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Recap of Episode 22 of Australian Survivor Brains V Brawn 2 - Battle of the Brains! Thanks for listening! Follow us: Instagram @ATASurvivor TikTok @ATASurvivor Email us: ATAustralianSurvivor@gmail.com Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;03;43 Rachel Hello and welcome to American stock Australian survivor I'm Rachel. 00;00;03;45 - 00;00;04;17 Leah I'm Leah. 00;00;04;21 - 00;00;05;39 Matt And I'm Matt. 00;00;05;44 - 00;00;25;34 Rachel Thanks for joining us. We just watched episode 22 of Australian Survivor brains versus brawn two. And there will be spoilers ahead. We open up on the final five. Woo hoo! Wow. It's been a long journey for these players, but they are proud of themselves and they have made it to a huge accomplishment on any season of survivor to make it to the final. 00;00;25;34 - 00;00;29;09 Leah 544 days. It's unbelievable. 00;00;29;14 - 00;00;31;49 Matt You start to get nervous now right? 00;00;31;54 - 00;00;45;36 Rachel Yeah, and they should be, because we see Miles and Zahra talking on the beach. And Miles and Miles really wants to sit next to Zahra at the end. He thinks he can beat her and he thinks it's time to target age. It's number one. 00;00;45;41 - 00;00;47;57 Leah I don't want AJ to go boo. 00;00;48;02 - 00;01;05;54 Rachel Well, you know, I mean, I think we talked last episode about Kate and Morgan turning on each other and how how they didn't turn on each other because they have such a close alliance and how it's tough to watch that on survivor because you say, oh, it's a game, you've got to vote out your friends. And now here we go. 00;01;05;54 - 00;01;11;48 Rachel We see Miles being a survivor player, saying, I'm going to vote for my friend because I want to win this game, right? 00;01;11;51 - 00;01;15;11 Leah You did. He kept saying that I'm going to win the game. 00;01;15;22 - 00;01;32;04 Matt And with all the seasons of survivor we've watched, there's always people saying we're going to be friends for the rest of our lives. On the outside, we're going to stay in touch. So I mean, they become very good friends with when you eat, sleep and drink with somebody all day for weeks. 00;01;32;08 - 00;01;37;50 Rachel Yeah. And I think that Myles and AJ both have enough respect for the game that they'll be friends outside of this for sure. 00;01;37;52 - 00;01;41;37 Leah Well, Miles even said that that he thinks that data will respect them. 00;01;41;37 - 00;01;42;02 Leah Exactly. 00;01;42;10 - 00;01;43;30 Rachel So he's thinking that yeah. 00;01;43;37 - 00;01;45;42 Matt Yeah. When I vote you out, you'll respect me. 00;01;45;43 - 00;01;46;00 Leah Yeah. 00;01;46;00 - 00;01;59;27 Rachel One thing that Myles did say to Zara is when I take out AJ, the jury's going to be wowed. So Myles is already taking credit for this move. That hasn't happened yet that he needs Zara to help with. 00;01;59;31 - 00;02;00;15 Matt It's funny all. 00;02;00;15 - 00;02;01;01 Leah These all these. 00;02;01;09 - 00;02;04;27 Matt Plans it seems like a battle of the brains is really coming. Coming true. 00;02;04;31 - 00;02;16;13 Rachel Yeah. We've barely heard about Kate by the beginning part of the episode. She was almost gone last night and now she seems to have skated on by because the post grads are turning on each other, right? 00;02;16;20 - 00;02;22;25 Leah Yes. Well, I think it's interesting that there are four brains left. And last season, Hayley won 00;02;22;25 - 00;02;27;24 Leah the last brawn versus brains. So it's interesting. The brains. Here they go again. 00;02;27;28 - 00;02;31;36 Rachel It certainly looks like the brains are victorious against the brawn. 00;02;31;45 - 00;02;34;51 Matt If you could just get through those first couple of ones that you lose 00;02;34;51 - 00;02;35;33 Matt the brawn 00;02;35;33 - 00;02;42;18 Matt finishes all the, the tribal, the challenges and wins them all. If you can just get through those, you have a better chance, right? 00;02;42;27 - 00;02;44;49 Rachel Being a brain if you can make it to the merge. Right. 00;02;45;26 - 00;02;59;34 Rachel Well we see the brains all talking to each other. The postgraduates and Myles is expressing that Kate is next. And AJ being the great poker player that he is. Says that's ridiculous. He's definitely got something else up his sleeve. 00;02;59;37 - 00;03;00;56 Leah Yeah. 00;03;01;00 - 00;03;06;23 Rachel So he knows him well. Yeah. He doesn't know that he's the target, but he certainly knows him well. 00;03;06;28 - 00;03;11;15 Matt Right? He thinks it's Kaitlyn. Yeah, AJ thinks my Myles is going to vote Kaitlyn. 00;03;11;15 - 00;03;13;00 Leah Right? And he tells Kaitlyn that. 00;03;13;00 - 00;03;16;49 Rachel And he also tells Art, which is interesting that Zar is getting all A's. 00;03;16;54 - 00;03;17;27 Leah Yeah right. 00;03;17;39 - 00;03;31;03 Matt And I thought for sure at this point that AJ was going to say and Myles has a now an idol but he didn't. He kept it like a good poker player. Kept it close to his chest. Didn't let other people see what he knows. 00;03;31;03 - 00;03;49;22 Rachel Well now it's time to get into the immunity challenge. So. Right at the beginning, we talked about, you know, how Kaitlyn's won so many. And AJ announces to the group that he wants Kaitlyn to win every single one in hopes that he doesn't stop. Which is an interesting thing to say about your competitor. 00;03;49;27 - 00;04;04;53 Leah I think AJ is such a good friend to Kaitlyn. He really sincerely wants him to keep winning and maybe he knows since he is good friends with Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn will protect him with that with immunity. I guess it's better to have your friend win it than someone else. 00;04;04;58 - 00;04;09;19 Rachel Yeah, and I guess AJ probably could beat Kaitlyn at the end. I think that's what he's thinking. 00;04;09;24 - 00;04;10;34 Leah I think so. 00;04;10;39 - 00;04;15;06 Matt I guess so. So if Kaitlyn wins everyone, that's okay because he'll take me with him. 00;04;15;11 - 00;04;16;20 Leah Yeah. 00;04;16;25 - 00;04;19;24 Rachel Yeah I don't know if AJ has told us who his top 00;04;19;24 - 00;04;20;33 Rachel person said Kaitlyn. 00;04;20;33 - 00;04;22;44 Leah I thought he so did. Yeah I think he said both and. 00;04;22;44 - 00;04;26;34 Rachel It makes me. Yeah yeah makes sense that he wants Kaitlyn to keep winning immunities. 00;04;26;34 - 00;04;29;27 Matt But did he ever tell Myles that he was that they were. 00;04;29;34 - 00;04;32;28 Leah I think Myles and AJ know that they can't take each other. 00;04;32;30 - 00;04;34;04 Matt Okay. They're smart enough. 00;04;34;05 - 00;04;34;27 Leah Yeah. 00;04;34;29 - 00;04;38;49 Rachel Yeah. Yeah. They know they can't sit next to each other. But what what how would that be. That would be. 00;04;38;49 - 00;04;44;55 Leah Awesome. I would be the best. The absolutely best. And who would win? Yeah. All right, so off to the immunity challenge, 00;04;44;55 - 00;05;05;23 Rachel Yeah. So they have to take these blocks over a little obstacle where you can, you know, trip it and wobble your stack, and you have to stack up 12 blocks. So it feels kind of similar to last night's, challenge at tribal council where, you know, you're stacking things and it's balance and it's precision. Right? So I, I was a little frustrated that it was quite similar. 00;05;05;24 - 00;05;08;42 Rachel I would have wanted something a little bit different. Right. Back to back. 00;05;08;43 - 00;05;09;07 Leah Challenges. 00;05;09;11 - 00;05;12;41 Matt Similar to immunity challenge number two from from the previous. 00;05;12;41 - 00;05;34;13 Leah Episode. Well, what I didn't like is that they didn't base it on height. Like AJ had an extremely difficult time getting under the, gate. And, Jonathan even said something about being like, I don't know, something about tall. Yeah, it was a challenge, so that just doesn't seem fair. Why not make it so everyone has an equal, distance? 00;05;34;18 - 00;05;36;08 Matt Okay. Should be based on your body, right? 00;05;36;09 - 00;05;36;42 Leah Correct. 00;05;36;54 - 00;05;43;59 Rachel Because, yeah, for the strength ones, they do it by percentage of your body weight. So it should be the same thing. It should be based on your height. 00;05;44;00 - 00;05;44;31 Leah Yes. 00;05;44;42 - 00;05;49;42 Matt And someone with shorter legs has a harder time because they have to lift their feet up higher. So maybe they're just saying it's, 00;05;49;42 - 00;05;58;10 Matt both, you know, taller people have to duck down lower. Shorter people have to lift their feet higher. But I think you got to lift your feet higher a lot more. I don't know. It should be. 00;05;58;21 - 00;06;01;03 Matt I feel like it should be the same for everybody. Based on your height. 00;06;01;03 - 00;06;01;38 Leah I agree. 00;06;01;48 - 00;06;03;18 Rachel They never take our advice. What 00;06;03;18 - 00;06;05;25 Rachel changes are they working on? 00;06;05;30 - 00;06;10;25 Leah Yes I know. Yeah. All right, so Caitlin's in the lead, right? 00;06;10;30 - 00;06;14;01 Rachel Yeah. To no one's surprise, Kate and Caitlin are both doing well. 00;06;14;06 - 00;06;15;27 Leah Right? Very well. 00;06;15;27 - 00;06;18;19 Rachel it looks like Caitlin's about to pull through, but he drops. 00;06;18;25 - 00;06;23;34 Leah Oh. All right, number 11. How upsetting. Oh, down. Wow. Had to be hard. 00;06;23;38 - 00;06;29;11 Rachel And he was, you know, preparing himself, taking a deep breath before he went in. So that was really too bad. 00;06;29;16 - 00;06;30;56 Leah Now okay. So that's the lead, right? 00;06;30;56 - 00;06;47;33 Rachel Yeah. So it's everyone's anyone's game really at this point. And this is one of those this is kind of fun about these sort of challenges is that you see people build up their stack and then they fall, and then someone else is in the lead and then someone else builds up. So it's kind of like a revolving door of who is leading the challenge. 00;06;47;33 - 00;06;49;31 Rachel So that's always a little exciting. 00;06;49;31 - 00;06;59;14 Rachel We see a lot of people drop. We see Myles drop on his absolute 12th block, yet the last one I need to set to take away the oh I couldn't get it. 00;06;59;14 - 00;07;01;27 Rachel So he looked really upset about that. 00;07;01;32 - 00;07;05;14 Leah And Zara wins. Yeah for Zara. 00;07;05;19 - 00;07;10;04 Rachel I don't think she dropped at all. She finally hurt as J. Upset. Finally. Yeah. 00;07;10;04 - 00;07;11;46 Leah Yeah, right. I honestly. 00;07;11;51 - 00;07;17;34 Matt I think that was an odd thing to say. Well yeah somebody is winning them all. And then you win one fight. 00;07;17;35 - 00;07;26;50 Leah Right right right. Well maybe but she did a great job. Like she's slow and steady. And congratulations to Zara. That was really incredible. And it. 00;07;26;54 - 00;07;30;20 Matt Was great at the end even as they were leaving the stack was still standing. 00;07;30;25 - 00;07;34;27 Leah Right in the background and she was doing a little dance. Yeah, right. 00;07;34;32 - 00;07;35;13 Rachel She seemed very. 00;07;35;13 - 00;07;38;30 Leah Proud. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it was great. 00;07;38;35 - 00;07;39;42 Rachel I don't think we. 00;07;39;45 - 00;07;46;11 Leah Could do that. Yeah. No. Yeah. It was fun to see her so happy. Yeah, right. She's a very serious player, so that was nice. 00;07;46;11 - 00;08;03;20 Rachel So let me get back to camp. And Myles and Zara are still gunning for, AJ and they're really thinking ahead. They say we're going to tell Kate to vote for Kaitlyn. And then on the next vote at the Final Four, we're going to say, hey, Kaitlyn, remember when Kate voted for you? We've got to get her out. 00;08;03;20 - 00;08;11;17 Rachel So they're thinking, you know, multiple steps ahead of how to get people mad at each other. So you have to appreciate the good gameplay. 00;08;11;22 - 00;08;20;21 Leah I do, but Zara made a good point. She said. If we fail this, it's not going to be good, right? So they have to make sure they do not fail at this vote. 00;08;20;21 - 00;08;27;29 Rachel Yeah, so they're planning to do two votes on, Kate, two votes on AJ and then one vote somewhere else. 00;08;27;29 - 00;08;29;00 Matt On Kaitlyn, I think. 00;08;29;05 - 00;08;34;12 Rachel On Kaitlyn. And then they're going to revote and then it's going to be two. So they've got a. 00;08;34;12 - 00;08;35;37 Leah Lot of right. 00;08;35;47 - 00;08;40;42 Matt Then there's only the two of them who can vote. And then they can both vote off whoever they want to vote. 00;08;40;42 - 00;08;46;53 Rachel AJ dizzying to think about all these different strategies that everyone has going on with only five votes. 00;08;46;59 - 00;08;53;56 Leah I don't know how they do this. They're so tired. And now, you know, I haven't had anything to eat. But here, they're very good. 00;08;54;01 - 00;08;54;44 Rachel They're good. 00;08;54;44 - 00;09;01;16 Matt But it's interesting that they could, that Myles comes up with a 2 to 1 vote. And then AJ comes up with two one. 00;09;01;18 - 00;09;04;15 Leah Yes. Well that's why they're friends. 00;09;04;20 - 00;09;05;33 Rachel Yeah. They think alike. 00;09;05;35 - 00;09;06;15 Leah Really. 00;09;06;20 - 00;09;21;29 Rachel Well Kaitlyn had a great plan to set a rat trap. So he thinks that he's pretty worried about Myles idol. So I guess Kaitlyn knows about the idol. It's hard to keep track of who knows about the idol and who doesn't, but I guess Kaitlyn knows. 00;09;21;29 - 00;09;23;52 Rachel He thinks that's going to come down to Myles versus Kate. 00;09;23;52 - 00;09;30;44 Rachel So he's like, if Myles plays his idol, then K goes home. If Myles plays his idol for Kate trying to send Kaitlyn home. Yeah. And Myles goes home. 00;09;30;44 - 00;09;31;02 Leah So 00;09;31;02 - 00;09;35;13 Leah yeah he's thinking. He was thinking I like Kaitlyn's plan. I thought it was a good plan. 00;09;35;17 - 00;09;50;43 Rachel Yeah. And then AJ says you know we're gonna have two votes on Myles. Gonna have two votes on Kate. Then we're going to revote on Kate. And it's just a lot of a lot of re votes allotted two on two splits. But it's interesting that AJ is gunning for Kate who he tried so hard to save last night. 00;09;50;54 - 00;09;54;43 Leah Well I think he's a postgraduate graduate. Must be loyal to them. 00;09;54;43 - 00;09;55;53 Matt Sticking to the four. 00;09;55;56 - 00;10;02;51 Leah Yeah, yeah. So I think them working together they said since the beginning right. So yeah. 00;10;02;51 - 00;10;05;48 Matt He spent every day with two days with Sara. 00;10;05;53 - 00;10;06;46 Leah Yeah. Yeah. 00;10;06;50 - 00;10;11;01 Rachel Do they really known each other. Yeah. Yeah. Like a month and a half together. That's crazy. 00;10;11;02 - 00;10;11;58 Matt Gosh. 00;10;12;03 - 00;10;14;16 Rachel No breaks to go to work and come back. 00;10;14;19 - 00;10;15;00 Leah Okay. Go to. 00;10;15;01 - 00;10;15;55 Matt Sleep. You can't. 00;10;16;06 - 00;10;17;11 Rachel Drive all the time and drive. 00;10;17;11 - 00;10;18;44 Matt In your car and listen to a podcast. 00;10;18;49 - 00;10;25;31 Rachel Well, it is nice to see that AJ has sort of finally left. Kate's a spell. You seem to really be, 00;10;25;31 - 00;10;35;00 Rachel you know, siding with her quite a bit on a lot of these votes. But it seems like for whatever reason, he has flipped a switch and he's no longer, trying to save Kate. He's actually looking to get her out. 00;10;35;00 - 00;10;50;33 Rachel then we see Zara say that she is, you know, obviously she's thinking about AJ, but she also doesn't want Kate to make it to the final three because as we know, Kate and Zara are both good at endurance. Right? And Zara needs to set herself up to win for that situation. 00;10;50;38 - 00;11;00;19 Leah And so you see Kate and Zara talking, right? Yeah. And Kate tells Zara that Miles told her to vote for Kaitlyn and Zara seems quite surprised. 00;11;00;19 - 00;11;08;11 Rachel Yeah, because Kate is following Myles and not AJ, which is not what you would have expected from Kate. So this really flips things around for Zara. 00;11;08;23 - 00;11;11;41 Matt Well, Myles also did give her kind of an ultimatum. You have no choice. 00;11;11;41 - 00;11;14;39 Leah Yeah he's not very nice and for sure you know. 00;11;14;44 - 00;11;18;42 Rachel That does seem to be his go to strategy to say well you've got to do my way. You have no choice. 00;11;18;49 - 00;11;20;54 Leah Well, I think it's funny that Zara became. 00;11;20;55 - 00;11;22;12 Matt Really vote for whoever she wants. 00;11;22;12 - 00;11;33;56 Leah Yeah, but Zara ends up being the swing vote. It looks like. Right. If Kate's going to go with Myles, then it looks like she Zara will figure out. 00;11;34;01 - 00;11;35;14 Rachel But yeah. So deciding. 00;11;35;14 - 00;11;36;36 Leah Oh sorry. Go ahead. 00;11;36;41 - 00;11;53;22 Rachel Susanna has figured out that all four players on the beach are voting for each other, so Kate's voting for Caitlin. Myles is voting for AJ, Kaitlyn's voting for Miles and is voting for Kate. So there's four people eligible to receive votes and they all have one accounted for. And Zara gets to be the deciding. 00;11;53;22 - 00;11;55;07 Leah Vote, right? I know right? 00;11;55;12 - 00;11;59;15 Matt A huge move for her that all just kind of like fell in line. 00;11;59;20 - 00;12;05;04 Leah Well I think the big thing also is that Kate is finally looking for an idol. 00;12;05;04 - 00;12;06;21 Rachel Next time. 00;12;06;25 - 00;12;09;22 Leah But Myles is filing her and, you know. 00;12;09;29 - 00;12;10;48 Matt Half heartedly it seems like. 00;12;10;48 - 00;12;14;10 Leah Yeah, but still we still. Oh, are you looking for an idol? Yeah. Yeah, 00;12;14;10 - 00;12;17;28 Rachel It is nice to see Kate finally taking our advice and writing. 00;12;17;28 - 00;12;18;26 Leah For the night. 00;12;18;31 - 00;12;21;47 Matt We're 48 hours and the end of the game. You gonna look for an idol now, right? 00;12;21;56 - 00;12;22;23 Leah Right. 00;12;22;25 - 00;12;23;36 Rachel Well, better late than never, 00;12;23;36 - 00;12;39;29 Rachel Well, it is interesting to kind of think about Zara's plan here, so I'm thinking, well, she knows that she needs a big move because she played a really good game pre merge directly after the merge. I think she did a really nice job, but lately she hasn't really been doing quite as much. 00;12;39;29 - 00;12;49;30 Rachel So if she were to get out AJ yeah that's huge for her resume. But what if she ends up sitting next to Max? That's really Miles's move. More so than Zara's move, right? 00;12;49;30 - 00;12;53;33 Matt Right. And she could end up sitting next to Kate and she doesn't want to do that. 00;12;53;38 - 00;13;01;07 Rachel Well, yeah. So Kate's a big competition, but it's the easy vote. It doesn't have a huge mark on her resume. 00;13;01;12 - 00;13;04;57 Leah Yes, but the brains are thinking, right. Yeah, yeah. 00;13;05;02 - 00;13;10;53 Rachel But I'm thinking if I were Zara, I think the best move is to target Myles at this point because 00;13;10;53 - 00;13;22;14 Rachel AJ is not her original move Myles you know Kaitlyn's already voting for him, but it doesn't seem like anyone else thinks he's going home. And he really wouldn't suspect it at this point. So I think that would have been a big move. 00;13;22;24 - 00;13;23;26 Leah But yeah, the idol. 00;13;23;40 - 00;13;32;00 Rachel He does have the idol, so she's got a lot of choices, but it's hard to pick out like an exact good choice for Zara at this point in the game. 00;13;32;05 - 00;13;40;22 Matt Right? I don't feel like we got that from Kate. From Zara that she should vote for Myles she didn't even, like, considered. It didn't seem like. 00;13;40;22 - 00;13;41;31 Leah No. 00;13;41;35 - 00;13;47;19 Matt And we don't know that she knows he has an idol. So it seems odd that that part was missing. 00;13;47;24 - 00;13;51;43 Leah Well, I thought it was interesting because then you see Myles and AJ sitting on the beach 00;13;51;43 - 00;13;56;40 Leah AJ says I don't trust you for a moment to Myles. 00;13;56;45 - 00;14;18;57 Rachel So this is kind of sad. It's like their final goodbye almost their final chat on the beach. And Myles is tearing up and yes National. And it was it was kind of bittersweet to think about all the times that those two have sat on the beach together scheming away. And now there's like this underlying current where it's like, well, you can't tell me your plan, but I hope you don't vote for me, right? 00;14;19;00 - 00;14;30;23 Rachel Oh, it is, and it's I don't know, I think it's every, duo seems to get to this point in the game, but it's always I mean, it's just interesting to see. It's kind of emotional to watch. 00;14;30;27 - 00;14;38;23 Leah Yeah. Right. Well, I think also AJ said, Kaitlyn will take me to the end. No one else will. So that's interesting. 00;14;38;23 - 00;14;44;52 Leah Yeah, he he thinks Kaitlyn is the only one who's going to take him to the end. And I think he must believe that he'll beat Kaitlyn. 00;14;44;57 - 00;14;45;52 Rachel No, I think he can. 00;14;45;52 - 00;14;47;11 Leah Yeah, I can. 00;14;47;11 - 00;14;54;27 Matt Yeah, but that's that's a good point because he's probably right. Everyone else knows he's a good player. So why would you take him? 00;14;54;32 - 00;14;55;01 Leah Yeah. 00;14;55;06 - 00;14;59;16 Matt Right. Don't you think everybody is going to take Kaitlyn? 00;14;59;21 - 00;15;01;40 Rachel Yeah, I guess it's hard to say. 00;15;01;45 - 00;15;03;58 Leah But there's more surprises at tribal. 00;15;03;58 - 00;15;05;48 Leah What about the jury? Oh, I just. 00;15;05;48 - 00;15;11;55 Rachel We saw that Morgan has left the game. She's opted not to sit on the jury, but actually to go home instead. 00;15;11;55 - 00;15;19;10 Leah I mean, she took someone's place. She did not play this game, and now she leaves. Yeah, I think that's a really bad. 00;15;19;16 - 00;15;20;15 Matt So disappointing. 00;15;20;15 - 00;15;20;44 Leah Yeah. 00;15;20;49 - 00;15;34;36 Rachel Yeah. I was thinking about, Do you guys remember Noonan from the beginning of the season? She loved. Yeah, the game of survivor. So much. It's palpable on the screen. And I was just thinking, you know, she would love to sit on the jury. She would I sure. You know, it's an honor. 00;15;34;36 - 00;15;39;17 Matt And I would have been so excited to be there and hearing their stories, seeing what's happening. Yeah. 00;15;39;22 - 00;16;01;16 Rachel Yeah, she was a good player on the jury. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, a huge honor to be on the jury because you get to stay in the final, sole survivor of your season. You get to decide who wins the game. And it's such a huge part of the game. It's the jury. And to leave, it's like at that point, you may as well just quit the game because you already are not seeing it through to the end. 00;16;01;20 - 00;16;03;48 Rachel And I was yeah, it's very disappointing to see this. 00;16;03;59 - 00;16;05;40 Leah It's very upsetting actually. 00;16;05;45 - 00;16;11;24 Rachel You know, a morgan's an Olympian. So we know that she's been dedicated to things in the past and you just don't, 00;16;11;24 - 00;16;16;38 Rachel you know, expect someone as an Olympian to be, you know, quitting a game in the middle of it. Really. 00;16;16;43 - 00;16;17;53 Leah And she doesn't seem. 00;16;17;53 - 00;16;24;58 Matt That upset that she was leaving. Right? It's not like, you know, I've worked so hard for this, and this is my dream, and now I'm going to get voted off. 00;16;24;59 - 00;16;31;52 Leah And maybe someone told her, hey, why don't you go on survivor? And she just did it, but really doesn't care about it. I mean, she just didn't seem to care. 00;16;31;52 - 00;16;38;07 Matt I have read that in American Survivor they do go after certain people. They approach people. 00;16;38;12 - 00;16;38;42 Leah Who don't even. 00;16;38;42 - 00;16;40;43 Matt Apply and say, hey, you would be good on. 00;16;40;43 - 00;16;42;51 Leah Survivor. Oh, really? Yeah. 00;16;42;56 - 00;16;48;11 Rachel So maybe she didn't. She may have never even watch the game. Maybe she doesn't even know how important the jury is. 00;16;48;25 - 00;16;52;48 Leah Well, I'm sorry, you just made a good point about Noonan. I wish she would have made it farther. 00;16;52;48 - 00;17;10;09 Rachel I know she was fine. You know, she was terrified. The game was passionate about it. Who understands the role of the jury, the responsibility. And, you know, this is altering the game to not have your vote at the end, playing, you know, giving a say into how the game ends. It alters the game. 00;17;10;13 - 00;17;14;12 Leah Right. And Kate probably was pretty disappointed to not see her. 00;17;14;12 - 00;17;14;40 Rachel Yeah. 00;17;14;40 - 00;17;17;11 Matt Yeah. Especially if she was hoping for a vote from her. 00;17;17;11 - 00;17;17;59 Leah Yeah. So yeah. 00;17;17;59 - 00;17;19;48 Leah So that was crazy. 00;17;19;53 - 00;17;23;01 Rachel Yeah. So very disappointing. Interesting that, 00;17;23;01 - 00;17;31;52 Rachel think it was Ben at the beginning of the season, quit kind of unexpectedly from the brains, from tribe and, Morgan from the brawn tribe. Right. So it's. 00;17;31;52 - 00;17;32;59 Matt Season. 00;17;33;04 - 00;17;42;39 Rachel And it's not looking good for brains versus brawn. It looks like the bronze are quitting. They're not making it as far in the game. It's right. Looking like the brains are victorious overall. 00;17;42;41 - 00;17;50;40 Matt And I wonder if the four brains. I wonder what the reaction was when they heard that Morgan wasn't there. Probably like good. 00;17;50;45 - 00;17;53;26 Leah Yeah, because Morgan didn't like any of them. Right. 00;17;53;31 - 00;18;08;52 Rachel Yeah. I wonder if it even changed Zara's. I mean, I don't think it did, but I wonder if it made Zara reconsider her vote, knowing that if she were to sit next to Kate, she would not have that guaranteed vote for Morgan. 00;18;08;57 - 00;18;11;11 Leah I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. 00;18;11;16 - 00;18;16;05 Rachel Well, probably not, because, the tribal they're discussing, 00;18;16;05 - 00;18;21;52 Rachel you know, when to make a big move is it time to turn on the core four? It's going to be so awkward for. 00;18;21;53 - 00;18;22;57 Matt Bell to get awkward. 00;18;22;57 - 00;18;28;02 Rachel And when is it time to make your last big move, or, you know, one of your last big moves? 00;18;28;11 - 00;18;50;32 Leah Well, I like it that they showed us everyone but Sara. Their votes. So AJ voted for Kate, Kaitlyn voted for Myles. So that was weird because AJ was supposed to vote for Myles mapper, but I guess he just couldn't do it. Kate voted for Kaitlyn as Myles told her to do and Myles voted for AJ. So now all of them have a vote so we don't know if she's great, who Zara's going to pick. 00;18;50;32 - 00;18;52;40 Leah And that was very, very interesting. 00;18;52;45 - 00;19;00;12 Matt So it worked out perfectly for the producers. Yes, let's do it this way. I was like, yes, we knew what was going to happen up until the last vote. 00;19;00;17 - 00;19;01;56 Leah Yeah, that was really good. 00;19;02;01 - 00;19;05;13 Rachel But before they could read the votes, we had another twist. 00;19;05;13 - 00;19;10;01 Rachel Number four Myles plays idol number four for himself. 00;19;10;05 - 00;19;11;59 Matt And the jury is just like, 00;19;12;04 - 00;19;14;10 Leah Yeah. Thank you. Nothing like it was. 00;19;14;19 - 00;19;22;48 Rachel Yeah. Four idols. That's wild. And, you know, I mean Myles would be the one to ask, but there's got to be close to a record to play for. 00;19;22;48 - 00;19;26;03 Leah I was right, I went Indian. Oh yeah. That was awesome. 00;19;26;03 - 00;19;28;38 Matt That would have been funny if he would have said that. I believe this is a record. 00;19;28;53 - 00;19;35;58 Leah If anybody knows what the record is for how many idols a player? Yeah, yeah. Please let us know. Yeah. 00;19;36;03 - 00;19;46;37 Rachel All right. Yeah. So he played three correctly so far. This last one was incorrect. But that's okay. It's the last chance to play it. May as well and save himself just to be sure. 00;19;46;39 - 00;19;50;22 Matt Right. Well that would have been pretty bad to play it for Kate. And then he goes home, right? 00;19;50;22 - 00;19;50;47 Leah Yeah. 00;19;50;47 - 00;19;57;38 Rachel So we get down to it. And the very first vote out of the urn is for Myles. Does not count. Then the jury was shocked. 00;19;57;42 - 00;19;59;04 Leah Yeah. They were. 00;19;59;04 - 00;20;09;01 Rachel And then as we knew it was going to happen everyone got a vote. And there's one more vote. And at this point I'm thinking oh it's got to be AJ you know. Oh this is so sad. Here it goes H. 00;20;09;03 - 00;20;10;04 Leah Yes I'm thinking. 00;20;10;04 - 00;20;12;15 Matt It's going to be Myles and there's going to be a revote. 00;20;12;21 - 00;20;15;40 Leah Oh I doubt it's going to be AJ I was so scared because I don't want AJ that. 00;20;15;55 - 00;20;21;44 Matt People couldn't vote. So Myles would have been able to vote. Yeah Zoro would have been able to vote. 00;20;22;33 - 00;20;23;52 Rachel That would've been interesting to see. 00;20;23;52 - 00;20;24;53 Leah The exciting to see. 00;20;24;53 - 00;20;26;10 Rachel Oh, that would've been good, right? 00;20;26;10 - 00;20;26;19 Leah Yeah. 00;20;26;19 - 00;20;29;11 Matt And then if they couldn't agree on it. 00;20;29;16 - 00;20;29;41 Leah Yeah. 00;20;29;41 - 00;20;35;41 Rachel Well, it came down to Kate, I was shocked. I really was not expecting Kate to go home tonight. 00;20;35;54 - 00;20;55;21 Leah I know that, Zara has not wanted Kate the game because for it since the beginning, it seems like they do it since they were together. But, I was surprised. But did you see the big surprise from The Graduate? They were just like, whoa, AJ, I mean, it looked like none of them could believe that Kate was going home. 00;20;55;21 - 00;20;57;25 Leah So they were very, very surprised. 00;20;57;27 - 00;21;02;42 Matt AJ was quite surprised to get a vote. Yeah. He asked Myles, would you vote for. 00;21;02;47 - 00;21;03;37 Leah Yeah, yeah. 00;21;03;38 - 00;21;05;28 Matt File says you. 00;21;05;33 - 00;21;31;23 Leah Me yeah. So as I predicted, if this fails, there's going to be a lot of trouble. So and I think that's what's going to happen. But the interesting thing is the postgraduates and the brains are still here. So now the no bronze, they're all gone. So, just like Haley and King George. Two brains. Yeah. They're, you know, who knows who these four will end up being the two, but they're going to be brains. 00;21;31;23 - 00;21;32;47 Leah So. Yeah. 00;21;32;55 - 00;21;36;23 Matt Interesting. I think it looks in the previews. It looks awkward for me. 00;21;36;23 - 00;21;37;08 Leah It does. 00;21;37;13 - 00;21;39;25 Rachel Oh yeah. He's in a bad spot. 00;21;39;30 - 00;21;51;06 Leah But it's always funny going back to the beginning. You look at the players who like the Bryan have to win. I mean there's no way the brains are going to win. But here the muscles, right? 00;21;51;11 - 00;21;53;13 Matt Everybody's got a great body right. 00;21;53;18 - 00;22;00;12 Rachel Well thinking back to our initial predictions. So Matt you chose Myles. So it's looking like he's doing pretty well. 00;22;00;12 - 00;22;01;06 Leah Yeah. 00;22;01;11 - 00;22;02;32 Matt He's final four. 00;22;02;37 - 00;22;03;08 Leah Yeah. 00;22;03;20 - 00;22;05;08 Matt Hopefully further than that Morgan. 00;22;05;08 - 00;22;18;16 Rachel Yeah you chose Morgan. But I just point out yeah yeah. So that wasn't what you expected now. And I chose Karen. Of course. The only one of the graduates to be sitting on the jury and not in the Final Four. 00;22;18;20 - 00;22;19;32 Matt She's in the jury. 00;22;19;37 - 00;22;20;11 Leah Yeah, she's. 00;22;20;11 - 00;22;20;42 Rachel In the jury. 00;22;20;42 - 00;22;41;44 Leah But she was a very good player. She should be right there. Actually, when I think about it, I know Zara has done quite well, but I think Karen was more active in her gameplay. She was more like Myles in AJ. I think that's right. So I, I though Zara deserves to be where she is. I think it would be or AJ or Myles or Kaitlyn. 00;22;41;58 - 00;22;50;20 Leah I think it would be nice if Karen was up there also. I don't know who who she would replace. I'm just saying I think she should be up there because she was a good player. 00;22;50;20 - 00;22;50;58 Leah Yeah. 00;22;50;58 - 00;22;58;19 Rachel Well, it's been an interesting season and it's not over yet. I cannot wait for Sunday to see what's going to happen. 00;22;58;19 - 00;22;58;51 Leah Oh, boy. 00;22;58;51 - 00;22;59;21 Rachel Hey, Jim. 00;22;59;33 - 00;23;01;13 Leah I I'm sorry. 00;23;01;17 - 00;23;17;05 Rachel I think I'll go ahead. You know, if AJ would have gone home tonight, I think after the game they could have repaired things and said, you know, oh it's part of the game. Not a big deal. But now that he didn't go home this is really going to blow up. They're going to be are you are they going to be able to recover? 00;23;17;05 - 00;23;20;37 Rachel I don't think AJ is going to see it as just game play anymore. 00;23;20;48 - 00;23;28;23 Matt Right. And hopefully they come back at night. I mean, hopefully they show us more of what happens as soon as they get back to camp instead of when the sun comes up. 00;23;28;23 - 00;23;30;46 Leah I yeah, I think they will. I hope they, I think they will. 00;23;30;50 - 00;23;34;06 Matt But anyway, I hope you guys continue to help me support Myles. 00;23;34;06 - 00;23;34;42 Leah Sorry, 00;23;34;42 - 00;23;37;32 Leah I'm not supporting Myles. Sorry. Oh, jeez. 00;23;37;32 - 00;23;50;47 Rachel I think I would say Miles deserves to win out of all five of these. I think I'm rooting for Myles to win at this point or at all for players left because he I mean he played for idols. He has a crazy story. 00;23;50;47 - 00;23;51;30 Leah What you guys have. 00;23;51;32 - 00;23;59;02 Rachel Really doing very well. And I think he deserves the title of Sole Survivor. If he can get himself to the final two, which is going to be tough. 00;23;59;04 - 00;24;02;27 Leah But what about AJ? I guess AJ didn't play as much as Myles. 00;24;02;29 - 00;24;05;29 Matt What about Kaitlyn winning all the immunity. Yeah you know. 00;24;05;34 - 00;24;06;41 Leah And Zara still. 00;24;06;46 - 00;24;20;15 Rachel Saying yeah. The great thing about this Final Four is that everyone has a chance of winning and everyone deserves their spot here. We've seen a lot of seasons where someone's dragged along and it's not that fun, but I think this is a great final four. 00;24;20;15 - 00;24;22;33 Leah Yes, I agree is a separate car. 00;24;22;37 - 00;24;25;31 Matt I can't wait till Sunday to see what happens. 00;24;25;35 - 00;24;46;20 Rachel Yeah. So let us know what you think about this Final Four. Do you feel that everyone deserves to be there? And who do you think will be the sole survivor out of the postgraduates? Let us know on Instagram at survivor, TikTok at survivor and send us an email at eight. Australian Survivor at gmail.com. Thanks and we'll see you next week. 00;24;46;20 - 00;24;46;50 Leah Bye bye. 00;24;46;50 - 00;24;47;23 Matt Bye.  

Pharmacogenomics plays a critical role in personalised medicine, as some adverse drug reactions are genetically determined. Adverse drugs reactions (ADRs) account for 6.5% of hospital admissions in the UK, and the application of pharmacogenomics to look at an individuals response to drugs can significantly enhance patient outcomes and safety. In this episode, our guests discuss how genomic testing can identify patients who will respond to medications and those who may have adverse reactions. We hear more about Genomics England's collaboration with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the Yellow Card Biobank and our guests discuss the challenges of implementing pharmacogenomics into the healthcare system. Our host Vivienne Parry, Head of Public Engagement at Genomics England, is joined by Anita Hanson, Research Matron and the Lead Research Nurse for clinical pharmacology at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor Bill Newman, Professor of translational genomic medicine at the Manchester Center for Genomic Medicine, and Professor Matt Brown, Chief Scientific Officer at Genomics England.   "I think we're moving to a place where, rather than just doing that one test that might be relevant to one drug, we'd be able to do a test which at the same price would generate information that could be relevant at further points in your life if you were requiring different types of medicine. So, that information would then be available in your hospital record, in your GP record, that you could have access to it yourself. And then I think ultimately what we would really love to get to a point is where everybody across the whole population just has that information to hand when it's required, so that they're not waiting for the results of a genetic test, it's immediately within their healthcare record."   To learn more about Jane's lived experience with Stevens-Johnson syndrome, visit The Academy of Medical Sciences' (AMS) YouTube channel. The story, co-produced by Areeba Hanif from AMS, provides an in-depth look at Jane's journey. You can watch the video via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4KJtDZJyaA  Want to learn more about personalised medicine? Listen to our Genomics 101 episode where Professor Matt Brown explains what it is in less than 5 minutes: https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/podcasts/genomics-101-what-is-personalised-medicine  You can read the transcript below or download it here: https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/assets/documents/Podcast-transcripts/Can-genomic-testing-prevent-adverse-drug-reactions.docx   Vivienne: Hello and welcome to Behind the Genes.  Bill: What we've seen is that the limited adoption so far in the UK and other countries has focused particularly on severe adverse drug reactions. They've been easier to identify and there's a clear relationship between some drugs and some genetic changes where that information is useful. So, a good example has been the recent adoption of pharmacogenetic testing for a gene called DPYD for patients undergoing cancer treatment, particularly breast and bowel cancer. And if you have an absence of the enzyme that that gene makes, if you're given that treatment, then you can end up on intensive care and die, so it's a really significant side effect. But as you say, the most common side effects aren't necessarily fatal, but they can have a huge impact upon people and on their wellbeing.  Vivienne: My name's Vivienne Parry and I'm head of public engagement at Genomics England, and today we'll be discussing the critical role of pharmacogenomics in personalised medicine, highlighting its impact on how well medicines work, their safety, and on patient care. I'm joined today by Professor Bill Newman, professor of translational genomic medicine at the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, Anita Hanson, research matron, a fabulous title, and lead research nurse for clinical pharmacology at the Liverpool University Hospital's NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor Matt Brown, chief scientific officer for Genomics England. And just remember, if you enjoy today's episode, we'd love your support, so please like, share and rate us on wherever you listen to your podcasts.  So, first question to you, Bill, what is pharmacogenomics?  Bill: Thanks Viv. I think there are lots of different definitions, but how I think of pharmacogenetics is by using genetic information to inform how we prescribe drugs, so that they can be safer and more effective. And we're talking about genetic changes that are passed down through families, so these are changes that are found in lots of individuals. We all carry changes in our genes that are important in how we transform and metabolise medicines, and how our bodies respond to them.  Vivienne: Now, you said pharmacogenetics. Is it one of those medicine things like tomato, tomato, or is there a real difference between pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics?  Bill: So, people, as you can imagine, do get quite irate about this sort of thing, and there are lots of people that would contest that there is a really big important difference. I suppose that pharmacogenetics is more when you're looking at single changes in a relatively small number of genes, whereas pharmacogenomics is a broader definition, which can involve looking at the whole genome, lots of genes, and also whether those genes are switched on or switched off, so the expression levels of those genes as well would encompass pharmacogenomics. But ultimately it's using genetic information to make drug prescription safer and more effective.  Vivienne: So, we're going to call it pharmacogenomics and we're talking about everything, that's it, we'll go for it. So Matt, just explain if you would the link between pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine. And I know that you've done a big Genomics 101 episode about personalised medicine, but just very briefly, what's the link between the two?  Matt: So, personalised medicine's about using the right dose of the right drug for the right individual. And so pharmacogenomics helps you with not only ensuring that you give a medication which doesn't cause problems for the person who receives it, so an adverse drug reaction, but also that they're actually getting the right dose. Of course, people's ability to metabolise, activate and respond to drugs genetically is often genetically determined, and so sometimes you need to adjust the dose up or down according to a person's genetic background.  Vivienne: Now, one of the things that we've become very aware of is adverse drug reactions, and I think they account for something like six and a half percent of all hospital admissions in the UK, so it's absolutely huge. Is that genetically determined adverse drug reactions?  Matt: So, the answer to that is we believe so. There's quite a bit of data to show that you can reduce the risk of people needing a hospital admission by screening genetic markers, and a lot of the very severe reactions that lead to people being admitted to hospital are very strongly genetically determined. So for example, there are HLA types that affect the risk of adverse drug reactions to commonly used medications for gout, for epilepsy, some HIV medications and so on, where in many health services around the world, including in England, there are already tests available to help prevent those leading to severe reactions. It's likely though that actually the tests we have available only represent a small fraction of the total preventable adverse drug reactions were we to have a formal pre-emptive pharmacogenomics screening programme.  Vivienne: Now, I should say that not all adverse drug reactions are genetic in origin. I mean, I remember a rather nasty incident on the night when I got my exam results for my finals, and I'd actually had a big bee sting and I'd been prescribed antihistamines, and I went out and I drank rather a lot to celebrate, and oh my goodness me, I was rather ill [laughter]. So, you know, not all adverse drug reactions are genetic in origin. There are other things that interact as well, just to make that clear to people.  Matt: Yes, I think that's more an interaction than an adverse drug reaction. In fact frankly, the most common adverse drug reaction in hospitals is probably through excess amounts of water, and that's not medically determined, that's the prescription.  Vivienne: Let me now come to Anita. So, you talk to patients all the time about pharmacogenomics in your role. You've been very much involved in patient and public involvement groups at the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine in Liverpool. What do patients think about pharmacogenomics? Is it something they welcome?  Anita: I think they do welcome pharmacogenomics, especially so with some of the patients who've experienced some of the more serious, life threatening reactions. And so one of our patients has been doing some work with the Academy of Medical Sciences, and she presented to the Sir Colin Dollery lecture in 2022, and she shared her story of having an adverse drug reaction and the importance of pharmacogenomics, and the impact that pharmacogenomics can have on patient care.  Vivienne: Now, I think that was Stevens-Johnson syndrome. We're going to hear in a moment from somebody who did experience Stevens-Johnson's, but just tell us briefly what that is.  Anita: Stevens-Johnson syndrome is a potentially life threatening reaction that can be caused by a viral infection, but is more commonly caused by a medicine. There are certain groups of medicines that can cause this reaction, such as antibiotics or anticonvulsants, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, and also a drug called allopurinol, which is used to treat gout. Patients have really serious side effects to this condition, and they're often left with long-term health complications. The morbidity and mortality is considerable as well, and patients often spend a lot of time in hospital and take a long time to recover.   Vivienne: And let's now hear from Jane Burns for someone with lived experience of that Stevens-Johnson syndrome. When Jane Burns was 19, the medicine she took for her epilepsy was changed.  Jane: I remember waking up and feeling really hot, and I was hallucinating, so I was taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital emergency department by my parents. When I reached A&E, I had a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius. I was given Piriton and paracetamol, and the dermatologist was contacted. My mum had taken my medication to hospital and explained the changeover process with my epilepsy medication. A decision was made to discontinue the Tegretol and I was kept in for observation. Quite rapidly, the rash was changing. Blisters were forming all over my body, my mouth was sore and my jaw ached. My temperature remained very high. It was at this point that Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or SJS, was diagnosed.  Over the next few days, my condition deteriorated rapidly. The rash became deeper in colour. Some of the blisters had burst, but some got larger. I developed ulcers on my mouth and it was extremely painful. I started to lose my hair and my fingernails. As I had now lost 65 percent of my skin, a diagnosis of toxic epidermal necrolysis, or TEN, was made. Survivors of SJS TEN often suffer with long-term visible physical complications, but it is important to also be aware of the psychological effects, with some patients experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. It's only as I get older that I realise how extremely lucky I am to have survived. Due to medical and nursing expertise, and the research being conducted at the time, my SJS was diagnosed quickly and the medication stopped. This undoubtedly saved my life.  Vivienne: Now, you've been looking at the development of a passport in collaborating with the AMS and the MHRA. Tell me a bit more about that.  Anita: Yes, we set up a patient group at the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine approximately 12 years ago, and Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed and I, we wanted to explore a little bit more about what was important to patients, really to complement all the scientific and clinical research activity within pharmacogenomics. And patients recognised that, alongside the pharmacogenomic testing, they recognised healthcare professionals didn't really have an awareness of such serious reactions like Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and so they said they would benefit from having a My SJS Passport, which is a booklet that can summarise all of the important information about their care post-discharge, and this can then be used to coordinate and manage their long-term healthcare problems post-discharge and beyond. And so this was designed by survivors for survivors, and it was then evaluated as part of my PhD, and the findings from the work suggest that the passport is like the patient's voice, and it really does kind of validate their diagnosis and raises awareness of SJS amongst healthcare professionals. So, really excellent findings from the research, and the patients think it's a wonderful benefit to them.  Vivienne: So, it's a bit like a kind of paper version of the bracelet that you sometimes see people wearing that are on steroids, for instance.  Anita: It is like that, and it's wonderful because it's a handheld source of valuable information that they can share with healthcare professionals. And this is particularly important if they're admitted in an emergency and they can't speak for themselves. And so the passport has all that valuable information, so that patients aren't prescribed that drug again, so it prevents them experiencing a serious adverse drug reaction again.   Vivienne: So, Stevens-Johnson, Bill, is a really scary side effect, but what about the day to day benefits of pharmacogenomics for patients?  Bill: So, what we've seen is that the limited adoption so far in the UK and other countries has focused particularly on severe adverse drug reactions. They've been easier to identify and there's a clear relationship between some drugs and some genetic changes where that information is useful. So a good example has been the recent adoption of pharmacogenetic testing for a gene called DPYD for patients undergoing cancer treatment, particularly breast and bowel cancer. And if you have an absence of the enzyme that that gene makes, if you're given that treatment, then you can end up on intensive care and die, so it's a really significant side effect. But as you say, the most common side effects aren't necessarily fatal, but they can have a huge impact upon people and on their wellbeing.   And it's not just in terms of side effects. It's in terms of the effectiveness of the medicine. Because if a person is prescribed a medicine that doesn't or isn't going to work for them then it can take them longer to recover, to get onto the right medicine. That can have all sorts of detrimental effects. And so when we're thinking about introducing pharmacogenetics more broadly rather than just on a single drug or a single gene basis, we're thinking about that for common drugs like antidepressants, painkillers, statins, the drugs that GPs are often prescribing on a regular basis to a whole range of patients.  Vivienne: So, to go back to you, Anita, we're really talking about dose here, aren't we, whether you need twice the dose or half the dose depending on how quickly your body metabolises that particular medicine. How do patients view that?  Anita: Well, the patient in question who presented for the Academy of Medical Sciences, I mean, her take on this was, she thinks pharmacogenetics is wonderful because it will allow doctors and nurses to then prescribe the right drug, but also to adapt the dose accordingly to make sure that they get the best outcome, which provides the maximum benefit while also minimising any potential harm. And so from her perspective, that was one of the real benefits of pharmacogenomics. But she also highlighted about the benefits for future generations, the fear of her son taking the same medicine and experiencing the same reaction. And so I think her concerns were, if we have pharmacogenetic testing for a panel of medicines, as Bill mentioned then, then perhaps this would be fantastic for our children as they grow up, and we can identify and predict and prevent these type of reactions happening to future generations.  Vivienne: And some of these drugs, Bill, are really very common indeed, something like codeine. Just tell us about codeine, ‘cos it's something – whenever I tell this to friends [laughter], they're always completely entranced by the idea that some people don't need nearly as much codeine as others.  Bill: Yeah, so codeine is a drug that's very commonly used as a painkiller. To have its real effect, it needs to be converted in the body to a different drug called morphine, and that is done by an enzyme which is made by a gene called CYP2D6. And we all carry changes in CYP2D6, and the frequency of those variants, whether they make the gene work too much or whether they make it work too little, they vary enormously across the world, so that if you go to parts of Africa, about 30 percent of the population will make more of the CYP2D6, and so they will convert the codeine much more quickly, whereas if you go to the UK, maybe up to ten percent of the white population in the UK just won't be converting codeine to morphine at all, so they won't get any benefit from the drug. So at both ends, you have some people that don't respond and some people that respond a little bit too much so that they need either an alternative drug or they need a different dose.  Vivienne: So, all those people who say, you know, “My headache hasn't been touched by this painkiller,” and we say, “What a wimp you're being,” actually, it's to do with genetics.  Bill: Yeah, absolutely. There's a biological reason why people don't – not for everybody, but for a significant number of people, that's absolutely right, and we can be far more tailored in how we prescribe medication, and get people onto painkillers that work for them much more quickly.  Vivienne: And that's so interesting that it varies by where you come from in the world, because that means we need to give particular attention – and I'm thinking, Anita, to working with patients from different community groups, to make sure that they understand the need for pharmacogenomics.  Anita: I think that's really important, Vivienne, and I think we are now having discussions with the likes of Canada SJS awareness group, and also people have been in touch with me from South Africa because people have requested the passport now to be used in different countries, because they think it's a wonderful tool, and it's about raising awareness of pharmacogenomics and the potential benefits of that, and being able to share the tools that we've got to help patients once they've experienced a serious reaction.  Vivienne: So, pharmacogenomics clearly is important in the prevention of adverse drug reactions, better and more accurate prescribing, reduced medicines wastage. Does this mean that it's also going to save money, Bill, for the NHS?  Bill: Potentially. It should do if it's applied properly, but there's lots of work to make sure that not only are we using the right evidence and using the right types of tests in the laboratory, but we're getting the information to prescribers, so to GPs, to pharmacists, to hospital doctors, in a way that is understandable and meaningful, such that they can then act upon that information. So, the money will only be saved and then can be reused for healthcare if the whole process and the whole pathway works, and that information is used effectively.  Vivienne: So, a lot of research to make sure that all of that is in place, and to demonstrate the potential cost savings.  Bill: Yes. I mean, there are very nice studies that have been done already in parts of the world that have shown that the savings that could be accrued for applying pharmacogenetics across common conditions like depression, like in patients to prevent secondary types of strokes, are enormous. They run into hundreds of millions of pounds or dollars. But there is an initial investment that is required to make sure that we have the testing in place, that we have the digital pathways to move the information in place, and that there's the education and training, so that health professionals know how to use the information. But the potential is absolutely enormous.  Vivienne: Matt, can I turn now to the yellow card. So, people will be very familiar with the yellow card system. So, if you have an adverse reaction, you can send a yellow card in – I mean, literally, it is a yellow card [laughter]. It does exactly what it says on the tin. You send a yellow card to the MHRA, and they note if there's been an adverse effect of a particular medicine. But Genomics England is teaming up with the MHRA to do something more with yellow cards, and we're also doing this with the Yellow Card Biobank. Tell us a bit more.  Matt: So, yellow card's a great scheme that was set up decades ago, initially starting off, as you said, with literally yellow cards, but now actually most submissions actually come online. And it's important to note that submissions can come not just from healthcare providers, but majority of submissions actually come from patients themselves, and that people should feel free, if they feel they've had an adverse drug reaction, to report that themselves rather than necessarily depending on a medical practitioner or the healthcare provider to create that report. So, Genomics England is partnering with the MHRA in building what's called the Yellow Card Biobank, the goal of which is to identify genetic markers for adverse drug reactions earlier than has occurred in the past, so that we can then introduce genetic tests to prevent these adverse drug reactions much sooner than has occurred previously.   So, what we're doing is basically at the moment we're doing a pilot, but the ultimate plan is that in future, patients who report a serious adverse drug reaction through the Yellow Card Biobank will be asked to provide a sample, a blood sample, that we then screen. We do a whole genome sequence on it, and then combine these with patients who've had like adverse drug reactions and identify genetic markers for that adverse drug reaction medication earlier, that can then be introduced into clinical practice earlier. And this should reduce by decades the amount of time between when adverse drug reactions first start occurring with medications and us then being able to translate that into a preventative mechanism.  Vivienne: And will that scheme discover, do you think, new interactions that you didn't know about before? Or do you expect it to turn up what you already know about?  Matt: No, I really think there's a lot of discovery that is yet to happen here. In particular, even for drugs that we know cause adverse drug reactions, mostly they've only been studied in people of European ancestry and often in East Asian ancestry, but in many other ancestries that are really important in the global population and in the UK population, like African ancestry and South Asian ancestries, we have very little data. And even within Africa, which is an area which is genetically diverse as the rest of the world put together, we really don't know what different ethnicities within Africa, actually what their genetic background is with regard to adverse drug reactions.  The other thing I'd say is that there are a lot of new medications which have simply not been studied well enough. And lastly, that at the moment people are focused on adverse drug reactions being due to single genetic variants, when we know from the model of most human diseases that most human diseases are actually caused by combinations of genetic variants interacting with one another, so-called common disease type genetics, and that probably is similarly important with regard to pharmacogenomics as it is to overall human diseases. That is, it's far more common that these are actually due to common variants interacting with one another rather than the rare variants that we've been studying to date.  Vivienne: So, it's a kind of cocktail effect, if you like. You know, you need lots of genes working together and that will produce a reaction that you may not have expected if you'd looked at a single gene alone.  Matt: That's absolutely correct, and there's an increasing amount of evidence to show that that is the case with medications, but it's really very early days for research in that field. And the Yellow Card Biobank will be one of many approaches that will discover these genetic variants in years to come.  Vivienne: Now, Matt's a research scientist. Bill, you're on the frontline in the NHS. How quickly can this sort of finding be translated into care for people in the NHS?  Bill: So, really quickly is the simple answer to that, Viv. If we look at examples from a number of years ago, there's a drug called azathioprine that Matt has used lots in some of his patients. In rheumatology, it's used for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. And the first studies that showed that there was a gene that was relevant to having bad reactions to that drug came out in the 1980s, but it wasn't until well into this century, so probably 30-plus years later that we were routinely using that test in clinical medicine. So, there was an enormous lot of hesitancy about adopting that type of testing, and a bit of uncertainty. If you move forward to work that our colleague Munir Pirmohamed in Liverpool has done with colleagues in Australia like Simon Mallal around HIV medicine, there was this discovery that a drug called abacavir, that if you carried a particular genetic change, that you had a much higher risk of having a really severe reaction to that. The adoption from the initial discovery to routine, worldwide testing happened within four years.   So, already we've seen a significant change in the appetite to move quickly to adopt this type of testing, and I see certainly within the NHS and within other health systems around the world, a real desire to adopt pharmacogenetics into routine clinical practice quickly and at scale, but also as part of a broader package of care, which doesn't just solely focus on genetics, but thinks about all the other parts that are important in how we respond to medication. So, making sure we're not on unusual combinations of drugs, or that we're taking our medicine at the right time and with food or not with food, and all of those other things that are really important. And if you link that to the pharmacogenetics, we're going to have a much safer, more effective medicines world.  Vivienne: I think one of the joys of working at Genomics England is that you see some of this work really going into clinical practice very fast indeed. And I should say actually that the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine, the PPI group that Anita looks after so well, they've been very important in recruiting people to Yellow Card Biobank. And if anyone's listening to this, Matt, and wants to be part of this, how do they get involved? Or is it simply through the yellow card?  Matt: So at the moment, the Yellow Card Biobank is focusing on alopurinol.   Vivienne: So, that's a medicine you take for gout.  Matt: Which I use a lot in my rheumatology clinical practice. And direct acting oral anticoagulants, DOACs, which are used for vascular disease therapies and haemorrhage as a result of that. So, the contact details are available through the MHRA website, but I think more importantly, it's just that people be aware of the yellow card system itself, and that if they do experience adverse drug reactions, that they do actually complete a report form, ‘cos I think still actually a lot of adverse drug reactions go unreported.  Vivienne: I'm forgetting of course that we see Matt all the time in the Genomics England office and we don't think that he has any other home [laughter] than Genomics England, but of course he still sees some patients in rheumatology clinic. So, I want to now look to the future. I mean, I'm, as you both know, a huge enthusiast for pharmacogenomics, ‘cos it's the thing that actually, when you talk to patients or just the general public, they just get it straight away. They can't think why, if you knew about pharmacogenomics, why you wouldn't want to do it. But it's not necessarily an easy thing to do. How can we move in the future, Bill, to a more proactive approach for pharmacogenomics testing? Where would we start?  Bill: Yes, so I think we've built up really good confidence that pharmacogenetics is a good thing to be doing. Currently, we're doing that predominantly at the point when a patient needs a particular medicine. That's the time that you would think about doing a genetic test. And previously, that genetic test would only be relevant for that specific drug. I think we're moving to a place where, rather than just doing that one test that might be relevant to one drug, we'd be able to do a test which at the same price would generate information that could be relevant at further points in your life if you were requiring different types of medicine. So, that information would then be available in your hospital record, in your GP record, that you could have access to it yourself. And then I think ultimately what we would really love to get to a point is where everybody across the whole population just has that information to hand when it's required, so that they're not waiting for the results of a genetic test, it's immediately within their healthcare record. That's what we'd call pre-emptive pharmacogenetic testing, and I think that's the golden land that we want to reach.  Vivienne: So for instance, I might have it on my NHS app, and when I go to a doctor and they prescribe something, I show my app to the GP, or something pops up on the GP's screen, or maybe it's something that pops up on the pharmacist's screen.  Bill: I think that's right. I think that's what we're looking to get to that point. We know that colleagues in the Netherlands have made some great progress at developing pathways around that. There's a lot of public support for that. And pharmacists are very engaged in that. In the UK, the pharmacists, over the last few years, have really taken a very active role to really push forward this area of medicine, and this should be seen as something that is relevant to all people, and all health professionals should be engaged with it.  Vivienne: And on a scale of one to ten, how difficult is it going to be to implement in the NHS?  Bill: So, that's a difficult question. I think the first thing is identifying what the challenges are. So I have not given you a number, I've turned into a politician, not answered the question. So, I think what has happened over the last few years, and some of our work within the NHS Network of Excellence in pharmacogenetics and some of the other programmes of work that have been going on, is a really good, honest look at what it is we need to do to try to achieve pharmacogenetics implementation and routine use. I don't think the challenge is going to be predominantly in the laboratory. I think we've got phenomenal laboratories. I think we've got great people doing great genetic testing. I think the biggest challenges are going to be about how you present the data, and that data is accessible. And then ensuring that health professionals really feel that this is information that isn't getting in the way of their clinical practice, but really making a difference and enhancing it, and of benefit both to the healthcare system but more importantly to the patients.  Vivienne: Now, when I hear you both talk, my mind turns to drug discovery and research, and Matt, I'm quite sure that that's right at the top of your mind. Tell us how pharmacogenomics can help in drug discovery and research.  Matt: So, pharmacogenomics, I think actually just genetic profiling of diseases in itself just to start off with is actually a really good way of identifying new potential therapeutic targets, and also from derisking drug development programmes by highlighting likely adverse drug reactions of medications that are being considered for therapeutic trials, or targets that are being considered for therapeutic development. Pharmacogenomics beyond that is actually largely about – well, it enables drug development programmes by enabling you to target people who are more likely to respond, and avoid people who are more likely to have adverse drug reactions. And so that therapeutic index of the balance between likely efficacy versus likely toxicity, genetics can really play into that and enable medications to be used where otherwise they might have failed.  This is most apparent I think in the cancer world. A classic example there, for example, is the development of a class of medications called EGFR inhibitors, which were developed for lung cancer, and in the initial cancer trials, actually were demonstrated to be ineffective, until people trialled them in East Asia and found that they were effective, and that that turns out to be because the type of cancers that respond to them are those that have mutations in the EGFR gene, and that that's common in East Asians. We now know that, wherever you are in the world, whether you're East Asian or European or whatever, if you have a lung adenocarcinoma with an EGFR mutation, you're very likely to respond to these medications. And so that pharmacogenomic discovery basically rescued a class of medication which is now probably the most widely used medication for lung adenocarcinomas, so a huge beneficial effect. And that example is repeated across multiple different cancer types, cancer medication types, and I'm sure in other fields we'll see that with expansive new medications coming in for molecularly targeted therapies in particular.  Vivienne: So, smaller and more effective trials rather than larger trials that perhaps seem not to work but actually haven't been tailored enough to the patients that are most likely to benefit.  Matt: Yeah, well, particularly now that drug development programmes tend to be very targeted at specific genetic targets, pharmacogenetics is much more likely to play a role in identifying patients who are going to respond to those medications. So, I think many people in the drug development world would like to see that, for any significant drug development programme, there's a proper associated pharmacogenomic programme to come up with molecular markers predicting a response.  Vivienne: We're going to wrap up there. Thank you so much to our guests, Bill Newman, Anita Hanson, Matt Brown, and our patient Jane Burns. Thank you so much for joining us today to discuss pharmacogenomics in personalised medicine, and the benefits, the challenges and the future prospects for integrating pharmacogenomics into healthcare systems. And if you'd like to hear more podcasts like this, please subscribe to Behind the Genes. It's on your favourite podcast app. Thank you so much for listening. I've been your host, Vivienne Parry. This podcast was edited by Bill Griffin at Ventoux Digital and produced by the wonderful Naimah. Bye for now. 

Get ready to immerse yourself in an enlightening discussion and AMA session with Matt, an expert in advanced strategies and Amazon PPC. Join us in this TACoS Tuesday episode, as we answer questions about variation listings, auto campaigns, broad campaigns, and ranking. We also take a peek into Matt's impressive background in e-commerce, recounting his experiences with selling textbooks and private-label products. Hear us as we dissect Amazon's latest data tools like Product Opportunity Explorer, Search Query Performance, and Brand Analytics and discuss how these can help sellers optimize their advertising strategies in this highly competitive market. As we journey deeper into Amazon PPC campaigns, we touch on our “north star metric” of two sales and a click-through rate above 0.2%. Learn about the significance of negative matching and how to identify underperforming keywords using the search query report. We also shed light on the benefits of using software like Pacvue for automation and analytics and how it can save you time and effort. Plus, discover the advantages of day partying and understand the impact of different match types on campaign creation.   Lastly, listen in as we dissect the topic of Amazon PPC and how to leverage it to drive sales and boost profits. We share the calculation for adjusting bids based on target ACoS and emphasize the importance of not solely focusing on ACoS as a metric. We also touch on the recent announcement of Sponsored TV and its potential for both large and small brands. Tune in as we demystify the misconception that PPC must always result in immediate profit and share strategies for effectively utilizing broad keywords despite their increasing cost. This episode is packed with practical advice, insightful discussions, and cutting-edge strategies to help you win in the world of Amazon selling.   In episode 516 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Matt discuss: 00:00 - Expert Matt Altman Discusses His Amazon PPC Strategies 07:59 - Keyword Promotion, Sales Metrics, and Negative Matching 11:59 - Maximizing Advertising Efficiency With Pacvue 15:44 - Bid Adjustment and Amazon Sponsored TV for Sellers 23:28 - Amazon PPC Strategy and Optimization 28:21 - Analyze Ad Performance With Feature Pack 32:25 - Using Keywords for Effective Campaigns 35:27 - Boost Search Ranking With Brand Name 37:29 - Amazon Variations and Outside Traffic Strategy 43:08 - Invitation for January Case Study ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got one of the world's foremost knowledge experts on Amazon Advanced Strategy and PPC Matt back on the show and he's going to be answering all of your questions live, as well as answering a lot of my advanced questions on things like variation listings, auto campaigns, broad campaigns, ranking and much more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world? Make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce and other countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central, how to get set up on new platforms like New Egg, how to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP and much, much more. Check these articles out at h10.me forward slash blog. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our tacos Tuesday PPC show of the week or of the month, I should say where we go in-depth into anything and everything Amazon advertising with special guests that we have, and this week or this month we're going to have a special guest. We're going to invite him up. We're having some technical difficulty. I'm here at the Helium 10 office actually here in Irvine, California, today. So I don't have my regular setup here, but wanted to make sure everybody's having a great Q4. So far, all right. Let's go ahead and bring up our guest of the month, and it is Matt from Clear Ads. Matt, how's it going? Matt: Good, how are you doing, Bradley? Bradley Sutton: Doing awesome, doing awesome. Where are you actually watching us from? Where are you located? Matt: So currently in London. So we're here in London for the next few months, but we moved to Spain about six months ago. Bradley Sutton: Oh, nice, how's that been. Matt: We're in Barcelona. It's been great so far Loving it. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Have you been to any FC Barcelona games since you've been out there? Matt: We haven't yet now, but it is at the top of my list. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I've been to a couple when Messi was still there. Of course, those are good times. Love Spain Now, just in general. We've had you on the podcast before and you gave us really cool strategies in general. Today we're kind of going to be focused on PPC. That's like one of your specialties, but can you talk a little bit about your background and how you came into that Amazon space, if maybe somebody might be listening to you for the first time? Matt: Yeah, definitely so. Been in the space since around 2011, started in college actually selling textbooks and retail arbitrage, so did that for about three to four years. Kind of scaled up my bankroll to where I could get into private label and jumped at it and honestly launched a bunch of crap. We did really well for a few years until a lot of the manufacturers just started going direct to Amazon and had some pretty bad years. But pivoted, got into supplements and food and that's been for like the last six years. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Now you are known for a lot of like really next level strategies. We've had you before at our elite workshop and things. And so thinking just first of all, I mean it could be about PPC, but just thinking outside of PPC, almost with all this new data that Amazon has come out with in the last couple of years, I mean I think a lot of us were even surprised years ago when Brand Analytics came out. And then nowadays, search career performance and things like that, this is stuff that I would say I don't know about you but me. Like four years ago I would have bet $10,000 that there's no way Amazon would ever tell you exactly how many sales are coming from a non-normalized search and what the click share percentage of top 10 competitors are, and this and that I mean people were paying Amazon employees thousands of dollars for these underground reports that weren't even as robust as what is now available for everybody. So what's your favorite thing? I'm assuming it's search career performance. Your favorite thing that Amazon has come out with? And then what part of that especially do you think is super powerful that Amazon sellers should be using? Matt: Yeah. So I would definitely say search career performance is up there. I would say they haven't changed too much about it in the last like year and a half, but really, where we've been getting a lot of knowledge and data from is Product Opportunity Explorer. I would say like this used to be kind of bland, like years ago. They recently updated it, and the amount of data that they are giving you is insane. I mean, they're telling you exactly if you sell such and such supplement. These are the 15 keywords that matter. Here's the trends on that, here's the seasonality. Like every data point that you really need is there, and that's what you need to win on, I would say. The other big one, though, is the new reports in the brand analytics, where it's giving you greater details into your customer segments. So, like we sell and consumables, and we've always kind of taken a strategy on ads that's hey, like, even if our cost is 100%, what is our cost per net new customer? And we were trying to manually calculate that previously, and now they're telling you specifically by week, how many returning customers, how many net new customers you have. So it's really helped us dial in the ads for that specific strategy. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, like. One thing I always liked about Product Opportunity Explorer even when it was kind of bland, as you said was seeing how many, for example, how many products it took to make up or in the old days, 80% of the sales for the entire niche. Now they kind of like, without even announcing it, they change it to 90%. But then it'll be interesting to see that you know some, you know quote, unquote markets or niches, what they call it you know, would have like 200 products, means like it's kind of like wide open, it takes 200 products just to make up 80 or 90% of the sales. And now you know there might be some where it's like only 40 or 10, you know like or like wow, there's 10 people dominating this. Now how would you personally use that information? Like is one or the other like better than the other? Matt: Yeah, so the great thing about Product Opportunity Explorer is it really shows you what keywords are driving the sales for those. So more than how many products are there we're looking at, are there branded terms that are in the Product Opportunity Explorer.  So like an example that we were looking at this past week was for a floor cleaning product and we saw that of the 20 top like 50 keywords, bona was one of the main sales driving keywords. Like, even if there weren't that many products in that category, we aren't going to be able to overcome that branded search deficit. So it's just not something that we would go into Um, but we definitely prefer to go into categories where those sales are spread across more Um. The main reason for that is we really like to do kind of um I would call it kind of like tailgating. We like to kind of stay behind everyone and we'll pull like 10% of the sales from this person, from this person, and you can kind of pick off keywords from certain top products and they may not notice that you're coming up and then you can really use that to catapult yourself to the top of the category before the rest of the products in the category realized what's happening. Bradley Sutton: Interesting, interesting, all right Now. Just, you know switching gears and going, you know kind of like PBC. Let let's do like some kind of beginner question, then let's do some some, some, some advanced things. But just, I always ask a lot of the, the the tacos Tuesday guest, about their strategy on this, because I think this is applicable almost to any level of seller. But what's your, your kind of like rule set as far as uh, when you promote keywords from like an auto or broad to to an exact, and also when you negative match on the promotion side, like, in other words, like are, are you looking for at least you know just one sale, or does it have to be two or three, like in the auto and then, and then, and then you, you put it in um or what. What's your criteria for for moving something from an auto to a exact? Matt: Yeah, so short answer. We're usually looking for two sales and a click through rate above like 0.2% Um. That's kind of like our North Star metric Um, but it really depends on the strategy of that campaign. Um, like, if we're wanting to run a lot of just awareness, we're going after ones where we may not even have sales at all but we have a high click through rate because it's a discovery keyword, that someone's kind of navigating that category with Um. So it varies, but typically it's two orders and above like a 0.2% click through. Okay, Awesome. Bradley Sutton: On the flip side, when are you negative? Uh matching, like uh, is it a certain number of clicks? Uh, is it a certain number of clicks that, uh, you have to have? Is it spend that you're looking at without a sale? Um, and then the follow-up question to that is are there scenarios where you're like not just automatically negative matching but you're like, oh shoot, this is like an important keyword. I got to figure out why in the heck I'm not converting on it before I go and just blindly negative matches. So it's kind of like a two prong question there. Matt: Yeah, Um, so this is, this is where really the search query report kind of data comes into play. Um, we're looking at, hey, like for competitors, um, like, is this performing? Kind of what's happening? Why aren't we getting sales? Um, we'll go ahead and test, possibly changing out our titles, our images, um morph towards those keywords and seeing if we can produce some sales through that. Um, but again it kind of goes back to, like, you know, the, the, the, the sort of focus that we used over a year and a half. Back to like, what is the source of that keyword? Is it really a converging keyword? Is it a discovery keyword? Like, we have a few keywords that we spend thousands of dollars on a month on my own brands, where we maybe get one or two sales Like it's out of loss, but we know it's a keyword that someone that's looking for a type of product uses is like their first term when they're trying to figure out which one to buy. And we just want to make sure that we're always top of mind really hard to like, distinguish that out and see that you were getting benefits from that. But now we're able to go a little bit deeper in that funnel and see that like yes, this is actually driving sales further down the funnel for us. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, cool. Now on the more advanced side, like you know, as I just threw on my, my pack view, my pack view jacket here, what, what are you? You know, like I know you've been using pack view for a while, but you know somebody out there my in general not understand, like you know, some of these services. You know pack view is not like oh yeah, you know, $49 a month subscription, but no, it's, it's, it's, you know costs, costs some money to you. So at what point does does it make sense for somebody to to like say you know what, I'm overdoing these Excel spreadsheets, I need to use a software. And then what? What makes a software suite like Pacvue so valuable? Like, how to you know? Cause you're not going to be paying money for something for you or your business or your clients that doesn't give you good ROI. So why is it worth it for you? Matt: Yeah, yeah. So we've been using Pacvue for gosh almost like seven years now. I think we were one of the first like agencies at my prior agency to come onto the platform and we love it. Honestly, wouldn't go anywhere else. So first thing I did when we came to Clare ads, we actually started switching all the accounts over to Pacvue. But in reality I would say it's usable for every level of seller. But we've had a lot of accounts come to us that may be using it but they don't know how to actually use Pacvue to its full advantages. They aren't taking advantage of all of the automations and analytics that are on the back end there. But I would say, even if you're a smaller seller like in using something that, like Bradley said, is $49 to $59, like even though Pacvue is gonna cost more, you're going to get so much more out of it. It will make your ads been more efficient. You will see better results as a whole. Like make the switch now, because it's a lot easier to switch when you're starting out and you have very few campaigns. Like migrating accounts over that have 400 campaigns already. Like it starts to get hard and you've got to really rework a lot of that. So I believe in doing it right from day one, and you're gonna save yourself a lot of work down the line. Bradley Sutton: Now, one of the things Pacvue does that probably eventually is gonna come to regular sellers might have some visibility in this aspect, but it's kind of like the ability to do like day partying and things. So is that something that you guys actually do Like? Do you use that service of turning off ads or changing budgets at certain times of the day and if you are, what's your criteria when you're looking at that? Matt: Yeah, so we do use that on every single account. We use it in one of two ways. One is we're manually adjusting it based on, like our peak sales hours that we know of, if it's a high selling account. But on other accounts, Pacvue actually has an awesome feature where you can set up a day partying scheduler based on conversion rates, click through rates, number of orders by hour, and it will dynamically update that based on a trailing two week, three week period, whatever you set it to. So Pacvue really does a lot of the thinking for you and eliminates kind of that concern from your mind. Bradley Sutton: All right, let's see we've got from Dota In Amazon PPC campaign. Should I create one campaign containing an ad group for phrase match exact and broad, or should I create each match in their own campaign or like? So I guess he's saying like maybe he should have different ad groups in one campaign or do you just have like one ad group per match type, per campaign? Matt: Yeah, so I'll tell you why we do it a certain way. I would say this is definitely kind of interchangeable depending upon how you want to manage your campaigns, but in order to have full and absolute control you need to have a separate campaign for each of these. A good example of this is we had a client who came to us. They had a lot of mixes within their ad groups during Black Friday, cyber Monday, they upped their bids with top of search modifier and they didn't realize that it would affect their broad targeting terms, that they were spending like $7 on broad terms and just getting placements everywhere and tank the performance. So we always break them out into their own campaigns and then even from there we'll typically segment out, like superhero keywords, into their own single keyword campaigns. Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent. Let me see we've got another one here from Kim Kim K. I don't think it's the Kim K. Hey guys, do you have a calculation that you use to determine how much to adjust bids? Longstanding sponsor campaigns with lots of history is the focus target. Acos, thanks to Vets. Matt: Yeah, so this is pretty easy. You can put together a pretty simple formula to figure out bids based on your target ACOS. So, off the top of my head and I could be saying this wrong we have it in Excel sheet. But you're really just looking at cost per click times, conversion rates, and then equals your ACOS over that. I would say we typically don't optimize any campaigns towards ACOS. I think it's something that's been brought up a lot across, like the Amazon ecosystem, and it's never really the best metric to look at. We've had a lot of accounts that have come to us where their sales have depleted over the last year, year and a half, and they're running very efficient. Like 20% ACOS. Tacos are like three to 5%, like the account looks healthy but you're undermining the daily velocity per keyword that you can achieve, which ultimately kills your organic ranks, and then you may not see it now or three months from now, but six months from now you're gonna be like what the heck happens and it's really hard to climb yourself back out of that pit. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah makes sense. But just in general, before I go into some more specific ones that I had. You know, we recently had Amazon unbox and there was a number of announcements one of them being sponsored TV, that create a lot of buzz. But the question I think a lot of people have is is, well, that's still something, or maybe only for humongous, you know sellers like first of all, is that true, or is there a path to using sponsored TV for, you know, maybe there's a low seven figure seller, high six figure seller, and then is it kind of only for brand awareness, or do you think that there's? You know the way that they're doing it, sometimes with QR codes, you know, like on Black Friday football game that they had, where there's a direct to purchase link or is it more for brand awareness, do you think? Matt: Yeah. So we ran some over Black Friday, cyber Monday, across large and small brands and actually saw decent performance on quite a bit of them. I would say the biggest factor that really drove it was the quality of creative. A lot of our smaller brands didn't have the creative backbone to really fulfill a huge TV push like that, and that's probably the guardrail that smaller brands are going to have trouble getting over. Like you can't take a $200 video off the Fiverr and put it on TV and expect it to do well. So really focusing in on the creative and making it more like a TV commercial definitely helped for us. But we did have some very basic like stop motion slide animated videos with just some text over them and they did pretty well as well. So I would say it's worth trying out. Just make sure you're really narrowing down those audiences that you're targeting, because the CPMs on it are extremely high. But test it, put $20, $30 behind it per day and just really see what you can do. I do think this will kind of be a big lever that larger brands can definitely lean more into to increase that awareness as they tap out other pieces of DSP and Amazon ads. But smaller brands is like it's just as evil, even as a playing field. But the creative does have to be elevated. Bradley Sutton: Okay. William says should I expect to see profit from PPC? I rarely see profit, however, the volume of sales increases. Where I see profit Maybe he's kind of like talking a little bit of tacos here, or like you know people, I think the narrative nowadays when you hear, when you hear sellers, is oh my goodness, like PPC is so expensive, like I don't even know how I can be profitable. But it's not always trying to just make profit on the exact ad. Right, talk a little bit about that. Matt: Yeah. So like one question I always ask sellers that even like potential clients that come to us when they're complaining about profits or tacos or a cost, I'm like, what's your CPA? And honestly, I can count on one hand the number of people that actually knew their CPAs by product that we've talked to. Every other ad channel you look at CPAs, whether you're running on meta, TikTok, whatever you're looking at CPAs, and every time we've run the numbers the CPAs are way cheaper on Amazon than they are on any other channel. What that means is yes, probably there are some categories where you're going to run PPC at a loss, Like on my brain, main brands. We run PPC at a loss because it keeps our velocities up, it keeps our organic rankings up and you'll see those metrics in your tacos. So really, tacos is kind of your guiding light on that, but really setting in stone a target CPA and not adjusting your bids based on a cost or tacos. But as long as you're hitting that target CPA, you're continuing to see growth. That's what we really like to maximize towards. Bradley Sutton: Excellent, thank you for that. William Guarov says hey, amazon PPC is getting costly. What's a strategy to play with broad keywords? And then maybe I can piggyback on that and take a step back. Broad it seemingly has almost changed over the last year or so. I could kind of predict what would come with Broad. I would use Helium 10, magnet, I would do the smart complete and then I could see all the Broad kind of variations. I kind of know what could potentially come up here Now. I might have coffin shelf as a Broad match and then I'll get thrown in like Gothic decor, like not even the same, doesn't even share the same keyword, and so maybe I'm not sure, if that's what he's talking about there, how it might be getting more expensive. And then if, if so, like, like, how do you deal with that? Matt: Yeah, so I'll answer this and I'll answer more about kind of what you went into, Bradley, because I think that's a bigger picture that people need to look into in the future of Amazon. But really when we're running Broad, we're running modified Broad campaigns so that we're at least trying to get more exact towards what we wanted. I will say it doesn't always work. Sometimes you still get those keywords way out of left field, but you have a bit more control. But I would focus again really on the search query performance data and the product opportunity. Explorer, like Amazon, is telling you specifically what keywords are being searched and what's being purchased. Broad isn't as useful for us as it used to be like. All that data now is getting piped back to us and using Helium 10, using Pacvue, you can find pretty much every keyword that's going to be a converting keyword. The biggest thing that we've seen Broad actually do for us here recently and I would say for the last six months, is it's allowed us to catch on to like TikTok trends that are basically going viral and it's picking up those keywords quicker than we would be able to pick them up. So that has been a huge opportunity. But there are a lot of other, like TikTok, specific tools that you can use to kind of find those trending things to get them into your ad campaigns. Matt: The bigger thing kind of on how Broad has expanded is Amazon, like Google and other search engines, is really kind of shifting towards a semantic search, which is why, like you're coming up for Gothic decor and things like that and you've probably heard other people in the space talking about semantics this has been key in, like Google, seo for the last few years and it's only going to get more and more relevant in Amazon as Amazon starts to switch more towards an AI learning model for their specific search. So a lot of what we've been doing and working on is, for example, typically if you're creating your listing, you'd find your keywords through Helium 10, you'd use Scribbles to craft your listing, make sure you get all your keywords in there, but, like in your example, gothic decor that is a huge semantic keyword that is relevant to your coffin. We would go ahead and put that on the back end or try and figure out how to fit it into the bullet points, because it's just a checkmark that Amazon's looking for now because semantically they're saying you should say something about Gothic with your current product and a lot of products that we've been optimizing towards this on, we've seen success like crazy, probably more than anything else that we've done in the last year and a half. Bradley Sutton: Okay, interesting, let's see. Guarev has another question here. What would be the ideal ratio performing and non-performing keywords in broad? Not sure if I understand that question fully, but do you know what you might be listening for? Matt: Say like in broad you're going to have a lot more non-performing just because of the control factor. Unless you're using a lot of negatives, negative phrases, throughout it, I would say we don't really look at the ratio of performing and non-performing in broad because really where we're caring about performance is on our exact match. We aren't caring as much here. We're using this to seed keywords, so even if they are performing, they aren't staying in broad that long if they are. So typically for us it would be like 90 to 95% are non-performing. Bradley Sutton: Okay, Now switching gears to auto campaigns. What's your strategy as far as, like the close match, loose match substitutes? Do you keep them all in one campaign or do you actually segregate those targets in separate auto campaigns? Matt: Yeah, so we actually mix it up. We've seen hit or miss performance on these when we break them out, for whatever reason. Sometimes they work better even with the exact same beds when they're all together. I don't know why that happens, but we typically test both and then whichever one's performing, we pause out the others and let one continue on. We do do a lot of negative matching in our auto campaigns that we're bidding on elsewhere, but we do also always still run a super low bid auto campaign. We negate out brand of terms and run them at like 30 cents per click, and I was just looking at account before I hopped on here Last week one of them got 135 sales for like $22. Like these campaigns still work, I've used them honestly as long as I've been selling on Amazon and we always set them up for all of our products. Bradley Sutton: Now, going back to software, software like Pacvue Adtomic. One cool thing that we can do is I could just see a search term, but not just at the campaign level. I could see it in all campaigns. Like, let's say, in an auto campaign, for example, I got a coffin shelf and in that campaign I had 40 clicks and zero sales. And let's say I felt that it wasn't too relevant of a keyword. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to keep spending money on this. Obviously, at 40 clicks I would negative match it. But with the software I can see that, hey, it's getting impressions and clicks in a broad campaign over here, maybe an exact campaign over here, but in those campaigns there's only like maybe five clicks. So, theoretically speaking, if I was just looking at that campaign in isolation, there might not have been enough information to be a negative match. But since you have so many negative or clicks with no sales in one campaign, do you just go ahead and say you know what, across the board, I don't want this keyword showing up in any of these campaigns. Or do you let the number? Do you let it roll? Do you let it ride in those other campaigns? Matt: Yeah, so great question. This is actually a feature pack view that we use every single day because you see a lot of variance in this and even like moving keywords over to exact match. But it may be in phrase that have dead like a third of what your exact match one is. Whatever reason, the phrase one is serving like crazy and you're getting sales. The exact match one isn't. So we look at this daily and we're trying to figure out one like why isn't our exact match getting served? Like hey, what's going on here? And adjusting the bids and keeping a close eye on it. But typically if we're seeing performance elsewhere, we'll keep it on, mainly because we don't know exactly where that ad is appearing Like. I mean, we now know like top of search, rest of search, product pages, but we don't really know granular details. This is also something that pack view does really well. When you have your share of voice turned on, you can see exactly where your ads appearing and what placement, what percentage of time. So using pack view or actually I don't know any other tools that do it as deep as pack view does on that We've been able to really narrow it down and figure out like, hey, this one's performing really well and slot four of ad positions. Like we can't get served for this one and slot two or three, and we can readjust our entire strategy for that keyword for position four and actually set up automations in pack view to make sure we're always in sponsored position four. Bradley Sutton: Nice. Now, speaking of that, how are you keeping at top of search? You know like I'm kind of old school where you know you're more old school than me, but you know like in my days when I first started learning PPC, there was no, you know, top of search modifier and things like that. You just raise and lower the bits and I kind of kept doing that because, like you know, I obviously with helium 10, like I'll turn on the boost and keyword tracker and it's checking 24 times a day, rotating, you know addresses and browsing scenarios. So I kind of like, no, am I showing up in top of search and sponsor or not? And I've just kind of like kept doing that. Now, are you still doing that, or do you use those those? You know like, hey, I'm going to go 200% for top of search or some kind of formula like that. Matt: Yeah. So I'll say when the bid modifiers first came out like they were amazing. We could bid like 60 cents with 900% top of search and get crazy conversions and everything was great. Too many people are using them now and it's kind of just a battle of who's going to pay more to get that position. What we've actually switched most accounts over to is actually using pack view organic and paid position bidding. So we'll set up rules to basically increase the bids until we're in position one and that will like set our new base bid if we're going for top of search and then we'll use that and then look at our percentage of serving time through pack view into that and adjust as needed. Like. One nice feature is you can set like I want a 90% top of search share of voice for this keyword and pack view will automatically update your bid without the modifiers, because sometimes using the modifiers can get out of hand quickly and you could spend your whole budget and one day, if the keywords big enough, within a few hours on one of the 50 keywords in your campaign. So we really rely on pack view to figure a lot of that out for us and optimize the perfect position for ads and we've kind of stepped back away from modifiers. The one place we do still use them quite frequently, though, is product page modifiers. We do a lot of product targeting where that's really what we're going after, and it does seem to still work well for us there. Rest of search hasn't been a great modifier for us as of yet. We have better success using set rules and pack view to manage that versus the rest of search modifier. Bradley Sutton: OK, cool, I got a fight to bring that into Adtomic. I didn't know that pack view had that Nice Two part question here from Duda how do you use these keywords Electrolyte protein phrase match and then electrolyte protein powder phrase match? My issue is that they are my main keyword but they generate different variations in customer search terms with different variations. With only one click or two, the most Out of those 50 different search terms that get that those main keywords are generated. How do I pick those that convert it? So I'm assuming that he's got two targets here and that maybe he's getting clicks on a whole bunch of long tail versions of this. Perhaps, if I'm deciphering this correctly. Matt: Yeah. So it depends on how that campaign is set up. So a typical phrase match campaign for us we would never put those keywords into the same ad group or campaign because electrolyte protein is electrolyte protein powder phrase. If you do have them split out into separate campaigns, if you have different bids there, one's going to serve over the other always. You have no real control in that. So I would say if it were me, I would just do electrolyte protein as a phrase match and get rid of any type of variation possible and use that as my guiding light. If you aren't getting served typically I know that's a high volume category your budgets probably aren't enough within that campaign to keep it serving constantly and you're getting middle of page or bottom of page placements. So that's how it's getting your budget throughout the day. I would test increasing the budget on that campaign and seeing what it scales up to and you'll probably see a bit more even click distribution between those. Bradley Sutton: OK, Cool. Sergio has a question here. Hey say, when launching, you tell your friends and family your brand and your product and hey, go buy it. Should I do an exact campaign for the brand name so they don't have to scroll? So first of all, at least it's good that you're like, don't be doing search, find, buy things or something which it sounds like you're not. Otherwise you wouldn't even have this question and hopefully you're telling your friends and family, do not leave your reviews just at all, to make sure that you're not getting in trouble with Amazon. But yeah, if you're trying to get your friends to support your product, I mean I think regardless, if you're trying to get your friends and family to support your product, shouldn't you always target your brand name, or that's only kind of like when you're more of a mature brand, Does that really come into play? What do you think? Matt: Yeah, I would say it depends on your brand name. If it's a unique brand name that, like nothing else is really going to come up for, like yeah, I wouldn't run ads. But if it's something that could be construed as something else, I would definitely run some ads to get towards the top. The one thing I would say about this and it's something that we do when we're launching and you're telling friends, family, anyone about it, we leave it kind of bland and just say, hey, this is my brand and it's a protein powder. I would really appreciate if you can buy it. You're not telling them to go search, fine, by keywords. But if you tell them that, hey, it's protein powder, and brand names are probably going to search protein powder, that brand name without you doing anything, Because it's always better, which is why search fine buys work to get a real keyword in there beyond your brand. But even just pumping the brand name does work as well. We've seen it with TikTok. Brand name searches can skyrocket you for every other keyword that you're relevant for. Bradley Sutton: William says yeah, this is a universal question, I think, or universal debate, I think. For successful exact keywords, do you recommend making those keywords negative in the broad? Some people teach that although you're converting for a keyword in the exact, do not remove that keyword from broad. Matt: Yes, this is debated quite a bit and I'll tell you from our experience it can kind of go either way, like sometimes we'll negate it in broad and then the exact stops performing. Sometimes we'll leave it and the broad performs better. Like it can go either way. I would say it's something that you should definitely test. Amazon ads is still kind of finicky on some of these things. For whatever reason. Older campaigns still tend to work better for us. So if your broad campaigns older than your exact match, it may still continue to outperform for a little bit. But what we do typically do is if we're going to leave it in broad, we lower the bids in broad I'm not specific keyword quite a bit and try and give the exact match as much room to run as it possibly could. Bradley Sutton: OK, cool, let's see. Hina has a question. I have 10 variations. They're not page one ranked. What strategy can I apply to get a good conversion on it? So I'm not sure exactly what he's saying here. But let me just change this into another question here. Like I've got betting that has a bunch of variations, or a consumable that has a whole bunch of different flavors, are you putting all the variations into one campaign? Do you have different campaigns for each variation? Do you only promote maybe one or two child items out of the whole variation? What's your strategy on variation items for PBC? Matt: Yeah, so we run a lot of variations. This is the one place where we do run ad groups. So our main products, the main variation, is flavored. So if someone's searching for a lemon flavored one, you obviously don't want that running against a chocolate flavored one. So an exact match campaign would have an ad group for each flavor and we'd be breaking out the different flavor variances within there. If it's a more broad term that doesn't include a flavor name, we're usually pushing it towards our hero product within that variation. But something that you can definitely test. I would say one thing to look at is search query performance and also the top I think they call it top search term report Now it used to be the old brand analytics report and see what the other top click products are. In our instance, if someone's searching for a sugar cookie, it may be that they're searching for a specific flavor and you can see that by the click through rate and a commercial rates from brand analytics. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now, before we get into your final strategy of the day, can you talk a little bit about clear ads? I mean who you know, who, who you guys might be able to help the most, and what you guys do. Matt: Yeah, definitely. Um, so we're an ads agency um based in the UK. Um, we work with sellers and actually every single amazon marketplace now, so can help you across the board there. Um, we also do offer like full service management. So if you're looking for content creation, lipstein optimizations or even just day to day like inventory management, case log management, we can help you with all of it. Um, we also run DSPs, so pretty much a to z on amazon, we've got you covered. Um, and many of you may know George Um the founder. Um, he's everywhere. Um, so, yeah, head us up if you need any help with any of those things. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome, all right, now um 60 second strategy of the day could be about PPC. It could be about search career performance. Could be about how to live as a foreigner in Barcelona. It could be about anything you want, so go ahead. Matt: All right, um, so I'm going to take it away and I'm going to do. Uh, outside traffic to amazon Um, so I think one of the big questions that search career report has brought up with a lot of people is like, hey, these sales numbers in here are extremely low. I know I'm selling more for this keyword or this product. Like, why isn't this represented? And I think majority of people don't ever look at outside traffic to listings and what's happening. But if you actually take the time to dive deeper, you would be amazed at how much traffic comes straight to your listing from other sources outside of amazon. Um. One great way to do this is how we do it. Um, you can use SCM, rush or a trust or really any kind of SEO tool. Plug in your canonical um amazon URL and just see, like, what articles have been written about you that you know nothing about, where you're getting posted on social. It will highlight all of these things. Um, but really the big key factor that we've been looking at is if you have a competitor in your category that you just you can't figure out how they're doing things. Chances are it's all coming from outside of amazon and that's why you can't compete. So doing this simple search, you can see like, hey, these are the bloggers that are talking about it, these are the articles that they got. You can reach out to those people directly. Most of those positions are paid. Like, don't trust any of those top 10 articles, they're all paid. Um, you can reach out and pay for those, and sites like a H refs SCM rush will tell you how much traffic that bloggers are, so you can kind of estimate what your return is going to be on that dollar. Um, I would say another big piece that we've been kind of working on for these is for a lot of terms like your, your coffin example. Matt: Like there's no one out there that has a website about coffins, like that specific product, it would take you with AI a few days to whip together a basic word press site that has everything you would ever want to know about small coffins and since no one else is writing about that, you're going to rank in Google like top three within a few weeks. If you're in these categories where there isn't that much competition or it's a unique product, start making some micro sites. Um, like I've shared some examples at some prior events and presentations, we have a few of these micro sites that are giving us seven to 8000 people a month now to our Amazon listings, and we used AI for the entire process. Um, so it took us maybe an hour per site and they just continue to produce. And the big thing with that is it's a traffic channel that no one else can really steal from you, because most people aren't looking at this and you'll always kind of stay at the top of your category because your velocities will just always be higher. Bradley Sutton: That might be something I'd like to dive into, if you are able to come out in January. Like your step by step case study on that, that sounds fascinating. Alright, well, matt, thank you so much for joining us. I know it's late over there. I appreciate it and hopefully we get to see you in January. Matt: Sounds good. Thanks for having me.

By popular request, a minisode (mini-episode)! TACP's Actually Autistic podcast hosts, Matt Lowry, LPP, and Dr. Angela Lauria, provide updates relating to Dungeons & Dragons, Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Sherlock Holmes. Angela and Matt discuss Autistic actor Peter Cushing, who connects all four interests popular among people on the autism spectrum (and provides additional insights about Autistic productivity). Cushing starred in two 1960s Doctor Who films, played Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars, portrayed Sherlock Holmes, and was an avid player of the H.G. Wells game "War," which inspired Dungeons & Dragons.The hosts share how Cushing handcrafted over 2,000 miniature soldiers and models for playing "War." Which speaks to Autistic Culture's love of collecting, and skills with modeling, strategy games, and imaginative play.Matt and Angela discuss how poor mental health led to a “SPIN drop”: when Autistic people lose connection with a SPIN or special interest (a part of who we are), and experience intense grief similar to experiencing a death.Angela: And so when you lose a SPIN, it is like losing a part of yourself.Matt: Yeah, these things make us who we are. These things help us with our identity.Cushing's story speaks to Autistic individuals and exemplifies Autistic Culture through his creative hobbies, special interests, and impressive collections.Do you want more minisodes? What do you want to hear Matt or Angela give a quick infodump on?* Facebook post with pictures of Peter Cushings models* The Peter Cushing Doctor Who Movie Appreciation Group* The Peter Cushing Association Facebook group * Want to learn about more Autistic activities? Episode 39: Dungeons & Dragons is Autistic * Why do Autistics work in bursts? Check out Episode 38: Productivity is Autistic* One of the Autistic community's favorite Autistic characters: Episode 30: Doctor Who is Autistic* What does an Autism-friendly workplace look like? Episode 04: Industrial Light & Magic is AutisticReady for a paradigm shift that empowers Autistics? Help spread the news!* TACP's Instagram* Follow us on Apple podcasts and Spotify* Matt Lowry, LPP* Autistic Connections Facebook Group* AngelaLauria.com and Difference Press* Angela's Twitter and TikTok* Our merch shop! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.autisticculturepodcast.com/subscribe

Welcome to the newest episode of The Cloud Pod podcast! Justin, Ryan and Matthew are your hosts this week as we discuss all the latest news and announcements in the world of the cloud and AI - including what's new with Google Deepmind, as well as goings on over at the Finops X Conference. Join us!  Titles we almost went with this week:

