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Hosted by Richard Newman
Hosted by Richard Newman
12 episodes with Richard Newman
4 episodes with Richard Newman
2 episodes with Richard Newman
2 episodes with Richard Newman
2 episodes with Richard Newman
3 episodes with Richard Newman
2 episodes with Richard Newman
The BBC story about the Nigerian watchmaker, Bala Muhammad, can be found here.HSNY's event page for the Early American Pocket Watches lecture being given by Richard Newman can be found here.A Hodinkee article about The Toledano & Chan B/1.2 can be found here. The Boucheron guy (@thewatchfam) on Instagram can be found here. The Galbe Gallery (@galbegallery) on Instagram can be found here. The 1945 Heuer “Big Eye' Chronograph with a gold case and double-stepped lugs running on the Valjoux 23 movement can be found here. You can find us on our Website, YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, and Facebook Check out Life on the Wrist Merch!
Richard Newman has trained over 130,000 business leaders worldwide how to lead, inspire and motivate their teams, helping one client win over 1 Billion dollars in new business in just one year. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Entrepreneurs are seeking leadership skills because it allows them to take their life into the next level, to scale their business and to tilt the world as they see it in a positive direction. 2. When you are an influential speaker, you can create a greater impact in your business and in the economy. 3. What got you here in life won't get you where you want ahead in the future so you have to have a full awareness of what made you who you are, what archetype do you have and how do you shift that to make a more compelling journey for the road ahead. Discover the proven 3-step system to become a powerful and dynamic speaker, leader, and communicator - Influential Leader Live Sponsors HubSpot HubSpot's all -on -one customer platform can make growing your business infinitely easier. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today Netsuite NetSuite, by Oracle, brings accounting, finance, inventory, and HR into ONE proven platform, helping you reduce costs everywhere. And now through April 15th, NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind flexible financing program. Head to NetSuite.com/fire BetterHelp This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/fire and get on your way to being your best self
Richard Newman has trained over 130,000 business leaders worldwide how to lead, inspire and motivate their teams, helping one client win over 1 Billion dollars in new business in just one year. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Entrepreneurs are seeking leadership skills because it allows them to take their life into the next level, to scale their business and to tilt the world as they see it in a positive direction. 2. When you are an influential speaker, you can create a greater impact in your business and in the economy. 3. What got you here in life won't get you where you want ahead in the future so you have to have a full awareness of what made you who you are, what archetype do you have and how do you shift that to make a more compelling journey for the road ahead. Discover the proven 3-step system to become a powerful and dynamic speaker, leader, and communicator - Influential Leader Live Sponsors HubSpot HubSpot's all -on -one customer platform can make growing your business infinitely easier. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today Netsuite NetSuite, by Oracle, brings accounting, finance, inventory, and HR into ONE proven platform, helping you reduce costs everywhere. And now through April 15th, NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind flexible financing program. Head to NetSuite.com/fire BetterHelp This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/fire and get on your way to being your best self
Learn more about Michael Wenderoth, Executive Coach: www.changwenderoth.comSHOW NOTES:Have you ever been told “You just don't show up like a leader”? Or have you ever felt or said that about someone else? In this short episode of 97% Effective, Michael Wenderoth shares three ways to powerfully elevate your presence and communication, drawing from his conversations with experts from the world of acting: past guests Chip Davis, Richard Newman and Tamzin Townsend. Their insights and tips will have you rethink acting, authenticity, and what brings energy. Spoiler alert: The key to increasing your presence is not about the content of what you say, it's all about how you say it (mindset, body language and tone) – and what others take away. Apply these three tips and you'll be well on your way to increasing your leadership and communication ratings, areas that are critical to getting promoted and increasing your impact.Why your presence and communications matters so much at work.Hard truth: How you say it is more important than the actual content.Lessons from past guests, leaders from the world of acting and the dramatic arts.Insight #1: from Chip Davis, Acting and Voice Coach: Embrace fear to avoid tension.“Leaders need to perform competence.”Insight #2 from Richard Newman, CEO of Body Talk: The power of body language (research findings).“Think about congruency, not authenticity” when it comes to what your audience sees in your body language.Insight #3 from Tamzin Townsend, Queen Midas of the Theater: The importance of tone to bring energy.“Our voice can do SO much …a lot of energy is in the voice.”The power of silence in a noisy world.Bottom Line: Spend less time on your content, and more time on how you'll deliver it.3 things to do when preparing your next communication.Resources and Next Steps. BIO AND LINKS:Michael Wenderoth is an Executive Coach that helps executives re-examine their assumptions about power, politics, and authenticity to get promoted, become more effective at work, and break glass ceilings holding them back. Having served 20 years in senior roles with companies across the globe, and then 7 years as a professional coach, he has helped accelerated the careers of clients from diverse industries, backgrounds, and levels of seniority, helping them get ahead – without having to sell their souls in the process. Michael is the award-winning author of Get Promoted, host of the 97% Effective career acceleration podcast, and a frequent speaker and media contributor on career advancement, leadership and navigating power and politics. His work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Stanford Business School Executive Education and IE Business School, where he collaborates with renowned professors, coaches, executives and experts. Michael holds an MBA from Stanford and trained as an executive coach at Columbia University (3CP). NEW: 97% Effective, now on Youtube! https://tinyurl.com/bdz53mc5Get Promoted, now on Audiobook: https://tinyurl.com/mwf2s28yEpisode #32 - Chip Davis, Voice and Acting Coach: Leaders Need to “Perform Competence” (and How To Do That): https://tinyurl.com/bdhenxyzEpisode #75 - Richard Newman, Founder & CEO at Body Talk: How to Master Your Body Talk to Elevate Your Leadership: https://tinyurl.com/4fe365jtEpisode #69 - Tamzin Townsend, Acclaimed Theatre Director & Communication Trainer: Harnessing the Power of Acting & Theatre in Professional Communications https://tinyurl.com/3av52v56The expression, “You can't buff a turd” - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/you_can%27t_polish_a_turdMichael's Book, Get Promoted: https://changwenderoth.com/#tve-jump-180481ecea3Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelchangwenderoth/Michael on X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/mcwenderothMichael on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wenderoth.michael/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Richard Newman, Founder and CEO of Body Talk, delves into cultivating a thriving mindset within parents and children. The way we think about ourselves and the world around us, significantly impacts how we approach challenges, overcome obstacles, and ultimately, thrive. As parents, by cultivating a positive mindset within ourselves, we can help our children do and build the confidence and resilience necessary to navigate life's complexities. Today, Richard discusses how mindset can help you and your child thrive. Connect With: Richard Newman: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter2Hr Learning: Website // LinkedInI Hear Everything: IHearEverything.com // LinkedIn
Richard Newman, Founder and CEO of Body Talk, delves into empowering shy children. Communication and socialization skills are crucial for a child's development, yet schools often prioritize academic subjects over teaching these vital skills. This places the responsibility on parents to equip their children with the tools to express themselves and navigate social situations effectively. Today, Richard discusses how you can empower shy children to be their best.Connect With: Richard Newman: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter2Hr Learning: Website // LinkedInI Hear Everything: IHearEverything.com // LinkedIn
Learn more about Michael Wenderoth, Executive Coach: www.changwenderoth.comCommunications expert Richard Newman shares with Michael his latest book, Lift Your Impact. We dive into how to transform your mindset, creating the foundation for personal growth that enables you to better influence and elevate others, and your work. Richard also shares practical tips on how to set and achieve goals, navigate conflict at work, and deepen connections through communication.SHOW NOTES:The Power of Being Shy: A Different Perspective on CommunicationWhy Richard wrote Lift Your Impact: Addressing 3 Post-Pandemic ChallengesMindset Mastery: The Foundation of Personal GrowthLifting Others: The Art of Positive InfluenceCAR: Commitment, Action, RoutineMarathon Training and Overcoming ObstaclesThe Power of Rituals in Achieving GoalsNavigating Conflict in Professional SettingsEmpathy and Understanding in Conflict ResolutionThe Art of Asking the Right QuestionsDeepening Connections Through CommunicationFuture Projects and Personal Growth BIO AND LINKS:Richard Newman is the Founder and CEO of Body Talk, based in the UK. Over the past 23 years his team has trained over 130,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact. Richard started his career working with Tibetan monks in the Himalayas at 18, then worked as a professional actor before becoming a communication coach and keynote speaker. He has won the coveted Cicero Grand Prize Award for Best Speechwriter of the Year, and his research on non-verbal communication was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Psychology. Richard is the author of two books, You Were Born to Speak and Lift Your ImpactBody Talk: https://ukbodytalk.comRichard's book, Lift Your Impact: His Book: https://liftyourimpact.com/thebookLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/Instagram: richardnewmanspeaksRichard's book, You Were Born to Speak: https://borntospeak.comMichael on Richard's LIFT podcast – Get Recognised at Work and Get the Promotion You Deserve: https://ukbodytalk.com/resources/videos/promotion-you-deserve/Michael's book, Get Promoted: https://tinyurl.com/453txk74Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Richard Newman, the founder of Body Talk, discusses his journey from struggling to connect with others due to being highly introverted and autistic to mastering the art of communication and helping over 130,000 business leaders enhance their impact through effective communication strategies. Highlights include Newman's unique approach to improving presentations and meetings by engaging the survival, emotional, and logical parts of the brain through storytelling, his personal challenges with communication, and the importance of CEOs seeing the greatness in their team members. The episode emphasizes the power of communication in resolving crises, building connections, and leading with confidence. Episode Highlights: 08:47 Challenges and Triumphs in Training Leaders 13:26 Leveraging Autism: A Unique Perspective on Communication 19:00 The Need for Quiet and Reset 19:15 Navigating Burnout and Leadership Challenges 20:17 Unlocking the Secrets of Body Language with Body Talk 24:32 Debunking Communication Myths: The Worst Advice and What Works 32:08 The Science of Storytelling: Engaging the Triune Brain Other episodes you'll enjoy: C-Suite Goal Setting: How To Create A Roadmap For Your Career Success - http://bit.ly/3XwI55n Natalya Berdikyan: Investing in Yourself to Serve Others on Apple Podcasts -http://bit.ly/3ZMx8yw Questions to Guarantee You Accomplish Your Goals - http://bit.ly/3QASvymSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Welcome to our the first episode of our monthly series of the Dissidents Podcast on the legacies of black pioneers, brought to you by the Black Institute of Liberal Values (a joint project of Free Black Thought and the Institute for Liberal Values). In this inaugural episode, Winkfield Twyman, Jr & Jennifer Richmond, speak with Bill Paine and Tom Miller, two descendants of the first ordained black minister, Lemuel Haynes. Jen & Wink talk about what it means for people to come together across the color line in celebration of pioneering ancestors and in community as “Old Americans”. Lemuel Haynes Resources: Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes, for Many Years Pastor of a Church in Rutland, and Late in Granville, New York. Timothy Mather Cooley. Publisher: John S. Taylor, NY. 1839 Black Puritan, Black Republican The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753-1833. John Saillant. Oxford University Press, 2003 Lemuel Haynes, a bio-bibliography. Richard Newman. Lambeth, Press, NY. 1984 Black preacher to white America : the collected writings of Lemuel Haynes, 1774-1833 / edited by Richard Newman; introduction by Helen MacLam ; preface by Mechal Sobel. Haynes, Lemuel, 1753-1833. Brooklyn, N.Y. : Carlson Pub., 1989 Liberty Further Extended-https://www.jstor.org/stable/1919529 John Saillant SEA Scholar of the Month June, 2023 https://www.societyofearlyamericanists.org/whats-new-announcements/sea-scholar-of-the-month-june-2023-john-saillant https://www.jstor.org/stable/365942 "Not Only Extreme Poverty, but the Worst Kind of Orphanage": Lemuel Haynes and the Boundaries of Racial Tolerance on the Yankee Frontier, 1770-1820 Author(s): Richard D. Brown Source: The New England Quarterly , Dec., 1988, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 502-518 Published by: The New England Quarterly, Inc. https://we-ha.com/memorial-to-lemuel-haynes-dedicated-in-west-hartford/ https://granbydrummer.com/2020/08/lemuel-haynes-an-eloquent-man-of-god/ https://granbydrummer.com/2020/09/lemuel-haynes-an-eloquent-man-of-god-2/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AaYsRYojDc *The Lemuel Haynes part starts at 32:28 And another small segment from West Rutland a couple years ago https://vermonthistory.org/lemuel-haynes https://jwhamil.com/Hamil/Family.htm (Family website) Other related resources: Discovering Black Vermont, African American Farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790-1890. Elise A. Guyette. Vermont Historical Society. 2020 The Little Professor of Piney Woods, The Story of Professor Laurence Jones. Beth Day. Julian Messner, Inc. NY. 1956 Benjamin Banneker and Us, Eleven Generations of an American Family. Rachel Jamison Webster. Henry Holt and Company. NY. 2023 Vermont African American Heritage Trail: https://www.vermontvacation.com/~/media/files/pdfs/itineraries/vermont-african-american-heritage-trail-2015.ashx?la=en
Learn more about Michael Wenderoth, Executive Coach: www.changwenderoth.comSHOW NOTES:What if you could increase your leadership ratings by over 40%... without saying a word? In this episode of 97% Effective, Michael speaks with Richard Newman, CEO of Body Talk, about executive presence and the impact of our “body talk.” Richard discusses his peer-reviewed research, explains why you should be congruent instead of authentic – and shares how small, but critical changes in your non-verbal communication will elevate how others see you. Incorporate his findings, you'll surf the waves at work – and not get crushed by them.The backstory: From shy introverted child to global keynote speakerThe feeling: “Looking at a freeway that doesn't have an on ramp”Richard went East to Tibet, Michael went East to BeijingHis first gig, for a free haircutBeing diagnosed as autistic at 44His first keynote – did he knock it out of the park?Setting the record straight on Mehrabian's body language researchRichard's research question: Is there anything that you can do universally, non-verbally, that will improve your impact?Findings from his research with Prof Adrian Furney, University College of LondonImprove your leaderships ratings 32% by changing this one thingIs this about learning manipulation techniques?The surprising influence that race and gender have on how your body language impacts your leadership ratingFuture research: tone of voiceAddressing misunderstandings about “authenticity” – and why you should think about congruency instead“Be a surfer on the ocean”How an acting or improv class can helpThe mindset that will most help you improve your communication skills“Letting go of the door handle”Does body language function the same in impromptu situations, 1-1, or in remote settings?Palms down = strong confidentHeight, light and the rule of thirds BIO AND LINKS:Richard Newman is the Founder and CEO of Body Talk, based in the UK. Over the past 23 years his team has trained over 130,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact. Richard started his career working with Tibetan monks in the Himalayas at 18, then worked as a professional actor before becoming a communication coach and keynote speaker. He has won the coveted Cicero Grand Prize Award for Best Speechwriter of the Year, and his research on non-verbal communication was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Psychology. Richard is the author of two books, You Were Born to Speak and Lift Your Impact.Body Talk: https://ukbodytalk.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/Instagram: richardnewmanspeaksProf Albert Mehrabian (whose communication model is frequently misapplied): https://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty-page/mehrab/Richard's research with Prof Adrian Furnham: https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=65469Richard's book, You Were Born to Speak: https://borntospeak.comMichael's book, Get Promoted: https://tinyurl.com/453txk74Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Body Talk and Beyond Richard Newman, Body Talk – The Sharkpreneur podcast with Seth Greene Episode 1018 Richard Newman Richard Newman is the Founder of Body Talk. Over the past 23 years his team have trained over 130,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact, including one client who gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, winning 100% of their pitches, using the strategies that Richard teaches. Listen to this informative Sharkpreneur episode with Richard Newman about Body Talk and beyond. Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week's show: - How Body Talk helps business leaders to improve their communication skills and find their voice. - Why Body Talk focuses on enhancing presence, gravitas, and the ability to turn complex information into compelling stories. - How effective communication involves considering how you want your audience to feel about you and your message. - Why it's important to address challenges related to mindset, relationships, and purpose in communication. - How Richard's mission is to help people become the best version of themselves in their communication and life. Connect with Richard: Guest Contact Info Instagram @richardnewmanspeaks LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks Links Mentioned: ukbodytalk.com lifeyourimpact.com/book Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode is brought to you by Ketone-IQ from HVMN and Comrad gradual compression socks. Unlock the secrets of powerful communication with Richard Newman, the voice behind the transformative "Lift Your Impact." Richard unveils the intricate dance of influence and connection, guiding us through a post-pandemic landscape where resilience and effective communication reign supreme. From his beginnings with Tibetan monks to coaching global clients, Richard's insights into non-verbal cues, storytelling, and the hidden strengths of his late-diagnosed autism lend a rare depth to our understanding of interpersonal dynamics. Follow Richard @richardnewmanspeaks Follow Chase @chase_chewning ----- In this episode, Richard explains... Mindful pauses enhance communication by showing importance and encouraging critical thinking Authenticity in communication is key to revealing individual essence and personality Effective listening involves understanding words, tone, and body language to connect deeply Strategic questioning leads to better understanding and impactful conversations Non-verbal cues, like gestures, significantly influence engagement and message clarity Power phrases can motivate action by engaging survival instincts, imagination, and logic Mindset resilience is essential for personal growth and influencing others positively Understanding personal communication styles, especially with autism, can lead to breakthroughs in connecting with others ----- Episode resources: Boost energy and improve blood flow with Comrad gradual compression socks Save 20% and get high performance energy without sugar or caffeine with code CHASE on Ketone-IQ from HVMN Learn more about Richard at LiftYourImpact.com
In this episode of The Founder, we're chatting with Richard Newman, a pro in communication and storytelling. He's going to dive into what makes a story really stick in the business world, how to structure your content, and the power of body language. You'll learn how to create stories that not only connect but also make a memorable impact. So, tune in for some top-notch advice on mastering the art of storytelling!Highlights:“Success comes from being willing to say yes, put yourself out there, and learn from every situation. ”“So that's the power of story is that it takes hold in our minds in such a special way that we can retell it and recreate what it felt like.”“You have to figure out how to turn a complex or technical message into a story format that anybody around the world can engage with.”Timestamps:00:00 Introduction and Background05:43 The Importance of Storytelling08:04 The Key Attributes of a Story13:26 Storytelling in Personal Pitching26:40 Richard's Journey32:10 Where to Find Richard
Richard Newman is the Founder and CEO of Body Talk, a global leader in evidence-based communication training. He is the author of You Were Born to Speak, and his newest book is, Lift Your Impact: Transform Your Mindset, Influence, and Future to Elevate Your Work, Team, and Life. On this episode we discuss a transformational journey that Richard took at a Tibetan monastery. We also get into the details around how small communication changes can create a massive difference in the way you are perceived by those around you. We also talk about how to make the most of the opportunity when you give a presentation in a business meeting. — Learn To Lead is brought to you by Abilitie a leadership provider of experiential learning. Abilitie's simulations and leadership programs have inspired over 100,000 professionals in more than 30 countries. To learn more about Abilitie and about our host Matthew Confer, visit the links below: Abilitie Leadership Development - https://www.abilitie.com The Learn To Lead Podcast - https://www.abilitie.com/learn-to-lead-podcast/ Host Matthew Confer: - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewconfer/ - Twitter - https://twitter.com/MatthewConfer - Matthew's TEDx Talk on Decision Making - https://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_confer_before_you_decide_3_steps_to_better_decision_making Make sure you subscribe to our show to ensure you get our next episode when it is released.
Happy New Year, Part 2! In today's episode you will hear 23 remarkable voices of the men who appeared on the Play Your Position Podcast in 2023. Below you will find a list of these men in alphabetical order by first name along with a way to connect with them. I encourage you to follow and reach out to the ones who resonate with you and your passions and goals. From financial literacy to resonating stories of resilience and the power of community, these speakers underscore the multidimensionality of leadership. Together, they harmonize to redefine the essence of leadership in our era. It's a truly inspirational listen. Enjoy! = = = = = Resources from Today's Show What did you enjoy about this episode? Text me your feedback! Keep it kind, please :-) 503-567-8730 = = = = = The Men in Alphabetical Order Andy Hite https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-hite/ Bryce Henson https://www.linkedin.com/in/realbrycehenson/ Chris Larsen https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextlevelincome/ Dr. Taylor Hartman https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-hartman-29b37a1/ Gordon Graham https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordon-graham-57385319a/ James Cluskey https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-cluskey-5bb8376a/ Jason Shen https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonshen/ John Gumas https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gumas-08046/ John Ovrom https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnovrom/ Josh Greene https://www.linkedin.com/in/greenejoshua/ Kevin Maney https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmaney/ Luis Scott https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-scott-bader-law/ Mark Brodinsky https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbrodinsky/ Mark Yegge https://www.linkedin.com/in/markyegge/ Mario Lanzarotti https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanzarottimario/ Owen McGab https://www.linkedin.com/in/owenmcgabenaohwo/ Patrick Woods https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickjwoods/ Paul Jackson https://grow.method.me/pyp/ Richard Newman https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/ Rob Commodari https://www.linkedin.com/in/robcommodari/ Tim Yurek https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-yurek/ Tony Castillo https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-tony-castillo/ Zack Slingsby https://www.linkedin.com/in/zack-slingsby-702461164/ = = = = = Thank you for supporting the show! Your 5-star rating and review makes a difference -- it's easy to leave one and it helps spread the word about the podcast! = = = = = My latest book, The Far Unlit Unknown -- is available everywhere books are sold including Audible! Get your copy and learn more about it here Are we connected yet on social? @maryloukayser (Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlkayser/ (LinkedIn)
Richard is the Founder of Body Talk. Over the past 21 years his team have trained over 100,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact, including one client who gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, using the strategies that Richard teaches. Connect with Richard Website - https://ukbodytalk.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/richardnewmanspeaks/ Connect with David Public Website: www.davidihill.com Real Estate University: www.realestateuniversity.club Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidihill/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidihill 20-Minute call: https://www.davidihill.com/strategycall FACEBOOK COMMUNITY Please follow and join my Group- https://www.facebook.com/groups/ptmastery/
Tune in Today's SHOW as our well known successful guest speaker shares amazing insight around this very important topic. You will find ways to connect with our GUEST today on the website mentioned in the video and further continue the conversation. SUBSCRIBE, REVIEW & SHARE the SHOW! Elona at the Life School helps Entrepreneurs and Organizations grow legacy purpose driven life and businesses for major Impact & Income. Website: www.elonaloparicoaching.com Follow our Page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063162853244&mibextid=LQQJ4d Join our Facebook Group Community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/entrepreneursofthelifeschool Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elona-lopari/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elona_lopari/
Welcome to the Growth hacking Culture Podcast. I am Ivan Palomino. It all began with a simple desire: to share actionable tips on creating extraordinary work cultures. And let me tell you, the response has been absolutely amazing!
