League or whether it's the ministry of state security or some other elements in the machine who do also see a tremendous value in delegitimizing Western media full stop, because if you're being criticized and you don't enjoy it. Tactic number one, whether you are Donald Trump talking about fake news, or Vladimir Putin talking about hostile foreign forces, or the Chinese is to delegitimize your critics.David:And I do think that that is going on in a way that in the four years that I've been here this time. And if, I think back to my time here 20 years ago, I do think the attempts to go after and intimidate and delegitimize the Western media they're getting more aggressive and they're trying new tactics, which are pretty concerning.Bill:So that's a great segue into the next question. But first, I just want to ask the nationalist website that you said ran Sai Lei's piece that was Guancha.cn?David:Yeah. And so it's probably not secret, but so I know a bit, Eric Li, Li Shimo, the co-founder Guancha.Bill:Eric actually famous for his TED Talk, went to Stanford business school, venture capitalist. And now, I guess he's affiliated with Fudan, And is quite an active funder of all sorts of online discourse it seems among other things.David:That's right. And I would point out that The Economist, we have this by invitation online debate platform and we invite people to contribute. And we did in fact, run a piece by Eric Li, the co-founder of Guancha, the nationalist website a couple of weeks before this attack, that Guancha ran. And I actually had debate with some colleagues about this, about whether as liberals, we're the suckers that allow people who attack us to write, he wrote a very cogent, but fairly familiar argument about the performance legitimacy, the communist party and how that was superior to Western liberal democracy.David:And I think that it's the price of being a liberal newspaper. If we take that seriously, then we occasionally have to give a platform to people who will then turn around and attack us. And if I'm going to live in China and not see of my family for a very long period of time, and it's a privilege to live in China, but there are costs. If you are an expert, then I'm not ready to give up on the idea of talking to people who we strongly disagree with. If I'm going to commit to living here to me the only reason to do that is so you talk to people, not just liberals who we agree with, but people who strongly disagree with us.Bill:No. And I think that's right. And I think that also ties in for many years, predating Xi Jinping there's been this long stated goal for China to increase its global discourse power as they call it. And to spread more the tell the truth, tell the real story, spread more positive energy about China globally instead of having foreign and especially Western, or I think, and this ties into some of the national stuff increasing what we hear is called the Anglo-Saxons media dominate the global discourse about China. And to be fair, China has a point. I mean, there should be more Chinese voices talking about China globally.Bill:That's not an unreasonable desire, or request from a country as big and powerful as China is. One thing that seems like a problem is on the one hand you've got, the policy makers are pushing to improve and better control discourse about China globally. At the same time, they're increasing their control over the domestic discourse inside the PRC about the rest of the world. And so in some ways, yes, there's an imbalance globally, but there's also a massive imbalance domestically, which seems to fit into what you just went through with Sai Lei and where the trends are. I don't know. I mean, how does China tell a more convincing story to the world in a way that isn't just a constant struggle to use the term they actually use, but more of an actual fact based honest discussion, or is that something that we're just not going to see anytime soon?David:I think there's a couple of elements to that. I mean, you are absolutely right that China like any country has the right to want to draw the attention of the world to stuff that China does. That's impressive. And I do think, one of my arguments when I talk to Chinese officials as to why they should keep giving out visas to people like me is, when I think back to the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I've not left China for more than two years. I've not left since the pandemic began, you had a lot of media writing that this incredibly ferocious crackdown was going to be very unpopular with the Chinese public. And that's because of the very beginning you had people, there lots of stuff on Chinese social media, little videos of people being beaten up by some [inaudible 00:16:26] in a village or tied to a tree, or their doors being welded shot.David:And it did look unbelievably thuggish. And people playing Majiang being arrested. But actually about three weeks into the pandemic, and I was traveling outside Beijing and going to villages and then coming back and doing the quarantine, you'd go into these villages in the middle of Henan or Hunan. And you'd have the earth bomb at the entrance to the village and all the old guys in the red arm bands. And the pitchforks and the school desk, or the entrance to the village with a piece of paper, because you got to have paperwork as well. And you've realized that this incredibly strict grassroots control system that they'd put in motion, the grid management, the fact that the village loud speakers were back up and running and broadcasting propaganda was actually a source of comfort.David:That it gave people a sense that they could do something to keep this frightening disease at bay. And I think to me, that's an absolute example that it's in China's interest to have Western journalists in China because it was only being in China that made me realize that this strictness was actually welcomed by a lot of Chinese people. It made them feel safe and it made them feel that they were contributing to a national course by locking themselves indoors and obeying these sometimes very strange and arbitrary rules. In addition, I think you are absolutely right, China has the right to want the foreign media to report that stuff.David:Instead of looking at China through a Western lens and saying, this is draconian, this is ferocious, this is abuse of human rights. It's absolutely appropriate for China to say no, if you're doing your job properly, you will try and understand this place on China's own terms. You will allow Chinese voices into your reporting and let them tell the world that they're actually comforted by this extremely strict zero COVID policy, which is tremendously popular with the majority of the Chinese public. That is a completely legitimate ambition. And I never failed to take the chance to tell officials that's why they should give visas to have journalists in the country, because if you're not in the country, you can't think that stuff up.David:What I think is much more problematic is that there is alongside that legitimate desire to have China understood on China's own terms, there is a very conscious strategy underway, which is talked about by some of the academics at Fudan who work for Eric Li at Guancha as a discourse war, a narrative war, or to redefine certain key terms.Bill:And the term and the term is really is like struggle. I mean, they see it as a public opinion war globally. I mean, that the language is very martial in Chinese.David:Absolutely. Yeah. And do not say that we are not a democracy. If you say that we are not a democracy, you are ignoring our tremendous success in handling COVID. We are a whole society democracy, which it's basically a performance legitimacy argument, or a collective utilitarian, the maximizing the benefits for the largest number of argument. It's not particularly new, but the aggression with which it's being pushed is new and the extraordinary resources they put into going after Western media for the language that we use of our China. And I had a very interesting conversation with a CGTN commentator who attacked me online, on Twitter and said that I was a... It was sort of like you scratch an English when you'll find a drug dealer or a pirate.David:Now there's a lot of Opium War rhetoric around if you're a British journalist in China. You're never too far from Opium War reference. And for the record, I don't approve of the war, but it was also before my time. So I actually, the guy attacked me fairly aggressively on Twitter. So I said, can you try and be professional? I'm being professional here why won't you be professional. He invited me with coffee. So we had coffee. And we talked about his work for CGTN and for Chaguan and his view of his interactions to Western media. And he said, this very revealing thing. He said, the reason we do this stuff is because it works.David:He said, I can't tell you how many Western diplomats, or Western journalists they whine. And they moan. And they say, how aggressive China is now and how upset all this Wolf warrior stuff is and how China is doing itself damage. And he goes, we're not, it's working. You in the Western media, used to routinely say that the national people's Congress was a rubber stamp parliament. And because we went after you again and again, you see news organizations no longer as quick to use that. Because we went after you calling us a dictatorship, you're now slower to use that term because we went after you about human rights and how it has different meanings in different countries. We think it's having an effect.David:And so I think that this attempt to grind us down is working, although in their view, it's working. And I think that, that ties in with a broader conversation that I have a lot in Beijing with foreign ambassadors or foreign diplomats who they get called into the foreign ministry, treated politically aggressively and shouted at and humiliated. And they say, how does the Chinese side not see that this causes them problems? And I think that in this moment of, as you say, an era of struggle, this phrase that we see from speeches, from leaders, including Xi, about an era of change, not seen in 100 years.David:They really do feel that as the West, particularly America is in decline and as China is rising, that it's almost like there's a turbulence in the sky where these two the two axis are crossing. And that China has to just push through that turbulence. To use a story that I had kept secret for a long time, that I put in a column when Michael Kovrig was released. So, listeners will remember Michael Kovrig was one of the two Canadians who was held cover couple of years, basically as a hostage by the Chinese state security. And fairly early on, I had heard from some diplomats in Beijing from another Western embassy, not the UK, I should say, that the fact that Michael Kovrig in detention was being questioned, not just about his work for an NGO, the international crisis group that he was doing when he was picked up.David:But he was also being questioned about work he'd been doing for the Canadian embassy when he had diplomatic immunity. The fact that that was going on was frightening to Western diplomats in Beijing. And soon after that conversation, I was sitting there talking to this guy, reasonably senior official. And I said to him, I explained this conversation to him. And I said, I've just been having a conversation with these diplomats. And they said, the word that they used was frightened about what you are doing to Michael Kovrig. And I said, how does it help China to frighten people from that country?David:And he'd been pretty cheerful up till then. He switched to English so that he could be sure that I understood everything he wanted to say to me. And he said, this absolute glacial tone. He said, Canada needs to feel pain. So that the next time America asks an ally to help attack China, that ally will think twice. And that's it.Bill:That's it. And it probably works.David:It works. And yeah. So I think that, again, one of the things I think is a value of being here is you have these conversations where the fact that we in the West think that China is inevitably making a mistake by being much more aggressive. I don't think that's how a big part of the machine here sees it. I think they think it worked.Bill:No. I agree. And I'm not actually sure that they're making a mistake because if you look at so far, what have the cost been? As you said, I mean, behavior is shift, but I think it's definitely open for question. I mean, it's like the assumptions you still see this week, multiple columns about how China's COVID policy is inevitably going to fail. And I'm sitting here in DC, we're about to cross a million people dead in this country, and I'm thinking what's failure. It's a very interesting time.Bill:I mean, to that point about this attitude and the way that there seem to be prosecuting a very top down or top level design communication strategy, Zhang Weiwei, who's at Fudan University. And also I think Eric Li is a closer associate of his, he actually was the, discussant at a Politburo study session. One of the monthly study sessions a few months ago, where I think the theme was on improving international communication. And talking about, again, how to better tell China's story, how to increase the global discourse power.Bill:Some people saw that as, oh, they're going to be nicer because they want to have a more lovable China image. I’m very skeptical because I think that this more aggressive tone, the shorthand is “Wolf warriors. wolf-warriorism”, I think really that seems to me to be more of a fundamental tenant of Xi Jinping being thought on diplomacy, about how China communicates to the world. I mean, how do you see it and how does this get better, or does it not get better for a while?David:It's a really important question. So I think, what do they think they're up to? To simplify and exaggerate a bit, I think that China, and this is not just a guess, this is based on off the record conversations with some pretty senior Chinese figures, they believe that the Western world, but in particular, the United States is too ignorant and unimaginative and Western centric, and probably too racist to understand that China is going to succeed, that China is winning and that the West is in really decadent decline.David:And so I think that these aggressive acts like detaining the two Michaels or their diplomatic an economic coercion of countries like Australia or Lithuania. They hear all the Pearl clutching dismay from high officials in Brussels, or in Washington DC-Bill:And the op-eds in big papers about how awful this is and-David:And the op-eds and yeah, self-defeating, and all those things. But I think that what they believe they are doing is delivering an educational dose of pain and I'm quoting a Chinese official with the word pain. And it is to shock us because we are too mule headed and thick to understand that China is winning and we are losing. And so they're going to keep delivering educational doses of pain until we get it. I think they think that's what they're up to-Bill:And by getting it basically stepping a side in certain areas and letting the Chinese pursue some of their key goals, the core interests, whatever you want to call it, that we, yeah.David:That we accommodate. Yeah. The fundamental message I'm quoting a smart friend of mine in Beijing here is China's rise is inevitable. Resistance is futile.Bill:Right. Resistance is futile.David:And if you accommodate us, we'll make it worth your while. It's the key message. And they think that some people are proving dimer and slower and more reluctant to pick that message up and above all Americans and Anglo Saxons. And so they're giving us the touch, the whip. Now, do I think that, that is inevitably going to be great for them? And you ask how does this end well? I mean, I guess my reason for thinking that they may yet pay some price, not a total price, is that they are engaged in a giant experiment. The Chinese government and party are engaged in a giant experiment, that it didn't matter that much, that the Western world was permissive and open to engagement with China.David:That, That wasn't really integral to their economic rise for the last 40 years that China basically did it by itself. And that if the Western world becomes more suspicious and more hostile, that China will not pay a very substantial price because its market power and its own manufacturing, industrial strength, we'll push on through. And so there'll be a period of turbulence and then we'll realized that we have to accommodate. And I think that in many cases they will be right. There will be sectors where industries don't leave China. They in fact, double down and reinvest and we're seeing that right now, but I do worry that there are going to be real costs paid.David:I mean, when I think back to... I did a special report for The Economists in May, 2019 about us generations. And one of the parts of that was the extraordinary number of Chinese students in us colleges. And I went to the University of Iowa and I spoke to Chinese students and you know that now, the levels of nationalism and hostility on both sides and the fear in American campuses, that's a real cost. I mean, I think if you imagine China's relationship with the Western world, particularly the U.S. as a fork in the road with two forks, one total engagement, one total decoupling, then absolutely China is right. There's not going to be total decoupling because we are as dependent as we were on China's, it's just-Bill:Right. Not realistic.David:China is an enormous market and also the best place to get a lot of stuff made. But I wonder, and it's an image I've used in a column, I think. I think that the relationship is not a fork in the road with two forks. It's a tree with a million branches. And each of those branches is a decision. Does this Western university sign a partnership with that Chinese university? Does this Western company get bought by a Chinese company? Does the government approve of that? Does this Western media organization sign a partnership with a Chinese media organization?David:Does this Western country buy a 5g network or an airline or a data cloud service or autonomous vehicles from China that are products and services with very high value added where China wants to be a dominant player. And that's an entirely reasonable ambition, because China's a big high tech power now. But a lot of these very high value added services or these relationships between universities, or businesses, or governments in the absence of trust, they don't make a bunch of sense because if you don't trust the company, who's cloud is holding your data or the company who's made you the autonomous car, which is filled with microphones and sensors and knows where you were last night and what you said in your car last night, if you don't trust that company or the country that made that, none of that makes sense.David:And I think that China's willingness to show its teeth and to use economic coercion and to go to European governments and say, if you don't take a fine Chinese 5g network we're going to hurt you. If you boil that down to a bumper sticker, that's China saying to the world, or certainly to the Western world stay open to China, or China will hurt you. Trust China or China will hurt you. That's the core message for a lot of these Wolf warrior ambassadors. And that's the core message to people like me, a guy who writes a column living in Beijing. And a lot of the time China's market power will make that okay. But I think that's, if you look at that tree with a million decisions, maybe more of those than China was expecting will click from a yes to a no.David:If you're a Western university, do you now open that campus in Shanghai? Do you trust your local Chinese partner when they say that your academics are going to have freedom of speech? And what's heartbreaking about that is that the victims of that are not going to be the politic bureau it's going to be people on the ground, it's going to be researchers and students and consumers and-Bill:On both sides. I mean, that's-David:On both sides. Yeah.Bill:Yeah. That's the problem.David:Yeah.Bill:So that's uplifting. No, I mean, I-David:I've got worse.Bill:Wait until the next question. I think I really appreciate your time and it'd be respective but I just have two more questions. One is really about just being a foreign correspondent in China and the Foreign correspondents' Club of China put out its annual report, I think earlier this week. And it's depressing you read as it's been in years and every year is extremely depressing, but one of the backdrops is really the first foreign ministry press conference of the last year of 2021. It really struck me that Hua Chunying, who is... She's now I think assistant foreign minister, vice foreign minister at the time, she was the head of the information office in I think the one of the spokespeople, she made a statement about how it was kicking off the 100th anniversary year.Bill:And I'm just going to read her couple sentences to get a sense of the language. So she said, and this was on the, I think it was January 4th, 2021, "In the 1930s and 1940s when the Guangdong government sealed off Yunnan and spared, no efforts to demonize the CPC foreign journalists like Americans, Edgar Snow, Anna Louise Strong and Agnes Smedley, curious about who and what the CPC is, chose to blend in with the CPC members in Yunnan and wrote many objective reports as well as works like the famous Red star over China, giving the world, the first clip of the CPC and its endeavor in uniting and leading the Chinese people in pursuing national independence and liberation."Bill:And then went on with more stuff about how basically wanting foreign correspondents to be like Snow, Strong or Smedley. How did that go over? And I mean, is that just part of the, your welcome as long as you're telling the right story message?David:So there was a certain amount of... Yeah. I mean, we also got this from our handlers at the MFA, why couldn't it be more like Edgar Snow? And I fear the first time I had that line in the meeting, I was like, well, he was a communist, if that's the bar, then I'm probably going to meet that one. Edgar Snow went to Yan’an he spent a tremendous amount of time in Mao hours interviewing Mao. If Xi Jinping wants to let me interview him for hours, I'd be up for that. But I would point out that Edgar Snow, after interviewing Mao for hours, then handed the transcripts over to Mao and had them edited and then handed back to him. And that probably would not be-Bill:But doesn't work at The Economist.David:That wouldn't fly with my editors. No. So I think we may have an inseparable problem there. Look, isn't it the phrase that Trump people used to talk about working the refs? I mean, what government doesn't want to work the refs. So, that's part of it. And I'm a big boy, I've been at Trump rallies and had people scream at me and tell me, I'm fake news. And it was still a good thing to meet. I've interviewed Afghan warlords who had happily killed me, but at that precise moment, they wanted the Americans to drop a bomb on the mountain opposite.David:And so they were willing to have me in their encampment. So, the worker of being a journalist, you need to go and talk to people who don't necessarily agree with you or like you and that's the deal. So I'm not particularly upset by that. What is worrying and I think this is shown in the FCC annual server, which is based on asking journalists in China how their job goes at the moment is there is a sense that the Chinese machine and in particular things like the communist youth league have been very effective at whipping up low public opinion.David:So when we saw the floods in Hunan Province in the summer of 2021, where in fact, we recently just found out that central government punished a whole bunch of officials who had covered up the death doll there, journalists who went down there to report this perfectly legitimate, large news story, the communist youth league among other organizations put out notices on their social media feeds telling people they're a hostile foreign journalists trying to make China look bad, to not talk to them, if you see them, tell us where they are. And you've got these very angry crowds chasing journalists around Hunan in a fairly worry way.David:And again, if you're a foreign correspondent in another country, we are guests in China. So, the Chinese people, they don't have to love me. I hope that they will answer my questions, because I think I'm trying to report this place fairly, but I'm not demanding red carpet treatment, but there is a sense that the very powerful propaganda machine here is whipping up very deliberately something that goes beyond just be careful about talking to foreign journalists. And I think in particular, one thing that I should say is that as a middle aged English guy with gray hair, I still have an easier time of it by far because some of the nastiest attacks, including from  the nastiest online nationalist trolls.David:They're not just nationalists, but they're also sexist and chauvinist and the people who I think really deserve far more sympathy than some like me is Chinese American, or Chinese Australian, or Chinese Canadian journalists, particularly young women journalists.Bill:I know Emily Feng at NPR was just the subject of a really nasty spate of attacks online about some of her reporting.David:And it's not just Emily, there's a whole-Bill:Right. There's a whole bunch.David:There's a whole bunch of them. And they get called you know er guizi all sorts of [crosstalk 00:37:15]. And this idea and all this horrible stuff about being race traitors and again, one of the conversations I've had with Chinese officials is, if you keep this up, someone is going to get physically hurt. And I don't think that's what you want. David:And again, I fall back on the fact that I'm a Western liberal. What I say to them is if you tell me that a Chinese-British journalist is not as British as me, then you are to my mind, that's racial prejudice. And if some right wing Western white politician said to me that a Chinese immigrant wasn't fully American, or wasn't fully British, that's racism, right?Bill:That's racism. Yeah.David:And I think that is the really troubling element to this level of nationalism. China is a very big country that does some very impressive things that does some less impressive things and does some very wicked things, but we have every reason to give it credit for the things it does well. And it is not that surprising when any government tries to work the refs.David:And get the best coverage they can by intimidating us and calling us out. I've interviewed Donald Trump and he asked me, when are you going to write something nice about me? I mean, we're grownups, this is how it works, but if they are making it toxic for young women journalists to work in China, or if they are driving foreign correspondent out of China, because their families they're under such intimidation that they can't even go on holiday without their children being followed around by secret police. I think there will be a cost.Bill:But that may be a what the Chinese side sees as a benefit, because then it opens the field for them controlling how the story's told. And then you can bring in a bunch of people or pull a bunch of people out of the foreigners working for state media, hey, the new Edgar Snow, the new Agnes Smedley. I mean, that is one of the things that I think potentially is what they're trying to do, which seems self-defeating, but as we've been discussing, what we think is self-defeating the policy makers, or some of them may see as a success.David:So what I think they're confident of is that being aggressive and making us much more jumpy is a win, but throwing all of us out, I think the people at the top get that, that's not a win because the New York times and the BBC and the Washington post, they're still going to cover China, even if they can't have people in China. And a bunch of that coverage is not going to be stuff that China likes, North Korea doesn't have any resident foreign correspondent, but it doesn't get a great press.Bill:And the other group, of course, but beyond the foreign journalists is all the PRC national journalists working for the foreign correspondent as researchers and, I mean, many of them journalists in all but name because they can't legally be that I've certainly, been hearing some pretty distressing stories about how much pressure they're under. And I think they're in almost an impossible situation it seems like right now.David:Now they're amazingly brave people. They're completely integral to our coverage. And many of them, as you say, they're journalists who in any other country, we would be getting to write stuff with their own bylines. I mean, in incredibly cautious about what we have our Chinese colleagues do now, because they are under tremendous pressure. I mean, not naming news organizations, but the just the level of harassment of them and their families and is really bad. And it's the most cynical attempt to make it difficult for us to do our jobs and to divide Chinese people from the Western media.David:But fundamentally at some level, this does not end well because, and this is not me just talking up the role of the Western media, because I think we're magnificently important people, but at some level there's a big problem under way with this level of nationalism in modern China. I was in China in the '90s, you were in China in the '90s, I think. We remember it was-Bill:'80s, '90s, 2000s. Yeah.David:Yeah. You were there before me, but it was not a Jeffersonian democracy. It was a dictatorship, but this level of nationalism is much more serious now. Why does that matter? Well, because I think that for a lot of particularly young Chinese, the gap between their self perception and the outside world's perception of China has become unbearably wide. They think this country has never been so impressive and admirable. And yet I keep seeing foreign media questioning us and criticizing us. And that just enrages them. They can't conceive of any sincere principle on our part that would make us criticize China that way.David:And going back to my conversation with the online nationalist Sai Lei, when he was saying, well, how would the Americans take it if they were told that eating avocados was bad for the environment? When I said to him, but they are told that. There are lots of environmental NGOs that talk about sustainable fisheries, or the cost, the carbon footprint of crops and things in the West. The two countries are pulling apart and the pandemic has just accelerated that process. And so if you are a Chinese nationalist, not only are you angry about being criticized, but you don't believe that the West is ever critical about itself. You think that the West is only bent on criticizing China. And that gap in perceptions is just really dangerously wide.Bill:And widening, it seems like. I mean, I'm not there now, but it certainly, from everything I can see outside of China, it feels like that's what's happening too.David:Yeah. We need to know more about China.Bill:I agree.David:And report more about China. And I don't just say that because that's how I earn my living. I think it's really, really dangerous for us to think that the solution is less reporting about China.Bill:Well, and certainly, I mean, and all sorts of avenues, not just media, but all sorts of avenues, we're seeing a constriction of information getting out of China. And on the one hand China's growing in importance globally and power globally. And on the other hand, our ability to understand the place seems to be getting harder. And it goes back to, I mean, we just, I think it'll be a mistake if we just get forced into accepting the official version of what China is. That's disseminated through the officially allowed and sanctioned outlets in China. Maybe that'll help China, but I'm not sure it helps the rest of the world.David:And it's not compatible with China's ambitions to be a high tech superpower. China wants to be a country that doesn't just-Bill:That's a very fundamental contradiction.David:Yeah. China wants to sell us vaccines and wants the Western world to buy Chinese vaccines and approve Chinese vaccines. Why has the FDA not yet approved Chinese vaccines? Well, one reason is because China hasn't released the data. You can't play this secretive defensive hermit state and be a global high tech superpower. And China is a very, very big country with a lot of good universities, a lot of smart people. It has every right to compete at the highest levels in global high tech. But you can't do that, if you are not willing to earn trust by sharing the data, or by letting your companies be audited, when they list overseas. They need to decide.Bill:Or being able to handle legitimate criticism. I mean, certainly there has been illegitimate criticism and the attacks on the Western media, I mean, I know the BBC was a frequent target last year. And I think they were able to pull out some errors of the reporting and then magnify it. I mean, it is a struggle. And I think one of the things I think is on the Chinese side, they're very much geared up for this ongoing global opinion struggle. And we're not and we're never going to be, because it's just not how our systems are structured. So it's going to be an interesting few years.David:It is. And it's a tremendous privilege to still be here. And as long as I'm allowed, I'm going to keep letting Chinese people, letting their voices be heard in my column. That's what I think I'm here for.Bill:Okay. Last question. Just given your experience in living in DC and writing for The Economist from here, where do you see us, China relations going? And there is a one direct connection to what we just talked about, the foreign journalists where there theoretically has been some sort of an improvement or a deal around allowing more journalists from each side to go to other country. Although what I've heard is that the Chinese side was been very clear that some of the folks who were forced to leave or were experienced are not going to be welcome back. It's going to have to be a whole new crop of people who go in for these places, which again, seems to be, we don't want people who have priors or longer time on the ground, potentially.David:We think that each of the big American news organizations just going to get at least one visa, initially. And that Is going to be this deal done and it's high time. And you're right, as far as we can tell the people who were expelled or forced to leave are not going to come back. And that's a real tragedy because I have Chinese officials say to me, we wish that the Western media sent people who speak good Chinese and who understand China. And I was like Ian Johnson and Chris Buckley, these people lived for, their depth of knowledge and their love for China was absolutely unrivaled. So, if you're going to throw those people out, you can't complain about journalists who don't like China.Bill:Exactly.David:The general trend of U.S. China relations. to be of optimistic about the trend of U.S. China relations I'd have to be more optimistic than I currently am about the state of U.S. Politics. And there's a kind of general observation, which is that I think that American democracy is in very bad shape right now. And I wish that some of the China hawks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, who are also willing to imply, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen, that there was massive fraud every time they say that stuff, they're making an in-kind contribution to the budget of the Chinese propaganda department.Bill:I agree completely there. It's not a joke because it's too serious, but it's just ludicrous, hypocrisy and shortsightedness. It's disgusting.David:You cannot be a patriotic American political leader and tell lies about the state of American democracy. And then say that you are concerned about China's rise. So there's a general observation about, if dysfunction continues at this level, then-Bill:No wonder the Chinese are so confident.David:Yeah. I mean, the Chinese line on president Biden is interesting. One of the big things about my first couple of years here when president Trump was still in office was, I'd any number of people in the states saying confidently that Donald Trump was a tremendous China hawk. I never believed. And I've interviewed Trump a few times and spoken to him about China and spoken to his China people. I never believed that Donald Trump himself was a China hawk. If you define a China hawk, as someone who has principled objections to the way that China runs itself. I think that Donald Trump couldn't care less about the Uighurs and Xinjiang. In fact, we know he approved to what they were doing.David:Couldn't care less about Hong Kong couldn't care less frankly, about Taiwan. His objection to the China relationship was that I think he thinks the American economy is the big piece of real estate, and you should pay rent to access it. And he thought China wasn't paying enough rent. So he was having a rent review. I mean, that's what the guy. It was about, they needed to pay more and then he was going to be happy. So he was not a China hawk. What was really interesting was that here in China, officials would be pretty open by the end, took them time to get their heads around Trump. For a long time they thought he was New York business guy. Then they realized that was, he wasn't actually like the other New York business guy they knew.David:And then they thought he was like a super China hawk. And then they realized that that wasn't true. By the end, they had a nail. They thought he was a very transactional guy. And the deal that they could do with him was one that they were happy to do, because it didn't really involve structural change on the Chinese side. Then their message about Joe Biden is that he is weak and old and lacks control of Congress. And that he is, this is from scholars rather than officials, I should say, but their view is, why would China spend political capital on the guy who's going to lose the next election?Bill:And not only the next election but is probably going to lose control of the House, at least in nine, what is it? Nine months or 10 months. So why worry? And that they do and I think, I mean, one of the big milestones will be the national security strategy, the national defense strategy, which in the Trump administration they came out in the December of the first year and then January for the NDS. It's February, we still haven't seen those here. I think certainly as you said, but certainly from Chinese interlock is the sense of, is that they can't come to an agreement on what it should be, the U.S. China policy.David:Yeah. And China has some legitimate concerns. I mean, for example, if you are Xi Jinping and you're trying to work out how ambitious your climate change timetables going to be. How much pain are you going to ask co-producing provinces in the Northeast to take to get out to carbon neutrality as quickly as say, the Europeans are pushing you to do. And part of the equation is America going to take some pain too, or are we going to end up being uncompetitive? Because America's not actually going to do the right thing? Well, Joe Biden can talk a good game on climate as an area for cooperation with China. But if he loses the next election and Donald Trump or someone like Donald Trump wins the White House then if you're shooting pink, why would you kind of strike a painful deal with America if you don't think it's going to last beyond 2024?Bill:Right. You'll do what makes sense for your country and not offer anything up to America because we already have a record of backing out of these deals. That's the problem.David:So that has real world consequences. The one thing that I will say about the U.S. China relationship, and I'm very, very pessimistic about the fact that the two sides, they don't share a vision of how this ends well. There is no end game that I think makes both sides happy, because I think the Chinese vision is America sucks it up and accommodates.Bill:Right. Resistance is futile.David:Yeah, exactly. And the American vision, I think, is that China stumbles, that China is making mistakes, that the state is getting involved in the economy too much. That Xi Jinping is centralizing power too much. And that somehow China's going to make so many mistakes that it ends up to feed defeating itself. I think that's one of the arguments you here in DC.Bill:Yes. It's wishful thinking it's not necessarily based on a rigid rigorous analysis. It seems like it's much more wishful thinking.David:So, that is a reason to be pessimistic about the medium and the long-term. The one thing that I will say based here in China is that when I write really specific color about things like what does China think of the idea of Russia invading Ukraine? And I talk to really serious scholars who spent their lives studying things like Russia policy or foreign policy or international relations, or if I talk to really senior tech people, Chinese tech companies, they do take America's power very seriously. Even though there is absolutely sincere disdain for American political dysfunction.David:I think that America's innovation power, the areas of technology, whether it's semiconductors or some forms of AI algorithms where America just really is still ahead by a long way, the really serious people, when you talk to them off the record, they still take America seriously. And on that Ukraine example, what was really interesting, the prompt for that was seeing commentators in the U.S. saying that Xi Jinping would like Putin to invade Ukraine because this was going to be a test that Biden was going to fail and America was going to look weak. And maybe that would lead Xi Jinping to then invade Taiwan.David:And when I spoke to Chinese scholars, really serious Chinese scholars of Russia, their Irish, it's like, no, no, no. Russia is an economy, the size of Guangdong and they sell us oil and gas, which is nice. But our trade to them is not enough to sacrifice our relationship with America.Bill:Thank you, David Rennie. That was a really good conversation. I think very useful, very illuminating. The links, some of the articles we talked about, the links will be in the show notes. And just a note on the schedule for the sinocism podcast. It is not, I think going to be weekly or biweekly as I thought originally, I'm still working it out, but it will be every, at least once a month. I hope it's the plan, if not, a little more frequent depending on the guests.Bill:So thanks for your patience and look forward to hearing from you. I love your feedback. The transcript will be on the website when it goes live. So please let me know what you think. And as always, you can sign up for sinocism at sinocism.com, S-I-N-O-C-I-S-M.com. Thank you. Get full access to Sinocism at sinocism.com/subscribe