You read it right, DEIB, not just DEI. The “B” is for belonging. Rhett will tell us all about that during our time together in this episode. Rhett was born with a condition known as craniosynostosis. This is a condition where the skull is malformed. Without treatment, the malformity can lead to Down's Syndrome. He was one of the first children to benefit from surgery to correct this condition. After a successful time at college obtaining a Bachelor's and Master's degree Rhett went into then years working in College Administration. While working toward his Master's degree at Salisbury University he met his wife which he would tell you was the most important event in his life. Eight years ago he relocated from Maryland, where he grew up, to San Francisco where he is now part of a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating homelessness in San Francisco. Along the way, he also has authored two self-help books and five children's picture books. Unstoppable by any definition. He will inspire you I am sure and he will give you some life lessons you will find useful. About the Guest: Rhett Burden is a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) practitioner, author, and speaker from San Francisco, California. Rhett partners with high schools, colleges, and universities to develop the personal and professional consciousness of their students, faculty, and staff. After spending nearly a decade working in college administration, and writing books to empower, and uplift students, Rhett has learned what it takes to be successful. It's how well you connect with the people you're trying to help and communicate your understanding back to them. Rhett is a life member of the UMES National Alumni Association and a 2019 inductee into the UMES National Alumni Association Hall of Excellence. Additionally, Rhett is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc and a Prince Hall Mason. Rhett holds a MA in conflict analysis and dispute resolution from Salisbury University (SU), BA in sociology from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), and AA in real estate from City College San Francisco (CCSF). He has also authored seven (7) books; 2 professional development and 5 children's picture books. Rhett is a proud father, son, and husband who is on a mission to leave a legacy Social Media & Website Link LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhettburden/ Website: rhettburden.com About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:16 Welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. Glad you're with us. Hope you can stay around for the whole hour. We have Rhett Burden today, who is our guest and he is an author. He's a diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging person. I'm really excited to hear about that. And I know he has some other stories to tell us so we're gonna get right into it, Rhett Welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Rhett Burden  01:50 Michael, good afternoon. Thank you for welcoming me. I'm excited to chat with you about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and so much more.   Michael Hingson  02:00 Yeah. And we'll have to definitely deal with so much more whatever it turns out to be right.   Rhett Burden  02:04 Absolutely.   Michael Hingson  02:07 Well, let's start. Like I love to do kind of more at the beginning. And tell us a little bit about you growing up and some of all the things that happened along the way there that probably helped kind of make you what you are today, or maybe not for all I know.   Rhett Burden  02:21 Absolutely. Well, to start at the beginning, I don't think I can tell my story without mentioning to you in your audience that I was born with a rare birth defect known as cranial synostosis. craniosynostosis is a birth defect that causes the skull not to fuse properly. And the incision. So I guess if I were to give it its full name is I have sagittal, cranial synostosis, which means that I have an incision and running from the top of my head to about three quarters of the way back. That shaped who I am. Because as I grew older and learn more about craniosynostosis, it impacted the empathy that I had for others. It impacted the way I look and feel about myself. And it made me more interested in perennial synostosis craniosynostosis folks that are inflicted with it, and those that weren't as fortunate as I was to have a successful surgery at GW Hospital in Washington, DC.   Michael Hingson  03:30 So you had surgery to deal with that? When did that happen? What year was that?   Rhett Burden  03:35 I would have had surgery early on. So this is early, mid 1980s, somewhere between 1987 and 1988. When I was a very, very young child,   Michael Hingson  03:47 is there still kind of visible evidence of the surgery and so on for you today?   Rhett Burden  03:54 There is I must say I'm a fairly tall guy. So for those that are taller than me, and that could look down and see the top of my head, then yes, you can visibly see it.   Michael Hingson  04:06 So did did it kind of affect you with other kids and so on growing up, or were they were they not too abusive and mean to you because you had something that looked a little different than most of them?   Rhett Burden  04:19 Well, in fairness, I would say most children are teased or picked on by their peers. I was no different. I was no exception to that rule for me. Growing up I remember folks being really interested in when they heard the story and wanting to touch the incision or touch the scar because I have what appears to be like a lump or a small indent. So once you know the teasing is over and you're just having conversation with folks even from middle school in high school, they were very interested to touch into feel because I've always been very open about it. I had the surgery not been successful, I would have had Down syndrome, my life would have taken an entirely different path. So I've always been open in chatting about it.   Michael Hingson  05:13 Well, but you obviously survived growing up and you went to high school into college. Did you do any thing unusual in high school or college or anything like that? Were you in sports or any of those things? Or, or any? Or were you just sort of what most kids were?   Rhett Burden  05:31 I would say I had a great high school and college experience. I tried out for sports teams in high school. And fortunately, I didn't make the sports team. But I was friends with the athletes. It was a different time back then. So a lot of time was spent outside building relationships, biking, running, exploring. Video games were popular, but not to the height of their popularity as they are now video games weren't considered a sport. So there were no eSports in my day. And then in college, I had a great collegiate experience also.   Michael Hingson  06:07 Yeah, video games have now become quite a big thing. Most of them don't talk. So I don't get to do much in the way of video games, but I can appreciate the art form.   Rhett Burden  06:19 Absolutely. Absolutely.   Michael Hingson  06:21 So you went to college? What'd you major in?   Rhett Burden  06:25 Yeah, so went to the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, historically black college and university on the eastern shore of Maryland. So near Ocean City, not too far from Delaware. And I studied sociology got a minor in public policy. And you and me yes. Is, has been will always be one of the best decisions I've ever made. The friendships that I've made the relationships that were built the social experience that I had, at historically black colleges and universities, less like most schools, they are things like student government association. So I got my first job working as an RA a Resident Assistant. In the residential communities. I was fortunate enough to be voted as the face of the sophomore class, the junior class and even the face of the university. So it's called Mr. Sophomore, and Mr. Jr. and Mr. University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, I went on to compete in the National Black College Hall of Fame contest, where I came in third. And oddly enough, my roommate at the time at that experience that happened, and in Missouri, he won, and he was from Tennessee State. So if you'll meet us has given me so much. And I will forever be indebted to that institution and the experience that he gave me.   Michael Hingson  08:00 So tell me about the competition. What did you have to do? How did you all compete?   Rhett Burden  08:05 Yeah, so it's an annual competition that takes place and particular HBCU around the country, and all of the faces of the HBCU. So all of the misters, whatever the name of the university is, they go and compete. And it's something similar to a pageant where you have to showcase a talent, you do a monologue, there's a opening number, you are voted on by a panel of judges. And it is all to see who will be crowned Mr. Historically Black College and University for that year. So I was very fortunate I competed in 2009. It again, didn't win, but did come in third place and will again forever be grateful for that opportunity. I have made some lifelong friends from being a part of it, that contest.   Michael Hingson  08:56 That is really pretty cool. And obviously you did learn some speaking up speaking things along the way. You certainly seem to be pretty articulate in that regard as well. And you are a public speaker, aren't you?   Rhett Burden  09:08 I am very, oddly enough, going back to my time a Umes. That's when I really got interested in training and facilitation started off being a resident assistant. Oddly, I was the university's first freshman alrea. When I started in 2005, I was there for a semester, and just networked and worked my way into getting the position which had not been done before you had to normally be a sophomore or a junior, so you could have some more collegiate experience so you could give back to the freshman class. And I just became enamored with personal and professional development, designing training, presentations, facilitating public speaking. And then because I was fortunate enough to be the face of these classes, sophomore junior class and then the face of the university. I was an ambassador for the university. Oh, always speaking on behalf whether it dealt with recruitment retention, the social experience and it was really a part of my journey that has shaped me to the man I am today.   Michael Hingson  10:11 When you speak or when you were doing speeches and are doing speeches, do you like to write everything out and read or do you tend to be more extemporaneous and, and modify according to the situation or whatever is happening,   Rhett Burden  10:29 I would say a little bit of both contingent upon the audience. If I am giving a keynote, that I like to have my thoughts flushed out, especially if the audience's a C suite or group of professionals, when I'm working with colleges and universities, you can be a bit more free, a bit more fun, you can work in some audience engagement in a way that you just can't do when you're working with a group of professionals. So I would say a little bit of both based on the audience.   Michael Hingson  10:58 Well, how did you get into speaking, I would imagine and partly came from the Umes and the other experiences that you've talked about, but how did you get into doing that kind of as part of what you do?   Rhett Burden  11:12 Absolutely. Well, I was a member of the Student Government Association, my was a residential assistant. And there would often be opportunities to knowledge share, whether it was working with first year communities, or, you know, helping new staff learn processes and procedures. And I would always volunteer, I really felt comfortable being on stage, I've always felt comfortable being in front of people, I've never mind minded making a fool of myself if that's what was required, but also standing firm and speaking boldly about issues that are important to me, and trying to bring people along. So that's really where it started.   Michael Hingson  11:58 I find it interesting that so many people fear public speaking or fear being up on a stage, I guess they don't want to think that they might look dumb, or it's all about appearances, and so on. But being up on stage has never, for example, bothered me. I've just never been bothered by doing that. I'm used to it. And I guess it's been that way my whole life.   Rhett Burden  12:25 That's awesome. And I know that you do it. Well, considering your history. So yeah, I've always enjoyed it. It is a lot of fun, especially when you really connect with an audience. How do you know when you've really connected with an audience? You know, I'm really big on energy. And you can probably appreciate this as a speaker, you can feel when the energy shifts when you first get on stage. And again, contingent upon the audience, people are feeling you out. They want to know, Are you a subject matter expert? Are you excited to be there? What's your level of enthusiasm to present to the audience. And for me, a lot of it was being able to open myself up to be vulnerable to share messages. And you can sense when the energy swings in your favor. And it's like nothing I've ever experienced before.   Michael Hingson  13:20 Yeah, when you really establish that connection, you know it, the trick is you learn what the audience reacts to or doesn't react to. And when you get those reactions, and you get what you expect to happen based on what you're saying. And know you're connected. It just enhances what you do. And it makes it all the better. And it grows on both   Rhett Burden  13:42 sides. Absolutely. Absolutely.   Michael Hingson  13:45 It is so much fun to have that kind of really good connection with an audience. Well, so when you got out of well, let me ask you this first craniosynostosis Yeah, is something that you had? Is it something that affects you yet today? Or is there any kind of issue with it? Or is it just kind of you have it, it's in your past, but it isn't something that you need to deal with on on a daily basis or any kind of basis today?   Rhett Burden  14:12 You know, that's a great question. I would say that it is forever a part of me. I am not in any physical pain because of the procedure because of the the incision or the scar that's been left. But it is interesting when I touch my head when I get like a hair cut, and you have to be very mindful. For me, if I'm telling a barber that you'll notice that my head is not necessarily round or flat and, you know, just please be mindful of my incision. This is maybe a little odd, but sometimes I find myself knocking on the lump or bump that's on my head where the incision starts, just because it makes a hollow sound. So But I'm very fortunate that I am not in any physical pain. But it's definitely there. I notice it. But I'm also very proud of it. Because if the doctors were not successful again, I don't know how my life would have turned out.   Michael Hingson  15:15 Well, have you ever said whenever the discussion has come up? Yeah, but you should see the other guy.   Rhett Burden  15:22 You know what I'll have to incorporate that I have not thought to do that. I'll have to incorporate that in there.   Michael Hingson  15:29 Yeah, you see the other guy. But oh, you know, it is so easy to get so frustrated just because in one way or another, some of us look different. But it is so important to have a sense of humor and not let it get in the way. So I'm really excited that you're you're dealing with something that clearly is a little bit of a difference for you. Absolutely. But you deal with it, and it is just part of your life, and you move forward.   Rhett Burden  15:59 Absolutely. Now, when I was younger, in school, I was othered a bit because of it. But I must say growing up during that timeframe in the 80s. In just knowing that even though things may have been a little hurtful, I don't think the teasing was meant to be mean spirited. It was just the nature of the beast when you were in middle school or in high school. But you could always laugh about it afterwards. And if you were playing the dozens with someone, if you were laughing and joking, it didn't escalate. Sometimes someone had a funnier joke than you. And then it sort of died down from there. So I'm very, very fortunate because it helps you develop thick skin. And to let you know that things really aren't that serious. Most things in life. You are in control of how you respond, not necessarily what happened to you. And the way in which you respond dictates how people will treat you and interact with you afterwards. So I've been very, very fortunate to have enough self confidence and enough self love to know that sometimes jokes are funny. I don't mind being the butt of say a joke, because I've never felt it was mean spirited with the intent to do real harm. It was just a part of the culture at that time.   Michael Hingson  17:22 You bring up a really good point, there are things that we don't have control over. And I talk a lot about, of course, the World Trade Center. And I've learned along the way that we didn't, of course have control over the World Trade Center. No matter what happens you we didn't have control over that. And we don't have control over how other people deal with what happened on September 11. And we don't have control necessarily over what happened to us that day. But we have absolute control over how we choose to deal with it. It's all a matter of choice.   Rhett Burden  17:58 You're absolutely, absolutely I mean, you have such an incredible story. And knowing that you were part of something that involves a national tragedy, and that you have sort of flipped the script, or the story on its head, I think is a beautiful thing. And I'm sure it has served you extremely well as you've shared your story, and even coached others that may not feel the same way you do.   Michael Hingson  18:22 Well, and in so many ways things come up being blind having happening to be blind my entire life. I didn't have control over that happening. But again, I have control over how I deal with it. I have control over how I choose to learn or not. And I hope that I do choose to learn and to progress and move forward and not let that be a negative factor in my life just as as you're talking about.   Rhett Burden  18:52 Absolutely. Absolutely.   Michael Hingson  18:56 So what did you do after college?   Rhett Burden  19:00 So after college, after graduating from University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, I was very fortunate that the university offered me my first professional role. I had been in pair of professional roles or, you know, odd jobs here and there through high school. It was a different time when you needed a workers permit and you can only work a certain amount of hours. I started off working in for the university and the Division of Student Affairs and I was working in residential communities. I was wanting a dorm. It was a great experience. And then I immediately started grad school in conflict analysis and dispute resolution at a neighboring institution, Saulsbury University.   Michael Hingson  19:47 And so what else did you do there?   Rhett Burden  19:50 So I one of the interesting things is we were a part of I believe the beta cohort. The institution had just got its accreditation to have the program the conflict analysis and dispute resolution program known as cater. And we were part of that second cohort. And it was, it was an amazing experience to be a part of that cohort model, where there were about 30 of us that started and I think 28 or 29 of us finished, to build community with folks to share in an experience where we were so new, and to be a part of a program that was new to the university that has since made amazing strides. And at one point, I thought that before I became a dei practitioner, I really had ambitions to be a sex and marriage therapist. That was odd. My sort of the genesis of that story is I used to watch the show Masters of Sex. I think it came on Showtime. And I was always intrigued with the history with a science behind it. And I've always been fascinated by relationship and relationship dynamics. My life obviously took a different turn. But Salisbury University was was a great academic experience. And it was one of the most important experiences of my life because I met my partner, my wife of umpteenth years, we met being a part of the same cohort at Salisbury University. So that place will always hold a special place in my heart for who would allow me to meet.   Michael Hingson  21:32 So how long have y'all been married? Now?   Rhett Burden  21:34 You know, what if my mental math serves me correctly, about eight years, we have been together for over a decade, but married for eight. So I would not have found my wife had I not been at Saulsbury. And had I not been part of that cater program. Any children? We do we have one beautiful, amazing, talented, special little girl, she will be to later this year. And having the privilege to be a father. To be a girl dad, and to share that responsibility with my best friend is is truly special, and something that I don't take for granted.   Michael Hingson  22:27 Well, sounds like you'll bring bring her up well, and of course, there'll be all sorts of challenges along the way.   Rhett Burden  22:35 I'm sure.   Michael Hingson  22:39 But again, those are those are things that one has to deal with, and you can but again, it's interesting what came to mind when you said that you met your wife? And at the at the job? Again, it's all about choices, isn't it?   Rhett Burden  22:56 Absolutely best choice I ever made going to Solsbury who would have thought that not only would I leave with a degree, but I would leave with my life partner. Amazing, amazing decision.   Michael Hingson  23:09 I love to think from time to time about what I've done in my life, what's happened in my life and can trace everything back to choices. Absolutely. And it could have gone so many different ways at so many different times. Even after September 11. The next day, my wife said, you want to contact Guide Dogs for the Blind where you've gotten your dogs, and let them know that you were in the World Trade Center made it up because some people have visited you from there. And I never would have thought of that. But the result of that was that that's just me. And I wouldn't have necessarily thought of it. But she did. And the result was that they said gee, can we put a little article out about you? And that just broke the whole dam of getting all sorts of visibility in the media and all sorts of other things happened. But all the way in, in what we do, and in my life, all the choices that I made, I can trace what I've done back, are there things I could have done differently? Sure. That maybe I should have done differently, probably. But you know, you can't go back after the fact and just beat yourself up over things. I love to say I used to say I'm my worst my I'm my worst critic, and I realized that's the wrong thing to say. I'm my best teacher, because because I'm the one that has to teach me. And when I look at choices and evaluate and make a choice. Hopefully it's the right one. But either way, I made the choice and I can't be ashamed of that.   Rhett Burden  24:44 Absolutely. It's amazing to hear you tell that story, not just for the revelation that you had but to think the catalyst for you and the success that you had started off with a conversation from your wife and this suggestion He absolutely beautiful. And I'm sure you are very grateful for that conversation with that suggestion.   Michael Hingson  25:08 Sure. Well, of course, it goes back further because we decided to move from California to New Jersey in the first place in 1996, and so many other choices along the way. And I think it's great to be able to think back of all the things that I've done, and the choices that I made, because I then eventually get to the point of saying, Now, what do I do and what can I learn? And what have I learned that I can use going forward? And I think that all too often, we never take the time to be that introspective and something that we all should do, because it will help us and guide us to with what we should do next.   Rhett Burden  25:50 Absolutely. I'm in full agreement.   Michael Hingson  25:54 So here's something that we really need to do more of. So anyway, from Solsbury, what did you do? So from Saulsbury,   Rhett Burden  26:01 I got to the master's degree, met my partner. And we decided that we were both working for separate universities. And my wife got bit by the textbook very early on, and had an opportunity to work at Facebook. And it would cause it required us to leave Maryland and to come out to California. This happened shortly after we got married and came back from our honeymoon. And we've been in California for the past seven years, all because my wife decided to take a chance on herself. She believed in herself. And she invested in herself, which is why she got the role at Facebook. And for me wanting to follow her lead to support her to champion the things that she was doing and to say, You know what, it's time for a different experience. We are taking on a new level in life. And I'd love for us to do that in California.   Michael Hingson  27:06 So how's that going?   Rhett Burden  27:08 It's going extremely well, you know, the initial sticker shock of San Francisco was a lot coming from Maryland to the bay. You know, everything from the cost of milk to gas was exponentially higher. And that was a little shocking at first when, you know, I had lived in the Maryland, DC Virginia area my whole life and things were expensive, but not that expensive. And having worked at a couple of universities while I've been in California to where I am now. It has it's been such an amazing journey. And I'm so glad that we took that leap of faith to come this way to come westward.   Michael Hingson  27:52 So what universities in California, yeah,   Rhett Burden  27:55 I spent some time at Menlo College and Palo Alto. also spend time at Academy of Art University. I've done a lot of dei work with several different associations, sort of under the umbrella of this college of the university system. And now I work in a nonprofit. So you know, I'm forever grateful I was a higher ed practitioner, for almost 15 years loved my time there. There's something energizing about being around college students about being in that environment. And now I work for a nonprofit, and I'm excited. I'm just so thrilled and excited with the opportunity I have for you to lead our dei be initiatives and to work collaboratively with our board and our CEO, to ensure that we have an equitable workplace, where we are diverse, we leverage our diversity so that we are inclusive, and that we create an environment where everyone belongs. So big job, but I'm definitely up for the challenge.   Michael Hingson  29:00 And what is your wife doing these days?   Rhett Burden  29:03 Well, my wife has one of the most important jobs and that is caretaker, Matt Yeah, my my wife helps to take care of our daughter. She also has a podcast. And she is an entrepreneur. So in supporting her entrepreneurial efforts, seeing her podcast thrive and of course, the most important job of mothering and being of our child and being the best partner that   Michael Hingson  29:30 she can be. So she has left Facebook. She has   Rhett Burden  29:34 she is no longer at Facebook or meta by that journey has ended. Yeah, but it's it was a great opportunity and experience.   Michael Hingson  29:45 So what is her podcast about?   Rhett Burden  29:47 Yeah, so my wife's podcast is entitled cultivating her space. She is the co host and co founder of the podcast with a clinician Her name is Dr. Donna And the podcast is all about uplifting women of color, to share experiences, to, to lift up voices and to tell stories that are not widely known or needs, or have never been told, and to provide community for women of color. So very proud of her and those efforts.   Michael Hingson  30:23 That's pretty exciting. So I probably wouldn't be a good volunteer to be on it. But I'm very excited about it. It's, it's great that she's doing that and that she and the doctor are making a very successful podcast. That's cool.   Rhett Burden  30:37 Absolutely. Thank you so much.   Michael Hingson  30:41 And we can hardly wait to hear about your daughter going on the podcast, you know, that should happen soon.   Rhett Burden  30:47 Yeah, you know, very early on. She was a guest that, you know, she was a she wasn't internal guests. But my wife was recording during the pregnancy. And then there were a few episodes where she had to record and you can hear my daughter in the background, making sure that she got her five minutes of fame and stardom. So yeah, I can't wait for her to be her own independent guests   Michael Hingson  31:13 have to have opinions. You know,   Rhett Burden  31:14 that's true. Very, very true.   Michael Hingson  31:17 So what's the nonprofit that you're working at? Tell me about that, if you would,   Rhett Burden  31:21 yeah. So the name of the nonprofit is compass Family Services. It's been in existence over 100 years in San Francisco. And the goal of the nonprofit is to end family homelessness and to help families achieve self sufficiency. I've been there for about seven months, it's been a really great experience. I've really enjoyed having the opportunity to work at the nonprofit, there are amazing people there doing trauma informed work every day, and giving back to the community trying to help the unhoused population in San Francisco, which is all in the 1000s about 8000 folks and doing what we can along with another without, along with so many other amazing organizations trying to help in the homelessness crisis in our city.   Michael Hingson  32:11 So what do you do? How does all that work?   Rhett Burden  32:15 Yeah, well, you know, I, as the director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the job, I always like to center the folks that I work with, I may have a fancy title, I may be considered a senior leader, but the organization is nothing and I am nothing without the people that are on the ground doing the hard work. We have case, workers, we have case managers, therapists, childcare professionals, they are truly the heroes at Compass. Working with folks that have experienced trauma that are experiencing homelessness, that have mental health challenges that have substance abuse challenges, and the work they do every single day to help find housing, to help get folks set up with jobs, to take care of children is is truly remarkable. And again, though I lead our D E IB efforts, for me, I am nothing without them. Because they are the heart of the organization.   Michael Hingson  33:19 So in the the things that you do, I kind of imagined the answer to this. But is there a faith component? Well,   Rhett Burden  33:30 I would say faith is sure, yes, I mean, there is the faith that the organization has put in me to lead our efforts to be the tip of the spear or they handed the ship. But everything needs to be collaborative. I'd like to bring ideas to the table and to co design them with the folks that I work with whether they're in the C suite or their frontline personnel. Because I see myself as one cog in the wheel of compass that makes the organization go.   Michael Hingson  34:02 Well, and it should be a team effort by any definition. The fact is that anytime someone thinks they're it, it's so unfortunate that yeah, you you know what I'm saying? Absolutely not the way to do it. And so it should be collaborative. And it's great to really discover the whole concept of teamwork, isn't it?   Rhett Burden  34:26 Absolutely. Absolutely. I'd like to consider myself a culture add. Folks have been very kind again, I'm in my organizational infancy. But I'd like to think that we are having an impact. And again, I never want to miss an opportunity to uplift of the folks that have preceded me. The folks that have had a longer Jeopardy than I have and that are doing the work of serving our clients every day.   Michael Hingson  34:54 So dealing with dei B, especially the whole idea of diversity inclusion and so on, I would probably be a little remiss not to at least ask the concept of conceptual question about a lot of us who happen to have a disability, whether it be physical or not, tend to tend to feel that diversity has left disabilities completely out of the scheme of things. If you ask the average person, what does diversity mean? Or what's a diverse environment, they'll talk about race, they'll talk about gender or sexual orientation, so on. And even the experts don't tend to talk about disabilities as part of that. How do you deal with that? Or how do we learn? And as a more general question, how do we change that conversation? So that the 25% of all people who are left out because they have a disability get included in the conversation and truly have seats at the table?   Rhett Burden  35:57 Well, I think you're absolutely right. So let me uplift what you said. And as a practitioner and speaking on behalf of the community of practitioners, you're right, we all have to do a better job and centering, disability accessibility and ensuring that we are inclusive in all of our efforts. I think that far too often. When you are dealing with folks that have physical, visible disabilities, it is a little easier to ensure that they're included. And it is drawn to your attention more. But a lot of that deals with the fact that we are not centering our practice around ensuring that all communities that have been marginalized, all communities that have no voice or a small voice at the table are centered. So I think it begins with educating ourselves a bit more on the disability community, the disabled community, making sure we understand the compliance component of accessibility, working with our HR teams or people in culture teams, and ensuring that we are hearing from those with lived experiences and that are the subject matter experts in this area, centering their voices asking what their needs are, and how we can acquiesce to build an inclusive environment where they are centering, they are helping us center and focus on policies and practices and procedures that make them feel included or make them feel like they belong. So I am with you 100%. As someone that it's interesting when we think about disability, because this is something that even if you are an able bodied person now, you never know what could lead or what could happen that may lead you to having a disability. And as someone that was on the precipice of having Down syndrome, that at any point in time, they're still being researched on all cranial synostosis. I'd like to be mindful of that in not just the way I interact in my practice at the nonprofit, but also in the concerted effort I do or have in my learning. For those listeners of yours that are familiar with San Francisco or I know you're familiar. I am taking classes at City College of San Francisco and I recently completed a disability course that was taught by two amazing women, one of which that had a physical disability. That would, she was just so cute mane and her teaching and helping us understand to become not just better practitioners, but better humans. So I think it begins with education, that's the educator in me, and ensuring that we are centering voices of said community.   Michael Hingson  38:44 He said something that's really interesting, unfortunately, all too often goes the other way, when you said that it's a lot easier when it's a physical disability. And usually that's true because you you can see it too slow to include. The problem is that's not usually what happens because the fear immediately comes out. Oh my gosh, as you pointed out, that could happen to me. And so we ignore it. And we tend to leave out disabilities because we don't recognize that disability doesn't mean a lack of ability. Absolutely. I don't know that there. I don't have a better term than disability. But if we can change the definition of diversity like we have, then we also want to be able to change the definition of disability. It's a characteristic and as I love to point out to people in that I've said it many times on this podcast The reality is we all have disabilities, your disability leaving cranio synostosis or the the the things that other people with eyesight have your biggest disability is that you can see and the reason that's a disability is because as soon as there's a power failure if you don't have your phone or a flashlight or a candle around, you don't know what to do in the dark. Light dependency is not a problem for me. Yeah, we all have disabilities except that technology is covered it up. Yeah, we haven't grown to recognize that in reality, it shouldn't matter. Because disability is not a lack of ability, disability is a characteristic. And we all ought to figure out ways to start to deal with that. And recognize that there's nothing wrong with doing something, using alternatives to what other people use.   Rhett Burden  40:34 Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head, we all have varying levels of ability. And I think that's where you get this big movement now with folks being more cognizant of neuro divergence, and making sure that they are delineating folks that may be neurotypical or neurodivergent. And again, just centering on the fact that just because we do things differently, just because our abilities vary, does that mean that there is not value that can be added does not mean that folks should be treated differently, but that each of us are capable of making meaningful contributions to any workforce, to any relationship and to society at large. So I am an entrepreneur in agreement with you,   Michael Hingson  41:15 we really need to learn to understand what equality means. And that's part of the issue that equality doesn't mean that just because you provide everybody the exact same thing that it's equal, because providing me with a computer monitor, or a pen and paper, or a calculator that doesn't talk isn't equal. And at the same time, it should be appropriate to say, if you don't know, what do we need to do to give you access to the computer system? Or what do we need to do to give you a calculator, or a lot of companies have coffee machines, they have these fancy machines where you go up and you touch the screen, and you can get anything from espresso to hot tea, or hot chocolate, but they're totally inaccessible to some of us. And the problem in part is that not enough technology is being made that makes sure that there are buttons to do those things as well. So it gets to be a real challenge. But we tend to not be inclusive, in ways that we should. And I recognize that it's not about people hating, in this case, at least hating people. But there is a lot of fear. And it's a lack of education, as you said, but we do need to change that conversation.   Rhett Burden  42:37 I agree. We need both equity and equality, you need both to make sure that everyone has equal opportunities and the chance that they deserve to succeed. So I am in 100% agree with you. And I think it's important that we just like we demystify other terms that disability is not a dirty word, it is not a bad thing is something that we have to unlearn some of the harmful stances and practices that we have been taught whether it's been to our family or the media, and be more accepting, more tolerant, more loving, but most importantly, more informed about what we can do to make the world a better place where all of us have access and opportunities to make the kind of difference that I know that we can make   Michael Hingson  43:25 sure it's a characteristic. Absolutely, and totally and only it's a characteristic. Absolutely. And the reality is, although it's hard to get people to accept it, it's a characteristic that we all have in one way or another. Oh, great. So you know, it is one of those things that one has to deal with, but, but we'll get there. And I expect your daughter to lead the way.   Rhett Burden  43:50 I appreciate that. I will do my best.   Michael Hingson  43:53 Yeah. Tell her it's her job. Yes. So you are also an author? Yeah, yeah. To learn more about that.   Rhett Burden  44:04 Absolutely. So early, early on. In my career, I had an opportunity to go to latonia, Georgia, to the Allen entrepreneurial Institute, which is owned by Lester, Bill Allen, an extremely wealthy and successful black man in Georgia. And being at that entrepreneurial Institute was really insightful and life changing for me. Because far too often what we are taught about money or wealth, is that you need to accumulate it and it's you know, things are better when you have more money, but not just but not as much about the impact you can have not just on your life or that or your family but of your community and the the entrepreneurial Institute into it was his way of giving back to the community to show folks What you can do, and how you can weaponize money and wealth for good. And being at that institute having had the opportunity to sit through several different leadership seminars and meeting community leaders in that area. It got me inspired because one gentleman spoke about telling your story and the power of storytelling in using books to do that. And talking through whether you are self published or you are published through one of the major publishing distribution systems like Penguin or scholastic or Simon and Schuster, that you have a story to tell, and you should do so. So early on, I believe I was 22 or 23, I wrote my first book entitled Brother please, a life book to life and relationships. And that was my introduction into finding my voice and telling my story that led to me co authoring a book with the co author that I've paid for the other five books, entitled mistakes, my life. My pencils don't come with erasers just life lessons. Um, so I was in the professional development world, the self help space. Then when my co author had his son or my nephew, we got into writing children's picture books. So written five children's picture books. One is a trilogy series called when I grow up, so it's called the Super Series when I grow up, I want to be super healthy, super smart, super rich. I that led to the last two children's books, I've written one called My melanated munchkin. And lastly, Dentist Debbie. So I've been very fortunate to tell some stories in the self help sphere, and to do some children's picture books.   Michael Hingson  46:49 So what is Dennis Debbie all about? So dentist, to say,   Rhett Burden  46:54 is about a little black girl named Debbie who is infatuated with dentistry. I think it's amazing that we have so many creative stories, there are witches and dragons and princesses and monsters in so many amazing, different works. But I wanted to send her something that dealt with occupations, things that you can be proud of things that our society and people need. And hence was the birth of dentist Debbie.   Michael Hingson  47:25 Yeah, that's cool.   Rhett Burden  47:27 Yeah, thank you.   Michael Hingson  47:28 And so when she grows up, she'll probably want to be a dentist.   Rhett Burden  47:32 You have it right.   Michael Hingson  47:36 So, will there be sequels?   Rhett Burden  47:39 Well, you know what I am thinking about writing another one. I must say, I have a few ideas. swirling through my brain. I want to write something I want to tell a specific story about my daughter, my wife and I. And I'm still flushing that out. But yes, there is some more coming. I just haven't got that far yet still flushing the story out.   Michael Hingson  48:03 Well, you got to continue Debbie.   Rhett Burden  48:05 Yeah. Well, if not, Debbie, I'm not sure if I'm gonna do a sequel to dentists Debbie or my melanated munchkin. But I am definitely not done writing children's picture books.   Michael Hingson  48:17 Tell me about the melanated munchkin.   Rhett Burden  48:20 So oddly enough, I was on the BART headed to Oakland. And I don't really remember what for. And this was a late night. And the BART wasn't packed with people which is a rarity. And I saw a mother and daughter sitting on the train in the same car as me. We were spread apart but I just saw the mother pouring in to her daughter. They were reading they were laughing they were having a good time. And this was before I had children. And my melanated Munchkin just popped in my head. So I literally wrote 80 to 90% of the book in my phone on the train ride because I was inspired by what I saw. So what's the book about? So my melanated Munchkin is all about a little girl named Kira. And it is telling the history of why she should be proud of her diverse skin of her complexion of who she sees in the mirror. And it relates back to leaders and and women that have had great success and a great impact in history. And it is told from the viewpoint of me being a parent because this is my melanated Munchkin and I am telling her a story that is articulated through her eyes but is in my voice.   Michael Hingson  49:56 Sounds really a lot of fun.   Rhett Burden  50:00 Thank you, I really appreciate that.   Michael Hingson  50:02 Well, I think we're going to have to hunt them down. I'll have to get somebody to read them out loud and describe the pictures, but we'll get there. Absolutely. Well, like other authors, of course, I have to ask this kind of a question. Do you have any kind of a favorite character or story or anything that helps shape you in the author world and just your life in general?   Rhett Burden  50:25 Wow. Well, I would say yes, I would say early on before I had a child, my inspiration was my nephew. This was the first little person that I had a chance to interact with on a regular basis, because he was my co author, son. And now because I have my daughter, she is my source of inspiration. She is my why. And I can't wait to tell more stories that involve her.   Michael Hingson  50:52 You have a favorite author?   Rhett Burden  50:55 Wow, you know, that's a great question. Do I have a favorite author? You know, what if I had to pick an author? That was my favorite, I would probably say it's Dale Carnegie. Because prior to getting into the children, pictures, book space, I was doing personal professional development books, How to Win Friends and Influence People really did change my life. It changed my outlook. And I am a student of Dale Carnegie. So I would say it has to be Dale Carnegie.   Michael Hingson  51:26 I am also a student No, Dale Carnegie. And I think that, although a lot of people say all but it's old, the language is all stilted, and so on. The concepts aren't folks. Yeah, the concepts are absolutely as relevant today as they ever were. And I don't care that the language is a little bit different than what we're used to. That's not the part to pay attention to.   Rhett Burden  51:48 Agreed. I agree with you. If for your listeners, if you've never read How to Win Friends and Influence People pick it up. It's an amazing read. And it is truly transformational. If you take heed to the lessons that he imparts,   Michael Hingson  52:08 the very fact that a guy can advertise to the world come to a meeting and we will show you how to, as you put it win friends and influence people and he fills up a major New York hotel ballroom, just on the basis of that a 1937. And of course it went from there. Yeah. And his his lessons are absolutely as relevant today as they ever were. And I wish more people would recognize the value of reaching out and being open to friendship. I've had a lot of conversations with people about dogs, for example, and people talk about how dogs love unconditionally. And I absolutely think that's true. But dogs don't trust unconditionally. Dogs, however, unlike humans are more open to trust. And unless there is something that comes along that absolutely causes a dog not to have a trusting environment, like they're extremely abused or whatever, they will be open to developing a trusting relationship because it's what they want. And even the most distressful dogs can learn to trust again, we're not as open to trust and we could take lessons from dogs to do that. And certainly, it's the same concepts as to what Dale Carnegie talks about.   Rhett Burden  53:29 Absolutely, I am. Even though I have puppies. For your listeners, my Zoom background is full of puppies because I like puppies. I like dogs who kind of hard not to like them. I haven't necessarily had a lot of dogs in my life. So you know, Michael, I have to ask, Do you have a favorite breed of dog? Is there an adult that you just you feel connected with?   Michael Hingson  53:50 Well, I have had a guide dogs. The first three were golden retrievers. The next four were yellow labs. And now the guide dog I have today Alamo is a black lab. It's the first black lab. Nice I like large, larger dogs. But I really think that all dogs are open develop to develop relationships. So fun. I'm not to prejudice. I like a lot of different breeds of dogs. I appreciate that. But I love labs and I love Golden's especially of course,   Rhett Burden  54:25 absolutely. I have a colleague or a former colleague that has a golden retriever and they just love Golden Retrievers that is the bee's knees to them. Golden Retrievers,   Michael Hingson  54:37 and we have a Kimble well I have a cat it's only I know my wife passed away in November so I keep saying we so she's still here somewhere. But we have a cat and I'm not sure that well maybe stitches is trusting as a dog. It's a different kind of a personality though.   Rhett Burden  54:54 Well, I again I want to share my condolences and we talked about this off camera about to your wife passing, and you don't want to leave your cat out, you don't want to the field,   Michael Hingson  55:06 she loves to be carried around. So whenever I carry her I say, Alright, it's time to activate toda Tabby service. And we, we have a lot of fun with it. She really loves to get carried around and and doesn't seem to complain about that very much. Thank you very much. Oh. So do you have a favorite quote or mantra that you live by? Or think about?   Rhett Burden  55:30 Well, you know, I would say a favorite is is tough. But I do have I am a New Year's resolution asked type of person not sure if you are. And for the listening audience, even if you're not, I know some people think they may be a bit cliche. I'd like to create a yearly mission statements or yearly mantras. And I am guided by this mantra and one question. So I'd love to share that with you in the audience, the question that tends to guide my 2023 is, as of 1220, as of 1231 2023, I want to have accomplished what, and the mantra that goes along with that is, I am going to be focused on solutions, not problems. So that's what it is, for me, especially for 2023, I am going to be singularly focused on solutions and not problems. And I want to hold myself to the standard when I am manifesting what I want for my life, what I want for my family, and in all areas of wellness, as of December 31 2023, what do I want to have accomplished?   Michael Hingson  56:44 What was your 2022 New Year's resolution?   Rhett Burden  56:47 What my 2022 New Year's resolution was pretty simple. It was to sit back, relax, and enjoy. 2021 was a little tumultuous for my family, dealing with some personal issues and some family issues. And I felt that I was always on edge. And that I was not taking time to sit back. Because I felt I had to be in constant motion to relax because I found it very difficult to relax almost as if it pained me to do so. Because maybe my energy should be put somewhere else. And to enjoy and enjoy the smaller things in life and to practice self care and to bring to invest in things that brought me joy.   Michael Hingson  57:37 And that's, that's cool. You've obviously each year, given a lot of thought to what you want for your mission statement and your goal for the next year. Apps in the difference between what you're saying and what a lot of new year's resolutions tend to be all about is that you are providing yourself a general goal, you're not providing you something that you can't keep, and that you can't make happen. Absolutely, absolutely. And the other part about that is you also understand about making choices. So when you adopt that it's great, because then you can look every day even and say, well, am I working toward my goal or my mission this year?   Rhett Burden  58:22 You're ever 100%? Correct? i That's the way I feel. And that's sort of why it's structured in that way.   Michael Hingson  58:28 Yeah. If you wouldn't be able to go back and talk to your 18 year old self or somewhere around that age, what what would you teach them that maybe you didn't know, then that you have learned? That's a lot of answers?   Rhett Burden  58:44 I know that's a that's a great question. I would say if I could impart any wisdom to my 18 year old self, I would say take chances take risk. That high risk, high reward. And that ultimately, I want to make sure that as you are going through these formative years that you are not just experiencing what life has to offer, but you're living it. You are living and breathing, the kind of lifestyle that you want to manifest. So take risks. Go places that you wouldn't normally go experience things that you're not sure if you're interested in, read books that you wouldn't normally pick up, develop friendships and relationships with folks that are not necessarily in your friend group to take chances to be bold to take risk.   Michael Hingson  59:41 You think you weren't as much of a risk taker when you were 18 because you certainly over the years have stepped out a lot of times,   Rhett Burden  59:48 definitely was not this way at 18 a bit more conservative and growing up in a single parent household wanting to do everything I could to be the best Son, to my mom, and to make her proud. So in doing that, you find yourself being a bit more conservative and walking the straight and narrow more than you would if you're in a two parent household if the financial circumstance of your home is set, and wonderful, if you're not dealing with, you know, food insecurity or being on house. So yeah, I was very fortunate to have an amazing upbringing with a truly Godsend of a mother. But I would tell myself to go back and take more risks. And these risks don't have to be, you know, as lavish as, hey, you should jump out of an airplane. But it could be, hey, you should expand your friends circle read different books. So things like that.   Michael Hingson  1:00:52 Do you think your mom would approve? Very much? So? Yeah. It's, it's not a bad thing, to be willing to be adventurous and to step out. And you're right, it isn't all about jumping out of an airplane. That's not the risk taking thing. But it is important to not limit yourself just because you're afraid of doing something even though you know, it's something that you're capable of doing. But I don't want to do that.   Rhett Burden  1:01:21 Yeah, absolutely.   Michael Hingson  1:01:24 So what do you think is the most important lesson you've learned in life? Because you, you, you wax philosophical. So I figured that something worth asking   Rhett Burden  1:01:34 what the most important lesson that I think I've learned, is, probably to love myself and to love myself completely. To understand that I am an ever evolving being, that what is important to me, who is important to me, is going to change. And that I need to trust my instincts and trust myself. So to love myself in a way that makes me lovable from others. But to provide myself everything that I want to give to someone else. So I would say to love myself, and to love myself radically and boldly would be that would be there would be that, that that very thing.   Michael Hingson  1:02:28 And that's not being a conceited kind of thing. We should learn to love who we are and what we are and, and if we don't like what we do, then we choose to make a difference and fix that. But if we like and believe that we're making good choices, then we should love   Rhett Burden  1:02:46 that too. Yeah, absolutely.   Michael Hingson  1:02:48 I agree. We really need to have better respect for ourselves, and kind of go on from there. Well, right. This has been really wonderful. And I'm glad that we got to spend all this time. But I would like to end by asking you if people want to reach out and maybe contact you learn more about you learn about compass and so on. How do they do that?   Rhett Burden  1:03:14 Yeah, well, for your listeners, if you want to stay connected to me, you can go to LinkedIn if you have a LinkedIn profile and just type in my name Rhett Burden, please. Absolutely. That's R H E T T. And then my last name is Burden, B U R D as in David E N. please connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to learn more about you. I'd love to learn more about your story and find ways for us to collaborate. You can also visit Rhett Burden. That's my first and last name, R H E T T B U R D E N. Rhettburden.com. If you're interested in purchasing your copy of my children's book,   Michael Hingson  1:04:00 that was gonna be my next question. Because I think that people will want to learn more about that. And I'm going to start a campaign to advocate for finding out what happens to Debbie but that's another story. Well, Rhett, we really appreciate you being here and I appreciate you listening to us today. I hope you enjoyed it. And that you will give us a five star review especially if you go to iTunes or whatever, but we'd love a five star rating so please do that. If you'd like to suggest podcast guests and rent you as well. Please feel free. You can reach me at Michaelhi M I C H A E L H I at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. You can also find the podcasts at Michael hingson.com/podcasts and hingson is h i n g s o n so Michael hinkson.com/podcast. And as we've talked about it I talked a lot about on podcast. I I am a keynote speaker and do a lot of traveling to speak. So if anybody knows of any speaking opportunities, reach out, I'd love to hear from you for Rhett one more time. Thank you very much for being here. And we'd love to have you come back on again in the future.   Rhett Burden  1:05:14 Absolutely. It'd be my honor. Thank you, Michael.   Michael Hingson  1:05:21 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Allen Welcome passive traders to another episode. Today, I have a big announcement. And I have a first for the podcast, which is really interesting. I'm going to tell you the first before we get into the announcement. The first is that for the first time we are having a husband and wife, team, actually, we're going to find out if they're a team or not. But they're both traders. And they're both doing well. And they've been doing it for a while. So I wanted to get their opinion on how trading works in a family how trading works in a relationship, how to not get on each other's toes. So I have today, Mr. And Mrs. Matt and Margaret Ambrosi. Welcome, guys, thank you for doing this. Matt Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Allen Now, the big announcement, we probably should have done it better and differently. But Matt is now full time as an option genius coach. So we are very happy to have Matt on board. And he's already made a big difference in several people's lives. He's getting more, more happy comments, or, you know, people coming together to have a wonderful he's doing he's getting more than I am. So I think I got the right person for the job. And if you if you see Matt, or you hear the voice, and it's kind of familiar, we did do an interview with Matt back in episode 110. So 110, and that he actually gave us a story of how he got started what he was doing. And at that point, his job, his role, or his, his goal of trading was mainly to replace his current income through trading options. So I think he's, he's come a long way since then, as a trader, and just emotionally and as a person. So, guys, welcome. And Matt, thank you again, for coming on board the team, it's been really awesome to work with you and to see you take the reins, and you know, it's only made the company stronger and better, and our customers are loving it. So they're really excited. Matt I really appreciate that Alan, you know, I couldn't be more excited. I mean, I have a real passion for this. And it's a real dream to, to do a job and and really fulfill that passion. So thank you. Allen Yep, yeah, I mean, you know, one of my mentors had told me he's like, you know, in your programs, you should have a lot more interaction with the, with the students. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. He goes, well, then you need to get a coach, we need to get some other coaches on board. And I'm like, Okay, where do I find these people? They're like, don't you have students? I'm like, yeah. You know, but they're all trying to retire. Like, they'll try to quit their jobs. He goes, No, I bet you there's some that are really good at teaching. They're really love people. And they would be happy to do this on a full time basis, or even like a part time basis, and just help other people. And I was like, huh, and I thought about that about and Matt was like almost one of the first people I thought of and I'm like, Hey, let me give him a call. And I'm sure he came out of the blue for you. And you were shocked. Matt So I mean, I really enjoy, I really enjoy helping people at the core of my being. And, you know, I just love seeing the light go off in people's minds when they see a trade and they see it work out and they see that everything's a possibility, just like it was for me. So I'm really excited to be part of it. Cool. And then Margaret a this question is for you. So he comes, he comes to you and says, Hey, you know, I've been working at Costco for I don't know, what, 1415 years or something. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, I just got this other job offer. I'm gonna What do you think? Yeah. Margaret There's a whole story. There's a whole nother story. When he got that call, because I mean, we were definitely both shocked. But I think what you just said reminded me of what a good coach Matt was before he even worked at Option Genius. Because when we we started at let's say, when we got married seven years ago, we we were both on the same page about being financially free. And what what does that look like? Matt was definitely more of a researcher in terms of he would read a book, he would, he would give it to me. And so I think we were on, we've been on board on the same page, what to do. And then when we found you, and started learning your methods, we both latched on to it. So when you caught him, I think I was just excited because I knew it was something he really wanted to do. I had already seen him in a coaching role with me and his mom and his sister of trying to like the backend stuff, right? The things that are the charts, the systems, getting your platform set up. Those are things that are challenging and takes a lot of time. And so I was like, I think I was super excited. I knew he could do it. I knew it'd be great at it. And so I just thank you for giving him the opportunity because it's really been wonderful for him to do this thing that he loves anyway. I mean, he was already before he worked for you, in the mornings before he would go to work. Its full time job was studying and learning. And so, yeah, it just was really exciting. Thank you for that. I guess we had the trust, right. The trust was already there. So. Allen Okay. Yeah, now he's doing wonderful. And, you know, he's gonna be trading at the hedge fund as well when that happened. So that's going to be exciting. So a whole new level. So awesome. Cool. All right. So let's get into you guys. All right, so the trading couple and it's not just I know for Matt, you know, he's not just a trading couple. He's got the whole trading family going on there. He told me that he and his wife and his mom and his sister all get together and have trade night. What is that? Matt So it just kind of started, you know, my, my parents live in South Carolina, we're in Georgia, and my sister is up in Massachusetts. And it was a good way. They were always interested in what I was doing. And they always wanted to learn what I was doing. So it just became natural that I would say, hey, let's just have a call. And we'll talk about it. And then I showed them how to, you know, do the platform, and you know, they had all their feelings about whether they're going to do it correctly. And all the all the fears, just like I had when I started, and I was like, Okay, well, we just started going through it. And we started meeting kind of regularly on Fridays. And it was usually Friday, like, nine 930 in the morning. And we'd meet for about an hour and we talk about it. And then it just kind of progressed and was like okay, let's do this next Friday, okay, let's do the next Friday, let's do the next Friday, next Friday, and then just became we'd call it trade top Fridays. And you know, and then started being like, if we miss one, you know, let's say my sister couldn't make it. She'd be upset, like, Oh, I gotta I gotta make it or my mother missed it, she would be upset. So we, we were there every day, you know, and then Margaret would come in here and there and it just kind of evolved. So it was really a really great experience. And then it kept us really connected. I mean, in ways that I wouldn't think you know.. Margaret And you get to learn other parts of your family members and their personalities that you didn't know before. Allen Mm hmm. I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, people's personality comes out when they're like, frustrated, or when they're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were saying that a little bit earlier that your mom kind of surprised you, you know, going all aggressive on you. Matt She still does. I mean, there's like, I'm just like, you know, she'll tell us like, Oh, she did something. And then she'll like, say to my sister, oh, I got out of this trade. She's like you did? What? How do you get out of that trade? You didn't tell me about it? And it's like, yeah, they're like, they go back and forth. But it's all in solid, good. You know? Margaret Yeah, once she has the parameters, then she, she'll get a little bit more risky that she said, a differentiated, she told us it's like she's at a different age where she feels like she can take a little different risk than we can. Yeah. So it makes it makes a difference. Matt That's interesting. It also goes back and forth. I mean, my sister, she put on a trade, she was getting into a new trade that we're doing. And then my mother was like, kind of hesitant about getting into it. And my sister just went ahead and did it. And then my mother's like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like hours later, she she's like, I'm like, what happened? She's like, Oh, I put a trade on. Like, because my sister went ahead and did it. So they kind of play off each other. So Allen that's cool. Because normally, it's the opposite. You know, it's like, the older you get, the more conservative is like, oh, no, I don't want to lose that or lose. The younger people take more risk, but over here are flipped. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. But that I love it, how you're using something to bond, you know. And it's so rare nowadays, especially everybody's spread out across the country. It's like, oh, yeah, we get together on Thanksgiving. Yeah. Okay. Great. You guys get together every week. That's I love it. That's, that's wonderful. Yeah. I think more families need to find something in common like that. And like trading? Yeah. I mean, because the way we do it, everybody can find their own little niche, you know, yeah. Everybody can be conservative or aggressive or whatever. And yeah, I love it. Cool. So, um, how did you guys get into trading? Matt Oh, well, I mean, it was always long term for me. So I was learning about long term investing through reading and then while we actually, Margaret yeah, since you were 29, he started investing. And then we went to one seminar together. And there was a man who was sitting next to us, and he said, uh, you could self manage your portfolio. And we looked at each other and we're like, never worry, That's too scary. It's too risky. We gotta leave that to the professionals. There's reason that people get paid money to do that. And he made it seem like it was no big deal at all. And I think he was he, yeah, that was a pivotal point. And then after that, We went to a couple other seminars together. And then I think the the really the one that we learned about options was three years ago. And at that one, we I had never even heard the term option. I didn't know what an option was. We went to go find out about long term investing and how to value stocks in order to know if it's a good purchase or not. And then at that seminar, we just sat back and because they showed us how to do an option, and and then after that we met found you and he because he was looking for people who did a similar strategy. And then it after we Yeah, so that's how we got into it. Matt Right. And they, they basically started this seminar off with an option. And we're like, Oh, I thought we were coming here to long term invest. And I didn't, you know, we didn't know anything, how options work. We're trying to figure out how it did right there. And then this guy's like, Oh, I just made $7,000. And you're like, show me how you're just like, whatever you just did, like you have my attention. How did you do that? And I was like, on a, I was possessed to figure it out. I mean, Margaret, she's smarter than I am. In some ways, yes, definitely. She was like, this is a funnel, like, marketing, marketing funnel and Margaret figure it all out. And thanks for just calm down. Matt It's just she sat back, I'll relax. And I was like, I'm trying to figure it out. And but we progressed. And, you know, it really opened the whole a whole new world, really. And then, you know, we met you. Margaret And it's just a progression to back up to because that's where we started trading with our family with his mom and sister. So after we learned that strategy, and we were all trading together, that's where the, the trade top Fridays came from. So that was kind of a cool thing that came from that. Allen Okay, so from the beginning, you guys were like, Okay, we're doing this together. It's not like, you know, because Margaret, you have your own company. And if anybody wants to know, she does great videography, and photos for real estate agents, and you guys are located where? Margaret Just north of Atlanta. Allen Just north of Atlanta. So if any realtors are out there. Margaret And I'm glad you mentioned that, because honestly, the reason I want to trade is because I am getting older. I've been a creative for 20 years, and the old body isn't getting any younger. So at some point, I will not be able to schlep video gear and photography gear around, and I want to have some home, what gives me the security and knowing that I can bring in my paycheck that I'm accustomed to it on my own. But we definitely talk about our strategies together. Allen Right, exactly. So, okay, so But you said like, okay, so he's working full time you have your business, but you guys still decided, hey, we're gonna go this road together, we're gonna learn together, we're gonna go the seminars together, we're gonna talk about it. And then do you guys trade in the same account together? Or is it separate? How does that work? Matt We kind of did in the beginning. And then we realized that it was best to have separate accounts, we do everything we talk about everything together. It's just I think that's really smart. Everyone's different. But I think for us, it works that we have separate accounts, because it kind of gives you the flexibility for the trading the fit your personality, and everyone's personalitie's different, you know, even though we're married, we're different personalities. So that reflects in that account, I think. Margaret And the cool part is, we both fund each other's accounts. So when there's money that we have to put into the account to get it started, we weren't going at an equal pace, if that makes sense. Matt Right. So like, for example, I would get a bonus from Costco, I'd split that bonus, put it into our account separately, she would get a bonus, she would put that money into our accounts, and then we're trading the strategies under those two accounts. Allen Okay, so do you have any joint money like a joint account? Margaret Not for not in a brokerage account? No. I mean, we're, we're each other's beneficiaries. But yeah, right. And I think part of that, too, Alan comes from me at I was not married for 36 years, and I am very customed to taking care of myself and producing my own income, and having my own money, you know, just to be quite frank about it. I want to make sure that I can take care of myself if anything ever happened to Matt, but we definitely we know what each other's logins are. We know what the money's in there. So that part's very open. It's not like they don't share the information. But I think that's a good point about having a different trading style because I am a little more aggressive than Matt is, and we learned that we didn't know that going in, but I will jump into things a little quicker than he does and he wants to be Yeah, wants to have all the information. Matt Those are things we learned about it To think that I was not as conservative as I am. But I realized that I'm a very conservative trader. I like to know everything about everything before I jump in, and sometimes that can hinder you, Margaret, she's like, let's get to it. Let's figure it out. And she jumps in. And I'm really admire that part of her. I really do. Margaret And as long as it works out, Matt she's I say she's measured, you know, she doesn't just jump into things. She's measured about it. Allen Yeah. But like, Margaret, what you said about the, you know, having, I guess, I don't know, for for a lot of women, it's a it's a fear. But it's also about a sense of security. And a lot of our customers are, you know, are the customers that come to us, and they come in, they're like, you know, my spouse doesn't want me trading, or when my spouse would rather have me working, because that paycheck comes in regular. I remember when I first started, even, even though I was, in the beginning, I was horrible. I lost a lot of my wife's money. But after I got good at it, she still was not comfortable with the trading, because she would be like, Okay, I don't know, if you're going to make money every month, you know? Because that's just the way it is. And so she's like, Can you do something pleased to have something regular come in? And that's probably the biggest motivation behind the company option genius. Was that, hey, even if I have a little bit, you know, obviously, I'm supposed to be a small little one person company. And is like, even if I have a little bit like, like a, you know, like, five $6,000 coming in a month. Okay, cool. She'll know that, you know, because she still wanted to work. So she knows something's coming in. But that's, that's just, I think it's ingrained in a lot of spouses that are not generating an income on their own that, hey, I need some consistency. So that's been a big for a lot of people. That's a big, you know, switch. Like to go from Yeah, my wife my husband makes or my wife makes x dollars per month to Yeah, I don't know, if he's gonna make any money. Margaret Yeah, I can see how that would be difficult. Because I mean, we're still both bringing in incomes and trading at the same time. Yeah. Matt Yeah, it's a big shift, a mindset shift. But I think the thing about trading is that, you know, when you're working a static job, you have that income, like you said, it's coming in monthly, you can rely on it. But the real benefit of trading, I think, is that you don't see used to see money as you exchange your paycheck for time. And in trading. You can just, you can just make money, and you don't have to sit there for that time. No, it's, you look as money is finite, in your mind, okay? When you look at trading, you work with trading, it's like, it just opens up to you. Margaret It's more of an energy like it goes out comes and goes out. Exactly. Yeah. Matt So I'm trying to say, Allen interesting. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. So then have this written down? Okay, I'm gonna ask it or I don't know if which one of you is a better trader? Margaret So how do you define better? Allen I guess, who makes the most money? Matt I will say that I wrote this in a lot of books. And I believe that to be true as a women's are much better emotionally, as traders, I believe that I really do because guys are gonna over are like our macho, we just gotta just get in there and do it. And, you know, but in general, I think women are much, much better emotional trading style. Margaret I will just say last year, Matt made more money than I did. But this year, I've made more money than Matt did. So there you go.. Matt But I'm built for the long. Nothing short term with me. We actually nickname each other Margaret's short term, and I'm on long term, Margaret Yeah, I like short term, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. So I like to see things happen in a timely fashion. I live and breathe it, you know. And so I had do struggle with the long term stuff. One day, I would be curious to see what it would like be like to do long term put that. We'll see about that, you know, I like I like the shorter term gains. Matt But yeah, I mean, that's all part of your personality. So we I think we play off each other very well, you know? Yeah. Allen Yeah. It seems like you guys have a good balance. So then, like, if there's a disagreement, then how do you guys handle that? Or is it just, you know, you do whatever you want your account? I'll do whatever I want to my account. Margaret Yeah, well, we talk about what strike prices we're going to be at, and where, you know, kind of idea of what we both want to do. And then we may be a couple points different from each other. Matt Yeah, but we stay within the rules. And I think you know, the great thing about the strategies that you teach and that we've learned is that there's some flexibility in that, okay, as you get better as a trader, it's just not the rules, right? You know, it's just not like, Oh, get out here. And that's it, there's a little bit of flexibility, I think as you get better as a trader, you get more experienced behind you, you're able to kind of fudge the lines a little bit, if you will, not in a bad way, but be like, okay, you know, I know this, I have a little more experience, I can become a better trader. So it's like, that's the whole flexibility part. Margaret Right. And I think, too, just just thinking about how sometimes Matt will stay in a trade longer than me, and I'll get out quicker. Here's a good example. So this month, in our oil trading, I have tripled up, I've gotten in and gotten out three times, and he stayed in the whole time. You know, and I know, during the classes, there's a couple of other people in our class, when we're on the queue that do the same thing. And then some people will sit and so I think it just depends, and I don't know that it would work as well. For us, if we had one account, I just love having our separate accounts, where we get to talk about what we're gonna do and then have the freedom to.. Matt I think the key is that we talk about it. Yeah, I mean, if you don't talk about things between each other, it's just not gonna work. Yeah. So you're like, Okay, you're gonna go that at least I know about it, right. And then you can see how it works out, right. And then at least you know, what, what's going on, you know, it's different, if you just have a count, and you're just doing your own thing, and you're not talking about it. Margaret The, the emotions part is very real. And I don't think you can really understand that until you start to become a trader, and you see where the trade is. And you get to know yourself better, where in the beginning, we were a lot quicker to get out of a trade if it went a certain way. And now we've learned a little bit more of the rhythms, we know each other's rhythms. And so we don't we don't freak out either way, quite as much. Matt: But you got to look at it. Like in totality. I mean, nothing's the end of the world. Right? And with trading, you may lose money, and you probably will, okay, everybody's lost money. And experience is not cheap. Right? With that happening. It's, it's okay, you know, if nothing is, you treat money as, okay, you can be lost, and it can be one. And the whole idea of trading is getting consistent as a whole thing. And it's like, as you get better and better as a trader, I really believe in my core, you try everyone's trying to build that consistency. Okay, and you have to match your personality to that consistency Margaret: Do you also mean make money? Because that's my goal. Matt: Yes, consistently, or us to make money. But you need to be consistent to do that. Allen: So yeah. Well, like I say, In the beginning, it's not about making money. In the beginning, it's just about not losing money. So knowing what you do properly. And like, even if you don't make any money, that's okay. But you don't lose it month after month after month. Okay, I know, it's annoying, but that's a good thing. And then, you know, we could just do a little tweak here and there, and then then the the profits start taking off. So I totally agree with that. And see, because a lot of people that sell options, they'll tell you, Oh, yeah, you know, I have great months, and then I have a big loss. And then I have good months and have nobody wants to be on that roller coaster. Because eventually you're like, man, what am I doing? Matt: I mean, do you want to go make money in the beginning of the year, at the end of the year, you've lost money or just break even? It's, that's frustrating, you know? So the whole goal is to, you know, especially what you said in the beginning, it's very true. Yeah. Allen: So now you guys said that communication was key. So do you have any rules around that? Do you have like, do you like get together and say, okay, besides the trade trade talk, you know, when you have that, do you actually sit down and be like, alright, half an hour debrief, what do we do this week? How are we going to improve? Or is it just, Matt: I think I know what you're gonna go to. I think, I think, for us, and this is just for us, but a big part. And a lot of people think it's a dirty word. But a budget, we always had a budget always kept us in line, you know, and it's like, whenever we've kind of rapidly spending, you know, and aren't talking about trading, we're just talking about life and your budget, it always get us back on the road, so to speak. So that was a big piece of our communication. So it's just knowing that we're kind of on the road. So I think that flows into your trading and it flows into your communication. So I think that's a really big piece. Margaret: Yeah. And I would say like specific rules about communicating around trading, we've never said anything. It's just kind of happened organically. And we will, you know, there's there certain parameters that you teach in your class and we get in at a certain time and when we do that, we will talk to each other that day, and then we check it both together, generally in the morning, and we'll just kind of go Oh, or Yeah, and commit Write together or celebrate together. And then that I think, I guess that's the organic piece. We just check in with each other in the morning. Matt: Be like, Fine, quick text during the day, you know? Yeah. Margaret: Yeah. Because Matt is watching it for his day job. And he'll text me if something, you know, hey, keep your as open. This is happening or, but yeah, so I guess that's it like we wake up in the morning. We look at it, we chat about it, and then throughout the day, he'll text me. Or maybe if I'm doing something, I'll text him and say, Hey, have you seen? And he always says yes. But yeah, that's it. Okay, Allen: Cool. So what happens when one of you wins and the other loses? Matt: That's a good question. Well, yeah, I've lost before I've lost my I lost. I lost before. And oh, yeah. Oh. Yeah Margaret: Jog my memory. Okay. So I'm going to just tell myself here in the beginning, before we found your class, and I'm not just saying this, because this is true. So it's just true. We cannot say how much of course we lost $5,000. So $5,000 is, is a lot of work for me. And I, I am the one who had funded it that month, to the account, and Matt lost it. And we we realized then, that that was really tough. That was tough on me, it was tougher on me than it was him. And actually, our trade talk Fridays, were really good, because they had also lost the money. And I had lost a little bit, but not as much. We were all just really disheartened and frustrated. And I think I think I was a little mean was a little mean, Matt: Slightly slightly. Are you sure you can do this? Well, yeah, feel the weight of that. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you're not, your wife's out there, she's, she's busting her butt to bring in money, and then you just lose it. It's a lot of you feel the way that, you know, you gotta really dig deep and be like, okay, emotionally and you know, everything about to have the confidence to keep going, right? And you got to search and really believe in yourself that you can, you know, like I said, it's not the end of the world, but you have to get through there gonna be times like that. That happened. Margaret: It made me quit trading for a couple months. Yeah, I got really nervous. And then I said, okay, and then actually, that's is that that's about the time we found oil, wasn't it? Like we found oil sometime after that? It seemed to be a little exactly what you're talking about earlier, it wasn't as much of a roller coaster. And that has changed it for me. Allen: Okay, so was there anything else besides finding that strategy that was able to get you through it? Because like, I mean, emotionally, that's a it's a big hit. Right? And did anything change between the way you guys communicated the way you guys traded? Matt: No, I think Margaret took a little hiatus. I'm the type that I never, I never give up on thanks, I will just take it to the death, you know. I'm like, I just keep going no matter what, just get out of my way. No matter how many hits I take, I just keep going. And I leave it all on the table. So I just I knew I was going to keep going. But again, the key and I don't be, Margaret: but you. You did try it a little more conservatively? Didn't you? Matt: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you learn your lessons, you get burned out a little bit, you start to kind of, you know, you remember and you're like, Okay, I don't want to have those same feelings. But let me cautiously kind of figure it, learn from your mistakes, if you will, you know, and treat a little bit more conservative pay a little more attention. What can I learn from that experience? And I think that changes everything. Of course, you know, the strategies that we do, are a lot better, like I'm able to manage our trades so much better. I think that's important. Margaret: I think that's key. And I think that's key for me, knowing interesting that we have better management strategy now makes me feel a lot more secure, and a lot less emotional, and more. What's the word? I'm looking for sure. That Matt and I can both do the trades and not lose that $1,000 chunks anymore. Matt: More confident? Yeah. And I think I've read this before, and I really believe it is that you are your first really job is to become your risk assessor. And then you're a trader. Yeah. So it's like it's really important that you this all we do is assess risk all the time. So I think it's really important to, to focus on that. And once you get better at assessing risk and managing, just become a better trader, but you just kind of have to go through those things. I mean, when I first started trading, they're like, Okay, your first loss is your best loss. And I was like, what does that mean? They don't want to lose you. And like, they said it all the time, like, Oh, your first last year about like, Who is this person? Like, why did he say that to me? I don't want to lose. But it is true. Like, it teaches you things that you just, you think, you know, you like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna get out of that trade, I know what I'm doing. And then you get burned. Everyone's got to touch the stove, apparently, at some point, you know, it's like, Oh, don't touch the stove. It's hot. But of course, we gotta go touch it. But that's just life. I mean, and it's how you react to those situations, I think. And you don't you don't tell yourself that you're not? How are you going to respond to that? Is very important. You know, in all aspects of life as a trader anything. Allen: I mean, a lot of people, you could say that, but it's not as easy when you're going through it. You know, the first time Oh, first time you do it, it's like, ah, people behave in all crazy different ways. Matt: Yeah. Yeah, it's just, you're gonna have to, I guess this, the best way is to do the best you can to bring people through that experience. All right, you can tell them that it's it probably will happen. But how you react to that situation? It's good to kind of tell your future. Margaret: We're model citizens is that? Allen: Well, I mean, they say that, you know, most divorces are caused because of money issues and problems. Yeah. You know, and a lot of people do not see eye to eye on money. And they don't talk about it before they get married. They don't talk about their goals, visions, whatever, or even how to balance it, you know, like, oh, yeah, one is a budget person. One is a non budget, I'm going to spend whatever I can, but it's like, a lot of people have these issues. And it's, it's great to see that you guys are same page, you know, same goal, same like, okay, hey, you guys talked about it ahead of time. Yeah, like, this is our vision. This is the goal. How do we get there, we'll change you know, like, we'll go on a different path. And we'll try and we'll try this. And like, you guys first started with the passive trading course. Right? It puts in the calls and, and then you say, Okay, let's graduate to something else. So then you guys added the oil program. And then you guys have been doing that. So you just added to something. Now you guys have even you know, got you got your own Airbnb now. So congratulations on that. Margaret: Thank you. Allen: So you're diversifying? So yeah, you're trying different things. And nobody says that you can't right. So you should you should work and in us every strategy available to get to whatever your your dream is. So in that sense, you guys have done a bunch of different things. How do you handle it when you disagree? Margaret: Like disagree on? Allen: On the path, disagree on maybe a tray disagree on let's say, you guys did the Airbnb? Maybe Matt would be like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. And I want to put more money into trading account. Because we already know we're doing well here. Matt: I hate to disappoint. But I don't think we disagree on too much. If we do, it's like, you know, we do. I'm not saying it's easy enough. I mean, marriage is not easy. But we have their situations, I think it's important to you just you take a pause. You kind of realize how you're dealing with it personally, how you're, what you're thinking, what you're you're feeling, and then you come back to that person and you talk about it. Margaret: I think to just thinking about our investments so far, we do things that we are confident in our knowledge base around so I've had a real estate license for five years. And I shoot real estate and I understand real estate. So when I said Hey, Matt, let's buy this, Airbnb. He was like, Okay, sounds like a good investment. You've done the numbers. I trust you. Matt: Yeah, I do. I trust that she's, I've seen it, she's she's in that field, she does the work. She's always trying to figure it out. And I, their word really is trust. I trust her that she's going to do the best she can with it. Margaret: And I think it's about Yeah, I think it's likewise to you, because I trust that he's, he's read. If you could say our library of books, it's literally every book I've ever heard of on finance and investing. And multiple copies probably down. And so I think, I think it all comes back down to we, we because we both feel like we have studied different things. You know, and now Matt learns more about real estate and I, I give him all the credit because I always was interested in retirement and investing but I didn't know where to get started. And so because he had a knowledge base, he kind of brought me up a little bit faster than if I had then what I was able to do on my own right. So that's powerful. And then because I already trusted him so much and then we got to go to all the seminars together. It just build that built that foundation and so now we really don't disagree on Matt: I think part of also is like, I never wanted to push that on Margaret. Yeah, like my interest, right? I have interest in finance. I never wanted to push that it's an interest of mine. Real estates and interests of her. She doesn't push that on me. I don't push that on her. So it was, it becomes organic when you are you, you're interested in yourself, right? You're like, okay, you know, Matt's doing something. I'm interested in that I want to see a little bit more, but it comes from her. It doesn't come from me telling her Oh, you got to check this out. You should check this out. Yeah, that's important. But ultimately, it's gonna be her decision. Right? Yeah, Margaret: You start to for me, I started doing the numbers. Whoa, you can make this on a trade in two minutes. And I make this on how many? How many hours? Does it take me? Yeah, that's a no brainer. Allen: Cool. Okay, so now, so a lot of our customers they've been through. And unfortunately, like, they've gone on a path similar to yours. But I would say that you guys, you know, if you've, if you only started trading, like three years ago, you guys have taken a shorter route than a lot of our customers. Really? Yeah. So they've been trading for multiple years, still trying to figure out like, Hey, how can I make this work? How can I become consistent, profitable, I've tried, you know, XYZ strategy, and this and this, and this, and they've bought cores, and they've been videos and seminars, and, and they still are looking for that something, to get them over the hump, to get them to be like, Oh, finally, I'm actually making some money. Finally, like you said, they're confident that they can, you know, the month is going to start, I have a strategy that works. I'm confident I'll probably make money this month. But they're still not there yet. And because of that, because of them, you know, trying and investing in course, investing in Seminar investing in another doohickey. You know, they have all the things you can buy, like, Oh, hey, you know, that you can buy this indicator, and the indicator will tell you exactly when to buy and when to sell is only $3,000. You know, they're like, Okay, I'm gonna get that, you know, they get it and then they don't doesn't work. And then the wife or the other or the husband, either way, the spouse is like, I can't believe you're wasting all this time, all this energy, all this money on this trading stuff when he doesn't frickin work. You know, you've been trying for years, and it's just not working. It's all a big scam. Right? And that's the big girl. Yeah, it's a big scam that nobody can do this. So what advice or tips or anything? Would you suggest for a trader in that position where their spouse is maybe not very receptive to them continuing to trade? Where the spouse is like, you know, can you just give this up? You know, just spend time with me? Just, you know, Matt: Yeah. I'm gonna let you go first. And I'll go after. Margaret: Okay? Because we, we were not in that specific scenario, I just keep going back to it has to be the trust. So how are you going to build trust with your partner, not when they don't know what you're going through? And then I would say you would have to have some sort of mentor, and to be honest, that is you that that is you for us. Right? So we I remember, when I got the calculator that you sent out of this is where if you this is what you need in order to make the monthly income that you want on the percentage of money, and this is how much money you need in your account. And you've done it, like you've gone before us, we know it can be possible. So we're trusting that what you say is true. And we've seen it and especially now that that works for you. So I think finding somebody that you can put that trust into and having if your partner is not going to be in that with you, at least show them who that is that you're learning from or what they've done. And if if it's if it's not Alan Sama, then make sure that they've got a good record of what they've done. So that, that your partner can have trust in that you're learning from somebody that is credible. You know, the first thing we learned from had learned down the road from somebody who had learned from Warren Buffett, and so, you know, I don't really care about names of people, that doesn't impress me, but when you actually know something that impresses me, and that gives me the assurance to bet on myself. And that's what I would say, would be my advice. Matt: Yeah, I mean, I always went into investing, especially as I, you know, started to learn about options. I was like, I don't want to hear about oh, you can make all this money. You can do all this and everything's going great. I wanted to go and be like, show me how to do it. Right. And then once you show me how to do it, I believe you. And that's just who I am. And I think most people maybe are like that they want proof and they but more importantly they want to be be able to do it themselves, some people don't. But if you're into this and you want to learn, and you have to go into mindset be like, show me how to do it. And then you get the confidence that you can do it yourself, and then you can be able to teach other people. Allen: Okay, nice. Next question I have here is that you guys have been doing this for a little bit together? Are there anything thinking back that you would do differently? So basically, the question is, like, you know, are there any tips that you would give to a couple starting out? Or lesson or something that you felt? You know what, we didn't do that? Right? Maybe we should have done it differently? Margaret: I would. I know that $10,000 was a lot for us, when we bought into your class. It was 100% worth it. And I wish that we would have done that first. Matt: Yes, I think in this world, you know, you don't want to believe it, but you really pay for what you get. You know, it's a hard truth. Lots of people want to be like, oh, I want this for, you know, low money, or I want this, but you got to really look at is it? What's the worth of it? Right? Is it going to be? Margaret: And are you willing to do the work? Matt: Are you willing to do the work? That's a lot of people like, I think the advice I give people is like the least tell yourself before you think something is not worthy, or it doesn't go up to your expectations, at least go through and do the work of what has been laid before you. Okay, so you have all these lessons, and you have all everything, but you have to can you really tell yourself that you put on all the work, when you haven't gone through the class, when you haven't gone through all the, you know, really dug deep to get everything out of it, then you can say whether you want to continue or not, whether it was a failure, whether it was not at least do that. And I think it's important for people that start out, set aside a small amount of money, right? And maybe agree that, okay, if you lose this small amount of money, it's a good idea. Fine, it didn't work out. But at least you agreed on that. And then give it a shot. Yeah. Right. And then maybe if it didn't work out, and you want to go further, we examined it at that point. That way, you know, it's not like a, I lost everything. And it's the end of the world type scenario. At least I gave it a try. You know, I followed my dreams to figure out this on my own. And if you at least put in the effort, you can tell yourself, Margaret: I would like to give your wife major kudos. Since you said you lost a lot of money in the beginning. That's a good woman to keep if she kept supporting you to go forward. Allen: Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm very blessed. I am amazingly blessed. So I just give you a short version of the story. I had just been laid off. And so the question was, and we had just been married recently. And so the idea was, Okay, do I go and get another job? Or do I try something else? And, you know, I had been dabbling with trading. But I was like, maybe I could do this full time. So she's like, Okay, if you think you can do it, go for it. And, of course, I did not have any money. She had money from that she had saved up from working for several years before we got married. So she's like, you know, I have all this in savings. You know, try it. And so then she got a second job to support us. So because I wasn't making anything, so she got the second job. And she's working. She was a nurse. So she was working like three days a week at the at the hospitals, 12 hour shifts. And then on the other day, she would be, they have this thing called home health, where the nurse actually shows up to your house. So she would be driving around town, going from place to place to place, you know, giving injections and IVs and medicines and all that stuff. So very draining, especially with all the traffic and everything. And yeah, and I proceeded to try everything like day trading and futures and forex and commodity options and everything is like nothing was working. And I was down over 40 grand. When I finally actually, I think what turned it around was that she found out because I was hiding it from her. Like I wasn't telling ya that she came on to check the mail. She checked the statement. She's like, where's all the money? Oh, like, oh, yeah, about that. So it was either Yeah, you know, it's like, okay, either go to go get a job right away. Turn this around. Or, you know, if you don't do one of those things, we're probably getting split, right. So I was planning like, I was getting my resume ordered together. And then I found selling options. Like I discovered that Hey, there, there was a trade I did that was actually it worked. And I'm like, Well, what is this? Let me follow up more and then I got into it and I showed her how to do it. She was like, Okay, you have something here. So you'd like you said I did Didn't I put like all the money aside? You know, I stopped playing with all the money. And I took a small amount. And I'm like, Okay, let me see if I could just do something with this, instead of the big amount. And that gave her pause, like, okay, fine, you know, he's not gonna lose all the money. And if I lost that money, then yeah, go get another job. And that's it, end of story. But luckily, I showed her she understood it, it started working. And then you know, then the rest is history from there. Margaret: I can imagine there's some pretty real feelings going on around that. That's Allen: Very stressful. Yeah, very, very stressful. Because she wanted to know what I was doing. But she didn't have any background in finance. You know, her family never talked about investing or anything. So she didn't really know anything about it. Slowly, slowly, I started telling her. And then the funny part is, she would come home, like, and she'd be like, Oh, hey, she got interested, right? And she would come home and she goes, Hey, I checked the news and the markets up today. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm, you know, I'm in. I'm in calls today. Oh, there she goes, Oh, no, oh, that's too bad. You know? And then two days later, she'd be like, Oh, look, I checked in the markets down today. I'm like, No. I mean, Puts today. She would like she did, she wouldn't know if I'm gonna be happy or sad. But she was nuts. But yeah, so and then after a while, then it got good. And like I said, you know, she wanted that stability. She didn't want that up and down. She's like, I need something stable income, so I can quit the second job, take okay. And then she was able to quit the first job. And then so it worked out. But yeah, it was a long, hard road. And I did not have the mentor that you mentioned, you know, so that was one of the probably the biggest things that if I could have found somebody that could have just pulled my hand be like, here, this works, just follow this plan. Margaret: You know, that's why we got to shortcut it. Yeah. Allen: But.. Matt: I think that is a hard thing. Because you're always trying to search for, you know, they're always there numerous or many mentors out in the world, it's like, is trying to find who's true, right? That's it's very difficult. And you you have a guard up, everyone's got their guard up. And they're always kind of like, is this person trying to take me or, you know, I don't feel right about this person, I maybe feel right about this person. I mean, just look at FTX. I mean, that guy that was like darling, and crypto. And then they find out he's, he's, you know, a Bernie Madoff. So it's like, it happens over and over again. So that's kind of how I got into trading. I was like, show me how to do it, and see if it worked, right. And you're not only a mentor, but you show people how to do it. And then you can build trust in yourself, rather than, you know, of course, a mentor is wonderful. And it will shortcut that process. But you can learn about this stuff. And then you, you make yourself your own mentor in a way, you know, it's like you just kind of be like, Okay, I have the confidence now. And then you can go on. Allen: Yeah, I think it all comes down to confidence too. Because like, if I look at it, you know, we have several students that in any strategy that you pick one strategy, and then there's somebody there that's been like, Oh, hey, I did you know this much percent? And I'm like, wow, that's better than me. And there's another strategy. Oh, I did this much. And I'm like that better than me. And I know that, like, what everybody's doing better than me what's going on? You know, but I think that's part of it is the confidence. There's like, and this will tell you something about me, like, you know, I came up with the rules, right? So I came up with the test and testing it and failing, and I forgot what they call it. But it's like, you know, you, you try something and then you fail, and you try and you're failing, you chaired it. So in my mind, you know, all these rules are made by me. Right? So I was like, I don't know how much I can, you know, like, really? I'm gonna trust myself. I don't know. It's scary. But then somebody else comes and goes, Oh, Allen, you know, he's the man. He knows what he's doing. I'm just gonna go 100%. And they do. They do better than me. And I'm like, I don't get it. Matt: redo my rules. Allen: I just need to, I just, like, forget it. I just give you guys my money's like here. Matt: But I mean, in all seriousness, as well, I mean, people, they come in these programs, and everyone has so much to add. I mean, that's how you get better. I mean, there's people that are just like, oh, yeah, I did this way. And you're like, Oh, I didn't think about that. And it's like, if you're open to that, and you receive that, then it makes everything better for everybody. And I've seen that over and over again, where somebody will just say, Oh, I found this way to do this easier. It's like it's constant learning. All of us are constantly learning constantly getting better constantly trying to achieve and go go better. And that's a wonderful thing. Allen: Yep. Yeah, we had an hour. Just recently, we in our passive trading group, somebody had put like, Hey, I don't know how to do this. And I'm pretty sure it's in it's in the core somewhere. But then another student was like, oh, here, let me make you a video. And he just made a video. Yeah, this is how I did it. It's like, Oh, wow. And they asked another Oh, how about this, he made another video. It's just, you know, everybody's helping each other because we all have the same goal. And it's like, Let's just all work together. And, you know, we're all on the same path. Matt: Yeah, it's like, it's always true, you surround yourself with the right people, and good things will happen. I mean, it's just just got to be able to do that, Allen: you know, it's like, amazing, we had some really cool students, helpful, you know, just to go out of the way for each other. It's really, really nice. So then, okay, so my last question for you guys. And I don't know, maybe you guys like, maybe this is a problem that we've seen people have, but I don't know if you guys are gonna be able to answer it. But how can a trader have their spouse support them in their trading? So like, you know, if, you know, one of you is the trader, or you want to do something, how can you get your spouse to have that confidence in you? That you can do it? Does that make sense? Yeah. Because like, I know, with my wife, in the beginning, she didn't have any confidence. And then later on, you know, the numbers kind of spoke for themselves. But one of the things I did was when the back testing software came out that we that we use a lot, I showed it to her. And she was like, Oh, cool. I want to learn this, too. So we would sit there, and I gave her the rules. I think we were talking about credit spreads at the time. It's like, okay, so this is kind of how we find a trade. And I didn't have like, first set out rules yet. It was just, you know, ideas. I try, sometimes they do this way, that way. And so then I had her and I told her what it was. And we would look at a chart and be like, okay, hey, what do you what's the trade? And so she would pick her trade? And then, you know, we would we would go through it. And then I had already done it my way, you know, and it would always come out where she was actually more profitable than me. Same trade, same stock, same timeframe, if we had done it her way, we would have made more money. That's the thing about the confidence. He knows, like, when you see your wife who doesn't know anything, she just numbers, you know, she doesn't matter. It's like, I don't know, maybe I'm not cut out for this. But then, but then later on, there was a time where I got into like, a, like a rut, you know, so I wasn't I wasn't following the rules, the discipline became a problem. Because our trading doesn't take a lot of time. And so when you're just, you know, stuck, you don't have anything else to do, you kind of start over trading, and you're messing around with stuff. And so I had her, and she came, she's the one that came up with this. She's like, you know what, every single trade, you're going to write it down. And you're going to tell me, and I'm going to come upstairs at one o'clock every day, I'm going to ask you questions about every single trade, you know, and I forget exactly what they were. But it's in one of our products. It's like, you know, what's the goal? What's the plan? You're going to adjust it or you're going to get out when you're going to do it? Where's it now? And why haven't you done what you're supposed to do? You know, and so because of that, because I knew she was going to come? Right? I would have everything ready before she came in. So if I had to get out of a trade because it was down or I needed to do an adjustment, it will already be done by the time she got in. And so that degree of holding me accountable. It really I mean the results just went skyrocketing higher. That's really smart. So that was.. Margaret: something that you said yesterday on our call on our oil call really has stuck with me about every day that you wake up you have a decision to stay in that trade or get out so that's the day that you're making a decision. And it's not Yeah, so that it just hit me this morning because we had the the market was down a little bit this morning. And we talked about it like what what are we going to do so I like that idea of having an accountable Matt: Well, it's important because you're you yourself are going to be emotionally different each day for whatever reason, just as you as an individual that but now you have your wife or someone who was account recording accountable is going to come in and keep you straight. I think what every what everybody needs Allen: Yep. Either either spouse or buddy or accountability partner or something like that, that you can trade with. Trading buddy, I like that. Cool. Okay. Is there anything else that you guys wanted to share with our audience? Margaret: Hmm, you can do it. You can absolutely do it. I think if I could have told myself which I had zero knowledge background in how what what was a brokerage? Let's just start with the simple step. I did not even know the difference between brokerages I did not understand what a brokerage account was. So if I could Tell Margaret, even just five years ago, what I will be doing today, I would not have believed it. And that once you start looking at your money, you know, everybody always says nobody cares about your money more than you do. I think our age group needs this knowledge. Because with the advent of you having to figure out your own retirement and not having pensions, it is extremely important for us to know that and we didn't have any knowledge that is out there. You know, we didn't we weren't 20 and Tiktok. And Instagram rails were out there where you could learn some of this stuff. You know, we're where we're younger people already know so much more than I knew when I'm in my 20s. I think there's a group of us that needs the hope that comes from knowing that you can manage your own money, and you can make money and you can help your retirement, it doesn't matter if you're in your 40s. Matt: No matter really what age you are, I mean, my mother's 80, right. And if she was, you know, I used to stay at Costco all the time. And I said this many times where they're, they're older people that give out samples or they're in the job. And there, you can see that they're in pain. They're standing all day long, and they're like 70, and 80 years old. And if they just knew if they knew how to do a simple strategy, or trade or just learn it, in which they totally can, yeah, or be shown that and, you know, they can believe in it, that would change their life. And they change their comfort, not later on and be right now. Yeah. Which is so powerful. So it's really it goes to, that's what I love about trading, it can help all age groups. Yeah. Right. And you're right. No one cares about your money more than you do. And I look at like, life's risky. Everything's at risk. So you owe it to yourself. You think trading is risky. Give it a shot. Everything's risky. Yeah. Right. So you got to overcome your fears. See how things work? Believe in yourself. And just go for it. Yeah, because we're only on here one turn, you know, Margaret: Why not? Give it a shot? Allen: Well said Well said, you guys, I really thank you for this. This has been a pleasure. And I really appreciate your time and spending some time and sharing intimate details about your lives and your relationship with us. It's it's been a blessing. Thank you so much. Margaret: Thank you for asking us. Yeah.

About MattMatt is the head of community at Lawtrades, a legal tech startup that connects busy in-house legal departments with flexible on-demand legal talent. Prior to this role, Matt was the director of legal and risk management at a private equity group down in Miami, Florida. Links Referenced: Lawtrades: https://www.lawtrades.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsmattslaw/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsmattslaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/ItsMattsLaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flattorney/ duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com 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: If you asked me to rank which cloud provider has the best developer experience, I'd be hard-pressed to choose a platform that isn't Google Cloud. Their developer experience is unparalleled and, in the early stages of building something great, that translates directly into velocity. Try it yourself with the Google for Startups Cloud Program over at cloud.google.com/startup. It'll give you up to $100k a year for each of the first two years in Google Cloud credits for companies that range from bootstrapped all the way on up to Series A. Go build something, and then tell me about it. My thanks to Google Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Logicworks. Getting to the cloud is challenging enough for many places, especially maintaining security, resiliency, cost control, agility, etc, etc, etc. Things break, configurations drift, technology advances, and organizations, frankly, need to evolve. How can you get to the cloud faster and ensure you have the right team in place to maintain success over time? Day 2 matters. Work with a partner who gets it - Logicworks combines the cloud expertise and platform automation to customize solutions to meet your unique requirements. Get started by chatting with a cloud specialist today at snark.cloud/logicworks. That's snark.cloud/logicworksCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Something that I've learned in my career as a borderline full-time shitposter is that as the audience grows, people tend to lose sight of the fact that no, no, the reason that I have a career is because I'm actually good at one or two specific things, and that empowers the rest of the shitposting, gives me a basis from which to stand. Today's guest is Matt Margolis, Head of Community at Lawtrades. And I would say he is also a superior shitposter, but instead of working in the cloud space, he works in the legal field. Matt, thank you for joining me.Matt: That was the nicest intro I've ever received in my entire career.Corey: Well, yes, usually because people realize it's you and slam the door in your face, I assume, just based upon some of your TikToks. My God. Which is—I should point out—where I first encountered you.Matt: You found me on TikTok?Corey: I believe so. It sends me down these really weird rabbit holes, and at first, I was highly suspicious of the entire experience. Like, it's showing ADHD videos all the time, and as far as advertisements go, and it's, “Oh, my God, they're doing this really weird tracking,” and like, no, no, they just realize I'm on TikTok. It's that dopamine hit that works out super well. For a while, it drifted me into lesbian TikTok—which is great—because apparently, I follow a lot of creators who are not men, but I also don't go for the whole thirst trap things. Like, who does that? That's right. Must be lesbians. Which, great, I'm in good company. And it really doesn't know what to make of me. But you show up on my feed with fairly consistent frequency. Good work.Matt: That is fac—I appreciate that. I don't know if that's a compliment, though. But I [laugh]—no, I appreciate it. You know, for me, I get… not to plug a friend but I get—Alex Su's TikToks are probably like, one in two and then the other person is—maybe I'm also on lesbian TikTok as well. I think maybe we have earned the similar vote here.Corey: In fact, there's cohorts that they slot people into and I feel like we're right there together. Though Ales Su, who has been on the show as well, talk about source of frustration. I mentioned in passing that I was going to be chatting with him to my wife, who's an attorney. And she lit up. Like, “Oh, my God, you know him? My girlfriends and I talk about him all the time.”And I was sitting there going, well, there better damn well be a subculture out there that talks about me and those glowing terms because he's funny, yes, but he's not that funny. My God. And don't tell him that. It'll go to his head.Matt: I say the same thing. I got a good one for you. I was once in the sales call, and I remember speaking with—I was like, “You know, I'm like, pretty decent on Twitter. I'm pretty decent on LinkedIn”—which I don't think anyone brags about that, but I do—“And I'm okay on, like, Instagram and TikTok.” And he goes, “That's cool. That's really cool. So, are you kind of like Alex? Like, Alex Su?” And I go? “Uh, yeah,” he goes, “Yeah, because he's really funny. He's probably the best lawyer out there that, you know, shitposts and post funny things on the internet.” And I just sat there—and I love Alex; he's a good friend—I just sat there, and I'm like, “All right. All right. This is a conversation about Alex. This isn't a conversation about Matt.” And I took him to stride. I called Alex immediately after. I'm like, “Hey, you want to hear something funny.” And he got a kick out of it. He certainly got a kick out of it.Corey: It's always odd to me, just watching my own reputation come back to me filtered through other people's perceptions whenever I wind up encountering people in the wild, and they say, oh, you're Corey Quinn at—which is usually my clue to look at them very carefully with my full attention because if their next words are, “I work at Amazon,” that's my cue to duck before I get punched in the face. Whereas in other cases, they're like, “Oh, yeah, you're hilarious on the Twitters.” Or, “I saw you give a conference talk years ago,” or whatever it is. But no one ever says the stuff that's actually intellectually rigorous. No one ever says, “Yeah, I read some of your work on AWS contract negotiation,” or, “In-depth bill analysis as mapped to architecture.” Yeah, yeah. That is not the stuff that sticks in people's head. It's, “No, no, the funny guy with his mouth wide open on the internet.” It's, “Yep, that's me. The human flytrap.”Matt: Yeah, I feel that. I've been described, I think, is a party clown. That comes up from time to time. And to your point, Corey, like, I get that all the time where someone will say, “Matt I really enjoyed that meme you posted, the TikTok, the funny humor.” And then every so often, I'll post, gosh, like, an article about something we're doing, maybe a white paper on commercial contracting, or some sort of topic that really fits into my wheelhouse, and people were like, “That's… I guess that's cool. I just thought you were a party clown.” And you know, I make the balloon animals but… not all the time.Corey: That's the weirdest part to me of all of this is just this weird experience where we become the party clowns and that is what people view us as, but peeling away the humor and the jokes and the things we do for engagement, as we're like, we're sitting here each trying to figure out the best way to light ourselves on fire and survive the experience because the views would be enormous, you do have a legal background. You are an attorney yourself—still are, if I understand the process properly. Personally have an eighth-grade education, so basically, what I know of bars is a little bit of a different context.Matt: I also know those bars. I'm definitely a fan of those bars as well. I am still an attorney. I was in private practice, I worked in the government. I then went in-house in private equity down in Miami, Florida. And now, though I am shitposter, you are right, I am still a licensed attorney in the state of Florida. Could not take a bar exam anywhere else because I probably would light myself on fire. But yeah, I am. I am still an attorney.Corey: It's wild to me just to see how much of this world winds up continuing to, I guess, just evolve in strange and different ways. Because you take a look at the legal profession, it's—what is it, the world's second oldest profession? Because they say that the oldest profession was prostitution and then immediately someone, of course, had a problem with this, so they needed to have someone to defend them and hence, lawyers; the second oldest profession. And it seems like it's a field steeped in traditionalism, and with the bar, yes, a bit of gatekeeping. And now it's trying to deal with a highly dynamic, extraordinarily irreverent society.And it feels like an awful lot of, shall we say, more buttoned-down attorney types tend to not be reacting to any of that super well. I mean, most of my interaction with lawyers in a professional context when it comes to content takes a lot more of the form of a cease and desist than it does conversations like this. Thanks for not sending one of those, by the way, so far. It's appreciated.Matt: [laugh]. No worries, no worries. The day is not over yet. First off, Corey, I'm going to do a thing that attorneys love doing is I'm going to steal what you just said and I'm going to use it later because that was stellar.Corey: They're going to license it, remember?Matt: License it.Corey: That's how this works.Matt: Copy and paste it. I'm going to re—its precedent now. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I see it online, I see it on Link—LinkedIn is probably the best example of it; I sometimes see it on Twitter—older attorneys, attorneys that are part of that old guard, see what we're doing, what we're saying, the jokes we're making—because behind every joke is a real issue a real thing, right? The reason why we laugh, at least for some of these jokes, is we commiserate over it. We're like, “That's funny because it hurts.”And a lot of these old-guard attorneys hate it. Do not want to talk about it. They've been living good for years. They've been living under this regime for years and they don't want to deal with it. And attorneys like myself who are making these jokes, who are shitposting, who are bringing light to these kinds of things are really, I would say dis—I hate to call myself a disrupter, but are disrupting the traditional buttoned-up attorney lifestyle and world.Corey: It's wild to me, just to see how much of this winds up echoing my own experiences in dealing with, shall we say, some of the more I don't use legacy, which is a condescending engineering term for ‘it makes money,' but some of the older enterprise companies that had the temerity to found themselves before five years ago in somewhere that wasn't San Francisco and build things on computers that weren't rented by the gigabyte-month from various folks in Seattle. It's odd talking to some of those folks, and I've heard from a number of people, incidentally, that they considered working with my company, but decided not to because I seem a little too lighthearted and that's not how they tend to approach things. One of the nice things about being a boutique consultant is that you get to build things like this to let the clients that are not likely to be a good fit self-select out of working with you.Matt: It's identical to law.Corey: Yeah. “Aren't you worried you're losing business?” Like, “Oh, don't worry. It's not business I would want.”Matt: I'm okay with it. I'll survive. Yeah, like, the clients that are great clients, you're right, will be attracted to it. The clients that you never wanted to approach, they probably were never going to approach you anyways, are not [laugh] going to approach you. So, I agree wholeheartedly. I was always told lawyers are not funny. I've been told that jobs, conferences, events—Corey: Who are you hanging out with doctors?Matt: [laugh]. Dentists. The funniest of doctors. And I've been told that just lawyers aren't funny, right? So, lawyers shouldn't be funny; that's not how they should present themselves.You're never going to attract clients. You're ever going to engage in business development. And then I did. And then I did because people are attracted by funny. People like the personality. Just like you Corey, people enjoy you, enjoy your company, enjoy what you have to do because they enjoy being around you and they want to continue via, you know, like, business relationship.Corey: That's part of the weird thing from where I sit, where it's this—no matter what you do or where you sit, people remain people. And one of the big eye-openers for me that happened, fortunately early in my career, was discovering that a number of execs at name brand, publicly traded companies—not all of them, but a good number; the ones you'd want to spend time with—are in fact, human beings. I know, it sounds wild to admit that, but it's true. And they laugh, they tell stories themselves, they enjoy ridiculous levels of nonsense that tends to come out every second time I opened my mouth. But there's so much that I think people lose sight of. “Oh, they're executives. They only do boring and their love language is PowerPoint.” Mmm, not really. Not all of them.Matt: It's true. Their love language sometimes is Excel. So, I agree [laugh].Corey: That's my business partner.Matt: I'm not good at Excel, I'll tell you that. But I hear that as well. I hear that in my own business. So, I'm currently at a place called Lawtrades, and for the listeners out there, if you don't know who Lawtrades is, this is the—I'm not a salesperson, but this is my sales spiel.Corey: It's a dating site for lawyers, as best I can tell.Matt: [laugh]. It is. Well, I guess close. I mean, we are a marketplace. If you're a company and you need an attorney on a fractional basis, right—five hours, ten hours, 15 hours, 20 hours, 40 hours—I don't care, you connect.And what we're doing is we're empowering these freelance attorneys and legal professionals to kind of live their life, right, away from the old guard, having to work at these big firms to work at big clients. So, that's what we do. And when I'm in these conversations with general counsels, deputy general counsels, heads of legal at these companies, they don't want to talk like you're describing, this boring, nonsense conversation. We commiserate, we talk about the practice, we talk about stories, war stories, funny things about the practice that we enjoy. It's not a conversation about business; it's a conversation about being a human being in the legal space. It's always a good time, and it always results in a long-lasting relationship that I personally appreciate more than—probably more than they do. But [laugh].Corey: It really comes down to finding the watering holes where your humor works. I mean, I made the interesting choice one year to go and attend a conference for CFOs and the big selling point of this conference was that it counts as continuing professional education, which as you're well aware, in regulated professions, you need to attend a certain number of those every so often, or you lose your registration slash license slash whatever it is. My jokes did not work there. Let's put it that way.Matt: [laugh]. That's unfortunate because I'm having trouble keeping a straight face as we do this podcast.Corey: It was definitely odd. I'm like, “Oh, so what do you do?” Like, “Oh, I'm an accountant.” “Well, that's good. I mean, assume you don't bring your work home with you and vice versa. I mean, it's never a good idea to hook up where you VLOOKUP.”And instead of laughing—because I thought as Excel jokes go, that one's not half bad—instead, they just stared at me and then walked away. All right. Sorry, buddy, I didn't mean to accidentally tell a joke in your presence.Matt: [laugh]. You're setting up all of my content for Twitter. I like that one, too. That was really good.Corey: No, no, it comes down to just being a human being. And one of the nice things about doing what I've done—I'm curious to get your take on this, is that for the first time in my career doing what I do now, I feel like I get to bring my whole self to work. That is not what it means that a lot of ways it's commonly used. It doesn't mean I get to be problematic and make people feel bad as individuals. That's just being an asshole; that's not bringing your whole self to work.But it also means I feel like I don't have to hide, I can bring my personality with me, front and center. And people are always amazed by how much like my Twitter personality I am in real life. And yeah because I can't do a bit for this long. I don't have that kind of attention span for one. But the other side of that, too, is does exaggerate certain elements and it's always my highs, never my lows.I'm curious to know how you wind up viewing how you present online with who you are as a person.Matt: That is a really good question. Similar. Very similar. I do some sort of exaggeration. The character I like to play is ‘Bad Associate.' It's, like, one of my favorite characters to play where it's like, if I was the worst version of myself, in practice, what would I look like?And those jokes to me always make me laugh because I always—you know, you have a lot of anxiety when you practice. That's just an aspect of the law. So, for me, I get to make jokes about things that I thought I was going to do or sound like or be like, so it honestly makes me feel a little better. But for the humor itself and how I present online, especially on Twitter, my boss, one of my co-founders, put it perfectly. And we had met for a conference, and—first time in person—and he goes, “You're no different than Twitter, are you?” I go, “Nope.” And he goes, “That's great.”And he really appreciated that. And you're right. I felt like I presented my whole personality, my whole self, where in the legal profession, in private practice, it was not the case. Definitely not the case.Corey: Yeah, and sometimes I talk in sentences that are more than 280 characters, which is, you know, a bad habit.Matt: Sometimes. I have a habit from private practice that I can't get rid of, and I ask very aggressive depo questions like I'm deposing somebody. If you're listening in, can you write me on Twitter and tell me if you're a litigator and you do the same thing? Because, like, I will talk to folks, and they're like, “This isn't an interview or like a deposition.” I'm like, “Why? Why isn't it?” And it [laugh] gets really awkward really quickly. But I'm trying to break that habit.Corey: I married a litigator. That pattern tracks, let's be clear. Not that she doesn't so much, but her litigator friends, if litigators could be said to have friends, yeah, absolutely.Matt: My wife is a former litigator. Transactional attorney.Corey: Yes. Much the same. She's grown out of the habit, thankfully.Matt: Oh, yeah. But when we were in the thick of litigation, we were actually at competing law firms. It was very much so, you come home, and it's hard to take—right, it's hard to not take your work home, so there was definitely occasions where we would talk to each other and I thought the judge had to weigh in, right, because there were some objections thrown, some of the questions were leading, a little bit of compound questions. So, all right, that's my lawyer joke of the day. I'm sorry, Corey. I won't continue on the schtick.Corey: It works, though. It's badgering the witness, witnessing the badger, et cetera. Like, all kinds of ridiculous nonsense and getting it wrong, just to be, I guess, intentionally obtuse, works out well. Something you said a minute ago does tie into what you do professionally, where you mentioned that your wife was a litigator and now is a transactional attorney. One thing they never tell you when you start a business is how many lawyers you're going to be working with.And that's assuming everything goes well. I mean, we haven't been involved in litigation, so that's a whole subset of lawyer we haven't had to deal with yet. But we've worked with approximately six—if memory serves—so far, not because we're doing anything egregious, just because—rather because so many different aspects of the business require different areas of specialty. We also, to my understanding—and I'm sure my business partner will correct me slash slit my throat if I'm wrong—I've not had to deal with criminal attorneys in any interesting ways. Sorry, criminal defense attorneys, criminal attorneys is a separate setup for a separate story.But once I understood that, realizing, oh, yeah, Lawtrades. You can find specialist attorneys to augment your existing staff. That is basically how I view that. Is that directionally accurate?Matt: Yeah. So like, common issue I run into, right is, like, a general counsel, is a corporate attorney, right? That's their background. And they're very aware that they're not an employment attorney. They're not a privacy attorney. Maybe they're not an IP attorney or a patent attorney.And because they realize that, because they're not like that old school attorney that thinks they can do everything and solve everyone's problems, they come to Lawtrades and they say, “Look, I don't need an employment attorney for 40 hours a week. I just need ten hours. That's all I need, right? That's the amount of work that I have.” Or, “I don't have the budget for an attorney for 40 hours, but I need somebody. I need somebody here because that's not my specialty.”And that happens all the time where all of a sudden, a solo general counsel becomes a five or six-attorney legal department, right, because you're right, attorneys add up very quickly. We're like rabbits. So, that's where Lawtrades comes in to help out these folks, and help out freelance attorneys, right, that also are like, “Hey, listen, I know employment law. I can help.”Corey: Do you find that the vast slash entire constituency of your customers pretend to be attorneys themselves, or is this one of those areas where, “I'm a business owner. I don't know how these law things work. I had a firm handshake and now they're not paying as agreed. What do I do?” Do you wind up providing, effectively, introduction services—since I do view you as, you know, match.com for dating with slightly fewer STDs—do you wind up then effectively acting as an—[unintelligible 00:18:47] go to talk to find a lawyer in general? Or does it presuppose that I know which end of a brief is up?Matt: There's so many parts of what you just said I want to take as well. I also liked that you didn't just say no STDs. That was very lawyerly of you. It's always, like, likely, right?Corey: Oh, yes. So, the answer to any particular level of seniority and every aspect of being an attorney is, “It depends.”Matt: That's right. That's right. It triggers me for you to say it. Ugh. So, our client base, generally speaking, our companies ranging from, like, an A round company that has a solo GC all the way up to a publicly traded company that has super robust legal department that maybe needs a bunch of paralegals, bunch of legal operations professionals, contract managers, attorneys for very niche topics, niche issues, that they're just, that is not what they want to do.So, generally speaking, that's who we service. We used to be in the SMB space. There was a very public story—my founders are really cool because they built in public and we almost went broke, actually in that space. Which, Corey, I'm happy to share that article with you. I think you'll get a kick out of it.Corey: I would absolutely look forward to seeing that article. In fact, if you send me the link, we will definitely make it a point to throw it into the [show notes 00:19:58].Matt: Awesome. Happy to do it. Happy to do it. But it's cool. The clients, I tell you what, when I was in private practice when I was in-house, I would always deal with an adverse attorney. That was always what I was dealing with.No one was ever—or a business person internally that maybe wasn't thrilled to be on the phone. I tell you what, now, when I get to talk to some of these folks, they're happy to talk to me; it's a good conversation. It really has changed my mentality from being a very adverse litigator attorney to—I mean it kind of lends itself to a shitposter, to a mean guy, to a party clown. It's a lot of fun.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Uptycs, because they believe that many of you are looking to bolster your security posture with CNAPP and XDR solutions. They offer both cloud and endpoint security in a single UI and data model. Listeners can get Uptycs for up to 1,000 assets through the end of 2023 (that is next year) for $1. But this offer is only available for a limited time on UptycsSecretMenu.com. That's U-P-T-Y-C-S Secret Menu dot com.Corey: One area that I think is going to be a point of commonality between us is in what the in-and-out of our day jobs look like. Because looking at it from a very naive perspective, why on earth does what is effectively an attorney referral service—yes, which may or may not run afoul of how you describe yourselves; I know, lawyers are very particular about wording—Matt: Staffing [laugh].Corey: Exactly. Legal staffing. There we are. It doesn't seem to lend itself to having a, “Head of Community,” quote-unquote, which really translates into, “I shitpost on the internet.” The same story could be said to apply to someone who fixes AWS bills because in my part of the industry, obviously, there is a significant problem with people who have large surprise bills from their cloud provider, but they generally don't talk about them in public as soon as they become an even slightly serious company.You don't find someone at a Fortune 500 complaining on Twitter about how big their AWS bill is because that does horrifying things to their stock price as well as them personally, once the SEC gets involved. So, for me, it was always I'm going to be loud and noisy and have fun in the space so that people hear about me, and then when they have this problem, in the come. Is that your approach to this, or is it more or less the retconning story that I just told, and it really had its origins in, “I'm just going to shitpost. I feel like good things will happen.”Matt: Funnily enough, it's both. That's how it started. So, when I was in private practice, I was posting like crazy on—I'm going to say LinkedIn for the third time—and again, I hope somebody sends a nasty message to me about how bad LinkedIn is, which I don't think it's that bad. I think it's okay—so I was shitposting on LinkedIn before probably many folks were shitposting on LinkedIn, again like Alex, and I was doing it just because I was tired of attorneys being what we described, this old guard, buttoned up, just obnoxiously perfect version of themselves. And it eventually led itself into this career. The whole journey was wild, how I got here. Best way to describe it was a crazy trip.Corey: It really is. You also have a very different audience in some ways. I mean, for example, when you work in the legal field, to my understanding from the—or being near to it, but not within it, where you go to school is absolutely one of those things that people still bring up as a credential decades later; it's the first thing people scroll to on LinkedIn. And in tech, we have nothing like that at all. I mean, just ask anyone of the random engineers who talk about where they used to work in their Twitter bio: ex-Google, ex-Uber, et cetera.Not quite as bad as the VC space where it's, “Oh, early investor in,” like, they list their companies, which of course to my mind, just translates directly into, the most interesting thing about you is that once upon a time, you wrote a check. Which yeah, and with some VCs that definitely tracks.Matt: That's right. That's a hundred percent right. It's still like that. I actually saw a Twitter post, not necessarily about education, but about big law, about working in big law where folks were saying, “Hey, I've heard a rumor that you cannot go in-house at a company unless you worked in big law.” And I immediately—I have such a chip on my shoulder because I am not a big law attorney—I immediately jumped to it to say, “Listen, I talk to in-house attorneys all the time. I'm a former in-house attorney. You don't have to work with big law. You don't have to go to a T-14 law school.” I didn't. I went to Florida State University in Tallahassee.But I hear that to this day. And you're right, it drives me nuts because that is a hallmark of the legal industry, bragging about credentials, bragging about where I came from. Because it also goes back to that old guard of, “Oh, I came from Harvard, and I did this, and I did that,” because we love to show how great and special we are not by our actual merits, but where we came from.Corey: When someone introduces themselves to me at a party—which has happened to me before—and in their introduction, they mention where they went to law school, I make it a point to ask them about it and screw it up as many times in the rest of the evening as I can work in to. It's like they went to Harvard. Like so, “Tell me about your time at Yale.” “Oh, sorry. I must have forgotten about that.” Or, “What was the worst part about living in DC when you went to law school?” “Oh, I'm sorry. I missed that. You went to Harvard. How silly of me.”Matt: There's a law school at Dartmouth [laugh]?Corey: I know. I'm as surprised as anyone to discover these things. Yeah. I mean, again, on the one hand, it does make people feel a little off and that's not really what I like doing. But on the other, ideally, it's a little bit of a judgment nudge as far as this may not sound the way that you think it sounds when you introduce yourself to people that way.Matt: All the time. I hear that all the time. Every so often, I'll have someone—and I think a lot of the industry, maybe just the industry where I'm in, it's not brought up anymore. I usually will ask, right? “Hey, where do you come from?” Just as a conversation starter, “What firm did you practice at? Did you practice in big law? Small law?”Someone once called it insignificant law to me, which hurts because I'm part of insignificant law. I get those and it's just to start a conversation, but when it's presented to me initially, “Hey, yeah, I was at Harvard,” unprompted. Or, “I went to Yale,” or went to whatever in the T-14, you're right, it's very off-putting. At least it's off-putting to me. Maybe if someone wants to tell me otherwise, online if you went to Harvard, and someone said, “Hey, I went to Harvard,” and that's how they started the conversation, and you enjoy it, then… so be it. But I'll tell you, it's a bit off-putting to me, Corey.Corey: It definitely seems it. I guess, on some level, I think it's probably rooted in some form of insecurity. Hmm, it's easy to think, “Oh, they're just completely full of themselves,” but that stuff doesn't spring fully formed from nowhere, like the forehead of some God. That stuff gets built into people. Like, the constant pressure of you are not good enough.Or if you've managed to go to one of those schools and graduate from it, great. The constant, like, “Not everyone can go here. You should feel honored.” It becomes, like, a cornerstone of their personality. For better or worse. Like, it made me more interesting adult if it made my 20s challenging. I don't have any big-name companies on my resume. Well, I do now because I make fun of one, but that's a separate problem entirely. It just isn't something I ever got to leverage, so I didn't.Matt: I feel that completely. I come from—again, someone once told me I worked in insignificant law. And if I ever write a book, that's what I'm going to call it is Insignificant Law. But I worked the small law firms, regional law firms, and these in Tallahassee and I worked in South Florida and nothing that anyone would probably recognize in conversation, right? So, it never became something I bring up.I just say, “I'm an attorney. I do these things,” if you ask me what I do. So, I think honestly, my personality, and probably the shitposting sprung out of that as well, where I just had a different thing to talk about. I didn't talk about the prestige. I talked about the practice, I talked about what I didn't like about the practice, I didn't talk about being on Wall Street doing these crazy deals, I talked about getting my ass kicked in Ponce, Florida, up in the panhandle. For me, I've got a chip on my shoulder, but a different kind of chip.Corey: It's amazing to me how many—well, let's calls this what we are: shitposters—I talk to where their brand and the way that they talk about their space is, I don't want to say rooted in trauma, but definitely built from a place of having some very specific chips on their shoulder. I mean, when I was running DevOps teams and as an engineer myself, I wound up continually tripping over the AWS bill of, “Ha, ha. Now, you get to pay your tax for not reading this voluminous documentation, and the fine print, and with all of the appendices, and the bibliography, and tracked down those references. Doesn't it suck to be you? Da da.” And finally, it was all right, I snapped. Okay. You want to play? Let's play.Matt: That's exactly right. There's, like, a meme going around. I think it actually saw from the accounting meme account, TB4—which is stellar—and it was like, “Ha, I'm laughing because it hurts.” And it's true. That's why we all laugh at the jokes, right?I'll make jokes about origination credit, which is always an issue in the legal industry. I make jokes about the toxic work environment, the partner saying, “Please fix,” at three o'clock in the morning. And we make fun of it because everyone's had to deal with it. Everyone's had to deal with it. And I will say that making fun of it brings light to it and hopefully changes the industry because we all can see how ridiculous it is. But at least at the very beginning, we all look at it and we say, “That's funny because it hurts.”Corey: There's an esprit de corps of shared suffering that I think emerges from folks who are in the trenches, and I think that the rise of—I mean some places called the micro-influencers, but that makes me want to just spit a rat when I hear it; I hate the term—but the rise of these niche personalities are because there are a bunch of in-jokes that you don't have to be very far in to appreciate and enjoy, but if you aren't in the space at all, they just make zero sense. Like when I go to family reunions and start ranting about EC2 instance pricing, I don't get to talk to too many people anymore because oh my God, I've become the drunk uncle I always wanted to be. Goal achieved.Matt: [laugh].Corey: You have to find the right audience.Matt: That's right. There is a term, I think coin—I think it was coined by Taylor Lorenz at Washington Post and it's called a nimcel, which is, like, a niche micro-influencer. It's the worst term I've ever heard in my entire life. The nimcel [laugh]. Sorry, Taylor, it's terrible.But so I don't want to call myself a nimcel. I guess I have a group of people that enjoy the content, but you are so right that the group of people, once you get it, you get it. And if you don't get it, you may think some parts of it—like, you can kind of piece things together, but it's not as funny. But there's plenty of litigation jokes I'll make—like, where I'm talking to the judge. It's always these hypothetical scenarios—and you can maybe find it funny.But if you're a litigator who's gotten their ass kicked by a judge in a state court that just does not like you, you are not a local, they don't like the way you're presenting yourself, they don't like your argument, and they just dig you into the ground, you laugh. You laugh because you're, like, I've been there. I've had—or on the flip, you're the attorney that watched your opposing counsel go through it, you're like, “I remember that.” And you're right, it really you get such a great reaction from these folks, such great feedback, and they love it. They absolutely love it. But you're right, if you're outside, you're like, “Eh, it's kind of funny, but I don't really get all of it.”Corey: My mother approaches it this way whenever she talks to me like I have no idea what you're talking about, but you seem to really know what you're talking about, so I'm proud of you. It's like, “No, Mom, that is, like, the worst combination of everything.” It's like, “Well, are you any good at this thing?” “No. But I'm a white man, so I'm going to assume yes and the world will agree with me until proven otherwise.” So yeah, maybe nuclear physics ain't for you in that scenario.But yeah, the idea of finding your people, finding your audience, before the rise of the internet, none of this stuff would have worked just because you live in a town; how many attorneys are really going to be within the sound of your voice, hearing these stories? Not to mention the fact that everyone knows everyone's business in some of those places, and oh, you can't really subtweet the one person because they're also in the room. The world changes.Matt: The world changes. I've never had this happen. So, when I really started to get aggressive on, like, Twitter, I had already left private practice; I was in-house at that point. And I've always envisioned, I've always, I always want to, like, go back to private practice for one case: to go into a courtroom in, like, Miami, Florida, and sit there and commiserate and tell the stories of people again like I used to do—just like what you're saying—and see what everyone says. Say, “Hey, I saw you on Twitter. Hey, I saw this story on Twitter.”But in the same breath, like, you can't talk like you talk online in person, to some degree, right? Like, I can't make fun of opposing counsel because the judge is right there and opposing counsel was right there, and I'm honestly, knowing my luck, I'm about to get my ass kicked by opposing counsel. So, I probably should watch myself in that courtroom.Corey: But I'm going to revise the shit out of this history when it comes time to do my tweet after the fact. “And then everybody clapped.”Matt: [laugh]. I found five dollars outside the courtroom.Corey: Exactly. I really want to thank you for spending so much time chatting with me. If people want to learn more and follow your amazing shitpost antics on the internet, where's the best place for them to do it?Matt: Corey it's been an absolute pleasure. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn. For everything but LinkedIn: @ItsMattsLaw. LinkedIn, just find me by my name: Matt Margolis.Corey: And we will put links to all of it in the [show notes 00:33:04]. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. It's appreciated.Matt: I have not laughed as hard in a very, very long time. Corey, thank you so much.Corey: Matt Margolis, Head of Community at Lawtrades. 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, insulting comment that you've drafted the first time realized, oh wait, you're not literate, and then hired someone off of Lawtrades to help you write in an articulate fashion.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.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

This week we sit down with Matt Hawkins, organizer of North Carolina's Croatan Buck Fifty and founder of Ridge Supply. The special origin story of Ridge Supply and ultimately the Croatan Buck Fifty have lead Matt to create an amazing early season event. Episode sponsor: Bike Index  Ridge Supply  Croatan Buck Fifty  Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Croatan Buck Fifty [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the podcast, we've got Matt Hawkins. Matt is the founder of Ridge supply, as well as the creator of the CRO 10 buck, 50. Oh, super well-regarded gravel race out in North Carolina. I've been wanting to get Matt on the show for a few years after meeting him at sea Otter. And I'm excited to have you get to know the Crow 10 buck 50. I believe there's still some spots available for the 2023 edition. It's one of those early season races. So a great way to get tuned up for a fantastic 2023. Before we jump in. I want to thank this week. Sponsor, bike index. Bike index is a bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. No one likes to think about getting their bikes stolen. I unfortunately have had two stolen over the course One was a BMX bike when I was a kid. And I feel like that scarred me. I've always been super careful about how I lock my bike up, which is probably a good thing, but ultimately, a garage that housed my bikes in San Francisco got broken into and I lost a track mountain bike. Neither one of them were ever recovered. Bike index is really the only game in town that focuses on stolen bike recovery. They've built a platform to blast your bike out to local social media channels. And they can provide you all the best advice on how to increase the chances of success in getting your bicycle recovered it's a nonprofit. All the services are free. All you need to do is get your serial number and add your make model and color to the platform. And there you go. It's like insurance. That didn't cost you anything. Simply visit www.bike index.org and get your bike registered today. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with matt [00:02:10] Craig: Hey, Matt, welcome to the show. [00:02:12] Matt: Hey, Hey Craig, [00:02:14] Craig: I'm excited to get into the Croatan buck. 50. Am I saying it? Correct? [00:02:18] Matt: you are, you are a lot of people say Croatian but 50, but I think they do that just to make me mad. [00:02:24] Craig: Yeah, and we'll get into it. We'll get into it. Cuz I think people are gonna need to get out a map and you're gonna tell us where it is in the country. I, I had to do that myself. I knew it was in North Carolina, but I didn't know exactly where and it's actually pretty interesting part of the state, but we'll table that question for the moment, cuz I was like just starting out by. Just a little bit about your backstory, where you grew up, how you got into riding. And I think we should talk about your company Ridge supply, because I think it will filter into why you created the event and you know, the vibe behind it. [00:02:53] Matt: Sure, [00:02:55] Craig: Yeah. So let's start with that question. [00:02:57] Matt: wanna know? [00:02:58] Craig: Yeah. So, where'd you grow up and when did you start riding and when did you decide, when did you discover drop bar gravel riding. [00:03:04] Matt: Well, I, I my wife and I both are from central Virginia. So up near the Charlottesville area born and raised there. My family's been there a long time, many generations. And I, I grew up in a real rural kind of county, a lot of farming communities there, but we just happen to have a race. That started back when the tour Deon and the tour to Trump rode, they came through our town. And we had a, we had a local race called the tour to Madison, and I did that with a buddy of mine on some, some Huffies. And we started racing and riding when I was really young. I've literally been riding bikes for, for almost 40 years. And yeah, so that's, that's kind of how I started. I, I of course I, I crashed on my first race and and loved it, loved doing it, but I was a swimmer by trade and I swam my whole life and swam through college. So I really picked up cycling after college sort of as my primary. And I've been doing that, you know, every, every chance I get as my soul sport really, since I got outta college, [00:04:18] Craig: Were you, were you more excited about the roadside or did you start off road riding as well back? [00:04:22] Matt: You know, actually I did a whole lot of mountain biking to start and did used to, you know, race 24 hour team races with, with the, with a team and did some road racing and some crit racing gravel obviously didn't exist back then. When I moved here to North Carolina back in oh five. I, I, you know, the first place I went to ride was the Croatan because I could go there at night with lights and be off the road. And it felt like, you know, that's where I could take my mountain bike and I could just go kind of ride. And I didn't really know. CRO, Tan's a pretty big, you know, a surface area and it, it has a lot of roads, but they're not all connected. So a lot of it's kind of sketchy. You're just like, I don't know what's down that road. So we started, you know, exploring a little bit more on road bikes with, you know, 25 sea tires or whatever is probably a bad idea. But we are just seeing, Hey, what's down that road. And I got my first cross bike and started really. Exploring it and doing, doing proper gravel, if you will, kind of before the gravel boom, but more like 2013, something like that. And and yeah, so I was like one of the first people here in our little town to do Strava. And so I made a lot of the segments originally. And and that's kind of how I got into, got into gravel was the Croatan was, was here and then everywhere I've travel. That's the bike. I primarily will take, you know, I ride a rodeo labs trail donkey now, and I'll just everywhere. I'm gonna go. I'll take that. So I can, I can ride road or, or gravel or whatever suits a fancy, [00:06:08] Craig: Yeah, exactly. When you first started on Strava and it probably sounds like the same vintage I did. When you created a segment, you could actually name it, right? Like you could name, you could name the, you name, the climbs, all the climbs. You could put your own names on them. [00:06:22] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. My, my mother-in-law sends me things all the time. Bless her heart. If she's listening, I love her to death, but she'll just send like a text message with some, with some cycling related news article and. If you, if you're like us and you follow cycling, it's things that you've already heard two or three days before, but when they hit the mainstream media and maybe my mother-in-law would see it, I would always be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she sent me this article about Strava, which I'd never heard of before. I think this was 2011. And I kind of clicked on it. I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. And I thought, well, I wonder who's using it around here. and I, I, I downloaded the, it might have been a beta app or something at the time. And, and of course there was no segments anywhere everywhere. I went for the first six months I was telling you gotta try this, you know? And Yeah, I made all, I made all the segments in the beginning which was kind of funny. And tho the GPS on your phone back then was horrible and it, it was all squarely lines looked like spaghetti everywhere. And so, yeah, Stravos come a long way with better head units and yeah. You know, all that stuff. [00:07:28] Craig: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. So it sounds like the Croton is, is actually rideable from where you live right now. Is that [00:07:34] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. So we are, we are surrounded by it's 200 miles a road gravel road. And it's right here. It's five, five miles from where I'm sitting right now, so I can ride over there linked together all I can handle and, and come back pretty and it's open, you know, year round. There's no closures. It's they're public roads. [00:07:57] Craig: And to position it. So it's in North Carolina, but very close to the coast is what I saw. [00:08:01] Matt: Yes. Yeah. So we're, we're in Eastern North Carolina. It's totally flat. There's zero elevation. And the Croatan is what's called a pacoin. So, pacoin is like an elevated section of low lands. So there's a lot of water in. In the Croatan and it has nowhere to go because there's no elevation and there's really no drainage. So what they did was back in the sixties They dug canals to create the roads. So they would go in there, they would scoop out, you know, along the left and the right side, create these canals for drainage and that, and they'd put the earth in the middle and then they'd elevate that section for the roads. And so a lot of what we're riding on is you know, as gravel roads that were built in a swamp essentially. So, that. It's pretty cool. Like when I first started going in there and riding, I was a little bit like, because you, you can be like 20 miles from nothing, you know, which it's really hard to say that, especially over on the east coast, you know, if you're in Montana or something. Sure. You could maybe, but like out here, man, you can't be that far from civilization. And we have this beautiful, you know, national forest that is like kind of weirdly isolated We can, we have it right here in our backyard, which is, which is great. So this is a [00:09:24] Craig: Yeah, isn't [00:09:25] Matt: to start a start a bike race. [00:09:27] Craig: Isn't that one of the, that's just one of those amazing things about having a gravel bike. You can just sort of explore and get into these pockets of wilderness. And in, in this case, pretty large pocket considering where you are now in, in the, in the four, is there, what's the canopy, like, are there large trees in there? Are we looking at kind of [00:09:45] Matt: Yeah. So Eastern North Carolina is filled with pine. And a lot of it is plantation planted pine. So RO you know, long, straight rows of, of pine Warehouser and places like that own. Ridiculous amount of land down here with just pine trees and the Croatan is essentially mostly that except for there are maybe six pretty big lakes that are in the Croatan. And then there's a lot of, you know, tributary, swamp creeks that are coming in and out of that, when we. A lot of rain here, which, which is pretty often it's heading towards the coast, which isn't that far away. It's just that we, we tend to we te we tend to fill the sound is right here, where we're at. So we have the sound and the ocean in a barrier island. That's like 25 miles long. So, it's all connected. And you know, it's three miles off the beach basically is where the, where the place starts. [00:10:48] Craig: Got it. And are there other kind of offroad recreators in there? Are there, you know, jeepers and four wheelers and [00:10:55] Matt: Some, some of that, mostly it's hunters in the, in hunting season. And other than that, honestly, it's, it's pretty much just for us. There, none of the roads really connect to each other. So we, we get to use them. A lot of days when I go out there, man, it's like, I can't believe, you know, just it's like, it's just, it's all. It's just you. And that's, that's, that's a blessing for sure. It also means that the roads aren't maintained as well as they could be. And like we had the, we had hurricane Florence sorry, if you hear that helicopter, just the sound of freedom here. We got the Marine Corps here. So, the hurricane Florence in 2018, which. Yesterday 2018. I mean, we just got devastated and we still haven't had the roads fixed since then. So that's been four years. You, you just can only imagine the amount of potholes and damage and stuff that's there, but that's what makes our race a little interesting too, is that you never know what the roads are gonna be like [00:11:56] Craig: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [00:11:57] Matt: the new change. They're like a lot. [00:11:59] Craig: before we get into the race itself, let's talk a little bit about Ridge supply and what, what led to you founding the company and the vision? Cause I've when I heard the story, I found it super interesting and frankly made me want to just jump on the website and order some socks. [00:12:13] Matt: I appreciate that. I, I need that. I need that. Yeah. If, if, for folks who don't know, I, you know, I own and operate Ridge supply, which is a which is a cycling apparel. Running apparel brand. I'm a one man show, so I I've got no employees. I've been doing it seven years and it's an online, only business. We, we, we primarily sell direct. So you know, the pretty much the only place you can get our product is, is at our our website. And I, I, I ship everything myself. I started doing. Back in 2015 and I didn't know what I was doing. I, I, I knew that I had I had a pretty good job at the time. And I, the, the, the quick story is I, I got I got run over by a pickup truck while I was riding my bike. And it was a hit and run and I was sort of very, very fortunate to be alive and. Acutely aware of that in the hospital that a lot of folks wanted to know if I was gonna keep riding my bike. And I, I immediately that I had to resolve that was just like, of course I was, I wasn't, it was never like, I'm scared of riding on the road. I, I certainly was aware of the danger prior to this happening. And I knew that that day I was wearing all black. and that's kind of the easy color to find in cycling apparel. Everybody makes black apparel. And I knew that if I was gonna continue to do it, I wanted to try to figure out how to do it safer. And so while I was laid up with a broken pelvis, I started doing some research and I put two sort of premises together. One was that Blocked color was more visible than solid color. And what that means is if you have the brightest, you know, pink or orange, that neon pink or orange, and we, we love it in our products. If you put it by itself and you stick it down the road like you would see from a car, you might, you might not know what that is. It, it, it looks like. anything could look like a road sign. It could look like whatever. It could just be a bright thing that you're not quite identifying yet, but when you put blocked color together like a dark color, a light color and a bright color, it catches the eye in a way that makes it stand out. It's not necessarily as. As the solid bright color, but it's more eye-catching. So that was one premise and was sort of a scientific premise there. And the other was bio motion mechanics. And what that means is that the human, the human brain recognizes another human's movement. And when that, that happens, that that brain will then acknowledge that that's a human and treat it like a. and I think what happens in cycling, the phenomenon that we all experience when we're riding is we're not treated like humans at all. And it isn't because people are driving around saying, you know, oh, these Kirsty cyclists, you know, it's actually that when they're driving, they're just not acknowledging that, that thing that they see is. Another person. It's, it's just an object. It's not, it's not dangerous. But when you think that that's a person, you notice it's a person, you will, then you don't wanna run somebody over. You know, that's not what anybody's trying to do. Then you will start acknowledging that that's person treat 'em like a person. So I took those two premises together and I said, well, I knew defeat is here in North Carolina. I had been to visit. and I was kind of their neon poster child after my accident. And I realized like I could make my own sock. All I had to do was make 72 pair and. I took the most trite design. If you, if you're seeing this on YouTube or something, it's right behind me. But I took the blue Ridge mountains that I grew up with in central Virginia. Everything is blue Ridge, blue Ridge, blue Ridge. It's the most trite non-original thing I could have come up with, but I'd never seen it in a sock. And so I took that design and a contour line also was something I had never seen. I only has it really seen straight. They're easier to knit straight. Or vertical line. So I took that contour line. I made this five color sock and that was my idea was like, if I make a bright eyecatching multicolor sock and it's moving all the time there, you get your bio motion, you get your most visible. And and yeah, so that's what I did. I mean, I. I, I did that in 2015. I, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought, man, if I could just sell these 144 pair that I ended up buying the first time I maybe I could do a sock of the month club or something. I no idea how to ship them nothing. And I made a phone call to a buddy who owns a bike shop. And he was like, oh, this is great. You know, I'll buy six pair. And I called another buddy who owns a bike shop. And he was like, oh, I'll order 18. And I was like, oh my gosh, whoa, I've sold 23 pair. What am I gonna do? You know how I was just panicked. And so I, I, I really worked hard for like a week and I like created a website and did got the shipping integrated and I did all these. Back in 2015, these tools were just becoming available to people like me, who really didn't know what they were doing, but pretty dangerous on a computer, but like, I can't do code, you know, and I could do all these things, like sort of cookie cutter and just like work hard at it and do it. And so that's, that's how I was, it was just dangerous enough to, to get 'em sold. And then I sold them within two weeks and then I was like, well, I'll just take that. And I'll reinvest it in a new, new color and I just keep flipping it. And that's how my business started in 2015. And I literally never put another dime into it. I bet I was able to do that for a while, while still having a regular job. And then yes, slowly but surely it's grown to the point. , you know, I think a lot of people think Ridge supply is a lot bigger than it is. But you gotta sell a lot of $17 socks to make a living. And I'm fortunate to sell a lot of socks. So, we that's, that's what I do, which is kind of, kind of crazy when people ask me, like, what do you do? I'm like, I sell socks and they're like, well, what do you do for a living? I'm like, I sell a lot of socks. I don't know. I mean, that's the deal. [00:18:43] Craig: I, I love that Matt. And for the listener, like I'll put a, a, a link to Ridge supply, so you can check out the color ways and whatnot. And I think it's the type of design that once you see it, as you said, you've, you've iterated on the color ways. Numbers and numbers and numbers of times now. And there's lots of different options there, but the core elements are generally the same, that skyline design that you've talked about early on from the blue Ridge mountains. So it's super cool and visual. And I think I also heard you mention to others that, you know, you, you do find that people talk about their socks, which I think is, is interesting. And you know, in probably a great way that has, has helped the company. [00:19:20] Matt: Yeah. A AB I mean, absolutely. I had no idea. The. The a community nature that was being created. And then the, the virals, not the right word, the personal connection that the Sox would make with other people out in the world. Like I'm always blown away at the number of new customers that rich supply gets every month that I'm not, I'm not advertising to get them. They're they're coming through grassroots. You know, people on a group ride, people, seeing something on Instagram, people telling somebody else about 'em and that excitement around it is something that is, is the blessing of why this is actually a business. And isn't, wasn't just something I did. And , and, and it, and I can't take credit for it because a lot of that is timing. And the MIS the, the mistakes or risks that were taken early on with the business that worked at the time when nobody else was really doing that now in revisionist history, it looks like, wow, you really knew, I didn't know what I was doing, you know, like, so, I, I can't sit back now and be like, yeah, look at this. I, I, I still just in awe and my wife and I will look at each other sometimes and be like, what is going on? Like, we , we both had, you know, Big time jobs and corporate blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden it's like, we're sell socks for a living. And, and, you know, it's bizarre. It's a bizarre life, but I think I got the best job in the world for me, you know? So [00:20:59] Craig: Yeah, that's amazing. And I, I do, I mean, I think as a consumer, we all appreciate like the transparency and authenticity of business owners. Like now that I've heard the story, the origin story about why the SOC design is the way it is. You better believe if anybody asks me about those socks or says like, oh, those are kind of cool. I'm gonna tell them, oh, they were designed for increased visibility. And like, there's no doubt in my mind that customers relay that story if they hear about it. Because it's just, so it's just an interesting talking point. Like most socks are boring. These aren't. [00:21:33] Matt: and I appreciate that. And you know, you, can't not, everybody can listen to a 45 minute podcast to let me get long winded about telling that story either. So it's, it's hard to, it's hard to get that message out there. I assume everybody knows it, but of course they don't. And so I'm, I'm happy that you've. You know, you, you brought it up because it's, it is a, it's not marketing. I it's the last thing from marketing, it's really the, kind of the core design philosophy of what I do. It, it, isn't just, it's either mountain related, you know? So like the names, the style, the design is kind of related. It also has that five color. I try to do five sometimes I can't, but. And once I that's my brand identity, I don't have a logo that people recognize. I don't have a text that somebody's like, oh yeah, it's it's that. And when I started that in 2015, nobody was doing that. And so when you see my socks in a picture, they really stand out because of that branding. And that I've I've I like to say like, You know, like a dog, like peed around my tree. So many times, like you come near that tree, you're like, oh, that's where it supplies tree. Whoa. You know? And it's because that's what , that's what that did. And I didn't know that's what was gonna happen. But now I, I, it's funny, like I have like, Social media watchdogs out there. You know, if somebody does anything with five colors or contour lines, I get these text messages. Like they're stealing from you. You know, it's, it's not that there's only so much you can do on a sock. That's not really what happens, but that's, what's made it unique. Is it it, you can tell what it is without seeing the words or some, you know, a swoosh logo or. [00:23:17] Craig: Yeah. I love it. I love it. I'm in the listener. Well knows that I can geek out about the basic business behind any enterprise. Cause I love it. I'm fascinated by it, but I definitely wanted to transition to the Caran buck 50. And learn, learn more about the event. So what, when did you get the idea for it and what was the inspiration? Why, you know, it's a lot of work to put on an event as you can attest. And why did you tackle that? [00:23:42] Matt: Well, I mean, ignorance is is a great motivator to do something ridiculous because I had no idea. I had never, I don't think I'd ever volunteered for a race and nor had I ever put one on I'd done a lot of them. And I just knew that I knew that our area was kind of unique. Gravel was something that it hadn't quite taken off. There weren't a lot of big events outside of, you know, like Mid-South and dirty Kansas at the time. And there was really no, and there's there still aren't many events on the east coast, outside of like Vermont. And so I knew we had the Crow team here and I. The better part of six months or so, just kind of riding the Croatan, giving a feel for it and, and trying to come up with something that could work. The, the one challenge we have most, because we're on the coast, you can't go in our case south, because we're south facing, which is kind of strange. They don't, we're like long island, you know, when you go south, you go into the water. So. We don't have options for loops. You kind of go into the Croatan and the way that it's structured with its lakes and its swamps and stuff, some of the roads just don't go anywhere. And they're really kind of like fire access. So we couldn't do like a, a traditional loop, like you would normally like almost every course is. So we had to do an out and back. That's interesting. Nobody really does that. And I wasn't sure people are gonna like that. And so I kind of wrote it enough. So I was like, you know what, I don't hate this. I could do this, you know, and enjoy it. And it is different an out and back's always different. It's going another direction, a different view, different thing, different turns. So, but yeah, in 2017, I, I did that. I, I had a. A buddy at the time that was helping me kind of promote it. And we got it started. And, and we had 250 people, I think in 2018 come and do it. And I like I've told some other folks too, like I had no idea what I was doing and a lot of bike races, you know, you just kind of show up, they start you and then you finish. Sometimes there's timing. Sometimes there's not. If you're not on the podium, you just kind of, you know what I mean? Like there's nobody there to finish. I finished races before here, locally, where I got back to the finish line and there was literally nothing there, you know, I've won event like that where I'm like, there's no finish line. There's nobody to, to document it. You just ride across and you're like, I won. You don't win anything. You're just the first person to finish. So with this race, We just winged it that first year it was a success. People loved it. We do start and stop at the Speedway here, which is, which is one of our crown jewels. We, we have a a, a NASCAR short track. If you don't know what that is, it's essentially like, you know, less than a half mile track. And it is. they call it the nicest one in the country. And the reason that is, is it's built like a, like a Speedway where it's got, it's got like eight or nine bars. It has grandstands, it has towers. It has a restaurant in the middle. It's got a garage. It's I mean, it's, it's amazing, but we, we are able to use it for our start and our finish and it, and it provides this ambiance about. The start and finish in a way that is real communal and has the right vibe. And it's right beside the Croatan so short, little, little paved section to get out there and then you're in the woods. And just that combo together was a good, it just worked in 2018. [00:27:33] Craig: Yeah. And was it 150 mile race? Or did you have other [00:27:37] Matt: Yeah, no. So we have three. We call it the buck 50, because there's 150 mile race. We have a race called the buck, which is a hundred miles and we have a race called the 50. That is 50 miles. W the first year we basically had a course that was almost 50 miles and we did one lap, two laps or three laps. It's a mass start. Everybody started at the same exact time. And we had. We had sections of the course. It changes every year, the course changes a little bit every year, but that first year we had this section of road that was really primitive and abandoned road that was, had a lot of potholes, a lot of mudhole and we called it Savage road. And that was a section that was about three miles long that really broke the race up. It was the, it was the animated piece. And that was a big hit. We were able to use that the first two years. And since then we haven't been able to use it, which is fine. And we've changed the course a little bit, but now, now we have three races. The 50 uses that same out and back to start. And then the hundred uses a 60 mile loop and then a 40 mile loop. And then the buck 50 uses 2 75 mile loops. So what's kind of nice is we have all these people out there in the course, and it kind of is three different courses, but there's a big section of the course where it's it's everyone uses it. So unlike a lot of races, we have a lot of back and forth traffic. So, out there on the course, you will find other riders heading the other direction that are 40 miles. You know, away from you in the race. But the way that we stagger it and that provides a lot of, we found that that provides a lot of positive comradery. Yeah. There's that small group in the front, that's drilling it for the race lead and they're not waving it people. But everyone else seems to be really encouraging of the other groups. And that community aspect, I think, is something unique about our race that people really like. [00:29:49] Craig: Yeah, that sounds super interesting. And I agree. I mean, there's, it's very few races where you double back on yourself and see other people. And it, it's fascinating as, you know, as a mid packer to see. to get an opportunity to see the front front leaders of the men's and women's race go by. That's a lot of fun and inspiring to see. [00:30:06] Matt: Yeah. And I think makes people feel a little bit safer too, you know, if you had a catastrophic situation you're, you're not alone. The Croatan is very remote and you could be. You wouldn't be out there by yourself forever, but the way our race is set up, you know, you're not alone very long. And I think people, like, I think people like that. [00:30:26] Craig: For sure. You talked a little bit about how the terrain was laid out early on in this conversation. What type of equipment do you see people riding? What kind of tires, et C. [00:30:36] Matt: Yeah. You know, the more I've tr traveled around and don't know other races and stuff, I, people that have never done this race, they actually, they just don't believe that the terrain, this terrain exists, you know, and they've never really ridden terrain like this because it is it's perfectly flat and what that means for you is that you never are able to coast or, you know, there's no climb, so there's no dissent and you never stop peddling. And in the course of a 50 mile, even just a 50 mile ride, it can really drain you when you do 150. It is a, it is a serious effort. So as far as gearing and stuff is concerned, you could literally ride. , you know, you could ride road gearing here and be fine. But a lot of folks, you know, this is a great single speed course, because if you get the right gear, that's, you know, the right cadence you want and can get you at the speed you wanna go, you don't need to change your gear. So it's a perfect course for just grinding out on a single speed tires. You know, we've got really good surface area or surface that is not like sharp rocket rocks at. It can be a little Sandy at times. So a little bit of volume is important, but I mean, the race has been one on like 30 fives and 30 twos. So I wouldn't ride it on a 32 myself. I'd rather I ride like a 38. And I feel fine on that, but I ride a slick out here all year round. So even, even if it's wet a slick is fine. Our corners. Our corners are a little Sandy. So tires tend to not do anything for you. You just gotta take 'em a little gingerly. If you go in a corner too hot, you're just gonna eat it. But we don't have many corners, you know, so a lot of the roads are straight and you're what you really have to do is find your line. That's the other thing you can't ever explain to somebody until they come and do it? We have. We we, you call 'em potholes, but like we have small indentations, like a pothole in the gravel and they're everywhere. They're everywhere. And so imagine you're in a group of 800 people and you're nine, 10 riders back. You're not gonna see any of that. And all of a sudden, you're just like, bam, you hit the bottom of this pothole with your rim. It becomes this thing where as the course opens up and as people start to spread out, picking your line, it's like a snake, you know, and it just winds around and, and the groups are all doing it. You can be on the left, you can be on the right. If you're in the middle of the road, it is a nightmare because there is just no way that you're not gonna have some catastrophic pothole in your way. It, it's a weird kind of way to race your bike. But one really cool thing is like, you'll never calm down and just like tune out. You have to be on the Razor's edge mentally the whole time. And I think that's actually a great way to grab a race, you know? Cause if you're just like, you always talk about people, like I just had to grind through this thing, which is so boring. Like this course is not. It's flat and it's an out and back, and that sounds boring to people until they do it. But then when they do it, you throw in these potholes it's, there's something special about it. [00:34:03] Craig: A heck of a lot of peddling and a heck of a lot of attention required. It sounds like [00:34:08] Matt: Yes. [00:34:09] Craig: when you think about the event, were you looking to put something on the calendar that attracted sort of a highly competitive crowd or what was, what was kind of the vibe and intention of the, the race design in your mind? [00:34:20] Matt: Yeah. You know, I, I set out to create something that could be the first gravel race you've ever done in the 50. That is like, You know, like, even if you're going pretty slow, you can complete that course in four hours. And I felt like four hours is like, you know, if, if you're really riding and training, some, you can do that. Even if you never train more than two, you could still pull out a four hour effort. The buck 50. Was always gonna be a challenge just from a time perspective, because like even the fastest people who are blazing this course at like 21 and a half miles an hour, they're still in the seven hour range. And that is that's goes all the way up to 12, you know, depending on who who's doing it. What I tried to do was make a race. and this is the magic of the Croatan being flat. If you're the, if you're the, the person who just wants to come out and experience it and ride, you can line up against, you know, Ian Boswell, who's gonna go, maybe win it. And you both have. An equally rewarding experience. It isn't that the person in the back is just lollygagging. The course they're gonna have to do something really special for them to complete it, but the people at the front are gonna get this unique experience of a March race that doesn't have crazy elevation. Doesn't have, you know, high altitude doesn't have extreme weather and yet it's. But it's just hard enough for wherever your fitness is at. And I think that's one of the sweet spots and we don't bill it. I know it's called the buck 50, but it, we split it about a third. So we have, you know, a third of the people sign up for the 50, a third of the people sign up for the a hundred and a third of people for the buck 50 and. One of the unique things about our race too, is like, we let you switch the distance up until a month out because people will sign up and then they'll be like, ah, my fitness, isn't what I want it to be. Or they maybe have a great winner and they're like, you know what? I wanna do. I wanna bump up from the a hundred to the 150. So we allow people to do that and change it on their own. And that's, that's been a big, a big blessing because it, it, we were seeing 150 people. Change, which is a nightmare for a race director to have to deal with all that. So we just let him do that one bike edge until January. [00:36:53] Craig: Nice. Yeah. It's interesting that March date on the calendar, I think it's like, it's such a great focal point for your energy. Like through the winter to say, oh, I gotta, I gotta stay fit. Cuz I wanna do something big in March and it just sets the table for a great year on the bike. I think if you're fit at that time. [00:37:10] Matt: Yeah. I think people that we, so registration just opened up yesterday and on, on the 15th of September and it's a long way out, but it really isn't. When you think about your holidays. Your new, year's all these things. And people do use this as their carrot. I know I do. I use it as my, I gotta get on swift. You know, I gotta do another workout, even though I don't ride it. I just know that that's what people do and then they, it's not, you wanna come outta your, come out of your, you know, to start your season at the buck, 50 Andy blazing, but you know that you don't really have to perform at a weird, you. Extreme level, you just have to grind and that's, that's kind of a neat way to start your year too. And I think, I think it's worked for people that really wanna set, you know, set a goal, an early season goal and then pick up their June and, you know, July things later, cuz they built that base. [00:38:08] Craig: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like from your description that the, the race track has just created this very important piece of infrastructure. For the overall event, how are you kind of harnessing that? Obviously like a lot of gravel events try to foster a nice after race party or an event or experience for the community. How do you kind of manage that? And, and what should we expect when we show up? [00:38:32] Matt: Yeah. You know, we're, we're, we're super blessed. We we've got all of these things in this background where you're you're you're on this NAS. You know, short track it's paved. It has a pit lane. We, we have the finish line there, right? Where, right where the the vending is and the food and all that stuff. So it's this communal effort once you've, once you either are coming through for a lap, you get to see everybody or at the finish right after you finish you're right there. And it's been an interesting. It's evolved, but it's been an interesting environment because we also have free camping there on site. So basically like you can literally come in there the night before pitch a tent inside of the track, wake up, you're basically at the start finish line and start the races re reminds me a little bit of the, some of the mountain bike events that you get to do or camping's involved. But we, we offer, you know, meal afterwards and beverage, we typically will have like a, you know, a, a beer, a partner that'll that'll have beer. We do like. A, a full catered buffet style meal, which, which is kind of nice because just some, you know, where we are. It's not like we got eight, 900 people. There's not a lot of restaurants and stuff, you know, you can't just like, say, Hey, go get yourself something to eat. We kind of have to provide it. So we do that. And the big thing that because of Ridge supply and because of who I am as a business person, if you will like. I've always made. I've always tried to set out to make this race a value, even though it's not inexpensive race. There's. I feel like there's peer races that are of our size or bigger that are more expensive. And the return that you get from the buck 50, I've always tried to maximize the return and make every decision that we make. I say we, that I make about the race is rider focus. Because I think what happens with race directors and I'm not pointing any fingers at anyone else, I'm saying this happens, happens to me. You get this registration, you sell your registration, which is great. Then you have to provide services with that, with the, that revenue and the amount of services you provide. There's like a minimum and a lot of folks stop there. They're just like, this is all you gotta do. . And what I try to do is give back enough a in services, but also in product, we give away a huge swag package. Nobody does this, but I do it because a that's what I do. I sell stuff, you know? But like this year, when you come and do this race, you're paying for the entry, but you're get, you're gonna get basically a, a, everything that we do is fully custom just for racers too. So it isn't like you can buy this on this, on the website or. Somebody printed a cooi and gave it to you. It's like you get a custom pair of socks. You get a custom race tee that is not like your typical race tee. It's a legit piece of garment. You get a finisher's hat. When you finish, that's specific to your race, you're gonna get a pair of gloves that are custom long fingered, hand up gloves that you're gonna get. You may get some other things and I'm not gonna say out loud what they are. Those things all add up. It's well, over a hundred dollars worth of stuff. You get a meal afterwards, you get beverage afterwards, you get free camping. It isn't about what you get back, but when you do all those things, and then the value of the race experience in itself is what it is. And people do really enjoy doing this event. I hope that they tell other people about it and then they wanna come do it again. Otherwise, you know, it's a giant waste of time. I've found that from, from a race director's standpoint, if, if it stretches me a little bit where I'm just kinda like, oh man, I got, you know, when you have 900 people, every dollar that you spend is a thousand dollars, you know, and those add up very quickly. And there's a lot of times that that feeling that you have, you're like, well, I don't have to do that. They won't, they don't really, you know, you don't really need that. That's almost the, the surefire indication I need to. And I, the one thing we don't do that a lot of big races have, I don't really have a whole lot. I really don't have any corporate P partners. I don't sell sponsorship. Nobody's presenting this. And I like that because it keeps it, the vibe is the right vibe for March. I don't think a March race should feel like the world championships of anything. It's like, bro, you're just coming outta hibernation in the Northeast. This is your first time to see the sunshine and you wanna ride your bike, but you know, you, you don't need all that pressure yet. And so we try to keep it like that. And I think it's translated. I think the, the race track does provide that. And that's kind of what we use it for. It's just a backdrop. We really don't, you know, you do get to ride around it and finish and you come in and out of it to do your pit. But yeah, I'm not sure if I answered that question correctly, but [00:43:35] Craig: You you, you, you did for sure, Matt. No, I love it. And I do think, you know, by my likes again, like it's come to me through a number of different sources that this is a fun event. If you can get it on your calendar and you're close to the east coast where you can get there. So I think you're doing all the right things and I'm, I'm happy to have you on the podcast and just hopefully expose this race to a broader audience. I really love the idea. Encourage encouraging people to travel, to ride gravel in different parts of the country. Cuz as you expressed early on in this conversation, it's such a unique part of our country that has these funny little attributes that you're not gonna experience elsewhere. [00:44:14] Matt: Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. It, it is it, when you live here, you're kind of like, why would anybody want to come here and ride our little gravel and then you make the bike race, and then everyone's like, It's amazing. And you're like, really? Is it, you know, and, and that's kind of been an eyeopener too, is that you realize that it is unique. The art terrain is unique and I've, I, I spent a lot of time in Vermont. I I spent a lot of time in Colorado, kind of all those kind of areas. I'm like, you can't mimic those things. They're just, they are what they are. And they're amazing. It's just that what we have is just. Squished flat and you can get away from everything in a way that is just kind of bizarre. You know, there's no homes, there's no buildings. There's no nothing. You're just on a gravel road in the middle of a forest, as far as your eyes can see. And that's kind of cool. [00:45:04] Craig: Yeah. And thank you. Thank you for just putting a hand up in creating this. I mean, it, I always like to express that sentiment to advent organizers cuz it's, it's hard, hard work, but I know it's, it's a virtual, it's a love story to your local community in the, the trails that you've explored the last few years. [00:45:22] Matt: I appreciate that, man. Yeah. I mean, I would do it again if I, if I knew, but if I knew it was this hard, I would think really hard about starting it. I'm glad, I'm glad the ignorance is, is prevalent for me. [00:45:35] Craig: it, it totally is. It totally is. I don't think you start a business. If you know everything you're gonna have to go through and you probably don't start an event either if you know everything that's in front of you, but cool. Thanks again, Matt. I really appreciate it. [00:45:48] Matt: Craig. Appreciate it. [00:45:48] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel rod podcast. Big, thanks to Matt for coming on board and talking about his backstory for Ridge supply and that amazing sounding Croatan buck 50 race coming up in early 20, 23. Big thanks to bike index for supporting the show this week. And big thanks to you for listening. I may not say this enough, but I very much appreciate you listening to the show. And making me part of your gravel cycling experience. If you're interested in connecting with me, you can visit the ridership that's www.theridership.com. It's a free global cycling community where you can interact with gravel, cyclists from all over the world. If you're able to support the show, ratings and reviews are hugely appreciated. Or head on over to buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. If you're able to contribute financially. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

