0:03
It's the daily Talk Show Episode 609 back in the studio Rob Ward's first

0:09
time actually in the studio yeah we were at your studio is way different to the last time we're in your boardroom

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yeah there was no video cameras not

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there was pissed running in the nap.

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That's right free coffee.

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But I thought he's calling us

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not everybody

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knows some photos taken but now it's good to have you back might be back after all these all these episodes. It's we're saying you since Yeah, it hasn't just been a disconnect. Hey young man. Hey, good. Good. Good

0:37
things good.

0:38
Yeah, it complicated but

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good. Well, you were just talking about so for people who don't know you on quad lock, your co founder of quad lock which is the phone case that you mount on to bikes and all that sort of shit. Look for blue. Yeah, and it's a lot of black college down in Yeah, the popular the blue. That's what we didn't do it till just Recently,

1:00
I actually sent you a screenshot of Kevin Hart's doc on one of the eyes. It has a quad lock. Yeah. And you said I was like so pumped to send it to you, man. I'm not surprised where they pop up now. It was really anticlimactic. I thought I'd found something like,

1:14
no. I love it. But yeah, they

1:21
weren't as excited.

1:23
Enough, I think I shared all the stories of somebody say Jonathan pie. Yeah, so that YouTube a nice big rant on Brexit. And he's literally gone to the camera and he's holding these quad lot and he's like, this is what's wrong with the world today. This is Brexit and he's talking about social media and the media on your phone and all that but it looks like he's talking about this like shit, this could be massive PR.

1:47
I love it. I mean, the success metric changes that gets you excited. I can imagine in the UK for now it's it's not seeing it because it's mostly everywhere. But you know, for us, it's going to the St Kilda festival and someone coming up and saying, Josh and totally So

2:01
what what is it shift to win for you know beings so far into the journey and yet not to be honest, I think, you know, like the things you track as a business, like you know, units, revenue, growth, things like that. And that's all cool. But after looking at it for a long time, it just becomes another goal. Another thing and it's great when you hit it and everyone gets pumped in and it's a good feeling of the success of that metric because when you are inside your own office with just everyone who's working on qualifying, you're not out and about seeing and doing it. That is the thing you've got to work with. But then when you when you're on Instagram, you follow the hashtag and you see every day like hundreds of motorcycles and box going up with new people using it and things like that where then you walk out in the street and there's hundreds of them in there and then you go to get a coffee and people got quality shirts on and they're like hey, do you guys I need to get one of those Where do they come from? What Oh, you can come upstairs we we might go and we have a lot yeah, that then those kind of things still like you know you sending through that thing on some pie like, you know Those things in the real world still the things that make you get shit. Yeah, a lot of these things out there when you travel around the world and you see them in different cities and things like you like, Okay, this is this is a lot bigger than us now

3:12
you're talking about goals.

3:14
We're always talking here about like, we want a dashboard of his dream. Yeah,

3:19
that's correct. As you saw like as six dash.

3:22
Yeah, so what what is like so you do have all these TV screens that have all these graphs and shit, what are they actually measuring? Just to impress people? It's just a line going up? Yeah, no, no, I think it's like probably four years ago. Now. I think we really started, you know, but we'll, you know, we'll probably run and gun

3:42
shoot from the hip operators when we started. But you sort of have to be, I think, at a point.

3:50
And I think we're talking about before, like, you know, long term plans when you still trying to figure things out are difficult,

3:55
because they can sort of push you into this

3:58
place where it may not Be the best to be but after a while and you get more people on a team and you got to sort of express a vision or try and express where we want to be or where you want to go like CP nice to see things like we got to make something bigger than us. Like sounds cool but does not really how do you act on that?

4:15
Yeah, we saying things like, we want a $10 million business with it

4:20
not not it not not not not at the start is literally like you know, we want to do something bigger than ourselves like because it's only other businesses some stuff you probably remember just like the the lasers and the 3d printers and all that kind of stuff you looking at as never gonna get that much bigger than us kind of thing. So that was just a thing that we could say to ourselves and it worked probably when there's one or two of us and maybe a couple of others but doesn't work when you've got more people were really trying to pull those levers for you because it doesn't give them the

4:48
if I say that to some doesn't exactly okay. And

4:50
they turn around and go to do something like what do I do with that? What What should I act on now? So I think with the revenue being a goal or you

4:58
know, like with the with the goal of Making something bigger than ourselves?

5:01
Yeah, you when

5:02
you start making it down to like, maybe it's a revenue goal, and even a revenue goal like a fan like we did start with revenue goals, things like that, or even found revenue goal can be the sort of the big picture goal sometimes. But it's not necessarily it's hard to act on getting revenue that day, in a certain way. Because what we can sort of pull levers to do is Yeah, get revenue. But a better metric is orders. How many people can get to bike or lock that day? That'll transfer into revenue, but it's easy to understand because we sell in, you know, six, seven different currencies. It's hard thing to work out sometimes where if we can go right, just say we want to do just like your food, say, want to pretend we want to be $10 million and go, okay to do that. The thing that will make it easy for someone to act on something is if they understand, to do that, to be there. At this point in time, what do we have to do today? Because this thing was the goal is, it's always so far away and it's hard to sometimes Put yourself in the position of going, what I have to do today to hit that goal 365 days from now. So if you can go break that goal down to be okay, want to be at this number doesn't really matter the number by this time, how many orders a day would that look like. And you can't do the simple thing of just going, you know, it's 1000 orders a day, every day for the next turn 65 days or something like that, because you're not going to be able to go to 1000. But if you go Actually, we could get to 600 today and scale that up to 1000 by the end of the year. And if we did that, and then you go, what would it look like it would look like this many on this slide this mean on this many coming from b2b this many from here, then you end up with these finite numbers. And the next day, you can measure back to those numbers. You can make a plan and then you're at it's these little wings like you can go and get a big old or if someone but it's just a little spot on the right.