On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.In this episode, you'll learn: Identifying and attracting lifetime value customers How to get and maintain customer loyalty Three causes of subscription fatigue Why customers cancel their subscriptions Links & Resources Strava Intuit Survey Monkey Oracle The Subscription Economy Tien Tzuo: Subscribed Eric Crowley Seth Miller CrossFit Shopify Calm Matthieu Rouif PhotoRoom GoPro Elevate VSCO Robbie Kellman Baxter's Links Robbie Kellman Baxter's website Follow Robbie on Twitter Robbie's book: The Forever Transaction Robbie's book: The Membership Economy Robbie's LinkedIn Follow us on Twitter: David Barnard Jacob Eiting RevenueCat Sub Club Episode Transcript00:00:00 David:Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard, and with me, as always, RevenueCat CEO, Jacob Eiting.Our guest today is Robbie Kellman Baxter, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. She's advised many of the world's leading subscription-based companies, including serving on the advisory board of Strava. Her most recent book, “The Forever Transaction” is a deep dive into everything consumer subscription, and a must read for anyone in the space.On the podcast we talk with Robbie about finding your super users, the real reasons for subscription fatigue, and why pricing isn't as important as you might think, especially early on.Hey Robbie, welcome to the podcast.00:00:58 Robbie:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you both. 00:01:00 David:I was introduced to your work by somebody recommending your book, The Membership Economy, and it really struck me. I was so excited that you agreed to be on the podcast, because here's a book written in 2015, and we'll talk about your other book that was written more recently, but written in 2015. I was looking through it, scanning the chapters, so I bought the book. I was like, this is everything we're talking about now, thinking it's all so novel with subscription apps, but really consumer subscriptions have been around for decades. You've been working in this space way longer than any of us.So, I thought it would be really fun to have you on the podcast to talk more broadly about these principles of consumer subscriptions that apply equally to D to C subscriptions, as well as the app space that we work in. That's where I wanted to kick things off.So, how did you get your start in consumer subscriptions?00:01:57 Robbie:A couple of threads came together. I was in product-marketing for what is now called SaaS, for five years, right before I hung out my own shingle and started consulting. So, I had that background as a product manager working with software products that were being sold as subscriptions, and then as an independent consultant.My fifth client was Netflix. I fell in love with their business model, and I was wondering why isn't everybody else falling in love with their business model, too? This is amazing. Recurring revenue, predictable cashflow, the amount of data they were collecting on their customer. The fact that they're offering was just a much better way of delivering on a promise that many of us wanted delivery for, which is a professionally created catalog of video content delivered in the most efficient way possible. It meant not having to put a raincoat over your jammies to go pick up a movie, with cost certainty and no late fees.I was consulting with Netflix. I was already a customer, and a few people started calling and saying, “Hey, we heard you worked with Netflix. We want to be the Netflix of our space.” Whether that was news, or music, or bicycles, or dental pain management products, or clothes, there was a lot of interest in what it was that Netflix was doing.So, I started trying to create frameworks, trying to say, what are they doing? Which parts are applicable to other businesses, and which parts are just unique to that group of people solving that particular problem?That's really where I got started, and it turns out to be big enough and deep enough that it's kept me really busy for, it's been 20 years, 20 years. 00:03:55 David:Fifth client to, to land as a consultant. That's a. Really great. And so you were with them before they even introduced the, video on demand on the internet, right. You started with them when it was DVDs in the mail, 00:04:09 Robbie:Yeah. 00:04:10 David:Traditional D to C subscription service. 00:04:13 Jacob:But, but even then was satisfying a lot of those, almost all of those conditions. Right. I didn't have to go outside just to my mailbox, not too bad price certainty. I didn't have late fees. and then like, you know, insanely large catalog. Right. you know, it was, it was, it wasn't. We tend to wait for the technology to get that right.And then, then we had VOD being, 00:04:33 Robbie:Yeah. And they were already thinking, I mean, it was amazing to me. So I was there, you know, the time that I worked most actively with dev 2001, 2003, even during that time, which was all DVDs, all three DVDs out at a time, they were already thinking about streaming versus, you know, should they let you download it?And then have it explode after, you know, you know, some duration. What was the best way to deliver it? Should they come through your, you know, for awhile? I remember I think it came through your PlayStation or your, your we, were thinking like, 00:05:06 Jacob:My first like set top box experience with Netflix would have been on Nintendo. Yeah.00:05:10 Robbie:Yeah. I mean, so they, they were already thinking about it and I think that's a really important part of any subscription is even if your subscription works great today and it's good enough to get people to sign up the product team has to be thinking, how are we going to continue to evolve it in particular fringy? Right. How do we continue to stay relevant to these people while also having those new and improved features that bring new people in? And I think a lot of organizations. I have been taught to over-index on acquisition benefits and not thinking as much about those, the sticky engagement benefits that often are really hard to talk about credibly. Right? If I say to you, you know, sign up for my subscription, my, my video subscription, because it's the most, it's the easiest to find the next piece of content. And you're going to love our algorithm, right? People aren't going to believe you. You don't have credibility. So, all they're going to say is, oh, you have Hamilton, I'll sign up for that.And then I'll cancel. And then it's still up to you, you know, if you're Disney plus to get them from Hamilton to princess movies, national geographic titles, ESPN, all the other great stuff that they have. Star wars.00:06:26 David:I'm 00:06:26 Robbie:Yeah. 00:06:26 David:My son right now. Yeah. That's great. And then I do want to kind of step back and you're kind of right into the weeds with some really actionable advice, but I want to, I want to step back a little bit and talk more broadly. So after working with a few, companies in the subscription space and Netflix so early eventually wrote this book, The Membership Economy, which I love.Phrase and wanted to ask actually, did you, did you coin that phrase then how did you at the time and how do you still kind of define this membership economy that you wrote about. 00:06:57 Robbie:Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd love to say that, like I just came up with it and it was so natural and obvious, but, you know, I was thinking, I was like, is it, is it about subscription pricing? Is it about premium services? Is it about recurring revenue? Should I call it the recurring revenue that I was trying to think?What is it? And where I came out was it's not about the subscription pricing, which I think is a tactic. it's a tactic that you earn the right to do by having. Relationship that is trusted with your customer. The customer trusts you so much that they're like fine. You can charge me every month or you can charge me every year and I will just keep paying you and not look for alternatives.And for me, that was based on a certain kind of human relationship. And that's where I came up with this concept of membership that you belong. That it's, you're committing upfront to a long-term relationship as a vendor, and then you earn the right to have subscriptions. So that was kind of where I came up with it.I worked with Netflix. I also worked. At that time Intuit. I worked with a survey monkey and their predecessor. Uh Zoomerang and I worked with Oracle on the B2B side, and those were some of the companies that helped me sort of connect the dots and figure out how. The framework, of, you know, here's some ways to think about what happens when you treat your customers like membership members.Here's what you need to track. Here's how you need to think about it. And here's what it, what it can do for you. Honestly, the first book, all I was trying to do is say, this is a good idea. You might want to consider it for a bunch of reasons.00:08:26 Jacob:Think of it in opposites. I think it's is it the. the Zuora founder's book subscription economy,but but you're right in the sense that subscription kind of implies like 00:08:37 Robbie:Okay. 00:08:38 Jacob:Particular tactic for monetization that does go really well with this concept. But when I think of membership, as opposed to just subscription, like membership implies also community to me, right.00:08:48 Robbie:Yeah. 00:08:49 Jacob:Like building this. This, this ecosystem, this community that, that, which was then in genders trust, which then allows you to monetize, right. And and this great business model. about it in those terms, I think is a really nice way to put it as opposed to like, let's take something.Let's take something that, that we were monetizing another way and just slop noodle on it, which is something a lot in the, in the app world, this transition from paid upfront or micro-transactions driven apps to subscriptions, some have made it and some have not. And I think the ones that have made it are the ones who look at it in that light, in the membership light, in the.Earning their business repeatedly through content or through community. so I, yeah, that, that framing I think is really accurate.00:09:36 Robbie:Your point about, you know, so many companies to slap a subscription price onto whatever they already had, you know? Okay. We have a usage based model. Let's see what happens if we do a subscription based model for the same product, or let's see what happens if we take, you know, a model where you have ownership, where I download the app and it's mine, and I can use it forever, even if it's really, really obsolete.If it solves my problem, who cares, to one where you're being forced to pay every month. Yeah, extensively to get upgrades and maybe access to your peers and some kind of community functionality. It really is a different product. You need a different product for subscription than for, you know, a purchase or usage based model.And, you know, I love teens books. Subscribed is a great book. I recommend it to people. It's very, well-read has a lot of interesting ideas. but I didn't go with that, you know, subscription economy model just because I really want. To focus more on the culture and the relationship and not jump straight to let's get some of that subscription pricing stuff so that we can get a good valuation, you know?00:10:39 Jacob:Yeah. Yeah. I, it, you made me think of this one experience I had just as an anecdote was, X-Box in for three or four years ago, released an Xbox subscription. And I thought this is a really cool one because I could defer, I buy another X-Box every three or four or five years. So it was like, oh, I'll just spread that cost out.I didn't have a lot of cash at the time. I was like, this is a great 40 bucks a month. I get a new Xbox, right. And so I went in to do this at the, at the Microsoft store. What it really was, was they were giving me like a cash advance, like they were giving me, like, basically I had to get a credit check to get a subscription.And I was like, this is 00:11:12 Robbie:That's not a subscription. 00:11:13 Jacob:In mind. Exactly. Right. Like I thought I was joining the, the X-Box club and I was going to just get an expert and they're going to place my Xbox for me. Right. example. of that case of just like slapping subscription pricing on what was essentially a loan.00:11:26 Robbie:Yeah. Yeah.00:11:27 Jacob:Now my credit score, I have loan for a 19 20 16 Ford edge and a next box, on those are my two like credit items I've ever had. So it's really weird.00:11:37 Robbie:And they've come a long way. I mean, Microsoft has come a long way with their subscription strategies, you know, not just on the gaming side, but you know, with, with office 365 and you know, they've done a lot of thinking about subscription, but it really is super complicatedto, to make it work. 00:11:54 Jacob:Right? Like with software zero marginal costs or whatever you can It makes a lot of sense. will say, I will say, I want to give Microsoft some credit, back in the gaming world there Xbox game pass product product, which I also subscribed to has been amazing.I bought a new X-Box game in forever, cause I don't really care about title individuality. I just, whatever it is, $10 a month or $15 a month. And I get access to like 50 different games that rotate. Plenty. That's plenty for me. And I will probably never unsubscribe from that. Right. But it feels like a 00:12:22 Robbie:Yeah. 00:12:22 Jacob:Cause it's, software-driven, in there. There's like there's changing and there's events stuff that comes in and out and they make it a big thing. built it up into this, into this. Yeah. This kind of, it feels like a membership, as opposed to, yeah, just slapping an affirm loan on an X-Box purchase, basically.00:12:39 David:I do want to step back to your, to your book, The Membership Economy, and, I love the subtitle. Find your super users, the forever, transaction and build recurring revenue. finding super users is something we've actually talked a lot about here on the podcast. So looking for those cohorts, one of our recent podcast, guests, Eric Crowley.Talked about locals versus tourists. Seth Miller, another recent podcast guests talked about how, you know, figuring out these cohorts was just a huge unlock for their business. so what's your process? How do you recommend clients find these super users and how do you think about these, super users?You mentioned all the way back in 2015 before any of us were thinking about these things.00:13:24 Robbie:Yeah. Well, so for me, what I think about with super you. So I think about, you know, anybody does subscriptions knows. Segmentation is like re like the most important thing. You have to know who your customer is. Not just at the moment of acquisition, what they look like. You know, when you're like, that's the person I want, but how are they going to behave once they join?The moment of transaction becomes the starting line for understanding your customer, not the finish line. What like, oh, we knew them well enough to get them to buy it. We knew them well enough to get them to buy. And then to get them to make this a habit and then to get them to go deeper and to stay for a long time and maybe even bring their friends.So, you know, the first thing I always do with my clients, I say, let's focus on who you're, who you're making the problem. What is the promise you're making, who are you making it to? and that's kind of part one. And then we map out the journey. What is it? What is the goal that they have that is ongoing or the problem that they have that is ongoing?And what are the moments on their journey where you might be able to intervene and help. Right. So in the beginning it might be just one or two places, right? I'm I'm, I'm QuickBooks. I help you at tax time, but then it might be, oh, and I'm going to help you with some other key moments in your process of adulting financially.Right. You know, one of the things is you move at your parent's house and you pay your own taxes. Another is you might take out a loan for that. Awesome. You know, for whatever car you said, you know, you're going to get an, get a car and you need a loan and you know, they can help you. And so you're layering in those different beds.On a journey cause you want them to stay. You want to keep providing value. and then once you know what that person looked like, then you go tell your marketing team to go get lookalikes, get more people like that. Super users goes one step beyond that, which is not only are they great customers, you know, high customer, lifetime value, easy to serve, whatever.They also were putting their own money and effort, their own resources into strengthening your model. So these are people that bring in. These are evangelists who bring in other members. These are people who give you feedback on your products and services, which sometimes doesn't feel like a gift, but always is a gift.And it's, people who are willing to help onboard. New members. Right? So the ones that, you know, explain in the user group, you know, that, you know, this is, this is how you use that product, or this is, this is my workaround, or this is, you know, what was hard for me and how I fixed it. So those people, you know, that make referrals, that that speak out on your behalf that gather, you know, others they're so valuable.And I got really into this idea actually with CrossFit. my sister is a, is a big CrossFitter and watching her. in addition to all the money she was spending to, to be a member of this CrossFit box, the amount of time and effort she was spending to onboard new members to invite them over. When the, when the box was closed, she and her husband would put out their equipment on their live on a cul-de-sac.They put it all out on the street and invite the whole box, come over and get their workout done there because they love the community so much, right. Their own time and money to support the community.00:16:27 David:There kind of specific, Ways, especially digitally like, with, with or customer service, what are the tools that, that you see people be successful in finding those kinds of users and understanding those patterns and who they are and what they 00:16:45 Jacob:Yeah. 00:16:45 David:Like. And those sorts of things. 00:16:47 Robbie:So the, the starting point, I think is always lifetime customer value. So. You look at the group of customers who stay the longest and spend the most right. And the ones that people would say, we wish we could make more of these, you know, and then you look, you develop hypotheses. What does this group share?And it can be as simple as writing the names of your first 10 customers on a boards. These are the 10 customers we had. These five have been awesome. These. You know, didn't stick around long canceled, complain a lot, you know, whatever the reason is. And then you try to come up with what is, what did this group share that this group doesn't share?That's the simplest way in a, in a data world where you have the data you're doing the same thing, but digitally, how did they onboard? What was the source of the lead? what time of year? Like which cohort are they in? Did they join? You know, people like, for example, with QuickBooks people that join in tax season, Might be behave very differently than people who join as a new year's resolution or who joined in August.Right. What kind of person starts thinking really hard about managing their money in August? Great. you know, so, so looking for those things, developing hypotheses, looking at the data, trying to say what's the difference between our most valuable customers and our not most valuable customers, which is not your worst customers, because your worst customers are often outliers, but just the ones where you're like, they're just not that good.They came for two months, they left, they binged, they used up, you know, they were using us really heavily for six weeks. And then they left. What's different about them than the ones who continue to use this gradual. For five months. and I think that's where the hypotheses come out and then tactically, what you do after, you know, as you look at the difference in onboarding those different groups and you optimize your onboarding experience.To build those habits and then you mark it. This is often requires a tremendous amount of discipline. You mark it to only attract the high value people and not to attract the others. So if I walk into McDonald's with a gown on with my husband and I say, it's our 20th anniversary, show us to your finest team.Give us the best you've got. And we'd like a nice bottle of champagne, right? Customer's not always right at McDonald's. Right. They're not going to say, oh man, Robbie needs champagne. Somebody scraped down to the seven 11 and you know, get a bottle of Prosecco and you know, we'll try to pass it off. They say, that's not really what we do here.Dummy. They might not say dummy, but they might be thinking it, right. That's not what we here, you know 00:19:10 Jacob:The 00:19:12 Robbie:Right. We're here, you know, we're cheap, we're fast. It tastes good. Your kids love it. You can drive through and eat it. But we don't do, we don't do special occasion stuff. And so they know who they are.Right. And they're okay with me not coming in. Right. They're even okay with me saying, by the way, don't go to McDonald's, it's a terrible place to celebrate your anniversary. Right. They're kind ofCause it. 00:19:32 Jacob:Just all 00:19:33 Robbie:Right. The leaning is terrible. It makes your skin look awful. You know, the point is that if they took care of. Right. What am I going to do? I'm going to tell you, you know what, just go there for your anniversary. Just tell them it's your anniversary. They'll run out and get all the stuff you need. Right? And then they have all these people that are expensive to serve. Right? It's the same thing digitally, right? If you bring in the wrong people who are going to binge on your content in the first month, or the people who are going to push you to create features that nobody needs, except that.Right. It's just going to throw your whole business off in the wrong direction. So having that discipline upfront to know what you do and you don't do well. And to say no to some prospects, it's really hard to say no to prospects, right? If they have money and they're like, just add this feature and I'll pay.You know, Netflix in the early days, a lot of people wanted them to have video games. Right? Video games were also on discs seems easy, right? As an outsider, as an expert, right? I'm like, ah, video games, same thing. Video games work in a totally different way. And what Netflix said is we don't really understand how people would view.Games. We don't understand how they've use them. We don't understand how many we need. We don't understand how they value that. We don't understand how to negotiate terms with gaming companies, but that's a whole different thing we're going to, we have plenty of runway here. Just focusing on video content.00:20:51 Jacob:Yeah, it's, it's really interesting that, that, that feeling as a founder, especially true in SaaS, when you have literally 10 customers and like you will do 00:20:59 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:00 Jacob:For the, your 11th, it's a little bit true in consumer. Two in the early days, like you, you're just kind of like, how do I get the funnel bigger?How do I, how do you, I think you are a little bit myopic on, the top of the funnel and not thinking about this long-term thing, partially because we don't have a lot of data. You launched your app six months 00:21:19 Robbie:Yeah. 00:21:19 Jacob:Trying to make decisions on customer lifetime value. And you don't really have a good sense because you don't know who's sticking around.You probably don't have a ton of data, but one thing you said. That really got my gears turning was that of putting them on a board and just looking at them, looking at the 10 customers or whatever it is, a hundred, even in consumer SaaS, where you have hundreds of 00:21:37 Robbie:Yeah, 00:21:38 Jacob:So it's not that many, you can grab it.You'll be surprised at how many things I've in my old days in consumer's house of like just clicking into a customer and just watching how they use the app, like an individual, right. It doesn't, not data, but it gives you hints and you can start there. And then, and 00:21:54 Robbie:Yeah. Hypotheses, right? 00:21:55 Jacob:Yeah. Hypothesis. And then you actually talk to those people, if you can, like get them on the 00:22:00 Robbie:Yeah. 00:22:00 Jacob:Surprised what they tell you. One of our, our guests Matthew and photo room a few weeks ago talked about, they would take their app to McDonald's and just show it to people to keep the McDonald's references going, and get like in-person feedback.And that helped them learn, you know, they, they were, they were an app that thought that. For everybody and find out later that they're actually like, kind of like a pursuer app for Shopify people, people 00:22:23 Robbie:00:22:24 Jacob:And people with, with e-comm and, and that like kind of exploded their business for this exact case.You're talking about where they found out. Okay. Yeah. We're not for this entire, like long tail of low intent users where for this really core set, but that can be really scary if that sets kind of 00:22:39 Robbie:It's always scary to niche down, but it's almost always. a good strategy. And I wanted to tag onto something else that you said, Jacob, which I think is really important. People often say, how can I make any decisions about, you know, based on, you know, who has the highest customer lifetime value?When, you know, we've only been around for three months or six months, we have to wait until they leave. Hopefully not for three years or five years, but what I've found. And, you know, I wonder if you've seen the same thing. Most people who leave leave in the first two months. So what you really want to do is optimize for onboarding, you know, are they adopting habits that look like people who are steady users getting value, and you can often tell that in the first month, by how many people drop off by who stays and buy, you know, are they bingeing or are they using it in kind of a normal way? And so you don't have to wait for 18, 18 months or however many periods, a lot of it, you get your answer right away. Do they cancel at the end of the first period?00:23:43 Jacob:Yeah, it's good to think about your product in terms of not just. Like signups and getting through the end of onboarding, like that day one experience, but think about what hooks are like, what are the things that people are actually investing contingent on? I always think that that's, that's a, know, you think about this long-term relationship, giving users, in your product to invest and to give back and to connect, like putting in 00:24:05 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:06 Jacob:Themselves.Like there's passive usage consumption. Netflix does a good job. Like you can save, listen stuff that they do a lot of this just in passively, right? Like you consume content and they learn about you and then they have a profile. but I think some of the best apps, like let put in and that's going, gonna also not only probably make them stickier users, but also it gives you early indications and some things to hook on and be like, okay.I mean, Dropbox, this was a big thing in Dropbox. This story. they, they could get people to like understand the concept, but we had massive product issues, getting people to put a file in the thing, right? Like 00:24:41 Robbie:Yeah. 00:24:42 Jacob:Not necessarily the most user friendly thing. Like is some sort of app that runs in the background whenever they would, they did, they pulled users in, they watched them do it and totally fail.And then they fixed the product. Right. and, that's, that's. core product problem, but it relates to this this story of getting somebody to membership, right? Like getting them 00:25:00 Robbie:Yeah 00:25:00 Jacob:And focusing on that.00:25:02 David:One of the things that you talked about in your most 00:25:05 Robbie:No. 00:25:05 David:That I think, is so important to understanding the activation. Is is this concept of a forever promise. And so, so your most recent book that forever transaction we'll we'll link to in the show notes and whatnot. but in order to activate, in order to even just build a business, especially a subscription business, you need to start with Promise that you're going to make to customers. and then, especially again, like you said earlier to justify recurring payments, like, so tell me how you think about a forever promise and how, how any app, any business that wants to set up recurring payments should be thinking about this forever promise.00:25:47 Robbie:Yeah, it's, it's really simple. You take a step back and you say, when my customers come to. What is the ongoing problem they're trying to solve, or what is the ongoing goal they're trying to achieve and how can I best align my product and my messaging with that goal, that ongoing goal or that ongoing problem.So what can I promise them about it? So with a Netflix, it's about, you know, entertaining. You know, I'm going to provide you with the biggest selection of professionally created video content delivered in the most efficient way, right. With cost certainty. you're never going to have to pay extra fees and you know, there's a lot of, a lot of apps that are around.You know, helping you with some part of your business process, getting a certain kind of work done or tracking your finances or creating beautiful images for, you know, personal use for your hobbies. What have you gaming apps for fun? And I think first getting really clear on what your promise is and who you're making it to, and then you design the features and benefits to support them.Forever on their journey. And you say, as long as you continue paying me regularly, I am going to continue improving the way I deliver on my promise to you. Right? If I'm a gym, I'm going to have new equipment, I'm going to have new classes. I might offer you stuff online. If I'm news source, I'm going to offer it maybe through an app.Maybe I'm getting the access to the journalists. Maybe I'm getting, get the access to conferences or webinars on top of news because. My promise is I'm going to help you understand the world around you so you can make better decisions. And I don't have, like, if you even think about that promise, There's nothing about that promise that makes you say it needs to be a newspaper, right?It could be a conference. It could be classes, it could be a community of like-minded people sharing their learnings and their observations. So why not layer all of that in over time so that you get closer and closer to guaranteeing that they're going to get the impact that they hoped for on an ongoing basis.00:27:55 Jacob:It's interesting. in some ways relates to like what a company mission can be for a different audience. Right? You say, you know, revenue has as a mission. And that's one thing that I won't change, right. That that's kind of what we do. And that's part of joining the company and whatever. But, but I do think there's value in communicating that as well.This is like the customer facing version of that. Like, what's our 00:28:15 Robbie:Exactly. 00:28:16 Jacob:Charter. Like, why are we here? And what can I 00:28:18 Robbie:Right, 00:28:19 Jacob:That's not going to change. Right. It, especially when you think in those terms of not the like person who's coming to do a very quick transactional thing as in, I'm going to binge you put it, or maybe I just some trying this out, or I have this like one limited life or limited pain, like a limited time pain. Like what's 00:28:35 Robbie:Yeah. 00:28:36 Jacob:Engagement that we're going to do, is really interesting ground when I read the, framing of just the forever transaction forever promise. It's really exciting because we have the infrastructure for the first time in human history to really make this efficient at scale that like computers can do these sort of like, patronage relationships for us.Yeah. And, rethinking how we frame and, and relationships with customers, I think. Yeah. I mean, it's some of the work are a bit ahead of us on.00:29:05 Robbie:Yeah. Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been here a lot. Like I got here first cause I was here for a long time, but you know, it kind of a dubious distinction, but you know, I think you're right. Like you step back and you say, what are the problems? What's the ongoing problem. The ongoing problem is I'm constantly running out of laundry detergent.Right? The ongoing problem is I look in my closet and I have nothing to wear for this occasion, whatever this occasion might be. Right. you know, something that I think is really interesting to think about, you know, Amazon. Talks about removing all friction from all buying decisions, right. They started with just books.Right. And you still have to wait two weeks to get the book right when you ordered it, but they had this. All the different friction in all the different buying decisions. We're just going to, you know, layer by layer. We're gonna remove all of those things. And, you know, at some point, you know, I think they want to get to the point where I think to myself, those are really cool headphones that Jacob's wearing.I wish I had those. And before I even say. They're on my ears. And then I'm like, oh, these are uncomfortable. And they make my hair look bad. They're gone. Right. That it's almost magical. That's what they're moving to. No friction. I don't even have to say a word. It just happens. you know, I think having that kind of guidance of like, that's what we're trying to do, there's so many times when I've gone shopping and I've needed something, whether it's like buying a new house or buying a white blouse for an event and thinking this shouldn't be that hard.I have enough money to pay for. I know exactly what I need it for. And I've already spent four hours or four months, or in the case of buying a house for years, trying to find, you know, the needle in the haystack. It should not be this. When, when you say it should not be this hard, that's probably00:30:46 Jacob:An 00:30:46 Robbie:Good, 00:30:47 Jacob:Opportunity. 00:30:48 Robbie:Opportunity.Yeah, 00:30:49 Jacob:No, I I'm. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking about revenue. Cats are, you know, this is a shameless plug time to talk about my company, but, I think about our forever promise and we, our mission is like we help developers make more money. That's our goal. but I almost think that. Kind of like a short, pithy way of like phrasing. It really it's about how do we remove the way he put his barriers? Like, how do we remove all the barriers for a developer to make money? How do we remove all the for a developer to value with software for other people? and often like people see a lot of these.Yeah. Subscription, infrastructure problems, data problems, all these, all these things are not why somebody got into it. Right. When they started Netflix, it wasn't like, I just can't wait to do like cohort analysis. 00:31:35 Robbie:Okay. 00:31:35 Jacob:Like all these things, it's like, no, we want to deliver entertainment to people the easiest way possible.And so, you know, for us, like, In some ways, our particular problem that we're, we've committed and, and going to the forever thing to, you know, our product is, it's a subscriber, it's a, it's a subscription essentially. but it's a long-term commitment by the nature of it. It's very infrastructure-related so like I've always talked how to, you know, is there something the early days had to give a lot of assurances to folks like yeah.We're, we're sticking around like, yeah, this is, 00:32:06 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:07 Jacob:The long-term goal for us. But I think, I think that comes down to consumers too. Like the best companies I've seen. In our space doing consumer software apps, subscription apps essentially have like a really deep connection to the mission. And the problem I think of calm, I think of, 00:32:24 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:24 Jacob:Photo room, this app, we work with that the, you know, they've been in vision, computer vision, and they've worked for GoPro and they've just, this is in their DNA to 00:32:34 Robbie:00:32:35 Jacob:Of image manipulation.And then, and then on the other spectrum of that, you think of. Companies that are just stamping out, don't know anybody ever heard that company stamping out utility apps or like whatever it is, and then slapping a subscription thing on it. Yeah, it works. I'm going to get marginally more LTV than they were, you know, before, but 00:32:54 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:54 Jacob:Not going to, that's 00:32:55 Robbie:Yeah. 00:32:56 Jacob:The level of like computer or like problem solving for consumers that we were then we were doing before.00:33:02 Robbie:I think you have to be really passionate about the customer needs and the customer's journey rather than on your product. And this is, this is always a really rough conversation because a lot of businesses, really, really, really hold their products in high regard, whether it's. Automobiles or, you know, software, I mean, software, you know, most companies around here in Silicon valley, like the software team, they run everything.Like that's, that's the talent and everything, you know, they can build what they want. And, you know, I, I used to joke that, you know, when you work with. The car world, right? Sometimes it's just about the cup holders, right? It's not about, it's not about the big engine, right. Which is what a lot of the people, a lot of people go into the world of cars, automotive because they love cool cars, but a lot of people who buy cars.Don't buy cool cars. They buy practical cars that solve certain problems for them. And you have to be passionate about the problems you're solving for the customers. That again. So I did a lot of work early on with, in my sort of subscription life in the high-end bicycle industry. I was working with the bicycle product suppliers association, really, really interesting space.But one thing about it is that most people who own bike stores and work in bike stores and sell bikes and manufactured by. Our bike researchers and off-road, you know, risk-taking bike enthusiasts that have nine bikes at home, there's a whole huge untapped market of people who just need a bike to get to school or a bike to get to work or a bike for, for Saturdays to go to the farmer's market.And they ask really annoying questions at the bike store. Like, does this come in pink or can I get a basket for this? Or, this going to get em, you know, Reese on my, on my work pants and at some point, even, you know, like there's always this tension because the people who create the products, sometimes they're like those aren't problems I want to work on.Right. Or, you know, I worked in the hospital, you know, kind of in the, in the, in the health industry. And I talked to a lot of surgeons and they're like, yeah, you guys can do whatever you want around customer, this customer that treating customers like patients, whatever. But I want to see my patient unconscious on a table and I'll cut them open and I'll fix them and make them better.And I don't want to do all that other stuff. Right. it's hard because they're the talent. you know, I think this is a big issue with subscriptions because those Mark Key elements, aren't always the thing that's going to drive engagement, retention.00:35:30 Jacob:It's falling in love with your own product, right. It's falling in love with the 00:35:33 Robbie:Yeah. 00:35:34 Jacob:And not the problem, you know? you 00:35:37 Robbie:Exactly. 00:35:38 Jacob:I mean, I've been in the, you know, in the past, when I was in the weeds, like you start to really over it. I think analytics can actually like be, this is where, yeah.Back to the discussion of like, just throw 10 users on the board and maybe don't like, get the finest. Tooth comb to like go through your data. First is like, when you have like super high fidelity data on everything, you can start to get really data oriented. But if your product is the thing, collecting the data, you sort of inherently bias the data collection you're doing based on the product you have.You miss a lot of opportunities because you're not just thinking about the problem space. I worked on this app called elevate, which was training, and I can remember so many. So many like heated discussions about, this flow, should we do this or X and Y and Z. And not as many as we should have had about like, why are people actually coming to this app like addressing those questions from like head-on, and thinking about ways that we can improve the product with that.The beginning. And I haven't seen that revenue cat too. Like we have a lot of which are really deep and rich and people use and they're in love with, and we can, you know, you can spend a lot of brain power and a lot of focus thinking about the next iteration of that thing. The re yeah, like you said, the, the, the, the bike shop owner who's really into bikes are like really into some particular technology touch with.Yeah, these bigger things, it's like forever promise this, like, what are we actually building? Like what does revenue cap mean? And in a decade when the problems we're solving now, actually, maybe aren't that relevant the case. We've talked a lot about media companies and I almost snuck in a metaverse joke.And now I will just refer to OMA 00:37:14 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:15 Jacob:Joke your headphones, but like, Yeah, we think about this as like modes of consumption are going to be changing. that's where these, like, missions, customer mission or forever promises kind of come in. It's like making sure that regardless of a Netflix delivered on a DVD or on a streaming set top box, or into some sort of like brain 00:37:34 Robbie:Okay. 00:37:35 Jacob:Like this, the subscribers will transfer.Right. 00:37:38 Robbie:Yeah. 00:37:39 Jacob:Yeah. And this is one of my, like now I'm now I'm ranting, but think is one of the reasons I'm still really excited about all of these pieces coming together, is because it does just feel like we've reached some stage in our economy where we can align a lot more incentives this way.Then maybe we have been able to in the past, which I think is just exciting.00:38:00 David:But as we align those incentives and people get more and more subscriptions. Nice little transition there. Thank you, 00:38:07 Jacob:That's great. David, you're getting this podcasting thing, like really turning it in.00:38:11 David:There is a growing, chorus of, but subscription fatigue, People are tiring of all these subscriptions and no matter how much you can align incentives And everything else, people are just not going to want to pay subscription. So having, having seen the, the growth in subscription, consumer subscription starting way back at Netflix in the early two thousands, and now we are layering on more and more and more.What what's your perspective on this, this concept of subscription fatigue, our consumers really tiring of, paying in this way. 00:38:49 Robbie:Yeah. So the upside of, you know, this explosion and subscriptions is that consumers, and actually businesses alike are much more receptive to subscription offerings. They understand them, they understand the value they can provide if they're done. Right. and they're easier than ever before for any kind of company.You know, from the smallest mom and pop up to the, you know, the biggest multinationals to offer subscription pricing. The downside is there's this glut of subscriptions. Every company has them and not all of them are well-designed as, as we've been discussing. and that leads to subscription fatigue, and, and there's sort of three things.Contribute to that. One of them is where these, the product does not justify subscription pricing, right? This is a product I'm going to need once and you're requiring me to subscribe to it. That feels unfair. you know, or I'm never, I'm hardly ever going to use this in. You're making me subscribe, even though, you know, my use case doesn't justify that investment.Second problem is kind of the flip side of that, which I think of the subscription overwhelm or subscription guilt, which is. This great value. Actually, your product is fantastic, but I can't use all the value because of my own issues. And that makes me feel bad about myself. Like this is when you, you know, you have the new Yorker magazine piling up on your bedside table.Right. And you just cause you just want to Netflix and chill cause you're tired. But like your thought at the beginning of the day is I'm going to get so smart. I'm going to read all these great. That makes you feel bad about yourself, you can't, you know what I would suggest for example, that a new Yorker does is to educate consumers, that you only have to read one or two articles to get the full value of your subscription.It's all you care to consume, not consume all of it or you're, you're lazy. but I think that overwhelm, or, you know, same thing with blue apron where the meal kits are in your fridge and you're not using 00:40:34 Jacob:No, Don't even fatigue. it's a rough subject.00:40:39 Robbie:Yeah. Cause you feel bad, like the meals are calling to you and you're like, don't go out with your friends. 00:40:44 Jacob:Yeah. 00:40:44 Robbie:In the fridge. Don't be a waster. 00:40:47 Jacob:With my spouse about cooking because we have the giant meal kit to do. but it's great. I love the time.00:40:53 Robbie:Yeah. So then, and then, and then I think the last one, I mean, but it's, it's great. Cause it's not the fault. The meal is great. It's I don't feel like eating it today or someone invited me over for like the crazy one is when someone invites you to dinner. And so then it's not even a question of finances.You're like, well, either way, I'm not going to have to spend any more money and I'm going to get a delicious dinner. Do I want to make the blue apron dinner or go to my friend's house? Who just invited me? Well, I can't go to my friend's house because I feel bad throwing the blue apron in garbage 00:41:19 Jacob:To, the lettuce is going to be wilted by the next by tomorrow.So. 00:41:22 Robbie:Day I can cook. And then the last issue, so there's there's know, bad product-market fit. There's this subscription overwhelmed or subscription guilt. And then the last one is hiding the cancel button. And I'm really interested in what you guys think about that one. Cause a lot of subscriptions, make it really hard for you to get out of this.Cancel anytime relationship, even though. That's what they pitched. Join and cancel any time. If you can find the cancel button, which we've hidden behind 27 clicks with a call us on Tuesday, you know, extra hurdle.00:41:54 Jacob:Yeah, I think it's, well, my take is it's terrible. And anybody that does, it should really reevaluate what they're doing in software. Cause like, I think it violates that trust, right? Like, welcome. We're going to ask for this thing where you're gonna you're you're gonna let us charge. We're just going to suck money out of your bank account every month, because you've decided to like enter this relationship with us and then we're going to go ahead and betray that trust.Right. We can turn around and betray that 00:42:16 Robbie:Yeah,Advantage. 00:42:17 Jacob:But, yeah, I hadn't. Thought of fatigue in so many channels like that are so many aspects, but like the, the overwhelming aspect is interesting. And I resonate. I feel that, like, I feel that with, with dinner boxes, for sure, but even in software too, there's certain pieces of software.Like, I feel like, ah, I can't cancel it cause I have these intense and things like that. And that's not really what you want to, those, aren't the relationships you want to focus on. Right? Like so. 00:42:40 David:Side there, I think like I use this example a ton, but, Visco, I'm not a daily user. I'm not even necessarily a monthly user, but when there's a photo of my kids or just a photo, I took that I really cherish. I important into Visco and Fisco makes it better. And that to me is so valuable that I didn't even care.I mean, 20 bucks a year, I think is too cheap for their product. I would pay a lot more, even though I maybe only use it quarterly sometimes, or maybe once a month or, you know, when I'm on vacation, maybe I use it every day for a week, but it's interesting that that product. Doesn't create that sense of, oh, I'm not getting enough value out of it because I get so much value when I do. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe if it were $60 a year, it would be too much. But I mean, I just, I just would never consider canceling because I it's just, when I have a photo I care about, I take it to Bisco and it's better and it like, that's their forever promise and it just resonates so well with me that I don't, I don't get that, guilt you know, I get more than $20 a year of value out of 00:43:49 Jacob:00:43:50 Robbie:Yeah, I think, I mean, it's interesting. I think one of the things about this, you know, sort of dealing with subscription overwhelm is, you know, is it framed like whatever the customer is, anchoring their pricing to. where they say it's valuable enough. So, so for example, I worked with, one of these produce box companies, and one of their challenges was that most of their customers said that most weeks they ended up throwing something away.Right. Because it's never the exact right amount of produce. Right? So you end up at the end of the week with like soggy kale or, you know, turnips, and then you go on vacation and you come back and they put them into with these turnips. But one of the things that we did is we set expectations. That it's okay to throw out a little bit of produce that you're still getting a better price than you would at the store.And you're still supporting farmers, local farmers. So sometimes it's as simple as just reframing what the expectation is like saying for Visco. You know, if you, if you use, you know, if you use this for two or three, you know, memory pictures a year, You know, doesn't that pay for itself in 20 bucks worth, you know, three great shots of your life.You know, the three best moments of 2021. a lot of it is about, is about, I think, expectation setting and understanding your customer and what the value is. Like. I don't know how much I pay for Amazon prime. I don't care.00:45:05 Jacob:Yeah, 00:45:06 Robbie:I it almost every 00:45:07 Jacob:I 00:45:07 Robbie:Mean, I don't. 00:45:08 Jacob:A decade ago and haven't thought about really 00:45:11 Robbie:Right. But I use it every day. Like I don't care what it costs. I mean, if they start charging $3,000, I would care. But like, if it's a hundred dollars a year or $85 a year or $115, I don't care. And that's a really important point about pricing is that at least I've found with many of the subscription companies I've worked with and a lot of, you know, software products when they don't sell well, when their business isn't growing, they immediately jumped to the. Must be too expensive. We'll have to lower our price. But in so many cases, it's not about the price. It's about the value. I'm not using it. If I'm not using it, it doesn't matter if it's a dollar or a hundred dollars. and so thinking about why aren't they using it before you jump right to, well, I guess I'll take 10% off the top.00:45:56 David:Yeah, let let's let's talk pricing real quick.Cause you, you do have several strategies that you get through in the book and in what you were, what you were just explaining was one of the things I really took away from your book. is it you say in the book that it's more important to understand product-market fit and willingness to pay than finding the exact right price.And so you, you were, you kind of backed into explaining that, but let, let's elaborate a little bit. And essentially what you were just describing was that a product that doesn't have product-market fit, it doesn't matter what you price it. You know, what are, what are your, what else, what are your thoughts on that?00:46:36 Robbie:Yeah. I, I just think, I mean, in so many things in life, you're kind of on a continuum. Like, you know, I remember when many years ago I started doing weightlifting and, you know, I told people that I was doing it to be more fit and you know, stronger, and now it's very common, but at the time a woman doing weightlifting, you know, working out with weights and people would say to me, I don't want.Huge muscles. And I was like, oh honey, you are so far from that being a problem. Like we're at the other end of the continuum. Like there are certainly people, women who work out and get too muscly and that's not what they want men to wear. Like then it intervenes with my ability to do my sport. But for most people it doesn't just happen.And I think in the world of apps, I think most people. Kind of over index on pricing and think that that's going to be the key thing to figuring this out. When a lot of times there's actually a pretty big gap between, you know, kind of where you can make money and where your customer is willing to pay there's lots of room, lots of different prices. And as long as you launch somewhere in that. You're going to make some money and over time, there's lots of ways to become more sophisticated and get to a better and better price point. But a lot of people assume that if they have a highly elastic product, meaning that for every dollar you increase your pricing.Your number of customers drops by a predictable percentage. And I think in many cases for a lot of products that are inelastic, if I use it, I'll pay anywhere between five and $10 month. And if I don't use it, I will pay nothing. And so if you notice that people aren't are canceling and they're the same people who aren't using the product, it's probably not a pricing problem.It's probably a product problem.00:48:17 Jacob:Right. I mean, if you're talking about product-market fit and a forever relationship like that, I'm going to pay incident money in terms of my lifetime. Right? Like I'm going to pay 00:48:27 Robbie:Great. Right. And it's, and the thing is that people assume like, so what I would say is if. If you're trying to figure out your first price, I'd say, don't worry about it too much. if you need to do a land, grab like a Spotify priced low and you can raise your price later, although that's hard, but just do it cause you, you want people to adopt your solution.If you're worried about, you know, hurting your core business, And so, you know, then start by pricing really high and you can lower it as you have increased confidence and understanding of use case. But there's a lot of room in there and that's really, my advice is be somewhere in that range. And if people aren't buying it or aren't staying.Look for the other signs of what might be driving it besides pricing, like, is it that they, you know, failure to launch? They never onboarded. They never activated, they never used the best features. is it that they were using it for a while and then their usage trickled off. Maybe they used it up, right?Either they binged or, you know, they've watched everything they've seen, maybe their job changed. So these features are no longer relevant to their work, but really try to be a detective about where the problem is like. it's like you have a party, in a bar you're not making money from the party in the bar. Like before you lower the price at the front door, see like, are people walking by and not recognizing that you have a party, so you have nobody in there because that's an awareness problem or is it that people come in the front door and can't find their way to the food and drink and music. And so they think it's a lame party is that they leave and they never come back.You know, that's an onboarding problem. Is it that they've been eating all the food and dancing to all the music and they're like, I'm tired of these songs. I'm tired of this food, which is a different kind of product problem, product assortment problem. Or is it, I went downstairs to the food and there was no food and the music, you know, the speakers weren't working and that's an operational issue.Right. So fix the problems before you drop the price.00:50:20 David:That's such...00:50:21 Jacob:I mean I think about it, if you have product-market fit, you're going to go this way (up and to the right on the curve). All the price is going to do is maybe define that inflection on that curve. Exponential curves, the slope doesn't matter often all that much in the longterm. You can optimize it eventually, but it's really getting that product-market fit. Then it just takes care of itself.00:50:52 David:That that is a great bit of advice to wrap up on.Your book, The Forever Transaction, is fantastic. Reading it was so fun just to think about—we put our blinders on with this podcast and in the space we work in with apps—but realizing that so many of the ideas that we think about, so many of the problems we work on, are things that are across the entire industry, across all consumer subscriptions, even a lot of overlapping in B2B SaaS.So, it was just so fun reading your book, and then getting to ask you questions here. I had 30 more questions that I wanted to ask you. I could go another hour or two, but I'll, put links to your LinkedIn, to your website, to your Twitter in the show notes.Is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience as we wrap up?00:51:42 Robbie:No, I think we covered a lot. If there's one thing that I want to leave people with, it's this idea that if you start with the promise you're making to your customers, helping them with an ongoing problem, or achieving an ongoing goal that's important to them, and then you optimize your offering around that, your chances of both acquiring and retaining your customers going to go way up.00:52:06 David:Such great advice. Great place to end.You mentioned that there's some extra goodies listeners can get if they click on the link in the show notes, they can get your book and some extra goodies along with that.So, thank you so much for being on the podcast.00:52:22 Robbie:Yeah. A real pleasure.

Overview David is back (he first appeared in Episode 22) to give us an update on how things are going since we last talked. He's kept up writing, and has published a new book in his Project Adventure series, but hasn't had the breakout success. We discuss his new books and what he's been doing to market his current books. While he's had some success, he is still working to make writing a better career. Website https://davidkonradauthor.com/project-adventure-series/ His Books https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09M951M13/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09M951M13&linkCode=as2&tag=saschneider-20&linkId=8c833c592c0556a4c2211da980d6bb27 YouTube https://youtu.be/252Qzn8zH90 Transcript [00:00:51] Stephen: All right, David, welcome to have discovered wordsmith podcasts again, as good to see, actually see you this time. How have things been? Well, thank you, [00:00:59] David: Stephen. I'm so glad to be here again, as you said, and that's great to actually see you this time. Things have been missed as good as they could've been a crazy time. [00:01:08] Stephen: Now, I believe last time we talked, your wife was commuting and you were living at the time. It was Madrid. Okay. [00:01:18] David: Pretty much at the time, but now we're actually, we're back to Munich, which is where my, my boys were born. My boys close to seven in a couple of months. So they actually started school 10 days ago here. [00:01:30] David: So that's on top of everything that's been going on lately. Uh, Yeah. Trying to figure out, figure it out a school in a foreign language and all that. So it's so yes, but since then, of course, many things have happened. And the part of the reason why we're back in back to Munich is because we don't, she's not, my wife is not commuting that much anymore. [00:01:53] David: There's no point. And then it just made more sense to be here because this is kind of know for many reasons that we consider those to be. [00:02:04] Stephen: Nice. Okay. So when we talked, you had written a book, one of your project adventure series, and you're working on book two. And in the last year, even with moving as your boys starting school, you've got four books out now. [00:02:18] Stephen: So tell us what's been going on in your writing to get four books in your series. The [00:02:23] David: short answer is I've gotten better at it. And yeah, the book one was a great learning experience and, but there was a learning curve to everything and inviting is no different than. Book one when it was really finished and out there, it just took so much, uh, and learned so many things that I had no idea I would have to learn in order to create. [00:02:47] David: So something as complex as a, as an actual book, as a self-published author, this is quite an undertaking. And, but then later on the actual, the act of creating books became super. All of a sudden creating books, writing and creating the covers and everything that goes into a book the front matter and matter, all of that stuff. [00:03:09] David: Description, teasers, you name it, all that became because I've set it up with book number one, and then everything, you know, over the subsequent books were just so much easier to make to Purdue and not just write writing has become even more fun because. Again, I now know more how to actually write a book, how to create an outline, how to, how to use a single idea, a single image of a, of an interesting scene and basically build a book around. [00:03:44] David: So it's been really extremely interesting to see just how, when you start working on something and start creating how it all comes around and how it fits into. All the pieces that kind of stuck fitting in really interesting. And it just gets easier then on the other hand, and we can probably have this as a whole different topic is what became much more difficult, which is obviously marketing and sales and all t...

In this episode of the Hidden Lawes Podcast, Dr. David Snyder shares ways to use the Law of Attraction. He is the founder and creator of the CPI: Conversational Persuasion & Influence System™. Recognized as one of the world's leading experts on – Strategic Human Influence Technologies. A Licensed and Certified Hypnosis Trainer, Master Practitioner and Trainer in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Society of Experiential Trance. David holds a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Degree (DACM), Master of Arts Degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and has 10th Degree Black Belt in The Martial Arts. Standout Quotes: “I believe that money is an equivalent of a person's personal power.” [David] “There's two universes one inside of you, there's the one outside of you, and they're connected.” [David] “you are a being of light, whether you accept that as real-world truth or not, you're a being of light.” [David] “Language of light is encoded on a vibrational matrix that your neurology can interpret.” “Everything that's locked in your body has a correlation out here in your field.” “Some people know exactly what to write and they just start writing, sometimes, will have no conscious idea what's going on.” “Everything that you experience from the vibrational universe is a metaphor printed on a vibrational matrix.” “The human being is a holographic information processing system.” “There's a firewall between what you're consciously aware of, and what you're unconsciously processing and running.” “A lot of times, the information you come up you come up with will almost always feel like you made it up.” “We are the God of our own universe.” “Physical action is the vessel for the light.” Episode Timeline: [45:53] How does the dominant idea works? [46:18] What are the two sets of beliefs? [48:42] How difficult is it to apply the law of attraction in controlling dominant thoughts? [48:58] Is it possible to project the achy feeling on a space? [49:46] Can you reduce and enlarge the achy feeling? How would that feel? [51:16] Are we a being of light? [51:54] How does neurology decodes the language of light? [52:16] what would happen if you start manipulating the vibrational frequency? [53:02] Can we access the vibrational data? [54:30] Is there a connection between the body and the energy field? [55:48] How to supercharge your affirmations? [57:08] How does writing down these experiences help you? [58:39] Are you able to feel anything when the process takes place? [1:00:51] What is the metaphysical model? [1:06:57] How do you use your autonomic nervous system to recode vibration.? [1:08:29] What is dialoguing with your feelings? [1:09:19] How to uncover feelings that are tucked away in your subconscious mind? [1:10:20] Is there a spatial part in your body in which you can store ideas and concepts? [1:11:55] Are we allowed to manipulate our systems? [1:13:46] Were you forcibly tasked with something you know nothing? [1:16:41] What are the processes involved in Revelation? [1:18:29]Can energy be divided into different areas? Learn more about Dr. David Snyder and the Power of NLP at: | Personal Website| LinkedIn| Facebook| Youtube| Twitter|

In this episode, we're going to have Free Hypnosis Training to clear negativity. Standout Quotes: “Give yourself permission to just let it go, noticing how good you feel.” [David] “With every breath you take, in every beat of your heart, this inexhaustible, endless, limitless source of energy is there to move you forward in life towards the things you want, both consciously and unconsciously.” [David] “There's always at least three ways to solve any problem, always at least three solutions to any situation or circumstance that you have to solve and your unconscious mind.” [David] Key Takeaways: Deep inside your mind, body and spirit is a place of absolute power, a place of absolute change, a place where you store things that are useful. The more you get the body involved, the more amazing this experience is going to be for you. As you clean off all the last remaining pieces, notice how those glowing pieces that remain, those positive experiences, empowering experiences, everything that makes you feel good about who you are, about where you're going, and who you're destined to become, those energies begin to glow stronger and stronger. Feel yourself returning to this place we call reality. Bringing with you a brand new reality, a reality where you've learned how to get rid of stuff that you no longer need stuff you knew about consciously stuff. Episode Timeline: [0:02] Relaxing yourself [0:24] Having a short but amazing journey with David [1:09] What's inside your mind, body, and spirit [2:47] What represents all the positive energy in your life [3:30] What happens when you begin to manipulate that image in your mind [4:36] Giving yourself permission [7:01] Your mind, body, and spirit will systematically find everything that's less than positive [8:24] Color associated with traits and desires and attributes