This is our very first episode in a public place with in-person live conversations at the local coffee shop!!!!!!!!!!!! Wanting to lead by example, Fawn and Matt share their meet-cute moment on their friendships with Marianne, Danielle, and Hillary. This conversation is all about how to notice the magic, being brave enough to see people, say "Hello" and go further by sparking conversation, creating friendship, and continuing friendship when you come to points of disagreement, learning from those disagreements, and developing the art of a strong friendship. Fawn, Matt, Marianne, Danielle, and Hillary share how they all met and prove how the world is a small town and you are surrounded by friendship. To reach out to us, please go to: https://www.ourfriendlyworldpodcast.com/ TRANSCRIPT: The Earth Is A Small Town [00:00:00] Fawn: The earth is a small town and everybody's your friend. And I dare say, even now with everything that's going around in the world, Uhhuh what's, what's going on in the world. It is still as true as ever that the earth is a small town. And everybody's your friend. Seriously. [00:00:20] Matt: Yeah, but what's this racket and I keep hearing around us. [00:00:23] Fawn: Okay. Hi everybody. We are back. This is our first time out in the wild unmasked, even and we are out, we are at a coffee shop in the most, one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We moved Matt and I moved here we are. And this is what happens. The show is more about the art of the start and throughout the last two and a half years, talking to you all, I kind of deep down felt like a hypocrite, talking about friendship and going out there and creating bonds and meeting friends and developing and nurturing friendships when we were sitting all by our lone sums in our kitchen, talking about it. Hey, so here we are. And we're gonna tell you how we did. So here's what happened. It was the power of a coupon. Matt had a coupon for a coffee shop. I had [00:01:21] Matt: a, how many years I had a gift card, two [00:01:23] Fawn: years, two years. You had a coupon for coffee two years. It was in his wallet. [00:01:30] Matt: So just as the pandemic broke, and one of the things that convinced us that this pandemic might not be a joke was I was gonna go meet with Amazon in Colorado. And I was gonna go to their offices and they were gonna do their spiel and giv

Regular guest Matt Courtois and I discuss what makes quality teacher talk. How should young learner teachers give instructions? How much should teachers grade their language? And when should teachers say nothing at all?Inside Online Language Teaching: Conversations About the Future That Became the PresentSupport the podcast by buying us a coffeeFor more podcasts, videos and blogs, visit our website: www.TEFLtraininginstitute.comSign up for our mailing listWatch as well as listen on our YouTube channel Ross Thorburn: Matt Cuortois, welcome back to the podcast.Matt Cuortois: Always a pleasure, Ross.Ross: Always a pleasure for me, too. Today we're talking about teacher talk. I feel that usually when you hear about teacher talk, people talk about teacher talk time, but today we're not going to talk about that at all. We're going to talk much more about the quality rather than the quantity of teacher talk.There's obviously so many different aspects and everything to teacher talk, but one of the most obvious ones is giving instructions.Instructions I feel are important for more than one reason in class, because obviously, if you don't get clear instructions, then everything else probably that you do in class is not going to work very well because the students don't know what to do.Also instructions, I feel, especially when you're teaching kids, it's maybe the time when there's the most communication in English because students are listening to you not just to repeat what you say afterwards, but they're actually listening so they know what to do afterwards.Matt: It's also when teaching kids it's one of the largest chunks of time that a teacher should be talking, right?Ross: Hopefully, not too long.Matt: That's probably one of the most common pieces of feedback I give to teachers is don't explain, show them what you expect them to do. It's so much simpler the language that you would be using by just showing them rather than explaining the whole process. Actually, any time you get a new board game like Monopoly or Risk or whatever.It always starts off the same way with you and your friend. Where you get out this instruction book and you look at these 40 or 50 steps, and the person is reading out every step of how to play the game and the same thing inevitably happens at the end of it where the person reading the instructions is like, so you guys get that?Ross: Not really. Let's just do one round as a practice.Matt: Yes, everyone always says it every time. Let's play a practice round and we'll figure it out and then we'll play for real. The board game is the exact same as a classroom activity, where the students are sitting there listening to this long process of do step one, step two, step three.It is all jumbled up in there. I think a much more effective way is just try it out for a practice round and then stop a minute, make sure they understand it and then go through the activity.Ross: It's like a picture is worth a thousand words and I feel like a demonstration is worth a thousand instruction. A couple of things that work well for that one is that when you model something, typically there's more than one role that the teacher needs to model.One nice thing I saw a teacher do once is when demonstrating a dialogue is holding up one finger on each hand with those fingers facing each other and just using our two fingers as a way of showing like this is these two people talking. Then, you could also take on different voices for the two roles.That's another thing or you could physically move. I've seen teachers before, draw on the board two faces and then stand next to one face and put on one voice when you're demonstrating one role and then you switch to the other side of the board and stand next to the other face. That helps to make it salient to the students.Matt: A lot of course book materials will also come with some extras that are useful for modeling. I know one school I worked at every set of course books comes with a tiger puppet. What a great way of instead of using your fingers and wiggling your fingers and you can be person A and then you can be talking to the tiger puppet on your hand as a person B.At another school, every teacher have finger puppets, they were able to have multiple people and on their fingers to show off the different roles within the conversation.Ross: I love those ideas. Another thing teachers do before they get on to getting the students to do the activity is asking some checking questions. But I feel there are some checking questions that are much more valuable than others, right?Matt: Yeah, the kinds of instruction checking questions you want short responses. Do you do A or do you do B? Are you the customer or are you the seller? It's clarifying key points of the task and the level of words that you're using, like six‑year‑old students, haven't studied words like unscramble, gap‑fill.To be honest, learning the word unscramble or gap‑fill isn't ever going to be useful for them outside of an English lesson. You don't want to spend that precious time teaching them the word like unscramble whenever there are those content words that you do want to focus on.See the rest of the transcript of this episode

About MattMatt is a Sr. Architect in Belfast, an AWS DevTools Hero, Serverless Architect, Author and conference speaker. He is focused on creating the right environment for empowered teams to rapidly deliver business value in a well-architected, sustainable and serverless-first way.You can usually find him sharing reusable, well architected, serverless patterns over at cdkpatterns.com or behind the scenes bringing CDK Day to life.Links Referenced: Previous guest appearance: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/slinging-cdk-knowledge-with-matt-coulter/ The CDK Book: https://thecdkbook.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/NIDeveloper 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: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. One of the best parts about, well I guess being me, is that I can hold opinions that are… well, I'm going to be polite and call them incendiary, and that's great because I usually like to back them in data. But what happens when things change? What happens when I learn new things?Well, do I hold on to that original opinion with two hands at a death grip or do I admit that I was wrong in my initial opinion about something? Let's find out. My guest today returns from earlier this year. Matt Coulter is a senior architect since he has been promoted at Liberty Mutual. Welcome back, and thanks for joining me.Matt: Yeah, thanks for inviting me back, especially to talk about this topic.Corey: Well, we spoke about it a fair bit at the beginning of the year. And if you're listening to this, and you haven't heard that show, it's not that necessary to go into; mostly it was me spouting uninformed opinions about the CDK—the Cloud Development Kit, for those who are unfamiliar—I think of it more or less as what if you could just structure your cloud resources using a programming language you claim to already know, but in practice, copy and paste from Stack Overflow like the rest of us? Matt, you probably have a better description of what the CDK is in practice.Matt: Yeah, so we like to say it's imperative code written in a declarative way, or declarative code written in an imperative way. Either way, it lets you write code that produces CloudFormation. So, it doesn't really matter what you write in your script; the point is, at the end of the day, you still have the CloudFormation template that comes out of it. So, the whole piece of it is that it's a developer experience, developer speed play, that if you're from a background that you're more used to writing a programming language than a YAML, you might actually enjoy using the CDK over writing straight CloudFormation or SAM.Corey: When I first kicked the tires on the CDK, my first initial obstacle—which I've struggled with in this industry for a bit—is that I'm just good enough of a programmer to get myself in trouble. Whenever I wind up having a problem that StackOverflow doesn't immediately shine a light on, my default solution is to resort to my weapon of choice, which is brute force. That sometimes works out, sometimes doesn't. And as I went through the CDK, a couple of times in service to a project that I'll explain shortly, I made a bunch of missteps with it. The first and most obvious one is that AWS claims publicly that it has support in a bunch of languages: .NET, Python, there's obviously TypeScript, there's Go support for it—I believe that went generally available—and I'm sure I'm missing one or two, I think? Aren't I?Matt: Yeah, it's: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python Java.Net, and Go. I think those are the currently supported languages.Corey: Java. That's the one that I keep forgetting. It's the block printing to the script that is basically Java cursive. The problem I run into, and this is true of most things in my experience, when a company says that we have deployed an SDK for all of the following languages, there is very clearly a first-class citizen language and then the rest that more or less drift along behind with varying degrees of fidelity. In my experience, when I tried it for the first time in Python, it was not a great experience for me.When I learned just enough JavaScript, and by extension TypeScript, to be dangerous, it worked a lot better. Or at least I could blame all the problems I ran into on my complete novice status when it comes to JavaScript and TypeScript at the time. Is that directionally aligned with what you've experienced, given that you work in a large company that uses this, and presumably, once you have more than, I don't know, two developers, you start to take on aspects of a polyglot shop no matter where you are, on some level?Matt: Yeah. So personally, I jump between Java, Python, and TypeScript whenever I'm writing projects. So, when it comes to the CDK, you'd assume I'd be using all three. I typically stick to TypeScript and that's just because personally, I've had the best experience using it. For anybody who doesn't know the way CDK works for all the languages, it's not that they have written a custom, like, SDK for each of these languages; it's a case of it uses a Node process underneath them and the language actually interacts with—it's like the compiled JavaScript version is basically what they all interact with.So, it means there are some limitations on what you can do in that language. I can't remember the full list, but it just means that it is native in all those languages, but there are certain features that you might be like, “Ah,” whereas, in TypeScript, you can just use all of TypeScript. And my first inclination was actually, I was using the Python one and I was having issues with some compiler errors and things that are just caused by that process. And it's something that talking in the cdk.dev Slack community—there is actually a very active—Corey: Which is wonderful, I will point out.Matt: [laugh]. Thank you. There is actually, like, an awesome Python community in there, but if you ask them, they would all ask for improvements to the language. So, personally if someone's new, I always recommend they start with TypeScript and then branch out as they learn the CDK so they can understand is this a me problem, or is this a problem caused by the implementation?Corey: From my perspective, I didn't do anything approaching that level of deep dive. I took a shortcut that I find has served me reasonably well in the course of my career, when I'm trying to do something in Python, and you pull up a tutorial—which I'm a big fan of reading experience reports, and blog posts, and here's how to get started—and they all have the same problem, which is step one, “Run npm install.” And that's “Hmm, you know, I don't recall that being a standard part of the Python tooling.” It's clearly designed and interpreted and contextualized through a lens of JavaScript. Let's remove that translation layer, let's remove any weird issues I'm going to have in that transpilation process, and just talk in the language it written in. Will this solve my problems? Oh, absolutely not, but it will remove a subset of them that I am certain to go blundering into like a small lost child trying to cross an eight-lane freeway.Matt: Yeah. I've heard a lot of people say the same thing. Because the CDK CLI is a Node process, you need it no matter what language you use. So, if they were distributing some kind of universal binary that just integrated with the languages, it would definitely solve a lot of people's issues with trying to combine languages at deploy time.Corey: One of the challenges that I've had as I go through the process of iterating on the project—but I guess I should probably describe it for those who have not been following along with my misadventures; I write blog posts about it from time to time because I need a toy problem to kick around sometimes because my consulting work is all advisory and I don't want to be a talking head-I have a Twitter client called lasttweetinaws.com. It's free; go and use it. It does all kinds of interesting things for authoring Twitter threads.And I wanted to deploy that to a bunch of different AWS regions, as it turns out, 20 or so at the moment. And that led to a lot of interesting projects and having to learn how to think about these things differently because no one sensible deploys an application simultaneously to what amounts to every AWS region, without canary testing, and having a phased rollout in the rest. But I'm reckless, and honestly, as said earlier, a bad programmer. So, that works out. And trying to find ways to make this all work and fit together led iteratively towards me discovering that the CDK was really kind of awesome for a lot of this.That said, there were definitely some fairly gnarly things I learned as I went through it, due in no small part to help I received from generous randos in the cdk.dev Slack team. And it's gotten to a point where it's working, and as an added bonus, I even mostly understand what he's doing, which is just kind of wild to me.Matt: It's one of those interesting things where because it's a programming language, you can use it out of the box the way it's designed to be used where you can just write your simple logic which generates your CloudFormation, or you can do whatever crazy logic you want to do on top of that to make your app work the way you want it to work. And providing you're not in a company like Liberty, where I'm going to do a code review, if no one's stopping you, you can do your crazy experiments. And if you understand that, it's good. But I do think something like the multi-region deploy, I mean, with CDK, if you'd have a construct, it takes in a variable that you can just say what the region is, so you can actually just write a for loop and pass it in, which does make things a lot easier than, I don't know, try to do it with a YAML, which you can pass in parameters, but you're going to get a lot more complicated a lot quicker.Corey: The approach that I took philosophically was I wrote everything in a region-agnostic way. And it would be instantiated and be told what region to run it in as an environment variable that CDK deploy was called. And then I just deploy 20 simultaneous stacks through GitHub Actions, which invoke custom runners that runs inside of a Lambda function. And that's just a relatively basic YAML file, thanks to the magic of GitHub Actions matrix jobs. So, it fires off 20 simultaneous processes and on every commit to the main branch, and then after about two-and-a-half minutes, it has been deployed globally everywhere and I get notified on anything that fails, which is always fun and exciting to learn those things.That has been, overall, just a really useful experiment and an experience because you're right, you could theoretically run this as a single CDK deploy and then wind up having an iterate through a list of regions. The challenge I have there is that unless I start getting into really convoluted asynchronous concurrency stuff, it feels like it'll just take forever. At two-and-a-half minutes a region times 20 regions, that's the better part of an hour on every deploy and no one's got that kind of patience. So, I wound up just parallelizing it a bit further up the stack. That said, I bet they are relatively straightforward ways, given the async is a big part of JavaScript, to do this simultaneously.Matt: One of the pieces of feedback I've seen about CDK is if you have multiple stacks in the same project, it'll deploy them one at a time. And that's just because it tries to understand the dependencies between the stacks and then it works out which one should go first. But a lot of people have said, “Well, I don't want that. If I have 20 stacks, I want all 20 to go at once the way you're saying.” And I have seen that people have been writing plugins to enable concurrent deploys with CDK out of the box. So, it may be something that it's not an out-of-the-box feature, but it might be something that you can pull in a community plug-in to actually make work.Corey: Most of my problems with it at this point are really problems with CloudFormation. CloudFormation does not support well, if at all, secure string parameters from the AWS Systems Manager parameter store, which is my default go-to for secret storage, and Secrets Manager is supported, but that also cost 40 cents a month per secret. And not for nothing, I don't really want to have all five secrets deployed to Secrets Manager in every region this thing is in. I don't really want to pay $20 a month for this basically free application, just to hold some secrets. So, I wound up talking to some folks in the Slack channel and what we came up with was, I have a centralized S3 bucket that has a JSON object that lives in there.It's only accessible from the deployment role, and it grabs that at deploy time and stuffs it into environment variables when it pushes these things out. That's the only stateful part of all of this. And it felt like that is, on some level, a pattern that a lot of people would benefit from if it had better native support. But the counterargument that if you're only deploying to one or two regions, then Secrets Manager is the right answer for a lot of this and it's not that big of a deal.Matt: Yeah. And it's another one of those things, if you're deploying in Liberty, we'll say, “Well, your secret is unencrypted at runtime, so you probably need a KMS key involved in that,” which as you know, the costs of KMS, it depends on if it's a personal solution or if it's something for, like, a Fortune 100 company. And if it's personal solution, I mean, what you're saying sounds great that it's IAM restricted in S3, and then that way only at deploy time can be read; it actually could be a custom construct that someone can build and publish out there to the construct library—or the construct hub, I should say.Corey: To be clear, the reason I'm okay with this, from a security perspective is one, this is in a dedicated AWS account. This is the only thing that lives in that account. And two, the only API credentials we're talking about are the application-specific credentials for this Twitter client when it winds up talking to the Twitter API. Basically, if you get access to these and are able to steal them and deploy somewhere else, you get no access to customer data, you get—or user data because this is not charge for anything—you get no access to things that have been sent out; all you get to do is submit tweets to Twitter and it'll have the string ‘Last Tweet in AWS' as your client, rather than whatever normal client you would use. It's not exactly what we'd call a high-value target because all the sensitive to a user data lives in local storage in their browser. It is fully stateless.Matt: Yeah, so this is what I mean. Like, it's the difference in what you're using your app for. Perfect case of, you can just go into the Twitter app and just withdraw those credentials and do it again if something happens, whereas as I say, if you're building it for Liberty, that it will not pass a lot of our Well-Architected reviews, just for that reason.Corey: If I were going to go and deploy this at a more, I guess, locked down environment, I would be tempted to find alternative approaches such as having it stored encrypted at rest via KMS in S3 is one option. So, is having global DynamoDB tables that wind up grabbing those things, even grabbing it at runtime if necessary. There are ways to make that credential more secure at rest. It's just, I look at this from a real-world perspective of what is the actual attack surface on this, and I have a really hard time just identifying anything that is going to be meaningful with regard to an exploit. If you're listening to this and have a lot of thoughts on that matter, please reach out I'm willing to learn and change my opinion on things.Matt: One thing I will say about the Dynamo approach you mentioned, I'm not sure everybody knows this, but inside the same Dynamo table, you can scope down a row. You can be, like, “This row and this field in this row can only be accessed from this one Lambda function.” So, there's a lot of really awesome security features inside DynamoDB that I don't think most people take advantage of, but they open up a lot of options for simplicity.Corey: Is that tied to the very recent announcement about Lambda getting SourceArn as a condition key? In other words, you can say, “This specific Lambda function,” as opposed to, “A Lambda in this account?” Like that was a relatively recent Advent that I haven't fully explored the nuances of.Matt: Yeah, like, that has opened a lot of doors. I mean, the Dynamo being able to be locked out in your row has been around for a while, but the new Lambda from SourceArn is awesome because, yeah, as you say, you can literally say this thing, as opposed to, you have to start going into tags, or you have to start going into something else to find it.Corey: So, I want to talk about something you just alluded to, which is the Well-Architected Framework. And initially, when it launched, it was a whole framework, and AWS made a lot of noise about it on keynote stages, as they are want to do. And then later, they created a quote-unquote, “Well-Architected Tool,” which let's be very direct, it's the checkbox survey form, at least the last time I looked at it. And they now have the six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework where they talk about things like security, cost, sustainability is the new pillar, I don't know, absorbency, or whatever the remainders are. I can't think of them off the top of my head. How does that map to your experience with the CDK?Matt: Yeah, so out of the box, the CDK from day one was designed to have sensible defaults. And that's why a lot of the things you deploy have opinions. I talked to a couple of the Heroes and they were like, “I wish it had less opinions.” But that's why whenever you deploy something, it's got a bunch of configuration already in there. For me, in the CDK, whenever I use constructs, or stacks, or deploying anything in the CDK, I always build it in a well-architected way.And that's such a loaded sentence whenever you say the word ‘well-architected,' that people go, “What do you mean?” And that's where I go through the six pillars. And in Liberty, we have a process, it used to be called SCORP because it was five pillars, but not SCORPS [laugh] because they added sustainability. But that's where for every stack, we'll go through it and we'll be like, “Okay, let's have the discussion.” And we will use the tool that you mentioned, I mean, the tool, as you say, it's a bunch of tick boxes with a text box, but the idea is we'll get in a room and as we build the starter patterns or these pieces of infrastructure that people are going to reuse, we'll run the well-architected review against the framework before anybody gets to generate it.And then we can say, out of the box, if you generate this thing, these are the pros and cons against the Well-Architected Framework of what you're getting. Because we can't make it a hundred percent bulletproof for your use case because we don't know it, but we can tell you out of the box, what it does. And then that way, you can keep building so they start off with something that is well documented how well architected it is, and then you can start having—it makes it a lot easier to have those conversations as they go forward. Because you just have to talk about the delta as they start adding their own code. Then you can and you go, “Okay, you've added these 20 lines. Let's talk about what they do.” And that's why I always think you can do a strong connection between infrastructure-as-code and well architected.Corey: As I look through the actual six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework: sustainability, cost optimization, performance, efficiency, reliability, security, and operational excellence, as I think through the nature of what this shitpost thread Twitter client is, I am reasonably confident across all of those pillars. I mean, first off, when it comes to the cost optimization pillar, please, don't come to my house and tell me how that works. Yeah, obnoxiously the security pillar is sort of the thing that winds up causing a problem for this because this is an account deployed by Control Tower. And when I was getting this all set up, my monthly cost for this thing was something like a dollar in charges and then another sixteen dollars for the AWS config rule evaluations on all of the deploys, which is… it just feels like a tax on going about your business, but fine, whatever. Cost and sustainability, from my perspective, also tend to be hand-in-glove when it comes to this stuff.When no one is using the client, it is not taking up any compute resources, it has no carbon footprint of which to speak, by my understanding, it's very hard to optimize this down further from a sustainability perspective without barging my way into the middle of an AWS negotiation with one of its power companies.Matt: So, for everyone listening, watch as we do a live well-architected review because—Corey: Oh yeah, I expect—Matt: —this is what they are. [laugh].Corey: You joke; we should do this on Twitter one of these days. I think would be a fantastic conversation. Or Twitch, or whatever the kids are using these days. Yeah.Matt: Yeah.Corey: And again, if so much of it, too, is thinking about the context. Security, you work for one of the world's largest insurance companies. I shitpost for a living. The relative access and consequences of screwing up the security on this are nowhere near equivalent. And I think that's something that often gets lost, per the perfect be the enemy of the good.Matt: Yeah that's why, unfortunately, the Well-Architected Tool is quite loose. So, that's why they have the Well-Architected Framework, which is, there's a white paper that just covers anything which is quite big, and then they wrote specific lenses for, like, serverless or other use cases that are shorter. And then when you do a well-architected review, it's like loose on, sort of like, how are you applying the principles of well-architected. And the conversation that we just had about security, so you would write that down in the box and be, like, “Okay, so I understand if anybody gets this credential, it means they can post this Last Tweet in AWS, and that's okay.”Corey: The client, not the Twitter account, to be clear.Matt: Yeah. So, that's okay. That's what you just mark down in the well-architected review. And then if we go to day one on the future, you can compare it and we can go, “Oh. Okay, so last time, you said this,” and you can go, “Well, actually, I decided to—” or you just keep it as a note.Corey: “We pivoted. We're a bank now.” Yeah.Matt: [laugh]. So, that's where—we do more than tweets now. We decided to do microtransactions through cryptocurrency over Twitter. I don't know but if you—Corey: And that ends this conversation. No no. [laugh].Matt: [laugh]. But yeah, so if something changes, that's what the well-architected reviews for. It's about facilitating the conversation between the architect and the engineer. That's all it is.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friend EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB has been powering enterprise applications with PostgreSQL for 15 years. And now EnterpriseDB has you covered wherever you deploy PostgreSQL on-premises, private cloud, and they just announced a fully-managed service on AWS and Azure called BigAnimal, all one word. Don't leave managing your database to your cloud vendor because they're too busy launching another half-dozen managed databases to focus on any one of them that they didn't build themselves. Instead, work with the experts over at EnterpriseDB. They can save you time and money, they can even help you migrate legacy applications—including Oracle—to the cloud. To learn more, try BigAnimal for free. Go to biganimal.com/snark, and tell them Corey sent you.Corey: And the lens is also helpful in that this is a serverless application. So, we're going to view it through that lens, which is great because the original version of the Well-Architected Tool is, “Oh, you built this thing entirely in Lambda? Have you bought some reserved instances for it?” And it's, yeah, why do I feel like I have to explain to AWS how their own systems work? This makes it a lot more streamlined and talks about this, though, it still does struggle with the concept of—in my case—a stateless app. That is still something that I think is not the common path. Imagine that: my code is also non-traditional. Who knew?Matt: Who knew? The one thing that's good about it, if anybody doesn't know, they just updated the serverless lens about, I don't know, a week or two ago. So, they added in a bunch of more use cases. So, if you've read it six months ago, or even three months ago, go back and reread it because they spent a good year updating it.Corey: Thank you for telling me that. That will of course wind up in next week's issue of Last Week in AWS. You can go back and look at the archives and figure out what week record of this then. Good work. One thing that I have learned as well as of yesterday, as it turns out, before we wound up having this recording—obviously because yesterday generally tends to come before today, that is a universal truism—is it I had to do a bit of refactoring.Because what I learned when I was in New York live-tweeting the AWS Summit, is that the Route 53 latency record works based upon where your DNS server is. Yeah, that makes sense. I use Tailscale and wind up using my Pi-hole, which lives back in my house in San Francisco. Yeah, I was always getting us-west-1 from across the country. Cool.For those weird edge cases like me—because this is not the common case—how do I force a local region? Ah, I'll give it its own individual region prepend as a subdomain. Getting that to work with both the global lasttweetinaws.com domain as well as the subdomain on API Gateway through the CDK was not obvious on how to do it.Randall Hunt over at Caylent was awfully generous and came up with a proof-of-concept in about three minutes because he's Randall, and that was extraordinarily helpful. But a challenge I ran into was that the CDK deploy would fail because the way that CloudFormation was rendered in the way it was trying to do stuff, “Oh, that already has that domain affiliated in a different way.” I had to do a CDK destroy then a CDK deploy for each one. Now, not the end of the world, but it got me thinking, everything that I see around the CDK more or less distills down to either greenfield or a day one experience. That's great, but throw it all away and start over is often not what you get to do.And even though Amazon says it's always day one, those of us in, you know, real companies don't get to just treat everything as brand new and throw away everything older than 18 months. What is the day two experience looking like for you? Because you clearly have a legacy business. By legacy, I of course, use it in the condescending engineering term that means it makes actual money, rather than just telling really good stories to venture capitalists for 20 years.Matt: Yeah. We still have mainframes running that make a lot of money. So, I don't mock legacy at all.Corey: “What's that piece of crap do?” “Well, about $4 billion a year in revenue. Perhaps show some respect.” It's a common refrain.Matt: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, anyone listening, don't mock legacy because as Corey says, it is running the business. But for us when it comes to day two, it's something that I'm actually really passionate about this in general because it is really easy. Like I did it with CDK patterns, it's really easy to come out and be like, “Okay, we're going to create a bunch of starter patterns, or quickstarts”—or whatever flavor that you came up with—“And then you're going to deploy this thing, and we're going to have you in production and 30 seconds.” But even day one later that day—not even necessarily day two—it depends on who it was that deployed it and how long they've been using AWS.So, you hear these stories of people who deployed something to experiment, and they either forget to delete, it cost them a lot of money or they tried to change it and it breaks because they didn't understand what was in it. And this is where the community starts to diverge in their opinions on what AWS CDK should be. There's a lot of people who think that at the minute CDK, even if you create an abstraction in a construct, even if I create a construct and put it in the construct library that you get to use, it still unravels and deploys as part of your deploy. So, everything that's associated with it, you don't own and you technically need to understand that at some point because it might, in theory, break. Whereas there's a lot of people who think, “Okay, the CDK needs to go server side and an abstraction needs to stay an abstraction in the cloud. And then that way, if somebody is looking at a 20-line CDK construct or stack, then it stays 20 lines. It never unravels to something crazy underneath.”I mean, that's one pro tip thing. It'd be awesome if that could work. I'm not sure how the support for that would work from a—if you've got something running on the cloud, I'm pretty sure AWS [laugh] aren't going to jump on a call to support some construct that I deployed, so I'm not sure how that will work in the open-source sense. But what we're doing at Liberty is the other way. So, I mean, we famously have things like the software accelerator that lets you pick a pattern or create your pipelines and you're deployed, but now what we're doing is we're building a lot of telemetry and automated information around what you deployed so that way—and it's all based on Well-Architected, common theme. So, that way, what you can do is you can go into [crosstalk 00:26:07]—Corey: It's partially [unintelligible 00:26:07], and partially at a glance, figure out okay, are there some things that can be easily remediated as we basically shift that whole thing left?Matt: Yeah, so if you deploy something, and it should be good the second you deploy it, but then you start making changes. Because you're Corey, you just start adding some stuff and you deploy it. And if it's really bad, it won't deploy. Like, that's the Liberty setup. There's a bunch of rules that all go, “Okay, that's really bad. That'll cause damage to customers.”But there's a large gap between bad and good that people don't really understand the difference that can cost a lot of money or can cause a lot of grief for developers because they go down the wrong path. So, that's why what we're now building is, after you deploy, there's a dashboard that'll just come up and be like, “Hey, we've noticed that your Lambda function has too little memory. It's going to be slow. You're going to have bad cold starts.” Or you know, things like that.The knowledge that I have had the gain through hard fighting over the past couple of years putting it into automation, and that way, combined with the well-architected reviews, you actually get me sitting in a call going, “Okay, let's talk about what you're building,” that hopefully guides people the right way. But I still think there's so much more we can do for day two because even if you deploy the best solution today, six months from now, AWS are releasing ten new services that make it easier to do what you just did. So, someone also needs to build something that shows you the delta to get to the best. And that would involve AWS or somebody thinking cohesively, like, these are how we use our products. And I don't think there's a market for it as a third-party company, unfortunately, but I do think that's where we need to get to, that at day two somebody can give—the way we're trying to do for Liberty—advice, automated that says, “I see what you're doing, but it would be better if you did this instead.”Corey: Yeah, I definitely want to spend more time thinking about these things and analyzing how we wind up addressing them and how we think about them going forward. I learned a lot of these lessons over a decade ago. I was fairly deep into using Puppet, and came to the fair and balanced conclusion that Puppet was a steaming piece of crap. So, the solution was that I was one of the very early developers behind SaltStack, which was going to do everything right. And it was and it was awesome and it was glorious, right up until I saw an environment deployed by someone else who was not as familiar with the tool as I was, at which point I realized hell is other people's use cases.And the way that they contextualize these things, you craft a finely balanced torque wrench, it's a thing of beauty, and people complain about the crappy hammer. “You're holding it wrong. No, don't do it that way.” So, I have an awful lot of sympathy for people building platform-level tooling like this, where it works super well for the use case that they're in, but not necessarily… they're not necessarily aligned in other ways. It's a very hard nut to crack.Matt: Yeah. And like, even as you mentioned earlier, if you take one piece of AWS, for example, API Gateway—and I love the API Gateway team; if you're listening, don't hate on me—but there's, like, 47,000 different ways you can deploy an API Gateway. And the CDK has to cover all of those, it would be a lot easier if there was less ways that you could deploy the thing and then you can start crafting user experiences on a platform. But whenever you start thinking that every AWS component is kind of the same, like think of the amount of ways you're can deploy a Lambda function now, or think of the, like, containers. I'll not even go into [laugh] the different ways to run containers.If you're building a platform, either you support it all and then it sort of gets quite generic-y, or you're going to do, like, what serverless cloud are doing though, like Jeremy Daly is building this unique experience that's like, “Okay, the code is going to build the infrastructure, so just build a website, and we'll do it all behind it.” And I think they're really interesting because they're sort of opposites, in that one doesn't want to support everything, but should theoretically, for their slice of customers, be awesome, and then the other ones, like, “Well, let's see what you're going to do. Let's have a go at it and I should hopefully support it.”Corey: I think that there's so much that can be done on this. But before we wind up calling it an episode, I had one further question that I wanted to explore around the recent results of the community CDK survey that I believe is a quarterly event. And I read the analysis on this, and I talked about it briefly in the newsletter, but it talks about adoption and a few other aspects of it. And one of the big things it looks at is the number of people who are contributing to the CDK in an open-source context. Am I just thinking about this the wrong way when I think that, well, this is a tool that helps me build out cloud infrastructure; me having to contribute code to this thing at all is something of a bug, whereas yeah, I want this thing to work out super well—Docker is open-source, but you'll never see me contributing things to Docker ever, as a pull request, because it does, as it says on the tin; I don't have any problems that I'm aware of that, ooh, it should do this instead. I mean, I have opinions on that, but those aren't pull requests; those are complete, you know, shifts in product strategy, which it turns out is not quite done on GitHub.Matt: So, it's funny I, a while ago, was talking to a lad who was the person who came up with the idea for the CDK. And CDK is pretty much the open-source project for AWS if you look at what they have. And the thought behind it, it's meant to evolve into what people want and need. So yes, there is a product manager in AWS, and there's a team fully dedicated to building it, but the ultimate aspiration was always it should be bigger than AWS and it should be community-driven. Now personally, I'm not sure—like you just said it—what the incentive is, given that right now CDK only works with CloudFormation, which means that you are directly helping with an AWS tool, but it does give me hope for, like, their CDK for Terraform, and their CDK for Kubernetes, and there's other flavors based on the same technology as AWS CDK that potentially could have a thriving open-source community because they work across all the clouds. So, it might make more sense for people to jump in there.Corey: Yeah, I don't necessarily think that there's a strong value proposition as it stands today for the idea of the CDK becoming something that works across other cloud providers. I know it technically has the capability, but if I think that Python isn't quite a first-class experience, I don't even want to imagine what other providers are going to look like from that particular context.Matt: Yeah, and that's from what I understand, I haven't personally jumped into the CDK for Terraform and we didn't talk about it here, but in CDK, you get your different levels of construct. And is, like, a CloudFormation-level construct, so everything that's in there directly maps to a property in CloudFormation, and then L2 is AWS's opinion on safe defaults, and then L3 is when someone like me comes along and turns it into something that you may find useful. So, it's a pattern. As far as I know, CDK for Terraform is still on L1. They haven't got the rich collection—Corey: And L4 is just hiring you as a consultant—Matt: [laugh].Corey: —to come in fix my nonsense for me?Matt: [laugh]. That's it. L4 could be Pulumi recently announced that you can use AWS CDK constructs inside it. But I think it's one of those things where the constructs, if they can move across these different tools the way AWS CDK constructs now work inside Pulumi, and there's a beta version that works inside CDK for Terraform, then it may or may not make sense for people to contribute to this stuff because we're not building at a higher level. It's just the vision is hard for most people to get clear in their head because it needs articulated and told as a clear strategy.And then, you know, as you said, it is an AWS product strategy, so I'm not sure what you get back by contributing to the project, other than, like, Thorsten—I should say, so Thorsten who wrote the book with me, he is the number three contributor, I think, to the CDK. And that's just because he is such a big user of it that if he sees something that annoys him, he just comes in and tries to fix it. So, the benefit is, he gets to use the tool. But he is a super user, so I'm not sure, outside of super users, what the use case is.Corey: I really want to thank you for, I want to say spending as much time talking to me about this stuff as you have, but that doesn't really go far enough. Because so much of how I think about this invariably winds up linking back to things that you have done and have been advocating for in that community for such a long time. If it's not you personally, just, like, your fingerprints are all over this thing. So, it's one of those areas where the entire software developer ecosystem is really built on the shoulders of others who have done a lot of work that came before. Often you don't get any visibility of who those people are, so it's interesting whenever I get to talk to someone whose work I have directly built upon that I get to say thank you. So, thank you for this. I really do appreciate how much more straightforward a lot of this is than my previous approach of clicking in the console and then lying about it to provision infrastructure.Matt: Oh, no worries. Thank you for the thank you. I mean, at the end of the day, all of this stuff is just—it helps me as much as it helps everybody else, and we're all trying to do make everything quicker for ourselves, at the end of the day.Corey: If people want to learn more about what you're up to, where's the best place to find you these days? They can always take a job at Liberty; I hear good things about it.Matt: Yeah, we're always looking for people at Liberty, so come look up our careers. But Twitter is always the best place. So, I'm @NIDeveloper on Twitter. You should find me pretty quickly, or just type Matt Coulter into Google, you'll get me.Corey: I like it. It's always good when it's like, “Oh, I'm the top Google result for my own name.” On some level, that becomes an interesting thing. Some folks into it super well, John Smith has some challenges, but you know, most people are somewhere in the middle of that.Matt: I didn't used to be number one, but there's a guy called the Kangaroo Kid in Australia, who is, like, a stunt driver, who was number one, and [laugh] I always thought it was funny if people googled and got him and thought it was me. So, it's not anymore.Corey: Thank you again for, I guess, all that you do. And of course, taking the time to suffer my slings and arrows as I continue to revise my opinion of the CDK upward.Matt: No worries. Thank you for having me.Corey: Matt Coulter, senior architect at Liberty Mutual. 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 and leave an angry comment as well that will not actually work because it has to be transpiled through a JavaScript engine first.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.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Matt Danna is the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Its mission is to modernize the technology while improving the daily lives of professionals and the clients they serve. Chad talks with Matt about discovering a problem and then making the jump to working on it, overcoming hurdles in terms of continued growth, and deciding to invest in building their own hardware by creating Boulevard Duo: a point of sale credit card reader. Boulevard (https://www.joinblvd.com/) Boulevard Duo (https://shop.joinblvd.com/products/duo) Follow Boulevard on Twitter (https://twitter.com/joinblvd), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joinblvd/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/joinblvd/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/boulevard/), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo9FyMtvqrDGHFl797iOhww). Follow Matt on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mattdanna) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattdanna/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Matt Danna, the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Matt, thank you so much for joining me. MATT: Thanks so much for having me, Chad. Great to be here. CHAD: One of the things that I was interested in learning about Boulevard is it's a large product that does a lot for salons and spas. And so, I'm interested in talking with you about the process of getting to where you are today. But why don't we get started by giving folks an overview of everything that Boulevard does for salons and spas? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So Boulevard offers what we think is the first and really only business management platform that's really focused around the client experience. We work with businesses that help all of us look and feel our best. And it's a really special industry to be powering where there's a really close sense of that human touch and that human element. We try to use technology to help automate and relieve the day-to-day operations as much as we can for these businesses so that they can focus on providing that world-class client experience and deepening relationships with their clients. CHAD: And tactically, that's online booking, scheduling, payments, schedule management, all that kind of stuff that goes into running. MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So it goes all the way from, like you said, scheduling to we are a fully integrated payments solution to even have time clock kind of commission reporting. And so it really goes from managing everything front of house all the way through back of house. And happy to share more about how we ended up building such a wide and deep product because it's definitely an interesting story. CHAD: So you were not in the salon industry prior to Boulevard, is that right? MATT: That's correct. CHAD: So, how did you end up getting brought into this industry? MATT: So the founding story...so my background is in software engineering, but I ended up turning much more into a designer over time. So I've been naturally drawn to building technology for creative individuals. And so, at my last startup, which was called Fullscreen, it was a startup here in LA. We were helping YouTube creators make better content online, helping them monetize on YouTube, understand their audience. And this was in the days where YouTubers couldn't monetize directly. They needed to go through a network. And so, we created this proprietary technology offering that really helped them understand how to build their audience and further monetize. So the original founding story was that I met my co-founder of Boulevard at Fullscreen. His name is Sean Stavropoulos. And I was the VP of Product. He was the VP of Engineering. And the kind of inception moment was that there was this week where Sean's hair was a complete disaster. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And as a great colleague, I was making fun of him [laughs] and telling him like, "Dude, you need to go get a haircut." And he said to me that he kept forgetting to call his salon during the day to make an appointment, and at night when he remembered to do those types of things, the salon is obviously closed. And we were just thinking how much friction there was as a client of these businesses in the booking process and that we didn't understand why you had to do basically so much work in order to be a client. It just was incongruent with what was going on in other industries and kind of restaurants and everything going through this digital transformation. Our hypothesis was that they must still be on pen and paper; they haven't adopted technology yet, and that's why you need to call to make an appointment. And we started thinking a lot about this problem and started obsessing over it. [laughs] And there was a weekend that we were hanging out, and we ended up walking into a few different salons and spas in a neighborhood that we were hanging out. And we did a bunch of research and asked them a lot of questions. We said we were UCLA students working on a research project. CHAD: [laughs] MATT: Which was a pretty smart move because everyone loves talking to students, and we weren't trying to sell them anything. We were trying to learn more. And so, a good research tip is just to state you're always a student. And we ended up learning. And we were super surprised that they were all using technology. All the technology that these businesses were using were also capable of online booking. And so we were like, "Okay, none of this makes sense. Like, you're making your customers call you, but you have these capabilities." We were like, "Do you need help embedding it into your website? Like, why don't you use online booking" And their answer would be, "We absolutely cannot use online booking, no way," which made us even more curious. And so what we ended up learning was that self-care businesses, you know, salons, spas, nail salons, you name it, they're generally running on pretty thin profit margins like in the 5% to 10% neighborhood because their labor costs are so high relative to their sales. And the other important piece that we learned was that the front desk has outsized control over the revenue that the business makes simply by how they place appointments on the calendar. And so when you call to make an appointment, they're looking up to see if you have a client file, to see if you've been there before, what services did you get? Who were they with? How long exactly did they take? They're also looking to see when they could fit you in. And they're doing double booking, triple booking whenever possible so that staff can be with multiple clients at once and double up. And then they're also making sure there are no gaps between appointments. And so they're doing basically this yield optimization, schedule optimization on the fly. And none of that was taken into account if customers self-booked using any of the solutions available on the market. And so we thought that seems like a straight-up technology problem to solve that these businesses needed an online booking solution so customers can have that convenience and self-booking whenever they want. But it also needs to take into account some of that business logic that the front desk follows so that they don't get gaps in the day and have a really sub-optimal and inefficient calendar. And so that's where we thought we could provide some particular value that would be unique in the industry. And that was what we focused our MVP on, was that very thing, having an intelligent scheduling solution. CHAD: It seems like it's a pretty big leap for the director of product and director of engineering at a startup to discover a problem like this and then actually make the jump to working on it [laughs] and making it real. Was there something in particular that happened? Why did you do that? [laughs] MATT: Yeah, I mean, we had a, you know, being executives at the startup and really loving the team, loving what we were doing, our mission. But I think one of the motivators and catalysts was when we were doing this field research. And we ended up going out to a couple of hundred businesses over the course of several weekends to learn even more about this problem area. But one of the things that was so evident and clear was that all of the technology in the market that these customers, these businesses were using, they were negative NPS scores. They were like, "Oh, we use, you know, X, Y, or Z solution, and we really don't like it. It's so hard to use." You would see the red in their eyes when they would talk about this technology." And we're like, "There's something very powerful here." And we weren't exactly sure at the time was it legacy technology not keeping up with modern needs of these businesses and the growing expectations from end consumers, or was it user error problems? And we had come to the conclusion that it was really a lack of innovation in the market from existing vendors. And that got us particularly excited, and we formed a lot of conviction, so much conviction that we made the leap to start working on this. So we transitioned out of our full-time executive day jobs, and we ended up doing a little bit of consulting work while we were doing a lot of product discovery. So for about six months, we were doing three days a week on Boulevard and a couple of days a week on consulting. So it was a nice little part-time way to keep paying the bills but also then be able to spend a significant amount of our brain space thinking about this opportunity and what problems we wanted to solve. CHAD: So maybe I'm just off base here. And I'm not trying to get you to say that something was wrong at Fullscreen. But it strikes me there needed to be something going on, in my mind, maybe I'm off base, for you to even before deciding to make that leap, though, to spend your weekends going to salons and doing interviews. MATT: Yeah, I think this is how most companies are started is by founders who are trying to solve a problem that they're exposed to. So everyone is always trying to build companies that are solutions for problems that they have. And we just, I think, got excited by this problem. And my background being in building technology for the creative individuals, like, I got really, really excited. And Sean took some convincing that this was worth it and that this could be a thing. CHAD: Was it an aspiration for you to find something that you could use to found your own company? MATT: No, no. CHAD: And then why were you doing it? [laughs] MATT: I think it felt like the right thing to do. I never considered myself an entrepreneur, and I really still don't. I think of myself as a builder, and I love building things. And this was in a way for us to think about, like, oh, let's build a company and turn this into a massive business. We saw that there was a particular pain point that was experienced from both consumers and businesses and that we could provide something special. It felt like it was something that only we saw, which I think made it feel even more compelling to work on. And so we didn't know if we were crazy at first. We always had this question of like, why hasn't anyone figured this out? This seems so obvious. I still don't know why we're the only ones that have any type of kind of logic on top of the schedule in that sense. But we saw it as a unique opportunity to build something really special and provide a lot of value to consumers and businesses. CHAD: Well, that's super interesting. So once you decided and you started working on Boulevard, how did you decide what to focus on first? And how did you set your market for what the first version was going to be or a target for what the first version was going to be? MATT: So, we focused on the businesses that had a front desk. So those are generally the ones that really struggled with getting the most out of every minute possible in the day. And so we focused on what were typically mid to upper market single locations to start, and we got introduced to a salon owner through a mutual friend. They were based in New York, and it was just a two-person salon. And so, we built our MVP to be able to support their day-to-day functions. And they were using some other system, so we kind of had to get to a place where there was general feature parity to support them. So we built up the features that we needed, and then we launched them, transitioned them off their previous solution. And then we did all this in person and then hung out with them for about a week or two after to babysit the system, make sure there weren't problems. We were iterating in real-time. Sean and I were releasing code. And from there, we got an intro to our second customer through another mutual friend. CHAD: How long did it take you from when you started to when it was live in that first salon? MATT: It took about nine months. CHAD: And were you self-funding that based on the consulting that you mentioned? MATT: Yeah, self-funding. And then, after we launched with the first business, Sean and I actually both liquidated our 401Ks. And we didn't have the time to continue to consult. So we bootstrapped the company and put our life savings into it once we had traction from our first couple of customers. And that's when we started to hire our first employees to help us continue to accelerate development and that kind of thing. CHAD: So again, liquidating your 401k is a pretty big step. MATT: Yep. CHAD: Did you try to do external fundraising before doing that? MATT: No. At that point, not yet. We wanted to really validate the concept on our own dime. And then, when we had paying customers and a decent customer base, we did a friends and family round. And then, once we achieved a certain milestone, we joined an accelerator, which is based in Los Angeles called Luma Launch. And we were part of that accelerator for about six months. And then we raised our series seed following that. We went from liquidating our savings, living like college students, ramen noodle budget-type to once we felt good about the value we were providing, had the case studies and the customer feedback, and had a pretty awesome MVP to show to investors; that's when we decided to fundraise. CHAD: How nervous were the two of you? MATT: Very nervous. [laughter] I mean, it's one of those both of us come from really, really humble families, and there was no safety net. And so we were all in. And I think often from when there's a lot of constraints; you have to find creativity. We were all in. We were working all the time on this, really gave it everything we had. And in hindsight, it was a good decision. But it could have easily been a terrible decision. [laughs] CHAD: I mean, this is one of the things with founding stories is we talk to the people who are successful. [laughs] So, would you recommend this path to other people? MATT: I think if it's something where you could see providing unique value to the world and that you have lots of validation from real people, not just your friends but from prospective customers...it was when we were talking to real businesses where they would say, "This is something we would use and pay for." And so, after hearing that dozens and dozens of times, that matched with the negative NPS scores with their current solutions. That's where we were like, "This can be something pretty special." So I wouldn't recommend building in isolation and making that leap of faith without really doing your diligence on the opportunity. But yeah, I think everyone, at some point, if they have an idea or a problem they want to solve, should give it a go. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: That first customer that you were building the replacement for, were you charging them? MATT: No, we were not. CHAD: Are they paying now? MATT: They are, they are, very little. CHAD: Okay. [chuckles] MATT: They're a small business and have been staying super successful. And so, in the earliest days, the learnings and feedback matter a lot more than revenue, and so you optimize for that as opposed to the economics. And so for us going and working on location at these businesses and they're paying us essentially in the learnings and teachings of helping us understand and absorb ourselves in this industry, and working as front desk and doing the jobs that all these professionals have to do. And so that's where we were able to build and get to a place where our product is really, really authentic. And it was from that first direct observation. CHAD: I've worked on products before where they're currently being done by people. They might have technology solutions in place, and they feel like there's no technology that will do this; we need to have a person being the one to do it. Because like you said, there's something special about a person doing it. And so sometimes those businesses, when they have a solution, even if they've properly solved it, there's a lot of resistance from customers who are very skeptical that the technology is going to be able to do it the right way. Have you encountered that? MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How do you combat that? MATT: We iterated on, essentially, the objections. So the first objection was that "People can't book online because it's going to mess up my day." And so we created this what we call precision scheduling, where it does the optimization on the calendar. And then the next issue was that we started seeing some no-shows coming because I think there's this mental analog of if you miss an OpenTable reservation not as big of a deal. But in our industry that we're serving, if you miss a two-hour appointment, that professional is out a significant amount of their income for the week. And so that's where we actually started dipping our toes in payments, and we started requiring a credit card at the time of booking just to authorize the card and to hold the appointment. And so that objection of no shows we solved there. There was a lot of concern of like, "Hey, our customers are not going to know the right thing to book." And we have learned that customers actually are very savvy and that the clients deserve more credit than the professionals are giving them that if a woman gets a balayage, she knows it's a balayage. And so, usually, the way that we overcame that objection was we'd work with them and have best practices on menu design. But that they also then, when they're giving a service that they discuss what they actually did in that service so that the customer knows what to book next time if they want the same thing. And so that was kind of the pattern is like, build something, learn, iterate, and do it on location with these businesses so that we could see it firsthand in an unbiased way. And so that's really how we were able to build such a product with this amount of scale and overcome some of those initial objections. CHAD: Is it easier now that you have 2000-plus customers, some social capital out there? They can ask other people, "Is this working for you?" Is that easier now? MATT: Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the ways...we didn't have a sales team for a long time in our company, and we were actually under the radar. We were stealth, didn't announce anything about ourselves for the first three or four years. And so we were just very much focused on product development and building something that was incredible. And then we were really fed off of referrals and that word of mouth. So it's I think when you get a product that people love, they're going to tell their friends about it. And for us, that really helped accelerate our growth. CHAD: So yeah, so this was all taking place in what year? MATT: So we transitioned out of our last company and started doing part-time work in summer of 2015. And then, we officially launched our first customer in spring of 2016. CHAD: Cool. And I think that that is, you know, you didn't get to 2,000 customers overnight, right? You've been at this for a while. MATT: Yeah, the barrier to entry is very high in the market, and VCs called our type of opportunity a brownfield opportunity where there are a lot of legacy solutions in the market. And we compete with some companies that were actually started before I was born. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And so they've had many decades to build functionality into their platform that we need to get to some level of feature parity with in order to seamlessly transition them off of their previous solution to our platform. And it did take a significant upfront investment with product in order to get to be able to pay the price of admission and to be able to actually compete in the market. CHAD: So one of the things I'm curious about is, do you have a sense of what does the overall market looks like? I feel like there are probably lots of salons, spas, haircutting places. There are a lot of them all over the world. MATT: There are, yeah. So we believe that there are about 500,000 self-care businesses in the United States. CHAD: Just in the United States. MATT: Yeah, just in the United States. And the employee base in the labor market is about two to two and a half million professionals across all those businesses. CHAD: So, where do you think the hurdles in terms of continued growth are for you? MATT: So one of the areas that we focus on is...so all of these self-care businesses are about 90% similar in how they operate. And so we started in the hair salon vertical and then have expanded into many adjacent verticals over the course of the past few years. We really tried to make sure that we had really, really strong product-market fit in the hair salons, which is the biggest self-care market, and before we expanded into, say, nail salons. When expanding into adjacent verticals, there's some functionality that is unique to those verticals. And so, for example, one of our recent verticals that we expanded into is med spas. And the way that med spas charge for their services is generally based on the products that are used, and so if you buy 100 units of Botox, they charge a per-unit fee. And so that was something that was pretty unique to the medspa market that doesn't exist in other self-care markets. And so vertical expansion is a vector of growth for us and then segment expansion. So we started with the single location, very small businesses. And then we have worked our way up to enterprise where we're powering chains and franchises of hundreds of locations. And then the other aspects kind of the third vector of growth is the different product sets and functionality that we are releasing to our customers. So continuing to develop the platform but also look at different opportunities where we can provide outsized value by developing it ourselves. CHAD: So we could literally talk all day, and I could talk to you about scaling and product and everything. But one thing I'm interested in before we wrap up is I think it's really special to found a company with a designer, a product person, and an engineer. And I can tell even just by looking at the site and the product that you very highly value design and creating a product that people love to use. MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How does that lead you to creating Duo, which is a point of sale card reader? MATT: One of the things that we saw in the market was this real importance in service design so what information is showing when to the users of our technology. So there's that aspect of what's the overall experience? Then there's the product design; how easy is it to use? And how quickly can new employees, new front desk staff, how quickly can they get ramped up and start using the system? Do they need two weeks of training? And for us, we try to make it as intuitive and as familiar as possible. And then we look to see how else can we extend design? And one of the complaints that we always received from customers was that hardware options were always pretty ugly, that all of them look dated like the kind of hardware that you use at a supermarket. And they wanted something that was more sleek and that they weren't ashamed to have on their countertop for checkout. And so that's where we decided to invest in building our own hardware. And that was particularly exciting for us. So it's been really, really well-received from our customers. And it was a really fun project to work on. Getting into the hardware space is always challenging. But as a designer, it was super cool to build something that became physical for the first time in my life. CHAD: Does the logic that led to you creating Duo eventually lead you to creating an entire hardware point of sale system? MATT: We're assessing all opportunities. There's this interesting moment happening in the payments space where like Apple, you know, announced that I think they're piloting now that you won't need hardware in order to accept credit card payments on the iPhone. CHAD: You'll just be able to do it right against an iPad. MATT: Exactly. So I think there's a real question as to what is the...and I'm sure this is something that folks like Square are thinking about, that have really best in class hardware is like what does the future of hardware look for fintech companies? And is it just going to fold into the actual devices, or will you continue to need standalone readers? That's something that we're constantly thinking about and keeping smart on the latest developments in that. But our expertise and what we love is building incredible software. Hardware was that area that we saw that we could provide unique value, but our goal is to always be a software company. You generally don't make much money off of the hardware piece in this business. CHAD: Now, how personally involved were you in the hardware project? MATT: I was very involved, potentially too involved. [laughs] CHAD: As a founder, when new projects come up like this that maybe you're interested in, how do you either hold yourself back or not hold yourself back from being involved in them? MATT: I think when the company is venturing into new territory, entirely new like uncharted waters, that's when it's valuable for me or any founder to get really, really smart on what's the opportunity, what's the risks, all that kind of stuff. In this case, my experience working at our initial customers for the first couple of years of our business was really, really impactful. And so our Duo captures...and the reason why it's called Duo is because it's a countertop, but also you can take the top off, and you can do an in chair checkout. So you could bring it over to the customer, and they can check out right while they're in the chair as an express checkout. And so those types of things I learned while being on location working at these businesses. And so I was providing a lot of the guidance and conceptualizing how we could think about what the hardware offering would be that would be unique to us, and collaborated with our head of design and then an industrial designer to get the proof of concept there. CHAD: And you said, "Potentially too involved," so why did you say that? [laughs] MATT: I think as a founder, you are always trying to figure out what altitude are you flying at. And there are some things that you will need to dive in and be very hands-on. And then there are other times just to guide and support and coach. And I think for this because it was a new project, I was particularly excited to be able to get into hardware because that was a first for me that I was involved in all aspects of it. But it was a lot of fun. CHAD: Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. I really appreciate it. I'm sure the listeners do too. If folks want to find out more about Boulevard, about joining the team, about becoming a customer, or just to get in touch with you, where are all the different places that they can do that? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. I think the best place is just on our website. We are hiring across all levels and all functions, especially on the product design and engineering side. And so our website is joinblvd.com, J-O-I-N-B-L-V-D.com. There's the about page, and it links out to my LinkedIn. So if anyone wants to connect and get acquainted, that's probably the easiest way to do it. CHAD: Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate it. MATT: Yeah, thanks so much. This was a pleasure. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with links for everything that Matt just mentioned and including a complete transcript of the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Matt Danna.

If you're recommending bad products at high prices, and you're trying to gouge people? Well, that's evil. Right? So don't do that. But other than that, if you are providing actual solutions that clients need, at a price that makes sense for you and make sense for them, there is absolutely nothing evil about that. I would say that's what integrity is all about, is providing them with a solution that is worth more to them than the money they're paying you to get that solution. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, I am joined by Matt Eysoldt. He's a multiline rep in the promotional products industry. And Matt and I were talking last week, and it turns out that we both like to work with smart, focused, motivated industry professionals. So I thought I'd invite him on the podcast to discuss that. Welcome, Matt. Good to have you here. Matt: Thank you so much, David, I'm excited to be here and excited to talk to you about motivation, education and how to grow your business. David: Awesome. Now, for those who don't know what a multiline rep is or what a multiline rep does, give us a quick overview. Matt: Yeah, so really what I like to say is the beauty of being a multiline is we offer value to the suppliers we represent. You know, maybe our better-known lines open the door for our lesser-known lines. So it's a definite win in that situation. But it's an awesome win for the customers that I call on. And that's because, maybe you're looking for a red t-shirt and I've got that. But I've also got other things that may be the answer to your client's needs. So it's really kind of the opportunity to open the door to more diverse products in a short meeting. You know, maybe we sit down and we talk 30, 45 minutes and we've really raised awareness to a lot of different items. David: Right. Okay. And so I imagine, in order to be successful with this, it's a choosing game to some extent. You've got to choose the right suppliers to represent. And you've got to choose the right distributors who are actually going to be able to do something with your recommendations, and with the suppliers that you're recommending to them. Matt: Absolutely. As we both know, time is our most precious resource. So we have to be extremely selective while we're on the road, to say, "who are we going to see?" Who is going to take this information and use it to the best of their ability to promote my brand and to grow their business as well?" So I think that's a very, very crucial point. I'm always looking for that rising star, that motivated person out there. And what I find is, that motivated sales rep that is looking to help their client find the right solution for their promotion. That rep is also always willing to invest their time and energy into their own personal education. So it's really kind of a self-fulfilling cycle that, just continues to grow things. David: Yeah, that's what we've found as well. Obviously, we've been doing training in the promotional products industry for a long, long time. And, it doesn't surprise me anymore, but in the early stages, when I would go to an industry trade show and find out that really maybe five to seven to 10% max of the people who go to a trade show actually participate in any of the education. In the early stages, I found it surprising. Now, I think it explains a lot about why a certain percentage of people in the industry do extremely well and a lot are just either struggling or just sort of getting by. Matt: Absolutely David. And I think, you know, I've run into customers that are afraid to make a profit that think that's evil. And, you know, I find myself trying to educate them on some of these things. Whereas, it would be awesome, talking to you, that I might be able to refer people to you a little bit to, you know, how can you increase that margin? Why is that margin important for your business? You know, it's one order that goes south on a person that's ...

Our Kindness expert, Barry Lane is back to remind us that "Kindness is Truth, Kindness is Freedom." Barry soothes our nerves with his sweet songs (two new songs as we record live in Barry's studio - the second song is way at the end, so make sure you catch it) and words of wisdom as we navigate a possible WWIII, Civil War, life... and shows us HOPE and reminds us that everything is going to be OK. There are two new songs as we record live in Barry's studio - the second song is way at the end, so make sure you catch it. Barry: https://forcefieldforgood.com/ Barry's book: https://www.amazon.com/Force-Field-Barry-Colleen-Mestdagh/dp/1931492298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491102856&sr=8-1&keywords=force+field+for+good+barry+lane Transcript [00:00:00] Matt: Um, yeah. So how am I doing well? Um, yeah, um, challenging, um, to be honest, uh, [00:00:08] Barry: what's going on? [00:00:09] Matt: Yeah... So my mom right now is in hospice, so she's transitioning and I'm not dealing with it. Well, So an episode on kindness is going to be especially kind of challenging for me. Um, one of my favorite shows, which shouldn't be one of my favorite shows, but it is; it's "After Life" with Ricky Gervais , which is about a man who loses his wife and is falling over the whole time. And the only time he cries um, in the show, cause he's, he's, he's a, he's just an ass to everyone. Like he has so much hate and so much rage and so much, and he just doesn't care anymore. And he's like, and he starts crying and they're like, oh, don't cry. He's like, it's not the world I have a problem with it's kindness I can't handle. [00:00:56] Barry: That's interesting. [00:00:57] Matt: So when somebody is kind to him, it kind of tears apart, this big ginormous shield he has around him, so he can't be hurt. Um, and that's kind of where my head is at. I'm kind of going bouncing back and forth. Um, you know, my kids, they understand, but don't understand. And, and yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. It's been, it's been challenging so [00:01:22] Barry: Is your mom nearby? [00:01:23] Matt: No, my mom's in C

Social penetration was theorized in the seventies by two sociologists trying to figure out how people become friends and attempting to categorize different kinds of classifications of friends. We break down five stages of friendship today to better understand our relationships. #ErwinAltman, #universityofUtah, #DolmasTaylor, #universityofDelaware, #socialpenetrationtheory, #sociology, #orientationphase, #affectversuseffect, #deepfriendships, #relationships, #stablestage, #de-penetrationstage, #conceptofself, #society, #friendship, #spiritualconnection, #socialmedia, #zoom, #exploratoryaffective, #socialexchangetheory, #successproposition, #costsandrewardsofrelationships, #Aristotle'sNicomacheanethics, #cottoncandyfriends Transcript [00:00:00] Fawn: Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Hi everybody. Welcome back. Hello. Welcome to our friendly world. Have a beautiful every day. Are you having a beautiful day, a beautiful evening. Beautiful afternoon. Um, do it. Hi everyone. So Matt, Matt's going to kick it off today with a horrible, horrible, nasty title. [00:00:26] Matt: Thanks for that [00:00:27] Fawn: I mean, you didn't make it up, but go figure the patriarchy did, right? From the what? 1950s, seventies, 1970s. Same difference. [00:00:37] Matt: Seventies was a very different time than the fifties. [00:00:39] Fawn: So who are these guys? Erwin Altman of the university of Utah. And Dolmas Taylor of the university of Delaware. We have no idea how these guys knew each other. Were they friends? I don't know. Do you know? Absolutely. [00:00:53] Matt: But they were researchers. Yes. [00:00:56] Fawn: Sociologists. So check it out, guys. Take it away. Matt, [00:00:59] Matt: social penetration theory. [00:01:02] Fawn: ewe. [00:01:03] Matt: Yeah, exactly.

On Part One of this two-part series, you were introduced to Matt and Brian from the ACCEL Gaming Division. We discussed their background as it pertains to blockchain and gaming, involvement with ACCEL as well as P2E Gaming and their use of and integration of NFTs.On today's episode of the Podcast, Scott, Eric and Ryan welcome back Matt from the ACCEL Gaming Division to discuss how P2E Gaming, NFTs, and two exclusive projects that the ACCEL Gaming Division are working on!-----------------------------------------Episode Transcript:[Scott] On today's episode of the ACCEL Podcast, we dive deeper into the world of blockchain games and their use in the NFT World. As always, my name is Scott and I am Eric and I'm Ryan. You're listening to the ACCEL Podcast defining a decentralized view future, One listen at a time.[Scott] Thanks for tuning into part two of our series on blockchain gaming. We wanted to do something a little different this time with regards to putting the podcast together, and what we came up with was to survey the community or rather solicit questions on topics of P2E Gaming, Play-to-Earn Gaming and their use and integration with NFTs. [Ryan] So Matt, I wanted to welcome you back onto the ACCEL Podcast. How are we doing? [Matt]Good, pretty good. Thanks for having me. [Ryan] Always our pleasure. But right out the gate I feel like we've got to set the record straight as one of the leads of the ACCEL gaming division. What kind of games do you like to play? [Matt] Honestly, I like hard games. I've always been a big fan of platformers. My favorite game when I was young was Sonic. Still to this day I also love RPGs. I played most of the Final Fantasy series and a lot of the current very modern RPGs. I'm currently playing Eldon Ring. I think it's an absolute masterpiece and I'm honestly up for anything that seems some sort of a challenge or a good build up on an RPG element. [Eric] So Matt, I wanted to go back to the basics from our earlier episode in relation to what P2E or Play-to-Earn games are on. Maybe you could give us some examples of the P2E Games, what blockchains they exist on, and maybe some games that currently aren't in the space that you think could come to the blockchain. [Matt] I think the Play-to-Earn model, even though not formally it has existed for the longest time. And just calling out to our previous example. In the previous episode, RuneScape was a game that people actually started trading items for your money very long ago. And then that model was also formally implemented in Diablo Three and casually seen in World Warcraft, where it was a bit more informal. So the P2E aspect of trading time for some reward. Usually money has existed for the longest time. You can call on online casinos, online card and poker platforms, et cetera. At least those would be most of the games that would be outside of the space. And if we were to go inside the space, you have a lot of gains that have existed for a while. You have mostly yield farming gains, kind of like Axie Infinity, Crypto Cars, Bomb Crypto. A lot of these have very good options as well, and I think it's gotten pretty popular these days, so those are great examples. [Eric] So my question, can you be more type specific. In your opinion, what are the best blockchains or the best platforms that relate to the P2E Games, which makes it the easiest to navigate. [Matt] I would say anything that's currently built upon the most mainstream platforms, like you have Ripple, you have Ethereum, you have Bitcoin, which not a lot of games are tied to. Most of them are tied to Ethereum and Ripple. So I would look into something with that. You also have BNB and other big options, and it generally is going to be tied to whatever the devs think is the most stable platform to build upon. [Eric] All right, so now that you touched upon with the devs, in a devs opinion, let's say, or in your own opinion, if you're acting as a Dev, what would be the most profitable? [Matt] I would say just not to give out names because I would get burned for that. But whichever has the most potential for growth, because as the game grows, as the community grows, as the base grows, so does everything else tied to it, the tokens, the rewards, and everything gets better. So whatever is going to have the biggest room to grow is going to be the thing that's going to give the most returns. [Scott] So I guess it kind of follow up question of that is, I completely understand that. I think we see this craze with there being talk about Solana and Matic being big for gaming, but the big thing is for it to be scalable. Can you kind of give us a little bit of an explanation how these P2E Games are kind of profitable for the developers, even going back to the online poker and stuff like that, how do you actually make money off of it? And how is it that you're not throwing money at making these games that just don't have any returns on them? [Matt] Yeah, it usually comes down to how you model the economy of the game itself. For example, the real money trading market and Diablo Three actually had a transaction Commission for every buy and every sale. So that is also true with a lot of the current crypto games. There is a transaction fee that is being used in every single transaction by yourself. Kind of like being repetitive here, but that's usually how devs can still hold a pool of the big amount of those resources to make sure that they don't run out, to make sure that they can scale over time to make sure that tokens don't get overcapped and to its own. It's similar to how every company operates when you're first starting out in a company, you're always going to have some sort of shareholding because you're invested in the project and they can't really pay you a full salary. So they pay you in equity that gets you involved. And that makes you be sure that if the company does well and it scales, then so is going to be your share. [Scott] That makes sense. So it's all about kind of making sure at the early stages you're bringing in the right people and then making sure you have the right backing. I guess that kind of ties into what my next question would kind of be. And it's a commonly asked question that we see a lot over in the ACCEL community is how does P2E Games work in attracting people that aren't currently interested in the crypto space? Are you seeing kind of trends that are starting, that are really kind of pushing for that game, by experience, by outside investors that maybe might be involved in investing, but not in crypto or even individuals that might not invest at all? [Matt] I would like to break that into different viewpoints for different kinds of profiles. First, as an investor, why would this be like an important thing to you? Because as an investor, like crypto projects actually have a very good standpoint in the fact that they can actually have a bigger growth than most of traditional investments. So it's a very attractive market to get into. Also, as the game skills, as the community scales, you can also bring a lot of other things to the table where we touched a bit on the last episode about things like fractal ownership. So you don't even have to bring money all the time. You don't have to bring funding on the time. Maybe you own your musician, you want to stay a part of your music. Ownerships are all right. So you can get people that get that NFT can get royalties, and there are so many other valuable things that you can actually just convert into this game or market. And then from the player's side, obviously most of the people you have people that have been in crypto for a while, and you have people that have games for a while. For those who have games for a while, like me, it's really cool because now I can actually sit for hours in front of a screen, play, be good at a game and actually get something out of it, rather than my mom telling me to go to bed. So that's from one side and then you have the other side, which is the people that are in crypto who usually are more into the investment side, they actually have a fun way of interacting with their tokens, a fun way of watching those stakes and rewards and investments grow in a way that you're more of an active participant into everything. And it's a bit fun rather than just sitting there and watching candles on a chart. Not that's a bad thing, but there's more to life than that. [Ryan] So Matt, I wanted to backtrack for a moment and specifically discuss the earn in Play-to-Earn games. Could you discuss how and what exactly players earn in these games and how NFTs come into play? [Matt] Absolutely. Well, the earned part of any interaction that involves real money is done through tokens. 99% of the time is done through tokens. When you go to the horse tracking bed. Like you get this little slips of paper that you can later and cash in if you win. When you go to the casino, you get chips that you can cash in if you win. And sort of every single game has that mechanic built in where you win tokens inside the game and then you convert your tokens to get outside of the game. And this draws a very strong parallel with how everything in the physical world currently works. So the model is not really that different. And where do NFTs come into play here? A lot of these can usually be done or used as collection based items of a Rarity based items. And you can hold these NFTs that would be implemented into the game. And as the NFT or the usage of the character or the item or anything that it is gets more popular and more popular and it increases in value because the community perceives it to be rare or to be more valuable than others. That's a really good way for people to get involved is like, if you have the sense that an NFT is going to become popular, you can get it minted early and then when people use it, when it becomes popular, and what increases value and someone wants to rent it off of you or someone wants to permanently buy it off of you, it'll most likely have increased in value from when you brought it in. [Eric] So Matt, touching on NFTs and regarding NFTs because we know how huge they are now in the crypto space, how they function within the P2E Garning model. Could you talk a little bit about that? And ACCEL's recent acquisition of the Soldiers of the Metaverse NFT collection and how the SOTM NFTs will be tied into ACCEL and What I'm starting to hear their Mortal Kombat style P2E Game that is currently in their development, which I know you have a tremendous impact on. [Matt] Oh yeah, it's been such a fun time to work on the model for the Satin acquisition. And I think you have the basics, which not all of the NFT's are currently implemented in the game. We have a decent line up of characters, but not all of them as of yet. So the NFT in itself will increase in value as the game increases in popularity. Because who doesn't want to own a very rare Batman comic? If you're into comics, it's sort of the same community perception that makes you geo cards, rare, magic cards rare, like comic books are very rare or old collectibles, et cetera. Those things are very important because they tie back to someone's ability to own the NFT, believe in the project, but not necessarily play the game. There's people that don't like fighting style games. There's people that maybe they didn't like how complicated certain inputs might be, or they might not be their favorite time type of game. So that allows and gives people the flexibility to have something sticked into the game, not necessarily have to play it because you don't like the mechanics of the game itself, and then you can still participate somewhat into how everything's going to go up into the game. [Eric] So, Matt, if it's possible to could you just elaborate a little bit on the beta access in relation to the NFTs? [Matt] Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's something that has come up recently. The game is currently in beta access. We're working with a limited pool of people that are currently testing the game and helping out with ironing the bugs and making sure that we find anything that might be exploitable, et cetera. Because when you're going to stake tokens into a game, you want to make sure that everything is stable and fair as possible. The beta access, I think, has been going on, not for too long. It's still going to be out there for a bit. So if someone wants to get involved, I think it would be a good idea to look up the project. And obviously as the game goes on and it moves to like a pretty lease sort of endpoint, all the other questions are going to be answered over time. Right now, I can tell you I've actually played it and it's really fun. And the mechanics, at least the fighting game mechanics are really solid, not great with inputs, but that didn't stop me from actually just getting a combo or two in. [Ryan] Matt, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. But what if I'm not interested in playing this game? So is there an incentive to purchase and hold one of the Soldiers NFTs if I'm not interested in playing this game? Yeah, there would be, because for the same reason that I own a big ass Batman hand painting, because it's more related to how people perceive the value of the community around the game itself, rather than you just playing the game. There's a whole bunch of people that have a million posters or a lot of things, and I'm not good at drawing, but it's not going to stop me from going out and investing in something that I believe is very well drawn and stuff like that, because as I said before, it allows me to participate in something and being a part in something without actually having to play it. If I own a soldier and the game becomes popular, that's also going to benefit me because my soldiers both the Mint price if it were to be reissued or new soldiers were to be issued, and the acquisition price for my own NFT as well is going to go up. So even if I don't play, there are still ways for me to benefit off of the project. [Scott] So I guess, Matt, my next question would kind of be for you. We brought in a developer recently that was added to the team that kind of specializes in staking pool build out. And one of the things he does is NFT building out for staking pools. And it's kind of a new concept that's really starting to catch on. And with passive income being a huge part of ACCEL, can you kind of elaborate a little bit on how these NFT Staking pools work and what you kind of see them doing in the future? [Matt] Yes, I think I am not an expert in the topic, but honestly, it's one of the trends that I've seen come up a lot recently. And the idea of an Ft staking, if I'm not mistaken, would be among the lines of something similar to rent, kind of like you can put your entity out there and people can use it. And obviously, for every win that the character has, you get a bit of a share. And that is also true for other games where you actually are the owner of something, but you still get royalties if someone else rents it out for usage. And a common topic that comes to mind for that is, again, just the RMT market and Diablo Three, where not only you could purchase weapons, you could actually just borrow them for a day, but you have a lot of these very good options to own something and not having to sell it for someone else to be able to use it. And at the same time, given that you didn't have to sell it, you also were able to accrue, one might say rent or profit off of it, kind of like in the horse track how the jockey isn't really the one that owns the horse. So the guy that owns the horse still gets profits if the horse wins and the jockey get profits if the horse wins. So it's sort of like this mixed ownership model that allows people, as we said before, people that might not have zero interest in playing the game. They can stake an NFT that is actually currently tied into the game for people that do want to play the game but may not have an NFT ready at the moment for them to be able to play, to stick to win, and then they both profit a lot from that interaction. [Scott] Okay, Matt, so I guess they got a little bit of a follow up question for you, because I think the big thing that we kind of see with what we were just talking about, people want to be able to profit off of NFTs, and I think something we really want to see is the ability to bring our own art or ideas to life. Is this something that you kind of see how some of the games have to is the ability for people to bring their own ideas, their art into fruition? [Matt] That's kind of a hard question, and I want to divide it into two parts. I would say both yes and no. And the reason for that is that it can be done. But that doesn't mean every project is going to implement it. Why? Because you can build the Game around the NFTs, or you can build the NFTs around the game, which is kind of like the example with Axie and like the current games that you have out there, because the NFTs are specifically designed to work in a pattern in a way that the game itself implements, rather than the Game having to adapt to any new NFTs because there are not a lot of interoperability projects. And interoperability. What it means is basically a way for the same item to work in different ways in different games. There is, I think, the Loot project, and it's really, really cool because every single game can infer the stats of the items themselves. Like they just give you the NFT, so you can basically implement it in any way that you'd like. But that also requires a lot of manpower. It also requires you to be able to implement something that bridges that interaction with a random NFT. And that is not only rendering or models or physics or whatever it is, it's something that is really hard to plan when basically the NFT world is endless. So, yes, I believe there might be a project in the future. I can see projects coming up that sort of implement that, but I also see it's going to be very hard to do. So I think we might still be as a community as a whole. Like the NFT community still might be a bit far off from getting that done. It's definitely a huge stream to have, and it's definitely something that I would look forward to. But at the current time, with the current capabilities, I think we're still a bit far away from that. [Eric] So, Matt, it seems like a lot of these P2E Games require some sort of initial investment at first to play. But do you know of any games that don't have any buy in but still use the P2E Model? [Matt] Yeah, I can think of a few, honestly. There are, if I'm not mistaken, at least one or two games that have that implemented. But to be more specific, I want to talk about an upcoming game. It's called PHLIP. You're going to see it soon in the announcements, if not already. And this sort of ties back to the previous question, which is something that I like a lot. And PHLIP is one of the first games that sort of implemented this kind of freestyle mode into the NFTs because it's just a card game, but it's really fun, and I suggest you check it out. [Eric] So, Matt, you've intrigued me a little bit here about PHLIP, but you kind of gave us some info, but you really didn't let us know what it's about. Could you just give us a little more so our listeners can really get a greater grasp of what PHLIP is about? [Matt] So basically, yeah, this game has a similar model to Cards Against Humanity, but implements a lot of more of the freestyle way where you can come up with your own phrases. There's going to be cards that you could mint as NFTs, and they're also going to follow that model that we've mentioned about before. The general idea of the game, if you haven't played Cards Against Humanity, is to just come up with the funniest possible phrase to an image. An image is going to be thrown out, and then you just throw your cards. Whoever gets the funniest answer is going to win. And then cards are going to have different rewards. And basically, like, if you get voted by the judge, you're also going to get some rewards. And that's a really fun way of getting involved playing a game. If you're currently not involved in the crypto space that you like to have fun and all these fun games, that is a really good gate into whatever it is because you can be funny. And if you're funny, you have currently found a way to make that funny profit for you without having to go to stand up comedy and Saturdays. [Ryan] So, Matt, how do you feel about the Soldiers of the Metaverse project or even the PHLIP project? Are you guys, ACCEL or does ACCEL have any special plans to keep it fresh and relevant for new players coming in? [Matt] Yeah, that's a great question, and I think it would be important or interesting for people to know about that, because you might think that people that come in and made first come, first served, and they're the only ones that are going to get good rewards with time. And that's not true. The idea is that we want to bring in as many people as possible. We want to bring in people not only right now, we want to bring in more and more people as the project evolves and grows and implement new mechanics, implement ladder, implement tournaments, implement different sorts of things that will make the game evolve over time, like the soldiers of the metaphors that you're seeing right now that you're going to see at launch will not be the solution of the matters that you see two to three years from now. We want to make sure that this project goes on for a long while, and that requires a very delicate balance of a lot of things, but also a lot of work from our part to keep it fresh and making sure there's always, like, different things. So the community is always excited about the next thing that's going to come, and that's the same for Flip. I think while being a simpler game, there's still a lot of different things that can be done for that. So that's something that we're also looking into. [Eric] So, Matt, is there anything else you can tell our listeners about how we kind of plan to tie the ACCEL gaming ecosystem together as a whole. [Matt] Yeah, actually I have a very good nugget for everyone out there listening and that is that we are working every game in such a way that it is either directly or indirectly tied to one another. So if you're a part of one, you're always going to have preferred access to the next one. You can get probably early access to some of the newer games. You can get preferred staking when converting to one game to another. There's a million surprises coming off and I would strongly suggest that if you are not an existing holder you can come in now. There's a lot of cool things coming in, especially with NFT minting. So that's going to allow you to be part of a very select group of people that get to test a lot of these things early. [Eric] Once again, I want to thank all our listeners for tuning in again today to the ACCEL podcast. Please feel free to join us on Telegram or check the show notes for our link tree. [Ryan] And Matt, thank you for your time and for being a part of the ACCEL podcast, especially this two part mega episode. As Eric said previously, check out the show notes for all of our links and our link tree and even a full transcript of this episode. You want to go back and read some of the things that were said as always sit back, and ACCEL!-----------------------------------------The Information presented in this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information provided from or through this podcast is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. 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What would you love in life? What would you love? Isn't that a beautiful question to ask yourself, to ask your friends to ask people out there, what would you love? how do we raise our sense of wellbeing? How can we go from a fearful thought to, a blissful thought? When there's some crap in front of you, how can you switch that situation around? How can we do that? How can we go from fear-based to total bliss? How do you do that? Today we're going to get into how to have clarity and power in life, by first asking the question: "What would you love?" things that you can't see, just because you can't see them doesn't mean they don't exist. In this episode with spiritual coach, Sharen Caren, we discuss the importance of the inside job and the unseen force we focus on today is the Akashic records. We're going to talk about Meridian systems within our bodies that are not just within our bodies. To reach out to Sharon and receive a free chart: https://www.sharoncaren.com/ To support our show and hear about get-togethers with friends (sign up to email and support our show with coffee:https://www.ourfriendlyworldpodcast.com/ https://www.buymeacoffee.com/friendlyspace Transcript [00:00:00] Fawn: What would you love? What would you love? Hi, everybody. Welcome. Welcome back. Welcome to our friendly world. There's a special treat for you today. There's a special treat for you every day, let me just say this phrase that came from our friend, Sharon, who you're going to meet in just a couple minutes. One of the first things I remember her saying to me was this question that she posed to me and the way she asked it with such caring was "What would you love?" What would you love? Matt? What would you love in life? What would you love? Isn't that a beautiful question to ask yourself, to ask your friends to ask people out there, what would you love? [00:00:45] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I totally get it because like, one of the things I hold on to is typically, any action we're either moving from love or from fear. So focusing on the love part is probably going to be [00:00:57] Fawn: healthier. And this is perfect because one of the things we're going to get into is how to raise our vibrations . To you can, okay, Matt is rolling his eyes at me, but like, how do we raise our sense of wellbeing? How can we go from a fearful th

What would you love in life? What would you love? Isn't that a beautiful question to ask yourself, to ask your friends to ask people out there, what would you love? how do we raise our sense of wellbeing? How can we go from a fearful thought to, a blissful thought? When there's some crap in front of you, how can you switch that situation around? How can we do that? How can we go from fear-based to total bliss? How do you do that? Today we're going to get into how to have clarity and power in life, by first asking the question: "What would you love?" things that you can't see, just because you can't see them doesn't mean they don't exist. In this episode with spiritual coach, Sharen Caren, we discuss the importance of the inside job and the unseen force we focus on today is the Akashic records. We're going to talk about Meridian systems within our bodies that are not just within our bodies. To reach out to Sharon and receive a free chart: https://www.sharoncaren.com/ To support our show and hear about get-togethers with friends (sign up to email and support our show with coffee:https://www.ourfriendlyworldpodcast.com/ https://www.buymeacoffee.com/friendlyspace Transcript [00:00:00] Fawn: What would you love? What would you love? Hi, everybody. Welcome. Welcome back. Welcome to our friendly world. There's a special treat for you today. There's a special treat for you every day, let me just say this phrase that came from our friend, Sharon, who you're going to meet in just a couple minutes. One of the first things I remember her saying to me was this question that she posed to me and the way she asked it with such caring was "What would you love?" What would you love? Matt? What would you love in life? What would you love? Isn't that a beautiful question to ask yourself, to ask your friends to ask people out there, what would you love? [00:00:45] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I totally get it because like, one of the things I hold on to is typically, any action we're either moving from love or from fear. So focusing on the love part is probably going to be [00:00:57] Fawn: healthier. And this is perfect because one of the things we're going to get into is how to raise our vibrations . To you can, okay, Matt is rolling his eyes at me, but like, how do we raise our sense of wellbeing? How can we go from a fearful th

Matt Faircloth is the co-founder and president of the DeRosa Group, a real estate investment company that specializes in buying and renovating residential and commercial properties. Matt and his wife, Liz, started investing in real estate in 2004 with a $30,000 loan. They founded DeRosa Group in 2005 and have since grown the company to managing more than 370 units throughout the east coast. DeRosa has completed more than $30M in real estate transactions involving private capital—including fix-and-flips, single-family home rentals, mixed-use buildings, apartment buildings, office buildings, and tax lien investments. He is the author of Raising Private Capital, has been featured on the BiggerPockets Podcast, and regularly contributes to BiggerPockets' educational webinars. In this episode, Matt shares his background in real estate investing, and a roadmap for investors looking to raise more private capital to close more deals. Additionally, he talks about the reality of running a real estate business.   Episode Links: https://derosagroup.com/ https://www.instagram.com/themattfaircloth/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdfaircloth/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/contributors/mattfaircloth --- Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Matt Faircloth, author, podcast speaker, co-founder, president, investor, syndicator. He does a lot and we're gonna hear a ton from Matt about what he's been doing in the real estate space, and what he's currently putting together and actually closing on today. So let's get into it.   Matt Faircloth, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me.   Matt: Michael, I appreciate your time and having me on your show, man. Thank you.   Michael: Absolutely, absolutely. So I know a little bit about you but I would love if you could share with our listeners who maybe have never heard of you. They've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, who you are, where you come from, and what you're doing in real estate?   Matt: Where did you come from…   Um, it's cool that my company's called the DeRosa group and I just love saying this, that we're a company dedicated to transforming lads real estate through real estate transforming lives to real estate. We can get into that in the show if you like. I… where I came from, let's see, I grew up Baltimore, bopped around the East Coast for a minute. Before I landed in Philly, met the woman of my dreams because she put Rich Dad Poor Dad in my hand, and we were still dating, that got me to read that. And that that gave got me to drink the entrepreneur Kool Aid, which I guzzled and quit my job in 2005 to start a real estate company, bumped into a lot of walls, you know, did a lot of it, made a lot of mistakes, made some money and then and then just built it and grew over time and just learned how to run an effective real estate company through the school of hard knocks. And now I've been doing it for 16 years and just apply what I've learned over the years, you know, attracted more and more the right people who work with me and build what I think to be a phenomenal brand now.   Michael: Oh, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. You said that once or twice before I can tell it just rolled off your tongue there so nicely.     Matt: You know, this is not my first podcast. Sometimes people ask me, let's just get real, screw it, man. Let's get real right now…   Michael: Let's do it.   Matt: What I get I go on a lot of podcasts and when you go on a lot of podcasts, people tend to ask the same questions, Michael, right and so when they do, it's almost like I'm that guy, I'm the DJ sing in a DJ booth and then in the in the DJ booth of Matt's brain. And then people ask like, Hey, Matt, tell me about your first deal and I'm like, okay, let's get the first deal track pull the first track.   Michael: Go, pull the file.   Matt: You know, yeah, go pull the file, first deal, right. Tell us about the first time that you raise money, tell us about a mistake you made. Okay, let's go ahead skip, let's go pull up mistake file eight. Okay, let's write that file out, right. So it's more fun to go curveball. You know, like…   Michael: Totally   Matt: Yeah, that was a good curveball in the first five seconds of the show that you and I went down right and you into it, you can't help it you end up just going to a script a lot of times you know talking about things on podcast over and over and over again and I was it that a want to be plastic like that, but you end up like, if I've told that story six times the seventh time it starts to come off the same way over and over again, right.   Michael: I totally get it, and I hope that today is not one of those repetitive podcasts.   Matt: You're getting not to be that show already man, you are curve balling, I love it. Keep it up!   Michael: Well as a follow up Matt, what's your favorite mammal, man?   Matt: It's good one, I am, okay, growing up, I have an eight year old, right, so my eight year old is always: Daddy who would win… I wish he was here because you and me, we would have a ball right now… Daddy who would win when a colossal squid or a great white shark? And I'm like Simon, first of all like, but he'll even be like a gorilla or a colossal squid and like girl is gonna drown buddy battle…   Give me more data, that would depth are we talking about the ocean? Are we talking about like 3000 gorillas... To you question, I probably go a gorilla, if I had to pick or, or maybe I don't know why, but growing up I loved Black Panthers.   Michael: Mm hmm. Okay, pretty majestic animals.   Matt: Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, the majestic, they are majestic animals. Yeah, so that would be my favorite, those are my two favorite man…   Michael: I love it, well so real real quick change because we're already on this rabbit hole. You know that there was a show put on by I think NatGeo or discovery that answered your son's questions they would pit these two animals together in a simulation… like that exists…   Matt: You can google and they would show cuz he would be like, daddy who would win a saltwater… It's just you can google saltwater crocodile versus great white shark…   Michael: Great white shark, I saw that episode…   Matt: It's good, it's good, right. Good job displaying well you see the saltwater croc would try and take the deathroll on this or do that...   Oh, he was my son's itch was scratched with that, you know. I don't know, why he is up to the Komodo dragons. Komodo dragon versus anything you can name, that's what you want to talk about…   Michael: That's a battle royale this century… Oh my god. I love it.   Matt: Well, dragons are badasses man, these are like, there they are… Would you know that?   Michael: Yeah, that's the kiss of death, yeah… Matt: It is! Not only the monstrous lizards like little dinosaurs, but they also the venomous bite, you know…   Michael: It's such a ridiculous concept like, oh, let's take two of like humans worst fears, like, long tailed long tongue lizards, and then give it venom, sounds awesome.   Matt: Right! Give it nasty teeth. Yeah, like a really weird awful roar and give them venom, too…   Michael: Oh my god, so good.   Matt: They're nasty creatures, man. Good thing that'll make them in North America.   Michael: I know, I'm stoked, I'm stoked. All right, well, if we bring it slightly back towards the real estate, you know.   Do you want me to do a whole podcast on mammals like komodo dragons… So you started a company, your real estate company in 2005 and when people hear that, I think it might be ominous to some people, you know, what is a real estate company mean? And so what was the transition, like, I mean, like, what is the DeRosa group do first and foremost and then what was that transition, like going from just owning stuff on your own to now I have a business focusing on it?   Matt: That's interesting, you know, that man, um, interesting concept, because a lot of people out there are running real estate investing, like it's a gig, you know, like, or it's like driving Uber, you know, you could just decide to not do it at some point, you know, I mean, it's not a gig, it's a real estate investing is a business because it's a marathon, unless you're wholesaling or just doing a deal here and there something like that. Not for nothing. This business… the business of real estate investing is a business and you should treat it as such. And we didn't always do that the first couple years, I treated it like a hobby and I bumped into walls and did a bunch of different things but like once I really got my legs underneath me, as a real estate investor and really found the calling found the purpose and got and got and got focused on real estate investing. I got clear that it's a business that is like a living animal it's a it's a living thing…   Michael: It's a living Komodo dragon?...   Matt: Real estate investing is like a Komodo dragon, right, it needs food, you know… It can have a venom's bite and can be nasty and shit and can get the fuck out of you. And a lot of people are scared of it, you know, right… Yeah. People read articles about it only exists in certain places we can keep going. But it is something that needs, you know, if you want to grow real estate investing business and sustain yourself in this, in this industry, and not just make it a hobby, you have to have a company that's got you know, clean books and has a purpose and has a mission and has roles and responsibilities and job descriptions and stuff like that, because there's sucky things in real estate you have to do and it's like, well, you know, and you could look on Instagram. And if you look on Instagram for real estate investing, people think that it either means you close deals every day, because it's the people every time people close stuff, they put it on Instagram, or they go to it's like, Instagram thinks that for real estate investors, all you do is close deals, go to conferences and go on vacation That's what you see people doing on Instagram, the real estate investing, right? But there's actually like, this sucky part of real estate investing, which is sitting on your desk and answering emails and you know, just corresponding and looking for deals and swinging and missing and dealing with knucklehead tenants and stuff like that that want to, you know, recently Michael, we had a tenant, had his girlfriend come in and he must have done something bad because she went, put all his clothes on his bed, dumped gasoline on the bed, lit it on fire, walked out.   Michael: Mike dropped…   Matt: This is what happens, that's real stuff, you know… That did not make on Instagram unfortunately, you know…   Michael: No, that wasn't the highlight reel.   Matt: Living my best life, look it's amazing…   Michael: Well, so you bring up a really great point that and that it should be treated like a business and I, I wholeheartedly agree. But so what about all the people out there that are just getting started that could never see themselves as a business owner as an entrepreneur but hear about real estate investing as a great side gig like you mentioned that what about what about all those folks? Where are they left?   Matt: Okay, they need to decide if they want to do it full time or not, right…And there are people out there that have a day job that they love and it's, it's probably something that's very fulfilling to them, or maybe they went to school for a long time, like a doctor or an MD or whatever. I mean, Jesus, those folks go to school, God bless them for like another 12 years after they get out of college, right? So why would they change careers, right? They want, there are people that really in their heart of hearts probably ought to go passive for real estate investing, as a side gig and as a way to build wealth. And there are people that that are doing it because they want to build up the passive income and become a business owner out of it. So you got to choose if you want to be an investor or be, let's remember Robert Kiyosaki Cashflow Quadrant book, right. Yes, ESBI, remember that thing?   Michael: Mm hmm.   Matt: Do you want to be a B or an I, B= business owner, I= investor. And if you're willing to put in your time and and you know, quit your day job eventually become a business owner and that's what you need to do. But unfortunately, people, a lot of people misunderstood Kiyosaki, to think that to be a real estate investor, you have to be an active operator, you have to do it full time. You can make the passive income all you want as an I-quadrate investor and just passively invest in things. And I think that that's, I think it's probably the most misunderstood function in a lot of his books, people that quit their job that really should have never done that they should have just passively invested their way to financial freedom.   Michael: Yeah, okay. And let's talk about that for a minute because you wrote a book about raising capital and I think capital is so often the biggest obstacle for people, the biggest hurdle people overcome. So do you see the kind of this roadmap for people? Where if passivity, is it really time is the goal, right? That's what everybody is after and we get there by either usually being a B or an I, by being at B that sounds terrible, don't be a B. So if people are capital is their obstacle, using real estate as a active vehicle to then take a backseat and invest passively?   Matt: Yeah, well, that's I mean, my book talks about that and then it goes back to like, let's just keep walking to the B and I road, right. So if you're a B quadrant business owner, we're rising D quadrant business owner for real estate, and you either want to do it full time, you already are doing it full time, then at some point, unless you win the lottery, or unless, like, you know, you just got a silver spoon in your mouth, and you got billions of dollars waiting on the sidelines, from your friends from your family or something like that. You're going to need capital, right? You're gonna run out man you are. And so on the other side of it, you've got I quadrate investors, and they have either retirement accounts, real estate equity, cash, any of those things that they want to put to work and not have to put in the time to make that money, you make that money, do what it's supposed to do, you know, then they can those two can marry up the B quadrant business owner of real estate versus the quadrate investor that wants to make a return on their money without trading money for time. Those two can have a really happy partnership. My book talks about all those things, how those two things can get structured together and how the why in my book are called the cash provider, as SI quadrant investor.   Robert Kiyosaki is a good guy, but he probably sue the hell out of me if I use his terms of my books. I didn't use that, I did, I did the the deal provider and the cache provider. The deal provider is the D Quadra business owner, the cache provider is the I quadric investor.   Michael: Okay, awesome and what is your book called?   Matt: Raising private capital. So funny Michael you asked that it happens to be right here behind… They can get it on Amazon or they can get it on biggerpockets.com.   Michael: I was just gonna ask. Alright, so it's called raising private capital and without giving the book away. What can people expect to find in it?   Matt: Along with a lot of my personal story on on you know how I got from guy that quit his job in oh five to you know, running a company that runs that owns, you know, multi 1000 doors of multifamily real estate. It's got that journey in there. And and that but also it's it's got a lot of tools and lessons, it's a how to really on how do you look in your own personal network as an investor, I'm sorry, as a B quadrant designer, it's how to look in your personal network to find the money, you need to do deals because you don't have to go to private lender, or you don't have to go to hard money lenders, you know, if you go and go more corporate level, or sell your soul to get the money you need for the deal that you're trying to do. You can look in your own network to find that money and raising private capital talks about how to find the money you need for deals in your own personal network.   Michael: Okay, all right, Matt can we do something kind of a silly exercise?   Matt: Please.   Michael: Can you because, I think a lot of people are really nervous to have that conversation and I think they feel slimy or gross. Can you pitch me on a deal that you're putting together as someone that would be in your your kind of sphere of influence? Let's let's see. Let's see what that sounds like and feels like.   Matt: Well, it depends if you're accredited, or not, Michael, because if you're not accredited, we have substantial relationship. But if you're accredited, I can talk to you, I can do a Facebook ad that you notice, right? All joking aside, let's pretend you and I are friends. We already know each other you already like and trust me, because I'm me, right and my book recommends that those are your first targets. You know, and that so hey, Michael, how you doing today?   Michael: I'm doing pretty good, what about you, man?   Matt: I'm awesome, man. Hey, listen, I happen to remember you saying that you were working over a company XYZ. You did a great job, didn't you. It's good. But you better get an opportunity to come up with ABC Company. And I'm really grateful for that you were able to move over to that did take on that new job. How's it going?   Michael: It's going really well. XYZ was terrible, ABC is infinitely better. Thank you so much for man, remembering you've got a killer memory.   Matt: No, it's great, I swear to you… I also barely remember going further, Michael, is that XYZ day as much as you hated what they did, and you know, and I'm so grateful you got out of there. But XYZ had a great comp package they did as I remember, you told me they paid you a really great 401k program.   Michael: Yes, yeah, it was pretty.   Matt: Those markets been taken off lately, right. So no, it's maybe maybe hit a top here and is starting to get a little squirrely and everything like that. So I want to tell you that we did you happen to know, Michael, you can take your retirement account and invested in things not Wall Street, you know, in that retirement account you have with XYZ company because you don't work there anymore that retirement account could be put to work in real estate. Did you know that?   Michael: I had heard that. But I didn't really know that I could do anything about it…   Matt: Well, you can now that you've left XYZ company, right, you can take that retirement account that they have, and they probably were paying you and lots of company stock, take the chips, man, take the chips off the table cash in, sell that company stock and roll that and roll that retirement account, which is now by the way was a 401k. Now it was an IRA. And you can roll that IRA over to a third party IRA custodian and you can do all kinds of cool stuff you can buy, you know, shares of companies, you can buy your own your own real estate investments, you can lend that money out and you can also invest it in deals like we have, I, we are right now Michael buying 670 units in two states, five apartment buildings in two states. That's the deal, we're in the middle of right now, produces phenomenal returns, produces, we're going to fix these buildings up and we're going to refinance them over time and as we refinance them, we're going to give some of that money back to you to your retirement account. So you can then take it and parlayed invest in another stuff. It's a great return.   I know a lot of people that we work with are really happy with work that we've done as a company. So you and I should talk further as a matter of fact, I have some Ira custodians that can handle this whole thing for you, if you'd like, I'd like to introduce you to a few of them that I love. You know, and then they we do a lot of work with them. So they give us white glove treatment. Can I introduce you to them for you?   Michael: Yeah, that'd be great, man, thanks so much for doing that. I appreciate it.   Matt: Yeah, and I'm going to mail you the offering. And if you don't, if you're not happy with my, if you don't like the returns, and you're you're nervous, whatever, it's okay, I get other things I can send you over to, I really want to help you build your wealth while I build my business. Because we're building a great real estate company and we're, our mission is to transform lives through real estate, I want you to help me do that. By me helping you earn money with your retirement account. Well, we do the work. So we can do that for you. And if it doesn't work out, that's okay. I have plenty of other friends for this awesome network called biggerpockets.com, you should check out and you can look on BiggerPockets to and find other things to invest in, like private loans and other cool things that can show you that are not real, like that real estate that I mentioned, even though that's a great deal. There's other things you can do to and I'll hold your hand the whole way. What do you think?   Michael: Oh, sign me up, man, I'll be looking for your email.   Matt: Cool, no problem.   Michael: Man, that was awesome. That was so so so good.   Matt: Thank you, thank you…   Michael: So firstly, for first and first and foremost, you've now got to send me that email because I'm sold. But secondly, what I love about what you did is the conversation felt very much, let me help you, let me put provide value for you educate me around what I could do with my retirement funds, which I might have not even been aware of, and then to tell me how you're able to help me, before even the you being helped in the process, being able to your own deals be my financing was even mentioned.   Matt: Yeah, well, so is a few facts, right, um, of the $10 trillion, that's currently in IRAs, right now, not 401k, it's just IRAs of the $10 trillion, it's out there. 4% of us invested in anything else outside of Wall Street and so if you're looking to get your capital game going, the easiest low hanging fruit, and the thing that everybody has is a retirement account that has if they've got a job, and they used to work at one company, and they now work at another company, their retirement account, they had the first company is now eligible to get rolled over to an IRA. And with the big run up the stock markets had it that's what you should be talking to people about, is like, hey, you used to work over here. Now you work here, don't you are you got laid off, you quit whatever it is, they don't have you there them a job. Now they just have to use to have a job. It's such an easy, low hanging fruit conversation and it speaks to their needs too. Because everybody's get a little squirrely and where Wall Street's going, it's just been a great run. You know, it's had a great run over the last 12 years. But now it might be time to pull a few chips back. So I think that that's something that's probably the most underutilized conversation out there. For those looking to raise money, is to talk to anybody that's got a job about investing their retirement account with them with their real estate company.   Michael: That's so good. I think so many people when when thinking about having that conversation, think, well, I don't know anyone who has money, because they might not be in cash assets or liquid assets on the you know, in a taxable account, but the retirement side of things brings into focus a whole another option.   Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can and there's other ways you can go about it, too. You can kind of sniff out, my book talks about like how to sniff out people that are in your network that likely have a lot of cash. What does what are the signs that a lot of cash leaves, you know, my book talks about that, my book talks about, there's another vehicle that they can they can invest with you and as those are people with free and clear real estate.   Last time I looked, Michael 30% of America owns their home, their primary residence free clear 30%. You know, but they don't. It's not it's not to get paid to ask a different color when it's paid off. It's hard to tell. Like all the purple houses in America are free and clear. Yeah, no, I don't know. So, but my book talks about the signs to look for free and clear real estate. And I also can tell you, here's the free clear real estate conversation. Here's the those with cash conversation and here's the retirement account conversation to have. I just pulled that into my playbook because it seemed like the most obvious one to go for is retirement account is probably the most, it's the most underutilized one. But I think it's the one that's most unnecessary right now, in today's world.   Michael: That makes so much sense, that makes so much sense. Matt, you mentioned before we hit record here that you are actually in the midst of closing the biggest deal that you've ever done to date today. Can you talk to us a little bit about what that looks like?   Matt: That was a by the way, Michael that was it bullshit. That was a real deal. I was pitching you on for your retirement account when you were working for XYZ comm your XYZ IRA could be invested in the deal that we're closing part of right now. Yeah, it's 670 units. It's in it's in two states. It is a five apartment buildings and we're closing two of those today. The other three close in a couple of weeks.   Michael: Amazing, okay, and what attracted you to this deal?   Matt: Um, that okay, so two of the buildings are in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and that is a company that is city we're already heavily invested in and it's a city that's showing phenomenal growth, 14% rent growth last year, RD on pace to do at least 12 this year percent rent growth and this owner hasn't increases rents in the last two. So he hasn't seen any of the rental upside that's been happening, the rent growth has been happening in that market has not been realized on those properties. So great opportunity, we already have property management in that town lined up and Lexington we own six other apartment buildings. So we are a niche down company. We're not going to just invest anywhere that is a good deal. We invest in super specific markets, so those are there were three markets Lexington, Kentucky, the Piedmont triad in North Carolina, and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of all places. Those are the three markets that we're in. That's it   Michael: If it works, it works…   Matt: So…I like about it. I also like that it's diverse meaning like it's it's different geographies, different management strategies, even different property conditions. I like all those things about it that it brings a lot of things to the table, that make it more of a stable asset.   Michael: Okay, okay..   Matt: But it's stable investment, like stable here, but poised to go up.   Michael: Okay and we've had a lot of folks on the show recently talking about passive investments. And you know how you're really evaluating the operator more so than the deal itself. But can you give folks listening some tips about how to evaluate maybe the deal? I mean, what, what details of the deal itself should people be looking at to feel comfortable?   Matt: Yeah, um, you should look at…, I'll tell you why I'll tell you, what people will do to make their deal look better than earlier is, you have to look at what their exit criteria is. That meaning like, they might be saying, okay, we're going to buy the property for this number, and then we're going to invest this and then we're going to sell it for this, like that nine times you paid for it, then you investors aren't going to make any money till we sell it, or you're not going to make very much money until we sell it, if the majority of investor returns are projected to come through the sale and the end, the syndicator is assuming that the markets gonna stay very stagnant, that cap rates are gonna stay down and streets gonna stay down, yada, yada, then they're kind of making a lot of assumptions that may or may not come true. So that's one thing to be concerned over. So make sure that they're conservative that their crystal ball is is, you know, that they're looking into has some conservatism's as it in it, because that's one thing. That's one thing, as indeed a syndicator can do is they can predict that the markets going to be super favorable at some point in the future when they go to sell and that makes the deal look really good right now.   Michael: Right, right…   Matt: Yeah, make sure there's a lot of there's some experience on the team that have been it's okay to have new new and to work with new people, because we're all new at some point. But make sure somewhere on their team, there's some deep, there's a deep bench of experience.   Michael: That's great, that's great. Yeah, no, I love those points, I love those points. I think I've seen that too and a bunch of syndication deals like oh yeah, we're gonna buy it at a six cap and we're gonna exit at a three cap and it's like, really look.   Matt: Phenomenal… 22% IRR man, what's the cash flow? Oh, it's only gonna pay like 3% cash on cash. But you know, magic fairy dust, get sprinkled on the deal, and it's gonna get sold and you're gonna make you're gonna triple your money. You know, three right now when I sell it, and that's how it's gonna go, right… When the crypto rises, you know…   Michael: No, that's a great point, those are great points, Matt. And I'm curious to know what do you you know, in your book, I'm sure talks about this but for anyone listening, that's thinking about starting to raise money but doesn't really have experience. They've you know, they've got the hustle, but they don't have the experience and they don't have the capital. You know, what should those people be doing right now?   Matt: Okay, I'm getting smudge get as much exposure as you can. Some folks do that through investing some some people that I know, that are very successful, syndicators now got started investing in other people's deals to learn the ropes, right. And that's it, do that get some exposure, we know why you can to other people's deals, you know, network, do what I did. But to start small, like we're on our 50 we're closing, this is our 15th syndication that we've done. But our first syndication was a guy my wife went to college with put in 50k into it into one into a deal that we did, we bought two single family homes with his 50k, right, that was our first syndication. So you can start small, find the one person that has some capital to work with in your in your network, and do a deal and then expand it out, do another deal, expand it out, do another deal, expand that out, do another deal. So for those that are looking to get started, it's okay to start small. It's not sexy to start small, but it's also okay and there's a lot further there's there's a lot smaller distance to fall and a lot easier to course correct on a small deal than it would be to correct on a behemoth issue first. Michael: Yep, I think that's such a good point, I think that's such a good point. I know I've spoken to people and I thought, well, my first deal would be a 10 year multifamily, because multifamily is the best everyone's talking about it. It's like yeah, okay, well, have you done a single family deal? Well, no…   Matt: I'm telling you, I hear people like, oh, I'm gonna do 100 unit multifamily deal. You know, like, that's my first deal I want to do, I've never done a deal before my life. But I want to close 100 units is my first deal. I get it and I want that, too for you, you know. But you might have to bang your head against the wall a lot. Where you could just go and syndicate a duplex right or syndicate like get your Mama to go give you a couple give me a couple of dollars and you and your Mama would go buy a duplex right, you know…   Michael: But then I can't post it on Instagram. No one wants to see me my mom and me doing deals…   Matt: I can't fake it till I make it that right, you know, or pose next to the Lamborghini that I just bought because I've been, I've been investing in real estate for the last few months.   Michael: So good. The last question I have for you before I let you out of here is, you were talking at the beginning of the show about how you did all these things and kind of rally different directions and then you really niche down and you got really focused. How did you do that? I mean, how did you, what did it take for you to get hyper focused? Because I think so many of us as they get started real estate like, oh, I could do long term buy and hold or I could do flipping or I could do wholesaling or I could do burr investing. And there's so many different ways to go. How do you know when you found the right one?   Matt: Well, first of all, Michael, I just got I just get tired to get my ass kicked, you know…   I'd like to wholesale deals going on at for fix and flips going, I was buying a bunch of rentals and everything like that, and it wasn't sleeping awake, you know and I was doing everything media doing a mediocre level, any of those three things that I was doing, I was involved in some other stuff, too. Any of those three things that I was doing could have gotten to me to my financial goals. But the mistake that I made with all this tribe was doing a bunch of things, mediocre lee versus doing one thing really well, right. And so I found that I was, you know, good at being a landlord, because with the landlord properties that we had raised very well. And it's also good at raising money and explaining what I do land lording in a very simple fashion to people and so I was like, okay, well, I'm awesome at those two things. Let me just focus on those. And the more I focused on those, guess what, Michael, the more money I made, like, money's good. I like making money. I do enjoy my family. You know, that's good. So how about anymore, though? Yeah, I'm not good at managing contractors, some too nice that I believe them when they tell me that their car broke down. And that's why they couldn't show up on the job site, but they still need me to give them 10 grand, you know, and I believe them. Okay, here you go. And that, so I just knew I didn't have people in my network to outsource that to at the time and so it made sense. I had tried partners to run that fix and flip division, my company didn't work out. So I needed to abandon the things that weren't working, and focus on the things that were and for those that are looking to niche down and focus. It doesn't have to it doesn't have to be apartment buildings, believe me, don't listen to Instagram does not have to be apartment buildings. It can be other things, I promise.   But figure out what you were calling your core genius, right? Your God given talents, what are you gonna call it, figure that find out those and how you can best bring those to the real estate table and even better, how they are benefiting your business today. And then just easy, Michael, do more of that. How about that, there's two more of those things, if it's working, you do more of it, and less of the things that aren't, you know, it could be that simple and that's kind of how we grow in and I found people that were able to sit in the seats that I needed for me to focus more on raising money and more on the land lording , and I'd filled in those seats and I got it, you know, tight and I expand that up and I was like okay, land lording is amazing, but I could probably scale faster if I outsource that and hire third party management companies. So we did that I could focus on raising money and I could focus on building the team and enrolling and inspiring and being the leader of my team. Now that's really all I do is I lead my team and I raise money and I talk to you…   Michael: I love it, I love it. That, this has been so much fun Matt, if people have questions for you want to reach out to you are interested in investing in some of your deals, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?   Matt: There's a ton of stuff on my LinkedIn bio. My LinkedIn is the Matt Faircloth, I'm sure there's plenty of other Matt Faircloth in the world but my Instagram handle…   Michael: You stake your claim…   Matt: I've claimed it, there also the Instagram I'm the only Matt Faircloth, @themattfaircloth and there's a there's a link in my bio on Instagram and there's a ton of stuff there you can go and invest in my and you can hear about investing in deals with us if you're an accredited investor you can join our mailing list because you do a non-accredited deal sometimes for those that are that we have a preexisting relationship with so you can join that list or you know hear more about that. You can buy a copy of my book there you can you know join all kinds of different cool things we have going on and Masterminds webinars, all that jazz is on the link in my bio on Instagram.       Michael: Sweet, well Matt thank you again, man, from Komodo dragons to passive investing, this has been a blast. I'm sure we'll be chatting soon.   Matt: My family and I play a game at dinner called: True two truths and a lie and I'm going to slay it right in two true and a lie there that I was on an interview and me and this guy talked about Komodo dragons. Nobody's gonna believe that. But I totally got my family, totally gonna crush them at true two truths and a lie tonight…   Michael: I love it, I love it. Well, I am glad I could be a part of it.   Matt: Thank you.   Michael: Awesome, take care man.   Alright everyone, that was our episode. A big thank you to Matt for coming on. It was super fun from Komodo dragons to real estate syndication. I didn't think we'd be able to get there but we kept it on the rails. As always, if you liked the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Happy investing!