6:51
It's like a big PR piece. You know,

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at least a chase PR and stuff like that a lot and it was good and has a big spot and gets a whole heap of interest really quickly. You can't repeat that. So it's kind of like, Alright, if we're doing 200 orders on one website, what it would look like if we do 220. And we can chase to 20. And we can start doing things to try and get that 220 orders a day and 20 orders seems trivial. But over a year, it starts to stack up. And we do that on multiple websites, plus in a few different marketplaces, and all of a sudden you've got, you know, quite a substantial business. It's not a sexiest chasing, like one big PR piece. But the longevity of it and the things you learn along the way. I mean, you can then go from 200 to like 400.

7:32
What about on revenues versus profit? How much you know? Yeah, it's that's super. It's, yeah, it seems. That's a big conversation right now. If you've seen the stuff that's happened recently with Kasbah in the US is a mattress company members gay IPO. Did they IPO idea so their last round of

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funding was like 1.1 billion. Wow, that's a lot.

7:58
It's a lot of mattress. A lot of podcast advertising.

8:02
Yeah, but the thing is that 1.1

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billion is done on the last round. That last round they wanted to IPO I think at 1.25 billion because you want the valuations go up every round you do. Sure. Once the numbers start getting out in the public, you look at it Yeah. Okay. And then people start realising shit for since Casper started, they would have been better off paying everybody like $140 to have a mattress and selling it. And at that point, you've got a an awesome brand, maybe, yeah, that's really good at losing money. I think I've read something like 67 million lost in the first nine months of last year, something like that anyway, and it's not it's not that it's, it's not that they haven't done a great job with the brand the business per se, but what it is, is you've got this pressure as they've raised all this money, that maybe this could have been a fantastic hundred $200 million business, but they need to be a unicorn for some reason. They're not a tech company. And all of a sudden, you've got it's like, you know, Captain snooze trying to be a building Tony, you know, it doesn't make sense, right? Yeah. That have disrupted the industry that done some cool stuff. But the reason that disrupted it is because they've they've created a false dichotomy based on mattresses that where they're losing money every time. It's true. And I think the thing is, I mean, it can make sense losing money on the first segment customer depending on your lifetime value. It may be then have the lifetime value, right. I think the problem is, you know, buying a mattress every other week. What is the warranty on these things? So nice get replaced? Yeah. 97 would get one and get it replaced every year. wet the bed get it replies,

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hundred die return, he'd get it in 99.

9:41
But I think what's happened right, this 1.25 billion. I knew I shouldn't let go to IPO. The roadshow turns out, people are not loving the numbers. It goes down to 750 million, and then it goes down to 500 million. And then they doing an IPO at $500 million valuation. So in overnight, it's gone from 1.1 danta 500 million. So.

10:03
So the people that lose their money by the last bit, but I suppose the people who have invested they're just trying to hope that mom and dad investors bought an IPO and hold on to that, and then they can sell on it. Yeah. Well, then the next thing is I think I checked it today and then the share price is slipped another 20%. It's like $9. So I don't know. It's only worth probably 400 million. So to but this is the thing. So you can go Okay, was valued at 1.1 billion, and that's 400 million. It was never worth 1.1 billion something people just put money in evaluation, but the market says no, yeah. And I think we're going to see more of that. So coming back to profitability. I think it's important

10:44
because we're in a, we're way different than Casper.

10:49
No one's put money into us. We're bootstrapped from the start. It's just CP and eyes as the two two owners is to scale a company like like quad lock, you need Money. And could we scout at foster with the Hollywood cash we definitely could have. But now doing it the way we've done it, we've got this pretty robust system that works. I mean, if if someone hadn't given us 100 million dollars when we first started, I wouldn't have been in a very good position to spend, I wouldn't know what I was doing. How many times would it be more than the 15 you got right. Now, when we when we think it's

11:27
right to take cash

11:29
audit, I think every business is different, and everyone's doing a different thing. So the thing we did was trying to build a business that could fund itself and move successful doing that. It's definitely not easy. It's a slow road. We've been on this eight years now. But the business model looks really good on paper and it is really good and it's a it's providing a great lifestyle for everyone there and we can continue to churn out results.

11:56
Also, we're in the position where something like coronavirus coming up right now. We know we can weather storms because we've got a robust business model that's been built little bit by little bit. It's not that. I mean, still people probably probably talk to people when they think it's an overnight success. But it's mostly an overnight success took eight years of you know, blood, sweat and tears to get here. You're seeing the probably the rise of war look over the years just, but at the same time, if we were another kind of company that needed, you know, 20 developers to work on one thing for 12 months before you even get to market like, you have to, like, we couldn't have we couldn't afford to do that. Like it's not doable. So we made decisions around our business Aranda business model of things that were doable for us with the resources we had. And I get there's other things out there that are just not that and you have to raise money and you've got to get them to market and find a way and it's a longer journey to profitability. So it just depends. It depends on the business depends how fast you want to scale. It depends on what game you Apply. One thing I think about is I've never spent any time chasing funds, or, you know, chasing investors like

13:08
the rolling itself like up now it's a massive

13:09
it's a full time gig. Yeah. All it all that time I've spent chasing customers trying to learn how to acquire customers getting customers keep them. And so not one is sort of better than the other. They just two different things. Yeah. Do you think that that viewpoint or not doing that has that served you or is there been moments where that hasn't? I think I think it's simpler. But it's simpler if you can make it work, I suppose. Because there's a lot of things that don't work in a lot of things that

13:41
looking back.