Richard Newman is the founder of BodyTalk where he and his team have trained over 130,000 business leaders around the world. Richard has also won awards in leadership communication, storytelling, and influence, and is also the global leader in evidence-based training on the psychology of communication. As an introvert on the autism spectrum, he has dedicated decades to developing success principles for communication for himself and his clients. At the age of 18 he moved to the foothills of the Himalayas to teach English to monks, then from there went on to work as an actor, keynote speaker, coach, and speechwriter. Also created one of the largest studies on non-verbal communication and influence ever published. Topics-Lessons learned from monks and acting school-Overcoming the inner critic-Pre-speech routines to get out of your own way-How to raise the energy in the room-Exploring the largest study on non-verbal communication-Body language tips -How to use breath to perform at your bestGet your FREE LMNT sample pack at www.drinkLMNT.com/mindsetadvantageGet you FREE E-Book of the top 30 books written by Mindset Advantage guests at www.djhillier.com/30books
On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, we sit down with Richard Newman to talk about stress reduction, the power of storytelling and how the autism diagnosis has changed his life. BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com APPLY TO BE ON THE POD: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH HelloFresh: https://www.hellofresh.com/50dsh Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, we sit down with Richard Newman to talk about stress reduction, the power of storytelling and how the autism diagnosis has changed his life. BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com APPLY TO BE ON THE POD: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH HelloFresh: https://www.hellofresh.com/50dsh Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Richard Newman is the Founder of Body Talk, a business that helps people improve their communication and impact. In the past 23 years his team has trained over 120,000 business leaders around the world. One client gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year using Richard's techniques, winning 100% of their new business pitches. When Richard was 18, he started his mission to discover the core principles of communication. As part of this mission, he lived in the foothills of the Himalayas with Tibetan monks who spoke no English. They had to communicate non-verbally to understand each other. He then worked as a professional actor before becoming a communication coach and keynote speaker. Richard's research on non-verbal communication was published in the Journal of Psychology. His study proved that you can increase your leadership ratings by 44% and win 59% more votes in an election by changing a few simple behaviors. He has also won the coveted Cicero Grand Prize Award for Best Speechwriter of the Year. His new book ‘Lift Your Impact' explores how you can transform your mindset, influence and future to elevate your work, team and life. Connect with Richard on his website: https://ukbodytalk.com/ Get his book here: https://liftyourimpact.com/thebook = = = = = Thank you for supporting the show! Your 5-star rating and review makes a difference -- it's easy to leave one and it helps spread the word about the podcast! = = = = = My latest book, The Far Unlit Unknown -- is available everywhere books are sold including Audible! Get your copy and learn more about it here Are we connected yet on social? @maryloukayser (Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlkayser/ (LinkedIn)
In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Richard Newman about the science of storytelling. Richard (https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/) is the Founder of Body Talk. Over the past 22 years his team has trained over 120,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact, including one client who gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, using the strategies that Richard teaches. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network! Check out the HCI Academy: Courses, Micro-Credentials, and Certificates to Upskill and Reskill for the Future of Work! Check out the LinkedIn Alchemizing Human Capital Newsletter. Check out Dr. Westover's book, The Future Leader. Check out Dr. Westover's book, 'Bluer than Indigo' Leadership. Check out Dr. Westover's book, The Alchemy of Truly Remarkable Leadership. Check out the latest issue of the Human Capital Leadership magazine. Each HCI Podcast episode (Program, ID No. 627454) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, aPHRi™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®). Each HCI Podcast episode (Program ID: 24-DP529) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) SHRM Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCPHR recertification through SHRM, as part of the knowledge and competency programs related to the SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge™ (the SHRM BASK™). Human Capital Innovations has been pre-approved by the ATD Certification Institute to offer educational programs that can be used towards initial eligibility and recertification of the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) and Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD) credentials. Each HCI Podcast episode qualifies for a maximum of 0.50 points.
Richard is the Founder of Body Talk. In the past 23 years he and his team have trained over 120,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact. One client gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, using Richard's techniques, winning 100% of their new business pitches. Yet, these skills did not come naturally. Richard was a shy child, an introvert and is autistic. He realised there was something different about him at the age of 4 and has been on a quest ever since to discover the core principles of successful communication. Aged 18, he went to live in the foothills of the Himalayas with Tibetan monks, who spoke no English. They had to communicate non-verbally to understand each other. He then worked as a professional actor, before becoming a communication coach and keynote speaker. Richard has won the coveted Cicero Grand Prize Award for Best Speechwriter of the Year. Richard's research on non-verbal communication was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Psychology. His study proved that you can increase your leadership ratings by 44% and win 59% more votes in an election by changing a few elements in your communication style. Richard's new book ‘Lift Your Impact' explores how you can ‘Transform your mindset, influence and future, to elevate your work, team and life'. This episode will provide you a glimpse into the principles of his books and his work through conversation and storytelling. Richard shares where he is at today, why it's important to him and how he got here. Body language became a passion and focus from the age of 16 and is the foundation of the work he does and the books he has written. Richard and Patrick discuss living a values-based life, integrity, how Richard and his team work with clients, being a more effective speaker, body language and the journey of who we need to become to bring us to the next level we desire. All of that PLUS a couple of great exercises in values-discovery, and helpful tips for reading comprehension and retention!
In this podcast episode, Belinda Ellsworth interviews Richard Newman, an expert in communication and storytelling. Richard shares his journey of discovering his passion for communication and non-verbal cues, teaching English to Tibetan monks, and eventually becoming an accidental entrepreneur. He discusses the importance of storytelling in communication and how it can make any topic engaging and relatable. Richard also emphasizes the significance of delivery style, body language, and mindset in effective communication. He shares his experiences and offers advice on starting a business and living by personal values. The episode concludes with Richard discussing his latest book, "Lift Your Impact," and offering free resources to listeners.Key Learnings from the episode:The Journey to Communication [00:03:35] Teaching English to Tibetan Monks [00:05:11]Accidental Entrepreneurship [00:07:02] The Power of Storytelling [00:09:51] Finding a meaningful life and defining one's identity [00:33:45] The journey of growth and transformation [00:36:42]About Richard Newman:Richard Newman is an award-winning expert in leadership communication, storytelling, and influence, and founder UK Body Talk Ltd, the global leader in evidence-based training on the science of communication. As an introvert on the autism spectrum, he has dedicated decades to understanding and improving communication, for himself and his clients. At 18, he lived in the foothills of the Himalayas teaching English to Tibetan monks, and went on to work as an actor, keynote speaker, coach, and speechwriter, winning the coveted Cicero Grand Prize for Speechwriter of the Year. He created one of the largest studies on non-verbal communication and influence ever, published in the scientific research journal Psychology, and is author of the bestselling book, You Were Born to Speak. Clients of his work include Virgin, Microsoft, Expedia, 3M, London Business School, NYU, Columbia Business School, DHL, PWC, and many more Fortune 500 companies.How to connect with Richard:https://liftyourimpact.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/https://www.instagram.com/richardnewmanspeaks/Mentioned in the show: https://liftyourimpact.com/thebookAbout the Host - Belinda Ellsworth is a Speaker, Trainer, Best-Selling Author, and Podcaster She has been a professional speaker, mover, and shaker for more than 25 years. Having built three successful companies, she has helped thousands of entrepreneurs make better decisions, create successful systems, and build business strategies using her "Four Pillars of Success" system.Belinda has always had a passion and zest for life with the skill for turning dreams into reality.How to Connect with Belinda:Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/workfromyourhappyplaceLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/belindaellsworthInstagram -https://www.instagram.com/workfromyourhappyplace/Website - www.workfromyourhappyplace.com Join my membership program and discover the art of creating and sharing amazing experiences with like-minded people, all from the comfort of your own home. You get to connect with others online, learn new skills and techniques, and grow your network without ever having to leave your computer screen. To know more, click on the link https://workfromyourhappyplace.com/vip/This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4939248/advertisement
Richard Newman's path to communication prowess was far from conventional. At the tender age of four, he found himself grappling with the feeling of being misunderstood. As he continued to navigate the labyrinth of human interactions, he gradually recognized that he experienced unique communication challenges. He explored his introverted nature, and after discovering the power of body language, he even ventured to a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas. Little did he know that later in life, all of his experiences would culminate in a revelation that he was Autistic, shedding new light on his communication journey throughout his lifetime. On this episode of The Workplace Communication Podcast, as Founder and CEO at Body Talk, Richard talks to us about the transformative power of embracing authenticity, which he has seen both in his own life and through his professional work. Join us as we talk about balancing authentic voices with societal expectations, how you can lose our authenticity without even realizing it, and what you can do to reconnect with your authentic self. Leadership tips you won't want to miss:
In this insightful episode, we delve deep into the intricacies of effective communication with our special guest, Richard Newman - a renowned communication expert, coach, and the founder of UK Body Talk. Join us as we break down the barriers of self-doubt, discussing why waiting for external validation isn't the key to success. Richard sheds light on the common missteps individuals make before entering crucial meetings and how to navigate these waters with poise. As the conversation evolves, he passionately talks about the transformative power of mentorship, advocating for a role that empowers others rather than overshadowing them. And as we all grapple with the challenges of being confident communicators, Richard pinpoints the biggest pitfalls and hands us the tools to avoid them. Wrapping up, we touch on the essence of self-validation and its pivotal role in enhancing our communicative prowess. Whether you're a budding communicator or a seasoned professional, this episode promises to equip you with invaluable insights to elevate your communication journey. Don't miss out!Connect with Richard: Website: https://ukbodytalk.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ukbodytalk/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/communicationskillstraining/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/UKBodyTalkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ukbodytalkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ukbodytalk Support the showJoin the #1 Community for Service-Based Entrepreneurshttps://www.blackdiamondclub.com Follow Shawn and Lacey on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/drshawndill/ https://www.instagram.com/drlaceybook/
#48 Body language expert Richard Newman reveals the power of body language and how to unleash your inner confidence. Richard explains the 30-second technique to command your emotions, the subtle tricks to hook your audience, and the ability to turn anxiety into a positive vision of the future. Get ready to practice with Richard and Erika and become the confident person anyone can be. Transform your Mindset, Influence and Future with Richard Newman's book: Lift your Impact Special thanks to our partners & sponsors: CoPilot: If you've been wanting to kickstart your health, then go to my CoPilot link erika.com/copilot to get a 14-day FREE trial with your own personal trainer! NetSuite: Download NetSuite's popular KPI Checklist, designed to give you consistently excellent performance - absolutely free, here - NetSuite.com/ERIKA Webull (free stocks) - erikataughtme.com/invest Get a 14-day free trial with my sponsor Aura and see where your personal information is being leaked online - erikataughtme.com/aura Thanks for tuning in and come back every Tuesday for a brand-new episode! Make sure you hit the follow button to get notified. Prefer video or want closed captions? Watch this episode on YouTube. Did you enjoy the episode? Please leave us a review here: https://erikakullberg.com/review (just scroll to the bottom and tap on “leave a review”) It really helps the podcast especially since we're just getting started. Even just a sentence is perfect! Follow the podcast @erikataughtme across platforms. Connect with me on Instagram. For more information, go to https://www.erikataughtme.com/. Get on my personal finance & investing course priority waitlist here. https://erikakullberg.com/3DMoney Get my Mastering YouTube course, to learn how to grow a YouTube following and monetize it. https://erikakullberg.com/MasteringYT Get more of my free resources.
Richard Newman joins VIP's Casey Hasten in a discussion about body language. Richard is the founder of Body Talk and body language expert. Body Talk helps global leaders in communication skills training, with its own scientific peer-reviewed research to give you proven, practical results. Richard delivers transformational change in how people communicate.About The Guest:Website: https://ukbodytalk.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/?originalSubdomain=ukAbout The We Are VIP Podcast:This podcast is brought to you by VIP to add value to your job or candidate search. Each week, we'll bring you helpful tips and insights from leading professionals to help candidates land their dream jobs and help employers find better talent. Hosted by:Casey Hasten, Director of Recruiting at VIPAbout VIP:We utilize a holistic approach to support your strategic initiatives in accounting and finance. From recruiting and strategic staffing, to project management consulting, our service model offers a comprehensive solution that allows for flexibility as you navigate transformation and growth within your organization.Connect:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/270216/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreVIPCompanyJob Openings and Services: https://wearevip.com
UK Body Talk CEO, Richard Newman, shares insights on how you can read people's body language as well as change your own for greater influence. Learn more at https://ukbodytalk.com/ For more great insight on professional relationships and business networking visit https://www.networking-rx.com or contact Frank Agin at frankagin@amspirit.com.
The mysteries, myths and magic of non-verbal communication How to better read and convey body language Episode 168 (Richard is based near London in the UK) In this conversation with Richard Newman: Why your words alone might not convey emotion Sending congruent messages from verbal and non-verbal channels The mistakes we make when we only hear the words Body language and tone of voice presents the palate The three minds that evaluate the message -survival emotional, logical Why you need to see and hear beyond the words How do we evaluate the truth Why the CEO and CFO need to align their body language with the words How to read body language in context and from clusters About our guest Richard Newman: Richard is the Founder of Body Talk. Over the past 23 years his team have trained over 120,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact, including one client who gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, using the strategies that Richard teaches. Richard's research on non-verbal communication was published in the Journal of Psychology. His study proved that you can increase your leadership ratings by 44% and win 59% more votes in an election by changing a few simple behaviors. Richard's new book ‘Lift Your Impact' explores how you can ‘Transform your mindset, influence and future, to elevate your work, team and life'. Learn more about Richard and his services at the website https://ukbodytalk.com/ ----- Excerpts from this conversation with Richard Newman: Do we use body language as an indicator of emotion or an indicator of truth versus untruth? Yeah, so I think a palette of emotions the great way to explain this and I should say that, I love words, I'm passionate about words. I've written a couple of books. I was very proud to win a speech writing award and going back a few years ago. And so words can be extraordinarily valuable. But then you got to think about if you are with people, then your body language and your tone of voice is there as the palette that brings this to life and though you don't want to just have a grey Canvas, you need to express it, you need to express what that message really means. ----- I was terrified to stand up and speak in class, because I just didn't have any confidence around communication. And now I was onstage teaching in front of 1000s of people and enjoying it not just teaching but teaching communication. And so it's one of those things that you can learn. And if you think about it a little bit like this, you know, it's worthwhile learning lessons where if you approach tennis the same way as as body language, if you think well, you're just a natural or you're not then imagine any of the great tennis players who's doing well at the moment like Novak Djokovic. If you imagine when he was five years old, his parents said to him, oh, there's a tennis court over there. Just go and be yourself just be natural, you'd be a terrible player, he wouldn't have any idea how to play the game, you wouldn't be a champion. But instead what happened is he had lessons around forehand backhand serve volley and everything else around the game. And then he built that up in his own way, his own method, his own style, too, as his own personality on the court. The same goes with body language is that you can start to learn what the principles are. And the important thing around that is that you make them your own. ------- ----more---- Your host is George Torok George is a specialist in executive communication skills. That includes conversation and presentation. He's fascinated by way we communicate and influence behaviors. He delivers training and coaching programs to help leaders and promising professionals deliver the intended message for greater success. Connect with George www.SpeechCoachforExecutives.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgetorokpresentations/ https://www.youtube.com/user/presentationskills https://www.instagram.com/georgetorok/
The ability to communicate persuasively has never been more critical. Gone are the days when mere words alone could sway minds and shape decisions, and nowadays buyers are more savvy. Understanding how to use of nonverbal communication in a positive way will enhance your influence and impact by building rapport and deeper connection. In this episode of Influence by Design, I speak with communication and mindset coach, keynote speaker, and best-selling author, Richard Newman. He's an expert in helping global business leaders improve their communication and impact. At an early age, Richard realised that communication was going to be his lifelong passion. In his quest of learning more about communication, he discovered the importance of congruence, meaning that language should transcend all areas including, physical, vocal, and actions. Richard advocates the power of body language in amplifying influence and storytelling. Doing so helps establish a dynamic presence and connection in the most powerful and engaging way. The art of nonverbal communication will not only enhance your influence as a thought leader but will also unlock a deeper understanding of your prospects. This episode is filled with Richard's valuable insights on why you should embrace body language, storytelling, and impactful communication. For full show notes and links - https://samanthariley.global/podcast/514
Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5k per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. Marc Mar-Yohana is the CEO and Founder of OtisHealth, a personal health application and platform for patient-caregiver engagement, population health, and clinical research. The conversation revolves around the origin and working principles of OtisHealth, a healthcare app designed to consolidate health information. Marc was motivated to start the app following the tragic death of his eight-year-old daughter, Constance, from an undiagnosed brain tumor. Despite being under the care of multiple health providers, the fragmentation of her medical data meant they missed the signs of her condition. Marc has dedicated his life to developing better tools for families and caregivers to manage their loved one's health. He aimed to create a unified system where all health data could be gathered, enabling caregivers, patients, and medical providers to see the whole picture. OtisHealth allows patients to integrate data from different sources, including wearable devices, and capture information outside clinical settings. The initial outreach strategy of OtisHealth through consumer channels was slow to get traction. The company switched to recruiting through organizations with health interests, such as health insurers or "payers," leading to a significant increase in users. Although not everyone uses the app daily, it is a crucial health management tool for those with chronic illnesses or emergencies. The trustworthiness of OtisHealth is demonstrated through accreditation from the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, indicating that their practices meet or exceed federal regulatory requirements and industry guidelines. This, along with community outreach and educational content, helped build trust with users. Marc's diverse corporate background gave him the skill set to lead OtisHealth, emphasizing the importance of team development and collaboration with other organizations, even competitors, to move the mission forward. __ OtisHealth (https://otishealth.net/) Follow OtisHealth on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/OtisHealth), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/otishealth/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bloxisawesome/), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5yGWpOTCOJnbxjD1LnkMXg) Follow Marc Mar-Yohana on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-mar-yohana/). 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: VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Marc Mar-Yohana, CEO and Founder of OtisHealth, a personal health application and a platform for patient-caregiver engagement, population health, and clinical research. Marc, thank you for joining me. MARC: Victoria, I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me to join you on this podcast. VICTORIA: You're welcome. I'm excited to have you. So, why don't you just tell me a little bit about what's going on in your world right now? MARC: Well, OtisHealth is keeping me pretty busy. So, I live in Northern California. My team is mostly in California, a little bit in Illinois. And we're busy every day, both supporting our members and working with clients. And so, it's exciting times, especially on our advocacy front. We work with organizations across the country to advocate for patient access to their health records and also for individuals themselves to improve their access to quality healthcare wherever they reside in the United States. The advocacy, the work with our clients, and the work with our members keeps us super busy. Although I do still try to make time to hike in the beautiful scenery out here. I'm new to California. I'm originally from Illinois, so it's great to just be able to get out every once in a while for a hike in the area. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. Have you made it to any redwood forest out there? MARC: Yeah, Muir Woods, which is just north of us, north of the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of the time, we like to walk the coastline. So just north of Santa Cruz is a great state park known as Wilder State Ranch. And they have amazing views of the coastline, wonderful views of birds, as well as occasionally spotting whales, and dolphins, and sea otters along the coast. VICTORIA: That's so cool. I had a friend, actually, who just went up there and went kayaking with the otters, and I'm very jealous. [laughter] It sounds beautiful. MARC: Yeah, that can be fun. Otters are really cute creatures. And they can be aggressive too. There's a concern right now. There's one female otter that likes to grab people's surfboards. And I saw a video of a sea lion jumping on top of a sea kayak to steal a fish from a fisherman. VICTORIA: I think if a sea otter or a sea lion wanted my vessel, a kayak or surfboard, I mean, you can have it. [laughter] You worked this hard. [laughs] MARC: Yeah, they're pretty aggressive. They're more comfortable in the water than we are, so they [laughs] pretty much are in charge in the environment. VICTORIA: That's right. We're in their house, right? So, I'm, like, okay, [laughs] you can have it. That's great. Oh, wonderful. I'm glad you still have time to get outside and enjoy hiking with your family, even though you're a very busy founder [chuckles] and very active advocate for your community. So, why don't you tell me how everything with OtisHealth got started? MARC: So, it started with a tragedy, a horrible tragedy in my life. My daughter, Constance, who was eight years old at the time and had been previously diagnosed with autism, apraxia of speech, and epilepsy, died from an undiagnosed brain tumor. She had great healthcare. She had a neurologist, a pediatrician. She had therapists that saw her five days a week and, of course, her parents watching over her. Yet, we all missed the symptoms, the major illness that claimed her life. And so, because all of her healthcare providers were on different systems, and as parents, we didn't have a system, there wasn't a place to put our observations together. And everyone attributed their observations of her changing condition to other medical concerns. And so, after she passed, I started to spend a couple of years trying to understand what happened. And I realized a big part of it was the information was in front of us. It was just in different people's hands. And when we put it together, we could have seen the whole picture that would have shown that she had a more serious illness. And so I chose a new mission in my life: to abandon my corporate career and move into this role of developing a better set of tools for families and caregivers to manage their loved one's health. And so, our mission today is to work with families, caregivers, and people with chronic illness to give them better tools to manage their everyday health and the health of their loved ones, and thereby also improving lives in the community. VICTORIA: Well, I love that out of the tragedy, you were able to find direction and purpose to solve this major problem, which I can relate to having moved across the country. Your medical records don't come with you. You have to basically kind of start all over, or they have to go get them from your past patients. It's not unified as a system, as you might think that is. [laughs] MARC: That's absolutely right. Our data is spread out across different clinical sources. Just in the time I moved out here to California from Chicago, I saw five different providers just because I wanted to get some tests done. So, I had to go to a few different locations to do a normal battery of tests. And so, I had at least five different health records created just when I moved out here. And they're all in different systems, and they're not even on the same type of application. So, to bring them together, I had to basically download them and put them in files on my desktop computer. With OtisHealth, I'm able to retrieve that data and put it onto one continuous record and watch it. But that's still just our clinical data, meaning data collected in clinical settings. We have more data to share of things that you and I observe as regular people or our families observe. And so, the part that's missing in the record is all the observations in the time that we're not in the physician, in a physician's office, or in the presence of a clinician. We can; with our tools today, such as wearable watches, or blood pressure cuffs that are Bluetooth-connected, we can get a lot more data and share that back into our records so that we have a true baseline, not the once-a-year that I go to see a physician, and they say my blood pressure is high. And the next time I go, it's low. It's because we only have two data points over two years. Where today, with our technology and our capabilities, we can have a baseline of true data continuously throughout the year that