In this episode of The Long Run Show, we chat with Matt Gaser, Chief Executive Officer at Fabricated Madness about the future of NFTs. "I think the creative side of NFTs is just a small portion of the kind of utilities that NFTs will bring" "Your medical records will be an NFT, your mortgage is going to be an NFT because it's totally encrypted." "I think NFTs are going to be an integral part in the sale of goods, the transfer of  funds" Matt's impressive resume includes well-known projects such as CG animated TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Matt recently left his career of 20 years to start his own business in the NFT world working on many projects, one of which is The Chronicles of Dr.Zammys where a fantasy doctor in a whimsical universe called Gallagan, fights a virus coming from another dimension.Dr.Zammys is also planned to be an animated TV series.Guest:Matt Gaser LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgaser/Project Website: https://www.drzammsy.com/FAQ: https://www.drzammsy.com/faq/Links to purchasing our NFTs: https://www.drzammsy.com/get-nfts/Personal Artist site: https://www.mattgaser.com/Wax Blockchain: https://twitter.com/WAX_ioFAQs: https://www.drzammsy.com/faq/https://wax.atomichub.io/Hosted By:Austin WillsonMichael O'ConnorTranscript:So welcome back to another episode of The Long Run Show. This is Austin Willson, along with my cohost, Michael O'Connor.Matt: Good to be here.Q: We actually have our first guest today. We're gonna be talking about NFTs over the long run and our guest is actually deep in the space right now, creating NFTs is he's got quite the resume to back it up too. He's not just a guy in Microsoft paint, making pictures. He's got quite the artistic portfolio.  I'd like to introduce Matt Gaser. He is a part of the project of The Chronicles of Dr.Zammsy.So Matt, welcome to The Long Run Show.Matt:Hey guys. Great to be here. Thank you. Appreciate it.Q:Our first guest on this is wild, right?Matt:Hey there's always a first, I'm happy to be be here and talk everything about NFTs, the future of NFTs and yeah, it's an exciting time.Totally amazing time for this kind of thing.Q:Yeah. It's wild. It's bubbled to the surface over what really the last two years here. So you're in a very exciting space right now. What's it? What's it like finding your way Matt: Very adventurous. I quit my job, doing what I did for 20 years to jump full steam into this. My partner convinced me about this time last year, Ralph. He helped found fabricated madness with me. And last April, we launched our first real NFT project that I incorporated trading cards as NFTs. And we sold. In April, our first set within an hour made 200,000 and we were like, oh, okay. This is real what's. Wow. What? But but it was a fascinating year last year. We learned a lot about the space. We learned a lot about what collectors are looking for. And it's changed drastically since that launch in April. And it's just insanely challenging. And the growth is exponential, but it doesn't come without its challenges. And yeah first time business owner out of this  I've got a staff now it's, we're partnered with a bunch of people and venture capital is involved. It's just a crazy time. And  we've got multiple projects in the works right now.Q:Wow. That's fantastic. Yeah. So it's like you said, 2021 we're in 2022 now. So 2021, I know that flew by quick, but it was a wild year for NFTs. And you said your first sale was, it was 200,000 for how many NFTs were included in that dropMatt: 5 different unique trading cards, but there was sketch cards, animation cards. Variants like epic, common, uncommon, legendary, and mythic all those kinds of things. And the collectors really grabbed on that, on the Wax Blockchain, by the way, we were on the wax blockchain. Okay. I think it's @WAXP if you're looking for investing into that crypto, but  yeah it's a specific. Blockchain, that's really geared towards gaming and FTS and no gas fees.And it's carbon footprints pretty low in fact almost non-existent.  It's but beyond all that, it's just like a fascinating place to sell NFTs and create games that are relating to the play to earn model. Yeah. So it sounds like there was a bit of a concept behind it, as far as like playing cards, Q:Pokemon Mike, I think you might've had experience with Pokemon growing up.I have always been a I've been a trading card guy, my whole life. I love the Pokemon cards and then did a little, a Hearthstone in my teenage years.Matt: I'm an artist from that I've actually painted illustrations for Hearthstone. Imagine.  It's been a, it's been a really weird twist to be on the production side instead of just being a hired artist for those kinds of things and hiring other artists to do art as well. I just never thought that would ever happen. I thought I'd just be painting stuff for people and their movies and things like that forever. But yeah, it's been a really cool experience actually hiring other artists and getting them work colleagues of mine that I've known for 20 years and some new guys as well.  And employing them. It's just such a weird concept, but yeah, that's, what's going on.Q: it seems like really from the story that you've already had from the founding of fabricated madness and the trading card collection, everything, that's just, I love that you immediately jumped and you're like low carbon. No gas fees, everything. It really feels like you guys are already, you've already taken the long run approach to you want this to be a trading card game that is around for years. It's not just a pump and dump NFT thing. It's not just a short-term thing. How did all that come about? What was the process for you of creating that, I guess a plan Matt: it came out of survival. The moment we launched our packs in April and sold out the first thing, all the collectors said was like, where are you going to be able to, what am I going to be able to stake your name? Where's your game, where's your white paper. Where's your game design doc. And we're like we don't have any of that. I thought we could just sell stuff and you'd collect it. And so we had to radically change our business model and it totally, re-invest almost everything we made back into production for two different games. So we're making a 3d adventure game. We're going to be releasing videos of that production here at https://www.drzammsy.com/And then we partnered with some good long-term friends longtime friends of mine that have a gaming studio called robot Cmonster games. And we asked them to take our trading card line and convert that into Flash Royal style video game. And so you're going to be able to collect our NFTs. I won't get into the whole details unless you want me to about the game, but it's just, you essentially play your cards in on this cool table. And they convert to actual 3d characters and they battle each other. And yeah.  The idea for the game came from Ralph and I but the actual implementation of the whole production of the game is through our partnership with robot Cmonster games. But we have an entire team of 3d modelers, character artists animators that are helping us as well. So it's a really cool collaborate.But the 3d adventure game. We hired a tech guy right out of school, out of Scotland.  Our 3d team is working on Dr. Zammsy laboratory and you get to shrink down to the micro realm.Dr. Zammsy is basically a fantasy doctor in a whimsical universe called Gallagan, and he's fighting a virus coming from another dimension. So he goes down into the microscopic level and fights these weird internet soldiers that are attacking his world, spreading this virus. So it's really timely the concept because it has to do with COVID in a way, but it's told in a fantasy star wars, Indiana Jones kind of setting Harry Potter kind of thing.On top of all of that, we partnered also real quick with a friend of our ours called his name is Matt Lyon. He's a creative director in the Hollywood world. And we're, we've actually structured a 10 episode treatment and a pilot episode, a script for this to actually be an animated series.Q: Wow. So yeah, very long run approach. You've got a lot of a lot of moving parts and it, I appreciate, especially in the NFT space, I appreciate something. That's a project unto its own and has things that, that can branch off of it rather than just. A collectible item. That seems to be where it seems to be, where everything's moving. There was obviously the big craze at the beginning of 2021. Everybody was like, oh, look at these collectibles. Just sell it for millions of dollars. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a space for that. But. I took some, I didn't buy an NFT until last fall. And it took some very heavy convincing by my co-host Michael to actually buy NFT Matt: It comes down to utility. That's a big word in the NFT space now. And know a lot of people don't just want to collect art. They want it to work for them. And have some kind of value. So  real quick, you can actually stake our NFTs on the site called whenstaking.com. And by staking our NFTs onto that system, you can actually earn void and you can go to our FAQ on our website to learn more about that. But but it's so bizarre how you can actually. Purchase an NFT and then make money by just putting it somewhere. But the benefit of that is a utility, like I said, and that's why we're making two games and wanna wrap NFTs around our animated series. Our concept is that once each episode airs you'd be able to collect limited NFTs from the show after each episode. And then those would also be playable within our two games. So it's this like circular. Ecosystem that's involving our project in, in, on different platforms andQ: something that just jumped out when you were talking about staking, these NFTs specifically with trading cards is a mind boggling proposition. Cause if you're talking like Pokemon cards or anything, like those have gone up so much in value, and if you're in house able to provide the means. Like renting those cards out to other players or selling them in your own ecosystem. That's huge. That's insane. Matt: That's yeah. All ownership is a big deal. If you think about it, like Fortnite, you put in hundreds of dollars as a player and you don't actually own those skins or guns that you're buying in this ecosystem in this space for at least for wax regarding NFTs and gaming. And you can either sell that on the secondary market, if you've grinded and beefed up that item or you can keep it for yourself or whatever, but you actually, there's true ownership in that. And a lot of games they're really, they can be really popular. You can shell out hundreds of dollars being up your character's assets, and then maybe the game goes away or you just. Have any interest in that game anymore? The idea about the metaverse is really interesting too. The long run is that I'm sure there's going to be  partnerships with other projects where  a gun or a car from one project can be shift shifted over to a different game because you own it. And then you're still playing with the same assets in a totally different game. I don't know how cool that would be, but that's the idea is true ownership.Q:Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, the circular nature of your ecosystem seems to be a that right there is interesting because you can not only do the players and the participants and the NFT owners, not only are they able to drive some of the value because they're playing it and it's becoming more popular, they're spreading it, but you also can drive value through creating more common. Based on that same IP to use an old kind of term there. So that's really interesting. What was the impetus to that you said at the beginning, some of this was survival to create the game and all that aspect, but creating this kind of circular. I almost value stream. What was the impetus there? Matt:  For the animated series, that's actually was my original vision 20 years ago for this project. So Dr. Zammsy came out of me, graduating from college at art school and just, I had this cool idea of this world and this universe and this character, it didn't really go anywhere. I just had lots of ideas. Until this NFT thing hit. And Ralph was like, man, we gotta make an animated series. And then our fans were saying make the game first. And  over the course of the year, we made a lot of great connections and really. And Matt lion, when he came on board was just like, look, I got the animated series thing give me all your notes, give me all your bios to the characters. Give me all the art. And we literally just finished the pitch for that  last weekend.  It's looking absolutely freaking beautiful. And we're really hopeful with all our contacts that we can get into a streaming service and get this into production. As far as the game.  We, as a Fabricated Madness is we started the 3d adventure game first, but then it seemed easier to actually accomplish the card game first. That's kinda why we ended up doing two games at the same time because we shifted gears. We're still working on both, but the card game is our highest priority right now, because that actually incorporates  our product that we sell a weekly. We do weekly drops cards, utility cards that are based on the game as well for a limited time each week. And then  it's just Positioned to offer a game that's relating to a direct product to our customers. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.Q: What a story too. Cause I love, especially in the long run we're talking about long run stuff. You it's a perfect example because you left your job. You said this is your first time starting a business. You obviously believe in this sector in the long run. What are your thoughts on NFTs in the long run? Like the whole thing. What's your, where's your mindset?Matt: I think the creative side of NFTs is just a small portion of what of what the kind of utilities that NFTs will bring. I think when you buy a house, your mortgage is going to be an NFT. Your medical records are going to be an NFT. Things you would even expect are going to be NFT as receipts because it's totally encrypted.  It's on the blockchain, it's there for everyone to see and track. And  I just think it's. Decentralized system for information.   But big talk in terms of the metaverse I think NFTs are going to be a integral part in the sale of goods, the transfer of  funds all kinds of things like that. Crypto's obviously gonna be a massive player in the metaverse as well. I just can't wait. I want. Metaverse of Dr.Zammys and the world that we're creating here. There's giants, crazy vehicles, airships slug pirates. You name it. I just to be around that crazy metropolis cities that are multilayered for different scaled creatures and from three-inch little dudes to 40 foot giants and all living and working in the same space.To actually play a game where you're in that environment and maybe even making money in that environment, it just be Wild. It's basically ready player one. So yeah,Q:we have arrived.Matt: I know. I didn't mean to blow your brain there,Q:but yeah we love getting our brain blown. That is wild.  I've never been that into video games.  The kind of idea of the metaverse is quite enticing.  And also really what to me is most enticing is like what you were talking about, these different worlds that you can go into. I don't think that'll be the initial application. I'm sure it'll be some boring business thing where we have meetings virtually. That'll be the initial one. The businesses will be like, oh, we got free cash to spend. We'll spend it on some virtual headsets and everything. Exactly. But we'll get there. Yeah, exactly. We're in avatars with no legs. Yeah.Matt: But a good example of where this could be applied is actually I don't mean to plug this, but there's like a daydream festival, a huge EDM concerts that I designed their posters and stages for. I'm actually in talks with them about a metaverse concept where if you can't afford to fly over to Europe and see these massive  EDM concerts maybe you can jump into the metaverse and see it live that way either virtually or entirely built out in a whole new way where a avatar. Of DJs that are like, that are playing at the event are in a totally original world spinning live. And you're one of the avatars in this virtual space. So  the ability to engage with the world real time through a virtual experience could be really beneficial.Q:Yeah. Yeah. I've heard some really interesting, that's another very interesting application for this kind of VR slash like metaverse meets universe collide. Those sort of those sorts of solutions are really interesting because there are a lot of people that, where yeah. They might not be able to fly over there, but they could afford a headset and. The ticket price to just get in.Matt: Exactly. Yeah. So there could be very interesting and that event's really interesting because they have actual campgrounds. It's like a two day event and you actually stay there for a weekend. So maybe I can only imagine the eye strain, but maybe you're there for  essentially two days porting in, on and off. Yeah. Pretty wild stuff. Yeah. Yeah.  I do think Ready Player One the movie is a perfect example of where this is all heading.I know it's very SciFi and all that, but the power of gaming, the power of the technology is just getting so good that I think in the next five to 10 years, it really is going to be here easily.Q:Yeah. And that's something that we've seen. The last decade you've seen e-sports. Oh, it's this incredible niche thing to more people watch a specific game, final world championships things on the super bowl.So it's it's more popular than the biggest sports, normal sports events. Yeah.Matt: league of legends. Actually, I worked for them. Like almost 10 years ago, back when it was just a very small game. And then I moved on a bunch of other different things, but Morgan Spurlock on his show had an episode about gaming and he referenced league of legends and they like they full on  have an entire audience in a football state All watching these gamers and it's just huge millions of people pouring in to watch these matches. So yeah, e-sports is massive. It's pretty wild.Q:And I think one thing that, that boggles my mind too sometimes is like you were talking about using NFTs for receipts, for tickets to these types of events. I think probably 99% of people. If they know what an NFT is, they think it's just a piece of art or some image, some JPEG that you can right. Click on whereas it's totally. It's just a method of ownership on the blockchain and that's so powerful. And I think a lot of people just haven't necessarily seen the power of NFTs yet. What do you think? Do you think the timeline on that is it everything's going to start coming together soon. It's okay, shoot. People are going. Seeing what's going on or do you think it's more of an evolution?Matt: I honestly, it's a really tough sort of hurdle to get over. I think the technology has a long way to go to make it easy. You gotta get your crypto and you got to get your wax cloud wallet and you got there's all these different things that got to click into place, move your funds from your bank account and turn them into crypto. And if you're not computer savvy, I can see that hurdle. But when it gets as smooth as Apple Pay and going to whole foods and blame just paying for a a bag of lettuce. But instead it's an NFT somehow. I think that's when everyone's going to jump on board right now it's a very niche market. The people that are involved understand do their, do the due diligence and read the FAQ's on these sites and learn about what they want to collect. A perfect example of the use for an NFT that's different other than just collecting his physical goods. So I did a lot of Comicons for about 10 years, and I have a ton of merchandise that's just stored in my garage because of COVID. I can't get to as many Comicons to sell my goods anymore. So a lot of our fans are interested in. Turning digital NFT into almost like a redeemable receipt where they can then summon the physical good whenever they want. So if they don't want it right now, they can hold onto it. But then I'll get an email that will say, Hey, this fan that bought this NFT wants your toy or whatever. And or a book, and then I can ship it to them. It's like a. A totally new way to look at a, an industry that I've been involved in. That's not accessible anymore, but through NFTs, I can somehow sell goods through NFTs. It's just a, it's a wild experience, but that's what's on the table right now. As well with music too. We partnered with Yoshi drops, Michael blues company. I'm not sure if you've heard of them. They're all music based like MP4s and we're doing a whole other separate project away from Dr.Zammys that involves my world building art with  generative  art that you would see through  board a yacht club.  But it's also done through original EDM music that Michael blue wrote for each piece.   NFTs as music.Q: Yeah. Yeah. I've seen those. I've actually really liked those art pieces where it is some sort of sound and picture in a loop, some sort of animation that's super engaging to me. I'm a musician have been for a while. So the concept of the musician not having to necessarily go to a record. To sell their IP and just being able to release it direct and then own it. That's a wild concept for music because traditionally there's so many gatekeepers in the music industry and yet streaming sort of level the playing field, but then it also just completely wiped out the ability to sell records for any amount of money as  an artist, a single artist, right?So now you have this ability to. I can go create a song right now. You can go create a song. We can all go create songs right now. We have the technology to do that digitally very easily. We don't have the technology to own that. And sell it. So that's a really, that's a very interesting application. I wonder what the world will look like when the big, bigger companies realize they don't, they can't necessarily just buy an artist anymore. The artist can sell themselves direct. Matt: I think. Bigger picture too, is that you have a lot of creatives that are very talented about with storytelling and all that. And if if the sale of their NFT gives them more cash in the pocket, more capital, I think if they play their cards like I'm doing it opens up more doors to actually provide the world with more entertainment, more content. I read an article like streaming services. Basically tasks with creating the same amount of content per year. That would be the equivalent of every movie and TV show created from the eighties and nineties all at once, all in one year annually.   A lot of these studios and also gaming companies too, are just constantly struggling to to fulfill that demand.But I think if NFTs can create a whole. Brand new sector of creatives that are, we're just work for hire that are now creating content and managing it themselves. I think you're going to see an explosion of new TV shows, new games the likes of which we've never seen because that capital is being reinvested in people that really understand that space.Q: So that's actually, that brings up a really interesting question for me is you've been on both sides. Now, you're now owning a business, running a project, you're building it out. You're now hiring people that you might've worked with on past projects. And I also looked through your LinkedIn, you have a very impressive resume. In fact, I got to say, you worked on my favorite star wars movie of all time. I love Clone Wars. It's the best.Q: What would your. Advice, I guess be for people looking to do that who are on the creative side of things and want to make that journey. What does that look like?  Matt: First off you just have to have good high quality art. I think there's not enough. Good high quality art out there. Although the market has proven that high quality art doesn't, it doesn't have to it doesn't have to be amazing art in order for it to sell. It just has to be marketed properly. I think the marketing hurdle on these things is super massive right now.  Factor that has been a struggle of ours all year long, but we've overcome that many times but then gone back to square one. Finding the right marketing team and the right marketing channels we use discord telegram. I didn't even know what these things were before I got into NFTs. And now they're my everyday source for connecting with fans, releasing information  and the fan base. The people that collect these things, they're super passionate about it. So they, they want engagement. They want, there's a lot of our time, isn't just about building new content. It's about engaging with the fans and they have a million questions and you have to just always invest that time every day into that. I'd say I wouldn't have gotten into NFTs if it wasn't for my partner, Ralph, he was collecting NFTs back in 2017. He's super involved in the wax blockchain. He knows all the major players that are getting involved or that, that are running that, that ecosystem. And so it was a natural step for us to go into that blockchain, but there's so many more there's flow. Etherium all these different ones. So pick the one, maybe that you have connections with.  Or it's easier to dive into if you don't know anyone, just do your research, do a lot of reading. Go to Benzinga.  All these different places on the internet have tons of resources to get to the information you need. I'll say if you go to https://www.drzammsy.com/faq/, we have an FAQ and it explains everything on there on how to get a wallet. We're more than happy to share information. That's one thing we learned is that it's a place where everyone's just giving away information. , it's not this secretive world where everyone's like really protective on how they did it. That's how we got into the game is by asking a lot of questions to our competitors. And they turned out to be friends.   It's a pretty cool space. In the past before NFTs, everything's so secretive. If you wanted to learn about a game and production, it was very secretive. Now everyone's releasing the entire Bible on how they're making a game in real time. All they're making it. So it's just so different. It's very transparent, but I think that's  the vision for crypto and the vision of the future is transparency.Q: And that's one thing that I don't know if you've noticed this too, Austin, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, but. In terms of just crypto in general transparency  the very form of blockchain itself, but then devs like crypto devs are some of the nicest people they'll share the whole code block with. You have to do it. Like it's amazing to see the crypto devs and then the people. Artists in the NFT world. It's incredible. It's like the best people from every industry. Just come to a discount to crypto and blockchain.Matt: Yeah. I've yet to meet a, an evil person or someone that was rude or anything. Everyone's been so nice. I think we're all just so excited. Cause it's totally brand new. You can get really successful. And just sharing information. I think if someone had Dr. X. And instead of a virus, it was something similar. And they wanted to do a project with a character with a top hat. I'd be a little reluctant to help them cause it's directly ripping us off. But but that hasn't happened yet. And. Know, we're just so happy to have everyone get involved in this whole new system.Q:  Yeah. Yeah. That's, I don't know that you'll probably have that cause you've got first mover first mover advantage there, Matt. So you're probably safe if you're listening to this and you're making a doctor. Just don't come and talk to my man. He's about to crush you. So usually what we do at the end here, Matt, is we give a somewhat of a, like a portfolio tip or action item. Again, we don't give investment advice obviously, but we do want to put some meat on the bones. We talk about a lot of use a very good term. Concepts here.  And very very abstract stuff. So when it comes to what somebody listening to this episode, what can they do to get involved? It sounds like buying a, NFT is probably the first place to start just dipping your toe in. But even before that, how can they get comfortable with NFTs? Even with your project how does someone just dip their toe in and figure out this space,Matt: My experience is just directly with wax I would go to again, our website read our FAQ. It explains exactly how to get wow. How to create a wallet, how to put that wax in your wallet. Once you have your wallet in place, you go on to these markets you find the entity you want and you connect your wallet to the purchase and boom, suddenly it's in your wallet and you have an NFT in there. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's in a nutshell what the process is like.And and then if you get lucky, maybe you collect an NFT that goes up in value for whatever reason. And then you go back onto the secondary market and https://wax.atomichub.io/ is really great for that, where you can sell the NFT you bought for maybe a higher price. And then that's where the game changes. You've actually invested in something that's gone up in value and you're making a little money. Plus a wax is so volatile in a good way. And if you, and this goes without saying in terms of just crypto in general, but you always want to sell on a high and a and buy on a low. And th there's there's a great advantage to that.   When it seems almost too good to be true in terms of its value, sell it.Yeah. May go up even another dollar you missed out, but inevitably it always comes back to. There's a massive crash and then it goes back up again. Maybe someday it will never go up. And then that's when entire system just fails, but I hope not, but as it stands right now, I really do think it's the future. And and just to answer your question. Yeah. It's as easy as just doing the research. Our website's great. Benzinga is another good one, honestly for learning all these things. And then there's other ones that I can explain, but I'd rather not because I'm on your show, but if you just do your research, you can find tons of information on all the blockchains that are out there. The ones that are specifically related to NFTs and how to get in.Q: Awesome. Yeah, I think the education component is key. It took a lot of, for me, I'm a very like cynical, kinda old at heart and kind of guy. So it took a lot of convincing for me to even buy my first like NFT art piece. And it was an interesting experience, but it took a while. Like conversations with people reading a lot to understand the process. And so I think you're right, that the education piece is definitely the first component to start.Matt: I was just gonna say there's a lot of scamming out there and I can see why people are fearful. I've had friends that gave away their wallet information in a way where, you know, everything you had was stolen. So you really want to vet people that are trying to poke at you. Double check those emails that come into your inbox that are saying the claiming Hey, if you get, if you do this, we'll give you this. And then it ends up being you're just wiped out  just make sure if you do the right research that won't have. It's just, be really frugal about it just keep your cards tight in terms of your personal information. I think you'll be fine, but people that just think of this as just like a hobby and they're just kinda toying around, they're going to get hurt. You got to take it really seriously.  Q:Essentially it's it seems like it's different folks have. Different ideas and different ability to just jump in. Like for me, it was, I was buying stuff on nifty gateway last April, and telling Austin all about it and all sorts of stuff and constantly, and he's trying to get to do the research.You got to read up on this, I gotta do this. And then so it's definitely. Different strokes for different folks, and it's, it is a, it's an amazing world to be a part of right now. Like we've talked about where the majority of the world doesn't even use crypto yet and we're getting there. It's rapidly increasing. So it just seems like that kind of long run. Wild world to be in right now.  Matt: To your point  it was so bizarre to have contractors that were paying to do specific things for us on our projects. And they're asking to be paid in WAX or get paid an ETH or something like that. And. It's just crazy. Cause you know, we have plenty of that. We have cash too, but it's just so much easier to just to send crypto to someone and  you don't have to pay for a wire transfer fee or something like that.  I'm slowly seeing that at least in my industry more artists are accepting crypto as payment. So it's yeah it's changing fast and it's here. It's literally right now.Q:  Awesome. That's about all the time we have today for this episode, the long run show. Matt Gaser. Thank you so much for coming on our first, our non-real guests and what a guest to have on today.Matt: Very honored. Appreciate it guys. Thank you.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-long-run-show/donations

On today's episode of the ACCEL Podcast, Scott, Eric and Alex welcome Brian and Matt from the ACCEL Gaming Division. On Part-One of this Two-Part Series, Brain and Matt discuss Blockchain, Play-to-Earn (P2E) Games, NFTs and how their integration with blockchain technology is not only growing, but accelerating to new heights of adoption across multiple chains. For more information on ACCEL , please visit www.acceldefi.com or our Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/AccelDefiFor educational resources related to ACCEL and Crypto in general, please visit ACCEL University on YouTube using the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDNIqPTp9kjsMPmPo119Zg Episode Transcript:[Alex] Welcome to the ACCEL Podcast. Today we have very special guests for you, Matt and Brian. They head the gaming division here at ACCEL. [Alex] Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, your background in gaming, and how you found yourself developing P2E Games in the crypto space? [Brian] Thanks again. As you said, my name is Brian. I've been an avid gamer pretty much my entire life. I've just been working into project management and programming for a few years now, and basically I've just brought everything together when forming this division as it appealed to all of my skills that I've built over the years. And I've been working on building this division from the ground up. So I am very excited to have a couple of people in our team. And honestly, it's been pretty much a dream of mine. I've always wanted to be kind of a project manager programmer for a small indie company. That's kind of something that's always been a dream of mine. So the simple fact that now I finally get to do it is fantastic and I'm looking forward to the future. [Alex] Thank you very much for giving us a little bit of information on your background. Is game development something you went to school for, or were you self taught? [Brian] That's a great question. I was self taught. The only kind of experience I have is some coding classes when I went to University, but I never really used them for gaming. It was just got through the courses and at the time that wasn't something that I planned on using. But now that I'm here, I'm really glad that I decided to stick with it. Those late hours of going through code, it's finally going to pay off. [Alex] Wow, that's fascinating. Hey, Matt, can you also give us a little bit about your background and how you got involved with ACCEL? [Matt] Absolutely. I've been in eSports. I was an eSports pro in my 20s. I actually have been involved in gaming for about 18 years now. Always dream. Just like Brian, we've been friends for ten years. We've gone through a lot. We've discussed a lot of things that we want to do, and this is sort of like making all that happen. I personally come from an engineering background. I am pretty good with numbers and like I set up both developed games simply and I've worked on different games just through the variable aspect. And I've been very involved with technology for the last ten years. So when Brian told me about this opportunity, I thought it was a great time to come in, materialize all the things that we've discussed over the years, just bring them together and make this an amazing environment. [Alex] Thank you very much for giving us that information. [Scott] So I guess that kind of leads us into our next question. I think there's a lot of kind of confusion around gaming in the crypto sphere and kind of how everything ties together. There's a lot of different words thrown around that I think kind of confused people between these console games and these mobile games that you can play on your phone, ones where you can actually earn rewards, ones where you can't can you kind of just give us a little bit more insight on what exactly you guys are going to do in the gaming division, how that ties into crypto? [Brian] Yeah, absolutely. So mobile and console games, they all use a standard protocol, and basically there's going to be a way that we can be able to connect them to the blockchains. As of right now, that's the challenge. But I believe that what we can do is it's definitely coming along. It's faster than you think. Right. People have been playing games for virtual tokens for years, and really the only change now is that they be playing with a stake and earn real world assets. So, you know, you basically instead of farming your own Gill, gold, whatever the ingame currency is, basically. Now what you can do is not only can you throw money in there, but there are also ways to earn the money through various tasks, et cetera. And it's basically a great community effort because you're going to have people that are going to be let's say all I want to do is be a blacksmith. Right. Well, everybody's going to need a sword. So you're going to have those one on one interactions in transactions with people just like you and me. And we'll be able to use centralized token or coin or what have you. And we'll be able to do all kinds of trading. And I think Matt can actually elaborate a little more. [Matt] Absolutely. What basically is happening here is that before, if you went to any game, you'd earn that game's currency, right? You could earn gold, you could earn Gill, you could earn, like, little jewels and Candy Crush, et cetera. And all those things actually allow you to participate or buy items using that in game currency. But those items and those things are only limited to that game, and you could never translate it into something outside of the game. You could be the best player in the world in Candy Crush, but you're still going to get beat up at school if you're a nerd happened to be honestly, it was an experience. And the good thing about these games, the strong thing about these games is they can appeal to both the time and skill that you can put in. And that skill doesn't always have to be related directly to one task. Right. Like, for example, you have people with different careers in the world that do different things. And in the gaming, in the meta verse itself, you can tie all this together that people are going to be very good at. Some people are going to be very good at racing, some people are going to be very good at guessing a number off of a deck. And some people are going to go more into the creative side. You know, they are going to design characters, they're going to build certain items, they're going to build a lot of different things. So there's always going to be a discipline that appeals to anyone. And like, as with horse racing, where one person wins and everyone else loses, you actually have all these opportunities for different people to come together and use the things they are good at, use the things they want to do, and they all have the same possibility to earn something that they can just take back with them after. [Scott] Okay. So I guess my follow up kind of question to that then is these Play-to-Earn games have kind of been around a while. Why do you think you're seeing this trend kind of catching on now? What is kind of that ignition behind it? Do you think it's the blockchain interaction? Is that kind of that big selling point that's really bringing the play to earn games, too? We're seeing them really rise to the top right now. [Matt] Yeah. I think one of the key reasons is exactly what you mentioned. Because for everything that happened before, one of the big elements was that there was always, well, not really in games, but like, if you take it to real world, there's always going to be someone in the middle regulating transactions between players. So, for example, this is a very simple example. If anyone out there has played RuneScape, I'm sorry for you. But Besides that, if anyone out there has played RuneScape, you've gotten like scammed at least once. Like, some person comes in and they want to sell you something and you give them your gold because like, okay, I want the site, I may give you my goal and then the person just disconnects and disappears and you basically got stiffed. Truth be told, it's just a game currency. So it wasn't really that much of a hurt on you because you really feel bad when it happens. And Blockchain Technology just has had its peaks since 2019. If I'm not mistaken, it was first developed around 2009, but it's really seeing the strong adoption today. And the important part of Blockchain Technology is that it can do two things that usually didn't happen before. A it can regulate transactions between two parties without having like a physical third party having to exist. And the second one is that is a trust system so you don't actually have to go and trust the other player to make your transaction. Because it's going to be written in code, it's going to be hashed and there's no way you're getting out of that. No one can really stake a different item in transaction than they originally did. Scams are there like scams happen every day, but it's mostly like 99% of them are mostly due to a human factor. And that's why the fact that you can now actually have people playing against something that they don't need to trust, they know there's no way to go around it and they're going to get the returns of what they're putting in. It's not a scam, it's going to be like written code. The smart context is going to be there. It makes people a lot more confident to stake money or stake different sort of assets in these games. Kind of like when people in the 90s were afraid to put their credit card information anywhere because they all thought like they were going to get cloned and scanned. And now like you'll just go to a Russian site because you wanted to buy that PDF, that one book that you need to print for your son and just put your credit card info in weird Russian site with like not thinking about it twice. [Brian] Also, one thing I'd love to add is I believe now more than ever people actually want to feel like they're a part of something bigger, right? So let's say you've got your avatar, you're going in the Metaverse and you want to buy paranike, whether it's going to be for your avatar, like The Sims where you can dress your avatar, or maybe Nike will have a special NFT for X amount of sales. So either way you've got the people who, I just want to make my avatar look cool, I want to spend it on this, that or the other. And then you've got other people that are, I'm doing this for the money. As far as like, this is a really cool limited edition Nike NFT. I can only imagine we're going to be bringing in some big names very shortly. And one of the cool things is you don't necessarily have to be quote, unquote whale to own a piece of the pie, right? You could have in the Metaverse, you own a piece of land and then that land has the shoe store in there. So someone who comes in and say 1000 people purchase that land, anybody who gets sales from that Nike shoe is going to disperse equally. And so everyone's going to be able to not only say that they've got some connections with brand management, but also just sales get X amount of tokens or whatever. And then you use those for basically whatever you'd like. So it's just really cool. [Eric] So Brian and Matt, you guys have done a diamond explanation of giving us a little bit of your background, how you're now starting to tie into ACCEL. So for our subscribers and maybe a couple more of our more veterans in the ACCEL game–I'll put myself in that category–give me a little more insight if both of you could, or a little more understanding on exactly what P2E Games are, and with that being said, exactly how they are going to now tie into The Blockchain, and I know you started to get into how we pay for it. I know, Matt, you had alluded to your son or your daughter can tie in a credit card, but bring it back a little more to the basics, and just let me know about the P2E Games, how they tie into The Blockchain, and exactly how it's being monetized. [Matt] P2E or like Play to Earn is just basically any game that gives you a reward for playing it. You can even define like, if you loosely define it, you can even call P2E to those little machines in Japan where if you exercise, you do ten squats, you actually get a train ticket. And it's sort of the same principle that comes in there. And people relate this a lot to casinos for that reason, because you basically go in, stake your money, make some bets. Betting is one of the many forms that P2E has. And I think there's a hidden gem that NFCs will bring that still hasn't been tapped into and relates directly with fractal ownership. There's a lot of artists that have talked about this. It's basically sort of selling a part or selling a piece of, for example, the right to your music. Like, if you have a favorite artist, how cool would it be if you could own a small percentage of the rights to their music? [Brian] Right. And NFT's in general, all these tokens would actually make for a strong case in which people can bring their resources together. We can form a pool of 30,000 people, and we can all pool our ETH. And the good thing is no one has to trust anyone else and get that pulled resources and get that pulled money to let's say we're all a big fan of Nike. You want to buy a percentage of Nike and sort of be able to bring the Nike brand into the Metaverse or get some dividends out of the Nike shares and et cetera. That's a strong point of NFTs and I think it's going to be seen a lot more because people are starting to realize there are a lot more uses to this than they thought originally. [Scott] Yeah, I think that's one of the craziest things we're kind of seeing in the blockchain and crypto areas. A lot of people don't really want to jump on this innovation and it's one of the things we're really seeing is everything is tied together and in our next episode we're going to kind of touch on this, but we want to leave you guys on a little bit of a cliffhanger. But in the next episode we're going to kind of explain to you guys how this all ties back together. The Metaverse, the NFTs, the Play-to-Earn, the blockchain and how they're all in one. So we're looking forward to this next episode. Please join us again with Brian Matt. It's going to be awesome. Bye.-----------------------------------------The Information presented in this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.The Information provided from or through this podcast is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or financial advisor.You understand that you are using any and all information from this podcast at your own risk.

I've known today's guest before I even ventured into the professional WordPress industry. In fact, it wasn't his themes that revolutionized my thinking, it was the checkout process. Brian Gardner launched a theme company using a payment portal and delivery tool called e-junkie. I just checked, they still exist, they were the Gumroad before Web 3.0 was even a thought in Web 2.0's mind. I couldn't believe it. Someone could zip up WordPress code, put it on a website, set a price, and someone could buy it?! I wanted to do the same thing. But until then, I had an agency to run so I used Revolution Themes, then Genesis, then to the whole StudioPress suite to make that happen. Fast forward, Gardner not only sold SP to WP Engine, but he left the gig shortly after, only to make a return with his latest product, Frost. Enjoy today's conversation with Brian Gardner, Principal Developer Advocate at WP Engine, creator of many things and many blogs. Find his newly redesigned blog at briandgardner.com. If you fancy supporting the show, buying me a digital coffee or joining my fantastic private Discord server, head on over to buymeacoffe.com/mattreport — I'll shout your name from the Twitter rooftops. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Matt: so many folks who sit on the sidelines and Monday quarterback like me I see folks sell their business and , and they joined the team and I know in my heart that as a builder, as an entrepreneur, , they won't be there that long.[00:00:14] And they're there for a year. I think roughly you were at WP engine for a year after selling studio[00:00:20] Brian: press to them longer than that. But it sort of been to which in and of itself as a piece of conversation. Go ahead.[00:00:26] Matt: And then I saw you sort of leave P and L I was like, yep. I knew it. And there's nothing wrong with that because God that we have such a passion to build something, but I don't know of anyone who's who sells it to the company, leaves built something else, sells it back to the company and.[00:00:41] You're going for a hat trick question, mark.[00:00:44] Brian: No. No. And in fact, it's, it's funny, you are the only person who, with the exception of Bob Paul, Lacey, who had months ago made a kind of comment about that. You're the only person in this round when I got hired and when Frost was acquired to actually have.[00:01:01] Pointed that out. And of course I took that bait and this is why we're on the show today. But I talked to our PR team and I was like, look, this is just something that could be a thing that people might talk about or in this context. And surprisingly, and that's fine because it's really, it really was a news event.[00:01:16] This time around Yeah. I was just like, okay, what are the possible negative reactions? People might have to something like this. And I was like, that's about the only thing I can come up with. Well, people may point out that this happened and it, whatever, it's all good. Everyone's happy. You've built a[00:01:31] Matt: lot of stuff from digital products to courses, to eBooks, to blogs, to knit mail email lists and newsletters, like all things that were in some form or fashion, a business, a micro business.[00:01:43] When I saw you. Go back to a WP engine and they had acquired frost in my head. I started thinking, you know what, these, and this is my words, not yours. And I hope it doesn't offend you. But these micro products are almost like a fantastic calling card to get an awesome gig. Right. Ha had it not been you, but somebody else in this position, it could be like, I built an awesome little product.[00:02:11] And sometimes the weight of that is like, oh God, I got to S I get up market. I gotta sell it. I gotta promote it. I gotta support it. I got to take over the world. But then sometimes it's like, no, I can actually use this in place of a resume and get an awesome job somewhere. Is that a fair statement?[00:02:27] Brian: I would think so.[00:02:28] I don't think that that necessarily applies to everybody. We know right now, Matt, that the competitive landscape in WordPress is off the charts, especially in light of the behemoths. And, and we're one of them, right? WP, engine, GoDaddy, liquid web, all those it's really difficult to, and I'll conversely, make a counter argument here after this.[00:02:47] It's very difficult to like create and launch something new and have it be successful and widely adopted and so on now, conversely. That is also, if you have the idea, something really, really brilliant, that really solves a problem that catches a lot of users and stuff like that. Then it becomes because of aforementioned behemoths, a very interesting acquisition piece, right?[00:03:07] Go to liquid web. They've bought a lot of things lately. None of them have been, well, that's not true. Some have been larger, right. Eye themes and so on. And then some of them are just like smaller pieces that kind of fill a niche that allow them to use their sort of their. The abilities to reach and build and support from an infrastructure standpoint, a subset of people.[00:03:28] And so it can work. It can be, I wouldn't necessarily say that should be someone's business plan. Just given my tenure in the industry and the success I've had, it's been helpful to have that sort of be true.[00:03:41] Matt: Web hosts, obviously WP engine being one of the largest, if not the largest managed WordPress hosts in the industry GoDaddy liquid web.[00:03:49] I think a lot of folks myself included have sort of illustrated this picture, that well, we all kind of hypothesized that they're all looking to build and curate their own WordPress experience. Without giving away the secret meetings, maybe at WP engine and the secret sauce. Is that, is that something that you see coming down the pipe, maybe if not WP engine others, and maybe why they acquire fros and studio presses to sort of put these pieces in place.[00:04:19] So when you come to a WP engine, you experienced WordPress. You go to liquid web, you experience it that way. Is, is that something that you see as holding true in the year 20, 20[00:04:28] Brian: a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I think we see it on several levels. And even outside of the WordPress market, just the, sort of the consolidation, the platform building, go daddy sold domains back in the day.[00:04:39] Then they went to hosting. And then when they realized that the people who are buying those things would buy other things or are doing other things. Then all of a sudden they're an email marketing company and then, oh, WordPress explodes. Now we're going to be a WordPress hosting email, but like, like, and so yes, it makes sense.[00:04:54] And everyone's good at what they do. And when you really find what you're great at, then you sort of, I wouldn't say exploit, but then you really sort of double down on that by looking around in the space and saying, Hey, are there products that align with what we're trying to do? And is it, is it better for us to acquire those products?[00:05:10] Because it takes us less time to build. We can go right to market. We can, there's an existing audience as studio press was a huge audience that WP engine picked up and things like that. So yeah, I would say that's a fair state. Do you know,[00:05:21] Matt: there's in the news and the courting eh, in the week of this week, it's January 13th.[00:05:27] And we've seen over the last week, just a lot of discussion of paying contributors in the WordPress space. It's something that I've always thought of too, like going way back, like how. All these folks volunteer. They all have to go through the stress of like a theme developer. Like I was way, way, way back in the day, asking them why didn't this team get approved?[00:05:47] Why are you telling me I have to adjust this tab space in the functions file. Like it's so subjective. I should just be like, lots of stress. That folks don't really need to go through as volunteers now resurfacing again, how to get people paid. I think hosting companies are in a good position since.[00:06:06] Winning off of the back of WordPress, that there could be something there, more sponsored contributions more ways to it doesn't doesn't maybe always have to be about payments. It could be about featuring or highlighting or spotlighting folks because not everybody wants to make money off their volunteer ism with WordPress.[00:06:25] Is, are there any efforts or maybe. Contributing more to core with paid positions, let's say. Is that kind of a topic fall under a principal developer advocate at WP engine? Are those the kinds of things you hear in field for the company?[00:06:41] Brian: Yes. WP engine did not hire me so that I could go write code for WordPress.[00:06:45] Let's let's be clear about that. Damn they did. However, Hire me because of my expertise, my tenure in the field, my ability to understand the value that I could bring through the WordPress and WP engine sort of relationship. And as part of the leeway and the latitude I've been given to go do my thing. I brought on Nick Diego, who is an engineer.[00:07:07] And I learned V and he, he actually was supposed to backfill me with frost before the acquisition for us was going to be a side project. And because of my job, I brought in Nick to help sort of carry the load until I realized how much Nick and I aligned and what a resource he could be. And so I made the recommendation that we hire him as part of a developer relations so that we could do the very thing, right.[00:07:28] Part of his responsibilities and part of what I pitched was. There is an opportunity for us to sort of lead the space from a thought leadership perspective to help contribute code as he and I were both knee deep and code following along, the Gutenberg development where press 5.9 and stuff.[00:07:43] And I said, there's a lot of things that we're finding as we're working through building our thing that instead of just trying to like make a fix or a hack inside of our product Contribute that code or that patch or the fix, or the suggested way of doing things upstream back to WordPress.[00:07:59] And so a lot of the work that we're doing now is in fact core contribution stuff. Nick is also going to be doing some stuff with learn. And so w. WP engine just really understands the value of sort of the five for the future stuff. We've got several members committed to that. We just recently did it contribute to WP day where we really encouraged a lot of the folks in the community to do stuff like that.[00:08:20] And so I'm because like you said, I have one with WordPress for 15 years now. Right. It helped me leave my day job. Provides for my family and stuff like that. So I always have a place in my heart. It's easier now because I have the backing and support of WP engine and our resources to kind of make that move.[00:08:38] And I'm not getting any resistance from the higher ups there. They, I think they see the value and the contributions and sort of the, the PR that comes from that. There's some, there's some benefit there. But we just want to see WordPress get better. So our products and our customers experience.[00:08:54] Matt: How does frost fold into speaking of customer experience? How does frost fold into the. The existing suite of softwares that you sold them studio press. How does that merge? Is, are we still too early on, on those days for those, for those discussions, but how does it fold into the experience of WP engine users or potentially even studio press users?[00:09:15] So[00:09:15] Brian: this pet, let me give some context. So th this past summer after a sort of a failed attempt at doing something in the real estate space I came across an article. Written by Justin tablet on WP Tavern. And in that article, he was talking about block patterns and this is sort of as like the patterns kind of were hitting their infancy and they talk about there being a pattern directory and stuff like that.[00:09:38] I've obviously followed WordPress even while I was sort of away doing some things with real estate. I was like, okay, we sold studio press in part because I had no idea what the future of WordPress was going to be. Right. That was part of the reason we just didn't have the resources. We weren't sure we, we didn't want to compete.[00:09:52] And so we sold that.[00:09:58] We talked, I'm a creator. I'm always thinking I always want to build and do stuff like that. And so, so when I was on this article, I went over to the, the pattern repository or the directory and it, there was like a little tile of patterns and there's a button that said click to copy code or whatever, copied it.[00:10:13] I went into my blog, so I was doing something and I just hit paste. And like this thing showed up like this arrangement of design. And I was like, wait a second. I like that. That's like a theme agnostic design agnostic thing. And I think it was like, at that point was when sort of, it was very, very like original epiphany that kind of backed the frost project.[00:10:33] When I was like, wait a second. Now I understand where we're presses going. Right. These idea of blocks and styles and patterns and layouts that like kind of all these words being thrown around. And I was like, wait a second. So I can create these sections of. Website and in one click allow people to import them into a page.[00:10:50] And like, if you did that five or six times, you could essentially allow people to build a homepage and like literally 20 seconds. And I was like, okay, so that that's sorta was the, the original fire that was lit around frost. And so, because at the time it just made sense. I built frost originally as a Genesis child theme, just because right.[00:11:08] Part of the family. It was what I've always known. And so we launched a paid product called frost and it was a theme and it was a corresponding plugin that had all of the designs and the patterns and stuff like that. And then full site editing started to become more of a thing. And so I installed Gutenberg and realized.[00:11:25] There's going to be life after Genesis the framework, because a lot of what full site editing does is what Genesis did it handled markup and the ability to move things around. And so I said, well, Let's do what I did back in 2006, let's open up a bunch of blank files and start writing a theme from scratch.[00:11:43] And so current version of frost, probably three months ago was literally just sort of modeled after stuff I saw. I think it was on Carolina's full site editing or some tutorial on like, what is. Full site editing theme, look like it's got to have these files, the structure, it's a complete paradigm shift from where it was.[00:12:00] And I was like, let's just see if I could do this. And so I basically replicated the design of the Genesis child theme version of frost and started building out current version of frost. So that became a thing. And we launched it, started selling it. I was trying to extend a little bit of financial runway so that I could keep playing around with what I was doing.[00:12:17] So I reached out to Heather Bruner, our CEO just to say hi to check in and just see if she knew of anybody in the industry who might be looking for some contract work. And at the same time internally, they were talking about WordPress developer relations. And she says, funny, you should ask because we've been thinking of this position and I don't know.[00:12:34] That there's anybody better suited for it than you, which is the intersection of what I told her design community and WordPress. And so, we worked out something that made a lot of sense at the time frost was on the outside which I felt conflicted about because a lot of the work I was going to be doing was around WordPress and building and stuff like that.[00:12:50] And so, ultimately I made the recommendation that we just bring it into. Into the fold so that I can work on it. Full-time we can use that as a way to demonstrate where WordPress is going to teach folks in the community what's going on. And so on.[00:13:02] Matt: So it doesn't detach from you. It's not like, okay, now it's gone into the abyss of WP engine.[00:13:07] My[00:13:07] Brian: is not. And Nick and my F yeah, no, it's under our full control. It's a developer relations project.[00:13:13] Matt: Yeah. Did you, when you sat back, did you have those same feelings of okay. I going to do this again. I have to build, well, you already have a headstart with your brand and recognition and followers and all that stuff.[00:13:26] But even that, I'm sure you're still like, oh God, I gotta, I gotta do this all over again. I gotta set up a checkout system. I have to set up a licensing system. I, I have to market this thing. I gotta support. And I[00:13:36] Brian: gotta do all this stuff a hundred percent.[00:13:38] It was exciting just because it had been since studio press formed way back in the day where I was really fully in control, as we merged into Copyblogger in 2008 or nine, and then for like 10 or 12 years, we had sort of the infrastructure of the company and stuff like that.[00:13:52] So I didn't have to like, bear that load independently. As I had at the beginning of studio press. And so like, it's a different space than it was back then. And, and thankfully I have the cloud, the email lists sort of the reach, the exposure to WordPress. So it made sense. It didn't quite hit the way I was hoping that a studio press did back in the day, but again, we're in different times and that's okay.[00:14:16] But you know, like at the end of the day, what it came down to was for the last 15 years I've been doing sort of the self-employment entrepreneur things start up, you feel sort of a thing. And even like early on into frost, I was like, this is going to be another long thing and that's fine. I like this kind of thing.[00:14:33] And I think it would have done well on its own. But I was just ready. I was ready for, and I wrote about this on a torque article about seasons change. I was just ready to finally work for somebody else to, to have access to team members, to be fully supported, to get good benefits, pay, like all of those things.[00:14:48] I just, I needed a mental break and, I foresee this break being of several years, not just like a couple months, so[00:14:54] Matt: you said, I feel like frost didn't hit. Maybe like studio press fell, but different times, is that a gut feeling?[00:15:02] Did you measure it , instinctually as somebody who's launched so many things, did you just kind of know like, okay. I'm not feeling that momentum as I maybe did 10 years ago, Yeah.[00:15:13] Brian: Like when you sell something, when you build something and sell something, like you kind of get into this mindset, like, oh, I could do it again.[00:15:19] Right. Once lucky, twice. Good. And, and had I stuck with it, like just me and or Nick at that time, it would have taken probably some time to really get it to a point where it was humming WordPress itself sorta was getting in the way, because it just, it wasn't delivering things that we were looking forward to using and stuff like that.[00:15:35] So it was part gut. , okay, this isn't going to make me a hundred million dollars. Like maybe even a hundred dollars would be great sort of a thing. But I just, as like, like I wanted, I wanted power behind it, not just to have to rely on me. And like I said, I was ready, it was serendipitous me reaching out to Heather, her coming back to me, presenting the offer.[00:15:55] And it's kind of like, she was like, basically let you do what you want to be doing and what you've been doing for 15 years, just under the guise of WP engine and, having gone through the acquisition and the transition for the year afterwards. I had a ton of insight into their culture. And that made it a really easy decision to make, because that was not, is this a company I want to work for?[00:16:15] Cause the answer is hell yeah, I knew, I know how the cultures there. I think a lot of people on the outside don't understand how, how cool and great it is, especially we're 1200 strong. But I was like, wow, this is like almost a dream.[00:16:26] Matt: Yeah. I remember people talking about WP engine, just like when, when they hit 400 people, they, wow.[00:16:32] Like, that's amazing. And now it's like triple and probably just chasing automatic, which I, I think just hit the 2000 mark or just under 2000. So, it's pretty amazing to see like pure. Play companies. Because again, WP engine is only doing WordPress, right? You haven't introduced at other CMS yet.[00:16:50] Right? There's nothing they're getting into headless that might introduce some stuff that might be outside of the realm of WordPress, but you're certainly not hosting Drupal anytime soon,[00:16:59] Brian: correct? Correct.[00:17:01] Matt: That's awesome. Can we chat about the real estate endeavor for a moment? You said it fair.[00:17:09] Anything that you can point to as to maybe why wrong time global pandemic, what was going on with that, with that real estate endeavor of yours. And why did you decide to just exit it?[00:17:21] Brian: So I've always been interested in real estate. We've bought and sold houses over the years, probably 10 over the last 20 years and an agent press, which you may remember was a thing that we did a copy of.[00:17:31] For a few years. So we dabbled in it and I realized just how bad design and marketing is in that space. Generally speaking compass being the exception and maybe a few others. And so I was like, okay, well I have, through the years, I've made several relationships with people sort of higher up in the real estate industry.[00:17:50] So I knew I'd kind of have like an easy launch pad. I get design. I could build it on a WordPress. I've got some spokespeople people who could sort of be advisers to the company who are, experiencing Zillow and all that kind of stuff. And then the pandemic hit and what happened really was probably a couple of things.[00:18:04] One, it probably just wasn't built in packaged the right way. But number two real estate agents got really, really busy because of the housing. They, they, everyone, you would follow it. Oh, I have 36 offers today. Like nobody has time or at the time they didn't feel the need to have a website because their business was exploding.[00:18:24] I don't have time for a website I'm standing in line at open houses. Like, and the sad thing is like in six months or a year, whenever the housing market comes back to earth. Done dental need it, then they'll be like, oh crap. Cause now that you've got a bunch of new agents, people who jumped into the market because of all of what was going on.[00:18:41] So then like the, the demand will go down, but like the supply of agents then is there. And so there's more competition, but I was like, I, I don't have time to weather, all of that. And then frost kind of came up and, things with agent engine, just kind of, weren't really doing its thing. And I was like, I was okay with that.[00:18:55] It was a good college try[00:18:57] Matt: because it was more like it was more agency. Experience than just a product, right? Cause[00:19:02] Brian: you were, I know it was more product based. It was more, we call it digital spaces where we sort of built Jason Schuler of WordPress fame sort of built this profile management system, which I thought was really gonna take off with like associations or, brokerages that had teams of people that wanted to sort of showcase them individually.[00:19:21] Like the idea on paper was really, really good. I think we just poorly executed at the wrong time. So. But I'm okay with that. Like lessons learned, right. We're here where we are.[00:19:29] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I tell you it's what an interesting time, because you had real estate agents who, you know, probably whatever, maybe not immediate at the pandemic hitting, but a couple months in just being just the fish were jumping into the boat.[00:19:44] You didn't even have to cast a line in they're like website. I don't have time for a website, but then. This whole range at an opposite end of an industry restaurants who are like, oh, we never launched that website. And now we have to do takeout a hundred percent of the time. I know I had, I haven't been in the, my data.[00:20:04] I, my dad runs the agency. I'm well beyond that at th at this point, but it still runs. And I had tons of people calling me at that moment. Literally watching the news restaurants are shutting down, calling me up. Like, I need that website, Matt. , where, where are you? Five 10 years ago when we were telling you to do this a crazy, crazy time for web and for people who haven't caught up at that point.[00:20:26] When I look at. You were saying before, like one of your aha moments with Gutenberg was I copied and pasted and it was kind of like, wow, I can see where the vision is going. Matt Mullenweg could always talk, has always talked about WordPress being like the operating system of the web. That was something that was always interesting to me is what really kept me motivated with WordPress.[00:20:48] I now see this hearing him say that Gutenberg is bigger than WordPress, sort of, kind of nonchalantly in the state of the word. I kind of see maybe that same thing of fusing, like the operating system with code. So Genesis studio press remember back in the day, you're building it all through the functions.[00:21:06] PHP file. I can imagine a world where now you're just copy pasting snippets of code, like the query blocks and stuff like that. Pre pre queried for you. Like all the codes there. Boom, copy paste it. And now I'm developing air quotes to the listener. Who's only listening to audio. Developing by copying pasting snippets of code and dropping blocks in do you have any other future out look on, on where Gutenberg might be going?[00:21:31] Maybe things you might be looking at to build into Gutenberg. Into frost that would push the boundaries.[00:21:38] Brian: Nothing monumental. I We're just obviously following along where WordPress is going, this it's taken us three years to get here. We're working through this now full site editing thing, which I th I think is still gonna take some time.[00:21:50] Right. Which we've already seen the delay from December to January. And I was in full support of that. Cause I didn't think it was going to be ready and I'm more than okay. Especially now that I don't have to. Like obsess over building a product and like put food on the table based on what I sell. Now it's like kind of a kickback and just follow along as it's happening.[00:22:09] And, Nick and I are on get hub and select daily, oh, do you see this commit? Do you see this change? And I'll be honest. I don't know that there are many people in the group of people who are at the forefront of what's going on with WordPress. Then he and I right now, because we are so. We practically have alerts going off, in our own heads.[00:22:27] I just posted 30 seconds ago. How would I see that? Because we, we love it so much. We, we absolutely are infatuated. We call ourselves black editor, fanboys. Like it's, it's kinda crazy and almost embarrassing the extent, but 15 years later, I'm still in love with WordPress. The way that I was and even more so now, because I'm starting to see.[00:22:46] WordPress itself, starting to solve the problems that we tried to solve back in the day with like magazine style themes and stuff like that. It's so easy to want to still primarily build your own thing and around it. And, we're presses now making it so easy with where it's going. It's not perfect and never will be, but they're doing things in a way that make it really easy for people like me to sort of identify where the opportunities are.[00:23:10] And especially those who love design. I could do so much with just WordPress core and a simple theme so much. And that's how I felt back when I launched revolutions. Like, Hey.[00:23:20] Matt: And as a product owner and business owner, software developer, you kind of get that this stuff iterates over time.[00:23:28] And when Gutenberg first launched and everyone just like flipped the table, which, I was one of those folks too, but it was more about how, it was being communicated, how it was being like, whatever the Pictet at the time and enrolled that it had nothing to do about. You know the features of Gutenberg.[00:23:43] Although I still struggle with trying to like grab a block and put it in between two columns is like still a thing that I have to like wrestle and throw my computer with. I always knew like, Hey, this thing's going to get better.[00:23:54] It's just version 0.0 0, 0 1 that we're at like, don't we all like, there's so many software people in this space. Why was everybody losing their mind? That it wasn't good enough yet? This software's never good enough day one. It always gets better over time. Any thoughts on like the iteration of Gutenberg or how you looked at the launch of Gutenberg when that.[00:24:12] Yeah,[00:24:12] Brian: I was the same way. I wasn't sure it was very clunky. I think it kind of got rushed out back in that, that one December. But I think it had to be, I at some point we met that's written before about 1.0 and shipping and iterating and stuff like that. And so I think it was a necessary evil I think Gutenberg, the plugin being a thing now sort of, kind of pulls up.[00:24:30] From the core and like the general consumer standpoint, like seeing these sort of iterations and breaking changes and things like that, they've put it in the plugin, which, which is helpful because it allows people who are developing for WordPress to see what's coming to know how to address it. When it looked like a lot of people, when 5.9 launches, they'll be like, oh, w what's changed since 5.8.[00:24:50] Oh, my God, if you even knew, like so much has changed, but like, we'll be ready for it. Like frost will be 100% production ready when five, it is already, but you know, when 5.9 ships will be fully taken advantage of all the things. Cause we've been on the Gutenberg daily trail ever since then.[00:25:06] But speaking of Sarah McLaughlin, one of the 11 tweets I've favorited in my 15 years of Twitter was her response. She did ask me anything and I said, what's your favorite quote? And she quoted Gandhi's be the change you want to see in the world. And , obviously that that's sort of ubiquitous and we see it all the time.[00:25:21] But when it comes to WordPress and the direction, and this is sort of like Nick and my north star, which is, oh, this isn't working, we're frustrated with how this works. Well, you could do two things. You could piss about it and like, go on Twitter and talk about how bad it is. Or you can roll up your sleeves and figure out how to make it better.[00:25:36] And that is a lot of what we're doing. With developer relations at WP engine, we're teaming up with people on automatic side where other people's sides, rich Taylor is a good friend and we're trying to figure out how do we, universalize some things and just like really be that change.[00:25:50] And, we hope not only will that make WordPress better, maybe some of the people on the sidelines, these Monday quarterbacks as you call them, maybe it'll say, Hey, maybe there's something to like, Approach that they're taking, and maybe it's less about, dogging the platform that helped us win and helping it when, when, when for others and stuff like that.[00:26:09] Matt: Yeah. I can tell you that the one thing that Sort of afraid of is just the the pollution, I guess, of the block directory and what that potentially leads to in a customers. I say customer, I'm thinking I have agency on my mind, but thinking of you logging into somebody's website, who's not a WordPress aficionado.[00:26:28] And then. You have a thousand plugins installed. What's wrong with you? I can see that same thing happening with like the block directory, especially some of the things I've already starting to see where product companies are starting to inject their icon into like a, I don't know. I'll call the task bar.[00:26:46] I don't know what the official WordPress name is for that tray that sits above the editor where you can expand in different. And then, like I w installed a couple of themes the other day on one of my test sites. And it was just like, it looked like the bottom of my windows machine. Like all these icons, , oh, crazy.[00:27:01] We go again. , I don't want this. I can see some people doing like animated gifts now. And , oh, come on. , this is bad enough. Notifications already bad enough. Those types of things that you, you hope to maybe standard eyes across other product companies, is there like an official place you start to document this kind of thing to get everybody together or in a perfect world.[00:27:20] Is there a place you'd like to have for folks to rally around these types of things?[00:27:26] Brian: A good question. W we are guilty of that. Nick, Nick built a black pattern Explorer plugin. That adds a very I think we just recycled one of the core icon components that are part of WordPress. So again, we're not trying to do anything proprietary, so, we've created.[00:27:41] Block pattern, explore that very much is maybe maybe inspired what WordPress itself did in core. And we're looking to sort of expand on that and use that sort of in an experimental sense to help inform how things work, how it can be used, and then to take the things that we're building and push them upstream into WordPress, via pull requests.[00:28:01] And so, we are trying to, again, it's easy because for us, it's not a product that will. WP engine over any kind of metric. Like this was sort of brought in with the intent of, it's not gonna make any money, just use this to help go and grow and do all these things. And so, we've always back when Nathan and I Nathan Rice and I built Genesis, like we always sort of defaulted to WordPress core practices and standards and design and UX and all that kind of stuff.[00:28:28] And so. It's just an eight and eight at this point, for whatever we're working on to not be like a blinking Marquis across an admin notice thing. But I understand that it happens and why it happens. And, I think WordPress adding more capabilities to the core software, kind of. To be perfectly honest, that it knocks out the need for a lot of things.[00:28:49] Some of the black libraries that exist and things like that, like we're pressing now has that in core. So like, I'm hoping to, like, as we're press gets stronger with functionality that some of the needs to, to like to do what you said, won't be there. And I don't know if I answers the question, but are you happy to see the customized.[00:29:08] 1000%. I, I hated it from day one. I hated it from day one. I know we did some stuff with it and studio press. I was never a part of that. Cause I refused I've used it for a few things like custom CSS when I was in an emergency or, header, photo, script kind of stuff. But like I hated it. I never liked it.[00:29:27] I'm thrilled.[00:29:28] Matt: Yeah. . Amazing times, Ryan, what would help you and your role at WP engine call to action? Where can folks find you to connect with you to help the cause to join you at WP engine?[00:29:41] Anything or anywhere you want to point people[00:29:42] Brian: to a yes, the Twitter is probably the place that I'm most I'm most active and most available. At B Gardner, you could put that in the show notes, if you want. Tweet me, follow me, DME, whatever. Twitter is usually where we hang out. I'm on Instagram, that's more personal Starbucks shots and baseball things.[00:30:00] So that's less interesting to people in the space might not be tweeting about baseball. Yeah, no kidding. I'm on LinkedIn and I think it's B Gardner 27 and I was late to that party, so I didn't get the handle I wanted, but but Twitter is the place. I'm, periodically dunking around@briangardner.com actually working on a new design, kind of using that as a sandbox.[00:30:19] Yes. Oops. I'm doing it again was always sort of the tweet when you saw that tweet, I redesigned it. And so people have, I've trained people to never, ever think that there's going to be the same design as, as was there the last time, but that that's how products get built because I use my own site as a sandbox.[00:30:34] So, but yeah, Twitter is the best place. Obviously or for WP engine, we're always looking to build our team, not necessarily developer relations quite yet, but The Genesis team is hiring for an engineering person. And just whether it's support. I We see a number of people come up through the Genesis community who are now working there, lots of rock stars.[00:30:52] Like it's just a great place. So, if you're a WordPress person and you're looking for a job, hit me up on Twitter and I'll see if there's something that's Always hiring great people. I think David Vogel, Paul once said we don't hire something to the effect of, we don't hire qualified people. We've hired great people.[00:31:07] Like it kinda just works itself out that way. So, or we don't hire out. I can't remember what he said. I don't, I don't wanna mess up that quick, but it was really, really good. And I was like, wow, that's really cool. So quote here[00:31:17] Matt: pretty much. My report.com maryport.com/subscribe. Join the mailing list.[00:31:22] Number one way to stay connected. If you want to support independent WordPress content like. Buy me a coffee.com/maryport. Not only do you support the show, you can join as a member for $79 a year. Get access to the private discord and join our Merry band of WordPress Newsies, which we chat about. The WordPress news that goes out every Wednesday.[00:31:41] Five minutes is your favorite five minutes of WordPress or on the WP minute.com. Check it out. Join the. Get your name heard in the credits of the show. Talk about WordPress news. That's fun stuff. Thanks for hanging out today, Brian. I'll see everyone else in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

What you'll learn in this episode: How we can examine almost any political topic through the lens of jewelry  Why it's important that jewelry be embraced by academia, and how every jewelry enthusiast can help make that happen (even if they're not in academia themselves) Why a piece of jewelry isn't finished when it leaves the hands of its maker How Matt works with collaborators for their column, “Settings and Findings,” in Lost in Jewelry Magazine How jewelry has tied people together throughout time and space About Matt Lambert Matt Lambert is a non-binary, trans, multidisciplinary collaborator and co-conspirator working towards equity, inclusion, and reparation. They are a founder and facilitator of The Fulcrum Project and currently are a PhD student between Konstfack and University of Gothenburg in Sweden. They hold a MA in Critical Craft Studies from Warren Wilson College and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art.  Lambert currently is based in Stockholm Sweden and was born in Detroit MI, US where they still maintain a studio. They have exhibited work nationally and internationally including at: Turner Contemporary, Margate, Uk, ArkDes, and Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden, Museo de la Ciudad, Valencia , Spain and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, US. Lambert represented the U.S in Triple Parade at HOW Museum, Shanghai, China, represented the best of craft in Norway during Salon del Mobile, Milan, Italy and was the invited feature at the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece during Athens Jewelry Week. Lambert has actively contributed writing to Art Jewelry Forum, Garland, Metalsmith Magazine, Klimt02, Norwegian Craft and the Athens Jewelry Week catalogues and maintains a running column titled “Settings and Findings” in Lost in Jewelry Magazine. Additional Resources: Matt's Website Matt's Instagram Transcript:  Matt Lambert doesn't just want us to wear jewelry—they want us to question it. As a maker, writer, and Ph.D. student, Matt spends much of their time thinking about why we wear jewelry, who makes it, and what happens to jewelry as it's passed from person to person. They joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the inspirations behind their work, why jewelry carries layers of meaning, and why wearing jewelry (or not wearing it) is always a political act. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week. Today, my guest is Matt Lambert, who is joining us from Stockholm. Matt is a maker, writer and performer currently pursuing a Ph.D.    Matt's jewelry journey has taken them from country to country. What sticks in my mind is one of my first encounters with them on an Art Jewelry Forum trip. I saw them in a hotel lobby in Sweden wearing one of their iconic creations, a laser-cut leather neckpiece I flipped over. We'll hear all about their amazing jewelry journey today. Matt, thanks so much for being here.   Matt: Thanks so much for having me, Sharon. It's a pleasure.   Sharon: Your jewelry journey has taken you all over the world. I'm always amazed when I hear how you hop from country to country. So, tell us about it. How did you get into it?   Matt: Originally I was trained as a psychologist.   Sharon: Wow!   Matt: It's kind of strange, but it makes perfect sense for what I do now in human sexuality and gender. I was researching body politics and what it means to be a person and be represented through media or in other cultures. I started off in that community, and I took a metalsmithing course on a whim. There was a woman in one of my classes who was taking it as her art elective. I thought we were going to be making something completely different by forging silver. I was like, “Wait, what? You can do that?” I really fell into it.   I was a researcher for the APA doing government research—   Sharon: APA being the American Psychological—   Matt: The American Psychological Association. After community college, I went on to Wayne State and studied under F.M. Larson for metalsmithing. At the very end, Lauren Kalman joined. She is tenured and was well-known at Wayne State University in Detroit.    The work I was doing was very rigorous. I worked in a rape and trauma research lab with no windows in a basement, and I wasn't finding a way to talk about people and bodies and those things in the ways I had hoped. It was fulfilling me, but not in every aspect of my life.  So, I kept pouring myself into this strange thing of contemporary jewelry.    I never thought I would go to grad school. I wound up going to Cranbrook Academy of Art, which is just 40 minutes down the road from Wayne State. Even then, I thought I was going to go across the country for art school. I fell in love with the program at Cranbrook. Iris Eichenberg, who teaches there, told me, “You have to fail really bad in order to learn what's good and what's good for your practice.” It was so liberating that I could apply all the research I learned and used and still use it today, but to put it and manifest it in jewelry. That opened Pandora's box.    Sharon: How did you decide to go from studying psychology and being at Wayne State to go to such a renowned art school that you don't know? It's for art jewelers, basically.   Matt: Yeah, it's renowned. I think it shares the number one space for metalsmithing and jewelry, and it's renowned also for hollowware and gate making. It has a long history of Americana metalsmithing. With Iris being there for contemporary jewelry, it sounds a little bit pretentious.    The relationship I was in wanted me to stay local. It was like, “You should apply.” I really thought through everything weird and wonderful that I wanted to be doing, and I was like, “If I'm going to stay, then you have to take this all on.” Iris was like, “O.K., let's do it.” Even if didn't work out, it was like, “I can just go back to psychology if this doesn't work.”   Cranbrook has an international reputation which also meant traveling a lot. In between semesters, I was the assistant for Christoph Zellweger, who's based out of Zurich, Switzerland. I don't know if they're still there now, but at the time, I was their assistant in Switzerland during my years there. My partner was Monica Gaspar, so I got a theorist who I also got to work with. Then I kind of traveled everywhere. Before I started at Cranbrook, the first time I was in Europe, we had to go to KORU7, which is the jewelry triennial in Finland. They also do seminars. So, for me, it became a very global, European to North American perspective.   Sharon: I'm always amazed at your country hopping. Was this something you were considered a natural at? Were you finger painting at age five and your parents were saying, “Oh, they're going to be an artist”?   Matt: I do have a background in wildlife illustration. I was homeschooled until sixth grade, but I was put in a lot of enrichment programs, so I did have ceramics; I had languages; I had all sorts of courses and electives. Growing up I trained in something called monart, which is not taught in public school; it's only for private training. It's a way of drawing where you draw from negative space, which I think contributes to my work, as I think through negative space. I was doing a lot of wildlife illustrations. I have quite a few childhood publications, like realistic waterfowl and birds of prey. I dabbled a little bit with Sidney Shelby. The Shelby has an art program for auto illustration, too.   So, there is some of that. I thought I was going to go into drawing and painting before I went into psychology, but I had an evaluation at community college when I started and they kind of broke my dreams. They said I was terrible and said, “You shouldn't be an artist.” I would always say, “If you're told you shouldn't be an artist, you probably should be.” So, I went into psychology as a shelter to do that.    I'm a big advocate for trade schools and community colleges as places to find yourself. I fell in love with metalsmithing there, and I knew I would never leave it. My mother's cousin was actually a former a Tiffany's jeweler, so there is a little bit in the family. She was a cheerleader for me. She was like, “You're doing what? Oh, have you found a hammer and silver? Great.” She trained under Phil Fike, who was at Wayne State University when she was there. It's always interesting what she thinks I do because I'm not a very technical, proper silversmith like she was. When I finally went to school and said I was going to do this officially, she gave me her studio.   Sharon: Wow! You have two master's degrees and now you're working on a Ph.D. Can you tell us about that? One is critical art, or critical—   Matt: Yeah, critical craft theory. I graduated Cranbrook in 2014 from metalsmithing and jewelry, and I had electives in sculpture and textile. At the same time, I should say, I had also apprenticed as a leatherworker doing car interiors, like 1920s period Rolls-Royces, so I had a leather background I was able to bring to Cranbrook. A lot of my work was varied, but there was a lot of leather involved. After that, I had a partial apprenticeship in semi-antique rug restoration. There's a lot of training in leather-working material.   So, I graduated, and I met Sophia. We had met a few times, and then she ended up being the evaluator/respondent for our graduation show. So, she saw my work as I wished it to be, and she offered me a solo show. She said, “An agent is coming to see the gallery. Come help out. Come see this world,” which is how we met.   Sharon: And her gallery is in Sweden, right?   Matt: Her gallery is in Stockholm, yes, in Sweden. I had a show, and that was amazing. There's a government program called IASPIS, which is an invite-only program that the Swedish government runs. It's the international arts organization. I was invited there because they were looking for—they added applied arts, and I was the first jeweler and metalsmith to be there. That's a three-month program where you're invited to live and work, and that gives you great networking opportunities not only with Sweden, but also with Scandinavia at large for museums and shows. I was the first foreigner at Tobias Alm, who was a Swedish jeweler and the first Swedish artist in jewelry to be there. That just upped and changed my life. I got into museum shows and met people and had a career for about four or five years and loved it; it was amazing and I wanted more.    I love theory. I am a theory addict, so I was like, “A Ph.D. is the next logical thing.” I was applying and making finals, but jewelry is a hard sell, if you will, in academia. Warren Wilson College is in North Carolina in the States. There is a think tank out of the Center for Craft, which is located in Asheville, North Carolina, and they deal with all kinds of craft. They're a great epicenter and source of knowledge for American craft discourses. Out of this came this development of this program. They partnered with Warren Wilson College to create a master's, which is a two-year program at Warren Wilson College, which is just 20 minutes away from Ashville.    It's low residency, so there's two weeks per term you'd be in person and the rest you could live anywhere, which was perfect for me because I was traveling so much. So, you do two weeks on campus in the summer and live in the dorm, and then you do two weeks—when I did it, at least, it was with the Center for Craft. We had a classroom there. Namita Wiggers is the founding director, and we got to work with amazing theorists: Linda Sandino, Ben Lignel, who's a former editor for Art Jewelry Forum, Glenn Adamson, the craft theorist, Jenni Sorkin, who lives in California teaching, Judith Lieman—this is an amazing powerhouse. There's Kevin Murray from Australia, who runs the World Crafts Organization. I was a bit part in it. He also edits Garland, which is an Australia-based publication for craft. It was an amazing pulling together of craft theory. At this time, I also thought I was dyslexic, so I was trying to find a new way to write being neurodivergent. Writing has now become—   Sharon: You do a lot of it. When I was looking last night, I could see you've done a lot of writing. My question is, why did you not stop and say, “O.K., I'm going to make things I like”? What was it that attracted you to theory? Maybe it's too deep for me.    Matt: I think we've positioned the Ph.D. to be the next step always, but I don't think academia is for everybody. A master's even, I always questioned, do we as makers always need to be in academia? For me, though, my drive is that I think jewelry is in one of the best theoretical positions to talk about a lot of very difficult contemporary issues. Craft in general, but I think jewelry because it's so tied to the body. It's so blurry because it's design; it's fashion; it's craft; it's art; it's a consumable good; it can be worn. It challenges how we exhibit it. If you need to wear it to experience it, how does a museum show it?    For me, it's this little terror or antagonizer that I think theoretically, from my background, is a great place to stay with, and I think that it's been neglected in certain spaces. It's the only field to not be in the Whitney Biennial. It ties perfectly with certain forms of feminism and queerness, which is the theoretical basis I come to it from, to talk about these things. It can't be always defined, and that's what I love about jewelry. People find it surprising when I'm like, “I love talking about commercial jewelry or production jewelry,” because if that's what turns your gears, what you love to wear or buy or make, I want to know why. I want to see jewelry expand and envelope all of this, so that we can be at the Whitney Biennial. We also could be everywhere else.   Sharon: Can't you do that without the Ph.D.? I'm not trying to knock it. I'm just playing devil's advocate.   Matt: Yeah, I think someone else can do that as well. For me, though, I truly love theory. I love the academics. For me, that is an actual passion. It's what drives me. It's not necessarily the physical making; it's the theory behind why. I'm actually questioning my practice. Should I be making physical objects now, or should I just be celebrating people that make physical objects? My making practice is almost entirely collaborative now, working with other jewelers or performers or choreographers or educators and using jewelry as a way of introducing or as producing an output.    How does jewelry fit into research? I think research output is an interesting thing for me. I can go on about this all day. So, for me, I want to make an academic foothold for jewelry. I want to do that work. I see that as my facet. I don't think everybody needs to go and do that. I want to see everybody find the thing they love as much as I love academia and theory. I want to push on so we can expand the field together.   Sharon: I think that's great. It's great to hear, because it's a strong voice giving credibility to the field, as opposed to, “Oh, you must be interested in big diamonds if you're talking about jewelry.” You're talking about it on a much deeper level. It's hard to explain to people why you like jewelry or jewelry history, so it's good to hear.    Last night—I say last night because I was refreshing my memory—I was looking at one of your articles about the “we” in jewelry. Can you tell us about that?   Matt: Absolutely. I write for multiple publications: Metalsmith Magazine, which is in the U.S. and is part of SNAG, the Society for North American Goldsmiths; Norwegian Craft; Art Jewelry Forum. I run a column called Settings and Findings out of Lost in Jewelry Magazine, which is based in Rome. I also write for Athens Jewelry Week catalogues, which has gotten me into writing a series for Klimt, which is a platform for makers, collectors, wearers, and appreciators based out of Barcelona. They invited me to write a five-part series after they had republished an essay I wrote for Athens Jewelry Week. Those people gave me an amazing platform to write, and then Klimt was like, “What do you want to do?” and I was like, “Five essays about what we do with jewelry.”    One of them is the “we” article. That came from being in lockdown and the theorist Jean-Luc Nancy, who wrote about something called “singular plural.” It's just saying that we don't ever do anything alone, and I think jewelry is a beautiful illustration of that. I moved during the pandemic to do the Ph.D., and I found myself wearing jewelry to do my laundry because I got to do it with a friend. It's so sappy in way, but it's true. It's a way to carry someone else with you, and jewelry is not an act done alone. I mean, we're trained as jewelers. We're trained by someone, so we carry that knowledge with us. We are transmitters as makers, but then we have collectors and wearers and museums and other things, and they need to be worn. It needs to be seen in some fashion or valued or held.    My personal stance is that jewelry, once it leaves my hands as a maker, isn't done. I'm interested as a researcher, as a Ph.D., in how we talk about that space in between. If you wear one of my pieces, and someone listening wears one of my pieces, and that same piece is in a museum, how we understand that is completely different. Jewelry creates this amazing space to complexify, and that's when you talk about bodies and equity and race, sex, gender, size, age. All the important things that are in the political ethos can be discussed through jewelry, and that's the “we” of jewelry.    We have this controversy about the death of the author and authorship doesn't matter, but speaking through craft, we are never alone. To me, it's like I make through the people I've learned through. I am a transmitter to the people that I teach and to me, that's what craft is. Also, craft is a way of looking at the world, at systems, and who we learn from and how we learn. I think jewelry is one of the most obvious “we's.”   Sharon: This is a question that maybe there's no answer to, but is jewelry separate from craft? There's always the question of what craft is. Is craft art? Is it jewelry?    Matt: That depends on whom you ask. I personally do not believe in the art versus craft debate. I am not in that pool. I believe craft is a way of looking at anything in the world. I think craft is learned through material specificity. I usually enjoy metalsmithing. It's through copper or silver, but it's really spending time with something singular to explore its possibility. It's a way of learning how things start, how things are produced, how labor works, where there are bodies and processes, so you can pick up anything in the world and look at anything and see people and humanity. Even through digital technology, someone has to write a program. It gives you a skillset to look at the world, and that's how I approach craft.    You're going to find so many different definitions, but coming from that perspective, that is what I believe, and that's why I think craft is so valuable. To answer if jewelry is craft, yes and no. You can talk about jewelry through craft, but you could talk about jewelry through fashion. You can talk about jewelry through product design. Again, I think that's why jewelry is beautiful and problematic, because it can be so many things at the same time.    Sharon: I'm intrigued by the fact that you're interested in all kinds of jewelry, whether it's art jewelry or contemporary jewelry. When you're in the mall and you see Zales and look in the window, would you say it all falls under that, with everything you're talking about? Does it transmit the same thing?   Matt: Through a craft lens, you can look at any of that. You can go to Zales and the labor is wiped out. You're no longer going to your local jewelry shop. The person is making your custom ring, but when you look at that ring, you have an ability to go, “Someone had to facet the stone and cut it, a lapidary. Someone had to make the bands. Someone had to mine the stone. Someone had to find this material.” It allows you to unpack where objects are coming from and potentially where they're going.    You can understand studio practices because you're relating more directly to a maker, who has more knowledge of where their materials come from, rather than the sales associate at the Zales counter. It's a simpler model, but it is the same thing to me. The way I look at it, that is craft's value to my practice. I'm very careful to say it's my practice because there are so many definitions, but that's what I think is sustainable in this training. You can be trained as a jeweler and not make jewelry, but it's still valuable in your life because you can apply it to anything.   Sharon: I was also intrigued by the title of an article you wrote, “Who Needs Jewelry, Anyway?” So, who does need jewelry?   Matt: Yeah, that's one that kicked it up to the next level. There are moments in my career where I can feel the level upward, like I enter a space that's different. That was an essay that was written for Athens Jewelry Week. That was the first essay I wrote before I had the feature at the Benaki Museum. At Athens Jewelry Week, those women worked their tails off to make that event happen.    I wrote that when I was at the tail end of my second master's, and I was frustrated. I think we see that students are frustrated and people are questioning, especially during Covid, especially during Black Lives Matter, especially during the fight for indigenous rights, do we need jewelry? What does this mean? It's a commodity. It can be frivolous. It's a bauble. It can be decorative. Like, what are we doing? I think that is something we should always question, and the answer for that can be expressed in many ways. It can be expressed from what you make, but also what you do with what you make. How do you live the rest of your life?    There isn't a one-lane answer for that, but that's what that essay was about. We don't need jewelry, but we really do. The first half of the essay is saying what the problem is, but the problem is also where the solutions sit. It's all about how you want to approach it. That is what that essay was saying. You can consume this and wear it; it is what it is, and that's fine. You can participate in systems and learn and discover and know who you are wearing and support them. Wearing jewelry is a political act no matter what jewelry you're wearing. Where you consume is a political act. Political neutrality is still a political statement. That article specifically was for art jewelry, and it was saying, hey, when you participate, when you buy, when you wear, when you make, it means something. You're bringing people with you; what people are you choosing to bring? It was stirring the pot, and it was very intentional to do that.   Sharon: I couldn't answer the question about who needs jewelry. You're asking me, but certainly I can think of people who say, “I don't need it,” who have no interest or wouldn't see the continuum behind a ring or a piece of jewelry.    This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week. 

Welcome back to the Matt Report, where we continue our special 2-part series with Josepha Haden Chomposy. If you haven't listened to the previous episode, I suggest you go back and learn what the WordPress Executive Director does on a day to to day basis. Today, we'll be exploring some meatier topics that come up in the community like contributor compensation and Five for the Future. If you didn't already know, Josepha leads a podcast of her own. We'll find out why Matt Mullenweg nudged her into that journey. Thanks to folks over at Malcare for supporting this episode of the Matt Report. If you want to support me, you can buy me a digital coffee or join the super-not-so-secret Discord group for $79/year at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport Episode transcription [00:00:00] Matt: my words, not yours. , the bottleneck at mid-level management. Is that because most, if not if, if, because most of them are volunteers.  [00:00:07] Josepha: I, in my copious research about this. Last I took any, any kind of canvas of it was that in-person events. So 2019 in my research about this, there are a number of things that do this for one, when you are a contributor and, and it's clear what you're supposed to be contributing to, you can submit your changes and then something else helps it get done. [00:00:34] Something else helps it get into core or to get into the handbook or whatever it is. It's really difficult to know how complicated that that middle area is. And so it's a little bit that the it's a bunch of volunteers and, and I hate asking them to do that kind of work because it's hard and in a lot of cases, The community of users is mean to you. [00:01:02] So like who does want to ask volunteers to do that? But it's also a little bit that there is some sticker shock. When you, when you get there, like you have shown up as a contributor, you have just kind of low access, low knowledge. You don't really know what's going on, but you're ready to give back to this thing that made your business possible. [00:01:19] And like the more that you learn things, or the more that you gain trust in the ecosystem, there is this moment. That's like a cliff where you're just like, okay, now we're going to talk about conflict resolution. And people are like, oh, no,  [00:01:36] Matt: yeah. Right.  [00:01:38] Josepha: like there's the step between between really active and valuable contribution and helping to keep WordPress moving is, is quite steep. [00:01:50] And so it's a lot better. [00:01:51] Matt: Some of the topics that I've heard people talk about myself, included on con contributors or, or folks who are not just contributing to core, but writing support docs, answering questions, helping with the learn team. So on and so forth is the the idea of some form of compensation. [00:02:08] And I'm curious if that ever gets talked about in any, any meetings ways to compensate. It doesn't always have to be, I guess, money but a trade a coupon, Right. [00:02:18] To a learning, a learning curve or something for thanks for your time. You get this and I'll say I'll preface this with yes. Contributors are taking the heat for things that they're just given their time. [00:02:32] Like, why are we yelling at them or the real extreme sides we've seen with folks who are on like the.org and plugin, repo and theme repo who actually get threats. And I say look at that level, we should actually have employees who are in the way of that kind of communication who are getting paid to deal with some of this stuff. [00:02:55] Not that anyone should be dealing with it and any of that stuff, but folks who are, Hey, we're [00:03:00] getting paid to do this, and we're going to shut this person off. Have rules, have channels, et cetera, et cetera, on the topic of compensating contributors. Has that ever come up? And is there anything we can  [00:03:11] Josepha: Oh, constantly. It comes up constantly. It's a good question.  [00:03:15] Matt: Get an NFT?  [00:03:18] Josepha: everyone gets a word press coin now. So there, there are two things I want to address here. And the first thing that I want to address is only semi-related, but it's short. There is a misconception about what I hope five for the future. [00:03:33] Company sponsored contributors are offering to the project in that it's like doing all of the things that just, I don't know, Google wants our automatic wants. And that's like, that's, that's not the bulk of the work that I want those contributors to be doing the bulk of the work that I want those contributors to be doing. [00:03:54] Is that kind of really not glamorous fully in service to self sponsored, volunteer kind of actions that we have to take to make sure that everything's moving forward. And so like, I agree that in the cases where we have people who are actively getting harassed or receiving threats, like that should not be a self sponsored, volunteer every single time. [00:04:18] That should be somebody who is sponsored in full by a company. And I, and I will believe that forever. And so there's that blanket statement. I know that there is a lot of, of mistrust of my many years running a call to increase the fight for the future program, but it's not a nefarious call for me. [00:04:38] It is to cover situations like that. Absolutely. Every single day. That's why I want that program to be bigger. So period,  [00:04:46] Matt: And nefarious in what like that fight for the future is just to give back to go upstream, to.  [00:04:52] Josepha: yeah, go upstream to automatic or to have an unnecessarily large voice for corporations because if you've got. 10,000 contributors who each can give one hour or 10,000 hours, which are in 40 hour chunks. [00:05:11] Like you can accomplish more in a 40 hour chunk of time for a lot of reasons for one, because like it's just been 10 years, since one person could see everything that was happening in WordPress all the time. And, and probably longer than that before, since you could just be like, I have an hour, so I'm going to go research the history of this, write a patch and submit it to be committed and get that done in an hour a month. [00:05:38] Like that's like, there is an imbalance in that. And so there is a healthy distrust of that, of that reality, which I understand, and there should be. And I never tell people to start. Asking me those questions, because it's important for everyone to feel like they can help [00:06:00] provide checks and balances for, for their leaders. [00:06:03] I think that's true. But anyway, I got really sidetracked on the question of compensation. Yeah, it comes up basically every year and has come up basically every year since I started doing this work. And, and I don't ever have a good solution and, and the primary solution that people offer to me every year, which is a fine solution at a specific scale is to just like, make a. [00:06:30] And give money to people and yeah, I appreciate it. That's a great suggestion at a specific scale, and that's not necessarily the scale that WordPress can function at at this point. Like there probably was a time when that would have worked for WordPress, just like it works for various other open source projects that, that handle supporting their contributors that way. [00:06:51] But if you look at WordPress like estimating and, and I don't have much in the way of data because we collect almost no data on anyone, but estimating based on the number of, of contributors that we list per release. And also the activity of contributors that I see on the make network of sites in slack, things like that. [00:07:13] We have probably 15 or 1600 active contributors over the course of the year.  [00:07:18] Matt: Yeah.  [00:07:20] Josepha: And that includes also the, the teams who are sponsored by companies. But that's a tiny fraction of them. If you've got 150 people who are sponsored by companies and 1600 active contributors over the course of the year, like, yeah, that's a teensy teensy group and there is not a good way to manage a program like that at a global scale while also paying attention to all of the rules and regulations that exist in the world. [00:07:48] Like we would need to have a WordPress HR department, which we don't have  [00:07:53] Matt: Right.  [00:07:54] Josepha: is no one is here that way. And so like, yeah, it. It's a good idea. I want it, I want more companies to, to sponsor more people and I don't have a sustainable way to do that for WordPress as a project from a WordPress back to entity. [00:08:16] Matt: Yeah.  [00:08:16] Josepha: That's a good answer, but it is the true answer. [00:08:18] Matt: listen, so as more and more. That I talk to more people outside of like the WordPress entrepreneurship bubble. There are folks that, like you said, let's just use the number 1600. Not everyone wants money. [00:08:32] Number one, like that's not what they're there for. Two you probably couldn't pay them enough anyway. It'd just be like a nice little thing and you can, oh, here's a Starbucks card. Great. I don't even have Starbucks in my country,  [00:08:43] Josepha: Right, [00:08:44] Matt: right. [00:08:44] Okay, great. So there's that, that thing. And like not it's difficult. [00:08:48] I get it. I, I also look at.org as as the repo anyway, as a way that, that. a ton of money. If it were a true marketplace, like a ton of money, [00:09:00] because there's billions of dollars or a least a billions, a billion of dollars that, that actually funnels through that by, by upgrades and upsells. [00:09:09] So if there was a 20, 30% tax the foundation could have enough money to employ people is one way is, is how I has as I, how I would approach it. But to maybe there's something there where folks can be recognized, which I, I, again, I also know is very difficult. And I don't want to simplify it as like, Hey, there's a leaderboard, but if folks could get recognized for their efforts in some kind of way, then we'd all see. Or have the ability to shine spotlight on people who are contributing their time that don't want to be paid, but they're like, Hey, I wrote 15 documents this month. I'm winning the document leadership, round or whatever, something like that, that shines light. And like I said, it doesn't have to be here's $5 for your contribution. [00:09:51] It could be you get a Skillshare as the first thing that comes to my head. Like you get a free Skillshare account, Matt knows the CEO and hooks up, a hundred free accounts for people, right. And they get to learn and educate and make improve themselves.  [00:10:04] Josepha: yeah. [00:10:04] Matt: So, again, I also know it's, it's insanely difficult to, to rally that together, wrangle  [00:10:09] Josepha: worth, when I'm going to tell, I'm gonna tell all y'all listeners, cause like, I'm sure you have hundreds of thousands of people. So when the fight for the future program, 5,000 episodes, that's really good. When the five for the future program, Was was being architected. So like Andrea Middleton and her team were the primary drivers in that one of the, so they did a bunch of research by going out and looking at how other open source CMS is like ours. [00:10:40] We're not necessarily incentivizing their contributors. But certainly how they were recognizing them if there was an incentive involved what sort of alternative economies were available in there and how it compared to WordPress. And one of the suggestions that that team did bring forward at the time was like, what if we had a leaderboard where every month we could just like snapshot the top 10 contributors on the thing. [00:11:07] And. I don't recall why we didn't move forward with that at the time. And I will have to see if I can go back through my thousands of pages of notes from, from working with WordPress and see if I left myself a breadcrumb anywhere. But that was at the end of the day, something that, that was decided against. [00:11:30] I know that Drupal does that and at their Drupal con they're US-based Drupal con I think every year when they have the DreeZ note, they put up the leaderboard for who was the best this year. And, and we, we decided to go against it. I think it's a little bit, because like, there's this feeling of excessive. [00:11:50] Competition there that we don't necessarily, we don't want to instill in the community. Like we want co-op petition where we make [00:12:00] each other better.  [00:12:00] Matt: Right, right.  [00:12:02] Josepha: but not necessarily people being like I have a thousand hours to give to WordPress. I'm just going to make a bunch of tiny polar requests and get to the top of the leaderboard. [00:12:10] Like, I don't know how that would work, but yeah.  [00:12:13] Matt: Not, not easy for sure. Wrapping up I want to talk quickly about the podcast that you do. How do you fit that into your crazy schedule? What do you record fortnightly? Is it,  [00:12:22] Josepha: Yes. Yeah. [00:12:24] Matt: Is that one of your initiatives? Was that something that somebody was like, Hey, you should really do a podcast. [00:12:28] And you're like, eh, okay. I guess I'll try it. Is that something you've always wanted to do for, for the WordPress,  [00:12:32] Josepha: I've never wanted to be a broadcaster. It seems so hard. [00:12:37] Matt: One day, Matt was like, come on, just do this podcast. And you're like, you do a podcast. He does. It's called distributed. I can't wait to be on it.  [00:12:44] Josepha: He does. Yeah, he actually is the one who suggested that it would be useful. And a good thing for me to do for the project. And he was right. But at the time I was like, oh no, I don't want anyone to see me. And I don't want them to be looking at my work. And, and like knowing how hard it is. I don't want them to know how hard this is, which is not fair. [00:13:03] Like people should know how difficult it is to manage a project of this size because it is incredibly difficult. But yeah, I just, I don't, I, I worried a lot at the start that it was going to look like this vehicle for me to use WordPress's success to my advantage. And, and I just struggled so much with that. [00:13:25] It took  [00:13:25] Matt: Why not everyone else does it.  [00:13:26] Josepha: Not everybody else. Wouldn't be holding themselves to their conflict of interest, internal policy that I hold for myself.  [00:13:33] Matt: True.  [00:13:33] Josepha: But yeah, it actually took me like six weeks to really commit to doing this. Like he suggested it, he, he made an excellent argument for why I should, and I was like, okay, but I'm going to make it, you and me. [00:13:47] And he's been on it with me twice, but he was like, sure, make it, you and me just slowly boiling this frog of not wanting to do podcasts, but to answer your question of how I get it all done. Obviously it's quite short, but. I sit down at the start of the year and map out the most likely major conversations that are happening in those moments across the year and do light outlines and also make notes for myself at the start of the year of the events and, and likely incidents that I should probably look to to inform that particular podcast. [00:14:23] And then I take about 30 minutes, write it down and record it in about 17 minutes. So, yeah.  [00:14:31] Matt: Cool. Yeah. [00:14:32] it's great. I, I tune in as I, as as I do. And as I mentioned before, I've, I've clipped, you have quoted you a on the WP minute and I appreciate the fact that you do it. I've said it for, oh, I say, I say a lot of people have said it that they're, that they're should have, there should be another vehicle for communication coming out of.org. [00:14:50] Because your average user, the thousands of people I've helped get online before with WordPress are not logging into slack. They're certainly not going to make that wordpress.org. [00:15:00] Good luck getting them on a newsletter. Maybe they'll listen to a podcast. Where are you going to do all the things to reach, all, all the people,  [00:15:08] Josepha: Yeah. I used to be in marketing, as I mentioned before I got here. And, and one of the guidelines at the time was that, like, you have to say things to people seven, seven different ways or seven different times, depending on who you're talking to before.  [00:15:28] Matt: so well.  [00:15:28] Josepha: Exactly before, like they're ready to give it any attention and, and WordPress. [00:15:36] Has always really thrived on, on word of mouth marketing, but you don't have any opportunity to like put forward your best foot as a product when you're just like, Hey, tell your friends what you love the most about us. And it could not possibly be 100% of the time. The thing that I love the most about WordPress, cause you're a different person. [00:15:59] Like I, there are many things that I think are the best parts of WordPress that probably half our users don't even know exist.  [00:16:07] Matt: Yup.  [00:16:08] Josepha: And so like, I don't want to say that, that maybe I just shouldn't say it if I don't wanna say it. I think that WordPress as, as an entity, as a community of contributors and also users. [00:16:23] They're they're owed a bit more dignity than to have people say, like WordPress is my least favorite thing, but users wanted, I guess, so I guess I have to use this stupid software. Like there's so much more dignity to what these contributors are enabling in the world. Then, then those people that benefit from their time are willing to comment on either because they don't know that these 1600 strangers made sure that we patched the latest vulnerability or built the future of content management or whatever it is. [00:16:56] Like they maybe don't know. But even when they do know it's the same sort of problem with helping people move toward a different type of leadership in an open source project. Like you think, you know what it is all the way until you move the curtain aside. And then you're like, oh no close that up. [00:17:13] It's not what I bought it was. And then it's, it is. Really, it's a really big problem, I think that can be solved by having more vehicles for WordPress to say who it is and who it wants to be. I think this is all in my opinion. Anyone can have a different opinion today. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's more important for the world to know what these great group of volunteers and contributors are doing. [00:17:42] Then, then for me to be an important person of WordPress. And so like around the whole, like, did you always want to do a podcast? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Why did I do it? Because I know that these people deserve more than just a stack exchange, [00:18:00] a survey that says we suck every two years or whatever it is. [00:18:04] I don't mean to call anyone out. [00:18:05] Matt: Yeah. [00:18:05] You've got to, you need to write because a Wix is going to hire a Kevin Hart to do a commercial at the super and Squarespace is going to pay every YouTube personality to advertise Squarespace. So there has to be they, you just have to, you just have to kind of make that effort to be everywhere and everything.  [00:18:24] Josepha: And from a final philosophical thought on it, like the freedoms of open source and of WordPress and the open web. Are are there within everyone's rights. And it doesn't matter whether people know that or recognize it. They still deserve to have that. And the rights of anything, the rights of any one person that they should have that are inalienable to them, only matter as much as they can apply them. [00:18:52] And so like, just because WordPress believes that there is a bill of rights that exists for the open web and for anyone who wants to use our software and are willing to fight about it only is as important as, as getting people to come to WordPress, for whatever reasons they have. Like, they don't care about the overall philosophy of open source and they don't have to in order to be able to take those rights that exist and apply them in their own lives. [00:19:25] And I think that that's why we have to do that. [00:19:28] Matt: A hundred percent, a hundred percent last question of the interview comes from it comes from the WP minute, comes from a producer over the WP minute, Michelle for chef, actually what, what also happens over at the WP minute is we syndicate content from around the community and actually have coming up next week. [00:19:46] How a Shaya talking about the learn.wordpress.org, how to get involved, how to contribute and she can, as she contributes to that that theme a one minute clip once a month. It's pretty awesome. Okay. Michelle. [00:19:59] for shit asks, would you consider starting a taskforce for engaging a younger demographic and using, and contributing to words?  [00:20:10] Josepha: I have tried test runs of that in the past. Yes, I would. [00:20:15] Matt: He started, he started a Fortnite league and you say, Hey, jump in with me. Have you heard of this thing called WordPress? Do you have a blog blog? I've  [00:20:24] Josepha: What is that? So yes, I, I want that actually aging, aging out and age-ism in general was one of the first questions that I had when I came to automatic in 2015. Like, do we have anything on our radar about that? Do we have any concerns? Is there a reason to be concerned? And I was told at the time that there wasn't, and, and it may be true that there's not. [00:20:47] But I, despite being told there wasn't I have done two or three pilot programs, one directed by somebody else. And one that I [00:21:00] directed where we got into middle schools one in a high school, one just kind of like a community space and then one in a college where we. People from, from the automatics.org, not.org open-source group go out and like teach these kids and teach these students about what it is to be a good citizen of the web. [00:21:23] And also how WordPress can help them build skills for the future. And also how contributing can help them to learn things passively or learn things actively, depending on what's happening to kind of build the 21st century skills that everyone needs now in order to be an excellent employee. But certainly in the current context, things that, that are wildly important for people who are learning to work remotely for the first time they did not necessarily turn out the way that I, that I wanted. [00:21:54] Like I didn't meet any of those metrics in the, I. I was directed to run about four of them. And then I directed someone else to lead the fifth one. None of my metrics landed where I wanted them to. And so I didn't, I didn't feel like I could continue and say like, okay, let's give it a second try. Cause I didn't necessarily have the skillset to make that more fruitful in those, in those environments. [00:22:18] The collegiate one actually went really very well but was so much time from the person who was managing it on our side, that it basically was a second job. And like we really just needed them to be able to do their job of working on WordPress. And so yes, I've entertained it over the years. I have tried a few different configurations. [00:22:39] We as a group have tried a few different configurations and nothing that I feel really. Made the impact that I wanted it to make. That doesn't mean that it's not worth trying again in the future. But I, I don't know that I, I could confidently say that I would know what that needs to look like, especially right now with a lot of distance learning happening. [00:23:00] So did that answer it? [00:23:02] Matt: maybe some blue hats to say, like make blogging. Great. Again, that's a terrible idea. [00:23:06] Match. Jesus. Why would, why would we do that? Although, what you could do is. you could get Matt to say, Hey, maybe we introduce Gutenberg to tumbler and maybe make Tumblr more of a social thing for fun in young kids and be like, oh, what's this word? [00:23:18] What's this Gutenberg thing, powering tumbler. And maybe that's the gateway drug, huh? Tumbler. Oh,  [00:23:25] Josepha: I went on record somewhere that I have never been able to find again, saying that tumbler was the last bastion of the indie web and, and we should be good stewards of the platform. I can't remember where I said that or why. [00:23:39] Matt: listening to a three doors down album while you, while you said that Joe Joseph, a Hayden chump, Posey Joseph, thanks for hanging out today and talking about what you do as an executive director. Where else can folks go to say.  [00:23:54] Josepha: They can find me on Twitter at Joseph Hayden. You can also find me over on my blog where I talk [00:24:00] mostly about leadership stuff often in the context of WordPress, but general leadership knowledge to know@josepha.blog. And of course in slack where I have a screen name, John to Boone, which is very difficult. [00:24:13] But if you look for Joseph you can probably find me I'm waving from a presidential thingy. What are these podium? Yeah.  [00:24:20] Matt: And everybody else, Matt report.com mat report.com/subscribe. Shout out to Jeff. Who also asked the same question we were talking about paying contributors. That was his question from the w P minutes go to the WP minute.com/subscribe. Listen to that five minute weekly WordPress news, and don't forget to support WordPress news over@buymeacoffee.com slash my report. [00:24:41] Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

If you're like me, you know Josepha Haden Chomposy is the Director for WordPress the open source project in title, but you probably don't know what she does on a day to day basis. Or that she's part of the Open Source Group Division inside of Automattic. Something I always knew, but once framed that way in discussion, was more interesting to hear. I was lucky enough to chat with Josepha for nearly an hour, so I'm breaking up the conversation in two parts. Today, part 1, we'll cover the logistics of her role, bringing WordCamps back, and the challenges with Gutenberg. Thanks to folks over at Malcare for supporting this episode of the Matt Report. If you want to support me, you can buy me a digital coffee or join the super-not-so-secret Discord group for $79/year at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport Episode transcription [00:00:00] Josepha: You say that's the easiest question, but like anyone who has spent any time with me knows that I also spend a lot of time, like, considering, like what, what, what are my, what am I doing? What, what purpose do I bring to the world? Who am I when I'm not trying to accomplish things? Like, yeah, it's easy, but it's not easy. [00:00:17] So yeah. I show stuff. I Hayden jumbo, C a WordPress projects, executive director since 2019. So I'm starting my what third year of it is that right? Yeah. Starting my third year of it, time flies.  [00:00:29] Matt: That's 30 years in COVID years, by the way.  [00:00:32] Josepha: ain't that true? Isn't that true? And before I did this, I actually was as my Twitter bio suggests very much into. [00:00:43] Digital literacy and making sure that that communities were safe and sound, because I think that communities are the foundation of everything that we try to do in the world. And so, yeah, that's me. [00:00:53] Matt: There's a lot of folks who think of community as well. It's a big marketing buzzword for sure. Right. Everyone who has a product company wants a community. But they are looking at community in probably a very lesser form definition in a silo and something to just kind of prop up either their brand or product. [00:01:12] Maybe get some feedback and get really interested. Customers. Community is a whole different ball game and scale at your level. Give us a sense of just like the daily routine. One has to go through to manage what you have to manage.  [00:01:29] Josepha: Gosh, from a community aspect or just from like me as a  [00:01:33] Matt: you wake up and you're and you look at your wall-to-wall meetings. Cause I, I imagine largely that's what you're doing is meeting talking to people, fusing ideas, together, shaking hands, dealing with folks, maybe crying and laughing and arguing. How do you do it?  [00:01:50] Josepha: I'll tell you, number one, that only about a quarter of my time, these. Is spent in meetings, which is really different from, from how it used to be. I used to spend about 60% of my time in meetings. And that was really hard just cause when you're in a meeting, you really have to stay present to, to really support the people that you're there with. [00:02:09] And, and also to really get that work done and be as fruitful as you can with it. And so about, about a quarter of my time now is in meetings. And actually like I've got, I've got a number of hats obviously, cause I'm the executive director of the WordPress project, but I also lead the source practice at automatic. [00:02:29] And so there's a lot going on there. And the best way that I have to manage it at the moment is to just kind of set focus intentions for my day. Like I used to have a day where I just worked on automatic things or when I just worked on community things. And like that's still documented out in the world, like the, the themes that I have for each day, so that like, if people had had to work with a deadline, they knew what. [00:02:55] Going to probably get to on various days so that they could time their information. To [00:03:00] me, it was super useful when I didn't have quite as big a job as I have now. But now I kind of have a day where I focus on meetings. I have a day where I focus on the strategy. I try to make sure that if I have any community things that I'm blocking, I try to get those accomplished, like before the big meetings, which generally is like Wednesdays and Thursdays. [00:03:19] So try to get and get everybody the information that they need to keep moving on time. But I actually start basically every day with about 30 minutes of mindfulness. Just no meetings, no slack open, no anything else. And just making sure that I understand what my goals are for the day, what my tasks tend to beat for the day. [00:03:41] And then I end every day with about 30 minutes of what I like to call my ta-da list instead of a to-do list, things that I got done and that I need to get done tomorrow. [00:03:51] Matt: Little positive affirmation to end the and the day you say that the open source practice is sort of a different approach. Maybe something that you wrangle are managed differently. Can you give us give the listener a sense of what that might be  [00:04:04] Josepha: At automatic or just generally do I approach open-source differently?  [00:04:07] Matt: You mentioned that you, that you either manage or work on the open source practice of WordPress is that something different than the, than the day-to-day role of the executive director?  [00:04:17] Josepha: Huh. Yes and no. So on the one hand I do, we technically are referred to as a division inside automatic. It's the open source group division. And I just, I don't know, saying division seems very clinical and. Very divisive, like splitting things into when maybe we, we need to do a bit less of that right now. [00:04:38] And so when I refer to it as open-source practice, it's a little bit, because I'm trying to make it clear that it's like an ongoing thing that we work on an ongoing thing that we do, but also to identify that it is that yeah, we do. We kind of approach it differently. So open source as a practice rather than open source as just a general methodology, I think has a wider application than just software or adjust your product. [00:05:04] I think that open source, many of those 19 lessons of open source that exists out there could be seen as just like core intentions for how to accomplish things. And when you move it away from just like, this is a core directive for how to build software and instead think of it as this open source methodology that you can use to coordinate an. [00:05:30] I think it makes a big difference to how you accomplish things in open-source projects. And so, yes, that's, I wouldn't say it's different from my work as the executive director, but I do know that people don't necessarily identify that work.  [00:05:44] Matt: Right. How big is that division?  [00:05:46] Josepha: that particular division is just over a hundred people at this point. [00:05:50] And then we also have we, the WordPress project also have the five for the future contributors who work with me and that's a little lighter [00:06:00] touch. They get about a ping or two a week from me just asking what I can help them work through. And just checking in with them generally. And there's probably like 20, 25, maybe 50, if we're generous outside of automatic that are doing that. [00:06:16] So yeah. [00:06:16] Matt: And do the core contributors that contribute to WordPress open source, open source wars, WordPress from automatic. Do they fall under that division or can folks be from any division in, at automatic to contribute?  [00:06:28] Josepha: Yeah. Most of them do a lineup in this division, but there are also because so many of automatics products are, are part of the WordPress ecosystem. There are also plenty of people that are just in automatic as a whole that are contributing to core. So, [00:06:43] Matt: And if I could just illustrate that from a non not automatic company, this could be something like a GoDaddy might have a open source division  [00:06:53] Josepha: Right. [00:06:54] Matt: and their objectives or mission would be to give back to open source. And they would say, Hey, let's give back a little bit to WordPress. Let's give a little bit to whatever Joomla or PHP or something else. [00:07:06] That's open source. You'd have this collective that, that their mission is to, Hey, we're part of this bigger company, the bigger company, isn't all about open source and we're missioned to go out and contribute to open source.  [00:07:18] Josepha: Exactly. Right. So blue host has a group like that. Goat GoDaddy does have a group like that. Google also Yoast all those, all those folks in there, others as well. I'm not, I'm not intentionally leaving other people out. It's just that there are probably like a hundred different companies and I will not be able to just rattle them all off that way,  [00:07:38] Matt: Eh speaking of GoDaddy, looking at con core contributors I don't have the pie chart in front of me. In fact, it wasn't even a pie chart, but there were lots of circles. with automatic representing the largest piece. If you were to give advice to other companies to, I don't know, spin up divisions, give more spin up open-source divisions, give back more to whether it be WordPress or another division. [00:08:00] Are there one or two, like key things. If I want to form an open-source division or to contribute more, what's the best step forward for an organization? To either measure it or approach it to rally people around it. Do you have like one or two things that you look to as a north star?  [00:08:20] Josepha: Yeah. So, firstly, if you're, if you are thinking about creating an open source team, who's either planning to give back to WordPress or just planning to give back to open source in general. There is actually a five for the future white paper that exists to just like essentially take to your, your corporate entity that says, like, this is what it means to give back to this product that has given to us. [00:08:45] And it's, I think on wordpress.org/five, I think there's a link to it right there. But if not, We'll get it done.  [00:08:53] Matt: sure.  [00:08:53] Josepha: And, and that in the end does direct you kind of, to me to make sure that you have all of the information about [00:09:00] the open source philosophies that we're working with in the WordPress project. [00:09:03] And also make sure that that, that we all kind of understand what the goals of the WordPress project are at the moment. And so there is kind of just like a kickoff call with me to see if everyone agrees, it's like any, any relationship that you're entering into, everyone should understand what we're working with first and then make that choice together. [00:09:20] So that's one thing that anyone can take a look at also if. As an employer or just as yourself, want to contribute from like a five for the future pledging perspective, but don't necessarily have the time or resources to commit like a whole team's worth. There is actually a contributor training series that you can go through that gives you the basics of like how WordPress does open source, how open source functions in software, and also covers things like how we make decisions in WordPress, all of that stuff. [00:09:54] I believe that's on wordpress.org/contributor, hyphen training or something like that. We can find the link for your show notes, but yeah, those are both excellent ways to just like take stock of what that kind of contribution tends to look like. And see if it's a good fit. [00:10:11] Matt: I I'd imagine that part of your role or part of your efforts are to knock on the doors of, of big businesses that might be leveraging WordPress and saying, Hey, I think you can donate another person or two or 20 to the cause. Do what, what, what is that like? Are those efforts fruitful for you or are there certain strategies you try to put in place before you knock on the door of, I don't know. [00:10:35] I use GoDaddy just because it's the top of mind Right. now, but I'll go daddy or Bluehost or whomever [00:10:39] Josepha: Right. Yes.  [00:10:40] Matt: government.  [00:10:42] Josepha: the government,  [00:10:43] Matt: Right.  [00:10:43] Josepha: I have never knocked on the door of the government to ask them to contribute  [00:10:46] Matt: me know when you find that door, which door is it? I don't know. Neo find another one. [00:10:51] Josepha: find another door. Yeah, no. So, yes, there is general. I don't, I call it fundraising just because I understand that like, there are. Four-ish different economies in the WordPress ecosystem and not all of them are about money. A lot of them are about time and, and other things. But so yeah, I do that outreach every year for the most part. [00:11:14] And actually met does that as well. So Matt often we'll start with like the highest decision-making levels. Cause you, you do kind of have to get some buy-in on that. Not, not this Matt, dear readers other Matt, Matt Mullenweg what was I saying? Yeah, he frequently will start at like the CEO levels of having those conversations and then they move to me to kind of have a better understanding of what it looks like, what it could look like, what we want it to look like, all of that stuff. [00:11:42] As far as like, do we, do we, do I do anything to like prepare companies for that? Not really. The fight for the future program has been an excellent experiment and has been growing for years. And, and I don't know that I have ever [00:12:00] felt the need to like prime prime, anyone for the ask of like, do you have anyone who can help us with these security patches? [00:12:09] Do you have anyone who can help us with these design issues that we have? Like, I've never felt the need to do it necessarily. But that doesn't mean it's not happening. As I mentioned, like Matt does that also, he does that outreach as well. And so if there's priming for that call from that, that outreach from me, it's probably happening there. [00:12:27] Matt: Forgive my not understanding fully of how the inner workings of automatic works, but from executive directors that I've worked with in my local community, a lot of them are for nonprofits and a lot of them are, are raising money and that's a whole large part of their job. [00:12:44] Do you do that at all for any degree of the work for the WordPress foundation or is that completely separate? Not even in your purview.  [00:12:52] Josepha: I used to do that. Yeah. is not in my purview anymore. We actually have some community folks that really have done excellent work to keep that program moving all of this, the global sponsorship programs. They do that work these days. I did use to, but, but not now.  [00:13:09] Matt: Okay. Fantastic. And speaking of the, of the foundation word camps coming back. Question, mark. We just had word camp us last year. And now I think Birmingham is next. If I, if I have that correct. Is there other others coming? Is that something that you're looking forward to proceeding cautiously with? [00:13:32] Again, I know there was something on the Tavern about no or little to no masks at the last camp. A lot of folks worried about it. What's your prediction or what's your outlook on local meetups or local camps? Sorry,  [00:13:45] Josepha: So word camp, U S actually was, was a virtual this year where it can't one state of the word  [00:13:50] Matt: state of the word, sorry. Yep. It felt like a word camp because everyone Was. celebrating it.  [00:13:55] Josepha: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was an excellent experiment and it actually was not our first in-person event. There was a word camp in severe. I want to say that that weekend right before state of the word, that was our first one back. [00:14:09] And then yes, we've got Birmingham on the calendar. We have WordCamp Europe on the calendar as an in-person event. And we have word camp us 20, 22 on the calendar as, as an in-person event. Cautiously with cautious optimism. Is that a thing I can say? We're proceeding forward with cautious optimism about it. [00:14:27] Matt: in San Diego was cautious. Optimism.  [00:14:31] Josepha: Excellent. I'll let them know. Yeah, like. I have been, I've been talking to people about this a lot this week. So much of the information that we get from, from everyday users of WordPress, about what they love and what they don't love, what they need and what they want with the software comes from those events and not having them has certainly been very difficult for the community as a whole, to, to keep on [00:15:00] top of their own resilience. [00:15:01] But, but the community of contributors, as it relates to the support of the community of users, like it really, it's very clear to me that all of our contributors feel a little bit, I don't want to say hamstrung, but like they don't have the same touch points that they used to have to make the decisions that we all have to make. [00:15:22] And so. That's the optimistic side. Like I'm optimistic that we can get back to in-person events so that we can have that, that high value information from our users of the CMS more and, and faster and better. And the cautious side is of course, that everything is changing with this from week to week. [00:15:42] At this point, like for a while, it was month to month, things were changing and now it's week to week, things are changing and, and I never want to put people at undue risk and so am prepared to make the best call that we can make in the moment. And as things move as quickly as they are. It has made it more difficult when things were just kind of progressing on a month to month scale, you had time to, to cancel things or to move them or, or whatever you had to do. [00:16:15] But in the case of Omicron that moved so quickly that, that there was a little bit of blind sightedness happening on it. So  [00:16:24] Matt: is  [00:16:24] Josepha: I don't know if I've answered your question. [00:16:26] Matt: no that you have, or you've let us to at least maybe the next question. or the maybe just helping me define a better question. Is is there more stress on the local volunteers to raise more? Because one, there might not be enough ticket sales for enough people to maybe businesses have retracted from sponsoring camps in three. [00:16:50] I think that there's less money at hand, right? To, to Dole out to word camps in the fund, for lack of a better phrase.  [00:16:57] Josepha: in the fund. Yeah. So, That's such a complicated question. We, the, so the, the WordPress community support entity has been providing still a good portion of, of the infrastructure that people need in order to organize a WordPress event. And as far as like getting fiscal sponsorship, getting financial sponsorship from local entities, I am sure that it is more stressful, but I don't know that, that we, as like the stewards of this community have said, like, you have to find more local sponsorship because we cannot commit to as much global sponsorship. [00:17:40] I don't, I don't recall that happening with any of the events that we've seen lately.  [00:17:46] Matt: got it. Got it. Let's let's shift gears back to to WordPress to Gutenberg we think back well, we have WordPress 5.9 in 19 ish, 19 [00:18:00] ish days. Right?  [00:18:00] Josepha: no one be scared. That's great. [00:18:02] Matt: Thinking back three and a half years ago, whenever Gutenberg was announced, there was mass chaos, massive stereo. My God, we've got this Gutenberg thing. [00:18:10] What is it? Don't want it everyone up in arms about it. I, for one while maybe I didn't enjoy the way it rolled out and the way it was communicated as a non-developer. Yeah. [00:18:22] And when people started using it, I was like, this is, this is, this is just software. It's going to get better. I think here we are three and a half years later, it's a much different product. [00:18:32] It's much more refined from obviously when it started. Cause it's been three and a half years. Although  [00:18:37] Josepha: you've been working on it in the background. [00:18:39] Matt: Yeah. if you were, if you were, if you were in the early beta access, you were, you were playing with it. If you knew how to download it from GitHub [00:18:46] Josepha: Those fancy people.  [00:18:48] Matt: Those fancy people. [00:18:49] I don't even know above my pay grade. [00:18:50] Although I still struggled to drag some blocks in between columns. Sometimes that's a little bit frustrating, but do you think the the time that you think it'll take the same amount of time basically is what I'm getting at for full site editing to mature and to be adopted? Or do you think this is going to be fast paced because now we've kind of experienced Gutenberg.  [00:19:08] Josepha: My short answer is I do not think it's going to take as long and I'm going to give you a long answer now. So on the one hand, I think it's true that people are now a bit more bought in. Like our users are quite a bit more bought in on on this. Change than they were in 5.0, there's, there's a reason for them to trust that it's the right direction. [00:19:29] We have consistently been showing that ever since 5.0, came out and so like, yeah, I think that on the one hand, there's a lot more willingness in public sentiment and public grace that we have at the moment. And so from that aspect, I think that that we're in a much better position than we were when we were merging things in 5.0, but also between 5.0. [00:19:50] And now we have actually heard and by we I'll just be super clear. I have heard so much that it's not necessarily the change that upset people. It was how we made the change. And I totally understand that people felt left out. They felt like it was forging ahead without them, like, there was no way they could keep up with it. [00:20:10] And I, and I understand that it like it's the Gutenberg project was and is moving along a lot faster. Then WordPress core moves along from the, from the standpoint of like how frequently they have releases. So releases every two weeks is very different from releases every four months. And so having heard from so many people in so many different areas of the project, that, that it was the way that we did it. [00:20:37] That was so upsetting. Between 5.0, and now we actually have done together a lot of work to change the way that we talk about it. And so there are a lot more consistent updates from the folks who are working consistently within the core Gutenberg spaces of things, including stuff like our performance metrics that we are [00:21:00] gauging all of the features that we're planning, the features that did get in there. [00:21:03] And the last two weeks, like we're just communicating more in that space, but also we have really re-invigorated the testing area and the triage practice, both of those practices across the WordPress EcoSys. And created a number of different places for anyone to get this kind of information and sponsored a number of different spaces, where users and developers and agency owners and, and decision makers, technical, or not have been able to get better information about what they need to know about the software. [00:21:37] And so when was 5.0 at the end of 2018? Yeah. So. Yeah. Since 2018, I would say that there are probably four or five really big projects that have helped us to move past that whole, like it's the way you did it. Like we figured out the ways that we did it, that made people mad and we've made changes to fix them. [00:21:59] They're four or five large scale things that you can see, but also a lot of just small individual things that each team or any contributor does to make that whole process a little less scary, a little more tidy, little easier to see everything that we're doing on learn right now with trying to get more and more workshops and courses and lessons out for people like, yeah, we've done a lot of work based on the feedback that I got. [00:22:24] I did a six month listening tour after 5.0, to hear how mad  [00:22:29] Matt: That was. said with a big site.  [00:22:31] Josepha: Yeah, it was, it was hard. I it's like a listening tour is hard anyway, but I spent six months going to the events with people who were the maddest at WordPress and at me and at Matt and, and did nothing, but like tell me how much you hate this. [00:22:50] And that's all I wanted to hear it. I didn't have reasons or explanations or excuses for anything like their feelings of anger were because they felt like we hadn't heard them. And so I was showing up to hear them and, and in that six months time, that is when I identified, these are the things we need to fix in the future. [00:23:10] And we have spent years fixing them and I'm very proud of that work, so.  [00:23:13] Matt: It's a perfect segue to a couple other questions. Let's get the pitchforks and the torches out folks. No, I'm just kidding. Surprise. You're on a game show. Have you seen running, man? No, I'm just kidding.  [00:23:20] Josepha: No. [00:23:21] Matt: On the listening tour I'm sure you heard things like, Oh, what we're doing here is we're just competing against Squarespace and Wix. [00:23:28] Why do we want to, this is, I'm sure you've heard that. Right. We're Prestos wants to compete against Squarespace and Wix. My response is duh  [00:23:36] Josepha: of  [00:23:36] Matt: duh. Yes, I do. Like, I want to compete against Squarespace and Wix so that we can, because I want WordPress to survive. Do you think that did one, did you hear that sentiment two, do. [00:23:48] you think that's kind of going away and feeling like, Yeah. [00:23:50] actually we do want to compete against them to, to win.  [00:23:53] Josepha: I definitely heard it a lot and I hear it a lot even now. There are, there are two sides to that [00:24:00] conversation. Cause sometimes people are like, you're competing against these things that are so tiny, why bother. And sometimes it's, you're competing against something that is not the group of, that's not catering to the group of people that WordPress wants to cater to. [00:24:14] And so like, there are two different takes on that particular argument and I see both sides of it. But also like, technology always, you have to stay relevant and you have to move fast enough to be if, if not a competitor to a tiny thing that exists now. Cause like, sure, it's not a threat if it's 1% of usage across the web. [00:24:36] But, but there is something to be said for self disruption in that way, like I like this is my favorite example to use. So like when the iPad came out and there were just. Tablets everywhere. And the iPad mini came out and everyone was like, there's no point in having an iPad mini, we do not know why apple is doing this. [00:24:56] This is the most useless thing. Like people were like, why are you even bothering? No one wants this one. Plenty of people wanted it. And to taking the opportunity to, to, to disrupt what's happening in your own ecosystem before other people can show up and, and do that disruption to you, like that's smart. [00:25:18] That's a good idea. And so I do know that Gutenberg has been a really disruptive change and that for a lot of people, it also has been a breaking change. Even if it's not like breaking websites or breaking the code or breaking your dashboard, a broken workflow is still a breaking change for you. [00:25:35] And like, that is why Gutenberg is, is as a project being done over so many years. Right. If, if you feel like asking me about, about the reason that that was the right call, I would tell you, but most people don't care. But yeah, like moving fast enough to stay relevant, slow enough to bring people with you where you can is so smart and not only for the project, but for the people who rely on the project to have better lives. [00:26:05] So, [00:26:06] Matt: True or false. This is this is not about open source WordPress, but this is about automatic. And I would say that about true or false, the challenge true or false in your opinion  [00:26:14] Josepha: We're building some caveats in here. I like it. [00:26:17] Matt: I don't wanna, I don't wanna like put you too much on the spot, but you have walls. Your opinion. [00:26:22] The challenge for automatic is on innovation and pushing the software forward and fricking everything. Woo commerce, Gutenberg, wordpress.org, jet pack. The challenges still not enough people I'd imagine to, to help produce push code to, to improve everything across the board.  [00:26:42] Josepha: you threw so many pieces in there that I cannot give a true false cause that's probably true for some and less true for others would be my guests right now.  [00:26:50] Matt: let's talk about, let's say Gutenberg true or false, not enough people to, to really refine the whole thing. Fast enough,  [00:26:59] Josepha: I don't know if you [00:27:00] can hear my stomach growling. Cause like my microphone is right down by my stomach. I apologize if you can, like, I don't have a monster in the room. It's  [00:27:06] Matt: your, your stomach. cannot answer the question.  [00:27:10] Josepha: It tried real hard. It had so many things to say. Yeah. So for gluten, so you're asking true false for gluten. Is the limiting factor that we don't have enough people. [00:27:18] Matt: Let me frame some context around it. When I interviewed Matt when I interviewed Matt back in January, 2021 [00:27:24] There's just, there's so much on the plate for automatic in terms of.com jet pack, VU, commerce, which is just a sleeping sleeping giant we don't have anything close to a WooCommerce Shopify yet. And I look at automatic and I say the biggest problem for Matt right now is just, there's just not, he can't hire fast enough to, to iterate and develop these products. There's just. It's just impossible for somebody to hire this many folks and get them up to speed to push these products. [00:27:53] I feel the same for Gutenberg. And I guess the open source answer is yeah. [00:27:58] more, maybe more people should step up or more brands and organizations that have the money hosting companies should step up to to contribute to this right. To refine the product. Like I wanna be able to drag my block in between three columns without me losing my mind.  [00:28:14] Josepha: Oh man, I have a very complicated false for you. I know. So, okay. So there are a lot of people contributing to Gutenberg and, and while we can always use more people contributing that we can not contest there is actually a different limiting factor. That's not necessarily about developers. And so. [00:28:37] I'll just get real clear. So I don't, I don't know that other people agree with me about this and, and that's their prerogative. But as someone who is looking across our entire ecosystem across our entire project from a substance, a pretty high level, with a huge number of, of data points that are coming to me from, from the community, I can say with pretty high confidence that some of the more pressing limiting factors are things like we don't have enough. [00:29:11] Essentially mid-level deciders who can say confidently, these are the black and white questions that have already been answered. This is the answer and move everybody forward. Like we have a lot of bottlenecks that are still built into that, into that product. There is also an incredibly limiting factor of our user outreach, like are unactivated community members, as I like to call them in my notes to myself are the, the community members that represent our community of users. [00:29:42] So people who don't necessarily know that the project exists, they don't necessarily know that they can like provide feedback about what is working. What's not working, what's broken. What is what could be made better? Like the lack of feedback from them. Frequently is something that is more of a [00:30:00] limiting factor than not having enough developers. [00:30:02] Now, if the entire WordPress user base showed up and was like, here's all of our feedback, like for sure, we would suddenly discover that we don't have enough developers to get those things done can confirm.  [00:30:13] Matt: Yeah.  [00:30:13] Josepha: But, but yeah, I think that our more pressing issue is around the people who can help us, like confidently say, this is the most likely decision based on what we know from Mathias, who is our primary kind of Gutenberg architect or Riyadh or whoever it is. [00:30:31] We just have such a small group of people who can do that. And that's true to an extent in the WordPress project as well. There are various things that we could blame that on COVID is a great example of a thing that might cause people to be less. Less engaged in that level of, of contribution. [00:30:52] But yeah, I think that in the hierarchy of things where I would say, yes, we definitely have a dearth of those. Those two would come up prior to developers on the open-source side.  ★ Support this podcast ★