13:43
The one thing money would do if you had external funds is it'll buy you time, you know, by time to sort things there when didn't necessarily always have that time and it would let you do a bit more experimenting with things like you know, when we do stuff, we got to know what's going to pay so we do a little Beat them will do more, you could just do more things. Is that good?

14:03
Well feels like you get to, actually, the resistance and the tension allows you to build a good business based on chasing customers for business rather than chasing outside funding. Totally, totally. And I think

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I think it's also that, like for us early on, we weren't we weren't clued up in that

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sort of area of what that would look like chasing money, getting funding, doing around, getting some goals, trying to hit them trying to do another round like that, you know, we weren't well educated around that. I mean, I'm not well educated old anyway. So I think but especially around that, just for me, the simple thing of you know, waking up and going around, and it's good to get a hold of the customers to be able to make the next round of this product to be able to fund the next part of the business to be able to, you know, expand and grow and do everything, organically I suppose is a better way of looking at it. It just makes It seems to us and we did it and it it's been good enough and I wouldn't change it. But also, I, if I was to do it again, I wouldn't never not take money from someone if they were the right kind of partner and made sense or anything like that. So what about like, Damn personal finance versus Business Finance? How do you manage that, like having having a business thinking that things like dividends and pay and yeah, and I guess having returned as an owner, yeah, yeah. Well, it like, I think in the early days, it was really good to see pain I

15:33
that.

15:34
If this is all stuff you find in hindsight, like I've heard horror stories, Nia, but it was good that we were in a very similar position when we started. almost exact same position, like you know, we both gave up something good to go and do this. You know, we had good jobs. We both had savings we both had, but we both didn't have a mortgage. We both had long term girlfriends. Now, wives. We had a lot of things similar in our lives. So at the time was not that much friction around. We were just happy to let a lot of stuff ride like NumPy ourselves for a certain amount of time that you didn't

16:07
patient.

16:09
I think I think when we actually because we had those other businesses running on the side of our other main jobs, and then we got our major. Yeah, I mean, no, we will even then we'll using most of that money to fund the other things we're doing. So we're just effectively we could almost experiment for free, because we're doing other stuff that was just, you know, effort, not really that much cash, we put a little bit in the stock, and then that would make more money to then go do the next thing make more money to go to the next thing and we just rolling those, those funds from one venture over to the other to self fund. And then we like sold the lesbians that money winning, but even then the money was trivial. Like we had everything we did, we had to make money on to keep it to keep it moving forward. And then I think it might have been from when we quit our jobs, maybe three, three months before we paid ourselves. But even then, we've all He's been pretty modest in what we would do in those regards. Because it's gone like this. No, we figured there's no point paying ourselves, at least if it was at the expense of doing something else. So if, like, we wouldn't pay always something else to do it like I guess, to get to a point where the business may be that profitable that you're already doing all the things you really want to do all the important things, and then you'll actually know now's a good time that we can like, was there a trigger point for you guys? Was there an amount where it's like once it gets to X amount when I get to centage? It's It's It's never it's not really that it's

17:36
it's literally when simple as when you just when the funds in the bank I suppose it going up faster than they going out that that simple, like, and you're still getting into that point where you know, we're always we always like having cash in the bank because you never know what's going to happen but and we also want to be added, you know, if we see an opportunity, so if we see something like I remember it was Was this time that you before we saw, we saw a whole heap of I remember going through Instagram seeing a whole heap of space opening up for advertising Justin images. And we'll do a lot of video at the time. And I'm like, and there's so many image ads popping up so much space for image ads popping up and went to like every fourth post will have a carousel stuff. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. And then we're already doing it, but not not as hard as we could. And all these extra placements opened up. I remember chatting with the guys and we got to get back into some serious like, I'm just old school image ads, because people's attentions were short, that kind of thing we did that opened it up second good result and then we just pull money into it and get those results. And if we were more traditional business where it's like odd, this much is taken out. This is much lifting. There's a budget for marketing, which is X amount, and that has to be spent every month and you just wouldn't have bandwidth to do it. But wait way like we never have a marketing budget. All we have is like spend as much as we can get a good return on and if it works Yeah. work's been going, but that that seems so simple. It just makes so much sense right? What about like, explain that to people sometime? Yeah,

19:06
but what about the idea of like, do you have okay we need a runway Yeah, yeah. Well we never had the runway because we had no money yes, we had to build the runway out in front of us and so did you have runways if you've like got I've run I've run like if you got some money in the bank but a runway right my but we started pretty much with no runway.

19:24
Yeah, that's most

19:26
you so you start then building the runway not if you

19:29
raise money, well, you raise money, raise the run, you get $10 and you like, right, we can start here. And it's going to cost us to run like this a million dollars a month for 10 months and the boys and we

19:42
all said it. But you know sometimes you getting to the end of that runway and you don't have anything sorted. Not a good So do you have a comfort factor where you're like if I have six months in in the bank and you got your salaries yet? We

19:58
Yeah, we can

20:01
At the moment we'd have, we'd have we used to do this thing. I've done this for years but and when I used to do all the knows all the books, I used to have this thing where what I do this is probably what you're getting at actually. Now think about this while ago probably I'm done this in a long time, but I used to do like worst case scenarios to call it Yeah, I'm not an accountant. I said, If I had to pay all our bills today, everything and then and especially being in product business, like often, like, for us, especially back then we probably only had a few people wages not the biggest bill for us, like the biggest bill is products and marketing things are, you know, if I to pay all of that, if I had to pay off, like all the tax, but to pay at everything we could, and then you go right how much money we got in the bank, and how long would that let us let us last and you know, it's sometimes it wasn't that long, and then other times it gets longer, you do a bit more stuff with it. So we used to just do this worst case scenario. And then when you can get into this place where you just feel comforted And safe you can just push really hard because you don't owe anything to anyone. You don't all you're losing is money and you're not losing it hopefully but all you're spending is money that you've made out of the ether anyway. So you get into this losing dividends essentially like you're losing you but you never had them anyway.

