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Lucas DiPietrantonio is CEO and co-founder of Darkroom, a 3-year-old creative e-commerce growth agency that launches new brands to market and grows existing brands to maturity through four robust and specialized verticals: branding, technology, video production, and growth marketing Darkroom often serves as an incubator and marketing partner for companies so new they don't have a brand, a visual identity, or a tech stack. “But we are selective,” Lucas explains. A typical client company profile would be a consumer-facing, consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) brand with a strong founding team and enough raised capital or the ability to bootstrap that the company could rapidly scale. Darkroom launches 7 to 9 new companies a year. As an example, for the past two years Darkroom has been incubating an internal venture with one of its external partners: a collection of high-quality, limited edition, luxury, athleisure performance “sneakers” unlike, Lucas says, “anything you've seen.” Both Nira sneakers and the pre-launch site https://www.nera01.com/ go live on December 15th and are designed to organically grow the word of this shoe. A main site for the brand will target different demographics and have a different purpose. In this interview, Lucas explains how different approaches to video affect its effectiveness. Many companies will engage agencies that are strictly performance-focused and do the creative in-house or engage another agency to do their creative work. Over time, this dichotomy results in a lack of strategic focus and content cohesiveness. Lucas claims that people come to Darkroom because the agency's integrated production, creative, and performance team can develop a company's content strategy, with the “two sides (creative and performance) of the same brain” operating in synchrony. The close fit between performance and creative creates a consistent “content engine” with a “feedback loop.” The result? The highest-quality-currently-available content over a long period of time at about the same cost as in in-house marketer. The agency's high performing, converting websites work because visual identity and marketing create a cohesive digital experience that maps onto the customer experience of other things like packaging. Lucas says everything needs to feel cohesive.  Lucas writes a number of online columns and recommends people check out his informative entrepreneur.com. He is available on LinkedIn as Lucas DiPietrantonio, on his agency's website at: darkroomagency.com, or by email at Lucas@Darkroomagency.com. Rob: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk. And I'm joined today by Lucas DiPietrantonio, CEO and co-founder of Darkroom based in Los Angeles, California. Welcome to the podcast, Lucas. Lucas: Yeah, Rob, thanks so much for having me, really great to be here. Rob: Super to have you here. Why don't you start off by giving us a rundown of Darkroom and where the agency excels? Lucas: Yeah, of course, of course. First of all, just wanted to thank you for having me on the show, really appreciate it and excited to talk about Darkroom. This was an agency that me and my co-founder Jackson Corey, we founded about three years ago. And it's really evolved quite rapidly in the past year or so I'd say has really just become something different than what it was, but at its core we're creative growth agency specifically built for e-commerce. And we're really predicated on doing two specific things: launching new brands to market and growing existing brands to maturity. And we do that through four major disciplines which I think are quite rare in the e-commerce space: One is branding, two technology, three video production, and four is growth marketing. And I really think we found service market fit in the past like three months or so and it's just been a scale-game-since year, but yeah, it's been really interesting and fun growing the company, but you'll notice we do quite a bit. Each of those verticals are pretty robust and specialized. Rob: I'll be eager to dig into those. The two different segments of clients you mentioned, it seems fairly interesting, especially when you're talking about that embryonic sort of brand. How do you think about when you're looking at a new e-commerce brand looking at client selection, because there's an element of, to get them somewhere you have to see something in that client that you believe is meaningful in the market. Lucas: The brands we work with from conception, first of all, we are pretty selective with any of the companies that we do end up engaging with. But those that actually want to work with us from conception, they don't have a brand, they don't have a visual identity, or any sort of tech stack. They have an operational idea, an assemblance of what they want to do. We'll come in and serve as their marketing partner. With a lot of these pre-launch companies, we service them almost as if we're an incubator, which is incredibly fun and rewarding to work with them on, but we are selective. My co-founder Jackson is the only person who will touch branding engagements for the firm, that's just by virtue of having quality control over our creative output on the brand side of things. So it's minimal.  There's probably seven to nine brands we'll launch each year and we are pretty particular about it. Some of the formula things that we look for are CPG brand, consumer facing, really strong founding team, most often raised capital of some degree so they can eventually scale or has bootstrapped and has the ability to scale pretty rapidly after launch. That founding team needs to be strong operators and people we really believe in. We work with people as if we're investing in them. It's important for us to feel really good about the partnership. On the incubation side, that's how we really engage with companies and what we look for. Rob: Interesting. Is there an example you can give, just to fill in some of the context here, of a brand you've kind of taken through that early launch stage that maybe we can go out and check out when we're done with this conversation? Lucas: Yeah. There's one that's really top of my mind and really close to home for me. It's what I've been working on for the past two years or so. It's not exactly launched just yet, but it's going to be launching in the next two months so I might as well mention it. It's a sneaker brand called Nira. It's actually a Darkroom internal venture that we've been incubating with one of our partners outside of Darkroom. It's a sneaker brand we've been working on it for the past three years. It's a long incubation period, and that's just because we've really been more involved on the operational side of things to sourcing and being hands-on more or less as founders rather than just marketing partners. But what that relationship has really looked like has been coming up with the actual brand story based on the vision of the founder distilling that into a visual identity, moving to technological specs. So we have a pretty robust pre-launch site that we're going to be launching as well as a main site, both of them are aimed at different demographics and different purposes and then we're going to be doing all of the ongoing growth initiatives. Along the way, we traveled to Italy three times . . . these sneakers are being made in Italy. They're inspired by Italian Motorsport culture. So you really get this rich vibrant marketing plan and visuals, which we've really enjoyed a fast shoe, fast sneaker, but for people who are going to listen to the podcast these sneakers are going live and our pre-launch site is going live on December 15th at nirashops.com. And, you know, that's about a month and a half away, and it's a pretty big launch that we're gearing up for one that we're really excited about. Rob: How many varieties are you launching with colorways? And is there an angle for the collector market when you're in the sneaker land here? Lucas: Yeah, so all of these sneakers are limited. We're only producing like a few hundred pairs of each sku, so we definitely wanted to go into this with the idea of quality over quantity, perfecting our craft. We're using some of the best craftsmen and all of Italy. We've vetted quite a few different factories they're being made in the Abruzzo region near LA marsh. And you know, each individual shoe probably touches 44 different hands and takes 48 hours to build so they're very high quality. We're launching with only seven different skus -- so not too many. they're going to be tranche out in terms of releases. But we've got so many different shoes that we've made along the way that we're hoping to release that we just can't release. So that pre-launch site that I was mentioning on December 15th, we have these really limited, beautiful sneakers, they're unlike anything you've seen, it's like an athleisure performance shoe, but it's luxury And you know, you're not going to run with it.  