will give the physician or care team more insights into how we're doing in terms of our health. VICTORIA: That's so interesting. And it makes a lot of sense to me why someone would want to use this or why doctors would want to use this. And I'm curious, once you had this idea, how did you get that initial traction to get started with OtisHealth? MARC: Initially, it was a little difficult. And this is kind of part of our lessons learned when we started the company. We started advertising on Facebook. This is after we launched the product. So, we launched in 2021. We had the idea that we were going to make this available to a lot of people. We knew a lot of folks that needed it. It was okay to get the first 100 or so people because there were folks that we knew needed the application or folks that were curious about it and wanted to try it. And we started advertising through consumer channels such as Facebook, and LinkedIn, and other magazines to people that we knew had the need for the app. Yet, it was a very slow uptake. And the part of what we learned and we started applying to our marketing or our membership development or recruitment thesis is that the health records are kind of like an umbrella. We don't think about the umbrella or going out to get an umbrella until it's raining, and for most people, it doesn't rain very often. And so, it's not something that people would use every day. In most cases, they use it only when they have an emergency or when they're managing their chronic illness or the chronic illness of a loved one. And so, we eventually changed the way we were recruiting and started recruiting through other organizations, such as clients where we're able to get thousands of users through the client that has members. And then, slowly, over time, teach them the importance of managing their everyday health, and taking their own vitals, and recording that, and they record for themselves and their family. VICTORIA: Right. So, you were able to offer the app for free for daily users because you found another group that was interested in having access to the data and having this app, right? MARC: Yeah. So, anybody today can go to the Apple Store or the Google Play Store and they could download the app for free. And they can use the web version also. And they could share it with friends and family, which I always encourage people to do. So, if you have an emergency contact, invite them to your medical records; at least they have your basic medications, and allergies, and other key information in case of an emergency. What we did in terms of our change of strategy early on is we started going to organizations that also had an interest in improving the health of their population and, in particular, health insurers or what we call in the industry payers. And so, payer organizations could be Medicaid, Medicare, or it could be employee health plan, one of the big health insurance companies like Blue Cross or UnitedHealthcare. They have an interest in people managing their everyday health. And so, one of our clients right now, everyone that enrolls in one of their plans automatically gets enrolled in a version of OtisHealth specifically for their members. And those members could still invite people to join them on the platform, and those people can get on with OtisHealth. But the nice thing is now this payer has a way to both encourage healthier activity or healthier practices for their population and monitor if there's a problem. So, if somebody is missing medications, or not taking their medications on time, or has vitals that are tracking poorly, this gives the payer an opportunity to reach out and ask them if they need help managing their health. VICTORIA: So, how does that dynamic affect how you measure successful engagement on the platform, like, a successful rate of engagement? MARC: So, for us, most people don't use the app every day. Most of us don't even think about our health [laughs] on a daily basis from a standpoint of our medical health or clinical health. Sometimes those of us that exercise regularly think about it in those terms or eating healthy. But we don't think about keeping a record or using an app to maintain our health. And so, for us, an active user is anybody that's logging in at least once a month to update their information. Our really great users are the ones who are using the reminder features to take supplements or take their medications. And so, I would say of the few thousand users that we have—we're approaching 10,000 right now active users—only a small percentage of those, maybe 10%, are actually using it on a daily basis for themselves or their family. And so, for us, a good engagement and good practice is folks setting reminders on at least a weekly basis to take vitals, weigh themselves—something that would help them track their health over time—and if they're taking medications, to set daily reminders for the medications that they take. And so, we currently have far more people enrolled in OtisHealth and that, you know, 5,000, 6000 I mentioned that are active. But they basically bought the umbrella, and they just put it in their closet. They're waiting for that rainy day that they have to pull it out and start using it. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And I'm already in my head going through the people in my family who would benefit from this where, you know, I have family members who have a learning and a physical disability, and tracking everything that they're supposed to be doing to maintain their health is quite difficult. So, I can definitely see the value in that and why people would want to use it. And I think for, you know, healthcare apps, you have to build this high level of trust. You know, people are giving you all this data about their health information. So, how do you go about building a product that people can trust from the beginning? MARC: One of the things we sort early in the life of OtisHealth is an accreditation. An accreditation is not required by law. It's not required by any institution necessarily. It's a third party that reviews our practices and our systems to see if we're actually following good privacy and security standards and practices. And so we went live in November of 2021, and by the end of December of 2021, we already had our full accreditation in what's called a comprehensive level from a national established organization known as The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission. And so, that was the first step of making sure that folks understood that we took their privacy and security seriously. That accreditation means that our practices and our technology meets or exceeds federal regulatory requirements and industry guidelines. And that's just the first step. Then after that, it's really a matter of people gain their trust because an accreditation itself doesn't necessarily mean that we trust that brand. That's just a basic starting point for us. After that, we publish articles about maintaining health. We have launched some videos about different aspects of our advocacy, such as with autism for caregivers. And we participate in community activities at the national level to improve patient access and to talk about how important it is to manage our own health and the health of our loved ones. And so, it's a combination of both basic accreditations that show that we made the investment, and we provided a third party to critique us and to review us. And we actively maintain that accreditation is not a one-time stamp. And then, the second part is continuous outreach, and letting the community know what we're working on, what's important to us, so that, over time, they start to look at what we do and start to trust it and invite other people to trust it as well. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. And I'm curious if there were experiences from your corporate career that informed how you acted as a founder and what you prioritized. MARC: I've had an odd corporate career. [laughs] So, I started my career as an engineer in manufacturing operations and in product development and then went down to as a consultant strategy in ops and market management, and then, later, investment management and private equity, and then, later, for a safety science company where I was managing global capital investments in technology and new operations. And so, I've been fortunate that I've had a breadth of experience, from marketing to sales, to product and technology development, and infrastructure management. So, I had some basic skills that helped me understand what...well, the endeavor before I jumped into it because I spent a couple of years thinking about whether or not I even wanted to do something like this. And then, I would say probably the most important part of my previous experience that I apply every day at OtisHealth is developing teams and developing collaboration with different organizations. You know, aside from the team that I have, our own staff, we also work very closely with other organizations, even competitors, to make sure that we're all successful. And so, that collaboration across organizations that don't even have a necessarily contractual relationship is something that I brought over from my previous work and seeing how working across the industry, we can help each other and serve the mission. So, I think that was probably the most important part of my previous work experience that I apply today is this: building a team and building a coalition of organizations that want to move forward together. VICTORIA: That's great. And I'm wondering if there was anything that surprised you in that early phase of building collaboration with other companies and understanding your users that changed the strategic direction you were going with in the app. MARC: So, one of the things that I was really just in awe of was how willing people in the healthcare industry were to jump in and help out when we started talking. And so, many of the organizations that we work with, the founders or the senior staff within the nonprofits we work with, all have a story of why they're doing what they're doing. Many are brilliant people who could have taken their careers in many different directions, not in healthcare. And they chose to move forward in healthcare because of some personal experience in their life. And so, as I learned about the people I was working with, I was surprised how quickly they just took me under their wing and said, "Hey, let's get you started marketing. Let's move OtisHealth forward." And so, we have organizations like Onyx and Invitae [SP] that are giving us support in data access. There's another organization that I can't mention yet; that's another private entity that has offered their support, and we hope to launch with them in the next couple of weeks. And so, we're forming these data access bridges to help get patients more access to their data, their loved ones' data. And then, there's the nonprofits in the advocacy and standards organizations we work with, such as HL7, which is an international health technology standards organization, and DirectTrust, which is an organization that establishes trust networks in ecosystems, as well as the technology infrastructure behind how those systems communicate. And we work also with EHNAC, the accreditation commission. So, we not only are using the accreditation from EHNAC, we're on committees to advise them on future criteria for accreditation. VICTORIA: That's really cool. I love that there's that collaboration and just openness and willingness to try to make things better and to invest in solutions together. Mid-Roll Ad: VICTORIA: Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5K per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. VICTORIA: And with me here, I have Richard Newman, who is the Development Director on our Boost Team, to talk to me a little bit more about what maintenance actually looks like once you've built your software application, right? RICHARD: Hi, Victoria. VICTORIA: Hi, Richard. You have experience building applications. I wonder if you could describe to a founder who's considering to build an application, like, what should they consider for their long-term maintenance? RICHARD: Well, like you said earlier, part of what you're going for with that long-term maintenance is making sure the health of your project, of your application, is always there. And you don't want to be surprised as you're continuing to work with your users and so forth. And so, a number of things that we pay attention to in maintenance are, we're paying attention to keeping the application secure, providing security updates. We want to make sure that the ecosystem, basically, all of the tools and third-party services that are tied to your application that, we're responding to those sorts of changes as we go along. And then part of it is, occasionally, you're going to find some smaller issues or bugs or so forth as your user group continues to grow or as needs continue to change. You want to be able to respond to those quickly as well. And so, a lot of what goes into maintenance is making sure that you're paying attention and you're ahead of those things before they surprise you. VICTORIA: Because what can happen? Like, what are the consequences if you don't do that ongoing maintenance? RICHARD: Well, the security updates those happen across gems and in the platform sort of tools that are there. And so, if you're not keeping those up to date, your exposure, your vulnerability to being hacked, or having a bad actor come into your application start growing on you if you're not doing the maintenance. The other ones that can come up is there's new interfaces that these third-party services...they may be updating their APIs. They may be updating how you're supposed to work with their tool. And so, those can occasionally break if you're not paying attention to what's going on or you're suddenly surprised by an upgrade that you have to make. And then, finally, there's this long-term sort of code change that just builds up over time if you're not keeping it refactored for the changes that are upcoming in a language or the gems that you work with. And then, suddenly, after a while, it suddenly gets to the point where you have a lot of work that you might have to do to rehabilitate the application to take on some of the newer features that are being released. And so, that makes it that much more difficult, that much more friction about being able to deliver updates for your users or to be able to respond to changes that are happening out there in your application. VICTORIA: Right. So, if you don't have that ongoing maintenance, you could run into a situation where, suddenly, you need to make a very large investment and fixing whatever is broken. RICHARD: Absolutely. It's going to be very tough to plan for if you weren't keeping up all the way along and, yes, absolutely ends up being much slower if you have to remediate it. VICTORIA: That makes sense. I wonder if you have any examples of a project you've walked into and said, "Wow, I wish we had been doing a little bit more maintenance." [laughs] And maybe you can share some details. RICHARD: Yeah. We had a fairly large application that involved a number of clinic services. So, we had an application that users were going in every day and counting on our fast response. And, over time, we've got surprised by a database upgrade that had to happen. Basically, the database was going to be changed by our third-party hosting service, and that hadn't been tested. There hadn't been procedures in place when we discovered this need. And there was a very hard date that that change had to be done or else the entire application was going to go down. And it came at a very inconvenient time, at the end of the year around Christmas, that we had to respond to all of that. And had we been in front of it and just updated it every quarter and staying current with it, it wouldn't have been nearly the lift that it turned out to be. We were facing a pretty hard deadline [laughs] there to keep things going. It was very, very stressful and disruptive for the team and potentially for the clinics. VICTORIA: Right. And it always happens around a big holiday or something like that, right? When it all comes to a head. So... [laughter] RICHARD: Absolutely. You want to be in control of the timeframe and not have the timeframe be in control of you. VICTORIA: Right. And if you have a team like thoughtbot supporting you, you can go on your vacation with a little bit more knowledge that if something breaks, there's someone there who can respond and fix things, and you don't have to interrupt your very valuable time off. So... RICHARD: [chuckles] Absolutely. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Richard, for joining me today. I appreciate you coming here to talk with us. And we'll talk to you again soon. RICHARD: Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. VICTORIA: You mentioned advocacy. And I'm curious if you could say more about what advocacy are you doing or how does that blend into your business model and what you're doing with OtisHealth? MARC: I'll give you an example. One of the organizations we belong to and I participate in personally is the Health Information Management System Society. And so, this is a professional society of healthcare IT professionals. And in Northern California, there's an advocacy committee that works directly with the state legislature to promote legislation that will improve the quality of healthcare for people in California. We actively talk to members of the legislature to tell them what bills we think are important. The ones we focus on and the ones I personally focus on are the ones that improve access to our data and also improve our privacy. So, there's a legislation in California, as an example, that will prohibit access to people's healthcare data without proper legal warrant. So, it's basically extending HIPAA protections across any health app launched in California. And we, of course, are already HIPAA-compliant, so that's very easy for us. There's also advocacy specific to certain health conditions. So, my daughter had autism. I work with the Autism Society here in California and also Achieve Tahoe, which is an organization that teaches skiing and other skills to people with disabilities in particular. This past season was my first season. I work primarily with children and young adults with autism and other developmental disorders. And then we also partner with organizations when we think that they're aligned with some of our mission. And so we work with the Caregiver Action Network. We also will work with AARP and other organizations regarding caregiver rights and also teaching caregivers how to access the healthcare data of their loved ones and how to take care of themselves personally. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. And I guess it's not really a question, but I saw that autism service dogs are a thing, and I just thought that was really cool. [laughs] MARC: Yeah, OtisHealth is named after Constance's autism service dog, Otis. And so, service dogs are extraordinary animals. They're highly trained. Otis had been trained for two years before we received him. He was trained specifically for Constance's needs, and he kept her safe. And that was the primary interest in Otis is observing things that she...because of her cognitive limitations, wasn't always aware of her surroundings and wasn't always safe. And so, the dog maintained her safety and her boundaries and kept her focused, as well as just basically blocked her if she was going to do something that was unsafe. So, there are many different kinds of service dogs, and I'm talking specifically about ADA, the Americans with Disability Act type service dogs. These aren't, like, companion dogs or therapy dogs. These are truly highly trained animals that are focused on specific tasks to help an individual be safer, more free, or have more abilities than their disabilities may allow. VICTORIA: Well, I love that. And I like that the app is named after her dog as well. That's just very sweet. And I love that that's how that worked. And I'm curious, what's on the horizon? What are you most excited about for OtisHealth in the next year? MARC: Like all startups, we have [laughs] a lot of plans. And we've been invited to speak at some conferences. I spoke at two already this year. And I have another one coming up in Washington, D.C., where we're going to advocate, again, for patient access. And this is primarily talking to the health systems themselves in adopting technology that makes it easier for patients to securely access their health records. And so, we're excited about that movement in the industry to recognize and start to act on that need for patients to be able to access their health records. And we work with our partners to promote that and also with the federal government. We work with the health and human services to promote this access. And we were published in a report earlier this year because of our technology demonstration with health and human services. And it sounds like it's finally getting some real traction in hospital systems. And members of the Federal Congress are also saying that this is something we need to move forward with in a more aggressive manner. On a more direct path, we're excited our membership's growing. We've had tens of thousands of people register to use the app, with thousands actively using it today. We're working on some new programs right now for payers and for providers that will improve health outcomes and within their populations, as well as bring on hundreds of thousands of other people on the app. We're really excited to know that we're getting both recognized for the work that we're doing and that people are starting to understand the importance of managing everyday health, whether it's with OtisHealth or another application. VICTORIA: Well, I love being excited for these opportunities to advocate for your product and for the mission behind the product. I'm not going to recommend being excited about going to D.C. during the summer. [laughs] Last time I was there when I landed at 9:00 p.m., it was 90 degrees outside [chuckles] and humid, like, 90% humidity. But it's great to have access to people who care and are trying to make things better and have that voice. I'm excited to see you grow. And then, it's been two years since you started the app. I wonder, if you could go back in time to when you first were getting started, what advice would you give yourself? MARC: So, this is a really hard thing for anybody to look back and say that they'd like to change a few things. There are things I would change. I have a lot of experience managing large, sophisticated programs. Because in the past I had large budgets, it was really easy to maintain strict discipline around the implementation. And I think I was too loose in the implementation process at the onset of OtisHealth. I would have been more disciplined around my program management and the accountability that I had to developers I was using. As a startup, I didn't have a large development team in-house. I needed to use external parties. And I should have been a little more closely on top of that process. The other things that we experienced were primarily a result of pivots. We were constantly pivoting as we were learning. I think having a team to review our process and pivot more quickly is really critical. You don't want to pivot 20 times a week. You need to stay focused for a while, but also having friends or advisors or members of your team that can help you assess when a pivot is necessary, or a new opportunity presents itself, I think, is critical. And so, we all know, as founders, the team is key. And I think the earlier you engage a team and not be bashful by asking for advice, the better. VICTORIA: I love that. And I'm curious if you have any advice from your program or from your startup career now on choosing the right development teams. And how do you find those right partners to actually build the app and have that accountability? MARC: So, I would say the number one thing that I've learned, that I knew previously, but I really appreciate it more now as a founder of a small company, is you need mission alignment, not just company to company, but person to person. And I took my time picking advisors to join us, and I took my time getting people on board to OtisHealth. We pick folks that we believe understand what we're doing, and we take our time and make sure that they appreciate it and that we're comfortable with them. Our startup is too small to make a bad hire or to have the wrong perspective because somebody has other motives, such as just making money. If I was providing advice in terms of picking teams or picking vendors to work with, I would say take it slow. Don't rush, even though you may be in a rush, or we may be in a rush to get moving, either for financial reasons or personal reasons. It's important just to feel comfortable. Get to know folks. Meet them in person if you can and spend a few hours with them at a time [laughs], just to make sure that they believe in you, and you believe in them, and that you have a common vision. Because when things get rough or tough, financially or otherwise, you need people that are going to be able to stick through it and work with you. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of pivots happening. You want everyone to be on the same page. And you don't want to have to be corralling everyone all the time if they have competing priorities, so that makes a lot of sense. MARC: Absolutely. Just to be clearer on that, we all run into challenges. So, in some cases, we had to make some financial sacrifices, and everyone did it together. You really need people that are that committed that say, "Okay, I understand where we are, and so, I'm willing to take a pay cut for a while or not get paid for a while until we can get this spec started again." Even vendors I work with today that are strategic vendors understand that and have helped us financially when we need some time to get more revenue in. VICTORIA: Great. And so, when you were building a healthcare app, was there people you needed to have on your team who had that exact specialty in either patient care, or medical records, or something like that? MARC: Yes, yeah, you need experts. So, I'm a quick read. I mean, I spent a couple of years learning the industry and understanding the technology. But the person that's our IT director he has over 25 years of experience in healthcare IT systems, so he is the expert in-house. We also have advisors on our team that are experts in payer services and payer systems, launching healthcare apps, managing standards, and managing SaaS services. We have a data and an AI expert, and a clinical research specialist. We also have physicians we refer to. [laughs] So, we have a pretty big entourage of individuals that we go to for very specific advice and work. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. Let's see, what question should I be asking that I haven't asked yet? MARC: You know, I think most of the people listening to this podcast are technical founders. And it was surprising to me, and I had some founders contact me, asked for some free advice, which I'm happy to do, but they didn't seem sincere in their interest in being in healthcare. And one thing I told them, and I would say to anybody that's interested in being a healthcare technology developer, is you have to have a reason to do it besides the money. It will be a really hard battle to move forward with a technology if the only motivation is a financial opportunity. That isn't going to sustain the pivots or the development. You'll run into a lot of walls, primarily because everyone will see it. Everyone in the industry sees those players come in that just have a financial interest, and the consumers see it, and they don't like it. So, my advice to anybody that wants to develop technology in healthcare is you have to be a little sincere about it and have a real reason to do it beyond just making money, and I think you'll find it more rewarding. There's so much need for healthcare technology and better technology out there. So, I welcome folks to join the fight, the battle, or the opportunities. But I would say that just come in with the idea that you're helping people, not just making money. VICTORIA: I think that rings true for any business you're in, right? But especially in healthcare because it is this big target. Even in consulting, if you're doing business development and you're thinking of working on health IT projects, there's just a huge market that you have to narrow down and figure out where you're going to be. So, if you don't have that intrinsic motivation, it can be overwhelming and scattered, and then people won't connect with you, right? Because everybody is going after the same thing. MARC: That's exactly right. One of the conferences I went to earlier this year, a speaker got up and said, "People invest in people, or people make deals with other people." We talk about companies signing a deal with another company, but it's really one person trusting another person. Whether it's in healthcare or another industry, obviously, that trust needs to happen. At some point, if I don't trust the individual I'm talking to, I'm less likely to have a deal with that company. VICTORIA: Right. It's like; I don't know how, you know, it doesn't really matter how impressive your credentials are. If there's not a basic level of trust, you might not move forward with it, so that makes a lot of sense to me. MARC: Yeah, that's absolutely right, Victoria. VICTORIA: Absolutely. Is there anything else that you'd like to promote at the end of this podcast? MARC: I'd love for folks to try OtisHealth. If you have family that have chronic medical needs or need help managing their medical information, please download OtisHealth, help them join. There are videos on YouTube that explain how to use it if you need some guidance, but we believe most of it is self-explanatory. We are continuously adding data access points. We're going to be launching this week new versions of OtisHealth that have access privileges for people in New York and Nevada and parts of California and Colorado. And so that means that with the app, once you're ID-proofed on the app, you can use it to get your medical records from different sources without having to log into all these different patient portals. So please try it. Use it for yourself but especially use it for your family or anybody who you care for. We'd love to get your feedback as you use the app too. VICTORIA: That's great. And I'm actually already thinking about...next week; I'm going to be going to The San Diego Annual Veterans Stand Down, where anyone who is experiencing homelessness can come in and get access to all the services that they might need, whether it's legal, or healthcare, or dentistry, showers, food, all of these things. And I'm curious if that organization might benefit from having a tool like that for their users. So, I'll be talking about it. [laughs] MARC: Oh, thank you so much. That'd be wonderful. Thank you. VICTORIA: That's great. Well, thank you so much, Marc, for joining us. MARC: My pleasure. Thank you, Victoria, for having me on the show. VICTORIA: Excellent. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Marc Mar-Yohana.