21:19
It's just a number in a bank account. It doesn't

21:21
you're looking at Yeah, I mean,

21:23
yeah, you're right. Why the fuck are we here? I mean, like, that is a it is yeah, like, what is money? Well, it's it's

21:30
if you just look at it, and that's why people

21:32
if you start going, like inshallah I'm gonna lose something. Yeah, I reckon you'll probably lose it. Yeah, if you like well, it's there and it can. I'm still fun over here cruising. I may not be like living large. Yeah, but I can go be a baller on my marketing spend. That's more fun and has potential to do a lot better for you the business everyone in the long run.

21:54
In terms of you personally, I use the business been around. What you need to do today is not what you were doing? I easy go five years ago. Yeah. How much has that been a struggle for you? And fan friction in becoming a different version. So you're good at each one. You're good at doing a bunch of

22:13
little thing. Yeah. But then I almost have to throw those out because you got to assume a new role and leading, how's that feeling? I think like, every founder would go through that. Like, if you're a professional manager, or someone that comes in, at a certain point in the company, great. But if you're a founder, who's you know, literally, you know, rub the sticks together to start the fire in the first place. Like you're always going to be thinking, Oh, I should be rubbing two sticks, but someone else can do it at a point. I think the thing relevant to the adventure club as well. I think I think the thing for us is that, you know, you you get to a point where you don't

22:48
have a choice. You've got to do it. Just put the sticks down play. Bing.

22:55
I didn't need you to Hell yeah. But at the same time you

23:00
There's one thing I've realised when you get people in, they come in under the whole what they have learned outside and what they've used to doing. And you have to be able to take some of that, but then you have to have to show them what you've learned specific to the thing you're doing. And it's a dance there and that's a you know, it's kind of like taking and then teaching and so that is something that just just try to get better at every day and I think I'm know for me four years ago be a lot better at it now. Can I still get better for sure. But also then it's a it's a trust thing. It's it's a holiday thing, but a lot of them I didn't go letting go but but the thing is letting go but still being across it. Because there's still a role as as you get. I like having a really good wide view of everything, but I like everyone else to be able to have a good wide view of everything because I feel when you do something with a big company and you realise everyone's just in their own little silo and they're not even sure how the thing works.

23:58
They serving themselves Yeah, look at her own silo, but they don't even know they're doing that song. Yeah.

24:03
And that's the dangerous thing. So I still want to have the people understand, like the breadth of the business, it's good but stayin just with more people, you have to be doing your sort of role within that. So

24:15
how much is the relationship with CP your business partner changed over these years

24:19
changed a lot changed a lot over the years. It's, um, it's one of those things like we've said, we've said, I think we've said it last year. It's like, you go from rocking up and talking all day, every day about everything to go to work, and he can talk to all day about the business and I could talk all day about the business, and we haven't even talked. Because we're operating on different things, doing different things at the time. There's so so much that is going on and you just, you want to be across everything to a certain point but you physically can't be.

24:58
So I think it's a it's a double a balance of being, like knowing how deep you can go into each facet of the business and still keep you like, keep a heads up awareness of what's going on. But not getting too bogged down in each part of the business until there's something that needs your help, or, or you're really trying to solve that issue at the time with the team, and then you get into that one at that point in time, then you come back out and and do something else, then you get into that one deeper at the time. So you sort of got to be flexible on along the way. And that

25:31
for us,

25:32
I suppose along the way, that has been one of those things, that it's just that constant learning, you know, who does what, and I think I look at our business now. And we're still

25:44
I think, like,

25:45
you know, you would say, maybe, at this point, maybe at this point in time, you'd have a board, and you'd have really defined role and we still don't have any of that. And it'd be companies a 10th, the size of us that would have all that nailed. Do you feel the need to create those roles like a, you guys don't really have a car. Like you just co founders directors. See, I think internally, we don't need it. But maybe externally, maybe people want to know. I don't know. All right. But it's also you know, if you go and talk to some of the guys, you know, a quote, like they don't want even, it's like their joints not big enough that people don't know who to talk to about one who makes the decision at the end of the day if we have different roles in different things. So.

26:35
And it's not always assets, like, you know,

26:37
we're talking about a new lease, like we were talking about before, and we had someone come in who's going to be searching for us. He's like, so I can come back and give it to you guys. And you can have a look on what and the first thing I'm thinking in my head. Yeah. And then we'll show the team. Yeah, because it's not just CCP in my company, like, people have been there a long time now. It's the old pot of it. And I want to say and that sort of how we run it, it's pretty open in that regard like, you know, talking about the dashboards up on the walls and things like that. There's no hidden surprises people know how many dollars the company did that day you'd like to

27:12
bring people in on that so they get a real sense of if there is an urgency or if things are lacking in terms of like as I don't I think for someone like Josh being in business with him I don't think that sounds like the ideal situation of not understanding specifically what where everyone fits. And I think it's like when you say their own right it's like works for you guys. Doesn't mean it's the way I mean, do

27:37
it whenever people are

27:38
empowered. I guess that's the question of like, if also new people coming on, maybe not as good for but also like the other thing with breann employees. Do you need to have trust? day one, what is trust look like?