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT When news broke back in March that the live events and publishing firm Questex had bought the assets of Digital Signage Expo, there was, understandably, a lot of interest and speculation about whether that might mean the defunct trade show and conference would be revived. It will be, likely around the same timeframe as the past, and back in Las Vegas. It is also likely it will have the same name - though it might just be called DSE.  What's also clear is that it will not be a simple re-boot of the old show - which makes perfect sense, since the Digital Signage Expo that ran for 15+ years would politely be described as spinning its wheels - with attendance flatlined and exhibitor counts shrinking. I contacted Questex when news first broke of the DSE assets being acquired at auction, and have had a few conversations since then with the company, including its CEO Paul Miller. I wasn't sure how much he could tell me, but we had a terrific, very open chat about what went down, and his company's thinking around a new and different DSE in 2022.  Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT David: Paul. Thank you for joining me. Who is Questex?  Paul Miller: Hi, Dave, thanks for having me first and foremost. Questex is a media and information services business that produces events alongside its media sites. We have been in existence as a company for about 15 years, just over. We are a company that focuses on really five or six markets, that is the life sciences and healthcare markets, the technology markets, and then we also focus on the areas of travel hospitality & wellness, and all of that is wrapped up around a focus on the experience economy. That's who we are and we do events, we do media websites, we do all kinds of connecting of buyers and sellers in those areas.  David: So of those properties that you have in the context of the Pro AV world, what would people who are listening to this most likely know, LDI or the Nightclub & Bar Show?  Paul Miller: Yeah. They would probably know our Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas, mainly because that would have been in history. Some cases would collaborate with DSE and in some cases would just sit alongside so they would know that.  They probably would know the Lighting Dimension Show, the LDI show that you mentioned. Yeah, that's also one that is quite well known in this space. I would say outside of that, there are events that I think are relevant in the hotel area, in the spa area, in the gym area where we're connecting owners of hotels & operators of hotels and gyms and spas with various people that want to sell into those spaces. So of course digital signage is a huge area for all of those end users. So they may not know those, but certainly, I think they're areas that we think are very relevant.  David: We'll get into acquiring assets of DSE, but I was curious when that happened, so I looked up Questex to see who they are and how they work and I get a sense that your typical approach is you have publishing wing as a foundational thing that kind of sets the content for that particular vertical market, and then you grow and market the live event off of that. Is that a fair assessment?  Paul Miller: Yeah, I think that's a good assessment, Dave. We believe that we should be engaged with communities 365 days through the year because people don't always wait for an event before they make their decision. So we want to help them through that buying process through content that attracts them to our websites. As they interact with that content, we like to use that data to produce what we would consider a very relevant show. So when you come to the show, it's content that's been popular throughout the year, probably speakers that have been writing content that you can come and meet live. So we see a full connection between how people in the B2B world look for content, and how they go through that buying process, and the event is part of that.  In many cases, it's an exciting part of it, because people come to actually buy. In some cases, they come to network. In some cases, they come to get educated, and in some cases, all three. So, that idea that we would just do an event, and then see you next year is not really in our DNA. We're more, “Hey, we want to serve you throughout the year, and we'd love to see you live at the event if relevant.”  David: And I also get a sense that that the events look different depending on the vertical. So you don't necessarily do a full trade show with exhibits for a certain vertical because it really doesn't fit, whereas, for other verticals, it may.  Paul Miller: That actually is a really astute comment. I think sometimes in our world, not the digital signage world. This is our world at Questex. We sometimes talk about events a little bit like somebody saying, “I'm going on vacation to Africa,” and your first question is what country you're going to because you're going to have a different experience depending on where you're going.  In the events world too, there are various flavors. In some events, it truly is sort of a cash and carry. You bring in your goods, you set up your store and people come in and they buy your goods, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. By the way, I do not think that applies to digital signage, certainly on the whole, but that there is a flavor of event that we do that sort of emulates that, that is very much you come in to buy stuff and the exhibitors are there to sell stuff and success is how much did I sell, frankly? And then there are the educational type events which sort of surround large conferences. I think you'd be familiar with these: great speakers, good education, and some really good networking off-piece at the hotel bar afterward, et cetera, and then you can get into some really specific events which are matchmaking buyers with sellers. This particular buyer is looking for this solution and we're going to put you in a room with this seller. They tend to be more intimate, very VIP, in some cases, we will host those buyers. So we tend to be, and I think your comment is right on. We tend to look for what fits what element of the market at the right time. I think where it gets exciting, Dave, and this probably leads us into sort of our thoughts around the Digital Signage Expo is that in many cases you can do all three. You can have a great conference, you can have a great show, trade show floor, and you can do great matchmaking, and it doesn't work all the time. We have a feeling that it is relevant to DSE from what we've been hearing from the market, but you're absolutely right on the money. We don't really have a one size fits all approach as a company, and I think given the communities we serve, that would be very difficult for us to shoehorn in certain templates if you will.  David: Right. So back in, I think you said it was April, but you acquired the assets of Exponation. What did you actually acquire?  Paul Miller: We acquired the assets of Digital Signage Expo which would have included the trademarks, the websites, the database, the customer database. I think that was about it. A few other URLs, websites that sort of surrounded the industry a little bit. But everything that Exponation had that was DSE-related is what we acquired.  David: And how did that happen? Was there like a Broker who came to you and said, “Hey, we have this”, or do you have people who just pay attention to this sort of thing?  Paul Miller: No, it was strange, to be honest. The last year has been strange in many ways. Firstly, we're very aware at Questex of DSC. We had, as mentioned at the start, we had seen the show, we had visited the show. I wandered over to the show while at our Nightclub & Bar event. David: Just to sober up? (Laughter) Paul Miller: Yeah, actually, just to see what it's like at a B2B show that isn't serving alcohol, which is a different field, and actually we had been impressed for many years with the show. We certainly didn't really know the understories and what was really going on, but from a very shallow view, I would say, the show looked very professional. There were great companies, and there was good buzz, and we always said to each other that, that looks like a great event, and that was about it, just for the record.  Then I forget the actual timing, but sometime in the fall of last year, we obviously saw the story that Exponation had filed for Chapter 7, and that sort of alerted us about that a lot of us that are in the events business, the pandemic has been devastating. It wasn't that it was a surprise, but to be honest as having that sort of very narrow and shallow knowledge of the show, we were like, wow that's a shame that, that was a good looking event and we're probably going to see more of this was our initial reaction. Then what happened, Dave is that we got a notice from, I think it was the bankruptcy court. I can't remember who it was, but anyway, we got a notice that the assets were going to be auctioned to help raise funds, for those people that the debt was owed to if you will. So we said, okay we like these assets and we've got some things that we could bring to the event, or this was before we knew, by the way, that might be relevant. So we entered into an auction process and it was the first time in my career that I've ever been through such a process and it truly was a person on the phone, basically banging the gavel and saying, “Yep,  sold to the people at the back,” and that ended up being us. We obviously then did a lot of homework before we went into the auction. We got our hands around a little bit. What was the size of the show? What was the target audience for the show? What do we think we could bring to the show? And it checked a lot of boxes for us. Yeah, we went into the auction seriously and we won that auction, and then, of course, you find what actually have we acquired? And that was a fascinating sort of few weeks of research.  David: I've spoken with you in the past, I've spoken with someone else from your company and a consultant, Brent Gleason, who you've engaged to help out with this.  I'm curious, as you've done your kind of due diligence and exploration of the industry, what have you been hearing about the industry, your impressions on that, but also, we can go from there to what are you going to do?  Paul Miller: Sure. So firstly I have to say, and I think you know this that there wasn't a lot of ho-hum type of commentary in the research when we went to the industry. People were very passionate about space, very passionate about this product. Not all of it positive. I think there've been some negative experiences for certain people, but what we did find, Dave, was that this is an industry that is going through terrific growth and that growth looks to be sustainable, certainly, through the next half a decade if not beyond in our opinion, so great sort of 7.5% CAGR growth rates, touches a lot of verticals, and I know that people listening and yourself would know this, but this was our learning, touching verticals as diverse as healthcare, through to retail, through to hotels, houses of worship, hotels. So that was really interesting for us. We also found and heard that the industry actually wanted a place to gather. They do see this as an industry that has its unique personality. It's not all about one thing or another thing, and there are definitely some trends that are coming in, the digital out of home space for instance, that in my opinion, is akin to what happened between print and the internet, back in the late nineties, a lot of data starts to be kicked off and a lot of backend technology starts to get into play. With digital signage becoming the forefront of that, it's where people first interact. So we got very excited very quickly. Some of the comments frankly, were hard to swallow or people saying, “Hey, the event was not what it used to be.” “It was starting to lose a little bit of its luster.”  Obviously when the show was canceled last year. Some people were really quite upset about the lack of refunds and what went on there, and I fully understand that. We had to cancel a lot of events last year as well. It was a very tough scenario for everybody, but the industry we felt as we got into it had an opinion, and it was a strong opinion and people wanted to talk. We had incoming people calling us saying, “I want to talk to you about what you've bought here and let you know what you've got.” And actually Brad was one of those, by the way, Brad said, look, I have a lot of history with the show, and I'd love to help reinvent it along the lines that I feel, and I think what the industry feels it should have been going in any way. So look, we have the ability to “start again” in many ways. I don't think the Exponation had that ability. They had a product, they had to try to grow that product. We've acquired a set of assets, but we have a real strong ability to listen to the community and try to create a new experience for the community that they're telling us they want. And that's unique. So, we purposely were have been extremely patient. We just said, let's listen, and the more we listen, the more we're finding that the industry wants an event, it wants a place to gather, but it doesn't really want your grandmother's DSC.  I think the event has reached its limit, if you will, in terms of value and people wanted to do something else going forward, without losing some of the great things about the event, seems like it was a fantastic place for the industry to network and meet once a year. We don't want to lose that. That's a super reason for having an event. So, it's been a real experience. I mean, this is a very good acquisition from my experience, acquired through auction had gone into Chapter 7 through the pandemic and it has a set of stakeholders that really want to have a say. I mean, nobody said, sorry, I don't want to talk about it, or, I don't really have a comment. Everybody had something to say and I think that's great. That shows some passion. It shows some engagement. It's just that not all of the comments were positive, I have to be honest. David: Oh, for sure. When we chatted in the past, I said, I don't think there's enough to do at a trade show with a whole bunch of exhibit stands and everything, the way it was done in the past. There's a diminishing number of companies that want to spend those kinds of dollars, and I just didn't see it. Is that what you're hearing more broadly?  Paul Miller: Not really, no. I get your point, and we actually gave people the ability to tell us what they really want. Now, I will say that the number one thing that's coming back is that we want to meet people that are going to buy our product. So we want to meet, we don't really want to just get together and talk to each other. But it's a very expensive meeting to just talk to other people in the industry. So there's been a lot of questions to us like, do you reach people in the hotel industry? Do you reach people in the restaurant space? Do you reach people in other areas where digital signage is needed and can be engaged with?  And when we've explained, as I did up top, that these are the markets we're in, people have gone, if you can get those folks to attend an event, we absolutely will bring a booth and we absolutely will exhibit, but you gotta bring buyers. You're not going to get away with putting up an exhibit and meeting without competitors across the aisle, that's not enough.  David: Right. I know with Exponation, they worked their butts off trying to get brands to show up, to a level that they were putting them on advisory boards and things like that, just to make them feel like they should be there.  Paul Miller: Yeah. Look, I've been in the events space for sort of 25 years. It is not easy, particularly when, and this is where it comes back to the strategy of Questex, I think compared with Exponation, we're a huge believer in content. I think I've said this to you before content is still king or queen, but the kingdom is data. Once you have people and you've attracted them, around content, it's really about understanding what their needs are, what they're looking for, engaging with them, and I think if you're a pure-play event company, what you do is you put on an event once a year, you're sort of reliant on a lot of partners to produce that content for you, and not in your environment. So you don't get the data as much, and I think that makes it very difficult in complete deference to what Exponation was trying to do.  I think they were trying to do the right thing, but when you don't have that daily engagement with the community, it's quite hard to hit it out of the park on every single thing. You're going to find your content probably gets a bit tired, sometimes the loudest voice gets to be the speaker, as opposed to the one that everybody wants to hear. There are certain things that data takes out of the room. It takes that emotion out of the room and it says like this audience is engaging with this type of content, that's what they want to see live. That I think gives you a little bit more data-driven decision-making around what the industry wants, as opposed to my gut feel or what somebody just told me at the bar last week at the show.  David: So, based on everything you've been hearing, everything your team has been doing, do you have the bones of an idea of what we're going to see? Paul Miller: Yeah we do. I think that's a good description. I'm not sure we're fully fleshed out, but I can certainly tell you a few things that we're going to do.  Number one, we are going to relaunch the show. Just to be clear from the top, we are going to relaunch the show. We do think that the show has to be repositioned somewhat to be a broader show to bring in those customers, as I mentioned, We're looking at experiences around a broad-based agenda of life and business and mid the re-emergence of society and the global economy. So this is more about where does digital signage fit in the “roaring 20S”? So we are looking to bring back the event. We're looking at next Spring and we are looking at Las Vegas. I can't go much further than that at this point in time, because we are obviously trying to secure venues and we're trying to secure dates, and that by the way, is easier said than done in a post-pandemic environment and everybody wants dates. But we do have our Nightclub & Bar rebranded as our Bar & Restaurant event in Las Vegas next spring. There's the possibility of bringing that together again if you will. We will have an exhibit floor but also adding things like show floor experiences, very inclusive. You know, “let's demonstrate some applications, do some showcases, have some themed presentation stages.” So a lot of buzz on the show floor, but at the same time, a really engaging conference program, lots of curated presentations, tracks based on innovative applications, why do this, what are the outcomes, what you should be looking for? And last but not least we are hoping to have multiple layers of networking at the event. That's one thing that this community told us is, “Please don't lose the networking!”  As I think, you know more than I know, great parties, great places for the industry to come together and celebrate, learn to buy, to sell. So yeah, we were even looking at guides around Las Vegas itself, tours of installations so people can learn, form real-life applications, not just what somebody might tell you what could happen. Let's curate some tours, and we do that by the way, for our Bar & Restaurant event, we take people behind the scenes at a Nightclub behind the scenes of a Vegas restaurant, so they can see everything from point of sale applications through to what's going on in the kitchen, and how does the food come out? We think that the audience, the community is telling us it wants more, hands-on more, show me what works, more education, more demos and bring it all together as an event that is an experience beyond just, ”I walk the show floor and I meet a couple of friends at the bar.” David: Yeah. I've certainly heard many times and when I did a little survey asking about, where should a trade show go? The comment that's stuck in my head was, I know when I go to something like DSE, I'm landing, and that's what I'm doing that week, or for the next two, three days, that's my subject matter versus an ISE or an InfoComm, which are great shows, but they're Omni shows covering a whole bunch of different vertical industries and technologies and everything else and you don't have this aggregate of people who are just there for digital signage. Now you could go to a party and talk to 20 people, and they're all doing things that have nothing to do with digital signage, but they're in AV.  Paul Miller: Yeah, by the way, I think both are relevant. A lot of respect for ISE and InfoComm and the AVIXA Association in general, I think they do great stuff by the way. And I think there is relevance in attending a show that is broader than just the sort of industry that you're in. I think that's where you do see adjacencies and ideas that might be applicable. But what was loud and clear from this community was we wanted our own place. There's enough going on in the digital signage space for us to need to focus on our industry, our solutions, our ecosystem for us to want our own place, and that, by the way, was one of the key learnings over the last 8 to 10 weeks of listening to people.  There wasn't one person who said, I don't think the industry needs its own place. There are a few people who said can I afford the time to go to all of these events? And I think that's a relevant comment and that's all about saying, well, we have to win your respect to get your time, and we have to have a program that you walk away after two or three days or a week, and you go, “Wow, I'm going to recommend this to my friends because these guys really put something on that it creates a fear of missing out if I'm not there, and I think more importantly than all of that actually creates business interactions. People actually do write orders and they do write RFPs at the event.” That's what we're here for at the end of the day.  So yeah, I think the need for an event that's focused on this particular community is clear: that's actually a box that was checked very clearly. it wasn't a 50-50 decision. David: There will be people who listen to this and think that's great that you're doing a show, but spring in Las Vegas or just spring in general in the trade show industry is very crowded. There's a lot going on and you're putting this in between ISC and InfoComm, which are AV shows, there's NAB, all these other ones that happening around then there, I've heard many people say it would be lovely if an event like this was in the fall instead. Paul Miller: Yeah. Unfortunately, the fall is also busy. It's got its own interesting issues and particularly around the pandemic where shows have been moved around, and they're off cycles. The feedback that we got, Dave, was again, you're right, “It's crowded. Please don't put it over the top of another show because we don't want to be forced into a decision. Do we go to this or this?”  The feedback we got was, “We liked where it was before,” which was, around that April timeframe, spring timeframe. So we've taken that into account and we didn't have any huge set of people saying, “Hey, move it to November or get it out of the way.” The other option we had by the way was to think about, do we put it alongside our lighting show, which is in the fall, October, November.  The more we get into it, the more it becomes clear to us that actually, the lighting show is not as relevant as an audience, they tend to be lighting designers, people that are doing the rigging of lighting, et cetera. A better audience would be people that are buying stuff for their restaurant for us. So yeah, we're never going to get a date that's going to satisfy everybody, unfortunately. Our feeling is we have the best chance to bring the right set of buyers to this event in the spring of next year.  David: And if you do it somewhat in tandem with an existing show like your Bar & Restaurant show, I imagine there's some efficiency around Ops people, like, you don't have to bring double the staff. You may bring more than you would for one show, but not of double compliment.  Paul Miller: Yeah, the efficiencies come with, obviously the show place itself. So if we do go to the Las Vegas convention center, obviously you get efficiency. If you do two in one, if you will.  From our team perspective, maybe Dave, in terms of we could send seven people rather than two sets of five, for instance, which is where I think you're going. But I'm not sure, I think what we're looking at for this event is and also by the way, for the Bar & Restaurant event, as you can imagine, the experiences there are pretty high end. You've got people launching new dreams. You've got people launching new bar and restaurant concepts. So I think that it would be the same as at a reinvigorated DSE. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not looking for cost efficiencies, let me put it that way. That wouldn't be the reason for doing it.  David: When do you think you'll have a launch or an announcement saying we're going to do this?  Paul Miller: We're in the midst of recruiting an advisory board. We're getting some great traction there, by the way. I can give you a few names if that helps. I would say we are a matter of weeks away from a full announcement and maybe not many weeks.  David: Yeah, and I guess you really have to be because planning cycles are long, right? People are already budgeting for 2022.  Paul Miller: We gotta get moving, yeah. It's not just the budgeting aspect of this. It's the sales team that has to be implemented. You've got to have your content team in place. Your advisory board needs to meet so we can start to get around the sort of flavor of the show. So no, we gotta get our skates on, no doubt about it. David: So who are some of your advisors that you can say?  Paul Miller: Some that I can say, and by the way, there are a number of others that we think are going to be really exciting for the community to hear about, but we've got Rich Ventura, B2B Business line manager at Sony, I think previously the chairman of the DSF. We've got Rick Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer for Billups, leading voice in the out-of-home industry, and by the way, a play on the advisory board, just for the record is these four quadrants, there's the industry veterans, those people that really know this space, the new voices, and the new faces. We said we're going to reinvigorate, let's get some new voices. So Jackie Walker, digital signage subject matter expert at Publicis Sapient is one of those.  We've got a number of others. Laura Davis Taylor retail & reality, we've got some people here that I think are going to bring some really great new voices and faces alongside the veterans, also strategic partners that we're looking at, and of course, people like yourself in the media. We'd like to have a balance of all of the above and if we're going to deliver on our promise of a reinvigorated show, I think the definition of insanity is doing something the same way and then expecting a different outcome, so we've got to make some changes here and reinvigorate the advisory board, get new names and voices and faces involved, but don't throw away the baby with the bathwater either, make sure you've still got the people that know what they're talking about.  David: The last question I suppose is will it be called Digital Signage Expo or it'd be something else, or is that TBD? Paul Miller: Yeah, that's a great question. We have, interestingly, sometimes for how things happen without doing more sort of fundamental research, but internally we're using the DSE acronym quite a lot. I don't know is it Digital Signage Expo? Is it Digital Signage Experience? Is it DSE? At the moment where we're sticking with brand equity. Words and all that come with digital signage expo, but it's interesting internally, and we do refer a lot to it as DSE, and sometimes that just turned into the experience as opposed to the expo. So a little bit more about the industry, a little bit less about the product itself. I would say a personal front, from what I've heard from customers, Digital Signage Expo is fine. People are calling it DSE anyway, and I don't know if I want to go through a massive rebranding exercise at the same time we're doing a relaunch of the event.  David: Yeah. It's more of the communications and the people you bring on board and everything else.  Paul Miller: I think so, yeah. At the end of the day, I think it is: have we delivered a product that people go to and say you know what, these guys are on the path to creating a must-go-to event, we did some business, it was great to meet the community again, and I learned a lot. If we can check those boxes, I think we can then start to think about, okay, what now? And at the moment, we're just fully focused on producing something that people walk away from Vegas going, “These guys nailed it, they listened and we've got an event that's a must go for our industry, and they want to listen to some more on how we can make improvements from stage one.” So I think at the end of the day, that's what really matters. Yes, people have a lot of opinions. Yes, there's a lot of baggage. Yes, there's a lot of words that we're using right now that I hope resonate with the industry. But at the end of the day, it's did we deliver?  David: All right, Paul, thank you. I appreciate your time.  Paul Miller: Dave, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.  

In this episode of Market Pulse, Katherine Doe of Equifax discusses the U.S. economic outlook for consumer and small business credit with David Fieldhouse, director of consumer credit analytics at Moody's Analytics. Evan Leaphart, founder and CEO of Kiddie Kredit and co-founder of Black Men Talk Tech, explains his mission of educating kids about credit so they are poised for entrepreneurial success later in life -- and can qualify for credit when they need it.This portion of the transcription is edited for brevity. Listen to the full podcast for more great insights.Katherine:Sounds like these are potentially great conditions for entrepreneurs and those thinking about starting a small business. We've spoken on this podcast and in our Market Pulse webinars about the increases in cashless payments and a huge rise in e-commerce. But then there's also the funding capital and credit side to consider in starting a small business. So I'd be curious to hear what you are seeing in the data for small business credit performance and also availability?David:There is going to be quite a bit of demand for small business credit. There are many cases where businesses are being formed. If we look through business applications, we're seeing them coming in at a pretty high clip, on pace for 6 million new business applications in 2021. If we put that in perspective with 2018, 2019, that would typically be around 3.5. So there's new businesses. I think like all the work that Evan's doing, all the entrepreneurs out there, they are working to make the economy a more productive place. And I think the question then is what kind of financing is there out for these individuals? If we sort of start to look through the data, we saw that in 2020, private lending was a bit tight overall.The signs are strong that credit is really coming back. 2020 was really about the PPP program and that's free credit. So, the private credit sort of stood on the sidelines, but the public credit really came in. Now that program is over. So the private lending needs to come back and it does seem to be coming back overall. Katherine:I'm going back to one of the statistics that Dr. Rob Wescott shared on our June 4th webinar. He shared that a quarter of black-owned businesses report credit availability as their top business challenge due to COVID. And that represents more than double the percentage of Asian and white owned businesses. And I'm just curious Evan, with your network are you hearing that to be a problem? Are you hearing a similar message? And I guess moreover, what can we do to remedy this as an industry and as a community that wants to support all small businesses and entrepreneurs?Evan:A lot of people have great business ideas, but we need the capital to access them. Even to get to the point where you're considered worthy of getting a loan. Just the initial bootstrapping to incorporate your business and set up a bank account properly. And all of the little things which may seem so minute to certain demographics, for communities of color it's a little more challenging. We don't have as many resources around us to really get started. So when we talk about what we can do to be helpful, it really helps people to get through those initial steps. If we really want to be helpful to black founders, we need to help them from the very beginning and partner with them. Do things that uplift, so not just mentorship, but providing clients. Those things that bring actual dollars into the business start to help because now things are showing up on their balance sheets, and now it's easier to get a loan. Maybe it's easier to get an investor. For more on this interview, listen to our full podcast. To access the latest consumer credit and small business insights, contact your Equifax account executive today, or visit us online at equifax.com/business. You might also enjoy checking out Economy.com by Moody's Analytics  for the latest economic updates.******We want to hear from you! What did you think of this episode? What would you like to hear our experts share in the future? Email us: marketpulsepodcast@equifax.com. RESOURCES mentioned in this podcast: Kiddie Kredit is a mobile app designed to educate children on the credit system by completing chores. www.kiddiekredit.com Do you have the economic and consumer credit performance data you need?  With CreditForecast.com -- a joint product created by Equifax and Moody's Analytics -- you can access data, forecasts, scenarios, analyses and more from analysts you trust. https://www.creditforecast.com Register for upcoming Market Pulse webinars from Equifax, plus access previous webinars and presentations. Download our latest Credit Trends reports. 

In this episode, you’ll hear about: The pros and cons of selling an app on your own versus going through a broker What to watch out for during negotiations What to expect after selling your app Follow Us:David Barnard: https://twitter.com/drbarnardJacob Eiting: https://twitter.com/jeitingEric Owens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericowens/Here’s the Outline of Our Interview with Eric:(1:00) Eric and David have worked together before!(1:25) How Eric became an app broker.(5:09) The top reasons app developers decide to sell their businesses; capital gains taxes; David’s experience selling his first app.(8:03) Why people buy app businesses.(10:11) Do app buyers typically purchase successful apps or fixer-uppers?(13:35) The benefits of selling a successful app “prematurely;” David’s Mirror app.(15:25) The challenges of selling iOS apps: iCloud, Passbook, Sign In with Apple, Catalyst; Gas Cubby.(19:13) How app business valuations are calculated; the App Store Small Business program.(23:34) Adding subscriptions to an app increases its value to buyers.(26:51) What kind of documentation you should have in place before selling your app.(28:34) How buyers approach purchasing an app from a solo developer.(30:27) Finding app buyers.(33:33) App business sales increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.(34:00) The pros and cons of selling your app on your own; Flippa.(39:17) Going through a broker helps you stay emotionally detached during the negotiation process.(40:35) Fiduciary duties; representing app buyers versus sellers.(42:38) What to watch out for during negotiations; low-ball offers; due diligence.(48:17) The app sale closing process; escrow.com; closing costs.(50:21) Brokerage fees; working with Eric.(51:00) What comes after an app sale? Non-compete agreements; handoffs.(57:00) Connect with Eric on LinkedIn or get in touch at appbusinessbrokers.com.Quotes:“Any business with any kind of subscription revenue is always going to sell for higher, no matter what it is. Buyers love that... The one move you can make in any business that will increase your valuation is to add some kind of subscription revenue.” - Eric“As I get later in my life, [I’ve realized] brokers are amazing. Think about it: as an app developer, you spend 99% of your time being an app developer, right? And then you have this 1% critical action, which is the sale… It’s really useful to have somebody on your side who’s done this before and can tell you what you’re doing that’s wrong and what you’re doing that’s right.” - Jacob“If you’re an inexperienced seller of something, get somebody to help you out.” - Jacob“I forget what I paid Eric; it was probably $20,000 or $30,000. But to me, I saw it as worth every penny because he helped bring the market that got the highest and best value of the app… Having access to that pool of buyers and having Eric’s experience helping me walk through it, I think it made up the [cost] of whatever I paid him in the valuation that I got in the sale.” - David“I’ve sold three apps, and it’s been huge for me. It’s helped pay off debt, it’s helped put a little money away, and helped me sleep better at night. There’s a lot of reasons to do it.” - David“There’s a lot of people who can’t make [apps]. I think as indie app people, we just kind of take for granted — because we hang out on Twitter with a bunch of other people who know how to make apps — that it’s not that unique. And it’s a tough business; it’s not always easy to make an app that’s going to make you a lot of money. But if you factor in… the fact that not everybody can make these things, that can be a really useful tool for you to unlock liquidity earlier than you would otherwise.” - Jacob“I think people should have the mindset… that you are building an asset that you can sell someday if you want to. You don’t ever have to, but build something that is sellable. If people can treat it more as an investment, that can see people through some of the dark times, the challenges of being an entrepreneur.” - EricLike this episode?Subscribe to Sub Club on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to get the latest news on mobile subscription apps.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Generally speaking, the sun doesn't play very nicely with LCD displays when they're running outside. The brightness has to be cranked just to cut through glare, and all kinds of R&D work has to be done to effectively get out all the heat that builds up when a screen runs out in the sun all day. So what if there was display technology that actually did well in direct sunlight? There's e-paper, but that tech can't do the full motion or rich colors that are inherent in LCD displays. So how about a display that's reflective like e-paper, but is otherwise a more conventional LCD flat panel?  That's the premise behind Azumo, a Chicago company that has developed a micro-thin front light for LCDs, taking the place of the backlighting arrays that illuminate millions or billions of TVs and display monitors. By day, in bright light, an Azumo-equipped display doesn't even need a light on, front or back. And at night, that front light illuminates the screen. Right now, Azumo does smaller displays for industrial and medical uses, and is developing the tech for tablets. But the company is equipping its production lines to do larger displays, with the idea that customers like media companies and QSR chains would take a liking to digital posters and drive-thru order screens that didn't run up big power bills just to be viewable. I spoke with Azumo CEO Mike Casper. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT David: Mike, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me what Azumo is all about?  Mike Casper: Yeah. Thank you, Dave. So Azumo is a display technology company that is really enabling something we call LCD 2.0, and that effectively is using all the great things about LCD, but it's making it much more energy-efficient, much more effective for all environments and ultimately safer on the eyes as we stare at screens more and more these days.  David: And how is it different from the LCDs that we all know in traditional consumer or primary commercial displays?  Mike Casper: Sure. So most LCDs that are out there today, the vast majority of them are transmissive LCDs and so the way that these work is the pixels essentially act like shutters of light, and so they either close or open allowing what's called a backlight to light up the screen and let the light pass through. While these backlights in these older transmissive style LCDs, they only allow about 7% of the light to make its way through those pixels. So 93% of all this heat and light and really wasted energy generated is stuck behind the LCD and so with this new style, and what we're helping to enable here at Azumo is what's called a reflective LCD. Essentially what the LCD manufacturers have done is put a mirrored surface on the back, so no light can pass through it but what happens instead is that light from the outside or external lighting will reflect off the surface and that's the way that you can see the display. So it's saving 90% energy, much better viewing in bright sunlight and outdoor environments, which is why it's a great application for signage. David: So it's a little bit like electronic ink in that you're using natural light to illuminate the visual surface. But different in a whole bunch of other ways?  Mike Casper: Yeah, exactly. You're spot on. So E-paper and electronic ink were some of the first successful versions of reflective displays. Now those just like paper, ePaper paper are more diffuse and it's a lot easier to have light bounce off the surface and so if you've ever read a Kindle or a Kobo or any of these e-reader devices, they're fantastic out in the sun, the battery lasts a really long time. But just the way that those work, they're somewhat limited in color, a lot of them are only black and white or have some muted colors. But I think more importantly they're pretty limited with how fast they can update themselves and so they can't really do video or some of these other great things that we're used to with LCDs. Reflective LCD on the other hand can help to overcome some of those limitations with ePaper. David: So all of the compromises that you might have to make with the paper, particularly if you want to do motion media or really rich saturated colors and all that stuff, it's very difficult. But with this, you're effectively using the conventional LCD displays except your lighting from the front to the back, right? Mike Casper: Exactly. The vast majority of the LCD architecture is essentially the same and so you're able to get high-resolution, full video, refresh rates, all those great things about LCD, it's leveraging almost the exact same manufacturing process so there's a nice, robust supply chain. There's just a lot of great things about reflective LCDs that many people don't know about. David: So do you manufacture finished displays or is your technology something that goes into the displays that are made by mainstream commercial LCD manufacturers?  Mike Casper: Good question. At Azumo, we manufacture and design and manufacture what's called the front light component. So we're really the lighting component, the key enabling technology for these higher-resolution reflective LCDs. Because it's fairly new, what we've done with our supply chain is as we've been working with some of the major LCD manufacturers to package their display with our front light and then we'll sell the whole module to a variety of OEM customers and industrial and medical and other consumer products. However, now that the industry's starting to build and improve upon the reflective LCD and know more about us and the fact that our front light does exist, they're also starting to purchase the front light directly from us, and then they'll create the module and sell it to their customers. David: What does that front light look like? I'm trying to picture it.  Mike Casper: The best part is it's invisible. So you almost can't see it. David: That’s why I can’t picture it. (Laughter) Mike Casper: That's one of the key features for front lighting. So essentially we're a light guide component and light guides have been around since even when LCDs first started because most light guides are used, as I was describing earlier, for traditional LCDs, you have to light it from the back. And so most light guides are hidden behind the screen. You don't even see them. They're typically buried within the module and it's very easy to hide them ‘cause you have the LCD on the front. If you try to take that same light guide and put it on the front of a reflective LCD, it has to be completely transparent. So that's why it hasn't really worked using conventional lighting methods in the past and why something like our invisible front light is such a critical component because you want the user to see all the beautiful things apart from the LCD, not any components sitting on top. David: So is it like LED edge lighting with kind of a sheet or something?  Mike Casper: Effectively, yeah. So we're using a modified edge lighting approach that is able to get an LED coupled into our material and when I talk about our material, it's about 50 microns thick. So it's about 1/20th of a millimeter, extremely thin. This is why we're able to get that embedded in the top layer of the LCD and the way that our system works, we're still able to capture all that light from the LED, channel it in, and then serve as a light guide that can deliver the light to the front of the reflective LCD when needed.  David: So why would I want to do that? Mike Casper: So the biggest reason is really two-fold:  Power savings is number one. Using reflective LCD with our front light module, can save 80 to 90% power consumption compared to some of the other EMS of technologies like micro-LED or OLED, or compared to even some backlit LCDs. So power savings is number one. You're actually using the light around you when you use a reflective LCD module and especially in the case of signage, oftentimes this is outdoors, you got the bright sun out there, let's use this great light source we have here which is the Sun. Why not just use that to our advantage? So that's the main reason.  The second being, viewability in all environments. The Sun in that example looks fantastic, the brighter the sun, the brighter the display, and then in the case, if you're viewing it at night or in a darker environment, that's where our front light will turn on and so you get a nice glow on the display without it being distracting to the user.  David: It seems from what you're telling me, like the application for this in terms of large format displays would be for high brightness outdoor displays. Is that a reasonable assumption?  Mike Casper: Yeah, I think that's a great application for it. When you look at what other display technologies are trying to do for high brightness environments there's a lot of challenges, right? You've got to pump a ton of light, whether you're using Emissives, micro-LED, or OLED, you're just pumping so much brightness just to try to beat the sun and it's a lot of wasted energy. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic application right off the bat.  David: Yeah, I've done some work recently around outdoor displays and talked to a lot of industry people and they're cranking 3500 nits, 5000 nits, that sort of thing and the amount of power has got to drive that, but also for those guys, when you talk to them, they talk about the sun being the enemy. They're doing everything they can to counteract the impact of the sun, whereas it sounds like you're putting these out there and saying, “Bring it on!”  Mike Casper: Exactly the brighter the sun, the better. So yeah, I think that you're exactly right, that's the key. All these other display technologies are having to do all these workarounds, even think about micro-LED or LED billboards. They don't even have to be micro-LED, just regular LED billboards that are having to pump fans and other cooling mechanisms just to overcome the heating element of making these so bright during bright environments. The whole point of having LEDs, I thought was to save energy, not consume more.  So I agree the sun is their enemy but in this case, with a reflective LCD, it actually boosts the performance.  David: So to use the example of a Phoenix or Las Vegas, if it's outdoor street furniture at a transit shelter, that sort of thing. Through the day if the sun's out and beating down, do you even have lighting on? Mike Casper: No. In that environment, you wouldn't need to. We could see there would be sensors, maybe some brightness sensors that if it start to get cloudy and whatnot, it could turn the light on, but 80-90% of the time, you would have the sun out, it would be bright enough to see on its own and you wouldn't need any external lighting.  David: I suspect you've got an engineer or you're an engineer and you've done the mathematical models. I'm curious what kind of money this would save?  Mike Casper: Yeah, it's quite a bit, especially when you start talking about many of these digital displays that are out there right now, a majority of them are LED billboards. And today, some of the recent studies that have been done on the standard billboards outdoor for the transportation area are already consuming the same amount of energy as four households in the United States within a year, and so just one LED billboard that's running throughout the bright sun, throughout the night is already consuming a significant amount of energy. With reflective LCD, this could be reduced by 90%.  David: But you can't replace a LED billboard with a reflective LCD display, can you?  Mike Casper: Yeah. So what would you end up doing, I think it is very similar to how the LED billboards are built, where the modules are essentially started to daisy chain together to make larger sizes. You can do the same thing with these reflective LCD modules.  You can have a very nice thin bezel and have say up to 55-inch diagonal displays, just be tiled next to each other until you build up the full size that you need. It’s also another benefit with the Azumo light guide, the front light that we're able to use. Most light guides have a bunch of LEDs along the edge that have hotspots and so this is why most backlit LCDs have to have some sort of a bezel or border to block those hotspots. But because our material is so flexible, we're able to actually bend that all the way behind the display. We are able to get a nice tight radius of about half a millimeter. So our border can be really thin and enables you to tile these close to each other.  David: So this would be the equivalent of the super-duper-oh-my-god-amazing, add a few more adjectives in there, narrow bezel display?  Mike Casper: Yeah, exactly.  David: So they would just be like a hairline and I guess at a distance, you wouldn't even see that, like a billboard?  Mike Casper: Right. It's all about that viewing distance. But yeah, especially when you're able to get some of these higher resolution LCDs in the tiles themselves, you can start doing just as good dynamic content on both as opposed to an LED billboard as well. David: So I suspect there are some people listening to this thinking this is interesting, but whenever there's new technology like this, the costs are through the roof and it sounds amazing, but it's not financially feasible to do it. So what are the cost implications of this?  Mike Casper: Yeah. Good question, and I'd say we're at the forefront of it right now. You're starting to see over the past year or two more and more of LCD manufacturers showcasing these reflective LCDs in larger sizes. So I think Sharp maybe showed a 32-inch or around 30-inch last year. I know JDI has been showing a few examples over the past few years. Same with BOE up to 55-inch, I believe.  So they're starting to showcase this potential, and with that, I should say is, I think they're also trying to understand the market dynamics and pricing. The good thing is that because it's built on the LCD infrastructure, which has been out there for years and years, fully capitalized equipment, minimal switching costs. So I think they're able to fundamentally keep the prices within an LCD realm, nothing crazy where you've got to go build a whole brand new,OLED fab or anything like that. You can actually use some of the LCD manufacturing capacity that's already out there.  But then like any new technology, as you said, it's lower volumes to start and how do you price it and extend that out over time? I think that's still to be determined.  David: So if you're working with a Sharp, NEC or a company like that, are they getting your layer at the original manufacturing line or is it something that they would add after the fact and say, “okay, now it's reflective”? Mike Casper: Yeah, so what we're doing at Azumo, with our front light technology, we're scaling up our production lines for these larger sizes as we speak, and so everything we've done over the past few years has been on displays ranging from one inch up to about eight inch diagonal.  Just last year, 2020, we installed some new production equipment that enables us to go up to about 20 inch diagonal, and so in order to get to these larger displays, we're going to be installing some larger equipment to handle these larger panels. So today, our products can be found through the smaller displays and we're working with the LCD manufacturers to be scaling that up in the future, to be able to offer this to the signage industry for these larger panels as well. David: So it's not a physics challenge or anything else, it's just a matter of having the right equipment to do the larger displays? Mike Casper: Exactly.  David: How do you deal with intellectual property? If you're dealing with Chinese manufacturers, there's a bit of a history there. I'm not totally sure how fair it is, I don't know. But there's always some antsiness about working with overseas manufacturers about their intellectual property and what's going to happen.  Mike Casper: Sure. What we've done at Azuma, wwe're located in the United States as our headquarters, we do have some operations in China. And most of our core IP elements are actually still produced on equipment here in the United States, fairly close to us too, in suppliers that we use, so we're able to keep it close to the chest, especially those really core IP elements, I think that's always a key strategy for any display technology. But also recognizing that the entire display ecosystem for the most part is in Asia. So, you're going to have to be, as you scale the business or scaling technology, you're going to have to integrate along the chain there, and so finding ways to, from us, just determining at what point we have the production here versus a different location where we're still able to protect and maintain our IP.  I will say too, it's one of those where we're always constantly innovating as well, and so filing new patents on new technologies as we're developing is another strategy of ours as well. David: So with those displays that are already out there, you mentioned the smaller ones getting up to as large as 20-inch, but a lot of it's a one-inch, eight-inch, that sort of thing. What are they being used?  Mike Casper: Yeah, so all of the smaller products, when we first launched a little over three years ago, really the only reflective LCDs in the market at that time or monochrome, for the most part, going after industrial and medical applications, a lot of handheld products that we're using have these smaller displays looking for that power savings, and we're working very closely with Sharp. We're actually one of their value-added partners in their preferred lighting component for their reflective LCDs. So a lot of these handheld industrial products, medical products, IoT products, are out in the market today using our modules, and what's exciting for us. In the second half of this year, we'll be delivering some tablet products with our technology and reflective LCD embedded as well. So stay tuned for that, but that should be out the second half of this year.  David: So that would be good for, again for medicine, but also for things like restaurants and so on, outdoor dining patios and people taking orders that way?  Mike Casper: Yeah, that's another great application. The particular customer set for this tablet is more in the education space. Children staring at screens all day long, reflective LCD also has the benefit of being a little healthier on the eyes, so you're not blasting light from a backlight or from an OLED screen in your kids' eyes all day long,   David: I guess it extends the battery life too, right? Mike Casper: Exactly.  David: What is the operating life of your technology? Does it have any impact? A normal LCD might be 60,000 hours, does it bring it down to 50 or increase it?  Mike Casper: Yeah, I think at least in terms of applying it for UV protection, a lot of those other materials and coatings that need to be applied for outdoor signage applications would still be applied here as well. So being able to get the 5-7+ year lifecycle needed for the UV protection can be incorporated. The LCD side, which I think is very similarly to how these LCDs are being used. Now what you might find actually is, because of many LCD specs that are quoted today for outdoor applications like you said, the 60k hours, that's probably actually more tied to the backlight because the backlight has to be pumped up so bright to fight the sun that it’s probably burning those LEDs out in the backlight. It's not actually the LCD itself, but probably the LEDs.  So I think you could even extend that because you're not getting, you're not fighting the sun with those.  David: Again, talking about the sun, some of the issues that have been around with outdoor LCD is obviously glare, but the one that really concerns operators more than anything else is that the displays are going to burn out and they're going to turn black. I think what they call isotropic, is that still a reality or because you're taking daylight heat out of the equation, it’s not really a worry?  Mike Casper: That's a good question. I think probably the verdict's still out on that, but I would imagine that because the sun reflecting is actually making the screen brighter, I think you'd be avoiding that issue. But that's a good question. I don't know if there's been enough longevity studies with it quite yet in terms of what the long-term implications would be.  David: How long has the company been around?  Mike Casper: Azumo started in 2008. So we're coming up here on our 13th, 14th year.  David: And how did it get started, like what led you down this path?  Mike Casper: Good question. Bringing out the memory bank here. So we started down a completely different path. We actually started the business with technology around advertising signage in the sports industry specifically. So we were putting illuminated advertising logos, frozen in the ice of hockey rinks. Imagine all those logos on the ice that are always there and just started blending into the background, we could make them disappear and start glowing, in between whistles. So that was how we started the business and the technology, nowhere near LCD displays, but it helped us really think about different ways of creating really thin lighting. As you may know, ice for hockey rinks is pretty thin. They're about an inch thick or so, so you've got to have lights that can go really large and really long, but being very thin and invisible, and so over time we adapted that to now provide a front light for these reflective LCDs.  David: See in Canada, you could also do them in curling sheets. Mike Casper: Yep, we looked at that as an option.  David: And then you saw how small the market is? (Laughter) Mike Casper: Yeah, there were some good advisors and investors early on that suggested we pivot a little bit.  David: Yeah, just advertising in general, a lot of startups get into that and then they realize, “oh, this is actually hard!” Mike Casper: Yeah. It's a lot harder than it sounds.  David: Yeah, the technology is the easy part. It's schmoozing media planner.  Mike Casper: Exactly. The ecosystem and the industry were just not what we anticipated, and luckily for us, the reflective LCDs had been improving and had a need and so that enabled us to pivot the business and move to what we are today.  David: So where are you at now in terms of size of the company, number of people, all that sort of stuff? Mike Casper: Yeah, so we're almost 30 people now. Our headquarters is here in Chicago, in the United States. We've got about 20 different sales rep organizations globally now, both in North America, throughout Asia.  We are still venture-backed, so we've got a great set of investors that are knowledgeable in the display industry and focus on energy savings, and the last round that we'd closed was our Series B.  David: Okay, and what are the plans in terms of getting into transitioning or expanding, I guess would be a better way of describing it from what you've been doing to date, to getting into the sort of thing that we've been talking about for digital out of home and QSR drive-through displays, that sort of thing? Mike Casper: Yeah, and so that's a current growth area for us that we're putting a lot more effort behind. So the new production equipment, as I mentioned, can get up to 20-inch. There are some applications now that we can get into these smaller signage spaces and work closely with our LCD customers on some modules. So we're going to be showcasing some of those here coming up and then really expanding our production capabilities next year and getting on some of this larger equipment, being able to handle these larger panels, larger signage applications grow as well.  David: Are you feeling the pressure to get on the outdoor stuff? Just because of the pandemic and how drive-thru has gone from something that a lot of people do to something that in a lot of cases is the only way you can get food from a fast-food joint.  Mike Casper: Yeah, that's a great example. I think, there's definitely an increased demand and an interest that we're hearing from the LCD customers, because a lot of them already have a lot of those relationships with the out of home, and so we're already hearing it. more of a reverberate through, which is due to the pandemic.  David: And do you want to be a brand or do you want to be just like a component inside that the manufacturers know about, but the regular digital signage ecosystem and certainly the end-users wouldn't know, wouldn't care?  Mike Casper: That's a good question. I think, right now our focus is working very closely with the LCD manufacturers and serving them as our customers. In the future, we do see opportunities to partner with them, especially because we live and breathe this low-power reflective LCD, day in and day out, and so we think there are some opportunities to work together to create our own joint modules that are even further optimized, whether that's branded with us or something else, that's still to be determined, but either way, we want to partner with the LCD manufacturers and really drive the technology and performance to serve this market. David: There are observers in the industry who say that LED is going to completely take over. Between micro-LED and just fine pixel pitch LED, the need for LCD is slipping away and it'll be a niche product.  I don't totally buy into that, but I can see how things are transitioning. Where's your head at with that?  Mike Casper: There's obviously a lot of talks, like you said, with micro-LED and while there are great benefits with that technology I will say too, the LCD industry is massive. The ecosystem, the supply chain, there's a lot of vested interest to adapt that technology because it is a great backbone, and so that’s why I think micro LED, it's not going to take over. There's going to be great places for it, absolutely. But LCD is still going to have a predominant position, and that's why we're coining this reflective LCD as LCD 2.0, it's just taking the great things about LCD and adapting it for the world of the future, and I think especially with outdoor, it's a great application for it. David: Is there a lot of education that you have to do with the display manufacturers or do they get it and by extension, do you think the same thing will have to happen as they adopt it, that they'll have to educate their buyers? Mike Casper: Yeah, definitely a lot of education, because for those that know a little bit about reflective LCD, you're probably thinking what you saw with transflective LCD years and years ago, right?  Like the first Game Boy, for those in the audience that played that, or remember that, that had a transflective LCD, which was retty grainy, had pretty bad colors, and so a lot of people I think have that in their head when they hear reflective LCD. “Oh, how great can it be?” So now that the industry is being able to leverage the Azumo front light, which is this again, transparent portion of it that enables the underlying LCD to have much higher performance, much higher resolution, better colors, et cetera. So there is a re-education about what reflective LCD is now versus what many people may remember it in the past. David: If you don't know what you're looking at, and you had a reflective LCD and a conventional LCD with the same brightness and basically the same panel, just lit from the front versus the back, would an observer be able to see the difference?  Mike Casper: So depending on where you are, you'd see a couple of things different. So obviously in a bright outdoor environment, that would probably be your first obvious difference you'd notice where the reflective LCD looks fantastic, the backlit traditional one is going to have that glare, the contrast is going to get muted because all the blacks look a little grayer and the colors look more washed out, and you're fighting the sun which is going to overpower any backlight. So that'd be the first noticeable difference.  If you're in a darker room or if you're really close to the display. Again, depending on what the application in the viewing distance looks like, the backlit LCDs at least historically have had a higher resolution and a little bit broader color gamut. Now a lot of that is due to the fact that reflective LCDs are still fairly new but they're increasing that color gamut and the resolution. Some of the latest ones I think are shown by Sharp are close to 300 PPI now. You would notice it today, there's a slight difference. But that’s a question of what's the application: are you watching it on your phone, 18 inches from your face, and you've got the latest and greatest Netflix movie on? Or you're providing information to a user that might be walking by in an outdoor environment? So there's definitely some room for improvement, but they're making a lot of strides and a lot of sealing room here.  David: So if I'm to use the time-honored example of Coca-Cola and their particular Pantone red, would you be able to replicate that red?  Mike Casper: Good question. With working very closely with the LCD manufacturers and tuning their color filters, we can actually put,t in our front light, we can have an RGB LED set that has finely tuned wavelengths, and I'm getting a little technical here, but we can essentially tune the color to match the color filter of the LCD to really boost that color gamut. And so that's where we can start getting towards that Coca-Cola Pantone and really the broader color gamut that's required for signage.  David: Okay. All right. Really interesting. If people want to know more about this, where do they go?  Mike Casper: You can visit our website, www.azumotech.com. We're also pretty active on LinkedIn and you can reach out to us at any time. We'd love to chat about your application and really appreciate the time here today.