Did you know your body language can influence your career more than your actual experience?! The founder of Body Talk, Richard Newman reveals insights on the small–but impactful–shifts anyone can make to become a more powerful communicator including three body language behaviors. Plus, Richard shares the one secret that transforms your influence in every situation, so that you can inspire, motivate and lead people.Weekly Newsletter Sign-Up: http://bit.ly/37hqtQWFollow Career Contessa: http://bit.ly/2TMH2QP Book: Lift Your Impact: Transform Your Mindset, Influence, and Future to Elevate Your Work, Team, and Life: https://ukbodytalk.com/books/lift-your-impact/ Free Book Sample: https://liftyourimpact.com/thebook BodyTalk Website: www.UKBodyTalk.comRichard Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richardnewmanspeaks/Richard LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaksThis episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Episode Perks:Start hiring now with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/CONTESSA. Offer good for a limited time. .At Westin hotels, there's amenities and offerings aimed to help you move well, eat well, and sleep well, so you can keep your well-being close, while away. Find wellness on your next stay at Westin.Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5k per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. __ Simon Ritchie, the founder and CEO of Blox, discusses his background and journey leading up to starting the company. He began his career in finance but discovered his passion for technology and finance systems. He worked at Anaplan, a successful finance planning and analysis software company, but saw the limitations of rigid systems when COVID-19 hit. He realized there was a need for a more flexible and accessible financial modeling and planning tool, especially for small businesses and charities. Blox aims to fill this gap by providing a powerful yet easy-to-use modeling, calculation, and planning engine that sits between spreadsheets and complex enterprise software. The company is about a year old, has raised venture funding, and launched a free tier of its product. They prioritize building a compelling product, iterating quickly, and engaging with users to understand their needs. Simon acknowledges that building the product has been enjoyable, leveraging his background in product management. However, sales, marketing, and customer traction have proven challenging. Nonetheless, he remains optimistic about Blox's progress and is committed to providing a valuable solution to help businesses make informed decisions and achieve their financial goals. Blox (https://www.blox.so/) Follow Blox on Twitter (https://twitter.com/blox_is_awesome), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/blox.for.planning), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/blox-plan/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bloxisawesome/), or TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@bravewithblox/) Follow Simon Ritchie on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/siritchie/). 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: VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. WILL: And I'm your other host, Will Larry. And with me today is Simon Ritchie, Founder and CEO of Blox, which provides pre-built planning models to help business leaders escape the tyranny of complex, clunky, and error-prone spreadsheets, giving you visibility into and confidence in the reality of your business. Simon, thank you for joining us. How are you doing today? SIMON: Hey, guys. Yeah, I'm very good today. VICTORIA: So, Simon, where are you joining us from today? SIMON: So, I'm joining from the UK. I live in a city called Brighton on the South Coast of the UK, where it's a lovely day today. It's nice and sunny. VICTORIA: Oh, that's where our thoughtbot summit has been the last two years, in Brighton, actually. SIMON: Fantastic. Yeah, it's a wonderful place. VICTORIA: And a great place to be in the summer right now, right? Do you get out in the water very often? SIMON: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like many others, we have a paddle board. So, I go out with my family. I have four kids, so we go out and have fun at the beach. Brighton's got a stony beach. So we are, as Brightoners, we're very proud of the stones. You know, if you have sand, you get sand everywhere, stones are...it's much cleaner. [laughter] It does hurt your feet, though. There you go. [laughter] WILL: Yeah, that was the first time I've ever seen that, and I was like, that's very interesting. SIMON: Yeah. [laughs] WILL: I probably will like it because I don't like the sand getting everywhere, so... SIMON: Yeah, absolutely. WILL: So, yeah, I probably could trade that in. [laughs] SIMON: Yeah, yeah. You just have to wear shoes if you want to go run around. We're proud. We're proud of it. VICTORIA: I didn't think about that either. It makes a lot more sense. I don't really like the sand [laughter]. Rocks make more sense. But in California here, we're surfing, so having too many rocks on the beach would be a problem [laughs] for those of us who can't control ourselves. [laughter] SIMON: Yes. Yeah, Victoria, I thought you lived in Wales when I first looked at your profile -- VICTORIA: Oh, right. SIMON: On LinkedIn. And I thought, oh -- VICTORIA: That's...yeah. SIMON: A Welsh girl. That's -- VICTORIA: My family is actually Welsh on my mother's side. SIMON: Oh really? VICTORIA: Yeah. SIMON: Okay. VICTORIA: And Cardiff...California is named after Cardiff, Wales. SIMON: Okay, oh. VICTORIA: But yeah, so that's where it came from. So, I thought that was very cute, too. SIMON: [laughs] Very cool. VICTORIA: But, you know, Cardiff-by-the Sea is its own little beach town here. SIMON: It's not Wales. [laughs] VICTORIA: Not Wales. [laughs] Pretty different. But I do hear Wales is beautiful. SIMON: Oh, it is. Yeah, absolutely. VICTORIA: Awesome. Well, let's talk about Blox a little bit. So, why don't you tell us maybe a little bit about your background and how you came around to starting it? SIMON: Yeah, great. So, and just in terms of me and my background, so I started my career in finance, actually. I didn't really know what to go and study, so I thought, you know, studying numbers was probably a good thing. So, I did an accounting finance degree. And I got into the world of work in finance roles very quickly realized that finance wasn't for me. I just didn't really want to be a CFO. I just didn't feel the passion for it. But I was the techie guy always in the finance team. I was the guy people turned to and originally for, you know, Excel and spreadsheet modeling. And behind Excel, you've got VBA. So, you've got this little, you know, it was my first exposure to programming and some, you know, and what coding was. And so, I sort of just realized, actually, I love the technology side. And so, I followed my passion more into the finance systems arena. And my passion has always been...the focus of my career has been helping leaders understand what's going on in the business by getting hold of those numbers, the data that they have, and analyzing it, summarizing it, trying to draw insights from it so they can make decisions. And so, in the early days, it was lots of Excel spreadsheet modeling. And, in some businesses, there's still tons of spreadsheet modeling going on. And then the next phase of my career was actually working in...there are a number of software options that help you with planning, modeling, reporting, et cetera. So, I joined...well, I did some consulting for a while and then joined a company called Anaplan. And was an early employee, the company was still very early in their journey. They were just launching a European office, so I joined as one of the early European employees. And Anaplan went on, over the course of nearly eight years that I was there, to be [inaudible 04:31], absolute rocket ship, grew up to 2,000 people, and we floated on the New York Stock Exchange and then IPO in 2018. It was acquired last year for a very big number. So really fantastic time there. But to just talk about Blox, so I left Anaplan two years ago. The observations that I made that led to Blox ultimately were there were sort of three main aspects. Like, when COVID happened, the world changed radically. And what I saw...I was working in Anaplan. For anyone who doesn't know, Anaplan they focus on selling to large enterprise. So, you may not be familiar with the company if you're not a CFO or a finance person in a very large company. And they sell very expensive product. It's very, very powerful modeling, calculation, FP&A, finance planning, and analysis software. And so, companies...we were working with companies like Procter & Gamble, HP, Cisco, Google, and others. What I observed was when COVID kicked in, the FP&A system was too rigid. So, Anaplan, you know, these models that people had built up, spent a lot of time and energy building up, it was too rigid. The world changed so much that they couldn't really use their typical budgeting systems or these FP&A solutions. They couldn't use Anaplan. So, everybody just jumped back into a spreadsheet to figure out, you know, do I still have a business? How am I going to survive this if I just had to shut all my retail stores or if I had to send everybody home? You know, so everyone was using spreadsheets, basically. And so my observation there was that the tools that are available at that point are still way too hard to use. They're not flexible enough. You can't mold them quickly enough to really handle some of those scenarios that you want to throw at it as a leader. So, when you're trying to make big decisions about new revenue streams, new offices that you would want to launch, restructuring your team, investing in more people, those things they're really hard to model in the tools that are available. You need real specialist experience and expertise. That's very expensive, et cetera. So that was one part. And then the other thing that happened was I've worked most of my career in larger companies. And I'd worked in, yeah, in finance, in businesses. And also, I'm a chartered management accountant. It's all about helping with managing a business with your numbers. And I hadn't really worked with many very small companies. I ended up volunteering. When the lockdowns were happening, there were lots of people that were sheltering in place and they were staying at home. And so, a local charity had organized to put together food parcels, and then they found drivers to drive them around. And so I had volunteered through a friend of a friend, and somewhere my name got put in. So, I ended up driving these food deliveries around for the summer, and I loved it. Every Thursday, I'd take a couple of hours to just drive around and drop some food on people's doorsteps and then maybe have a quick conversation with them from a distance. I got connected with the charity. It is a local charity that runs on the South Coast in England here. And they found out I was an accountant, and I worked in software technology. They were like, [gasps], please, you can be our new best friend. We need some help. So, I ended up helping them a bit in their back office with some of the reporting that they do. And to cut a long story short, they're a charity. They live on grant funding that they get. So, they apply for grants, and then the grant providers want them to report back on the progress that they've made, the services that they've offered, the people they've helped. So, I went and helped them, and they needed these reports and some plans for grants that they were trying to get. What seemed really easy to me, like, they were showing me that they had to download this data from a system. And they needed to filter it and then count how many people they had been helping. And they basically were just, you know, with different needs and in different categories and cohorts. So, they would basically download the data, open it in a spreadsheet, put a filter on, select some filters, and then they would count the number of rows that had that criteria. And then, they would type the number into an email. And I just showed them some very simple things, like, when you do a filter or if you select the cells, you can see a countdown at the bottom-right in Excel, and I showed them that. And they almost fell off their chair because [laughs] they were like, "Oh, you know, why did we not see that sooner?" But I suppose through that, and, you know, through the various times that I helped them...and I just helped them with initially some spreadsheets and just some help with that. But it just showed me that there are a lot of businesses, a lot of charities in this case, but a lot of businesses where the leaders are not finance savvy, and they are not accountants. They're not MBAs, but they still need help running their business. They need to do reporting. They need to do planning, you know, manage their business, control the finances. So, I just thought, you know, just started thinking a lot more about what does a small business need? What does a leader in a business need to make great decisions, run the business? And how could we get them a tool or some software that doesn't cost hundreds of grand every year but is accessible, a nice, low price point, and really easy for them to use? And that's the problem that I thought about for a long time. And ultimately, that's what we're trying to work on with Blox. WILL: That's amazing. I used to work at a nonprofit. And I remember those days of, like, because I wasn't an MBA, like you said, MBA finance and just trying to figure out numbers. I don't even remember the software we used. SIMON: [laughs] WILL: But it was old and very hard to maneuver. [laughter] SIMON: Oh yeah. WILL: It was harder to maneuver than spreadsheets. And I was like, ahh, this is a nightmare. So, this is amazing that you're doing that. Can you tell us more about how Blox solves that issue? Because it sounds like it is a tween of big software that's for enterprise companies and spreadsheets. So, it's kind of in the middle; it sounds like. SIMON: So, spreadsheets are great. They're really easy. They're easy to start with. You'll often find that your spreadsheet will just kind of reach its natural end. It becomes too complex. And that normally happens when you've got, like, you're planning for lots of people, or lots of products, or lots of different projects. And so, you end up sort of having to figure out how to scale the model, you know, across lots of different columns or rows, or you start copying. And how you'll have three identical tabs or ten identical tabs. And, at that point, you've basically outgrown Excel, and trying to keep that spreadsheet running and working it becomes a real nightmare. And so, that's the point where Blox comes in. You could use Blox right from the very beginning. We've started with a focus on making really nice, simple models that you can just pick up and use. So, our earliest customers are startups doing a financial model for a brand-new idea. So, you can use Blox from the beginning, but you could probably use a spreadsheet, too. Where you would want to use Blox is where it becomes more complex, and you've got a lot more going on. You might have lots of different months, and you've got loads of time. You might want to connect it to your actual accounting system or a CRM system. And so, when you want to pull in actual data and do some reporting and maybe have different scenarios, different versions of a plan or of a report, that's where you've basically outgrown a spreadsheet, and it just becomes complex and unwieldy. And that's where you would want to move into a system. That's what we're building with Blox is basically a powerful modeling calculation planning engine that scales really easily. So, you can build up your dimensions, products, countries, time, et cetera, and you can build up those dimensions. You can build up your logic. You can add your own KPIs. You can add your own projection logic, et cetera. You can build out a model. We've got lots of template models that you can start with because you shouldn't have to start from scratch every time. You can get going. You can load up your own data very quickly at the beginning. For a lot of models, it's just assumptions. You're just trying to work out, okay, like, we've got some service businesses that use Blox. To get a basic model together, what you need to know is how many people do you have roughly? How much do you pay them? And then, how many people do you plan to hire at certain times? And how long does it take to ramp a new hire? Because, normally, there's some sort of ramp time. And if it's a service business and you're selling time, then you kind of have an average number of hours billable or often called utilization. So, with a few quick assumptions, you could throw them in. You could build out a multi-year plan for your business. And you could use that to think about, okay, how can I grow this business? I kind of talk about it as a financial roadmap that you could create. So, you know, often in the product world, we talk about product roadmaps. I like to talk about, you know, a business roadmap or financial roadmap. And that's really what we are working on; Blox and Blox will help you with this financial roadmap that you can build out. You know, I'd like to get my business to this point to, you know, 2 million in revenue, or 10 million in revenue, or maybe there are some financial or non-financial goals that you're trying to get to. And, with a model, you can help try and kind of work out what the assumptions and drivers and what those things need to look like. And then, as a manager of the business, you can start working on, okay, how do I increase my headcount? Or how do I decrease this particular cost per unit or various things like that? So yeah, that's a very high level on what we're doing with Blox. VICTORIA: Thank you for that. And I certainly can relate to that, having worked for several different consulting services companies and how difficult it can be to get software [laughs] to project that -- SIMON: [laughs] VICTORIA: Far into the future, like, to think about how you're going to hire, all the things that go into it. So, I'm curious about your own plan for Blox. Like, how would you describe where you are in your plan for the company? SIMON: We are a year old, actually just celebrated our one-year anniversary. In the last year, we've formed, hired an early team. We've fundraised successfully. So, we raised venture finance to fund the business. It's a complex product to build. We're trying to replace a spreadsheet, which has got tons and tons of features. They've been developing that for a long time. So, for someone to come across, it needs to be a relatively mature product. So, we raised venture funds from investors. We're busy investing that to build up the product and take that to market. It's been a fantastic year. And this is my first time as a founder. I've worked in leadership roles in technology businesses, in customer success, and in product as well. Yeah, I definitely would say working as a founder in a brand-new startup is very different to working in product, in a scale-up. You know, some of the lessons that I learned back there have been useful. You know, you learn how to juggle chaos, how to juggle...how to spin lots of plates. But yeah, I'm really delighted with our progress so far. We've fundraised. We ran a beta of our product last year with some early customers. We graduated from that. Our approach has always been to try and get the product out, so really embrace agile. It's kind of you don't see it so often in enterprise software. What you see is companies that like to just put "Book a demo" on the website. And they don't like to show their software until they've already kind of sold the value, and they've pitched, you know, positioned their pricing, and qualified their leads, et cetera. Our approach has always been let's build a fantastic product. Let's build something which is super compelling, super easy to use. Let's get people into the product as quickly as possible so they can experience it, see if it's going to be valuable for them. We launched a free tier of our product, the first sort of MVP, as a free tier, so not paid, not with some of the features that we plan to add to the product. And so, we've got that out there, and it's been fantastic. We've got users from all over the world using it in all sorts of different ways. And that's the other thing that is really great for us. Because it's such a flexible product, it can be used in lots of places. So, we've got all sorts of different applications being used by it. People jump in; they use it. They can try different templates that we've got. And then, if they need something different...every business is slightly different. So, if they need something slightly different, they can just chat to us in the product. We absolutely love chatting to people. And then, you know, we'll often spin up a custom template for them. And when we've done a few of those, then we'll build a standard template for a new industry. That's a little bit about where we're at. We're a small team based between here and India, where most of our developers are. It's good fun. Some of the learning...so I would say maybe it's just because of my background. So, I moved into product, and I was a product manager and then product leader for the last six years. So, for me, I've found building the product has been the easier part, probably because it's my background and that's where my passion is. So, I absolutely love anytime I get to spend in the product and spend with the team. The original founding team is myself as founder and CEO. And I don't get too much time on the product. I have a product manager and a designer. And so, that was the first...the early team, the founding team. And then we've added marketing and some other roles and software development. And so that's the team. I've found building the product has been really fun, and that's been a bit easier. Trying to work out how to do fundraising was a real challenge, so that took a lot of energy. We've been pretty successful so far in that. Still, always more to go, always more fundraising needed definitely. The really hard thing, especially in the market that we're in right now, it's hard, you know, getting early customer traction and selling. And that's really hard trying to get your name out there, build a brand, find early customers. That's really hard. So yeah, that's definitely an observation for me that the product has been really fun and a bit easier than I thought. But yeah, trying to do sales, marketing, figure that out...and probably as well because it's not my background or my kind of natural area of interest, so I've been learning. That's always tough, isn't it? Mid-Roll Ad: VICTORIA: Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5K per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. VICTORIA: And with me here, I have Richard Newman, who is the Development Director on our Boost Team, to talk to me a little bit more about what maintenance actually looks like once you've built your software application, right? RICHARD: Hi, Victoria. VICTORIA: Hi, Richard. You have experience building applications. I wonder if you could describe to a founder who's considering to build an application, like, what should they consider for their long-term maintenance? RICHARD: Well, like you said earlier, part of what you're going for with that long-term maintenance is making sure the health of your project, of your application, is always there. And you don't want to be surprised as you're continuing to work with your users and so forth. And so, a number of things that we pay attention to in maintenance are, we're paying attention to keeping the application secure, providing security updates. We want to make sure that the ecosystem, basically, all of the tools and third-party services that are tied to your application that, we're responding to those sorts of changes as we go along. And then part of it is, occasionally, you're going to find some smaller issues or bugs or so forth as your user group continues to grow or as needs continue to change. You want to be able to respond to those quickly as well. And so, a lot of what goes into maintenance is making sure that you're paying attention and you're ahead of those things before they surprise you. VICTORIA: Because what can happen? Like, what are the consequences if you don't do that ongoing maintenance? RICHARD: Well, the security updates those happen across gems and in the platform sort of tools that are there. And so, if you're not keeping those up to date, your exposure, your vulnerability to being hacked, or having a bad actor come into your application start growing on you if you're not doing the maintenance. The other ones that can come up is there's new interfaces that these third-party services...they may be updating their APIs. They may be updating how you're supposed to work with their tool. And so, those can occasionally break if you're not paying attention to what's going on or you're suddenly surprised by an upgrade that you have to make. And then, finally, there's this long-term sort of code change that just builds up over time if you're not keeping it refactored for the changes that are upcoming in a language or the gems that you work with. And then, suddenly, after a while, it suddenly gets to the point where you have a lot of work that you might have to do to rehabilitate the application to take on some of the newer features that are being released. And so, that makes it that much more difficult, that much more friction about being able to deliver updates for your users or to be able to respond to changes that are happening out there in your application. VICTORIA: Right. So, if you don't have that ongoing maintenance, you could run into a situation where, suddenly, you need to make a very large investment and fixing whatever is broken. RICHARD: Absolutely. It's going to be very tough to plan for if you weren't keeping up all the way along and, yes, absolutely ends up being much slower if you have to remediate it. VICTORIA: That makes sense. I wonder if you have any examples of a project you've walked into and said, "Wow, I wish we had been doing a little bit more maintenance." [laughs] And maybe you can share some details. RICHARD: Yeah. We had a fairly large application that involved a number of clinic services. So, we had an application that users were going in every day and counting on our fast response. And, over time, we've got surprised by a database upgrade that had to happen. Basically, the database was going to be changed by our third-party hosting service, and that hadn't been tested. There hadn't been procedures in place when we discovered this need. And there was a very hard date that that change had to be done or else the entire application was going to go down. And it came at a very inconvenient time, at the end of the year around Christmas, that we had to respond to all of that. And had we been in front of it and just updated it every quarter and staying current with it, it wouldn't have been nearly the lift that it turned out to be. We were facing a pretty hard deadline [laughs] there to keep things going. It was very, very stressful and disruptive for the team and potentially for the clinics. VICTORIA: Right. And it always happens around a big holiday or something like that, right? When it all comes to a head. So... [laughter] RICHARD: Absolutely. You want to be in control of the timeframe and not have the timeframe be in control of you. VICTORIA: Right. And if you have a team like thoughtbot supporting you, you can go on your vacation with a little bit more knowledge that if something breaks, there's someone there who can respond and fix things, and you don't have to interrupt your very valuable time off. So... RICHARD: [chuckles] Absolutely. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Richard, for joining me today. I appreciate you coming here to talk with us. And we'll talk to you again soon. RICHARD: Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. WILL: You mentioned getting your product out there how challenging it can be. So, what has been some other wins and some challenges that you've had as a first-time founder? SIMON: So, my approach to things as a leader is I basically like to bring silliness and games to help motivate and energize the team. So, as a human, I have quite a lot of energy. I roll around with lots of energy. And I take loads of photos of what I'm doing, and I share those. So, we have a Friday wrap-up with the team, and so I'll often share a lot of the pictures of, you know, what I've been up to this week. So, yeah, there's been some really fantastic moments launching a product. We launched our MVP in three months. So, we basically set off...I actually funded the first season of the business, a couple of software developers, a couple of early employees. I funded the first season. We hadn't raised money. And I just spoke to my wife, and I said, "Look, now's the time. I really want to do this." You know, I've been saving up if you like, I had this, like, one day I'll do a startup fund. Some people would probably call that their long-term savings or like, you know, some...and I kind of called it my one day I'll do a startup fund. So, I'd been building up this fund because I knew that at some point, I'll probably go do this. The timing was way earlier than I thought. I thought I'd still do another four or five years in a career in a corporate role to try and get a few more notches in my belts to make fundraising easier, et cetera. The timing came. The team was perfect. And everything just felt right, so we went for it. But yeah, we basically set out. We didn't know where we were going to get funding from. The market was in a real state, so this was middle of 2022. The Ukraine war had kicked in; valuations had dropped by 90% for a lot of tech companies. The post-COVID bubble had burst. It was hard. So, we sat down, and we were like, okay, we could spend all of our runway trying to fundraise now, or we could crack on and try and build the first MVP. But we'd already done a lot of the market research, the user testing, early prototypes, et cetera. And that's a bit of a long story. But we had done that in the company that the founding team had worked at, and then we were actually a spin-out. So that happened. And we were sitting here thinking, okay, you know, we could spend all of our runway fundraising, or we could just crack on and build a product as quick as we can in the next three months. And so, we had this really hard conversation where we descoped so much stuff. And we just figured out what's the core piece that will really show the value of what we're trying to build, that we'd give to a user, that we could give to an early customer that they could use and get value from? And so, we came up with that scope. And we cracked on, and we built it. Within two and a half months, we had a working version. We played with it. Within three months, we kind of launched into this beta and got early users onto. So that was, you know, fantastic. So, we did that in the first three months, and then off the success of having an MVP, and just being able to show the product, and start getting some early user feedback, initial feedback was, you know, we took into account very quickly and improved. And just having that, you know, you basically start building momentum. Every step is still really hard, but you do build momentum. So, we got this product. We launched it. We went to a couple of events, and we talked about that, and then we did some fundraising. And we landed some funding, so that was fantastic. And then, you know, and then we've just gone sort of step by step from there. So, it's really fantastic what we've been able to achieve so far. The challenges there's been loads of them, especially when you're building a startup. It's really exciting. So, you can get people excited quite easily about the future potential. And you can kind of talk about what this can be. I've got a printed picture of a unicorn on my whiteboard in my office right here as a sort of a statement of, you know, where we're going. It's really hard as a founder or a leader trying to persuade people to leave a stable job, take a pay cut, and come and work with you and give them some equity, which you hope will be worth a ton, and you kind of paint the picture. But also, you don't know how long you can keep them because you're on runway. You're on runway. You haven't got infinite cash if it's not a profitable business. So, you know, there are some real challenges. And, as a founder, you go through ups and downs. Ben Horowitz talks about it in his great book, The Hard Things About Hard Things, as the struggle. I definitely understand that a lot more now because there is an up and down to this. You do build momentum, but you also...you're creating the momentum, you know, one hard push at a time. So that's that early customers come on. You kind of pitch the dream of what the product will do, and then it will fall over as soon as they touch it. But I absolutely love it. What I love is the chance to create and how quickly you can move in the early days of a startup or a new product, where you don't have masses of technical debt. You don't have hundreds of customers. You don't have all this, you know, you don't have a massive team where everyone's got their point of view on what you should do. So, you can move really fast, and that's fantastic [inaudible 30:14] creative season. So yeah, lots of ups and downs, but it's really fun. VICTORIA: That's so interesting and particularly interesting that you're trying to make something that's easier to use than Excel. So, I'm curious how you're testing to make sure that it's actually easy. And what might be...I'm sure there's some interesting feedback you got about that. SIMON: Yeah, so we're making Blox easier than Excel. But it's got to be powerful enough to be able to handle the data and the modeling that you need for a business. If you're doing projections for multiple years if you've got lots of products or teams, then it can be complex, so it needs to be powerful enough to handle that. It needs to be flexible enough because you can take a template, but every business has got its own unique quirks. So, it needs to be flexible enough that it can be tailored easy for a unique business. And then, crucially, and this is also important, it needs to be easy enough to use so that the person who understands the business can change the model to kind of suit their business. That's the bit that most of the other players, you know, the enterprise software that's available today, just that they haven't figured out how to make it easy enough so that a businessperson that, you know, doesn't have database experience, can't write SQL, not going to write Python, you know, doesn't do complex scripting or any of this stuff. It's got to be easy enough that they can, you know, tailor, reflect the way that their business works, the way that they make money, the way that their cost structure works, so they can figure out what drives the business. And so, if they're projecting revenue, they can work out the costs associated. So, one of our founding team is a UX designer, a really, really fantastic designer, very experienced. He's been in the game for 25 years since, way before it was called UX. And started doing graphic design, and then has done lots of branding and branding for some really fantastic, large companies, did lots of consulting. And then got into UX and how, you know, the art of wireframing and helping to make products easily usable. I call him my secret weapon. I've worked with some fantastic designers in the past, so, as a founder, I think I appreciate and understand the value of a really good design and a really good UX designer. So, Mike, our UX designer, has just been fantastic at that. He's very good at wireframing and very good at testing. And he's not a finance planning expert. That's why I call him my secret weapon because, you know, I understand planning really well, but sometimes I understand it too well. When I describe what a user is trying to do or, you know, what I expect a screen will look like, I'm just probably subconsciously replacing or recreating something that I've seen or used before, whereas he's coming at it brand new. He's not worked in planning or data modeling, or many of these things. He's worked in lots of different businesses. So, he comes at it with a mobile-first perspective. Normally, he's thinking about, okay, how could this be used by a busy leader on their phone and they're running around? And so, he's been really fantastic at helping to keep it simple and easy and to rethink and to create a product, which is just so different to what other tools in the space are doing. And that's some of the feedback we get. It looks so different. It works so different. But yeah, the hard thing is that spreadsheets are the most sticky tool, I think. They're just so useful for, you know, for everything where you need to get a list of things. You just start throwing it into a spreadsheet, and then you can, you know, organize it and improve structure over time. But yeah, it's a really sticky tool. And we train people how to use spreadsheets from early days from school. My 12-year-old daughter she already has been taught how to use a spreadsheet in school. So, what we're trying to do is create something which is easier. But there's also, you know, you want there to be some familiarity in there so that people will...to avoid some of the friction of the people who have it. No one really signs up to learn a new tool if they can avoid it. We're lazy. [laughs] VICTORIA: It makes sense that design would be a big priority for your product because that was your intention from the beginning, right? Is to make something that's easy to use, so you prioritize that as an investment. SIMON: That's right. That's absolutely right. Yeah. VICTORIA: What's on the horizon? What are you the most excited about for Blox in the coming months? SIMON: So, yeah, we've got some really exciting elements of our roadmap coming. So, yeah, really excited to see these things come to life. Like anyone working in building products, whether you're designing, doing product, sort of overseeing, or actually developing, it's so great to see these things come to life. You spend a long time thinking and chatting about them, imagining, ideating about how they could look. The thing that I'm just most excited about is—and that's probably why I love product—is, you know, you're building a product, and then you can...then you're talking to somebody about how they would use this. Or before that, you're talking about their day-to-day right now and what their problems are, and how you could help them save time, save money, et cetera. And so, you know, I absolutely love chatting to more and more different types of companies, leaders in different parts of the business. And, you know, especially in our space, it's mostly about, okay, how can I help? You know, how could we improve this planning process that we've got, whether it's, you know, planning for the cost of running a big project or trying to figure out how can I scale my business to reach my objectives? So, I just love chatting to lots of different leaders globally. So, I love going to events, chatting to people, fact-finding about how they run their business, how they think about finances, et cetera. In terms of the product roadmap, we're working on some exciting new scenario capabilities, so you can easily look at different scenarios around a decision. So, you might be trying to decide, you know, should I be aggressive with my investments and hiring, or should I be pessimistic? Or is there a middle ground? So, we're adding, like, scenario capabilities where you can build out different versions of that, and then easily compare and contrast, and then decide which one to do. We're working on some really...really enjoying working on some intelligent capabilities. So, again, in the search of making it really easy to use for a busy leader, for a busy businessperson, or a busy finance person, making it really easy to use. So, we've invested a lot in AI technology and been designing, developing POCs around how AI could help to onboard customers faster, how we could help to personalize models for businesses automagically. So, as soon as we understand the website of a user, what sort of industry they're in, we can automagically personalize the template for them, add their own KPIs, like, industry-specific KPIs, into the model, and throw in benchmark data and all these things. So, we've got some fantastic AI capabilities coming through the pipe and some data integrations. As we get out more and more, we're connecting to different data sources. So, yeah, exciting times ahead for the roadmap. And as we add more features, then we'll add different pricing tiers, you know, so we can try and offer a nice, affordable entry-level offering for Blox, but then we will, you know, as you get more and more different features, you'll pay at the appropriate level. So that's a little bit about what our future looks like. WILL: That's neat some of the things you have coming up. You mentioned AI and how you're kind of embracing that. Can you expound on that? Like, kind of I know you said some data models automagically is going to do it. But, like, where can you see the benefit for a customer to use that? Because I know AI can be scary and stuff like that. But, like, just kind of taking the fear out of it and talking about how beneficial it can be. SIMON: Yeah. So, there's lots of different places where AI can help. So, the typical model today for finance planning is you'd have a leader who's responsible for the business, and they're responsible for an advertising budget. You know, they just intuitively know, you know, where should I spend money, what's good return on my investment, what's, you know, what works. But when it comes to actually trying to model that, so how to put that into a financial model or some other model that you can understand the relationships between these things, put in the KPIs, have the formulas, calculating things in the right way at the right level, what you often find is that the leader is not the system's expert. So, you'll often have, especially in bigger businesses, you've got this expert data analyst or FP&A finance planning person that will do the modeling. So, we really believe that AI can be like a digital business coach to digitize that business advisory piece. So, the leader can be sitting down. They can be looking to try and improve some part of their business or understand some part of their spend and trying to work out, like, what would life look like if I increased my spend on this particular channel by X? And so, you know, we are looking at AI to help with lots of different areas around this. Initially, it's helping a new user to get onboarded with Blox. So, it's taking a template and helping to personalize it for their business. What we basically try and do is fetch as much data about a new user and a new company as possible. So, if their team is on their website, then we'll pull in their team. If their products are listed on their website, we'll pull in a list of their products and try and throw that into the model and take out a lot of the friction that you have. As a user in the new system, you have to type in everything normally. If you're trying to model a business, you used to type it all in or copy and paste it from a spreadsheet. So, we're looking at lots of options to help onboard new users. That has a good value add for us because we can increase the speed of adoption and help get users to value faster, which is great for us. And also, users are, you know, they're busy. They're impatient, and they want to understand what value they're going to get before they spend lots more of their time. So that's going to be useful for us and them. And yeah, helping to interpret the data. So, they'll connect us to their source systems. We'll be able to interpret what's going on, help them to understand different options and scenarios about how things might play out in the future. Basically, AI will help us to draw our insights that we can present to the user, will help explain what the user is looking at when they're looking at the model, so we can summarize some of the key insights so that they can use that. We're expecting to have all sorts of users, but we're really focusing on really busy leaders who may have a good understanding of spreadsheets and data, but they're just too busy, and so they don't have time. So, they want something which is quick and easy. Or leaders who don't have that expertise, so those are the ones that we really cater for. We try and keep it really simple and help guide them through the process, et cetera. So that's where AI is going to be, like, that digital business AI...We kind of kind of talk about this AI business coach concept. And, over time, we'll build up more and more elements to that coach capability. We call him Anton in our team when we talk. We'll add more and more capabilities to him. But we've built a number of different POCs. And we've launched a couple of those with some customers. We've been out to events and showing off these new capabilities to basically test them out, understand what's working, what's not. What more do we need to think about to productionize this proof of concept? So that's, yeah, it's a very exciting time to be working on those things. VICTORIA: I love hearing about that. That's super interesting to see where it's going to go. So, my last question for you today is, is there anything else that you would like to promote? SIMON: I think I would just say, yeah, if you're a leader running a business or maybe it's a service business, and you're trying to think about, you know, when hiring business planning, financial planning, anything like that, then I'd love for you to come over to Blox, and you can jump straight into the product from our website. You can sign up. I absolutely love chatting to people about their businesses and what they're trying to do with their finances. So, if you want to do that, you can sign up. You can chat to us. I actually take a lot of time to respond to people in there, so yeah, if you want to do that. Or, if you can, also find me on LinkedIn. You can search me there. Just strike up a conversation and say, "Hey, Simon, I'd love to chat about financial roadmapping or finance planning." Yeah, I absolutely just love to speak to different leaders that work right across the business in different roles and see how we can help them to build a business that really unlock the potential that they have in their business through a great understanding of finances. So, yeah, if I can be of help, I would love that. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And we'll have all those links in the show notes so our audience can go and take a look. WILL: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @will23larry. VICTORIA: And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Simon Ritchie.
Do you want to enhance your communication skills and increase your influence as a leader or professional in business? If so, I have the solution for you. Join us as guest speaker Richard Newman shares the key to achieving effective communication through mastering the art of body language.About Richard Newman: Richard Newman is a communication strategist with offbeat experiences and proven techniques that can help anyone command attention and respect. Richard's recognition of his own communication challenges led his footsteps into a Tibetan monastery as a teenager, marking the beginning of a lifelong pursuit. From a personal experiment to extensive research involving thousands from around the world, Richard shaped a set of behaviors to elevate one's communication impact. His techniques are adaptable to any speaker and are backed by hard statistics, showing the potential to persuade better or even win elections. Richard offers so much more than just bookish theories, his tactics are taken from real-life experiences and tried-and-tested techniques.In this episode, Richard discusses how to: Learn the untapped power of body language in ensuring successful communication.Probe into how eye movements and blinking patterns can reveal surprising insights about human behavior.Delve into the integral role of self-awareness and deep thinking in breakthrough coaching outcomes.Boost your personal development and leadership strategies to elevate your impact and influence.Become skilled in identifying greatness in others and amplify your leadership abilities.Key Takeaways:Richard's personal journey of self-discovery and extensive research in the field make him an invaluable resource for leaders and professionals in business.As an introvert and someone on the autism spectrum, Richard realized that his approach to communication was different.With Richard's background in acting and his experience in a Tibetan monastery, he has gained unique insights into the power of nonverbal communication.Through his findings, Richard emphasizes the importance of posture, hand gestures, and self-awareness in communication. He offers practical techniques that can significantly enhance a person's perceived charisma, persuasiveness, and leadership qualities. "You can increase how many people are convinced by what you say in a sales pitch. You can get 42% more people convinced by a sales pitch while saying the same words, wearing the same clothes." — Richard Newman CONNECT WITH RICHARD: Website: https://linktr.ee/richardnewmanspeaksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/CONNECT WITH CHABIDAYE: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chabidaye.ramnath.3Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chabidaye/Website: https://leadandlift.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chabidayejaglalramnath/Show notes by Podcastologist: Hanz Jimuel AlvarezAudio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5k per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. __ Maggie Bachenberg, CEO, and Trisha Ballakur, CTO, are the co-founders of Pointz, a mobile mapping app that helps navigate bike and scooter riders through safe routes in cities. Victoria talks to Maggie and Trisha about their cycling backgrounds, how they met and became co-founders, and what they feel is the differentiator for their app versus what was/is already on the market for biking-related apps. Pointz (https://www.bikepointz.com/) Follow Pointz (https://www.instagram.com/bikepointz/) on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bikepointz/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bikepointz/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/bikepointz/), or TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@bikepointz) Follow Maggie Bachenberg on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiebachenberg/). Follow Trisha Ballakur on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-ballakur-070138187/). 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: VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. With me today is Maggie Bachenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Pointz, and Trisha Ballakur, CTO and Co-Founder of Pointz, a mobile mapping app that helps navigate bike and scooter riders through safe routes in cities. Just to get us started here, are you both cyclists? And if so, where do you do that at? What's your city? Where do you bike around? MAGGIE: Yeah, we both bike. So I live in Providence, Rhode Island, along with Trisha, and use my bike primarily as a transportation device. So I'm riding around from my house to work, to get groceries, to my friend's house, kind of all different types of purposes. TRISHA: Yeah, and I grew up biking but kind of stopped after age, like, six or seven. And it was only when I got to college at Brown, where I met Maggie, that I got back into it and felt more confident to get back on the bike. And that was completely actually because of Pointz. VICTORIA: Oh, that's nice. Yeah, speaking of confidence, I am not confident on a bicycle. I actually only learned after college. [laughs] And there's a video out there of my college friends helping me learn how to ride a bike. It's very cute. But still not my expertise. So I'm excited to learn more about it and learn about how Pointz could give you that confidence. So, whoever who'd like to start, why don't you tell me about what caused you to want to create Pointz? MAGGIE: Pointz was originally kind of my idea. And I got into biking in 2017 when I did a long-distance bike trip. I biked from Virginia to California. And it was my first time doing long-distance cycling, and I just kind of fell in love with it. But I realized that when I was riding, it was pretty scary to navigate cities in particular. And so, a lot of locals would redirect me onto different routes that were safer. And I was confused why this wasn't captured in a mapping app already. And so, that's kind of where the idea was seeded. But I didn't start working on it until I got to college and met Trisha. VICTORIA: Great. So you got to college, and you saw that there was a need to have easier access to biking and biking information in an area, right? MAGGIE: Yeah, exactly. VICTORIA: Very cool. What was that initial process like? It was just the two of you, and you started building stuff? How did you really get the traction going early on? MAGGIE: It started with doing some customer discovery interviews with local cyclists. And so we interviewed over 100 initially and just asked kind of what their biggest barrier was to start riding. And we kept hearing this recurring theme of people not feeling safe enough to go on different routes. And so we brainstormed a bunch of different ideas in a class that Trisha and I were in together. But we ended up landing on the one that we're working on today, which is, like, you know, the rating system, and then also putting the rating system of bike friendliness into a routing algorithm where people could actually find routes. VICTORIA: That's very cool. And was there anything that really surprised you in that customer discovery process? MAGGIE: Just maybe the consistency around people's fear and, like, I guess, being nervous on a bike because we were interviewing people of all types of backgrounds and experiences. And even people that were more experienced had this fear of getting hit by a car because of lack of infrastructure and that sort of thing. TRISHA: Doing customer discovery and chatting with so many different types of riders...and we call them riders, bike riders, rather than cyclists for the distinction that, you know, in the bike riding community, there's a lot of very avid fitness-geared cyclists, maybe who want to go on their bikes to burn calories and challenge themselves. A lot of people they would call themselves someone who rides a bike. And it's to those types of people where safety is really critical, especially in allowing new people to go and try to ride a bike for the first time or the first time in many years. And so, that's something else that we noticed from those customer discovery interviews is identifying the different types of riders. VICTORIA: Thank you. That clears it up for me because I never know to call someone a cyclist or a rider, but it makes sense that cyclist is more, like, the athletic pursuit versus riding and, you know, just trying to get about your day. [laughs] And it also makes me feel better that even people who are really experienced riders have fear of being unsafe or getting hit by a car because that's certainly what I'm thinking about when I'm [laughs] venturing out there. So, what was your initial build like for the app solving this problem? TRISHA: Initially, we had a couple of different Brown University interns or students working on it together one summer and myself included. And that evolved to me and this one other student who was working with us figuring out how to transition the app from, like, an iOS Swift native app to React Native so it could be cross-platform. And we had to teach ourselves React Native for that. So our intern at the time he had done an internship during the summer at this one startup where they taught him React Native. So he had done a couple of projects there. And I had a little bit of experience writing in JavaScript but really not as much as him. And so, together, we worked on coding the app from what we had in iOS in Swift, which was pretty limiting. But, at the time, it wasn't very much. But we were able to replicate that in React Native during; I think it was my junior...Maggie in my junior winter break. That became the start of our MVP, which had many, many more iterations to get all the features in and was a little bit slow to build until when we released it out, which was our senior year in about March or so. VICTORIA: So that's really exciting. So, like, how long did it take you to really get to that initial MVP with the team that you have? TRISHA: It took quite a bit longer than expected, as with all sorts of technology when you're building it for the first time. So what was important to us throughout the process was making sure that all the features we put out there were really well tested, and were useful, and were actually solving the problem of providing safer routing. And to get to that stage, at first, we, you know, we had an app in Swift. Then we wanted to make it cross-platformed, and we needed to have the routing algorithm actually take those different weights, the different bike friendliness ratings of the roads into account. And that took a lot of researching and talking to mentors. So there were quite a few really hard challenges to get to the MVP, which is why it spanned about a year to get to that point. But throughout it all, we worked with other students at Brown. Then we pulled in some front-end contractors from online, like contractor sites, who were awesome. And we were just focused on being really scrappy to get it out in March of 2022. VICTORIA: That's great. And maybe it felt like a long time, but I feel like a year for a really solid MVP is pretty good, [laughs] especially when you have those safety concerns, and the quality of your data, and what you're giving out is super important. So now you've got the MVP, and I believe you just raised your round of seed funding last year. What was that process like for you? MAGGIE: Yes, so the round of funding that we did, we raised the first initial amount actually going into our senior year, and that was from a