27:54
I mean, it because most

27:56
people I think that the the answer that everyone wants to hear is like Well, you can't have put your work with people that you don't trust. Well my thing is like, you can't trust people until you've worked with them and I mean they can't trust you until they've worked with you as well. So you know you go do I mean it the more I think about it, like the whole interview processes

28:15
it's pretty tricky. Yeah. Like you would just thought it's like it's like

28:22
a shot of wire trying to buy a bed right? You go lay down on that bed for you know 15 seconds and then you go Okay, so that's what it's going to be like. No, but I do get a bit so it's just in my mind the lineup for 15 seconds you like Okay, so that's what it's going to be like for eight hours and not? No, probably not. It's like you have an interview with someone you like Okay, so we're going to be work like to work with every day. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

28:49
Ellen DeGeneres points out that when you trying on shoes, you do shit you'd never do in the shoot. So like you do, she does an interview where you Yeah, it makes no sense. I mean, some some places have like, gruelling processes. I guess it is out,

29:05
we do that we do a lot of like kettlebell

29:06
swings.

29:08
We just like this and stuff like that now, but I'm

29:10
sure that you guys actually make people mounts it and see how quickly you

29:14
can do it for second

29:16
shot for second. You

29:18
know, I think now i think you know, trust is super important. But to be honest, you trust comes with time at the end of the day, doesn't it and you see results and you see things and then you see people, you know, I were just before I came here, we're talking about a certain stock item that we tried to usually we try and sell more at the moment. We're trying to sell less, it's a different thing for us. So we are Yeah, so we're trying to work out how to sell less. And we're doing a few different things. And just as we walk at teams, like why don't we put these other two things that we know we have lots of stock on as an upsell. like yeah, we should do that cuz we just I'm thinking in my mind I arc in a year, I definitely would have said that as soon as we took the other thing down, but I've probably got the trust, someone else is going to come up with a good idea. You've lost it you've lost. But at the same time, as I'm walking out, it's all being done, and it'll be done. It'll be done well, and it will work and will sell a few units. And it's a perfect substitute. And it makes sense on every level. And literally, I didn't do anything. So what you're describing, though, there is someone who's now doing what you would have done, which I think is the the army has, sometimes with how I operate, which is like, I want people to be thinking how I'm thinking about certain things. So how do you but even if they get this thing, there's differences like thinking, the way you're thinking or just getting an outcome because you can think about something differently, still get an outcome. So maybe the way they get to that is different to the way I'd get to it. But if we get the outcome Come, it's still great. And so then when it comes down to the thinking versus the outcome, how have you worked out ways of communicating? If you have an idea if you've got a destination? Will Will you communicate that destination up front? Or is there a little bit of letting go waiting to see where, where it lands? I think that's a good question, I think, have done different things at different times. I think at the moment when someone's new think what a fan works well for mania is explain how we would usually go about doing something and give them the tools to have success in that way. And then do it with them that way, like whatever the thing is, like besides just like shooting a video or writing a script and the whole thing, right, letting, letting them do it that way, doing it with them, like you know, holding hands effectively along the way, and then you step back at a point. Then you see how they go about doing And then if there's a chance they'll do it one way that may work better is a chance of doing one way. It might go to shit. But you can if we can afford that now, probably like years ago, we couldn't afford that. So then, depending what happens, it's probably not it's not one of the other scale somewhere in the middle, right? Then you can come and go. Okay, so that was cool. But why don't we go back to doing this checklist for this thing? And they're like, Oh, yeah, no, that'll be good. Because what happens is when you get shown everything as a new person, right, in a new job in a new environment, you may not know this is what I've realised over the years is they may not know why they're doing it. But you've written this process you've done this thing because you fucked up 10 times in a row and then you go I know we need to do it this way. But when you don't end and for the guys that you work that out with it makes complete sense and I love that because I've gone through it all through all the friction. Yeah, and sorry, I had no you have to share music don't it's hard to communicate that. So I think you've got it almost show. Let it maybe go the way it's going to go and then come back in with that's why we do it this way and then you get the big okay,

33:07
as long as the risk isn't

33:08
as long as the risk is not too large Yeah, well don't wait. I mean, the other interesting thing is around that, like we do it this way. I think that one of the things that we're discovering is it's like I do it a certain way Wenders the way that Rob does it the way that quad lock does it. Have you worked out sort of distinguishing between this is a process that you think is best versus a co creation from the Be honest now at the point when most that stuff is I remember was probably a while ago, I realised like, you know, pushing something like if just say, we sat down to do something. Yeah. And I pushed to you guys, this is the way to do it. Okay. And then you'd be like, you might say, yes, but are you going to get on board? 100% Probably not. But if I go, alright guys, let's work out a way to do it. And we all go together and we put it down together and I We all own it. Even if you're influencing a little bit, it's, you're going to deal with it 10 times better in the long run. So most of the things now like if we go through like a template that we have of doing something like this, as I left, Tim been like, Oh, we've changed the way we're updating this website, we just launched a galaxy today. There's 20, we're changing the way we're doing it. We're going to go back and redo the templates. And I'm like, Yeah, cool. That's awesome. So they'll be redoing the templates probably right now. And that's great. But they know what needs to be in them. They know why we do it. They like doing it. Like it becomes this tool that we rely on. That's, that's great. Like, I don't need to be there for that. I can look at it later or whatever. But the thing is, I think we need to go redo those templates as well, but they're taking the initiative they're doing and I think, you know, you're not going to rock up and on your first day start saying that, and you don't know why or how you haven't been through this friction. But we have launched all these guys have launched heaps of products. They know what are the upsides what are the downsides. One of the things we missed one of the things that we, we don't need to be as critical about because we have a better way of doing it, like Dave's worked out a way to do something automatic, it's great, then they adjust. And so that kind of stuff is now happening. Sort of, it's not by itself, you can't take it for granted. But it's happening like, with without me effectively. So that's a bit like, like they say, like, all good things take time.