1251 跟老外一起去吃麵：吃蝦子不吐蝦子皮的泰偉Lily:And the third one is the seafood rice noodles. So I think there's lots of different kinds of seafood. Yes. Yeah. Do you remember those?David:There was octopus and clams and fish and fish cake, which I also ate. Let's see. What else was there? Oh, there were shrimp.Lily:You didn't even take off the shells.David:No, I read somewhere that the shells don't do any harm. And so I decided to try eating the shells once, and I liked that it was crunchy. So I continued eating the shells.Lily:OK. And then I remember when you were talking about rice noodles, you feel like it's really different than all the other noodles right?.David:Yeah. They tasted compared to the other noodles almost a little bit rough, and I liked that.莉莉：是的，第三個是海鮮米粉。所以我想有很多不同種類的海鮮。你還記得嗎？泰偉：有章魚、蛤蜊、魚和魚板，我也吃了。我想想，還有什麼，有蝦！莉莉：但你連殼都沒脫。泰偉：不，我讀到過殼不會有什麼危害。所以我決定嘗試吃一次殼，我喜歡它脆脆的。於是我繼續吃殼。莉莉：好吧。然後我記得你說米粉的時候，感覺它真的和其他所有的麪條不一樣，對吧。泰偉：是的。和其他的麪條相比，它們嚐起來有一點粗糙，我喜歡。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

Lily:All right. And the second one is my favorite, every time I go to the noodle shop, I always order that one.David:That's the, it's an egg noodle, right?Lily:The egg noodles. Yes.David:With wontons.Lily:Yes. Very good. Yeah. How many wontons were there?David:There were three wontons.Lily:And how many you had?David:I had two. I was a bit of a wanton hog.莉莉：好的，第二種是 我最喜歡的，每次去這家麵館，我總是點那一種。泰偉：那是雞蛋麵對吧莉莉：意麵，是的。泰偉：有餛飩。莉莉：是的，很好，有多少餛飩？泰偉：有三個。莉莉：你吃了幾個泰偉：我吃了兩個。我是一個有點愛吃餛飩啦。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

1251 跟老外一起去吃麵：吃蝦子不吐蝦子皮的泰偉Lily:And the third one is the seafood rice noodles. So I think there's lots of different kinds of seafood. Yes. Yeah. Do you remember those?David:There was octopus and clams and fish and fish cake, which I also ate. Let's see. What else was there? Oh, there were shrimp.Lily:You didn't even take off the shells.David:No, I read somewhere that the shells don't do any harm. And so I decided to try eating the shells once, and I liked that it was crunchy. So I continued eating the shells.Lily:OK. And then I remember when you were talking about rice noodles, you feel like it's really different than all the other noodles right?.David:Yeah. They tasted compared to the other noodles almost a little bit rough, and I liked that.莉莉：是的，第三個是海鮮米粉。所以我想有很多不同種類的海鮮。你還記得嗎？泰偉：有章魚、蛤蜊、魚和魚板，我也吃了。我想想，還有什麼，有蝦！莉莉：但你連殼都沒脫。泰偉：不，我讀到過殼不會有什麼危害。所以我決定嘗試吃一次殼，我喜歡它脆脆的。於是我繼續吃殼。莉莉：好吧。然後我記得你說米粉的時候，感覺它真的和其他所有的麪條不一樣，對吧。泰偉：是的。和其他的麪條相比，它們嚐起來有一點粗糙，我喜歡。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

Lily:All right. And the second one is my favorite, every time I go to the noodle shop, I always order that one.David:That's the, it's an egg noodle, right?Lily:The egg noodles. Yes.David:With wontons.Lily:Yes. Very good. Yeah. How many wontons were there?David:There were three wontons.Lily:And how many you had?David:I had two. I was a bit of a wanton hog.莉莉：好的，第二種是 我最喜歡的，每次去這家麵館，我總是點那一種。泰偉：那是雞蛋麵對吧莉莉：意麵，是的。泰偉：有餛飩。莉莉：是的，很好，有多少餛飩？泰偉：有三個。莉莉：你吃了幾個泰偉：我吃了兩個。我是一個有點愛吃餛飩啦。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

Lily:All right. And the second one is my favorite, every time I go to the noodle shop, I always order that one.David:That's the, it's an egg noodle, right?Lily:The egg noodles. Yes.David:With wontons.Lily:Yes. Very good. Yeah. How many wontons were there?David:There were three wontons.Lily:And how many you had?David:I had two. I was a bit of a wanton hog.莉莉：好的，第二種是 我最喜歡的，每次去這家麵館，我總是點那一種。泰偉：那是雞蛋麵對吧莉莉：意麵，是的。泰偉：有餛飩。莉莉：是的，很好，有多少餛飩？泰偉：有三個。莉莉：你吃了幾個泰偉：我吃了兩個。我是一個有點愛吃餛飩啦。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

1251 跟老外一起去吃麵：吃蝦子不吐蝦子皮的泰偉Lily:And the third one is the seafood rice noodles. So I think there's lots of different kinds of seafood. Yes. Yeah. Do you remember those?David:There was octopus and clams and fish and fish cake, which I also ate. Let's see. What else was there? Oh, there were shrimp.Lily:You didn't even take off the shells.David:No, I read somewhere that the shells don't do any harm. And so I decided to try eating the shells once, and I liked that it was crunchy. So I continued eating the shells.Lily:OK. And then I remember when you were talking about rice noodles, you feel like it's really different than all the other noodles right?.David:Yeah. They tasted compared to the other noodles almost a little bit rough, and I liked that.莉莉：是的，第三個是海鮮米粉。所以我想有很多不同種類的海鮮。你還記得嗎？泰偉：有章魚、蛤蜊、魚和魚板，我也吃了。我想想，還有什麼，有蝦！莉莉：但你連殼都沒脫。泰偉：不，我讀到過殼不會有什麼危害。所以我決定嘗試吃一次殼，我喜歡它脆脆的。於是我繼續吃殼。莉莉：好吧。然後我記得你說米粉的時候，感覺它真的和其他所有的麪條不一樣，對吧。泰偉：是的。和其他的麪條相比，它們嚐起來有一點粗糙，我喜歡。接下來我們會播放我們在吃面之後的幾段討論，請別忘記了持續收聽，然後約上你的老外朋友一起上麵店！可以的話關注我們的IG & 臉書粉絲頁是Fly with Lily，或者是在Apple Podcasts 和喜馬拉雅FM給我一個五星的評價，這樣就會有更多人和我們一起踏上學英語環遊世界的旅程。

For many businesses, the dramatically different working conditions caused by the pandemic presented many challenges. But for one scrappy digital startup, it presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Listen to founder and CEO David Moricca - whose business Socialive was built to support remote work - speak about stepping up in the moment and making the transition to working-from-quarantine easier for businesses. He shares what he’s learned as a leader and how he sees the way we work changing forever.   Key Takeaways: [1:30] When the pandemic hit, changes needed to be made quickly. While some companies had to fold completely, others got stuck in a holding pattern and still remain there. One scrappy digital start up, Socialive, was uniquely positioned to solve the problem of creating great content in an era of remote work. [3:02] David Moricca is the CEO of Socialive, an enterprise video platform. Socialive makes it refreshingly easy to democratize video content creation across the enterprise. [4:59] David and his team at Socialive did foresee a need for this, but the urgency of the pandemic made it important for them to build the plane as they launched. For example, they already had the capability of creating HD quality isolated feeds of people on their video, but needed to expand their thinking so they could provide any more. [5:38] Socialive saw early adopters not just in small and mid-market businesses, but Fortune 500 companies as well. [7:20] What was it like to be a business owner when the pandemic first hit? David talks about the unprecedented time of trepidation in society, while also knowing his company is uniquely set up to grow for a situation similar to what was happening. [8:55] Screen fatigue is very real. David and Jo predict we will find more ways to get in rest and relaxation between online meetings and virtual work. [09:03] Being in person is still important and special to that sticky connection between team members. David and Jo discuss how company outings may pivot to be more memorable experiences featuring shorter event times and deeper bonding. [10:27] Virtual meetings also will shift. Instead of looking like a Zoom call, they will have shorter watch times to better capture people’s attention. [13:31] There are pros and cons to working remotely and also remote learning for our children. While balancing work/life is tough for parents, not having a commute saves time and money. While children also are missing the interaction with their peers and traditional learning may suffer, they are gaining new digital skills that can better prepare them for the future. [16:07] Would David change anything about how they adapted during the pandemic at Socialive? No. It taught them to be scrappy, and he is extremely proud of his team and their thoughtful way of moving forward.   Quotes: “There are tools out there to help and opportunities to change what was broken about old ways of working.” - Jo “We can source the best talent now, regardless of location and product top notch video content without expensive tools from our homes.” - David “There is still a big value to being in person, and you can’t change that.” - David   Continue On Your Journey: www.pega.com www.pega.com/podcast  

The world is moving toward being decentralized in every area from the internet to big business. What that means is that the way we do things will change, and in some cases, those things are already vastly different than the norm we all have grown accustomed to.Funding and investments are one aspect of the business world that for a long time have operated in silos. But the tide is shifting, and David Koifman is helping to democratize the world of investment through his work at Kickfurther.Kickfurther is an investment platform that uses the power of crowdfunding to help CPG companies fund their inventory and production runs. Most of the deals on Kickfurther are fully funded and closed within minutes, which proves there is an appetite for this kind of investment in the general market. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, David explains the model and its benefits to both businesses and investors, and he explains how crowdfunding will continue to make an impact on ecommerce companies in the decentralized future. Main Takeaways:Democratizing Investment: For too long, companies have been at the mercy of financial institutions to help fund early production runs or other operational costs. And while that solution works for some, we think that new solutions are still needed. Opening up investment opportunities to the general public is a peek into where the world of funding is headingKeep Proving Yourself: When a company gets a bank loan and pays it off, the business is seen as more successful and its credit rises. A similar thing happens when a company uses crowdfunding for inventory: by delivering the inventory the crowd has purchased and then opening up a new round of funding, a business is building credibility with a consumer and broad investor audience that it otherwise would not have been able to reach.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is Stephanie Postles. And today we're talking to David Koifman, the head of growth at Kickfurther. David, welcome to the show.David:Hey Stephanie. Great to be on the show.Stephanie:I'm glad to have you. So I was looking through your background and I was hoping we could start there because I saw that you've been in sales and partnerships and business development, and it seems like you've had a wide ranging career. So I wanted to hear a little bit about what you did before Kickfurther, and what brought you here.David:Before Kickfurther? I was in marketing right out of college. And then I went into the world of startups in financial technology. I began as a sales rep and grew within a small organization to a much larger organization, led the team, and basically built out sales account management partnerships. And then we were getting to a stage of growth where I wasn't feeling the excitement that I initially felt and joined the team at Kickfurther to do it all over again. So I've been here three and a half years. It's been awesome. We've grown tremendously, and I'm very excited about the next few years to see where it will go.Stephanie:Awesome. So you've always, always had the startup bug, where you're looking for that crazy hectic environment, fast growth.David:Yeah. It's like I see myself as a sales guy who doesn't like just selling. What I like is building the sales process, building the team, understanding the customer. So a little bit more beyond just knowing individual customers and building a book of business.Stephanie:Yep. Got it. So tell me a bit about what Kickfurther does.David:So Kickfurther solves a unique problem that every consumer goods business faces in their early stages of growth. You'll see a lot of companies are funding on platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo. These are crowdfunding platforms where businesses raise money to fund their first production run. Production run is when a business is producing inventory. Inventory is the product that they sell. So as that business completes their crowdfunding campaign or determines that they have product market fit, they will need to come back and order more product. Sometimes, they're buying that product from a supplier, maybe a manufacturer in China or here in the U.S., somebody that produces a finished product, and then they receive it in their warehouse and they sell through it. Sometimes they're buying a bunch of raw materials and making a product themselves. Usually that's the case in food or some health and beauty applications.David:But the bottom line is that costs a lot of money, and the faster the business grows, the more they have to invest into inventory upfront. You have to pay for that inventory, it takes months to produce, and then you get it into a warehouse and then you start selling it to customers. And then your customers start paying you. So there could be a long amount of time from when you need to outlay that cash to produce the inventory until you're able to recoup that revenue and put it into the next production run. So as businesses grow, they encounter this cash flow pinch, and Kickfurther solves that pinch. We have developed a marketplace on kickfurther.com, where we will vet companies and structure deals. And then a community of users will come to those deals and participate in purchasing the inventory for that business. The business will then produce the inventory, sell it, and pay back Kickfurther and the users who participated in the deal; we'll make some money and get to do it all over again.Stephanie:Yeah. Very cool. It reminded me of, I saw quite a few real estate investment platforms like this too, where you get the fund, the next three or whatever it may be. So it seems like they're popping up in different ways to have a Kickstarter approach, but also getting people in the market who have the funds to be able to fund this inventory or investments or whatever it may be. So is that the main way that Kickfurther is different, where it's sourcing investment from the community instead of traditional lenders or actual investors?David:Yeah. So I mean, what we're doing is using the power of crowds rather than financial institutions. There's a lot of solutions out there that take money. They borrow money from banks and other financial institutions, and then present it to businesses and take a cut. And what we're doing is creating that opportunity for any individual on the internet, somebody who has money sitting in their bank account, and they want to use that money to make money by participating in a purchase of inventory for a consumer goods business. And so what we do is, it's not a loan. It's not an investment, it's actually a consignment agreement. So what we're doing is purchasing inventory for a business and consigning it to them to sell on our behalf. And as the business sells that inventory, then that triggers the consignment, and then we invoice them for it and they buy it back plus their cost of funding.Stephanie:Got it. Okay. So how do you make sure that you're bringing on companies onto your platform that won't make you nervous, where it's like, are you actually going to sell all this inventory? Because I'm not trying to cover that cost.David:Yeah. Well, there's a pretty thorough diligence process that we go through for every business that goes on the platform. We evaluate everything from their revenues to their supply chain, to how they distribute that product. And it's all verified through documentation. So it's not like anybody can come to us and say, Hey, we need money," and then just go up on the platform. There's a diligence process, just like there would be going to a bank or any other financial institution. I would say our uniqueness is we look at supply chain and distribution, and we assess risk in a very specific way. It's different from a bank. So some of our customers, everybody wants to go to a bank. Bank money is the cheapest. You want to go to a bank and get a line of credit and fund your business that way.David:However, if you're a small business, whether you're a restaurant or a clothing store, the bank looks at you the same. They say, how long have you been in business? Are you profitable? How much have you sold? Whereas we're looking at a very specific sector of small businesses that are consumer goods, businesses with supply chains. And we understand the intricacies of that supply chain and then how they get that product to their warehouse, get that product from the warehouse to the customers, and collect that money through their distribution channels. And so we use that information to determine who has access to capital on Kickfurther.Stephanie:Got it. Yeah, what's cool is that you guys are acting as like the trusted source, so that the community doesn't have to do as much due diligence, or I don't know if they do any at all, but you're acting as like the mediator, to be like, "We've done all the research. We know this company, and it's for the most part trustworthy," and then people can come in and fund that based off of your research and due diligence.David:We do verify all the information that's presented about the company. The individuals still do decide which deals they participate in. And that's based on what they read in the public profile. Some of them will go investigate more. Some of them will actually ask questions on the platform. So you have the ability as a participant to ask the owner or CEO questions before you participate, or during the deal, about distribution or how they're making products, or what if they're worried about competition? Any topic is welcome. There's a lot of additional diligence that an individual can conduct before they make the decision to participate.Stephanie:Cool. And is there a risk rating of, okay, this company is more of a startup one, this is going to be their first time raising money here; we're going to give them a risk rating of this? so maybe you have a higher payoff because of that if they end up selling all the inventory, or how do you guys think about the risk-based approach when it comes to getting investment?David:It's not as simple as just boiling it down to a one to 10 scale or something like that. But there's a lot of categories which each one of the customers that we fund will be shown in. And so you can look at how many years in business, what their revenue range is, how many different wholesale buyers they have, how many times they've gone through the supply chain and produced with their supplier. So there's a number of different elements that, that are categorized in terms of risk.Stephanie:Got it, cool. And what is the average return for someone? If I were to go in there and invest right now in a deal, is there an average range of what you make over one year or that a longer time horizon?David:So the deals range in duration from two to 10 months. So the way we compare deals is on a profit per month basis, and businesses will offer anywhere from one to two percent per month. And so you can annualize that in a way where, if you participate in a deal and then that money comes back to you, then you can redeploy it into another deal. And if you continue doing that, let's say 1.5% a month will translate to about 18% per year.Stephanie:Got it, cool. So what kind of struggles do you see ecommerce brands having right now when it comes to ... Obviously not having money to fund inventory is the high level problem, but maybe what kind of sticky situations do you see brands getting in by either waiting too long to get funding or not even thinking about it. What are some stories that you have around the whole inventory funding?David:Yeah, I think the biggest thing to do is to be proactive and understand what solutions are out there and how to use them before that need comes around. Because being desperate is the worst time to be looking. And if you've run out of inventory as a business owner, you're missing out on opportunities to sell. So like you could have a really successful Q4, and then you get to Q1 and people still want to buy your stuff, but you're all out. And then you placed an order with your supplier, and the supplier takes two months to produce. And then maybe you're in a position where you have to air freight instead of going on the water and you have to pay a lot more money to get it there faster. So there's all sorts of obstacles that come into play. And that's ecommerce.David:A lot of the businesses that we work with are multi-channel sales. So they're selling ecommerce and then they're selling to target or Best Buy or REI. And those companies will place orders, if you don't deliver those orders when you say you will, then you're probably going to lose that opportunity or at least jeopardize it in the future. So it's important to make sure that you have the inventory ready when you're going to need it. And you also don't want to have way too much. So if you buy a lot, and then you don't sell at the rate that you expected, you have a lot of cash sitting in the form of inventory in your warehouse. Sometimes it's going to go bad, if it's a crude product or it's just cash that you want to spend on advertising to sell the product, but you can't because you don't have it.Stephanie:Cool. So if I'm a new brand and I'm looking to crowdfund my inventory, what are some best practices that attract the investors in the crowd? What kind of things do you see connecting with people? How would I write up a good post right now to attract funding for someone to help with my inventory?David:The most important things are that you've done it before. So we don't work with businesses that are doing their first production run. We did in our very early days, and, as you can imagine, it's much higher risk. So we only work with businesses that have at least $150,000 in sales. And once they've demonstrated that, it's good to talk about how you work with your suppliers, what sort of things you do to ensure that you're going to receive the product that you want to receive within the timeframe that you plan on receiving it. So being conservative with time estimates, making sure that you have testing in place so that once your supplier says the product is ready, that somebody goes in and looks at it and you don't get a bunch of broken stuff.David:And then once it arrives, it's important that you have reliable distribution. People want to see good reviews. People want to see lots of reviews. And I would say, if there's somebody who's selling to a wholesale customer and they just have one customer who is placing large orders, that's pretty high risk. Because if that customer decides they don't want to buy anymore, who are they going to sell that product to? So those are the kinds of things that users on Kickfurther are taking a look at, reading through the profile, to decide if they're going to participate. One thing I will say that we haven't touched on is how fast these deals fund. So it's good for us at this point. It means that there's an imbalance in the marketplace in our favor. So the deal flow that we put up gets funded oftentimes in minutes.Stephanie:Yeah, I know. I noticed that, because I'm like, "Hmm, maybe let's see if I should investigate these deals." And I think it looked like everything was sold out, or it was all met to the limit. At least the two I was looking at. And it seemed like it happened really quick, where I'm like, "Hmm, this is competitive."David:Yeah. It's super competitive. So we have the ability to scale our deal flow pretty substantially without having a concern for deals funding fast enough. And as a user, if you're thinking about participating, you're going to get emails, you got to act on it fast. And so we put deals up. They have about 24 hours before they launch. And they always launch at 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. And if that, there's hundreds of people that are clicking, trying to get into deals like within a minute or two of 5:00 PM, when they usually fill up.Stephanie:Wild. I think you need more deals then for people to get in on.David:Yep. That's my job. I've been working hard on it. So we we've grown quite a bit. We have aggressive growth goals for 2021, and so far we're on track. It's early, but it's an exciting time to be at Kickfurther.Stephanie:That's great. So what brands are you trying to get on the platform right now? Who are you trying to convince to get on there?David:There's a lot of repeat customers, and we have really good retention. We average over four deals per customer, but they're all across the board. We're pretty product agnostic. We serve anybody who either buys or makes physical goods and then sells them with the exception of regulated things like alcohol, tobacco, firearms, THC, anything that's temperature controlled or perishable. Because of the consignment agreement nature of the contract, the inventory is our collateral in these deals. So we don't want it to go bad. And we want to make sure that it is available to anybody who participated in the consignment, they have to be able to purchase it.Stephanie:Yep. Oh, got it. So if the inventory doesn't sell out, you guys essentially have it in a warehouse, and me as an investor could be like, "I want one of those t-shirts then." Is that how to think about it?David:Yes, that is a way to think about it. So if the business is unable to sell the inventory, and they're unable to pay back Kickfurther and their users for the cost of it, then Kickfurther, based on our contract, will require a delivery of that inventory to us, at which point we'll attempt to sell it, and all the proceeds of that resale goes to the participants in that agreement.Stephanie:Have you had to do that yet?David:We have had to do that. We've been around for seven years. So it's happened, but these days it's very infrequent, and that's why these deals fund so fast as people who are participating on Kickfurther have great returns and they tell their friends about it and they the deals. So the performance, overall, is strong.Stephanie:Yeah, got it. So when I'm thinking about, as a business myself, getting credit and working with banks, you're building up your business credit worthiness. When you get traditional loans, I know we had to take on a couple of last year and it does help being like, "Oh yeah, we took on this size loan, we paid it off." How do you view crowdfunding in that kind of sense? Is it building up a business's credit worthiness or is it so siloed still at this point that it doesn't actually build up the financial view of the businessDavid:In some ways, it does, and in some ways it doesn't. It isn't considered debt to them. So it doesn't operate the same as taking out a loan and paying it back. But there's a lot of transactions that still occur that show the business is selling and making money. So their business credit will improve as a result of that. But yeah, it's kind of a mixed situation.Stephanie:Yeah, yeah. That seems tricky. Because it seems like a really good avenue to not only help the businesses, but then also bring in a lot more players. It seems like it's much more decentralized, which is great. The whole world's moving in that way, but if you can't really use it, be like, "Oh, look at these three different loans I have right now, the market funded them." I feel like the world needs to move to that place, the more of that crowdfunding and the decentralized approach is coming to the forefront.David:Well, the world is moving in that direction, but what's really cool is Kickfurther moves in that direction with the clients themselves. So as we establish a relationship with a business and they come back for repeat deals, we increase their limits substantially. And they have access to lower rates. Basically, they're earning credibility with this community. So let's say they offer one and a half percent per month on their first deal and they complete on time, and then they come back, they can offer less. It's really in the hands of the business owner what they want to offer, and the community, the marketplace, will decided if that business has earned that rate and are able to fund it at a lower cost. So as a customer at Kickfurther, as your revenues grow, you'll be able to take on more funding with Kickfurther, buy more inventory, and do it at a lower cost.Stephanie:Got it, okay. So you're building up that credit worthiness, just in a different hub, but you're doing that by just performing well and, yeah, that makes more sense.David:We will work with businesses who are starting at 150,000 in annual sales, and all the way up to 30 million. So there's quite a range of growth in service by Kickfurther. There's businesses that, once they reach a certain stage, either they're not accelerating as much as they used to and they have the cash flows to fund their own inventory and continue producing, or there's other businesses that have been long and around long enough where they are now exciting to banks and other financial institutions that have very low cost lending.Stephanie:Yep. Is there any guidance or any point where you're like, "Oh, you should probably just reinvest revenue or profits instead of getting a loan." Do you ever give guidance on that? Because I could see a lot of businesses always being like, "Oh, at such a low rate, why don't I get loans?" But then quite a few businesses have a lot of cash on their balance sheet too, and they don't know how to fully deploy it, but they're just so used to getting low interest loans. Is there any point where you've actually advised a company like, "You guys are good. Maybe you should reinvest profits." Or do you even see it from that angle?David:I don't think anybody's coming to us if they don't want additional capital. And I am always very transparent with everybody, and [inaudible] make sure you know, what your options are. We don't make money off convincing you to do one deal. We want that long-term engagement [inaudible] coming back. But I think the reason people come to Kickfurther is they have an opportunity with a buyer, or sales are growing so fast and in a channel where they want to launch a new product, they just don't have the cash to be able to do that. And that's why they're looking for funding solutions. And maybe they go to their equity investor and they say, "Hey, I need some additional capital to be able to take advantage of this opportunity." And the VC says, "You know what, why don't you seek some non-dilutive capital for that? That's a much better use of, why give up five or 10% of your ownership just so you can produce the next run when you're going to have to do another one and another one and another one after that?"Stephanie:Yep, yeah. That makes sense. So, since you're deep in the crowdfunding space, I'm sure you just see opportunities all around. So much stuff could be crowd crowdfunded. Where do you see that world headed? What kind of new opportunities do you see popping up in that space? Or what do you think is missing right now, where crowd funding could be meeting a need?David:I think there's a lot of money and power in crowds. And there's the ability to cut out middlemen and big entities that have been around for a long time and empower individuals to help these business owners grow. It's also not just the money that's coming from them. Why are people deciding to participate in these deals? A lot of them believe that they have an advantage and they have the knowledge in the space. So maybe they want to help the business owner. I've had plenty of users come to me and say, "Hey, I actually work in this space. And I have a couple of distribution opportunities that I'd like to connect with your client about." And I'll make a direct introduction, and all of a sudden they acquire a new sales channel. Or somebody who's got a lot of money and they want to do a side deal. Yeah, I am looking for equity investors, let me connect these two people.David:So those kinds of things happen rather frequently. And that's not going to happen when you're working with a sales rep at a bank. Because everything's coming from the bank's bank account. And actually the money that the bank is using is just coming from account holders and their deposits. So if you're storing money in a bank, the bank is using that money to lend to businesses and whoever else. So we're cutting that out of the mix. And I think it's good for everybody involved.Stephanie:Yeah, I think it's a good reminder too, about diversifying investments and why finding opportunities. Yeah, you don't want to just keep your money in a bank and let inflation just wither it away to nothing. So, yeah. It's cool to hear about opportunities like this that are very different, but will definitely help diversify your portfolio.David:Yeah. And it's really fun, from our standpoint, to work with all these young business owners. I mean like the business is young, not the individuals per se, but some of them just started a few months ago and they've had some real success. Some of them, it's a family business that's been around for a couple of generations, and all of a sudden they're discovering that ecommerce is a way to skyrocket the business. They have a really good product; they just haven't put it in front of the right audience. And they're figuring out how to make this happen financially, and we're there to help them. And it's just really great to be side by side with them as a partner and see that growth.Stephanie:Yep. Yeah. It seems like there's also could be a lot of international opportunities. I know that's a lot more risky once you start going that route and finding people who are doing much smaller scale ventures and being able to help back that, then turn into a bigger thing. But I have read a few stories of finding people doing amazing things in other countries, but they just don't have any kind of funding. Or they can't buy inventory for even 10 things to sell. And yeah, it seems like there's a lot of opportunity around the world, but of course it'd be much more risky trying to vet those projects and companies.David:It is definitely a challenge. It's something that we're considering doing down the road. You probably start with Canada and some EU companies, but there's different regulations in different countries. And also, if we get into a bad situation with a client, we have to pursue them legally. So working in a foreign legal system is very costly, and we try to help businesses out, and so our margins are pretty slim. So being able to afford that kind of activity is probably a ways down the road for us.Stephanie:Yeah. So what are you guys looking forward to for the next, maybe, two to three years? What are you planning for? You said you were going to be growing really quickly this year. What kind of things are you putting in place right now and where do you want to be in the next couple of years with Kickfurther?David:I'd say we want to be a household name for inventory funding. A lot of people are starting their own businesses. And we want to create an opportunity for them to grow at the rate that they're able to grow and have access to capital. And so our goal is to put our name out there in a way where it becomes recognizable to all business owners who are in the right space for us.Stephanie:Yep. Very cool. Yeah, Amazon be a good space, but then sometimes those one-off products that are being sourced and sold on there. So maybe that's not the best space. I'm not sureDavid:Those people are business owners and growing too. So if you have one product that's selling really well, and that's what you want to focus on, sure, that's great.Stephanie:Cool. All right. Well, let's shift over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, David?David:I'm ready.Stephanie:All right. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?David:Probably the state of the world. So the ability that people have to shop and travel and continue to live their lives the way they did before lockdowns and quarantine.Stephanie:Yep. All right, cool. If you had a podcast, what would it be about, and who would your first guest be?David:I don't think I would have a podcast.Stephanie:What would you have then, a clubhouse? What would you have then?David:A clubhouse. I think that, honestly, I was a little bit foreign to this whole world of supply chain and inventory finance when it came to Kickfurther, and I've discovered a passion for helping these business owners. So I think the clubhouse that I would have would be one where business owners get together and talk about different solutions that help their business grow, and what vendors they use and what are best practices, just an exchange of information across business owners and vendors.Stephanie:I like that, because yeah, I think even thinking about, "What manufacturer should I use? And how do I even source those people?" Still always feels like a black box and it's referrals. Or you have to know someone and that'd be a good one.David:We make quite an effort to make those resources available to our customers. So, as we go through our diligence process, we cover a lot of topics, and oftentimes customers will identify pain points, and we will say, "If you're interested in these, this is a partner of ours, or we've got a few different options or people you can talk to, to learn more about the solutions in this space."Stephanie:Yep. Cool. What's up next on your reading list?David:Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.Stephanie:Okay. Nice. Where are you traveling to next when it's easier to travel again?David:In two weeks, I'm traveling to Salt Lake City to go skiing, but that's a drive for me.Stephanie:Yeah.David:Big skier. And whenever the snow comes, I'm out there.Stephanie:I love that. All right. And then the last one, what is your favorite piece of tech that you're using right now? It can be personally or with the business.David:Don't hate me, but it's my iPhone 12 Pro.Stephanie:What's to hate? I have the same thing. It's my favorite. It has the best cameraDavid:I bought it for the camera, but it's really fast. It's a computer in my pocket that does pretty much everything my actual computer does.Stephanie:Yeah.David:Super valuable piece of tech.Stephanie:Yep. I agree. All right, David, thanks so much for joining the show. Where can people find out more about you and Kickfurther?David:Kickfurther.com is the best place. You can find me on LinkedIn, David Koifman, and I look forward to connecting with anybody who's interested. Also, if you're a business owner listening and you're interested in funding with us, you can go to our website, fill out an application, or you can just email me david@kickfurther.com.Stephanie:Yeah.David:Thanks so much, Stephanie.Stephanie:Cool.David:It's good to be on here.Stephanie:Yeah, thanks, David. All right. See you.David:Take care.

Accountability, integrity, commitment. These values provide the lens through which ALPS realizes its vision. To live these values requires a culture of authenticity, a place where people can be true to themselves. In this episode of ALPS In Brief, ALPS President and CEO David Bell meets with ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte to reflect on how the company navigated the pandemic, the success of which David credits to the company's healthy culture and its ability to remain transparent. Join them as they discuss the implications of 2020 and their effect on ALPS in 2021. Transcript: MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Hello and welcome. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, and you're about to listen to the next episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Over the years, David Bell, the CEO of our company and I have got together and chat periodically about what's happening internally, looking at vision and just trying to share some things. And the point of it has been... I think it allows you as the listener and our insureds to learn a little bit more about us each time. And I also hope to have the discussion of vision and what ALPS does, in this regard educate lawyers as to the value of, and a little bit about the process of creating a corporate or a firm vision. So before we jump into it, I'd like to spend a little bit of time here and introduce David a little more formally than I have in the past. David Bell is the president and CEO of ALPS Corporation and ALPS Property & Casualty Insurance Company. David joined us here at ALPS in 2012. Prior to that, he was previously with Allied World Assurance Company, and that's a publicly traded global reinsurance company. David was a founding executive and served as the chief operating officer. After graduating from the University of Montana in 1996 with a degree in finance, he began his career with the Chubb Corporation. David also co-founded and serves on the board of Grateful Nation Montana, a first of its kind in the nation organization that provides tutoring, mentoring, and college education for the children of Montana soldiers killed while on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also appeared on NBC Nightly News, Fox & Friends, and numerous other television and radio outlets talking about the need to make funding education for the children to fallen soldiers, a national priority. And that's just an outstanding and excellent organization David has been involved with you. I'd also like to share that that David has recently been appointed chair of the board of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center. This is a center that promotes better understanding of Asia and of U.S. relations with Asia. And we'll talk about that a little bit here shortly. So David, always a pleasure. Welcome to the podcast. DAVID BELL: Thank you, Mark. I appreciate you taking the time. I always enjoy our conversations about life and business. MARK: It has been fun and I've been surprised, pleasantly surprised and I'm sure it's... these visioned podcasts have had a lot of attention over the years, so it's always a pleasure to get back into it. I thought I would start out. In a prior podcast we set up 2020 and going into 2020, we had a vision and a strategic plan and things were rocking and rolling. And then, the rest of the world, we got hit upside the head with an unexpected global pandemic. I would... Let's start out. How did ALPS survive? How did we do in terms of how did this impact the vision? Let's just explore the impact of all of this. DAVID: Sure. Well, certainly 2020 was not what any of us envisioned. As we began the year, this time, last year, the year threw us a lot of curve balls and the nation and families and everyone, curve balls. And it's been an interesting, at times tragic example of what can happen unexpectedly. But in terms of the company, 2020 was and is closing to be a very good year both in our strategic objectives, largely having been accomplished, not withstanding COVID and our financial objectives as well. And so I think it gave us an opportunity to put some of our core values into practice. They look great on paper and they were fun to talk about when they're not being tested. But a lot of what COVID included necessitated really leaning on those core values as our employees had unexpected needs, as our insureds had unexpected needs and how we had to kind of plan for those and around those and line up in partnership with our different stakeholders. So it was definitely an interesting year. Now, I certainly feel grateful and for us as an organization, that we are not in the type of business that would have been directly in the cross hairs of some of COVID more problematic after effects. And that's frankly... it has as much to do with luck as it hasn't to do with anything else. So, 2020 almost saying with the tone of guilt was a really good year for the company. MARK: Did it impact where we go in 2021? Did it make some changes in terms of how you approach the corporate vision, the strategic plan? DAVID: In terms of the strategic and financial milestones and our vision of where we're taking the company, I really don't think that it played a meaningful role in any detours. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: I think it did forever change the landscape of a lot of aspects. Internally, I think the way that we had to rearrange our business, where we did it from- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... to how we handled the various different circumstances that our employees had and have had to co-exist with. Some of those changes will be permanent and so I think that it certainly wasn't a business as usual year by any stretch of the imagination. But I do think we will emerge better in a lot of ways as a company. And I can't really think of any ways that we would come out of 20 and into 21 weaker. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: And that was... Again, I attribute a lot of that to the fact that we just aren't in the many types of businesses that have had such a profoundly problematic impact. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: And I think our employee base... I'd like to believe that our employee base is stronger in 21 than in 20, because we experienced some pretty profound things together. And I think for evidencing that core values comment, when people have an opportunity to see some of those values put in action, I'd like to believe that they emerged from the other side of that with a stronger bond with one another and more confidence in the organization that they work for. MARK: Well, let me comment about that because speaking as one of these employees that has gone through all of this, I absolutely agree with you. My own personal experience was such that, this transition to the remote work setting for all of us for quite a while, we had to accelerate new tools, using Microsoft Teams as an example, and the communication ability and in terms of just being able to see each other talk. I felt closer now to everybody in the company than I have in... I'm coming up on 23 years here. So it really is... I do want to underscore that it's been a good thing. Initially my response was, everybody's coming. Wow, this is... We've got to get used to it. I used to walk into our world as some of us there have been remote all along, but now it's, I truly do, I feel much closer as part. Okay. Maybe a quick moment, since we're on the topic, do you want to share a summary of your own observations about what we saw in terms of the population we ensure that we are in service to? Any thoughts about that? DAVID: Sure. I mean, we've seen the results of COVID impact our insured firms at both ends of the extremes. For some firms they have seen overall, the COVID dynamic result in more business and more growth. MARK: Right. DAVID: On the other end of the extreme, particularly when the courts are closed and the economy is frozen up, there is not the commerce occurring that creates billable hours. And it has created significant challenges in... and has created a great deal of fear financial and otherwise by particularly some of the smallest firms. And so we've had to... We've reacted based on what our insured partners are coming to us with. We came out for example, for those that that found a reduction or virtual for time, virtual elimination of billable hours revenue, right? We came out and had opportunities to postpone premium payments. And well before the state regulatory bodies entered the scene and started to require insurance companies to do that, we did it. I'd like to think because it was the right thing to do. MARK: Right. DAVID: Right away when we saw that it was going to be necessary, it was clear in the very early stages of COVID, that this was going to create a problem for blocks for lawyers and a problem paying premiums, both because of financial constraints and because of just the tactics of being in a whole office and not being worried, your mail comes and all of that type of stuff, so that part of it was interesting. And I think the survey results that we've gotten back as we survey our insureds based on their experience that they've had with us each year, would suggest that our folks here who bring a great deal of compassion and empathy, many people, and I hope so lawyers themselves, had been in the shoes of our insurance. And so, I'm pleased that by all accounts, it seems we've done that well. On the landscape of what our insureds are seeing from a claims perspective, we definitely saw what I call a significant reduction in the volume of claims. MARK: Yes. DAVID: And we've actually seen a reduction in the severity of the claims that we did get. And so, that will clearly be a temporary phenomenon, right? MARK: Yeah. DAVID: When commerce has stopped and the courts are closed, then it's... You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that you're going to have at least a temporary lull in claims activity. Now the big question is, as this thing ramps up, will it hockey stick up? And as businesses fail coming out the other end of COVID, and tragically as marriages and other institutions fail, we effectively "make up" for lost ground on the claims picture. I think that there are pretty reasonable predictions on both sides of that ledger but it's an interesting dynamic to be looking at- MARK: It is. DAVID: ... and talking about. MARK: Yeah. Well, time will tell on that one. When I think about how ALPS has survived or navigated through the pandemic thus far, and seeing wins and losses in terms of some of our insureds from struggling in some ways, and profiting very much in other situations, I really start to believe that the... One of the ways that we navigated this so well, was because we had a solid strategic plan. We had established core values that people understand and live by. Our culture is important. And so to the degree that sharing some of the insights about what we've done, I guess I'd say... How do I say, I'd like to talk about some of this stuff as a tool, as a way to give firms that may be struggling a little bit, one path to try to move forward and come out of this. So if we could take a little bit of time, just briefly, let's start with this whole concept of core values. Can I just... What does that mean to you and where do they come from? And perhaps let me share,folks, the core values that drive us, that David has talked about already here today, as are driving some of this conversation. We ask, is this the truth? Is it fair? Does it benefit our people and the company? And does it help us make a profit? So, those are our core values. So again, David, how do we get to them? Why are they important to you? DAVID: Sure. Well, I think the core values are kind of the went through, which we all hope everything else that we're doing is filtered. And we didn't hire consultants to- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... I'm sure these could be worded differently. I'm sure there are core values that could be added and there are ways that we could word the ones that we have better. I've been in the learning sessions that many people listening to this, have been with great companies that have come up with very different ways to approach this and I'm convinced that there's no right or wrong way to do it. I felt like there was a lot of the golden rule kind of baked into this. MARK: Yes. DAVID: And our stakeholders include the people inside this company who labor every day on our common mission. It includes the people who we insure, right? We make a promise to transfer the risk of something bad having happened, the financial risk of something bad having having happened from their balance sheet to our balance sheet, right? MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: And so we need to make that promise clear in the contract. We need to represent it accurately. We need to fulfill it justly when our claims attorneys are working on the claims. And we need to have the financial stability to be able to fulfill the promises as well. And then of course we do have shareholders too, and so we have kind of different stakeholders. But I think these four points which we've repeated so many times, I think most people probably know by memory. But is it the truth? It's kind of self-explanatory- MARK: Yeah. DAVID: ... a bit self-evident. I do believe that relationships are the headquarters to everything, including financial and business transactions. Without a healthy relationship, it's very difficult to get anything else constructive done. And without truth, it's almost impossible to have a healthy relationship. If you have reason to believe, but the person on the other end of your negotiation or discussion is being dishonest. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). DAVID: I mean, I can't imagine how you can have anything constructive come out of that. And so we have to ask ourselves, is it the truth? Is what I'm telling my employees the truth? Is what our people are telling our insurers the truth? Right? MARK: Right. DAVID: And so that is in some ways, so obvious that it could be glossed over, but boy, is it essential in just everything that we do. The second one is, is it fair? Is it fair? Is it equitable? That's trickier because it's obviously a subjective question, right? Fairness to one is not seeing the same as fairness to other, and so when I look at that is, it's kind of thinking about it from my own perspective, as a leader, as a flawed human being who brings the bias of my experiences that I've had in my own life, into my decision-making. Many of those biases being unconscious, right? And so, the question that I ask for me and the decisions that I'm making, and then I would ask others is, are you in pursuit of fairness and of equality? And it doesn't mean that you'll be perfect all the time. It doesn't mean that everybody... When you feel that you've done something fair, it doesn't mean that everybody else will feel that way. In fact, I think a truism of leadership and arguably one of the ways that you can know whether you'll be successful in leaders, if you're comfortable with the fact that something that you believe is the right thing to do, will not be shared by other people who are important to you. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: We're just going to have people who believe differently about this. But I think if we say, Hey, look, I'm trying my best, I'm going to be truthful and transparent. I'm happy to explain the reasoning for what I'm doing. And I'm using my best efforts to seek fairness and equality. I think if there's a genuine, recognized effort to do that, there's room for shades of gray, as people have their own interpretations. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: That's number two. Number three, as you pointed out, is, does it benefit our people and the company. By the company, obviously it means our insureds- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... and the various people, right? But we don't want to do something to serve people outside this company that hurts our own people. And we don't want to do something that helps or enriches our own people at the expense of folks externally, who we serve as well. And that's also a prioritization question, right? I mean, there's a lot of things to distract us. There's a lot of places that we can spend time and money. And I think sometimes we just need to ask ourselves, is what we're about to do going to benefit our people and the company? Because if the answer isn't an unqualified yes, maybe that's not the best allocation of time or financial resources. And then fourth, which I include unapologetically but also intentionally include last, is, does it help us make a profit? MARK: Right. DAVID: We're a for-profit business. Our ability to fulfill the promises that we make now and in the future, is entirely dependent upon us being a profitable company that is financially strong. But that being said, it's not profit above all else. There are clearly numerous ways that this organization could have, and could today make a lot more money than it is making. And if this were number one, there might be an organizational temptation to do that. Profit is important. It is not the most important. MARK: Right. Yeah. DAVID: And I think if you do everything else well, profit will come. It might not come as much or as fast as some people would like but it is a function of where it sits in your order of priorities. MARK: What I like about this, and it's something I've learned as a result of my experience as an ALPS member. I think a lot of companies, when you sit down and they talk about core values, and they list, these are the things we value and it becomes this thing you put on the wall and you want to advertise, and sort of pound your chest a little bit. These are not things that are symbols. What I like about these values, I've transitioned from a list of things that we value, to a list of things that enable us. They become the lens if you will, of how we view the vision, how we view who we are, how we view what we're trying to do. And I think that distinction, at least for me was very, very important. And I just share that with all of you listening, to approach core values from this perspective of, how do we want to set the view of where we are going? Of who we are? That's what core value is. It's defining us, not defining what we value in the sense of making a profit or... and that's important but we value diversity. And again, I'm not trying to dismiss any of that as relevant, but in my mind, there's a distinction there, I've set up the food for thought. Culture, let us just take one or two minutes. How is culture important in this process from a CEO perspective? DAVID: I've actually evolved as I've gotten older in years and had more experiences, made more good decisions and made more poor decisions, and lived with the consequences of both. I've always been a very metric driven person and would probably define my default management style as in a kind of a KPI terms, right? Key Performance Indicators. I've recognized over the years that if you had to pick, culture is frankly not only more important than the financial metrics, but the financial metrics are more dependent upon a healthy culture to produce them over the long-term, then the people realized that, then I probably appreciated it in the early chapters of my profession. And I'm really... We've hired quite a few people in the last year or two as the company continues to grow and expand in different parts of the country and write more business and in States all around the country. Culture, I think is sometimes the most misunderstood word that's commonly used. And people say, well tell me about your culture. And I say, I can give you kind of my culture speech, but if you want to know what the culture... If people have the opportunity to come to the company, we're not all but most of the employees are based and you walk around, the question that I've asked people to observe for themselves without any ability by me to influence it, is walk around, look at the way that people engage with one another, do their mannerisms show that they are genuinely interested in the discussions that they're having? Are they smiling? Are they able to have a little fun? Are they self-deprecating? Is their energy... Is it a library or look at where it feels like a professional salt mine? Or is it a place where there's vibrancy and laughter but it's also professional and it's very intentional. And so I think that if you have an organization where people feel safe, which has a lot to do with these core values, right- MARK: Right, right. DAVID: ... They feel safe because it's not politicized, there is an expectation that what you hear is honest. Then I think it gives people the ability to be their unguarded cells and be comfortable. And to me, that's culture, that's the culture you want. Because that's where you start to get true performance out of folks- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... because they feel that they can spread their wings, take some risks. And sometimes the risk for somebody who's just putting themselves out there to suggest something, where that might be not in their default picture. MARK: The way I describe this as again, a member of the ALPS family, culture in my mind... A healthy culture encourages, enables, allows, et cetera, mutual investment so that all of us regardless of position, are able to increase to invest in what we're doing as a group. But the organization also invests in us. It's a two-way street. And perhaps it's another way of saying, I think, culture when it's really working, is the... So I've talked about the lens. Core values is the lens that we look at vision, all this. The culture is living the vision. It is walking the talk of what our values say at our... and it is moving towards something, a common goal. Now, I'd love to hear your comment on vision planning in general. ALPS is a corporation. We don't all sit down, all of us and get together. And what's the vision. How do we get to our vision? Can you just give a brief overview of the process? What does that look like? DAVID: Sure. I mean, I think in order to have a vision that you can communicate in order to get the people who you depend upon to make the vision a reality on board, you first have to have a very clear and honest reckoning with where you are right now, right? You can't portray yourself as something other than what you are, or other than the state in which you are in. And so when you say this is who we are, this is where we are. And then this is where we're going. And this is why, right? Because I think, in private enterprise too often, the objective is more. MARK: Yes. DAVID: More is a lot of things, but sustainably inspiring to an employee population. It is not, right? People need to understand what's in it for me? Why, should I be as excited about the vision casting and where we're going? You've told me where we are, you've shown me where we're going. You've outlined some way station milestones in between here and there. Tell me why I should be fully bought in to this pursuit, because it is easier to just do what we're doing right now. Well, and not really venture out with all of the risks and work that are involved with going out onto the vision timeline. And so, I think one of the key approaches is to bring clarity to what those points look like and bring transparent explanation for the reasons, because you are asking people to do more and, or do different than what they are doing right now. MARK: Right. DAVID: And people need to know why they should do that. MARK: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I can also share, it includes, sort of measurable metrics. It's one thing to say, well, my vision is to be the most profitable family law firm in greater Montana or something. But if you don't have a pass, we need to sit down and I can assure you folks, we do. That's part of this strategic planning process. David, I want to give you a little bit time, if we still have some time to talk about the Mansfield Center. But before we get to that, can you just... Share what you feel comfortable sharing. What does the future look like for ALPS? DAVID: Sure. We are- MARK: In terms of your long-term vision? DAVID: Yeah, well, so ALPS, it's got such a great three decades of history. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: It started in the wake of the S&L crisis, when there was a genuine crisis of a complete lack of availability for legal malpractice insurance, particularly for the smallest firms. MARK: Right. DAVID: Right? ALPS was one of a handful of kind of white Knights that were created by State Bars in order to solve this problem. Obviously the market has evolved in different cycles over the last three decades. The crisis went away. We've had times when it's been very, very competitive and at times where has been very problematic from a loss perspective. And so, what ALPS has always been is, a direct carrier, a direct insurer of legal malpractice, the GEICO or Progressive, of lawyers malpractice. And it's far more common to have these commercial lines of insurance traded through brokers or agents. And I do believe that brokers and agents provide an important value proposition- MARK: Oh, yes. DAVID: ... for midsize and larger commercial risks in general. But they add a very significant cost as a percentage of the full transaction. And so I think one of the reasons why we've been as successful as we have been particularly in the last five to 10 years, is because we've been able to take the economics that traditionally go to brokers and agents, and share those economics between insureds and the company, really more to the benefit of the insurance. We didn't make this up. It's how Progressive and GEICO- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... permanently disrupted the Personal Lines Industry several decades ago. So, we are not pioneers, I think we've done things differently- MARK: Yeah. DAVID: ... and in many ways done things better as it relates to Commercial lines. But that's been our journey. So, in brief, Mark, to answer your question, the States that we are not in, we need to be in, now there are only a very small number of States that we have no appetite to be in, right? But for the 47 States where we do have an appetite, the States that we're not in, we need to be in. The States that we are in, we need to have critical mass in. MARK: Yes. DAVID: There are States where we're in, but we're not a substantial player. I mean, there are States where we are the undisputed largest- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... LPL carrier by policy count in the state. And there are multiple States where we are that. But there are also a lot of States where we have a very small market share. We need to have critical mass. And then eventually, as we gain more critical mass in places where we don't yet have it, we can start to look laterally and offer products other than legal malpractice. Right now we do legal malpractice, Cyber and EPL, Employment Practices Liability. But our attorneys who buy from us, arguably, the most important risk transfer product that they buy, they trust us directly with. And so we can bring to them offerings of other insurance products whether or not our balance sheet specifically is protecting or not, that's a step. And then eventually, we have ambitions to get into other lines of commercial business beyond legal malpractice. It could be accountants, it could be miscellaneous errors and emissions. I mean, we are now... What I'm describing now, I would put in the intermediate to long-term time horizon- MARK: Yes, right. DAVID: ... not in the short to early intermediate. But those are... When we have vision, I have a timeline illustration that I'm sure both of you and I are picturing in our minds right now, because we've both seen it, that shows for the purpose of employees. These are the steps along our path, going to this place, here is why we're doing this. This is why we think it's important. And I think just as important as that, and I guess, I think the next observation that maybe the final one that I'll offer will kind of wind in almost all of your questions. For me, I think it's important to acknowledge what we are and what we aren't. I think some companies love... And I'm not criticizing this, it works for them. They create almost a cult like atmosphere right there, where you just bleed the color of the company. And I think that that's great and cool, and for some companies. I don't believe that for what we do, right? We are a lawyer's malpractice insurance company, right? So we are not ending homelessness, we are not feeding- MARK: Right. DAVID: ... hungry kids, right? To be sure, the money that we're making enables us to be generous to others- MARK: Absolutely. DAVID: ... and that is a significant priority for us. I think we've had the ability to do a lot of really wonderful things- MARK: Yeah, yeah. DAVID: ... with that, but our core business isn't digging wells in impoverished nations. And so, I think it's not only okay to me, it's important to say, this is a job, a career, it's a place to labor alongside of people who you trust and hopefully who you enjoy. And I think the reason why people at ALPS, why we have so little turnover and why by all of our measuring techniques, people seem to have a very positive perspective of being here, because they can get up and look in the mirror and whether or not legal malpractice was necessarily the job they dreamt up when they were a wee lad, they can nonetheless look in the mirror and say, "We're doing great work." Right? MARK: Yeah. Yeah. DAVID: We create our product honestly and ethically, we sell it transparently. And the instructions that we get from the top on down is, if we owe it we pay it, if we don't know we fight it. We don't really have to get much more complicated than that, right? MARK: Right, right. DAVID: If we've made this promise, keep it. If we haven't made this promise, then we have a responsibility to the other stakeholders to dig in. And so we do dig in and do battle, on occasion. So, that I think is an important aspect of who we are, because it lets people feel... It lets people contextualize the purpose of their role here. I tell people often that I view, I love my job, I love the people who I work with. I look forward to it every day. It is not my life. I take vacation. I largely view the time that I spend here as giving me the means and the ability to do other things, and with other people who I care deeply about. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: So, if you are here 24-7, and on the weekends, you should not be- MARK: Yeah, I agree. DAVID: ...right guys? This should not be your life. MARK: Right. Yeah. DAVID: It should be an important part of your life because of the hours we spend together. But it should not define who you are and it definitely should not be your identity. So, those are kind of, some of the aspects of life under the ALPS umbrella. MARK: Yeah. We're kindred spirits in this regard. If we have a little bit of time and if you need to go, David, you need to go, but I would love if you have a few minutes, you were sharing prior to starting lists, the Mansfield Center. And I suspect a lot of people really have no clue what the Mansfield Center is, and what incredible stuff is happening here in Montana. So, I would love if you could just give a few minutes and share what you'd like to share and fill us in a little bit about what's going on with the Mansfield Center. DAVID: Sure, sure. I mean, I've been on the Mansfield Center Board for probably 15 years. Mansfield Center was created... Mansfield Center and the Mansfield Foundation was created by an Act of Congress, actually. MARK: Oh, wow. DAVID: Senator Mike Mansfield was, I think still to this day, the longest serving Senate president in U.S. history. He and I actually probably don't share ideologically many of the same priorities, but that's the beauty of this whole thing. I mean, Mike Mansfield was... He had kind of epitomized the good old days of bipartisan friendships, deep lasting friendships with people who felt very strongly in opposition politically to aspects of Mike. I recently became the chair of the Mansfield Center Board. Mainly I had a ton of time for the Executive Director. She's wonderful. And I believe that we're in a very... We all know that we're in a precarious time in our country. We all know the dangers that are around us. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: But I also think that there is a national yearning for bipartisanship, for civility, for cooperation. And the Mansfield Center is an ideal national and regional too in the Rocky Mountain West, but national vehicle to channel those types of things. So for example, we have, Dr. Fauci coming up in event that we've planned. We've got the chair of the Problem Solver Caucus, chairs. And if you're not familiar with the PSC which goes under "new labels" sometimes, it's worth a Google. PSC, Problem Solver Caucus, 50 Republicans, 50 Democrats in the house. They are a force now, four key legislation really needs to involve the Problem Solvers Caucus. And you have... It's just such an under-reported wonderful example of what is actually going on, which is, the two chairs, a Republican and a Democrat, who probably don't agree on anything politically, but when you listen to these two people talk, it's very clear that they definitely trust one another, that they, I think soundboard and value the opinions of one another as much, or in some cases more than the members of their own party. And so, they are opportunities, I think to harness this yearning. I just did a call with the U.S. Chamber. I'm also on the board there, and the Mansfield Center. And so, my hope over the next 24 months, is to try to play some small role in tethering together organizations like the Mansfield Center and the Chamber and the Bipartisan Policy Center. And these organizations who have this, we have to work together mission, because I think there is an opportunity right now even where people, even who aren't interested in politics, recognize that we have to start to treat one another better. We have to start respecting the opinions of people who we don't agree with more. We have to talk about things. And so, that's why I'm currently kind of somewhat jumped in the deep end of Mansfield Center activities. I think that there's a good opportunity, and I'm privileged to be a part of it. MARK: Well, I'm really pleased that you shared all of this. I absolutely agree with you in terms of the political situation we're in and the amount of discord is going on just crazy. But just hearing this, it brightens my day. I mean, it so does, it's just... I can just speak as a citizen at this point and say, it's hard, it really is hard, to find the bright spots of hope. And this is one, so I really appreciate. DAVID: Yeah, hopefully we'll see more example. I believe that media, social and mainstream, is the greatest threat to our nation's mental health that exists today. And so I just, I hope that there will be more and more opportunities to witness the current examples of healthy bipartisan dialogue that's going on and more, perhaps just as important, lots of opportunities to create, make, and be a part of new ways for people who have been camped for a long time to extend a hand, to be friends. It doesn't mean you have to agree. MARK: Right. Yeah. DAVID: Right? It just means that you have to just listen for a bit and maybe a little give and take, negotiations. Everybody listening to this podcast, they're likely in a profession where negotiation is a central part of what they do. And give and take is an absolute essential ingredient. We need more of that- MARK: Right, right. DAVID: ... political discourse as well. MARK: Yeah. DAVID: It should not be whoever's in control when the pendulum swings that way, as an absolute. So thank you, Mark for that. MARK: Well, you're welcome. And thank you. This is where we're going to need to leave it folks. I know David has got quite a busy day. David, it truly, it's always a pleasure to get together and spend a little time chatting. I thank you for fitting us in today. Folks, I hope you found something of interest and value in this podcast. And as always, if any of you have any additional thoughts about podcast topics or something you'd like to hear about, someone you'd like us to try to visit with, please don't hesitate to reach out. You may reach me at MBaaS, M-B-A-A-S @alpsinsurance.com. So that's it folks. Bye-Bye. Thanks again, David. DAVID: Thank you.  