And it's like a suede shoe So it's, it's interesting, but it doesn't look like a common project or what you would typically expect from a lot of these USD to see brands popping up from Italy so it's definitely got its own niche. But that site on December 15th that we're launching because we have all of these prototypes it's going to be for our friends and family that we've been talking about for the past three years. And they're like, hey, when can I get a sneaker, when can I get a shoe? Like those look awesome, when can I have some more information? What we're going to be releasing is a prelaunch site aimed at just kind of growing the word of this shoe organically. So there'll be some referral structures built in, but everyone who sort of accesses that website will have an opportunity to, you know, get a free pair, but also get a prototype. So, a pair that will never release ever . . . one that is a one-on-one sneaker. I mean, you have to do a few different things to actually be able to qualify to get that sneaker, but that's how we're really going to give them back to our community who supported us early on. Rob: That's excellent. I think you've given us a pretty good walkthrough and how you are even thinking about branding and how that would translate through to clients. You started to bridge, I think, a little bit into the technology, but e-commerce is a wide berth when it comes to technology. Paint a picture of what your range of engagement looks like on the technology side. Lucas: Yeah, so for most, I would say probably 80% of our business is e-com and that's just because we've really built an agency that can service SMBs or larger mid-market e-commerce brands really well, because we just know that customer. We're launching our own brands in the e-com space and we know exactly what they need and know exactly what they don't need and don't want to pay for. On the technological front in e-com, your website is your storefront. It needs to be highly optimized. If it's not, you're just leaving money on the table. We build really high performing, converting websites that are also just top-notch from a brand perspective. Because we're doing your visual identity and we're also doing your marketing, we can maintain cohesion across the digital experience and how that maps onto the customer experience – like packaging. You want everything to feel cohesive.  At the simplest and most important level we're doing digital products for e-commerce brands. For ongoing engagements, we'll do things like conversion rate optimization, web support, really being that back engine driver of an e-commerce brand. And you'll really talk about me say Darkroom being an engine, or like a Ninja for an executioner for a lot of the companies that we work with because we're genuinely trying to position ourselves in that way. We have an office in Odessa and Ukraine spent quite a bit of time and money and resources figuring out the perfect market for affordable, but really high-quality labor for a lot of these brands. They're not going to pay American engineers who are working on software, and if you don't want to touch, you know, Woo Commerce or Shopify or your headless website unless they're getting paid, you know, 180K annually plus . . . that doesn't work for a lot of SMBs. So we've invested quite a bit in our infrastructure and overseas markets and we've worked with people from everywhere and just landed on Odessa and Ukraine as a perfect market for our use case and our needs. And you know, just for your insight – Darkroom, we did start as just a design and development agency so we've got a pretty high competency on, on the technological front. And, you know, the other 20% of our engagements are Darkroom digital engagements, where they might be more robust digital applications, things of that nature. Rob: Yeah, you mentioned a few different platforms and there, you mentioned Woo Commerce, which some people may know, you mentioned Shopify, which is a big, big name. And something you mentioned that people may not be as familiar with is the headless situation, which it's a content system, but I assume you're building perhaps sort of a bespoke front end, but still using a backend e-commerce engine? Lucas: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach that. Shopify has also become headless recently, so it just depends on like the specific needs of the client and what they're looking for. I think you're going to start to see the e-commerce landscape move more in the headless direction. Also the no-code direction, using platforms like Shogun and other sort of systems that come up for these SMB convents specifically. The digital landscape on the e-commerce front is definitely changing pretty rapidly, People want more flexibility. They want it to be easier, quicker, that's a lot of the stuff that we do. Some people just don't want to deal with their technology, but there are a lot of brands and companies coming out with interesting solutions for clientele across the spectrum in terms of size. Rob: You seemed to be very interested, especially in your own work, but in general, in working with non-commodity brands. How do you think about, when you're working with them, the distinction between what commerce they want to have on their site or other places they may want to sell? It seems like almost every big brand wants to be a marketplace now. I think Target even, they'll sell stuff that they don't stock – so how do you think about where your clients should be selling? Lucas: Yeah. It's definitely determined on a case by case basis. You'll have some products that are going to do really well on Amazon or other channels and others that, we might recommend just strictly to see and try and build out that brand. For our clientele, we definitely prefer working with really strong, authentic brands, people who either really know their customer and have developed great relationships with them. And I can think of a number of different companies that we work with off the top of my head that really satiate that criteria. And the other thing is like for me, the agency is all about the people and the sort of talent that we attract and I genuinely want our people to feel happy and fulfilled on the work that they're doing. And that necessitates founders who have built great products or are doing something different or are doing something positive to really excite our staff.  Everything from there follows: you have high employee satisfaction, high client satisfaction, the retention rate goes up across the board, and you also get a great portfolio off of that work. I definitely try and look for brands that are a good fit for us. There are definitely some brands that are not a good fit for us and we'll just say that off of the gate, out of the sales process. But ultimately that's where we perform best because we're definitely a brand-focused agency. We want to see our clients succeed. Sometimes it's hard to tell a client what to do if they don't want to do it. Rob: Certainly, I can imagine, if you have an undifferentiated product, if there's low margins, all of those things are going to reduce the flexibility increase. Now, not to say there shouldn't always be pressure to perform because e-commerce is definitionally pressure to perform, but the margin of creativity and in a low margin business can just be such a challenge. Now, you mentioned another discipline that you do work in is video production. I'm sure some clients come to you thinking the key to their entire future is that viral video that's going to get out there. Everybody's going to beat down the door to their site and buy all their stuff. But how do you guide a client's expectations on what is necessary at what stage of the business in terms of video marketing? Lucas: Yeah. Expectation-setting is baked into every single step of our process. It's only when you have a client who's really dialed into their goals, but is not over-projecting what they've like unrealistic expectations, where we can really sit head-to-head and come up with a strategy for success. On the video side of things people come to us because we are generating the highest quality content in e-commerce right now. And that's by sheer virtue of our talent – people we've attracted and how we're doing e-com content