WordPress news is hard. I mean, it's hard to turn it into a real business. I get away with covering WordPress here on the Matt Report because our guests share lessons on how they built their business or spend time telling us how they navigated the community, until they found their way. But news? Well, that's why The WP Tavern has been the only name in town for a while, loaded with two critical components: A dedicated staff and they are funded. If you want to make it, you do things differently, you do things like Rae Morey‘s The Repository newsletter. Today we'll chat about building her WordPress news newsletter, background as a journalist, and explore what it really takes to make all of this work. Thanks goes out to Malcare today for sponsoring a month of Matt Report and The WP Minute. You can help us by visiting buymeacoffee.com/mattrpeort Episode transcript [00:00:00] Rae: It's a completely not in the WordPress world at all. So our processes is, as you said, an experiential design and creative technology company, and we develop experiences for cultural and tourism organizations. [00:00:14] So, you might go into a gallery or museum and experience an audio tour and we create immersive experiences where you can. Wander around a space and he audio that that's designed, especially for that space. It moves with you around, around the gallery or exhibition. We do precinct technology, virtual queuing, augmented reality experiences, and we do exhibition design in. [00:00:40] A lot of different spaces, for example we're doing a a brand new exhibition smack bang in the middle of Montana at the moment for there for first street project there. We do we do the audio guide for the Getty in Los Angeles. So that's an example of the kind of thing I do for my, my day job. [00:00:58] There is communications manager. So I look after Publicity marketing anything to do with words, I guess, on the website? Yeah. That's, that's kind of what I do for a day.  [00:01:09] Matt: Does anybody ever give you like a side eye when maybe a customer comes in and they're like, we have a WordPress website that they look at you and be like, Hey, we think we know somebody who kind of knows this to implement whatever project we might have. [00:01:23] Rae: I don't know. I, I, to be honest, I kind of played down what to do with WordPress, because I don't want to be that person that people kind of like go to asking for, help me with my website. Yeah. [00:01:33] Oh, I I hate to say, but our website and our process is actually uses Drupal. So I've had to learn that this year not, not my decision, but yeah, it's been interesting seeing what the competitions.  [00:01:44] Matt: Yeah, that was the, the second, most serious application I used to build websites was Drupal before or slightly after a front page. [00:01:51] Well, I guess throw Dreamweaver in there too, but we went front page Dreamweaver and then Drupal and then WordPress triples, fantastic platform. I think I wouldn't use it today, but I th I still think it's a very powerful  [00:02:04] Rae: platform using it compared to WordPress at the moment. Very different platforms. [00:02:10] Matt: How do you find time to to do the repository and works by birds and you have a family? How do you, how do you structure your day with all of this stuff?  [00:02:20] Rae: The honest answer is I have no idea. [00:02:21] I, I think over the past couple of years I don't know if you're aware, but Melbourne where I live here in Australia has been the most locked down city in the world. We've had the most restrictions lockdowns out of everywhere. It's just the circumstances I guess, here, but it's given me a lot of time to look at. [00:02:36] To spend on side projects, I guess. So when so the, the repository I started that with came guest star from male poet back in November, 2019. And that was just before the pandemic. And so I guess the repository in a way became a bit of a handy pandemic passion project that I was working on while in locked down and has continued through to now. [00:02:59] And. [00:03:00] Yeah, I was, I was also on maternity leave from my day job throughout 2020. So that gave me a lot of time and focus on building up the newsletter and yeah, since returning to my day job part-time I've, I've just I guess structure my week so that, Part time work and also have the repository for a Dane half a week. [00:03:21] So just try to split up the weight to fit everything in. And also I'm very fortunate to have a partner who. Who I cope? Well, shouldn't say co-parent with where to very much together, but we split our parenting duties 40, 50, 50, which is we're very modern family in that respect. So yeah, we both prioritize our careers, but also our son. [00:03:44] So, yeah. So there, there is a way for moms with a lot of things on to, to do all the things that they are passionate.  [00:03:53] Matt: Do you have a certain structure and I can, I can share mine as well for, for the WP minute, but you have a certain structure that you would, you wouldn't mind sharing on how you keep track of all of the news. [00:04:05] And this obviously is happening throughout the week. Are you jotting things down and the to-do lists in a notion document. And then at the end you go to write up the email and you just sit down with all of those notes in front of you. How does this all come curated?  [00:04:18] Rae: Yeah, look, there's no pulling back the curtain. [00:04:21] There's no special, fancy way that I do it. My background is, is in journalism. I studied journalism at uni and so I naturally just do a lot of note-taking all the time because I'm just every time I see something, I think, oh, that's really cool. And I use apple notes on my my medical kit or my iPhone, I'm an apple person and everything sinks. [00:04:44] And so I'm constantly taking notes. And I guess with the repository I use feedly.com to track something like 70 or 80 different websites and blogs. And so I go through that periodically throughout the week just to track what what's happening and keep on top of everybody's latest updates. I'm also checking Twitter all the time on my phone. [00:05:06] And it's a bit harder to save tweets, so I have to yeah. Finding a way to do that really well, but I'm always checking Twitter, whether I'm No throughout the day or in the evening while I'm watching TV, having having a scroll. And that's mostly, I guess my research for the pository just between those two, just seeing what's going on. [00:05:27] And I guess also just catching up with people throughout the week in the WordPress community, whether it's just aiming on on Twitter or chats over emails and Coles. Those are the kinds of ways that I keep in touch with what's going.  [00:05:42] Matt: Sure the the newsletter there's. So there's a, you just said that there, you're probably tracking 70 to 80 sources of, of news or at least new news that you can throw into an RSS feed and put into. [00:05:53] Feedly probably 20% of them. I would reckon are [00:06:00] our newsletters or have a newsletter component to them. Your newsletter is unique to, to me, by the way, or listen, let me take a step. I'm honored for you to be here. I'm not a journalist, I'm not a great writer. I struggled with words, in fact and I look at your piece as something that is it's fantastic. [00:06:19] It's unique. It's creative. I look at it as a conversation that, that ends up in my inbox. Before I knew who you were. I had some other voice in my head, but then I realized that then I found out who you were. And I was like, oh, now it's your voice. Every time I read the newsletter, like I'm hearing it with this Australian accent. [00:06:37] And it's fantastic. But it's, it's much more of to me anyway, like a S a conversation, maybe a story. Was that on purpose? Is that a strategy? I don't want to slap strategy on art, but is that a strategy of yours to make it different than.  [00:06:53] Rae: When when Kim and I originally started the repository, or at least before, actually before we started the repository and we were talking about ideas because Kim and I are both journalists in previous life. [00:07:05] And we wanted to bring something to the WordPress community. Then I guess, in a way there was an ulterior motive of showing off male poet platform, but also. Well, as, as former journalists, we just wanted to put something together that brought the WordPress news in a way that was, I guess, a lot of new stories in WordPress tend to include a lot of opinion, but we wanted to bring other people's opinions to the fore as well. [00:07:27] We wanted to increase the diversity in the news, but not just by having lots of different new sources, but bringing people's opinions that you might. You might not otherwise see. So the, the format that we came up with and, we still have to this day was looking for looking at a particular issue from a lot of different perspectives. [00:07:52] So we, like a story recently, like I know the word, it's not just the actual state of the word video, but lots of different blog posts in opinions, from different people and what they make. Of the state of the word. So you can kind of, read about read about a new story, but also get the context of where that story fits within the WordPress world and then varying opinions on what people thought about that. [00:08:15] So, you can get that kind of more nuanced viewpoint from, from different people and, and have that way of understanding any issue. From different viewpoints because not everybody looks at things the same way. It's nice to kind of read something, but then understand where, where it fits in the ecosystem. [00:08:31] And that's, that's the approach that we were going for.  [00:08:34] Matt: This is a huge question and I'll let you dissect it and define it and pull pieces out of it as you see fit.  [00:08:41] WordPress news, like what is somebody with a journalistic background? What does that really mean? Or what should it really mean? And maybe even before you answer that, can you help clarify, like what at journalists [00:09:00] produces versus let's say an opinion piece or a commentator might produce, because to be honest with you I didn't discover this recently, but for many years I was just like, oh, I don't know the difference. [00:09:12] I didn't know that you, that a journalist doesn't really put opinion into their, into their piece. And there are certain guidelines that one should approach journalism with versus, I would say like somebody like a Kara Swisher, who's what I would say is maybe a celebrity journalist, but no longer a journalist I think is much more on the commentator side. [00:09:33] For probably many different reasons, but anyway, could you help us define what journalists means to you should mean in the WordPress space?  [00:09:41] Rae: Yeah, it's interesting because there's definitely. Of everything in the WordPress community. I worked in, in newspaper journalism, and so it was very, and I guess the newspaper I worked for, it was very straight in that it was, new stories to get one report on one side of the debate and the other side. [00:09:58] Of the debate. You make sure you have balanced views on a topic and you present that and that's purely without any kind of opinion. And you try to be as objective as possible in the way that you present it. So that's, I guess, very traditional old fashioned old school journalism. That's kind of where my background is, I guess, in that, in the WordPress community. [00:10:22] I don't really have anything, I guess the closest to that would probably be Sarah Gooding at WP Tavern. And even then some of her pieces can have some opinion inserted here and there for, for her context. She's, she's been in the community for a really long time. So her opinions, I, I find it fairly valid, but but yeah, that's not really, I guess, old school journalism as, as a lot of people would say it And then you get. [00:10:47] Yeah, I think blog, blog posts and things like that, where people offering an opinion that's I wouldn't really class that as news, so much as it's opinion and people adding their perspectives to the debate. It's, it's an interesting one in the WordPress community. We don't have a lot of new sources. [00:11:03] A lot of people have tried to start WordPress news over the years. Haven't been, haven't been that successful because it's. It's not a business that is profitable as we've seen more broadly in, in the news industry with the rise of the internet and, the fighting for advertising and paywalls and, and all of, all of that kind of thing. [00:11:23] In in WordPress, we could, we could definitely use more new sources, that the greater diversity you have with news the more accountability businesses have to have to operate in this environment. The more and more scrutiny, the better, I think, in terms of, businesses operating and, and making sure that they're operating above board It would certainly be nice to have more new sources. [00:11:45] It's, it's certainly great that there are a lot of people who, who blog and share their opinion. But yeah, I think there's definitely room for, for more harder news in the WordPress community, particularly, over the past year, how we've had so many [00:12:00] acquisitions, right. And we were going from an ecosystem full of, I guess, small to medium businesses to, we've got big corporates and multinationals, I guess, like Google that are operating in, in our in our ecosystem. [00:12:12] And, we want to keep those businesses to. No, around what they're doing. And I, I'm not saying way to, to scare them, that they shouldn't be in our ecosystem, but, just to, people want to know what's what's going on and, and, and make sure that they're operating in a, in a fair. [00:12:27] Matt: Let's say news article or piece or research even if you went to an acquisition that happened a year, two years ago we might be checking in on, let's say something like an eye themes was probably the one that I can think of at least off the top of my head, that dates pretty far back, big company getting picked up by a hosting company. [00:12:46] And now Corey who started that company now runs both status. One might say. Let's take a look at what happened with these acquisitions in terms of employment. Are the people still there? Is the products. What it was when they acquired it. What is the price point look like? Have these, big hosting companies, which catch a lot of heat because they are big hosting companies. [00:13:08] Did they just roll it into their mega solution? And the once artismal piece of themes is just gone and it's just another toggle, it's just another toggle on the dashboard, right? Is that a fair assessment to say that's the kind of news that we were journalism that we would want to see in the space, or at least maybe you would want to see in the space, not trying to put words in your mouth, but  [00:13:30] Rae: yeah, I think that kind of journalism would be good. [00:13:32] I guess, It's interesting because we work in a space with some really big companies and there are lots of acquisitions going on. It's it's it's, that would be interesting to say, the, the, the the quality and the end product that's offered to, to users is that being maintained, as I know there's been a bit of angst with also motive of buying out people plugin, Sandhills development it'd be interesting to go back in, as you say, in 12 months time. [00:13:56] And from looking at that story as a journalist, you'd probably want to Find long-term users and get their perspectives, whether that's on the record or as background for a story and maybe speak to stuff. If they're happy to speak, even anonymously, get their, their views on how they think the. [00:14:16] Transition has been yeah, those are the kinds of interesting stories that we're not really seeing so much, we're saying the, the, the acquisition and the sale, but we're not really seeing the I guess the journey of how acquisitions are tracking. We're not seeing what's happening to, particularly with automatic buying out so many distances, what are happening to those businesses? [00:14:36] They bought quite a few in the, in the past year and the past few years have been interesting to say, what's, what's happened to the end product house has been absorbed into it, automatic and wordpress.com and, and it has it, has it been for, I guess, the greater good in supporting those employees and, and the businesses, but also providing a a more polished product for the end user. [00:14:57] If that, if that was the purpose of the, of the equity.[00:15:00]  [00:15:01] Matt: I think another, another topic would be something like a core, core contributors, which companies are funding core contribution to the WordPress core. I think in Matt's state of the word, which I do have the slides on the WP minute. [00:15:15] So I'll try to link up in the show notes. I think he showed a graphic of automatic somewhere in the seventies. Person, mark a Yoast coming in again, this is just off the top of my head. I think second place with maybe 14 people. And then it's like GoDaddy who just acquired Pagely who's a multi-billion dollar publicly public. [00:15:36] Are they publicly traded? I better not see, this is what, this is what makes a real journalist. They don't just say things like, I think they're a publicly traded company. If they're not, they're really big. And they've got billions and billions of dollars, but I think only four or five people. Actually contributes to core and word press is a massive part of their business. [00:15:53] Why aren't they doing? Why aren't they doing more for, for WordPress what's, what's the reason. And how much are they really benefiting off of open source? I think a lot of people give Matt an automatic, a lot of heat around the fact that, well, this is an open source product and, and this is just all funneling to the top of wordpress.com to make wordpress.com more money, but it's oh, by the way, There are billion dollar hosting companies leveraging this to who are not giving back. [00:16:20] Yeah. And don't  [00:16:21] Rae: forget Google as well. They're, they're pretty massive company. And, and I'm not sure exactly how many people they've contributed to the, how are they contributing to WordPress 5.9. But. Yeah, it'd be interesting, but you also mentioned Yost in there and I wonder if they'll increase their contributed the numbers now that new fold digital has acquired them. [00:16:39] It'd be interesting to say, how that contribution space changes and, and also in the state of the word Matt shared how he liked to see that landscape of contribution change in the coming years. So, Yeah, it would be, it would be great to see those big businesses putting back more in as far as five for the five, five for the future goes it's great to see so many smaller individuals and businesses contributing. [00:17:04] But also another interesting story I think is over the, over the past year, there's been a drop in, in volunteers and contributors to the project. And an automatic is picked up the lion's share of that work, which, you can't fault automatic for, stepping in and, and supporting the project in that way. [00:17:22] It would be great to say. Nice. Some of the bigger businesses stepping in and putting out resources for that too. I was really pleased to say XW pays as has, has put up contributors for the performance team and it'd be great to see more businesses like that who have that kind of expertise to be able to, to. [00:17:39] Could contribute their people to different parts of the project. Would that help? Because it's not really just about developers. It's also about marketing and design and mobile. There, there are a lot of different end-to-end education. There are a lot of different spaces that need country. [00:17:54] Matt: And what we've I've hoped we've just done is illustrate how important WordPress news [00:18:00] is and could be if there was more funding in the space. So how do we make money doing this? Ray, I wanna, I wanna pivot and talk about that a little bit because you, you, you have. The, what I'm going to say, the only vehicle for content you put out for WordPress is the newsletter, the repository. [00:18:17] You're just sending out email. You're not doing a blog, you're not doing a YouTube channel. You're not doing a podcast yet. And you monetize that through through sponsorship. It's. Well, I'll let you, I'm not, you don't have to say any numbers. It's not a full-time job for you. In other words, it's not supporting you. [00:18:34] Full-time compared to your day job. Maybe one day will like, what do you think it's going to take to make the repository of full-time job? Is there another. Of an audience in the WordPress news space to build a true air quotes, air quotes business, or should it be selling NFTs to support this  [00:18:55] Rae: maybe, but who knows how long that's going to be around for? [00:18:58] To be honest, I don't see their positories a full full-time job for me. I started it as a bit of a side gig. I thought that would take four, maybe four hours a week. And, and how it's more like a donor. So it does take a bit of time to put together because it's, it's solo single stories, reading everything. [00:19:16] And in making sure that, I don't want to just pick any, tweets to include in the newsletter. I want to make sure that I'm trying to find as many views as possible. And the ones that I'm including in the newsletter, a representative of, of the, of the views that you know, are in the community as well as any of that. [00:19:32] It might be a bit unusual. The, I think that it's an interesting one funding. I'm very lucky to have GoDaddy in element or sponsor sponsoring the newsletter this year. They'd been fantastic sponsors. One thing I do is when I enter into an agreement with a sponsor, I make it clear that. [00:19:52] If that, I want to retain editorial independence. So if there are any stories that involve them good or bad, I'm going to include them in the newsletter. Even earlier in the year when automatic mail poll was sponsoring the newsletter for the all of last year and, and And that was fantastic. [00:20:10] It allowed the newsletter to really great. But then when automatic bought out male poet automatic began took over sponsorship of the newsletter for the first quarter of 2021. And that was part of the agreement as well. I made sure that any stories involving automatic rules, you were going to report on those. [00:20:28] I think it's really important. If any publications have sponsorship agreements of that type, that it is very clear that editorial independence is important and, and that's separate from sponsorship. There are lots of other different models as we've discussed before as well, of the podcast. [00:20:48] There are lots of different models for, for funding use. It's, it's a bit of experimentation, I think there's philanthropy as we've seen that philanthropic or philanthropic funding [00:21:00] model. There are a crowdsourced kind of funding models. It's, it's an interesting one because at the end of the day, P everybody wants news, but not everybody's willing to pay for it. [00:21:10] And that's, that's the struggle is real there. It's really hard to overcome that because for a long time, these is. Well, my speed. Well, it's been free on the internet. It's easy to find sources. A lot of people think that they can find it themselves, but the convenience of having a newsletter letter, like the repository brings it all together and makes it more accessible. [00:21:30] Yeah.  [00:21:31] Matt: How do we encourage, ah, I'll I'll fall on this grenade. You don't have to agree with me. Okay. I'll be, I'll be the guy who says it out loud, but. How do we encourage better content? To be made. And I say content specifically, because I know not every, not everyone doesn't want to cover the inside baseball of, of WordPress. [00:21:58] They don't want to dive deep into stories. I get it because it's a very small audience. And maybe we'll talk about that in a moment. Like it's kind of a small audience who really cares about this stuff versus like, how do I build this element or site to make a thousand dollars a month? That's a much larger audience who cares. [00:22:16] Again, air quotes cares about WordPress. How do we encourage others to create better content? Or do you have any, any words of wisdom on how to create better content so that we all the content creators in WordPress, whether it's a journalist, a, an opinion piece, or maybe even a tutorial. That businesses take us a little bit brands that sponsor us or donate to us. [00:22:39] Take us a little bit more serious because I've overseen. I've. What I've seen is the over-saturation of asking for like donor donations and sponsorships, and then the content never gets made. And what I feel like is that kind of hurts us. Maybe not, I don't know, but it kind of hurts us where we knock on that, that brand's door. [00:23:02] And we say, Hey, we got this great thing. We're pouring so much effort into it. And they go, yeah, that other person burned me for $5,000. And they didn't really, they didn't do the ad read. Right. Or they didn't create the amount of content that we thought, or, the content didn't bring us that much traction. [00:23:18] So, you have this, I'm giving you 5,000. I want 5,000 in one. Any words of wisdom for elevating the quality of content or is it just like survival of the fittest?  [00:23:29] Rae: Yeah, that's a really interesting topic. In the good question. The only way I guess I can answer that is, is from my own experience. [00:23:36] When. I started the ripples of trails or, really fortunate that I guess I was the writer for the project. It was a collaboration between myself and Kim. So I was writing, Kim was basically bankrolling. He didn't, he was, running his own company, didn't have the time. So, there was a collaboration between the two of us. [00:23:53] We talked, discussed the news and, and made the website and we kicked it off with, I think, seven subscribers. I [00:24:00] can't remember in the first issue, not many And we got, got up to about a hundred subscribers and it kind of just plateaued for a while, but we kept on going and slowly and it snowballed, but it took probably a good year of, of the newsletter to really get into. [00:24:21] To really start growing our subscribers. I think by that stage, we might've had two or 300 subscribers by the end of the first year, we were a bit deflated. We thought we'd have more subscribers. And we were trying to try to, become more well known and, and get more people reading. But it's a, it's a pretty hard thing. [00:24:39] And so. When it, when it came time for came to step away when male Paul was acquired and then automatic finished sponsoring after they acquired male poet. I was kind of in a spot where I didn't know where I was going to go next with sponsorship. And it was that, that good year of very slow growth and just focusing on writing something quality that attracted GoDaddy to, to sponsor they would, at their hour, they were our first sponsor who really saw what we were, what we were aiming for with the newsletter or by that stage. [00:25:14] No. I was really luckily. So, Laura Nelson, who works at a male poet in their marketing, she's now at world commerce. She was absolutely critical in helping develop that relationship. She's a fantastic member in the WordPress community, so she helped introduce us and yet he's still a sponsor and it's, it's there. [00:25:34] Adam and Courtney and their belief in the newsletter and, and, and wanting to, they also have a sponsor section in the newsletter that allows them to share events and, and, and other pieces with the community. That's, that's been critical in the, the ongoing. Publishing of the newsletter. [00:25:51] Yeah, these kinds of projects can't really can't happen without money family to support. So it's, it's an interesting one in terms of, how do we keep these kinds of things afloat? And as far as going back to your question about quality content, I think I think a lot of people want to make money really quickly. [00:26:10] And yeah, of course, who doesn't, everyone wants to make money, but sometimes it does take a slow burn and working on something with the aim of producing something high quality. Is going to make some money in the end. And I'm happy to say the, and happy to share that. Then the repository is profitable for me. [00:26:27] It's not going to be a full-time job, but for what it, what it is at the moment. And I don't have plans for, major expansion, but it is not well, I, I don't have big plans to have a podcast or a big website and do lots of reporting. People subscribe the same, pretty happy with what it is at the moment. [00:26:48] And, and I am happy to share that in, in the new year, Allie Emmons is coming on board to help with community outreach and in increasing the number of voices that are in the newsletter. That's really important for me to make sure we not just, rinse [00:27:00] and repeating the same voices over and over again, the newsletter. [00:27:03] We want to make sure that people. Who are doing awesome things and they might not be as vocal. We want to make sure that they're included as well. And, and I want the newsletter to be a source of, of amazing work that's happening across the community, not just the same things over and over again as can happen in, in some spaces. [00:27:22] Yeah. Other than  [00:27:25] Matt: one of the things that I think is a challenge is, is that I think. What we want is we want the, maybe not even average WordPress user, but maybe above average WordPress user to want to turn into the news, like turn excuse me, tune into the news. Right? Because Hey, maybe the above average WordPress user is an it professional and she manages a hundred multi-sites for a university. [00:27:53] And. Not in the WordPress community, but my God, wouldn't you like to know when awesome motive buys those, the suite of plugins that you use, and suddenly you're like who the heck is awesome motive. And if I was tuning into a news coverage, maybe somebody doing a piece on who automotive is and the background and the history, et cetera, et cetera Yeah. [00:28:13] I don't know if you've thought about this. I don't know if this is something that maybe you even plan to go into with the newsletter is like, how do we, how do we dip into that segment of the reader of the demographic? I think of a local newspaper, all of a sudden. We're doing fashion week and it's I know what's going on here. [00:28:32] Right? One, you have advertisement that to hope. You're, you're hoping that you're doing fashion week and you're getting some new eyeballs on the, the, the baseline publication, maybe at that it raises more readers in the long run. Is there something like that that we can do without, selling ourselves to affiliate links  [00:28:49] Rae: in? [00:28:50] That's a tough question. How do you, how do you broaden your own. It's a hard one because we're pressing uses so smaller niche and how you reach that kind of other level of, of, users is a, is a tough one. I don't know if I have any answers today. I'd be interested to hear from other people who might've done it successfully, because I can't think of how it, it just feels like there's a, almost like a Seton barrier between. [00:29:18] The people who, who read S I guess, serious WordPress knees that, core contributors and developers and small business owners and people who are very involved in the community. And then everybody else, it just seems like a big step. And Yeah, I don't know. I just don't feel that they're that necessarily interested in, in how WordPress comes together or if people who you use a platform like that, every will be. [00:29:47] That's a, that's a really interesting area to explore.  [00:29:50] Matt: I'm going to say, I'm going to say something in hopes that Sarah Gooding is listening to this and she, and she uses this in the, in the headline. But I think that the cap on the audience [00:30:00] and you could probably. Again, you don't have to reveal anything from your side, but I think the cap on the audience of people who really care about the inside WordPress news is probably right around 3000 human beings on the face of this earth is the number that I would say of people who actually care about. [00:30:21] What Matt says in the state of the word and how it impacts WordPress, for, for, for years, I was gonna say most months, years to come or really care about, themes getting acquired. I think my number is about 3000, maybe on a good day, 3,500, but I'd say 3000 is the global reach of WordPress news. [00:30:41] Yeah, I can use that, Sarah, if you want.  [00:30:45] Rae: Well, I'll tell ya. I don't have that many subscribers to the newsletter. It's it's, it's an interesting one. Like how, how many people are really interested in WordPress news because I've spoken to. People who work at automatic and some other WordPress businesses who work with the community, but aren't necessarily interested in the community or kind of want to be kind of that stick away because they don't want to be too involved in it. [00:31:12] So it, it, it is an interesting number, but also, we've got the English speaking people who are involved in the community, and then we've got the non-English speaking people who have communities in other parts of the world. So who knows, if I assume that number, you're thinking probably English speakers. [00:31:29] So if we think about the people who are non-English speakers and are very involved in WordPress, like you can see all the amazing work that Mary job is doing in Africa. And, The amazing word camp that was held would would camp Spain recently, and the community's just so passionate over there that they even produce a live late night a late night show pre recorded. [00:31:52] But. There, there are people really passionate about WordPress and the community. Oh WordPress the recent word camp in in Portugal, Portugal recently. Yeah, looking at just their their daily schedule of, of, of. Throughout the the two days it was all very community-based and the events I had on day two, where, where everybody getting together and doing things in person together the whole cop that, that whole event was around community and nurturing, connections with people. [00:32:22] And, and so there. You, it could be 3003 and a half thousand people who are really just in WordPress and, and know knowing more about WordPress news. But I would say that number would be. A lot bigger. Once we start thinking about non-English speakers. And I think that's an interesting area to explore that. [00:32:42] How do we kind of bring the, those communities together, the English non-English speakers? How do we bring those people? As just, people who interested in WordPress regardless of language, and that'd be an interesting one to explore the next year or two, as we get closer to exploring when, [00:33:00] when language and translation becomes the, the dominant focus of the program. [00:33:06] Matt: Piggyback off of this conversation of how many max amount of audience I might have the WB minute who has only been around for about six ish months. The biggest piece that it saw was big story that it, so I was Paul Lacey story about Gutenberg and how that Gutenberg has impacted himself, but also his, his opinion on how it impacted. [00:33:25] The community at one saw about 2200 2300 views to the, to the article and about almost 400 downloads to the podcast episode. And of course, anything that you bring up around Gutenberg and. It's impact on whatever mean Gutenberg's impact on whatever the community, the software performance is always going to get a look or view. [00:33:51] Are there any other hard hitting topics you think that might be that we haven't explored yet? By the time this episode goes out, it will be 20, 22 something this year you think, which is kind of interesting that folks should be paying attention to, or the next time.  [00:34:07] Rae: Oh, yeah. I'm interested to see how the acquisition train goes next year in terms of more acquisitions in the space. [00:34:16] And also you can't really get away from Gutenberg. That's going to be a big focus of next year. It really jumped out at me during the state of the word. When Matt was saying, we only have a handful of, of block themes and you'd like to see 3000 by the end of next year. So, interesting to see, I, I guess one of the interesting stories will be how, how blockchains become more commercialized as well. [00:34:39] Are we going to see. More, same authors once w 5.9 comes out are they going to feel ready to really explore that space? We're going to see a lot more of those themes on, on ThemeForest and other kinds of Marketplaces like that. Be interesting to say how that rolls out next year, because after that Matt was talking about, venturing into collaboration as the focus of the next phase of the roadmap for, for WordPress. [00:35:03] So are we going to see blocks wrap up next year or continue, kind of fall into the, into the following year? Yeah. And I, I think the, the other thing is also probably most seriously thinking about volunteers and contributors to WordPress, that was a big focus of the state of the word. [00:35:18] And, and with the lack of volunteers, thanks to you, the pandemic, that'd be an interesting thing to watch next year. Where are we? It's, it's mostly sponsored people who are contributing to WordPress. We, we see a lot, a lot of that. I was going to say, more of a drive to have more sponsored people working on the project, or, we're trying to recruit more people who, who aren't sponsored. [00:35:40] That'd be interesting thing to watch next year, as far as contributions go and how that increases or potentially decreases, I guess.  [00:35:49] Matt: Gutenberg everywhere blocks. Give me all the blocks. Ray, this has been a fantastic conversation. I really can't. Thank you enough. I could go on for another hour, but I'm sure you're sick and sick and tired of hearing me. [00:35:59] Where can folks [00:36:00] go to sign up to the newsletter and say, thanks online.  [00:36:03] Rae: Well, if you interested in joining the repository, it's it comes out every Friday, go to the repository.email to sign up. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Matt. I've been listening for years and yeah, it's, it's really an honor to, to  [00:36:18] Matt: be feeding. [00:36:19] No, I, I, I, it's a pleasure and an honor having you here as well. I also love the repository. Go sign up the show. The links will be in the show notes. Hey, if you want to support independent WordPress news or content number one, sign up for the repository. And if you are a big business and you've got some bucks, make sure you knock on raised door to say, Hey, I'd love to sponsor the news. [00:36:44] And then when you're done with her, she will send you my way to spend $79 to join the WP minute membership. Get your hand in the weekly WordPress news in our private discord interact with folks like Ray and others who produce the show@buymeacoffee.com slash Matt report. We'll see you in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

About MattMatt is an AWS DevTools Hero, Serverless Architect, Author and conference speaker. He is focused on creating the right environment for empowered teams to rapidly deliver business value in a well-architected, sustainable and serverless-first way.You can usually find him sharing reusable, well architected, serverless patterns over at cdkpatterns.com or behind the scenes bringing CDK Day to life.Links: AWS CDK Patterns: https://cdkpatterns.com The CDK Book: https://thecdkbook.com CDK Day: https://www.cdkday.com 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: It seems like there is a new security breach every day. Are you confident that an old SSH key, or a shared admin account, isn't going to come back and bite you? If not, check out Teleport. Teleport is the easiest, most secure way to access all of your infrastructure. The open source Teleport Access Plane consolidates everything you need for secure access to your Linux and Windows servers—and I assure you there is no third option there. Kubernetes clusters, databases, and internal applications like AWS Management Console, Yankins, GitLab, Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, and more. Teleport's unique approach is not only more secure, it also improves developer productivity. To learn more visit: goteleport.com. And not, that is not me telling you to go away, it is: goteleport.com.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Rising Cloud, which I hadn't heard of before, but they're doing something vaguely interesting here. They are using AI, which is usually where my eyes glaze over and I lose attention, but they're using it to help developers be more efficient by reducing repetitive tasks. So, the idea being that you can run stateless things without having to worry about scaling, placement, et cetera, and the rest. They claim significant cost savings, and they're able to wind up taking what you're running as it is in AWS with no changes, and run it inside of their data centers that span multiple regions. I'm somewhat skeptical, but their customers seem to really like them, so that's one of those areas where I really have a hard time being too snarky about it because when you solve a customer's problem and they get out there in public and say, “We're solving a problem,” it's very hard to snark about that. Multus Medical, Construx.ai and Stax have seen significant results by using them. And it's worth exploring. So, if you're looking for a smarter, faster, cheaper alternative to EC2, Lambda, or batch, consider checking them out. Visit risingcloud.com/benefits. That's risingcloud.com/benefits, and be sure to tell them that I said you because watching people wince when you mention my name is one of the guilty pleasures of listening to this podcast.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I'm joined today by Matt Coulter, who is a Technical Architect at Liberty Mutual. You may have had the privilege of seeing him on the keynote stage at re:Invent last year—in Las Vegas or remotely—that last year of course being 2021. But if you make better choices than the two of us did, and found yourself not there, take the chance to go and watch that keynote. It's really worth seeing.Matt, first, thank you for joining me. I'm sorry, I don't have 20,000 people here in the audience to clap this time. They're here, but they're all remote as opposed to sitting in the room behind me because you know, social distancing.Matt: And this left earphone, I just have some applause going, just permanently, just to keep me going. [laugh].Corey: That's sort of my own internal laugh track going on. It's basically whatever I say is hilarious, to that. So yeah, doesn't really matter what I say, how I say it, my jokes are all for me. It's fine. So, what was it like being on stage in front of that many people? It's always been a wild experience to watch and for folks who haven't spent time on the speaking circuit, I don't think that there's any real conception of what that's like. Is this like giving a talk at work, where I just walk on stage randomly, whatever I happened to be wearing? And, oh, here's a microphone, I'm going to say words. What is the process there?Matt: It's completely different. For context for everyone, before the pandemic, I would have pretty regularly talked in front of, I don't know, maybe one, two hundred people in Liberty, in Belfast. So, I used to be able to just, sort of, walk in front of them, and lean against the pillar, and use my clicker, and click through, but the process for actually presenting something as big as a keynote and re:Invent is so different. For starters, you think that when you walk onto the stage, you'll actually be able to see the audience, but the way the lights are set up, you can pretty much see about one row of people, and they're not the front row, so anybody I knew, I couldn't actually see.And yeah, you can only see, sort of like, the from the void, and then you have your screens, so you've six sets of screens that tell you your notes as well as what slides you're on, you know, so you can pivot. But other than that, I mean, it feels like you're just talking to yourself outside of whenever people, thankfully, applause. It's such a long process to get there.Corey: I've always said that there are a few different transition stages as the audience size increases, but for me, the final stage is more or less anything above 750 people. Because as you say, you aren't able to see that many beyond that point, and it doesn't really change anything meaningfully. The most common example that you see in the wild is jokes that work super well with a small group of people fall completely flat to large audiences. It's why so much corporate numerous cheesy because yeah, everyone in the rehearsals is sitting there laughing and the joke kills, but now you've got 5000 people sitting in a room and that joke just sounds strained and forced because there's no longer a conversation, and no one has the shared context that—the humor has to change. So, in some cases when you're telling a story about what you're going to say on stage, during a rehearsal, they're going to say, “Well, that joke sounds really corny and lame.” It's, “Yeah, wait until you see it in front of an audience. It will land very differently.” And I'm usually right on that.I would also advise, you know, doing what you do and having something important and useful to say, as opposed to just going up there to tell jokes the whole time. I wanted to talk about that because you talked about how you're using various CDK and other serverless style patterns in your work at Liberty Mutual.Matt: Yeah. So, we've been using CDK pretty extensively since it was, sort of, Q3 2019. At that point, it was new. Like, it had just gone GA at the time, just came out of dev preview. And we've been using CDK from the perspective of we want to be building serverless-first, well-architected apps, and ideally we want to be building them on AWS.Now, the thing is, we have 5000 people in our IT organization, so there's sort of a couple of ways you can take to try and get those people onto the cloud: You can either go the route of being, like, there is one true path to architecture, this is our architecture and everything you want to build can fit into that square box; or you can go the other approach and try and have the golden path where you say this is the paved road that is really easy to do, but if you want to differentiate from that route, that's okay. But what you need to do is feed back into the golden path if that works. Then everybody can improve. And that's where we've started been using CDK. So, what you heard me talk about was the software accelerator, and it's sort of a different approach.It's where anybody can build a pattern and then share it so that everybody else can rapidly, you know, just reuse it. And what that means is effectively you can, instead of having to have hundreds of people on a central team, you can actually just crowdsource, and sort of decentralize the function. And if things are good, then a small team can actually come in and audit them, so to speak, and check that it's well-architected, and doesn't have flaws, and drive things that way.Corey: I have to confess that I view the CDK as sort of a third stage automation approach, and it's one that I haven't done much work with myself. The first stage is clicking around in the console; the second is using CloudFormation or Terraform; the third stage is what we're talking about here is CDK or Pulumi, or something like that. And then you ascend to the final fourth stage, which is what I use, which is clicking around in the AWS console, but then you lie to people about it. ClickOps is poised to take over the world. But that's okay. You haven't gotten that far yet. Instead, you're on the CDK side. What advantages does CDK offer that effectively CloudFormation or something like it doesn't?Matt: So, first off, for ClickOps in Liberty, we actually have the AWS console as read-only in all of our accounts, except for sandbox. So, you can ClickOps in sandbox to learn, but if you want to do something real, unfortunately, it's going to fail you. So.—Corey: I love that pattern. I think I might steal that.Matt: [laugh]. So, originally, we went heavy on CloudFormation, which is why CDK worked well for us. And because we've actually—it's been a long journey. I mean, we've been deploying—2014, I think it was, we first started deploying to AWS, and we've used everything from Terraform, to you name it. We've built our own tools, believe it or not, that are basically CDK.And the thing about CloudFormation is, it's brilliant, but it's also incredibly verbose and long because you need to specify absolutely everything that you want to deploy, and every piece of configuration. And that's fine if you're just deploying a side project, but if you're in an enterprise that has responsibilities to protect user data, and you can't just deploy anything, they end up thousands and thousands and thousands of lines long. And then we have amazing guardrails, so if you tried to deploy a CloudFormation template with a flaw in it, we can either just fix it, or reject the deploy. But CloudFormation is not known to be the fastest to deploy, so you end up in this developer cycle, where you build this template by hand, and then it goes through that CloudFormation deploy, and then you get the failure message that it didn't deploy because of some compliance thing, and developers just got frustrated, and were like, sod this. [laugh].I'm not deploying to AWS. Back the on-prem. And that's where CDK was a bit different because it allowed us to actually build abstractions with all of our guardrails baked in, so that it just looked like a standard class, for developers, like, developers already know Java, Python, TypeScript, the languages off CDK, and so we were able to just make it easy by saying, “You want API Gateway? There's an API Gateway class. You want, I don't know, an EC2 instance? There you go.” And that way, developers could focus on the thing they wanted, instead of all of the compliance stuff that they needed to care about every time they wanted to deploy.Corey: Personally, I keep lobbying AWS to add my preferred language, which is crappy shell scripting, but for some reason they haven't really been quick to add that one in. The thing that I think surprises me, on some level—though, perhaps it shouldn't—is not just the adoption of serverless that you're driving at Liberty Mutual, but the way that you're interacting with that feels very futuristic, for lack of a better term. And please don't think that I'm in any way describing this in a way that's designed to be insulting, but I do a bunch of serverless nonsense on Twitter for Pets. That's not an exaggeration. twitterforpets.com has a bunch of serverless stuff behind it because you know, I have personality defects.But no one cares about that static site that's been a slide dump a couple of times for me, and a running joke. You're at Liberty Mutual; you're an insurance company. When people wind up talking about big enterprise institutions, you're sort of a shorthand example of exactly what they're talking about. It's easy to contextualize or think of that as being very risk averse—for obvious reasons; you are an insurance company—as well as wanting to move relatively slowly with respect to technological advancement because mistakes are going to have drastic consequences to all of your customers, people's lives, et cetera, as opposed to tweets or—barks—not showing up appropriately at the right time. How did you get to the, I guess, advanced architectural philosophy that you clearly have been embracing as a company, while having to be respectful of the risk inherent that comes with change, especially in large, complex environments?Matt: Yeah, it's funny because so for everyone, we were talking before this recording started about, I've been with Liberty since 2011. So, I've seen a lot of change in the length of time I've been here. And I've built everything from IBM applications right the way through to the modern serverless apps. But the interesting thing is, the journey to where we are today definitely started eight or nine years ago, at a minimum because there was something identified in the leadership that they said, “Listen, we're all about our customers. And that means we don't want to be wasting millions of dollars, and thousands of hours, and big trains of people to build software that does stuff. We want to focus on why are we building a piece of software, and how quickly can we get there? If you focus on those two things you're doing all right.”And that's why starting from the early days, we focused on things like, okay, everything needs to go through CI/CD pipelines. You need to have your infrastructure as code. And even if you're deploying on-prem, you're still going to be using the same standards that we use to deploy to AWS today. So, we had years and years and years of just baking good development practices into the company. And then whenever we started to move to AWS, the question became, do we want to just deploy the same thing or do we want to take full advantage of what the cloud has to offer? And I think because we were primed and because the leadership had the right direction, you know, we were just sitting there ready to say, “Okay, serverless seems like a way we can rapidly help our customers.” And that's what we've done.Corey: A lot of the arguments against serverless—and let's be clear, they rhyme with the previous arguments against cloud that lots of people used to make; including me, let's be clear here. I'm usually wrong when I try to predict the future. “Well, you're putting your availability in someone else's hands,” was the argument about cloud. Yeah, it turns out the clouds are better at keeping things up than we are as individual companies.Then with serverless, it's the, “Well, if they're handling all that stuff for you on their side, when they're down, you're down. That's an unacceptable business risk, so we're going to be cloud-agnostic and multi-cloud, and that means everything we build serverlessly needs to work in multiple environments, including in our on-prem environment.” And from the way that we're talking about servers and things that you're building, I don't believe that is technically possible, unless some of the stuff you're building is ridiculous. How did you come to accept that risk organizationally?Matt: These are the conversations that we're all having. Sort of, I'd say once a week, we all have a multi-cloud discussion—and I really liked the article you wrote, it was maybe last year, maybe the year before—but multi-cloud to me is about taking the best capabilities that are out there and bringing them together. So, you know, like, Azure [ID 00:12:47] or whatever, things from the other clouds that they're good at, and using those rather than thinking, “Can I build a workload that I can simultaneously pay all of the price to run across all of the clouds, all of the time, so that if one's down, theoretically, I might have an outage?” So, the way we've looked at it is we embraced really early the well-architected framework from AWS. And it talks about things like you need to have multi-region availability, you need to have your backups in place, you need to have things like circuit breakers in place for if third-party goes down, and we've just tried to build really resilient architectures as best as we can on AWS. And do you know what I think, if [laugh] it AWS is not—I know at re:Invent, there it went down extraordinarily often compared to normal, but in general—Corey: We were all tired of re:Invent; their us-east-1 was feeling the exact same way.Matt: Yeah, so that's—it deserved a break. But, like, if somebody can't buy insurance for an hour, once a year, [laugh] I think we're okay with it versus spending millions to protect that one hour.Corey: And people make assumptions based on this where, okay, we had this problem with us-east-1 that froze things like the global Route 53 control planes; you couldn't change DNS for seven hours. And I highlighted that as, yeah, this is a problem, and it's something to severely consider, but I will bet you anything you'd care to name that there is an incredibly motivated team at AWS, actively fixing that as we speak. And by—I don't know how long it takes to untangle all of those dependencies, but I promise they're going to be untangled in relatively short order versus running data centers myself, when I discover a key underlying dependency I didn't realize was there, well, we need to break that. That's never going to happen because we're trying to do things as a company, and it's just not the most important thing for us as a going concern. With AWS, their durability and reliability is the most important thing, arguably compared to security.Would you rather be down or insecure? I feel like they pick down—I would hope in most cases they would pick down—but they don't want to do either one. That is something they are drastically incentivized to fix. And I'm never going to be able to fix things like that and I don't imagine that you folks would be able to either.Matt: Yeah, so, two things. The first thing is the important stuff, like, for us, that's claims. We want to make sure at any point in time, if you need to make a claim you can because that is why we're here. And we can do that with people whether or not the machines are up or down. So, that's why, like, you always have a process—a manual process—that the business can operate, irrespective of whether the cloud is still working.And that's why we're able to say if you can't buy insurance in that hour, it's okay. But the other thing is, we did used to have a lot of data centers, and I have to say, the people who ran those were amazing—I think half the staff now work for AWS—but there was this story that I heard where there was an app that used to go down at the same time every day, and nobody could work out why. And it was because someone was coming in to clean the room at that time, and they unplugged the server to plug in a vacuum, and then we're cleaning the room, and then plugging it back in again. And that's the kind of thing that just happens when you manage people, and you manage a building, and manage a premises. Whereas if you've heard that happened that AWS, I mean, that would be front page news.Corey: Oh, it absolutely would. There's also—as you say, if it's the sales function, if people aren't able to buy insurance for an hour, when us-east-1 went down, the headlines were all screaming about AWS taking an outage, and some of the more notable customers were listed as examples of this, but the story was that, “AWS has massive outage,” not, “Your particular company is bad at technology.” There's sort of a reputational risk mitigation by going with one of these centralized things. And again, as you're alluding to, what you're doing is not life-critical as far as the sales process and getting people to sign up. If an outage meant that suddenly a bunch of customers were no longer insured, that's a very different problem. But that's not your failure mode.Matt: Exactly. And that's where, like, you got to look at what your business is, and what you're specifically doing, but for 99.99999% of businesses out there, I'm pretty sure you can be down for the tiny window that AWS is down per year, and it will be okay, as long as you plan for it.Corey: So, one thing that really surprised me about the entirety of what you've done at Liberty Mutual is that you're a big enterprise company, and you can take a look at any enterprise company, and say that they have dueling mottos, which is, “I am not going to comment on that,” or, “That's not funny.” Like, the safe mode for any large concern is to say nothing at all. But a lot of folks—not just you—at Liberty have been extremely vocal about the work that you're doing, how you view these things, and I almost want to call it advocacy or evangelism for the CDK. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that for a little while there, I thought you were an AWS employee in their DevRel program because you were such an advocate in such strong ways for the CDK itself.And that is not something I expected. Usually you see the most vocal folks working in environments that, let's be honest, tend to play a little bit fast and loose with things like formal corporate communications. Liberty doesn't and yet, there you folks are telling these great stories. Was that hard to win over as a culture, or am I just misunderstanding how corporate life is these days?Matt: No, I mean, so it was different, right? There was a point in time where, I think, we all just sort of decided that—I mean, we're really good at what we do from an engineering perspective, and we wanted to make sure that, given the messaging we were given, those 5000 teck employees in Liberty Mutual, if you consider the difference in broadcasting to 5000 versus going external, it may sound like there's millions, billions of people in the world, but in reality, the difference in messaging is not that much. So, to me what I thought, like, whenever I started anyway—it's not, like, we had a meeting and all decided at the same time—but whenever I started, it was a case of, instead of me just posting on all the internal channels—because I've been doing this for years—it's just at that moment, I thought, I could just start saying these things externally and still bring them internally because all you've done is widened the audience; you haven't actually made it shallower. And that meant that whenever I was having the internal conversations, nothing actually changed except for it meant external people, like all their Heroes—like Jeremy Daly—could comment on these things, and then I could bring that in internally. So, it almost helped the reverse takeover of the enterprise to change the culture because I didn't change that much except for change the audience of who I was talking to.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service. Although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLTP and OLAP, don't ask me to ever say those acronyms again, workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora, and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: One thing that you've done that I want to say is admirable, and I stumbled across it when I was doing some work myself over the break, and only right before this recording did I discover that it was you is the cdkpatterns.com website. Specifically what I love about it is that it publishes a bunch of different patterns of ways to do things. This deviates from a lot of tutorials on, “Here's how to build this one very specific thing,” and instead talks about, “Here's the architecture design; here's what the baseline pattern for that looks like.” It's more than a template, but less than a, “Oh, this is a messaging app for dogs and I'm trying to build a messaging app for cats.” It's very generalized, but very direct, and I really, really like that model of demo.Matt: Thank you. So, watching some of your Twitter threads where you experiment with new—Corey: Uh oh. People read those. That's a problem.Matt: I know. So, whatever you experiment with a new piece of AWS to you, I've always wondered what it would be like to be your enabling architect. Because technically, my job in Liberty is, I meant to try and stay ahead of everybody and try and ease the on-ramp to these things. So, if I was your enabling architect, I would be looking at it going, “I should really have a pattern for this.” So that whenever you want to pick up that new service the patterns in cdkpatterns.com, there's 24, 25 of them right there, but internally, there's way more than dozens now.The goal is, the pattern is the least amount to code for you to learn a concept. And then that way, you can not only see how something works, but you can maybe pick up one of the pieces of the well-architected framework while you're there: All of it's unit tested, all of it is proper, you know, like, commented code. The idea is to not be crap, but not be gold-plated either. I'm currently in the process of upgrading that all to V2 as well. So, that [unintelligible 00:21:32].Corey: You mentioned a phrase just now: “Enabling architect.” I have to say this one that has not crossed my desk before. Is that an internal term you use? Is that an enterprise concept I've somehow managed to avoid? Is that an AWS job role? What is that?Matt: I've just started saying [laugh] it's my job over the past couple of years. That—I don't know, patent pending? But the idea to me is—Corey: No, it's evocative. I love the term, I'd love to learn more.Matt: Yeah, because you can sort of take two approaches to your architecture: You can take the traditional approach, which is the ‘house of no' almost, where it's like, “This is the architecture. How dare you want to deviate. This is what we have decided. If you want to change it, here's the Architecture Council and go through enterprise architecture as people imagine it.” But as people might work out quite quickly, whenever they meet me, the whole, like, long conversational meetings are not for me. What I want to do is teach engineers how to help themselves, so that's why I see myself as enabling.And what I've been doing is using techniques like Wardley Mapping, which is where you can go out and you can actually take all the components of people's architecture and you can draw them on a map for—it's a map of how close they are to the customer, as well as how cutting edge the tech is, or how aligned to our strategic direction it is. So, you can actually map out all of the teams, and—there's 160, 170 engineers in Belfast and Dublin, and I can actually go in and say, “Oh, that piece of your architecture would be better if it was evolved to this. Well, I have a pattern for that,” or, “I don't have a pattern for that, but you know what? I'll build one and let's talk about it next week.” And that's always trying to be ahead, instead of people coming to me and I have to say no.Corey: AWS Proton was designed to do something vaguely similar, where you could set out architectural patterns of—like, the two examples that they gave—I don't know if it's in general availability yet or still in public preview, but the ones that they gave were to build a REST API with Lambda, and building something-or-other with Fargate. And the idea was that you could basically fork those, or publish them inside of your own environment of, “Oh, you want a REST API; go ahead and do this.” It feels like their vision is a lot more prescriptive than what yours is.Matt: Yeah. I talked to them quite a lot about Proton, actually because, as always, there's different methodologies and different ways of doing things. And as I showed externally, we have our software accelerator, which is kind of our take on Proton, and it's very open. Anybody can contribute; anybody can consume. And then that way, it means that you don't necessarily have one central team, you can have—think of it more like an SRE function for all of the patterns, rather than… the Proton way is you've separate teams that are your DevOps teams that set up your patterns and then separate team that's consumer, and they have different permissions, different rights to do different things. If you use a Proton pattern, anytime an update is made to that pattern, it auto-deploys your infrastructure.Corey: I can see that breaking an awful lot.Matt: [laugh]. Yeah. So, the idea is sort of if you're a consumer, I assume you [unintelligible 00:24:35] be going to change that infrastructure. You can, they've built in an escape hatch, but the whole concept of it is there's a central team that looks to what the best configuration for that is. So, I think Proton has so much potential, I just think they need to loosen some of the boundaries for it to work for us, and that's the feedback I've given them directly as well.Corey: One thing that I want to take a step beyond this is, you care about this? More than most do. I mean, people will work with computers, yes. We get paid for that. Then they'll go and give talks about things. You're doing that as well. They'll launch a website occasionally, like, cdkpatterns.com, which you have. And then you just sort of decide to go for the absolute hardest thing in the world, and you're one of four authors of a book on this. Tell me more.Matt: Yeah. So, this is something that there's a few of us have been talking since one of the first CDK Days, where we're friends, so there's AWS Heroes. There's Thorsten Höger, Matt Bonig, Sathyajith Bhat, and myself, came together—it was sometime in the summer last year—and said, “Okay. We want to write a book, but how do we do this?” Because, you know, we weren't authors before this point; we'd never done it before. We weren't even sure if we should go to a publisher, or if we should self-publish.Corey: I argue that no one wants to write a book. They want to have written a book, and every first-time author I've ever spoken to at the end has said, “Why on earth would anyone want to do this a second time?” But people do it.Matt: Yeah. And that's we talked to Alex DeBrie, actually, about his book, the amazing Dynamodb Book. And it was his advice, told us to self-publish. And he gave us his starter template that he used for his book, which took so much of the pain out because all we had to do was then work out how we were going to work together. And I will say, I write quite a lot of stuff in general for people, but writing a book is completely different because once it's out there, it's out there. And if it's wrong, it's wrong. You got to release a new version and be like, “Listen, I got that wrong.” So, it did take quite a lot of effort from the group to pull it together. But now that we have it, I want to—I don't have a printed copy because it's only PDF at the minute, but I want a copy just put here [laugh] in, like, the frame. Because it's… it's what we all want.Corey: Yeah, I want you to do that through almost a traditional publisher, selfishly, because O'Reilly just released the AWS Cookbook, and I had a great review quote on the back talking about the value added. I would love to argue that they use one of mine for The CDK Book—and then of course they would reject it immediately—of, “I don't know why you do all this. Using the console and lying about it is way easier.” But yeah, obviously not the direction you're trying to take the book in. But again, the industry is not quite ready for the lying version of ClickOps.It's really neat to just see how willing you are to—how to frame this?—to give of yourself and your time and what you've done so freely. I sometimes make a joke—that arguably isn't that funny—that, “Oh, AWS Hero. That means that you basically volunteer for a $1.6 trillion company.”But that's not actually what you're doing. What you're doing is having figured out all the sharp edges and hacked your way through the jungle to get to something that is functional, you're a trailblazer. You're trying to save other people who are working with that same thing from difficult experiences on their own, having to all thrash and find our own way. And not everyone is diligent and as willing to continue to persist on these things. Is that a somewhat fair assessment how you see the Hero role?Matt: Yeah. I mean, no two Heroes are the same, from what I've judged, I haven't met every Hero yet because pandemic, so Vegas was the first time [I met most 00:28:12], but from my perspective, I mean, in the past, whatever number of years I've been coding, I've always been doing the same thing. Somebody always has to go out and be the first person to try the thing and work out what the value is, and where it'll work for us more work for us. The only difference with the external and public piece is that last 5%, which it's a very different thing to do, but I personally, I like even having conversations like this where I get to meet people that I've never met before.Corey: You sort of discovered the entire secret of why I have an interview podcast.Matt: [laugh]. Yeah because this is what I get out of it, just getting to meet other people and have new experiences. But I will say there's Heroes out there doing very different things. You've got, like, Hiro—as in Hiro, H-I-R-O—actually started AWS Newbies and she's taught—ah, it's hundreds of thousands of people how to actually just start with AWS, through a course designed for people who weren't coders before. That kind of thing is next-level compared to anything I've ever done because you know, they have actually built a product and just given it away. I think that's amazing.Corey: At some level, building a product and giving it away sounds like, “You know, I want to never be lonely again.” Well, that'll work because you're always going to get support tickets. There's an interesting narrative around how to wind up effectively managing the community, and users, and demands, based on open-source maintainers, that we're all wrestling with as an industry, particularly in the wake of that whole log4j nonsense that we've been tilting at that windmill, and that's going to be with us for a while. One last thing I want to talk about before we wind up calling this an episode is, you are one of the organizers of CDK Day. What is that?Matt: Yeah, so CDK Day, it's a complete community-organized conference. The past two have been worldwide, fully virtual just because of the situation we're in. And I mean, they've been pretty popular. I think we had about 5000 people attended the last one, and the idea is, it's a full day of the community just telling their stories of how they liked or disliked using the CDK. So, it's not a marketing event; it's not a sales event; we actually run the whole event on a budget of exactly $0. But yeah, it's just a day of fun to bring the community together and learn a few things. And, you know, if you leave it thinking CDK is not for you, I'm okay with that as much as if you just make a few friends while you're there.Corey: This is the first time I'd realized that it wasn't a formal AWS event. I almost feel like that's the tagline that you should have under it. It's—because it sounds like the CDK Day, again, like, it's this evangelism pure, “This is why it's great and why you should use it.” But I love conferences that embrace critical views. I built one of the first talks I ever built out that did anything beyond small user groups was “Heresy in the Church of Docker.”Then they asked me to give that at ContainerCon, which was incredibly flattering. And I don't think they made that mistake a second time, but it was great to just be willing to see some group of folks that are deeply invested in the technology, but also very open to hearing criticism. I think that's the difference between someone who is writing a nuanced critique versus someone who's just [pure-on 00:31:18] zealotry. “But the CDK is the answer to every technical problem you've got.” Well, I start to question the wisdom of how applicable it really is, and how objective you are. I've never gotten that vibe from you.Matt: No, and that's the thing. So, I mean, as we've worked out in this conversation, I don't work for AWS, so it's not my product. I mean, if it succeeds or if it fails, it doesn't impact my livelihood. I mean, there are people on the team who would be sad for, but the point is, my end goal is always the same. I want people to be enabled to rapidly deliver their software to help their customers.If that's CDK, perfect, but CDK is not for everyone. I mean, there are other options available in the market. And if, even, ClickOps is the way to go for you, I am happy for you. But if it's a case of we can have a conversation, and I can help you get closer to where you need to be with some other tool, that's where I want to be. I just want to help people.Corey: And if I can do anything to help along that axis, please don't hesitate to let me know. I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me and being so generous, not just with your time for this podcast, but all the time you spend helping the rest of us figure out which end is up, as we continue to find that the way we manage environments evolves.Matt: Yeah. And, listen, just thank you for having me on today because I've been reading your tweets for two years, so I'm just starstruck at this moment to even be talking to you. So, thank you.Corey: No, no. I understand that, but don't worry, I put my pants on two legs at a time, just like everyone else. That's right, the thought leader on Twitter, you have to jump into your pants. That's the rule. Thanks again so much. I look forward to having a further conversation with you about this stuff as I continue to explore, well honestly, what feels like a brand new paradigm for how we manage code.Matt: Yeah. Reach out if you need any help.Corey: I certainly will. You'll regret asking. Matt [Coulter 00:33:06], Technical Architect at Liberty Mutual. 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, write an angry comment, then click the submit button, but lie and say you hit the submit button via an API call.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.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

I typically open up my monologue with setting some tension or to attempt to provoke how a grand idea might come together in the upcoming audio. I don't have that today. What I have is a young entrepreneur that impressed me with his story, branding, and how he's approaching the business of…college movers. I know you normally tune in for the SaaS powered wins or the WordPress unicorns, but trust me when I tell you, Sam Chason, founder of Storage Scholars, is bringing the heat. I'll admit, his story was so good, that I almost didn't believe him. I fully expected to decline the interview headed into our pre-interview. Luckily that wasn't the case, and now I'll be rooting for him from the sidelines hoping he can turn this business into a massive success. By the way, we do talk WordPress/WooCommerce and the platforms he's tried in the past — we're still getting our hands dirty here. If you enjoy the episode and want to buy me a virtual coffee in support, go to buymeacofee.com/mattreport and show your support for the show. Episode transcript [00:00:00] Sam: Storage scholars is a door to door, white glove service for college students. So basically the way that the service works it's generally for out-of-state or international studies.[00:00:09] I was from New York. I went to a school called wake forest, North Carolina, and I had two international hallmates, one from China, one from Ethiopia, and I would stereotypically see them bring over two large suitcases overseas. They'd bought the rest of the stuff that they needed at target bed bath and beyond, et cetera.[00:00:24] And there was just no way they were going to ship back their bedding or school supplies back to China. Right. So I thought, had to be a better way type deal. So the way the service works now is students receive boxes and packing supplies that we prefer finalists. They packed up their stuff. They snap a couple photos of the items.[00:00:39] They're looking at store add any extra insurance, lock up their room and go home. And then we generally have contracts with these universities. We get key access from the dorms. We use students on those campuses to do a contact us, move out about a 24 to 72 hours after campus closes, store it for the summer, however long they need to store it for and then have it ready and waiting in their new room pre delivered when they arrived back on campus.[00:01:01] So that's some storage scholars in a nutshell.[00:01:03] Matt: Yeah. When I first, before. You and I chatted. I was like, okay, moving. Like I say, moving company. And in my, in my head, I'm like, big industry makes sense. But then when we chatted and you're like, yeah, but people don't need to bring all their stuff back.[00:01:17] They're gone for whatever a month, 45 days, a half semester or whatever the thing is. Ship, all this stuff back. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. You mentioned that there were some competitors out there kind of doing this same thing, but just kind of half asking it. Right. It was just a little bit of, one thing, a little bit of the other, not the full, the full compliment.[00:01:38] What are you doing better than the[00:01:39] Sam: current. Well, yeah, definitely shout out Nick hubris, sweaty start up. He was one of the first people I met doing this up at Cornell and that's kinda how I ended up on Twitter and probably my view as well. He, he sold a similar business up in the Northeast, so we were more so in the Southeast, we actually just recently signed a contract with a school in Pennsylvania a couple of days ago.[00:01:56] So making an expansion there watch out during removers, but a lot of it has to do with not only the university partnerships. So we're doing everything by the school's books. There's some others kind of, Companies out there that will just farm emails blast to a school and just figure they can get 30, 40, 50 customers per school and say that they operate at 80 a hundred institutions across the country.[00:02:16] We're more about building deep in Beth's in-depth relationships with those schools. And not only with the administration, but then also. Really fostering entrepreneurship on these campuses and kind of in two to three students, generally sophomores, they have some long longevity and bring these kids on board.[00:02:31] Having them shadow us, they can learn really important, like marketing operations, entrepreneurial type skills in school and ideally pay the wafers their way through college, kind of the same way that I[00:02:40] Matt: did. Yeah. So it's like, it's I don't, these are my words. You tell me paid internship. Is that how it.[00:02:47] Sam: That's funny. You say that that's actually quote unquote what I just put on our handshake profile. Some of these schools, cause it was not getting accepted before as more of like a high paying job. I figured not only is that what's more appealing to a college student nowadays. They want something for their resume, but also something they can make money on it, but it's also kind of the way we were able to get it out of these universities and getting on those job boards in the shop postings.[00:03:07] But, but it's very valid to,[00:03:08] Matt: so to my dedicated audience, so. Of what Sam just said is probably clicking to you. Why? Sam is here generally, I'm interviewing somebody who has a digital product, a digital service and agency software as a service. We're going to get to that in a moment, but I really love the, because again, people who listen to this know that I'm a huge proponent of entrepreneurship, but learning the nuts and bolts of it, rolling up the sleeves and getting to work.[00:03:33] It's a fantastic model. So I applaud you for like having this platform for people to. Really figure things out. I don't want to say the hard way, but like, you're getting them a job. They're learning all of this stuff. Have you been able to measure that? I know it's kind of early days for you, but how have you measured the success of people actually learning the business side of things, even if they're not sticking with you, for years as their end, is there anything like that, that you have a feedback loop?[00:03:59] Sam: Yeah. I mean myself. I The reason why I started this business was to pay my way through school. I did it more out of necessity. But my business partner, actually, he was a year younger than me. He's across the room over here. He's probably got his headphones in, but he was a biochemistry major coming to school, like 4.0 student, like probably could have gone to Stanford med.[00:04:16] But really got the itch, got the bug working with. And decided about halfway through his junior year to tell his whole family, Hey, I'm putting my medical career on hold. I really want to actually make, not necessarily to make a difference, be able to actually do things with my, with do things with my time, like immediately, as opposed to going to medical school residency and not be able to actually have a career until 10, 12 years after school.[00:04:36] So he was probably like the first one. And then. As we went out and started hiring these co-founders, I'm going to had kids that were sophomores, juniors, seniors, and they graduated and they all wanted to had three of them wanted to then work full-time afterwards. We ended up doing that. He ended up running like a residential, commercial moving company that we had for a little while.[00:04:52] Other ones have then worked for a little bit and then gone out and worked for companies like at JP Morgan. And truly, I think the biggest thing about this is a lot of times people will have things on the resume. And, but they don't necessarily have the ability to talk about it. Like, Hey, I worked at, I intern at UI Parthenon.[00:05:07] That's been amazing, but like, what did you actually do at Eli Parthenon? Right. And when they work at storage scholars, they have such a breadth of actually what they did. They went from they're calling the customers. They're actually meeting the customers. They're executing tons of marketing strategies are actually learning sales experience directly from us.[00:05:25] Full-scale entrepreneurship and we're taking all the tools that we've had found successful on campuses in the past, give them that playbook, but then also giving them pretty much unlimited budget to then do whatever they feel is best on their campus. And they feel really empowered. That's really where we found most of our success.[00:05:40] Matt: That's awesome stuff. A listener. You might hear some noise in the background. Sam is sitting in his common area of his apartment building, but I'm happy to report if you're watching the show on, on YouTube, YouTube, youtube.com/uh, the Matt report. Sam has a professional microphone in front of him. Thanks to thanks to me, urging him to get one, because he'll be doing a round of podcasts and you'll realize how good it is for his business and the marketing side.[00:06:02] In our pre-interview you mentioned Excel. I want to talk about the software side of it, and then we'll talk about more of like that marketing and branding stuff. Cause I think your, your branding's on point and I want to learn a little bit more. How you got to that point, why you realize that's important, but in our pre-interview you mentioned that your brother helped build some of the software.[00:06:21] Of the business. A lot of my listeners are into that and to the software side, how they're making things click. Is there a certain tech stack that you can talk about that you're using to build the inner inner workings of the business or even the public facing one? Are you using WordPress for the website?[00:06:38] Sam: Stuff like that? I guess I'll start with the part that I'm more knowledgeable, but the front end was at one point it was WooCommerce when it first, first. Went to Squarespace. And then actually I'm probably about 80% done with migrating over to a web flow. Sorry, escaped my mind for a second. So the,[00:06:58] Matt: that you for leaving woo commerce.[00:07:00] And then, then now you're kind of, okay, he's going back to Webflow. So at least it's something that's.[00:07:04] Sam: Yeah, so more so from the aesthetic design aspect, we go into web flow mean not, we were kind of reaching our capabilities a lot more of like block tacks and block images on Squarespace. And I just wasn't able to kind of take it where I want it to go in terms of the branding.[00:07:17] But then the backend is, has gone through. A ton of different iterations. A lot of it had to do with, we had one business model and then you get key access from the universities. You go to a different business model, then you have COVID and you have to start doing like shipping packages. And my five brothers listened to this.[00:07:33] He definitely was a little frustrated. His, his, his answer was always, yes. Yes, we could do that, but w I don't think we really understood exactly what yes, Matt and all the work that went into that. And we have, I think 287 custom fields for each associated account for different like yes-no formulas and stuff like that, too.[00:07:50] But it's, it's basically built mostly on PHP angler a and my SQL eight in terms of the, kind of the front end of the database, and then AWS as well. So we're actually, he's stepping in. He's coming more of like a CTO role. And we're bringing in kind of like a development team. So we have two full-time developers, as well as somebody who's kind of managing them as well.[00:08:10] And they should be coming on board in the next couple of weeks. It will be the real test of all the feedback we've gotten is that he has really clean code. And I really hope that to be true, but[00:08:18] Matt: if not, why not? Brother's not getting anything for Christmas. Coming[00:08:21] Sam: now. He's, he's, he's an incredible mind.[00:08:23] So I would assume all of that stuff is.[00:08:25] Matt: I, I want to talk about this software segment for a little bit here. When you left WooCommerce, what were your reasons? You're not in an uncommon, a lot of people listening to this too. There's a segment who are agency owners, freelancers. They talked a lot of folks who hop through different CMSs.[00:08:40] They hear a bunch of different things. You're not in an uncommon seat to be making these jokes. But what was it for you to leave WooCommerce to begin with?[00:08:47] Sam: Yeah, you have to appreciate that. I was 18 and I was better than my first ever website. And I just had my brother at the time because he was the only like technical person.[00:08:54] I knew, Hey, like what should we build the website on? He kind of helped me build the WooCommerce website to begin with. And then I had a friend that was working for kind of a different startup. It was more, it was a food and Bev startups with a little more of a prettier interface. He's like, you gotta use Squarespace.[00:09:07] You gotta start using canvas. This is mind blowing to me like, oh, I can actually just drag and drop and make this as opposed to relying on my brother to actually go in and design something where he was extremely technically sound. But aesthetically is probably is more of a secondary. So that was more so just the ability for me to do it myself.[00:09:23] But I'm sure now, five, six years later will commerce would, it would have been more of a drag and drop. It just was a little more intimidating at the time. Yeah, for[00:09:30] Matt: sure. For sure. Is the software side without revealing the secret sauce. Is that a secret sauce for you over your competition?[00:09:39] Like what technologies or how do you simplify this experience for your customers through the avenue of.[00:09:47] Sam: A hundred percent. It's definitely, there's no reason to fully reinvent the wheel. Storage and moving companies existed obviously for decades, what we do. It's, you can't buy some off the shelf software.[00:09:58] That's actually going to work for exactly what you're looking for. So we've definitely, scoured the competition. We've built our own software and then we've also kind of taken probably some of the 10, five, 10% from these other. Worked for them. And put it into our platform. Of course they can kind of like a, a Frank and business of, of storage scholars for the college Jordan's game.[00:10:17] But I think a couple of the things are you market to the college students, but the real customers are kind of the parents. So that was the biggest lesson we learned in terms of making accounts that can give both parent and student access where the student come on, they can make the account, the parent that doesn't have to like contact the student to find out their log.[00:10:34] The parent can pay. The student can edit the pick-up drop-off information. It's a whole open flow of information that in the past it would be that scenario would be that Jane Smith is a divorced mom and she made an account for her son Johnny Maxwell and. The account would say Jane Smith, but it's actually for the sun and it's like, what is going on?[00:10:54] Right. So being able to really be flawless in the flow of information and then that way we actually know exactly who we're communicating to, and we can also communicate both to the students and parents and keep everybody in the loop is it's probably the biggest differentiator.[00:11:05] Matt: Is this all website on the website or is there a mobile.[00:11:08] That everybody has instant access to.[00:11:11] Sam: Yeah, it's a mobily optimized website right now. That's actually where we're stepping into as well as making an app. I think the initial instinct was why do we need an app who wants to download a storage app and have it on their phone at all times? But at the same time, there is definitely limitations with websites and being able to upload images quickly.[00:11:27] And just more so the speed of the site is what's holding us back right now from not necessarily a customer standpoint, that's a lot simpler, but more of a managerial standpoint because customer they're uploading. Five images, total where the managers are going in, potentially looking at 600 orders in a one or two day period and just the load speed and the page speed needs to be increased.[00:11:44] So making a oh an app first for the managers where they can also integrate all the software, use it right now, like off the shelf in terms of time tracking payroll and also integrating our actual software altogether to have one harmonious unit.[00:11:58] Matt: What challenges are you finding? Kind of like you're almost in that marketplace.[00:12:04] Conundrum where you need to kind of serve two different crowds, right? So in a, in a marketplace standpoint, you need the customers to show up and you need the inventory to sell them in your case, you need the customers to show up, but you also you're like, so you're building a software for these customers to snap the photos of the stuff.[00:12:21] People need to pack up and move for them. But then you're also trying to build software for your team to use, efficiently and effectively. How is that process? Like, you get customers that give you feedback. Hey, this experience was great. This experience sucked. And then you get the same feedback from your, from your employees.[00:12:35] Or like, I can't find the stuff fast enough, or I can't see all the orders coming in. Has that been a challenge at all or fairly smooth sailing so[00:12:43] Sam: far? Yeah, definitely. Always been customer first. I think the customer experience has not been sacrificed by any means, but it's been the iterations of the business.[00:12:53] So like right now, About 80% or sorry to say it's about 50, 50, I would say at this point, because we keep changing of our business is key access schools, kids leave their stuff in their room. They go home. We do big mass move-outs in 24, 48 hours. That has, Boriso been put on the back burner because we have a little more time and autonomy.[00:13:13] We're not dealing directly with the students. Face-to-face where we can kind of sit back and wait for the website to load or just kind of go on your computer. Make that work, but then you have an entirely different way. We built it where it's like a by appointment where you meet the customers at the door, they pick up time, they're on a alive queue and then there's worklist associated with that.[00:13:30] So the by appointment has been perfected, but then now that we continue to evolve and make the business model better, it's like actually having them make two different work lists, one for like a one day, move out and one for like a 10 day move out. And with, with all the things that have obviously happened in the last 12 months, we had to.[00:13:46] Make some other things become priority, but I think, I don't think, this year is exactly what we're doing. We're actually going to make that. So they're both working and you can have a work list. You can download that. You can search by it. You can filter by dorm. You can filter by floor of the dorm, and then you're just going through and just crushing dorm by dorm, as opposed to like looking at specific dates or people are signing up for their move-outs.[00:14:05] I want to[00:14:05] Matt: move on to talk about the challenges of running the business. Aside from the software and talk about these logistic things, part of the advantage. I remember you telling me and you, I think you mentioned it before in the pre-interview is that you do go into the room, right? They, you get access to the room to grab the.[00:14:21] And your competition doesn't do that, right?[00:14:25] Sam: Yeah. So, some. Some of these schools have access to the dorms. But the thing is, is that a lot of them are, are basically more so high level marketing companies. And then they're farming out the actual, moving to local moving companies and with what's going on with COVID and stuff as well, in terms of like having, being coming vaccinated, that's one big barrier to entry at like, well, how are you going to trust us outside moving company to walk into your dorms, but who can you trust?[00:14:49] The students on your campus because they've been vaccinated. So that was kind of one way for us to get a backdoor approach to that. And then on top of that too, if you're an 18 year old girl and your father is sending you to school, does your father really want you to have, 40 old man walking into your room stereotypically, right.[00:15:03] And walking into that dorm and picking up your stuff and moving it out when you could have a kid that was in your calculus class. And we definitely do struggle with the kind of balancing that image of peer to peer, but also. Kind of perfection and, level of quality because some people are like, this is awesome.[00:15:18] You're my, your. Current, classmate at the same time, my mom doesn't mind if I can trust you with my stuff. So that's another reason kind of behind the branding and trying to make us see them a more of like the Uber black premier service. We're not a discount service, we're charging a premium price and, our level of service should be reflected in that just because we're using students, that doesn't necessarily decrease the quality.[00:15:37] It's just increasing the personalization. Yeah.[00:15:40] Matt: And, but the particular challenge getting to was is you have to make these, not only do you have to make that I guess, sale or relationship to the customer, but you also have to make it with the school because it's not like the school is just going to let you do all this stuff without, I'm assume without them knowing who the heck you are and like what's going on.[00:15:56] They start seeing all these black t-shirts rolling in the nice logos on it. Like what's happening here. I'm sure you have to try. Again, like a couple sides of the fence that the end user customer, and then the place that has the inventory, which is the school and in it, you have to build up those relationships on both sides.[00:16:14] The, and then the next challenge, which popped into my head when we were chatting earlier is just the, student, what I'll say is a paid internship. These student body employees, if you will, across the country how are you managing. Scaling that like, do you have to start having regional managers, people, once they do graduate school, they become an actual full season employee with you.[00:16:38] And now they're managers of that school. How does that ramp[00:16:41] Sam: up? Yeah. So we call those internships. We call them campus co-founders because we truly believe that they are kind of co-founding in some ways like franchising their campus, and they can either get an inflated hourly upwards, 15 to $20 an hour at a base, or they can essentially get like a percentage of revenue.[00:16:57] And then of course, they're going to see that increase the more years that they're actually operating. So when you have, like, for example, you had a kid who, a soft. Junior senior. By the time he was senior year, he made $20,000 in a single move out based on that revenue schedule. And then he wanted to continue working full time.[00:17:14] So I think you have the people that are naturally interested. But the challenge with that of course is when we were kind of under a million dollars in sales or a couple years ago, it was all right. Well, we want to bring these people on, but the beauty of this business is seasonal. And as a full-time student, it was.[00:17:28] But like now that we're graduating we're no longer in school. We have all this extra time and like, to what you alluded to, we're spending a lot more of that time actually selling universities and kind of university sales, as opposed to just, building up this marketing and then trying to do the move out and then do the move in and.[00:17:42] Taking a rest because we actually have school to do it. It's finding a job to do the rest of the year. So as we've been able to grow, I think the beauty of this is that the more people that have actually wanted to work full-time we've been able to give them full-time opportunities. So we heard a gift from Milan.[00:17:55] We hired a kid actually just from college of Charleston a couple of weeks ago. He came on full time and then we have two more in the pipeline, one from Richmond and one from Washington and Lee university that are currently seniors in. There if express interests and, and working post-graduation I think for the first time, I'm really excited that we actually will be able to give them full-time opportunities as just like you said, as regional managers and one region managing their region physically, but then also helping to then manage remote.[00:18:20] No another five or 10 that are schools under their domain.[00:18:23] Matt: Do you look at certain areas? So I'm south of Boston, there's a billion schools here. Like, do you look at areas that you want to go into that maybe you haven't found any organic interest from? Is that a thing? Or is it like, Hey, I'm just like this natural growth just works and it's way easier to manage or do you look at territories that you want to get into and, and how does.[00:18:44] Sam: A hundred percent. So I went to school in North Carolina, so natural expansion was Virginia, South Carolina. Saw a competitor that had a school in Texas at SMU. So that's how we went down to Texas rice and that's to me this past year, I just moved down to Texas to expand that. Texas and Florida. But I'm from New York, my business partners from Boston too.[00:19:01] So we definitely have our sights set on the Northeast. There's just actually a little more competition up there. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Mean being a fast follower is definitely a lot easier than trying to educate not only the school, but the customer on what a valet storage service is.[00:19:16] So I'd rather just go in where they've had a previous, service provider that's just bad. And then we can just go in and take over. But where are we? Found kind of those pockets is actually we started going to housing conferences. So conferences that have the residency, I, the operations people.[00:19:31] And that's actually where he met this one person from Pennsylvania, where by no means were we meaning to expand there. But we developed a great rapport. She loved what she heard and she was like, yeah, I'd love to sign an exclusive contract with y'all. That'll happen in the last couple of weeks, but now it's like, oh, well now that puts some eyes in Pennsylvania.[00:19:47] Maybe we need to expand there a little quicker and. Pennsylvania's got probably 20 schools that we could expand to. And once you have that kind of density, there's no reason not. Yeah.[00:19:55] Matt: I'd imagine and correct me if I'm wrong. Like I, I would imagine when you go into expand into a new territory, your biggest or potentially your biggest spend is going to be marketing and advertising.[00:20:05] Just to get the word out there. It's not like you're having to ship a bunch of product or these amazing boxes that we're going to talk about in a second. But is there any kind of like thing you have to ship in? And store your own storage stuff, something really meta, like, is there a thing you have to ship out there?[00:20:20] A box of stuff and people just have to.[00:20:23] Sam: Yeah. So yeah, I'll ship a box or two of our storage scholars boxes to the co-founders tell them to go out and buy a table, give them their corporate credit card to go do that. And that's going to have shirts, cups, stickers, banners, film backs, kind of that, that kind of marketing material.[00:20:37] But the beauty too, is that on any first year campus, whether we're talking about marketing materials or whether we're talking about. Storing kids' actual things is that, there's a really nice thing called self storage. That's usually five minutes from campus. So when we're not necessarily sure about a market, the numbers can look great, but it doesn't assign me.[00:20:54] People are going to use the service. So we'll use self storage almost exclusively for the first year. And then once you have that market proven, then you're going to go out and you're going to find an industrial warehouse lease. But that being said, it's also another challenge of the business because we might have.[00:21:06] 10 15,000 square feet from the four months of made August. But then all these kids move back in. You might have a couple of students that store longer. You might have some marketing materials, some extra boxes, but that's going to come down to a maximum, thousand square feet. Right. So then you're kind of downsizing either to self storage or coming up with a really creative lease with the landlord.[00:21:22] But that's a, that's definitely a, a tough aspect of the business too. It's finding that space.[00:21:27] Matt: Oh, when you raise a billion dollars, I hope it's not one of those. We work stories where you set out to be a coworking space, but you ended up being a real estate company. And then why the hell do you own all this property?[00:21:36] And you're like, oh, we're really a moving company. And then sheets are all imbalanced. Let's talk about, let's talk about marketing for a second. Toward the end of the show, a great marketing. I think I know the answer, but why did you focus on, how did you feel? How did you know that, that marketing's really going to work for something like this or branding and your logo and stuff is really going to work for something like this?[00:21:57] A competitive market.[00:21:59] Sam: Yeah, the way the business was started, as I printed out some flyers that I'd probably throw up out. If I looked at today, I'm there pretty embarrassing, but I went door to door. I saw all my freshmen, hallmates and freshman classmates, and they knock on the door and they say, come in.[00:22:13] I'm like, no, that's, I would knock on the door again to come in. And I'm like, no, I'm not who you think I am, but sure. I'll come in. So I, I definitely had some tough conversations at the beginning and got some raw feedback on what was what they were looking for and what they weren't looking for. But I think initially too, in terms of like a branding aspect after kind of doing that customer discovery was.[00:22:31] The best advice that I got from one of my entrepreneurship professors is there was a competitor on campus and I was like, oh, they're charging $14 a box. I'm going to charge 13. Oh, he's like, do not be the discount service, like always charge more and, but provide more too. Right. So I from, I wouldn't say day one, but from day two, it's like, okay.[00:22:49] Yes, we need to be out there. Be the premium service and service, the top level customer and give them the service that they, that they desire. And the whole black and white was really trying to be the. Premium futuristic, Uber black type experience, luxury experiences, as opposed to being, I don't know, like a green eco-friendly moving company.[00:23:07] We are. Absolutely. You can find that. I don't mean to say it like that, but I think sometimes there's, there's definitely certain colors that elicit certain emotions and I, I want it to be more of a sleek elite luxury brand.[00:23:17] Matt: Yeah. The do do when every time you're moving students, You always rocking the branded boxes or is it like one branded box on top and the rest of them are[00:23:26] Sam: brown?[00:23:27] No, absolutely. So not only does that give you the brand awareness, but actually, so we used to use obviously brown boxes, right. And we would buy these stickers and they put the sticker on top of the box. It also put the sticker on there, out of box item, their TV, their refrigerator, whatever. But in terms of like an inventory perspective, if you imagine you have a box and then you'd stack another box on top, And you have a sticker on the top.[00:23:49] Well, you can't see it. Right? So those boxes were also designed because you have their writing, their name, the order number, the item number on the top of the box. They're also writing it massively on the side of the box, actually in the storage facilities. They're lined up. Yeah. I see all their names very, very clearly.[00:24:04] So from just like an identification standpoint, that was the purpose of it. And then of course, yet when you walk around with black storage, collar shirts, white shirts, white shorts, and these big black boxes, and then you see them in the, in the dumpsters for two weeks after, and the recycling bins, after everyone leaves and comes back, it's like, it's great branding.[00:24:19] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. People wonder what the heck's going on. I want that, like, that looks easy. Speaking of looks easy. I'm looking at the. Archive a web archive.org site. And I'm looking back to August, 2018. Your tagline for the site back then was easy, effortless and economical live the scholars. How did you change that from a marketing perspective?[00:24:40] You started talking to customers, you chatted with them. They were like, no, we'll pay you a little bit more money. And you got rid of the word economical. How did that all play out? Changing that.[00:24:48] Sam: Yeah. I thought alliteration was more powerful than value at the time. So that's probably why I went with that.[00:24:53] But yeah, I it was, like I said, I, I want it to beat out the competition because also at the same time, I didn't, I wasn't confident. Like I knew it was confident in myself, but I'd never, I didn't want to over promise and under deliver. So to say, Hey, we're the best service we're better than the competition.[00:25:06] I'd never even moved to box before. It's like, that was kind of tough. So that was year one. And then once we, server. 64 students at wake forest university. I was like, all right, well, this went well. We made it happen. I touched every single box. I know exactly how this works. I shook probably half the kids hands and the parents hands that use this service.[00:25:22] All right. Now I'm confident we can go out there and start to spread what we're doing and do it in a, in a much better way and be able to charge that premium price tag, Sam,[00:25:30] Matt: this doesn't sound like it's your first rodeo. Who do you have? Have you ran a business before somebody, your dad, your parents, a great mentors.[00:25:38] You're just born with it. What is it?[00:25:40] Sam: So my parents are both public high school teachers in New York. I'm the youngest of three. My brother is a web developer, my sister's a and in fashion. So I, I didn't necessarily get it from them fully, but definitely the fiscal responsibility absolutely came from my parents, actually my grandfather mostly, and from, at a young age.[00:26:00] Kind of the quintessential story would be, and maybe two of them was that at five. I was like, Hey mom, dad, like, I want to have a lemonade stand. So great. Okay. So you're going to go out. You're going to buy the paper, the markers, the plastic cups and the, lemonade powder. And w we'll we'll lend you the money in the beginning, but you got to pass that back.[00:26:17] And to like be, $18 in debt at five years old, it's like, shit. Like I gotta make this happen. Right. So I'm standing out in the street and I'm flagging people down. And, and from that point on, even at age nine, I'm like, oh mom, like Frankie wants an Xbox for Christmas. Okay. Well, how are you going to get that for him?[00:26:33] Right. Well, it's like, I wasn't poor, but it just kind of given him. The fiscal responsibility at such a young age, what kind of drove me to, to start develop these skills very early on and start flipping ATVs cars and stuff like that in high school and selling candy out of my locker and middle school. I was always kind of hustling.[00:26:49] Matt: Are you, have you raised money? I don't think we, as we talked about this in the pre-interview raising money, organic bootstrap, I should say, or do you plan on raising money? What are the cards hold.[00:26:58] Sam: Yeah. Currently exclusively bootstrapped. Like I said, too excited for aside from a little PPP, but it, the, the business motto is structured such as, and the reason why I started this business was, Hey, I need to make money.[00:27:10] Like today. I need to pay for my school today. So how can I do that? And so kids would pay a $50 deposit, which they still do now. And that for me covered the initial cost of the boxes, the tape, the storage units, the trucks, and that's, what's been able to catapult. As far, I don't think we could grow to 150 schools next year without raising money, but that's not really the purpose or really the path right now.[00:27:33] Like I said, building deep in-depth relationships with the universities and the life cycle of a, of a university sales cycle is, is pretty it's pretty. Oh, it's more of a relationship driven business. So trying to figure that out along the way, and at this point where we've been able to bootstrap it and keep it going that way.[00:27:49] Matt: Sam chase and storage scholars, storage, scholars.com, Sam, anywhere else you want folks to go?[00:27:56] Sam: Yeah, definitely follow us on socials on on Instagram, on Facebook, LinkedIn, we are definitely trying to be a young company. So give us some rod feedback. If, if you're in that age, demographic 18 to 21, let us know what we're doing.[00:28:10] Right. Let's know what we're doing wrong. Love to hear from you, ★ Support this podcast ★

Neal Amrhein is the founder and CEO and Matt Erickson is the CTO of My Goat. My Goat is a subscription mowing service for commercial properties. They use robotic mowers and elegant software tools to make turf care easy, convenient, and affordable. Follow Neal on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-amrhein-9398969/). Follow Erik on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-erickson-153fish/). My Goat (https://mygoat.co/) Follow MyGoat on Twitter (https://twitter.com/MyGoatCo), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MyGoatCo), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/my-goat-inc), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjV3ITbDvfqhQGIImFL5T7g/featured), or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mygoatco/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is a couple of people from a company with actual robots. It's Neal Amrhein, the founder and CEO, and Matt Erickson, the CTO of My Goat. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me. So tell me more about this idea that you are robot-agnostic? Are you helping people choose the solution that's right for them? Or do you have go-to vendors? NEIL: We do. So my philosophy, having spent a number of years in technology selling hardware and even software solutions, is that one thing that my experience has held is that hardware gets better, faster, and cheaper. And for us to invest in a hardware platform or have customers invest in a hardware platform, I liken it to my early adoption of high-definition televisions where in 2003, I was one of those guys that spent $2,400 on a 42-inch Sony Wega TV. And now you can get a 70-inch with a lot more technology and so forth for about $300 at Costco. So my feeling about hardware is it gets better, faster, cheaper. It's really the software that makes the difference in terms of how you leverage it. So we engage about 6 to 12 different hardware manufacturers that make autonomous robots from robots that are 27 to 35 pounds up to 1,200 pounds and all different variations in between. And then, we extract the communication tools so that we can help our users who are formerly the groundskeepers become technology groundskeepers. And they are now interfacing with the concept of autonomous robots that are mowing commercial properties 24/7, which we would actually call maintaining versus mowing. So we use nighttime, you know, day, night, rain or shine. So that's why we're robot-agnostic and welcome the latest and greatest designers and developers of hardware. We've got some folks that are just totally focused on designing, and developing, and building awesome autonomous robotic mowers with solar panels or great things that are going out there. And we're the software platform that brings it all together. CHAD: I totally get what you're saying about the progress of hardware and wanting to be in the business of creating value on top of that. How do you make sure that you don't take on the business risk of one of the manufacturers just providing the solution that you're providing? NEIL: Chad, we don't look at a business risk if there's a manufacturer that's going and selling autonomous robotic mowers. We welcome that, in fact, because that helps us with the adoption process. The idea of having, you know, Roomba is the de facto vacuum cleaner that goes randomly in your house. But there are half a dozen other hardware devices and opportunities, and they're all selling it. It's really how are you managing that Roomba? Which is also the subscription component of the Netflix part of our business, which is that Roomba may be a shark next year. It may be something else the following year. For our customers, we select the best hardware for their particular property, whether it's a golf course. They may have an autonomous robot that's manufactured by XYZ for the tee box and another one for the fairway, and another one for the greens. They just pay a monthly subscription for access to the software to manage those particular hardware pieces and optimize that hardware. And that's something that Matt will talk a little bit about. But we really have taken the approach that robots are just like cars. They'll sit in your garage 20 hours out of the week, but they're actually effectively useful 168 hours a week. So how do we maximize that and utilize the hardware itself? And that's what our software does. And of course, with that, we share that information with our customers and our users to continue to make it more efficient. CHAD: Thanks, Neil. Matt, what does the software stack actually look like that you're all putting together? MATT: So we got to talk about the technology so Laravel, PHP, MySQL. We host in DigitalOcean. And we have a WordPress front end, but the back end is all Laravel PHP. CHAD: And so it's in the cloud for all the customers? MATT: Yes. CHAD: And then how do you communicate with the fleet? MATT: So we connect through APIs. The hardware generally has an API that can give us status updates at various intervals. So we aggregate that information back. And then, we present a web-based solution dashboard that includes different views. We can get into the different users and how we've tried to meet their needs and drive workflow for them. But at a high level, we've got some graphical dashboards. And we also have some very tactical workflows for the guys. We call them shepherds taking care of our goats on the ground. CHAD: I know that you said it's autonomous, but how do you communicate with the robots when you need to? Is it radio frequency locally, or is it cell phones? MATT: So the robots actually come with…they have both GPS and cellular connectivity. So we have pretty good real-time connectivity with the robots. So we can remotely control them. We can park them, or we can send them back to their charging stations, different features like that. You can adjust cutting height, things like that, remotely. We also use just text messaging, SMS for communicating with shepherds. It's kind of real-time feedback. So yeah, let me dig in a little bit, the autonomous idea of the robot. Yeah, we want them to be autonomous. And we work with our shepherds, groundskeepers so that each of the goats works in a pen, an area defined by that in the ground kind of like an invisible fence dog wire type thing. But basically, we work with the shepherds, and we have this training certification process. But basically, they can get that pen to an area where really what we shoot for about 72 hours of the robot should be able to operate autonomously within that pen for about three and a half days. And then shepherds will be instructed to move that robot to another pen for about three and a half days. Usually, one robot is taking care of…it ends up being about two and a half days. And that's kind of the way the software solution is driving that efficiency of people time as well as robot time. The robots can mow 24/7. They take care of the grass. They maintain it, as Neil mentioned earlier. So it's not throw the robot out once a week kind of thing. You have to change your thinking. A lot of what we deal with when we go to a robot solution over that traditional status quo mowing we really have to help people through that thought process of this is not how it used to be. It works differently. But yep, that's kind of the solution. CHAD: I feel like I need to ask, even though it's going to be a little bit of a tangent. MATT: [laughs] CHAD: How did you arrive at the name of My Goat and take the leap on a quirky name like that? NEIL: Yeah, it's a great question. [laughs] First of all, I think that I first saw one of these robots through a YouTube video about three and a half or four years ago. And you may or may not know this, Chad, but there are about 3 million of these things that have been sold since 1995. So this is not bleeding edge technology in any way, shape, or form. When I saw it on a YouTube video, it just kind of hit me that wow, these things are out there doing their thing day or night, rain or shine. And interestingly enough, the market, I guess the landscape market, the residential side, was somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 to $80 billion that we were targeting and looking at. And as far as the goats, I had talked to some early folks who were marketing folks, and we just settled on Goat. And then we put my on the front end of it. And before we knew it, we had My Goat. And as we've evolved from just a cool robot-centric organization that's using software, we've evolved into an organization that's really teaching shepherds how to become interactive with the goats. And it's taken a life of its own. The blades are called teeth. CHAD: [laughs] NEIL: And those are some of our…of course, the goats need to be brushed. They don't get washed, or they don't get sprayed down with water, but they get brushed. And there's the whole the operating system is the heart and all kinds of stuff that's been going on. CHAD: Well, I feel like with a name like My Goat, if you're not going to commit and carry that branding through to everything, what's the point? [laughter] NEIL: Right. Yes, it has taken a life of its own. And it's interesting. I don't know that it's the most catchy name for a software technology company. But it's certainly gotten some folks' attention, and it's helped. Let's put it this way: our marketing team really enjoys everything about what they can do with it. CHAD: Well, and there's something to having a brand and carrying that through in the naming that causes ideas to resonate with people and makes them special. At the end of the day, you're mowing lawns. And so making it special and communicating that you have something special, I think, is something that people can do regardless of what their product is thinking of ways of doing that. NEIL: Yeah. And I would add that I think the only pushback we've received on the name is probably from some of our high-end golf course users and prospects who don't want to turn their golf course into a goat track, so to speak. CHAD: [laughs] NEIL: But that's probably the extent of it. But overall, it's been well received without a doubt. And as we're focused on the software component of interacting with autonomous robots, our software development mentality and our vision is that it may be the same thing applied to 500 Roombas inside of a million square feet at a fulfillment center for Under Armour. And instead of having 50 people cleaning the floors, you may have five people managing 500. And how do they do that effectively and efficiently? So there's really a business-focused component of the vision that I've had for the business. And that's helped me, along with many others, to get us to where we are. MATT: I'm just going to jump in. You're right; the name sticks and people really adopt to the shepherd mentality. We get a lot of requests for shepherd crooks. [laughs] They all want a shepherd staff. CHAD: So along those lines, when people are considering working with you, what are some of the questions or concerns that they have about a solution? NEIL: Sure. So it's disruptive, Chad. I think I could probably start by saying the traditional way of maintaining or mowing commercial properties is that you have a big guy and a big machine, and how fast does it go? How much noise does it make? How many grass clippings get blown all over the place? You get in, and you get out. And then you start over. So in the state of Tennessee, where we are here, it's about 34 to 36 weeks of mowing a year. In Michigan, it's 17 to 22 weeks, depending on where you are. In South Florida, believe it or not, I know there are only 52 weeks, but they're mowing 56 to 58 times a year. So it's the frequency of going and mowing and blowing, right? CHAD: Mm-hmm. NEIL: We're changing that by saying, why be worried about the weather? Why would you be worried about darkness? Why would you be worried about noise regulations when you can have the grass maintained all the time? So that mentality of maintaining essentially two football fields a week up to three football fields a week with less than 35 minutes of labor. There is nothing in comparison. There's nothing you can compare with the traditional what we call the status quo to make that happen. So the labor efficiency and improvement in labor productivity is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the cost savings and the financial payback. So because we are so disruptive, a lot of what we do, and a lot of the time we spend, and one of our core values is being educators. So back to your question about manufacturers selling their own proprietary hardware; absolutely, the more the merrier. We welcome. To me, the sign of success and progress is not the small city block that has one gas station but has four gas stations on the corner. It just now means there are cars that are driving around. And so, I embrace that level of competition. I believe iron sharpens iron. And folks who are traditionally in the landscape space who have made trimmers and blowers and chainsaws are now finding a little bit of competition with folks who are now solely focused on making unbelievably efficient autonomous robotic mowers, or cleaners, or robots in general, which is, again, we're not crashing giant robots although that's the name of your podcast. [laughter] We're not trying to crash them or break them. But it is certainly the foundation for where we are. MATT: Hey, Neil, you've got a good analogy. I think analogies help explain concepts. So you want to run through your airport analogy with the runways and the different airlines? NEIL: Yeah, I could share that with you. Thanks for reminding me. So my philosophy about…we sell subscriptions that are based upon a geography, Chad. CHAD: Size of geography, you mean? NEIL: Yeah, the size of the geography. So it's about a football field, give or take. Based upon some limitations with technology, we put invisible dog fences in the ground, and we charge our users, our subscribers by the particular pen or the number of pens, and then there's a ratio. So much like in an airport, we're not selling flights; we're selling runways. And those runways are accessible by all kinds of…you may have 30 terminals at the gates, and you may have five different airlines. And each of those airlines has a different brand and name, but they're using multiple hardware components. Those jets are maybe McDonnell Douglas, or maybe they're a Boeing or whatever it may be. All of that is fine by us. What we do is we have the software that runs the gates, the terminals. So you have Southwest in terminal two and Delta in terminal 32. And they're using our software to figure out how to get the baggage on the planes and get those planes off the ground so they can make money for their businesses. So we look at it that way. And that's kind of where our IP rests is in that spot in that place. And, again, there'll be other airlines, whether it's Allegiant or whomever buying more Boeing planes. But ultimately, they'll all need a runway, and the software that manages the process and the workflow is what we're focused on. CHAD: So, is the total cost of ownership of autonomous solution typically lower than what they are doing today? NEIL: It is, specifically, the labor improvement is generally about 3x in terms of improving the efficiency of the labor. So if you talk about an average groundskeeper who may be responsible for mowing, if it's a perfect day outside mowing nine acres a day and they are out there five days a week, they may have efficiencies of maybe up to 40 or 45 acres a week. With our solution, that is increased to about 135 to 145 acres a week where they can maintain about 70 mowers, 70 autonomous robotic mowers, or 70 goats as we call them. They'll herd 70 goats with the same full-time employee. So that's one aspect. With that, the immediate reaction is, well, you're eliminating jobs. We're actually redeploying jobs. I'm a builder. I'm a job creator. I've had 4,800 folks work for me in my home care business over the last 12 years. And so, I'm a big believer in improving and deploying folks in areas that we don't have robots. So, for example, there's no robot right now that's pruning trees or making up a sand trap, robots that are planting flowers or putting mulch in a flower bed. So those kinds of jobs are still out there. We're just making the traditional idea of throwing somebody on a mower in the middle of a cemetery or golf course or open space and having them manage that through our software platform sitting in their F150 pushing start and stop or pause and doing other things. CHAD: Instead of riding on the mower. NEIL: You got it. MATT: A lot of our potential customers come to us because (we kind of touched on that) there's a labor shortage. It's hard for folks to find people that want to ride zero-turns. So to Neil's point, we're not about deploying robots, kind of one for one replacing jobs. It's basically we're taking the labor force that we can get, that we have, and we're retraining them to be more efficient through these robots. Pretty age-old story when you're talking about industrialization. But the idea is we haven't displaced workers. They're not hiring fewer people. They're taking everybody they can get. And they're doing all of that value add. The groundskeepers now have time to go out and do the mulching and the landscaping, trimming, improving the property. A lot of these groundskeepers have a lot of pride in their property. And they would rather be doing the items that to them are a value add and beautification projects rather than just riding a Back 40 or a zero-turn. We had one shepherd say, hey, it's really helped his back. Riding a lawnmower is kind of rough. And walking around every now and then helping out a robot is a whole lot easier of a physical life for you. Mid-roll Ad I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: So I saw on the website because of the kind of solution and the scale that it's at, it seems like you have a few different key customer bases. You want to talk about that and whether you knew that going in, or did you find them along the way? NEIL: Yeah, that's a great question. So we came out of the gate initially with early investors. We were focused on what we considered was the low-hanging fruit in the residential space. So we had designed and developed the operational and financial template to actually have shepherds who were employees of My Goat. And we would have the Goats sold in a subscription model to residential customers. And then we'd have the goat stay on a property and then get moved, et cetera. But we learned very quickly that business to consumer and residential customers it's not that impossible; it just was not as low-hanging fruit as we had thought initially because folks leave rakes in the yard. And anytime a goat comes upon a rake, it's going to get trapped, and therefore it needs to be rescued. And you have to send a shepherd out, et cetera. Or somebody decides to put a new vegetable garden, and they break the wire that's in the ground. They're just a bunch of…, or there's a dog chasing the robot or a little kid out there, or somebody stops it. So those required a lot of…it didn't make the robot autonomous. So we pivoted in late 2019, early 2020 into the commercial space. We expired all of our subscriptions to residential customers and went completely into the commercial space. And we had had some success with some golf courses and some cemeteries. And we've gained a lot more momentum now with cities and counties, regional airports. But large open areas that are a minimum of five acres, typically we would run a pilot or a preview with at least 12 to 14 acres. But the biggest restriction, of course, when you get into those large open areas is electricity because they've been traditionally maintained or mowed by gas-powered machines. So back to your other question about where the savings is and the payback period, and how we have an immediate impact. There's an operational savings that is pretty quick in terms of the return because we flatten out a lot of the ups and downs that a traditional landscaper has. So let's take a golf course, for example. The average golf course spends about $80,000 per hole per year and depending on the course, 45% to 60% of that is spent on mowing, mowing machines, and people involved. And we're able to take that, and they're hiring temporary people in March here in the south, and they have them here until October. So they're having to go through that cycle every single year. So if they can flatten that operational expense out by redesigning the golf course and having…and maybe it's not 100%. Much like a Roomba, you still have to get the corners and the edges, maybe with a broom if it doesn't get into every nook and cranny. So it's not a 100% solution. It's not for every application. But as we moved into the commercial space, we found a greater payback period not only on the cost of the gasoline is...you know, take a zero-turn mower. And again, I say that's probably our greatest competitor is institutionalized thinking to say, this year we're going to buy a big green, big red, or big orange machine for $16,000 or $18,000, Kubota, Toro, or John Deere. And we're going to do the same thing we did last year. We're going to find a guy who can operate it. We're going to put gas in it, and we're going to run it around. Well, you put hours in those things, and they're very costly to maintain if you hit a root. So you've got to make sure that you can't run a 1,800-pound mower when it's been raining for three days. So what do you do with a fairway when it's soggy or any other commercial area that could be…or a hill that could be dangerous. So we've found a lot of application and then, of course, the environmental part of it, Chad. So the average zero-turn emits the equivalent of a carbon footprint every hour it's running about 300 miles of a Toyota Camry running. So they haven't become more efficient. And then you've got noise regulations and so forth in a lot of communities. And even in California, they're moving in the direction of I think it's 2024 where gas-powered and oil-powered landscaping blowers and tremors, et cetera, are not going to be allowed, or you'll be fined for using them. So that's the third component of where My Goat has seen some opportunities in the commercial space. CHAD: You mentioned that they can run at night. So they must be quiet. They must be. NEIL: Yes, they are. And it's not the traditional…you're not making as much of a mess. Some of our cemetery customers have mentioned that the fact that their trimming has been reduced by up to 50% because they're going up and over markers because they only weigh 27 pounds. They're mostly plastic and rubber. They're not doing any damage to vases. So they're having a cost reduction in that regard but also with the uprights. Folks have their family members in a particular private estate area where they may have an upright, and if you have a zero-turn mower out there throwing and splashing grass clippings, you're likely having to go out there again with more labor and take a blower and clean up the mess that the mower made. So these little small operational components along with the experience. Again, back to the cemetery, you're asking about why we're there. We know that industry very well. And we know that the experience that loved ones want to have when they're out there celebrating life and grieving across a 40 or 50-acre property. They don't want to hear a zero-turn. So you're turning those things off three or four times a day for those services, and you're having that individual parked a quarter-mile away. No longer is that an operational challenge or a concern because all of these robots are being controlled, start, stopped, and programmed through our software. CHAD: That's really cool. So you mentioned investors and the early pivot away from residential to commercial. What does your funding story look like? And what phase did you get to when you took on investment? And let's start there. How did you find your initial investors? And what phase were you at when you did that? NEIL: Yeah, that's a great question. So we went through the traditional friends and family and moved into an angel round, but really I started my first company…bootstrapped it. And so, I wasn't really proficient in raising money in the traditional sense. I had an idea, put a business plan together. And I talked to a couple of folks and just told the story. To be honest with you, Chad, I wasn't really asking for money. I was more or less asking for advice. And then a number of folks were like, "Are you taking money? I'd like to take an equity position." And so, we structured the business and the shares on a pre-revenue valuation. And then, within 14 months, we were able to double that valuation. And we're now opening a new round here and a Series A with a valuation that's nearly five times our initial valuation. So we're making a lot of progress because we have, again, it's an annual recurring revenue stream. It's a subscription model. And what we did with our investors in the early rounds is many of them came on, and they just wanted to be silent. They were not interested in having an opinion. They wanted me and my team to run it. So that's been very helpful. So that's where we are in 2022. We'll be opening and closing a Series A. And I certainly can get more specific with others about that if your listeners or audience are interested. CHAD: So when you think about a Series A, what will you be using that for? What are your next scaling goals? NEIL: My commitment to my investors in the previous two rounds has been to sales and technology, so sales, business development, and technology enhancement to the software, so hiring more developers, scaling that team. Matt's leading the vision, and we've got a number of other folks who are involved in the user experience. But again, because we're a software company, it starts with a demonstration that's usually 15 or 20 minutes that can be scheduled through our website at mygoat.co. And it goes from there. On the sales side and business development is telling the story. In those verticals, we're interested in building out potentially even reseller markets with other industries that are aligned with us. We've had some very high-level conversations with folks that sell electricity for a living. The Tennessee Valley Authority we became an early preferred partner with them and because they have carbon credit that they can offer and sell to their customers, their local power companies. And they're in the business of selling power. And we're in the business of providing subscriptions that require power. CHAD: What are some barriers to continuing to scale? Do you have geographic barriers? NEIL: I have self-imposed geographic barriers, [laughter] So it's a Neil Amrhein barrier. But overall, our barriers, our challenges really are; I've never heard of these things before. Do they actually mow? So we get through those conversations fairly quickly. But depending on who we're talking to, it also becomes a fear. People fear change and especially things that are disruptive. So our barriers, once we get through the fear, is we don't have any electricity here on this golf course, or this city park, or this regional airport that there is unlimited electricity. So we can pull whatever electricity is necessary there. So it is really the barriers of education, just like anything that's truly disruptive in an industry that's been doing the same thing for 45 or 50 years. CHAD: So you already talked about how you view potential competition from manufacturers, but how do you view competition in general? Is there other competition out there? NEIL: The biggest competition we have is institutionalized thinking, which is doing the same thing we did last year. So that's a battle that we have every day. I like competition because I think it makes the end product, and the customer is the one who benefits the most from having lots of people in the market no matter what their angle is. We like our position because, again, we're not the hardware manufacturer. We're able to work with others. We're the financial advisor that gets to work with the insurance guy and everybody else, where all your money is with your college buddy who's managing it, et cetera. We're agnostic. We're putting it all together. So it benefits everybody. And those who make and manufacture these robots get the benefit as well because it's part of the subscription process as far as that's concerned. But the more, the merrier. A lot of people come to me and say, "Well, I saw an autonomous robotic mower out on this lawn or in the neighborhood here." And that's good for us. CHAD: Matt, I assume that being robot-agnostic means that you need to integrate with the different systems. Does that have challenges? MATT: You know, not really. Robots are, as far as the autonomous robotic lawn mowers, they're pretty much telling us the same thing. There are status updates; there are battery updates; there are GPS coordinates. It does tend to be a pretty common data set that we're seeing. So it's been a lot easier than I thought. When you think about…data integrations are always the top challenge you have. It's worked out a lot better than we thought initially. CHAD: Well, that's great. Has there been anything surprising the other way which was something you thought was going to be easy turned out to be a lot harder? MATT: Yeah. We've had a manufacturer that actually had a tiered concept in their data availability. They weren't giving us all of the data that they had. They were saving it because they were running their own kind of hey, you can use home automation techniques to integrate with your residential autonomous robotic lawnmower. Hey, if it's raining at your house, we could park your robot. So they were kind of hiding some of the API from us. We were able to work through that. But I think that goes to one of your questions about concern around competition from the manufacturers. They're really not looking at this from that niche that we're hitting, that commercial perspective. Maintaining one Roomba in your house is the analogy I use. You kind of know where he gets stuck, and you go find him. And that's okay. You don't need a lot of software for that. But that analogy Neil mentioned, if you have 500 of these guys running around a warehouse, or for us, we have property with 50 robots on. How do you know which one right now -- CHAD: And the space that that takes up. MATT: Right. Right. CHAD: You can't see them all necessarily even. MATT: [laughs] Exactly. You can't. You can't just walk around and see everyone and visually check. You need that software to be efficient to know; oh, there are three things I need to do today with the robots. Let me plan that out, and let me take care of it. So I think, like Neil said, the manufacturers out there they're making lawn equipment. They're making lots of different hardware. And to them, fleet management is really where is my hardware right now? [laughs] That's the extent of it. And they can't think about a property that needs maybe two or three different manufacturers of hardware because properties are not one homogeneous set of type of grass. There are always different needs, different features on that property. So there's always that idea that we're going to need a couple of different manufacturers, maybe. So, yeah, it's really interesting. For me, I think it's we're really hitting a home run in an area that there really aren't any other competitors exactly in our niche. And if there are, I think the industry for us what we do is at a place where we need more adoption out there in the world. [crosstalk 34:03] CHAD: Do you ever hear from early adopters? People who say they've either already bought autonomous mowers and they're struggling to manage them, or they really want to, and they're coming to you to do it? NEIL: That's a great point. I have a couple of thoughts here because you guys are going in a lot of different directions here. MATT: [laughs] NEIL: Chad, the short answer is when people buy anything early on, they're going to have the proverbial challenges of who supports it when it breaks? Who do I call? What happens next? It just goes on and on and on, whether it's a hardware platform, and that's mostly the case, or it's something else. It's what does that support look like? So the early adopters when we talk about their experiences, and this is one of the things I would say is probably our biggest challenge is that we have created a learning management software platform, a video library of how do you work with robots? We know that they're going to get trapped. There is no doubt that a 27-pound autonomous goat if there is a lightning strike like there was here in Nashville last night, they're going to be tree limbs that are down. And there'll be goats that are trapped. And it's going to take a human being, a shepherd, to be notified via SMS alert to proactively go to that spot on that property across 50 or 100 acres and rescue that goat. And it's just a matter of these kinds of things happen environmentally. So we talk about, when we talk to customers, about their utilization of the goat. And we talk about optimizing their property. It's not really that the goat doesn't graze or the robot doesn't work. It's what are the restrictions and the environmental challenges that are in front of it? If there are erosion issues around a marker or in a large open field, and if it's a really well-groomed practice field or intramural field, it's likely going to be aerated. It's going to be very flat, et cetera. But most commercial properties are not that way. So the goats actually have a tendency to go out, and they're going to find all those environmental challenges. And it requires a human being to go out there and fix them. Because if the environmental challenge is that there's a hole and on a horse farm, it's going to be there until somebody throws some dirt in it. It's just the reality. And that goat is going to find that environmental challenge every single time. So there is a learning curve that goes with it. There's a level of patience. And I think you mentioned what's our challenge? Our challenge is letting folks know that it's an evolution, not a revolution, as far as what your property is going to look like. I spent a number of years at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, and we talk about property health as is it a two-star property, a three-star property, four-star property, five-star property? We recognize that a lot of commercial properties are going to just be a two-star. But potentially, they could be a three-star property. Or if it's a cemetery and you've got a goat that's maybe found environmental challenges on a cemetery, it also becomes a liability or risk for family members who go visit their loved ones. So now we're using the robot proactively to improve the status of the property as opposed to saying, well, it just gets trapped every time it finds a hole or every time there's a situation that goes on. So it does require an active level of engagement and maintenance. And the philosophy has to be changed so that groundskeepers are now checking their phones or being alerted at 7:15 in the morning. And they may go rescue Billy, the goat, because a lot of folks name their robots. [laughter] They're going out there, and they're in pen 34,27, 31. And then at lunchtime, they may have another two or three of the same goats that were trapped, need to be rescued, and then again at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon. So it's a maintenance mentality as opposed to a mow and go mentality. So that is philosophically a big change in terms of their mindset. CHAD: So what's next for My Goat then? You mentioned the Series A. Is there anything in particular on your radar that you're either worried about or are looking forward to? NEIL: Looking forward to more folks like your audience and listeners hearing our story. I'm in the business of telling our story. And I welcome, again, the competition because that means there's validation for what's going on. I don't think we're going to stuff this genie back in the bottle, so to speak. It's going to be hard for me to believe that five, six years from now, folks are going to be out there firing up a push mower that they just bought at Lowe's when they can buy something at Lowe's that's $250 for a residential robot that they get to use. Same thing on the commercial space. I don't know what it ultimately looks like from a vision perspective. But I think our challenge is continuing the messaging, the adoption, enhancing the payback period. It is really just like any good technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, et cetera. I mean, that combination. I hold the position, Chad, that I don't really think any technology is being developed or new per se since the invention of the internet. It's the application of the technology. It's what are people doing that they weren't doing before? We have the communication tools with 5G or what have you that we didn't have five or six years ago that we can now ping our goats every 15 minutes and find out what their status is. And then we can report that back to the user and say, "Hey, your optimization or utilization on your hardware and your subscription is X, Y, and Z. And your return on investment is six months to 16 months." That's where I think it elevates the conversation of efficiency and changes the game. So our next steps are continuing to get the message out, embrace not only users but industries we haven't thought about. I mentioned horse farms that just came on my radar screen not too long ago. We've had some success with cities and counties. You can imagine…everything one of our core values is green is good, and time is a number. So you just drive down the interstate, and you can see so much green everywhere as far as opportunities ahead. And there's plenty of room for lots of people to play in this space. We welcome more and more of probably the designers and developers that you got on this podcast to come up with the latest and greatest hardware and make those APIs available for Matt and his team to integrate and continue to grow. CHAD: That's great. If folks want to reach out to you to either learn more or see if you can work together, where are the best places for them to do that? NEIL: Sure. Let me first direct them to www.mygoat.co. And there are a series of areas there where it's either click on a demo now or information. Our phone number is listed there as well. I'll also give you my email address, which is Neil, N-E-I-L neil@mygoat.co, so neil@mygoat.co. And Matt's is just matt@mygoat.co as well. And those are probably the fastest way to connect with us. And if they put in a quick subject line your name and your podcast, it'll bubble everybody to the top a little faster. CHAD: Wonderful. Thank you both for joining me. I really appreciate it. MATT: Absolutely. Thank you, Chad. NEIL: Thank you for having us. CHAD: And I wish you all the best. You can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guests: Matthew Erickson and Neal Amrhein.

“Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in” a famous line from Godfather Part III and a recurring theme I've noticed for those of who have used WordPress for a while. No matter how much we might moan about the shortcomings of WordPress, it's still pretty darn powerful. The core of WordPress is getting better, read: Gutenberg and Full Site Editing. Some sharp edges, yes, but software is software — it will iterate into something great. Maybe you left WordPress a few years ago because of Gutenberg, but I bet you second guessed yourself when that Netlify CMS lacked a user and permissions system, custom post types, and an easy way to install a contact form. Oh, and what about ecommerce? Yeah…well…what about it?! WooCommerce, still the sleeping giant, is about to get some lemon squeezed right in the eye. JR Farr returns to the Matt Report to talk about his latest product, Lemon Squeezy. A NOT Easy Digital Downloads alternative that's looking to take it's share of the e-commerce market. Learn more about the collective and the other products JR is a part of over at https://makelemonade.wtf/ Episode transcription [00:00:00] Matt: Welcome back to the Matt report podcast, special guest today, a man that I met God, I don't know if I had my notes in front of me. If I was a professional podcast or years ago at PressNomics spoiler alert, there was some stuff in the news about pages. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about that today, Jr. [00:00:17] Jr. Welcome to the program.  [00:00:20] JR: I know, man. Thanks for having me again. When I  [00:00:22] Matt: interviewed you last time, I think it was right on the heels of you selling your company and you're back building another company. You are the co-founder of a man. I was just trying to think of, of a great word. An Avengers team. [00:00:37] You certainly don't want to be like, I dunno, the guardians of the galaxy co-founder and CEO of make lemonade recently launched something called lemon squeezy that we'll talk about today. Yeah. How many, well, actually, let me, before we get in. Was it two years ago. I remember taking a phone call from you. [00:00:57] You were asking me about starting a podcast. You started a podcast. Oftentimes I would broadcast that podcast onto my big screen TV. And watch you drink old fashions talking about startups. What  [00:01:10] JR: happened? Yeah, no, that's a good question. So, like, So me and you go way back, right? Especially in the WordPress space. [00:01:17] Mojo was, was a good ride. Built a marketplace up, went and did the executive life at endurance for a long time, and then wanting to go on my own again. And so I got way into SAS customer attention because of what we were doing at Bluehost and things like that. Anyway, I was trying to get into that space and trying to find lightening in a bottle like I did with WordPress so quickly. [00:01:40] Right. It's so fast. It's like, oh yeah, I can do this again. And starting a company again is hard. And so, we tried to get into that space and it just kind of fell flat. And so yeah, I did a podcast for it around it, and we broke down a lot of different SAS companies, onboarding, offboarding, things like that. [00:01:56] But yeah, it was a good, it was fun though. I felt like I learned a lot, especially. Podcasting and being able to articulate things with words right. A lot better. So yeah, it was a great, it was a great production. Yeah. Thanks man. It was actually believe it or not. It was in my basement. Oh, wow. There you go. [00:02:11] Yeah. Yeah.  [00:02:12] Matt: Awesome. What's the. In that world, let's say the SAS world that you learned. I mean, you came from WordPress through WordPress, into endurance, arguably the largest corporation that touches, well, I don't know if it's the largest, but a large corporation that touches WordPress. Then you go in and try to do like, what many of us might listen to this week in startups, tech crunch. [00:02:34] And we're like, Hey SAS, world. What's the biggest, what's the biggest difference that you found from that world versus the WordPress world?  [00:02:44] JR: I mean, obviously the community is way different, right? Cause because there's so many different sounds. So you got, you got enterprise, mid market, small market SMBs got bootstrap, versus most people in the WordPress space are bootstrap. [00:02:54] So that was like, everyone was on like some of a playing field back in the day. I would say the [00:03:00] end of where I come from, everything has been bootstrapped, so I, I don't get me wrong. I definitely had opportunities. I still do to, to, to go raise like most of us, I guess, but I just it's in my roots, right. To like, just build it and self-fund it and grow it. [00:03:14] And so I would say that's like a big thing, like when you're getting into that space, Man, you gotta, you going up some big boys that have a lot of funding, even if they are in the SMB or mid-market or enterprise, right? Like you kind of get there's just, the playing field is so much bigger,  [00:03:28] Matt: so it might be, this might be a softball question. [00:03:31] I mean, I kinda know what it is cause I know that you're going to have a bias question, especially now that you've launched a lemon squeezy and a side note. It's not just an easy digital download rev. Okay. Yeah, we've got a lot more that we're going to cover about lemon squeezy in a moment, but I've been having a lot of folks on my podcast recently in the no-code space, I've been fascinated with the no code space, no comes low-code space. [00:03:53] For me it sort of like brings that same energy back when I first discovered not even WordPress, but Drupal when I could do things with Drupal as like a non-developer with CCK and views. And we're talking almost 20 years ago being like, wow, I can code this. Knowing this PHP thing. It's interesting that, Well, here's the question. [00:04:14] What if you were to start, and I know this is, this is the softball moment. If you were to start a little bit more of a technical company today, maybe not WordPress, would you start with a WordPress framework or would you combine a couple of no-code apps that you really love to do something else?  [00:04:29] JR: Well, I think luckily for me, like the teams that I have along the rides with me, they're technical enough that I don't have to, but I definitely think I would. [00:04:39] I honestly would maybe pick something else. I built mojo on WordPress back then, and that was before WooCommerce and before, easy to download. So like it was all custom and just the limitations sometimes in, around the database and queries and stuff. It's, it's not built for that. So. Maybe it's a marketing site it's different, but when it comes to a full blown app, I just think there's way better options out  [00:05:02] there. [00:05:03] Matt: Yeah. So there, there are. So it just seems like there's a no-code app coming online every single day to try to like compete against air table and Google sheets and collide in bubble. Right. And I'm looking at it. Like I was looking at Pais builders rising three years ago in the WordPress space. I'm just like, damn man, you all going to survive this? [00:05:21] Or there's this like, The, survival of the fittest and that's just the market plays out. Yup. Yup. How did you get, so the, the parent company make lemonade, how did you form this team? Because I've had four out of five of you on my podcast.  [00:05:40] JR: So yeah, the founding team there, they're the co-founders, there's four of us and it was. [00:05:45] There was a, quite a bit of work. It was, it was probably at least a year and a half in the making of just chatting and what, what are you working on? What, what are you building and what do you want to do? And so real quick, just talking about, let me just name the, if people don't know who we are. [00:05:58] So make lemonade was the [00:06:00] idea of it is when we were all talking before we were kind of in the thick of 2020, where it was just. Shit, right. It was just a lot of sour lemons kind of getting thrown out everyone. Right. All of us were getting hit with this. And so that's kind of where it was born. It was like, well, let's take these lemons and let's make some lemonade, and so we kind of, like you said, formed this quartet or a vendor group, or we call it a collective, which is Orman Clark. Yeah. It was known for donkey was also the, kind of the guy that set the tone on theme forest years ago. And then Jason's jeweler theme garden, press 75. And Gilbert who was a nivo slider for the OGs and spin up WP delicious brains and myself. [00:06:42] So yeah, we kind of all came together and we kind of started to really get excited about this, make lemonade idea. Let's bring all of our brands together. Let's bring all of our things we have together, and let's really see if we can build a collective and launch some pretty kick ass products. And the first one is the biggest one that we're really, I guess, leaning most of our resources into is, is limits. [00:07:03] Matt: Talk to me about how you kept these conversations going. I think that's one of the most unique things about WordPress is you have communities, like, let's say post post status and stuff like that. But I think that it goes even beyond that, where you see folks at a word camp, you see what they're doing in our space and you just it's so easy to reach out. [00:07:21] Was it like that for you? Or are you guys all in like a mastermind and connected in some other way? Like who sparked the first conversation?  [00:07:27] JR: It was actually so Jason and Orman and Chris Malter were actually having conversations as well. And then Chris Malter and Jason were actually building a product called rivet, which was a therefore, a outside of WordPress as well. [00:07:41] Kind of, it was, you could take your YouTube channel and build a site from it. I don't know if you guys ever saw that, but it's really cool. And I actually ping them and said, Hey guys, what are you doing with this? Like, can I help in any way? It looks like. Maybe I could help with the marketing side, stuff like that. [00:07:54] And so that kind of like kicked off a conversation and an Orman got back involved and then it was actually, the four of us were chatting and then eventually Gilbert kinda got brought up and that's kinda how we kicked things off. But yeah, like it's funny because it goes back to where, I mean, Jason and I, we met similar to you. [00:08:11] I mean, how me and you did, which was years ago at a conference. I think it was the first PressNomics, which was forever ago. And so, yeah, we've just, it's all about relationships, right. And I would say that I really pushed hard to get everybody, like, I think that's one of my strengths is like being a connector and like making, getting, allowing things to connect and, and kind of glued together. [00:08:34] And I would, I like to think that I really helped be influential in getting us all to finally do what we're going to do. Even bringing Gilbert over full-time he was at delicious brains building. They just launched spin up WP. So. We had to convince him to come over. And so that wasn't some easy task, right. [00:08:51] He was happy with where he was at and, but it's, it's, it's worked out and I think we've got a pretty solid team. We've actually brought in a [00:09:00] few more makers into the collective which I can briefly mention, which is Mike McAllister, James Kemp, Patrick Posner. And there's a few guys from the old Moto team that are actually helping with us too. [00:09:12] So got a nice little squad. That's working on stuff together.  [00:09:18] Matt: Lemon squeezy. The, the H one is sell digital products. That easy-peasy way e-commerce space, digital download space, massive untapped, I think in the WordPress world. But before we talk about that, I want to talk about all of these products that are listed on the make lemonade.wtf. [00:09:37] That's the URL. If you're listening to this, make lemonade.wtf, it'll be in the show notes. I'm on I'm on the webpage right now, iconic app. I remember watching that launch and thinking that's pretty awesome. Positive notes, dunked, premium pixels, kick link, a whole bunch of stuff. And this new digital S download product. [00:09:56] How do you keep focus? Is that the magic of a collective, like everyone gets their own little, territory to cover, break that down for me.  [00:10:04] JR: Yeah. So it ebbs and flows, right? So there's, I mean, to be fair, some of these products were existing. So dunked obviously was Orman's he brought that into the collective. [00:10:12] And so as we grow that, as a team that's, that kind of works its way into the collective iconic was new. But to be totally honest right  [00:10:20] Matt: now,  [00:10:23] JR: The focus thing has been brought up. It's it's, it's been a subjective. Like what do we do? Let's be realistic. We are bootstrapped. There's only so many of us are we being silly by pulling ourselves to sin across everything. [00:10:36] And so, we continue to maintain the products that we have launched. So dunked and iconic and things, but right now the focus is a hundred percent limits with you for the team  [00:10:44] Matt: I interviewed. Well, before I get there, let me ask you this question on the collective. Is there a way, like when you look at that and somebody's like, Hey man, I would love to be part of this team is like the application process. [00:10:58] Is your resume, an existing product you've already built and you bring that to the collective to show it off. And how do I get my podcast in there? No, I'm just kidding. How do I like when you bring it there? Like, is that the process, is that how you look for a new member of the collective?  [00:11:13] JR: So it's actually, I take a really good question. [00:11:15] I didn't even think about that before we came on, but that is a lot of it. I mean, we do have some. I've kind of put together how people come into the collective. There, there is a process to it. That's not the only way. So obviously if your skillset is what kind of we're looking for at the moment, we'll bring in there's different ways that we can kind of bring you in the collective where you can to participate in all the products with us, as well as if you have your own product, then that gets the power of the collective, right? [00:11:42] Like, I mean, look at premium pixel, for example, that's a really old brand. I mean, as you can, there's a sh there's tons of people on an email list, right. That just get featured into the rest of our products. But like iconic app was very similar. That's James McDonald. Who's you don't know him. He's an amazing icon [00:12:00] design. [00:12:01] And he wanted to do an icon set. And so the team kind of got together with him and he did all the icons and then we built everything else. And so, and it leverages lemon squeezy to sell it. So that was like a really, really cool way to bring someone in, to work on just an individual product with us. And then the other team members like Mike and James and Patrick, they're helping us limit squeezy, but they're also gonna get the benefit of the rest of the collective too. [00:12:24] So. It's it, it can go either way. It just really depends on the person. Yeah.  [00:12:31] Matt: I interviewed Matt Mullenweg earlier this year. And I think that, well, maybe not, it might not be obvious to everyone and maybe some of you out there are thinking, well, we've already got woo commerce. We don't need anything else who could survive an e-commerce play in this space up against the giant that is Rue commerce and alternatives like Shopify. [00:12:54] I know that. And I am by no means trying to give you a veteran and proven CEO slash entrepreneur, any advice, but I know that it's either going to take a boatload of money to compete or just a bad-ass product that is just hitting it on all cylinders. I think this is, this is not really a good question. [00:13:13] This is me just like pontificating this on a soap box. Like I think this is gonna be a bad-ass product. I think this is going to be the home run side of it. S inside my gut says, you probably feel the same way, because if you just execute on an amazing product, you can compete and you can win. Look at all the foreign plugins we have. [00:13:33] Right, right, right. Look at all of the similar stuff we have that's out there. This is, just because the giants out there doesn't mean you shouldn't build it. Your thoughts.  [00:13:43] JR: Yeah, no, I it's a really good, and obviously we've got to be realistic, right? Like we are going up against some 800 pound gorillas. [00:13:49] Which is fine. I've done it before. But I think where lemon squeezy was different, is it is, it is a SAS first. Right. So we, we kind of have this unique ability to package in a lot of features that as much as I love WordPress, like, you do have to put together like a decent amount of plugins sometimes for something to work that costs money, that constant that's maintenance, that's conflicts, that's, maybe opening yourself up to some security issues depending on what kind of plugins you're getting. [00:14:19] If it's not from a reliable source. So. I think that's a unique thing that we do have. And then I think the team that's building the lemon squeezy plugin, right. Even though it's V1 and it's not extremely powerful at the moment, but it gives you all the power lemon squeezy from day one, which I think is super cool. [00:14:37] It's a totally different way of thinking about building it. And we can just totally, supercharge your WordPress site with lemon squeezy. So I think we're coming at it from a different angle. Which is exciting for me and it doesn't kind of pin us into one thing. But you're right. I mean, we're going to have to just iterate fast and quickly on this thing. [00:14:57] So, when we first came out, it's interesting, now that we're getting in the [00:15:00] WordPress space, when we first came out, it was looked at us, it will be looked at like a, like a Gumroad alternative. Right. It was just, that was kind of the feature set, but we're releasing some pretty big things around our website. [00:15:11] And so that's kind of positioning us into a different market, the WordPress space. Now we're getting positioned in there against easel downloads. But I will say one last thing about digital products is all of us come from that space. And it's, it's complicated. Yes, there's WooCommerce, but it's primarily, it's meant for physical stuff. [00:15:27] It does do digital stuff, but there's a lot to think about, right? Like security and how those files are delivered and software verges. I mean, even just the, the auto updates and. You know how you deliver the license keys. Like there's a lot of stuff to think about. And then that ties way into support. How do you support the product? [00:15:47] And so I think we've got a good, like view, a very good focus view on like how to tackle.  [00:15:53] Matt: How do you manage, who gets to say, who gets the say in which features to add into a product like this? Because the Gumroad alternative, they easy digital downloads, alternative, the lightweight version of WooCommerce. [00:16:08] Again, as somebody who hasn't had the same product successes, you, but have been in companies that have had products assess, I don't mind those comparisons because it's just easy for customers to understand, but then there's like that 20%. Month after month or a year, quarter after quarter, you're like, okay, but we still need to keep edging our way to a differentiator, a different value prop. [00:16:30] So who gets this, who gets to lead that with this product?  [00:16:36] JR: Man? That's a good question. So right now I think we've done a decent job with the four of us of allowing us to. Really give our say, I think when it comes down to like, if, so, let's just talk about design first for a second. Like how it looks that's we all know that that's Orman Clark. [00:16:51] I mean, the guy. Seriously brilliant when it comes to sign. So we're only going to push it so far. And then I think it's pretty, like, it's just like unwritten code that like Orman's going to make that decision, but then I think when it comes to like marketing and positioning, I think a lot of people look at me for that, and just, how do we position this business and this product, or. [00:17:10] And so I think it's just, it really falls in more of a skillset, right. Gilbert's CTO when it comes to anything technical related in the product, Gilbert's probably going to have the final say in that. And so, yeah, so that's kinda how we've handled it so far.  [00:17:23] Matt: Yeah. When I, when I did talk to Matt as part of what I was getting at before is I told him that I still think woo commerce is even though it is the giant, it's still a sleeping giant. [00:17:35] Like I don't feel, I don't feel like automatic has really started to tap the potential of, I agree how flexible WooCommerce is going to be. And I think that, you, you said before, this is a SAS first product. We're launching this. I, these are my words, not exactly yours, but we're launching SAS because we can just control it a whole heck of a lot easier than if it was just a pure plugin. [00:17:57] There's was a pure plugin. We get to do the security patches, [00:18:00] the updates, the UI updates, people start falling off. They haven't updated. It's a nightmare when you're trying to make a cohesive experience. And I think no code. Heck even Jetpack is and tools like yours. Aren't going to condition the users over time, where once we really wanted our plugin and own it and have it in our WordPress site to be like ass, screw it, just make it work. [00:18:27] Like it's all a plugin. And I just want access, just give it to me because I think we're all just fed up with it, to that up until this point. I don't know if that's good or bad for the longterm success of WordPress, because that's what us. But your  [00:18:40] JR: thoughts? Well, this is so when I first sat down with the guys and we started talking about lemon squeezy, and this is what we always go back to. [00:18:46] This is like, if this is the punchline, so, and this is going to sound kind of silly, but this is how I literally described to the team. And this is what we, we say. Say, we say, whenever we start talking about the product, we're like space. Space mountain, which sounds weird. Right? So that ride in Disneyland. [00:19:03] So if you were to go to that ride to picture it in your head, you, you walk up, you see the entrance and everything, and you're walking through it. It's really a whole experience from the moment you see it and you walk through it, right? It's all dark. And then you go through the ride and it's pitch black and there's lights, and there's all kinds of things, but you can feel it as you're going through it. [00:19:18] Right. But you don't really know how this is all happening, but think about it for a second. If everybody flipped the light. That'd be rods and wires and it, probably bolts and dust and everything looking at right. And that's kind of the experience today still after all these years, right? It's like, get your hosting, get your domain name, get your plugins, get your you're like putting together all these things with the lights on. [00:19:41] And so in our mind is like easy peasy, lemon, squeezy. Let's just fast forward this thing a little bit and create a space, mountain experience where you just hop on the ride and you're just enjoying the experience. And you're just, you're just there to have fun and have a good time, or you're just there to make money or you're just there to sell this product or this widget or whatever it is you don't have to think. [00:20:00] And so that's kind of how. Are building the product. So I will say from a feature standpoint, we've got a long way to go, right? Like right now you can get on there, you can sell anything, subscriptions memberships. We're also the merchant of record. So you don't even have to worry about setting up payment processors or anything like that. [00:20:17] It's all taken care of. And so I think as we add more features like email marketing and the builder. Themes and stuff like that. I think people are going to really start to be like, oh, wow. Like this is just all here with a click of a button. So  [00:20:31] Matt: you don't have to comment on my crazy conspiracy theory, but I'll ask it and we can cut this guy, a segment out of the show if you want. [00:20:41] I really think. Th this concept the space mountain rides, fantastic metaphor for all of this stuff is also how jet pack is attempting to win in the long run. And I'm of the mindset that I don't know, two years from now, you'll go [00:21:00] to wordpress.org and it'll say, download WordPress with Jeff. [00:21:05] Download free WordPress open source version of WordPress, whatever sounds uglier for you to say, I don't want that. I want this because this is the best way to experience WordPress's with Japan. And I think that that's the, the model that, that Jetpack will ultimately win with as much as we all are like, oh, not on our lawn, this thing here, but I think that that is how WordPress wins. [00:21:32] Are automatic wins in that space. Thoughts on, on that WordPress experience is jet pack in the front row seat for a wind like that.  [00:21:42] JR: Oh man, I have so many thoughts. I mean, I'll say, I'll say a couple of things on it. It's really interesting to think about that from Matt's perspective because Matt always said he wants to get to 50% of the internet uses work. [00:21:58] But I don't know what he's thought of after that. I don't know what happens when he hits that goal. Right? Is he. Does does there's IPO's there's, then what happens like that? What starts to take shape for this business? And so I think me, and you've always seen it from afar, right? You, you look at the way, they kind of their copies changing on jet pack and the way they kind of position the way it should feel like the, like you said, it, like, this is the way you should experience WordPress. [00:22:24] I actually think they say it on the jetpacks website. So I think we've always thought that was going to happen. It's just when and if, and, and I don't know if. If it's going to be triggered more around what happens with Matt and automatic, right. With the IPO or when it hits the 50%, or is he waiting for something like that for, in order to have to do it at that time? [00:22:47] Yeah.  [00:22:48] Matt: A friend of the show, I don't know if you know him, Jordan gall, he started cart hook, and now he's on onto another e-commerce product called rally.io, which is a. I hope I'm getting this right. It's either, either says it's a decoupled or headless e-commerce experience. Okay. He was building a product. [00:23:08] I think it started off as cart abandonment or cart recovery. Hence the cart hook name, built it in Shopify as playground and eventually. What I'll say is crushed by Shopify. He's not a happy camper. Really? Yeah. He's been a lot more vocal about it. There's a great business insider article, which I'll try to remember to link up to it here in the show notes. [00:23:30] And I'm going to have him on the show actually next week to kind of talk about a little bit of that stuff, your thoughts on playing in somebody else's playground. Is that something that ever comes up or you're like, do you look at this as it's? Okay. This is why we're building it as. We start with WordPress. [00:23:44] We build up there, we springboard to full on just come to our website signup.  [00:23:50] JR: Exactly. And even right now, I mean, even before we came into WordPress, right. Lemon squeezy has been live. It's been launched. We have paying customers that are just coming to us from their own ways. [00:24:00] Right. Not WordPress. So we already have that going. [00:24:03] I look at WordPress is like our biggest integration, right. Or biggest extension. And it's been interesting because ever since we've launched the API, we have like, is it stamp, stamp MADEC is that the shoot? I think it's the CMS. There's other people. Are you building plugins around other platforms? So, obviously we've been talking about maybe an integration with or the Shopify has people have wanted to do Shopify plugins for lemon squeezy. [00:24:30] So I think we'll continue down this path. Just as a way for distribution, that's the way I'm looking at it. Not so much a risk to the platform. Cause right now we're like you said, it's SAS and we can kind of control our destiny, which is  [00:24:42] Matt: nice. Just too. Recheck myself, dear listener, it's rally on.com, not rally.io, rally.io, creator coin economy. [00:24:50] A rally on.com is Jordan's next venture. You'll hear him probably coming up on the next episode. Cool. The, the, the future for a WordPress in full site editing. I mean, is this anything that. It comes up on your on your calls at all with the team. Like when you talk about the space mountain ride, like, is this, does this matter to you like full site editing, Gutenberg, Ella mentor, and like this massive whirlwind of stuff happening? [00:25:25] Does it matter to you or  [00:25:26] JR: not? Not so much. Yes. Yes it does. I think that, cause I think the approach we want to take. And this is what I mentioned about the plugin, right? Lemon squeezies plugin today, you can connect your store and then you, you, you really experienced lemon squeezy over lemon squeezy, but then you use your WordPress website to kind of display it, right? [00:25:44] So it's not. We would like to maybe look at bringing some more stuff. So we're not having to force people to come over to us. Right. If they don't want to. And I think that's how we're thinking about it is how do we, do we look at some lemon squeezy powered themes? Probably not. There's an element or ad-ons we've discussed. [00:26:01] So yeah, we're absolutely thinking about how do we make it, but it's more in the sense of like that customer, right? Like, What are they experiencing and how do we make this nice for them? Right. Rather than forcing them to come to lemon squeezy, if they don't want to, that's really how we think about it. [00:26:15] But I think in terms of the plugin to start, I think we're gonna focus more on features that people really want to leverage, like restrict content has. The really exciting one is migration tools for the other popular providers. Those are the things that we're working on now. And then from there, we'll kind of see what the, what people want. [00:26:35] So  [00:26:36] Matt: I don't have any segments on the show, but if I did have one, it might be like, read mean WP Tavern comments, like this read mean tweets like celebrities. Yeah. When this was announced and launched, which was what? Two days ago, right? The 10th.  [00:26:50] JR: Yeah, the plugin. Yeah.  [00:26:51] Matt: How was the reaction good or bad, otherwise, anything surprised you both positively negatively that you'd like to talk about that you saw from [00:27:00] Twitter comments or anything like that? [00:27:02] JR: So it's, it's, it's interesting, right? Because for the most part, I would say it's 99% excitement. Everyone's super excited. Mostly probably because the team, I think they see the team, they're like, oh wow. I had no idea that this is who's behind this. So that's been really cool. And, but there definitely is like coming back into the WordPress space after being here for so long. [00:27:23] And I did take a break for a while coming back into it. I did forget, like, there's definitely people that are. If they don't know us, so they don't know where we come from. Right. There's definitely been like. Well, what is this? And who are these guys and who did, how, how could they possibly think they could do this? [00:27:40] And so there's been a few of those and I just kind of laugh it off, but I think we'll eventually, hopefully win them over. But if not, there's always a Pepsi and a Coke and you know what I mean? And I don't mind being a Pepsi, like if, if there's already a Coke, I have no problem with that. [00:27:54] And so we're just giving people options. So  [00:27:56] Matt: lemon, squeezy.com. I'm looking at the pricing starts at $9 a month. No free.  [00:28:02] JR: Yeah. Yeah. And I can talk about that. Yeah. So we, so we did, we did have a free plan. We did the transaction model where you would pay high transaction fees on a free plan. And it, we had, oh man, like tens of thousands of people literally using the platform. [00:28:18] It was a lot. And so we just, and it's great, but like, you need a ton of volume for that model to really play itself out and time. And so being bootstrapped, it's like, let's just focus on building a product that people want to pay for. Let's make everything SAS. And there was, we had to kind of roll back and there was, there's been a lot of angry people about that. [00:28:39] And so we're trying to find the best pricing. And so this is what's working at the moment. I think, as we add new features, maybe maybe prices go up maybe, and there's a new plan that gets introduced. I don't know. But we're the right now, I think we've found a good price that, because what we did actually is we looked at. [00:28:55] We did look at, if I was going to do a digital download store or sell something digital using WooCommerce or easy digital downloads, we wanted to make lemon squeezy. So not for a race to the bottom, but just, we were trying to be realistic with the features that we do offer right at the moment. And so, so that's kind of where we're settling. [00:29:14] It seems to be working on, like I said, outside of WordPress, we've had plenty of sign-ups and so we're doing well, but I'm really excited to see this get into the WordPress ecosystem and just, just offer something fresh and new and that's that wasn't built, Forever ago. So yeah,  [00:29:32] Matt: $9 a month is still pretty darn affordable. [00:29:35] It's only 90 bucks for the year, sands a transaction fee for selling, which you're going to get no matter where you go. Unless you only accepted check by mail, which you're still going to be paying a fee on that too. Did you find, and again, like with with the prefix, that $9 is still pretty, pretty affordable, did you find a better. [00:29:54] More qualified type of customer from moving away from free. It's always like the most demanding [00:30:00] customers want things for free. And then as soon as they start to pay them, they're a little bit better.  [00:30:04] JR: Yeah. Like, yeah, exactly. And our support totally changed too. Like it was actually just, like a lot of bottom feeding, right. [00:30:11] Kind of things going on. And the support is actually way higher now, but it's really good. Like questions, like people are in a trial or they have questions about this or that, or we're getting way more feedback on the product and like, well, if you guys had this, I would sign up or, you know what I mean? [00:30:26] Like. Yeah, you're right. It's attracted the right people. And then we're, you know what I mean? Like we're, it's like the Henry Ford thing, right? It's like, if I listen to my customer, just build a faster horse, but now I feel like we're listening to the customers that are really willing to pay and they are paying, and it's cool to see. [00:30:42] Yeah, man.  [00:30:42] Matt: I mean, you say that there's not a lot of features or, you feel like you might have not have as many features as the rest. It's. I mean, what you look like, you get a nice feature set here.  [00:30:50] JR: Well, yeah, so I guess so let me actually rephrase that. That's a good. From a, from an e-commerce perspective, selling things. [00:30:57] We, I think we're, we're really good. We do a ton of stuff. And especially for someone that's just like, doesn't want to have to worry about anything with the merchant of record. I think it's like super slick to sign up for lemon squeezy and just, you can just start selling where we're really gonna double down on next. [00:31:14] The editing publishing and editing experience where you can actually have your own storefront and website with themes, Orman Clark and Jason and Mike, they're all going to have some pretty amazing themes that you can be able to use this lemon squeezy. And then Gilbert's been working on a full blown, like e-commerce email marketing e-commerce solution. [00:31:32] So think about filtering and segmentation around your user base. Right? Whether they're. Coming in our landing page subscribing to a newsletter, or if they've purchased a product or multiple products where you're going to be able to filter a segment, send emails, take actions, depending on who they are, what they are, what they bought, so that's the kind of stuff that I think we're moving into next, but you're right from a e-commerce perspective, I think that, you can do pretty much everything except for selling online course at the moment. [00:32:01] Yeah, that's the only real feature left,  [00:32:03] Matt: Semi hot seat question. The usual suspects aside in the software licensing key plugin space software licensing. I don't really see that come up on other e-commerce platforms. So prominently is this the easiest way to kind of break into. What I'll say is the available customer base of WordPress. [00:32:27] JR: Oh, that's funny.  [00:32:28] Matt: Really it could be that I don't, I don't, I'm not looking for software licensing on other platforms, but maybe other platforms are doing it and I just don't see it. I just see this as a very WordPress thing. Ah, you know what? I didn't  [00:32:40] JR: even think about it that way. I think, you know why it's maybe so important to us? [00:32:43] Cause maybe where we come. Maybe, because we are so heavy from the WordPress space. It's like what we're used to, but I will say like people that sell, tailwind components and things like that, they want to, they want to have licensing stuff done. So it's, it's applicable other places, but it's funny you [00:33:00] say it that way, because I guess it could look like. [00:33:02] I think a lot of it was just influenced where we came from. Yeah.  [00:33:05] Matt: So who man, a lemon squeezy.com. Check it out, starting at nine bucks a month. I mean, it looks pretty fantastic to me. Any, I mean, I was about to say any black Friday deals, but how cheaper, cheaper could you get for nine bucks?  [00:33:17] JR: Yeah, I think we're going to avoid it. [00:33:19] Actually. I think we're going to try to, I don't know. Not do that. See how it goes. Cool, man. But  [00:33:26] Matt: yeah. Jr. Far, anything else that you'd like to leave the audience with anywhere they should go to? Oh,  [00:33:33] JR: man. Just, yeah, I really appreciate you bringing them mat. I try to listen to your show and everything that you do. [00:33:40] And I think you're, you're, you're definitely the best at this. So, it's exciting to to, to have to be back in the WordPress space and Be with our community again, and maybe went over a few new hearts that don't know us yet. So, but now thanks again, man. And Yeah, definitely follow along. [00:33:56] Matt: Absolutely everybody else. Everybody listening, check out lemon, squeezy.com, check out everything Jr. And his team are doing. If you want your weekly dose of WordPress news in five minutes or less, go to the WP minute.com. Join the private discord $79 for the year. You get to get your hand in the weekly WordPress news. [00:34:14] Get shout outs, help shape the news part of the team. Hashtag link squad. You know who you are. All right. We'll catch you in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode of Legally Sound | Smart Business by Pasha Law PC, Nasir and Matt cover the Business of Healthcare. There is more to the healthcare industry than just doctors and nurses. Many Americans have health insurance to cover their yearly needs, but most Americans are not aware of what really goes on behind the curtains. From fraud, contracts, staffing, and even the notorious 'Dr. Death', tune in for more details and perspective on the intricacies of the legal world as it pertains to medicine. Full Podcast TranscriptNASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast. Today, we are talking about the business of healthcare from a legal perspective. That's what we do. I don't think we've had an exclusive healthcare-related topic yet. MATT: It's definitely taken the forefront in pop culture and what people have been talking about the last year and a half. This is Legally Sound Smart Business where your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub, cover business in the news and add their awesome legal twist. Legally Sound Smart Business is a podcast brought to you by Pasha Law PC – a law firm representing your business in California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Here are your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast. Today, we are talking about the business of healthcare from a legal perspective. That's what we do. Welcome, Matt. It's been at least a month since I've seen you in person via video. You look good. MATT: Virtually in person, if that even makes sense. Thanks. I try to. It's a better time than it was this time last year. NASIR: That's true. Very true. We're still doing it virtual even though it's 2021 and not 2020, but that also is the nature of being distant from each other as well, I suppose. What have we got today? Well, we're doing healthcare. We are business attorneys, but we also specialize in the business of healthcare. I don't think we've had an exclusive healthcare-related topic yet. Of course, we're really deep in healthcare in Texas and California. And so, a lot of our topics are going to be related to that, but I'm excited for this. MATT: Yeah. Obviously, healthcare has been very primarily featured in the news the last year and a half particularly with what seems to be just an everchanging thing of different rules and regulations that need to be followed. I don't want to get too deep into it because we're going to talk about a lot of those today, but it's definitely taken the forefront in pop culture and what people have been talking about the last year and a half. NASIR: Yeah. I think one of the biggest things that I keep hearing from both current clients and new clients is telemedicine. There have been rule changes on a CMS level. When it comes to what you can and can't do from a telemedicine visit has completely changed since the pandemic has come. The realities of what people are more willing to do now – instead of doing an office visit, doing a virtual visit. I think that consumers have had a paradigm shift in that regard as well. MATT: It touches on what you said at the beginning of this episode. You know, seeing each other virtually. It was just a necessity on what some physicians had to do. It was just a matter of survival. Obviously, there were in-person visits for when it needs to be, but a lot of physicians and other parts of healthcare shifted to that virtual setup just out of they had to do it. NASIR: Right. I mean, I know I've had – both personally and for family members – multiple virtual visits whereas before I don't even think I had one, but let's talk about it. It's actually pretty interesting because the Teladoc model – you can call it a Teladoc model – it's not a unique model, actually. It's a model that many physician practices use in states where they have what's called the prohibition of a corporate practice of medicine. That concept exists in most states of the country – not all – where they want to prevent for-profit businesses that are non-professional...

There's no better feeling than when you launch something that just clicks with people. I guess at the end of the day, folks that build businesses or create content are simply seeking acceptance. We want to see our idea flourish, to be adopted by the masses, and to leave an impact. When Maciej Palmowski launched WP Owls with his wife Agnieszka, it was (and still is) a publication that served the Polish community. But it clicked. People clicked, literally on to the website and their stories, so the co-founding duo decided it was time to go global. Combined they've published over 200 articles about WordPress and the community on the blog, with no signs of stopping. Oh, and if you're wondering how to get a job like WordPress ambassador at Buddy, you'll learn a thing or two about CI/CD today! Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Maciek: some people are afraid when it comes to version control system. This is a command line tool. So it's scary and it's only for developers now. That's not true. We can use get crack and it's really easy. We can use tower and there are probably some other tools also even using a gift and their web version.[00:00:20] This, this is also a really friendly approach[00:00:23] This episode is brought to you by mind size visit dot com for maintenance for WordPress. Woo commerce and more. Over at mind size. Dot com Hey, you know, it's all the rage these days. Woo commerce. You know, what's so difficult to maintain as a freelancer and a small agency. Woo. Commerce. Outsource your maintenance to mind size over@minesites.com. They're the only, service company that I know that servicing specifically for WooCommerce and supporting you as an e-commerce shop as a merchant. so you don't have to worry about how the heck to scale woo commerce, which is also one of the hardest things.[00:01:00] Yes. There's a lot of great hosting companies out there. But they're not going to help optimize the code, drill down under the hood and really make the right decisions. For your WooCommerce site. Check out mine, sys.com and check out their WooCommerce service plans so you can get to better ruin. That's a, probably not a joke. We'll use again. Check out mine. sys.com. Thanks for supporting the show.[00:01:25] Hey, do you like WordPress content in media? Like this? Do you like WordPress news and getting the hot takes community journalism and op-eds from your peers and colleagues in the WordPress space. Consider supporting the WP minute and the Matt report. By buying me a coffee over@buymeacoffee.com slash Matt report.[00:01:45] You can join the membership, which also has a private discord you can chat with like-minded injured individuals and get your hands in the WordPress news every single week in our discord server. Going to buy me a coffee.com/matt report that's buy me a coffee.com/matt report There's no better feeling than when you launch something that just clicks with people. I guess at the end of the day, folks that build businesses or create content are simply seeking acceptance. We want to see our ideas flourish, to be adopted by the masses and to leave an impact. When launched WP hours with his wife. Agneshka it was instill is a publication that served the Polish community.[00:02:22] But it clicked. People clicked literally onto the website and their stories. So the co-founding duo decided it was time to go global. Combined, they published over 200 articles about WordPress and the community on the blog with no signs of stopping. Oh, and if you're wondering how to get a job like WordPress ambassador.[00:02:41] At buddy get, you're going to learn a lot about that today, along with continuous integration and continuous development. If you're a small agency or a freelancer, it's time to start getting serious about how you manage code. And that's what today's lesson is largely about. Okay Onto today's episode[00:02:58] Matt: one question I didn't throw at you. How did you become a WordPress ambassador?[00:03:02] I see a lot of folks these days on my Twitter stream saying I would love to just work for a brand and talk about WordPress and talk about their products, any insights into how to land an awesome job like yours.[00:03:13] Maciek: To be honest, it's walls a bit of coincidence because. I was working at WP M Def as at their second line of support.[00:03:22] So I was mostly a developer and at some point Rafael, the CTO of Bobby, just reach out to me and asked, Hey, would you like to become our ambassador? Because on one hand, the day learned that WordPress is really getting bigger and bigger, and it would be a great idea to I have someone promoting their, their tool in worker space.[00:03:44] And on the other hand, we had the, we had the chance to meet earlier on because one of the organizers of a word can Poland it will be the last word component. So it was 2019 and there were one of the sponsors right then. So we had the chance to talk to meet. And I was using body for many, many years.[00:04:03] I was always asking questions asking for some new features. So, so, so they remembered that there, that there is one month. Of the dirt and he knows WordPress, and he probably likes our tool because he worked at a few companies and every time he asked us about something, because every company I switched during the first few years, it was one of my first decision.[00:04:28] Maybe let's try to adopt the body because it will speed up. Rework. So in the end, I, I have a chance to work here. And this is what I would say. This is a really a dream job.[00:04:40] Matt: Yeah. We're both biased because we both work for companies that represent WordPress in some either direct or indirect fashion.[00:04:46] And I have for many years now but this is a, this is a role that I think. Whether it's an ambassador hat or a title or some other title that, that you might get. I think this is a smart move for a lot of other WordPress companies to really invest in is you need to bridge that gap as we'll talk about in a moment, you need to be able to bridge that gap between that technology and that sort of average consumer of that technology, because it can't just be developer speak and it can't just be the marketing speak some at some point, these brands need to cross over in the.[00:05:17] And shake hands and agree that somebody can speak both sides of it. Exactly. And, and this is just an amazing time in WordPress. This space was so much acquisitions and, and big money coming into the space and bigger brands adopting. I think folks like you and I are going to be much more valuable.[00:05:32] Maybe we should ask for raises as you and I[00:05:36] Maciek: wait w with all our taxes rising in Poland, this, this is for sure what the, what I will do at the beginning of the next year[00:05:44] Matt: you were in here first. Okay. So let's talk about CIC D I know the definition, I'll let you define it. And more specifically why it's important for.[00:05:55] Let's say the smaller agency, who's starting to grow their business and take on bigger projects. Why should they invest in these areas?[00:06:02] Maciek: Yeah. So, CIC, D H first of all, it has nothing to do the CD part with compact disc. So don't worry. And I also heard that it sounds a bit like COVID and that's true.[00:06:14] It's it sounds a bit like this. And I think this is the biggest problem of Of our company of our world because this definition is everyone who hears this aggravation just don't know what are we talking about? Because some folks just won't do. I think they want to use this word just to feel more important or better or something like this.[00:06:37] To tell it more easy. It just automation it's just deployment automation. That's all because the CACD means it's continuous integration and continuous deployment. So, it's everything about testing and deploying in, in an automated manner[00:06:54] Matt: and to, and to illustrate, sorry to cut you off, but to illustrate like the typical.[00:06:59] The typical sort of a WordPress boutique agency, myself included. So I started an agency. I started with me and just my dad and I'm the technical one. My dad's helping him like run the business. We start growing an agency. We start selling more projects. Now I have. Relinquish my, my development skills with air quotes.[00:07:16] This is like 20 years ago and hire other developers and designers. Suddenly we have this small team of people and just sharing a single FTP account is no longer the answer to scaling in the same way of building websites and more complex websites. As we started taking on bigger projects over time, investing in a tool like this, whether it's buddy get or.[00:07:38] Is a smart move for anyone who's starting to grow a larger team and get on bigger projects. Cause it's just going to keep everything organized to a degree. Exactly.[00:07:46] Maciek: Okay. I work at body and this is my favorite tool, but it doesn't matter which one we will use. The whole CICT is not the tool it's a methodology or some would call it.[00:07:59] It's a philosophy of how we work. It's just about about the fact that we should test everything on one end and on the other end, on the other hand the way how we deploy stuff to the server is in an automated manner. The only thing that can be done manually is just the is just approving the.[00:08:19] Should we release this version. The rest should be automated in some way. And this is something perfect for also first of all agencies, because everyone also thinks that CIC D is just for those enterprise with like zillions of people and stuff like this. And that's not true. CIC, it will be also perfect for smaller companies because we don't have to invest for example, in in QA, because we can write some tests because there are so many methods and so many tools, thanks to which we can test our, either our code, either how our page behaves.[00:08:57] We can even Some part of accessibility testing only for dental or for 40% if I remember, but still it's more than, than, than a quarter of possibilities and we can test it everything. Each time we deploy our code and this can make not only our product better. It can be Teper because we won't waste so much time doing the boring stuff, because let's be honest testing at this point.[00:09:31] It will was[00:09:32] Matt: for everybody. Don't worry. You're not alone. Yeah.[00:09:35] Maciek: Probably saw it's, it's one of the most horrible things I could do. It's boring. It's repetitive. I just hate it. I just hate it. And every time I can create a short script that can do something for. I'm trying to do this, and this is exactly the same what most big open source project do, because could you imagine developing WordPress without having any tests and believing that moving something in Wandon of WordPress won't break something in the other.[00:10:08] So, especially that, yeah. Let me put[00:10:11] Matt: my business hat back on my agency hat back on. And I remember back in the day when my developers would, bring this to me and they'd say, Hey, we have to implement, of course the ICD, this methodology we have to do testing. We have to do all of this stuff. And the only thing that ran through my head was, oh my God, how much time and money is this going to cost me?[00:10:30] And how much is this going to slow down? The the timeline to launch a project or, get this iteration out to the customer who, only has a certain condensed budget is this thing is this of the mindset of look, it's going to be a little painful now, but in the future, it'll be much easier if that's how I've.[00:10:49] Digest that over the years, a lot of pain now, but a lot less stress in the future.[00:10:56] Maciek: Yes, that's it? Because this was a problem. I also had that one company I worked at that every time with other developers, we try to, Hey, maybe let's try and add some tests. We will. We'll benefit from it in the future, because right now, probably it will take us some time, but there are also like a few methods of writing tasks because we can either try to have like 100% coverage, which I think doesn't have a sense in any situation.[00:11:29] Or we just could try to focus on those critical parts of our website of our application. So if we know that. Some part of our website is critical. Let's say we know that our contact form is like the most important thing on our side. We should just write that small as using, for example, Cyprus testing.[00:11:53] If everything is working after each deployment, we don't have to cover everything. This is the only critical part we will need. Of course, the more tests, the better. And as you said, This is the problem that some agency owners or business department have that this is one more thing that the developers have to create.[00:12:16] So it will take much more time. And that is true. That is that's really true because this will take some extra time, but on the other things,[00:12:26] Matt: Sorry, go ahead. I just want to just ask the interject in this one question, cause I'm actually just really curious of, as, as I hear you talk about it and framed in a different way than I've heard over years, but a business owner again says, Hey, that con that sales lead form very important to our business.[00:12:43] That's where all of our sales contacts come in or our checkout page. Very. Business owner puts his hat on and says, Hey, isn't this why we're here in WordPress? We have gravity forms. We have WooCommerce, or these well-developed plugins. Isn't this code tested before it's shipped. How does something like this solve against that?[00:13:00] When we might be saying, boy, we just paid 200 bucks for gravity forms, license, what do we need to test this for?[00:13:06] Maciek: Because there are, there are few reasons. First of all, Gravity forms. Developers are humans and they also sometimes make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. This developer in the middle name.[00:13:20] Yes. This guy at get lab once just like destroyed their whole database and then they learned. They don't have backups. So yes, every wild makes[00:13:31] Matt: sound for six hours the other day. Yeah.[00:13:34] Maciek: And to be honest, after like removing the whole database, being down only for six hours. Great. Really, they, they get a tremendous job with with restoring everything can and stop.[00:13:45] But yes, they are humans. Second of all, our website runs on. Which can also break. There are so many moving parts. Also, there are other blockchains that could conflict with our plugin. So it's always better just to add this one extra test for our critical parts, because okay. That deployment will take, like, let's say five minutes longer, but I think it's much better rather than losing like $200.[00:14:17] Just like that before releasing the hotfix. So, so yeah, this is, this is something that, okay. It will take some time, but in the end, especially when we w when we plan to have a longer collaboration with, with this client, this will be something that all those tests will really help us in, in, in many things.[00:14:39] For example, if at some point we will want to. Like refactor some parts of the code then refactoring without having tests. It's maybe not impossible, but this is a very dangerous task because then we want to know anything about those loose ends. And so yeah, this, this artist situations, when, when, when this are something really, really.[00:15:01] Matt: Before we get to talking about you, co-founding, WPLS a couple of other questions here on the CIC D stuff. Is there a particular, so in podcasting, right? So I help people@mydayjobatcastles.com, getting them set up with podcasting. And it's not just, Hey, here's how you use Castillo's. They come to me and they say, oh my God, how do I start?[00:15:23] How do I get a podcast off the ground? How do I create content? How do I interview people? There's all of these other questions that come into creating an account at cast. Those that we have to submit. Things like testing and training and education and stuff like that. How do you all solve that at your day job?[00:15:39] How do you help people sort of on onboard to this new methodology, if it's new to them and make them successful so that they're not missing the things that really make it a valuable, a valuable solution?[00:15:51] Maciek: There are very few things that, that we can do. First of all Foundation of using CICT is using any version control system.[00:16:00] So this is the first thing we have to educate people on is using get just like this. If someone isn't using any version control system then this is something. Th this person has, has to learn. That's why we, for example, had this webinar together with get crack and because they have a really great tool for forget.[00:16:22] And yeah, because this is also a thing that some people are afraid when it comes to version control system. This is a command line tool. So it's scary and it's only for developers now. That's not true. We can use get crack and it's really easy. We can use tower and there are probably some other tools also even using a gift and their web version.[00:16:45] This, this is also a really friendly approach. I, so many people who wrote books using good using markdown and using pull requests for, for comments from, from other. And this is a really interesting method to do this, and it's, it's, it's totally possible. And like I said, this is the foundation of CIC D without it, we, we just won't know what changed and thanks to version control system.[00:17:10] We can, we can see those things on the other hand, because. That's beyond the CACD. It's kind of boring like that because CAC just connects the cool parts because we have this like cool server. We have this, our cool website and deploying one from the other, like this is the boring part. So, so I also try, especially on my Twitter sometimes to show some cool ways what we can do which I see, for example I think that the last week I posted how to, how to connect our pipeline.[00:17:47] So every time that our deployment is successful, it will lounge. I have the tiger on my, on Spotify, on my phone. And it works. Yes. It's useless in a way it's warm.[00:18:00] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. You don't want that going off on like a board meeting and we launched a new website and like I had the tire comes on, like hired this[00:18:07] Maciek: guy, I say, okay, this is a really great sign.[00:18:10] It's working. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's really terrific. And I also discuss with, with one of our, of our writers at the body he created an action to start a game server. I just don't remember in which game does by like in a press of a button and just like that, it just automated everything, created some balls that lounge everything on amazing.[00:18:34] It was working. So yeah, it's, it's, it's not only about moving files from one place to another. We can just do so many interesting things. It's just up to us. And because there are so many tools that have some open API APIs, CLS or anything. So it's so easy to connect everything with everything. So, so it's really great.[00:19:00] I. Even, like I said, I, now I have this, I have tiger, but I could, for example, using IFT T connect to. Our pipeline with like changing color of lights at my house, because why not? Again,[00:19:17] Matt: but again, of course, open API is automation. All of this stuff is fantastic. It's fantastic because. It allows you to have like this creative sense to unlock things that even the companies who are creating don't even haven't even realized yet.[00:19:33] Right? Like you were able to do things like notify your team about deployments that happen in different channels and different methodologies. Yeah. It's, it's fantastic. When you start to unlock all of this stuff, that creative mindset that you have that interest to explore and to develop and investigate I'm sure is what led you to releasing WP owls, right?[00:19:56] Like you've loved WordPress. You wanted to explore more of it. I assume I don't want to put words in your mouth and I'll let you explain it. But you know, here you are. I think 50, at least at the time of this recording, 55 issues published on WP owls.co walk me down that path. When did this start and who did you start it with and why are you still doing it?[00:20:20] Maciek: So, yeah, this is, this is a funny story because the Polish version has. More than 150 issues already. So it's much older. And it started with with the fact that I didn't listen to my wife carefully because at some point she asked me, Hey, maybe we will run a WordPress newsletter or something like this.[00:20:43] I'm using Facebook, just, just for our Polish community. And I wasn't listening. I just said, yeah. Great idea. Yeah. Let's do it. And yeah. And now we are those more than 100 episodes of the Polish issues of the Polish version, more than 50 of the English one. So yes, yes we are. We are still doing it. And when we started, especially because the Polish community.[00:21:12] Even if it's quite big, we all knew each other. So it was rather simple when we just posted that, Hey, we are starting the published version of WP hours. Many people are like at start started to follow in gas. And at some point we realized that Facebook wasn't the perfect choice. So we created our own website.[00:21:33] And when we have hit the 100 episodes, we decided, okay, it's time to go global. It's time to go global let's let's lounge, the double owls English version. And we fought that. Okay. We will have a bigger community, so it will be much, much easier to promote because we saw how it works with with our Polish community.[00:21:57] And we were a bit mistaken with some of the assumptions because for example, the most important marketing channel when it comes to the Polish version is. Estelle it's Facebook and for the English version, Facebook just doesn't work. I could almost remove it. And I think that no one would even even care about it.[00:22:21] Twitter is the most popular mediums here, which is great because I learned that I really loved with her opposed to Facebook, which I, which I really hate with all my heart.[00:22:34] Matt: Well, do you think it's, do you think the. For the Polish version is more successful because it's just where you started or are Polish people more, especially in the WordPress space, more tied to Facebook as it communications?[00:22:48] Yes.[00:22:48] Maciek: I figured that because in Poland looks like the Twitter is slowly mostly used either by politics or by a journal. So everyone is arguing with everyone and that's all when it comes to using our polished weeder. So yes, I, I really fully understand why people don't want to to use it.[00:23:12] And they like, especially Facebook groups because those are closed communities. But with CA when it comes to the English version The whole WordPress Twitter community is very open is it's really great. And I really loved it. I really love it. I really like hanging out there. So just, just, just like this enter, I think that I, I'm not sure when, when will, it will be published, but tomorrow, so it will be 19th.[00:23:43] It will be the first whole year of WP hours. We will be celebrating our first, our first barge night. And and I must say the going global was, was, was a great decision. It was a great decision. Okay. It is some ex it needs some extra work because every time we have to translate everything to English, because still thinking in our native languages much easier.[00:24:11] Yeah. But but like I said, it, it was worth it. We could lounge our our guests editors let's call it program. And w w and this is really the part of which I am so proud. This is working so great. And and yeah, we are. W we are hoping that it will, it will only get the better,[00:24:31] Matt: oh, congratulations.[00:24:32] On a year. I just celebrated nine years, a couple of days ago for, for this particular show. Once you pass a year, there's no turning back. They say you cannot stop at this point. Yeah, that's[00:24:44] Maciek: true. That's true because. Th we already see how much work we have put into something. And it would be a shame just to stop at that point.[00:24:53] Matt: Did, how do the goals change at all? Like what was the original goal for the Polish. Was it for you to just maybe get exposure to lead into maybe hiring you or something like that? And how do the goals change if at all shifting to a global presence?[00:25:07] Maciek: We have only one goal and it was more of a contribution towards WordPress.[00:25:13] That's all. We fought for a short while about monetizing it, but we. Once we decided that we don't want it. We don't want it. We, we want a WP hours and the Polish version to be our hubby rather than our our job B like, how is this nicely called? And This was the only thing that we want to achieve.[00:25:34] We wanted to give back something from, from us. And we know how many things are happening in the, in the worker space. So putting everything in one place I think it's a, it's, it's a nice contribution that that, that we are doing with the English version that all living that we that we wanted is just to, just to continue.[00:25:56] Doing this contribution about in the, in, in the larger scale. And even if we did not fault and we are, we don't want to monetize it. I, I would lie if I would set that it didn't help me with my, with my job because it's so much easier to connect with people because If I would be just much upon Muskie from, from body, less people would know.[00:26:22] And when I'm contacting them like, hi, I'm I work at at body, but you also may know me from WP ALS and many people already know me. So which ma it's so easier to connect with. If you saw our guest editors list, like there are, so I would call them workers, rock stars. We had, we had yells, we had Mar YAG.[00:26:47] We had so many interesting, interesting people from, from the workless world. And without WP ALS, I don't think I would even have had the courage to talk with with some of them, because why? Because. I am. I'm just, I wouldn't be just a workers ambassador and this makes me, and this makes it a bit easier, but I still remember the moment I wrote wrote an email asking Demariac from, from yells to be our guests to Dieter.[00:27:18] For sure. I had the small slip deprivation because I would never do it being like, because this is Marielle from yellows. This is yeah. I am here and she's right. So the interesting thing and the surprise in the morning.[00:27:34] Matt: Yeah. The, the interesting thing, and I sort of alluded to this earlier.[00:27:38] How this is an interesting time for like content creators, especially in, especially in the WordPress play space, in any space in every space. I should say. It's just very apparent in WordPress because content creators can get jobs for brands to, again, bridge those gaps between marketing and product or especially marketing and technical.[00:27:56] The other interesting thing, I think, which is going to carry through. Forever at this point, I think is folks like you and I, and some folks listening who are content creators who have a body of work that is valuable, but more importantly, an employee. Somebody who hires you to work for them, sees that as valuable and allows you to continue to do it.[00:28:19] Let me frame this from some experiences that I had when I got out of the day job, running my agency and looked for a full-time job back when I was having kids five, five or so years ago at this point, that body of work like you were saying, allowed me to, talk to other companies to get jobs.[00:28:39] I'd say 80% of them back then were, were like, yeah, this is awesome. Like continue to do the Matt report. You can work for us and keep doing it because it's a benefit to us really at the end of the day. And I get to retain that ownership. And it's not looked at. Oh, you're doing like a side hustle while you're working for us.[00:28:57] Like, no, that's not gonna apply. And I did have some of those conversations with very notable WordPress companies, I should say, which I won't say on air, but a few of them were like, no, no, you, if you work for us, you'd have to stop doing the mat reporting. And I was like, oh, okay, this, this conversation's done pretty quick because that's just not going to happen.[00:29:13] But what I'm getting at is I think content creators have this advantage from here on out. Like you can continue to create. Have it as a valuable asset to yourself, to the company you're working for. If both parties can agree that this is a, an okay relationship. I think the future is pretty bright for content creators to continue to love, like do this hobby thing, like as you put it and work for a company, but find mutual mutual benefit.[00:29:40] That was a long way of getting to that is no real question. But do you have any thoughts around the future of like content creators and how you can leverage that as an additive?[00:29:48] Maciek: Yeah, I think that, that, that, you're absolutely right with this because I think that many, because when, when I started my, my job in with workers, I remember that every time when we were creating sites, that there were like three types of of let's call it workers.[00:30:04] We had graphic designers, we had developers and we had the marketing team and there was. There were so many gaps between all of those teams. And now when I w when I look at some work titles of different people, I see that are more and more jobs that are connecting those gaps. We have now, all those the developer relations jobs, oldest, embassy leaders, advocates, and so on, I would still like to be called, I dunno, I worked with you in the corner or something.[00:30:36] Matt: Because why your pay rate keeps going up every time, the longer this conversation goes on, you and I are going to be getting paid a lot more money.[00:30:42] Maciek: Yeah. So, but, but, but this is Suffolk, this that I think that many companies started to realize that it's not so easy that, that the job we are doing became more and more complicated in so many on so many levels.[00:30:58] Not only when it comes to the technical stuff. But here, here also, we have all those headlights, not headless, so many approaches of doing our, our workers is right. But on the other hand, there are so many approaches when it comes to communication to writing content and. So for sure there will be more and more jobs that will be doing that, that will specialize in one small thing and it will benefit for forever.[00:31:30] Because really having specialists on things that may sound stupid for someone it's sometime maybe a big win. I don't remember who, but someone in our corporate space is is, is promoting himself as an expert about, about pages. And, and this is a great approach because the about page is something really useful.[00:31:55] Yeah, and it can get, it can build that relation between the reader of the website and to do, to become a future client or something like this. So, so yeah. Maybe a few years ago, hiring someone who calls himself an about page specialists may sound, let's call it weird, but now why not? Right. It may have sense.[00:32:21] Matt: Yeah. A hundred percent. I want to turn our sights on. Talking about creating content in the WordPress space, maybe WordPress, journalism, news, podcasting, and all the, all of this fun stuff you say that you, you want to keep it as a hobby. You don't want to turn it into a jobby, which I I'd imagine.[00:32:37] As soon as you first, as soon as you take your first payment, and let's say an advertiser suddenly, now you're sort of thrust into this area of like, okay, now I have to turn this into a business. I know this really well because I take sponsorship money. There is a need, I think. And again, there's not going to be a direct question here.[00:32:52] I'm just going to frame it and then happy to get your thoughts. I think there is a need for like great for great WordPress content, not just tutorials, not just interviews but content lead with opinion, journalism research, et cetera, et cetera put out there into the world because there are.[00:33:11] Sponsors out there. There are businesses out there that would like to support it. There's also businesses and brands out there that want to get their product or service out in front of other readers, listeners, viewers, if you're doing stuff on YouTube, there's plenty of, of market share out there. I don't think our particular space has matured enough.[00:33:34] And I mean that for both parties on one hand, I think the product owners that are out there are simply just looking for, for numbers, right? They want, they want clicks. They want page views. They want downloads, they want views. They want all of this stuff. Rightfully so. And there's less concern of great quality content.[00:33:53] And then. There's the other side of the product owner, who's like, Hey, I got this great product. How do I get it out there? I want the world to know about it, but the taverns not talking about it, I guess my work here is done. I think they just give up. Right. And there's no formal outreach.[00:34:10] There's no real true effort to reach out to folks like you and I to. To really do that. And if it is, it's just like this, please talk about my products. So you can promote me thing, which also sucks. Right. And then we flip that sphere around to the content creators, like uni where, ah, yeah, some of us, we, we get burned out from doing these projects because.[00:34:31] Whatever it's, it's just not enough people paying attention to it. There's not enough money in it. The WordPress world is largely out of our control to, to a degree. So there's things moving that we just can't control. Can't use the word WordPress or in, in any of our commercial endeavors there's stuff like that.[00:34:48] Fairly chaotic world. How do you see bridging the gap between, product companies that want to support great and unique content and want to get their product out there and the content creators like you and I, and others that are listening to this to like, keep things going and get valued at a particular.[00:35:07] Level that they should be valued at a big, huge topic. I just threw at you. But your thoughts on any of this?[00:35:13] Maciek: Yeah, that's right. It's, it's huge. Maybe I will start with a little background because for, for few years I had the chance to work at one of the biggest Polish technical portals and. There were, there were a lot of advertisement or, and I had the chance to contact with so many media agencies, advisors, and so on.[00:35:36] And this was the point when I realized I really hate advertisement in like any way. And when I am still thinking when it comes to WP ALS how to. Get some money, but not for me because I'm, I I'm earning enough at, at, at my day job, but to get some money just that I can found something something else for, for example, I could pay money for, for writers and like still trying to find the way, how to, how to make an advice advertisement that won't lose.[00:36:14] Like it's, it's an ad it's it's, it's, it's something really difficult. It's, it's something really difficult because like I said, I had banners, I had, I hate sponsored tags because in many cases you can feel that someone paid for it and it's it's, it's not real. It's not real. It's it's it's it's, it's just fake.[00:36:37] So[00:36:37] Matt: yes, this is, but don't you think in the WordPress world? Don't you think specifically in the WordPress world, we have an advantage as creators to either write or say ads that we really care about. Like if you're using, your particular buddy, get a software or if let's say gravity forms, sponsor the show, like I could really talk well about, gravity forms.[00:37:00] Cause I know that. Don't you think we're in a particular advantage to the make advertising?[00:37:05] Maciek: Yes. That is true. That there are many products that that I could advertise with. We'd like. Can you heart or anything? I would, I won't have to worry about that. I am, let's say lying to the people because yes, I could say those words, but this is, this is one problem about me because I always were at minimalist developer.[00:37:27] I use as few plugins as possible. So I could say great words about advanced Gusto fields. I could say great words about the body. About timber, but it's an open source project that wouldn't advertise in any way and maybe about Yoast because I always use them too. So there are not many products that I could advertise in a way.[00:37:53] And on the other hand, I know that there are so many services that are probably great, that are that are really far towards the users. And if I could find a way to. To figure out how to create those advertisements in a way that. Th that's will look more real more for, to, to, to my top, to my readers.[00:38:18] And it will be a great moment for me when I, when I, when I figured it out, I'm still trying to, to do, to find a way how to, because like I said for, for me, it would be great if I could sponsor some other people to, to, to write some great tax to to develop their. Stuff like this,[00:38:37] Matt: because there are so many, it sounds like advertisement and sponsorship is, is still on the table.[00:38:42] Like you're still exploring it. It might be something that you do with th[00:38:45] Maciek: this bout. Yes, it, it, it is it's but like I said, it's, it's not for me. I would just like want to have the possibility to, to pass the money, to, to, to people that. That needed more because like I said, I'm, I'm really happy with, with how many money I earn each month still.[00:39:05] If they want to tell them to give me a raise, I'm still open. So[00:39:09] Matt: they definitely will after this call Machek thanks for hanging out today and talking about all of this wonderful stuff. Listen, if you're a small agency boutique agency, you have a few developers on your team starting to take on bigger projects.[00:39:21] You're starting to punch above your weight. Sign those 20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred thousand dollars deals. It's time to get serious. Find my check. Well much I can tell us where can they find you to connect on the CIC D software that we talked about? And then where can we find you? If we want to write a post on WPLS[00:39:37] Maciek: I've instilled, the best way would be to connect with me through fruit for Twitter.[00:39:42] You can find me my nickname is . I hope that maybe you will, you will provide them. My link to my Twitter and accounting in a written way. And I think this is this. This is the best way to connect with me because it's, it's universal for all my worlds.[00:40:01] Matt: Fantastic stuff. Everyone else listening to this, my report.com report.com/subscribe.[00:40:06] If you want your weekly news delivered to you in five minutes or less, the WP minute.com. Sponsor us over there@buymeacoffee.com slash Maryport. Join our private discord. Join the conversation, get your hand in the. WordPress news. See you in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

Now that the WordPress acquisition market has cooled a bit, it's time to stoke the fire on all things Gatsby and JAMStack-y-ness….again. Don't let Full Site Editing steal all of the thunder, there's still so much happening around headless WordPress and the ability to integrate 3rd party APIs to take the place of plugins. Look, I know it's a polarizing thought process to some of us, but if we want WordPress to continue to grow — we need to give it some room for new use cases. I'm joined by Alexandra Spolato to talk about her company GatsbyWPThemes and how this hotness comes with some red hot opportunity. If you're wondering how to make money in the WordPress theme space headed into 2022, look no further than this conversation. Get schooled on the technology and learn how the heck she found her co-founder along with their recipe to success splitting the responsibilities. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Alexandra: JAMstack is really the new hotness. Now it brings speed, which is an essential law with ACO, with the new Google measures about about some core vetoes for us that now are really essential. So we've we've Gatsby and JAMstack. Really really super fast website. [00:00:20] You check. Pages instant, it's static. brings all sorts of security because your database is not exposed, but have more flexibility great developer experience because now most developer. Learning react, not PHP. So people want to learn. We react. So it brings a lot of advantages. [00:00:42] Matt: This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by foo plug-ins or specifically foo plugins, foo gallery. You can find it@foo.gallery. There's a new pro commerce plan, and it gives you two way integration into WooCommerce. So if you want to sell photos, you can sell photos with foo.gallery and woo commerce. [00:01:04] It makes your job. Super easy, especially if you're a photographer. I just had family photos taken the other day and I looked at the big conglomerate website that my photographer sent me. He said, man, it would look so much better if you. Right through WooCommerce, especially if you use something like foo gallery, check out food, art gallery, and learn more about their pro commerce plan. [00:01:26] Check out their WooCommerce integration. They have a great way to watermark and protect your photo galleries. Check them out and thank them for sponsoring the show. It's food, art gallery go-to food art gallery today. Start selling images with foo gallery and. [00:01:44] Now that the WordPress acquisition market has cooled off a bit. It's time to stoke the fire on all things Gatsby in jams, tackiness. Again. Don't let full site editing, steal all of the thunder. There's still so much happening around headless WordPress and the ability to integrate third party API APIs to take the place of plugins and look.  [00:02:02] I know it's a polarizing thought process to some of us. But if we want WordPress to continue to grow, we need to give it some room for new use cases.  [00:02:11] I'm joined by Alexandra Salado to talk about her company Gatsby WP themes over at Gaspe WP themes. Dot com and how this hotness comes with some red hot opportunity. If you're wondering how to make money in WordPress theme space headed into 2022. Look, no further than this conversation. Get schooled on the technology and learn how the heck she found her co-founder along with the recipe to success, splitting the responsibilities.  [00:02:36] This is the Matt report a podcast for the resilient and business builder i've launched something new you might have heard called the wp minute and you can join us as a member to get into our private discord server and take part in crafting the weekly wordpress news check out buy me a coffee.com/matt report join and thanks to food plugins fu gallery for sponsoring my work here on the mat report and the wp minute okay here's [00:03:00] alexandra's blotto on jamstack and Gasby wordpress themes [00:03:04] Alexandra: JAMstack is really the new hotness. Now it brings speed, which is an essential law with ACO, with the new Google measures about about some core vetoes for us that now are really essential. So we've we've Gatsby and JAMstack. Really really super fast website. [00:03:24] You check. Pages instant, it's static. brings all sorts of security because your database is not exposed, but have more flexibility great developer experience because now most developer. Learning react, not PHP. So people want to learn. We react. So it brings a lot of advantages. [00:03:46] . Then in my dream, Always been to, to make a product in some development, to be honest, I really wanted them to create the way I went into development because I'm a creative person. And when I was in what brands I wanted to do themes, but the market was crowded. [00:04:01] And then I discover, I begin working with react NSC. It was, this is my bad, this is what I want to do. [00:04:07] We need premium themes with nice designs with options. So people. Especially developers or agency can have some things. They can, they, they can reuse pre-made designs, but not only that, because myself, I use my own themes for projects to not reinvent the wheel. I have a developer team that I can modify everything, but it contains another themes that get all the data and all the options and And I work really faster with that. [00:04:39] Matt: Here's what I see. I'm not a developer and the WordPress world is still heavy on the, the development talk, right? [00:04:47] The interest of WordPress is still largely for developers. First and foremost, and I see a lot of people. Hey, this whole like learn JavaScript, deeply thing. Gutenberg, Gatsby. I feel like some people there's a camp of people who are like, oh, that's that's too technical. Like I can't even enter in WordPress anymore. [00:05:08] Because it's no longer just modify some HTML and CSS and know a little bit of PHP lightly. Like that's how I got into the WordPress world. So I could kind of relate with that, but I'm not a developer. So I haven't been practicing this skill for like the last decade. What's your thoughts on somebody from the outside, just getting into WordPress development? [00:05:27] Is it that much of a challenge or if they're starting fresh, you kind of just learn this language and your. [00:05:33] Alexandra: So is that? [00:05:33] different type of developers and What you want to do myself? I'm self-taught then I, when I begin with WordPress, I did have not shaman and CSS. I just began taking themes and playing with them. And. Yeah, the design sense. So deep things begin to work and I begin to learn as GMs, CSS, and begin to, to my themes and, and I love, and I discovered I'm a developer and I love that.[00:06:00]  [00:06:00] So I wanted to go deeper and I wanted more. So I did a JavaScript bootcamp and I react and I, that was that's me. Okay. Now there is a, of a type of developers and there is WordPress implementers. Doesn't that blob, but they do great things to Wednesday address to work different type of clients. I think. So I think there is place and things for really different type of person. [00:06:26] Like there is different type of developers we're in front then backend there's dev ops people [00:06:32] and now we have this possibility of the wing doing jump stack. So no people is a great thing we've worked with.  [00:06:39] It depends on who you are and why you want to go. For me, it has been an opening. Yeah. And now I'm very creating a product in reacting, never expected that 10 years ago. So [00:06:49] Matt: What was the job? You mentioned you, you took a JavaScript course. What was that course for folks who might be interested in it? [00:06:55] Alexandra: it was in Barcelona and it was in Spanish. So it was a bootcamp in russula the Skylab I'm, I'm a, I have to that language one, French one is Spanish. So I speak English as you see, but taking one in Spanish, it was a burden less for me, for my brain learning that, but it was a great one. It was freelance full time, full stack. [00:07:16] So it was react. No, they, everything. And zip center. It was more to find a job. So all of them find a job at the end. So bootcamps are a really great, I think in my case, it was more to have to learn new things, to have more fun, developing and doing new things and flex to that. I'm there. So yeah, some bootcamps are nice. [00:07:38] I think my opinion, it was in person. It was not online.  [00:07:42] Matt: Sure when we had our pre-interview, we talked about this being your very first product, that's not your first foray into a business because you've been running a business. But talk, talk to me about this whole first product thing, any fear around that, and how did you prepare yourself to launch your first. [00:08:00] Alexandra: Oh not fear. No. And I just been. The path it's interesting. It happened what happened, even if it doesn't the work or whatever, I have learned so much at a great time, as I say them are creative. So creating a product is, is great. I am. I had a lot of fun enjoy doing it. I saw I'm very lucky because I didn't want it to do it alone. [00:08:26] When we begin with with Zach, but then I really needed a partner to develop with and I found he spent harm on Twitter. I knew where before from word gap in various she's polished. And she lived in various I contacted her and she was immediately okay. She already had a thin business in forest, but she wanted to do new things. [00:08:47] And especially in JavaScript, she was more with view and she, she learned react with me and she's super talented in design and in coding, in everything. We met at Gatsby days in London when I was doing a talk [00:09:00] and we begin the next day immediately. And it was, yes, a lot of fun. Enjoy Zen. We are not marketers. [00:09:09] So for the lounge to clot off more times than we thought, and when we decide, okay, we are going to launch, then you realize all the little things that you have not done in coding, in documentation, I was taking care of the commercial part, so, okay. For sales first. [00:09:27] we choose a Stripe, but then, oh, okay. [00:09:30] As a reason, all these data protection things and taxis and all, or no, I don't want to deal with legal things.  [00:09:37] So you have all these things to think. And, and before I think before you decide, okay, now we are going to launch you don't think about them. And they said go, oh, there is that. That's not the fun  [00:09:54] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, worry about to sell this thing. And now we have to do support. I forgot about.  [00:10:00] Alexandra: Yes. I also allowed the support, a website with bathroom circles that I think it's also Ballina was responsible of the documentation. And she did an amazing work on that. It was really to document well things. And is there any, so they, we pushed the button, to, to, to, to say. Okay. [00:10:21] Now it's slides a burden. [00:10:23] It was really, really something. And we had no idea our sales going to what was going to happen. But the first day I happened to have the five minutes. So it was really a nicer and I sign  [00:10:36] Matt: talk to me about just picking these tools really quick. I know that I think a lot of WordPress people immediately go to , oh, I'm going to, I'm going to launch a theme or a plug-in business. I'm gonna. Well, what's been in the news recently, easy digital downloads. Maybe they pick woo commerce, the deliver the product. [00:10:53] And then some folks who are like, Hey, I'm going to do support. They might be picking, BB press or they might be doing slack or something like that. You chose two fairly different tools. I love circle. I think it's a fantastic tool. I've never used your merchant before. Why not something that was attached directly to WordPress. [00:11:11] Was there some overhead there that you were like, yeah, I don't even want to deal with that side of it on. [00:11:14] Alexandra: But first I wanted to, to do the sales website. We have the project, with gets you WordPress. So it's not your WordPress where we don't have each other downloads, et cetera. And all the thing that even, I don't know if it's digital downloads take care of the taxis and, and data protection. For me as you think as really a nightmare [00:11:39] is there an about, about the support? I know a lot of people now are on discord or slack and. Slack is nice, but what do you want to make part? If people ask questions, then if you want to retrieve the message for other people, that will be, that can be useful unless the kids have been version. [00:11:58] It doesn't work for me. [00:12:00] Slack works better. For example, I am a team from my agency and then I ask the people on slack. That's different. This is nice on so far for community. But not for support, and when you want to, to have something well done with people can reach into the message, et cetera. [00:12:15] So I searched, there is discourse. That was great. And it's very sort of use that. And I discovered circle because I am, I'm also at both the courses. I hate tomatoes and I love this this courses with Peter. And I think it's really nice. [00:12:32] So I just search for what they need, and so,  [00:12:37] Matt: It's nice to see people in the WordPress space. So I've been talking to a lot more, no code, low code people on this podcast and, circle. Third party merchants, web flow. Like this is what everyone else is using. It's it's only really in the WordPress world where you just find everyone saying, I will not use anything unless it's GPL and I can find it from wordpress.org. [00:12:58] So it's nice to see, tools working really well. And you voting with your dollars because it's common sense. It doesn't have to glue into word press. If it's solving your need it's, it's good. And I just want to highlight that because I think it's, it's sort of understated with a lot of folks these days, or maybe even some folks in the WordPress world are afraid to admit it. [00:13:18] I'm running a discord server for my membership at the WP minute and I'm just like, I love it. It's fantastic. Of course, there's the fear that they get bought up by Microsoft, but you know, I'll deal with that when I get there. How has the marketing gone since it's been, what roughly, well, how many months has it been? [00:13:34] Like five, six  [00:13:35] Alexandra: three months, three months. [00:13:36] we launched every bottle that we launched on the 3rd of June at the beginning of the summer. So we didn't choose this day. We were just ready then, but there'll be less bucket is that's not the best moment for lunch, but whatever.  [00:13:54] Matt: And, and how, and what, what are your plans? Now you, so summertime is famously very low in sales. I mean, just speaking from experience, it's very low in sales. Everyone's out. COVID, I don't know what's happening in your part of the world in America. A lot of people went outside cause it was the summertime and they were ready to ready to go. [00:14:12] And now I, already seeing, even podcast listens are starting to go back up because everyone's like, Hey, summer's done. We're back to work, starting to become a fall, et cetera, et cetera. So anyway, getting to that famously a low season in the summertime. What's your plans now going into sort of October and the holiday season. [00:14:29] Alexandra: Okay though, for us, it was not only is a seminar, but what happens it's and one thing, when you launch a product and you begin, of course, you don't really make enough money to live only on that. So for me, this summer has been super active because I had tons of. Freelance work, and really, really there's been some more heavy peer relationship. [00:14:52] My carrier, it was terrible. So I didn't take holidays or nothing, but we could not really work more on the things, but that's good [00:15:00] because I realized that, okay, that's really. I crave and want to work on, and realize that, okay, it's, that's my baby. I really want to work on that. So now I'm going to really put my, my, my, all my time on that and Paulina too. [00:15:15] So we realized.  [00:15:17] Matt: up the role? How do you split up the responsibilities before you continue? How do you split the responsibilities? Who does, what on the. [00:15:22] Alexandra: Okay. We are both developers and designers . Paulina is is better than me at something sad, debugging and tracking documentation. She's really great developer. And. 100% the proper, and she's designed design to me, I'm a developer, but I also, as a business side I'm more extrovert ones that like yes, to talk to here in podcast she will do blog posts and they will do videos too, to show you the, but the great thing is we agree on most of the things and and we. [00:15:54] It has been a flow since the. [00:15:55] beginning. And I think that's very rare and very precious to to have, so we didn't think it, it just thing has been flowing between us. So now we talk, okay. I do that, that then Yeah. So marketing. Market neither her or neither me. So we have the Bridgette we are, which is, she is great. [00:16:15] And we really love her feeders that somebody was part of the team. She's taking care of Twitter. And I have my life partner, Darko is taking care now of SEO, of main marketing of all that. We are preparing that now, because we realize it's not enough to have a good product. You have to promote, you have to market because. [00:16:41] This is baby doesn't work alone. [00:16:43] Matt: Yeah. [00:16:43] Alexandra: So we, we had a really lot of sales of first month Zan. Yes. [00:16:47] July, August. And as you say, yes, summer is really calm, even in the tweaking, the matching subscription it began to get accepted. At first is really dead. So yes, we have already things to do, do a, we are planning to do also webinars making these team and make some tutorials to meet. [00:17:08] Matt: W I think one of the hot trends now besides getting acquired from, from like hosting companies. Cause it seems like all these plugging companies here now are just getting acquired by bigger players is as knocking on the door of like, a hosting company maybe like a strata WP who focuses on like headless WordPress or static WordPress, stuff like that. [00:17:31] What about that route? Have you been thinking about, maybe I can do. Even like this free theme as a framework. I know some people don't like that word, but bring it in as a framework to a hosting company, be like, Hey, partner up with us, include this as part of your suite of services for your hosting company or for your hosting customers. [00:17:50] And then, oh, by the way, just let them know that we have a pro version if they, if they want something else. Is that, is that something that is maybe too far off or like not on the radar yet? Or is that  [00:17:59] Alexandra: [00:18:00] Oh, [00:18:00] Matt: want to. [00:18:02] Alexandra: I have not think about it, but it can be an idea. you you'll give me ideas. I'm very close from WP and gene because of course , that was at Gatsby. Karen Mason I'm, I'm, I'm really close to them towards the folks that work there. I was thinking, I was thinking. I was very inspired by by Genesis and studio press, but the way of doing things. [00:18:27] And I think the people that can use it, it's, people's that want quality. We want things that don't do, it's not a multi popper films. I can Tim forest, not as I do one things they do well. And we have themes for everything and also. This is the type of people that use it. They're like even if they don't 3d codes, they like to. [00:18:52] enter in code and, and modify things themselves. [00:18:56] So, for me, it's a, it's a great great model. And I was working with Genesis when I was in WordPress. I was I was a Genesis developer too. So, and so and WP engine as all noses to your breasts themes that Brian Gardner now is that WP engine two. So I don't know if say I, if there is ideas that come, why not now we are beginning. [00:19:18] So we will see. Yes, everything is open. [00:19:22] Matt: So we've talked a lot about like how to develop these themes or like how you thought about the development of it and like Gatsby and JavaScript and all the stuff in the WordPress world when it comes to marketing, understanding who your customer is, is one of the most critical pieces. You've mentioned like Genesis and studio. [00:19:41] That crowd of users, they were all fairly technical. Cause you're doing like hooks and actions, filters, like all these things. And you're always like modifying the functions, PHP file. They w you know, people who were born from those days and that. We're not the people who like guts started using Elementor where all it was, was like a drag and drop interface. [00:19:59] Have you started to really think critically about who your customer is? Is it more technical? Is it more of like an agency that would be purchasing your product and not, sort of somebody who wants to launch a pizza shop website and they're just like, give me Gatsby. Like, they wouldn't even know how to do this yet. [00:20:17] Have you. [00:20:17] Alexandra: Yes, yes, no, I really think it's. More for professionals. I don't say that the professional can advise you to know that they've of people that we wanted. We'd be more an agency, a developer that want to, to enjoys a mix of WordPress where we've we've to It's not, yes. The person, I think who launches pizza, burbs even on know about Gatsby. [00:20:45] So, so yes, and Zay they'll have to be super technical because if you follow our recommendation, you don't need to know coding, but you need to use a console. You need to install, know the [00:21:00] gaps between style, get two of your score to settle, get, and everything is explained. [00:21:06] Every beat of things you Have Right into Consolo into editorial. You it's to be based. So that's why they think of what people of Genesis that and a about three Dar website with all these tutorial or you. [00:21:20] notice recipes. I think this type of people will love to work this way. And it's not code because you don't need to call, but you need to do the things that can afraid some other type of things.  [00:21:34] And then more technical people of course will do much more things than what they have no dice into support of the client. We have. There is people that are already technical and that technical questions at that come here.  [00:21:50] Matt: One of the, I can't remember because time is so elusive these days. I don't know where times time span was, but famously I think like a year ago Matt Mullenweg. Sort of had like a little open dialogue with one of  [00:22:07] Alexandra: bill, man, from from from Netlify.  [00:22:10] Matt: right and about like this whole, like JAMstack versus WordPress, people like people still struggle to get the average person still struggles to get WordPress up and running. Even if they have like a one-click button in their hosting panel, they still are challenged with that. JAMstack is still going through. [00:22:28] A hundred times more challenging. Like if you ask the normal person to do the console stuff and even maybe some power users, they might struggle with that. Do you see the JAMstack world getting a, getting easier from your point of view? Like, are they making it a little bit easier for folks or look, these are just the things we have to put up with to, to boot up against. [00:22:50] Alexandra: I remember I was talking for people from the Gatsby team and they say, yeah, Is there is a lot of things, that are seemed out there. He seems very struggling, but they I've been observing WordPress. [00:23:03] So it's a good thing. So I think it will take time, but yes, I think it will become JAMstack it's really takings a web, so it would become easier, but it's into their proper things. So. And I think people like me, we develop the themes and that will grow and it will be other people's that will develop morphemes and weave ideas to make it simpler. [00:23:31] And Gatsby will also make things to integrate better with a CMS like WordPress. I think that will come. Yes, honestly, but.  [00:23:41] Matt: When you say JAMstack is, is sort of, winning the web or taking over the web, is there a particular, is it because developers are liking that sort of approach better? Or is there something really powerful for the end user? That like the visitor of the website, the buyer of the product who is in an [00:24:00] e-commerce site or something like that. [00:24:01] Is there something consumer facing that is a real advantage in that? [00:24:07] Alexandra: Yes, it's both. I think, yes. Developers love it, but user, just for example, now I have a. A client. Now we are building a huge website about traveling to know a sort of travel advisor. We are featuring five custom post type featuring that? [00:24:21] People will make a search and they get fitter. We, for many, many criteria's Yeah. For a lot of images. And he didn't know about WordPress. He didn't know about about JAMstack and. I explained him how it goes. He said, oh my God said, solve all my problems. Speed security. Although then, and even if somebody is not technical, show them a Gatsby, your next website and shows the speed and change page is just instantaneous. [00:24:51] And then explain them. The security's improved because we were static website, a hacker jet, and just the face, your website. He will not touch it at the base. And even if your WordPress is down, your city is up, you will not be down if it's static. Then yes. And the speed for SEO. It's crazy. that's super important now and to flexibility. [00:25:14] So you can you can have your content also marketing page, the blog from WordPress, but perhaps you prefer having a Shopify. Oh, big commerce. Even if we have a will covers, so you can have your shop on Shopify you can have some data in a, in a Google sheets and things that come from other API and all that in a consistent theme, in one website. [00:25:43] Matt: Yeah. That's, that's the exciting part. That's what like the whole, the whole like WordPress crashing, but my website still being up, like, that's all you need to tell  [00:25:52] Alexandra: Yes. Okay.  [00:25:54] Matt: I like perfect. That's exactly what a. [00:25:57] Alexandra: Yes. You can crush a WordPress. You can destroy your WordPress and in your files, you're sitting there.  [00:26:04] Matt: All right. So for the listener today, if, if they want to get started with, with Gatsby or with your theme, it's Gatsby, WP themes.com, Gatsby, WP themes.com, go and visit that site. Anything else they should prepare before they had purchased? Like what should they have? Should they have a special hosting account before? [00:26:22] Alexandra: Yes, we have interns on the dock. There is a link, I think, I think, yes. What you should do prepare your computer because he has one of our fears, but it didn't happen. It's they need to [00:26:40] they need to prepare their computer. And nobody has a problem with that and different on mark and on windows. Everything is under the Gatsby, the commendation. So we explain it on our documentation and we link it to get me. So is that. They can do that before buying, because somebody was [00:27:00] suddenly is going to have, oh, is that too complicated for me? [00:27:02] It will not be good. So after that, yes, I can. And then just, they can read the documentation and we are going to Vince is three themes, so they can play with that. It will have nods options, nods comments not also fancy things, but it would be totally, totally usable where they want it to say.  [00:27:28] Matt: Bye. Bye bye. Go buy the theme  [00:27:30] Alexandra: Yes. Exactly. Exactly.  [00:27:33] Matt: WP themes. Calm Alexandra, where else can folks say thanks on the web,  [00:27:40] Alexandra: to say thanks? Oh my yes, we have a Twitter. It's art. WP [00:27:53] Matt: we will link it up in the show notes. We'll have a link. [00:27:58] Alexandra: that's, that's better ESN visits. We have the support website we've circle, which is nice as I can say, can subscribe that and subscribed as a website because this is where we are going to send a free team and also goodies, and also in our newsletter. Now we are going to begin also to inform people about things about JAMstack. [00:28:21] For example, now we have the. Just get to be camp just happen and say announced gods before, which will have SSL, server-side rendering and many things. And of course, as soon as it's stable, we will implement it in, in our themes. [00:28:40] Matt: I love me some server side rendering. Tell ya. I don't know what it does, but it sounds powerful and it sounds fast. And that's what I like. Gatsby WP themes.com. Alexandra. Thanks for doing the show today. Everyone else has report.com. Matt report.com/subscribe. Join the mailing list. Don't forget to support the show by heading on over to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. [00:29:01] Buy me a coffee.com/maryport report. That's where you can get connected to our membership powered discord. I love it. You want to be part of the weekly news, check it out. Buy me coffee.com/matt report. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. We'll see. In the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

In our latest episode, Nasir and Matt are covering the legal issues on Social Media. The average person spends most of their day on social media, whether they are scrolling for hours or publishing their own content. However, just because you publish your own content on Instagram does not equate to you owning that image. The law is a little complicated and the solutions aren't always clear. Brands that work with influencers gain a lot of attention, but all too frequently, influencers break the law by not adhering to them. Full Podcast TranscriptNASIR: All right. Welcome! We are covering social media and the law. MATT: This is not even something you would have to think about. NASIR: Do you have the right to do whatever you want? MATT: There's potential biases. NASIR: You have influencers' endorsements. Who owns what? MATT: Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and stuff like that. This is Legally Sound Smart Business where your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub, cover business in the news and add their awesome legal twist. Legally Sound Smart Business is a podcast brought to you by Pasha Law PC – a law firm representing your business in California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Here are your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Welcome. We are pretty much an A to Z – or Facebook to Twitter as I like to call it – of law and social media. How are you doing, Matt? MATT: Yeah, doing well. You know, the interesting thing about this topic is I guess it's still relatively new, but if you had a business a few decades ago, this is not even something you would have to think about – at least in this sort of context. It's always evolving because social media is always evolving but, yeah, there are a lot of considerations for business owners with this. NASIR: And it keeps changing, so much so that we actually did an episode similar – not quite the same – on social media and the law about 2017. If you take 2021 and minus 2017, that's how many years ago it was. MATT: Yeah, it'd be interesting. Like you said, I mean, even four years ago, I'm sure some of the things we talked about are vastly different than what we are going to talk about today – new laws, new rules. It's something that people have to stay on top on pretty heavily. NASIR: Right. I mean, even four years ago, social media from a legal perspective, I'm not sure how much it changed, but the way we use it keeps adapting. I'm trying to think in social media what's been really different here. I don't think TikTok existed four years ago. Or it barely existed, right? What other mediums? There are also mediums that are no longer existing. Wasn't there that one where you can have those 7-second videos? What was that? MATT: Vine. NASIR: Vine, yeah, that's gone. I think it was Vine, yeah. Did Twitter buy them out or something? MATT: I'm not sure. I thought they closed down, but maybe. NASIR: Yeah, it goes back and forth. MATT: I think it was probably, if I can remember correctly, I think Facebook was more popular. Things like Instagram were probably less popular. I'm sure there are still a lot of Facebook users, but my guess is the popularity of those two flipped a little bit. It depends on the demographic too, but that's kind of the general observation I've had. NASIR: Right. We also went through the Trump administration which, of course, when it came to social media, there's been quite a bit of activity with our president tweeting almost every single day multiple times. And so, that obviously was a big kind of cultural shift, I think – the mainstreaming of social media. When I have my parents getting on Facebook and Twitter and things like that, then you know we've gotten to a new level. MATT: I didn't even think about it from that context. Obviously, that was a big thing at the time. Since then, he was kicked off for a period of time. Is he back on? I haven't paid attention. NASIR: I think he's still off. I mean, I don't know about every platform,

Friend breakups are just as painful as romantic break-ups. We have some strategies and stories to share that will have you feeling better. The Break-Up [00:00:00] Fawn: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good. All everything. Hi everybody. Hey, I don't know if it's the subject matter today, but I'm in a mood right now. [00:00:13] Matt: Sounds like I'm going to be tapping today. You know [00:00:17] Fawn: what? I don't think. I think no matter what you do right now, it's going to get all my last nerves. [00:00:23] Matt: So if I'm quiet, I'm in trouble. If I talk in trouble. Oh yeah. [00:00:27] Fawn: Everything. Everything is bothering me right now. Um, love LOVE IS WINNING. Um, it's the inner fight within that says I am done. And the other side of you you that is used to this situation or person to the point that stopping is like cutting off a vital part of life. This makes no sense to you cause you have no idea what I'm about to discuss today, right, Matt? [00:00:59] Matt: Well, [00:01:00] I, I guess we'll see, [00:01:02] Fawn: it's kind of like, what I'm about to talk about is kind of. And not kind of, but to me, what I've noticed is actually like a chemical addiction. Uh, today's topic is, are you ready? Matt has no idea. The breakup. [00:01:25] Matt: Yeah. Raise your hand if you've been through a breakup and that your hand, if you went well [00:01:29] Fawn: now, well, I raising my hand. I had one that finally went well and I use it as an nugget of wisdom from Santa Monica. And I'm not talking about like romantic breakup per se. I'm talking about break up in general, breaking up with a friend it is so hard and you think, oh, well it's just a friend, but oh my God, it is incredibly painful. Horrible. So I have some ways that will help with that [00:02:00] pain because breakup looking at the etymology of it, it's a disruption; disillusion of connection; separation into

As designers or developers — even product makers — when WordPress is your hammer, everything looks like a nail. WordPress is certainly in an inflection point. Where as the software is evolving, read: gutenberg + fullsite editing, the community of users grapple with what WordPress really is. I feel like that's a statement which has lingered in the air for a few years now. When you unlock it's power of custom post types and fields with a dash of REST API magic, the CMS can become a neural network for your data. Yet with an interface that I struggle to drag a single block into the 3 column of my page layout. Today's guest has mastered the teachings of WordPress, specifically with Elementor for his students over the last few years but that usability struggle I mentioned earlier? Yeah…that's caused him to pivot his teachings to a hosted platform you may have heard of before on the show before — Webflow. Welcome today's guest Dave Foye, as he unpacks the challenges of not only learning a new CMS, but the challenges of designing a curriculum for new students seeking to become proficient in it. Episode transcript [00:00:00] Dave: switching tools is, is not for the faint-hearted, it's quite an expensive process, isn't it? In terms of well sunk cost in terms of what you've already. [00:00:08] Put into the amount of time and energy that you've put into learning tools that you've previously used. I also had have still, a multiple six figure a year business teaching WordPress teaching, very specific tools, WordPress and elements are, that combination elements or page builder. [00:00:25] Matt: This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by foo plug-ins or specifically foo plugins, foo gallery. You can find it@foo.gallery. There's a new pro commerce plan, and it gives you two way integration into WooCommerce. So if you want to sell photos, you can sell photos with foo.gallery and woo commerce. [00:00:47] It makes your job. Super easy, especially if you're a photographer. I just had family photos taken the other day and I looked at the big conglomerate website that my photographer sent me. He said, man, it would look so much better if you. Right through WooCommerce, especially if you use something like foo gallery, check out food, art gallery, and learn more about their pro commerce plan. [00:01:09] Check out their WooCommerce integration. They have a great way to watermark and protect your photo galleries. Check them out and thank them for sponsoring the show. It's food, art gallery go-to food art gallery today. Start selling images with foo gallery and. [00:01:27] As designers or developers, even product makers when WordPress is your hammer, everything looks like a nail. WordPress is certainly in an inflection point right now. Whereas the software is evolving Reed Gutenberg in full site, editing the community of users grapple with what WordPress really is. I feel like that's a statement which has lingered in the air for a few years. [00:01:50] When you unlock its power custom post types and fields with a dash of rest API magic, the CMS can become a neural network for your data yet with an interface that I struggle to drag and drop a single block into a third column of my page layout today's guest has mastered the teachings of WordPress specifically with Elementor for his students over the last few years. [00:02:12] But the usability struggle that I just met. Yeah, that's caused him to pivot his teachings to a hosted platform. You may have heard of before on the show web. Welcome today's guest Dave Foye, as he unpacks the challenges of not only learning a new CMS, but the challenges of devising a curriculum for new students seeking to become proficient in it. [00:02:34] You're listening to the Mer report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. If you'd like to support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/matt report. And buy me a digital coffee or joined the membership to jump into our private discord server with others. Chatting it up about the. [00:02:48] And greatest in our crazy WordPress world, that's buy me a coffee.com/maryport. And thanks to Fu plug-ins for supporting today's show. Check out food gallery food art gallery for more. Okay. [00:03:00] Here's my interview with Dave.  [00:03:01] Dave: I had a lot of resistance, a lot of inner resistance to partly because, switching tools is, is not for the faint-hearted, it's quite an expensive process, isn't it? In terms of well sunk cost in terms of what you've already. [00:03:15] Put into the amount of time and energy that you've put into learning tools that you've previously used. But I mean, I also had have still, but, I had at the time, like a multiple six figure a year business teaching WordPress teaching, very specific tools, WordPress and elements are, that combination elements or page builder. [00:03:35] And so it, it really was kind of. It, it, it was, it was a real kind of crunch time for me for thinking that I have got to the point where I cannot use these tools anymore. I'm finding that I actually I'm finding that. I'll talk about the details in a moment, but I can't in all conscience recommend this particular combination of tools that I am well-known for and, very well paid for I can't carry on. [00:04:05] So, believe me, it was quite a, quite a risk. I think I remember one of my students say, and I've mentioned it's something in, in the, in the little private Facebook group that I've got for one of my courses. And he just said career suicide. Nice. So, [00:04:23] Matt: for thanks for the vote of confidence. [00:04:25] Dave: Awesome. I mean, it, it probably had a point, you probably had a point  [00:04:29] Matt: What was that? Oh, just real quick. What was that concern for you to say? You know what, I don't feel like I can recommend these tools anymore. Was it more a, an ELA mentor thing? Was it more a WordPress thing? I mean, we're in this chaotic times where it's like, Gutenberg is still trying to get better full site editing's coming in. [00:04:48] You layer on the complexity of a piece of software that wants you to build a website a certain way? Are we just hitting a perfect storm here? Or was there something specific? [00:04:57] Dave: Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I had got to the point where I started, well, I've, I've been using WordPress since 2007, something like that, so for my own personal projects and my own client projects, I'd use WordPress for, for a good long time. It was when I actually decided to teach online. I long story, I think we've covered this plenty of times before, but for 10 years I was actually a school teacher. [00:05:23] I'm a, I am a qualified teacher, so I was a qualified teacher, teaching young children in the, in the UK. Like in the nineties and early two thousands. And I then got into web design and build up a great business, but it just decided that I just miss teaching so much. So for me, around 2016 ish, I decided I actually want to get back into teaching, but I want to teach the thing that I've been, I've been working with the web design tools that I'll be working with for, for, for many years, what, what a perfect combination. [00:05:54] So, I did a lot of research, long story, but I'd discovered elements or which was [00:06:00] just in its earliest stages at the time. And thought this combination of tools is brilliant for, for my target market. My target market is always non coders. People who don't want to code and probably feel a bit nervous about the prospect of. [00:06:14] Th they, they want to build websites, but web design technology, web design tools, web development, isn't something that is natural to them. It's not something that they are completely off-air with. And. So I always see my job as taking people who look at all this stuff and think, oh, wow, this is so complicated. [00:06:35] And possibly quite scary. It's my job to say, it's all fine. Just do this, this and this. And it all works out. So in a sense, I'd particularly chosen WordPress and elements or that particular combination, because it just seemed right for my target. Now over the gears, elements or has added on features and features and features WordPress itself, as you say, is changing dramatically. [00:07:02] I think ultimately that will be for the good of WordPress. Definitely. I know a lot of people complain about Gothenburg, but I think it is getting there, but it got to the point where I started to think would I in, in, in all kind of conscience, I suppose, would I, conscious now. Recommend to somebody who once frost-free hassle-free stress-free web design experience, where basically stuff just works. [00:07:30] All of the scary kind of hustle behind the scenes all the kind of configuration, all the. The, the stuff that people complain about WordPress, which is actually a strength at the same time, which is it's plugin plugin system, plugin architecture, but I'd got to the point where, for my own use of WordPress, but also just being sensitive to the needs of my students and the needs of the people who I work with day in, day out to help with this stuff. [00:08:01] I just saw massive frustration. Massive massive frustration with constant plugin updates, constant issues with plugins. It's not new in WordPress at all, obviously, but you know, updating plugins to find that something's broken, there's a conflict with something else, finding websites that now this is, I think, quite a bit of elemental issue cause they do, they have had a history of releasing some quite buggy releases in in more recently. [00:08:30] But you know, finding that a website that worked perfectly well, last time they logged in now, suddenly it doesn't work in, in some way there's some functionality broken or there's a, there's the layout that's suddenly off. Issues with hosting and all the RS, all manner of different things. It's kind of like that little drip, drip trip, the, the Chinese water torture, I think is called, the, the drip, drip, drip, drip of, of, of, of constant issues where I just thought there's, there's gotta be a better [00:09:00] way. [00:09:00] I know that, for instance, like I use Thinkific for my online course. And it's just all done for me. I can get on with actually creating courses, uploading the courses and teaching, there are, there are, I don't know, email marketing platforms where that the heavy lifting and the stuff that I don't need to know is done in the background so I can get on with my job. [00:09:22] And I started to think that there must be something better than this constant stress and worry and, and hustle. And maintenance and all of these other things, which is what led me to start looking at other possible or the solutions.  [00:09:39] Matt: I've seen the love, hate relationship with Gutenberg, how fast this piece of software has been iterated on. And just all the changes you couple that with ELA mentor, which is also on a rocket ship ride, they're growing, they're adding new features. They've hit a bout of turbulence, I guess is probably the nicest thing that I could say. [00:10:01] I know I've seen you and Paul on Twitter really hammering it home with element or for good reason. And they have to be conscious, I think, of element or they have the conscious of just not throwing the kitchen sink at everything for the sake of the kitchen sink.  [00:10:17] I feel like folks who are looking for a web flow solution understand that they should invest some money in a platform. That's just going to do it without the FOS updates, hosting issues. Incompatibilities with other plugins, like I will pay the, have that done on Webflow versus the WordPress side of it where it's like, man, there's so many variables that, that can be thrown at this. [00:10:46] Where are you getting that feedback from your audience?  [00:10:48] Dave: Yeah, it was it was, as I said, at the beginning, it was a very, very reluctant look looking for something else for very, very lots of, lots of reasons. I didn't want to be looking anywhere else. Yeah. Partly it was, it was my. And it was partly because of elements or boogie releases. So I got on with, for instance, I needed to build a new website for myself late last year, and they installed a new instance of WordPress and elements. [00:11:14] I was like, global colors just didn't work at all, just broken. And so, so w there were several issues like that just personally for myself, as it was like, oh, what, what is it now? There was not, and it's not just, it's not just elements or, I think. Lots and lots of other, other plugins as well, but let's, I'm probably focusing on elements are maybe a bit too much, but, but yeah, it certainly wasn't a good feeling from my audience and students by, by any means. [00:11:43] I mean, my, my group, I sort of private group was just every day there was just something of like, why isn't this working? Why is this thing broken now? Or it wasn't just necessarily as WordPress. It was like hosting as well, or. I think because. Because the, [00:12:00] because of the plugin architecture and there are plugins coming down the pipe every single day as you. [00:12:04] And I know constantly with, with new features and, potentially solving problems with SEO and page speed and everything else. So th th there were those issues with stuff just being broken and being hard. And, people struggling just to keep up with a frantic pace of change. I think that that was partly the thing, but I think also it was just, I think, yeah, just, just, I, I suppose people just I'm just trying to think of the best way to put it really. [00:12:33] Yeah, just, just gen general kind of anxiety about, about stuff being broken and stuff. Just not being easy, I think is the easiest way to put it. Yeah. [00:12:43] Matt: I want to ask you this question. This is going a little bit deeper in sort of like the creator in the, in the creator mindset, the, the business of being a creator and monetizing on, let's say YouTube and affiliate sales. It probably wasn't an easy decision to make either because one would imagine knowing what I did with affiliate sales, for elements. [00:13:06] Which was a flea on an elephant's ass, probably compared to what you and maybe others have done. It was probably a tough business decision to write, to be like, look, I'm making money. And I think you and Paul and, and, and the other folks that I communicate with on, on YouTube, you do affiliates. Right. I think of immediately when peoples think affiliates are like, oh, what are you trying to sell me? [00:13:29] What kind of cloaking device are you using on these, on these links? Like at one point in your, in your career, you're like, Elementor is a fantastic tool at this time. And they have an affiliate program. Why not recommend this and make money? It's a legit way when you're doing it a legit way. I don't have any other better way of saying that. [00:13:49] So I'd probably, at some point you were like, oh man, like I will be turning off this. Potentially of money. What was that like? And did you have, do you have any thoughts or feelings around affiliate sales and how this helps make the decision  [00:14:01] Dave: Yeah, well, I mean, affiliates, the affiliate business model was never ever my intention when I first started my thing was I'm going to sell courses and affiliate sales were have always just been a bit of a nice to have. When I first started my YouTube channel started making videos about this fairly brand new tool called elements or at the time I happened. [00:14:22] I mentioned my affiliate link. I think it just dropped it in the description. Sometimes I would, occasionally when elements I had an offer, I would let my email list know which was regrowing. My, my business model was growing my email list to sell courses in a nutshell. That's it. And it still is. Grow the email list to sell courses. [00:14:41] But thank goodness that I was an affiliate for elements or in those early days, because in the first kind of nine months of me getting to the point where I even had the confidence to make a course and to feel like I could sell it at all, we're going back to 2017 now, which seems so long [00:15:00] ago, it was only a few years, but yeah, the, the, the, the affiliate income from I was an affiliate for very, very few. [00:15:07] Elements or generate press. I don't know, maybe a hosting platform as well. Well, the income from that was better than I'd been making, working full-time as a web designer. And it absolutely saved my ass because if I hadn't have had that income I think the whole online course thing probably would have failed. [00:15:28] Now. I say that because I. Way too long to actually make a product and offer it to my, offer it to my audiences, to my MLS. So these days when I mentor and help people create products and make online courses, one of my first things is to say, is this a build. As a small and email list, as you can get away with find a hundred people and sell something, make something to sell. [00:15:55] It can be very low value, not low value, low, low price. It doesn't matter, but start making something and start selling something straight away, because it's only then that you can start getting true feedback about what people actually want, what they're prepared to pay for and where you? [00:16:11] should put your energies. [00:16:13] But yeah, the affiliate thing was, was massive, but. W my, the income of saying about, I'm not, I'm not saying it's a brag, but it's a multiple six figures a year. Business is mostly from courses. It's mostly from selling courses. I'd say 90% is from selling courses about WordPress and elemental, specifically about using those tools. [00:16:36] And yeah, to say that it's career suicide, there's the phrase, career suicide. [00:16:42] Matt: And you were, you were lucky enough to get to a point. Did you turn ads on, on your YouTube  [00:16:48] Dave: No, no, no, no. Never never had no, no, no,  [00:16:51] Matt: Just because you didn't want the experience or the user to have that experience of ads, or you were never looking at it  [00:16:59] Dave: I think, I think what I wanted to do was just to make sure. The foolishly probably, this is, this is not a savvy business head talking, but I think I just want to, just to make sure that when people watch my videos, that we're just not being interrupted by ads and, they could just actually enjoy the experience of, of watching the videos. [00:17:18] And I suspected that probably the income from that wasn't particularly going to be too great anyway. So I just always kept monitorization off for that reason. Really.  [00:17:27] Matt: My YouTube story is like, how do I get into this game? How do I create this content? And I quickly, but I don't say quickly, it took me six months to burn out, doing like three videos a week or maybe three or four videos a week. I had this ambitious goal of doing it like every day. And I just flatlined burned out. [00:17:46] I didn't literally didn't touch it for a year. And then all of a sudden. Ad sent, sent me the first check for a hundred bucks. Right. Then I logged in and it was, I had tripled my audience without uploading a video in a year, just because of SEO. [00:17:58] The light bulb went off. [00:18:00] Like you fool, you shouldn't have given up, you should have done it less. So you didn't burn yourself out, but you shouldn't have given up. And again, like life gets in the way YouTube stuff is so far away. My daily routine that I haven't uploaded episodes. And, but I still am making three or 400 bucks a month in ads. [00:18:19] And I have a lot of kids, so diapers are expensive. So I leave the ads on, but I, I, I can certainly, I can certainly see in your world where these bigger products, bigger prices, the brand, the value, there is a target for you to focus on. [00:18:34] Dave: Yeah. [00:18:35] definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I was the one that I think I wanted that sense of kind of trustworthiness. Yeah. just that experience. Really. I was not to say that people with ads, I watch, oh, I've got YouTube premium now, so I don't see any ads, but seeing ads on people's videos, I actually don't, I don't personally tie that into a decision that's made by the creator of the video at all. [00:18:55] It doesn't, I understand how it works as well, but I don't ever think, oh, they've, they've got ads turned on. They obviously don't care about my experiences as a viewer. It doesn't enter my head, so  [00:19:06] Matt: side note, I also signed up recently for premium, like late was finally one of those things where, you know, before you sign up for premium, every time you logged into YouTube, they'd be like, do premium, do premium, do premium. And I'm always like clothes, clothes, clothes. And I tell you, Dave, I am like, screw it. [00:19:23] I'm going to do it. Right. Like finally, you got me YouTube, literally a thousand pop-ups later is probably what my conversion metrics were. You finally got me and I signed up and I watched my first video with no ads. And I was like, wow,  [00:19:41] Dave: Yeah, well, consider the side.  [00:19:43] Matt: brain, because my brain was trained so much now with like their three pre-roll ads and then the, the pop-up in the middle of the banner and then like the mid roll. [00:19:53] And when I'm doing work for Casto, sometimes I'm in the Castle's account and I'm uploading my videos for Casos and I'll be watching something. And I'll be like, what is this ad? Like, my brain is like, what is this? Like, it was happening. And like, oh yeah, I'm not in my premium account. [00:20:08] Dave: It is awesome. I think it's. worth every single  [00:20:11] Matt: It is, it's. it is.  [00:20:13] Dave: Yeah, definitely.  [00:20:15] Matt: when I go on vacation with my children and recently w we're going to, we were in Florida and they're watching TV, cable, TV, and there's commercials. And my kids are literally asking me what dad, what is this? Why, why isn't the show playing? Because they're so used to Netflix and Disney plus. [00:20:33] Dave: Yeah.  [00:20:34] Matt: And they see a commercial and they are freaking out. They're like, what, what is a show? Where's the show? And I'm like, it's just a, it's a thing called commercial kids that you didn't grow up with. Welcome to my world.  [00:20:46] Dave: Oh, wow.  [00:20:46] Matt: All right. As we get into the back half of this conversation, web flow, did you, you said like, I want to find a platform that is easy, all encompassing. [00:20:59] Was Webflow [00:21:00] is in the back of your mind or did you start doing some homework and then you settled on Webflow? [00:21:04] Dave: Yeah, Well, I had, I'd actually been recommended Webflow several times over at least two years, probably more. And every time somebody said to me, you've got dude, you've got to check web flow out. And these were people that are trusted and respected friends of mine, colleagues, people all over the place. [00:21:19] And people who had never looked back, it would just adopted it for their agency as their go-to tool. And they moved from WordPress. And every single time somebody recommended it. I said, well, yeah, I've heard of that. I'll check it out. And then I would immediately toss the idea in the bin and think there is literally no way I am looking at any of the tools because I've got a lot of, as we've said, a lot invested in, in WordPress and everything. [00:21:44] So yeah. Yeah. So, so actually choosing Webflow. I, I had a little look around to see anything else. I obviously don't, didn't bother looking at the Squarespaces and the Wix and things like that. But yeah, the web flow was pretty much, pretty much the only one that I considered now, I actually tried it and gave up three times, like completely just thought, right, come on, come on. [00:22:07] You can do this. I mean, how hard can it be and gave up three times because it's not actually. It's not actually, it's not a beginner's platform. It's not designed for people who that, that Squarespace is designed for. You don't get a lot of pre pre-made designs and in fact, it's harder to use done. [00:22:26] I would say a WordPress page builder, probably not oxygen because oxygen is based very, very, very much on web flow as I understand. But yeah, it was, it was hard. And what I also found as well is. I well, partly so, so what would happen is I'd give it a try and think, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I just, haven't got time. [00:22:46] I'll persevere with what I'm using. And it was the third time there was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I've got to figure this out. And in some ways it really appealed to me because when you start, well, we'll go into the details too much. But when you style anything in Webflow, you literally click on it. [00:23:04] A podcast doesn't make this a very good visual medium for me to explain this. But when you click on anything in web flow and you want to style it, it could be literally any element whatsoever. You give it a name, like a class, a, you give that class, whatever styles you like. You've got all the styles at your disposal, really easy, nice UI. [00:23:23] And then you just use that class on anything else that you want to give that, that that's those, those same styles. The sense of having literally on, con on limited global styling, not having to go to some separate styling panel somewhere to constantly kind of keep going back and sort of adjusting things. [00:23:46] And also not being out there, I suppose. Th the page, whatever the page builder developers decided the global styles are that you're going to have is what you're stuck with. You're limited by that. [00:24:00] Usually we web flow. You can just do what you like now as a, as an, actually like a dinosaur old school, HTML and CSS hand coder back in the day, this really appealed. [00:24:12] Because I used to write CSS and I'd have one single CSS file, which I could just create as many styles as I liked, and I could control them all from one place. So it was that particularly about web flow. That just super appealed to me, the lack of the lack of limits, really. I'm not being, I'm not being, I'm not being hampered by. [00:24:32] I mean, it's great. For instance, elements are just as an example, the whole load of widgets and know there are probably a million different third-party add-ons as well. It will all bring a load more widgets as well. And it is amazing. You can drag a widget on the screen, just onto the canvas. It just produces, your tabs or your, your posts Lao or whatever it is. [00:24:53] But you still fairly limited by the styling options that that developer has decided to give you where it was with Webflow is just completely open-ended. The problem, the problem it's like everything in life, concentrate offs. The problem with that beautiful open-endedness is that you can make a real mess. [00:25:14] If you're not careful, if you've not kind of got a system and a workflow and a, an a way that you decide that you're going to name classes and use them and reuse them, it can be a bit of a mess. And that's the issue that I hit immediately. The wet floor. The Webflow university, which is web flows own a free training is absolutely brilliant. [00:25:36] I mean, as, than, as an educator myself, as a teacher myself, I mean, I, I just think those videos are astounding. They're incredible. And I think it speaks volumes about a company like that who have invested so much time and energy into training their users. So that stuff was helpful. and it kinda got me got, definitely got me so far, but I was, I think because my teaching in WordPress and other mentor was all about, you've got all these tools, you've got all the colors in there, all the crayons in the box, but you need a system, you need a workflow, you need it. [00:26:16] You need, you need to set yourself limits. So. Yeah, you can produce sites really quickly, really productively, profitably and not have to think too much, you've got a system and you just do it and you just build them. So I, that was, that was the, that was the sticking point with Webflow. And it's what I ended up actually building a framework myself though. [00:26:36] There isn't anything really, there are web flow frameworks out there, but they all had issues for me. So I ended up building my own, [00:26:43] Matt: I've tried Webflow before. And me it's as much more of a like shiny object syndrome and a little bit of like this whole, like no code. Movement where it's like, I don't know. Sometimes I've thought of sat back and be like, man, if I could just have like a database that I use, like connected with Zapier [00:27:00] and I could like automate these things, I see all these other people do it, like in two seconds on the back of a napkin. [00:27:04] And I'm like, I want to do that too. And then like, I jumped into like web flow and I'm like, oh God, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just going to sound, I'm going away from this, this leads. And what I'm getting out of here is like, You tried it three times, whatever failed. And you're like, ah, somebody could just teach it my way you built it. [00:27:22] Right. You built the course to like, get people over that hump quite literally coming from WordPress to web flow. The name of your course is there a particular. Cut like a WordPress user or WordPress stack that somebody might be using. Who's like the perfect fit to, for your course number one, but for web flow, like certainly somebody who's us, I'm just a simple lowly WordPress blogger is probably not gonna need your course is probably not going to need web flow, but is there a certain, a certain avatar that is a perfect fit for your course, but for also to, to, to reap the benefits of web. [00:27:59] Dave: . I would say that people who I mean, if somebody is a WordPress developer, right? So we'll, we'll, we'll discount those people immediately, people are building their own themes and things like that then. Absolutely. Definitely not. I'm sure that WordPress gives you all of the, all of the control and the power and everything that you need. [00:28:14] So I would say more people who are trained to be. I'm trying to build full, fully functional websites using WordPress under page builder. I would say the people who definitely need a page builder of some kind. Now, when I'm in Gothenburg , is a page builder and it's developing fast as well. So I would say people who are using those tools particularly you, I, as I said, in a sense, web flow is a bit more complicated. [00:28:42] So it's, it's not just the. It is in some ways, but there isn't, the, the pre-built here is everything done for you. Aspect of quite a lot of the stuff that comes with a page builder. So there are certain things that you need to understand in the background. You need to understand what's going on. You need to understand a little bit about. [00:29:03] HTML and CSS as well. So just an, an understanding of just like how HTML interacts with CSS, just on a very basic level to understand things like inheritance, so when you set a style on the body, for instance, that is going to trickle down to everything underneath it, all the content and everything underneath it all, unless you override it. [00:29:26] So there are, there are concepts like that, that in a page builder, those people. I don't really even need to ever think about particularly, you can just eat just budge, something together quite, quite easily. I would say though that I, I do know of quite a lot of, of from end developers I suppose, backend developers as well, who really enjoy using web flow because it allows them to effectively write HTML and CSS without having to actually write HTML and CSS. [00:29:54] Cause like a graphical user interface for, for. Well, for me, [00:30:00] I am more than happy to recommend web flow to my audience, which are, as I said, non coders, they need a page builder and they're a little bit nervous about, all the multitude of different tools and, and, and things that they need to know. [00:30:15] Matt: I'm curious. I mean, I know the, as of, as of this time, which is September 17th at 11:30 AM Eastern standard time in new England, which is where we, we won't get into the  [00:30:28] Dave: I mean I'm in the old one.  [00:30:30] Matt: in the old one. You're in the original one. The, I know the course is not for sale yet. I'm curious. And I've seen it. [00:30:37] I think I've gone through the first two modules and, and, and, for the listener out there, like when Dave says he takes time, like it took me so long to do this. Yeah. But the quality is just mind blowing and I can't even imagine Dave, how much time you've spent on it. I don't, I don't know if you have a number of hours counted or if you even want to admit how long you've been into it. [00:30:57] I know it's not for sale yet. Do you, as of this recording, but maybe when we launch this recording do you anticipate. The some turbulence there. Right? So people in WordPress they're very much used to free or low cost web flows, paid the pain for your course. What are your thoughts? What's the gut tell you on promoting this as a business owner. [00:31:17] Dave: The first thing I would say is that when I started thinking about building a business, making online courses at all, my first thought was who on earth is going to pay any money for the learning, any of this stuff? And there's, there's this thing called YouTube. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's just full of all the free advice and tutorials and walkthroughs. [00:31:37] You could, you could ever hope for I purposefully, actually, I got over that mindset issue quite quickly, it's nonsense, but people are prepared to pay and they're prepared to pay good money as well for an investment in their career and their time and their stress levels and everything else. So, in terms of me worrying too much about people paying for a course or even paying for a platform, doesn't really worry me too much because the people who buy. [00:32:04] My course is our people. They are. I always think that out of my email list, probably, I don't know what the numbers are. 5% will buy something that I'm I make and those people are prepared to pay. I don't know how much my courses have been. I think, I think, I think the highest price, no stress WordPress was, which is discontinued now. [00:32:26] Not in know fairly indefinitely. I think there was about 800. For that. So, between sort of 4, 5, 6, 7, 800 bucks for a course, those people are absolutely. I mean, the web flow, cause it isn't that at all. I think it starting at two nines. So that's, that's, that's a bit lower just to, just to get started with at the moment. [00:32:48] But I'm, I'm, I'm fairly convinced and I am delighted to appeal to people who are willing to invest in their education and their professional development and the tools [00:33:00] that they use as well for an easier life. And so actually ultimately get a return on that investment, in terms of faster builds and not having to worry. [00:33:10] About updating plugins and maintenance and stuff, breaking and having to fix things and all that sort of thing. So, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't really worry me. It's all. [00:33:19] Matt: Yeah. I mean, when you have somebody who's already, I did an article. I, again, if I was a professional podcaster, I would have this up, I think element or web flow. Let's just see if my site ranks first. It  [00:33:31] Dave: Oh, oh, harsh,  [00:33:33] Matt: Element or web. Oh yeah, it does. I'm on the first page. Okay. A little, a little bit down on the first page, if you Google element or web flow, but I say in defense of element or versus web flow, and this site publish this February of this year, God man, you just, I didn't even understand time anymore. [00:33:48] February 11th, 2021. When folks were talking about the price hike of element, or now I'm not here to argue whether or not the. The approach of what Elementor was doing with bugs and features and whatnot is fair or not. I didn't have anything against the price hike, if you will, for ELA mentor, because man, I feel like so many people are making money with elementary or. [00:34:12] That even if you bought their $1,000 a year for a thousand websites, I mean, if you're somebody who's producing a thousand websites, you're at least charging $2 for one of those websites, right. You're selling these websites for at least $2, you've doubled your money. Right? So I was never against the raising of the price because hopefully that raises value of all things WordPress. [00:34:34] But my point here is people are already spending money in the web flow world. Whereas. Hats off and kudos to you. You're selling courses in the WordPress world where a majority of people are used to free. So you already were fighting a battle that I've not been able to solve  [00:34:51] Dave: Yeah, there is. I mean, there is a sense isn't there because WordPress is open source. Everything should be. And you, you hear that all the time. And I think that's just going to be a constant issue. Really. One thing that when I actually looked at certainly for, certainly for the people that I'm M in my course out, and the people that I kind of want to help when you actually look at the price of Webflow, cause people say, God, man Webflow is so expensive. [00:35:13] I think, well, if you look at it, you pay an account. I won't go into all the massive details, but you pay an account plan fee, which is basically a single monthly families, about 24 books. Which allows you to build, buy all, to build onstage on a, on a web flow.io domain all your web flow sites you've got in development, and you can share those with clients and you could even just make those live on the S on the staging sub domain, if you didn't want to point a live domain of them. [00:35:41] So that's 24 bucks a month. It's basically similar to, if you've got like an Adobe creative cloud subscription or you've got an elemental license on it and a theme license, and it just allows you to use the platform. So that to me is like, well, that seems perfectly fair. And then you [00:36:00] pay a per site site plan fee as well, which I think is about 20 bucks a month. [00:36:05] Now people who are hosting. Crumbing websites onto, I could attend books a month hosting plan, and they're quite happy with all the configuration and the setup and everything that, that entails and possible performance issues and whatever, then absolutely. I mean, knock yourself out. [00:36:23] Brilliant. But if you compare to, I mean, let's just take a WordPress managed host, like Insta, for instance, I think Ken stir last time I looked, it was 20 bucks a month. Now w so, so for each live site, you've got a domain pointed to, to web flow. You're paying 20 bucks a month for that. I mean again, if you're not making at least $20 a month back from the website, then there's something wrong. [00:36:48] You, you, you really should be a book. Also with that. You also get like the CDN, you get all of the page speed stuff set up for you, and it's all done for the, the sites are blazing fast, absolutely brilliant. All green, like top of the range, kind of page speed scores, the host inside and out for you. [00:37:07] Security. So sorted out for you. All of the functionality seems to me in many ways, if you were a person who would appreciate managed hosting, and it seems to me that that is actually a pretty good deal overall,  [00:37:21] Matt: I tend to agree things get a little crazy when you start getting into the e-commerce world with web flow the way that they do pricing, I broke it all down in this, in this post. Although this post is now a few months old and I'll link that up. I'll try to link that up in the, in the show notes. [00:37:34] But  [00:37:34] Dave: was a simplified.  [00:37:36] Matt: Yeah. At the end of the day, like the trade-off again is support all in one platform. If you really wrestled with, I want to own everything for the sake of owning it, and it's a whole mind, it's hard to make that mental leap and appreciation leap. I don't have a better word right now, but like, it's hard to make that leap from WordPress if you're really stuck in that, in that  [00:38:01] Dave: Yeah, absolutely. And I would, I would say to anybody that it's not like, I certainly don't set say to everybody, you must use Webflow is far better than WordPress. That's actually not what I'm saying. He probably comes across that way. There are trade offs with everything, and if ownership. Or certainly a feeling of ownership anyway and having control over every single aspect of that, of your website and website workflow and everything else, if that is important to you, for whatever reason, that's great, but there's a trade off in the maintenance and the plugin updates and stuff, breaking and everything else. [00:38:37] That's the that's that's, that's the deal, you w you can't have your cake and eat it kind of thing. I think he's just true of everything in life. Same with Webflow, yep. You don't have all of those hustles, but Yeah. [00:38:48] you've got a platform where you are in a way renting the site from, from Webflow. [00:38:53] What if Webflow disappears overnight? There were all these concerns. I mean, I've got, I've got kind of, answers for all these [00:39:00] objections, but There are also just very, very quickly. One of the biggest objections is she's quite funny to me is about recurring income from care plans. [00:39:10] So people will say I've got a pretty good business making recurring easy money every month by charging clients to keep the website updated the WordPress website update. And make sure it doesn't, it doesn't break for them. What am I going to do about that with Webflow? Because he just works, what's the, what, what, what, where am I going to make this money? [00:39:29] My short answer is always, well, first, if all things were equal and you could build a website in WordPress or web flow, and let's also say that either of them would be appropriate for the project, Really recommend WordPress because it's prone to problems, it's prone to problems and it, and it breaks. [00:39:51] And you can charge the client forever in order to, just to be basically lightly. No, let them have a working website. It sounds a bit harshly. It sounds like I'm kind of over again things, but that's kind of how it is really. Now my view is the client, your clients don't care. About how you did something, all that, how long it took you, all the steps you took, they are, they only care about the result on all the clients are paying you for, for, for a care plan, just in terms of the maintenance side of it, not talking about anything else. [00:40:24] Well, the maintenance side of it, they are paying you so that their website is rock solid. Isn't down works perfectly, and it just doesn't have any issues. Well, why can't you charge the client for the. You've found a better or the best platform that you think for their particular needs for their project that has all that in place. [00:40:46] You've spent all this time and money learning the platform. Why not charge clients for that? I, I don't think clients particularly cared that you've got to update plugins. You've got to spend X amount of time doing that. I think it's a bit of a non argument, rarely.  [00:40:59] Matt: I think at some of the tiers on web load, there's a little phone number you can call, right. So good luck. Yeah. Calling yeah. Calling you got a dozen plugins doing. Things, you're not going to call PIP in and, and, WooCommerce, you're not going to call these people and get them on a conference call to figure out what your site is at the end of the day. [00:41:18] You look, you're paying for that support. And web flows. As far as I know, in the news web flows slated to be a IPO and, and be a publicly traded company here in the states. And they're a private company now, but they've raised over 140 million. So they're probably valued at billions. I don't even know what money is these  [00:41:33] Dave: Probably, yeah, exactly. yeah, MailChimp is worth what was it? 12 billion, or something like  [00:41:37] Matt: half the half the banana industry or the entire globe?  [00:41:41] Dave: So, so w what is money.  [00:41:43] Matt: yeah. What is money via Canva? Just raised Canva just got another 400 million valued@fortybillioncanva.com. It's just, I don't know, Dave, what are we doing wrong here? [00:41:57] Dave: Well, I'm I think I'm going to hang these [00:42:00] headphones up.  [00:42:01] Matt: I'm going to make a canvas course. What am I doing with Webflow? Here's how to make a template in Canva. Oh man. It's called WordPress to web flow. His name is Dave Dave for you can search for Dave for you can go to date for.com. You can search him on YouTube. You can go to WP two w f.com or pressed a web flow. [00:42:21] Dave, anything else that any other place that people should find you? Yeah. [00:42:24] Dave: The other thoughts that you've covered up. So everything there, my friend. Yeah. [00:42:27] Brilliant. Thank you very much.  [00:42:29] Matt: Fantastic stuff. It's my report. My report.com my report.com/subscribe. Hey, if you want to support the content happening here at the Matt report, go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. You can join the membership there and be part of the, the news right now. It's about the, the WP minute. If you want to be involved in the news, you wanna have your hand in shape. [00:42:49] Our weekly WordPress news, the five minute dose of WordPress news every week@wpminute.com. Go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Support the show. Thanks for listening. See you in the next episode. [00:43:01] If you like what you heard today, don't forget to thank our premier sponsor foods. Gallery. Check them out at food gallery. Check out their new woo commerce integration for selling photos with foo gallery, you want to support the show and you want to support WordPress news every week. Go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. [00:43:18] Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Join the membership. Join our discord. Take part in the conversation around WordPress news. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Thanks a foo gallery for supporting. ★ Support this podcast ★

What is a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and when do I need one? In this episode, Nasir and Matt shares why you need to use Non-Disclosure Agreements, basic facts about NDA's, and discuss about the infamous Jenner-Woods story. Having the right Non-Disclosure Agreement in place not only protects you and your business, but it also makes the purpose of sharing the information clear. Full Podcast TranscriptNASIR: Today, we are covering nondisclosure agreements. MATT: I feel like that's all I talk about. NASIR: What is an NDA? MATT: It can stretch pretty far. NASIR: Let's get to the meat of an NDA. Is it really confidential? MATT: It all depends on the scenario too. NASIR: I'm telling you this in confidence. MATT: This one's a little bit tricky. This is Legally Sound Smart Business where your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub, cover business in the news and add their awesome legal twist. Legally Sound Smart Business is a podcast brought to you by Pasha Law PC – a law firm representing your business in California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Here are your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast! Today, we are covering nondisclosure agreements – probably the most favorite topic of all business owners. I can't run into anyone that is in business and they don't want to just sit down and talk about nondisclosure agreements. Don't you agree, Matt? MATT: Yeah, I feel like that's all I talk about with our clients – nondisclosure agreements. But, yeah, if you're a business owner, I mean, depending on the line of work and how long you've been doing business, you've at least encountered some – possibly hundreds. NASIR: Yeah, literally. MATT: Yeah, I can't even keep track of how many you and I have probably reviewed, but it's at least a few hundred at a minimum. NASIR: Yeah, at minimum. Nondisclosure agreements are also known as NDAs. They're sometimes called confidentiality agreements. Sometimes NDAs include the word “agreement” in there, but sometimes contracts have confidentiality provisions that are somewhat applicable, but this is kind of a very narrowed topic, so we are going to make it a little interesting because we're going to talk about these extremes where NDAs go way too far. You know, especially in the media, we've heard this quite a bit, I think, especially in the last few years, and we're going to talk about everything and how NDAs were being used in The White House to how celebrities use it and different aspects like that. MATT: Right. Like I was saying before, we've seen so many different iterations and there's always going to be some standard terms you'll find in any NDA but, like you said, we've definitely also seen instances of it going too far, and that's going to be the focus here – those experiences that we've had when we've seen language in there that makes us kind of think twice. Obviously, we have to notify our client at that point. I think this is a little bit of an overreach. NASIR: Absolutely. Let's start. What is an NDA? Well, Matt, let me ask you that question. What's your definition of an NDA? MATT: Sure. Let me see how I would answer that. Like you said, it's a nondisclosure agreement. Basically, it's typically two parties can be more disclosing information. It could be unilateral, or it could be mutual, but basically you have at least one party – maybe two – disclosing information to the other party and they're prevented from sharing that information with any third party that's not part of the agreement. How did I do? NASIR: You did great. That's probably what I would have said. As you were talking, I started to think about different components of what we were going to cover today, but let's talk a little bit about when to use an NDA or when this is applicable. I think the most common thing in business is that the first thing you do when you're about to enter into a potential transaction, you want to disclose certain sensitive confidential information that is not ava...