35:22
Well, what's interesting, too, for small young businesses that still haven't worked out

35:27
the model

35:29
of their business, or Yeah, they were not it's not working. And so the decisions you making, it's so much higher pressure, because you like it's not working. Oh, that's,

35:40
that's, that's what I was saying before we can afford to do some of these things now. because not everything has to work. And so when when it wasn't working, and well, we'll win. Even if it was working, we'll we'll learning our way through it. At that point in time you feel like you've got to be involved because you like we can afford fuck this up. We don't have the liberty, you don't have the runway, if you want to call it to be able to afford to do those things. And so at that point, there's always a bit more pressure is a different energy. Does that energy serve or does it hinder?

36:16
I think

36:21
I think like a bit

36:22
of urgency, and a bit of pressure, for me personally is good.

36:27
But that's not everyone.

36:30
So you got to understand who deals with that. Like that can be motivating for someone it can be like, it's like, at the end of a basketball game, this person who wants to take the shot, and there's a person who's thinking Fuck, I hope they don't pass me the ball to take the shot. Okay, so everyone's different in that regard. So I think bought that other person might have just put in 20 for the game, and that person is still willing to take shots. Anybody in 10 everyone's different. And then this one's more important than the other.

36:55
Yeah, he's gone the sideline saying fuck it and directing everybody. Yeah, yeah,

36:58
yeah. So everyone's got a router pirates got a different way to do it. But then insane what you're saying. It's probably why not everyone's a fan, duh. Okay, you should be a fan that it's maybe not good for everyone. And if you look around what's happening now, like everyone's being told to be a fan and I feel I don't know if that's the best.

37:16
I some some people,

37:19
great. Some people need encouragement to do that thing. That's great as well. Some people maybe doesn't suit them. What about risk? A you someone who takes risks? Yeah, I'm pretty calculated, though. I definitely take risk, but I want to understand the risk, and then I'll do it.

37:39
So I think

37:40
the answer is probably Yeah. I think as you go on, I mean, quitting your job and just a good job just to do something is a risk. But it made sense to me things. I did have savings. Yeah. And so like, man, there's be people who had savings and in a better position, more qualified to do it and they wouldn't do it.

37:58
What is it 90 naivety at the start, like, I think you you identify more risks as you have good old objects. Yeah. On the world and your business and things.

38:08
Yeah. I mean, I think I think there may be a part of it. But I always think like, worst case scenario, we live in Australia. Worst case scenario is still pretty good. I mean, you also have solar panels, you don't have to pay for electricity in the house. No, but the thing is, like, worst case scenario, isn't that bad? Well, so that's what like we're talking and the upside

38:30
is amazing.

38:31
And so that's it, like looking at the upside looking at the positivity. So we'll just talking about where I think that we could go with the business. And the interesting thing is that it's like, I don't have all the answers on stuff I don't know anyone does, and but also like, I can see the risks involved in certain things that say like looking at a bigger office, like that idea of like if we had a bigger office and the different sort of revenue Strange that we could generate and doing all that type of thing like how, how do you actually execute on something like that? That is, has a bit of ambiguity to it. And maybe he's a bigger office. The thing though,

39:13
also the thing.

39:16
And I completely agree based on that being the first question because it's such a trap that so many people fall into, which is like, I need a bigger space and it'd be a better location I need it like all these things that's going to fix their bigger problem that

39:30
they have. But then also like a another question is, is it can you make now work? But then you could also challenge that by going? Yeah, but then what about thinking about the possibility down the road?

39:47
Like so for instance, the way I say it is like the way we started the show wasn't like this was two USB microphones plugged into a single laptop, and we've done like 600 episodes in the first 261 even you Filmed, and then we started filming and then we get 97 on part time, then we get him on full time. And then so all these things are happening. It feels like there's a there's an opportunity, we have two options. We can say, yeah, work with what we have, yeah. Just try and work within those constraints. Realising that the things that we want to do aren't necessarily conducive in this sort of like so there's a bunch of elements in this space. So for instance, being able to have a live audience 100 people being able to do musical performances, being able to have comedians doing stand up doing like this space has, has served us very well for the current vision that we're in. And so it's working out okay, what is the what so part of it is, it's like, for us doing the SP you're doing I use 79. These are all tests for the live element. This feels like there's also the added pressure of first to market. So it's like, we think that there's an opportunity where by being first and being there and starting if we think this is the way that it's all going to go, what is what's holding us back? And then I guess the other part of it is the biggest space has a different business models in it that could do really well on their own. So it's like, okay, no, we don't want to be a studio for hire. But if we had an amazing creative hub, where we've got the daily talk show, and we have 20 other podcasts that big media companies producing, and we, and we don't have to be great when it needs to make heaps of money personally, we just need to live good lives. But we think that we could create a format, a business, a whole model of CO creating this stuff, where heaps of people are creating their own shows and it's all helping

41:59
one another. I think I get what you're saying. Think boy,

42:06
and you're part of my challenge network Have you had a challenge and then over what I was about to say sometimes when I do what you're doing and you're here I go all the way one way and then I argue back with myself Yeah. And you get out of the way which I appreciate Okay, so here we go

42:19
do it out loud or is it that he's about to knock

42:21
my head is about that body slam? I was gonna say is like and you would have seen this was what we do is always think like I'd rather see like a trend in a certain way before I go all the way into that. So what I'm saying is like you know, there's no one on the couch here. Why don't we have five people here? You can easy feat five people here.