differently. Every e-commerce company – they're interested in performance and performance marketing, but they'll engage agencies who are either strictly focused on performance and are not thinking about creative because they just don't have that side of their brain operating. So they'll engage your performance agency and then they'll do their creative in house, or they'll engage in another agency who's doing their creative – but these people are not actively thinking about their performance because they're just not operating in the ad account. Or they're not actually deploying those videos, or they don't know exactly how to create videos that will go viral or will perform really well. You have this like separation between creative and performance and it makes no sense. What we've done is we've integrated our video production team, our creative team, and our performance team. Our growth channels and our creative teams operate as two sides of the same brain. What you get is this really nice feedback loop where performance informs creative and creative tests hypotheses and you constantly learn. The way our video production services work – they are meant to be a content engine for a lot of these e-commerce brands. E-Commerce brands traditionally will do things in house, they'll do a sporadic photo shoot when they need content and be like, “Oh, I need this now because we're getting ad fatigue or things aren't performing well, or we need more video content. There's no strategy really behind that. Or you'll engage a production company every six months with a new concept and they'll execute on that. There's no cohesion with the content. If there is, it just takes more time and effort, you need an internal creative director, or whatever it might be.  Our video production service offering, you get a team that is with you from the start, they figure out your content strategy for the next six months, and then we execute against that. So you get consistent content over a long period of time and it costs you about the same as when you've got a producer director, video editor, the entire post team from pre to post – it costs you the same as an in-house marketer. So that's been one of our most popular services, which has been awesome.  On the viral side of things, sometimes we'll layer UGC some of our video that we take on set with our influencer marketing service offering, and we can definitely tap into vitality, just it needs to be done, right. And by reality is all about just experimentation testing hypotheses and seeing what sticks. Rob: I have to ask while we're talking about production, how did in March the COVID-19 pandemic onset affect your production? How was your handling of video production shifted over the course of the past six or seven months? Lucas: That's a good question. It definitely took a hit at the beginning of what we were doing – just business in general, there was a little bit of a slide. I think people were really scared, they didn't know what was going to happen. There was definitely fear in the marketplace, a lot of young SMB startups were like, “Are people going to be purchasing my products anymore? Are they going to have the disposable income to do that?” There was definitely a fear. I wrote about it quite extensively in some of my columns, but what ended up happening, and I think as everyone knows, is e-commerce is really having its moment right now. So, our growth really just started popping off quickly thereafter. We were set up in such a way to help a lot of these brands who are like, “Oh my God, we need to shift, we need to focus more on e-com. Our content is now so much more important. How we're communicating online is now critical to our success.” We were really positioned in a great way to just have those conversations early on and help a lot of our partners that we were talking to who needed some of these things. And it helped that we had been investing in video production to the past two years, built a great team off of Oliver Salk, one of my great friends and coworkers now. He's just exceptional and he's building our video production team. We've made the right choices. That we invested in all of our equipment and we invested in our studio in downtown LA. That's afforded us the privilege and freedom of not being constrained to rentals or venturing out. We could do things really safe and protected in LA under our roof. So that was advantageous. Rob: You mentioned your columns in passing. What are the columns, where should we go to find those, if we want to kind of read some of your perspective, are there? Lucas: Yeah, I think the most informative one is going to be my entrepreneur column. So just going to entrepreneur.com. Honestly, searching anything about e-commerce . . . coronavirus, I'll probably pop up. Rob: Excellent positioning there. Lucas, as you reflect back on the journey so far with Darkroom, what are some things you have learned that you might do differently if you were starting over from scratch today? Lucas: That's tough. I don't know that I would do to anything differently per se, because they've all been pretty critical building blocks on the journey. One thing that agency founders need to understand is building an agency is incredibly tough, it's really difficult. There's so many, and there's so many different things that go into it. Figuring out how you're going to be set up for scale is one of the early challenges I think, beyond getting clients and doing good work and all of the other things that just go into making a profitable service business. I think people sometimes underestimate the difficulty associated with it. One thing that I would have maybe done differently is, and it's tough to really say this, but I'll give you my thoughts. One thing that I may have done differently is literally just focus on one vertical so quickly. It took us a little while to adopt this e-commerce-specific focus and change our messaging and our core competency towards this one vertical. It's no secret, I've been working in e-commerce for a while. So has Jackson, my co-founder. We both started fashion and apparel e-commerce businesses, that's how we met – that's how we started collaborating. But when we started our agency, we were doing work for everyone . . . we didn't actually hone in on that demographic and really become specialized. And I think there are two ways to build an agency. You either really become specialized and understand your customer and when they come to you, you're like, “Hey, we've done this for many other brands just like you and we can definitely do this and accomplish what you want.” That makes your sales process so much easier with that specific client. Or you can say, “Hey, we do everything and you're going to have a much lower conversion rate because they're going to be competing against the other agencies that are being specialized. But you can say, we're going to learn it, you get the benefit of us doing a lot of different things and having competency in a lot of different areas and we want to be generalists.” But that, I think only takes you so far unless you're a behemoth of an agency. So, I may have become specialized a little bit sooner because as soon as we started doing it, we started to scale at a crazy pace. But again, it was part of the journey. We needed to figure out what we liked, what we were really good at, where there was opportunity, and white space in the market. For us, that just came by looking at the competition in the e-commerce DTC agency space, which now we're scaling. I think other people look at our brand compared to some of our competitors, and these are just our competitors right now and it's just a no brainer. Rob: It's so critical. You mentioned earlier the fit, you feel like you found with your service offerings in the market and especially in startup world, they also talk about South sort of a founder market fit. And I think the journey of a lot of agencies that do well is using the market as sort of a painful tool to figure out who you are. And oftentimes, you know, it's almost like you wish there was a personality test you could take up front to help you see “Here's who you are. Here are the vertical markets that fit you. Here are the service offerings that fit you. Here are the things you wish someone could tell you.” But it seems like quite often you have to just learn some lessons along the way. Lucas: You got to just figure it out and the only way to figure it out is by doing it and screwing up and realizing, “Oh, this isn't going to work.” When that happened, it was so many different times that now I can get on a call with someone who's vetting us and describe my service and describe why that service is better than every other agency who hasn't figured it out yet. And when you're speaking from experience and just empathizing with the customer, you know, it makes your life so much easier. It's not a sale anymore it's just, you're providing them with a service that they genuinely really need and would be better than any other service that they engage in. And that's what a lot of my job has been. it's been making sure the services are as value-packed as possible and building out each vertical individually. So, the branding service, the technology offering.  