firm called Rogue Venture Partners. And we also got a little bit of it from their Women's Fund. And, yeah, that was the kind of piece of funding that got us started and allowed us to really, you know, add additional resources to the product to get it out there, at least the MVP. And then, after that, we got a little bit more funding from them. And then we raised money from Techstars as well because we got into their accelerator at The Roux Institute. That's kind of in association with Northeastern, and that was out of Portland, Maine. I guess it wasn't really necessarily, like, a cohesive round. It was, like, a couple of different checks that all kind of went into, like, our early funding for Pointz. And I would say it was very much so based on, you know, our relationship that we had with our initial venture firm that were working with Rogue. They actually mentored us for quite a few months before they invested in us. So they started mentoring us our junior year when we were in school. And then we got the deal together September of 2021. VICTORIA: That's awesome. Well, congratulations. And I'm glad you were able to find the right partnerships, and mentors, and funding that you needed. What did you find was really the differentiator for your app versus what was already on the market for biking-related apps? MAGGIE: There are a couple of different types of competitors, so there are the biking-related apps that you just mentioned, and then there are the general kind of use case apps like Google Maps or Apple Maps. And so, for the bike-related apps, the main thing that's different about Pointz is that we're more focused on, like, bike riders in general, so people that are riding around for transportation and recreation, not so much the cyclist type of a person that Trisha described earlier. So, you know, a lot of our features are geared towards people that are getting around the city or maybe are exploring a city or a neighborhood. It doesn't necessarily have to be a city, but that's kind of the focus. Whereas for other cycling-specific apps, like Komoot or Ride with GPS, it's focused a lot on, like, the fitness side of things and the recreation fitness side of riders. And so, at least the Ride with GPS and a few other of, like, the technologies that are available to more hardcore cyclists tend to have a more sharp learning curve. And ours was built more as, like, a general use case in navigating and exploring. VICTORIA: That makes sense. So it's more for people like me who are trying to go the most scenic [laughs] or the flattest and the safest way, not necessarily the fastest or the more fitness-focused aspect of cycling and biking. MAGGIE: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we actually built this for people like us. Granted, I did do that long-distance bike trip. But, generally, I don't consider myself that hardcore of a rider, I mean, in my daily life. So it's for people who don't really identify as a cyclist and are more just, like, riding their bike around and, honestly, for people who are new to riding in general. Because a lot of our riders have recently gotten into biking or have recently moved to a new area, and so, they're just trying to figure out, you know, where are the good places to ride? Where do I feel safe? And, you know, how can I get more comfortable on my bike? VICTORIA: I'm loving this idea because I have a bike that's been sitting in my patio for over a year. [laughs] I haven't used...my partner is like, "Can we get rid of it? Because you don't use it." But I'm like, "I will. I will use it." I know my neighborhood problem is that there are giant hills if we leave our street here. So getting out is fine. But getting back in [laughs], it's like you need an electric bike. So that's very exciting. So, tell me more about now that you've graduated and you're taking this up full time; what does the future look like? What's on your horizon? MAGGIE: I mean, we've been working a lot with one of our advisors on, you know, getting to the point where people really love the product, and that's been kind of happening over the last year. We met Anuj Adhiya from Lenny's Newsletter. We've been working with him to really hone in on what the thing is that people really love about Pointz and make that experience better. And then also figure out what exactly the persona is so we can target them eventually with marketing, which is kind of the stage that we're at right now. So we were seeing our retention curves really evening out in especially a couple of cities that we're targeting. And so, this summer, we're focusing on getting our user base up in Los Angeles and then trying to figure out how, like, a playbook for scaling up a user base in a specific geography. Right now, a lot of our users are distributed throughout the United States. And there are clusters, but there's not, like, a huge spike in one city. And so, that's what we're working on right now is figuring out how to get a geographic kind of density to happen. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And it sounded like the app also uses a lot of user-generated data for safety ratings and things like that. Am I getting that accurately? TRISHA: Yep, that's correct. And what we do is we have a bunch of different layers of our data that we pull from. We have a base layer of data that comes from OpenStreetMap, and then we build on top of that. We rate all roads on a one through five bike friendliness scale. And building on top of that, we pull from city-specific data sets from cities, and towns, and municipalities. And then, we layer on the crowdsourcing similar to how Waze does at the top. VICTORIA: Got it. So taking advantage of that open data, the open city data, and what other data the city is putting out there. Are you finding that you're using whether or not a city has open data to inform if you're going to expand into that location? MAGGIE: Kind of as a focus point. So, the way it works right now is Pointz is available actually anywhere in the U.S. So; it doesn't matter if you're in a city or a rural area, you can use Pointz. And you can use it for routing and navigation and all the features that are available. However, we only have visualized the ratings in all 350 or so urban areas in the U.S., and so those are all visualized, but not all of them have the supplemental city-data. And so, the way we decide when we pull in city data is based on gaps in, like, the base layer. So, if we're seeing that there are a lot of accuracy issues in a specific city, we'll go, and we'll look and see if there's a more accurate map that the city has put out or that an advocacy group has put out. And so, we've done this recently in Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon, just to supplement the base layer of data, and it has helped a lot in terms of accuracy. And users or our riders really like it. VICTORIA: That's great. And what is your current level of usage in the app? How well have you been adopted? MAGGIE: Are you talking in terms of, like, user numbers or just, like, our engagement levels? VICTORIA: Yeah, whatever you're using to measure your level of engagement or number of users on the app. Like, what are your stats looking like? MAGGIE: Yeah, so, we use...we have our overall signups. And then we have a subcategory of, like, active and engaged users. And so, for our overall signups, we're at just over 9,000 total signups since we launched the MVP, and we haven't marketed it at all kind of until right now, where we're trying to push it out in LA a bit more. And then, in terms of our engaged cohort, I'd have to pull up the exact number. But last I checked, it was around 1,800 monthly active users. We kind of look at that cohort, and then we break it down into, you know, who's even more engaged in that? Who's coming back every week, every day? Mid-Roll Ad: VICTORIA: Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5K per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. VICTORIA: And with me here, I have Richard Newman, who is the Development Director on our Boost Team, to talk to me a little bit more about what maintenance actually looks like once you've built your software application, right? RICHARD: Hi, Victoria. VICTORIA: Hi, Richard. You have experience building applications. I wonder if you could describe to a founder who's considering to build an application, like, what should they consider for their long-term maintenance? RICHARD: Well, like you said earlier, part of what you're going for with that long-term maintenance is making sure the health of your project, of your application, is always there. And you don't want to be surprised as you're continuing to work with your users and so forth. And so, a number of things that we pay attention to in maintenance are, we're paying attention to keeping the application secure, providing security updates. We want to make sure that the ecosystem, basically, all of the tools and third-party services that are tied to your application that, we're responding to those sorts of changes as we go along. And then part of it is, occasionally, you're going to find some smaller issues or bugs or so forth as your user group continues to grow or as needs continue to change. You want to be able to respond to those quickly as well. And so, a lot of what goes into maintenance is making sure that you're paying attention and you're ahead of those things before they surprise you. VICTORIA: Because what can happen? Like, what are the consequences if you don't do that ongoing maintenance? RICHARD: Well, the security updates those happen across gems and in the platform sort of tools that are there. And so, if you're not keeping those up to date, your exposure, your vulnerability to being hacked, or having a bad actor come into your application start growing on you if you're not doing the maintenance. The other ones that can come up is there's new interfaces that these third-party services...they may be updating their APIs. They may be updating how you're supposed to work with their tool. And so, those can occasionally break if you're not paying attention to what's going on or you're suddenly surprised by an upgrade that you have to make. And then, finally, there's this long-term sort of code change that just builds up over time if you're not keeping it refactored for the changes that are upcoming in a language or the gems that you work with. And then, suddenly, after a while, it suddenly gets to the point where you have a lot of work that you might have to do to rehabilitate the application to take on some of the newer features that are being released. And so, that makes it that much more difficult, that much more friction about being able to deliver updates for your users or to be able to respond to changes that are happening out there in your application. VICTORIA: Right. So, if you don't have that ongoing maintenance, you could run into a situation where, suddenly, you need to make a very large investment and fixing whatever is broken. RICHARD: Absolutely. It's going to be very tough to plan for if you weren't keeping up all the way along and, yes, absolutely ends up being much slower if you have to remediate it. VICTORIA: That makes sense. I wonder if you have any examples of a project you've walked into and said, "Wow, I wish we had been doing a little bit more maintenance." [laughs] And maybe you can share some details. RICHARD: Yeah. We had a fairly large application that involved a number of clinic services. So, we had an application that users were going in every day and counting on our fast response. And, over time, we've got surprised by a database upgrade that had to happen. Basically, the database was going to be changed by our third-party hosting service, and that hadn't been tested. There hadn't been procedures in place when we discovered this need. And there was a very hard date that that change had to be done or else the entire application was going to go down. And it came at a very inconvenient time, at the end of the year around Christmas, that we had to respond to all of that. And had we been in front of it and just updated it every quarter and staying current with it, it wouldn't have been nearly the lift that it turned out to be. We were facing a pretty hard deadline [laughs] there to keep things going. It was very, very stressful and disruptive for the team and potentially for the clinics. VICTORIA: Right. And it always happens around a big holiday or something like that, right? When it all comes to a head. So... [laughter] RICHARD: Absolutely. You want to be in control of the timeframe and not have the timeframe be in control of you. VICTORIA: Right. And if you have a team like thoughtbot supporting you, you can go on your vacation with a little bit more knowledge that if something breaks, there's someone there who can respond and fix things, and you don't have to interrupt your very valuable time off. So... RICHARD: [chuckles] Absolutely. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Richard, for joining me today. I appreciate you coming here to talk with us. And we'll talk to you again soon. RICHARD: Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. VICTORIA: I'm wondering if you have any incentives built into the app for users who are, like, contributing data back, or maybe they're writing every single day. Are there any little challenges or achievements that you could unlock within the app right now? MAGGIE: We do have some gamification, yes. And so, the way that people can earn points on the app...we call them points with a Z because of the name. The way that they can earn those points are a couple of ways. So, one is through riding their bike and using Pointz as a navigation tool or as a tool to record their ride. And so, for that, you get one point for every mile. And then the second way is by contributing to the map, so either crowdsourcing an amenity like a bike parking that isn't on the map already or by adding information about a hazard that might be on the map, like, for example, a car parked in the bike lane. And for each of those, you know, you get one point. And so, yeah, we have that gamification system built out and a couple of...like, we have a leaderboard. And then, also, we have, like, a way for you to kind of go up in your avatar on the app. But besides that, we do monthly contests. And so, this past month, we partnered up with a company called Po Campo, which makes stylish bike bags that can be taken off your bike and then worn as, like, a purse or a handbag. And so, they sponsored the prize, which is one of their bags, and whoever kind of gave the highest quality and quantity of crowdsourcing reviews and miles ridden they're the winner of the contest for this month of June. VICTORIA: That's very cool. I love to see that and hear about what strategies people have for engaging with their users within the app. I'm curious to go back to, you know when you two first met, how did you know that you were going to be good partners to work on this project together? TRISHA: One of the ways that we knew that was because we had first been introduced to each other from our mutual friend who is a close friend of both of ours, and she had been telling the other person about each other. And it was one day where we just met up, and we really clicked. But, at that point, Maggie was looking for someone who could work on the mobile development, and I didn't have any experience with that. However, I joined a club, which Maggie was leading, which was called The Women's Entrepreneurship Group. And we got a chance to work together and plan out many events, including a large conference right before COVID hit. Like, we saw how we'd worked together. We really enjoyed it. And we had very similar aspirations and motivations towards entrepreneurship. When I had the chance to basically join what Maggie was already working on with Pointz in the summer of 2020, I knew that that was going to be a great opportunity. And we decided to become co-founders by the end of the summer. VICTORIA: That's very cool. And I know how important it is to have the right team together to work on a project like this and to start something up from scratch. So, were there other big turning points? And you mentioned COVID, so I'm curious how that affected the growth and progress of this effort. MAGGIE: Yeah, to be honest, in the heart of COVID, like 2020, we weren't really built yet. So, it didn't quite affect us a whole lot, just because the product didn't get launched until the spring of 2020 to actually, you know, kind of publicly. But there were a couple of other turning points in our company, one of them was Techstars and kind of the progress we made during Techstars. We joined the accelerator, and we were having a bit of a hard time getting tech kind of pushed out really quickly. It was taking us a long time to build the features. And so, Trisha and I kind of evaluated why that was happening. And we came up with a process that worked a lot better, which we still use today. And speaking of team, we got a couple of really awesome teammates that made a huge difference on how quickly we could turn around features and bug fixes. And so, that was a really big turning point because we were able to iterate much more quickly and get feedback from our riders a lot faster. So that happened November, December of last year, of 2022. The other big turning point, I would say, is the slider that we released in March of this past year of 2023. And so we were having a hard time retaining users and getting them to really like the routing because people who bike tend to be very opinionated. And if the route isn't exactly kind of how they wanted it, they would be upset. And so, we'd fix it for one group of users, and then we would upset another group that didn't want that, you know, added to the routing. What we ended up doing was releasing this safety slider, which has the fastest routes on the left side of the slider and then the safest or the longest routes on the right side of the slider. And that really helped people get a wide variety of routes that fit their use case. And it's helped a ton with retention. And also, the feedback we were getting from users really changed from, like, really honing in on a very specific issue with routes that they were getting to general feedback about how we could enhance the app and keep people coming back more consistently. TRISHA: I just want to emphasize again that, yeah, the team is really critical. And, like, on our team, we have really awesome people who are 10xers and just great. Also, have someone who worked at MapQuest and has...I think our combined mapping experience is around 20-plus years. So it's really awesome to have that sort of a team together. VICTORIA: Yes. And, you know, talking about it now on the podcast, in retrospect, I'm sure it all seems like it came together, and it was kismet, and everything just worked. But was that how it really felt? Or were there moments where you doubted it and thought, maybe this isn't going to come together? MAGGIE: Yeah, definitely. There were moments of that feeling. One thing that gave us a lot of confidence was getting to the point where we felt like we could really iterate quickly and release features at a consistent and predictable cadence. So that gave us confidence that you know, there is a process for this, and there's a process of gathering user feedback and rider feedback, and then translating that into features, or bug fixes, or UI fixes. I think that gave me a lot of confidence that we could solve it. But, of course, it always takes a lot longer than you expect. And our advisor, Anuj, always says that 80% of what you're going to do won't work and 20% of it will. And it's all about how quickly you can iterate and figure out what works. And sometimes you get lucky, and it happens quicker. Or maybe you have unique insight into the problem, and you can guess, and it works out quicker. But I don't know; I definitely think it's been a learning process for everyone on our team. VICTORIA: That's great advice. And now that you've got your velocity up and you have your confidence, what's on the horizon? Are there new features that you all are working on that you're excited about? TRISHA: Yeah, so we're really excited about leaning into the whole generative AI trends that are happening, especially with ChatGPT and others. One thing that we've been hearing from most of our riders, people who use Pointz, is that using the app to create routes, which will allow them to explore new places, go to a new coffee shop that they've been hoping to go to but just don't know how to actually get there is critical. And most of our riders on Pointz are people who are new to a city. Maybe they've only lived there for a max of one year or less. So, exploring the area around them is really important to them, and that's why they use Pointz. And so, leaning into that, we're going to be releasing, in the next couple of weeks, a new explore feature where someone can go and, you know, describe to Pointz what type of route or...not even route, what type of things they want to see in a city, and Pointz will come up with that. It'll learn their preferences and continue to suggest really awesome places to get to, which they can do car-free, basically, through bikes, because they can be safe and, you know, they can rely on this app to get them through the city safely. VICTORIA: That's really exciting. And I'm excited to try it out myself [laughs] once you have that feature launched. Maybe you can tell me how that feature plays into...or what your success really looks like for Pointz in the next six months. MAGGIE: Yeah, so I think that feature is something that will be, I mean, of course, we got to test it, but I think that it will help people kind of use Pointz as an exploration tool more effectively. People are already using it for that, but it's not specifically built for exploration. Right now, it's built more for, I guess, routing to, you know, new places but not specifically, like, oh, let's go on a route that takes me through all these tourist destinations in the city I'm visiting. But this new feature will allow people to use it for that more. And I think, overall, you know, our mission at Pointz is to help people feel comfortable riding bikes so that they can drive less and feel like they can get around in a sustainable fashion, rather than having to rely on their car so often. And this feature is tied to that in the sense of, like, people can use it as a tool to help them, you know, find the safe route or a route they're comfortable with, and then use it to explore an area but maybe a bit more geared towards, like, tourists or, you know, more recreational-type use cases. VICTORIA: That's very cool. Thank you so much for sharing that. And what is your biggest challenge to achieving that success? MAGGIE: I think biking is a first step in that process of helping people feel like they can be more car-light or car-free, you know, use their car less. There are obviously a ton of other factors that go into whether or not you're driving, or you're taking a bike, or you're taking public transportation. And, you know, our next steps after we have really nailed this product are to explore those opportunities and build tools that help people choose alternative transportation more often. That's what we're excited about going into the future. You know, there's a ton happening in cities all across the U.S., not only for biking but also investments in transit, infrastructure, and whatnot. So, you know, young people and people of all ages...I think a lot of people feel comfortable and that they don't want to be sitting in traffic a whole lot [laughs] because that's not fun for anyone. And, you know, traffic and congestion is always frustrating. So, as much as we can reduce that, I think that's the mission of our company. And, of course, it takes a ton of scale. But it's a big goal, but we're going after it. VICTORIA: That's great. You know, I heard about a town in the U.S. that actually had banned cars and was pedestrians only for the whole town. It's like, what a great idea. [laughs] But I love it. I love that you're working on it. And I wonder now, you know, you're a couple of years into it. If you could go back in time and give advice to yourself when you first started this project, what advice would you give yourself? MAGGIE: For me, I would say to get a minimal viable product more minimal, [chuckles] so reduce it to, like, a single feature, get it out quickly, and start getting feedback more quickly from, like, a very practical, you know, piece of advice. And then, like, an overall piece of advice would be just to be more confident earlier on. It took a long time for me to gain the confidence of, like, being a thought leader in the space. And, you know, I felt like I was young, so there were all these people that knew more than me. But I think everyone has a really unique perspective, and if you really lean into that and share that with the world, it can inspire a lot of people. And you just have to be confident enough to do that. TRISHA: Yeah, I definitely second what Maggie just said. I think also from the tech perspective, if you're someone who is maybe more inexperienced, like, I just got out of college and did this, and I have never worked a full-time job before anywhere except this. And so I think there was a lot of doubt that I had of being able to lead the technical side because I didn't have 20 years experience working somewhere. But, actually, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter. It just matters that you're able to be in touch with what it takes to build certain features and talk to the users, or your riders, or whoever because they're the ones who are going to be dictating whether this is a success or not based on what you build. It's really not good if you're building and wasting a lot of resources and time on features which nobody wants or nobody uses. And so, that's been core to why I think I've gotten a lot of confidence in being able to be, like, the tech leader in this app and in this space. VICTORIA: Yeah, I'm curious to hear more about that. You touched on this really being your first full-time job. So, how do you build your personal brand as an executive leader in this company that you're building? TRISHA: For anyone who does startups, they'll know that it's a lot of figuring it out as you go, and things that you're taught in school don't necessarily translate well to the startup world because, like, I did, like, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. I did operating systems. I built a whole bunch of random stuff in school, and I studied for hours and hours. Of a lot of that, the most important thing, which actually translates to working in my field, is the perseverance to, like, keep going and working really hard. Otherwise, none of that stuff which I learned honestly translates. I had to learn everything myself with regards to building mobile apps. And I think the foundations were really critical from school but not really much of the hours of studying. I don't think that that's necessary, but I think it's necessary to build that sort of perseverance mindset. VICTORIA: That makes sense sort of to reflect that back a little bit, just having the perseverance to keep pushing, and keep learning, and keep understanding what is it going to take to build the features that you want? And that's really the core of being a CTO, right? TRISHA: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. VICTORIA: And, Maggie, I wonder about you as well, like, what resources are you drawing on to really perform as a CEO for this company? TRISHA: One thing that I read a lot is...it's more product-focused, actually, but it's product and growth-focused. It's Lenny's Newsletter, which I mentioned earlier. I use that as a resource a lot. I listen to their podcasts, and I read their articles. And then secondly, I interact a lot with other CEOs and founders because I think that's one of the best ways you can learn is from other people who are in it right now, maybe are a couple of steps ahead of you, or who have done it before. And so, I lean into that quite a bit. And just, you know, try to get advice from people, take what makes sense, and apply it to what we're working on. VICTORIA: That sounds great, yeah. I can relate to that; just building your personal network with people who are in similar roles helps you stay in touch and understand what other challenges people are facing and what you might face someday, right? [laughs] That's really cool. I love that you have all that set up. And is there anything else that you all would like to promote today? MAGGIE: I would just say to anybody who's interested in biking or maybe is, like, a beginner rider, we'd love to have you try out the app and then explore your area and give it a try one weekend when you have some time and see if you feel more confident, you know, given the routes that are on more green and protected roads. VICTORIA: I'm really excited to be talking to you because I am that person. I need this app. [laughs] I'm excited to try it out. Thank you, Maggie and Trisha, for joining us today. [laughs] It was a really great conversation, and I'm excited to follow along and see what happens with Pointz in the coming years. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guests: Maggie Bachenberg and Trisha Ballakur.