42:45
Yeah. Like

42:48
you could do that. Maybe you had someone here early, I don't know. But the thing is, you could do it. Okay. version of what you're talking about. without all the other things. You're talking bathroom because it's so easy. It's like, you know, we've got the camera. Let's see 200 whatever. Do you reckon you could start whatever it's all right it's a great camera bodies Really? You could okay but doesn't matter this is what I'm trying to say is like audio Do you think you could go and get some of the say clients with a five day mark one or mark two maybe? Yeah. And I recommend you go and yeah and and that then needs telling yourself a story that on a ticket, that bigger client we need to read? Not and then you go, No, do I need that? Could I just go talk to that bigger client try get that work anyway. So there's one in the Bible, so there is a minimum viable stuff. But then you could say, like, why have an office like I could? Never that's a good place to start. Yeah, that's a great place to start and then argue with yourself. One way or the other is because I think like you've still got a space like on this like this. minimal viable product is like if you're thinking of doing a special And getting people in line. It's a lot easier to put five people than 100. So stop trying to get five every day or whatever that thing looks like. Like, it's not. It's not because I mean like you think you the other thing is, whatever space you're in whatever you doing gets become normal, right? And then you don't say it. But I walked in here and said, Oh, man, this is so cool. This is awesome. Like, I didn't realise that set rammed all the way around. I thought this is epic. The thing is, this is all normal to you guys. Now you're not really seeing it for what it is, then you place you get will become real normal real quick.

44:31
It happened exactly what happened. But I think selling the future to ourselves. It's always in the best possible scenario. So we sell the space with

44:40
everything. And there's also going to give yourself an excuse intention, I feel like part of it is like, okay, I realised that to do that. It's 18 to 24 months off it actually happening. And so by then putting that intention out Yeah, then exactly what you're saying which is like okay, we need 100% have that Do How could we so with that whole, like 20 shows, like one of the, the week's wildly important goals that I'd sort of was thinking potentially, is okay, creating a new show by the end of April, what would a new show body will look like? And so then saying, Okay, if we want to get into that co creation stuff, who do we know what talent Do we have, where we can produce a show? I think the other great minimum viable product is a website if we can get good at so big media companies websites really bad at the moment. We're working on a complete sort of shift of it and synthesising what we're doing. The The website is the ultimate as if because you can have everything that you want to do. You can be the biggest brand in the world tell the story without having bought the office. Yeah, yeah. Now I get that I get that. But I think what you're saying is on the right track, now you're going okay, so if we want to be there in 24 months, What do we do today?

46:01
What do we do tomorrow? Like,

46:04
that's goes back to that thing of like, aren't we got this goal? But how many orders does that look like today? And what products do we need to get to those orders? And you know, we need more orders. Wait, what geography like what other markets we have to open up, you start thinking about the small things that the extra thousand orders you need a day, still a mile away, but you start moving the pieces to get it in the way. But the thing that I worry about is when you if you talk about the end goal too much. And the big thing, the big piece of the puzzle, which is that, that new space, you can use that new space as the excuse as to why you're not doing the thing today. Yeah, exactly. And so that's the thing.

46:42
I feel good. Like we feel good when we speak about those thing well, because

46:45
it's all bad and then you break it. It's just like it's just like a fee. Griff call it you said before, that feels great. The thing is, that means tomorrow we got to go do this. You can't live in the dream. No, yeah. And you gotta be reality. Go. And it's what you're saying before about the level up. So I think I like breaking it down into chunks, that a sort of manageable so that, you know, to go from here today, it's very difficult to go from here to here today Today it's becomes more manageable. Other people can understand that as well. And then you can look at what do I do now? Like what, you know, there's all this stuff we want to do. And there's this big goal that we want to achieve for X amount of reasons. And it's going to look like this. But what can I do today to get us on that journey?

47:39
And then it's a patient comes into it because it is hard. It's a bit annoying sometimes having to do the little thing, but it makes you grounded.

47:46
Yeah. Because

47:48
at the table, though, when you end up signing up to it three or 400 grand lace, you'll be pretty happy. Little things that I'd say. Yeah, yeah. Because also, as soon as you start doing stuff you start learning the fastest. do stuff is you know, the quicker you start learning so I don't know when you guys did did hoodies, like how much stuff did you learn from when you're talking about it to when you actually did it? Then the next time you do something you hadn't included Jsj into the to the before but that's great to work out on.

48:21
We didn't factor in Mason's miscounting of

48:24
all these things you'd rather work that out on on the amount of orders you did then yeah, versus the amount of orders you'll do next time. You're doing it Yeah, yeah. Yeah, shut up. Yeah. So that's the thing that's why i think you know, working out how to get it to right its minimum viable hundred. Every time a good example is you know, when you did the the was the 500th episode. Yeah, you said you 79 that was great. I remember getting the important event bright and it was like, was free and ticket sold out. And all that I'm thinking,

49:02
I want to how many people don't rock up because

49:03
I know I've spoken a lot of things where, you know, they're free, or they've just charged $5. Because then you know, the people who are coming are really coming in you and your numbers and things like that you just so many little things to learn along the way. Yeah, you can start to go, our next time I do it. We do it this way. Next time we do it this way. And then as you do that stuff, you're sort of like building a process building a more robust system that when you get to do it at scale, it's more likely to work. savs Do you have any questions for Rob? I feel like a lot of these things would be relevant to some of the things you've been thinking about.