Leaders are readers and readers are leaders. It is time for this month's “Dave's Book Club” where I share interviews, lessons, and analysis from personal development and leadership authors.  Today, I am interviewing my long-time friend, mentor, and now first-time author, Tom Hammel. His book, "The Life You are Meant to Lead" is available for order on Amazon.  I talk with Tom about overcoming a rough upbringing, the process of transforming Tom's life, and how he learned to lead others along the path of self leadership. Show Notes: David: People only see you where you are now and have no idea how far you came. Tell the listener who you are. Tom: I grew up in the central valley of northern California in the town of Stockton. For the most part, it had the highest murder rate per capita in all of California. I grew up independent and had to make ends meet. I had to learn how to talk to people, manipulate and survive.  I started doing drugs in elementary school, got really into partying all through junior high school, dealing and selling drugs. Around the age of 14, I had a direct encounter with Jesus and it changed the direction of my life. It didn't change my past, I brought all that knowledge of who I was. While my life took a transformation, my knowledge and experience stayed with me and when I started to minister to other people, I brought that knowledge of pain, disappointment and fear to the table and made it really relatable to people. David: There may be someone listening who had a difficult past. Can you talk about what it took to lead that life that you saw God had for you? Tom: It takes some self discipline, and it's hard. It's a mindset shift of saying “I'm not going to be ruled or controlled by my past and the people around me.” It meant a mindset shift of seeing the world differently and taking the courageous step of pursuing a different identity. It takes reading books, changing the people you are around, changing what you put into my mind. David: Who inspired you and continues to inspire you?  Tom: I've been hungry to develop as a person so there's a long list. It's like climbing a mountain. My spiritual transformation was a 1-moment awakening, this journey of transforming has been progressive where new possibilities arise and new influences come into my life. There's so many voices in my life, I've been diligent to always have a mentor. My epiphany moment came one Sunday when I put on the Golf Channel. As Tiger Woods was hitting the ball, the commentators mentioned his swing coach and I realized the No. 1 golfer in the world wasn't in competition with everyone else, he was in competition with himself and his development. I realized I'm not the top in any area of my life and needed coaches. David: You're 20 years into this journey and you feel like you need to share what you're doing. Walk us through the vision and implementation of your vision. Tom: I was leading a large convention and I'm challenging people to change their lives and as I was walking the stage, I noticed a guy I didn't recognize anymore — it was me. I had allowed so many things in my life to get out of whack, I was so busy in the grind I wasn't taking care of myself. I felt like a hypocrite because I was failing to lead my own self. I started with my health, I lost 80 lbs., and in the process of leading myself, I realized there's not a lot of self-leadership. I realized we've got to do some things to awaken the possibility and set others on a journey to lead themselves. David: I have seen so many people using the pandemic as an excuse to not do things, so self leadership is needed now more than ever. So, let's talk about resources that are available in the form of books and their value. Tom: I love books. I try to mix it up a lot as far as what and who I'm reading. My current all-time favorite book is “The Atomic Habit” by James Clear. It's simple to understand and profound that these daily habits in my life determine my destiny. We're about to embark on Season 4 and that is tied to another project you're going to launch. Can you give us a hint about Season 4? Tom: I wrote a book, “The Life You're Meant to Lead” and it will come out in the fourth quarter of 2020. The book is about unpacking areas where we take the steps to lead ourselves and take responsibility and being intentional. Season 4 is about unpacking those things I didn't have enough room to unpack in the book. The podcast is going to be about the application of that book, seeing it come alive.

Get ready for an hilarious, equal parts couple’s therapy, equal parts life coaching session (with a bit of food talk thrown in), as Anna Barnett chats to UK fashion’s power couple, Henry Holland and David Hodgson, for the fourth instalment of her new podcast, The Filling. The conversation weaves us through how they met, their successful career paths, and how being northern keeps them grounded in a capricious industry. What we all really want to know, however, is, just how big was David’s award-winning marrow he grew when he was 5, and what are turkey turds, exactly, and why do they have them in their fridge? TOP QUOTES “You’re definitely a gammon, egg, and chips man; very plain, very northern.” David “I have a very delicate digestion and even looking at pastry gives me heartburn.” Henry  “I’ve lost many a tooth to Haribo and I’m proud of that.” David “You know a chocolate orange is my favourite chocolate outside of mini egg season.” Henry “You jump headfirst into everything without fear of failure; you don’t look back. And that’s an amazing quality.” David “There are more face masks sachets in our fridge than there are food sachets.” Henry  RESOURCES www.luluguiness.com www.houseofholland.co.uk www.j-sheekey.co.uk www.bratrestaurant.com www.bistrotheque.com www.myneighboursthedumplings.com www.outfry.com ABOUT THE GUESTS Henry Holland was born in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester, in 1983. After graduation from the London College of Communication, Henry went on to work for several teen magazines. In 2006 Henry designed his Fashion Groupies t-shirt range which gained notoriety throughout the fashion world and beyond. Henry subsequently designed a full collection and founded his own fashion house, The House of Holland. Henry has collaborated with Levi Strauss, Debenhams, and Le Specs sunglasses.  Instagram: @henryholland Born in Cumbria, David Hodgson, acquired his first handbag at the age of 21 while he was interning at the Observer. Since then, David worked for 5 years at Loewe in Madrid after which he launched his own consultancy business collaborating on the relaunch of Coach, as well as working with brands such as Proenza Schouler, Joseph and Strathberry. In October 2018 he was made Creative Director at Lulu Guinness.  Instagram: @david_hodgson ABOUT THE HOST Anna Barnett (www.annabarnettcooks.com) is a chef and food writer. She moved to London to work in TV and enjoyed a career at both MTV and Channel 4 before moving into fashion. Life has always been experienced through the lens of good food, however, and she released her debut cookery book ‘Eat the Week’ in 2015, after which she spent several years writing ‘The Reluctant Vegetarian’ blog for the Independent newspaper whilst also contributing to Vogue magazine. She went on to write the food pages for Grazia magazine; she now has a weekly column writing for The Evening Standard online. In 2019 Anna wrote and styled ‘How to be Gluten Free and Not Lose Friends’, her second cookery book. Anna regularly hosts pop-up restaurants, collaborates with brands, caters private events as well as hosting cookery classes at her home in east London.  Instagram: @annabarnettcooks

David Plotz is the CEO of City Cast and co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest Podcast. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: The art of saying no. It's something we've talked about on this show before, but not like this. DAVID: There's a whole category of invitation that one gets, or one used to get, used to get back in the days when there was invitations and things to do. But there will be invitations and things to do in the future. And there were invitations to do something so far off in the future that it was like, you couldn't even imagine it. You couldn't even conceive that that future would ever come and so you'd get an invitation, like, go to this party or have dinner with this person or appear on this panel. And it's months and months out and your natural assumption is, oh, it's so far away...yeah, that's fine, I'll plan for it, it will be great. I've got a great piece of advice which is, whenever you get an invitation for something that's more than 48-hours away, you ask yourself, would I do it tomorrow. Not would I do it in a hypothetical tomorrow. Look at your actual schedule for tomorrow and be like, if I realized I had to do this tomorrow, would I want to do it and if you want to do it, if you imagine, like, oh yeah, I would do it because tomorrow I have to drop the kids off at football practice and then I have a little space...yeah, it would be fun. That would be fun. Then you can accept it but if you're like, you know, actually, I don't relish the prospect of doing this tomorrow then don't accept it. ZAK: And have you experienced any subsequent FOMO from saying no? DAVID: I cannot think of a thing about which I've experienced FOMO. I literally cannot think of anything like that. I'm trying to imagine if there's anything like that. No. No. There was a trip to...maybe there was some trip somewhere which I once said no to and then I had slight, tiny tinge of regret but I can't even remember what it is so it can't have been that much regret. No. I'm David Plotz and I'm the CEO of City Cast which is gonna be a network of daily, local podcasts in cities around the country. And I'm the also the co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest Podcast. ZAK: Full disclosure, City Cast is funded by Graham Holdings. They are the parent company of the company I work for, Graham Media. Just so you know. Thanks for listening today to The Best Advice Show. I want to hear your advice. What is it? Give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. I hope that the start of your year is going ok and that this show is helping in some small way. Bye.

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to update us on the latest economic data and shares highlights from his 2021 outlook.We asked David:There has been a huge amount of economic data and policy news over the last few weeks. What are the takeaways?You recently published your investment outlook for 2021. What are the key highlights?Are you concerned that our investment outlook is consensual?

Keepsakes, momentos, treasures, heirlooms — whatever you call them, everyone has certain things that they hold dear. For many people, hand-written notes fall into that category. In a world filled with 240-character tweets, rapid-fire text messages, and a stuffed email inbox, getting a hand-written note means more than ever. Even if it comes from a brand.   Personalization is one of the buzziest words in ecommerce, and every business is trying to find a way to give its customers the best, most personal experience possible. David Wachs is helping them with that.David is the CEO of Handwrytten, which uses robots to send personal, hand-written notes, which have a 300% higher open rate than other types of communication. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, David explains why personalization is the way of the future. Plus, he dives into the thinking behind subscription-based services and what it takes for your subscription to stand out to investors. David also shares the advice that he received from Conan O’Brien that has stayed with him his entire life. Main Takeaways:This is Getting Personal: Over the last few years, consumers have started seeking more personalized experiences. There are many ways to create those experiences in-store and online, but ecomm businesses have a personalization advantage due to the data they have access to. Brands that can tap into that data and then follow through are the ones that stand out.   Subscribe Here: Subscription services are popping up everywhere. When done correctly, subscription services provide a recurring revenue model, which is something most investors look for. However, creating the right model takes time, effort, and experimentation, and it’s important to be willing to put in that work to find the model that is best for you and your customers. Here’s Some Advice: When one piece of advice sticks with you 20 years later, that’s something worth paying attention to. Tune in to hear what words of wisdom from Conan O’Brien have inspired David every step of his journey.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show, we have David Wachs, the CEO of Handwrytten, spelled with a Y. David, welcome.David:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on the show. I just went down a great wormhole of watching your robots write letters. I think that's a great starting point to hear how you came to be at Handwrytten. What brought you to found it?David:Yeah, so this is actually my second venture. My first one was in the text messaging space. So, I started that one before the iPhone came out. We rode the wave of mobile technology with the iPhone and all that. By the end, we were sending millions of messages a day on behalf of major brands, like Toys R Us, a lot of brands that are now bankrupt, but no fault of ours, but Toys R Us, Sam's Club, OfficeMax, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc.David:What we did was we helped them connect with their customers through text messages. And then we also did iPhone apps and Android apps and all that, but our core was really text messages. What we found was, it really, really worked. I mean, these were not spam messages. These were people opted in, so they actually wanted to receive Abercrombie & Fitch offers, etc, straight to their cell phone. When we sent out those offers, they'd have literally lines out the door.David:We worked with Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which is a big smoothie shop chain. Every time they sent out an offer, I'd walk into a Tropical Smoothie. I'd say, "How's this mobile thing working?" They didn't know who I was, and they'd say, "Oh, my gosh. Every time we do it, we have to staff up, because we sell so many smoothies." So, I knew we had something good. But at the same time, I helped create a monster, because everybody nowadays is getting inundated with probably 50 text messages a day from family and commercial texts and right now, political texts, several hundred emails a day.David:I think the average office workers receives about 150 emails a day and spends 28% of their time sorting through all that email. And then you add stuff like Twitter and Facebook and Slack and all the Instagram, all these other electronic forms of communication. Maybe I'm just old, but for me, it all just becomes noise.Stephanie:It's very noisy right now, especially with the political texts that I'm getting.David:Oh, my God.Stephanie:I'm getting like five a day. Stop it. I don't want that anywhere.David:I know, I know. It all just becomes noise. The average 35 to 44-year-old receives nearly 1,600 texts a month. The average 18 to 24-year-old receives 4,000 a month. So, what I know and what you know is no matter how personalized that email or that text looks... Hey, David, thank you so much for your purchase of this coffee grinder or whatever. ... that text was automated or that email was automated. We immediately discount the value of it, right?David:Half of them or way more than half, I never even read, because you just know it's automated junk. And then junk mail, the slick stuff that comes in your mailbox goes directly to your trash can. But what I realized right before leaving, my last company, is handwritten notes not only do they get opened, but they get treasured. I have a bookshelf behind me at my last job that had the handwritten notes I received. My salespeople had all the handwritten notes they received. What I wanted to do was when I sold my last company is I wanted to send handwritten thank you notes to my employees and send handwritten thank you notes to my best clients, thanking them for helping me build up this company and sell it and all the rest.David:I started doing that. I sat down with the best intentions. Very quickly, my hand got sore or I ran out of stamps or I screwed up a card and I had to get another one. I just realized there had to be a better way. So, that's a long explanation on how I ended up with Handwrytten, which is what we have today. What Handwrytten is a combination of software on the front end and then robots on the back end. So, you visit handwrytten.com or use our iPhone app, Android app, Zapier, Salesforce.com Integration, which is a big integration for us, and I know a sponsor of the show, HubSpot integration, all these ways to get your handwritten notes into the system.David:And then we use robots, real robots that we have a patent pending on and I can get into how we develop those, but they're custom robots we built, robots holding real ballpoint pens that actually then write out the notes and mail them on your behalf. The end result is completely indistinguishable from a human.David:We're doing this for large brands and small brands and individuals. Consumers can go on and send their mother a birthday card, for example, all the way up to major brands.Stephanie:Though your mom might know. She'd be like, "That's not your handwriting, Stephanie." Do you guys have any tech that maybe could mimic handwriting, where I could go in there and write up a couple words, and then your robots come in and write it similar to my handwriting?David:So, not exactly. What we do is if you really want your handwriting recreated, we have worksheets for you. It's like you're back in middle school. You have to fill in all the letters and all the numbers multiple times, because we need multiple variations, and we need ligature combinations. So, like two Os together, two Ls together. Do you cross your two Ts with one crossbar or two? We take all that into account. We create a very robust handwriting just for you, but it's an expensive onetime thing. So, pay for it once, it's yours. It's in the system. You can use it as much as you want, no additional charge. So, yeah, but most of our clients or businesses not you sending to your mother. So, for them, it doesn't really matter as much.David:Honestly, I dissuade people from creating their handwriting style, because it is so expensive.Stephanie:Very cool. So, tell me a little bit about maybe some case studies or the ROI that some of your clients are seeing when they send out a note that looks personalized versus just a typical letter, something that's written up by a computer and is very obvious?David:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have a bunch of stats here, but I don't want to constantly give you footnotes on the stats. So, if I say any stats that are of interest to any of your listeners, just visit Handwrytten.com. That's Handwrytten with a Y. You can pull up all the resources and double check, be a fact checker, etc. But handwritten on envelopes, just the envelopes, have a 300% or a three-time greater open rate than printed envelopes. You just Google that stat and that pops up everywhere. And then also response rates are anywhere from 20 to 50% higher.David:We work with a bespoke suit company based in Canada. They send out coupons every year around the holidays. Those coupons come with a handwritten note from their CEO and his handwriting style with his signature. Those coupons have an 18% redemption rate when usually the company's coupon redemption rate is closer to the 3 to 5% rate. So, it's been very effective for them.David:We have other clients... Let me see here. We have some retention improvements. So, we have a client that does meal box or actually snack boxes for offices. Basically, they'll send you a huge box of snacks every two weeks with like beef jerky or crackers and cookies and all that. What they do is if they accidentally send your office the wrong snack box, they'll follow up with a handwritten note and the right snacks. Now, obviously, the additional snacks help increase retention, but the handwritten note doesn't hurt.David:What they find is if they screw up a client and they send them this snack box, that customer ends up having a greater lifetime value than if they never screwed up in the first place.Stephanie:That's smart. I mean, not only are you getting more times to get in front of that customer, but then you can show them how great the customer experience is even when things go wrong. Yeah, it seems like you'd be a lot more memorable by actually messing up. That's pretty smart.David:Yeah, and then we have some side effects of these, because most people just get one or two handwritten notes a month now, not like the good old days when they receive a bunch. People literally Instagram and tweet these things. So, we work with a company called VNYL.David:What they are is they are a vinyl record subscription service. So, if you're really into old school vinyl, they will look at your Spotify account and your other... I don't know about Pandora, but your other music services. They'll see what you listen to. And then they'll send you vinyl records that they recommend based on your habits. With those vinyl records, they'll include a handwritten note written by us. So, every day we'll write up a whole bunch of their handwritten notes, send them back to VNYL. They'll get inserted with these orders. Not only people love those notes, they then post them on Instagram and on Twitter. That creates a viral aspect that then helps drive more business back to VNYL.David:We've seen the same thing with a morning YouTube show. It's one of the largest morning YouTube shows on the planet. They're a client of ours. They were launching a fan club, where you'd pay 5 or 25 bucks a month or whatever to be a part of their fan club. The first thing they'd send you was this handwritten note from the two hosts of the morning show.David:What's funny is they didn't change up the language on that note at all. Everybody got the same note with the exception of dear Stephanie or whatever, but the rest of the note was identical. All these people are posting these photos of this note to Twitter over and over again. I mean, it's the same note just different names over and over. People were so upset if their note did not arrive within a few days. You know what I mean? They were so looking forward to receiving a note from these two YouTube guys.Stephanie:Are there any backlash on that? Because I could see some people feeling like maybe they were tricked, or especially earlier, when you're talking about retention. If someone is sending out a set of vinyl records every month and see similar handwriting or the exact same one every single time, it seems like there could be a risk of someone saying, "Hey, this isn't actually authentic. You tricked me." Have you seen that backlash, or how do you guys approach that when it comes to a subscription model with someone who's maybe sending out a same snack box every month with a note in it that people will eventually be like, "Oh, yeah, this is obviously not a person writing it. It's the same every single time"?David:Yeah, that's a great question. So, with VNYL, they've got a number of personalities that are the box curators. So, there's like 10 some odd people that are responsible for making these recommendations. Each one of those people was assigned one of our handwriting styles. So, if you get a note from Cody, it'll be in Tenacious Nick. Our handwriting style is called Tenacious Nick this month. And then next month, you get a message from Suzy, it might be in Chill Charity. The following month if you get one from Cody again, it'll be back in Tenacious Nick. So, you'll associate Tenacious Nick with Cody. And then that's how that works.David:We have not seen a backlash. With the morning YouTube show, I was shocked that they didn't see it because they weren't... We vary stuff on the notes. So, in fact, we worked with a home fitness gym thing. They wanted a note from their founder included with every one of their products. They were annoyed with us that there was variation in the writing. We said, "Well, this is-Stephanie:A good thing.David:"... this isn't a print product. Every line's not supposed to identically look like the other card." They were just not a great client for us, because of that. They wanted everything to be exactly... That's not how people write.Stephanie:Yeah, that's actually the exact question I was going to ask. Do you incorporate errors or smudges? How do you think about building the technology behind the scenes to make it more real?David:Yeah, for sure. So, we actually built our own font engine for one, leveraging some best of class technologies underneath it all. But we do stuff like the left margin of the card is not straight. So, it's not like every letter of every line starts on the same exposition as the line above it. There's what we call jitter. It moves in or moves out very subtly, but a couple of points. A point is a 72nd of an inch for those that don't know, but yeah. So, we move those letters in and out, so that there's some variation there. We also do the same thing with interline or intraline, I always screw that up, but the spacing between lines.David:So, one line might be slightly closer to the line above it and slightly farther from the line below it than the next one and vice versa. So, there is some line spacing stuff going on there. Then, like I said, the letters themselves alter quite a bit. We've got at least four or five copies of every letter plus ligature combos. So, you might have three copies of an L, but then we also have three copies of two L's together. So, there's a lot of variation in going into our handwriting. We get this a lot. We don't curve the text. So, there is a little bit of maybe over precision on the text is fairly straight.David:Now, the page might be slightly rotated, so that the text runs up the page ever so slightly or down the page ever so slightly, but it's not like the text is going to be on a roller coaster and go up and then down and back again. It's relatively consistent. We are working on that, but it has not been a problem. It's still very much passes most people's internal Turing tests of what looks human versus what looks robotic. So, yeah, we don't want to overdo it. The line jittering and the left margin jittering is all very, very subtle. So, that it's not like creating some uncanny valley that looks totally bogus. You know what I mean? So, those are some of the things we do there. We work with a mattress company. In every mattress box, there's, "Thank you so much for buying our mattress."David:And then there was what I call a doodle. So, they made I think like eight of these little pieces of art. So, the words, "Thank you for your mattress," were not in one of our handwriting styles. It's a direct replica of somebody writing that. And then below that, the doodle is a direct replica of somebody drawing a doodle. So, it could be moon in the stars or there's one of somebody sleeping in a bed with a little thought cloud showing what they're dreaming of, a little cat.David:What was cool about that is with eight variations, if you buy two mattresses from them, one might have one little note from one guy in it and then the next mattress might have a note from somebody else in it. So, it looks really, really real. And then you post those to Twitter. It really shows up well there. So, that's what I recommend doing. If you're doing the same note over and over in volume, let's just mix it up a little bit. It doesn't cost you really anything more after you get going. You have some great variation.Stephanie:I saw you guys moved to having a subscription model, which a lot of guests who come on the show, they talk about thinking about doing that or some of them have recently. How did you guys know it was the right time to move into a subscription model?David:That's a great question. You're the first person to ask me that.Stephanie:Good.David:Yeah, so there's a number of reasons we did that. I will be bluntly honest, because I think it's of most value to everybody. Number one, I've self-funded Handwrytten to date for the last six years. I intend to continue doing that. However, we were just written up in the Inc 500. We had a good placement in the Inc 500. That created a lot of interest by investors. One thing investors are looking for is a recurring revenue model. While most of our clients recur every month, we have like solar panel installers that send thousands of messages a month. It's not structured as a recurring revenue model. It's just whatever you do, you pay for the next month, you don't do anything, you don't pay anything for it. So, we wanted to come up with a structure for a subscription model that would work.David:This is more the PR-friendly answer, but they're both totally true. On the flip side, we have customers that wanted to send a lot of notes a month but didn't want to do them all at once and didn't want to do a huge pre-pay buy. So, before this, there were two ways to get discounts. One was to do a huge pre-pay, where you say, "Okay, I'm going to send 10,000 notes for the next couple months, and I'll pay for that at a discount;" or go on our website and bulk upload a spreadsheet of 10,000 notes. For a lot of people, those two models don't work. What if I'm sending 10 cards a month, but they're spread out over the course of a month? I mean, I'm still sending 10 cards, can't they get a little bit of a discount on that?David:So, we tried to come up with a model that serves them. It's tough, because unlike an email provider or a CRM provider or anybody else, we have hard costs. Forget about the cardstock and the labor that goes into every card and all that, we have a 55¢ stamp on every card. That's expensive. You know what I mean? So, it took us years to think of a way that would make this work. What we decided was you prepay for credit. That credit, it goes on your account. So, you pre-pay 35 bucks, you get 35 bucks of credit on your account. But that credit also gets you a 15% discount on all orders for the month, so not just on the orders you spend the $35 on. After you exhaust that 35 bucks, you still get that discount moving forward for the rest of the month.David:So, that was the model that we came up with, because we wanted to provide value, we don't want to rip anybody off, but we needed a recurring revenue option. It is strictly an option. You can use our service for the rest of your life without ever using one of these subscription models.Stephanie:I think the one thing that came to mind was I've been listening to a lot of different interviews of SaaS founders, talking about how the subscription model, the future is not as much about getting into a long-term contract. It's more actually pulling back to where you only pay for what you use. It's not actually locking you into a contract anymore, because a lot of people are nervous about that or maybe prepaying. So, were there any surprises that maybe you guys have seen within the last week and a half as you implement this or pushback from customers or anything where you're like, "Oh, we weren't expecting that"? The consumer maybe thought this one thing, but actually, our plan was different. We adjusted it. Anything that you had to change after launching?David:Yeah, there's a few things. Nothing that was a got you and nothing we're really changing. It was more interesting. Okay, so we had somebody cancel their plan today. They signed up and then immediately canceled. So, if you sign up and you get the 15% off, that's 15% off the cards. That's not 15% off gift cards, which should go without saying, but maybe we have to add some language to the FAQ and all that, because I mean, that would be an arbitrage opportunity for somebody. You go on our website. You buy a Visa card for 15% off. You then take that Visa card and buy more Visa cards for... You know what I mean? So, that's just crazy town.Stephanie:It's good you didn't figure that out the hard way.David:No, no, this pre-pay for a while has always locked you out. I mean, when you pre-pay for something, you're pre-paying for the service, not for gift cards. It clearly does not work. I mean, it could be a huge issue. So, that was one. We had a woman that was very upset that she didn't get a discount on her gift cards, and we refunded her. We have a money back guarantee. So, if anybody uses our service and they don't like the service, they don't like the handwriting, they don't like the card quality. They don't like the subscription, whatever, we'll just give you your money back.David:I think more companies need to broadcast their money back guarantee, because even if they don't think they have one, they have one. On our website, we have our money back guarantee. Before that, if anybody called and complained, we still gave them their money back. We just didn't advertise that we had a money back guarantee. So, we gave the service without getting the benefit, if you know what I mean. Side point. So, point number one was people were shocked that you don't get a discount on gift cards creating an arbitrage.Stephanie:One person, but yes.David:Yeah. Point number two, I'm surprised that... So, we have a 10% plan, a 15% off Plan and a 20% off Plan. We might go 25%. But I'm actually surprised so many people subscribed for 10% off. I didn't realize 10% off would move the needle where people would be willing to subscribe. But if you're in that area where you send that many cards, why not subscribe? So, that's great. I'm glad people are using it. In fact, it's our most popular plan right now.David:So, that was two, and then three, which I expected. But my expectation was realized was people we have a cancel at any time type offer. So, we have a lot of people signing up for the 10% off plan, sending five cards, and then canceling the plan. That's fine. If they want to do that, I'm not going to stop people from doing it. It's more important to us to be transparent and create a plan that has no lock in and deal with the people that are just trying to take advantage of it. If they want to do that, fine.Stephanie:Yeah, I mean, it also seems like that you're still getting that sale and you'll probably be remembered in the future. They're like, "Oh, that was a good experience. Okay, I'm going to go back again.” So, maybe it's not as harmful as... Even though initially, you might be like, "Oh, that's annoying," but maybe the future customer that you wouldn't have otherwise had.David:Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's totally fine. I've still sold them five cards or whatever it is. So, it's no big deal. It's funny how people will go out of their way to save 10%, 10% for me doesn't really move the needle but whatever.Stephanie:I know. Yeah, that's very interesting that, 10% moves people to act like that. I think the biggest thing that you are also saying is like the clarity in the subscription model, which I think is really important and that a lot of companies don't get right from the start, because they can make really confusing ones.Stephanie:So right now, it also seems like there could be... Well, twofold, either a big opportunity in direct mail or it's noisier than ever, because brands know that people are home and they're starting to do direct mail where maybe they weren't doing that a year ago. So, how are you thinking about direct mail right now and making sure that your notes are getting opened? Is there still an opportunity, or is that dried up with where we're at right now?David:So, I will say we are the largest handwriting provider in the world. Based on our volume, I will tell you there is room for improvement. We have very large brands using us, but it's still just a drop in the bucket of everybody that could use us. I think a lot of brands just don't even know it's an option.David:There's the BCG matrix, which is like the hardest thing to sell is a new product to a new customer. If you're an office supplier and you start selling your existing customer a different type of pen, well, they're an existing customer and they've already bought a pen from you. So, that's an easy sell. If you're selling a new customer a pen, people know about pens do an easy sell. But if you're selling Joe on the street that you've never met a handwriting service, it's very hard. So, there is a bunch of that. We're doing our best to raise awareness. That's been targeting quite frankly, a lot of Facebook advertising. We used to just go after Google and SEO, SEO, that type of stuff. But now, we're trying to drive awareness through Facebook and LinkedIn and all the rest.David:But yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity for brands to do this, because nobody is doing it or very few are doing it in a consistent, structured manner where some of our clients come to us and do a one-off campaign or one-off promotion, and then they'll say, "Oh, that was the greatest promotion we've ever done. We'll reconsider it again next year." You're thinking, "Why is it a promotion in the first place?" That should be an ongoing part of your CRM outreach strategy." Right now, we're developing a whole program just for automotive dealers to do just that, where you buy a car, you immediately receive a handwritten thank you. A couple weeks later, you receive a service offer, birthday card, happy holidays card, etc. It just repeats without the dealer even having to think about it. I think that model of moving it away from being a promotion to being a part of your CRM strategy is really what needs to happen.David:But a lot of other online brands actually have the advantage over traditional retail, because they have the home addresses of the clients where the retailers may or may not depending on if they're in the loyalty program. So, online brands have this huge benefit of creating a one-to-one personalization opportunity through handwritten notes that brick and mortars might not. So, there's that. And then also right now, it's at the disservice of large B2B brands, because they might have your work address, but then they don't have your home address. So, they're left out of the shuffle too. But even before this COVID crisis, we were seeing online brands take much better advantage of this than in-store.David:I can give you a perfect example here. We work with a very high-end perfumery that makes a very expensive cologne and very expensive perfume. Everybody that's buys this cologne and perfume from their website, they received a very beautiful handwritten note, thanking them for their purchase, etc. But if you walk into a department store, I walked in there with my wife and kids. We're walking through the mall, and we walked into this department store prior to COVID. I found the product and I was showing it to my wife. A store rep came over and said, "This is the product." I said, "Oh, yes, thank you. I'm just showing to my wife because we send out your handwritten notes." She said, "No, you don't, I have to send my own handwritten notes." I explained what I meant.David:She said, "As a store rep, we're supposed to send handwritten notes, but we're too busy talking to customers like you, finishing up a sale, cleaning up the merchandising of the department, doing whatever else is required. We never get around to it. So, even though we have the best intentions in place, because it's not automated for us, we don't get to it." We've been pushing this perfumery to offer the same service to their in-store experience, which would create a much better personal one-to-one experience than the online only.David:Where we've done a really good job of this or really the client that we have... It's all about the client. It's a high-end luxury leather goods company. They make handbags, purses, shoes, that type of thing. Every time you make any purchase whatsoever in one of their retail outlets, a handwritten note goes out from our service. But it's signed by the store clerk that you worked with or it has their name and their phone number at the bottom of the note. So, we automated what this perfumery didn't, basically. We tied it to the end. But short answer your question is I still think there's a huge opportunity here. Quite frankly, people are very lonely right now. Any handwritten mail I think will get savored and opened and really showing that-Stephanie:They need a good handwritten note.David:They really do.Stephanie:Now's the timeDavid:Yeah, people have the time for it. I think at an abstract level, so two things. One, maybe they might not believe it's actually handwritten if they start getting thousands of these a day or something, which will never happen. But they might say, "Oh, gee, this is not actually handwritten." But that doesn't stop people when they get their Christmas card from the president, depending on what election year it is. But if they get their Christmas card from the president, they probably realize the president didn't sit down and sign a Christmas card to them. But it almost doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts and there is that they went above and beyond just laser printing a note. They figured out a way to send me something that seems really personal.Stephanie:So, I wanted to circle back to what we were talking about earlier about investors and how you were self-funded for the last six years. I want to hear a little bit about why you're thinking about bringing on investors now and what that thought process is like.David:So, this really has more to do with David Wachs than Handwrytten. So, this is my second venture. My first company, that text messaging company, also was self-funded. I built that up and I was able to sell that off and do pretty well. That was a true startup. There were a lot of nights where it was just me in an empty room with a two-liter diet Mountain Dew sitting by my side as I program.Stephanie:Nice, healthy.David:Classic, stereotypical startup image, I lived that. But that company actually took off a lot faster than Handwrytten. This time, I decided, "Okay, well, I'm just going to invest my own money, I'm going to build it up." I never really considered venture until this year when we got on the Inc 500. The problem is or the problem I see is we're in a bit of a doughnut hole. Had we gone for venture early on, we would have been great, because then we would have had an idea and no track record. We would have built up this company.David:We would have taken up an S ton of cash, garbage truck cash. We would have invested all of this advertising and built it up really fast. But instead of doing that, I grew profitably and organically, I reinvested profits back into the company, so our growth trajectory is much slower. Because of that, now venture capitalists don't even really want to talk to us. Oh, you've only grown at this rate, not 50 times. I'm like, "Well, yeah, because I've grown smartly and profitably."Stephanie:That seems to be a focus, the tides are turning a bit. I mean, there was, for a long time, just grow as quick as you can, we'll give you a bunch of money. You don't even have to figure out the business model. Do you even have a business? If you want to pivot halfway through spending all the money, it's fine, but I am starting to see a shift now, where, yeah, they're looking for companies actually grow sustainably, at least some VC firms around here. So, I don't know if you experienced that yet.David:Honestly, I've been so busy. So, we entertained a few VC phone calls. They were very, very nice people and very, very big firms. They basically said, "Oh, well, you haven't grown enough this year." I said, "Well, COVID has been going on. So, there's that." Because not a lot of our clients were retailers, so we lost that business, etc. So, to answer your question, part of it was I've actually worked in VC. I've worked for two different VC firms, but I've never taken VC.David:I thought it would be good for me personally to go through that experience of receiving VC, having somebody else to report to from a funding perspective. And then potentially down the road, really working for a VC firm as a partner or something like that. I thought that would be my next transition, because this is company number two. I don't see myself going through this process again. So, that was the thought process of, "Well, if I take VC now, we could really blow this up, because I've got a well-oiled machine here that just needs money to scale, that needs to scale advertising."David:The technology is pretty much done, although we're doing some really innovative stuff in machine vision, machine learning, which I can talk about. The idea was, "I haven't done it before. Let me give this a go, if anybody's interested." I had a handful of conversations, they all went the same way. I'm short on time these days. So, I was just like, "Well, let me get back to the grindstone and maybe worry about that later."Stephanie:Got it. Cool. Yeah, thanks for answering that. I was wondering where you left off with that. All right. So, we only have 10 minutes left. So, I was going to shift over to the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, David?David:I will do my best.Stephanie:All right. That's all I ask for. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?David:Personalization. Whether it's a handwritten note or an experience that's personalized when you visit a website or anything else, I think standing out through personalization, there's been study after study by companies like Segment that say that's a huge opportunity.Stephanie:Do you name your robots?David:No, we name our handwriting. The robots are numbered. So, it's 1 through whatever, 95 right now. We used to have an animated robot, and he still is on our website. If you buy a card, you'll see this little animated robot at the end. His name is Pinbot 2000, because when I was growing up, things that ended in 2000 sounded very futuristic even though [crosstalk 00:44:47].Stephanie:Yeah.David:His name is Pinbot 2000.Stephanie:I like it. What's your favorite handwriting?David:I like Tenacious Nick. If you visit our website, it's a very sweeping block print.Stephanie:[inaudible] check it out. What's up next on your reading list?David:It's funny. I've got a bunch of books here. This one is by the head of sales for HubSpot, Mark Roberge? I hope I'm pronouncing that right. It's called the Sales Acceleration Formula. It was recommended to me. So, I figured I'd read it tomorrow when I have to fly to Chicago.Stephanie:Very cool. What's up next on your Netflix queue?David:My brother actually is a bigwig at Netflix, but what I'm watching right now is on Amazon. It's The Boys. I'm trying to finish season two.Stephanie:Oh, is it good?David:Yeah. It's a dark superhero tale. The one I liked on Netflix... It was 40 minutes and was great. I think it's called Cubers. It's great. If you don't care about Rubik's Cubes at all, which I really don't, it was still wonderful. It's the story of two Rubik's Cube masters. One of them is autistic, and the other Rubik's Cube master, who is just a really nice guy in Australia. The friendship that evolves through these two Rubik's Cube masters. That's really good.Stephanie:That's interesting. If you were to have a podcast, what would the podcast be about and who would your first guest be?David:That is a great-Stephanie:It can't be about handwritten notes.David:No, no, I think it would be about one-to-one marketing though, which is very much in the same vein and probably a sucker answer that I'm giving you. But it would be how do you market to people on a personal level that doesn't come across as junk, because everything's looking like junk?Stephanie:Yup, I like that.David:That would be what it is, and I apologize in advance for that answer.Stephanie:No, I like that one. I mean, I think it's much needed now. Who would you bring on as a guest?David:Joe Polish, who's a marketing expert. He's quite good. Dean Jackson who he works with would be a good guest for that. There's probably somebody from Segment as they have a lot of data that backs it up. So, I'd want to talk with them.Stephanie:Cool. All right. And then the last one, since you've started a company before and you've sold it and started another one, what piece of advice would you give to a new entrepreneur who's starting up a new commerce company?David:Commerce or not, the one piece of advice that I give to everybody was told to me in person over dinner. So, this is a little bit of a humble brag by Conan O'Brien. So, when I was in college, I used to be in this group that would bring speakers to campus and we brought Conan O'Brien. So, the guys that organized got to sit down and do dinner with him. This is a long time ago. So, he was relatively starting out on having his own talk show back then.David:But the advice he gave us was, "Always get in over your head." That has stuck with me for 20 some odd years now, always get in over your head. I mean, people give you advice every day, but how much of it sticks for 20 years. The way I interpret that is if you don't get in over your head, you're never going to grow. You're just never going to pull yourself out of your comfort zone and really do something bigger than you thought you could do. So, I think about it all the time.Stephanie:I like it. Okay, Conan, coming in with some good wise words, pretty good. All right, David. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Handwrytten with a Y?David:Handwrytten with Y, so you can visit Handwrytten with a Y, H-A-N-D-W-R-Y-T-T-E-N.com. We have @handwrytten on Twitter, Handwrytten on Facebook. Personally, I'm @DavidB, as in boy, Wachs, W-A-C-H-S on Twitter. You can find me there, although I don't tweet very much. If anybody wants to try the service, there's two things I'd say. If you go to the business page, you can actually request a samples kit for free. That samples kit will have all sorts of different handwriting styles for you, including Tenacious Nick, my favorite, but they're all good.David:The other thing is if you sign up and you sign up with an email and password, you can enter a discount code. Enter discount code 'podcast', and you'll get $5 in credit that you can then use to send yourself a card or somebody else's card or send your first card, whatever. So, that's available for you too.Stephanie:Awesome. All right. Well, thanks so much, David. It's been fun. We will have to have you back in the future once you can see more about your subscription service and all that. So, thanks for coming on.David:Awesome. Thanks, Stephanie.