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She says knowing what your brand is and what listeners should expect from listening to you is super important, and she gives her opinion on what it means to be in the Ruby on Rails Community. Shogun (https://getshogun.com) The Ruby on Rails Podcast (https://www.therubyonrailspodcast.com/) Follow Brittany Martin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanyjmartin1/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/BrittJMartin), or visit her website (https://brittanymartin.dev/). 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: VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. WILL: And I'm your other host, Will Larry. And with us today is Brittany Martin, an Engineering Manager at Shogun, where she manages a team of Ruby and React engineers. She is the Co-host of The Ruby on Rails Podcast, almost five years running. And she plays roller derby for Steel City Roller Derby under the pseudonym, catch this, Merge Conflict. She is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brittany, thank you for joining us. BRITTANY: I am so thrilled to be on here. I have been listening to Giant Robots for years. So it's an absolute honor to be on the show today. VICTORIA: Yes, thank you so much for joining us. And I met you at RailsConf this year. And, at the time, you had a boot on your foot. So, I have to ask you, are you healed? Are you recovered? Are you walking around again? BRITTANY: This is such a good question. When I was between jobs in March, I was, you know, having these two weeks, I had a whole list of things that I was going to be doing. You know, I was going to train, like, running and whatnot. And I had roller derby practice that first week, and I broke my ankle. And, you know, going into it, I had no idea what a blocker it was going to be. I was like, oh, this is minor. It'll just take a couple of weeks to heal. No, it's been a long process. But I can gleefully tell the listeners that I am out of the boot. I am walking. I am hopefully getting into a sports program next week that will train me up to get back into CrossFit, running, and skating. Though the really funny part is that I currently have another injury which is golfer's elbow. [laughs] WILL: Oh, wow. BRITTANY: Yeah. So I have that from overusing my arms. So I'm a little bit of a mess, but, you know, getting myself back together physically so I can get back on my skates. WILL: So I know it's called golfer's elbow. But did you actually hurt it doing golf, or was it another sport you were playing? BRITTANY: It's so funny that you ask that, Will, because whenever people ask me how I broke my ankle, I can be glamorous and be like, "Oh, it was roller derby." WILL: [laughs] BRITTANY: Like, it's a sexy injury, you know. I have a friend who just broke their ankle because they were dancing down the stairs and broke it, not as glamorous of a story, right? WILL: [laughs] BRITTANY: Golfer's elbow. I literally have no idea how this happened. I've never golfed a day in my life. So [laughter] it's my non-glamorous injury at this point. WILL: Yeah, that's my background, sports medicine. BRITTANY: Oh, great. WILL: So it's interesting. Yeah, golfer's elbow, and I'm like, it's usually not golf that does it. So...[laughs] BRITTANY: Yeah. So I said something to my PT. I was like, "Am I the first person to ever get golfer's elbow from, like, you know, fixing another injury?" And she's like, "Yes. Yes, you are." [laughs] And I was like, oh. [laughter] I really was expecting to get some reassurance that it wasn't me. But hey, what are you going to do? WILL: There you go. BRITTANY: I love the fact that you do love my roller derby name. As you can imagine, it is a beacon for finding the other programmers out on the track because they find it very funny. Nobody else finds it funny whatsoever. And people call me Merge for short, and some people think it's Marge. And I just allow it at this point. [laughter] My number is 200, and its status code okay. When you hit me, I get up okay until, apparently, I break my ankle. So...[laughter] WILL: I love it. Because if you're a programmer, you're like, oh, she means business. BRITTANY: Exactly. WILL: Because merge conflicts...yeah, never fun. BRITTANY: Exactly. VICTORIA: I love that. I love finding other people who work in tech in other random activities. Like, I've recruited people from the climbing gym. [laughs] I'm like, oh, we're climbing together, and, oh, you're an engineer. That's interesting. [laughs] So it's great to, like, be with your community in different settings, so... And you're just so involved in the Ruby on Rails Community. And I'm curious what really got you started into podcasting. BRITTANY: Yeah, that's a really good question. So I'm a former product manager former MBA. So I didn't know how to code. I moved out to San Francisco because I thought that's what everyone did. If you wanted to be in tech, you moved out to San Francisco, and so I did that. And I realized very quickly that it was going to be hard for me to be a product manager without knowing how to code. And so I went to a bootcamp at night, and I became a Ruby on Rails developer. So I wish I had, like, just a really cool story for why I chose Rails. It's literally the framework that was being taught by the bootcamp. WILL: [laughs] BRITTANY: But I'm so glad that it was because I love this community so much. But, you know, when I moved out to San Francisco, I just had my current partner at the time and my dog. I didn't have any friends. And so it was really the perfect time to learn how to code just because I was really able to focus. And I ended up having a lot of long walks at night, like, getting to the train, getting to the bus, and that's really when I got into listening to podcasts. I'm not a huge music person, which is kind of weird. I really...I deeply love podcasts. And so I just kind of glommed on to a bunch of podcasts like Giant Robots, CodeNewbie, Bike Shed. I figured if I listened to all the things that I wanted to be, like, osmosis would just happen, and I would just start learning the things because I was actively learning about how to code. And I thought just listening to those concepts would really help. And really what ended up happening is those people that I was listening to, like, to me, they became celebrities to me. Like, I don't care about regular celebrities. [laughter] I care about people within these communities that I care so much about. And so, you know, a couple of years into that, I was still very much devoted to listening to podcasts. I trained for my first marathon listening to podcasts. And I was listening to The Ruby on Rails Podcast, and, at the time, Kyle Daigle had taken over the show. And he had decided, in order to spice things up on the show, he was going to bring co-hosts on that he was going to rotate through. So, every couple of weeks, you would come on as a co-host, and you would drive the conversation with things that were going on in your life. And, at the time, you know, there wasn't a lot of women, female representation in podcasts. I felt that I was doing interesting things. I was working at a non-profit doing ticketing for the Broadway Symphony and opera, like, in Rails. So I felt like I was always working in Rails, and I thought I could provide some useful insight. So I reached out to Kyle. I must have been very ambitious that day because I reached out and I said, "Hey, how about bringing me on as a co-host?" And he said, "Yeah, absolutely. Like, that would be great." And so I came on as one of the regular co-hosts on The Ruby on Rails Podcast, which I should have been flying high, right? Like, this is exactly what I wanted. I got to become like one of my own celebrities, right? Well, Kyle got really busy. At the time, I believe it's when Microsoft was acquiring GitHub. And Kyle still works at GitHub today. Kyle is amazing. He's their COO now. But the podcast kind of went dormant for a couple of months. It was my big opportunity. I really loved, you know, being on a podcast. I had done a couple of episodes. So I reached out to Kyle and said, "Hey, is there any chance you would give me the podcast?" And he said, "Absolutely." And he signed over everything to me, [laughter] which was really scary because I was taking over a podcast that had been around, at that time, it had been around for at least ten years, hundreds of episodes deep. It was on its own network. It was on the 5by5 Network at the time. So it had sponsors and expectations. And so, really, I had to learn everything from the get-go. Like, I made up my own episode plans. I made up my own questions, like, how to do ad reads, how to edit, how to upload to the hosting platform like; that was entirely on me. And, you know, we can talk more about how the podcast has evolved over those years. But yeah, long story now made short, that is how I got my start in podcasting. WILL: That's actually really amazing that that's how it got started and everything. Let's go back to when you first started. What was your feelings like? You say it was a lot to take on. Can you dig deeper in that and tell us more about that? Because I think I felt the same way. I think we've been doing this for about a year now. It's scary, let's be honest. It's scary jumping on a podcast and sharing who you are and what you're doing. So, can you tell us more about that? BRITTANY: Absolutely. I think one thing is just knowing what is your brand and, you know, what listeners should expect from listening to you because this is a podcast that had been around for ten years. You know, it had changed formats several times. It was an interview-style podcast at one point. At one point, it was a bunch of co-hosts that would just meet every week to talk out what was going on. And so I really needed to take a moment and kind of look over the metrics of the episodes. Like, I have that marketing background. I have that product background. So I wanted to know, like, what's actually working? Like, what do listeners want to listen to? And I also, like, kind of pored through all the reviews of the podcast. I'm like, did people even notice that this podcast went offline? Like, what's the current ecosystem? How many podcasts are out there in the Ruby and Rails space? And so what I started doing is I wanted to create, like, a safe environment in order to start the podcast over again. So what I did is I did interview-style podcasts with my friends, people that would tolerate me, you know, making mistakes, knowing that I was probably...I am a terrible editor. And so bringing those people on to have just genuine conversations with. And then really just tried to pick up the listenership of the podcast because I'm basically waving my arms saying, "Hey, folks. Like, The Ruby on Rails Podcast is back. I'm here as your host. And, like, we are here to stay. Like, I want this to be a mainstay in the community." VICTORIA: That's great. So you started to apply those concepts from your product background. And I'm curious what you found in how the business of the podcast really works. BRITTANY: Yeah, I learned a lot, and we can talk about the transition. So, when I came on to the 5by5 Ruby on Rails Podcast, at the time, this was back in 2018. The podcast was being managed by 5by5, which is, like, a long-standing podcast network. They're still around, but they're much smaller than they used to be. So, like, all of the sponsorship and the episode management was being handled by them. And so I didn't have a lot of insight into that part of the podcast. What I did have insight into is, like, what content is performing well? And what is the audience reaction to what we're putting out there? Like, how is the listenership coming back and whatnot? Now, one thing that did happen over the course of me managing The Ruby on Rails Podcast is we decided to take the podcast independent at one point, you know, 5by5 was starting to wind down. And so, back in 2021, I reached out to 5by5 and said, "Hey, I genuinely really love this podcast. I want to be able to take it to a different platform, you know, have it go independent. But it's really important to me that I'm able to hold on to the current subscribers that I have." I think we all know that, like, if you rebrand something and it's a totally different RSS feed, it's really hard to get people to move over, especially if they're using something that makes podcast listening really easy like Apple Podcasts, you know, you subscribe. You get new episodes, and you just hit play. And so they were extremely willing to work with me. And so, we ended up taking the podcast independent. 5by5 created the hosting platform Fireside. And so we moved the podcast over to Fireside, and that was, like, a very seamless transition. But it was a moment in time where, you know, I was kind of questioning. We're no longer 5by5. It was the 5by5 Ruby on Rails Podcast. What do we call it? And so I genuinely had that moment where I was like, I could be really clever with the name. But then I stepped back, and I was like, no, everyone already refers to it as The Ruby on Rails Podcast. I'm just going to go with it. And so I think that ended up being a good decision. We did change the logo of the show. We kept the same feed. And we had, like, the first episode on the new...we're not even on a network now; we're independent. The first episode of, like, the V2 of The Ruby on Rails Podcast is really what we called it. We just kind of explained the whole move. And I'm just deeply grateful all of our listeners just kind of followed along. And I will say the biggest boon to us moving is that we did get a professional editor. And so, like, the quality of the episodes went up, which is the best money that you can spend. Get yourself a professional editor. I cannot stress that enough. Or you get really good at it yourself. But I know my own skills, and it was never going to be that way. And so we took it independent. And I also decided to do a format change as well because it was a lot to do years of a podcast by myself. It was a lot. So I'm really glad Victoria and Will that you have each other. I think it's really great to have co-hosts. So I ended up moving the podcast. I now have a producing partner, and that's Mirror Placement. They do recruiting for Ruby on Rails, and they are wonderful partners. But I also have three co-hosts that rotate through. I have Brian Mariani, who's a recruiter and founder of Mirror Placement. I have Jemma Issroff, who works on Ruby at Shopify. And I have Nick Schwaderer, who works on Rails infrastructure at Shopify. And that's been great because I rotate through those co-hosts. And I always have fresh content from them. But I also do the interview-style episodes as well, which Victoria was on recently. VICTORIA: Yes. I agree 100%. Having a co-host like Will makes it so much more fun. And I cannot appreciate our editor Mandy Moore enough. And I agree on that advice. And I actually would add when people ask me if they should start a podcast, recommend having at least one other person [laughs] who you want to talk with about that topic for every week. But I wonder, if someone's thinking about starting a podcast, what would you have them consider as to whether or not it's worth it for them? BRITTANY: I recently joined the podcasting subreddit on Reddit just because I was interested to see what kind of questions there were out there. Because when I got into podcasting, I was, like, oh, you just need to have a microphone and a way to record, and you just put it out there, and people are going to listen. It feels very much...like, you remember when, you know, the iPhone came out, and the App Store was empty? And then any app that you made was, like, amazing. Everybody would download it because there was nothing to download. We're now getting to a point with podcasts; there's just a lot out there. My first bit of advice is, something that I said earlier, is make sure that you have an identity around your podcasts. Like, make sure that you are targeting a niche. It's fine if there are other people doing it, but do something that is uniquely you and do something that brings you joy. I really love talking to people in the Ruby on Rails Community. I have a special affinity for people who have never been on a podcast before. It's a lot of work. So it's definitely worth it. I've gotten to meet a lot of my programming heroes because of it. And there are times where I've been very tempted to take a break and be able to step away from it. But, as of right now, it has been a good experience. And what I often say whenever I open up my conference talks is the Ruby on Rails Community is my community contribution because I'm not someone who regularly contributes to open source. And so this is kind of, like, how I give back, and I get to meet a lot of amazing people. Mid-Roll Ad: VICTORIA: Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5k per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. VICTORIA: And with me here, I have Richard Newman, who's the Development Director on our Boost Team, to talk to me a little bit more about what maintenance actually looks like once you've built your software application, right? RICHARD: Hi, Victoria. VICTORIA: Hi, Richard. You have experience building applications. I wonder if you could describe to a founder who's considering to build an application, like, what should they consider for their long-term maintenance? RICHARD: Well, like you said earlier, part of what you're going for with that long-term maintenance is making sure the health of your project, of your application, is always there. And you don't want to be surprised as you're continuing to work with your users and so forth. And so a number of things that we pay attention to in maintenance are we're paying attention to keeping the application secure, providing security updates. We want to make sure that the ecosystem, basically, all of the tools and third-party services that are tied to your application, we're responding to those sorts of changes as we go along. And then part of it is, occasionally, you're going to find some smaller issues or bugs or so forth as your user group continues to grow or as needs continue to change. You want to be able to respond to those quickly as well. And so a lot of what goes into maintenance is making sure that you're paying attention and you're ahead of those things before they surprise you. VICTORIA: Because what can happen? Like, what are the consequences if you don't do that ongoing maintenance? RICHARD: Well, the security updates those happen across gems and in the platform sort of tools that are there. And so, if you're not keeping those up to date, your exposure, your vulnerability to being hacked, or having a bad actor come into your application start growing on you if you're not doing the maintenance. The other ones that can come up is there's new interfaces that these third-party services...they may be updating their APIs. They may be updating how you're supposed to work with their tool. And so those can occasionally break if you're not paying attention to what's going on or you're suddenly surprised by an upgrade that you have to make. And then, finally, there's this long-term sort of code change that just builds up over time if you're not keeping it refactored for the changes that are upcoming in a language or the gems that you work with. And then, suddenly, after a while, it suddenly gets to the point where you have a lot of work that you might have to do to rehabilitate the application to take on some of the newer features that are being released. And so that makes it that much more difficult, that much more friction about being able to deliver updates for your users or to be able to respond to changes that are happening out there in your application. VICTORIA: Right. So, if you don't have that ongoing maintenance, you could run into a situation where suddenly, you need to make a very large investment and fixing whatever is broken. RICHARD: Absolutely. It's going to be very tough to plan for if you weren't keeping up all the way along and, yes, absolutely ends up being much slower if you have to remediate it. VICTORIA: That makes sense. I wonder if you have any examples of a project you've walked into and said, "Wow, I wish we had been doing a little bit more maintenance." [laughs] And maybe you can share some details. RICHARD: Yeah. We had a fairly large application that involved a number of clinic services. So we had an application that users were going in every day and counting on our fast response. And, over time, we've got surprised by a database upgrade that had to happen. Basically, the database was going to be changed by our third-party hosting service, and that hadn't been tested. There hadn't been procedures in place when we discovered this need. And there was a very hard date that that change had to be done or else the entire application was going to go down. And it came at a very inconvenient time, at the end of the year around Christmas, that we had to respond to all of that. And had we been in front of it and just updated it every quarter and staying current with it, it wouldn't have been nearly the lift that it turned out to be. We were facing a pretty hard deadline [laughs] there to keep things going. It was very, very stressful and disruptive for the team and potentially for the clinics. VICTORIA: Right. And it always happens around a big holiday or something like that, right? When it all comes to a head. [laughter] RICHARD: Absolutely. You want to be in control of the timeframe and not have the timeframe be in control of you. VICTORIA: Right. And if you have a team like thoughtbot supporting you, you can go on your vacation with a little bit more knowledge that if something breaks, there's someone there who can respond and fix things, and you don't have to interrupt your very valuable time off. So... RICHARD: [chuckles] Absolutely. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Richard, for joining me today. I appreciate you coming here to talk with us. And we'll talk to you again soon. RICHARD: Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. WILL: I have a question around your listeners. I just want to take a second and just thank everyone who listens to the podcast. We really appreciate you so much, so just thank you, thank you, thank you. Because if you don't have listeners, you don't have a podcast, like you said a second ago. And you went through so many changes. What's been your biggest win, and how do you continue winning with your listeners? And how do you engage with them? BRITTANY: This is a fun answer because, actually, thoughtbot comes into play there. They did not pay me to say this. But one thing that The Bike Shed used to do is they used to go to RailsConf and RubyConf, and they would record episodes during the conference with various Ruby heroes in the community. This is going back to me seeing these people as celebrities. I just thought that was, like, the coolest thing. And, at the time, I couldn't afford to go to conferences like that. So being able to listen to those podcasts and get to hear that kind of content was really important to me. And so, you know, eventually, that stopped being a thing at RubyConf and RailsConf. And two years ago, I reached out and said, "Hey, I really love those kinds of sessions. Is there any way that I could take the lead on bringing those sessions back?" And we did. So it took in the form of a podcast panel at these different conferences where we would bring in different podcasts in the community. And we would have a panel. We would answer listener questions. It was genuinely a lot of fun. So that is a proud moment for me. But it's a proud moment for me because it gave me the opportunity to reach out to podcasts in the community and say, "Hey, we're not competing here. We're friends. I want to record content with you. Like, please be part of my podcast community." And we have never been tighter. So, like, we guest on each other's podcasts. We promote each other's podcasts on like Mastodon and Twitter. And it is just the most lovely thing ever because now we say things like, oh, yeah, like, this podcast, like, that's our, like, sister podcast, or that's our brother podcast. Like, it's so cool that we, you know, rising tide raises all ships. That's exactly what's happening here in the Ruby podcast community. VICTORIA: I like that familial sense within the different Ruby on Rails podcasts, and maybe even Giant Robots is a part of that. Like, are we a cousin or an uncle? [laughter] Who knows? But I was actually there when you recorded the episode live at RailsConf in Atlanta this year. Was that your favorite moment at RailsConf, or was it something else? BRITTANY: Yeah, I would say that was my favorite moment at RailsConf. No matter how many times I meet Aaron Patterson, I am always, like, deeply intimidated by just how funny and intelligent he is. So having that excuse of reaching out to him and saying like, "Hey, will you please be on this podcast panel?" was so fun. I deeply adore Irina Nazarova, and so having her on the panel as well was fun. And then just doing the wildcard of having the audience, like, vote in who was going to be the third panel was truly a risky move, Victoria. [laughs] But it ended up paying off, and it ended up generating some really fun content for us. VICTORIA: That's awesome. And I'm curious, you know, to talk a little bit more about the Ruby on Rails Community. And what do you see is the biggest challenge that it's facing right now? BRITTANY: Oh, I have so many opinions on this. What a great question. [laughs] So I recently put together a talk proposal. It's currently waitlisted at a conference, but it is a talk that I very much want to give. But one project that I would really like to work on is...between, I would say, 2013 and 2015, Ruby on Rails was definitely the number one framework that was being taught in bootcamps. And I'm really curious about what happened to all those people. I'm one of them. I learned Ruby on Rails in 2014. I still believe that I'm in the Ruby on Rails Community, not only for the podcast, but I'm an engineering manager for a company that writes Rails. So I believe I'm very much in the community. I'm so curious. Those people had so much potential of being seniors, principals, staff engineers, founders, engineering managers, architects. What happened to them? And did they stay in our community? And then my second part of that is, what does it mean to be in the Ruby on Rails Community? Like, can you just listen to podcasts and be in the community? Do you need to actively write Ruby? I just find that whole thing very interesting. We're very obsessed with bringing new programmers into the Rails community, which I think is important. But what about the people who we taught Rails and left us? Like, is there an opportunity to bring them back? WILL: It's funny you say that because I wasn't in that year range. I was a little later, like, 2017. And I learned Ruby on Rails, and then I went to JavaScript, you know, React, React Native, but I'm slowly inching back towards Ruby on Rails. My current project, I'm actually able to do some Ruby on Rails. And I'm really excited about it because, like you, that was my first language style that I learned, and I still love it. It is weird, but you always love your first language; I do, at least. So it's interesting that you said that because, yeah, I can say, for me, I'm slowly coming back towards it. BRITTANY: Well, welcome back, Will. We're excited to have you. I know that Node was such a heavy hitter when it came out, and it made a lot of sense. Like, we're going to teach you JavaScript on the front end. Oh, hey, we're going to also teach you JavaScript on the back end. You know, from the business side, I'm so curious whether or not Rails is still, like, one of the top three solutions in order to get an MVP off the ground. I don't have my thumb on that, so I'm very curious whether or not that's true or not. VICTORIA: We certainly still tend to default to it at thoughtbot and to get MVPs off the ground. And we're still building a bunch of products every year with it. [laughs] So, Ruby on Rails and React together, especially if you're trying to iterate very quickly and test your assumptions about what you're building, I think that it's still a really fast and high-performing framework to use. And it's interesting because there's a coding school in San Diego, Codecademy, which is really heavily involved, [chuckles] of course, in the Ruby on Rails Community, and they still teach it in their bootcamp. And one of the reasons they said to me was because it's one of the frameworks that gives you that holistic view of how everything works. [laughs] Like, if you're new to tech, new to programming, in general, it's a very easy entry point to understanding. And I think that, of itself, when you're talking, like, the long-term viability of a framework, being able to hire people who can step in and understand what's going on in your codebase, that framework gives you a higher chance of that. [laughs] You know, that might point to your long-term success, too. BRITTANY: Now, that's a really good point. Going back to the podcast as well, I think one thing that is not very well solved is just being able to make it sustainable as well because there are only so many sponsors out there. And it's really hard to prove ROI from sponsoring a podcast, right? Like, you can put links in the show notes. And you can hope people click on them and they convert. And you can be able to say, "Hey, this podcast is the reason." But I've seen a lot of people start podcasts, and they think, well, if I put a bunch of episodes out and some people listen, then sponsors are going to knock down my door. I'm very lucky that I've had some long-term sponsors that have been able to keep the show sustainable. And I love seeing podcasts that come out of companies, you know, like thoughtbot, where you are being sustained by the company that, you know, is producing it. It's really hard to justify a podcast as a business unless you are already a major celebrity already, right? VICTORIA: Yeah, we certainly don't do it for the money it makes us directly off the podcast. We do not. [laughter] BRITTANY: We do not. VICTORIA: Yeah, I agree with that. And yeah, and even it's interesting as an advertising vehicle or marketing for your company. It can be great because, like, I feel with Giant Robots, we have so many listeners, like, loyal listeners over the years that we have this, like, direct way of communicating with a community that we care about. [laughs] But if you don't have...trying to, like, create that market and create that group of people from the ground up can be really tough. [laughs] And it takes a lot of time, a lot of investment, and a lot of effort, especially if you can't afford a professional editor. [laughs] BRITTANY: Agreed. There's just some cost that I believe, like, the longer I do this, that are just, like, non-negotiable. There are some things that you can definitely have as optional. You know, for me, like, you have to have a good microphone. You have to have a professional editor. I pay for, like, my calendar scheduling software because I want to make that really, like, slick for my guests. Like, I used to...oh, I used to do the emails back and forth of, like, I'm available at Thursday at 2:00 or Friday at 3:00. Like, would one of these work for you? No. [laughs] It's just...that's a rotten experience. For us, we do send, like, a thank you gift after being on the show, which has been, like, a nice add with having a producing partner that will back me on that. And I try to get to as many conferences as possible because I think it's a great vehicle to promote the podcast, but those end up all being optional. And all those things they do cost money. VICTORIA: They do. And it's funny, like, yeah, getting out to the conferences, it's still the number one way to grow things is by meeting people in person [laughs], like, being real and human. BRITTANY: Shocking, right? [laughs] VICTORIA: Yeah. And I'm just kind of curious, like, in terms of how you picture what success means for your podcast. Like, what does that look like in the next six months or even, like, five years of hosting this podcast for you? BRITTANY: Ooh, this is, like, the existential crisis question because I've been doing it for nearly five years. And I think the question is always going to be, you know, like, how long do I want to keep hosting the podcast? I will say the podcast is a positive influence on me in terms of making sure that I stay connected to people, that I keep writing code on the side so that way, I know what I'm talking about. I have this whole imposter thing of, like, what if someone finds out I'm not a Ruby on Rails developer day to day and that I'm, like, actually thinking about business problems; I was, like, an engineering manager? You know, I'm going to get found out, and people are going to unsubscribe. But in all seriousness, I think the success for this podcast is that it can go on without me. It's been around for that long already. And eventually, like, I want to have a succession plan where someones, I will say, like, multiple co-hosts to be able to take it over from there. It'll be rough to watch because, like, I really enjoy, you know, my current era because I feel like the podcast has gone through different eras. I really do enjoy it. But, at some point, it's just not going to make sense in terms of my professional goals. Do you feel the same? VICTORIA: Yes. But we're only a year in. So I feel like I'm still...