Today's a bittersweet moment in WordPress business land with the announcement of Awesome Motive acquiring Sandhills Development suite of plugins including Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, and more. I'm honored to call Pippin my friend who has helped me “grow up” in the WordPress community. I'm happy for him, and sad that he's retiring from the WordPress world…for now. I had a chance to sit down with him earlier this morning to hash out all the feels around this news. I hope you enjoy the episode, please share it with others! Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Hey,[00:00:01] Matt: everybody. Welcome back to a special episode of the Matt report, breaking news almost. And not this one's not erring on the WP minute, but we broke a lot of news on the WP men. They go to the WP minute.com. If you want your weekly dose of five minute WordPress news delivered in your inbox every week, uh, this episode is sponsored by easy support videos, easy support videos, support your WordPress users right inside the WordPress admin.[00:00:23] Using videos. Check out easy support. Dot com why am I doing this in line with the episode? Because we have a special guest today, Pippin, Williamson, Pippin. Welcome to the program. Thank you, Matt.[00:00:35] Pippin: It's great to be back.[00:00:37] Matt: I woke up writing my weekly script for the WP minute and I was getting all of the acquisition news in there.[00:00:43] I was getting all of the liquid web and learn dash and what WooCommerce was up to and I was ready to send it to my executive producer and I looked on Twitter one last time. And there you were saying that Sandhills was acquired. My awesome[00:00:59] Pippin: motive. Sorry to screw up your, uh, your scheduling plan.[00:01:04] Matt: I had a donut in my mouth and I'm trying to type in like, oh my God, what's happening.[00:01:08] I was real newsroom, uh, breaking moments here. First of all. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, at the top of this episode, what I want people to do is an, a link this in the show notes is please. For the love of all that is holy. If there's anything you do with what I say here at the med report, read the blog post on Sandhills dev.com that Pippin wrote about the breakdown, phenomenal piece, one of your best, the best that you have written, uh, you know, uh, to, to bookend this, this, this book, this chapter of your life.[00:01:49] Uh, you know, it's, it's, it's actually an emotional thing for me. I don't have a question straight away. It's an emotional thing for me. I feel like I've been part of this journey with you. Have you felt that same vibe from others in the WordPress?[00:02:02] Pippin: You know this entire morning, um, when we publish the, the announcement that all of the WordPress products were joining automotive and that after a transition period that I'm retiring from WordPress, um, and moving onto some other things, uh, it has been pretty much a constant stream of messages from.[00:02:25] Friends colleagues, people that we've met once or twice at word camps and, and so many friends. And, um, from over the years, just, you know, saying hi, saying congrats, mentioning, you know, something about, you know, what we did together. You know, there's so much. People that we have worked with over the years and that I've had the amazing opportunity to get to know.[00:02:51] Um, so yeah, it was it's, it's been a pretty wild ride and a journey and hearing how many different people, um, have been impacted by the work that we've done over the last 10 years is an amazing way to, um, you know, maybe conclude this part of it.[00:03:14] Matt: They're in my, in the WP minute, uh, script that I wrote today, I said that you are your Sandhills and you specifically are either one of the most respected.[00:03:30] Product companies in the WordPress space, if not the most respected, uh, WordPress plugin company in the space. There's yeah. There's such a deep connection that I think a lot of people share this. It's what makes WordPress special, I guess, is because we all get, so the reason why we're all so emotional about it, or at least I know I am is because we all get so connected with one another.[00:03:51] We want to see each other when we want to see the software do well. I'm retiring from work. I was, I just ran to grab a coffee before we hit record. And I was thinking about some of the questions that I was going to ask you. This is probably a pretty blunt question to ask, but there's the side balconies of the world.[00:04:13] And then there's you and me, right? How do you frame yourself to be able to say, okay, I'm retiring with WordPress from WordPress. I don't even think the word retire is. In vocabulary. What do you think makes the entrepreneur your yourself as an entrepreneur versus SIADH maybe so different and has that played a role into making this decision?[00:04:40] In other words, we're world domination,[00:04:43] Pippin: really? So it absolutely played a role. You know, one of the, one of the most challenging parts of, of this type of transition is we have this, this huge history of, of, of customers, of our team, of our products that, you know, those don't just turn off those don't just suddenly go away because I'm moving on to other things.[00:05:11] What we have to try really, really hard to do. I spent an enormous amount of time on over this last summer is finding the best avenue for those to carry on for the products to carry on for the customers to continue to be supported better than we were ever able to do. And, you know, finding the right fit that ensures that that will happen.[00:05:34] Truthfully requires someone like CYA, you know, SIADH is extremely laser-focus. And driven for his mission of helping small businesses. And he, his, you know, the first thing when, when he, and I started talking about this in depth over the summer, one of the first things that I, I asked him is, you know, what are you, what are you going to do?[00:05:58] And what is the time, um, you know, do you plan to continue working on these and building these for years to come quick answer was, yeah, for at least this next 60 years, uh,[00:06:12] You know, that is something that is a huge amount of reassurance for someone in my position that is, you know, knows that it's time to move on to something else, but also, you know, agonizes over the details of how do we ensure that the customers and the team and the products are taken care of and, you know, knowing that he is committed to the long-term future, um, is extremely important to me.[00:06:36] Um, You know, I, I recognize a couple of years ago that while I have had an amazing time and I absolutely loved the last decade, I'm not ready to keep doing it for another decade, you know, I need to do something else. Um, so[00:06:56] Matt: yeah. I mean, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you've always been one, that's been transparent with your posts and, you know, income reports and all this stuff with, with the product and the services side of the product services side of things.[00:07:08] Uh, but to sort of put your entrepreneurship. Scars, you know, in front of everyone. Right? Cause I know what it's like to run a business at a very much smaller scale than obviously you, you and I had spent some time in a mastermind years ago where we were just banging heads with things that were just so uninteresting, probably to both of us, like talking about taxes and like when VAT came out and you're like, good, I don't want any of this.[00:07:36] I didn't choose to be the janitor and the tax guy doing this stuff. It's not fun. I just want to code and. You stumbled onto the success that you had, and it is, it's a totally different weight. And I think a lot of people are jaded in this space. Sometimes myself included saying he's got everything he wants and needs right in front of him with this busy.[00:08:00] But sometimes it's not what you want. And, and what you wrote in this piece. Uh, again, please read this people about family, your father, your grandfather has a deep connection to me because I started a business with my father. He started a business with his father and it's this lineage that has, you know, gone on.[00:08:20] So, I mean, it really hits home with me. But I think a lot of people just want you to keep going. And sometimes it's, it's not what you, what you want. And, uh, again, no real question here just like applauding you to,[00:08:32] Pippin: you know, the thing that I think so often people don't realize or think about enough until they find themselves in that position.[00:08:40] Is any, anybody who is, is heading a team or a company. When they no longer have the passion for it or the drive, or maybe not that their passion for it has gone away, but maybe passion for something else has eclipsed. It is the longer that they stay in that seat, the more disservice they are going to do to their customers and their team and all of the people that they work with in some capacity or other, you know, anybody who leads a ship needs to be the best of themselves.[00:09:16] As much of a time as they possibly can. Um, because that's the only way that you can do your absolute best to take care of, of your team, of your customers and of your business. And when you are no longer your best in that seat, the best thing you can probably do, if you can, if you know that that is a permanent thing and not just a transitory.[00:09:40] It's put someone else in that seat. Uh, it's hard to do, and it's really, probably even harder to admit to yourself when you reach that point. But if you don't, you know, that that's what causes amazing things to decline over time. That's what causes businesses to slowly fail and, and start to suffer is when, you know, obviously there's other factors too, then, you know, there's other things that can cause somebody to go downhill.[00:10:03] But when, when the captain of the ship is, is no longer. Wanting to be there, no matter what their level of dedication, you know, it hasn't been.[00:10:12] Matt: Yeah. How does that unfold internally at, or how did it unfold internally at Sandhills? Like when you got the gut feeling, did you gut check and, uh, you know, talk to the, the, the top brass at, I dunno, what, what you, what you title them, but do you talk to the top brass and say, I got this feeling.[00:10:31] What do you all think before. Dispersed[00:10:33] Pippin: everywhere for this one. It, um, it unfolded in a couple of ways. So first, uh, you know, a much longer string of events is I'll say that it first started to happen years ago for me, which was basically the day that I, you know, one day I recognized I had hired myself out of it.[00:10:54] 'cause I had, you know, we had, we had grown the team. We had hired, we had grown the dev development team, the support team, the marketing team, even the leadership team. And I re realized that like, I don't, everything that I did, everything that I used to do that I was passionate about is now somebody else's responsibility.[00:11:13] So that happened years ago. Uh, and that was probably one of the first periods where I started to like really recognize that, you know, I don't know that being a CEO is. What I desire to be in the long-term future. I just want to write code again. I spent the next few years trying to get back into code and it, it never happened for one reason or another.[00:11:36] There's lots of reasons. Um, you know, here, here and there, I would, I would dive back in and have a little bit of, of success building something for fun. Um, but like on a day-to-day basis, I never returned to being in the. And it, and that was where my, my true passion was. I loved writing code. I loved the, you know, just cranking something out and, you know, more or less building something from nothing.[00:11:58] It was so fun and magical. So that when realizing that that had happened, that, that transition where I was no longer doing that. Is the first step to what got us to today. And that was years ago, much more recently. Um, basically, uh, when my, my dad's health issues that I mentioned in the blog post popped up, that was when I, I think I really got serious with myself to admit that it was probably time.[00:12:31] Um, at that time I wrote out a message to my partners, um, and. Basically told them. I wrote, I wrote up this very, actually a very short message and it was just titled the exit is near and FYI. Here's basically the way that I'm feeling now. And I think I'm going to start having conversations. And, and that was, it was very, it was very brief, but then we, you know, we followed up and had a lot of in depth conversations as, as a partners group for the next several months.[00:13:05] And then, you know, I kept wavering. I kept going back and forth and, you know, deciding to, to sell something you've spent 10 years building isn't some, like, at least I don't maybe, maybe some people, it happens this way, but for me it was not like a light bulb moment. It was not this, you know, one day I just know, you know, okay, that's fine.[00:13:27] Let's do it. No, it wasn't that at all. It was, you know, it's this, this inkling, this feeling, this, this like weight in your stomach that says. I think it's time, but I'm a F I'm truthfully terrified of that commitment of that, you know, actually making that choice. So over, over a couple of months, you know, trying to figure out if that was the right move or not, I finally decided, you know what, I'm going to take a sabbatical.[00:13:54] I'm going to take three months off the entire store. I'm going to close slack, I'm going to close base camp. I'm going to close emails, disabled, all notifications. I'm going blackout mode for the next three months and see what happens that the, you know, our, our team was set up and so effective that, you know, I was able to do that.[00:14:17] Um, I was not necessary for the day-to-day operations. And so I knew one of two things was going to happen. Through that sabbatical either. I'm going to go out, get refreshed and decide, you know what? I love this. I want to keep going. Um, I'm back, I'm 100% committed and let's put the pedal to the let's hit the gas, or I'm going to know for sure that this is the right move.[00:14:44] Um, and obviously with today's new news that we announced, um, we know how that ended. I knew that it was the right move after I'd spent several months away from it. And you know, it just helped me realize that I'm ready for this.[00:14:59] Matt: Yeah. I mean, and again, I've known you for awhile. A lot of people have known you for awhile, but if you haven't known PIP in, um, You know, just all like the moments at word camps, replaying in my head with like sitting with you and you sitting with your team and just like whatever diving into code features, new product announcements.[00:15:18] How are you going to market this? How are you going to grow the team the whole, how do I get a great team chemistry? Like your. Like the painting that I have of you over your time in this space has never been like, how do I build this thing to sell it? Right. And over the years I've seen which I guess, like, I don't fault anybody anymore.[00:15:35] I used to have like really strong opinions on it, but now people want to build a business and sell it, whatever, Hey, that's just another way of going about it. Like you're building it to sell it, to acquire it. And it's all strategically done. Thumbs up, Hey, that's your way of doing it. Um, you know, and, and just seeing the way that you've done over the years, you know, knowing that this was, this wasn't the intention, although as you highlight, it was[00:15:57] Pippin: a reality that was known to have a strong likelihood of happening,[00:16:01] Matt: right?[00:16:01] Yeah. There's a, there's a point in the, um, in the blog post where you say every business owner knows or will eventually learn that there are three possible fates for their. One one day it'll be passed on to someone else perhaps whose family inheritance, uh, to it's solely or rapidly decline at some point, uh, be shut down entirely three.[00:16:22] It'll be sold to a new owner, uh, for one reason or another. I want to just shift gears a little bit in the conversation. Get a little bit more like strategic businessy, uh, on number two, uh, it'll slowly or rapidly decline at some point be shut down entirely. Um, before we got on, I was talking to somebody else.[00:16:39] Who's going to be writing up a piece on the business of WordPress space. They asked me a couple of questions about what I think about this and why acquisition is so hot right now. Um, I think that there are a lot of mature businesses like yourself, or like Sandhills, where you get to a certain point where, Hey, it's successful.[00:16:57] It's good, but you hit this plateau. And in order to get to the next step, the next stage. You have to almost build a whole other business model or hold a product whole or business. It's not just, Hey, two X, my effort now it's like 50 X my effort to get to that next point strategically that did that have a, a role in this.[00:17:20] And then we'll talk about awesome motive and how I feel like you slot into that, that suite of services. But was that a thing for you?[00:17:26] Pippin: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, like any, any business that has been going for. Uh, while, you know, and, and at this point we were, uh, almost 10 years old. Um, the sandals development as a, as a company, as a brand is eight years old.[00:17:41] But the products, you know, it's been, I think, 10 years since we launched EDD, um, or close to it, um, you know, what, what used to work, what works when you're really, really small and you're new and you're growing. It's not the same thing that works today. You know, when, once you reset maturity point, um, it's a totally different set of challenges.[00:18:05] Um, and the consequences for getting your approaches wrong are a lot more significant. Um, you know, w at our peak, we were a team of 28 people, you know, if we, if we screw up and we do. Aim for the future properly. And we don't manage our growth and we don't recognize where our pain points are. You know, the consequences of that are a lot more significant than when, you know, it's just two or three people that are, you know, mostly just late night keyboard hacking and having a good time doing it and, you know, have a little bit of success with it.[00:18:41] Yeah. So, you know, when I said that when I, when I went on a sabbatical, I knew one of two things was going to happen. And one of those possibilities was that we were going, I was going to come back refreshed and ready to just hit the gas. We have definitely been at that stage for the last couple of years where we were trying to figure out how do we hit the gas?[00:19:02] You know, we're, we're still doing good. We're still comfortable, but the signs are there, that what we're doing. Is not going to sustain us for the next 10 years or even the next five years. There are, there are changes that we're going to have to make. Um, you know, we didn't, we ended up going through this process with automotive before we really had to dive into what those changes were going to be.[00:19:27] And so, you know, I honestly, I can't tell you what they are cause I, cause I don't. Um, but we knew that we were going to have to adapt our approaches and adapt our strategies and adjust, um, and do things in a different, in at least some form of different ways. Um, because it wasn't going to be enough to get us through the next five years.[00:19:46] Matt: I think a lot of successful. And this is, and again, these are just my opinion and obviously happy to hear yours, which just, you just hinted that really. But, you know, you get to a certain point where it's like, Like, if you looked at EDD or your suite of prod products, let's say affiliate EDD. So you have like the affiliate side of e-commerce you have e-commerce, but then it's like, okay, what does everybody want?[00:20:10] You know, with e-commerce is, I don't know, maybe like the hot thing of, uh, customizing checkouts or lead gen or all of this stuff. And it's like, man, That's like another 10 years, right. To like, think about how to build that, like the thought process on how to succeed with that. Yeah, man, it takes so much time and money, um, to really get to that.[00:20:34] So, and I[00:20:35] Pippin: thought a very careful planning. Yeah. I had[00:20:37] Matt: a lot of planning. It's. It's not like the concept of cowboy coding in the early days where it's just like, yeah, just throw another feature and see what happens when you say throw another feature. It impacts 28 employees that you're responsible for tens of thousands.[00:20:52] I'd imagine customers that you have, and it's not just as flip, flip of a switch. That is, is that easy to just change? Oh, that feature wasn't good. Let's pull it back out. Like no, maybe nobody will notice. Oh no, it doesn't work that way. Uh, it's very hard. Uh, I want to talk about finding a suitor for the company.[00:21:11] Now I know how SIADH found you because quite literally, I was at a word camp where I think SIADH was walking around, asking if anyone was for sale. This was like five, six years ago. And I think he would literally walk around, Hey, you want to sell? Hey, you want to sell? Hey, you want to sell? So I know he's got into your ear years ago.[00:21:31] I wrote a blog post back in February, 2020, where I predicted they would buy e-commerce. And I had a discussion with somebody privately that they would probably look to EDD to sell, to, to acquire. Did you look at anybody else? Did you have those conversations and what was[00:21:45] Pippin: that like? So when I first announced, uh, to my partners team, that I felt it was time for me to, to find an exit, uh, immediately after that.[00:21:58] I started reaching out and having conversations with people. Um, and I talked to quite a few. Um, I had. Uh, and I, I mentioned this a little bit in the, in the blog posts, but there were a couple, there are some requirements that I really needed to have met. Um, and so as I, as I started to reach out to, you know, people that I thought might, might be interested, I had a, I had a list of, you know, maybe 10, 10 companies or individuals that I felt.[00:22:29] Would fulfill the requirements that I needed. So number one, that, you know, obviously they had to be capable of doing it. Um, and, and both, you know, both from a finances perspective, but also from, you know, their ability to carry on what we had built. You know, I had no interest in. You know, selling, selling this to a private equity group that, or venture funded group that their goal is just to, you know, cash cow and kill and shut it down.[00:22:56] No interest whatsoever. So I had, I had a few requirements. The, I had to trust and know that their ability. Was there to carry on what we built to. They had to take all of the products. Um, I was not interested in piecemealing, the suite of products that we've built. We have a lot of overlap between our products, between the team that works on the products, um, and our customer base.[00:23:25] I did not want to, you know, send one, one, place one to another one to another, and then try to figure out, okay, what goes there? What goes there? What goes there? That just sounded like a disastrous nightmare that wasn't going to end well for anyone except maybe myself, maybe. So they had to take the whole suite of products.[00:23:43] They had to take the whole team, you know, no acquisition is perfect. No transition is perfect, but I needed them to commit, to taking the whole team, be willing to take everybody, you know, if somebody didn't want to go over, that was, that was okay. That was understandable. But they needed to have that commitment from day one.[00:24:00] If we're taking this as a complete package, um, and. You know that as we, as we had those requirements, um, it, it, we, it, it narrowed down our candidates list, if you will, um, pretty quickly, um, because for one, you know, we'd go in, we'd have a conversation and then somebody would be like, this is great. I really love this stuff.[00:24:24] But honestly, I only want to feel like it'd be cool. Thanks for your time. Maybe I'll circle back to you if you know, if something else doesn't work out and we repeated that quite a few times, uh, CYA. And I have known each other for a long time, uh, actually fun stories at site. And I have had conversations in the past, um, specifically around EDD.[00:24:45] Um, and I turned them down early on and that was several years ago. Um, so it's kinda fun to come full circle now, but with when, when I approached SIADH, um, and I, I told him very bluntly said, are you interested having a conference? If the answer is yes, here's my four main requirements. And if the answer to any one of those is no thanks.[00:25:09] Um, let's not waste each other's time and it was immediately. Yes. Um, so he, he was very, very interested and was immediately happy and will in knew that he wanted to meet all of those requirements.[00:25:22] Matt: Yeah. I mean, I could see, I could, I could definitely see like the negotiation room where like you're both in the room and then SIADH leaves and his lawyers come and you're like, Hey, we say, Hey, where are you going?[00:25:32] Like you leaving, are you staying up, stay around for this conversation. How long did that process take? Was it months Fido two months. But[00:25:39] Pippin: so, um, it, it's, it's funny the way that you characterize it, because while like, I think that's probably how a lot of people expected negotiations with sign to go.[00:25:48] Honestly, that couldn't be further from the truth. Um, it's when, when you negotiate with SIADH, when you sit down and have a conversation with him, it's a very one-on-one candid conversation. We hopped on a lot of zoom calls and we chatted face to face, and I never once negotiated with the attorneys or anything.[00:26:06] You know, it's always cited is extremely personable actually. Um, and he and I have always had a really good relationship. And so we were able to be very candid with each other and, you know, share what we, what we need. What we wanted, what our, what our desired outcomes were and what our challenges were. Um, and then, you know, when an issue was raised, um, you know, whatever it was, we addressed it and we worked through it.[00:26:30] Um, it was, uh, it was a wonderful experience. Honestly, I would, I would repeat the process with SIADH again in a heartbeat. Yeah.[00:26:40] Matt: Uh, we, uh, you know, Matt report listener, you can look forward to a, uh, interview with Saya next week. He's a little. This week. I don't know why he does things on his plate, but we are going to S we are scheduled for an interview next week.[00:26:53] So look forward to that PIP and wrapping up, wrapping up here. Um, yeah. So the hinting at the size of the deal, I won't directly ask you the questions. I mean, you are retiring. Life is probably pretty good for at least the next couple of years. Yes, no, we'll be, we'll[00:27:12] Pippin: be. Okay.[00:27:14] Matt: Uh,[00:27:14] Pippin: we are plenty to put our focus on you.[00:27:17] Matt: I like in the blog post, uh, you sort of say, uh, in the section, what's next for Pippin, uh, after finishing the transition period with automotive, I'll retire from WordPress, then put my focus into spending time with family nature conservation efforts, which I know you've been big on even years ago. I remember you talking about some of the stuff you were doing in Kansas, uh, in Sandhills brewing.[00:27:40] Listen, you, I like how you just threw that in there, kind of the Sandhills, really. But if anybody who does, like, I follow you on Instagram, right. For Sandhills brewing. And I remember it's this like, Hey guys, like on our mastermind calls, check out these bottles I made. Right. And it's just like, you know, You got like a six pack and like I made these bottles and then like our next call, you were in like your tub in the bathroom.[00:28:01] Like, look at my tub full of beer. And then it was, Hey guys. Uh, I got so many crates in my basement. Like I have to get like a rental store. And then now, like Instagram, you have people working for you. I see the, you know, the Instagram models holding the beer there's food. There's build-outs, that's like a whole, like you're not retiring from businessman.[00:28:19] You get a whole.[00:28:20] Pippin: Other big things. It's a pretty, pretty hefty operation at this point.[00:28:24] Matt: I mean, that's going to probably still take up a lot of your time, I'd imagine. And you run that with your brother.[00:28:29] Pippin: I do. Yes. Uh, my, my twin brother and one other business partner. Um, so we, we built two different locations.[00:28:36] Uh, my brother and I live about three hours apart and, uh, we, we really wanted to build this brewery together. Uh, and then we realized like, well, I'm not going to move and you're not. So obviously the next best thing is we build, do locations. Let's do it.[00:28:53] Oh, COVID tool is a interesting monkey wrench. You know, all of them. Everything about COVID aside. I will tell like the, the health and the, the stupid politics around it and all of the worries and the concerns and the financial sides I was telling you that that is one of the most interesting business challenges I have ever gone through is trying to run a hospitality business during a global pandemic.[00:29:16] I have no interest in repeating it. But it is something that I think has been a very, very valuable experience because of how many different things it taught us. You know, if you want to see a great like years from now, we're going to go back and look. At businesses that, that survived businesses, that failed businesses, that thrived and businesses that you know, everything in between.[00:29:43] And we're going to have so much valuable learning about building resiliency and flexibility, and like the ability to pivot in businesses, because that was what, you know, March, 2020 was like, that's when, when that happened. Your businesses that succeeded and made it through were those that had some level of financial resilience because do the hit the hits to the hospitality industry was brutal to had the flexibility and the willingness to change.[00:30:20] And then, and three, just the, the wherewithal to. Chug on and no pun intended, but like seriously, like that was a drag. That was probably the hardest thing that I've ever done in business was surviving COVID as a hospitality business. Um, and, uh, yeah, there's, there's gonna be so much to learn from it in the years to come, uh, as we, you know, are able to take steps further back and reflect on it.[00:30:50] Matt: Yeah, man. Uh, yeah, even, I mean, congrats on that. You know, as somebody who. Again, has been in a S has seen a small, uh, portion of your experience growing a business. When I see these things, when I see like the success of like, where you're going with that brewery, like as fast as it happened, I felt pretty fast to me.[00:31:11] I'm sure it felt, I dunno, maybe fast to you, but yeah, it depends on the day I looked at that. I was like, man. Yeah. This, dude's not long for WordPress, because like I know like, man, if I could just give up everything, I would just go cut people's grass and just be like, there's no worries about the colors I'm picking for you.[00:31:28] There's no worries about like sound audio quality. I just go cut your grass. You just tell me where to cut the grass. And like, that's what I would do for the rest of my life. If it could sustain, uh,[00:31:37] Pippin: you know, three kids you're years ago when, when my brother and I. Well, we're getting ready to commit to building this brewery.[00:31:45] Um, he, he said something to me. I think we were just sitting down late at night. One time. He was like, you know what? I realized why I liked beer and he wasn't talking about the why he likes drinking it or making it, it was why it likes the business of beer, you know, in the software world, we get this opportunity to work with and keep my, my brother runs a software company, 3d animation, right?[00:32:05] Yeah. Uh, so, you know, we get this opportunity to work with. Amazing customers and amazing people. But do you know what the truth is? Like the only time that we actually get to talk to customers, unless we, except the outreach that we do do with them is when there's a problem at the end of the day, all I am is a problem solver.[00:32:27] People bring me problems. Good, bad, enormous, small. It doesn't matter, but I just, I solve problems. You know, like if you've ever heard somebody describe themselves as, you know, like a code janitor or something like that. Like I was not for the longest time that my, my role as, uh, as the CEO of this company was basically to be a janitor, you know, because at the end of the day, everything that comes to me is typically a problem.[00:32:52] I'm kind of tired of solving problems. So the beautiful thing about. Do you know what happens? People come to celebrate. People are happy to see you. You know, when you work customer support, most of the time, people aren't happy to talk to you. People are doing so begrudgingly because there is a problem and they want, and you have the ability to fix their problem.[00:33:14] But with, with beer, people come to celebrate, they're happy to see you. They're thrilled to be in your space, you know? Yes. There's the, there's some darker sides to it. They come to more and they come when they're sad or upset. But in general, you, you are a bearer of good news and they're there because they want to be there.[00:33:33] Um, and that is a very interesting, like psychological difference in the industries. Uh, And it was so refreshing. Yeah. Yeah.[00:33:42] Matt: I can imagine. And look, if I had beer in front of me right now, I would raise a toast to you and everything early in the morning. Well, you know, it's never too early when you're selling beer.[00:33:53] Um, I'd raise a toast. To you and everything that you've done over the years, uh, you know, we hopped on this call last minute. I feel like I was rambling with some of these questions as a seasoned podcaster, but I feel like I'm just trying to hold onto the final threads of my Pippin in the WordPress world.[00:34:10] Um, like, like the Sopranos ending and just watching that last episode, like, I can't believe it's over. Uh, w will you show up at other WordPress events and do you have any final statements for the WordPress community?[00:34:22] Pippin: It's been an amazing journey. Um, you know, my, my current intentions at this point are, you know, truthfully to see what happens.[00:34:33] I don't have any short-term plans to continue working in WordPress, but I don't know what the future is going to hold. Uh, My, my goal and my hope is that sometime in the future, be it in six months in nine months, in 10 years, the itch to code again will strike and I'll build something completely for fun.[00:34:55] Uh, and it might be a WordPress. It might be something totally unrelated. Um, but if it does then, you know, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. Um, so truthfully, I, I don't know, uh, it's been work. WordPress has. Been a wonderfully weird world. And, uh, some of my best memories, the best people I've ever met are from WordPress.[00:35:20] Um, it's given me the opportunity to travel around the world and visit so many amazing places and see, and meet people from all of them. Uh, I, I realized something a few years ago. That was really pretty cool. Is that because of WordPress and because of what this. Community has made possible. I think I know somebody in probably every major city of this world, you know, I may not realize they're there, but I think it's pretty darn close because of just the connections over the last 10 years that have been made.[00:35:58] And that's amazing. And so fricking cool. Um, so you know, this might be the, you know, the end of my WordPress experience, uh, And I will miss it. I will, but I'm happy to end it on a high note where I know my team, the customers and the products are an exceptionally good hands. You know, the truthfully the future for them has, has never been brighter.[00:36:32] And, uh, I'm really looking forward to watching what they do.[00:36:36] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Bravo to you, sir. Thanks again for everything. Uh, Twitter, I guess now is probably the best place or do you know anyone? You don't really want to talk to people anymore? Stay away from me. I'm come[00:36:46] Pippin: buy some beer, email me, uh, you know, my Twitter account is still active.[00:36:51] But, uh, I, I'm not very active on Twitter. I was very active today for the first time in months and months and months. Uh, but so contact me via email. Um, it's pippin@sandhillsdev.com. Uh, you can find me@sandozdev.com. That is that's still my place. Um, and, or you can find me at my personal website.[00:37:09] Matt: Fantastic everyone else.[00:37:10] matterport.com airport.com/subscribe. Don't forget to miss. Don't forget to miss. No, don't forget to not miss your, your weekly dose of WordPress news. over@thewpminute.com. Support the show by buying me a coffee. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you again, Pippin. And for the last time, please read the blog post, which will be, uh, linked up in the show notes.[00:37:33] Fantastic PR. To the saga that is Pippin Williamson in the WordPress world. Thanks everybody for listening. And we'll see you in the next day,[00:37:42] Pippin: everyone. And thank you. Ma'am. ★ Support this podcast ★

Allen: All right, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast today I have with me, Matthew D'Ambrosi .He's one of our passive traders. And he's gonna be telling us how he got started and how he's doing pretty well right now. How are you doing, Matthew? Matt: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on. Allen: Cool. Cool. So how'd you get started with Option Genius?  Matt: Well, I have to actually go back, it's been quite a journey, I have to say, you know, it's more like a 15 year journey for me. Allen: Wow. You know, I was given a book by my sister at age 30. And I was a young guy, and I was just more not interested in reading books just kind of floating through life, didn't really have much direction. And the book was called "Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach. Allen: Okay. Matt: In that book, I wasn't really interested in reading it, but she handed it to me. So I said, at least go through it. And I started thumbing through and I came upon a compound interest chart. And it showed, you know, you're 19 years old, and you put $2,000 into an IRA, or Roth IRA, and you did that, and you continue to do that, it would be well over a million by the time you're 65. So I was caught immediately by that. And that's kind of where my journey began. So I took that information, and started reading more books. And I came across Dave Ramsey. He's kind of like a financial soldier, if you will, you know, to get out of debt. Yeah, kind of get your stuff together. And I started, I always thought about making money and you know, retiring early, it was always a thought of mine, it was a gold mine, it was definitely what I wanted to do. And I always felt like 65 is when I would do it just like everybody else. And I continue to read more, I read numerous articles and books. And about two years ago, I went to a workshop, and I was learning how to invest. And they introduced me to options and selling options. And I was told that everyone else was told, you know, it was risky. Don't touch it. There's a whole another world to me. Allen: Have you done any stocks or options before that? Matt: No, absolutely not. Allen: No stocks either? Matt: Not really, you know, I was more into mutual funds, I had gave my money to an advisor, I just believe that people had your best interest. And they're great advisors out there. I'm not saying they're not. But it really started me to take a hard look about how money is handled. And you're much better off if you take the plunge and believe in yourself and start looking into deeper and see that they can really work out for you if you're willing to take or have the interest really to go and look at that. So I started paper trading. And then I was wondering who else does this so I started searching. And then I came across your name, and I have to hand it to your master marketer. I've never had anyone hit my inbox like you. So I started listening to all your podcast, taking little by little, you know, all the information that you give out there and started little by little paper trading. And then I started making money slowly, you know, doing one contract, then adding two. And then now I'm pretty much on my goal to replace my income. And that's my ultimate goal so... Allen: Awesome. Matt: Just a regular guy, you know, I just kind of happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here today. Because I want to get the message out that you know, you're teaching just normal people like me, who have no experience at this. And it's really a wonderful thing if you're willing to get a hold of your fears and take a stab at it. Allen: Right. So you started about two years ago, you said? Matt: Yeah, about two years ago yeah. Allen: Oh two years ago. Okay. And you're still working? Matt: I am, yep. Allen: Okay, what do you do during the day? Matt: So I'm a forklift driver and it's tough work. It's very laborsome. And trading has allowed me to look at money in a different way. I just don't look at money as scarce as it was. So it's a whole different mindset. Allen: Yeah. So how do you find time during the day to trade? Matt: Generally I don't go until about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I go on to 2:30 at work so I spend the mornings pretty much studying and paper trading and learning and then even after work at 11 o'clock, sometimes I'll be up till 1am or so learning as well and paper trading and trying to think about things and whatnot so.. Allen: So you're all in? Matt: All in, absolutely. They say burn the ships and I burnt them. Allen: So what was your first trade? Matt: First trade I did was credit spread. I did far away from the money for about just one contract and I made like 18 bucks. It wasn't much but you know, you're, you talked about the options continuum. That was in that stage where I was very nervous and you know, you have these feelings and you feel like you're gonna lose all your money. And that's not true, if you study and really take what you have to teach, and I took it very slow and got into it. So after that, after you do, there's something about to do first live trade, it kind of clicks with you like, okay, that wasn't so bad, you know, not the think of the worst that can happen. So, yeah, I did it. And it's been a, you know, I'm gaining confidence each and every week. And, yeah, we just continue to evolve on that continuum. Allen: Cool. So if I can recap. So basically, you want to get into investing because you didn't like where it was going. And you didn't want to wait around till 65 to, you know, have a nest egg and retire and have somebody else in charge of your money. So you started looking at it for yourself, and you've been putting in time you've been studying, researching trading, paper trading? What else is it that you want to achieve, besides just the money aspect? Like what what is it about the trading that is, you know, speaks to you on a deeper level? Matt: Yeah, I think the main part and it's different for everybody, for me, it's actually you know, as you get older, you realize you don't know how much time you have on this earth. And, you know, you start looking at things like, Hey, you know, the time is right now. And if I can find a way to free up some time, I'm going to seize it, because I never want to look back and say, "Hey, you know, I got to 65" I'd be glad if I do. But to spend time with friends and family, I got, you know, parents are almost in their 80s, I would love to just free up just a little bit of time and already am and I'm already you know, I already feel successful. And that, you know, I found something that I can do and free some time up and actually see them. Allen: Okay. So when you say you feel successful, what does that mean in numbers? Matt: Numbers to me, it's like just even $500. And it's different for everybody. There's no doubt. I mean, $500 extra dollars a month is successful to me. It gives you just a little bit of breathing room. I'm a simple person, I don't need a lot. I drive a 2200 accord. I mean, it looks like it's gonna fall off the road. I'm not a man to really, you know, I love great things. I would love to get in a nice, wonderful car, but it's not the main driver for me. The main drivers just to spend quality time family and friends. Absolutely. Allen: Nice. Nice. Okay. So would you mind sharing how large your trading account is now? Matt: Yeah, I started with in the brokerage account, I started about 2 Grand, and I'm already up to about 16 right now. Allen: Wow, in two years? Yeah, that's phenomenal. Matt: Yeah, I mean, I'm also adding to it too, but.. Allen: Okay. Matt: It's amazing to see the compound interest grow. And I haven't been really calculating it like dollar for dollar. But I'm just more really tuned into just being successful and working through the trades. And not really focusing so much on, you know, $1 amount just being, "Hey, let me get this tray. Let me monitor it. Let me look at it. Let me learn from it". If I have any problems, if I look at it as a learning experience, I have to continue to go I want to be in it forever. You know, I want to continue to I want to be that guy standing, you know, 10 years, 15 years from now and still doing this. Allen: Okay, so you don't want to be a forklift driver anymore? Matt: No, I say, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of people who listen to podcast saying I hate my job. I do not I actually enjoy driving a forklift. I just don't want to drive 40 hours a week. Allen: Okay. Okay, so what type of strategies are you using? Matt: So right now I'm doing a lot of bull put spreads, I've ventured into bear call spreads. I'm also doing covered calls. I haven't done any naked puts yet. So I'm really kind of looking at some companies and, uh, you know, I want to know more about the companies and look at stable companies like you teach us and start doing options off of them. So, it's an ongoing process and what amazes me that you don't need to do a lot of different strategies to be successful. Allen: Right, right. Right. Okay. What's your if you had to only pick one, which was your favorite? Matt: At the moment, it'd be a bull put spread, but I have a feeling that's gonna change. Allen: Yeah depending on the market. Matt: Also venturing into into oil, like you're teaching in your program. Allen: Cool. Yeah. Welcome to that program. Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely the next level of stuff. You know, it moves faster, and it's more leverage. So the numbers are bigger. Matt: Yeah. Allen: Cool. So have you tried anything else that didn't work? Matt: You know, I've done about 60 trades so far. I've lost one. And I got out early, it would have worked out. And it was my first time losing money, but I look at as a big lesson. You know, there's a lot of feelings. I listened to one of your podcasts where you talked about how you lost and the feelings that surround that. Right. I think you have to kind of reevaluate and find the lesson in it. And the lesson I found in that trade was that I was trading too heavy. I was a little bit. I was actually doing too many contracts. I was a little bit too uncomfortable. Matt: So that it was is a really good learning experience to say, Hey, you know, I'm not really comfortable risking that much money. Let me just pare it back a little bit. And think about what I want to do here, so.. okay, that, you know, the experience of actually getting out of a trade out of our live trade because you know, your bloods pumping, and you're like, Okay, you know, am I hitting the right buttons? And I get now it's a little different than paper? Of course. Allen: For sure. Yeah. But did you say you did 60 trades and you only lost on one? Matt: Yes so far... Allen: And these are all real money? Matt: Real Money, yes. Allen: Wow. And what's your strategy? How are you doing that? Would you find that trading plan? That's amazing. Matt: You know, it's a lot of listening. I've read so many books, listen to podcasts, listening to education, I kind of go, I'm a very conservative person. So I trade very conservatively. So about 90% out or more, I try to get at least 23 cents, 22 cents, and then just move my contracts up as I feel comfortable taking that risk. Allen: Okay so if I heard you correctly, you are trading at about a 10 delta spread? Matt: Yeah, usually. Allen: And then you're trying to make about 5% on each trade? Matt: Yeah, but between four and 5% Allen: Between four or five? And how long do you stay in the trade? Matt: You know, it's almost embarrassing, but that's the level of how you get better. I really have my you know, you talk about your AHA moments, and one of them was mine. I didn't know you could get out of the trade. So I was always thinking you had to be there until expiration, but that's not obviously not true. So that was a big one. For me, I have to honestly say that, you know, when you're learning this, you just don't think of you don't know everything. Right? And I was like, oh, my goodness, you can actually get out of these trades. So I learned to get out. So you know, that's a benefit in my world, once you know how to get out, it takes a little bit of fear out. Allen: So when do you get in? How many days to expiration to get in? Matt: Generally, I'm between 28 and 35 days or so. Allen: Okay, and what how many trades at one time do you have on? Matt: I really try to do only as many as I can comfortably watch. I try to do maybe one a week. So about four trades at most that are going on? Allen: Okay, so four trades at one time. Okay. And so how much would you say you're making on a monthly basis? dollar terms? Matt: Well across two accounts. So I trade in my brokerage account, I trade under my IRA, I rockler. Right? I'm averaging about 1000 a week now? Allen: 1000 a week. Okay. That's amazing. So within two years, you're up to 4000 a month. And you're saying your account value is roughly around 16? Matt: Roughly 16. And then, you know, in the Roth IRA, it's considerably higher, but that's not money I really want to put a heavy risk of short term trading, but I do trade there. Allen: Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. No, that's, that's crazy. And you're saying that you're almost to the point where it's getting close to where it's gonna replace your income or equal your income from..  Matt: Yeah I mean, I have no qualms about it. I my goal is to get make $5600 a month. And I know my number and but it's all about, you know, I guess one of the big reasons for me coming on is that you just have to trust the process. And you have to actually become in love with the process not be so result driven. I mean, it's important, you know, we all want results. But if you can find a love for the process, I think you're that much better?  Allen: For sure. Definitely. Yeah. Because, you know, like you said, You've been putting in the time you wake up and you work on it. And then after work, you know, tired long day, but you still sometimes you still get it and to look at it being you wouldn't do it if you weren't like happy and excited. It's really something to find something. I feel like this is a point in my life where I really found something I love to do. And I really do. I really love this. And, you know, it's, I just want other people that are just regular people like me, and people come all the time and say, you know, you can do this and do that. But I am I tell you to my core, I'm just a regular person, I drive a forklift. And if anyone can do it, you can do it. And thank God, there are people like you have to teach this stuff. Because I would have killed 20 years ago to have someone guide me through just hitting me across the head of the board and be like, Hey, you know, listen. But that's not how life works. Allen: Right, no, yeah. You know, when you're ready, the teacher appears kind of thing. You know? Matt: It really is true. Allen: Yeah. Yeah. So the biggest thing that surprised you when you were doing this stuff, besides that you could get out before expiration? Matt: Oh, yeah, that was a big one. I think it's coupled with what other people say but also with what I think is that you can trade on something that you don't own. I think that's a big thing for people. Because we're just conditioned to be like, you know, if I can trade something, I have to own it. And that was a big like, wow, for me, for trading. You know, also the covered call as well. Allen: Okay. And so what was your biggest challenge? Matt: The biggest challenge for me was overcoming your fears. I mean, it's, it's definitely a big fear. And I don't take it lightly. Because, you know, we all worry about losing our money, we worked so hard for it. I mean, I work 40 hours a week just to make the bills and do everything that we want to do, we want a better standard of living. And it's very scary  you know, you can think about losing all that money and a flash, and that's really fearful. And I think that's the biggest obstacle, but be to be able to papertrade it and learn from people like yourself that have gone through it. And like, they say, taken the arrows is all much better. I mean, you know, it's like, I talk to people, it's like, you're in a forest, and you don't know which way to go. And it's like, you have someone like yourself or someone else that has gone through this. And we're like, Hey, here's the path. You know, over here is a ditch over here, you know, there's a lion, go down this path, and you start to understand otherwise, you're just flailing around, and you'll be lost in that forest forever. So, you know, it's just one big journey, to be honest with you. Allen: Yep. Yep, yep. Yep. So is that the biggest thing that helped you overcome the fear? Got me a lot of people have that fear. You know, it's like, oh, my God, if I do this, what's going to happen? What if I press the wrong button? What if they take this away? What if you know, something, I do something wrong, my wife's gonna kill me, you know, how did you besides the paper trading was that the biggest thing that helped you overcome the fear? Matt: I think also, the actual structure of a credit spread, you know, knowing that when I have a set amount of money, that it's risk, I can only lose like, $500 in a trade or 480. That really helped me, okay, I was like, Okay, if you're uncomfortable, overall, losing $480 in this trade completely fails. And that's all I'm gonna lose. And I wrapped my head around that, then I can get past that barrier. And I can trade more and learn how to trade. I think initially, you just have in your mind that you're gonna lose all your money, which is not true. If you, of course, you I mean, you have to study and you have to pay attention. None of this is easy or simple. But you got to put in the time, I'm not saying you don't. But if you really want to, and you're, you have conviction, and you have desire, there's no reason why you can't do this stuff. Allen: So what do you think the future holds for you now? Matt: Well, I hope all good things. I mean, I go on with the, I hope I go in with the attitude. I'm really happy and excited to be part of the the oil, that's a whole another, the oil blank check trading program. It's a whole another world for me. And, you know, I kind of feel like, it's traded like options, but it's very different. And then I have to get in there. And it's like, you know, I'm back at the beginning a little bit. So I got to get him up to speed and learn that it's a whole another world. So you go through those feelings again, in a different way. So I'm kind of in the beginning, but I'm very hopeful for the future. And I just want to continue to be consistent and profitable. And that's all you can ask for. Allen: Yep. Yep. So would you recommend Option Genius to other people? Matt: Absolutely. I mean, I sing your praises almost all the time. I one of the big reasons is that how accessible you are. And you know, whenever I had a question, you guys are on top of it. I mean, I couldn't ask for any quicker response. And if you have a problem, you feel like someone's right beside you. And I really appreciate that. So yeah, I've absolutely, I would tell anyone to go to you and learn from you learn from you on the program.  Allen: Yeah, we try. I mean, we're not perfect. And we don't work weekends. But some people, some people are like, Oh, I bought this thing on Saturday. Why haven't I got it yet? I have questions. I'm like, Oh, we don't work weekends, you know. See that's part of the job here. You know, I talked about it on the podcast, and the books and everything. It's like freedom. You know, that's the ultimate, the ultimate goal is freedom. And however you define it, yeah, the time to do what you want the money to do what you want, and you just, you know, if you want to go here, do this, or whatever, buy whatever you want. Like, I'm so happy and excited that you're feeling a taste of that, you know, it's like, "Okay, if I'm going to work, I'm going to make X dollars, but I can always be laid off". I can always get hurt. I can always, you know, get sick. I mean, so many people right now are getting sick and they can't work and they're all scared because they don't know what they're going to do. And you know, the fact that you're you found something that you can stay at home, press a few buttons, and you understand it and you're like, Okay, intellectually, I can make this work. And you put in the time in the effort. I've seen that. So kudos to you for that. Because I've seen a lot of people. They're like, Oh, yeah, no, no, this is supposed to be magic. I'm supposed to hit the Escape key and I'm supposed to get money coming out of my computer. Well, it doesn't work that way. You know, you have to put in time, effort, thought process. You have to do it over and over and over again, which you've done for the last two years. You've been putting your dues in I mean, obviously you're not done yet. Right? You still got a long way to go. Matt: Oh, yeah, absolutely my goal is never to be complacent. You know, never think I've no at all, because I do not. There's people out there that are very smart, intelligent, people that are learning, I always look at life, you can learn somebody, something from everyone, just like all the people, all the books that I've read, if you can get one good thing out of them, you can learn something from them, you're all the better. You know, I just learned to not look at one thing as the way there could be multiple ways. But you know, you have to take the good and almost make it your own as well. You know it, but it's on you. And you as you get older, you realize that it is on you to make this decisions. I don't want to bury my head in the sand and just hope you know, I wake up at 65 and I'm retired. So it's a process. And luckily, I fell in love with it. Allen: That's great. That's great. So let's say you get your goal and you're making 5600 a month from your trading. You still going to work? Matt: I think initially I mean, you know, it's a wonderful question to answer. I think initially, I would go with part time, because I like I do like my job. I do enjoy driving a forklift. But um, it would allow me to do some other things that I would want to do in life. I mean, I like gardening, I like painting, maybe learn Spanish, I always want to learn Spanish, you know, and I could put my efforts towards that. It's just, it opens a whole another world for you. And I mean, it really does. And it gives you a chance to maybe go into some things that you never dreamed that you would be. For instance, after this, I'm going on a boat, I would never dream that I would learn, I always didn't want to drive a boat, I was afraid to drive a boat, I was afraid I was gonna to crash into a dock. But I'm a member of a book club now. And I'm going to go out my wife after this podcast and get on a boat. And I'm learning how to drive and docket and it's like I believe trading is broad and open that world for me. Because I'm no longer fearful making mistakes. And I'm going to learn from them. And, you know, if I crashed into into a dock, so be it. I'll learn from it. And I'll get better. So that's the way I approach life now. And I think trading is a big part of that. Allen: Oh, that's wonderful. So the fact that you've been you've had some success in the trading has given you confidence in other areas of your life. Matt: Absolutely. That's something I can ever believe. Yeah, absolutely. Allen: That's so beautiful. Okay, so let's say one of your fellow employees at Costco, you're at Costco, right? Yes, yeah. So if one of your fellow employees at Costco comes up to you and says, Matt, man, I got to do something. You know, you told me you talked about trading a little bit, how do I how do I get started? What do I do? How do I make sure that I don't lose money? Matt: Well, go to Option Genius. But I would more so I would tell them that, you know, it's a process and you have to put in the work. There's no shortcuts. And you know, people say that all the time. And you have to really believe that in your heart, and you have to put in the work. And thank goodness paper trades out there. And you can make mistakes and learn from them. And just keep trying. And then when you're ready, do it. Somy advice is to absolutely take it slow. You know, everyone's different. You could paper trade three months, six months, but don't be hanging up for a year paper trading. I mean, you want to get out there and try. So but do it with a little bit of money that you're finally losing, and then just go on from there and reevaluate your process. So that's the advice that I would give them. And, of course, I want to help everyone out there, you know, because I have co workers that are in the same, I know the grind they go through each day. They're hard working people, they're looking for the same thing I am that they're trying to look, you know, to better their life or help people that are left to right of them, and get through and improve it. And, you know, this is out there for them. So I've just tell it, take it slow, be patient. I mean, it's very difficult to be patient, especially this day and age. But if you can harness that patience, you can achieve what you want to achieve. Allen: Well said, Well said. Yeah, I mean, you know, the cool thing is that we've I guess since you started, I think you've been sending us emails every once in a while. Matt: Probably a little crazy. Yes. Allen: Yeah no it's okay. It's not crazy? I mean, you know, I bombard people with email, we generally like to sometimes people, some people get three emails a day from us, it's like crazy. We need to work on that. Matt: I'm one of those people. And I'm like, wow, I'm like, man this is something else. Allen: There's too much going on. Yeah. So we need to work on a little bit there. But you know, so it's been fun to watch your progress over the past. You know, it's like, I try to if there's a trading email or whatnot, I try to read those. And if I don't answer them, at least I try to read and see what's going on. And I've seen your emails come through, and it's like, you know, this guy, he's getting it, you know? And whenever you ask a question, it's like, there there are some people that they're nice about it. And then there are some people who are like they expect the moon and the stars and everything in an email like, "Hey, I'm on your list. I want you to tell me every one of your secrets". Like how am I supposed to do that in an email? Matt: Yeah that's impossible. Allen: We share that for you. Like we could have a course about that. It would be like a 20 million-hour course. I could share everything and bring an email. I'm not writing all that stuff. But the fact that you took it slow and methodical and whenever you, you did the work. And then when you had a question, it was specific to that particular thing. So you could tell when I'm reading, I can tell, okay, this guy is actually trying to learn, he's actually trying to trade. And this has given me a question based on his actual experience. So I mean, that's in, you know, for those of you who are listening and be like, Oh, well, I asked a question, I didn't get an answer. Or, you know, he didn't give me a complete answer or whatever. It also depends on, you know, how you approach the question how the question is asked, and if it's gonna make sense or not, because we do get inundated with trading questions, and how do I do this? And how do I do that? And without proper background, we can't even give individual moves. Legally, we can't give individual advice. But even trading questions, it's like, okay, if I don't have the proper background into what you were thinking, when you were looking at a trade, then I can't give you a, you know, what I would do even because if I'm looking at a chart, and I think it's going to go down, and you think it's gonna go up, whatever I tell you, it's gonna be the opposite. And you'll be like, that doesn't make any sense. So I love the way that you have approached this. And you've been, you know, slowly, methodically, you pick something you realized from the beginning, you knew what you want it, you knew your why you understand, you know, compound interest, you understand how that works? And it's not going to happen overnight. How long do you think it took you until you started becoming like, consistently profitable? Matt: I would say about three or four months where I felt consistent, you know, first, you know, you could say, Oh, you know, it could be you just not, you're not sure until you really feel like, okay, I can repeat this month after month. And third kind of understanding, you know, not only the positives of a trade, but also the negatives, and you start kind of wrapping your head around it and start feeling comfortable, but not complacent, then you start, you feel like you're on the right road, so that that feelings and the results probably about three to four months for me specifically where I felt confident about the trade. Allen: Okay, and you trade the same stocks over and over again? Or do you choose different ones every time? Matt: I'm looking, you know, basically the same. You know, I tell the story, way back, I bought Airbnb, you know, an IPO, which stands for is probably overpriced. And I consider it as a mistake. But my wife and I did a covered call together, and we literally push the button together. And we're like, we made like, 500 some dollars off of that. And I was just like, we were just like, baffled, like, wait a minute that actually work. Like we just got paid for that. And we're just like, How can that be? So, you know, I read books on covered calls and things like that. And, you know, there's there's downfalls of covered calls as well, the dark side as you speak. And it's important to, to learn all the different strategies. But the point is, you don't need to know a ton of strategies to be successful, I think it's important for the viewer to focus on one and get really comfortable before you move on to other things. And I feel that's kind of where I am with oil now I'm comfortable with a trade and now unwilling to go into another world, and kind of explain that or, you know, explore that, and I'll take that slow as well. And, you know, it just starts being well, and overall process and you bring it together. And it's all about learning and what a beautiful thing. Allen: Yep. Yep. Very beautiful. So, and there might be some skeptics listening to this. And they'll be like, Well, you know, the last two years, we've had a really good bull market. So are you prepared for choppy market volatile market? down market? bear market? How would you adjust to that situation? Allen: You know, I think it's, I look back, I'm actually reading your book right now, how to hedge, you know, all the hedging strategies, and what I always call my replay in my mind, what will I do if there's a big crash, and I don't think you can ever, you know, fully prepare yourself, but there's a lot of things that you can do. I think the most important part of that is knowing a valuable company, it's knowing what kind of strategy you're going to use, you can never do bull put spreads continually, because you're going to get hit at some point. Right. So again, learn how to do a bear call spread and do some different things to hedge your position. So it you know, that's education by itself, but there's definitely some big things. You know, you got to look at each thing of, you know, a comfort level and then continuing education. I definitely am. I'll continue to get better at that as well. Allen: Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, there's no way to tell which way the market is going, you know. Matt: Sure. Allen: I mean, we've been lucky that we've had a nice fed induced (inaudible) rally recently, the last couple years. But again, we don't know how long that's going to last and what's going to happen after that. But as somebody who has been doing this for, you know, a little bit longer than you have. Matt: Much longer. Allen: It's good to be able to, like you said, you know, understand the different strategies as well. And you said you've done you know, two or three of them and you've, you've practiced them over and over again. So that when things do change, that you can also see that coming and then you can change with it. So You know, I was talking to someone earlier today, and we were talking about and he was, he was asking about iron condors. And he's like, yeah, you know, I've tried honor condors didn't work at all. So how do you make them work? I said, Well, you know, every strategy doesn't work for every person. Some people might like one strategy, and they're really good at it. And somebody else, their brother might try it. And their brother might be horrible at it. You know, it's different risk tolerances, and different personalities will tell what strategy you should work on. And so.. Matt: Yeah, that's really fascinating. Like you said earlier, you know, we talked about how you can get the same trade as somebody, it just turns out different. And I think it's, it's fascinating in psychology, and it's also how, you know, you think of a trade and everyone's into individual to that trade. So it's pretty interesting. Allen: And you said, you had studied psychology, right? in school? Matt: Yeah, I have a degree in psychology from the University of Alabama. And, you know, I just, I never knew what I wanted to do in college. And it's interesting, I find myself using it. Now. I it's the psychology of the markets. And I think about how why people sell and why people buy and, you know, a lot of it's fear based, sometimes people that are very smart, do stupid things. You know, you just think that it's not that way, but it is very true. So it's, it's a whole, I never thought I'd be using psychology, but I do. I'm fascinated why people think the way they do. Allen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've been a big fan of psychology, just trying to understand myself, you know, and most of the time, like, you know, when we try to figure out, okay, hey, this stock went down today, what happened? A lot of times, we can't figure it out. I don't know, there's so many. There's so many background factors. But I think the study of psychology really helps in the big picture thinking, you know, you might not be able to figure out exactly why a stock moved up and down, depending on if there's some news about it. But the overall market like, hey, if this happens, then this is how people react. And then this is how they think. And then this is what happens in the stock market. So it's definitely a learning experience. And something that comes with years of experience, as you get used to it, say, Okay, I saw this happened. So I, I expected this to happen because of that. So it's really interesting. Allen: I really appreciate your time, Matthew, and just wanted to give you one more, you know, like hey, is there anything else that last words that you want to share with our audience?  Matt: Just I encourage people that are, you know, maybe thinking just like how I am, you know, they're out there working everyday life, and they just don't think that this is possible, and I just wanted to really encourage them to, you know, take a shot at it. And really, you know, if you're really interested in it, and put your 100% into it. And, you know, you could really surprise you on the other end, what life has to offer to you if you really get into it. And trading is a wonderful way to do that. So I'd really encourage people of all walks of life to try to better their situation, I think it's a great, great avenue to do so. Allen: Right. And you got started again, how? Just by reading a book? Matt: Yeah, I was just really looking at a compound interest chart. I was just, I just looked at it. And I was like, man, I could just kind of see the overall plan. I was like, I didn't know, you know, you know, everyone wants to be rich, and they want to have enough money. And it was a different feeling. At that time, I was young, and you know, mostly when you're young, or just want to get things and accumulate things and, you know, burn the world down. And that's not the case, as you get older, usually, you know, you, you find out what's really important. And to me, it's time with family and friends. And once I saw that chart, I could see the kind of overall kind of structure if you will, what I want to do. And then now as I got into it, I started filling in the blanks and seeing what way to get there. And trading is really kind of sped that process up. And I'm very excited about it. Allen: So do you see yourself like, okay, hey, you know, and this year, or this keeps up and you know, this age, I'm going to be a millionaire or 100 millionaire or something like that-  that doesn't appeal to you, right? Or does it sometimes? Matt: You know, like, I have a goal of turning you know, our money and making a million dollars. And that's, I wrote it down and seven years, I'd like to do that. If I don't get there, I'm not going to be upset about it. Like I said, you have to be happy about the process and excited about the process. And long as you're generally heading the right way. You can't help but be happy. I mean, if there's little setbacks, but if your general trajectory is moving forward, that's all you can ask for. And we're excited about that. So, you know, the number is less of a issue to me, as I get into it, you know, it's a great thing. And it's a great byproduct of what we're doing. But I think you just got to really look inward and be contentment and what really makes you happy in life, whatever it is you'd like to do. So, you know, money is just a tool to get there. And I I really feel that at this age, you know, it took me 20 years to figure that out. But yeah, it's exciting. Allen: Yeah, I totally agree with you and I'm excited for you, man. It's Just like, you know, you just get started now it's just, it's just up from here, you know, it's just the sky's the limit, and you know, a million dollars one day, you're gonna be like, Oh, that was nothing, you know? Let's go for 3, let's go for 5. Matt: You know, if not, I always say, Hey, you know, I can be happy I took a shot at So, you know, yeah, I left everything on the table. And that's what you have to do. And I couldn't be happier about that. Allen: But you've gotten it done. You know, it's not, it's not like, You got lucky, you've been doing it for consistently, you know, over and over and over again. And yeah, we've had a good market. And that helps. But you know, every market can be a good market, if you know what you're doing. So the fact that.. Matt: I'm very worried about that, because I started investing in 2009. Okay, so I've never seen a crash. And I know that and I'm aware that and I also look at, hey, what are my feelings going to be? And I try to read books about it, and listen to people and talk about their experiences, because I want to know what to do in that situation. So I could, that's a continuation thing for me. I mean, I know I have not been in a crash. That's all been up for me. And but I do know that I have to be wary of that. And I have to have a plan for that. And that's what I'm doing right now. So, you know, I don't want to get complacent and that I'm winning and winning and winning, because losses could be around the corner. And I just gotta know how to mitigate that process. Allen: So and see, I mean, just that comment right there. That's like, you know, this guy knows what he this guy's got a head good head on his shoulders. You know, he's not he's not overconfident. And he's not like, Oh, yeah, this is gonna happen for the rest of my life. I'm just gonna make money every month. No, I mean, I've been looking at it from all different angles, and you've been practicing and trading and different things. And you said, Oh, yeah, I've been doing put spreads. But I'm also doing call spreads, you know, because eventually, I'm going to need them. So it's like, yeah, there you go. That's it. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you do it the right way. You're doing it really the right way. And you started small and you're, you know, slowly, slowly, you're increasing. But you're still sticking to, you know, something that's manageable. You're not Oh, like you said that one trade I had. I mean, oh my god, out of 60 trades you've only lost one that's like, incredible. I never heard anybody do that. That's like, Well, can I give you my money? I want to go sail around the world here. You just take it in, take care of it for me. Matt: You can't have it back on if I lose it? Yeah. Allen: No, I think you'll be okay because you're getting prepared for it. You know, you're not blindsided. It's like, yeah, this is part of it. I've seen it. You know, you've maybe you haven't seen it yourself. But you've heard of it. But you're not. What are you like, 45 years at? Matt: I'm 45 Allen: Yeah, so you've been alive when there has been crashes? And oh, yeah. and stuff, you know, the.com bubble, everybody still remembers that? No, tell you about that. And, and stuff like that. So it's not like it's something completely out of the blue for you. If somebody was like 15 years old, or 20 years old - they're like, Oh, yeah, you know, I've never seen America crash. It's never gonna crash. But yeah, it's there. And you are, you're rounding out what I, you know, like, it's like, it's not just, you focused on something you learned about it, you practiced it, and you're like, Okay, this is working. Now I need to add to it, I need to add another skill, I need to add another skill. And you're, and you're still adding, that's the coolest thing that you're still growing, you're still learning. And you're still humble enough about it, so that you're like, you know, hey, I'm still working. And I work hard, and I have a good job, and I like it. But I would like to have more. And then eventually, I'm gonna work part time. That's really cool. Yeah. Matt: I actually parallel investing with running a marathon. You know  running marathons is a very difficult process, and it takes a lot of work. And there's a lot of dips along the way, and at times you feel like quitting, and there's a point of elation, and you have an angle. And I kind of feel like that kind of parallels my trading style. So I know that there's going to be, you know, mile 15 is going to be horrible. And mile 18 could be even worse. And then you get the mile 24 and you're like, elated. It's almost at the end. And that's kind of how investing is, you know, you have great times and you have terrible times. And you have to, you know, when you're training, you're accounting for all these processes along the way. You know, what shoes do I wear? How do I do this? If it rains? How do I count for this? I don't feel good. How do I account for that? What did I eat? all that stuff is very similar to how trading is in trading really, you learn a lot about yourself, just like you do in marathon running. I mean, you learn about what you're really made of, and the risk that you take and who you are as a person. So I think there's a lot of parallels there. Allen: Wow, yeah, I've never run a marathon but it sounds horrible. Matt: Yeah, I mean, people are like, they're either they do it or they want it done. I've got the bug. I was crazy. I decided doing but um, I don't do them anymore. I maybe maybe have one or two. I mean, I will see but uh, you know, I want to keep my knees going into my 50s. Allen: Cool. All right, Matthew. I really appreciate it. This was great. I mean, it's wonderful to see you know, somebody go from knowing nothing to making you know, four grand a month trading part time. And, you know, it's like, Hey, I can do this. If you can do for you can eventually do more, and it'll replace your income and make all your dreams come true. So kudos to you for getting in the path, taking the risk, and trying it out, learning, spending the time, and I hope that people listen to this and they're encouraged by it, they're inspired by you, I mean  when I heard your story, I was like, "we gotta get Matthew on the show". You know, forklift driver to early retiree. Matt: Yeah I hope so. I appreciate you guys and I can't thank you enough, you and your team, that there's actually people out there that teach this stuff and actually care about people, because there's a lot of people that don't have it all and I really appreciate that. Allen: Thank you Matt: Yeah I'm sure your viewers appreciate it as well. Allen: Yeah thank you for hanging out with us. Matt: Alright, thank you. LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.

CHRIS NEWBOLD: Hello, Well-being friends. Welcome to the Path to Well-Being in Law podcast, an initiative of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. Obviously, Chris Newbold here, executive vice president of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. We've been very clear on what our hope is for this podcast and that's to introduce you to people doing awesome stuff in the well-being space as we work to build and nurture a national network of well-being advocates intent on creating a culture shift within the profession. I am joined once again by my fantastic co-host, Bree Buchanan. Bree, how are you? BREE BUCHANAN: I'm doing great, Chris. And when you started, just there was a little bit of introduction of yourself, I realized we're well into our 17th or 18th episode of the podcast, which is really exciting. And I just want to let everybody know who we are a little bit again and why we're doing this if people didn't listen to the first episode. And Chris is a great podcast host, he's also an integral part of the Institute for Well-Being in Law, which is who is bringing you this podcast series. He's our vice president of governance and I have the great privilege of being the board president of the Institute. And so just giving you a message from that and the progress that we're doing is it's really exciting to be able to host this podcast, get more involved in communications and spreading the word about the work of the Institute and the well-being movement and getting ready for our annual conference in January of 2022. Lots is happening in regards to the Institute. And so, just a little message for our listeners there. CHRIS: And it's been a wonderful five to seven years since this movement started and there's been one constant in the development of this movement and it's been Bree Buchanan. In terms of being the original co-chair on the national task force on lawyer well-being, Bree has just invested countless hours to give back to the profession through this work and Bree, we're just so fortunate to have you and to continue to have your leadership of this movement. It's important and I just want you to know how much we all appreciate it. BREE: Thank you. I'm glad this is a podcast and not a video because I'm a redhead and I blush easy so I'm flaming red right now. Anyway, to our guest. CHRIS: Let's get to it. Let's get to our guest. Again, we love our guests because our guests are bringing interesting angles and I think it's so important that we think about the collective holistic sense of well-being. And one of the areas that I think really catapulted the movement was the fact that we could actually for the first time, based upon a couple of groundbreaking studies, that we could rely on data to drive the well-being movement. And again, we are an evidence based profession, so the ability for us to really kind of put some numbers behind and some statistics and some scientific nature to the well-being movement, I think it's been really critical in terms of catapulting what we've been working to do to engineer the culture shift. This is again, part two of our, kind of our research focus. We had Larry Krieger on previously and are really excited to introduce you and our listeners today to Matt Thiese. And so Bree, why don't I pass the baton to you to introduce Matt and kick off the podcast? BREE: Sure. Matt, Professor Thiese is really, I think the key position that he holds in the movement right now is to be a lead researcher and looking at what's happening with lawyers today in regards to their well-being and really assisting us getting that data so we know what to do, where to go, what to work on. Matt is an associate professor in the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Utah. One of 18 centers funded by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention across the US. He's deputy director for the center, director of the occupational injury prevention program and director of the targeted research training program. Matt has a PhD in occupational epidemiology, a Master's of science in public health and is a prolific writer, having co-authored 99 peer reviewed articles, 46 practice guidelines and 19 book chapters. Whew. Matt, welcome. CHRIS: Busy. Busy guy. MATT THIESE: Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. BREE: Yeah. I warned you a little bit, we have this question, first question we ask all our listeners about what brings you to this work because we found everybody has something that's driving their passion and for you, it's interesting because you're not a lawyer. You come out of the sort of the field of occupational health, which is a new kind of construct for me to think about all of this work that we're doing. Let me ask you the question, what in your life are the drivers behind the passion, your passion for this work? MATT: Sure. I'll start sort of broadly and then get into a little more specifics related to lawyer well-being but just generally occupational health and safety for me is really important. One of my first jobs was working as a mover. I worked as a mover for one day and working there it was during the summer between high school and college. And when you have people in the profession telling you, "Get out, go do something else. This will just tear you apart," it really makes you look and think and say, "Well, you're here, you're 50 years old. You've been doing this for 35 years. Why are you here?" And it's got to be able to be better. There needs to be a way to improve it. That's what got me into occupational health and safety originally and I've just really, really enjoyed it. MATT: We all spend so much time at work, whether we like it or not. And I think any way that you can make that healthier and safer is good for you as an individual but then it's also good for those around you, whether it's your business or your family or both. In terms of law specific, all of my interactions with lawyers have been really positive. And I know a bunch of lawyers. I know a lot of people who went to law school and decided not to actually go practice law and a lot of reasons that they cited were because of the mental challenges, the stress, the depression, that type of stuff. And then I have a neighbor across the street who was really involved and said, "Hey, we would like to be able to have some data to help guide decisions." And I said, "Hey, that's actually something that I know about. What can I do to help?" And that was in 2019 and we've just been off to the races since then. BREE: Wonderful. CHRIS: Again, thank you for your work. We're excited to kind of talk about some of your findings and your first foray into the legal space. Professor Thiese, talk to us about, you're an occupational epidemiologist. That's something that I certainly don't have on my resume. What sorts of things do you study? What's the goal of your work? MATT: Sure. And please call me Matt, unless I'm in trouble, then call me Matthew. And so as an occupational epidemiologist, before the pandemic, epidemiology, I'd say I'm an epidemiologist to people and they say, "Oh, so you study skin diseases? Or what exactly do you do?" The pandemic has been good in that sense, if there's any type of the silver lining, it has really helped highlight the importance of individual health and having data to make these types of decisions. I've done all sorts of different things. Another area of interest for me is transportation health and safety. Truck drivers have all sorts of different challenges. Some of them are oddly somewhat parallel to law professionals but there's all sorts of other things going on with them too. I do all sorts of stuff. Really anywhere your job overlaps with your health, whether that's physical, mental, looking at different types of exposures, chemical hazards, electrocution, slips, trips and falls, automobile crashes, interactions with clients and violence, all of that type of stuff. BREE: Yeah. Matt, you started to intersect with the legal community. I think it came about with the Utah Supreme Court's lawyer well-being task force and made a recommendation that there needed to be a study of their lawyers in their state to see what is sort of the condition of their well-being. And so how did you come to become a part of that? And what happened with that process? MATT: Sure. I don't think actually I am the person who came up with a recommendation. I think that really was the committee had the foresight to say, "Look, we don't even know where our attorneys are on the spectrum. How are we doing? Are there pockets of attorneys that are doing better or worse than others? Are there other individual factors, personal factors? Where do we stand? Basically, let's get a metric at the beginning and then can use that data to make informed decisions." And then I knew some lawyers who were on the committee and they came to me and said, "Hey, can you just come talk with us about this?" And I said, "Absolutely that's right up my alley." We started having a discussion about doing a baseline assessment piece of all lawyers, which then expanded to lawyers and law students and other law professionals like paralegals and legal secretaries to get a baseline. MATT: And then the plan was to do a subsequent followup or a series of follow-ups with those same individuals. In epidemiology terms, that's called a prospective cohort study. You're getting a group of people and then following them through time, that's better than just taking a snapshot at time at different time points of just a random representative sample. It's better to have the individual people. That was the plan. That was 2019. And then the pandemic hit and everything sort of went sideways in terms of being able to contact people in research and everyone's mental health. And now that we're sort of coming back out of that, we're planning on doing our first followup of the same group and then we're actually probably going to end up using that as our new sort of baseline data element, just because so many things have changed due to the pandemic. BREE: Yeah. And just to follow up, so it was the Utah state bar that actually commissioned for you to do the research, is that right? MATT: Correct. Correct. BREE: Okay, great. CHRIS: Matt, what was the lawyer study? Explain for our listeners, what was the objective? MATT: Sure. The objective was to identify, there were a couple. The first was to try and get as representative an assessment as we can of lawyers in Utah, practicing lawyers and in a whole range of areas. We have in our, and it was just a one time survey. It was done online at baseline. We asked about the big ones. Obviously depression, anxiety, burnout, alcohol use, other substance use and abuse. But then we also wanted to ask questions about other aspects of an individual's well-being. We asked about engagement, satisfaction with life, physical activity levels, chronic pain and chronic medical conditions, family life. And we wanted our goal was to keep it short so that we can get a lot of participants. And then also really once we have that baseline, look both within the lawyer population to see if we can identify pockets of individuals, whether that's the type of law they practice or their practice setting. One of the big questions that we had was is there a difference between urban and rural lawyers? That was one. MATT: And then we also used a lot of nationally validated questions and questions that are used nationally so that we could also compare Utah lawyers to general working populations or other large groups. It wasn't just sort of an echo chamber of saying, "Oh well, within Utah lawyers, this is what we see." But really be able to say, "Okay, Utah lawyers compared with general working population other lawyers in other states, what are the differences or what are similarities?" And then ideally, and we've been able to do this highlight sort of some of the challenges statistically to say, "Okay, this random chance? Or is this actually something that in epidemiology is statistically significant and that is beyond what we would expect just by random chance?" CHRIS: And what were your response rates just in terms of again, the scientific validity is always important in your field. I'm just kind of curious on what level of engagement you had from Utah legal professionals. MATT: Absolutely. I'm going to answer that in that sort of a three stage approach. Our first way of recruiting participants was to do a stratified random sample. We got the entire list of active bar members and randomly selected 200 who are rural and 200 who were urban. Send them email invitations asking them to participate. Our participation rate from just those email invitations was surprisingly high. Traditionally, if you were doing this type of a thing, you could get it participation rates in 20 or 30% would be great. We were upwards of 68% from all of those participants. We got a lot of participants that way. We also went to bar conventions and just set up a booth. I have a team of research assistants who were armed with iPads and during breaks or before meetings started and stuff, we just asked if people would be willing to participate, if they have not participated already. It took about our survey was only about five or six minutes long. We had a fair amount of people participating that way. MATT: And then our third route was actually having entire law firms come to us and say, "We would like to know where our firm stands. And not only that, we would like to know where everyone in our firm stands, not just our attorneys." We have 13 different firms of all varying sizes, who we invited to participate. And participation rate for that, depending on the firm was between, I think our lowest was 83% and our highest was 97 and change. Great participation rate. Being a scientist I said, "Okay, is there meaningful differences between these three groups?" Is there in an epidemiological term, is there a self selection bias? Are the people who were at the conferences more likely to participate? Or the people who were in the firms more likely to participate and vice versa? Looking at it, all three groups were statistically equal on almost every metric that I assessed. Not just not statistically different but statistically equal, so interchangeable from a statistical sense. I was nicely relieved and confident that this actually is a pretty good representation of what we have going on here in Utah. CHRIS: You can see you get commissioned, you want to be able to survey the Utah lawyer community. You want to figure out why this is happening and how they can best address the issue. You get great response rates. What did you find from the study? MATT: We're still analyzing stuff. Like any good researcher you want to, one, answering one question begets gets three more. But we're looking at several different things right now. One was looking at comparisons between amounts of depression and among Utah lawyers at compared with the general working population in the United States. We're comparing with individuals who are at least employed three-quarter time in the United States, compared with our attorneys and found that our attorneys are not doing very well. We're calculating odds ratios. An odds ratio of two, for example, means that you're twice as likely to have whatever outcome if you're part of that group. For us looking at depression, the diagnosis and I'm getting a little bit into the weeds here so I apologize, but likely having a diagnosis of a major depressive disorder, our attorneys in Utah were five and a quarter times more likely to have that level of depression as compared with the general working population. BREE: Wow, that's really significant. Just to underscore that, over five times the rate of depression of the general working population, is that right? MATT: Yeah, as compared to the general working population. And that was even after controlling for different, we call them confounders. Other factors that may play a role in that. Age differences or gender differences, other chronic medical conditions, that type of stuff. BREE: Yeah. Did you dig into gender differences? Is that something you are able to talk about at this point, a difference in depressive issues between men and women? MATT: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. In our data, lawyers were about, they were more likely. In general, our lawyers were more likely to be depressed. However, women were more likely to be depressed than men, which also parallels what you see in the general working population or in any other subsets of population. And I'm actually trying to find the exact number because being a scientist, I like to give you that full number. But it was meaningful. We also had our older attorneys were less likely to be depressed compared with the older general working population, which actually is also something that you would expect. It's called the healthy worker effect. And so people who are depressed tend to go try and figure out and solve their depression. Try and get into a better situation. Because everyone's spends so much of their time working, that's one of the common things is people choose a different profession or a different subset of their profession. That healthy worker effect also suggested that what we have here probably actually is a really solid data sample from which to draw some conclusions. CHRIS: Go ahead, Bree. BREE: Well, I know that this has been written up, there was an article in the Utah Bar Journal and then there was another peer reviewed article that I had read. And how has this been received? Do you have a sense that the bar people are surprised at the rate of sort of distress among their members? MATT: I'm going to say yes and no. I think that directionally, there was not a lot of surprise. Looking at ABA report and other research that's out there, it's yes, there is increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, alcohol abuse. Those are really the big ones. And I think generally everyone on the committee, in the Utah bar and probably most practicing attorneys say, "Yeah, that's totally believable." I think the part that really was most moving was the magnitude of that relationship. More than five times more likely to be diagnosed with a major depressive disorder but then it gets even worse when you look at the severe group. Our metric that we use is one that's commonly used, it's called the Patient Health Questionnaire 9, it's a nine question battery. It's been well validated to be related to more than 90% accurate for diagnosis of depression and major depressive disorder. The severe people are those who are contemplating suicide or have had suicidal attempts that they're at the far end of the spectrum. Our Utah attorneys were more than 18 times more likely to be in that category as compared to the general working population. BREE: Wow. MATT: Those magnitudes of numbers, when you think about, okay, relationship between things like smoking and lung cancer, you're about two and a half times more likely to get lung cancer if you smoke. We're talking 18 times more likely to be severely depressed if you're a Utah practicing attorney as compared to the general working population. BREE: Wow. CHRIS: Matt, on the front end, did either you or the task force go in with any kind of hypothesis to begin with? Or was this more designed as a kind of compare and contrast national data with state based data? MATT: Yeah, so I definitely did have some hypotheses going into it. One thing that was really great about this relationship with the state bar and the well-being committee was, they said, "This is your domain. These are things that we're curious about but you come up with your hypotheses, you develop the questionnaire." It was completely under my purview, which I think also helped with the recruitment aspect in that it was a recruiting effort done by me through the University of Utah. We used our institutional review board. Everything is strictly confidential, even going through, even with the firms, none of the firms received any individualized data or any potentially identifiable data. The bar does not get any of that. There's some benefits to that but in terms of actual hypotheses, yes. MATT: I mentioned that there potential relationship between the urban and the rural to see if there's differences in well-being there. Looking at different types of practice, whether criminal litigator or transactional law, so on and so forth, as well as looking at the size of the firm. Whether people are solo practitioners or part of a larger firm and trying to actually take all of that into account at once. If someone is a sole practitioner in criminal law in a rural setting, is that sort of just an additive effect in terms of challenges there? Or is it compounded? Or is it sort of somewhat mitigated? Being able to gather enough data to be able to identify some of those relationships was where we were going from the onset. MATT: And then also in my previous work in terms of other working populations and their mental well-being, I knew that things like physical activity, social support, both in the workplace as well as outside of the workplace can have a very positive aspect on both prevention, as well as treatment of mental challenges, mental health challenges. Those are some of the hypotheses that I had created going into this and was able to then tailor the questionnaire to address all of those, both like I said, internal comparisons, as well as comparing with other external groups like general working population. BREE: One of the things, Matt, that we are trying to do with the podcast is to sort of spread the word about strategies, ideas, policies, et cetera, that other state well-being taskforces can pick up and run with. And so a question, just how replicable is this process? You are doing this with Utah lawyers but say there is a task force in Colorado or another state that wanted to do this. Could they pick this up and deploy the same sort of survey for their bar members? MATT: Absolutely. I think not only the same survey, similar methods but then I've also, I've had some conversations with other states and other states have different challenges too. Being able to modify this and ask some other scientifically valid questions to address some of their sort of conceptual questions or anecdotal information that they may have. But it can easily be rolled out and it's something that I think is actually a lot of fun to do. BREE: Good. CHRIS: It feels like there'd be some benefit of actually having again, some standardization across the states that allow us to kind of compare states, yet providing them the ability to be able to narrowly tailor some questions that are specific to our state. Like for instance, I live in Montana, the plight of the solo rural practitioner is something that maybe kind of critically important to look at it relative to a state like Delaware where all the lawyers are kind of more concentrated. But yet it certainly feels like there'd be some benefit there. MATT: Yep. Absolutely. I wouldn't go as far necessarily as benchmarking. But I think that being able to have similarities as well as differences pointed out to say, and one thing, another thing that I've found in doing this research is that a lot of attention is paid to the negative side of things. Depression and anxiety, what are the big risk factors there? But there's the other side of the coin about, okay, who's being really successful? What are the people who are mentally healthy? What do they have in common? And then how can we help to reinforce that? And then, so being able to look within sort of some of those subsets too, can help provide more information. But I absolutely agree, having some similarities across different states would be able to sort of say, it answers that question, how systemic is this? Is this something that's more isolated to our bar? Or is this something that's more of a systemic question across the entire United States? And then how those may have different potential solutions, both on the positive and the negative side of the fence. CHRIS: Yeah. I think this is a good time for a quick break here from one of our sponsors. I would like to kind of come back, I think maybe after the break and maybe talk about whether all the data is grim. And whether there were some nuggets that you picked out of the Utah study. And then talking a little bit more about just kind of barriers to thriving in work in law firm environments and other legal environments. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back. Speaker 4: Meet VERA, your firm's virtual ethics risk assessment guide. Developed by ALPS, VERA's purpose is to help you uncover risk management blind spots from client intake, to calendaring, to cybersecurity and more. Speaker 5: I require only your honest input to my short series of questions. I will offer you a summary of recommendations to provide course corrections if needed and to keep your firm on the right path. Speaker 4: Generous and discreet, VERA is a free and anonymous risk management guide from ALPS to help firms like yours be their best. Visit VERA at alpsinsurance.com/vera. BREE: Welcome back, everybody. And we are here today with Professor Matt Thiese and talking about his study of the Utah bar population and also the potential of replicating that around the country. One of the things I saw, Matt, in the write up of your research that you got some information of barriers that were identified by your survey participants to thriving in their work. And I think that's really instructive for the rest of us. Could you talk a little bit about that? MATT: Sure, absolutely. In the survey we asked both, what are some things that help you thrive and enable you to be able to thrive in your work? As well as your barriers. And there were some consistent answers across all the different domains, regardless of age, gender, type of law practice, practice setting in terms of small firm, large firm, rural, urban. Challenges were actions of other attorneys at their firm or frustrations with opposing counsel. Those were two different obviously responses but talking about individual, other attorneys that they work with. Whether in an adversarial role or in a complimentary role. Others were billable hour requirements, client stress and or pressure. Just external pressure from clients and then inflexible court deadlines. Those were the big five sort of umbrella categories that prevented them from doing well or thriving in their job. CHRIS: And Matt, I think the other thing that I think is interesting about kind of going about a data driven approach, I think sometimes the fear is we get the data and then the data sits on the shelf. One of the things I love about what's happening in Utah is, the Utah state bar's well-being committee is now looking at really kind of more actionable plans to be able to kind of advance the well-being dialogue. And I know one of the things that they have you doing at this point is assessments for legal employers. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? MATT: Sure. That was sort of an organic thing that happened, that came about from this project with the state bar. The bar said, "Let's just get a sample of practicing attorneys in Utah and then go from there." Throughout that process though, we had several managing partners who came and said, "I would love my entire firm to take this and be a part of this." I was able to expand this to use firms, we have like I said, 13 different firms right now who are participating and we invited everyone in their firm to participate. Again, it went through the university so the firm doesn't get any individual information but we are providing information back in a aggregate form to be able to say, "This is where your firm stands and this is how your firm compares with other firms." And these other firms are de-identified. Your firm versus firm A, B, C and D who are comparative in size or that type of stuff, as well as the larger general population that we have participating. MATT: It's been really great. It's been well received. I think firms who are participating are sort of those firms that really want to do something better. They either have something in place and they want to assess how is this making a difference? Or they're thinking of getting something in place, and saying, "Where can we get the largest bang for our buck really?" And they're concerned about making sure that their lawyers are happier and healthier and therefore more productive, more likely to stay with the firm. And really it's a winning situation if you can identify those aspects where people in your firm need more help and then go to the evidence for what's out there to actually provide that. Does that make sense? BREE: Yeah. Yeah. Matt, you've got this background just sort of general long, wide view around occupational health. And so here you come to the specific part of the working population. You've got a little bit of data around lawyers. You're starting to hear some feedback around what's happening with legal employers. Just imagine we've got in your audience, some law firm managers, human resources staff for law firms, based on what you've learned so far do you have any advice to give them, to help them have thriving, successful lawyers? And as a result of that, a more profitable and successful firm? MATT: Right. Yes, in terms of based on what we've seen so far, there's definitely some things that can be done to improve. Taking a step back and saying, all right, I'm going to take an even bigger step back. We're generally have been focusing here on this discussion on depression, but there's a lot of other issues, burnout, anxiety. Looking at the evidence though, for those for prevention and treatment for those, there's some big things like individual therapy, medication, but there are challenges with those as well. There's cost barriers, the time for those both in terms of needed, if you're going to a therapist but then also medication takes, SSRIs, anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication takes three weeks to kick in. If you have someone who's depressed, three weeks can be an awfully long time. MATT: But some of the other treatments out there are actually really easy to implement and there's very little side effects. Two that I would highlight would be physical activity and we have data that's not published yet but found that if you're physically active meeting the standard of most days a week for at least 20 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, so getting your heart rate up enough that you can't carry on a solid conversation, you have to sort of catch your breath, lawyers who were that level of physical activity, so four or five days a week, we're about a third, three times less likely we'll say it that way, three times less likely to have depression or anxiety. If they worked out six days or seven days, they were about between five times and seven times less likely to have depression and anxiety. MATT: Implementing some, and then there's all of the other benefits. Implementing some type of workout, moderate or vigorous workout activity is something that has demonstrated efficacy in other domains. And these preliminary data look like they would help. And then there's the cardiovascular benefits and all those that go along with it, as well as increased productivity after the physical activity, that's a whole other domain that we could talk about maybe at a different podcast. And then another thing is cognitive behavioral therapy and that's a treatment that sounds large and onerous but it's really just being able to approach problems differently and being able to think about things and it can be self directed or you can work with a therapist on it but it's pretty immediate in terms of results like physical activity but it's easy to do and it can help people, whether you're severely depressed, actually, if you're severely depressed, you should probably be seeking additional help beyond just cognitive behavioral therapy and physical activity but all the way to minimal or no depression. People are reporting better engagement, better focus after both physical activity and cognitive behavioral therapy. MATT: Those are two very specific. Maybe they're a little too specific for what you were going for. Other evidence out there in terms of mindfulness and meditation is somewhat mixed. Mindfulness, meditation, psychological capital, those all in general populations have been mixed efficacy but in attorneys, they may be more efficacious. CHRIS: And I'd love to kind of spend the final few minutes talking just a little bit about the replicability of what you've done in Utah in other, not just states, but either state bars, local bars, county bars, specialty bars. There are so many opportunities for us to continue to utilize survey techniques as a way to not just to engage and learn more about the constituencies that we serve. But as you know, surveys can also be great educational tools at the same time. And I just would love your perspective. If again, a lot of our listeners are members of task forces, they're advocates for well-being in their local communities, just how easy is it to kind of execute on a survey tool? Can anybody do it? Just your recommendations for the time, the cost, the structure, obviously when individuals like you have done it before, others have kind of learned on your dime, so to speak. And so I'd just love your perspective about the replicability of utilizing survey tools as part of our well-being strategy map. MATT: Absolutely. Ours was done almost exclusively online, so it's super easy to do. You can implement it. You can have actionable data in a matter of weeks. Ours was all done online and with a few exceptions, we had a couple of opportunities where individuals wanted to talk on the phone or do a paper copy. Email invitations, online data collection aspects in terms of even returning results, a lot of that has also been done online through video conferences and that type of stuff. The whole thing from soup to nuts I think is relatively easy to actually implement. MATT: One of the cautions that I do have though is making sure that it's scientific. Anyone can come up and create a questionnaire but to actually come up with a scientific question, a scientific survey that's using questions that have some validity and comparability is important. And then also your sampling technique. That's always a challenge in that when you're enrolling people, are there biases? Is there a selection bias like I mentioned earlier, where only people who are healthy enough to be participating, mentally healthy enough to be participating are participating? You therefore have a biased sample and any results from that would be either deeply discounted or practically useless. CHRIS: And are you interested in continuing to aid either institutions, entities, taskforces? I know that you've had limited work in the legal space but it sounds like you've enjoyed what you've done thus far. MATT: Yes. Short answer is absolutely yes. Can I give my email address and say reach out? CHRIS: Sure you can. MATT: Please, I would love to participate and help in any way I can, whether that's running the entire thing or anything sort of that. My email address is matt.thiese M-A-T-T dot T-H-I-E-S-E@hsc, for Health Sciences Center, .utah.edu. And I would love to help in any way that I can. Like I said, this is a career focus for me. I've done a lot of work in terms of mental well-being and psychosocial health in other domains. But I really, really enjoyed working with attorneys. I think that it's very, very important. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity here to actually do good. MATT: One of the things that you asked me before was how I fell into this. I was actually planning on going to medical school, was accepted in medical school and in talking with some of my mentors, they said, "You're great at science, you're great at epidemiology and you can actually do more good doing scientific research in epidemiology than seeing patients on a one on one basis and trying to get them to change their behavior." This is absolutely something that is my career focus and I want to help. Can I be more emphatic about it than that? CHRIS: This guy wants work. This guy wants work. MATT: No, and that's the thing, it's not necessarily work. I have a bunch of other stuff going on but in academia I have some of the ability because I'm not out, this is not a business, a profit making business for me. I obviously need to cover my time but I want to be able to help out. And so whatever. CHRIS: Well, I think it's interesting, Matt, and again, I think we should always try to end these on a high note that you've also tried to look at it in your Utah findings, what aspects of their job help them do well or improve their well-being. And I think it was, and I think these are tips for really any work environment, which is if you work in an environment in which you enjoy working with others, in which you're intellectually challenged, in which you have flexibility in your work schedule to some degree and that you know that your contributions are both recognized and valued, that that's a recipe to drive well-being higher. MATT: Absolutely. CHRIS: And those are things that anybody who sets the tone for a culture, anybody who's in HR, anybody who's in management, those are tips that go across industry. They're not unique to the legal environment but it is important in terms of just the notion of how we treat people ultimately drives whether they find their contributions and their commitment worthwhile and whether they will actually want to stay there or not. And those who don't generally then go down one path and those who do you generally have higher productivity, better results. All the reasons why corporate America has kind of I think generally leaned in on well-being as a creative to the bottom line. There's an economic element to it but also frankly, the right thing to do. MATT: Absolutely correct. All of those things that you listed really speak to engagement. And even in the data that we're seeing, you said, it generally leads to better productivity or generally leads to less turnover. I would say most of the data that's out there says it does. There's very few exceptions to that and it's just a matter of the magnitude of that relationship. Having people stay engaged and really that creativity, intellectual challenge, I think is one of the things that came up often helped and reduces, it sort of tempers the negative aspects of things and makes people more resilient and able to handle, less likely to burn out, less likely to be depressed, more likely to be productive. All of that great stuff. CHRIS: Matt, one final question, on the Utah study you've cited a couple times preliminary data. Is there a point in time in which preliminary goes to final data and something is released? MATT: Yes. The depression versus the general working population that we've talked about, those are final. We've looked at those, we're confident in those. In terms of preliminary data, we're looking at burnout and engagement. We're looking at substance abuse, alcohol abuse issues. We're looking at physical activity and then we're also doing similar things with students. The challenges with those are just being able to make sure that we're dotting all of our I's and crossing all of our T's from a scientific standpoint and making sure that we're taking everything into consideration there. And then it goes through a peer review process. We have three separate papers right now that are undergoing the peer review process and then several others that are nearly ready for that. And then dissemination, I would love to help have you guys help disseminate some of these findings and be able to continue to have a positive impact on attorney well-being. BREE: Absolutely. Matt, I'm so glad that you are on our team. Really important piece of this. Well, a wonderful 45 minutes or so with you, Matt. Thank you for spending your time today and dedicating so much of your energy and your expertise to helping us lawyers have to be more likely to thrive in our profession. And for our listeners, please join us again in the next couple of weeks, we'll be continuing our miniseries on those who are doing research and scholarship in the area of lawyer well-being. Thank you, everybody. Stay safe, be well. CHRIS: Thanks for joining us, Matt. MATT: Thank you. My pleasure.  

Even with all of the WordPress consolidation happening, there's still plenty of opportunity ahead for the industry. There's lots of potential users, customers, and room for investment (note: we just saw the acquisition of Yoast happen by Newfold, formally EIG. If I had to guess, somewhere between a $30-50M deal.) If you though the plugin space is crowded or even more specifically the membership & LMS veritcal, then I have a surprise for you today. Nathalie Lussier, founder of AccessAlly a LMS plugin for WordPress joins us to talk about her venture in building her business. From selling online courses and building community to building and selling software — this is a fantastic lesson for all of us. Her and her team are really proving that in the a crowded market, you stand apart from the crowd by knowing who your perfect customer is and building them the perfect product. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] This episode is brought to you by paid memberships pro well, actually it's their other product. Site-wide sales at site-wide sales.com. It's a complete black Friday cyber Monday and flash sales tool for WooCommerce or paid memberships pro. Before, you know it, the deal day holidays will be fast upon us. And you want to prepare your WooCommerce or paid memberships pro website.[00:00:20] With the site-wide sales plugin, use it to make custom sale banners, targeted landing pages or apply discounts automatically in the cart. Use it to track the performance of all of these promotional features using the reporting feature, which will paint the picture of your black Friday and holiday shopping sales. I use it to help make your woo commerce or paid memberships pro store more money.[00:00:43] Get the first 30 days for free. And then it's an easy $49 a year. Check out site-wide sales.com. That's site-wide sales.com to make more money. This holiday sale season.[00:00:56] Matt: Even with all of the WordPress consolidation happening, there's still plenty of opportunity ahead for them. There's lots of potential users, customers, and room for investments notes. We just saw the acquisition of Yoast happened by new fold, formerly EIG. If I had to guess a deal somewhere between a 30 and $50 million acquisition, if you thought the plugin space is crowded or even more specifically, the membership and LMS vertical is crowded.[00:01:22] Then I have a surprise for you today, Natalie Lucier founder of access, ally and LMS plugin for WordPress joins us to talk about her venture in building her. From selling online courses and building community to building and selling software. This is a fantastic lesson for all of us. Her and her team are really proving that in the crowded space, you stand apart from the crowd by knowing who your perfect customer is and building them the perfect product you're listening to the Maryport a podcast for the resilient digital business builders.[00:01:51] Subscribe to the newsletter maryport.com/subscribe and follow the podcast on. Spotify, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts better yet. Please share this episode, please do, because I just read that the best way to grow a podcast is word of mouth and sharing. So please share this episode with others.[00:02:09] We'd love more listeners around here. Okay. Let's get into today's episode.[00:02:13] It almost feels like a SAS software as a service. Tell us about that, that moment when you realize I'm teaching people, I might as well build the software too.[00:02:22] Nathalie: Yeah, absolutely. So I was in the like marketing and tech space and doing videos on like, how to build a popup and how to do things on your WordPress site and how to market your courses and all of that stuff. And I was teaching. In courses and also on YouTube and people who were, signing up to our free challenge.[00:02:42] We had a challenge called the 30 day list building challenge to help people build an email list and they were signing up. And it was, becoming pretty popular. So we had a lot of people logging in at the same time. And at the time. I thought we were getting attacked by hackers or something.[00:02:56] Cause we have so many logins and the way that our plugin that we were using at the time it kept pinging our CRM and every single time somebody went to any page on that site. So, we were having nightmares basically. I would wake up every morning and have to call my host to have them. Unlock us, essentially, we put my website back up and then all the people who were signing up were upset with us because, they signed up and they couldn't get what they were asking for or what we had promised.[00:03:21] So essentially my husband and I were like, okay, let's just quickly whip up a plugin to replace what we have right now, just to stop this problem. And so that's literally in one weekend we wrote the first beta beta version of access ally. And it was just to solve our own problem. Yeah. But then after that, we kind of realized like, Hey, okay, this gives us a lot of, interesting options.[00:03:40] And we started adding on and kind of building other things that we thought would be very useful for the people going through our courses and content. And that was kind of the start of what you see today.[00:03:51] Matt: So you ha I, I didn't write this down in our peer review, but what was the timeline you had popup ally first and then.[00:03:58] Then we created access ally, correct?[00:04:00] Nathalie: Yes. So we built SSLI first just to solve this problem. And we knew that someday we might release something like this, but it just felt like too big of an undertaking to do a whole like online membership or LMS or anything like that. So we ended up building popup ally next and releasing that first because we knew we could do a free version.[00:04:19] We could see how that went. Then we could do a paid version and see how that was. Being responded to and how we could handle support and all of that. And then we realized, okay, yes, we can actually do this. We have the chops. And so let's go all in on SSLI and kind of build[00:04:33] Matt: that. And I'll, I'll paint sort of the the, the picture at least of the way that I see it in my head is pop-up plugin a very, very broad market, big market.[00:04:44] Chances are anyone who might be selling courses or digital content is going to be attracted to a pop-up to use on their site to capture the visitor's attention. And, oh, by the way, we also. Have this LMS plug-in fair statement.[00:04:58] Nathalie: Yeah, it totally started off that way. It's a much broader, pop-ups are much broader.[00:05:02] And then, yeah, like you said, people who are using them to build an email list and audience, they probably will want to sell something online. So, so that pretty much leads to access ally.[00:05:12] Matt: Yeah. I want to start with something that I won't say it's a curve ball, but a little bit on the hot seat, but something that I totally enjoy what you're doing with access ally is the pricing.[00:05:22] And I think I know a lot of Plugins in the space a lot of, well, let me ask you this question. Before I dive into that, do you refer to it as a plugin or software? Like how do you feel about the product itself? I don't want to just say plug in if you feel like you're greater than that.[00:05:40] This episode is brought to you by paid memberships pro well, actually it's their other product. Site-wide sales at site-wide sales.com. It's a complete black Friday cyber Monday and flash sales tool for WooCommerce or paid memberships pro. Before, you know it, the deal day holidays will be fast upon us. And you want to prepare your WooCommerce or paid memberships pro website.[00:06:01] With the site-wide sales plugin, use it to make custom sale banners, targeted landing pages or apply discounts automatically in the cart. Use it to track the performance of all of these promotional features using the reporting feature, which will paint the picture of your black Friday and holiday shopping sales. I use it to help make your woo commerce or paid memberships pro store more money.[00:06:24] Get the first 30 days for free. And then it's an easy $49 a year. Check out site-wide sales.com. That's site-wide sales.com to make more money. This holiday sale season.[00:06:37] Nathalie: Yeah. So it is technically a plugin, right?[00:06:39] So people download it and install it. But we do see it as software, as a service, just because we are constantly developing and people have so many feature requests and things that we're constantly updating. So, and then we also offer a lot of support. So that's the service side as well. So I do feel like it's a little bit more than just like here, download this plugin and good luck.[00:06:57] It is like a real partnership. And I think that's why the price, in my opinion reflects that when people will come to the website and people also do think so. I mistake that it's a platform and that it's totally hosted. And we've talked about potentially doing that, but we do also appreciate that it's a plugin and they could work with other things.[00:07:13] And there's a lot of benefits to being in that WordPress ecosystem too.[00:07:18] Matt: That's sometimes it's a disadvantage for a bulk of visitors that come to the site and they go, oh, wait, I was looking for a plugin. This looks like a platform. Do you, have you ever noticed that a drop off in the quote unquote funnel at all, that, that you've actually paid close attention[00:07:33] Nathalie: to?[00:07:33] Usually it goes the other way where they wanted a platform and then they're like, oh wait, I need to WordPress. So most, most of our marketing so far is kind of the opposite, but yeah.[00:07:44] Matt: Yeah, I wanted to give you a sort of a fair chance to see how you disseminated between the plugin and the, and the soft.[00:07:51] As a mindset, because I think a lot of us, myself included, like I have a tiny little plugin, easy support videos. I've done other plugins in the past, which have burned a miserable failure of a death. And, but the fact of the matter is I was always kind of just like, oh yeah, it's just, it's just this plugin.[00:08:08] And I think a lot of us just have to say, no, This is a software business. Like let's, let's, let's, let's give ourselves a little bit of credit here. Like this is a software business that we're in. We're not just like this little throw away plugin, even though that's the technical term for it. And I think we could do a lot for ourselves mentally.[00:08:24] If we just have a little bit more of that, that confidence boost when, and when we look at it, because it changes the mindset, it changes how you approach it. And that's what I want to talk about with your. $99 a month. That's what access ally essentials starts with. That's one website. Very far beyond what, you might see from just, let's say a free LMS or an LMS plug-in that's $79 for the year or something like that.[00:08:49] How did you get to this pricing? Was it immediate or did you have some bumps and bruises along? That's[00:08:55] Nathalie: a great question. So we started off at 79 a month. That was before, that was the first price that we started originally a couple of years ago. But yeah, we've, we've had a lot of conversations internally and a lot of it really comes down to what value I think we really provide to people.[00:09:10] So we are pretty close to making people money, right. So we help them take payments. We have an affiliate program built in and we basically help them sell courses. All kinds of other things. So that to me shows me that we can provide a lot of value for them. And when you're comparing, what other tools they might be purchasing to do with something similar, sometimes they might be purchasing, multiple things like maybe it's multiple plugins, or maybe it's like one thing for a shopping cart, one thing for this other thing.[00:09:36] And then by the time you add up all the time, Invested in making all of those things work together. That's kind of to us a lot of value, so that's kind of how we thought about it. And then we were also just looking around at some of the competition and also what we knew we needed to charge to provide the service that we wanted.[00:09:52] So that also came into it a lot. So we have two full-time support people and US-based, they we love taking care of our teams, so they have, good salaries and benefits. And I don't think we could do that if we were trying to charge less and try to compete on the, on the pricing side, we wanted to really provide more value and then also charge well for it.[00:10:12] And there is also something that changes when somebody pays more for software, which is that they're a little bit more committed. They're really in it for the longterm. Most likely to stick as well. So like, obviously if it's too expensive for them, they're not going to sign up in the first place. So we kind of lose people that way, but we do have more people signing up and staying long-term because they know we're kind of in that partnership.[00:10:33] And a lot of times people tell us we love access ally because it lets us do all these great things. But also because every time we have a question or we have something we want to do that just quite do yet, it comes out like a month or two later. Right. So that's something we couldn't do if we were, trying to appeal to too many people at a lower price.[00:10:51] Matt: You have a degree in software engineering, this, that answer and the way you've positioned the product is what I'll say. And these are my words, not yours is a much more mature business answer than what I normally see in the WordPress space. Again, myself included, you build a product you're like, oh my God, does anybody want to buy this?[00:11:11] And then you say to yourself, I know what I'll do. I'll just make it cheap. Then somebody will certainly buy it. But you, you jumped in at an eight. 860 ish dollar a year or a little bit more at my mass. Not really good right out of the gate at 79 bucks a month. Is this the first business you've launched or this you're a second, third, fourth, fifth business.[00:11:29] Cause it sounds like you've gone through the paces a little bit before.[00:11:32] Nathalie: Absolutely. So yeah, this is not the first business. And I started off with my very first business out of college. It was all in the healthy eating space and that was kind of my training business. So I just learned like marketing and like I built my own website and all of those things.[00:11:45] And then. The kind of teaching of the online stuff and the online marketing was kind of the next one. And then this is sort of the third business I would call it and yeah, it, it definitely like we learn so much. Yeah. Yeah.[00:11:58] Matt: And this is a great thing because I think this is hard to just like, this is not a question, but much more of just like a general statement and then interested on your thoughts, but it sort of raises the value of all of us, right?[00:12:12] When you price your product like this. Well, you're getting true value. You're asking for true value. And on the other end, it's a, it's a solid business. Like you said, there are people working for us. We're paying them well, you're going to get great support. You're probably getting a higher degree of customer as well.[00:12:30] Like they're not coming in, just like, give me all this free stuff. Cause they're already paying a hundred bucks a month. So there's a different level there. There's money out there that I think a lot of people just get a fee. I get that fear factor where like, oh, I guess I do have to do a hundred bucks for the year because my God, nobody will buy it otherwise.[00:12:46] But yes, there are people who just want good stuff with great support. And that's the most important part for them is to like have somebody that's going to be there for them and stand the test of time. Right. Especially if they're a long-term WordPress user who has seen other places come and go or freelancers come and go, they don't want that.[00:13:08] Their vote of confidence is I will pay you a solid amount of money. So you stay in business and support me. Well, But it sounds like you've learned that over the years and that's how you've got to this point.[00:13:18] Nathalie: I literally had customers tell us that we know you're not going to disappear overnight because we're paying you well, and that's worth it to me.[00:13:24] Is that kind of security. And yeah, absolutely. We have that long-term vision and that long. Yeah. Stay in the game kind of energy. And I think that definitely comes across with the people that end up signing up for us. Yeah.[00:13:37] Matt: To that. I was going to put you on the hotspot, but then we kinda, we kind of shifted a little bit on your pricing page.[00:13:42] One of the check marks is top of the line support. I feel like everyone might say top of the line support, or we have the best support. What does top of the line of support mean for you and for your customers?[00:13:53] Nathalie: Yeah, we have a lot of things that we do for our customers. So everyone gets a free jumpstart calls.[00:13:58] So that means after they purchase, we get on like a zoom call with them. We help them get everything set up. We answer any questions they have. We make sure it works with the things that they're currently using or planning to use. So that's a big part of it. And then we also have a tune-up calls. Three times a month right now.[00:14:14] And so they can jump on any time they have questions or want to walk through something that they're trying to accomplish, that maybe they got stuck on. And then in terms of actually, if you get into a situation where you're stuck or anything like that in between, then we also have email support. And like I said, we have two people dedicated to that.[00:14:30] And obviously our response time varies, but right now it's like averaging at eight minutes, which is kind of crazy. So during this. So, yeah, we do have, we do a lot and then we also have really robust, message-based and videos and all of that stuff to make sure if you're more of a, self-serve kind of like, I just, I'm working at midnight.[00:14:47] I know you're not gonna be online. I'm just going to finish this up and watch this video kind of thing.[00:14:51] Matt: Yeah, it's fantastic. It's one of the things I do as part of my role at cast dose is we do two weekly calls, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00 PM, Eastern, same kind of thing, open office hours, or show up.[00:15:02] If you have a question, you can answer it there. We don't do phone support, which is still like a thing these days. Like people still are like, why can't I just call somebody? It's like, well, we have these two dedicated hours where you can hop on a zoom call and you can chat with us, which I think is a fairly fair approach.[00:15:16] Plus. Nearly 24 7 help desk support through Zendesk and an email and chat. So, that's a fantastic approach. I certainly like your approach of having that onboarding call that kickoff, call that alone, which I know developers, the more developer mindset folks who don't want to talk to anybody. I just want to print money with my product that I'm selling.[00:15:36] Don't ever talk to me, just buy it. Man, you can re like that's literally what you can charge. Out of the gate. Like if you just tell somebody that you buy this and I'll hop on a zoom call to help you set it up, whatever that means for your product, that's worth so much money to somebody. And it's just that one hour of your time.[00:15:53] I know there could be some chances where they knock on the door against, Hey, we're going to hop on another call. I think largely 95% of your customer base will never knock on your door again and just email you. And I think that's a fantastic approach. I applaud you for that. What else do you provide on those tune-up calls?[00:16:10] Is there anything else that you do in a more structured approach? I just leave the door open. I say, come in and show up and ask anything you want, but do you approach it with any more structure than that? Yeah,[00:16:19] Nathalie: for the most part, we just talk about what people bring to the, to the call, but sometimes we do have like new features or new scenarios and things that we've kind of seen people creating and we want to share it with them.[00:16:30] So sometimes we'll do like, okay, you're doing a teams kind of feature. So that basically means, you're selling to a bulk group of people and then here's how you set that up. And here's how they would assign other team members to the courses and that kind of stuff, or we'll do like, okay, here's what you need to know about doing this summit.[00:16:46] If you're using XSLT to run your summit, like how you do that. So we'll kind of talk about a little bit about those scenarios that are kind of either popular or that we've seen someone do really well and kind of want to share with the rest of the community.[00:16:57] Matt: Gotcha. No, that's awesome. I will, I will write that down or release it to my episode and then apply that to cast those next time.[00:17:04] I'm on my next time. I'm on my call. You started to, to say that, look, we know who our customer is. One they're paying a little bit more. We're helping them make money. Who would you say your best customer profile is for accessing.[00:17:19] Nathalie: So some of our best customers are people who are in the business space.[00:17:23] So they may not be like teaching business, but maybe they have business processes that help other business owners. So kind of that team aspect I was talking about. So, we have people who are, let's say a sales trainer, and then they've got a program that they've developed that they sell to other companies to train their sales teams.[00:17:38] Or we have someone who's doing a coaching certification. So she's a coach and she's teaching other people how to become a coach. So they will become certified in her method. So there's a lot of that kind of teaching something, but two groups of people that tends to be one of our bigger people. So we have like a dog trainer and I think, she comes in and she's, she's got groups of doc trainers in other businesses learning her methods and that kind of thing.[00:18:01] So that seems to be one of our, our ideal.[00:18:04] Matt: Yeah, no, that's awesome. That's awesome that you can identify. How can you paint the picture of how that has changed if at all, from when you first started the business? Like, did you go into the business thinking, yeah, we're going to serve this one particular set it's changed.[00:18:18] Nathalie: It's changed a lot over the years. Mostly our understanding of it. I think kind of similar people have been coming to us just based on like, who knows us and who they've recommended it to, and that kind of thing. So we've got a lot of authors and speakers and podcasters, and basically the content creators do come to us quite a bit.[00:18:34] And over the years we realized, okay, the ones who are really doing well are the ones who they have a little bit more of that leverage. They can kind of sell to more people. So that's. Evolved over time. We definitely have people who are more of the, do it yourselfers or who are just getting started.[00:18:47] So that that's great too, but I think our kind of top customer, those people who are a little bit more established and have that credibility and can kind of scale a little bit faster that way.[00:18:56] Matt: One of the questions I have written down from our pre-interview was how you navigate the competition.[00:19:00] And as we're talking, like, I'm thinking about. Like boy I don't know if you compete against anybody in the WordPress space, just because of your positioning, your brand value statements and who you, who you're serving now as customers. Do you find yourself competing with more WordPress or more SAS based or is it just a, a good 50 50 mix?[00:19:18] Nathalie: Yeah, it's a little bit of a 50, 50 split. I would say. We definitely could be more with like Kajabi and teachable and Thinkific for the most part. But we also have a little bit of competition on the WordPress side too. It just depends on like what people are familiar with when they find us. So a lot of times if they aren't familiar with WordPress and they've probably looked at LearnDash or number press or lift your LMS or something like that.[00:19:39] So they're kind of familiar more with that. Or if they're kind of. Sort of, they don't quite know what they're doing, but they just know they want an online course and they might have already looked at Kajabi or teachable or Thinkific. And so they'll kind of compare us very differently based on their background and kind of where they're coming from.[00:19:55] So we do have a lot of developers who are more comparing us to WordPress versus business owners themselves tend to compare us more to the class.[00:20:03] Matt: Yeah. If you grew up in WordPress and you only knew of the WordPress LMS plugins, you'd be like, yeah, it's a decent size market, but then once you get into like these SAS based businesses I'll keep the name.[00:20:15] I won't say the name, but I worked with a hosted LMS. It wasn't really even an LMS. It was just a membership. It had nothing to do with like learning modules or structures or anything like that. It was just a membership site. I'm trying to say this without revealing who it is, there was nothing wrong, but yeah, so it was like this blanket membership thing.[00:20:34] And it served all kinds of anyone. And I, I talked to this person and I heard what they were doing for revenue. I was like, Wow, the space is that big. Like, I can't even imagine what these other platforms that are doing that have, like, hyper-focused got great product, great marketing after this person had anything wrong, but it just made me and my eyes wide of like how big this market is.[00:20:57] Do you have a sense? Of how large the market is numbers wise for outside of the WordPress LMS[00:21:03] Nathalie: world? Yeah, so I don't know the exact numbers, but I know that sort of the LMS, like in general market is like billions of dollars and just continues to increase year to year. So it's definitely growing and obviously like with COVID and like a lot of things have changed more and more in the online direction.[00:21:20] So. Only going to keep growing in my opinion. But yeah, I don't know the exact numbers for each individual businesses, but I know that, some businesses are going public or, so there's definitely a lot of growth in this space. For sure.[00:21:33] Matt: You said you started a business with your husband.[00:21:35] Labeled co-founder too, or just painting.[00:21:40] Nathalie: He's definitely my co-founder, but I would say he is more like head of engineering and just focused on development and kind of making sure that that sort of thing is solid[00:21:49] Matt: with everything that's going on. With, COVID weird to say, cause we're like for two years, I feel like we're going two years into it, 20 years into it feels like, but at least in the podcast world, we saw a huge rush to private podcasting company.[00:22:01] Only podcasting a way to communicate internally with your organization instead of just video calls all day long. I'd imagine there's a market there for you where people started knocking on the door saying, Hey. It w maybe we don't want to sell this, but we need software that structures education to our organization out.[00:22:18] Do you feel like you're at a point where maybe having a sales team knocking on enterprise doors and like playing that game, is that something that you're interested or exploring or already doing?[00:22:28] Nathalie: That's a great question. So we do have one person on our team who's in sales, but we haven't done as much of the outreach piece.[00:22:34] So that is definitely something that is kind of. I think on our horizon essentially so far, we've been just working with the market that we know and kind of just building for them, but there's definitely a lot more potential for where we can go. And we're actually just trying to figure out like what what that looks like and kind of what, what those, like other verticals might be as well.[00:22:54] Cause we are trying to just stay focused just because I think that's easier to grow, but once we've kind of figured this out, then I do think we can kind of open up to the other verticals.[00:23:03] Matt: Is this a fully bootstrap business? Or do you have investors that salesperson when, what is their responsibilities now?[00:23:11] Is it just answering questions? Inbound questions. Does he, or she like structure custom agreements extra support, that[00:23:18] Nathalie: kind of thing at the moment, it's basically she does demos. She'll do some of those onboarding calls. So it is half, I would say customer support, half sales in that way. And then we have marketing that does more of the, like getting people to book those demos and kind of come to the website and all of that.[00:23:34] But yeah, that's something that we're like definitely like all eyes and ears open for how to, how to do that slightly[00:23:39] Matt: differently. Have you had any requests from bigger enterprises or brands, could pay more than a hundred bucks a month?[00:23:46] Nathalie: I have we've had some clients and part of it is like sometimes like a school would be interested, but then we, there's a couple of things that don't quite work.[00:23:55] Either. Have certain requirements and that we're not quite fast enough to be able to like, get up to speed on what they're needing. So we, like, I think it's kind of that tricky thing is like, we built it really for entrepreneurs. So when we have different types of institutions that come to us we might not have exactly, exactly what they want, but we have like 80% of what they want.[00:24:12] So this is kind of the, the balance of what we're working[00:24:15] Matt: on for sure. Put a an identifier on whether or not that's like a feature that you don't have, or like an administrative thing you don't have like SOC two compliance or something. Ridiculous.[00:24:28] Nathalie: Yeah. A lot of times it's like SCORM type stuff and like more more things that I don't personally have as much experience.[00:24:35] Yeah. Even just having a conversation about it is kind of like, okay. Tell me exactly what that means. It gets a little bit tricky versus where if they're talking to someone who has that experience, they're just going to be like off to the races with that. Yeah.[00:24:47] Matt: Yeah. It's another lesson. Again, just looking at your site and listening to you and how you position yourself.[00:24:53] Like, there is lots of opportunity there. And, and for other folks who are listening to this in the WordPress space, 90, but I don't wanna say 90%, but 70% of the time, like when a big enterprise knocks on your door, Your price could literally be 10 X, what you're charging now. And it has nothing to do with the features.[00:25:13] It is the time that it takes to sell them. Right. It's just the sales process. It literally like six months to a year for most of them. And then it's all this administrative stuff back and forth. And then it's your terms. How can we pay you? Right. And. People are like, wait, we don't have a credit. We're not going to give you a credit card for a month.[00:25:32] We want to pay for three years. Like, where's the, where's the legal ease around that. And it's like, if you just had like all of this templated purchasing or procurement structure in place, you could be off to the races without even adding features. And in fact, I'd say features ends up being. Down the totem pole because a marketing person gets excited and they're like, yeah, this is a great product.[00:25:54] Oh, by the way, here's the procurement team. And then you're just like, oh shit, I got to go through legal now than I have to go through InfoSec, and then I get to talk to like the CFO and they get to talk about like, structuring a contract. So, again, no real question there, but just from my own experience, like I think WordPress can do WordPress products can do better by satisfying some of those needs that just doesn't have anything to do with.[00:26:15] At the end of the day. Yeah, absolutely. You your husband to support people? I heard the sales person. That's five, a marketing person is six. How much more on the[00:26:27] Nathalie: team? Actually two marketing people right now. One person who is in people ops, and then we have two development interns as[00:26:36] Matt: well. Nice. How do you recruit the interns locally?[00:26:39] Nathalie: Yeah, so they're at the university of that. My husband and I both went to, so they have a really great program. That's like a co-op program. So we basically just post and interview and hire and it's been going really well.[00:26:50] Matt: Yeah. I would definitely say a lot of that. Some agencies and product people should definitely look locally.[00:26:55] For developers, especially in that sort of intern phase, it's great to sort of educate people locally and pray to God. They stay, don't leave the area when they graduate, because where I'm from, they leave the area when they graduate and we lose that, that great talent. When you started, how big was it?[00:27:08] Nathalie: When I started, it was just me, my husband, and an[00:27:11] Matt: assistant any, and this was going to be a broad question. Thoughts on hiring people, growing the team? What was that? Was that stressful at all? Turbulent at all?[00:27:22] Nathalie: Yeah, it was a huge learning curve. So I feel like some of our best hires we figured out. A little bit late was it was already in our community.[00:27:31] So they were already, super fans or maybe they were building websites for people using our plugin. And so they already have the talent and the know-how and he just had to like recruit them. And that, that was a big learning curve because we were posting on these very broad job boards and finding people who were just looking for a job and they don't really care about us.[00:27:50] And so when something else comes along, The end. So, that was a big kind of ruining her for us. And yeah, we're doing a lot in that, in that way. Like how can we nurture our community? How can you make their lives easier and better? And then, if they're ready for a different kind of position that fits what we're looking for, then yet we're definitely super excited about.[00:28:09] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. The whole, like, I don't know if you hear it, but I've heard it before I started or when I was starting my businesses, like hire slow fire fast and I'm like, yeah, Yeah, you just got to laugh at that. I'll be like, I just need people now. Like I don't have time to slow this process down. And then you realize that six months into it, you're like I pick the wrong person or this or this person picked the wrong place.[00:28:32] And now what do I do? And that is so true. I mentor at a local accelerator in the, and it's a nonprofit accelerator for sustainable businesses in my area and the company that I'm mentoring. Now, they're trying to launch a nonprofit for daycare for disabled children. And. They're raised. They're, they're trying to figure out how they're going to get money.[00:28:51] And they're talking about grants and funding and all this stuff. And they're like right out of the gate, we want to hire 10 people and I'm like, man, that's going to be tough. Like you don't like that process of just getting people in, especially 10 of them is going to take you. It's going to take a thousand people to talk to literally quite literally to get these 10 perfect people in the door here.[00:29:11] And it's, it is not easy. What's the next role that you think you'd be hiring?[00:29:13] Nathalie: We're actually hiring right now for a product manager and that's sort of. Me cause I've been head of product for quite a while. And it's great because I talk to our customers a lot. So I kind of know what they were looking for and how to build what they want.[00:29:27] But I also know I could be doing other things too. So it's kind of just freeing myself up a little bit so I can do more of the marketing and the sales and kind of the things you were talking about, like, okay. Like what's next, like lifting my head up a little bit and yeah.[00:29:39] Matt: Looking bigger picture. Is that where you would focus more on marketing sales?[00:29:42] If you were to alleviate[00:29:44] Nathalie: yourself? It, yeah, more marketing and sales, more interviews like these, more things like that where I can be a little bit more publicly visible and kind of get the word out for access to LA. Yeah.[00:29:55] Matt: Let's talk about the marketing side of it. How, without giving away the secret sauce, what, what has been your best approach to reaching these customers?[00:30:03] Previously you built your own audience. I assume you still leverage that same audience. What other areas are you getting into or how are you expanding that?[00:30:11] Nathalie: Yeah. So a lot of, I think my success is from list-building and building that community in the beginning and just having a lot of alignment with what they wanted and also like what we were offering.[00:30:22] And so we've done so much in the list, building realm, like we did a free challenge, we've done a like free, essentially a free video course where people like opt in and then they get a free video every day for 30 days. And that was probably. Lead magnet that was so super successful. And then, yeah, like, YouTube podcasts I've pretty much done all of the marketing things and kind of took a break for the past year and a half just because I had a baby and then obviously pandemic and so many things happened, but yeah, I feel like there's so much in the space of marketing that works really well.[00:30:52] I will say I don't tend to jump on. Like flashiest things. So I deleted my Instagram account. I'm not on Tik TOK, I'm not doing it clubhouse. Like I know there's been quite a few trends of like new platforms and new things, but I try to stick to things that work long-term. So for me, that's like SEO, YouTube videos.[00:31:09] Like those are the kinds of things that once you put it out there more and more people will find them over time. So to me, that is a really good long-term kind of investment on the marketing.[00:31:18] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I find Instagram to be challenging personally myself, even though I shouldn't, I just like podcasts, you should be able to, like flex in that area.[00:31:27] Is that what the kids say on Instagram? Like flex in that area and it should work well, but it doesn't, especially on like the WordPress site. It's like, there's nothing really flashy. That's going to be like excited. Like here's a picture of the dashboard with a filter on it. Like, what are we going to do here?[00:31:40] I get so jealous when I look at like other companies and other brands, right. Cool, like collabs, like backpacks, collabing with like these other makers or creators, like, ah, it's such an awesome way. You can't do that with WordPress is nothing there. It's fun and exciting. It's a challenge for sure.[00:31:54] What about you hinted before. That maybe you kind of explored the world of SAS. I know you said you wanted to be hyper-focused or you are hyper-focused even if it wasn't full on SAS, would you go and kind of pivot to supporting a Drupal or Joomla or another platform at all? Is that anywhere on the radar, SAS or otherwise?[00:32:14] Nathalie: Not so much the other off of WordPress. If we were to do more of a SAS, we would probably just take WordPress and host it and kind of do it. Like plug and play one click button. Your site is ready kind of thing. Which I know other platforms like Rainmaker have done, like they took WordPress and they sort of, Close it off a little bit.[00:32:32] So that's something we thought about and we've tested doing like hosting with the seam and things like that in the past. But also we know that our people tend to be power users and they want to be able to install other things and kind of make it work with other stuff. And that's kind of the beauty of WordPress.[00:32:45] So we don't want to like cut off the best part. So yeah, we kind of, we explore it like almost every year. We're like, what about now? What about now? But I don't think it's really the right move.[00:32:56] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. What about this is also kind of marketing kind of product, but what about partnerships in the WordPress space?[00:33:05] Advice or success that you've seen or not that you've seen in the space that you can speak towards partnering other plugins and, or e-commerce plugins or marketing plugins or anything like that.[00:33:15] Nathalie: Yeah. There are certain plugins that are positioned to do amazing things in terms of partnerships. So I know like WP fusion is an amazing one that they work with so many different things.[00:33:25] And so we've integrated with, with them. And there's a couple of other plugins that we've integrated with. But I would say our biggest integration partners are actually the CRMs and the email marketing systems that we integrate with. So they're kind of outside of WordPress, but we do integrate tightly with them.[00:33:38] So that gives us that ability to like co-market with them. And we're all listed on their websites and stuff as an integration options. So that has been really nice for us too. And people who are really looking for something that deeply integrates with that, they tend to come to us because of that. So.[00:33:53] Yeah. I almost feel like WordPress is awesome. And also there's other tools that most people are using. So just thinking about at that level too. So for example, we don't have an integration with zoom, but we used to have an integration with Google Hangouts. And so we would have, people could start a Google hangout from inside their membership site.[00:34:10] And so I think that's something too it's like, how can you connect to things outside of WordPress? Sometimes that people use a lot as well. So those are some, some things we've done in the past and some things that are still working well for[00:34:20] Matt: us, this seems to be a recurring. Trend in my last few interviews.[00:34:25] Is is integrations. Ad-ons, when to make those there's a million places you probably want to integrate with, I'm sure there's a million people who have requested things to integrate with. How do you find that balance? Because at the other end of it, and people are probably sick of me saying this already.[00:34:41] Is there is that the, the overhead of an integration that just doesn't become as popular as you thought it was going to be MailChimp, even though MailChimp's popular, let's just say MailChimp fell off the face of the earth. Then it's like, man, I got a half a dozen people over here using MailChimp and I still get to support this.[00:34:55] Add on how do you make the decision on when to support one or when to make one? And co-brand with one, two at the same time. Yeah.[00:35:03] Nathalie: So we currently integrate with five different email marketing systems. And the first one, we just build it for ourselves. Like, like I said, so that one was an easy, easy. Yes. And then after that, we looked at their biggest competitor essentially.[00:35:16] And so we went with that one and then. We noticed a trend where a lot of people were switching from both of these two to a third one. So then we integrated with that one. And then the next two are kind of just, they were all being compared a lot. So that kind of made sense to integrate at that time.[00:35:30] But yeah, we have, we have people constantly asking us to integrate with new payment systems and some people maybe in Europe can't use certain systems or in other parts of the world where they can't use Stripe, for example. So we definitely get a lot of. And I think it's exactly what you said.[00:35:46] Sometimes it comes down to numbers and if we've only had one person ask for it, like, I'm sorry, it's just probably not going to have it right now. And also integrations do change, right? So they changed their API and then we have to test and maintain and make sure it still works the way that promised or, that used to at least.[00:36:01] So that's been a bit of a trick. The situation over the years, because as those companies that we integrate with change and mature we have to kind of keep up with that. So that's definitely been a bit of a tricky thing. And we do have a whole backlog of integrations that people have asked for.[00:36:14] And we did keep our ears open. We keep track of each person that asks for it. And then when the numbers kind of tick up high enough, then that's kind of, usually when we pull the trigger on them,[00:36:22] Matt: I'm looking at the integration page now. I actually don't see a MailChimp. Has MailChimp not been requested or you just refuse to support the monkey?[00:36:29] Ah, yes.[00:36:30] Nathalie: So we've had a lot of people ask for it. I've never[00:36:32] Matt: said that on the air before it refused to support the monkey. I don't know where that came from, but sorry, go ahead.[00:36:36] Nathalie: That's hilarious. Yeah, no, we've definitely had. For MailChimp and our reasoning for not integrating so far is that they didn't have the functionality that we needed in terms of tagging and automation.[00:36:47] So we tend to integrate with the kind of more advanced CRM that do a lot of like cool things. And that basically think back to access LA after. And I know they've added a lot over the years, so we're probably gonna be revisiting, revisiting that again soon, but yeah, for now yeah, there's definitely people who've asked for it and.[00:37:02] Matt: I noticed that the footer there's a page called discover experts. Find an expert. I forget the title of it. It looks like there's a 20 ish or so maybe more if I actually filtered through and started searching how does this program work and what have been the, the positives and negatives of trying to build something like this off the ground, get something like this off the ground, because I know it's difficult to wrangle folks together to really get something of value here.[00:37:30] Yeah.[00:37:30] Nathalie: So we started our certification program. I think it was. Six years ago. So, it's been quite a few years in the making and the first round of it was in person, you had to fly out, we taught you everything there was to know about access ally and building sites and really kind of digging in. And it was a huge, it was a $10,000 program to sign up.[00:37:51] So it was definitely like, you're jumping in all in and that commitment level kind of connected with the people who were ready for it. So that really jumps start the program. And, a lot of those early people have had, hundreds of clients sent their way because of, being early adopters and kind of pioneering some of the things that we did with them and giving us feedback to improve the product and all of that.[00:38:11] So that's kind of how it started and then it's really kind of shifted over the year. So now it's an online things, so they don't have to come and fly out and meet us and learn the software. We actually teach them online. And basically what we do is we. Make sure they're really great at what they do.[00:38:25] And then we kind of filter them out based on what they're focused on. So some people only work with one CRM, that's their jam. They're super awesome at it. Other people love to do the design aspect of the site. Other people are more on the course development. So how to design the course in like the content and modules and all of that.[00:38:41] So we kind of have people doing different types of things. So we know kind of who to recommend when somebody comes to us and doesn't want to do their own setup and do all that.[00:38:49] Matt: Yeah, that's fantastic. And putting a price tag on it is very smart and I'm just like thinking in my head, how can I, how can I do that too?[00:38:58] Like, that's such a, that's such a great idea. I I've, I've, I've known about obviously certification programs. A lot of them again, when you're looking at the top it's it's, it's all paid. I again, when I look at the things happening in WordPress, because we're so I don't want to say desperate, but we're just so like desperate to get people excited.[00:39:14] We're like, just any, if you could fill out this form, you're a partner. Like if you can get through the capture, you win. They're like, okay, that's the bar we're setting for ourselves. But no, it's great that it's paid. And then, obviously don't have to tell you, but once people are paying for it they're spreading the word.[00:39:29] They want you to succeed. You want them to succeed and it's just those positive inertia in, in that direction. So that's fantastic. That's great to see that, that program, that program working before we hit record, you mentioned that you have a F potentially a new theme coming, anything that you can hint at about that release and why you started to be.[00:39:48] Nathalie: Yeah. So we've actually been working on it for about a year, which is like insane, but it's one of those things where we wanted it to be just right. And there's a lot of options for themes and builders and like Burke and so many things that people can choose from to make their sites look great. And the reason we decided to do our own theme is really just menus.[00:40:07] I know it sounds so simple, but when you have a course and you have our multiple courses with a different menu on each course, it's a lot of work to set up those menus on all those pages and. So that's kind of one of the biggest benefits it will save then you access LA theme. And then it also integrates with all the progress tracking.[00:40:23] So you can kind of see, like, as you're going through like little check marks show up beside your menu and you have your little progress bar that shows you how far ahead you are in a course or program. So we just wanted to make it easier for our customers to make things that look great out of the box if they don't want to hire a designer.[00:40:38] So that's kind of our thinking with that.[00:40:40] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. That's no, that's great. That'll be a huge, I'm sure, again, and just from my work with other LMS plugins, that's, that's always the hangup. It's like, I've got this perfect theme and it serves like all of my marketing and how I want my blog to look and how I want my homepage to look.[00:40:55] And then you install the LMS and it's like, that is the ugliest progress bar I've ever seen in my life. No, it looks like, I don't know what it is like this looks like a geo city site that I built, 30 years ago. Why is it looks so terrible is because it's not styled for it. Right. And it's, that's a huge crux of WordPress and plugin integration.[00:41:13] Are you excited about anything Gutenberg related? That's going to make your life easier for the plugin, for the theme.[00:41:19] Nathalie: Yeah. I really want to love Gutenberg and I think it's getting there, like, no, no, I really think it's we're close. And I think that a lot of people had a lot of. Emotions, let's put them around.[00:41:32] And and I think that we're really, really like if we're not there yet, I think we're like super close to actually having that. So we're actually going to be recommending people, use Gutenberg with theme. So if people don't have another option that they prefer, and I think that's going to be really amazing.[00:41:46] So XSL, it comes with blocks already, so it can do all the things that it needs within that area. I like kind of your main part of your content for your courses and stuff. So I'm super excited about that. And it's actually something I want us to go into more, like, I think that's direction. I really want the plugin to go into Morris, making the blocks even better.[00:42:03] So yeah, I'm definitely all in on Gutenberg, but I think that there's still a lot of resistance from people who are more familiar with it, or maybe haven't played enough with it and feel a little bit of that. Yeah, not too sure about it yet.[00:42:17] Matt: Yeah. In the beginning, everyone was sort of just, throwing their hats off saying why, why, why, why, why do we have this?[00:42:23] But you know, over, over time, like we all should have known like any soft first version of a piece of software. You, we all know it's not, it's not the, the version we are really gonna fall in love with. And it's taken a few years. I certainly enjoy it, but yeah, there's still some things where I'm just like, I literally can't drag this block into a column.[00:42:42] Like the most basic thing I should be able to do ever. I can't do those are some frustrating points and then there's some other awesome points. And I was making a landing page for, at castles today. And, and like the quick commands of like the forest lash and you just hit I, and an image pops up or P for power, like that stuff navigating that is it's fantastic.[00:43:06] Like, it just makes that stuff so much easier, but yeah, there's still some pain points and I think, I think it's going to be another year, maybe two until it's really smooth, especially with full site editing.[00:43:18] Nathalie: Right? Yeah. I feel you on that. And I think it's like, just. Keeping the hope right. That we'll get there and like, just keep them at it, keep it going and just putting our support behind it too.[00:43:29] I think as business owners, we have to say like, no, this is the direction we're presses going in. And we have to put our support behind that too. So that's. Yeah,[00:43:38] Matt: for sure. Natalie Lucier is founder and CEO access. ally.com checkout access, ally.com. If you haven't, if you have a customer or a client or you want to launch your own LMS, check out access, ally.com, Natalie, anywhere else you want folks to go to say thanks.[00:43:52] No, that's[00:43:53] Nathalie: that's fine. Thank you[00:43:55] Matt: stuff, everybody else. My report.com my report.com/subscribe. Join the mailing list. And if you want your weekly dose of WordPress news and under five minutes, the WP minute.com. ★ Support this podcast ★