David Sonn is the Founder and President of Arc Intermedia, a HubSpot certified, digital only agency that focuses on “customer acquisition using digital strategies and digital tactics.” David ran a web development company for 13 years but found that he and his partner had become “production monkeys,” delivering a commodity and competing with offshore developers. “You never want to sell or have to build a model based on price,” he says. Ten years ago, when people started requesting Search Engine Optimization, David found his niche. Intrigued by the ability to precisely measure results, he founded Arc Intermedia -- and got out of the website building business and into the business of building businesses.  David may have started his agency “really slow and really small,” but he didn't start “really cheap.” He hired the most experienced SEO and paid search experts he could find, people who could lead practice area development. He says, “When you're a somewhat small agency that we are, every person counts.” Hiring and investing in the right people is critically important. In this interview, David provides a wide range of tips on building a strong digital business. Marketing initiatives need to start with strategy. When clients try to tell Arc Intermedia what they want the agency to do, David says it is critically important to understand “the good, the bad, and the ugly” about that business, to get to know the client well enough to discover things of which even the client may be unaware, and to know the client's goals – what the client is trying to accomplish – before building the strategy and implementing the strategically determined tactics. As many people in marketing say, content is king. Marketers need to know how to leverage that content through SEO, distribution, credibility, and across social platforms. While a variety of tactics can be used get leads, to drive people to a website, to fill out a form, to give them “stuff,” people often resist filling out forms because they don't want the sales calls that immediately follow. David recommends giving people something of value in exchange for their personal information.  The key to building customer relationships is nurturing potential clients through broad exposure on a variety of platforms and providing a variety of (non-sale) interactions. Use marketing automation to nurture clients to help close the deal. Clients often come to Arc Intermedia and request adding a particular tool, such as SEO, to their marketing mix. David reminds us that today's digital marketing requires an integrated process to succeed. SEO, social presence, publication on an industry website or blog . . . these things “loosen the soil” and build the familiarity and credibility that makes a paid search or display ad work.  Customer acquisition is what “moves the needle for the bottom line of a company.” Paid search has evolved to a high level of sophistication. Precise targeting produces a wealth of data. Advertising on social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – should be backed by “great strategy.” Knowing when to pivot, why you need to pivot, and having the ability to pivot is critical.  David describes paid search as a “sprint,” and SEO as a “marathon.” He feels that it is important for both parties to set their expectations realistically about what's going to be accomplished when. He requires SEO contracts to be for at least 12 months – SEO takes that long to show a return. After a year, when he shows clients where they were in month zero and what has been accomplished in the year that followed, “the contracts basically renew themselves.” SEO on paid media optimized for terms and topics in high demand? He says, “It's infinite traffic if you do it correctly.” David can most easily be found on his agency's website at arcintermedia.com.   Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by David Sonn, President and Founder of Arc Intermedia based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the podcast, David. DAVID: Thank you. Hi, Rob. How are you? I appreciate you including me today. ROB: Great to have you here and have a little pre-call with you before this. Tell us about Arc Intermedia. What is this agency, and how did it get started? DAVID: Arc Intermedia is what I call a digital only agency. Why I need to make that designation is I've been around the block for a while, so I have experience in traditional advertising and that kind of thing, but with this agency, when I built this agency 10 years ago, I wanted to hyper-focus only on digital strategies and digital tactics. We basically will come to a customer that needs more customers. I don't care if you're Apple Computers or you're a two-man band working out of a garage; everybody needs more customers. So we built this agency on customer acquisition using digital tactics. ROB: Got it. How long has the business been around? DAVID: I founded this 10 years ago. Oh, by the way, we're 10 years old this year. ROB: Happy birthday. Anniversary, whatever you want to call it. DAVID: Thank you. [laughs] Yes. ROB: The digital tactics even over that time have changed a lot. What were the tactics on Day Zero when it's you and – were you by yourself? Did you have partners in the earliest stages of the firm? DAVID: I'm going to back up and tell you a little different story. I promise, promise, promise to get there. Before I had Arc Intermedia, back in 1996 I founded one of the first interactive firms in Philadelphia. When we went into business, and I had a partner at the time, we built websites. At the time, 1996, a lot of companies didn't even have websites yet. There was no roadmap whatsoever. We thought this was a fantastic idea. We thought, hmm, this internet thing has a chance to stick around. So we built a company around it without a real plan. We raised some money from friends and family and just got after it. We made a lot of mistakes, but it was all good. 13 years of success proved that out. But I did find that when I had that web development company, we basically became production monkeys. Clients began to tell us what they wanted, what colors, this, this, and this, and we just became builders, not thinkers or advisors. When you're in that space and you begin to try to build a commodity like that, you're now competing against the whole world. And oh by the way, it's really hard if you think you're going to compete against offshore solutions on price. You never want to sell or have to build a model based on price. I began to look at the business and say, hmm, is this really what I want to continue to do? Near the tail end of it, we began to get more and more requests for SEO, search engine optimization. We were building these websites, but no traffic was coming to them. Clients wanted us to do SEO. I began to get my hands involved in SEO, and then jointly, paid search – way, way, way back, the origin of that was – I don't know if you remember the GoTo Network? It was the beginnings of all of it. ROB: Oh yeah. DAVID: I got my hands involved in the GoTo Network, and I got real excited. I'm like, look, we can build out some strategies. We have some money, and we instantly can begin to drive traffic to these websites. Then I had clients calling me up and telling me that they were getting all these sales leads and things were changing, and what was going on at the website? That was a light bulb moment for me. I really didn't want to be involved in the web building business anymore. I wanted to be in the business building business. I got real excited. Being an entrepreneur, I started to get that itch again. I'm like, I built this company and it's now been 12-13 years. I think it's time for me to bust a move into something else that I want to do. This customer acquisition piece – the part that actually moves the needle for the bottom line of a company – became very exciting to me. Then I did, and now back to your original question, I began to explore some of these original tactics much further. I didn't see any companies out there specializing in it. The agencies of the land, the traditional ad agencies, still wanted to spend your money on radio and TV and that kind of stuff and things that couldn't be measured. As scary as digital is in that you can measure right down to the penny, to the click, to this, to that, that actually was really, in some weird way, extremely enticing to me. That we could see it, we could measure it, and I could stand up and find the client and say, “I succeeded” or, hopefully not, “I failed.” But for some reason that was an incredible, incredible attraction to me. I decided that it was time to dissolve the web development company, and I launched Arc Intermedia, but this time I decided to start really slow, really small on purpose. It was myself and Mike Maier, who came over with me. It was just the two of us, and we started the company. We hyper-focused on some of the basic tactics of the day. There was SEO; it was much different than it is today, but it was SEO, and there was the paid search and that piece. Then as I began to see what was working for customers, the different technologies and tactics that were evolving, I began to build the experts around it. I went out and got one of the best SEOs, Ron Sansone, in the Philadelphia area, and he began to build out our search practice. From him, I added more people with SEO experience, paid search experience. Rasheed Hendricks heads up our paid advertising department, and he's just absolutely fantastic. That piece is ever-evolving. And then, as you probably have heard from doing many of these interviews, content is king. You need to know how to leverage content. Content can be leveraged from an SEO standpoint, from a distribution standpoint, from a credibility standpoint, from a social standpoint, all of it. You and I were talking a little bit about how we're HubSpot certified. Katie Schieder on my team is in charge of content and content marketing, and she does a fantastic job with her team. There's a lot of different pieces, and I know I'm maybe sounding like I'm rambling right now, but hopefully I answered your question. ROB: One thing I hear in there is a strong recognition and appreciation for a team of experts in the different subject areas. One thread I want to pull on a little bit that's unique about your story is you mentioned in your previous business, the web development shop, that you had investors. We talk a good bit about investors, but what we most often talk about on this podcast is people who are proud and grateful to not have investors, and maybe sometimes a chip on their shoulder because they know other people who have raised money and have gone out of business. What did you learn from having investors, and what would you say to other people who think they wish they had investors? You mentioned it was friends and family, so we didn't go out and raise $100 million, but still there are entailments to that. DAVID: There is nothing – nothing – sexy about having investors. Zero. Now, I was super fortunate that we ended up raising money through friends and family. And oh by the way, that was because no bank would touch us. When we had a plan to build a web development company back in 1996, every bank says, “Oh, that's fantastic, but I need a 150% collateral that we are going to freeze for every dollar that we give you.” If I had a 150% collateral that I could do, I wouldn't be sitting at that bank looking for money. That was just silly. So obviously that never went through. But we were fortunate that we were able to do it through friends and family and a lot of people who supported us. I will tell you, there's an incredible extra weight on your shoulders because you don't want to fail them. In my mind there was no chance, ever, in any way, shape, or form, that I wasn't going to return every dollar back to the people that invested in us – and then some, of course. My success was definitely going to be their success, and I was going to make sure that happened regardless, even if it meant that I was going to pay that money back personally. I was going to get it done. When you're taking VC money, that's a different approach and you can't always do all of that. But having investors is not sexy or anything that you should really go for unless you absolutely have to. Now, when I had Arc Intermedia, the one thing that was to my benefit was that I was going to start small, and I'm also now a little bit older, a little bit wiser. I self-funded my whole thing. The beauty there is, I never had anybody standing on my shoulders. I never had anybody that I had to answer to in that regard. So my advice would be try, try, try to do it on your own or figure out a way to do it on your own or try to figure out where you can get investment from people that trust and believe and love you, and then the VC thing is separate. Last. ROB: Right on. I think I would perceive in the web world, when you talk about the '90s, you'll hear a lot about some of the sticker prices people paid for pretty simple websites by our standards. You'll hear half a million, a million, 10 million. You mention competing with offshore now and this race to the bottom. Certainly it has been cheaper and cheaper to get a pretty good website. You can pay a kid from a high school and get something pretty decent. You can pay a pro less than you would pay one person in a year for sure. You don't see that same race to the bottom in the marketing world. You can't get 10 times as much marketing for the same price as you could 5 years ago. What do you think it is that keeps it from becoming a race to the bottom where some high school kid can hop out and just crush your B2B marketing? DAVID: Because there's so much more that goes into it. The tools now are very sophisticated with paid search and all the data you can get back and the targeting you can do, if you're going to do advertising on social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that. But at the end of the day, there has to be some really great strategy in there, and there has to be the ability to pivot and the eye to know when to pivot or why you need to pivot. Then the other part of it is the customer. Can the customer tell you what their cost of acquisition needs to be? Or can you then prove it out? For example, Rob, if I said to you, “Hey, you give me $1,000 bucks, and for every $1,000 bucks you give me, I'm going to give you $10,000 back in business,” you would do that all day long. You would figure out how many thousands you could give me so I could give you tenfold back. To answer your question, I think that only happens if you really have the people that have the expertise and the daily eye on this stuff to really know what works. The customer acquisition piece and the journey and all the points in between, it doesn't happen by chance. It's not by luck, and it's also not subjective. You used websites as the example. We can sit here and argue that the homepage needs to be a shade of blue or maroon or what have you, and maybe we're both right. Who knows? But at the end of the day with digital marketing, either I'm driving results and giving you a positive return or I'm not. I think that's the difference. ROB: That makes sense. There's infinite rounds of competition, and there's a level of spending that's always going to meet the value. The value of what people buy online keeps on going. People are buying more stuff online, and you need smarter people to drive those tools as you go. You mentioned some key folks that you have on your team, and you had clearly built a team before with your web dev shop. How did you think about assembling your team differently as you were building your second business? DAVID: This is probably an old adage that you've heard before, but it's always hire slow, fire fast. Thank God, I've not had to fire anybody at Arc Intermedia. I've got that great of a team. That's actually one of the things that I really do hang my hat on. In 10 years, we've never had anybody leave but one person, and it was more or less just a career change in that case. We still remain friends with that young woman to this day. But hiring the right people on the front end and making an investment in the right people is critically important. What my process was – and I'm going to use the SEO one as an example because it's clean and easy – I began to see in the marketplace that SEO was critically important, but I also could see that I could build a business around it. When I wanted to go and build the SEO, I didn't want to just hire a mid-tier person or an entry-level person or something where we were going to, together, learn it on the fly. Rather, I thought the most important or better move was to make the investment in a senior level person who had been doing it and we could build off of that person and let that person build out the practice, if you will. That's my approach. When you're a somewhat small agency that we are, every person counts. We're mean and lean and there's no place to hide, and everybody has to be able to show for what they bring to the table. My entire team, basically, is built with fairly senior level people that I would say are experts in their field. It's just been a much better approach than what I've seen others do. ROB: How do you think about positioning? When you have a senior person, that SEO offering also has to be a little bit of a premium offering. SEO certainly can have one of the highest long-term ROIs, but it can also be one of the slowest marketing tactics to start to bear fruit. How do you walk a customer along expectations around the sticker price you need to show them to bring the team that you have to bear on SEO? DAVID: You actually used my word, expectations. You've got to set the expectation correctly up front. As a joke, we say SEO is the marathon, paid search is the sprint. If you begin to lay out and set those expectations, both parties can get their head around what's going to be accomplished when. Part of that is, with SEO, we will not take on a contract that's less than 12 months, and the reason being is it is completely unfair to judge us on anything less than 12 months. 3 months in, if you were to look at what we were doing, you'd say, “You guys don't know what you're doing” or “This is a complete waste of money.” And they'd be right, because there wouldn't really be the return in 3 months. Wouldn't really be the return there in 6 months. But what you've got to do is look at a plan that's been executed correctly over a 12-month period, step back and say, “This is where we were month zero. Now look where we are.” Honestly, the contracts basically renew themselves because once you can show what can be delivered with SEO – and the beauty of SEO on paid media – it's infinite traffic if you do it correctly. If you're optimizing for terms and for topics that are in high demand, you can drive a great deal of traffic. And then if you have set up your customer journey correctly on the website and begin to show those conversions and whatever it may be, whether it be ecommerce or registrations or sales leads or what have you, it kind of sells itself if you do it correctly. Now, as far as a high ticket, SEO is a very difficult industry. It's getting a bit better, but we're constantly up against the – I don't know what to really call them outside of where they begin to make promises for SEO for $200 a month. We're always fighting against that. But our price point – and you've got to remember it's all labor-based, so people need to get paid. Especially when you have senior level people that you alluded to, they've got to get paid and you've got to offset those costs. So yeah, good SEO is not cheap, but I will tell you this: look at an SEO contract for 12 months, the cost of it, and compare that to some kind of media play. Compare that to a TV or radio campaign. Or even sometimes the money we really need to move the needle in paid search just because the search terms may be very costly, and if you don't have X amount of dollars, you're spitting in the wind. You'd be foolish to think you're going to get any kind of return because you can't drive the volume to get the return. In the grand scheme of things, SEO is actually not expensive if you're comparing it correctly. ROB: Right, it just doesn't track as quickly. “I did X dollars of SEO this month and it generated this amount of results.” You have to be more patient than that. We have talked a good bit about SEO. I know that is where you started, but I know you've also been thoughtful about layering in other service offerings to the business. What have you added in, and how did you reach those decisions of starting to embrace something where a lot of times agencies will partner on offerings they're not ready to do or ready to do yet? DAVID: I often find clients will come to us, and sometimes they will have a need. The need may be that they need more sales leads or they need to sell X amount more widgets. But often they come to us with a tactic in mind. For example, “We need to do SEO.” “Why do you need to do SEO?” It's just because that's what they've been told, that's what they've heard, that's what they may not be doing. They may not be coming up in the search results, so they think that's what they need. But really what we're seeing today now in digital marketing is it's more of what we call an integrated approach. It's the SEO, it's the presence on social, it's the being published on an industry website or a blog that begins to loosen up the soil so that when we do finally hit them with a paid search ad or a display ad, they've seen us before. There's some kind of credibility that's been built up just because they've seen us in multiple places, and we've nurtured them along and we can close the deal. Many of these things now work so hand-in-hand, and again, we always want to start strategy first. Don't tell us what to do; tell us what you're trying to accomplish. Then once we understand the goals and we're all on the same page with the goals, we'll build out the strategy. Then the strategy will dictate the tactics. That then leads into, what did we think made sense to bring in-house? With SEO, the counterbalance was the paid search. We had started doing some paid search from the very beginning, but not to the level of what we're doing today and what we needed to. That was a no-brainer, to make sure we headed up that department with paid search. Paid search is nice because people are looking for your exact service. In fact, paid search is one of my favorite forms of advertising because it's people actively looking for what you have. You just need to get in front of them. Conversely, people who are a bit more passive or are not actually searching, we need to prospect. And the best way to prospect is through display advertising or social advertising and those kinds of things. Again, having that piece of the pie just made a ton of sense of another piece that we need to layer on. Now, we can talk all day long about different tactics of driving people to a website, to filling out a form, to be giving them stuff, but the place that I see people now fall short of is you've got the sales lead; now what? The customer fills out a form. One of the reasons they don't want to fill out a form is because they know immediately they're going to get a phone call from a salesperson, and that's the last thing they want. So you've got to look at it a bit differently. “Hey, fill out this form and I'm going to give you something of value.” I always say you've got to give something to get something. Maybe they fill out the form to get some kind of a free tool or a download or a piece of advice or a consultation or something like that. But if you're really, really going to do this and you think you're going to get a return on that initial investment, you'd better be able to nurture. The nurture piece comes in with this marketing automation. For example, I know I've already said it before, but we're HubSpot certified, and that platform allows us to do a lot of different things. We can do email marketing and we can manage the workflow all the way through. If they open this email and they click on this, we know that they're demonstrating X interest in something, and we can then take them down the next path of providing them the next piece of content. We can nurture and we can build that relationship without the phone call, without the salesperson getting after them. So having the marketing automation piece was something we absolutely needed to bring in because we were doing such a fantastic job with driving leads on the front end that we needed to have the nurturing piece on the back end. ROB: It seems like you not only are comprehensive in the different services you provide, but you have to be comprehensive in your understanding of the business to be able to nurture leads along. You can get a first conversation, but to be able to nurture and build trust and credibility with somebody else's customer is not something you can get from just an onboarding form for a new client. How do you get to that depth of knowledge where you're actually building trust on behalf of a business that's not yours? That's a challenge. DAVID: You're right, it really is. I'll tell you, we get down into the weeds to the nth degree of some stuff that I never thought I needed to know about, from tuberculosis testing to hospice care to minor league baseball to all kinds of stuff. If you're willing to make a commitment to a new client – and to be honest with you, we do say no. There's times that we're like, “This isn't going to be a fit for us for XYZ reasons.” But when you finally say, “I am going to commit to you,” commit means I've got to learn your business, and I've got to find the skeletons in the closet. I've got to understand the good, the bad, and the ugly. Honestly, it's a constant learning process. We often will do onboarding with a client and we'll try to learn and glean as much information as we can, and as we launch programs, we begin to understand that what they were telling us is completely wrong. And they didn't even know it. So there's that piece of it too. Also, there's times where we'll do pilot programs of things just to begin to gather data. I'd like to believe that our team is very smart, and we have a lot of experience to begin to make some great guesses. But at the end of the day, we're not always right. You've got to look at the data. You've got to really look at what's happening in a given space and then be ready to pivot and think about things completely differently than when you went into it. But it's ongoing. There's no end to it. I'm still learning about tuberculosis and all those kinds of things. [laughs] ROB: It's more and more valuable for more and more people to be marketing online. David, when you are looking at what is next for you and what's next for Arc Intermedia and marketing in general, what are you excited about? DAVID: One of the things I'm excited about – we're in a horrible global pandemic, and one little tiny, tiny good thing that's come out of this from a digital marketing standpoint is I'm now having clients who we've been talking to about this for a long time understand that the lion's share of the budget really does need to start going to digital. Digital can deliver. It can be measured, and it's the one actually bringing in the leads. Just in this past 6 months, we've had a number of clients tell me that they're going to do major shifts in their budget for 2021 more towards the digital space. Why that makes me excited is if you give me more budget, I can do more things. I can expand out that integrated approach. I can go deeper in different tactics and strategies that we maybe have been pushing for that we couldn't just straight up because of budget. We can get after more of the content marketing piece, the content distribution piece. We can begin to see how we can tie different paid tactics to some other things that we're doing on the site. We can also look at different offer types and incentives to help ring the bell. ROB: That makes sense. The margin for execution on a small budget – there's just not a lot of room for mistakes or a lot of room for experimentation. I can absolutely see where having real digital budgets is a meaningful thing. David, when people want to track you down, when they want to connect with you and with Arc Intermedia, where should they go to find you? DAVID: Of course, we have that wonderful website that we've just done some updates to. We've even got our anniversary video out on the homepage, so I would direct everybody to arcintermedia.com. A lot of people find me on LinkedIn because that's a super easy way. Occasionally some people may find me over on Twitter. But I would say website. ROB: [laughs] Sometimes we find a different version of ourselves over on Twitter. DAVID: Yeah, I think I'm pretty good on that front. [laughs] For the most part. You won't me on Facebook, I will tell you that. ROB: Got it. Just have to have a shadow account to manage some of the client relationships? [laughs] DAVID: We have a love/hate relationship. I love the data that Facebook gives us to market on behalf of our clients. I'm not super fond of participating on Facebook myself. ROB: I understand completely. Even after they ban QAnon, who knows what's next? Or if they'll actually accomplish that. Who knows? Anyhow, David, good to connect with you. Good to have you on the podcast. Congratulations on 10 years of Arc Intermedia, and really of making a living going out and killing your own food for much longer than that with the web dev shop before that. DAVID: Yes indeed. Working without a net. ROB: [laughs] Indeed. Thank you so much, David, and be well. DAVID: Rob, I really appreciate your time. Thank you. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to share his thoughts on the outlook for China, and the latest on the US election and Brexit.We asked David:There is a pick-up in coronavirus cases across Europe. What are the economic and market implications?This week is another Brexit deadline. What is the current state of play in EU – UK negotiations and outlook for the UK?Turning from UK to the world’s second biggest economy, what is the outlook for China?You mention the US elections and last week you published a note on the market implications. What are the key takeaways?What are your expectations for the third quarter corporate earnings?

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to talk about the latest jobs data from the US and the likelihood of a V shaped recovery.We asked David:There has been a lot of focus on the recent upturn in the number of COVID infections in the US. Are investors right to be concerned or are these worries exaggerated?What are the implications for the US economy and recovery?You have stressed the importance of the jobs market for the recovery. Can you explain why it is so key to your view on the shape of the recovery?What does the latest jobs data for the US tell us?

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to discuss the rebound in financial markets and to explain the ECB’s latest policy support.We asked David: There has been a meaningful rebound in many financial markets since March. What do you think will be the drivers for markets over the next few months?You remarked that the European Central Bank recently announced further policy support. Can you explain the ECB’s latest actions and the market implications?Relations between the US and China appear to be worsening. What is the current state of play?

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to discuss market volatility, the European recovery fund and the outlook for UK assets.We asked David:There has recently been a pick-up in market volatility. What are investors reacting to?You mentioned the Franco-German proposal for the European recovery fund. Can you tell us a more about its significance?Staying in Europe, Brexit appears to be moving back onto investors’ radar. What is our current assessment and the outlook for UK assets?

ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with ALPS CEO David Bell to discuss David's past, ALPS future, why every company should have a vision for their core cultural values (and what shouldn't be in it). Transcript:  MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE:       Welcome. This is ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS and joining me today is David Bell, our CEO. David, maybe can we take just one minute or so here for listeners that may not know a bit about who you are, what your background is. I'd love to have you just share a little bit because I think your background and experience is relevant to where we're going to go today in our conversation. DAVID BELL:        Sure. Well thanks, Mark first and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you. I guess the short version of my short history is I started my career in insurance out of college with Chubb and with that in a large company with a long history and a long vision for the future. Then after moving up through various roles at Chubb, after 9/11 Chubb, AIG and Goldman Sachs started a joint venture and I went with Chubb's capital to start that. And over the course of the next decade plus, we took that organization independent from its founding shareholders public and it was ultimately sold. DAVID:                 In 2012, we moved back to Montana where I had gone to college and my wife had been raised and had the good fortune of joining ALPS in 2012 and a very different type of organization, very different size. My career before that had been in a big multinational company. ALPS is a smaller domestic only company and really a fascinating juxtaposition of different types of cultural priorities and different types of opportunities. So, just I feel fortunate and blessed to have had this journey and to have the point in my journey be right here in this moment. MARK:                  Very good. You recall we sat down about two years ago and spent some time discussing the ALPS corporate vision at the time. I thought it'd be fun to kind of revisit that topic today. If I may, I'd like to start by asking a few questions about the process that you go through with us in terms of the company, with the hope of having this discussion and example serve as a concrete example to others wanting to learn sort of the how to, so putting their own vision in place. Before we really even start to dig into this, would I be correct in assuming that the success that you in the large multinational setting as well as the ALPS setting, you're contrasting these two, is very different, but does vision have a role? Do you feel that that was significant in terms of your success in both spaces? DAVID:                 100%. Even when the vision is quite different, as they have been over the course of my journey, not having one is dangerous and I think would lead to a rudderless ship type of approach organizationally, even if you feel like you're generally going in the right direction. If you have a community of people, whether that community is two or three or two or 3,000, if they're not rowing in the same direction with some sense of rhythm, then success would only come by accident and that's not a really good plan. MARK:                  I like that. I really do. I want to come back to that here in just a moment. Can we start just by having you share some of the highlights, whatever you feel comfortable sharing in terms of the ALPS vision for 2020? DAVID:                 Sure. Well the ALPS vision for 2020 is more of our strategic operational objectives. When you have a vision for the short term, this 12 month duration, it's more actionable, quantifiable, executable milestones. So, I would describe the vision as how do the success of those fold up more broadly into an intermediate and longer term vision? And that pertains to the vision as respects where the organization is going. I mean, why are we laboring as hard as we are and making sacrifices personally with time and otherwise to be here to try to strive to be better? There has to be a reason and it has to be beyond monetary in order to affect people, particularly people at all levels because you're going to have folks at the managerial level who are very much privy to the discussion around the why and the vision. Then you're going to have people who are just doing their job every day and they don't have the benefit of the philosophical discussions as to why. So, the vision needs to be as relevant for them as it is for the vision creators. DAVID:                 So, the 2020 vision is a puzzle piece that is simply the beginning of the equation for the intermediate and longer term vision of why are we doing what we're doing. We're all conditioned as humans to first and foremost think, how does this affect me? What's in it for me? So, I think from a managerial perspective, we would be wise and probably have an obligation to go to that place first. We're really going to think about this as it is seen through the filter of everybody else individually as why is this relevant to everybody who's here, and why should they care and sacrifice in order to realize this vision? And how bought in are they to the vision, and how much is the vision a function of their own engagement and involvement and contribution? MARK:                  What I hear, and I love that, it seems to me that part of this is really kind of trying to give some meaning and purpose at the individual level all the way to the corporate level in terms of these whys. I like that. Very, very good. I think this next question kind of relates to what you've been sharing, but I would like to be very specific about it in terms of some clarity. What is the value from a business sense and perhaps personal sense of having a corporate vision? I think we've hit that some, but I'd like sort of a concrete statement. DAVID:                 Sure. Well, I would break that down into two different categories. MARK:                  Okay. DAVID:                 The value of having a vision about the core values, meaning the cultural values of an organization, I think is essential. In fact that frankly, it's more important than the financial and operational vision because if you get the cultural values vision right, the rest of it will more naturally fall in place. If you don't get it right, it'd be very difficult to successfully execute on operational and financial objectives if at its core the culture has a cancer in it. So, you have to start with the cultural side. I think never more so than now when the labor force is increasingly made up of purpose-driven people, people who have an absolute expectation that there is something broader than a paycheck that's part of this compact. DAVID:                 So, the cultural vision, the cultural value that we've established at ALPS is intentionally very simple. We ask ourselves four questions and these questions, they are prominently placed around our environment but it's not kind of a sentence written on a wall for the purposes of marketing. It is really supposed to serve as the litmus test through which not just the words that we speak but ideally the thoughts that we have are filtered through that litmus test. They are quite simply, is it the truth, is it fair, does it benefit our people and the company and does it help us make a profit? Right. We didn't hire a fancy consultant to help us come up with those. I'm sure they could be worded more eloquently in some ways. DAVID:                 But it is, at its basic level, the most honest, intentional approach to say what are some things that we want to exhibit as individuals working in community that if we strive towards these four things, will life be better for all of us? I think we think the answer is yes. If we're committed to telling one another the truth and we are committed as an organization to speaking the truth externally, even when it's uncomfortable, then it doesn't mean that every day will be rainbows and unicorns, but every day will be a day that we can feel proud about what we've done. MARK:                  Yes. DAVID:                 That type of thing is important to people to have worth in their role. The second is, is it fair? Fairness is a subjective measurement. So one person's idea of fair is not the same as the other person's idea of fair. So, what the question of is it fair means is, do you as an employee of this company have confidence that the underlying motivation of the decision maker is to strive for fairness? It doesn't mean that we're always perfect or that we get it right all the time as it pertains to decisions about our own people internally or the endeavors that we have with our constituents and the people around us. We don't claim to be right 100% of the time, but we are always trying to be fair and we aren't afraid to pull back and correct ourselves if we feel we've jumped off course. So, it's the pursuit of fairness. DAVID:                 Then the third and fourth are somewhat kind of unapologetic affirmations of the reality. The third one is, does it benefit our people and the company? I mean, there is an unapologetic self interest that we have as an organization. Is what we're spending our time and money on going to benefit the people here and this organization because if it's not, then we should be thoughtful about how we allocate those resources. Then fourth, doesn't it help us make a profit? I think the need to make a profit can't be understated. It's very intentionally on the list and it's also intentionally not first. DAVID:                 It is there and we shouldn't gloss over the reality that without financial solvency and financial strength, we are not able to accomplish all of our other goals. So, we should keep a really sharp eye on that question. But we also don't wake up and work our days simply and solely for the purpose of making a profit because there's candidly no inspiration longterm for anybody. So, those are four of the cultural values. In our recent vision meeting, we asked what we don't want just so we can keep an idea of what we do want by acknowledging characteristics that many of us have seen exhibited at other companies or read about or watched. DAVID:                 I think it's healthy to spend just a few moments in discussion about what we don't want just so we call it for what it is. We put a label on it, don't want that, right. And some of those, there's just five of them that we talked about in the most recent meeting, which was "corporate" culture where you're just a job. You're a number. You're a commodity. You can be unplugged and somebody else plugged in there. That's not inspiring if you feel like you are commoditized. So, we don't want that. We don't want uncertainty from the fear or concern of financial instability. But it's one of the reasons why making a profit and financial success is on our top four that we do because it gives people a sense of calm and confidence in everything else that they're doing knowing that we do this from a position of strength. DAVID:                 Third, we don't want me people. We want we people. We acknowledged in our discussion that, I'll just speak for myself, as human beings, I am an inherently selfish person, right. My default position is one of self interest and selfishness. I believe that that's just the way that we were created. So, in order to not be a me and be a we, we have to consciously fight against that and be thinking first and foremost about the people around us. Then another is, we don't want to have a kind of that's not my job mentality. I mean, if the coffee needs to be changed, I should change the coffee. It doesn't matter who you are, if you come across it and it needs to be done, then you should do it. You should do it comfortable that other people do the same thing. DAVID:                 Then finally, and this is really important, gossip. I mean, gossip is a cancer that can debilitate companies. So, we are almost transparent to a fault, and in large part, in an effort to preempt any type of gossip. So those are things that you don't want, and then that quickly leads you to the type of cultural vision that you do want. You want folks that just take initiative. When people see a problem, they address it. When people have an idea about something that can be done better than the way we're doing it today, the first instinct should be action. The first thought should be empowerment that I have an idea that I think would benefit others, and I know that I work for a company that that idea can be put in motion in a relatively short period of time. DAVID:                 You want to be a solution provider both for our folks internally and for our customers. We have a business where we have a finance department and other and a HR department. We have legal departments where their constituents, their consumers are internal. They're our own people or our customer. Then we have departments, the business development and account managers and others and claims who are external facing. Their clients are our policy holders, our customers. So, we want to be solution providers for everybody. DAVID: Finally, we're just wrapping up here on the cultural what you do want, you want this to be a fun place to work. I'm not suggesting for a second that this is Disney World and that every day is like a vacation. I know the adage, if you find a job that you love, you'll never not work another day in your life. I personally don't subscribe to that. I think we can be honest about the fact that we come to our jobs because it's a living and we get paid for it. And hopefully it provides the means through which we can pursue some of our other passions in life. Hopefully, it is not the singular interest in your life. I think that would be unhealthy, but we are involved in a serious business. We take risks. We make promises. DAVID:                 There's lots of law and finance in what we do, but we should still be able to have fun. We should not take ourselves too seriously. We should be self-deprecating and people should not feel guarded. I think as we talked about this in the all company meeting, I think the sense amongst our staff is that we do a pretty good job at that. You want people around you to want you to win. I think whether it's who we're working next to or our marriage or our friendships, you want to be in community with people who are "for you", who genuinely want to see you succeed and to enter your success with you. DAVID:                 Then again, just from a vision perspective, size through diversification, right. I mean in our business there is strength in size and there is strength and protection in diversification. So that is something that we're quite intentional about. We want everybody finally to just know that they're supported, whether they're in our home office in Missoula or in any one of our number of remote locations around the country. I mean, whether I get to see you physically, regularly on a day to day basis or whether you're in Atlanta, Georgia or Richmond, Virginia or any of the other places, you should feel like you are as a valued and that the resources you're giving to succeed are as high a priority as anyone else. DAVID:                 So, those are cultural vision checkpoints. I would suggest that if we are wildly successful on making all of those real in the lives of everybody that work here, we will be and continue to be the best legal malpractice carrier in the country. Candidly, we would be the best in anything we were doing. If we, for whatever reason, stopped doing this and started doing something else as an organization full of people working together, we would do that well too. MARK:                  Yeah, I agree. I agree. Let me sort of share, just speaking personally for a moment. I have participated as all of us at ALPS have at the all company meetings and talking about these things. I like you're sharing the point of the discussion where folks, what don't we want? I think taking risks like that to invite these kinds of discussions really enables people to make it real. I describe our culture, what we do, and I think at an individual level as well as at the company wide level, we are really striving to be, and I think we accomplish this, authentic and intentional in our actions. Even in terms of just how we interrelate with each other, how we interrelate with our customers. MARK:                  I'll share David, for many years I would sign my email as you're emailing with different customers, internal and external, Mark and things like that. But in more recent years, I have a signature. I'll say, "Please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything else I can do," but I'm more and more adding if I can be of service to you. I really take great pride in, and I think I am not alone or unique in this, I take pride in that's my experience of who and what ALPS is. That we do take joy and pride in being in service to others in what we do. MARK:                  So, I'm just trying to give our listeners a sense of what you're talking about is being internalized and taken up by those that you're trying to share the vision with. But can I ask, what is your process? When you sit down and think about vision, any thoughts to share or insights? Is this something that's very organic? How do you go about it? DAVID:                 Sure. Well, the cultural vision is an exercise of really drawing on both my personal experiences with positive cultures and destructive cultures. Then being in discussion with others internally in this company and just externally people who you just benefit from talking about their experiences and taking the good and the bad, and then coming up with a vision of what you want to pursue. So, I think it is generally in a constant state of evolution in that it's kind of being refined but at its heart, the truth and fairness, those are kind of time-tested, immovable virtues for a company. DAVID:                 So, when you hear people... When you do some of these things well, and we are by no means perfect. In fact, we make mistakes regularly and we strive to be better. The fact that we feel like we get better means that we've always got room to improve. But when you do these things well and as you hire people and they're exposed to this culture for the first time as an employee and they come from reputable companies, competitors or otherwise. And you listen to them as they describe their experiences here, it's really inspiring. It makes you want to make it better, refine it more because you kind of feel like you're really onto something. It does tap into a part of the psychology for all of us that just numbers alone I don't think can tap into. MARK:                  I think you and I have seen this over the years in terms of our professional experiences and looking at competitors and whatnot, but I think businesses, corporations, small law firms, you can come up and create a good vision. I think have something that's pretty solid and yet it doesn't go anywhere. The vision fails for lack of a better reason. Just it never gets implemented perhaps. Why do you think that is? What gets in the way of, in terms of your experiences, success with a vision? Any thoughts about that? DAVID:                 Well, that's a great one. I suppose there are risks that a vision is established, but it's not a core conviction, and so it's not front of mind. When we first started this discussion, Mark, I talked about the four cultural vision points, the truth and fairness. I described those as the litmus test, the lens through which all things should be filtered. You really have to, whatever your vision is for your small firm or your family or your nonprofit, if it's not important enough that it will resonate with you and with everyone else such that it's front of mind in all thoughts and actions, then there's a real danger that you drift away from it. I think that's one risk because you can have a strategy session with the people who you work with and two weeks later no one could even quote a single sentence of what was discussed in that. MARK:                  I have been through that more than once. Yes. DAVID:                 I'm sure there is value in those types of days, but it really needs to be something that people are genuinely bought into. So, I think drifting away from it as is one risk. A second risk that I suggest and I've experienced this in my various failures to pursue certain vision elements, I think a vision, like most other things, can be distilled down to a project needing project management. If you have a certain vision characteristic, you need to disaggregate it into its pieces, put it in align sequentially of what needs to be done and then manage it towards that goal. DAVID:                 A vision is a point that if you slice it into 10 sub points and then line them up from where you are right now to what would realize that vision, then you kind of methodically and actionably check off on those things. I think sometimes we think of visions in the softer context. So, we're not as disciplined at project managing our way, methodically checking off certain actions or behaviors that are marching towards realizing that vision. Then we wake up one day disappointed that we haven't realized the vision. MARK:                  Yeah. Yeah. I think when I look back on my own career over the years where it has failed, there tends to be we come up with this vision and then you sort of say it at the front line to the bulk of the company, "Implement this and do it." There's no tools. It's not a bottom-up kind of process in my mind. When you try the bottom-up, it fails. It has to be a top-down in the sense that, in the ALPS example here, you and upper management really do genuinely live and exemplify the vision just in the day to day interactions with everybody you interact with, again, internally and externally. I think that is also key to some of this. You have to walk the talk. That's been my experience anyway. DAVID: Yeah. Well thank you. I appreciate that observation. There are aspects of a vision that need to be top-down because in some ways that's the charge of leadership is to be spending time thinking and deciding about vision. But the vision is carried out by everyone else. So, if you just, in an autocratic kind of way, instruct people on what they're going to do when, that generally is not a recipe for success. But if you go to the folks who are going to be executing and say, "This is the vision. Can you do this? Do you have the resources necessary for you to accomplish this? And how long do you think reasonably it will take under an aggressive timeline for you to get it done?" DAVID:                 If the people are engaged and just being asked if they're prepared to sign up for this vision, being asked if they have been armed with the resources to fulfill what they've just committed to and just being asked how long they realistically they think it's going to take. Those are not particularly complex questions, but it's amazing the difference of whether or not you go through those other steps and ask those questions. Versus just barking out an instruction to people who then look at you as though you're hopelessly unrealistic about what it actually takes to get these things done. MARK:                  I absolutely agree with you. The way I describe that is there is a difference between allowing the workforce, however you want to define that, allowing them the opportunity to own the vision, giving them tools, explaining, those kinds of things. Versus having sort of the dictator approach, this is the vision, make it happen and I'm out. It has to be owned from top to bottom. Again, I think that's another key reason why ALPS has been successful at this. I'd like to switch just a little bit. Wellness and wellbeing has been a significant issue, as you're well aware, particularly in legal profession in recent years. MARK:                  ALPS has been involved in the national movement to put together some emphasis on wellbeing and some resources. It's been an exciting time. I think ALPS has done internally a good job focusing on wellbeing. Do you see, is there a connection, is there a relationship between the vision that you have, the vision that ALPS has embraced here and wellness, a wellness, a wellbeing component? Is there a connection there at all or in your mind is that sort of separate topics? DAVID:                 No, I think there's very much a connection between the division and the cultural priorities and wellness in general because whether it's at ALPS specifically where we happen to employ a lot of people who are attorneys and have been in their prior lives practicing attorneys and the legal community that we insure. That's obviously the wellness category is, at the legal profession, pretty well documented. I mean mental health, substance abuse, physical wellbeing, stress in the job. I mean, the role of the attorney is one where people can quite literally and often do work themselves to death because there really is not a governor on when it becomes an unhealthy. I think the small firms and solo practitioners or perhaps even most susceptible to it. They don't really have the check and balance of a lot of other people in an organizational structure. DAVID:                 So, I think there's similarities between the community of people of 20,000 people that we insure all around the country and the people that are within this organization itself. I think wellness it is really important. It's a tricky one because the cause and effect of what you spend time on and what you spend money on and how that correlates directly to measurable wellness outcomes is very difficult. So I'm a big metric fan and I tend to rely much of my decision making on data of some sort. The data there is a little bit harder to pin down, but you just know that there is a correlation and that that correlation is necessary even if it's not as mathematical as some of the other decision points that drive our business. MARK:                  One final little question I'd like to throw your way, before I ask it, I need to explain something to the listening audience here. In recent years, David has taken the time to meet individually with every single employee in the company. It is what we call a coffee talk. It's just sit down for however long that the conversation goes. There's no rules on the conversation. You talk about anything you want. So, I'm going to ask the question. Why do you do or what is the value of coffee talk to you? DAVID:                 That's a great question. Something as simple as a 45 minute conversation shouldn't have as many and as complicated benefit and reason as it does, but I get the benefit of a lot of information from those discussions. It's also a great opportunity for me to help demonstrate in our flat managerial structure that we aren't a hierarchy. That everybody has access to everybody else and that no manager should have any apprehension about me having a discussion. I should have an appropriate level of deference in the role that the manager's tasked with not to do anything to undermine them by having this direct one on one conversation with their staff member. But I learn a ton about what makes people tick, what's important to them. I get a ton of information about where there are obstacles in the day to day aspects of people's jobs, obstacles that are not that difficult to remove, but for whatever reason, it kind of helps to talk about it and enlist some assistance. DAVID:                 I pick up a lot of personal context of the journey that people go through, and this is perhaps the most valuable aspect of this. In my old life in the role that I had before, I was the COO of a large publicly traded multinational insurance company. So, I just didn't have the benefit of knowing people personally. I didn't want people to be a number, but there just wasn't really another option. I didn't have context of the life of that person in London or in New York in the decisions that I was making. DAVID:                 So, there's a real blessing to being in an organization of this size where you really get to put your thumb on the pulse of these people and the journey that they're going through and how their profession intersects with that, where it intersects positively, where it creates challenges. So, it really makes the whole game more of a human one but it is a pain to schedule. If we just be honest about the challenge, I had two coffee talks today and they're so different and they were both great. But when I'm traveling, and so these are generally done, unless I'm in one of our other locations with another employee, I'm generally doing these when I'm here. So, it is not an insignificant commitment of time, but it is a commitment that yields a result and return that makes it well worth it in my mind. MARK:                  Yeah, I would agree. Let me share again for our listening audience here why I think coffee talk is valuable. At the end of the day, it really just boils down to when you couple it with emphasis on wellbeing, the corporate meetings we have, we get together and have these discussions. But there's a two way street in play here and it's when a corporation through management and even you, David as the CEO, take the time to personally invest in the employees. It creates the opportunity again for the employees to reciprocate and invest personally in the vision and the mission of what the corporation is doing, what ALPS is doing. In my mind, I think that's just a huge invitation. I see that as fundamental to the success of implementing the vision and really keeping things moving forward so that we're not drifting to use your word. You're keeping the pulse on us, but we're also keeping the pulse on you as representative of the corporation. It's really good stuff. MARK: Well folks, we are out of time. David, I really appreciate the opportunity to sit down and visit a little bit. It's always a pleasure when we get together. I hope for those of you listening that you can appreciate. I thought this would be valuable because it's a real world example of how when a thought leader creates a vision and has the ability and a desire, intent, energy to implement this, you really can have some tremendous success. I don't think that these kinds of processes aren't limited to a corporation. This can happen in a three man law firm. So, I hope you found something of value. Thanks for listening folks. It's a good one. So long.