[laughter] I feel like I'm still new to hosting. And I'm like, oh, I've already recorded, like, 30 episodes or something. [laughs] There's been a lot of change. And we're always thinking about, like, how do we make it better? What do we do? And trying to figure out how do we really get the most out of it for ourselves. But I feel the same way that it's just one of the more fun things that I do at thoughtbot [laughs]. And it gives me that chance to reach out to people and start conversations that I otherwise would not have had. So I really appreciate it. I don't know what you think, Will. WILL: No, I totally agree with you. I love meeting new people. And I love meeting the diverse group of people that we have on the podcast. I love that just, like, how did you get here? Like, what makes you keep at it? Like, you've been at it for five years. What makes you keep at it? Just those questions like that I really love. For me personally, I think that I'm still in the growing phase of podcast hosting. Like, I can get better at this. I can get better at that. What else can I get better at? So I think that's where I'm at in this phase. But, like Victoria said, that's only a year in. It's a different story when you're five years in. BRITTANY: [laughs] It is. And one thing that I will do to make it more sustainable is, you know, like when you're running, you can either be sprinting, or you can be doing, like, a long endurance race. So with the podcast, I will book a bunch of podcasts in one week and say, this is my week to be recording. Like, I'm going to be very heads down on the podcast. I have other things going on in my life, but I'm like, this is a podcast week for me. And so I will record a bunch of episodes. And that essentially gives me a couple of weeks where I can essentially take a break from the podcast. But guess what, listeners? Like, you're still getting new episodes. So you have no idea that I'm secretly taking a break. And I think that has also been a huge help. Odd fact is that the five years that I've been hosting The Ruby on Rails Podcast, I am only missing from one episode. And the reason for that is that when I broke my ankle, [laughs] I called my co-host and was like, "Hey, I'm going into surgery tomorrow. We have this great episode being recorded tomorrow. I need you to take it." [laughs] And so that is the one episode that I am missing from, but I think it was a good lesson for me to know that I can step away and good content can still happen. WILL: That's amazing. That's a pretty good record. [laughs] BRITTANY: Or it might be obsessive, Will. I don't know. [laughter] WILL: Let me ask you this, what does success look like for you personally - roller derby, your full-time job? What does success look like for you in those areas in six months or a couple of years? BRITTANY: Oh, that's a really great question. So I had stepped away from roller derby during the pandemic. And so I absolutely love fitness. I do CrossFit. I have a peloton. I have my own little home gym that I built during the pandemic that I absolutely adore. So, you know, success for me is continuing to invest in that self-care. I want to keep skating just because I'm that person. Everyone came to me, and they're like, "Oh, you broke your ankle. I bet you won't go back to a roller derby." And I was like, oh, you think I won't? You think I won't go back? [laughs] So I'm headed back, but I'm going to be very careful about it. Because I've seen that, you know, your body can break, and you need to give yourself some rest. But to answer, overall, like, I am an engineering manager now, and, you know, my goal is to eventually to get to that director level. And, in some ways, like, I can justify the podcast just because I do get the excuse to talk to people that have the job that I eventually want to have in my career. And so it helps in that regard as well. VICTORIA: I think that's great, and I agree. That's also why I started getting involved in my community a lot, maybe 5 or 10 years ago. I was just like, here's opportunities to show my leadership and see how connected I am with other leaders. [laughs] It helps in that way. And on blading, I actually bought rollerblades recently just to go around the neighborhood. BRITTANY: Yeesssss! VICTORIA: And I got heckled by a woman [laughs] who said...I think she was being sincere, but she was like, "Bend your knees, and it's going to be okay." [laughter] Like, "Wear wrist guards next time." [laughter] I was like, maybe just my face was very try-hard in that moment. Because I have a lot of respect for people who can roller derby and get around on skates that fast. [laughs] BRITTANY: Well, you know what's really funny? (I haven't even talked about this on my own podcast.) is that you know, I'm involved in the Roller Derby League. Obviously, I can't skate right now. And so I needed to find a committee so that I was able to still, you know, provide value to the league. And so, for some reason, I decided that skater resources would be a good idea. So I'm essentially one of the people who is, you know, human resources within the Roller Derby League. And so when there are disputes or questions, or people have hurt feelings, like, they're coming to me, which is, you know, really funny because I do some of that as an engineering manager. So, like, to your point, Victoria, like, you know, I can do growth because they're way more extreme through roller derby, as you can imagine. And, in some ways, it ends up being good practice. VICTORIA: Yes, that does sound like practice for higher-level management decisions, [laughs] so get ready. You're going to have issues and problems, and you're the one to solve it. So... BRITTANY: Yeah. It's not like their problems don't matter. But, in some ways, it's almost like playing with monopoly money because, like, you know, you're not dealing with somebody's, like, livelihood. You're dealing with a sport that they do for fun. Like, trust me, no one is being paid to play roller derby. [laughs] It's a very expensive sport. There's a lot of equipment involved. And, Victoria, yes, you want to wear wristguards. [laughter] VICTORIA: Yes. I learned my lesson. BRITTANY: You write code. You want to wear wrist guards. [laughter] VICTORIA: Right. And yeah, it's funny about things like that. Like, it's still very meaningful to people. Like, when I used to coach kids' climbing competitions, it's, like, the same thing. Like, it's rock climbing, everybody, but some people take it very seriously. [laughs] There's a lot of feelings involved. But, at the end of the day, it's nice to have that practice outside of the pressure of it being someone's livelihood and all of those details. BRITTANY: Agreed. VICTORIA: Well, let me ask you this question. It's one of our favorite ones. But if you could go back in time and give advice to your younger self, what would you say? And maybe it's at the beginning of the podcast or some other inflection point in your career. BRITTANY: That is...oh, what a gift because hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? When I was going through school, I ended up getting a marketing degree because I really enjoyed business. I really liked, you know, the mechanics behind marketing. But, at the time, I had taken a couple of computer classes, and this was back in 2006. And, you know, I thought about double majoring in computer science and marketing. And someone gave me the terrible advice that computer programming was going to go away [laughs], and so it would be a waste of time to get that double degree in computer science. And so, you know, I'm very much a second career developer. Like I noted earlier, you know, I was a PM. I was a non-technical product manager before I learned how to code, and so I learned how to code in my 30s. So I wish I could go back and get into programming way earlier. It would have changed the entire trajectory of my life. But part of me always wants to live out, like, that Black Mirror, like, what it would have been like if I had learned to code so much earlier. Would I have found Ruby? Maybe not. WILL: I totally agree with that because the same story. I remember growing up, and I had a cousin that lived next door. He used to program, and I was just, like, he was a celebrity because I was like, whoa, look what he's doing, and how can you do that? And then I went off to college. Well, I grew up in a small town, so we didn't really have many computer programs. I went to a college, and they said, "Hey, we have this one computer course you can either take it or test out." I was like; I'm not taking it; test out. I want to save that money. And I didn't realize how much I'll love computers and programming until later in life, late 20s, early 30s. And I wish I could have started early, so I totally agree with you about that. VICTORIA: Like, I wish I would have time now to learn how to code. [laughs] Like, I still need to learn it. No, I think that...oh, would I advise? I don't know. You know what's funny? A recent guest said that if that had happened, they still wouldn't have believed themselves [laughs], right? Like, would you really believe someone telling you what to do? Like, you know, you try to make the best decision that you can at the time. BRITTANY: I think it's fun to look back and see all the little things that happened that got you to where you are. So, like, two of, like, crucial things that happened for me. I was in school to become a genetic counselor, and I hated it. And so I had gotten an internship, and, like, that internship changed everything because it was like a day in the life as a genetic counselor, and I really did not like it at all. And so, I ended up dropping all my classes and moving into the business school. And so that was one thing that happened. And then the second thing is, you know, I was working at a cowboy restaurant. [laughs] It was ridiculous. And I was getting ready to graduate school and just absolutely terrified about not having a job. I ended up getting this table of this company that was, like, having a business meeting, and we ended up chatting, and they were so wonderful. And they left me their business card, and, like, that ended up being my first job. It's just the little micro-decisions that you make that, like, change your entire trajectory, which is really so cool. So you end up not really regretting anything, but you always just kind of look back and reflect, and you're like, what if I had given that table away? Or what if I hadn't been ambitious and, like, tried to get that internship? So just everything's an opportunity, right? WILL: Yeah, I totally, totally agree with that. So you do roller derby, CrossFit, marathons, coding, your podcast. So you do a lot of self-care, which I don't think, especially in the tech world, we do enough self-care. I know I don't. I am horrible at it, trying to get better. What's your wind in your sails for that? Like, how do you keep going? Like, how do you stay disciplined with that? BRITTANY: I think, for me, I feel better when I move my body. I make better decisions. I am more patient. I need to work out earlier in the day. Like, I am a morning person, and so it makes me feel good. And so then I go into work in a good mood. And I deal with people day to day, right? Like, I manage ten developers. And so it's also something that I can use to connect with my team as well. A lot of them also like to do physical things, and so that works out nicely. In terms of nutrition, I definitely could be better. But I will say my partner and I take turns meal prepping our lunches. We both work from home. And so being able to, like, in between meetings run over and grab a box of actually good food to be able to eat lunch. We do, like, a meal service at night as well. I don't know, like, you need to look out for you. Because while the belief is that other people are also looking out, nobody's going to look out for you like you are. And so you have to prioritize self-care and just making sure that you're getting those moments. And I agree with you, Will; sometimes, I'm absolutely terrible at setting up those processes so that way you don't fall through. VICTORIA: I think there's a book that makes me think of it called, like, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. [laughs] BRITTANY: Yes. VICTORIA: Yeah. BRITTANY: Yes. VICTORIA: Yep. And I think that's part of it, too. Like, there's a lot of pressure to be so high-performing and to do all the things for your family, and for your work and your personal life. But, at the end of the day, it's also okay to just sit around and do nothing [laughs] and, like, relax. BRITTANY: Yeah, I've watched a lot of Drag Race, a lot. [laughs] VICTORIA: Oh, awesome. Yes. What's your favorite season? BRITTANY: Oh, season six, I would say. Season six is just so good. Are you watching All-Stars? VICTORIA: I'm not right now. I'm actually...I usually binge-watch it at random times. So I'm not really caught up. But I have met a few of them at drag shows. I think I've met Milk. Is that [inaudible 44:27] BRITTANY: Oh, wow. What a queen to have met. VICTORIA: I know. BRITTANY: That's amazing. [laughs] VICTORIA: That was actually a very funny story. I'll tell you another time. [laughs] But yes. BRITTANY: But honestly, like, Drag Race actually relates to engineering management for me because, you know, at my last job, I had two developers that I was struggling to connect with. And I realized that after stand-up, they were staying behind to talk about Drag Race, and I wanted to connect with them. And I was like, oh, I'll check out a couple of episodes and became so deeply addicted [laughs] that, like, I surpassed them in how much I loved it. So, like, it is a fun, like, I've always thought about giving a conference talk where, like, each report that I have, like, one crazy thing that they do...well, not crazy but, like, one, you know, passion that they have and, like, trying it just to have something to relate to. Though I will say, I did manage somebody who really liked to jump out of planes, and that is just not in the cards for me. VICTORIA: I love that too. I like when someone is really passionate about something. I'm like, okay, I'll give it a chance, at least once, you know. But I have some friends right now who are into freediving, and I'm not convinced [laughs] that I want to go try to hold my breath underwater. BRITTANY: What in the world is freediving? VICTORIA: It's diving underwater without oxygen. BRITTANY: No. VICTORIA: Yeah. Yeah. BRITTANY: That's a big nope for me. VICTORIA: And, like, hunting fish. So, like, they catch tuna and stuff. They're down there pew-pew and making sushi when they get back. BRITTANY: Well, that actually sounds wonderful. But -- VICTORIA: Yeah, I'm like, I will eat this. I will eat [laughs] whatever you catch. BRITTANY: Yes, that's fair. VICTORIA: Yeah. Like, I'm into the results but not...I might try some of the, like... a lot of it is, like, training your breath and being able to hold your breath and to stay calm because that's really the biggest problem. [laughs] I do rock climbing. I think that's enough. Like, that's -- WILL: [laughs] BRITTANY: That's pretty badass. VICTORIA: Yeah. [laughs] WILL: Yes. BRITTANY: That is a very cool sport. VICTORIA: Yeah. And, actually, you're mentioning how it was, like, you worked at a cowboy restaurant, and that was how you got your first connection to your job. And, like, I would go up to, like, my college climbing wall and be, like, I'm a rock climber; you should hire me. And [laughs] through that connection, I got my first referral to my first job in DC. And so, basically, my whole life revolves around it. [laughs] Nothing would happen without these little connections that you make. I'm curious, Will, if you had a pivot point like that you can tell us about. WILL: It was probably getting to tech because it was more of a hobby, and sometimes it's still a big hobby for me. So I will say either getting into tech or working out. So I try to work out with friends. So I used to play football. Everything was a group workout. So after football, it was very hard for me to work out because it was always a group workout. So after many, many years of finally realizing that, I try to work out in groups, with friends, and stuff like that. So that's probably the biggest thing for me is, like, working out in a group and having someone to hold me accountable. BRITTANY: I love that. That's one reason...so I used to be a fitness instructor. I should reveal that as well. I used to be a BODYPUMP instructor. And the reason for that is just, like, again, I thought people that were fitness instructors were just, like, celebrities and absolute badasses. And so, I used to only go to group fitness class as well because I needed that accountability. And so, yeah, there's definitely days I wake up where I absolutely do not want to do anything. But having that accountability, it's just really awesome, and really, it makes sure that you follow through. VICTORIA: That makes sense how you've practiced your voice and why your podcasting voice is so strong [laughter] because you're a fitness instructor. That's what is starting to add up for me. [laughter] BRITTANY: You know what? The biggest challenge of being a fitness instructor is that they would send me the routines, and I would have to memorize them. And being able to memorize like, oh, I'm going to squat on the fourth count. And I'm going to do a clean and press on the eighth count. Oh my God, is that an algorithm -- WILL: Yes. BRITTANY: You know, for a pro...and I was like, is there any way that I could somehow automate? Like, part of me wanted to game it. I'm like, how do I game this so I don't have to spend so much time trying to memorize it? I mean, it was truly, truly challenging. And it was probably, like, the best brain teaser that I could have been doing because you're essentially putting on a live performance while working out. And everyone needs to be able to follow you and feel encouraged by you. It was just...it was a wild time. WILL: [laughs] VICTORIA: That sounds very demanding. Well, coming up to the end of our time here, is there anything else you would like to promote today? BRITTANY: Ooh, no. We're currently not hiring at my job. Normally, that is something that I would promote. I would say if you are interested in checking out my podcast, it is The Ruby on Rails Podcast. We have plenty of things on there that are not Rails-specific. We've had conversations about, like, what's it like to get stock options at a company? What does the recruiting landscape currently look like? And then we also have, like, deep topics about, like, what's currently being merged into Ruby Core? So, really, we have a wide variety of topics. So, if you find my voice somewhat pleasant, come on over; we'd be happy to have you. And, of course, you can listen to Victoria's episode, that will be linked up in the show notes. But this was such a pleasure. It was great spending time with you both, Will and Victoria. WILL: Yeah, it was great. Loved chatting with you. VICTORIA: Yes, thank you so much for joining. This was super fun. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. WILL: If you have any questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you could find me on Twitter @will23larry. VICTORIA: And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Brittany Martin.
Imagine transforming cold, hard data into an engaging narrative that resonates with key opinion leaders and influences decisions. Our guest, Richard Newman, founder of Body Talk, has honed this skill, teaching 120,000+ global business leaders to amplify their communication and impact. Richard's personal journey, from overcoming autism to teaching in a Tibetan monastery, has shaped his unique perspective on non-verbal communication and storytelling. Dive into this intriguing conversation as Richard deconstructs the power of storytelling, especially in the context of data presentation. Discover how enhanced storytelling skills led to an $800 million deal. Gain insights into the shifting dynamics of storytelling, with a focus on the true hero of the narrative and the importance of effective story structure. Explore the art of asking the right questions, including surface, emotional, and survival-level inquiries. Richard shares his wisdom on creating a safe space for open expression of thoughts and emotions. Finally, we delve into Richard's inspiring journey of self-discovery and the unveiling of hidden potential. His belief in recognizing greatness as a catalyst for success is truly inspiring. Gain impactful insights and practical techniques to immediately elevate your impact. Join us on this transformative journey with Richard Newman to revolutionize your storytelling and communication skills.NOTABLE QUOTES"The reason I'm so passionate about communication is that I was really challenged with trying to figure out how to communicate when I was a kid." – Richard"When I was 18 years old, other friends of mine were going off to university, I decided I wanted to do something good for the world and start to really investigate how I could improve my communication and help other people do the same" – Richard"Through body language and through tone of voice, I could understand [the monks] and I could connect with them." – Richard"Public speaking is to really effectively express something in a compelling way to a group of people, whichever the medium that you're using." – Richard"The new generation need more connection, explanation, and feel like they're not being talked at but being talked with." – Philip"In order for storytelling to be really effective, you need to connect with the survival, emotional, and logical mind in that order." – Richard"We need to build a story to explain what is the relevance of [the] information, why should they be concerned about it right now, and what will happen if they don't move forward and take some action." – Richard"To get people really connected with the story, you've got to let them see themselves in the story in a positive way." – Richard"The real key to having a great impact on an audience [is] to make them the hero." – Richard“To boost morale and company culture, get input and feedback from your employees.” – Philip“Nothing is worse for anybody than to go to a meeting that could have been summarized in an email.” – Philip"You've really got to make sure you're connecting with where are people right now, how they feel, and then land your message based on that." – Richard"See someone's greatness." – RichardRESOURCESRichardLift Your Impact Book: https://liftyourimpact.com/thebook Website: https://ukbodytalk.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ukbodytalk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/UKBodyTalk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ukbodytalk PhilipInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=enTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessionsLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions Support the Show.
Join Richard Newman, an award-winning expert in communication, storytelling, and influence, as he shares groundbreaking techniques to increase your impact and influence. Discover how to align your values, create a better future, overcome limitations, and inspire others through powerful storytelling. Tune in to gain practical tools and insights that will transform your mindset, elevate your performance, and shape your future success. Don't miss this opportunity to unlock your full potential and create a meaningful and fulfilling life. Subscribe for ad-free interviews and bonus episodes https://plus.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episode #54 Featuring Richard Newman, Founder of Body Talk and Best Selling Author of Lift Your Impact. Over the past 23 years Richard and his team have trained over 120,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact, including one client who gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, using the strategies that Richard teaches. Listen to James Ontra and Richard Newman chat about the science of body language while presenting and how that science can help you thrive in business as well as in your everyday life. Visit www.Shufflrr.com for Presentation Management
One of the most essential components of writing a book that people want to read is the ability to tell a great story. While storytelling is often described as an art, there is a science to it as well, and our guest today is here to help you make your stories more engaging and inviting for your audience. In this episode of The Author's Corner, Robin sits down with Richard Newman, an award-winning expert in leadership communication and storytelling, as well as the author of You Were Born to Speak and Lift Your Impact. During the episode, Robin and Richard discuss self-publishing his first book, and how it provided lessons and insights that helped him with his second book, published by McGraw Hill. They discuss the importance of tying science and technical writing to personal experiences that an audience can relate to. Richard also shares some insights into the challenges of taking material that's been taught on a stage and putting it into book form.Key Takeaways from This Episode:How Richard discovered the science of storytelling.How his first self-published book paved the way for his second book.Determining the 'hero' of your story: Who are you writing this for?Why Richard chose to self-publish his first book.And much more...Resources Mentioned in this Episode:Richard's LinkedInLift Your Impact bookYou Were Born to Speak bookBody TalkAbout Richard Newman:Richard is an award-winning expert in leadership communication, storytelling and influence, and has worked in advanced communication since 1995. He specializes in showing leaders how to speak with greater impact and influence. He is regularly featured on BBC London Radio and is the author of the best-selling book You Were Born to Speak. Richard's clients include CEOs, Vice-Presidents and leadership teams across many industries. He began by teaching English as a foreign language living in a Tibetan monastery in India. He then studied professional acting in London for three years, working as an actor on stage and screen, while continuing to study communication skills. In 2000, Richard founded Body Talk and began working with a well-known Formula 1 team. His team at Body Talk has now worked with over 75,000 clients from 46 countries around the world.
One of the most essential components of writing a book that people want to read is the ability to tell a great story. While storytelling is often described as an art, there is a science to it as well, and our guest today is here to help you make your stories more engaging and inviting for your audience. In this episode of The Author's Corner, Robin sits down with Richard Newman, an award-winning expert in leadership communication and storytelling, as well as the author of You Were Born to Speak and Lift Your Impact. During the episode, Robin and Richard discuss self-publishing his first book, and how it provided lessons and insights that helped him with his second book, published by McGraw Hill. They discuss the importance of tying science and technical writing to personal experiences that an audience can relate to. Richard also shares some insights into the challenges of taking material that's been taught on a stage and putting it into book form.Key Takeaways from This Episode:How Richard discovered the science of storytelling.How his first self-published book paved the way for his second book.Determining the 'hero' of your story: Who are you writing this for?Why Richard chose to self-publish his first book.And much more...Resources Mentioned in this Episode:Richard's LinkedInLift Your Impact bookYou Were Born to Speak bookBody TalkAbout Richard Newman:Richard is an award-winning expert in leadership communication, storytelling and influence, and has worked in advanced communication since 1995. He specializes in showing leaders how to speak with greater impact and influence. He is regularly featured on BBC London Radio and is the author of the best-selling book You Were Born to Speak. Richard's clients include CEOs, Vice-Presidents and leadership teams across many industries. He began by teaching English as a foreign language living in a Tibetan monastery in India. He then studied professional acting in London for three years, working as an actor on stage and screen, while continuing to study communication skills. In 2000, Richard founded Body Talk and began working with a well-known Formula 1 team. His team at Body Talk has now worked with over 75,000 clients from 46 countries around the world.
Richard Newman is the author of Lift Your Impact: Transform Your Mindset, Influence, and Future to Elevate Your Work, Team, and Life, is an award-winning expert in leadership communication, storytelling, and influence, and founder of UK Body Talk Ltd, the global leader in on communication training. Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. You must stop being the hero in your business to succeed. 2. To communicate effectively, you must drop your armor, let go of poor habits, and reconnect with your innate ability to connect with others. 3. To live a meaningful life, prioritize your relationships with others, even if communication is difficult. Check out the website, find out more information, and get the first 25 pages of Richard's book! - Lift Your Impact - The Book Website Sponsors: HubSpot: HubSpot CRM's powerful tools will help marketers WOW prospects, sales teams lock in deals, and service teams improve response times and overall service. Get started for free at HubSpot.com! BELAY: Learn how to make the most of your time and maximize your results with BELAY's free offer! Download Your Personal Guide to a Productive Work Week, today! Just text FIRE to 55123!
One of the reasons why I started this podcast was to expand my passion of engaging in deep conversations with others because, meaningful dialogue lights me up. We could all benefit from expanding our healthy communication skills, which is why I was so excited to talk to Richard Newman, a keynote speaker, coach, speechwriter, and an award-winning expert in communication, storytelling, and influence. Richard Newman is an introvert who has dedicated decades to understanding and improving communication. He is the CEO and Founder of UK Body Talk, a global leader in training on the science of communication. His team has coached over 120,000 people including Microsoft, London Business School, NYU, and many more Fortune 500 companies. This episode covers how to cultivate healthy communication in all kinds of relationships including work, romantic, family, and friends. Sponsor Anima Mundi Herbals: enter the code ELLEN20 for 20% off everything athttps://glnk.io/nr9jm/ellenfisher This episode covers: How to communicate peacefully with those you disagree with to create a positive outcome Communication techniques that can create respect, fruitfulness, and results The connection between mental health and emotional wellbeing with communication Important strategies everyone can use before important conversations to ensure better outcomes The age of digital communication and how it can lead to surface level relationships How to avoid conflict, by recognizing the difference between the facts and the story your ego tells you The difference between internal vs external validation and why it's an important distinction How to be a change-maker and do meaningful work. And much more WHERE TO FIND RICHARD NEWMAN Body Talk Instagram Podcast WHERE TO FIND ME My birth course My ebooks Instagram Watch the podcast
Communicating with our community, our teams and our clients is an essential part of business. When you know how to communicate effectively, it can build trust, develop a connection with our audiences and inspire others to help you achieve your goals. But sometimes the way one person communicates naturally leaves you feeling disconnected. Or worse, misunderstood and frustrated. By learning how to communicate for impact, you can include simple shifts like body language, tone, and storytelling to convey your message with clarity and conviction - which leads to strengthening your impact too. On Amplify Your Success Podcast episode 335, author Richard Newman joins me to share his fascinating journey from living with Tibetan monks to the corporate world showing some of the world's most recognized brands how to improve communication. Join us in the Amplify Your Authority FREE Facebook Group to learn more strategies to stop being a best-kept secret and stand out as an industry go-to authority. Key Takeaways [6:19] Richard shares the root of how he discovered his communication practices as a young boy who struggled to understand others. [10:13] What shifted when Richard found a study that illuminated his autism. [12:11] The 2000 person study that revealed one small shift in communication that creates more impact. [13:21] How to discover your 3 word rebellion (hint: it starts with freeflow brainstorming!) [15:22] The importance of your gestures in communication. [20:00] Richard shares how the pandemic drove a record number of new businesses to be opened (and how people yearn for connection and to be heard.0 [24:27] How mindset impacts communication. [33:58] The one thing Richard learned about the person you fail to fire (and how it's impacted his business.) Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Get Richard's Free Gift: The first 25 pages of his book, Lift Your Impact (plus some other cool downloads) In two minutes, discover what's really blocking your ability to impact others with your expertise LINK TO QUIZ
Richard Newman reveals insights on the small–but impactful–shifts anyone can make to become a more powerful communicator. — YOU'LL LEARN — 1) How to maximize your impact with two hand gestures. 2) The key to looking like a charismatic leader. 3) The most important question to ask before any presentation. Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep860 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT RICHARD — Richard is the Founder of Body Talk. Over the past 22 years his team have trained over 120,000 business leaders around the world, to improve their communication and impact, including one client who gained over $1 Billion in new business in just one year, using the strategies that Richard teaches. • Research: “Non-Verbal Presence: How Changing Your Behaviour Can Increase Your Ratings for Persuasion, Leadership and Confidence” by Richard Newman, Adrian Furnham, Laura Weis, Marcus Gee, Roxana Cardos, Alixe Lay, Alistair McClelland • Book: Lift Your Impact: Transform Your Mindset, Influence, and Future to Elevate Your Work, Team, and Life (website) • Book: You Were Born to Speak • Website: UKBodyTalk.com — RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Software: Mentimeter.com • Book: Peoplewatching: The Desmond Morris Guide to Body Language by Desmond Morris • Book: Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins • Book: Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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