The technology offering is one of the best out there in the e-commerce space, because there is so much BS and noise coming from development agencies who are just flat out lying. And it becomes a really big vulnerability for a lot of e-commerce brands who engage with other agencies or freelancers or whatever it is, and they don't have consistent support. So, the development offering, that's something I've been working on past quarter. Video production, same deal, just building that engine, building it out from our foundation and making it really value-packed. The amount of deliverables and hands-on content you get from our production department right now, it's unheard of. I've had other production agencies, or honestly, some of our hires who've come from other production agencies and they're like, “Wow, you're offering this? This is crazy. How are you doing this? We should be charging more.” And I'm like, “No, I want this to be value-packed. I want to deliver crazy value to our clients.” So yeah, it's just really being detailed about the services and knowing what's going to work. Rob: Sure. Coming from a development background myself, I can imagine. It seems like in all three of those initial disciplines you mentioned in branding and technology and video production. Lucas: [Inaudible 28:42]  Rob: Yeah. There's a potential high element of trust, like a lot of those things don't really work until they're done. And you can show progress along the way, but I think people have probably been bitten in all three of those areas by someone taking their money and not giving them a finished product. Lucas: Yeah. Especially in development, right. That's just always happening. Or it's like, you know, four months in, when you're supposed to have a delivered product, it's like, this is going to take a long time. Like this is going to take required 10,000 more dollars or timelines shift, or your code is just crap . . . there's so many different things that could go wrong there. And that's just all about trust, right? So now we're at a place where we've got dialed-in processes that are cut and dried. It's like, “This is how it's going to go.” You can see it in all of our work products. You can see our portfolio and especially in the e-commerce space again, where I feel like there is a lack of creativity unless you're paying top dollar for it. Unless you have a great creative idea as a founder and you can get it done and know how to piece these things together, which is always the case and it has been the case for a while. We'll deliver a website. People would just be like, “Wow, this is incredible.” Some of our web work is we go above and beyond. Rob: Lucas, when people want to find you and connect with you and with Darkroom – maybe see that portfolio as well – where should they go to find you?  Lucas: They can go to LinkedIn. Type in Lucas DiPietrantonio, or check out Darkroom's website, darkroomagency.com. Reach out to us. You can reach out to me via email Lucas@Darkroomagency.com. I'm usually pretty responsive and try and reach out to everyone or get back to everyone who reaches out to me.  Rob: Super legit. Well, Lucas DiPietrantonio, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing the story of Darkroom with us. Be well. Lucas: Yeah, Rob, thanks so much. I appreciate you having me on here, it was fun.  Rob: All right. Thanks. 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 converged can automate your marketing reporting, email info@converthq.com or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Episode Notes [“Coffee” Theme by Cambo]Gabriel Firmo: Alright, so welcome back to State of the Arts, a podcast by two idiots on NBN. My name is Gabriel Firmo.Lucas Bezerra: And I'm Lucas Bezerra. And Happy 2020!Gabriel: Yeah, welcome back. It was surprisingly quick, the break.Lucas: It was extremely quick. Well, the break was quick, but traveling back was not. I think you took a direct flight from Brazil.Gabriel: Yes, it is the worst.Lucas: I did not. It's not the worst for you. I mean, jumping around on airplanes wasn't fun. But we're back. We're here recording our third episode of State of the Arts.Gabriel: Yeah. And so what is the...? We have a pretty traditional question to start the year?Lucas: Yeah I mean, I figured we'd just do a little recap of 2019 and our favorite arts-related thing that we did. It could be like, one in Northwestern, one out of Northwestern.Gabriel: That we did or that we consumed?Lucas: That we did, that we consumed, I guess is a better way to put it. That we saw, experienced.Gabriel: Okay, okay, that makes more sense. Yeah. Do you have one like right off the bat?Lucas: I've got one for my Northwestern.Gabriel: Okay, go for it!Lucas: It isn't really at Northwestern. But yeah, it was during my time here; as soon as I got here, basically. So the MCA last year had a Virgil Abloh Expo. And that Expo was really cool. It really showed like his sort of vision of what design and what art is, and he's got a lot of--Gabriel: That was out here at Northwestern?Lucas: No, that was in the MCA, like in Chicago.Gabriel: Oh, okay. Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah,Lucas: But it was while I was here, I guess this could be my not Northwestern.Gabriel: I mean, I guess that kind of counts for it? There's no hard and fast rule.Lucas: No, but I kind of want to showcase something from Northwestern. Gabriel: Okay, sure. Lucas: So let's leave that as my not Northwestern-related.Gabriel: Yeah. This year I went to--so Giovana, my girlfriend, she surprised me with tickets to Next to Normal, which is my favorite musical of all time. Lucas: Just to be clear, not Next to Normal at Northwestern.Gabriel: No, no--That was also amazing.Lucas: That was really good.Gabriel: But there was one that was playing in a nearby town. And I was surprised with tickets and we went, and it was like it brought me to tears on like two different, three different occasions. Just like throughout the runthrough. And that was just like crazy. I had never seen any of my favorite musicals live before and Next to Normal, it's just like so near and dear to me. So it was crazy good. Definitely highlight of my 2019. Next to Normal at Northwestern, also very good,Lucas: Also very good, yeah.Gabriel: But it would be kind of terrible if both of my highlights Northwestern and non-Northwestern were both Next to Normal.Lucas: Yeah. Next to Normal was the first thing that I did here, arts-related. Well, that I went to. But I have to say maybe my highlight was going to--So our guest on the second episode, Joe, his band, another Northwestern-based band and a third Chicagoland group had a performance. They had a gig, North Side of Chicago. It was a little bit after we interviewed Joe. So, he told me about it, and I went, and both his band was great, but also the other Northwestern band. So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna shout them out again. So Joe's band is called Morning Dew and the other band is called Honey Butter. And they're both really good.Gabriel: Damn, I really need to go to one of these.Lucas: You really do.Gabriel: I did not manage to go last quarter.Lucas: It was a lot of fun. And it was full of Northwestern students and just good energy, you know?Gabriel: Yeah, I mean, that sounds--I'm not a big concert person so I always get a little bit "eh," but for music on like the smaller scale where it's not the enormous super packed concerts I feel like it'd be more fun just in general. For my Northwestern thing, I think Dolphin Show 2019 was Hello Dolly. And I remember Hello Dolly being so extraordinary--and like both of mine are musical theatre.Gabriel: Man, Hello Dolly was so good it made me want to write stuff again and sing again. I hadn't written in a good while, and I hadn't performed any music for a very long time because I had stopped taking classes when I came here. And I remember I came out of Hello Dolly and I turned to one of my friends and was like we need to start some project together because I am so inspired.Lucas: Yeah.Gabriel: Because, for a student musical that thing was--not even for student musical just completely even out of its context it would be one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was so, so, so, so good.Gabriel: So actually our guest for this week, because we have a guest every week is Elynnor Sandefer. She is someone I'm super excited to interview. She's an old friend of mine at the school, but also just kind of someone that I met tangentially through my creative writing classes. She was one of the most unique writers there. Like, there are a lot of very good writers at Northwestern, and for sure, Elynnor is one of them. But specifically, like her style and her choice of topics was always one thing that was just so out of left field that makes her a very, very unique writer, and she was actually one of the first people I suggested when we start with the show.Lucas: Yeah, so I'm excited. I met her today, didn't really get a chance to talk to her that much. I’m excited for this.Gabriel: Yeah. Let’s go to that now!Gabriel: Ok so, we are here now with our guest, Elynnor.Elynnor Sandefer: Hello!Gabriel: Would you like to kinda introduce yourself, say what you do that’s artsy...Lucas: Why do you think we asked you here, I guess?Elynnor: I'm Elynnor, I put words together and make them do things. Optimistically, good things. I'm here because Gabriel has had some writing classes with me and thinks that my work is weird.Gabriel: Yeah. I think it's good, also. Like, disclaimer.Elynnor: That can be the same thing.Gabriel: But very weird.Elynnor: Yeah. Thank you.Gabriel: Like, that is...I mean, we'll get into that in a bit. I think like the standard first question that we ask everyone here, which is that like, necessarily, if you're doing art on a university campus, like you're pre-validation, essentially, like you're not getting any external validation most of the time. Especially for writers more than any other profession. So, with that in mind, why do you do it? Like when no one is in your corner, why do you still do it? Elynnor: Well, the work that I do is mostly writing. And for me, a lot of that starts with journaling. So I do it for my own brain before anybody else's brain. And in that sense, validation has never been that significant. Okay, that sounds wrong. It sounds like I don't take criticism. But everything I make is usually first for myself, which I find works for me. When I write things it is because I'm driven there by some kind of personal urgency. So to that extent, I don't really care if other people want to read it. I also haven't started trying to publish yet so that may change, will change, definitely will change.Gabriel: Okay. Yeah.Lucas: Yeah. I mean it from what I've heard about you and what you write... When I met you today, I mean, you asked me about my opinion on melons?Elynnor: I sure did.Lucas: And I've heard that you wrote an essay on whether boba is a soup.Elynnor: I sure did.Lucas: So you've got a wide range of topics, although they do seem to revolve around food somehow.Elynnor: Yeah, that's been pointed out to me. I don't know what to make of that. I don't eat that much.Lucas: So I guess like, where does the inspiration for this kind of stuff come from? Like, what are you trying...Where does it, how does it work in your brain? I guess.Elynnor: Um, well, I have a tendency to hyper fixate on things, often objects. So the cereal being soup is something I fixated on for a while last year. Melons are something I just find personally interesting right now because people don't seem to think that they have strong opinions. But if you ask them for an opinion, they almost always have one. Except for when they don't know what a melon is...like some people.Gabriel: Is that a call-out? I think that’s a call-out. ’Cause she asked me what a cantaloupe was, and I was just like, I blanked on it. I only know fruit names in Portuguese.Lucas: Not gonna lie, same. I mean, she asked me specifically about cantaloupes and I... No images came to mind. So...Gabriel: But like, I have read a little bit of your stuff, and so this is a really interesting thing is that you talk about these hyper fixations, which are some kind of like oddball ideas, but you do take them somewhere, right? You're not just writing about melons or just writing about, "Is boba a soup or is cereal a soup?" You do something in the nature of all nonfiction, which is something more profound out of like kind of surrealist or just kind of out of nowhere topics. So, what is exactly that process like? Because at least from my perspective, I also do a fair bit of writing and a lot of your topics I can't even really imagine inroads into that range, you know?Elynnor: Well, for cantaloupe, it was that my roommate was cutting a cantaloupe, and I realized I had forgotten about fruit, and I just hadn't eaten fruit in a long time. I started getting worried about scurvy because like citrus or something. But I don't know, I was watching her cut a cantaloupe. And it occurred to me that it just, I don't know, it would never occur to me to buy a cantaloupe. And I thought that was really interesting, because they've been a part of my life for a long time. They have them in dining halls, they're terrible in the dining halls and just generally average. So I use them in an essay I was already writing at the time as just like a joke about the realm of averageness. But yeah, I don't really know what the cantaloupes mean, except for maybe the fact that there are objects that are in everyone's life that no one really notices, but we care about...Elynnor: What do you think literature is?Gabriel: Oh God, you can’t drop that on me. This actually came up in one of my classes recently with a teacher who asked I think that exact question. And they disregarded genre fiction out of hand. So horror, sci-fi...Elynnor: That's not literature?Gabriel: That sort of stuff.Elynnor: That's a...yikes. That's a hot take.Gabriel: I think they were doing it like as a sort of, like, “Oh, it's the beginning of class and I'm going to do this to spur discussion.” Because it doesn't seem like that's their opinion, necessarily. But I was immediately as a genre fiction fan, like, "Ahh." Because fantasy is generally considered not literature.Elynnor: Okay, but I've read amazing works of literature that are fantasy in nature, and I'm angry at this person whose name I don't know.Gabriel: But so you are just like, "Anything is literature".Elynnor: Well, I think that art more broadly speaking is anything whose existence is conditional upon a very particular arrangement of human choice. And I think that, within that it's very difficult to differentiate between different kinds of art. Like if you've read the poem “38” by Layli Long Soldier, this is not in that book I mentioned earlier, but it's a great poem that you should read. And in it, she is referring to a specific action/event as a poem, and that is like one of her main claims. And I think that there's a lot of power in that and saying that, well, I guess in naming what you're making or naming something, something other than it is.Gabriel: Yeah, I guess it becomes just, if it's intentional, it's art that sort of almost, that level of simplification. Which I would get, like, crucified by some of my philosophy teachers for that, but I think that is a pretty good...I mean, you're the philosophy major.Lucas: I mean, it's almost in the like, I think of the “this is not a pipe” painting. Elynnor: Ah yes, The Fault in Our Stars.Lucas: I'm not sure... Yeah, I mean, it's just this sort of idea that the objects and the things that we conceive of as being what they are...Gabriel: Are totally a construction?Lucas: Yeah.Gabriel: So you can just say anything is anything.Lucas: I wouldn't go... I wouldn't say that.Lucas: But that's an idea. I guess.Elynnor: Sometimes it's fun to.Lucas: Sometimes it’s fun to.Gabriel: I mean, in that case, then I'll just say boba is soup.Elynnor: It obviously is!Lucas: I mean, she walked in here and called this podcast art.Gabriel: Yeah. That was, that was quite surprising.Elynnor: To be fair, I have not listened to it. No offense, I'm sure it's great. I just didn’t know about it.Lucas: Yeah, I think we're running out of time. We always end our episodes by asking our guests to plug something on campus that they are excited for related to the arts. Could be anything, I guess. So tell us what you're thinking.Elynnor: Well, I'm not involved with any publications or performance groups or anything like that, but my roommate and best friend is on the staff of Helicon, which is a literary and arts magazine. And you should submit to that because