With any new product, building brand awareness is key. But when your new product is something the world has never seen before, well, you need to do more than just make people aware, you have to educate them, too. As a DTC company, you might have a direct line to your consumers, but you still need to be able to show and teach them as much as possible, and then be there around the clock to answer their questions and hold their hand through the process. It sounds like a lot of work, but when the product is changing the game completely, you have to be ready to get your hands dirty. And that's just what Matt Wall and I chat about today, who is the co-founder of Principle Faucets. Principle Faucets is a DTC brand that has created the first fully-integrated foot pedal system which not only saves water, but is more hygienic and improves faucet functionality. Matt dove into how he and his co-founders brought their foot-pedal faucet to the market, the amount of time it took to test and tweak to make it fit consumers needs, and then he goes into the process of what's it's been like to actually get it in front of people — a task made much harder when the pandemic caused them to shut down their mobile display unit. Here's a sneak peak on what Wall had to say: it takes finding the right niche within the industry and then hyper-targeting your search and marketing terms toward that audience to be successful. Plus, Matt tells us how to market the environmental benefits of something like the Principle Faucet across all different geographies,who are experiencing various degrees of climate change. Enjoy this episode and use the code UPNEXT20 for 20% off on your order at Principle Faucets!Main Takeaways:What's Your Niche?: It's easy to get lost in the deep sea of products that come up when they search a random keyword. You might see people finding your product or website, but the conversions won't be what you want. By dialing in on keywords and long-tail search phrases, you can more easily target the people who are actually looking to buy your product and then get them to convert.Never Before Seen: When you think you have built a better mousetrap, you still need to do market research to see if consumers want what you have to offer. Bringing a brand new company into the world with a brand new product no one has ever seen before is a risk, and you have to do your research before you take the bet to go into a market with a product no one actually wants or needs.Ease Them In: If your product requires consumer education or a change in behavior, it's wise to build in some tie back to what they are already familiar with. Asking a customer to do something completely new is scary, and will turn people off. It's better to give them a way to do a gradual implementation into their daily lives. 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:Hello, and welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles CEO at Mission.org. Stay on the show. We have Matthew Wall, who currently serves as a co-founder at Principle Faucets. Matt, welcome.Matt:Thank you. My pleasure to be here.Stephanie:I'm excited. So for anyone who is not going to see video of this, Matt is sitting on top of a mountain at Lake Tahoe and it was teasing us with the view so we can all be very jealous and just let that sink in for a second. That's a first on this interview by the way.Stephanie:So before we dive into Principle Faucets and what it is, I want to hear a bit about your backstory and what even led you to where you are today.Matt:Sure, absolutely. So water conservation was always a big thing for me growing up something that my parents instilled in us myself and my sister living in California, dealing with droughts. And that was a very common thread with both my wife and my co-founder John Porteous. And we just wanted to do something that had impact and was meaningful. And in about 2015, we decided to really change gears and do something different with our lives for a few different reasons. And we bounced around a few different ideas and what stuck was finding a way to use water better in the home. It was something that we were familiar with at that point. My wife Lauren is an avid cook. Again, the water conservation stuff on our side, we just really wanted to do something that was meaningful with our lives.Matt:And we kicked around some ideas and came up with trying to add a foot pedal to a faucet. And at that point the idea just took off and we deviced prototypes and testing them a little bit, our homes and one thing led to another, we got a good response from some of the people that we shared it with. And gosh, we're now 2021 and we just launched the business in October of last year. So it's been a whirlwind, but we've really enjoyed it.Stephanie:Wow. So tell me a bit about, I'm just imagining you and your wife and your other co-founder all brainstorming. What were you guys doing before you even had this idea? Where were you working at?Matt:Sure. I worked for a small startup in the Watsonville area of California. And it's not your typical tech startup, but it was a small company that was started up. I was the first employee outside of the CEO and owner. So that experience in itself was really cool to see a business start and grow from basically zero revenue to there were about 20, $30 million by the time I left. So the exposure to that business was, I've carried a lot of my learnings there through to this business itself. And my wife Lauren actually was diagnosed with colon cancer about the time that we started talking about doing stuff different. So that was a very interesting awakening and really just lit a fire under us. And the fact that the reality of how short life is and all that stuff.Matt:So for her, she really wanted to kickstart her life and do something that's a bit more meaningful at the time. She was a stay at home mom and taking care of our lovely children. And my co-founder John, he has a law background. He was working at the DA's office. And I think in Modesto, California, but none of us were really just loving what we were doing. And we all just wanted to do something that we could just wake up and smile about in the morning and know that what we were doing, had a meaningful impact on the stuff that we really cared about most in life.Stephanie:That's awesome. That's such a good mix of people with different backgrounds and having urgency around it. And anytime, oftentimes you hear it, like the big ideas there are you're right there. There's always something that's there to stop you. I don't know if you've heard that when talking to other entrepreneurs, but there always comes something where it's like, are you willing to go pass this? Are you going to let this set you back? So I love that.Matt:Absolutely.Stephanie:So tell me a bit more about Principal Faucets. So I know it's a foot pedal. Are you constantly peddling? What does it look like as a user?Matt:Sure. The concept that we designed is an integrated system for a kitchen faucet. We have two product families and the integrated full kitchen faucet system is a standalone system. And it comes with our signature kitchen faucet, a little control box, and then our foot pedal that goes in the [Tokic] area of the cabinet. And we also have a adapter system that you can combine with an existing faucet that you already have in your home, in the kitchen or bathroom. So if you're not doing a remodel or needing to replace a faucet, this isn't a great option for you. Excuse me, to get all the benefits of a foot pedal. And the way it works is it can start and stop the flow of water. And it can also regulate the flow of water, like a gas pedal. So when you're working at the sink and you just need a little bit of water, you have all of that flexibility to get full stream and little stream and everywhere in between.Matt:And we really designed these systems to not necessarily replace the existing traditional hand operated way of operating a faucet. We just wanted to give you another option to accomplish those tasks. And I'm sure we'll get into it, but through a lot of the testing we've done and the water savings trials, it's really been interesting to see how people gravitate to using the foot pedal like 60 to 80% of the time, because it just makes a lot of sense. It really frees you up to do all the things you do at the sink a little bit quicker and faster. And then with the foot pedal shutting off the water automatically, as soon as you take your foot off of it, it captures all of those little bits of wasted water in between the stuff you do at the sink. So it's a really interesting win-win interaction with people who use the water and just interact at the sink. So those two products are where we focused right now, and we have plans to expand and move into some different stuff in the future, but that's still to come.Stephanie:I'm just imagining that all my sinks, everything having that, because I mean, like, have you ever measured the amount of germs on a handle? That's the first thing that comes to my mind of like, why are we touching these things in the bathroom? And there was a great skit when COVID first started around hand washing and this guy goes to the bathroom sink, washes it, and then looks around and realizes he touched the faucet afterwards, starts watching it again. Then he realized he touched the soap handles. Then washes his hands again. It's like everywhere and touching things. I'm like, why didn't we do this before? It was just always touching things, of course we're not clean.Matt:Yeah. It's been a really interesting and unfortunately with everything that's unfolded around the pandemic and over the last year. And so the hygiene aspects of our system have been front and center for us in our marketing, as well as just in the overall importance of having something like that in your house, it really does, and is a great solution for exactly that problem. Having to touch the faucet. You can walk right into your house, step on the pedal, wash your hands. You never have to touch anything. And it's great for adults and kids. And it's been good.Stephanie:[inaudible] not holding. I always take my twins. They're 16 months. I'm trying to hold them into the sink to wash them off while messing with the handle. And I'm like, there has to be a better way, there is. That's awesome.Matt:There is, yeah.Stephanie:Tell me about the early days of starting out. I mean, you just launched last year. What has that looked like?Matt:Oh, it's been a lot of work. For us at this point, it's all about driving brand awareness and getting our message out and getting in front of as many customers as possible. So we've been putting almost all of our efforts into just finding very crafty and unique ways with the pandemic to get out and show people the product one of the last January. So January of 2020, just right before everything hit. John and I, we built these beautiful mobile display units. So it has our two products on it, beautiful cabinets, it's modular, so you can wheel it in and out of places. And we had this grand idea, this traveling road show that we wanted to do, we rode down farmer's markets and go to offices and take it to everywhere, any place we could stick this thing and just show it to people, get them to come up and test it.Matt:It's fully functional. So it has a pump inside, self-sustaining electricity, all that kind of stuff. So you could really come up and use it, see it firsthand. And we were so stumped and then everything came crashing down. So...Stephanie:Man, that's a bummer, but it's ready for you now. The market is ready now.Matt:It is, it's beautiful. Yeah. So we really, we love the idea in our kind of direct to consumer model. We want to do that roadshow, we want to be the traveling salesmen again, that connection to our customers. There's no better person to be able to convey the importance, the value and the benefits of the product better than we can. So it's been really cool. We've, had a couple shows this year now where we've been able to take it out and actually gets up and it's been great. It's been a lot of fun. People get such a kick out of the whole concept of being it's a little show. I mean, you do the whole dog and pony thing. So it's been really cool. We're looking forward to doing a lot more of that.Stephanie:That's awesome. So what are your, how many units are you selling today? Was there an inflection point where you changed something in your marketing or you did something a bit different when all of a sudden it's like, boom, now we got to catch up?Matt:Yeah. We were pretty lucky that we pulled in a pretty good amount of product before the pandemic hit. So we've been pretty good on our inventory, but we've seen some pretty steady sales increase throughout the last year with the booms in remodeling and construction. So that's been a really great sustainer for us. I mean our product on our next round of production, we're going to be expanding into two other faucet lines. So we're really excited about that. And that's actually going to be, we should be placing those orders in just a few weeks, which should be here for the basically fall and winter time of this year.Matt:Iteration and changing of the products themselves. We have some stuff that will be changed in this next round, but we've been really happy with the way that product has performed at this point. We have had just great reactions for people who have purchased the product and installed it. And yeah, we're really happy with it at this point.Stephanie:Okay, cool. So when it comes to the product iterations, are you hearing feedback from the customers around different things that they need or was it more internally driven?Matt:No, it's been both. We try and keep in pretty close contact with our customers. We do follow up calls so often as long as they're receptive to them. Using the system, it takes a little bit of kind of, there's like a bit of a breaking in period. So it takes about a week to get used to it, using the pedal. And then once you do that some of the feedback we hear from our customers about it, they hate going to other people's houses because they walk up to the sink in the foot pedal, and they're just trying to tap on the ground to try and get the water to start. But product itself, some of the changes and iterations we want to make are about how the foot pedal itself installs or the toe kick. That was one of the sensitive areas for us in designing the product.Matt:There could be a lot of variation in cabinetry. There's no standard toe kick size. And you look at a modern kitchen versus a traditional kitchen and the cabinetry all different. So we built in an adjustable system so that you can get the foot pedal to the right height and position it optimally for comfort and use. But there's still some work to be done there. I think in getting that more universal for all applications in the cabinets and so forth. The outside of that, we really haven't run into a whole lot of requests for additional features or actual iterations on that the physical product itself, we have had asks for other finishes and designs and that kind of stuff. And it's really painful at this point because there's so much that we want to do with different designs. And I mean, sky's the limit with decorative plumbing stuff. But we got to start somewhere and grow the business and get there.Stephanie:So why did you guys choose to stay strictly D to C or now you starting to think about exploring retail or other spots to sell as well?Matt:When we originally came up with the concept, we knocked around a lot of different ideas and we looked at big box stores, distribution and so forth, but it just never felt right to us. Again, it went back to like, we just didn't want to be another faucet company that wasn't who we were. It, wasn't why we were doing what we're doing. We really wanted to feel like we're a company that really cares about what we're doing. And the way that we felt that was best was to be the first thing people saw when they came to our website and who they talk to and who they dealt with and who was able to handle their customer service questions or warranty issues or product questions. One of the things that's been really fun working with customers, we offer basically free live video demonstration, so you can schedule it to us and we'll set up a camera and use that mobile display unit that we have and walk through.Matt:And it's just so great to see, and the magic between having an intimate conversation with somebody who is interested in and really gets the concept and the importance of it. It's just been very rewarding and fulfilling for all of us. But I think as a business, long-term it's really hard to say. We would like to stay direct to consumer for as long as we can. It just makes sense for us right now. It's and yeah, it's been great.Stephanie:Yeah. So if you're going to stay in that area, I'm thinking like SEO has to be huge, even trying to get up to compete with people like best faucets. If someone sees a foot pedal, maybe they're like, "Ah, that's the wrong thing." So how do you go about reaching new customers and educating them quickly of like, "You could do this instead." It seems like a lot of things you have to think about, and it's not just competing with a traditional faucet. It's like, you have to do both things at once.Matt:Yeah. It's been tough. The faucet industry itself is very consolidated and there's a lot of Moen and Delta, Kohler. They control about 70% of the all sales within the decorative plumbing industry and they pour tons and tons of money into their ad placements and keyword placements and so forth. So we've been doing a lot of work in just trying to optimize our products in that area. So when people are searching for us, we don't want them to search for faucet and have our product come up every single time, we've have really had to narrow in, on our keywords and the short keywords and multi phrase keywords and long tail keywords to get people really want to search for a foot pedal faucet, or are looking for water conservation foot pedal faucets, or those different iterations so that we are able to show up.Matt:We end up spending a lot of money when we first started doing some online marketing, and ad placement stuff where we would get just tons and tons of clicks, but no conversions because they just, people would type in foot pedal and faucet or they'd type in foot pedal control. And things for pianos would come up or pumps for yeah. All kinds of stuff. And so we ended up... That was one of the first areas where we figured we had to dial in and really focus in on that. But outside of that, we're trying to get as much content out there as possible to not only on our website, but just with others. So on social media, Facebook and so forth just to help build some of that the organic growth for us, which has been good, but it's a tough game. There's a lot to do.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, you're innovating in a new market and trying to prove and show people why they need something. We've had a lot of brands on who have the same struggle around like having to educate a consumer. I mean, we had bidet company on here and they talked about most Americans don't think that's even something they would ever need. What channels or pieces of content are you finding are performing best they're going to help with that.Matt:Yeah, a lot of it's just around comparing water usage, which was one of the easiest ways for us to show the savings for the product. It's just showing somebody using a traditional faucet and somebody using our faucet system and the visuals of seeing how much, just no data, no nothing, it's so night and day between the two different systems and just the ease of flow of use. So that's actually been really effective for us. And just capturing and showing what the true nature and difference of that system is versus a traditional faucet. So that's been very impactful. And then in addition to that, delicately using hygiene as some of the ways of showing additional value of what you can bring to the home.Stephanie:Because I was thinking I would lean so hard into the hygiene piece because I had this one image in my head of, it was a piece of bread and it was a teacher who did this at school and they put their hand on it unwashed. And then the other one was maybe wiped down with water. The other one may be used, I don't know, what is it called? The one without water, Purex or whatever. And if there was hand washing with soap and she put them in a bag and left him for seven days, and then it was just the picture showing the seven pieces of bread and what the hand print looked like, very disturbing, maybe realize how gross my hands were, if they're unwashed and even how most ways don't even work that well. And it's interesting to see how just one piece of content was literally ingrained in my brain. And it's been like seven months. You can't get it out.Matt:Yeah. It's on the hygiene side of what we've been doing. It's been, kind of a balancing act because we don't want to scare people into thinking like you have to have our faucet. That's not why we're doing what we're doing, but it is an absolute benefit of having the system in the home. The one really weird twist to this all is when you're marketing things that claim to be hygienic or improve hygiene or kill germs, there's a lot of regulation and requirements. You can be considered a pesticide product. And when we first started marketing our product, there were some issues where we came across where we weren't allowed to show the product online in certain areas because we were being flagged as a pesticide products and it blew our minds that a faucet system would even be considered as a pesticide product, but in the verbiage and the way that we were talking about germs and helping to not spread germs in the home, washing your hands before, so that's been an interesting road to navigate.Matt:We've really kind of had to just do some very kind of common sense type of marketing with the hygiene stuff. You come home, you don't have to touch your faucet. It helps reduce the spread of germs in your home because it's pretty self-explanatory when you really boil it down.Stephanie:Yeah. Oh, interesting. I never even knew that was a thing that you can get around. Yeah. Promoting hygiene. Okay. Have you all explored Amazon or have you not really even thought about that yet?Matt:We have, we're actually selling on Amazon now. And it's been pretty good. It's been an interesting set up process. From the merchant standpoint, Amazon's designed for multiple people to sell off single product pages as a conglomeration of a bunch of people selling the same products so that you get the best price, but we're the only one out there selling our product on Amazon. So we had to go through and do a lot more of the setup process and go through. And the whole pesticide thing that I mentioned was actually as part of what Amazon had us do and go through and acquire. So that took a lot of thinking and figuring out as to why that was happening. But yeah, we got it. Amazon's a great tool for small companies. We plan to stick around there as long as it works for us. And sky's the limit, it's just a matter again, of paying for contents and getting your product placed out in the right spot.Stephanie:Yeah. It seems like there could be so many moments you could create for your customers too, after they buy, just like things like a little card maybe that has a note on the sink, that's like, look down your pedals below for your water, for any of their guests or something. How have you guys thought about shaping the experience, the unboxing experience and then creating joy even afterwards.Matt:Yeah. We focused a lot on the product itself to make a product that was worthy of what we were doing. Quality-wise, construction-wise, materials so that when somebody does get it home and they open it, it looks and feels like something different, something that's a little special. So if we have done some investment in that, the packaging and unveiling of the stuff, we have some really nice dark foam and some nice packaging on the boxes and stuff, which has been a really cool thing to see and fun thing to develop. Long-term, we have tried to build in some features actually to the faucet system itself that allows either new users or existing users to use both the inside of the hand operated valves on the faucet or the foot pedal.Matt:We designed the system. So you never really have to choose one or the other for the Principle Faucets system, the kitchen faucet, the faucet has all of the existing capabilities of the hand operate valve, that's all there, doesn't change. There's nothing you have to do to switch back and forth between the foot pedal and the hand operated valve. So if somebody comes over your house who is not familiar with it, they can walk right up to it, use a hand operated valve, do everything they're used to doing. And if they want to explore a little bit, they can go down and start to use the foot pedal too. One of the features we built into the pedal well to help with the user experience was this, we call it our tapta flow feature, and essentially you just tap the pedal quickly and it'll actually allow the faucet to run continuously without having to keep your foot pedal on it.Matt:So if you're filling a pot of water, you want to feel the same to do dishes. You have that ability. So you're not tied to the sink. If you want to use the foot pedal on that way. With our adapter system, that can be connected to any existing faucet in the kitchen or bathroom. We also built in a feature for that system that allows you to default back to the existing hand operated valves indefinitely, if you choose to, and it's basically, you just tap it twice. And that way, if you have people coming over, using the bathroom or in the kitchen, and you don't want to deal with it you just tap it twice. And all of the function goes back to the faucet as well. So we really tried to bridge that gap so that, new users and existing users don't have any issues with trying to do what they need to do.Stephanie:I could see eventually customers being like, "I don't even want the hand operated piece. Everyone needs to use it this way and just take that off."Matt:I mean, it's been fascinating to see how people gravitate to use the foot pedal. I mean, it's blown our wildest dreams. And the beauty of that is that you get all of the water savings by using the pedal. We'd done some water savings tests when we were initially going through some of the product developments. We did eight homes here in Central California, and some of the homes were multi-generational, they had grandchildren, parents, or grandparents, and some were single individuals. I mean the whole gamut apartments, condos, houses, and we found that the water savings compared to an existing faucet was up to 44%. And when we dove into the data a little deeper, we found that the homes with the highest water savings were the ones that with the biggest water wasters prior. So it really helps the people that ended up using more water save the most which is really a great sign for the impact that the product might have in the future as we get into more and more homes.Stephanie:Yep. Oh, that's really cool. Do you ever have issues with the messaging for consumers outside of California? Because I'm thinking when I'm from Maryland, we really didn't think about water conservation. We didn't have droughts. And I remember moving to California in the Bay Area. I was like, whoa, this is a thing we actually might not have water, what? I mean, I heard about people in Mill Valley area saving their shower water, and doing other things with it. And I was like, this is a new thing for me. So how do you guys go about crafting the message so it connects with people all throughout the U.S.?Matt:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the droughts here in the West are horrible, some of the worst on record. And then you have severe storms and flooding on the other side of the U.S. So the way we've crafted and are working on that message to really join them together is that they're both the products of the same thing. So the droughts here are the product of carbon emissions and global warming and climate change. That's affecting the West in this way, on the East Coast where there's too much water and too much rains, it's all the product are the same, they're all symptoms of the same thing. And for us saving water whether you have too much of it, or you have too little of it, it's all benefiting and helping out the same problem.Matt:It's cutting carbon emissions, it's reducing amount of chemicals that go into the environment by reducing the amount pumped water that needs to be actually treated, transported to your faucet and then goes down your drain without even being used. And then the chemicals that need to be used to treat the water when it goes into the waste facilities. So it's interesting when you think about the two polar opposites of it, but they're all from the same problem. So that's how we've had to craft it. We all need to do what we can do, every little bit counts. And if you can save water at your faucet, it's only gonna help the problem.Stephanie:Yeah. That's such a good explanation. And one that I've never even really thought about, okay, what happens when the water goes down the faucet and all the things that go into it to make it come back again. And yeah, that's a really good way to message it.Matt:Yeah. There's a lot that that goes into treating water, a lot of chemicals and stuff. So, using every bit in a way that counts really helps cut down on all that stuff.Stephanie:Yeah. Very cool. Were there any big bets that you've made over the past year that you weren't really sure if they were going to pay off other than the mobile unit that you guys are wheeling around because that one paid off now, but anything else that comes to mind?Matt:So big bets that we've placed around the business. Being a smaller business as we started and grown, capital's king and trying to figure out how we want to best use some of that money towards marketing and where we wanted to put it into either PR or working with influencers and doing paid content type of stuff. Putting the, I mean, every dollar that we've put into those areas has paid off massively and we didn't go in blindly. We took our time and really tried to find people that got the product and were in similar head space around conservation, water savings, cooking because those are the people who really get it and find the most value in it. So when we've been able to reach out to those people and have them share that message with their base of followers that has actually putting them out of money that we put into that area, it was a good bet. And I'm glad that we did it.Stephanie:Yeah. It sounds like a lot of the themes around your business have been around niching down, niche down with the right people over PR and content is down on the keywords and really getting down to the perfect audience and consumer who's ready to hear that message and ready to buy before going big to everyone.Matt:Yeah. We're a brand that nobody's ever heard of before and we're selling a product that no one's ever seen before. And we found out really in early development when we sat down and just pitched the idea to people, to see if there was going to be a market for this thing. And if somebody had done it beforehand, where did they fail? Where did they succeed? It was really interesting to see how people connected with concepts. And we talk to professional chefs who do a lot of cooking in the home, and they're like, "I've been waiting for this thing forever. How come nobody's done this?" And we talked to people who are doctors and dentists and like, "Oh yeah, I have those at the shop, we use those all the time." Of course, that makes sense to have that home. It just hygiene and efficiency.Matt:And we talked to mothers with kids, fathers with kids, and it all came down to the fact that they would just be like, "Well, why has nobody done this before?" It just makes a lot of sense. And that really helped instill in us the fact that there could be a need for this out in the market. And we ended up going to some trade shows early on just to snoop around because we had getting no experience in the industry at all. We knew nobody, no manufacturers. And again, just pitched the concept to a bunch of the people were there. We were super scared somebody was going to steal the idea out from under us. So we were very coy about it, which is probably silly. But it was interesting to get their feedback and hear what some of the biggest manufacturers in the industry said about it.Matt:And we approached them and early on say, "Hey, we have this concept, is there anything, do you guys want to partner with us or is there any interest in looking at this, we'd love to come talk to you about it." And it's funny. They just never got back to us. Never wanted to hear about it, but-Stephanie:They will. Now.Matt:Yeah, they will now, but even the retail showroom, we stopped in and talked to a bunch of people all over California just about how they show products and discuss it with their customers in the stores. And another one of the reasons why we wanted to go direct to consumer was because of some of the limitations around actually explaining our product to customers in those environments. And in the big box stores, you're just another box on a shelf.Stephanie:Yeah. I was imagining [inaudible] Home Depot, just like a little foot pedal being next to all these faucets and being like, I think this is another mile.Matt:Yeah. And even in retail showrooms... to show people and have them really understand the value of it. You got to use it, or you got to see somebody using it. And that was definitely one of the driving factors for us to want to just be like, we got to put videos everywhere of this thing. We got to build this traveling road show. We just got to show as many people as possible how it actually works, have them come and use it because that's how you connect with it.Stephanie:Yeah, how long was that time period of researching the market and asking questions and having people look at it?Matt:It was a long time. We started first developing this product in 2015 and it was just tinkering around in the garage. I've always loved goofing around and stuff and tinkering and whatnot. So we just decided to do it ourselves. And we build a proof of concept in the garage. Brought it into our kitchen, hooked it up, look terrible, total Frankenstein, hoses and stuff going all over the place. But it probably had about 60% of the functionality that we have in our product now. So it was a pretty good gauge on using it and understanding it. And at that point, that was basically the limitations of our capabilities. So we hired some engineers, excuse me, we hired some engineers to help us of take it to the next step, develop a true prototype that worked like, functioned like what we wanted to come to market with.Matt:And those were the prototypes that we use for the water savings trial here in California. So we had several of those made up. That was probably about a year long process at least. And once we had those prototypes built and got all this feedback from people using them in homes all over, we took a pause at that point. We could have gone and just try to find somebody to manufacture it really fast, but we didn't have the confidence we really thought we needed in order to go forward. So we ended up going to a trade show ourselves and exhibiting with these prototypes. And we built a display unit very similar to the one that we have that we're using for the road show. And we doctored up the display unit with some other prototype boxes and stuff.Matt:So it really looked nice and clean, like a finished product, but it was all frankensteined in the back and using our prototypes. And we basically told people that we were ready to manufacture and gave somewhat of a misleading understanding of where we were in the whole process. But we wanted to see what industry folks, people who were in showrooms in the Home Depos and big box stores of the world, they all came by and they took a look at it. And the response again was just so far above and beyond what we expected that people were like, "Can we get on a waiting list? Where do we sign up? When are these gonna be developed? Can we place an order now?" I mean-Stephanie:Wow.Matt:... we were so unready for all of that, but it was great. And it really gave us the resolve we needed to go forward and find someplace to manufacture this and get it to market. So at that point, after that showing to the industry, we found some folks that well kind of to back up a little bit, we wanted to originally manufacture the product in the U.S. and unfortunately, we talked to large manufacturers here in the U.S., we talked to some OEM manufacturers here in the U.S., and they were either so busy or they just didn't want to deal with a new person or a company that was going to have small volumes to start off. It's a new product, we never developed anything like that before. So we ended up meeting some people at the trade show who put us in contact with some people in China. And we went over there and met with a bunch of different factories and found some just amazing folks to help us manufacture it over there.Matt:And that whole process was a whole story in itself because both faucet manufacturers over there, they're great at building faucets. I mean, there's good and bad factories all over the world. Thankfully we found one that was just a great, great group of people and really focused on quality materials. They were great at faucets, but didn't have a lot of experience in electronics and our systems, kind of a little bit of both. So we had to go in and to go find another manufacturer for just electronic components. But of course the manufacturer is doing electronic components, doesn't want to do any water testing because that's not what they do.Matt:The faucet manufacturer doesn't want to do electronics assembly. It's not what they do. So we had to put together this group of not only components, but manufacturers over there, get them to work together which wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be, but it's been a learning process for sure, because the assembly process for electronic components assembly, the little control box that we have, it needs to be tested for watertight, seals and function, but we had to come up with a way to do that with air testing at the electronics facility, and then come up with a way for our faucet manufacturer to then combine to a final testing of the product to make sure everything worked still watertight and all that, but do it in a way that the water wouldn't interfere with some of the electronic components.Matt:So we ended up doing some iterations kind of, as we were manufacturing with electronic components in particular dialing in adding some actual hardware to the control box itself to allow the manufacturers to speed up the process, make it more reliable. And it was great. I mean, the factories, they have everything you could possibly need to help prototype and do stuff, add components, test components. So it was really cool to see, and we really enjoyed a lot and still do it working with those folks.Stephanie:That's great. I mean, I love that story because so many people right now hear of these DTC companies, just rocket chips, just easy. It looks easy from the outside. And I like actually hearing a real life story of like, "Nope, took a few years, took a lot of testing, had a little hesitancy," and yeah, I mean, that highlights what building a company actually looks like most of the time.Matt:Yeah. It's the most enjoyable thing I've ever done, but it's also the scariest thing I've ever done hands down.Stephanie:I feel that, I feel that. Outside of porter bodies, how they have those little pump sinks, did you ever get one of those and be like, "How do you work?" To figure out maybe like how they function and then have any good takeaways from that one?Matt:Absolutely. We bought and test tested all kinds of stuff. We, I mean, you name it valves, Mike Raj was just an absolute disaster. We had pumps like that physically applying pressure to the pump to get the water to flow. There was pneumatic valve that we were testing, hydraulic valves that we were testing. And it was really interesting. They all pointed us to one direction and we ended up going with an electronic system instead of something that was more mechanical. The issue that we found out with doing something more mechanical, like those pump valves or other industrial metal valves that you can buy for kitchens and so forth. They're very simple themselves they don't require any electricity, but the issue we found with those is if you're going to make a product that is going to be successful in a residential setting for people in homes who have expensive cabinetry, expensive flooring, those other methods were very invasive and destructive to the cabinetry themselves.Matt:If you tried to install them even in new construction, but specifically in existing cabinetry, you had to cut holes, you had to plumb water lines underneath the cabinets where these could happen. You'd never see them until it was a disaster. So we wanted to keep all of that water connections and areas that could leak. We kept them up out from underneath the cabinet, inside the cabinet, where you can see everything, you can know where everything's connected. And we just run a very simple communication line down to the foot pedal itself. So not only do you not have to cut holes in your cabinets, but the foot pedal itself just installs with a couple of screws, you retain all of the existing cabinet space that you have, because Lord knows, we put a ton of stuff under our kitchen cabinets, whether we choose it all or not, is still there.Stephanie:Only one that look under there right now, it's been there for a long time. It's not coming out.Matt:Yeah. In that whole process of really coming up with the way in which we wanted to use what technology you wanted to use, to make it all function correct. We wanted to go something electronic for those specific reasons. It just allows you to install the whole system in a much easier way as well. And we set out initially to design the product so that it a DIY enthusiast, your average we can wire could go and install it in their home. They're capable of into going to Home Depot or Lowe's or something like that to buy a faucet, install it. This is going to be absolutely no brainer for them. But of course not everybody is going to do that. I know plenty of people who just don't wanna install faucet. So we also-Stephanie:[inaudible].Matt:Sure. I mean, it's just the reality of it all and it's all of the connections and fittings that we use to connect to your existing water lines and faucets and so forth and house they're all standardized. So it's all very easy for a plumber to come in and hook it up and know what to do.Stephanie:Yeah, that's awesome. That's the route I would choose unless there was a very easy YouTube video. Maybe I would attempt it. I don't know.Matt:Yeah.Stephanie:Depends how I'm feeling that day.Matt:Yeah, exactly.Stephanie:Where do you all want to be in the next year? What are you most excited about?Matt:Oh man. I'm actually most excited about getting some of our new designs in production. We've had a lot of requests for additional finishes and additional designs and even expanding some of our additional hardware that comes with the faucet systems themselves because people have been asking for it and it's been frustrating for us because we're like, "We know, we know we wanted to," but as you grow a business, you got to kind of do it incrementally make sure you're at the right point and then pull the trigger on it. So I'm very excited to see this next wave of products come to the market and then see how they do, it's going to be great.Stephanie:That's great. All right. Well, let's move over to the lightning round when you're on, is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready?Matt:I'm ready.Stephanie:All right. What one thing do you think will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Matt:I think the biggest thing that'll have an impact on ecommerce in the next year is going to be finding ways in which we can reduce shipping costs. That's been a big barrier for us. It's expensive for everybody. So I'm looking forward to innovations that will be coming to lowering and speeding up product delivery.Stephanie:Yeah, that's great. I've heard that a lot throughout all the interviews, so you're all thinking on-Matt:Somebody is going to... Who's working on that.Stephanie:I know. Come on, come on the show, tell us about it. What is the best advice you've gotten since starting this business?Matt:Wow. It's to go with your gut. Collectively between Lauren, myself and John, we've hired a few consultants here and there to help us, and they've been very good at helping guide us in certain areas where we're just deficient in that training or information. But it's really interesting when you look at it and you're like, yeah, that's what we wanted to do the first place. But it, yeah, that's...Stephanie:That's a good one. Even if it takes a few consultants to tell you and you're like, "Oh, okay, I'm just going to go."Matt:You just got to go, you go with your gut.Stephanie:Yeah, what's up next on your reading list or podcast?Matt:Ooh. Up next on my reading list is a book called Conscious Medicine and it's about microdosing different types of psilocybin and a few other things to, how to incorporate that in and use it. I've experimented that stuff over the last year actually, and had some great experiences.Stephanie:Cool. I'll have to check that one out. Sounds good. All right. And then the last one, what's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you in your whole life?Matt:Ooh, man. Probably marry me. I would have to thank my wife for that one. That is by far and away the nice thing. Yeah. I owe a lot to her. She's the woman behind the man for sure. Where I'm off and they are, we work really well together and I'm blessed to have her as a partner in business and in life. So I got a lots of thanks for her.Stephanie:Yeah, that's amazing. All right, Matt. Well, this has been such an amazing interview. Thank you for joining on the top of a mountain. It's been fun just watching what's behind you. Where can people find out more about you and Principal Faucets.Matt:Yeah. You can check us out at principlefaucets.com, got a bunch of good information there. You can explore around and as well as on Instagram just @principlefaucets.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.Matt:Thank you. Really enjoyed it. 

Covered in this episode of Legally Sound Smart Business are some typical business mistakes blunders small businesses often make and how to avoid them. Blunder #1: Copying/Pasting Agreements It may sound like a good idea at the time, but this blunder comes with hidden pitfalls. Having an attorney draft terms that are specific to your company's products and needs can actually save your company substantial time, money, and avoidable liability. If you choose to forego an attorney, at the least, read the terms line-by-line, to ensure that you understand everything. If there is something you don't understand, you should not be using it. Blunder #2: Creating a brand without doing research on the name One of the worst things that can happen to a new business is for the owners to spend a substantial amount of time and money promoting a certain name, only to find out it's already being used. Even if they haven't registered a trademark, someone might own the rights simply because they were using it first. At the very least, a Google search is an absolute must. A recommended search engine that does a worlwide search can be found here: https://www3.wipo.int/branddb/en/. Blunder #3: Misclassification of workforce It is one of the most common blunders, yet the negative effects of misclassification can be staggering. One worker claim can trigger an audit of your entire workforce by any number of state and federal agencies. These agencies have the right to issue heavy penalties and interest on taxes and wages, liens, and even injunctions. Businesses can still be subject to crippling class-action suits with multi-million dollar consequences. Err on the side of classifying as an employee and assume the employee is non-exempt. Blunder #4: Partnership/Contract not signed by all parties After spending time discussing the terms of your partnerships, make sure you get in writing--and do not commit blunder #1 by just copying and pasting an operating agreement found online. Blunder #5: Not documenting employee performance Documentation provides evidence that supports management decisions to take unfavorable action such as discipline or termination with an employee. This was discussed in our previous episode 311. Transcript: Full Podcast TranscriptNASIR: Today, we are covering blunders in the business world. We're not just talking about a mere mistake. MATT: It's a matter of cost and time. NASIR: To me, a blunder in business can result in substantial liability or exposure or cost or time. MATT: That's when the target on your back gets a lot bigger. NASIR: Don't do it. [INTRO SONG] This is Legally Sound Smart Business where your hosts Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub cover business in the news and add their awesome legal twist. Legally Sound Smart Business is a podcast brought to you by Pasha Law PC – a law firm representing your business in California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Here are your hosts, Nasir Pasha and Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast! Today, we are covering blunders in the business world. This is where businesses make huge mistakes – blunders if you will – that can really cost their business in more ways than one. MATT: Yeah, and I didn't tell you about this beforehand, but I actually reached out to Bob Saget to see if we could have our own separate episode. NASIR: Bob Saget? MATT: Top blunders. NASIR: That's bloopers! Oh. You mean, America's Funniest Home Videos. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Of course, a classic. MATT: I mean, to me, that's a form of blunders, but maybe you disagree. NASIR: Well, I would say it's just as entertaining. Maybe from our perspective, perhaps our clients or other businesses may not agree, but I think, if we had everything on recording – well, we have it recording now. We could talk about it and submit this tape to Bob. What about that? MATT: Yeah. I mean, I think it's been, like, two decades since the show has been aired.

Interview with Long Time Member Matt Bailey (LA 1476) Transcript: Steve: Steve Butala here for Land Academy. Jill's not with us today. Lucky for her. She's actually out having some fun. So I wanted to take this opportunity, this kind of vacant opportunity to introduce, I think, a long time member, Matt Bailey, a member of Land Academy. Matt came to us from another member, Lori Phillips, who said, "Look, you got to, I just talked to this guy. He's been a member for a long time, a lot longer than I have. He's really got his stuff together. And he'd be a great guy to have on the show because I think a lot of new people specifically would get a lot out of this." We are Steve and Jill. Jill: Together we've been buying and reselling land since the 90s. Steve: Our data centric approach leaves our buyers asking, "How can you sell it so cheap?" Jill: Here on the Land Academy show- Steve: We answer that and more. Welcome, Matt. Thanks so much for being on the show. I'll start off right away and just ask you, how'd you find us? How long have you been with us? What are you working on? If you can just introduce yourself and give us a little flavor, that'd be great. Matt: Yeah, sure. So I've been at this for about four years now. I got into it, like I think a lot of people did, listening to BiggerPockets and then Seth had a podcast early on in there and I got started on his course shortly after I jumped in. And did your course. I think that both have a lot to offer. I'm glad that I had done both. And so, yeah, I mean, I've been with you guys for four years, working and lately really this year kind of scaling the company up. So now we have four full-time employees. Lori was the person who introduced us and suggested we jump on the podcast and I'd kind of come to her because I was working on trying to build the processes out, scaling the company, training. And I didn't really have a ton of time to price a mailer. And she had a bunch of mailers priced, but not a lot of bandwidth to do the overhead and the actual execution on it and that's exactly what my business is kind of designed to do. Matt: I've kind of built it from the beginning to be designed for scaling, so I focused a lot on business processes and developing a CRM with automations and stuff to kind of like help streamline everything. And that's how I started working with her. And I think we did like five or six deals off of that mailer. And, most of them have kind of come full circle now and yeah, I mean, it's just land's been pretty good. I'm really enjoying it and it's nice to be able to be on the podcast with you. Steve: That's great, man. So what's a typical deal look like for you right now with Lori or without Lori or what's a typical deal look like? Matt: Yeah. So, I started on some of the smaller deals and as I've done more deals, even though I built this for volume, I think that if you build your business from the beginning to be able to handle volume, you can do fewer deals and not have to work so hard on each one because all of your stuff is streamlined. Right? So, I started doing smaller deals and right now, my minimum threshold is $5,000 profit is what we're looking to do. So I'd say most of them are probably in that five to $20,000 range and we're starting to work on larger ones. So like I mentioned, I've got now four full-time employees that work with me and I know exactly what we're going to convert in the markets that we've done before if we mailed a certain percentage of offer price to these five to $20,000 deals, right? Matt: So I'm keeping those as the bread and butter, but I'm looking to scale up to larger deals, but I don't want to jump into those larger deals and find out that, okay, it turns out you convert one in 7,000 if you're trying to get more than a $50,000 profit or something. Right? And I assume that it's going to be closer to one in 1000 or 2000 or whatever it might be. So now that I've got all these people underneath me, it's like,

My guest today is Matthew Quale, president of Bask Bank (the only bank to offer American Airlines Loyalty Points in lieu of interest). This is Part 1 of the interview where we dive into Matt's career and path to CMO. Tomorrow we will explore how he grew the Bask business.As a subscriber-only podcast you will need to subscribe to the a private feed to get it in your podcast player. You only need to do this once. Simple instructions here.Transcript:Edward: My guest today is Matt Quale. Today we cover Matt's career and path to CMO. Princeton, General Mills, McKinsey, American Express, MetLife, and Brighthouse. Matt is now the president of Bask Bank and we're lucky to have him here today. Matt, many of my guests had a roundabout path to CMO but yours is more traditional than most. You started your career as a marketing assistant at General Mills. You took on progressive responsibility, but let's talk a little bit about the last two steps. First, you moved from a sales enablement role at American Express to running all the marketing functions at MetLife, how did you do that?Matt: What's interesting is you really do need to think about your career progression and plot out what are the pieces that you need. To your point at a very traditional marketing career, I've done a lot of stuff, print advertising, TV advertising, et cetera. As I was talking to my mentors, one of the things they talk about is you really haven't done enough technology. An opportunity came up with American Express to run sales enablement for the merchant business that included managing the Salesforce instance and gave me access to a tech team. When I think about what really drives the market today, I think about a three-legged stool. I think about data and analytics, I think about core creative, but then, I think about delivery through technology.For me, I felt good about my data and analytics from my time in consulting, I had the core creative. What I didn't have was technology and so much of marketing, particularly during the time on financial services, is that interaction between marketing and sales. For myself, one thing I always talk about is that marketing is a multiplier on sales activities. Having access to the CRM and having access to that tech team was really important for me in terms of actually building that tech muscle because digital is just going to be bigger and bigger going forward.Edward: Did you have the marketing skills to run all of the marketing prior to AmEx? I'm getting to the fact of why did MetLife take a person who is doing sales enablement and put him in charge of everything?Matt: Yeah, and also somebody who is in a different industry, who was an insurance person. Much of this also gets back to relationships and making sure that you are building a legacy, performance, and credibility. I had a boss at American Express who left for MetLife. He called me up and said hey, there's this great opportunity here at Met. He was really the one who introduced me to the opportunity and vouched for not only my market credentials but more of the fact that I was a strategic thinker and a transformation agent. As I went and interviewed with MetLife, who was really coming across was, they weren't looking for a traditional marketer. They've done that. They saw plenty of candidates who are in the industry. They're looking for somebody to really transform the marketing organization, in a lot of ways making more digital. For myself, the heavy technology and the heavy sales enablement played a really big role for them and something that they're very excited about.Edward: How did you develop those other skills? Because you're in charge of more than just moving them digitally and doing sales enablement. Things like branding and performance marketing and all the other things you weren't doing before, how did you pick up those skills?Matt: I guess when you actually take a look at a lot of my career, a lot of branding in places like General Mills. When you're working on brands like Cheerios and Kix, I've done a lot of repositioning work. Obviously, when I was with McKinsey, part of the marketing practice, doing a lot of marketing projects across a wide swath, but at the same time, oftentimes you are doing new things. I'd say no matter who you are, getting that next job, oftentimes your skills you don't have. That's really around building a team. I'll be the first person to say that I don't know every single piece of marketing, I don't have every single skill set, but what I can do is assemble a good team. That team really includes both your agencies as well as your internal folks.Oftentimes, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to hire people who are better at things than I am. For example, even some of the core creative, I ended up hiring some great folks out of P&G and really my other brand came from P&G. I said, look I want to be my creative eyes. I think you're better at this than I am. One of the things I always try and do is trying to figure out where my weaknesses are and how do I build from there.Edward: For MetLife, you became the CMO of Brighthouse. At MetLife, you still reported to a CMO who controlled Snoopy and the blimps, but in Brighthouse, you ran the whole show.Matt: Yeah, I was dot and line at the world of CMO organization for Met. At Brighthouse, we were spin-offs. We talk about one of the largest spin-offs in history. We had $240 billion of assets under management. You're right. I mean, I'm sure there are definitely some moments where the president who became the CEO of Brighthouse said, “Do you need to go out and hire a CMO from someplace else, or do I have the talent internally?”Much about this—I think for your listeners of the podcast—is that a lot of this is about performance over time and making sure you're somebody who's seen as a good team player, somebody who's reliable, and somebody who's delivered. When you do that, people are willing to give you the opportunity for the next step up.Edward: Okay, I want to go back a little bit on your path to getting there. As regular listeners know, I have a theory that things that happen to people when they're 12–14 affect them their entire lives. What were you passionate about at that age?Matt: I think what's interesting is for me, it probably goes back even further. My mother owned an advertising agency and my father was a financial adviser. The odds I'd be doing marketing for financial service firms are probably pretty high. But I think about the things I think about at 12 or 14. This is what came to me in my mind was both doing a lot of strategy games—Risk, Axis and Allies, Roman Conquest—but also a lot of fantasy baseball. These are back in the days where my friends and I would get the box score and every week somebody had to hand calculate everybody's scores. We rotated around who had to calculate across the box scores and give the scores.It was really just this idea of looking at baseball in a different way and thinking about performance in a different way. Often, you had these traditional stats that probably didn't really measure the impact of the players. For myself, I think as I've continued to move into marketing, I've certainly been the kind of person who said, how can we actually make sure this is having an impact? How can we make sure this is having a measurable impact on revenue? I think that's really been something.And then obviously the strategy. All these strategy games are very much about how do you allocate your resources in the most efficient way possible, where do you want to enter or exit that's going to be effective. Much of what you're doing in marketing is really making choices. You're making choices all the time and you need to be able to measure the impact of those choices.Edward: You went to the University of Princeton. How did you come out different than the way you went in?Matt: Well, I met my wife. Certainly, if I hadn't gone to Princeton, I wouldn't have met her. I think what's interesting about Princeton is you're surrounded by a really bright set of students who work incredibly hard. I think for myself, I really had to dig in. Going from high school to college (I think) was quite a shock in terms of both the workload and intensity. For myself, I really had to figure out a way to elevate and raise my game, and I felt good about that. I felt good about the fact that I was able to achieve and do well there. I think in a lot of ways, it taught me a little bit more about how to work even harder.Edward: What would happen if you hadn't gone to Princeton? Say you'd gone to a local regional school instead. How do you think your life and career would have been different?Matt: It is really, really so hard to know how it would have been different. I think I probably would have gone to some of the same places. But obviously, I talked about my wife, and I saw some of my best friends from university times. I think in a lot of ways it's about the relationships. I think I probably still would have pursued the same career in marketing, but certainly having companies like General Mills come to Princeton and recruit gives you a really good opportunity and knock that first job.Edward: Your first job was at General Mills in marketing. Were you looking for any sort of corporate job, or was marketing something you were looking for when you started your job search?Matt: That's funny because I did investment banking in the summer before senior year. The thing I felt about investing in banking was the kind of thing that anybody who sat in that seat was going to come up with the same set of answers. What I really liked about marketing was the choices you made. The choices you made for that brand were very distinct and unique. I think my path, in a long-range, has always been moving to that leadership position, moving to that P&L ownership position. Really, the question was what's the best way for me to go get there? You always want to play to your strengths and figure out where you're differentiated.For myself, even though CFO is probably the more traditional path to getting to CEO, my financial skills are mediocre at best. It was interesting being at business school, where I was pretty average in terms of finance, but things like marketing and strategy were really where I excelled and was able to differentiate myself. I always knew marketing was quite a better place for me to play because you want to play with your strengths.Edward: You left line roles after business school to join McKinsey. McKinsey is known for, among other things, doing a lot of PowerPoint presentations. How did that experience affect your later marketing career?Matt: I think what's interesting is, I really enjoyed wanting these different brands, but at the same time, it oftentimes is very micro. I wanted to take a position where you're taking a look at the company holistically and thinking about resource allocation, cross-functionally, not just within the confines of a single brand, and you're making a different set of strategic decisions. I think what was great about the McKinsey experience was it really teaches you how to think strategically, teaches you how to problem solve, and a lot of ways teaches you how to communicate.We talk about PowerPoint. PowerPoint is just a vehicle. When I work with my team, I'm a big fan of written documents. I don't care if it's Word. I don't care if it's PowerPoint. I don't care about email, but what I've always found is that anything written down ends up getting shared more broadly and also really makes people think. They have to think about what they're going to write down and you end up getting a better response. I've spent time at companies where the written word wasn't as big. It was more just about talking and people walked out of a meeting with a completely different view of what was accomplished versus everybody's lined up around a piece of paper, saying I agree with these words. You've got a lot more alignments.Edward: Amazon argues that you should do that on a Word document rather than a PowerPoint document. Do you have a strong opinion on that?Matt: I definitely use both. I think it depends on the kind of presentation you're doing. I had started moving probably more to a Word document for a pre-read than on the PowerPoint. What I find with PowerPoint is if you're making a bigger presentation, where you're projecting, I think PowerPoint is a lot more effective. The thing that I honestly also really like with PowerPoint is, I was always a big exec sum guy, and you can almost do the entire presentation off of the executive summary. But really, the executive summary is almost just a Word document.Most people don't want to go through all these pieces. When I was a consultant when I moved in and now I had consultants present to me, I'm like everybody else. Who wants to go through a 50-page PowerPoint presentation? You want to go through just a few key pages that are really critical and you want to have a conversation drive some decisions.Edward: After McKinsey, you focused on sales enablement at American Express. I often see a tension between marketing and sales organizations. Was that your experience?Matt: Absolutely. It's been interesting, some of the organizations I've come into where marketing and sales are just completely apart. The word I'd often use is there's contempt between the two organizations. Marketing is off in their silo working on brands, and sales up doing their thing thinking marketing's not helping them at all. I do think as a marketer, you need to take a step back, swallow your ego a little bit, and understand that you need to be customer-backed. Now, this depends very much on the category. I know we're going to talk about the last thing which is really direct-to-consumer, but when you're an organization that's more B2B, your salespeople are really your best channel, really your most effective channel. Instead of thinking about sales as a separate organization, think about sales as one more channel that you need to work with. Really getting the sales team running and working closely with marketing, you get a huge multiplier effect across those enterprises.Edward: How do you do that? How do you get sales and marketing working so well together that they feel like they're on the same team?Matt: What's interesting at Brighthouse is the sales guys are really, really started getting along marketing. What's interesting is when they're recruiting, salespeople say, marketing's our secret weapon. They would actually talk about marketing to go higher. I think the big thing for marketing is your job is to drive sales productivity. When they understand that all you're trying to do is candidly help them make more money, they are on board.  Where we're very successful was launching pilots with sales and then putting it up in front. I always give an example and oftentimes, it's small tactics that work. Trigger-based emails. I talked a bit about how important the CRM is but one of the things that we did was build trigger-based email campaigns. I've never met the kind of guy who's going to say, you have to do this. Instead, I'm going to find a portion of the sales organization that is going to embrace what we're trying to do. We found a group of salespeople who are open. What we found when we did the test and measure was that those people using trigger-based campaigns were selling a lot more than those who didn't. Whenever we have the national sales meeting, I would get up and say, here are three different tactics. We actually put the sales organization in quartiles, those who used this the most versus those who used it the least. You can see those using the most made more money than those who didn't. You find pretty quickly that the sales organization starts embracing what you're doing. You really need to build, test, learn, create that case for a change, and then you go sell it through.Edward: Matt, what were your biggest failure points in your career? Where did things not go as expected?Matt: Much of those moments came oftentimes from external activity, where something happens to you that you're not expecting. When I was at American Express, I was in a strategy role. My leader left. They left the company. When that happened, they decided to shut down our organization. They said you know what? We've built this around the leader. The leader is gone. You guys are all going to be displaced. We got to go find new jobs in American Express. It's one of the things you're not expecting. I think my wife was pregnant at the time. You feel like you're doing good work. Really, what it made me reflect on was the importance of both your network, but also managing your career. A phrase my father-in-law would use was managing your career is as easy as PIE. PIE stands for performance, image, and exposure.Your performance can be great but if you don't have broad exposure across the rest of the organization, you leave yourself in a situation where one person leads, or some situation happens where you're not going to be in a good role. The team that AmEx had done good enough work that we had three offers that day going to a new role. Now, as part of the way we ended up in the sales enablement team. Part of the reason I talk about the team is that some people at AmEx are still working with me 10 years later. Really, what you want to do is you want to build a really good team of folk you work with.Edward: Matt, what are your productivity tricks? What do you do to be productive that most people don't do?Matt: For me, I spend less time thinking about my own productivity and more time thinking about the team's productivity. I think as you get more senior in your career, [...] start getting these organizations that are 100 plus, your productivity is pretty small compared to all those people you have working for you. I really think about three things and it's interesting, but it's very much from prioritization, consistency, and culture. What I've used to great success is OKRs. You're probably familiar with OKRs but laying out the OKRs, the objectives, and key results for people, it really helps people understand what you're prioritizing and what they should prioritize, so they're not wasting motion someplace else.Then, I use the word ‘consistency' a lot, and that is both strategic consistency and emotional consistency. What's interesting is, you can really whipsaw your team even inadvertently, like coming up with different ideas, and you need to let people finish things through. The worst thing for anybody is when they start-stop-start-stop. I remember a lot of times when I was a junior in my career somebody walking into my cube saying hey, we need to do the analysis on what happened in Florida with the hurricane. Your whole day is burned and shot. It's hard to get to those basic strategic objectives.The other thing is just emotional consistency. What's interesting is you hear from people, we didn't want to talk to so and so because we're worried they weren't in a good mood. When people feel safe and secure, and they're not worried about whether or not the boss is in a good mood, it really allows them to go thrive. That last piece then starts playing into culture as well.Edward: This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. We're going to continue this tomorrow with a dive into your experience at Bask Bank. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

ALPS Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Matt Sims, co-founder of Standpoint Decision Support Inc. to discuss risk assessment and some new technology that is helping lawyers maximize billable hours, save time, and reduce risks to their practice. Transcript:   MARK BASSINGTHWAIGHTE: Good morning. It is a beautiful day here in Big Sky Country. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager with ALPS and welcome to the latest episode of ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. Today I am very pleased to have as my guest Matt Sims, and Matt is a co-founder with a company called Stand Point Decisions. MARK:                And Matt and I met not too long ago up in Vancouver, at an ABA conference. And we just got to talking about risk management. And Matt has a really gone in a very, very interesting direction. So today we're going to be talking about risk management, Stand Point and a few other things. Before we jump into this, Matt, can I have you take a few minutes and just fill our listeners in, in terms of your background? MATT SIMS:          Yeah, certainly. Well, thanks. Thanks very much for having me on the podcast today, Mark. Really appreciate it. And yeah, so Stand Point and where did we come from? We've been ... there's two of us, Steve Wilson, Dr. Steve Wilson and myself, and we've been working together for just over 10 years. And Stand Point is sort of a coming together of two worlds. MATT: One is Steve's world of quantitative data analysis, and he's got a Ph.D. in quantitative data analysis, and approached me one day about 10 years ago and said, "Hey, I'm seeing some other applications for the work that I do." And he wanted to get together with somebody who had some of the business side and the marketing and communication side of things. MATT: And so we teamed up and our very first customer was the Law Society of BC here in British Columbia where we're based. And we knew nothing about the area of law or regulation, but this was our first contract. And lo and behold, 10 years later, it seems that we found ourselves a bit of a niche. Because we've only ever worked with those in the legal profession, and primarily legal regulators up to this point. So, kind of an accident that we fell into this space. But that's how we are. And 10 years later we're still at it. MARK:  Fascinating, fascinating. And what are the backgrounds ... You've shared a little bit about Steve, what's your background here? MATT: Yeah, my background has primarily been in technology. So I've worked for a number of large technology firms, everything from network services to hardware. And then over the last 10 years, I got into the software development space, and my focus has primarily been on management operations, and then definitely in the sales and marketing aspects of it as well. MARK:  Okay. All right. And can we talk a little bit about, what are the problems that Stand Point really is trying to solve? I think both historically and where we're at 10 years down the road now. MATT: Yeah. Yeah. So 10 years ago, the problems we got into starting to solve, were really not much different than the problems many of these same organizations have today. Which is, we've got a bunch of data on hand. We have some strategic decisions or policy decisions to make, and we need to somehow inform these decisions with the data that we have. And sometimes that's a bit of a daunting task, especially in today's world when there's just so much data. MATT: You know, you've got spreadsheets, you've got experts in the room who have inputs on things. And so, basically, we were trying to pull together all of these various sources of data and people and help them solve problems. And some of the earlier problems were trying to understand complaint data. That was the big one. So regulators are usually the receiver of complaints from the public. MATT: And if there's an issue with a lawyer, and they wanted to try and understand, what are the root causes of these complaints, and is there a way to, using analytics, to get ahead of them a little bit? And proactively get out there and try and deliver resources that can help to bring those complaints down. MATT: So yeah, the early days we're looking at complaint data. We've looked at program data to see if certain courses or programs are being effective in what they hope they might do. And then of late, we've been getting into self-assessments. And so, trying to understand how lawyers are self-assessing themselves against a model of professionalism. MARK:  Yeah. And that's where you and I really got into some interesting conversations. And so, how does the platform ... How have you moved past Stand Point and gotten into this consulting piece, the lawyer self-evaluation? Can you describe where we're going with that? MATT: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the first five or six years, we were just primarily doing one-off consulting projects, doing data analysis on those. And then at one point we thought, "You know, we've got a lot of experience here. We really now understand that the typical types of datasets that regulators and legal organizations are using. And we understand a lot of the problems they're trying to solve with that data. MATT: So what happens if we put that onto a platform and try to automate some of the analysis and the reporting so that we could deliver solutions faster to our customers, and also solutions that were more scalable?" Because when you're a consultant, you're only as good as you can run, as fast as you can run. But when you embed some of that knowledge into a platform, now you can scale it up. MATT: And so that's how we transitioned from just pure consulting and professional services into more of a platform. And then our very first customer on that platform was the Colorado Supreme Court, which was rolling out a voluntary self-assessment program to the lawyers of the state of Colorado. And so that's where we got our start about three years ago now with the platform itself. MARK:  And if this is Avvy Pro that we're talking about, or that's the next step? MATT: That's right. No, Avvy Pro is the name of the platform, yeah. MARK:  Okay. And you know, when I think about ... Matt, for many years as you're aware, I've done a lot of personal consulting if you will, going in and visiting law firms all over the country. And doing what we would call risk visits, and have been in literally well over 1200 firms now over the years. MARK:  But we got to a point ... You see, this is a very expensive service. It really is. To do it one firm at a time sending somebody out in terms of the travel, it just, it doesn't scale up very well. And what I like about what you're doing is, you're taking this much, much further, and can take the risk management processes that I've been doing over the years, and bring it to the masses. MARK:  That said, there are all kinds of products in the marketplace. In terms of even just Cloud-based case management systems, in and of them of themselves, they can be from an insurance perspective, a very effective risk management tool. What is the value of Avvy Pro, how do you see this defining yourself? What's the niche here that you're going after? MATT: Yeah, no, that's a good question. And you know, I think it's squarely in the same camp that you've been working on for all these years, Mark, which is risk reduction. MARK:  Okay. MATT: And we've looked at multiple the types of value that the program provides. So one of the things the platform can provide for a lawyer is a fast way to determine what CPD, at first, they want to look at for the year. So doing a self-assessment results in a report that actually gives you your areas of priority, and it can even start to serve up some of the CLE resources that you might want to get into. MATT: So we see it as a time saver for lawyers. And we know that lawyers are very focused on saving time because they need to maximize the billable hours. And so the time savings is one thing, but at the end of it all, it always seems to come back to risk. Right? And how can we reduce risk to a practice, whether that's for a firm or for an individual attorney? MATT: And so at the end of the day, that's what we're delivering to lawyers and firms out there is a reduction in risk. And it's quantifiable, in the sense that there was the study out of New South Wales from the University of Melbourne, where they looked at a group of lawyers who took a professional self-assessment. And they studied this group of lawyers over a period of time, and they found that those lawyers had a 60% less chance of receiving a complaint than the lawyers in the group who hadn't taken the self-assessment. And so this has become the genesis of a lot of these PMBR activities from some of the regulators across the country and has really shown the light on the fact that you can reduce risks to your practice and into your firm immediately just by doing a self-assessment. MATT: And the interesting thing, Mark, is that it's not necessarily got to do with the scores you give yourself. In other words, whether you score high or low on your self-assessment, it doesn't really matter. It's just the process of going through that, which increases self-awareness and changes behavior. And the numbers show that you have a much less likely a chance of having a complaint if you've done one of these self-assessments. So, that's really the core value of what we're trying to do. MARK:  Well, that's really interesting. What I'm thinking about as you share this, is sort of how cybersecurity education is evolving. And as you're well aware, I'm sure, the weak link in cybersecurity is the users in any law firm, any business, just due to social engineering. And there are some similar studies there that if you educate, appropriate behaviors or more responsible behaviors occur early on in the process. But it drops off over time. MARK:  So I guess, sort of thinking about that, if I become a user of Avvy Pro, do I have the ability to, I don't know, keep this fresh in front of me? Is this kind of like a one-off, once and done thing, or is it something I can come back to over time, share with others in my firm? See where I'm going in terms of ... What's the model? I'm just trying to understand the model. MATT: Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And so yeah, even though there is a one-off benefit to taking a self-assessment, you're absolutely right that there is a tail off of that benefit over time. And so the idea is that you revisit this, right? And the whole idea of self-assessing too is so that you can establish a benchmark for yourself. And ultimately, what you want to be able to do is move that mark forward, right? You want to have a continuous improvement cycle happening year over year as a professional. MATT: Because the self-assessment I took five years ago shouldn't be where I am today as a professional. I mean, we always want to continue to improve. And so the idea would be to revisit your self-assessment every six months, every year. MATT: What the right interval is, we're not exactly sure. But we do know that coming back to it and reassessing is definitely a way of refreshing on this. And then, what happens is you reset some of your benchmarks and your scores, and then the CLE resources that the platform provides change up based on what your priorities are this year. Because they might be different from last year, right? MATT: So yeah, continuous improvement is something that definitely needs to be looked at. And we actually did a study with a regulator on one of their programs. They had a small firm course that they put out, and they just didn't know if it was helping. And so we analyze some of the data on the lawyers who had taken that course, and it was similar to the self-assessment. MATT: Whereas they had seen an immediate value, but we had a five year study period and the tail off was very evident in the numbers. That the benefit of that program had reduced over those five years. So the whole message is, yeah, you've got to keep at it. You can't just stop. It's not like exercising, right? You don't go to the gym once or twice and then you're done. You've got to keep going back. MARK:  Again, just to be clear for our listeners, you've talked about going in, doing a self-assessment, getting a score, and awareness can make a real difference. I assume that there's more to this than just sort of scoring yourself. That if I do get a low score, perhaps in, I don't know, client intake or calendaring or something like this, and I assume these are the types of procedures that you're looking at. Are there resources? MARK:  I mean, what's the ultimate benefit to me if I become a client and get in, and go through this evaluation? What do I get for the effort? MATT: Right. And so yeah, you've nailed something there, interesting. Because one of the things we observed over the years is that there is no shortage of information available to lawyers out there. I mean there's websites and PDFs and courses, and there are so many resources available. What we saw was, typically the problem is that people don't know where to start. So they think they might need help in communications, for example, or calendaring or client intake like you said. But trying to go through and weed through and find the right resources is sometimes a bit of and challenge, and a time-consuming effort. MARK:  Yes, I can relate to this. MATT: Yeah, so what we are trying to do is make that jump between that gap between my self-assessment and the resources that are available to me out there. And so what we've done is, again, we take that self-assessment and let's say you score yourself low on calendaring. The platform takes that low score on calendaring and then matches that, algorithmically, to the available resources in the platform library. MATT: And so the resources in the library are tagged according to their content. And so, your self-assessment will pull up a bunch of calendaring resources. Maybe it's a YouTube video, maybe it's a course, maybe it's a quick blog post from somebody on calendaring. But it will serve you the resources that are most applicable to the needs you've identified, which we think really starts to, again, save time for lawyers so that they're not out there Google searching their way around, trying to find things. MARK:  Right. And in my mind, this is what really differentiates you from a lot of other types of platforms and systems, procedures, products available for lawyers to help in their practice. This goes in a completely different direction. I really like the idea. Again, this is risk management for the masses in terms of really scaling it up, so that any lawyer can ... Or I assume from an administrator or whoever wants access to this within a law firm can sign up. Very, very good. MARK:  What's the future? Where do you see this going, short term and long term? MATT: Well, short term we're just trying to get the platform exposed to as many jurisdictions as possible. So we've got some good conversations happening out there right now with a bunch of areas. Typically, we have delivered the platform through a legal organization as opposed to direct to lawyers. And so it's been delivered by a regulator or a bar association. Or potentially an insurer like yourself. MATT: And then yeah, future, we've got lots of other ideas around the platform and how we can improve efficiency. And again, basically, reduce risk and save time for lawyers. One of the things we've been looking at, which we're really kind of curious about, is whether we can improve the CLE accreditation process, and collecting credits and submitting them to your regulator. Because as you know, lawyers need to need to have their number of credits every year. And it's different for every jurisdiction. MATT: And there's this ... If you look at the way the credits go, the regulator has the bag of credits, and they assign or permit certain service providers or education providers to give those credits out to lawyers who have come in and taken their courses. Right? MARK:  Right. MATT: And then the lawyers take those credits and then what do they do? They give them right back to the regulator at some point and say, "I got my 10 credits for the year, I got my 20 credits for the year." MATT: Well, I was looking at that and I thought, "This is like a currency system, right?" It's basically a currency that comes from the regulator to the CLE provider, and then to the lawyer and then back to the regulator, and the regulator being the central bank. And so I've got some background in the blockchain space, and I looked at this and I thought, this is a solution, or the blockchain is a solution to taking that manual process of affidavits and sending PDFs, and yes, I was in that course on this date. And digitizing it with a token, a digital token. And so, one of the things we want to be able to do is say, okay, if you come into Avvy Pro, you do your self-assessment, you consume some resources which are CLE accredited. Let's make that real easy for you to get that credit from your regulator. And so that's their future vision, is to try and take this thing and then add on functionality. MARK:  Yeah, I am loving this. Because over the years, trying to keep the manual sending stuff in and the states, if they're different, it's just a headache. But that's solving a good problem. I like that. Matt, it's really ... I so enjoy visiting with you and learning about all that's going on here. If any of our folks in the listening audience would like any additional information about Stand Point or Avvy Pro, is there a way they might be able to contact you? MATT: Yeah, certainly. So, individual lawyers who are curious about the platform and would like to try and take the self-assessment themselves can go to avvy.pro. And so that's A-V-V-Y dot pro, and they can jump in there and try it out, and have a look at what it delivers. And standpointdecisions.com is the professional service's website. And that would be for organizations, firms, bars, and regulators who'd be interested in finding out more about the work that we've done in the past. MARK:  Yes. Yeah. And I assume you are interested, if a state wanted to look at doing something like this, similar to the colorized supreme court model that you share, I assume that that's something you guys are still looking at as well. This isn't all about moving into just the individual lawyer space. Am I correct about that? MATT: Absolutely. Yeah. No, absolutely. It all usually starts with the jurisdiction itself. And then they deliver access to the platform to their lawyers. MARK:  Got It. Very good. Well, thank you. I appreciate your taking the time to visit. It's always a pleasure. And to all of you listening, I hope you found something of value today and if you have any thoughts about folks you'd like to hear from in the future or a topic you'd like to hear discussed, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. You can reach me at mbass@alpsnet.com again, mbass@alpsnet.com. Thanks for listening folks. Have a good one. Bye-bye.      

There are two types of businesses - those that have been hacked and those that don't know they've been hacked. This may sound like hyperbole, but it's fairly accurate and many of those businesses are law firms. So you may ask yourself, how do I protect my law firm from a hack? Mark sits down with ALPS Director of Client Services, Matt Lubaroff, to discuss how ALPS has improved ALPS Cyber Response, our first-to-market cyber policy available exclusively to our legal malpractice insurance policyholders and designed to stay ahead of emerging cyber threats. ALPS In Brief, The ALPS Risk Management Podcast, is hosted by ALPS Risk Manager, Mark Bassingthwaighte. Transcript: MARK: Welcome to another episode of ALPS In Brief. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager at ALPS, and we're recording here at the historic Florence Building in Missoula, Montana. I'm very pleased to have as our guest today Matt Lubaroff, the Director of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service here, and today we're going to talk a little bit about cyber insurance. Matt, in terms of over the years of my experiences consulting with lawyers, conducting risk visits and these kinds of things, it's somewhat common for lawyers to have this belief that we're not big enough in terms of our firm, in terms of size. We're not going to be on the radar of hackers and these kinds of things. I guess, would you agree or do they face a problem that they really need to be concerned about? Do you have some thoughts on that? MATT:  Yeah. Thanks, Mark. I would not agree. Maybe 10 or 15 years ago, it was probably the case because hacking was new. We didn't know what ransomware was. We didn't know what clicking on click links were and how that impacted us. But it's evolved into probably one of the most sophisticated industries out there, where some of the best technological minds unfortunately are using their skills for evil and not for good. So it really becomes a matter of when any business, but specifically law firms, will get hacked. Not a matter of if. MARK:  Yeah. I love ... there's a ... the FBI has put all kinds of information out there, but for law firms and businesses in general, and there's a great quote from one of the FBI guys. It's been maybe a year or so, but he basically said there's two types of corporations in the world. Those that have been hacked and those that don't know they've been hacked. MATT:  Yeah. It's accurate. We all click on things, and go, oh, I didn't mean to do that. But it's a little too late at that point. MARK: Well, and I absolutely agree with you, in terms of regardless of size, that law firms have a significant risk. Can we talk a little bit about solutions. What kind of solutions can we bring to the table and help with here? MATT:  Well, there's really two types of solutions that I suggest. One, of course, is insurance. Lawyers are trained in ways to manage their own risk. They go to law school not just to learn the substance of law and how to provide services to the community, but they also spend a lot of time in risk management techniques. They build practices that are successful. They build practices that help in our community, and the majority of lawyers out there are purchasing malpractice insurance in case a client sues them. But not enough lawyers and not enough law firms are buying cyber insurance. One way to prevent something is to purchase a product that will protect you should something happen. Because accidents do happen. The other one that's probably just as important is training. Employee training. Some of that comes from understanding, is how to prevent a hack. What are systems, both technical and people-wise, that you can put in place to make sure that you are up to speed with techniques that will prevent that hack from happening in the first place. MARK:  Right. A lot of what I do ... I try to talk, whether it's again consulting or lecturing, I try to talk about the necessity of, if you will, securing the human. Now that certainly is frontline defense. But this other piece of the insurance is absolutely essential and necessary, because again, it just ... a naïve, innocent misstep, clicking on the wrong link, opening the wrong file or attachment or these kinds of things can lead to just devastating consequences. Now for some time, ALPS has brought to the table, if you will, for our insureds, a basis cyber insurance policy, but we are just launching now a new product. Can you explain and share where we're going with this type of coverage? MATT:  Yeah, Mark. Happy to do so. We've tried to also adapt with the times. We've had the cyber policy available to our law firms for low per lawyer cost and lower limits for several years now. As our hackers have become more and more sophisticated ... we're all familiar with malware and ransomware that have become more and more popular, both on TV shows or in just the unfortunate press of everyday life. We've increased that coverage to provide more of that protection. Also expanded the liability coverage to handle really three different ways of providing the coverage. MARK:  Interesting. MATT:  There's one set of limits is available for that indemnity or kind of make yourself whole. So if you get hacked and there's a cost to you as a law firm, there's one aspect of the policy that provides that coverage. But there's two other towers or layers of coverage that we've included in the new policy that are just as important, if not more important. One is that prevention. The response to the hack or to the privacy breach. We need to figure how it happened, where it is within your computer systems and how to prevent it from happening again. MARK:  This is dealing with some of the forensic teams that come in and the costs associated with that. MATT:  Yes. MARK:  Right, okay. MATT:  The third one is ... I think you were telling me in an earlier conversation that 47 of the 50 states have- MARK:  Breach notification. MATT:  ... breach notification laws and requirements. MARK:  Right, right, right. MATT:  And so there's an available limit of liability should there be some notification requirements within that breach. MARK:  Yes, which can be very, very costly. A lot of people don't understand what did these regulations mean? For example, it's not in terms of the breach notification regulations that you're subject to. It's not where the breach occurred. It's where anybody impacted by the breach resides. When you think about law firms that have clients and all kinds of other people in their databases that cross these borders, this can get costly quickly. It sounds like we've got a wonderful product here at- MATT:  Yeah. The thing is, is these are very complicated situations. MARK:  Yes. MATT:  Let's just take the situation where a firm has ransomware. Ransomware is defined as your data is now encrypted, and the only way for you to get back your data realistically is to pay the ransom. If you think of how a typical cyber policy might respond is you have a payment of ransom. That's cyber extortion. You have the forensic investigation which is that breach response, that second tower, so to speak. Then there's the expense to restore the data from the backup that hopefully you have. That's data protection. Then you've got a loss of business. There are hospitals, stories of businesses that have had to shut down completely because what they need they can't get to. So that's network business interruption. Then you have the response, to your point, to the regulatory inquiries. You need an expert to navigate through that. You don't want to do it poorly. You don't want to do it too quickly, but you have to make sure that you follow the letter of the regulatory laws. And then you have these individual third party claims where it wasn't your data. It was somebody else's data that maybe you're in care or control of, and that third party, that other group, has been impacted by that data being stolen or lost, and there's susceptibility for claims there. MARK:  Okay, wow! You convinced me when I started to think through all of these different exposures and you think at times initially, oh, I get hacked and you just bring ... this is pretty complex stuff and spins out in all kinds of directions. I love it. You convinced me, and I hope many of the folks listening to us, of the value and need for a product like this. Can you share a little bit about okay, I'm an ALPS insured. How do I get this? What are my options? How do I go through this process? MATT:  Well, one of the things that we've aimed to do is make it as easy as possible for you. When you have your quote, when you're accepting your ALPS policy- MARK:  We're talking about the quote for the legal malpractice coverage. MATT:  Yes. MARK: Okay. MATT:  When you're being quoted or accepting your lawyer's malpractice insurance, you automatically have the ability, with no application, to accept our low limit, low cost charge per the attorney, right around $50. You don't need an application. Just accept it, sign, pay- MARK:  That makes it pretty easy. Yeah, wow!. MATT:  ... done. We have some different limits- MARK:  Nice. MATT:  ... based on the firm size, but there's no extra effort required. We also are very, very happy to offer limits up to a million dollars, which if you think of the susceptibility of data and how quickly things can happen and spiral out of control, the ability to secure your data and have response services available to you for up to a million dollars of limits is also important. There's no application required. However, we do have some risk management suggestions that we can help you put in place to make sure that there's no ... we can continue to proceed, get you those limits, protect your law firm. They're a little bit more expensive. We have some minimum premiums and higher per attorney costs, but what I can say without any concern is that it's the easiest process, the lowest cost, and I'd argue, probably the best policy out there in the marketplace. MARK:  Yeah, yeah. And it's my understanding this policy's the first out there to be designed, written intentionally, or directed at law firms. Am I correct about that? MATT:  You are correct. We've partnered with Beazley, United States and Beazley London, who's probably the leader in this space as it is anyway. MARK:  Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. MATT:  And they worked with us to provide a custom form, custom policy and custom process specifically for the ALPS lawyers book. MARK:  Yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate your sharing all this, Matt. From my perspective as a risk guy, and just an individual living in this crazy world, this is a screaming deal, as I see it. Personally, I'm not trying to tell everybody to go out and buy these policies in the sense ... but how can you afford not to do this? When you look at the frequency of the attacks, the severity of these kinds of attacks, and it seems like you guys have really done a great job of putting a fantastic policy together that covers all these things. We've made it as easy possible. Just wow! Well done. Job well done. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap this up, Matt? Anything else you'd like to share? MATT:  Yeah, I would just encourage folks to talk to their account manager if they're an insured, if they're in the process of applying with any type of insurance, specifically lawyer's insurance. Make sure they're asking about this. It's really a shame. It's unfair when businesses or law firms get hacked. It's scary because there's people out there smarter than us that are coming up with ways more devious than we could ever imagine to get access to that data, and we all deserve to have our data protected. We all deserve to have experts by our side who are helping us prevent it and walk alongside that path to recover, should a hack happen. MARK:  And a closing thought that I would have, just as, again, coming at it from the risk perspective, is we are charged with protecting the confidences of our clients. I just think even as a consumer ... you and I suspect, in terms of just statistically, are victims of the Equifax breach. I have some feelings about Equifax that are not the most positive things right now. I just encourage all of you listening out there to appreciate, too. If you ever are breached and don't have this type of insurance out there and can deal with this in a responsible way, how do you think your clients are going to respond? I just invite you to look at it from that perspective, too. It's another way to come back and say I just don't understand how you can afford not to do this. How you get to that point. Well listen, Matt, as always it's been a pleasure. Thank you-

I'm excited to release this interview with Jason Calacanis during the launch of his new book, Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups-Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000. I've been a super fan of Jason since coming across his show This week in Startups when he produced it on set with black curtain backdrops and large wooden dining room tables. A lot of people give GaryVee credit for the foresight of thinking like a media company — but Jason got to it first. Behind the bravado is a kid from Brooklyn that worked his tail off to get to where he's at, challenged with lessons of success & failure weaved into the fabric of his story. Today, Jason leads Inside.com with the same burning passion to take on the big platforms as he did with his first startup, Silicon Alley Reporter.  Sit back and enjoy this episode with Jason, as he walks us through the mind of an angel investor and how to start thinking scale in your small software business. Listen the episode Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners How to find an angel investor for small startups w/ Jason Calacanis Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:44:23 Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:44:23 Interview transcript Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Matt Report season five. We're winding down season five. In fact, folks who were listening, now you should have heard the last episode of season five. But I get a bonus episode with one of my favorite people on the internet, Jason Calacanis. Jason, welcome to the program. Jason C.: Hey, thanks for having me. Matt: Creator of Weblogs, Inc sold to AOL. Early investors in Uber, Thumbtack, created a company called Mahalo and fought Google at every turn and corner. Created another company that I originally found you through is This Week In, the sort of all the YouTube stuff and live video stuff you were doing. Now you're running Inside.com, news and entertainment delivered via email. I am a huge fan of that as well. You run LAUNCH Incubator and events, and now you've written the book, the book of angels as it were. It's angels- Jason C.: Yes, of angels. I like that. Matt: Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned 100 grand into 100 million buckaroos. Jason, welcome to the program again. Did I miss anything? Jason C.: It's- Matt: I probably did. Jason C.: Probably. Well yeah, it's one of the great things about history is like people only remember the victories if you have them. Then they forget all the losses. But you brought up Mahalo, so that was great, my PTSD started triggering. Mahalo, we basically pivoted into Inside.com, so the story ended up well. But we're working like dogs, get a return for those Mahalo investors. I never give up. It's one of my either charming or stupid qualities depending on the situation that I never give up. Matt: Obviously, want to talk about the book. For me, I'm not a super heavy book reader. I got it, I got an early copy. I did a little Jason Calacanis of my own, I just contacted your publishers. I sort of worked my way in through the backdoor and I said, “Hey, I'd love to talk to this guy.” Jason C.: Hustle. Matt: I definitely want to talk about the book, but real quick. This Week In network, I mean god, you had This Week In Web Design, of course This Week In Startups. You had I think This Week In Movies as well. Do you think that you were just so early, like the technology wasn't there? Jason C.: Yeah, for sure. What we did was we tried to do a network of shows seven years ago. It was a little experiment. Me and a couple of my friends put 100k in each. We got to the point where it was making some money and there were two breakout shows, Kevin Pollak's Chat Show and This Week In Startups. All the other shows, we were trying to groom talent. We had people like Mark Suster doing This Week In Venture Capital. Then we had other people doing This Week In Movies. We did a Mad Men recap show long before things like Talking Dead. We kinda pioneered that space of doing a show right after. We had a lot of, I would say, early signs of success. Maybe we should've stuck with it. But I came to this great realization, which was the more important, the more powerful, the more networks, the more credible the hosts, like Kevin Pollak, Mark Suster, myself, the greater the chance of success. If it was an emerging host, it probably had very little chance of success. We were able to get an unlimited supply of emerging talent to host a podcast. But none of them were breaking out. It probably would've taken us three or four years of trying to get them to break out. We had somebody named Dave Pensado doing Pensado's Place and he was awesome too. But all those people had in common that they didn't really need us because it's so easy to create a podcast that if you're a rich powerful person, or not even rich. If you just have 500 to let's say $2,000 to produce an episode, you can just do it yourself and not have a boss, not be part of a network. We kept having people who would just call in rich, like Mark Suster's like, “Yeah, I can't do it for the next year. I gotta raise a fund. I got things to do.” I just had this realization that all the great podcasters would be independent and I was right. If you look, Leo Laporte stayed independent, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Adam Carolla. All these people have become independent, let's call it $1 million to $10 million enterprises. I think probably Leo and Joe Rogan are above 5 million. They have this like, call it $2 to $5 million space like This Week In Startups, and maybe Sam Harris, and maybe Adam Carolla. In other words, it's enough money for those people to love doing it and not to need to have anybody as their boss. So all those people who are trying to making podcasting networks have had a hard go of it. Even Leo, who's got a lot of great shows, but he's had a hard time keeping talent on the network because they go have a life event. They get married. They go have kids and want to do something else. It's just hard to be a manager of talent like that. I mean Sirius XM is doing a good job of it, but they have this like huge bankroll. So I think podcasting is this very unique space because you don't need somebody. If you go down that list, all these like podcasting companies, they don't really … Malcolm Gladwell doesn't need the podcasting company in other words. He can just do it himself. If he does it with a podcasting company, it's probably because they're overpaying him. Matt: These shows, these either networks or these individual shows that somebody's running, they become massive platforms and catalysts to sell all their either goods and services or maybe even in your world, you get the advertising, you do a million bucks a year. You pay your staff, whatever. But it's also it connects you with so many people at the same time. It makes you become the [crosstalk 00:05:39]- Jason C.: My view on podcasting when I heard about it from Dave Winer and the pod father, Adam Curry when they were teaching me about it. I was like okay, I'm just gonna record two conversations from lunches I had in a week, and then all of a sudden it turned into we're about to hit 800 episodes for This Week in Startups. It just turned out to be a networking thing for me. Then all of a sudden, it started making money and getting 150,000 downloads in episodes. So it's a pretty big audience now and it's a great way for me to find founders to invest in. Matt: If people are listening to that and they're like, “All right, that's it. I'm gonna go start my podcast.” Folks, it's still a slog. It's still some hard work. It doesn't come that easy. I know. I'm only at maybe 300 episodes and man, some days it can be super draining to keep this stuff going. Let's just talk about the book. The structure of this book, for a dullard like myself who doesn't like to read, it is … I mean you say in sort of the winding chapters that this is the playbook. This is your decade plus of experiences sort of all put into this one book. I love the framework was I mean was that your idea? Or when you get to a publisher, they say, “Look, that's a complicated topic. We need to sort of piecemeal this for people reading it.” It's not all this hoopla and sort of Zen like stuff. This is the real deal. Jason C.: Yeah. The pitch was interesting. I've had a very famous book agent for a decade. His name is John Brockman. He does something called Edge.org and he's got Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond, Sam Harris, had Marvin Minsky, just all the greatest authors that are out there, and Brian Greene, and then me. I would always get these like Blogging for Dummies, Podcasting for Dummies. Search engines, SEO for Dummies. They just wanted me to be the dummy author and it was always like chintzy. It was a couple of stories about my angel investing. People started to realize, “Oh, he's hit a unicorn. Oh, he hit a second unicorn. Oh, he hit three unicorns.” When that started to get released, the value of the portfolio started to get released and Wall Street Journal did a story on it, people were pinging my agent saying, “Hey, is he gonna write a book?” I just thought to myself everybody I meet, like the stupider or more inexperienced they are, the greater the chance they've written a book. So like people who have no life experience and nothing to share, they write books in order to become subject matter efforts. I just thought isn't that backwards? Like, shouldn't the books go to the subject matter experts? I just thought what am I a subject matter expert on? Like, I was a good entrepreneur. I'm not like an elite great entrepreneur, like folks I've invested in who have done much better than me. I was a good entrepreneur. But angel investing is something I have a lot of credibility on since I've done 150 investments now and now six of them have become unicorns. Another company today announced that they raised over a billion dollars making medal 3D printers called Desktop Metal, which I was an investor on the first round to fund it. Matt: Nice. Jason C.: I was like this is something I could do. Then I looked at it and I said how do you frame that? I could make something for angels, but really the book is about how wealth is created in the 21st century as opposed to how wealth was created in the 20th century. That's really what I'm going for and if you read the book, you realize it's not just for angel investors. It's for anybody who wants to know how many is gonna be made in the next century. Money and wealth is not created by real estate and being rich dad, poor dad, secret millionaire on the block, art of the deal. You're not gonna become rich through some deal making or real estate in all likelihood. That dream is over. That was a really good model when the white collar boom was happening. You could get a white collar job, marry somebody with a white collar job, bring peanut butter and jelly to lunch, and then just don't go out to dinner, take staycations. Matt: Right. Save, save, save. Jason C.: Save, save, save. Pay down your house. But at that time, when our parents bought their houses, my parents bought their brownstone in Brooklyn for I think $45,000. My mom was making as a nurse 40,000 and my dad was probably making 30,000 as a bartender. Their house was one less than one times their yearly income. Now if you live in New York, a brownstone's a million dollars, and most people are making, let's say they were, forget about blue collar, just white collar people. They're probably making 100 to 150k each, so let's just call it best case scenario, 300,000 a year. A brownstone in Brooklyn's a million dollars or $2 million depending on where in Brooklyn, so it's five times, seven times the household income. Forget about Manhattan or other places. In San Francisco, it's an even further joke. So the idea that you would have these two white collar people suffer and then hit this amazing real estate thing, then buy a second home, or leverage it into a second home, is kinda laughable. Also, people are graduating with what? At the same time, people's debt is growing, so there's educational debt. People coming out of school with 50, 150k each, so they have household debt of 150,000. Then what happens? Boom, you had  the $150,000 in debt, you're not paying for your mortgage until you're 35. In this book, I explain hey, if you can get on cap tables of high growth companies, specifically in Silicon Valley, because the hit rate there is so much better and the numbers are just, add a zero or two from any other market in terms of the scale of those companies, you could really hit a home run and move from poor to rich, from middle class to rich, from rich to ultra rich. That's really what I was trying to do there. My hope is that if 100,000 people buy the book, and 5 or 10% of them start angel investing, maybe 1,000 of them have this incredible, or 100 of them have this incredible result. If the other ones just are plus or minus 50% of their money, that's a fine outcome too. Angel investing is something that's becoming something that a lot more people can do. Matt: Yeah and I want to talk about that, but I also looked at this book of course for the folks who are listening, the WordPress product companies, hosting companies, people who are doing upwards of maybe a million bucks a year selling WordPress plugins. This is a great book to reverse engineer these frameworks, right? Jason C.: Of course. Matt: How does Jason go to look for founders? Now these founders out there I mean pick up the book just because now you can reverse engineer that and it structures so damn well that you just zero in right on the part where Jason's negotiating or setting up the interviews. I mean it's an amazing tool. Jason C.: Exactly correct. That is a very astute point. There's actually a cheaper in there for founders where I just say like, “If you're a founder and you bought this book to game the system, congratulations. You're smart. You smart mother effers, like I salute you. Then here's what you need to know about what angels are going through and how they make their decisions because they are human beings too who are trying to figure this out.” You're not trying to game them. What you want is to really be in sync. For the people making a million dollars a year, like basically either become angel investors or they could actually read the book and understand hey, this is what venture capitalists and angel investors are looking to do. How do you accelerate a million dollar, that wedge strategy of doing templates, and being a single person who makes a million dollars a year, and one person with a couple freelances makes a million? How do you add a zero to that revenue or two zeros? I think if you read the book, you'll have an idea of how things like that can scale. Matt: A little bit on that point, so a lot of folks who do do this, who are doing the WordPress thing, and they're selling some digital products, a lot of them are developers. They started coding in the basement. They upgraded to coding in the garage. Now they're in a coworking space, coding at the coworking space. They're not sort of the marketing type or the entrepreneurial type in the sense of I want to scale this thing. But what can be said about at least talking to maybe an angel investor? I mean are there some benefits to taking … a lot of these folks are just sort of gun-shy for taking money. Are there some benefits to it that you could sort of peg off for people who might be afraid? Jason C.: Yeah. If you have a cash producing business, let's say it's profitable in throwing off a $250,000 a year salary for you. That's pretty amazing. Consider yourself lucky. You can work from home. You control your schedule. You start bringing investors in, they are gonna be looking, an angel investor is gonna be looking typically for a 5 to 10x return. Not this angel investor. I'm looking for people who can do a 100 for 500. But really, 50 to 100 is probably what professional angels are hoping that some of their companies do. A regular angel might be looking for 5 or 10 times their money in seven years. Venture capitalists are trying to invest millions of dollars and maybe do 10x as well with an outside chance of 100 or 200x. So you know that about them and you are kinda lighting a fuse or hitting a starter pistol when you do take that money. So it's a very astute observation. Your life is gonna change. You're gonna have to send updates to them. They're gonna have questions. They're gonna give you money, but they're also, hopefully if they're connected, gonna give you credibility, and resources, and help you strategize about how to add that zero to your revenue. So that everybody involved, all stakeholders, your customers, your partners, your employees, yourself as the founder and the investors, win. That's what the cap table is all about, the capitalization table. So you have to create a cap table, sell them some shares, give your employees some shares and say, “Hey, we're all gonna go on this journey. The company has a million in revenue. We value out of 5 million. There's 5 million shares in the company. They're all worth a dollar. The investor just put in a half million dollars. They bought 10% of the company. They gave us 500,000. Let's deploy that $500,000 intelligently. We'll hire five sales people and give them $50,000 plus commission and hire two more developers. Now we got seven people cranking.” What the people who are your grinders and your audience, the people who know how to grind out and make a real business that people find value from, they typically have the great product sense and the great customer sense. But they don't have the scale sense, right? Or they don't have it yet. Matt: Right. Jason C.: What they have to do is study what they've learned, study their customers and say, “Hey, maybe the top 5% of our customers or top 10% have a need that we've learned about, that we can double or triple down.” If they looked at it and said, “You know what? We have these three customers out of 1,000 who are financial companies, and they keep asking for this set of features. Let's tell them that we're building that product and let's get them to pay $25,000 a month for that product.” That's what kinda pulling the string as an entrepreneur and learning about a market, that's what I respect about those grinders, the people who get to a million dollars in revenue. I just did my first cannabis investment. I wasn't expecting to do one until maybe California was legal and maybe two years from now when things were a little more sorted. But I found a company that's making a million dollars from advertising, and doing cannabis tourism, and doing cannabis magazines, and cannabis festivals. I was like okay, that's a good starting point. If they know how to make a million dollars from just traditional advertising, and events, and stuff like that, maybe they'll figure out some bigger business, and they have a bigger business in mind. So I love those scrappy entrepreneurs. Matt: Yeah. I see that come up a lot. Like, I see a lot of people who are scrappy, doing a million bucks a year, but then they see these ideas get funded for multi millions of dollars and they haven't made a nickel yet. Meanwhile, these people are making hand over fist, hundreds of thousand dollars in cash every single month. I mean is that attractive when a company's making money or does that signal like this is only as big as you're gonna get? Jason C.: Yeah. Matt: Like, we should maybe not invest in that. Jason C.: An amazing question. For some people, it is a signal, a negative signal. Like, these people think small. But for people who are in the know, like savvy people, they're gonna look at it and go, “That person built what we call a dude business, or a dudette business, which is dude makes a million dollars a year. Dude makes half a million dollars a year.” Those people are so smart. I have a friend, Phil Kaplan, who created a company called DistroKid, and previous he did Effed Company and a couple of other startups. He's really brilliant and he makes these companies like just himself and a bunch of freelancers, and they get to millions of dollars in revenue. If you can be lean like that, you're gonna learn stuff, and then there's a time to figure out, “Okay, I built MailChimp, or SurveyMonkey, or examples of companies built off revenue that all of a sudden started to scale.” In SurveyMonkey's case, they took investment and then I believe in MailChimp's case, they had 400 million in revenue, and they had never taken anybody's money. So both things can work. If you want to work with a group of elite investors, when you come with that million dollars, and explain your vision, and say, “Listen, we made a million dollars. It was quite nice. We can grow this business 20% a year for the next 10 years and we'll make $10 million.” That's awesome. “We want to build a billion dollar company. Here's the billion dollar opportunity and here's why we need $1.5 million for 15% of the company. We're gonna build it from here to hit these goals.” That seems pretty credible to me. If it hasn't grown for five years and it's just slowly growing, and you say, “We're gonna make this accelerate,” you have to have a good story. So is it, “Why hasn't it grown faster?” It might be that you just never had outbound sales. You add an outbound sales team and everything changes. So they would want you to test that theory and probably give you 500k to test it. Matt: Got it. Jason C.: But most people don't take enough risks. Out of that group of people who are making that million dollars a year, half million dollars a year, what they don't realize is they're so concerned to protect the nest egg, and their upper middle class lifestyle, or let's say affluent life style. Maybe not rich, they could stop working, but they kinda have a nice place in life. They don't want to risk it, which I understand. But what you have to realize is if you don't risk it now, there's no chance of outside success. If you go for an outside success and it fails, and you've built a million dollar business before, you're gonna be able to build another million dollar one. It's kinda like there's this kid who climbs Yosemite and other mountains without a rope, Alex Honnold, or whatever his name is. It's just like you watch these videos and you're like, “My god, please don't do that.” I don't recommend people climb mountains without ropes, but if you're climbing the startup mountain and you fall, it gives you more credibility, and you just get to start over at the bottom of the mountain again. You don't die. People have this idea that's if you fail in your startup, you're dead. No, you're more credible, you've learned something, and you get to play. You put another quarter in the machine, you get to play the video game again. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's obviously well said. I want to circle- Jason C.: Take more risk is my advice. Matt: Yeah and on that note, you mentioned something earlier about sort of they understand the scrappiness of creating the product, understanding the customer, and the love of building a business, right? That's why they did it. But they don't understand the scale factor. Is that what you would argue a good angel would come in and say, no pun intended I guess, but come in and say, “Hey look, we're gonna bless you with a … maybe point you in the right direction for an advisor, or building an advisory council,” or something like that? Does a good angel do that for their entrepreneurs or do you try to stay hands off and not really push them in a particular direction? Jason C.: It depends on what the founder wants. If the founder wants me involved, I get involved. If the founder doesn't need my help, I get less involved. I like to get a monthly update from the founder because it creates discipline with them to write the update. It takes them an hour to write the update, share the key metrics of the business, talk about the challenges, talk about the wins, talk about the losses, and how we might be able to help. If you have that discipline where you have your metrics dialed in and you write that update, and you send it to 10 investors, and say your management team, you can have like a really open dialogue. The companies that do that go a lot further because they maybe create a plan. If you have a plan to be successful and you execute the plan, you will be more successful. You might not succeed, but you will definitely be more successful. People who decide, “I'm gonna create a two year plan to grow my business from 1 million in year one to 3 million. In a year or two, I'm gonna go from 3 million to 9.” If they don't succeed at the plan and they hit 2 in 6, they will probably be further along than people without a plan. I'm a big fan of planning, and having people involved, and talking about the strategy, and paying attention to the data and the metrics. The great companies do that. Matt: I think you mentioned on a recent episode of your show that the folks who are shy or shy-ish of saying, “No, I'm gonna not give you that weekly or monthly update,” as sort of an indication to you that they're not taking their job seriously, or they might not be taking your relationship with handing them some cash seriously in that regard. Jason C.: Yeah, for sure. We definitely like to find people who are just serious about the business and want to do the business right. I think if you're gonna take angels, you need to look at, especially if you're in that zone of 500,000 to a million, a simple email to 10 different angels saying, “I have a business called blank. We make money by doing blank for blank. Here's a revenue chart, quarterly, monthly, week, whatever, and here's a link to our product demo.” Like, literally that's what? Less than five sentences. You all of a sudden get this massive … we click on the links, and we go check it out, and then we're gonna take the meeting. Most people write their life story and what they plan on doing, the talkers, the tourists. What I love about your audience is they're not talkers and tourists. They're people who have actually built real businesses and they just maybe haven't built the business that is designed to be a billion dollar business. But if you can build a million dollar business, truth be told, you can build a $10 million business. Now, if you have built the million dollar business, I don't know that means you can build a $100 million one. But if you build a million, you can definitely get to 10. If you can get to 10, you've got a business that's gonna be worth 5 to 20 times that number and you can build a team around you of investors who can tell you what people you need on your team to hit that next milestone. That's the trick. You're bringing these people in, they're invested, and now you have five people working toward your success who have skills that you don't have. Again, why fear the downside risk when there is none? It's not life or death and people have a life or death approach where they just don't take enough risk. I believe, in my heart, people don't take enough risk. Matt: It's funny you say that because I'm a mentor in an accelerator program out here on the East Coast. A lot of these folks coming in, and it's sort of like a sustainable accelerator, so businesses that are gonna help the local community, drive jobs, that kind of thing. Nothing like in the tech sector, although some come through with the tech sector. So many people starting companies now, they feel like it's life or death, right? Some of them are trying to do it because they're jaded from the Shark Tank shows that are out there. They think like, “All I have to do is get to this, and I'm gonna win a million bucks,” right? They think of it like a game show I guess and it's sort of not the case. But also, look, you can get up the next day. You can start another business, get another job, or something like that, and take another swing at it I guess. Jason C.: It's correct. Shark Tank's an amazing show for inspiring people to get involved. It has put in people's mind that that money in some cases is like the reward, that's the prize, when in fact that's the starter pistol as we talked about earlier. That just means okay, now you've deployed it, and those people want you to return. It's an investment, which means they want a return on capital. So yeah, I think it's been great that so many people are inspired to start companies, but finishing is important. Matt: As an investor, this is the inside baseball question for the direct folks in the audience, we're all using WordPress. It's all opensource. Does that scare you as an investor? Do you not touch opensource? Do you know investors that do and don't that might be some guidance for folks listening? Jason C.: It is amazing. Everybody wants to do opensource based startups. They [inaudible 00:25:55] WordPress.org and I've got the name of the other CMS, but the Boston company that now- Matt: Oh, Acquia, Drupal. Jason C.: Yeah, Drupal. Yeah, so these companies are real and they make a ton of money. I think Android has put to bed anybody's fear that like you can't do an open source thing and also control it, right? Google's done a pretty good job of having their cake and eating it too, haven't they? They have like Android, and they figured out, and there's a- Matt: Tesla's doing opensource I think even with their chargers coming up, right? They want to opensource their charging station so other manufacturers can- Jason C.: Build them. Matt: Build them. Jason C.: Yeah, I think they … What everybody realizes is at a certain point, you pick where you want to make your money and make your company defensible. So for Google, everything is opensource, except for their algorithm and their search engine. You can't figure out, that's a black box, right? But they'll opensource everything else to kill their competitors. Then Facebook is like, “We'll make our hardware platform opensource and we'll have everybody working on grinding the hardware quest down. But we're sure we're not gonna make our ad network, or a social graph, that's not gonna be available. It would be lightly available in the API. If you get any kind of traction on the API that gets people to leave Facebook, we're gonna turn you off.” The API for Facebook says, “The API is not designed to make people leave Facebook.” So if you use the API thinking you're gonna bring people to your platform, the second you get traction, they just say, “You're breaking the terms of service.” Matt: Yep. So let's pivot and talk about your current business, Inside.com. Is playing in somebody else's sandbox, I mean as you learned with Mahalo, as sort of some of us listening now. We've learned that from WordPress.com versus WordPress.org, two different businesses, two different entities. Is your play in email sort of saying, “You know what? To heck with these platforms. I'm just gonna go direct.” Jason C.: It's exactly … you couldn't be more right. After years of being frustrated by … Google was a big partner of ours. I was in their first quarterly report for Weblogs, Inc was the partner that they shared that was making money off of advertising. We were making over $2,000 a day. We were like the first million dollar independent company partner. So they used us as a case study, Weblogs, Inc and Gadget, and they used New York Times. I had this great 10 year relationship. I knew the founders of the company. I knew everybody there. Then they just decided to like go ham on us, and all the other content sites, and destroy us. Then when I called them, like I couldn't get my phone calls returned. I was like, “We're partners.” Then Matt Cutts is like, “We don't have partners and you don't have a penalty against you.” I'm like, “90% of our traffic's gone and here's 1,000 emails with your team talking about how great our partnership is.” They basically lied and you can see them getting dinged. They just got a $2.7 billion fine just on comparison shopping, so they're gonna get dinged for local. They get dinged for all these other things as well. They really use their monopolistic position to hurt the companies in their ecosystem, which I understand. I wouldn't have done it that way. They were loved originally by partners. What they should've done is just given us a licensing fee for our content and said, “Hey, if we put your content on the one box or whatever, we're just gonna give you 10 cents a CPM.” All of a sudden Yelp would've been getting a million dollar a month check and everybody would've been happy. Google would've been making 100 million off of that. There was a way for them to do it, and I think they probably regret it now, and they're probably trying to fix it. Or they're laughing all the way to the bank, it doesn't matter. Matt: I feel like they're doing it again with YouTube content and sort of just- Jason C.: Changing the rules. Matt: Yeah, sucking the life out of ad revenue. Jason C.: Yeah. No, all of a sudden they said, “If you have under 10,000 views, no ads.” If CNN talks about a terrorist attack, they can have advertising. If an independent person who helped build YouTube into what it is, like Philip DeFranco, mentions a terrorist attack, they won't put ads on it. So Philip went crazy on them. He said, “Wait a second. I helped build this platform and now you're changing it?” So Philip's leaving the platform. I saw that coming. I left the platform. Wmail is one of these great things. You can go direct and you can make money directly from consumers, so not even having to rely on advertising. Now we're going and saying to our customers, “Hey, pay for the content. We'll give you some extra content if you pay. If you want free, you get whatever it's gonna be, 20% or 60% of the content for free. Some percentage, 50/50, we're not sure yet, 60/40, will be for the paid people and for people who contributed.” We did it with LAUNCH Ticker, our first email newsletter. Of the 27,000 people, we have over 1,000 paying, so about 4%. If I can replicate that with the 200,000 subscribers on Inside.com's 26 newsletters, we'll have a great business. We'll have 8,000 paid subscribers. We'll be making a million dollars a year. That pays for a lot of journalists and you have 20 journalists working from home for that. I'm really interested in owning a deep direct relationship. Now, if you think about it, Gmail is even trying to- Matt: Oh yeah, that was gonna be my next question. Jason C.: For that, with their tabs and putting you in their thing. But it's so hard for them to do. We are even going to be going … We started experimenting with SMS and owning people's relationship there. I think use any of these other platforms if it gets you customers, but own a direct deep relationship. I can't tell you how many people I know who have apps and have no emails. It's like get the email address of these people and email is the big growth hack for Twitter and for a lot of other sites where they email you, “Here's what you missed.” That was the big hack for a lot of these companies. So if you're not collecting emails everywhere, and providing massive value to those email subscribers, you're doing it wrong. Matt: Yeah and I mean as again folks who are listening now, WordPress itself, being an opensource platform, you can do whatever you want. I mean we have tons of folks in the audience who are building membership sites. People are coming to the site. They're paying either $9 bucks a month, $200 bucks a year, transaction happens right on a WordPress site. They can control the content, put up a paywall, all that fun stuff. What's the product evolution of Inside.com? Do you then spin back to where you were five, six years ago and start creating video content along with this stuff, audio content, along- Jason C.: Yeah, anything's possible. I think the goal is once you have 10,000, 20,000 emails, you start to have this virtuous cycle where the news is coming to you. You can bolt anything onto something with 20,000, 30,000 emails, and that's gonna have some amount of success, so it's a very astute observation. It's very possible Inside AI could have a weekly podcast, and the email would drive the podcast. The email content would drive the topics of the podcast, so it's possible we can layer on podcasting onto email. What I found was every business I looked at kept saying if email's the growth thing, why don't we make email look [inaudible 00:32:41], right? Matt: Right. Jason C.: If everybody's looking and saying, “Hey, email is the thing to get growth,” what if the entire product is centered around email, and engagement, and opening it? So that's really what I'm focused on. I set a goal in the beginning like, “Let's get a certain number of opens.” We hit that. Then I said, “Let's get to 50 newsletters. We're halfway there.” Now I'm saying, “Let's get to 1 or 2% of the people who are free, paying. That just started three or four weeks ago, but it's promised thousands of dollars in monthly reoccurring revenue.” It's a very lightweight business, like many people who are part of your audience, I'm like literally aspiring to hitting that million dollars in revenue and having 20 full time 50k a year journalists working from home. A 50k salary for a journalist working from home, or 40k plus benefits, or something in that range, I mean you can get people with three, four or five years experience. We have this thing in New York and San Francisco where they think journalists need to make 70, 80, 90, $100,000. It turns out if you're living in New Hampshire, or Arizona, or other places, to get a work from home job with benefits for 40 or 50k is a tremendous tremendous opportunity. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Jason C.: Because you can't get that salary. If you do get that salary, you probably have to drag your ass into an office. Matt: Right, right. I do miss your Inside Drones YouTube series that you were doing at one point. I do miss that. That was good. Jason C.: We'll get back to it. What we found was we weren't getting … it was cart before horse. When we started doing some of those tests, we weren't getting the engagement that we wanted, and then they were trying to figure out how to regrow it. So it's like oh, let's work backwards, you know? Matt: As we sort of wrap up here because I know you're a little crunched on time. How do you live in that happy chaos? Let me just stage that. I was talking to a founder today and in my mentor session, it was like okay, you're selling your product. You're out there, you're pushing it. But then there's like this little cloud above you. That little 20% of ideas, and testings, and little things you want to try sort of just floats up there. You sort of pull things out every now and again, like your Inside Drones, maybe cart before horse. How do you manage that? Because I feel like you do a lot of that. You're always testing things. You're always trying new ideas. You don't shy away from it. Jason C.: No. Matt: Is there a way for you to manage that? Jason C.: Yeah, for sure. Here's how I look at it. I look at startups themselves when I angel invest and I look at my own little tests as satellites, little missions. If you wanted to find life in the universe, I think the way to do it is to send out 100 probes to 100 different planets that could have life on them, and just see if you get a return signal, right? Matt: Right. Jason C.: That's the way to look at these experiments. If you get to a planet that you think is in the Goldilocks zone and shouldn't be inhabitable, and you get there and there's nobody there, great. You can cross that one off the list. As you start crossing them off the list, you're gonna start getting data. So oh, doing the podcast about drones didn't work, but doing a newsletter did. Okay, what's making the newsletter grow? Oh, doing interviews with people who are CEOs of drone companies means they retweet it, and people get value from it, and blah blah blah blah. You start figuring out what works, which experiments are getting you closer to finding life and which ones are not. Sometimes you gotta cross things off the list to know they don't work. That's really what's entrepreneurship is about, is you're just trying to triangulate around a signal. Sometimes it's a weak signal, but the signal starts getting stronger and stronger, and revenue and engagement are the signals. So open rates are the signal. When we started Inside, we have a newsletter called Daily Brief, which is just about the news of the day. We realized hey 40, 50% of people were opening it in the mornings. Then people were telling us the next day that a lot of the news was stale. So I said okay, let's run a test. Take the thousand people on the list and send like 1,000 of the 10,000 people or 20,000 people, whatever it is, a second edition at 3 o'clock in the afternoon with whatever else has happened, like an update. Just tell them it's an update on what was happening in the morning news. Like, four people were like, “I didn't ask for this.” We're like, “We'll unsubscribe you.” Three of them were like, “Don't unsubscribe, I love it.” But they were kind of upset that they were … I just told the whole list, “Listen, we're moving to twice a day. If you don't like it, unsubscribe.” Someone's like, “I only want once a day.” I was like, “We don't provide that.” They're like, “Okay.” They're like, “You can't do that.” There's always like a couple of people in every crowd where the people at a restaurant who are like, “You can't charge for bread,” and the restaurant's like, “We charge for bread.” “Okay, fine.” Or, “A hamburger should come with french fries. How do you charge for french fries?” Then you would say, “Well, not everybody wants french fries, so we charge an extra dollar for french fries. That's just the way we choose to do it. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.” Sometimes people listen too much to their costumers, so you gotta understand the overall impact of the metrics. That just requires having not a discussion about emotions, or feelings, or predictions, or who's in charge, but data and the crafting of experiments. The Lean Startup's a great book by my friend Erick Ries that talks about this lean startup methodology, which everybody listening to this should be familiar with. Matt: Yeah, definitely. Jason C.: But what's the least costly and quickest way to get the signal to understand if this is gonna work or not? That's your goal. How can you cheaply figure it out? The way I cheaply figure it out was let's just put a newsletter out there. Inside had a news app, hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the app. Less than 1% used it a day. When we send emails, 30, 40, 50% of people open each one and we send two a day. So you put that together, we went 50x using an old technology, and now we don't have seven developers working on an app, eight developers working on an app. The whole app team was maybe eight people, very highly paid people. We can redeploy those eight people's salaries, and hire a dozen journalists, and get further. That's no dig to the … It just turned out that news apps didn't work. I mean I was an investor in Circa and a bunch of other news apps I loved, and used, and nobody made a news app that's worked. It just doesn't work. People forget they have it. Matt: Yeah, I remember when you launched that, and I was like oh man, I don't know if I'm gonna be using this app all the time and I installed it. But then when you pivoted to the straight up email, I was like yes, this is … Because this is all I, I swear to god, this is not just because you're on my show and because I'm a super fan. But it's like the only place I read news now. I don't go into Facebook and even dare click on an article. One, because I don't want to get retargeted. Two, I don't want to see all the bullshit comments that people have to say about stuff. I just want to see the news headlines, get the synopsis, and then click on it if I so desire. I think Inside really hits the mark on that. Jason C.: Thank you. Matt: Oh man. One last followup on that. Ad free and just go membership monetization model moving forward or make sure- Jason C.: Probably a combination. In the free ones, we'll have free ones, and you can rock out with a free one, and there's a little bit of advertising in it, and then we'll have the space of users who pays. One of the things we're experimenting with is just letting people turn off the ad. In Launch Ticker, we let the thousand people turn off the ads, and I think 10 of them or 20 of them took the time to do it. So you can turn the ads off technically by just clicking a button in your profile settings, and it turns out nobody does. People like to see the ads if they're targeted, so I think you can have your cake and eat it too. I think you can have a paid Vanity Fair, though with ads. So it's- Matt: That's a pretty cool idea because I guess if somebody clicked on that, you could. The paid for newsletter just simply doesn't come with ads. If you don't want to see ads in your email, just scrolling the headlines, just pay for it. I mean it's super easy, makes sense. Jason C.: I think like there's this group of people, like when Hulu came out with … I had a Hulu subscription for $10 bucks. It had ads. It was making me crazy because Netflix doesn't have ads and I'm paying $10 bucks for that. Then they made a $13 version that had no ads. I upgraded to that. I think there's probably like 20% of people are sensitive enough that they would pay the extra $3, an extra $36 a year. Then most people would not. In this day and age, I don't know you have to choose. I think it would be brilliant for Netflix to have a version where today, this Saturday, Mercedes is making Netflix free, and you can watch Orange is the New Black and all the original shows are free this Saturday, brought to you by Mercedes. You have to watch a Mercedes ad at the beginning and take a survey at the end. Mercedes could just make a Saturday Mercedes day on Netflix. Netflix gets all the people to download and sample the shows. They give them $10 million or $5 million for doing it. Like, just do one day a month where Netflix is free. It'd be great onboarding. Matt: Yeah, no absolutely. Jason, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this. Look, I am finally- Jason C.: Thanks for reading the book. Matt: Yeah, no problem. Jason C.: I appreciate it. I was like oh, you send a book to a lot of people, and they're like, “Yeah,” you know. I'm like, “What did you like about the book?” You actually have like specific moments in the book. You actually read it, so I really appreciate that. Matt: I actually thought you were gonna say, “How did this schmuck get the book?” Jason C.: No, it's- Matt: Listen, I am only a 10 minute flight away from Nantucket, so whenever you want to have a beer the next time you're in town, you let me know. Jason C.: Oh my gosh, so you're on the Cape somewhere or where? Matt: Yeah, I'm at Dartmouth, Mass. So it's just I hop anywhere to New Bedford, hop on the airline, it's about 10, 15 minutes in air. It's beautiful. Jason C.: I love that place. I love that place, yeah. No, no. Be careful. Matt: Where can folks find you on the web to say thanks? Jason C.: Oh, well Twitter. My Twitter handle is Jason, J-A-S-O-N, same with my Instagram. If you went to check out Inside.com, take a look. Angel, the book, is in stores now. If you tweet me your receipt, I will give you a unicorn number and a name. Matt: That is hilarious by the way. Jason C.: It's pretty hilarious. Yeah, like 300 people have done it, so we give them a unicorn name and a unicorn number, so you count up. We're gonna do 1,000 unicorn names for the first thousand people who tweet their receipts. We're 300 in, so that's good. Matt: Go grab the book, folks. Even if you're not considering angel investment, it's an amazing book to reverse engineer, to find those angel investors out there and get that money into your business. Try to scale. Stop being the development in the basement. Or be the developer in the basement if you want, but- Jason C.: Yeah, just add a zero. Matt: Just add a zero. Just add a zero. Jason C.: That's what I always tell my founders, like just add a zero. Then they add the zero, so I said, “Okay, let's add one more and we're done.” Matt: Oh, that's awesome stuff. It's MattReport.com, MattReport.com/subscribe to join the mailing list. Thanks everybody. Jason C.: Thanks Matt. ★ Support this podcast ★

The tip: Be a grownup. -- Transcript -- Matt Stauffer: Hi. I'm your host Matt Stauffer, and this is episode 94 of the Five-Minute Geek Show, a weekly show about development and everything around it. It's one topic per episode—about frontend, backend, mobile, project management, design, entrepreneurship, whatever. If it's geeky, it fits. Today we're going to be talking about being a freelance web developer, freelance contractor, and what it is that I expect from you as a business owner when you're doing that. I'm also going to turn off the fan so you don't hear the noise in the background. At Tighten we often hit spots where we have too much work, too much stuff on our plate. Sometimes we'll just say no to clients, but sometimes we'll say yes to a project or we'll just need a little bit more, and we'll turn to freelance contractors to help round it out a little bit, because what we don't want to do is, at that point, hire someone then realize that it was just a temporary kind of boost in the amount of work we're getting. Instead, we bring on freelance contractors to help us do work. These are varying from random freelance contractors we found on the internet somewhere to completely famous freelance contractors who are big names in the PHP or frontend space or whatever else it ends up being. The weird thing is, we have had far more negative experiences than we have had positive. Far more people where I say, "What is going on? How do you not know how to manage your business? How do you not know how to be a grown-up? How do you not know how to communicate to me?" Well, what I've discovered is that the number one problem that we have had working with contractors is that they expect to come into our organization as an employee. In some ways that's my fault, because I often say, "Hey, we kind of think of you as an employee while you're here." Because we usually only have them contract basically full time, so I want to know when you're in the office, I want to know when you're out of the office. I want you to do check-ins with me. I want you to feel like you can communicate to me. I want you on our Slack channels, all that kind of stuff. The problem is, they often think that they're employees, in that I'm the one responsible for checking in with them, or I'm the one responsible for setting the list of tasks, or I'm the one responsible for something else. The thing is, the vast majority of contractors we work with are charging anywhere between $100 and $150 bucks an hour (edit: this is not true. A more correct number would be $75 and $125). If I'm paying you far more per hour than I make, then I'm expecting you to do a whole bunch of work for me, right? I'm not expecting to pay you a whole bunch of money for you then to just sit there and wait for me to tell you what to do, or wait for me to check in on you, or babysit what you're doing. That's not acceptable. I think that ... This is not acceptable for me. Maybe that's how it works with other companies. I think that there's a misconception for a lot of folks who are freelance contractors that the process of choosing to be a freelance contractor and charging much higher rates than you would, whatever else, is really just you ... Like we're paying for the value of having somebody to flesh out our team when we didn't have the resources to do it, and that's why the cost is extra or whatever. That's definitely true. You know, if I didn't have somebody to do that, then I would have to do the work, or I'd have to turn down work, or whatever it ends up being, so there's definitely value there. I also think that it is the value of paying someone who's supposed to be a self-sufficient work-doing resource. Self-sufficient in that they handle their own finances, and they handle their own accounting, and they handle their own timeline. The whole concept of ... At least in the US, the difference between a W-2 employee, which is like a full time employee, and a 1099 employee is that you can't really tell the 1099 employee, like legally, ethically, or technically or whatever, you can't tell them exactly when to do it or where to work from or what stuff to do. You really could just tell them, "Here are the things I need done, and here's the timeline in which I need them done. Here are some conditions around it." Some of the conditions are, you can be like, "Well, you need to check in with me every week to show me what you're doing." Or, "I need to know that you're going to use this particular programming technique versus that, because it will affect the final outcome." That's cool, but you can't tell them, "You know, you need to work these hours at this place using this laptop," or something like that. You can't do that. For me, I embrace that. I say, "Look, I'm not telling you that you need to do it a certain way, but I am telling you that I need a certain level of communication. I need a certain output. I need it done in a certain amount of time," and then I want you to handle it from there. Like, you're a contractor. You're 1099, which to me means I'm going to tell you what to do, and you're going to handle it. We just worked with a contractor that is someone we've turned to on a regular basis, and he's just this extremely mature, incredibly effective communicator. I basically kind of pitched to him the original idea of the project, told him what our budget looked like and our timeline, and he said, "Yep, I can do it. That time line. That budget." Asked me a couple of questions along the way, checked in with me probably once or twice a week on Slack, just kind of let me know what was going on, invited me into his project management tool that he uses for everything, and at the end of the project said, "I'm ready to do a delivery. Here's what I have. Here's the documentation I wrote up for your client, and then I have a couple hours left. I'll do the deploys. Everything's good to go." I hardly had to think about this project the entire time he was on it. I'm not making a lot of money off of the project, because he's a contractor. He costs a lot of money, and the amount I'm paying him is close to the amount we're charging the client, but I had to do almost nothing. That's what I'm paying him for, to do fantastic work, to manage himself, to communicate with me, and just kind of to get stuff done. To handle it, right? I've also brought in other contractors where I'm paying them a whole bunch of money, and then I'm spending all my time on it, and it's just like, "If I'm going to do that, then I'll just do the work myself," right? If you're a freelance contractor, if you are ... Especially as a web developer, there's a whole world out there of people who are freelance contractors who are burning bridges left and right. I've talked to a lot, lot, lot of business owners who try to bring in freelance contractors and say, "Nope. Not going to do it. Never going to do this again. It was a total awful experience." Being this one guy that I'm talking about right now, being like him, he will get work from us forever. Like, forever. If somebody else is just in desperate need, I'll give them his name, but I don't want to give too many people his name because then he won't be available when I need him. Yeah, you've got to be a good coder, but like, just being a grown-up and like managing your stuff goes so far. It's crazy that that is the case. It is crazy that that's the case. Just so you know, I'm not just picking on freelancers. I could go on a whole nother rant about employees, people who apply to our jobs, and the weeding out process of people who actually submit applications to be full time. But for right now, I just want to talk about freelancers. It's just like, what I want to know is that bringing you on the project is going to make my life easier. I'm going to do less work. I'm going to think about this less. When you need something, you're going to come to me about it. This is true for my employees as well. You're going to come to me about it, and you're going to ask me questions, and I understand. Like there are other companies that probably do all of that for you, and for freelancers it's probably a lot easier to kind of jump into some massive corporation where you're just a cog, and they just need to add more cogs, and everything is set up for you. I get that being a freelancer for me is probably a lot harder than being a freelancer for somebody else, but I'm not alone. If you really want to set yourself apart as a freelancer, there's certain things you can do, but one would just be communicate, self-manage, basically be like ... Be a company. Like, I don't get to expect my clients to manage my time for me, or to initiate communication for me. I'm on top of that. So as a freelancer, be a company. Manage your time. Communicate well. Manage expectations accordingly. If you do that, you're going to set yourself above 98% of everybody else that's out there. The things aren't that difficult, but they really show, like, your level of attention and care, and that can go a long way. I hope that I'm not making ... Like, if you freelanced with us before, I'm not trying to throw shade on you, whoever you are. I'm sure you were fine. Really, but I just want to pitch to potential freelancers or current freelancers that there's a different way, and if you do that different way, it sets you apart so much that it really will be to your benefit. I hope this helps. If you have any questions about that, reach out to me on Twitter @5MinuteGeekShow. Check out other episodes at FiveMinuteGeekShow.com. Subscribe, iTunes, RSS, all that kind of stuff. If you like the show, and you're a freelance contactor, go be that 2% of amazing freelance contractors. If you like the show and you're not a freelance contractor, I don't know. Rate it, iTunes and all that kind of stuff. Thanks. Until next time, Matt Stauffer, Five-Minute Geek Show. Son: Five-Minute Geek Show? Matt: Yeah. When you're singing it. Can you do that? Son: Say "Five-Minute Geek Show?" Matt: Yeah, but sing it with that song. Son: (Singing) “I am iron man….” Five-Minute Geek Show. Matt Stauffer: Perfect. My man.