Rob is joined by Irish-American entrepreneur and billionaire David McCourt. David answers audience questions on how he got to be where he is today and what he hopes to do in the future, discover what it takes to solve business problems, curate and create million-pound ideas and learn how to start, grow and scale your own business. Tune in today for this insightful interview with self-made billionaire David McCourt. KEY TAKEAWAYS Q. How do you change your thought process to help you come up with different ideas? A. [David]I do one thing consistently, which is when approaching a problem I put myself in the future and I am able to see that problem already solved, I then turn around and look backward and I build a plan to get me to where I already am.  It can be overwhelming looking at a huge problem, people say “how did you have such vision to solve the problem?” It really wasn't that amazing at all, because when you put yourself in the future, it becomes crystal clear to you what it is going to look like and then you have to build a plan to get there. A. [Rob] I would say, be the person that disrupts you, rather than someone else. I am very much a big believer in disrupting yourself. I want to disrupt my own patterns, behaviors, and habits before my competitors do. I am always trying to imagine, if I was a competitor of mine, what weaknesses would I see? I then try and solve those before someone else does. I challenge myself to follow people I didn't think that I liked, to learn from people that have very different beliefs from me, because that can challenge the way I look at something. Q. How and when do you scale? A. [David]I personally, have never thought about business as having a goal to reach a certain size. I approach business as trying to solve a problem that I find would be interesting to solve and that the world needs to solve and through doing that you can make money. I look at it more as a problem that people say ‘that cannot be solved' whereas I say ‘it can be solved'.  I don't initially think about the size of the business, but if it is a big problem that nobody else has been able to solve before, then by definition you will be able to scale it. A.[Rob] There were three commonalities over the wealthiest people. One of those was the desire to serve vast amounts of people. Don't just have a plan or a goal but if you have a genuine desire to serve vast numbers of people, then you will connect the dots along the way and take the opportunities and partnerships. The second thing, a concept called the network effect. This is essentially a way to get to as many people on the planet as quickly as possible. Q.  Who were your main mentors when you started out on your journey? A.[David] I am the first to admit, I had a huge advantage number 1 I had an unbelievable mother and father, and I had a mother that constantly taught me that it was okay to fail, that constantly taught me that I would be something and that I would accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. Having someone that supports you in your life, gets you 80% of the way there. I have had different mentors at different stages, I was on board just after I finished college, and on that board was the first public millionaire in America. I had never met a millionaire before and he said something that was very interesting, he said: “you have to make what's important in your life instinctive, there are certain things that you are not going to have time to process, that you have to be instinctive”. After that, there was a man named Walter Scott, who was like a father to me. He taught me that taking care of your downside is the most important thing in business and the upside will take care of itself. My third was probably Jack Welch, he taught me a lot. A. [Rob] Out of all the successful people I know, I am one of the youngest. This is because I have pushed myself to have mentors who are 60 and 70 years old. I love having these mentors because they have so much more wisdom and experience than me so now I seek out being the youngest in a networking group. Everything that David fortunately had, you can create. Q. Did you leave the ladder or are you continuously putting those ladders down for people? A.[David] There is nothing that gives me more pleasure, that putting the ladder down for someone else. It is really an ugly characteristic that some people have. Once they make their money they want to distance themselves from people so that others aren't able to have it. There is nothing more rewarding than putting the ladder down for the next person to climb upon. I have made a lot of money, given a lot of money away and lost a lot of money, and I can tell you for sure, the difference between the times I have had money and when I haven't,  there is no difference, if what you're trying to do with your life is create something. Q.  What one world problem would you solve ? A. [David] If I could only solve one problem, I think if we can instill the sense of hope and dreams that America had 50 years ago back around the world, then we could solve all the problems. The America that I grew up in is a very different place than what it is today. That country of hope and dreams where anything is possible if we worked together is what could solve problems. The big ones are healthcare, housing, and education. The costs of these three are all growing faster than wages so by definition you can't catch up. So if you're growing up thinking that you will never be able to catch up, that is a terrible and dangerous place to be in. That is the world that we're living in now, and that is the problem that we need to fix. A. [Rob] The first time I met David, he told me “The world's biggest problems are also the world's biggest business opportunities right now”. It is easy to look at people that are the champions of dramatic change globally and forget that we can make a difference ourselves. There became a point where I looked around and noticed members of staff and thought “they've all got jobs, they're all paying their mortgages and they're all receiving benefits” I think it is easy to forget the value you make as an entrepreneur, I think a company done in the right way is one of the best ways to create value. Q. Do you ever feel that you don't know enough to get to where you want to be? How have you dealt with it? A. [David] I sometimes get a feeling, that time will run out before I accomplish everything that I want to accomplish. I worry about whether I have enough time to love all the people I want to love, meet all the people I want to meet and to go to all the places I want to go to. I worry about that every day, which is why I have to figure out a way to do it at scale. I don't feel that I should be doing anything different than what I am doing or that I am wasting my life. Am I worried I don't have enough time? Yes. Am I worried I am doing things wrong? No. I don't have a fear of failure, because I am a happy, healthy guy so I am 99% of the way there anyway. BEST MOMENTS “Having someone that supports you in your life, gets you 80% of the way there.” “Everything that is important in your life has to be as instinctive as being able to pick up a pencil when you drop ii, and that will free up your brain to be able to process the new incoming things” “What's the worst that can happen? You could become a starving artist and you might like it!” “I was born curious and optimistic”   VALUABLE RESOURCES https://robmoore.com/ ABOUT THE HOST Rob Moore is the host of the UK's no. 1 business podcast “The Disruptive Entrepreneur,” and “The Money Podcast” as well as an entrepreneur, property investor, property educator, and holder of 3 world records for public speaking. He is also the author of 9 business books, 5 UK bestsellers, and the global bestseller, Life Leverage. “If you don't risk anything, you risk everything” ABOUT THE GUEST David McCourt is an Irish-American entrepreneur with experience within the telecom and cable television industries. He was an early contributor to the development of transatlantic fiber networks and has founded and bought many companies in various countries. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Granahan McCourt, a private investment firm specializing in telecoms and media and has invested more than a €100 million in telecoms in Ireland. He made his fortune from the sale of his US phone company, Corporate Communications Network, to WorldCom for $14 billion (€12 billion) in the 1980s. CONTACT METHOD Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/robmooreprogressive/?ref=br_rs LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robmoore1979 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David - What is your name and what do you do at KijabeLilian - I’m Lilian and I’m an Ob-Gyn in Kijabe, for the last four years, but been here a lot longer.David - When did you start?Lilian - 2007, internship for two months, elective term, 2009 internship for one year. I left for 8 months and came back in October 2010. Then residency, and I came back fully in 2015.David - Who is your husband and when did you meet?Lilian - He’s George (Otieno) – we met in undergraduate in our third year of medicine and surgery. When we came to Kijabe from the first time we were already dating.David - Lilian is head of Ob-Gyn at Kijabe, here you say obs/gyn, is that right? George was head of internal medicine, but now he’s promoted right? He’s inpatient subdivision head. Both do so much for the hospital, they’re amazing.What we’ve been talking about lately, and working on, are some of your needs for the OB department. Some we’ve gotten sorted and some are in process. Two years ago, we were having a big problem with the delivery room. And now that’s done.Lilian – Thank God. Now we can walk in and smile and not be embarrassed. That used to be my nightmare. For example, patients come, they don’t know where the delivery room is, and they walk into this ugly room. That used to be a very big problem for me, it was nothing for a woman delivering her first child. I’m happy.David – And now it’s really nice.Lilian – Thank you for spearheading that process for renovation.David – It’s night and day different. I think there is a process we are going through, not just in Kijabe, but in Kenya, where the bare minimum is not acceptable anymore.Lilian – No it’s not. We have to give the best to our women. . .and to any patient who walks into any hospital. I think we have gotten used to the poverty mentality to the point that we are not willing to go the extra mile to make things better, as opposed to just living today.David – We were just talking with a doctor who wanted to come visit a clinic doing more open surgeries than laparoscopy. Which is reality for a lot of places. But here in Kijabe, I feel like we have the option to do things with excellence. That’s why you’re here!Lilian – That’s why we are here. To make a difference, and to live our purpose too, which is to do everything with excellence.David – What we’ve been talking about is how as Friends of Kijabe, we can help with the Obs/gyn department – what is feasible to do, and in some ways, what is the Christian thing to do.Why don’t you tell me about the patients or populations/demographics that have been the most stressful, and that we agree these might be able to most easily address their needs?Lilian – Among the patient populations we’ve been concerned or have special interest about have been cancer patients who come and need urgent care, yet they’re not able to pay for the services offered. These are patients who are coming and don’t have National Insurance Cover. National cover requires three months to mature, even if someone was to apply as soon as the diagnosis is made, but that is too long to wait.David – Because with cancer, usually they’ve waited too long anyway right?Lilian – Yeah, so by the time they are coming, we need to make radical decisions at that point. As much as it may be a small population, we feel like the care they deserve should be accorded to them, regardless of their financial status. That’s why we feel they need support.David – So for gynecology-oncology patients, do they require surgery and chemotherapy or sometimes just surgery?Lilian – It depends on the type of cancer and the stage or the spread. Early cervical cancer patients might require only surgery and that is it, unless they have evidence of spread, like in the lymph nodes in which case they need chemo-radiation. In case of radiation-therapy they have to be referred out of Kijabe.David – Chemo, you can usually do here now?Lilian – Ovarian cancer, most of those cases will go through surgery, then eventually will require chemotherapy after, which can be given to them in Kijabe.Some cases are strict referrals, for example, advanced cases, which are not operable. We will refer for the combined chemotherapy/radiation therapy. The few we are able to handle here require chemotherapy and surgery.David – This is becoming a big issue in Kenya, it’s all over the news.Lilian – It’s all over the news. I think, partly because of improved diagnostics. There is more advocacy for screening and early detection. There are over 3,000 deaths from cervical cancer every year.Our joy has been able to sort patients at an affordable cost compared to what they would have to pay in Nairobi.In 2016, we had 11 cancer surgeries for gyne. In 2017, we rose to 31, in 2018, we had 41. We hope this year we can have an even higher number that are detected early to get surgical management. There is more awareness and people are coming through referrals and we are doing aggressive screening for cervical cancer.David – I don’t know if it would directly relate to your patient population in Kijabe, but life expectancy in Kenya has grown 1 year every year for the last 15 years. Fifteen years ago, life expectancy was 48 and now its 63.Lilian – Yes, it’s 63 now.  It’s an improvement. As much as we know many are still dying, I really think there is something positive happening as far as improving primary health care and advocacy for many things, with health being a big agenda for the president. We are seeing a lot happening even in the country places. We appreciate that they are doing something.David – That’s gynecology/oncology, what’s your other patient demographic that you personally stress over? This isn’t something out there, it’s something very close to your heart.Lilian – For gyne-onc, I’ve also lost family through cancer and I think there is so much we can do in terms of primary prevention and early detection, which is not really emphasized so much. I think for Kijabe that’s one area we could do well in.A second type of population we see are young pregnant women who need emergency care and they can’t access to the point of saying “don’t admit me.” We know that whatever happens on the other side, the care they will get is substandard.For example, a patient who comes with preeclampsia in the 7th month of pregnancy, the baby requires newborn ICU admission and the mom require HDU or ICU care, clearly you can’t refer those patients because of finances.There are teenage girls with unplanned pregnancies coming with no insurance cover, who require emergency, comprehensive obstetric care. That population is at very high risk for mortality and morbidity for both mothers and babies. They may be few, but those few deserve to live.David – you’re concerned specifically about abortion or if the baby does come, what happens to the baby afterwards.Lilian – We’ve had different encounters with primary school, high school girls coming and wanting a termination, and we’ve said no. But even if we say no, we are supposed to be giving them solutions, alternatives. Who is going to help with the clinics? They are already high-risk by virtue of age, by virtue of them wanting to terminate. Who takes care of the clinic bills, who takes care of the delivery, who takes care of the child afterward in postpartum clinic reviews? If baby requires specialized care, what happens? These are young girls who are prone to depression, psychosis, suicide, and I feel like they deserve better because that’s a point of ministering to them. I think those few hours we spend with them are enough to actually change their lives, not just because of their condition, but even in terms of eternity.These high-risk patients that come to us and they don’t have better options, I think they deserve more. Especially those who come with unplanned or what you call crisis pregnancy.David – There is precious-few resources for things like that.Lilian – One, young people are condemned by society for making wrong choices. Two, there are no options given to them. If they are given, they are poor options, like terminations, which means going to the backstreets to terminate. It is cheaper of course and it won’t be known. That has resulted in high mortality for girls.Among the top 5 [maternal] killers in our country, we still have abortion. Beyond hemorrhage and hypertension, have abortion topping because of girls going to the back streets for termination of pregnancies.As we take care of them and do abstinence and user protection, when all those steps have been bypassed, we need solutions for these girls.David – I’ve seen Kijabe babies be placed in homes.Lilian – There are many options, it’s just I think we don’t take that time that has to be spent walking with such, there is the financial aspect that must be considered from way before, during pregnancy, delivery and thereafter. We have a few rescue homes that do a job for these girls, but not all go to the rescue homes. So, can we be a sort of rescue home in terms of the medical care that we’re giving.David – And we can make sure that they are not making bad decision for lack of finance. A delivery in Kijabe is $250 or $300.Lilian – That could be all it takes for them to actually see there is hope.David – Who is the one you were telling me about that came with the grandmother.Lilian – At least a happy one. This was a sixteen year-old, who got pregnant while in form 2.  For you guys, that would be 10th grade. Every time she would come for a clinic, she would be accompanied by the grandmom who would pay the bills for the clinic. And the grandmother would make sure she was okay.This was a grandmother who lost her daughter, and her daughter left her with a grandchild who became pregnant. She was taking care of the great grand-child after the delivery.I think what really made my heart feel warm was the love, and the fact that she was there to support her and tell her, I’m here, I will pay your bills, and I’ll take care of my great grandchild, and you’ll go back to school after the first few months.That love shown to this young girl who may have opted for termination if there was no other option.The grandmother was able to afford some coins to walk through the journey. No fancy clothes for the babies, but maybe, some coins to buy a packet of chips, to say, “I’m here for you.”David – One other one that was very special for several of us and for me personally, the first time I walked through this process, was a teenager who came in with a pregnancy, I think it was twins and they lost the first twin. I think it was 30 or 32 weeks. I heard about it from Dr. Mary Adam, “Hey, there’s this little baby and the mom has gone, she has abandoned.” All the nurses and the doctors at the hospital, said, “this is our baby.” That was the first person we ever crowdfunded for individually. The way it happened was amazing. I walked through the NICU one day with a camera. She raised her hands up to me. "You want this picture don’t you? You want people to take care of you!" In that picture she was wearing a diaper that came up to her neck, and now when you see her, she is two years old, she is round and chubby.For what it takes to do the right thing, in my mind, it’s such a tiny amount of money, to take care of the mother and the baby.We do have some general funding coming in toward this. We hope that can increase over time, as some of our obgyn’s become involved. Also, any of you guys who might be listening to this, anyone who gives to the Friends Fund, a portion of that goes to vulnerable patients. Basically we want to say yes when someone needs something. That’s the goal.Anything you would like to add?Lilian – Just requesting humbly for support wherever it comes from. Of course we are very grateful for those who have had Kijabe in their minds, and for whichever way they support, whether by been human resource, whether it’s financial, whether it’s prayers, whether it’s encouragement.David - AbsolutelyThe Estimated Incidence of Induced Abortion in Kenya: A cross-sectional study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4546129/

David gets into Blair's head to get his 10 basic negotiating tips that he has worked with clients on over the years.   LINKS “10 Negotiating Tips” (with 5 bonus tips) “Selling in One Lesson,” 2Bobs episode 49 Buying Less for Less: How to avoid the Marketing Procurement dilemma, by Gerry Preece Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value, by Reed K. Holden   TRANSCRIPT DAVID C. BAKER: Blair, today we are going to talk about 10 really interesting ways you can get your spouse to go ... Wait, I haven't, quit laughing. I haven't - BLAIR ENNS: I'm out. DAVID: How to get your spouse to go to the place for dinner that you want to go to. BLAIR: Okay. DAVID: How's that? BLAIR: Sure. What kind of trouble could we possibly get into? DAVID: Yeah, that would be a really stupid pod ... No. What we're talking about are some negotiating tips that you've thought about over many years. You've polled, you've tested, you've researched. You've worked with clients on. You've consolidated them into this one place. We may get to some bonus tips. I don't know if we'll have the time, but we definitely want to talk about the 10 basic tips around negotiating. Can you get me inside your head for a minute before I start pulling these out from you one by one? BLAIR: Well it's pretty crowded in there. What is it that you wanted access to? I gave you my password to everything the other day. What else do you want? DAVID: Is this going to be this difficult today? Are we going to do that? Or are we going to be cooperative? BLAIR: I'm feeling a little punchy. DAVID: Yeah, I see. I see you are. BLAIR: I'm in another hotel room. This is day 31 of a 36 day road trip. I tweeted today, "Okay. I've answered the question, how much travel is too much?". DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: Getting into my head, I think these tips, I considered it kind of a beginner's guide to negotiating. I don't consider myself to be an expert on negotiating. But you can't advise people on the subject of selling and pricing without knowing something about negotiating, so a while ago I took a bunch of the best practices that I've encountered on the subject of negotiating, and kind of put it into one place. That's I think what we're going to talk about today. I'll call it a beginner's guide to negotiating, and we're referencing to these 10 tips that I've published previously. DAVID: Hopefully it will be more than a beginner's guide. But we'll just set people's expectations low. BLAIR: Yeah, right. DAVID: Then we'll exceed them. BLAIR: That's exactly what I was doing. DAVID: There are 10 in here. But there are two of them that we've actually had the chance to talk about in previous episodes. I will reference all 10 of them. But then with two of them I'm going to point people to a previous episode if they want to really bone up on all that stuff. DAVID: The first one is, avoid over-investing. This is one that we have talked about. It was in a recent episode. It was called Selling In One Lesson. The idea is that the more somebody wants it, the more at a disadvantage they are, right? Just summarize that for us and then we'll move on to the number two one. Over-investing is the first one. BLAIR: Yeah, so you can, a good metaphor for negotiating would be a poker game where there's times when you're bluffing, when you're playing certain hands. But in particular the idea of bluffing. Or calling somebody else's bluff. You can apply some of the tips that we'll talk about here. If it's very clear to the client that you want this so bad, and it's clear to the client not just from what you say, but from all of the free work that you have done, all of the costs that you've incurred. If you are clearly over-invested in the sale then you do not have much of a bargaining position. Because you are demonstrating through your behavior that you want it more than the client does. Therefor the client is the one with the power in the relationship. BLAIR: It's a big broad rule. Avoid over-investing in the sale. As you pointed out, we covered this in detail in the podcast, Selling In One Lesson. DAVID: Okay. Even if you do desperately need it, don't act like it. BLAIR: Right. DAVID: Second, and here we want to start diving in in more detail. The second principle for negotiating is, ask the question, "Have we already won?". As I read that, I wasn't sure exactly what you meant. That led me to dive a little bit deeper into this, and I found it really interesting. "Have we already won?". Are you really asking that specific question? Or is it more just framing the negotiating in your head? BLAIR: This is a negotiating point specific to the topic of negotiating with procurement. This comes up a lot, I wrote about this in my book, Pricing Creativity: A Guide To Profit Beyond the Billable Hour. In the last month in the various places I've been, and the talks that I've done, and the training I've done, procurement has come up a lot. Where I'll talk about a principle and somebody says, "Yeah, but you don't understand. That doesn't work with procurement". BLAIR: The role of procurement, and I learned the most from this listening to a talk by a guy named Tom Kinnaird. Tom was head of procurement at WPP. Gerry Preece is another great resource on negotiating with procurement people. Gerry is an ex P&G global design procurement person who has a consulting practice, and he's written a great book on dealing with procurement. It's called Buying Less For Less. I think the subtitle is The Marketing Procurement Problem. BLAIR: When I was listening to Tom Kinnaird, who was former head of procurement at WPP and is now a consultant, he was giving away at a conference in London I was also speaking at, he was giving away some insider procurement tips. One of the tips he gave away was, you need to know that procurement often lies. When procurement shows up at the end of a negotiation, when you feel like you are the ordained firm, you've either won the business or you're in the pole position, and then procurement shows up to negotiate the final deal. In that situation, almost greater than nine out of 10 times, you have won. You've already won, and the concessions that procurement is demanding that you make, it's not mandatory that you make them. BLAIR: Procurement's going to communicate to you that, in order for you to win the business, that it's still a competitive situation, they're still considering other firms. In order for you to win the business you have to cut price. The general rule of thumb is, if procurement shows up late and starts using that language on you, they're lying. I talk about this in my next article. I'm actually quite heated about it in the next article. So far I'm only at the unedited version of it. DAVID: Still very angry. BLAIR: Yeah. It will be published by the time this podcast goes to air. Hopefully it's a little bit more measured. But in it I make the point that procurement is the only profession in the world that I know of where they're taught that it's okay to lie. It's okay to outright lie in the course of everyday business. When they show up late and say, "You need to sharpen your pencil. We've got three bids. You're the highest bidder. You need to get your price to X or you're not getting the business", they're almost always lying. BLAIR: Now when procurement shows up at the beginning and they navigate the entire purchase process, you have another problem. They're not lying. It's an even bigger problem. They're seeing what it is that they're buying as a commodity, so you have to ask yourself, should you be even participating in a process where the client clearly does not value what you do, and it's seen as an expense to be minimized rather than an investment to be made? But the lesson is, so the tip is, ask the question, "Have you already won?". BLAIR: When you're in a situation where it feels like you've won, and then procurement comes in and says, "You haven't won yet. You've got to get past us. You have to give us all of these concessions", don't believe them. In fact I would go further and say, "We have this idea that we've got to throw procurement a bone in a situation like this. We'll give them this one win and then they'll go away". That's not how they work. They're trained to keep asking until you say no, so you want to start with no. BLAIR: We could go deeper into that. We could do a whole podcast on negotiating with procurement. But that's the tip. You ask yourself before you start giving concessions away, ask yourself, "Wait a minute. Have I already won here? Is it really necessary for me to make these concessions?". Because in a lot of situations you have already won, and it is not in your interest to make any concessions whatsoever. DAVID: The main clue is found in when procurement comes. At the beginning or the end. BLAIR: Yes. DAVID: That's the second one, okay. The third tip here takes this further, and it's around the idea that procurement lies regularly. Not just about this one thing that we're talking about that relates to how to decipher the timing and whether you've actually won. BLAIR: Yeah, so it is a recurring theme here. You might think, I always say, "Attack ideas. Don't attack people and organizations". But I always make an exception for procurement. Reid Holden, who's written a couple of great books on pricing and also on negotiating, and he infiltrated the world of procurement. He has this great line, and I repeat it often. "80 percent of procurement people give the other 20 percent a bad name". DAVID: As opposed to 20-80, yeah. You're flipping that around, right? BLAIR: Yeah. In the story I'm writing, I'm writing two different examples of two different agencies pitching two different pieces of business and then having to deal with procurement. One hold their ground and the other one doesn't hold their ground. The example where the agency holds their ground, they're told in the beginning, "The account is a $500,000 a year retainer", and so they do a little pilot project for free. They prove validation. Then they're handed off to procurement and procurement says, "The fees are not $500,000. They're $300,000. Take it or leave it". The firm walked away, and in the end the client came back and said, "Oh, no no. We want you to work with us. You can have the original $500,000". BLAIR: As I was talking to the agency president who was telling me this story, I said to him, "If I were you in that situation. If I'd heard that from the procurement person, I would want to get the client and the procurement person in the room together. I would want to look them both in the eyes and say, 'I want to know which one of you lied to me. You said it was $500,000 in fees. You said it's not $500,000, it's $300,000. One of you lied. Which one was it?'". BLAIR: We know who the liar is. The liar is always procurement, right? Because they're taught that it's okay to lie. But I just imagine, and I'm ranting in this article, and you can feel me getting emotional now. Because I can't believe that we continue to give this egregious behavior a free pass. We need to call out irresponsible practices and outright lies when we hear them from our clients and our clients' procurement department. I hope I've addressed the issue of three procurement lies. I feel like we should probably get off the subject of procurement. DAVID: Well I turned the recorder off a long time ago, and what people are going to hear instead of you ranting is me providing a very reasonable response to all of these things. BLAIR: Instead of my therapy while I lie on your couch. I'm going to a marketing procurement conference in London. I think it's in June. I'm really looking forward to being in the room with these people, and having an open conversation about what I think of their business practices. DAVID: The third point is, beware of procurement lies. Let me just read some of these and then we'll go to the next point. "It's down to you and one other". That's one lie. Another one is, "Yours is the highest bid". Another is, "You have to cut your price to remain in contention", or all these other things that you might hear. BLAIR: Or, "Take it or leave it. There's no negotiating. There's no middle ground. Here's my offer. Take it or leave it". That's another one. DAVID: Right, yeah. Then a concession, you say, is an invitation to ask for more. All right. Let's get you back down to happy land, and we'll move off of procurement. BLAIR: Well we're still going to talk about procurement a little bit here in the next one. Go ahead. DAVID: The fourth point is, outwait the waiter. Outwait the waiter is the fourth point. Talk about that. BLAIR: Yeah. I forget where I heard this idea from first, because I really would like to attribute to the various sources that I've pulled all of these things from. It might be Chris Voss who wrote, "Never split the difference. Negotiate like your life depends on it". Or it might be Jim Camp. Or it might be Tom Kinnaird. I don't remember who. But the idea is, when you're in the final negotiations with people, and again it's almost always procurement. Because it's procurement who's trained in negotiating. That's another point. We really need to be trained in negotiating to counteract those on the client side who are trained in negotiating. BLAIR: One of the tactics that they do is, after you've won, or you think you've won, they slow everything down. Procurement will say, "I'll get back to you in this time period", and then they'll take longer. You'll reach out to them and leave a message, and they'll just kind of stretch things out to make you sweat and to make you more nervous. That's the way they can extract more concessions from you. BLAIR: Again, if you think back to the formula that we talked about in Selling In One Lesson, P equals DB over D. Your power in the sale is a function of your desirability, is your desirability greater than your own desire? Because if it's not, if you're communicating that your desire for the client and the engagement is higher than the client's desire, then you have the least power in the relationship. The tactic when procurement is trying to slow things down to make you sweat is, you slow things down even more. If they take 24 hours to get back to you, you take 48 hours. You communicate to them that, "Yeah, that's fine. We're in no rush. I mean, if this is going to happen it's going to happen. If it isn't, that's fine too". BLAIR: It's almost a game of, and there are times when negotiating really is a game and it really should be fun. It's never fun if you're over-invested in the sale, right? DAVID: Yeah, right. BLAIR: But it should be fun, and you should play this game. Instead of being anxious you just play it out and outwait them. If they delay, you delay longer. If they say they can't speak for 48 hours, you say you can't speak for 96 hours, etc. DAVID: Just multiply by two. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: They're saying, "We need to slow this down in some way", and they're expecting you to indicate some investment in the sale. Like minor panic or whatever. Instead you're flipping this around and saying, "Ah, no problem at all. Do you need more time?". BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: "That's fine. We're not in any hurry, okay". BLAIR: You got it. DAVID: Got it, so that's the fourth point. The fifth point here is to beware the white knight. I don't think we need to talk too much about this one, because in a slightly different context we did talk about this in an episode called How To Drive Your Employees Batshit Crazy. Here we were talking more about management and so on. But the principle is the same. It's this idea that we are going to bring in the big white knight to save the day. Just give us a few sentences on this one. BLAIR: Yeah, the white knight is usually the senior person on your team. There's some negotiating going back and forth. Everything's proceeding, maybe well but slowly. Maybe it doesn't feel like it's proceeding well. But the principle or the senior person swoops in and says, "You know what? I'm going to fix, I'm going to get this deal done in one fell swoop". They show up and make a concession, thinking, "Okay. I'll just make the one concession and close on this". What they don't understand is, they've just undone a lot of work being done by other good people. BLAIR: Sometimes it makes sense, if you think of the previous tip about outwait the waiter. Sometimes it makes sense to just, it's part of the negotiation. To slow things down. When the principle shows up to speed things up and says, "I'm going to make this one concession and close the deal", then they realize, that one concession is really just the beginning. They have just created a whole new set of problems, and the likelihood that the agency is going to close this business at a profitable position has just diminished significantly. BLAIR: The idea is, be careful about allowing the senior person, usually the principle, to swoop in at the last minute and make a concession that they think is going to just close the deal. Because it usually doesn't work that way. DAVID: Yeah. On the other side of the table, they've discovered where the weakness is and how they can get even more concessions. Because you've tipped your hand. That's a good one. DAVID: All right, number six. Decide your give and gets in advance. Decide your give and gets in advance. Which is opposite of what you just talked about, where somebody else swoops in without much consultation. We might make a concession, but we're going to do it very intentionally. We're not going to be willy nilly here. Decide your give and gets in advance. Who's doing this? The team as whole? Anybody that's in a position of power? How does this work? BLAIR: That's a good question. It's not just the person who's on the front lines. It's the people ultimately who have to live with the decision. It's a senior member. It's probably a team decision or the decision in the principle. The idea here is similar to going into an auction, right? We go to an auction, we think, "I'm not going to do anything stupid", and we end up bidding these crazy high prices. Because in part, loss aversion bias kicks in. We make a bid, we mentally own it, and then somebody outbids us and now we've lost something that we just a second ago emotionally owned. BLAIR: What the science shows is, we value losing something about two times as much as we value gaining it. In an auction that causes us to do crazy things. The way you combat that going into an auction is, you have an honest conversation with yourself about what your absolute maximum price is, and you do not deviate from that maximum price whatsoever. You do not allow yourself to get swept up in the moment. You hold the line by making the decision in advance. BLAIR: The principle here of, "Decide your give gets in advance", is the same thing. You decide, what are you willing to give up in advance in the negotiation? What are you not willing to give up? What is it that you absolutely need to get from the client, and what are you willing to take a pass on? You make those decisions in advance so that you do not find yourself in the middle of a negotiation, while at the table or in the conversation, giving away something that you are going to regret later. You just draw the boundaries in advance of the negotiation.   DAVID: I want to take a slight detour here and ask you a question. Because we're assuming that this is occurring at the outset of a new relationship in many cases. If you do this right, do you have to play these same games in subsequent negotiations with the same client? Or do they get and sort of figure out your style and where the lines are, so that it's a little bit more efficient later? BLAIR: Yeah. There's two different camps here, and we may be opening a big can of worms. I mean, it's a legitimate question. There's the negotiating with procurement camp, where if you really are using these principles and you're getting into these protracted things and you have these standoffs, you win. You've won the first round. That does not mean that procurement's not coming back for you even harder. When you're going into a relationship with that type of organization, you're going to win some battles. Ultimately you will lose the war. Ultimately everybody loses the war. BLAIR: The idea is that you get to a point where, "All right. This relationship is no longer fruitful. They've kind of beaten all of the margin out of us over the long term". You know, hopefully it was a good run. BLAIR: Then on the other camp would be good clients where you're not dealing with procurement, or they're more of a value buyer where you just have to use one or two of these techniques, and you're not setting up a long term war where you're constantly battling each other. It really could be one or the other, where you're constantly in a negotiation. Always defending what you know is an onslaught that you're ultimately going to lose in the end, but it still might be worth it. It might be a three, four year good run and it's worth fighting the battle. Or other situations where you just find yourself using one or two of these techniques and that's it. Then you find yourself in a good relationship with a value buyer who really values what it is that you do. DAVID: Yeah. I find that when I talk with my clients, and we share some clients, it's dispiriting enough when they have to enter these negotiations with a new client. But when they've worked with a client for years and then this gets turned on them again, when they want to review the relationship. They almost are just intentionally forgetting everything that happened over the last four years, and you have to prove yourself again. There isn't much in business that can pull the rug out from under your confidence and slap you in the face than something like that. I don't even know why I'm saying this. It just hits me at the moment that it's very discouraging for people to have to do that over and over again. BLAIR: I agree. DAVID: All right. Number seven. Neuter the final negotiators. Neuter ... It's like we're watching a Game of Thrones episode here. What kind of a serial killer are you in disguise? Neuter the final negotiators. Okay. What kind of knife do we use here? BLAIR: Maybe there's a better word for neuter. What I'm talking about is, the moment that you have the greatest amount of power in the relationship is the moment when the client, not the procurement person, but the client says, "You're hired". DAVID: Mm-hmm (affirmative). BLAIR: When that happens, and often you go from the client saying you're hired to, then you get handed off to procurement or legal or finance or whomever. That other department will kind of, you've got to fight another war over there. But if you know the war is coming, if you know, if you're used to dealing with the same types of clients and you know there's a battle with procurement coming, use your power at its height. The moment you're hired. BLAIR: I had a client once who called me and said, "We're doing great. We're closing all of these really big deals. Seven figures. We've got all the senior decision makers in the room. But I have the same problem. It's like every time I get a call from procurement, 'You've got to knock 200 grand off of this', etc". BLAIR: I said, "Okay. Next time it happens, next time you close a deal, in the room you have the senior decision makers. You say to the client, 'Okay. We've got a problem here'. Everybody's in agreement. We're going to do this. Here's the price. Here's the scope. Everybody's in agreement. Everybody's excited about moving forward and really looking for the engagement. Then you stop and say, 'Okay. We've got a problem. We've just agreed on this. The price is the price. We've talked about the value that we're going to create. BLAIR: I'm going to get a call from your procurement person, and that procurement person is going to tell me that if I don't knock $200,000 or $300,000 off this price we're not going to do business together. The price is the price. We've just agreed on what we all agree is fair for the value that we're going to create. The price is the price. There's no economies of scale here for us to make the price cheaper. Can we agree, when procurement calls me', and then you look over at the client side and say, 'When procurement calls me, who can I get them to call?'". BLAIR: Now you're in this little, it's a little bit like a power play move but not as bad as it sounds. In that the senior client on the client side of the table generally will take responsibility and say, "No. Have that person call me". That's what I mean by neuter the final negotiators. Leverage the fact that you have the most power to combat procurement in the moment when the client says, "You're hired". BLAIR: Now the higher up you're dealing in a client organization, the more power you have. In this example my client, the agency, was dealing with senior people on the client side. Presidents of divisions. They weren't dealing with brand managers. Bu even some brand managers might be willing to lend some weight to helping you get around procurement. But again, you ask in that moment. The moment when the client says, "I want to do this", or, "We want to hire you". That's when you have the most power to neuter the final negotiators. DAVID: Well I think this would be fun to do. Because I can see saying it with kind of a twinkle in your eye, and they just smile and look at each other. Because they know that that is coming, and they kind of chuckle and say, "Yeah yeah. Here's who it'll be. This is what they'll say. We'll take care of it". I love this one. DAVID: All right. We're on the way to 10, and we're at number eight. This one is an A B thing. What you say here is that you should either be ruthless, or you should be collaborative. One place is going to take you somewhere. The other place is going to take you somewhere else. Which is which here? Be ruthless or be collaborative? BLAIR: Yeah, so it's both but you pick your spot. You be ruthless with other professional negotiators, and you be collaborative with clients. With good clients. Because you have to work with the clients. You don't want to get into ... If you're setting the tone of the relationship moving forward where you're in this somewhat ruthless battle, you have to be aware of creating the conditions, if we're just not a very fruitful relationship moving forward. But you really should be ruthless with professionals. Again, you could hear me getting a little bit emotional as I talk about procurement people. You don't want to do that. BLAIR: One of the advantages procurement people have is, they are not emotionally invested in the sale. They don't give a shit at all, right? DAVID: They aren't even people. They don't even have emotions. BLAIR: "They're bureaucrats, Morty. Shoot them". Or, "They're robots". It's a Rick and Morty line. We're going to get into trouble with the 20 percent of the procurement people who are out there. Again, I just say to my friends in procurement, I don't actually have any friends in procurement, but it's possible that one day I might have a friend in procurement. I would just say that, the problem isn't just in the procurement profession. It's actually in the organizations above procurement who give license to procurement to procure creative and marketing service as though they were widgets. They think that they can drive cost down without affecting the quality or the value to be created. You can't really do that. The responsibility isn't just with procurement. BLAIR: But back to, these people aren't emotionally invested. We, especially if you're the creative person coming up with the concept, we tend to be emotionally invested in the results. You be ruthless with them. You hold the line. As I've already said, they're going to ask until they hear no, so you start with no. There's no need to build rapport or kindness or to ever negotiate out of emotion. If you find yourself being emotional, see if you can't retreat, regroup, let go of whatever it is that you're emotionally attached to. Then re-engage again when you're emotionally detached. But it's like, be ruthless. Hold the line. Don't fall into the trap of this ridiculous idea that you're going to befriend a procurement or a professional negotiator and you're going to, somehow through the strength of your personality, you're going to get to a solution. BLAIR: As you've pointed out, they're robots, or they're bureaucrats. I use that term in this moment out of a little bit of a respect. What I mean by that is, they're not clouded by emotions. They've got a job to do. They've got an objective. They're marching steadily toward that objective and not letting their emotions cloud their judgment, so you should be able to operate at that same unemotional ruthless level. DAVID: All right. Number nine is, use a positive no. Use a positive no. Can you explain that? I presume you can. BLAIR: Let's hope I can. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: There are so many different ways that you can say no. I think so many of us have a hard time delivering the word no, because in so many of our businesses, what we do is we find a creative solution to every problem. We don't accept that the answer has to be no to something, so therefore we have a hard time saying no. BLAIR: There are all kinds of different techniques on how to deliver a positive no. I'll just give you a couple of them here. First you just kind of, if there's an objection, you just make sure that you restate the objection. "Okay, I'm hearing that affordability is an issue for you". Then you deliver your no. You start with kind of a yes. "Yes, I hear that affordability is an issue for you". Then you deliver your no. "Listen, I can't give you that price in this specific situation". Then you layer in another yes. "But what I can do is stretch out the payment terms a little bit", or something else. Or throw in some other forms of value. Throughout the entire time, your attitude is always positive. It's not, "Oh, you know, I don't think we can do this". It's not, "There's no way we can do this". BLAIR: There's a time for, "No way". But there's a time when you want to use a positive no. You're nodding your head saying, "Yeah, I'm absolutely hearing you that affordability is an issue for you on this. I can't give you that price in this situation that you're looking for. But here's what I can do for you". Then deliver what it is you can. "I can throw in some extra value. I can stretch out the payment terms a little bit for you". It's all about delivering no with a positive attitude. BLAIR: I'm not saying that's always the approach. I think there are times when it's just a hard line, "No. Take it or leave it", walk away. But in many situations it makes sense to deliver a positive no. DAVID: You're also demonstrating that you've listened. That you care. You may make a decision that's not one they would prefer, but you're not just simply closing up and not listening to them. That's part of restating this to them. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: All right. The final one is to use alternatives to no, and you've got a few examples here. Are these used with clients or with pros? I think I probably should have asked that question many times here, because it's been interesting to hear the distinction. Using alternatives to no. Who do you use these with, primarily? BLAIR: Yeah, I would put most of these, like use a positive no or use an alternative to no, I would put most of them under the collaborate column. That means with clients. Where I find myself tending to want to be more ruthless and just deliver hard nos to procurement. Now that's me a little bit worked up emotionally, violating what I said earlier. The truth is, a really good negotiator will use positive nos and alternatives to nos with procurement from time to time. It's not just all hard lines. Although I really believe that you begin with a super hard line with procurement. BLAIR: I think generally speaking, for sure you should use these approaches with clients. The people that you want to have a fruitful working relationship with that. A great alternative to no, and I think this one comes from Chris Voss. If it's not Chris it's somebody else. I'll also, I'm recalling that some of the other techniques I probably got from Reid Holden in his book, Negotiating With Backbone. It's a small book. It's a really good book. Both of those books are great books on negotiating. BLAIR: His line, and again I think it's Chris Voss. Instead of saying no just ask, "Well how would I do that?". If procurement is saying, "Listen, the fees in your proposal, we're not giving you that. We're giving you 60 percent of what you've asked for. You can take it or leave it". Then you essentially turn the problem back onto, instead of saying no you just turn the problem back onto the client. "Okay, 60 percent of the fee. How would I do that? How would I deliver the services that you're looking for at just 60 percent?". DAVID: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and a pause, right? At that point? BLAIR: Right. Always a pause, and we're not talking about that here, but I've talked about the power of pause before. When you pause after you deliver a no or an objection or an obstacle for the client to overcome, you want to pause because whatever you hear next gives you so much information about how much power you have in the buy sell relationship. BLAIR: You could also use a, "Yes, but", instead of asking, "How would I do that?". The client might say, "I don't know. That's your problem. How you do it is your problem". You might say, "Well do you think we have 40 percent profit margin built into this?". "I don't know, that's your problem". You could say, "Yes, but". You could say, "Well you know, I suppose I could deliver on 60 percent of that. I mean, if that's your bottom line. I guess we'll just put the interns on it and remove access to senior people. Access to principles. We'll take our creative director off of it, and yeah, we can meet your price that way". DAVID: They're starting to get a warm feeling. BLAIR: Yeah. I mean, this is where we're having fun now, right? I think when the client asks you to do something ridiculous, you could ask the client, "Well okay. How would I do that?". Or if the client's not going to participate in that question you can offer a solution. Again, this speaks to the title of Gerry Preece's book, Buying Less For Less. The idea that when procurement is buying marketing services, they drive the cost down. What they don't appreciate is, they're driving the quality down. Because in a people based business, the way you get your costs down is, you get less expensive people on the job. BLAIR: Just communicate that to the client. "Okay, we can give you that price. But here are all of the things that we have to strip out". What you're almost certainly going to hear is, "No, we want those deliverables or value drivers at the price you quoted". That's where you can laugh and say, "Yeah, well let me tell you about the things that I want in my life too, that I'm not going to get either". DAVID: One of the things that I've been thinking about my own situation over the years, and something that's hit me. It's given me this kind of warm feeling. I know that sounds weird. But it's when I find myself getting a little bit angry, and that's because I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, or not appreciated to the level I should be. BLAIR: Yeah. DAVID: I can relax and tell myself, "I don't need this that badly. Why don't I just smile and make this more of an interesting exercise?". Not so much a contest, but an exercise to see what I can learn. As long as I'm willing to walk away from it, I don't understand why I'm getting angry. I need to treat this more as a business conversation. It frees up my mind to think in these categories and not get all wrapped up in myself at some point. BLAIR: Yeah. I call that smile and defy. You smile to yourself for a minute. Remind yourself, "Let's not get carried away here. This is just a game". Then you defy what it is that's been asked of you. Then you just see what happens next. You have that ability to do that. I have that ability to do that. Because we're not over-invested in the sale. We're not allocating significant resources from our businesses to close any one particular deal. DAVID: Yeah. BLAIR: When you don't over-invest, and I know and work with lots of agencies who have learned to not over-invest in the sale, everything changes when you're not over-invested. It's easier for you to smile. It's easier for you to use some of these techniques. It's easier for you to walk away from poor fits, knowing that if it really is a good fit, it will come back on your terms. DAVID: Care a lot, but don't care too early. That should be the title of this. BLAIR: That's great advice, yeah. DAVID: All right. We will put some bonus ideas in the show notes. Marcus will help us with that. These are 10, and we'll throw some more in there. This was really fun to talk about, Blair. Let's hope that none of these procurement folks listen to this before you meet them in London, or we will have some real life neutering taking place. BLAIR: I would prefer they did listen, and we had some frank and fruitful discussions. DAVID: Okay. Thank-you, Blair. BLAIR: Thanks David.