they want you to submit to that.Gabriel: I've read a good deal of Helicon, occasionally. I always forget about Helicon. And then I just, their book comes out, and I'll just see it around and be like "Oh!" I'll flip through it. It's really cool, what people do.Lucas: I've never heard of it.Gabriel: You should! There's very avant garde stuff in Helicon which is fun.Elynnor: If you're a visual artist, especially, you should submit to Helicon because I think visual artists forget about it. Because I think it's mainly marketed to writers.Lucas: Interesting.Elynnor: Yeah.Lucas: I like that.Gabriel: Yeah. Well...Elynnor: They publish anything. There's like a digital game thing on their website.Gabriel: Yeah. And their physical copies should be coming around soon, because it's winter, right?Elynnor: Yeah.Gabriel: Yeah. So it'll be up soon. That's really cool. Thank you for coming by. Thanks for talking to us.Elynnor: You're welcome. I hate talking to you.Gabriel: For listeners, thanks for listening and hopefully join us in two weeks. If we can manage to edit this in our regular time frame, and we'll be back with another guest and another question as per usual, so anything left to say Lucas?Lucas: No, thanks for listening. We'll see you in two weeks. All right.Elynnor: Google images of hairless cats!This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Are you interested in professional coaching, but worried you don’t have the necessary experience? Is it something you are passionate about, but you just don’t know how to market yourself? Lucas Rubix, a coach to the coaches, joins us to talk about coaching, how to get started, and mistakes to avoid. Lucas Rubix started his career working on oil rigs. After a dangerous bout of depression and self-medication, he hit a breaking point that almost led to suicide. But he stopped himself, and the next morning he woke happy to be alive. He hadn’t felt like that in ages.  So he began to focus on his health and fitness, started reading personal development books, and began studying philosophy. He wanted to find his purpose. He developed a passion for marketing and coaching, which led him to where he is today—running a business to help coaches launch their careers.  Outline of This Episode [2:40] Why did Lucas Rubix choose to become a coach? [7:50] What is Lucas’s coaching philosophy? [12:25] Mistakes to avoid when growing your coaching business [17:50] How to develop your skillset and market yourself [25:05] Get in Touch with Lucas You don’t need years of experience to be a coach  Lucas’s philosophy on coaching is this: just get started. If you’re passionate about it and believe that you can make an impact, do it. Lucas wasn’t certified when he started but was committed to answering any question his clients asked—even if it meant staying up all night doing research.  You don’t have to represent yourself as having years of experience, but simply be honest and passionate.  Everyone knows something that can help someone else. It’s a mistake to have the ability and drive to coach others, but not do it. If you know you’re the type of person who will find the answer no matter the time it costs you, you can learn and grow as you go.  Mistakes to avoid when growing your professional coaching business If you’re diving into coaching because you think it will be a short-term “get rich quick” path, it’s time to reevaluate. Lucas points out that if you don’t see yourself coaching in 10 years, question why you’re doing it in the first place. The road will be full of obstacles and challenges and it is far from easy. You need to love and be passionate about what you’re doing.  Secondly, Lucas notes that many coaches let their ego get in the way. You need to make what the client needs and wants the priority—not what you think they need or want. You also need to make sure that you’re not detached and that you’re focused on your clients. What do you need to create for them so that they’re 100% on board with the program?  How to use social media marketing properly Stop making your marketing all about you. It comes naturally for Instagram or Facebook posts to be about yourself, what you’re doing, where you’re going, etc. That’s fine, but Lucas recommends taking every post you put online and flipping it: turn an event in your life into a lesson or a story that provides value.  Your content can’t be so blatantly focused on you. It’s not about getting people to look at you and touting your success. An easy fix Lucas points out is to start removing “I” from your copy. Your social media will develop into a relationship-building tool. It can be a great way to connect with potential clients.  How do you begin to market yourself? Lucas established that social media can be a great tool to boost your presence and connect with people. But how do you drive traffic to your website? The first thing Lucas has his coaching clients do is create videos. One video a day for 30 days. It allows you to develop how you deliver your message and pushes you out of your comfort zone. He also has his clients create 9 blog posts immediately. Not only do these practices allow you to develop your voice, but it begins to build content to gain organic traffic. Lucas also advocates for paid advertising as a great driver of traffic. Above all else, he wants you to create content, speak your truth, and in doing so it will speak to your ideal client. If you have the passion and drive necessary, the skills can be developed. Put yourself in uncomfortable circumstances that will help you grow—because comfort kills progress.  Resources & People Mentioned Lucas Rubix’s Website Lucas on Instagram Lucas on Facebook Lucas on YouTube Check out his Podcast! Musicfor “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License Connect With James and Dean James P. Friel: CEO Quickstart: https://jamespfriel.com/ceo-quickstart/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hustledetox/ Site: www.jamespfriel.com Interested in being a guest on the show? Dean Holland: Blog: www.DeanHolland.com FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ Billion Dollar Project: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BillionDollarProject/ Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

Panel: Charles Max Wood Lucas Reis Justin Bennett Special Guests: Peter Mbanugo In this episode, the panel talks with guest speaker, Peter Mbanugo. Peter is a computer software specialist who works with Field Intelligence and writes technical articles for Progress Software and a few others. He studied at SMC University and currently resides in Nigeria. They talk about his creation, Hamoni Sync, and article, Real-time editable data grid in React. Also, other topics such as Offline-First, Speed Curve, Kendo UI are talked about, too. Check out today’s episode Show Topics: 1:30 – Chuck: Let’s talk about what you built and how it works. Topic: Real-time editable data grid in React. 1:40 – Peter: Real time editing. It allows you to edit and have the data go across the different devices. Synchronizing your applications. For the  2:47 – I saw that you built also the... 2:58 – Peter: Yes, I built that with Real-time. Most of the time I have to figure out how to build something to go across the channel, such as the message. Then I built the chats. Next month 4:33 – Justin: It says that it can go offline. That is challenging. How are you going about that? 4:51 – Peter answers the question. Peter: When you loose connections and when the network comes back on then it will try to publish anything to the server while offline. If you are trying to initialize the... 5:42 – Awesome. 5:45 – Peter continues his thoughts. 5:56 – Lucas: This is really interesting. Form something really simple to tackle this problem. I have gotten into so many problems. Congratulations on at least having the courage to try such a system. 6:35 – Justin: When you have someone interacting with one of these applications, lose connectivity, is the service handling this behind the scenes? 6:56 – Peter: Yes.  Peter goes into detail. 7:19 – Justin: Neat. That would be interesting to dig more into that. 7:35 – Lucas: I had a friend who sent me links and I was like WHOAH. It’s not an easy task. 7:57 – Peter: Yes, offline – I am learning each and everyday. There are different ways to go about it. Then I go write something about conflict free of different types. I thought that was the way to go. I didn’t want it to be something of the declines. 8:50 – Lucas: How did React work for you? 9:24 – Peter answers the question. 9:58 – Panelist: I was trying to synchronize the system. There are 2 types: Operational Transformations and CRDTs. It’s a really hard problem. 10:35 – Lucas: Now we have multiple devices and they can be far away from each other. Updates to send to the same server. I think that this is really complicated world. Even consider new techniques that we use in RI. You have a long in process. You need to react to them. Maybe dates that you cannot get. Hard problem we are solving now. 11:56 –Justin: Even interacting with applications that ... it has made our products that aren’t approachable if someone doesn’t have a good Internet connection. Synchronizing connections while offline. So you can have offline support. These are problems that we can resolve hopefully. 13:01 – Lucas: It affects everyone. Back in Brazil we had problems with connections, because it’s connections. Now I live in NY but the subway my connection is hurt. 13:40 – Peter: Yes, I agree. Peter talks about his connections being an issue while living in Africa. 14:52 – Justin: How does that affect your development workflow? 15:08 – Peter answers the question. 17:23 – Justin: Shout-out to the Chrome team. Tool called LIGHTHOUSE. It can test for accessibility, SEOs and etc. Good same defaults and trying to test Mobile First. When I was learning about performance I wasn’t thinking about the types of devices that people would use. The edits tab really helps think about those things. 18:41 – Digital Ocean’s Advertisement 19:18 – Justin: Any tools to help test your download speeds or anything authentication tools? 19:36 – Peter answers this question. 20:15 – Panelist asks the same question to Lucas. 20:22 – Lucas: interesting question. Even though the website was doing pretty well we were in the dark. We did a huge migration and it wasn’t clear about the performance. So my first mission here was start using a tool called SPEED CURVE. It only gets better. For a company who needs to acquire a tool SPEED CURVE is great. They have the LIGHTHOUSE measurements in their dashboards. So it can follow through time your scores and all of your analysis. These are the tools we use today. They have both synthetic and real user monitoring. So when we are measuring things on our Chrome it is a picture of your machine (biased picture) they make it both synthetic and film your page and compare through time. Analyze your assets. Some code on your application and collects statistics for each user. Relic I have used before, too. I do believe those tools are of great help. I am sure there are opensource initiatives, but I haven’t played 22:56 – Peter: Have you tried...? 23:07 – Lucas continues. LIGHTHOUSE. 23:56 – Justin: It gives great visualizations for people to see. SPEED CURVE. Where we are at – so they can see that – it’s powerful. 24:40 – Lucas: Interesting story we used SPEED CURVE. Real users and synthetic measurements; our website was getting slower and slower. We couldn’t figure it out. What is happening to our application? It turned out that the app more people were using it on the mobile. The real user speed was going up because they were using mobile. The share of mobile users and performance was getting better. You look at the overall average it was getting slower. Interesting lesson on how to look at data, interpret data and insights. It was really interesting. 26:21 – Peter. 26:25 – Lucas continues the previous conversation from 24:40. 27:00 – Justin: Taking the conversation back. It’s always a challenging problem because the implications are hard to use. What was your experience with React Table? What are the pros and cons? 27:40 – Peter: React Table is quite light. It is pretty good on data. I haven’t had much of a problem. It is okay to use. The other ones I haven’t tried them, yet. 28:08 – Justin: Same question to Charles and to Lucas. 28:21 – Lucas: I have never worked with big tables to render the massive data or tables that need to be edits and stuff like that. I don’t have experience with those components. Play here and there. It is interesting, because it is one of those components that are fighting the platform and it’s a good source of interesting solutions. 29:05 – Chuck: Kendo UI has one. I need something that his more barebones. AG Grid. 30:03 – Justin: React Windows. It optimizes long lists. It just renders what is in the current window. 30:22 – Ryan Vaughn. 30:28 – Justin: Cool library. 30:36 – Lucas: Use it as a learning tool. How do you all decide when to actually start using a library? As early as you can? Libraries to solve our problems? 31:19 – Peter: It depends on what I am doing. 31:53 – Fascinating question. Not one size fits all. It’s a balance between product deliverable needs and... There can be risks involved. Fine balance. I find myself doing a lot is I will default using a library first. Library that isn’t too large but what I need for that project. If there is a hairy feature I will use the library until my needs are met.  33:49 – Lucas adds his comments. Lucas: You want to differentiate yourself. I love GitHub. 35:36 – Question to Charles: I know you have tons of stuff going on. What’s your thought process? 35:53 – Chuck: If I can find stuff on the shelf I will pay for it. My time adds up much more quickly then what the dollars do. I will pay for something off the shelf. I only mess around for a while but if I can’t find something to help me then I will go and build something of my own. I got close with Zapier, but I got to the point that I wanted to put something together that I built my own thing through Ruby on Rails. Generally I will pay for it. 37:07 – Panelist: Yes, I don’t think we all don’t value our time and how expensive time is. 37:25 – Chuck: I own the business. My time is of value – it’s more important to me. It’s a trap that people fall into not to value their time. 38:11 – Lucas: We are not all working on what we SHOULD be working on. This isn’t going to bring business Productive time that we are using with stuff that is not our business or our main focus. Focus on the core product. Try to get the customers to have a better life. The mission of the company. The web community that started that most is the Ruby community. Having solutions and focusing on the problem. I think that JavaScript is now doing a better job of this. As we know it’s easy to fall into this trap and play with building blocks. 39:52 – Chuck: I have had a few people remind me that I am a DEVELOPER! 40:19 – Justin: The thing I have estimating is the difficulty of something. I can build it because I am a developer. Is it valuable for me? 41:10 – Lucas: The sunken costs sink in – I have done all this work and now look where I am at? 41:33 – Chuck: Anything else? 41:43 – Peter: Check out me through Twitter and the Dev blog. Message me anytime. 42:13 – Chuck: Picks! 42:18 – Advertisement. Links: Kendo UI Ruby on Rails Angular Get A Coder Job Redux Agile Real-time editable data grid in React Peter Mbanugo’s Twitter Peter Mbanguo’s LinkedIn Peter Mbanguo’s Dev.To Peter Mbanguo’s GitHub Peter Mbanguo’s WordPress Lucas Reis’ Email: lucasmreis@gmail.com Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Kendo UI Digital Ocean Get A Coder Job Picks: Charles Book: The ONE Thing Get A Coder Job – It will be out next week! T-Shirts & Mugs – Podcast Artwork - SWAG Kickstarter – Code Badge.Org Justin RC BLOG Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hackers Lucas Blog Post: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Turtle Peter Library – Opensource Masters of Skill – Podcast Book: Ego is the Enemy Book