Download In this episode, Kyle and Joe host Rebecca Ann Hill and David Jay Brown, Authors of the book, Women of Visionary Art. The book showcases the work and inspiration of female artists such as Josephine Wall, Allison Grey, Amanda Sage, Martina Hoffman, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld and many others. 3 Key Points: Rebecca Ann Hill and David Jay Brown are co-authors of the book, Women of Visionary Art, which includes discussions with 18 female artists. The book and the episode are an exploration of the role that dreaming, psychedelic experiences, and mystical visions play in visionary art. There is a strong need for a balancing of masculine and feminine energies. Females tend to be more nurturing and more cooperative, and it's exactly the factors that are missing in our current world and are causing problems of greed. Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on iTunes Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics Show Notes About David David’s background is in Psychobiology, the interface between psychology and biology He spent 10-15 years working in neuroscience and research labs His interest in Neuroscience came from his experience as a teenager, experimenting with psychedelics He wrote his first book, The Science of Psychedelics, about 10 years ago David mentions that the psychedelic renaissance has allowed him to write openly about psychedelic topics that he’s been preparing his whole life researching for About Rebecca aka Molly Moon Sparkles She has a huge creative drive She is currently studying psychology and is playing in the art program She is fascinated by entheogens, plant medicines and psychedelic compounds She is a painter and is working on the Molly Moon Magick Series that focuses on the divine feminine She wrote and illustrated the book Ecstatic Love, Lost Dreams and Mystic Visions Psychedelics and Creativity There is strong evidence that psychedelics improve creativity Music, art, technology, so many great things are influenced by psychedelics Putting the Book Together David was so fascinated with the visions he would see on psychedelics and wished that he had the talent to portray it through artwork, and then he began to see artists bring these visions to life He also saw a lot of gender inequality, that there were more men than women in the visionary art space It urged him to highlight the under recognized women in visionary art Rebecca was experimenting with other realms with plant medicines and psychedelic compounds She says her consciousness was so drastically different from any other time in her life, and she started painting her psychedelic experiences This led her to begin building community with other artists who shared the same ‘vision’ as her She said that the psychedelic experience has so much feminine nature to it that wasn't being voiced “We are going through a serious ecological crisis right now and the teachings behind the psychedelic experience is to heal the collective and help climate change” - Rebecca Stanley Krippner conducted a survey of artists and psychedelics The Imbalance of Masculine and Feminine There is an uprising of feminism with the “Me Too” movement, women in congress, women’s marches Our species has been so dominated by men and we need the nurturing and caring aspects of the feminine perspective Surprising Aspects of the Women The most surprising aspect is how much in common the women had David says it was beautiful how well each artist was connected to each other through their stories Laura Holden is completely self taught There were two women from the book that had never touched a psychedelic substance They were inspired through dreams and daydreams The psychedelic experience not only inspires the artwork, but it creates a new way of viewing artwork Kyle mentions that he always wished he could record his dreams Joe says he has been seeing research around capturing visual or imagined imagery Discovering the Artists David discovered most of the artists that he had not previously known through the community Rebecca had been a part of as visionary artists COSM and Entheon August 3rd, Rebecca and David are giving a presentation as COSM in New York Entheon, the Sanctuary for Visual art may be open by them Entheon will have workshops, painting classes, rooms to stay in, full moon ceremonies, etc. It will be an art sanctuary, a church with a spiritual and psychedelic essence Visionary art is getting into museums and becoming a recognized art form The Desperate Need for Balance Terrence McKenna told David that early on in human civilization, men didn't understand the role that sex had in creating babies The power of reproduction was within women and sex was something else Once men began thinking that they were responsible for the generation of life, they starting saying its “my baby” its “my wife” instead of ‘our’ baby or the community’s baby. It kept developing into “my child” into “my country”, “MY”. Then people started using less psychedelics and started consuming more alcohol and now everything is an over exaggerated male dominance “Females tend to be more nurturing and more cooperative, and it's exactly the factors that are missing in our current world and are causing problems of greed. It could be balanced and harmonized with more feminine energy.” - David There is a crucial imbalance from male and female in history alone But more than an imbalance between just males and females, it's about an imbalance of masculine and feminine energies Each of us, male and females have both a masculine and feminine energy We can see the masculine and feminine imbalance in the world and our planet right now. We don't need to shift to a goddess worshiping planet, but we just need to be back in balance and bring more feminine energy of nurturing and compassion and caring and healing Penny (an artist highlighted in the book) mentions about Sandos giving LSD to researchers who gave it to artists Getting Involved “If you want to get involved in painting, dancing, making jewelry, clothing, gardening, don't wait. Do it. If you are true to yourself and your own inner visions, you will succeed” - Rebecca One thing all artists have in common is fear and insecurity, so you can't let it hinder you from beginning Final Thoughts Artists like Android Jones are doing visionary artwork in virtual reality mediums David thinks visionary artwork will become only even more interactive and immersive spaces We need to find a more yin-yang balance between masculine and feminine Links Women of Visionary Art (Amazon) Women of Visionary Art (Inner Traditions) David’s Site Rebecca’s Site MollyMoonSparkle blog About Rebecca Rebecca Ann Hill (AKA Molly Moon Sparkle), is a visual artist with a wide range of experience in different creative mediums. She is the co-author and illustrator of “Ecstatic Love, Lost Dreams & Mystic Visions”, as well as “Women of Visionary Art.” Primarily a painter, she is creating a new series entitled “Molly Moon Magick,” and her other projects include dancing with “Gold Town Burlesque,” writing a blog -“Go Ask Molly”- and working on a new book about her spiritual awakening. About David David Jay Brown is the author of Dreaming Wide Awake: Lucid Dreaming, Shamanic Healing and Psychedelics, and The New Science of Psychedelics: At the Nexus of Culture, Consciousness, and Spirituality. He is also the coauthor of five other bestselling volumes of interviews with leading-edge thinkers, Mavericks of the Mind, Voices from the Edge, Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse, Mavericks of Medicine, Frontiers of Psychedelic Consciousness, and of Women of Visionary Art. Additionally, Brown is the author of two science fiction novels,Brainchild and Virus, and he is the coauthor of the health science book Detox with Oral Chelation. Brown holds a master’s degree in psychobiology from New York University, and was responsible for the California-based research in two of British biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s books on unexplained phenomena in science: Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and The Sense of Being Stared At. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Wired, Discover, and Scientific American, and he was the Senior Editor of the special edition, themed MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) Bulletins from 2007 to 2012. In 2011, 2012, and 2013 Brown was voted “Best Writer” in the annual Good Times and Santa Cruz Weekly’s “Best of Santa Cruz” polls, and his news stories have been picked up by The Huffington Post and CBS News.

Watson: For you specifically, I want to get a sense of how that transition was. You said you were very successful as a wedding photographer. I know for me, I only do photography as a hobby, but I get that feeling of joy when I get the perfect picture, and edit it, and I’ve given a few people some of my productions, and I’m so happy. And to go from that, where that doesn’t directly translate. For Arianna, her medicine translates directly. But you, there was a time of trying to fit into this huge jigsaw puzzle that is Kijabe, there was a lot of faith and trusting in God, how was that like? How did you end up where you are and in what you are doing. David: Wow, you are so good at this, that is a great question. For me, photography was not an end, it was a means to an end. I love creating things, I love exploring, and doing things that I’ve never done before. That’s the part of photography I loved, creating something out of nothing. This was not here before, and now it is, you’re bringing something new into the world. That was the part I enjoyed most about photography. That definitely translates into the work I do with Friends of Kijabe now. There is not a definite map, a definite script. There are concepts. Watson: Like a framework. David: There is a framework, that’s a good way to phrase it. There is a framework for my job, it’s very people-focused, it’s relationship-focused, a big part that I enjoy is it is creativity-focused. How do I call people into the work that is happening here, how to I let them feel engaged with that, how do I give them something that resonates with their hearts? It’s really interesting and challenging. Most days, I wake up and what I do during the day, I did not know existed when I woke up. An email comes through and there is a new challenge or problem to solve, that aspect is really fun. But finding that place was a challenge. What realistically happened is, I never found it on my own. When Ann Mara - she had been working to start Friends of Kijabe for several years - when she and Mike were transitioning to Ireland, she said “Hey, here’s this thing, can you make something of it?” And my answer was, “I have no idea.” (Laughter) But I called Arianna’s uncle, John Richter, and he was the exact right person. He said, “Let me go down the hall and talk to my friend.” And six weeks later Friends of Kijabe existed, and the next question became, now what do we do with it? Watson: Now we have a non-profit. David: A little bit like photography, it is a season, in the back of my mind, I’m always aware of that. How do I build something where I’m both completely in the center of it, outside of me. Watson: Self sustaining. David: It (Friends of Kijabe) won’t ever be self-sustaining in the sense where it can run on its own, but how do I give other people the tools where they can carry it. It’s a really fun, interesting challenge. Watson: I see. I like how you started by saying you were somehow able to boil down to the core reason of why you like photography so much. Once you said that statement, it clicked in my head that as a creator, a content creator or as a creative, you definitely had a place to plug in. Even if it didn’t exist before, or it wasn’t clear in the beginning. It’s something that God worked behind the scenes, to get Ann Mara to approach you, and then you had the exact right person to call, and the exact right processes that went through, and Friends of Kijabe is now existing and is functioning in such a way. Sometimes I look at the beginnings of something like this, and then I imagine ten years down the line how those people will be looking back and wondering, “How did this begin. How did they go through the initial teething problems? And how did they get the first tens and hundreds, and millions?” because I believe it will be millions. David: It really is interesting and that journey. . . I feel like, at least in our family, there are two kinds of people, the Arianna’s and the David’s And Arianna is the one who knew, from the time she was 5 years old that she wanted to be a doctor in Africa. Intellectually she had no idea what that meant, but she literally wrote down on paper, “I’m going to Africa.” For me it was the total opposite, where I’ll wake up and not know exactly where I want to go during a day. So, we balance each other out very well in that sense. That leading, and continual doors opening, and the orchestration. . . You hear people sometimes talk about God’s tapestry, like weaving of a tapestry. That is so unbelievably evident in my life. I can look back and say, Wow! This led to that, this led to that, this led to that. It’s nothing I would have imagined 15, 20 years ago, that I would be in these places. But it’s amazing, it’s really good. Watson: For a creative like you, whose 9-5 is creating content, and you find out in the morning what you need to do that day, how do you keep on top of your to-do list? How do you stay productive? David: The biggest challenge is being productive in the right direction. And even with work there are lot of things like that, there are things that take a lot of time that don’t yield results and there are some that are simple that are the most important. Trying to remember to make the most important thing the most important, that’s the biggest deal. Watson: Prioritizing your tasks, and like you said, it’s an 80-20 principle. 20% of your work is what ends up achieving 80% of your outcomes. Now, at the beginning of your week, Monday through Friday or for you, Monday through Monday. How does your day look like, how does your week look like? How do you project and know I’ll spend these days doing this project and these days doing another project? David: I do like the way you phrased that, because that’s the way I view my work, project by project. Even making a podcast or doing my emails, I still see those as an individual thing. Sometimes I can spend 8, 10, 12 hours on one email, putting it together. That’s not phrased exactly right, that’s not phrased right. I need better picture, I need another story. It can take significant time to put those together. The best weeks for me are the weeks where I start out and I have nothing planed. Or maybe only one or two things, so when interesting things come up I can pursue them. I’m not a naturally organized person. I don’t know if you’ve met Ree’L, but she and her husband Jason moved to Kijabe a few months ago. She’s super-super organized, loves spreadsheets, and she’s been helping me with the hardest part of my work, which is accounting. I can do it, but it’s just not my skill set. I’m glad I worked on it for the last year-and-a-half because I understand what’s happening. But to have somebody else who loves that to say hey, “here’s my numbers, let’s look at and discuss it.” Being able to hand off things that are life-draining, offloading some of those things, that’s been really helpful. I’ve done that to Salome also. One of the temptations for me is to be in the hospital, doing things that don’t move Friends of Kijabe forward. Not that they’re not important, but do they have strategic purpose. Are they moving us toward big goals? Watson: Are they high-yield? David: Exactly. One of the things that has changed for me is because of John Richter, our board chair, our board guys and Ken Muma – sitting together and saying, “What is the purpose of Friends of Kijabe?” And we decided I should be doing the one biggest thing that there is. This year we decided that is fundraising for operating theatres. So instead of me having 27 jobs and trying to juggle all of them, I have one job and then multiple ways to accomplish that. That has been unbelievably freeing, because when someone comes up to me in the hallway and says, “Can you come up with money for this little thing,” I can say, “no that’s not my job this year.” Not that it’s not important, if I can, I’ll try to help them think about how to succeed. But I’ll try not to take it on to myself as my responsibility. My responsibility is, “What does the Director General say, what does my Board Chair say?” Watson: I think it’s really important for creatives to have clarity about the big picture and the big goal so that you don’t end up getting lost in your own mind. You can have so many ideas and so many projects that you begin and reach half-way and another great idea comes in and you want to start. But the really big goal reigns you in, but gives you more freedom do really dive deep, to your heart’s content. David: That is a fantastic way to phrase it. It’s been really fun, and a big mental shift for me. Arianna’s family - I keep mentioning them, but they are all amazing - I was talking to her aunt a little while ago, and she said, “When you’re really going to see success is when you get crystal-clear about your message and the change you are making.” I feel like I’m on the verge of that, it’s in my head but I don’t fully know how to articulate it. But keeping the main thing the main thing is a part of that. We’re 103 years into Kijabe, and what does it take to make another hundred years possible? What steps do we have to do today to get to forever? Kijabe Forever, how do we get there? The answer to that a lot of times is not another blood pressure cuff. Really, it’s getting people to work as a team on the most important things, then moving to the next most important thing. Ken Muma said, “David, why are you fundraising for that over there?” “Well, because it’s a need.” “Yeah, of course it’s a need, there are so many needs. But if you do this one big thing, it can do many. It can fund, maybe not all the things, but thirty of them instead of one need.” That’s the difference between meeting needs and actually being strategic. Watson: I see, it’s like synergism. When you pool all your energies together, they multiply, don’t just add up, they multiply on top of each other, and you have a bigger impact together than alone. Wow, that must have been a really interesting meeting. David: That’s the big change that I hope will continue in the coming years. That’s why we’re doing work as a hospital on culture change. To get people to view each other as part of a team, working together, for the good of everybody. It takes a lot of time and a lot of repetition, a lot of meetings, but it’s really, really valuable. It’s fun to watch happen, and fun in my little way, to be a part of it. Watson: You mentioned doing stories, and the accounting part of your job. As far as what you were given from the DG, are there several ways of meeting that goal as a department or Friends of Kijabe, under which you can have little projects? Like stories, part of that is podcasts, photos, and something else. Do they all fall under something big, like a main three or four? David: The core of it is how to build a team, a wide, diverse team who is very engaged. I’ve thought a lot about different stakeholders this year, there’s expat missionary doctors, Kenyan missionary doctors, partner organizations like Samaritan’s Purse and Bethany Kids, our Friends of Kijabe board, and donors who have either served as doctors here or are connected to doctors here. That’s more how I think of it. How do I serve them, how do I give them what they need? The way I think of it, this is God’s ministry, this is God’s mission in Kijabe. We get to partake in that, we are stewards of it in some sense. How do I enable people to participate in what God is doing here? That is the core of my job. What do I need to give them to be involved, to come along on that journey? This was a big turning point last year, I read some book, it was terrible, but the title was amazing: Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become? Instantly, I thought, “Who do I want the people around me to become?” There are donors, my kids – who do I want my kids to grow up to be? Who do I want my wife to be, how do I want her to succeed? Thinking of people not as static, but as we’re all on this journey, and how do we build the journey together, how do we go together? That was a really powerful image to me. It’s different for the different groups, but there are a lot of overlaps, but at the core of that is what you said, it’s stories. The reason we do what we do is because of stories, right? It’s our motivation. What story do we tell ourselves about the world we live in and our place in it? From you talking, a big part of your story is the opportunity to help people, to make communities better, to give people wholeness and life. That’s a really big value to you. It’s way more valuable to you than money or having a really nice car. Reinforcing that for people, giving them vocabulary, ways to think about that, ways to speak about that is a gift, it’s a really big gift. Here’s the most important thing that’s happening in the world, this is a significant part of God’s work. Both, “here’s how you can be a part of it,” and “wow, you are a part of it, look at what that means, look at the significance of it.” For another doctor listening to you talk, they realize, “oh, this is why I went into medicine.” It’s a reminder that this is what the essence of following Jesus is all about. And we have to constantly be reminded of those things. Watson: That’s true, that’s true. I like that approach. Stories. The stories we tell ourselves affirm and confirm our reasons for doing the things we do. And hearing it come from someone else reminds you of why you started and why you are going on. I do envy you, it’s an amazing job you do. David: But you’re a part of it, that’s the big thing. It’s not me alone. That’s the fun part of it now, being able to connect people like you to some who you will meet and others you may never meet this side of heaven. But that you can still somehow have an impact on their lives, I think that’s phenomenal. Watson: Have you talked to the neurosurgeon, Dr. Kim? I got to hear behind the scenes how Kijabe hospital is able to over a 1.2 million shilling surgery at 100,000, surgeries in Nairobi that cost ten times what they do in Kijabe. How much he has given of his time, resources, mobilizing friends and mission agencies. Those stories remind me of why I fell in love with Kijabe, and why I want to stay. They give me drive to do more, achieve more and be more. People are doing it and it’s possible. You know every one person who is helped, that’s a family who is represented, that’s a community, a village, an estate. It spreads out. All the negativity in the world, in the country. I like to think of myself as a focal point of good. Like in the perspective of God knows if Watson is there, something good is going to happen there. I don’t need to send legions of angels, I just put that guy there, and I know he’s going to change the area. And I put this other person there and this other person there. And the country will change because it’s beginning in those points. David: One of the next people I want to talk with is Ima Barasa. She said when she talks to Interns, it is in terms of light and dark. We did this today, this is light. We beat the darkness with this specific action, it was a victory for the light. Watson: I was listening to an audiobook recently called Atomic Habits. He says every action we do is like we are casting a vote. You want to have as many votes as possible for your good habits and few as possible for your bad habits. Imagine every time you do something you are in a polling booth casting a vote. If every time I’m doing something for a patient, I do my best. If I’m called at three in the morning, I wake up, I take the call, I give my advice, I do what I am supposed to. I am casting a vote to the good. Eventually we’ll have enough votes to turn the tide. If we lose, we lose by the one vote I didn’t cast. If we win, we win by the vote I did cast. David: I like that, turning the tide. It’s an interesting aspect of being in Kijabe and Kenya right now. In your lifetime, it’s gone from a mostly impoverished nation to now a developing nation and it’s on this upward trajectory. These decisions you’re making and these things that you’re doing have not necessarily been done here before. There is a template and a road map for them, they have been done in other hospitals in other countries. But it’s the first time it’s been done in Kijabe. These little steps you take will influence far, far downstream. When you talk about, “how do we set up the 24-hour trauma service?” It’s never been done here before. You know it can be done, but you get to be the first to do it. Watson: I don’t want to hold out, to be negative for the many months It has not yet happen. But instead I want to contribute to the push to make it happen. Another example he gives, if there is a block of ice on the table and it’s 15 degrees, then the temperature starts to rise, but the moment it goes from 28-29 and you begin to see it melt, it’s not the one degree change that melted the ice, but the increment of all the small changes. Every day I go to work, we talk about it, we engage people about an improvement in theatre, the time when it happens the atmosphere will be right, everyone will be ripened. And it will be all the more successful because of the small gains we’ve that been getting all this time. Improving efficiency, training the scrub techs so that the ones at night are just as good as during the day, the equipment at night is just as good as during the day. David: I like that. I had this moment over the summer, we were in the woods camping by the river. There had been a rainstorm, and there was this one drop on at tree. And I’m picturing that falling to the ground and then making its way to the river and where it joins all these other drops. It’s this huge river, but it’s really one drop plus one drop plus one drop, and all moving in this direction together. Watson: And all together they are so powerful David: That’s the beautiful thing about Kijabe, there are so many people actively doing that. We do fight, there are differences, usually not of whether something is good or not good, but differences of priority. Watson: It’s more trying to, as you said, but it’s never “you shouldn’t even be doing that.” It is different angles heading forward. David: Thank you Watson!

Joe Fontenot: David Odom, you are associate professor of student ministry here at NOBTS and you're the Director of the Youth Ministry Institute. David Odom: Yes. Joe: Now you got your start in youth ministry. David: That's right. Joe: And eventually transitioned to teaching at a seminary level, but you're still teaching youth ministry. What I think is really interesting, and you wrote a blog for us recently, is kind of an insight into Generation Z. Age wise, who is Generation Z? Who is that we were talking about? David: Well, they're teenagers and even children today. Typically the age range starts at those born 1996 to about 2010. And then there are some that would sort of flex those date ranges a little bit, but it gives you an idea that we're talking about children, youth, college students today. Joe: Yeah. So this is a pretty huge range. So we're talking to like eight years old all the way to even 22 years old, which are graduating college in a lot of cases. So you go from like third grade to college graduate. So this is a massive generation, at least in this span you're talking about. And I think for a lot of people, a lot of people are just now getting used to who Millennials are. Millennials are in a lot of ways coming into their own. Economically they're becoming this force. But now we've got Gen Z who in a lot of estimates are just as big as Millennials, if not bigger. They're kind of arrival. So here's the question. How do people best relate to Generation Z in the church? David: Well, I think that that's the question because I think, and many of us that are seeking to help churches understand this generation or wanting to help them understand how to reach them and to know exactly how to help them come to faith and then grow in faith. I think that it comes down to relationships and building and developing those relationships and that takes time. So we've got to make sure that we are wanting to know a little bit more about who they are as individuals. And maybe even some of the assumptions that we may have about teenagers and young people letting some of that go in order to build those relationships. Joe: You know, it's not uncommon that the college years at a church dropoff, unless you're like a college church kind of thing. And the youth and the younger ones are often in a different area for many of their activities. Does Generation Z, does this age in general, do you think they want to be part of the bigger church? David: Well, I think so. And, it's not necessarily something that I don't know that I hear students verbalizing that they want to be a part of the church as a whole. But I do hear students talk about the impact that they want to make. And so part of that then comes from what we are understanding about Generation Z and their desire to want to see change happen, and even changing institutions like the church. And so they want to be a part of seeing things change and grow and develop rather than maybe keep the status quo. And so that requires involvement, that requires them being a part in order to see that happen. Joe: A big criticism of Millennials is that they are entitled. Do you think that Generation Z acts entitled or do they feel entitled? What is your opinion on that? David: Well, no. I don't know that so much it's an entitlement as much as it is empowerment. I think that today's students feel empowered to really make a difference. I think we see that expressed in the desire for Generation Z to join a cause and be a part of a cause. And one of the reasons for being a part of a cause or movement is because they have a real sense that they can make a difference and they can make a change. And their involvement and their participation, their commitment to a cause enables them to be, I think, feel less entitled as much as someone who's entitled would feel like what does society or the institution have to do for me. And the other side of it is saying what impact then can I make on culture or in my church? Joe: Right. I think one shift that I've seen, like when you look at older generations. Older generations, I think many times think in more of a hierarchy in the sense that I'm not qualified such and such. I haven't put in my hours to be at this table. And one thing I see a lot with younger people, Millennials and Generation Z, is that they seem to just jump right in and say I want hands on right now. David: Right. Joe: And I think a lot of people confuse, like you're saying, it's really more of an empowerment. They want to be involved right now. David: Right. And I think that we need to rearrange some of our structures in our churches to allow for that participation at that level. I think that so often leaders can be comfortable with having a role that's allowing teenagers to have more subordinate place in the churches, in our churches. But it takes some effort and some intentionality there to say no, what are some ways that we can enable our students to lead and take ownership of various aspects of the ministry that we have. Joe: So here's the question, what kind of areas would someone like a teenager who doesn't have a lot of life experience yet, but as a heart to do something, what are some areas that they would be equipped generally speaking to get involved in? David: Right. Well, and I think of service and ministry opportunities. I think that talking with students about some things that they might be passionate about and related to serving the community in some way. And then gathering together students and talking about, okay, what are some things that we could do as you lead and kind of put the onus back on them to say "If you were in charge of this, what would it look like? What might we accomplish or what impact might we make if we were to have us all work together to minister, to serve whatever it might be?" It could be in our church locally or it could be in the community. Yeah. Joe: Is Generation Z different from Millennials? Obviously the age are different, but is the characteristic, do they act differently? David: Well, I think that there's subtle differences. I'm not so much necessarily that they're acting differently, but I think that there are some things that are some identifiers or characteristics of this generation. I mentioned the change and looking to change institutions, wanting to join a cause and those types things. I think too that when we think in terms of of generations, separate generations, we're talking not only in terms of an age range and folks that study this look at a population spikes and how that plays into making a determination from one generation to the next. David: But it's also shared experience. It's shared cultural experience. Those that are in a certain generation have shared a life experience that's similar. And so when we think about today's generation, we're talking about folks that have grown up with social media and access to internet through their phones and these types of things that's something that adults have come into and made it part of our lives, but these are young men and women who have had these devices and had this access their entire lives. And so it's, it's a pretty, pretty significant difference. Joe: If someone in the church who's from an older generation, whether it's Millennial or older, wants to mentor a person from Generation Z, granted, an eight year old is different from a 22 year old, but let's just say youth or college, right? Just for this question. How would they go about that? How would they approach them? Would someone from Generation Z even be interested in that? David: I think so. I think that there's an opportunity in a mentoring type discipling relationship, you have an opportunity to pass on and share what you have learned in your experience. And I think that if you're just starting out, if you're interested in that type of a relationship, then you want to start basically trying to get to know folks, right? That you want to, if it's a church setting, look at volunteering in some way, whether that's just a being a sponsor or helping out in some way in a youth ministry. And as you have an opportunity to get to know students and build some rapport, asking questions about their life and things are concerned about, then you have an opportunity maybe to have a greater impact. Whether that may be a small group leader or volunteering in some other way. And then after that, then there's an opportunity, I think, once relationships are built to be able to approach or to offer the opportunity to be a mentor, to be a spiritual leader, a discipler in that situation. Joe: One thing, one theme I hear as you're describing this is Generation Z is ... It's less about "Generation Z" as it is in the case of teenagers, these are teenagers. David: Okay, right. Joe: Right? Or these are college age or something like that. One thing when we were talking the other day, you mentioned to me is that they're not a whole new species as much as teenagers kind of had this shared, like you mentioned before, the shared thing that they go through. And I think that's pretty helpful too when you kind visualize as an older person, how do do I engage with these people? I have a passion. I want to help them learn. How do I engage with them? David: You're talking about really developmental differences, right? So we know that we're talking about different generations, but that's not necessarily the same thing as just talking about what someone's going through developmentally that's a young person, young adult as opposed to a more mature adult. So there are some common experiences that everyone goes through and experiences during the teen years. As you're getting older, you're wanting to have more independence and to be able to make your own decisions. And that can be difficult because you may be labeled as rebellious when maybe really you're just asserting that independence that you naturally want to express because you're no longer a child and you're becoming an adult. David: And so, I think that for me, when I'm interacting with a student then I'm trying to come less with maybe preconceived notions about what teenagers are like today as more of wanting to find out about them as an individual and to ask questions about who they are, things are concerned about. And I think that that is again, all a part of that interrelation, interacting and inter-relational skills that you want to have with someone. Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really helpful thinking really them as not as a demographic but as an individual. David: Right. Joe: Right? And one thing I noticed about teenagers is they don't always give feedback. David: Yeah. Yes. Joe: So how do you know when you're interacting with them, if you're really helping or they're just tolerating you? I mean, in your experience, what are some ways that you know that you're actually being a positive influence in their life? David: Right. Well, it can be tough and typically you don't ... It's maybe years later that you get feedback or you hear a student share about the positive impact that you made on their life. But it's years later after they're reflecting back. I think in the moment that it's really all about just being yourself. It's all about being genuine and real. It's rather than trying to be cool or to be something that you're not, or just to try to fit in or to engage with a teenager. It's more about just being honest about your own inadequacies or maybe not so self conscious about who you are as an adult or an older person in trying to relate. And just seek to get to know them and to be willing to ... Maybe they'll be a little nervous around you and maybe you're nervous around them at the same time. But I think that any of us would respond to someone that genuinely cares about us and is expressing a desire to be a help and support in any way we can. And I think that students respond to that. Joe: You know, that's really helpful because when you think about all the different social media platforms, right? This group is usually the one of the first ones to find them and use them and embrace them. And everybody's else is like well, I just figured out Facebook, which they're like, you know, that's terrible. I never go on Facebook. And so it's kind of helpful to know that you don't need to be cutting edge on all that stuff simply to engage with them. They're not necessarily looking for that. David: No, not necessarily. And in fact, I think that there is a sense of ownership that students have with whatever social media might be popular at the moment. And when we kind of invade that space, they're maybe not as comfortable with that as maybe they would like to. It doesn't mean that we totally are not using social media at all, but that we have to feel that we're using social media or engaging with students in social media as a way or as a means to get to know them. David: I think it's really the other side of it. I think that as I'm developed a relationship and as I know students, and so I get to know them, then maybe I'm able to interact social media in some way and it's less intrusive, right? Because I already have established a real face to face relationship with them. And that face to face is key. Even though this is the social media generation and they're interacting with between three and five screens every day. Studies are also showing that they value that face to face interaction. And that's a win for us at the church because we have an opportunity to do something low tech, which is to have those face to face conversations and to realize that it's something that students value and they're not necessarily sensing and feeling like that I've got to only interact with you digitally. But now there is a longing for the intimacy of the face to face, the being in the room. Being present and being real. Joe: You know, I remember when I was in the youth, I had to go to church. My parents went to church. So I kinda had to do some things even when I didn't want to. And I think sometimes we can look at the youth and we can kind of wonder are they here because they want to be here? Or they here because their parents want them to be here and they don't really have a choice? Are there ways that are ... Let me me back that up. Are there certain things that hold this group back from wanting to get involved in the church? In other words, they might appear to be involved because their parents are making them go, but on the inside they could care less or whatever. What are some of the things that caused them to care less? What are some of the things that we could do differently to involve them more in the work of the church? David: Right. Well, I do think that integration in the congregation is key. Otherwise I do think that as they get older, as they graduate from high school, and we see this in statistics, that students are walking away from the church. And some walking away from faith. And so we do need to be more intentional about how we are seeking to find ways for students to become more involved. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the empowerment that I think students feel, if we will sort of get out of the way. David: There's an opportunity for us to provide leadership opportunities to students, leadership in the youth group itself or perhaps even leadership in variety of ways where some churches have changed bylaws to allow for teenagers to serve on committees. For teenagers to be involved in various ways as ushers and serving and those kinds of things. Parts of leadership on teams, whether that be some kind of ministry team or service team, missions work. All these types of ways are ways in which we can help our students understand that they're not just the church of the future, but they have a place now. And if we want them to be a part of the church of the future, it means giving them opportunities to serve and be a part of the church now and here as students. Joe: You said something that stuck in my head. Some churches have changed our bylaws so that teenagers can be on committees. And my first thought is teenagers, you know, what if they make a bad decision, you know what I mean? That's kinda their life right now. They make a lot of bad decisions. Maybe that's a stereotype, I don't know. So how does a church who wants to do things like that do it in a way that doesn't just derail the train and the process? David: Sure. Well, and I think that we're talking abut situation that would be a group primarily of adults and that they would be one or two teenagers, a part of that committee. So I'm not talking about necessarily a completely student run a committee, although there could be value there too. But part of it is to realize there are going to be mistakes that are made. I think there are going to be ideas that are gonna kind of be seemingly out of nowhere. Or they're going to be opinions that aren't gonna necessarily be the opinions of the other adults in the church. David: But being a part of that is beneficial, beneficial to the student to help them grow and mature in their faith and maturing as as a young adult. But then also beneficial to those adults as well. To have input and to seek advice and to have the perspective of a young person is pretty special. And wanting it to be less about just having a student on a committee just to maybe have that one token youth or young person on the committee, but to genuinely respect that opinion and to want them to be able to contribute to some way. Joe: Yeah. I remember when I was about 16, my youth minister at the time sort of took me under his wing and I wasn't talking about going into ministry or anything like that. He just just did this, and he treated me like an adult. He didn't just give me anything I wanted as if he couldn't tell me no, but he just talked to me like an adult and that made such an impact. And it could have been that nothing shifted, no authority shifted, nothing like that. I don't even remember. All I really remember was that he valued my input. And that left such an impression on me. And what does it take? What does it take in your opinion to do that for someone who wants to get involved with these people, these youth? What kind of time commitment are we talking about here? What kind of investment are we talking about here to actually start making a difference in their life? David: Well, time is a big part of it. And it can be maybe a difficult thing to think about because we're all busy and we all have busy schedules and lives. But if we're really wanting to make an impact on students life, it will require time. But I think that we're talking about also a somewhat slow process because you're talking about giving time to develop a relationship, which it takes time to develop that level of trust that you need to have and you would want to have with teenagers. And the student though is going to translate that time commitment that you're making to caring and love, right? They're measuring that. That you care enough about me to take time out of your schedule to spend time with me, to be my small group leader or to mentor me or to disciple me along with a small group of students. But over the long haul, that time that you dedicate to interacting with students in this way will see results and will result in opportunities to see that student grow in their faith. Joe: Can you tell us the top mistakes or it could be the top one mistake that you generally see people make when they try to engage with this youth age. David: Right. Well, I think that maybe we think that we've got to change the way we dress or we've got to change the way we speak, the languages that we use. Maybe we try to use phrases or terms that we hear on the radio or social media or something like that. We think that those types of things are going to help make that connection with the student when really I think that the teenagers have a pretty good radar and a pretty good sense of when someone is being kinda disingenuous, right? And they're not really being real. It's more of a false front maybe in some way. And it's not necessarily our intention, but that's the way it can come across. David: And so again, I really think that the best advice I could give was just to be yourself, right? And to just own the fact that you're an adult, you're older. You know, you could be a young adult in your 20s or someone in their 40s and yet, even someone in their 20s has a different experience. And what's cool now isn't what was cool then and so there are going to be those things. David: But I think too that we also need to be able to not take ourselves so seriously. That we can joke about those differences. That we can be willing to be self deprecating where we recognize that there's some things that we're just not cool anymore and we're not going to be. But we again, are comfortable about those things and willing to even joke about some of those things. And that helps I think put the student at ease too. That you're not trying to be something that you're not and you realize that you're an adult. But that there are opportunities to still connect with a teenager from another generation because you're just expressing genuine care and love for them. Joe: This has been very helpful, very insightful, David. I appreciate you coming on podcast. David: Definitely. It's been a pleasure.

  Thoughts? Comments? You can contact me by calling or texting 201-429-0274. If you leave a voicemail please be aware, you only have 3 minutes. Email me at improveandhavefun@gmail.com ..Join the conversation on the blog by going here https://bit.ly/2HcTL6o  ..Thanks for listening! -This article has an affiliate link. This transcript has been summarized, compared to the audio which is longer.   PVP: It's the Improve and Have Fun podcast. We just finished watching "Ready Player One." I'm here with Mr. David and Jason G.   -Read or listen to the Ready Player One book here https://amzn.to/2JUrzXy -   Jason G: Hey!   David: Yes.   PVP: Alright Jason, what did you think about Ready Player One?   Jason G: Oh my goodness. This movie was incredible. I had an extraordinary amount of fun. It's probably going to be in my top five movies of the year. We saw it in 4DX; I cannot imagine a better way to experience this film. We saw "Ghost in the Shell" in 4DX, that was incredible. This is the best movie I've ever seen in this format. I recommend people to see this movie in a theater with the biggest screen. The 3D is awesome, but 4DX is the way to go.   -What is 4DX?  check that out here https://rol.st/2Hy7WpT -   David: Jason, how many movies have you seen in 4DX?   Jason G: I've probably seen around five.   David: Want to list them?   Jason G: I saw "Rogue One," "Ghost in the Shell," "Ready Player One," and a couple more. But I forgot the other two; I'll have to look.   -Here is a link to our review of 'Ghost In The Shell' https://bit.ly/2qDbVqS -   PVP: I haven't seen too many movies in 4DX. This is the second movie I've seen in this format. The first one was "Deep Water Horizon'. I want to cosign what you said. This is probably going to be one of my favorites of 2018 as well.   I was sucked into this world. There were points where this felt like a Universal Studios(park)ride. With all the references to movies of the past, pop culture, cartoons, and video games; you'd have to see it two to three times just to catch everything. What a ride.   This was a combination of old and new. A mix of things that we enjoyed in our youth, and modern-day VR entertainment. Phenomenal. I very much enjoyed it. Thank you, Steven Spielberg. You took me back to when you were making movies like "E.T.," and 'Crystal Skull.'   David: "Indiana Jones"?   PVP: Exactly. This is a big adventure movie.   Jason G: He said this was the third hardest movie that he's ever made, with "Jaws" being number one. Boy did he do a good job.   No one makes a movie like Spielberg does. This man made "Jurassic Park." The adventure, the danger, the fun. He's really good at what he does.   David: I echo both of your sentiments. You notice a Steven Spielberg directed movie; this didn't look like his technique, but it was great.   You guys fooled me. I didn't know what I was getting into with the 4DX. Wow, my back feels great. Looking forward to seeing other films this way.   PVP: We universally agreed we would see this again.   David: And the Easter eggs. There's so many.   PVP: 100%. What were some of the standouts for you?   David: There's one image I noticed in the very beginning. It was a billboard showing a film, a superhero film. And I didn't know what it was. Was it a future Spider-Man movie or something?   PVP: The billboard I noticed in the distance, was promoting, the VR suits the characters wore.   David: Maybe that's what it was.   PVP: Regarding the Easter eggs I noticed; "Krull," "Mecha Godzilla," "Gundam," "Battle Toads," "Halo," "Overwatch," "Street Fighter," "Batman." I saw Joker in there; I saw Harley Quinn in there.   David: TJ Miller was great in the movie, by the way.   Jason G: I don't even know who that is, but he was very, very good.   PVP: You've seen him, he was in "Deadpool".   Jason G: Oh, okay.   If you grew up in the 70's and 80's and maybe early 90's, and you're between the ages of 30 and 50, this movie will make you smile.   PVP: We can spoil it, these reviews always have spoilers.   Jason G: My favorite part was where they go into "The Shining" movie. I enjoyed this film growing up. It scared the shit out of me.   David: That was an homage to Kubrick, right?   David: Yeah. I also noticed the pod from "2001: A Space Odyssey". I couldn't believe nobody saw that.   PVP: I did notice that.   Jason G: Yeah, yeah I saw that.   PVP: Other references include Iron Giant, Freddy Kruger...   David: Yes stuff from the 70's and 80's.   PVP: Exactly.   David: Even from the 2000s.   PVP: Yes! Game characters from Overwatch, Halo, Gears Of War. There's a lot in this movie.   Jason G: I saw a poster from "Back to the Future." It was of the mayor of Twin Pines or whatever the town's name.   PVP: Not Biff Tannen.   Jason G: No, no, no. The guy who became mayor, the black guy who was sweeping up the shop.     PVP: I do want to go back to that Shining scene. It was one of the best in the movie. I can see studios re-releasing these older films in VR. Where we the audience are in the theaters with VR headsets experiencing things in a completely different way.   David: This year 2018 there has there been a convergence of culture regarding time. Kids are into stuff from decades past. 'Stranger Things' as an example.   There are people right now who are into living as if they were in the 80's.   PVP: Style-wise.   David: Yeah and culture.   Jason G: In Japan, there are groups of young dancers, who will put on shows with dance styles from the 80's or early 90's.   David: Breakdancing?   Jason G: More 90s style.   PVP: Blazers with the big shoulder pads?   Jason G: Yeah, a lot of stuff is coming back.   PVP: Alright gentlemen, we're wrapping it up. Any cons with the movie?   David: Some of the effects in the theater were overkill.   PVP: You're talking about the 4DX effects?   David: Yes. But not even enough to complain, compared to how great it was.   PVP: Jason?   Jason G: "Back to the Future," the original one, is a flawless movie directed by Spielberg. You can not say that about this. I would say the story could have been a little more clever. It was a little on the simple side, but it made up for it in so many other ways.   PVP: My only nitpick with this movie was how the kids came together in the game. How one guy got the key, then they all get the key afterward. It was very convenient. I like their chemistry when they're all together in the real world.   I also wanted to add, Mark Rylance was great.   David: What was that? Who was he?   PVP: He was the old guy who made the oasis.   Jason G: So let's talk about numbers now, I guess?   David: You guys think it's gonna beat "Black Panther"?   PVP: I don't know.   Jason G: Are you talking about regarding box office money? I would say no, I think "Black Panther" will probably beat it. Now let's go to the numbers. I would say this is a nine.   PVP: That's great. I'm with you right there. Nine all the way.   Jason G: People like when Spielberg's on his game. These types of adventure movies don't always hit, but I still appreciate them. He's always working. He'll do some dramas like he just did "The Post" with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. He has so much range.   David: I'm gonna give it an eight.   PVP: David, Jason, thank you so much. If you the listener/viewer/reader saw this movie, what are your thoughts? Please let us know below or through any/all of the contact info in the show notes. This is the Improve and Have Fun podcast. The summer(?)movie season is just beginning. Very exciting. See you on the next one.   Social Media Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paul_pvp_perez/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pvpluvzlieff   Twitter: https://twitter.com/Paul_PVP_Perez   Rate, like, leave a review! I will shout you out for sure!   If you've enjoyed this, please support this podcast by doing any, all your shopping through my affiliate links:   my eBay link: eBay http://ebay.to/2e5mvmj   or my Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2dRu3IM   Any shopping through these links will be at no extra cost to you. Thank you!   Find more of my movie reviews at http://www.paulreviewsmovies.com   Subscribe/watch/listen here:   iTunes http://apple.co/2pnmMqa   Android http://bit.ly/2p5fgQx   YouTube http://bit.ly/2ixiRo4   iHeartRadio http://bit.ly/2oBLZdX   Stitcher http://bit.ly/2p8oTi2   TuneIn http://bit.ly/2oE6xUQ   Google Play http://bit.ly/2oEizNZ   SPOTIFY http://spoti.fi/2ALfgHr      

This episode is sponsored by my web host, Liquid Web. I know, I know. You guys might be surprised that I'm sharing a way for you to Learn WordPress Development (if you've listened to the podcast intro and my "no boring code snippets here", then you know why I say this), but when I connect with great people doing awesome things, it's easy to step outside my comfort zone a little. That's what happened when I had the opportunity to speak with Alex Denning, Fred Meyer, and David Hayes of WP Shout. Fortunately, we didn't get too heavy into development speak. But we did talk about their in-depth course for anyone who wants to learn WordPress Development (and I'm going to give you a spoiler alert here, but I told them I thought the course was way underpriced. #justsayin).   Questions I Asked Alex, Fred & David There are 3 of you that run the site WP Shout, but before we get into that, share your background (and the background of your partners if you want), with the listeners? When was WPShout founded? How did that come about? WPShout is focused primarily on developers. What made you guys decide to focus on that space? How have you guys monetized the site? Do you also have client projects? How have you grown your audience? Tell us about your course, Up & Running. Is this your first course? Where can people find out more about your course? What You're Going to Learn How WPShout evolved How they took their client work and started creating content with what they were doing When they first launched Up & Running (and what they've done to make the second version even better than the first one) How they came up with the pricing for Up & Running (and why I think it's underpriced, hint: get it this round) Up & Running is open now through March 31st. The guys at WPShout have agreed to give my listeners a 20% discount! Use the discount code WPCHICK at checkout. Sign Up for Up & Running Today Where to Connect with WPShout Website | Twitter | Facebook  

Trading Block: Earnings! Before the bell today:  Apache, Celgene Corporation, Crocs, Inc., After the bell today:  Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks Animation News: DIS: $113. ATM straddle: $4.85, 4.3%. On a huge rally since massive selloff in August. OCC Cleared Contract Volume Declined 26% in October. Market falls in line with Yellen, but now Fed credibility at stake. Odd Block: Calls and puts trade in Bank of America Corp. (BAC), calls trade in Metlife Inc. (MET), and puts trade in Straight Path Communication (STRP) Listener Mail: Listener questions and comments Question from Kevin - How do you put on such a small trade for a client and still get paid? Question from David - There is huge open interest for TWTR at the 30 strike for the Nov monthly, almost 240,000 contracts evenly split. Can you talk about the possible implications? Is it interesting? Around the Block: Earnings! Friday - Humana Numbers: Nov 5: Jobless Claims Nov 5: GDP Nov 6: Unemployment

Trading Block: Earnings! Before the bell today:  Apache, Celgene Corporation, Crocs, Inc., After the bell today:  Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks Animation News: DIS: $113. ATM straddle: $4.85, 4.3%. On a huge rally since massive selloff in August. OCC Cleared Contract Volume Declined 26% in October. Market falls in line with Yellen, but now Fed credibility at stake. Odd Block: Calls and puts trade in Bank of America Corp. (BAC), calls trade in Metlife Inc. (MET), and puts trade in Straight Path Communication (STRP) Listener Mail: Listener questions and comments Question from Kevin - How do you put on such a small trade for a client and still get paid? Question from David - There is huge open interest for TWTR at the 30 strike for the Nov monthly, almost 240,000 contracts evenly split. Can you talk about the possible implications? Is it interesting? Around the Block: Earnings! Friday - Humana Numbers: Nov 5: Jobless Claims Nov 5: GDP Nov 6: Unemployment

AK5A talks with David Rheams about Ecology, the limits to our ecological knowledge in light of current technology and discourse and our expectations and understanding that result. David is a Ph.D. Candidate in Cultural Studies at George Mason University. Correction: David refers to Skinner in reference to the idea of “small is beautiful”, he wrote to us to say he should have said “Schumacher”. Works Cited: - Andrew Ross, Bird on Fire : Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City (Oxford ;New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). - John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology : Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000). - John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, The Ecological Rift : Capitalism’s War on the Earth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010). - Marx, Karl. Capital : A Critique of Political Economy. Edited by Mendel. London; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review, 1981. - Marx, Karl. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker. 2d ed. New York: Norton, 1978. - Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project, 1798. (PDF). - E. F Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered (New York, N.Y: Harper Perennial, 2010). --- Other References: New York Subway Map: - http://www.mta.info/maps/submap.html Drought map: - Texas Drought Map - from David: “There are many of these – hopefully I wasn’t coming across as critical of them – rather I was trying to use it as an example.” Hockey Stick Graph: - Wikipedia: Hock Stick Controversy - The Atlantic: “The Hockety Stick: the Most Controversial Chart in Science Explained” - Michael E Mann, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, 2014. Critiquing TED: - from The Guardian: “We Need to Talk About TED” - from Salon: “TED Talks are Lying to You” Spaceship Earth: - Not just a totally creepy ride at the Epcot Center: Wikipedia - Fuller, R. Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers, 2008.

Where is David? There is no champion today! Neither of our Presidential candidates are our champion! It's not just a political thing, but it's the truth! We need a champion to emerge individually and corporately.

Where is David? There is no champion today! Neither of our Presidential candidates are our champion! It's not just a political thing, but it's the truth! We need a champion to emerge individually and corporately.