Panel: Charles Max Wood Lucas Reis Justin Bennett Special Guests: Peter Mbanugo In this episode, the panel talks with guest speaker, Peter Mbanugo. Peter is a computer software specialist who works with Field Intelligence and writes technical articles for Progress Software and a few others. He studied at SMC University and currently resides in Nigeria. They talk about his creation, Hamoni Sync, and article, Real-time editable data grid in React. Also, other topics such as Offline-First, Speed Curve, Kendo UI are talked about, too. Check out today’s episode Show Topics: 1:30 – Chuck: Let’s talk about what you built and how it works. Topic: Real-time editable data grid in React. 1:40 – Peter: Real time editing. It allows you to edit and have the data go across the different devices. Synchronizing your applications. For the  2:47 – I saw that you built also the... 2:58 – Peter: Yes, I built that with Real-time. Most of the time I have to figure out how to build something to go across the channel, such as the message. Then I built the chats. Next month 4:33 – Justin: It says that it can go offline. That is challenging. How are you going about that? 4:51 – Peter answers the question. Peter: When you loose connections and when the network comes back on then it will try to publish anything to the server while offline. If you are trying to initialize the... 5:42 – Awesome. 5:45 – Peter continues his thoughts. 5:56 – Lucas: This is really interesting. Form something really simple to tackle this problem. I have gotten into so many problems. Congratulations on at least having the courage to try such a system. 6:35 – Justin: When you have someone interacting with one of these applications, lose connectivity, is the service handling this behind the scenes? 6:56 – Peter: Yes.  Peter goes into detail. 7:19 – Justin: Neat. That would be interesting to dig more into that. 7:35 – Lucas: I had a friend who sent me links and I was like WHOAH. It’s not an easy task. 7:57 – Peter: Yes, offline – I am learning each and everyday. There are different ways to go about it. Then I go write something about conflict free of different types. I thought that was the way to go. I didn’t want it to be something of the declines. 8:50 – Lucas: How did React work for you? 9:24 – Peter answers the question. 9:58 – Panelist: I was trying to synchronize the system. There are 2 types: Operational Transformations and CRDTs. It’s a really hard problem. 10:35 – Lucas: Now we have multiple devices and they can be far away from each other. Updates to send to the same server. I think that this is really complicated world. Even consider new techniques that we use in RI. You have a long in process. You need to react to them. Maybe dates that you cannot get. Hard problem we are solving now. 11:56 –Justin: Even interacting with applications that ... it has made our products that aren’t approachable if someone doesn’t have a good Internet connection. Synchronizing connections while offline. So you can have offline support. These are problems that we can resolve hopefully. 13:01 – Lucas: It affects everyone. Back in Brazil we had problems with connections, because it’s connections. Now I live in NY but the subway my connection is hurt. 13:40 – Peter: Yes, I agree. Peter talks about his connections being an issue while living in Africa. 14:52 – Justin: How does that affect your development workflow? 15:08 – Peter answers the question. 17:23 – Justin: Shout-out to the Chrome team. Tool called LIGHTHOUSE. It can test for accessibility, SEOs and etc. Good same defaults and trying to test Mobile First. When I was learning about performance I wasn’t thinking about the types of devices that people would use. The edits tab really helps think about those things. 18:41 – Digital Ocean’s Advertisement 19:18 – Justin: Any tools to help test your download speeds or anything authentication tools? 19:36 – Peter answers this question. 20:15 – Panelist asks the same question to Lucas. 20:22 – Lucas: interesting question. Even though the website was doing pretty well we were in the dark. We did a huge migration and it wasn’t clear about the performance. So my first mission here was start using a tool called SPEED CURVE. It only gets better. For a company who needs to acquire a tool SPEED CURVE is great. They have the LIGHTHOUSE measurements in their dashboards. So it can follow through time your scores and all of your analysis. These are the tools we use today. They have both synthetic and real user monitoring. So when we are measuring things on our Chrome it is a picture of your machine (biased picture) they make it both synthetic and film your page and compare through time. Analyze your assets. Some code on your application and collects statistics for each user. Relic I have used before, too. I do believe those tools are of great help. I am sure there are opensource initiatives, but I haven’t played 22:56 – Peter: Have you tried...? 23:07 – Lucas continues. LIGHTHOUSE. 23:56 – Justin: It gives great visualizations for people to see. SPEED CURVE. Where we are at – so they can see that – it’s powerful. 24:40 – Lucas: Interesting story we used SPEED CURVE. Real users and synthetic measurements; our website was getting slower and slower. We couldn’t figure it out. What is happening to our application? It turned out that the app more people were using it on the mobile. The real user speed was going up because they were using mobile. The share of mobile users and performance was getting better. You look at the overall average it was getting slower. Interesting lesson on how to look at data, interpret data and insights. It was really interesting. 26:21 – Peter. 26:25 – Lucas continues the previous conversation from 24:40. 27:00 – Justin: Taking the conversation back. It’s always a challenging problem because the implications are hard to use. What was your experience with React Table? What are the pros and cons? 27:40 – Peter: React Table is quite light. It is pretty good on data. I haven’t had much of a problem. It is okay to use. The other ones I haven’t tried them, yet. 28:08 – Justin: Same question to Charles and to Lucas. 28:21 – Lucas: I have never worked with big tables to render the massive data or tables that need to be edits and stuff like that. I don’t have experience with those components. Play here and there. It is interesting, because it is one of those components that are fighting the platform and it’s a good source of interesting solutions. 29:05 – Chuck: Kendo UI has one. I need something that his more barebones. AG Grid. 30:03 – Justin: React Windows. It optimizes long lists. It just renders what is in the current window. 30:22 – Ryan Vaughn. 30:28 – Justin: Cool library. 30:36 – Lucas: Use it as a learning tool. How do you all decide when to actually start using a library? As early as you can? Libraries to solve our problems? 31:19 – Peter: It depends on what I am doing. 31:53 – Fascinating question. Not one size fits all. It’s a balance between product deliverable needs and... There can be risks involved. Fine balance. I find myself doing a lot is I will default using a library first. Library that isn’t too large but what I need for that project. If there is a hairy feature I will use the library until my needs are met.  33:49 – Lucas adds his comments. Lucas: You want to differentiate yourself. I love GitHub. 35:36 – Question to Charles: I know you have tons of stuff going on. What’s your thought process? 35:53 – Chuck: If I can find stuff on the shelf I will pay for it. My time adds up much more quickly then what the dollars do. I will pay for something off the shelf. I only mess around for a while but if I can’t find something to help me then I will go and build something of my own. I got close with Zapier, but I got to the point that I wanted to put something together that I built my own thing through Ruby on Rails. Generally I will pay for it. 37:07 – Panelist: Yes, I don’t think we all don’t value our time and how expensive time is. 37:25 – Chuck: I own the business. My time is of value – it’s more important to me. It’s a trap that people fall into not to value their time. 38:11 – Lucas: We are not all working on what we SHOULD be working on. This isn’t going to bring business Productive time that we are using with stuff that is not our business or our main focus. Focus on the core product. Try to get the customers to have a better life. The mission of the company. The web community that started that most is the Ruby community. Having solutions and focusing on the problem. I think that JavaScript is now doing a better job of this. As we know it’s easy to fall into this trap and play with building blocks. 39:52 – Chuck: I have had a few people remind me that I am a DEVELOPER! 40:19 – Justin: The thing I have estimating is the difficulty of something. I can build it because I am a developer. Is it valuable for me? 41:10 – Lucas: The sunken costs sink in – I have done all this work and now look where I am at? 41:33 – Chuck: Anything else? 41:43 – Peter: Check out me through Twitter and the Dev blog. Message me anytime. 42:13 – Chuck: Picks! 42:18 – Advertisement. Links: Kendo UI Ruby on Rails Angular Get A Coder Job Redux Agile Real-time editable data grid in React Peter Mbanugo’s Twitter Peter Mbanguo’s LinkedIn Peter Mbanguo’s Dev.To Peter Mbanguo’s GitHub Peter Mbanguo’s WordPress Lucas Reis’ Email: lucasmreis@gmail.com Charles Max Wood’s Twitter Sponsors: Kendo UI Digital Ocean Get A Coder Job Picks: Charles Book: The ONE Thing Get A Coder Job – It will be out next week! T-Shirts & Mugs – Podcast Artwork - SWAG Kickstarter – Code Badge.Org Justin RC BLOG Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hackers Lucas Blog Post: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Turtle Peter Library – Opensource Masters of Skill – Podcast Book: Ego is the Enemy Book