49:38
Yeah, I mean, I think the the whole thinking about the big picture and thinking 24 months and months in advance and the steps you can take today.

49:51
So to get you there, that's I think that's super interesting.

49:57
Have, do you have an example of any of that The steps that you took that that might have helped you, you know, build build that quote luck think that

50:10
we are something that's that's helped us I think I'll go back to my earlier days is

50:18
doing things quickly.

50:20
So doing things quickly and not necessarily the most polished versions of things because what it meant is when you're trying to make something who do I hear the other day you said you did something you put it up that video you didn't you put a terrible thumbnail Right, right. Yeah. So for me I would usually do a worse job on the on the actual product, which is your creative thing doing and I tried to nail the thumbnail show because I know how because it doesn't matter how good the thing is behind the thumbnail. The thumbnail is not right, right. So the YouTube is all about body slam. It's It's It's fine because the thing is if I, if you doing more stuff faster all the time, you just get to realise what is the thing that actually makes a difference every time, it's hard to separate yourself from the art form kind of thing that I get totally get that. But the thing is, if you can almost be ruthless with yourself effectively. And, you know, you were, if you look at what we used to do is terrible. But we learnt so much so fast. And even now, we've lost a bit of that. But you sort of have to, like at a certain point, but early on, we're in this in this sort of period where we could just do stuff, throw it against the wall, see what worked, and then just do more of that thing. And the thing was the cost and the time and the effort was so low to do a lot of that stuff. So if you go back if you what you guys are almost doing now is in the phase where we weren't even really quite lucky yet where we will be 3d printers a bit like a bit. Yeah, and then we rolled that into those Origin Systems that come right within, then rolled that into, you know, we did the opener, and then we got on to doing quad lock. So you, you're still in that area of like figuring it all out, which is fine. We waiting to find what sticks.

52:11
Oh, yeah,

52:12
yeah, totally. And also, it there's that, but then I spoke about this on the

52:19
podcast, I did sell the day and it was that, I think.

52:22
And it sort of I sort of realised when I was talking about it. And that is that I think a lot of the time, what we're doing is we're actually even just not just working out what works, we're working out what we actually want to do. Because we worked at it, those businesses are great, but it's not actually what we want to do. This looks more like what we want to do. And so we just started chasing that and going down those routes. And so I think you can get to the point where you can just do multiple things without having to take on like a two or 300,000 total ladies is an awesome position to be in where you just do stuff do stuff. See what works like you're saying the test. Like do I use 79 do that like is there a way you can go and do like locking 20 shows To a month for the next whatever, some way and do that, because that's, you know, you start acting as if you've got an office, but you don't have it. But do you need it to do that? Yeah, no, maybe no. So I just think doing stuff all the time as much as you can. learning from it being self critical of it, I think is a big pot. And that's one thing when people come on, I remember, I didn't realise, you almost have to teach. Like, it's fine to file it's absolutely fine. Like, it's, it's a, it's a good thing. As soon as you realise something doesn't work the scene you can stop doing it and go on to the thing that you think is going to work. And when I say work, I mean, show you some inkling of, of success doesn't mean that this new ad has completely revolutionised the way we do everything. What it means is, there's something in what we've done here that is interesting to these part of the market. What if we double down on that, or what if we take it's just the front part and then we lose them too, and we, you know, we learn and we iterate and we go from there, so, but if you don't throw that thing out there, you'll know ever learned that so

54:00
how emotionally connected are you to the failures or the successes in your business?

54:08
emotionally connected to the business but it's easy for me to just like put my hand up and say like I I just have no problems screwing things up.

54:20
What what? what gets you what makes you anxious or gets you worried like that? I mean coronavirus slowing

54:28
things. Yeah. It's not an anxious anxious thing. It's like for that one specifically right now that I'm just a bit disappointed because this is a massive problem for the world. And, like, and so myself to be that disappointed down a little path, but it's what affects our day to day. Yeah, yeah, that's what you got to keep in in mind. The thing is the thing like I felt, we just done some big like we just gone through.

54:54
We did a big change to the way we do things in the structure of some of our Facebook ads and things. It sounds boring, but it's a big change. For us.

55:02
And we did that at a crazy time just before sort of Black Friday, then we go into Black Friday, then we have to Sam but then you have to have all these months that are all over the shop. And in Jan, we just started saying, Man we've got this is really working, this is really good. Like we're really pumped and we can start to see everything tick back up. And we're like going, all this work we're doing we're starting to see that it's working and it's going to be really great. And it's like justice we get to that point which like these things hit and it's kind of like I just feel like it's not it's not an anxiousness or anything it's not it's it's just a bit disappointed that like the team and everyone we've all done the things that we need to do you know, we we did new fulfilment out of China, for the Asian market where we're going really good there and really strong and we doing better jobs were better. You know, all these things sort of dropping that you're working on. Now that seems like things work and then they drop in and they start to pay for themselves. When right at that point, and it's kind of like just bit disappointed. What was resilience though, like The fact that you guys can all come together at least we can. Yeah. And everyone knows that. It's just we

56:06
have to

56:08
literally trying to engineer a way to sell less product at the moment, which is like, we never had to do that. What about? So on the failure thing, one of the things that Tommy and I talked about is are you arguing your position or trying to protect your position in why you did something? So for instance, it's like, okay, we've done this shoot, we could have done something potentially better. But say especially I'm, I'm the culprit in picking out flaws or saying, What's the learning here? What's the learning there? Tommy will say, okay, the, I did this because of x, y, and Zed, right? And that's why we did this thing. Protecting your position versus being like, actually, even if I consider all that it wasn't necessarily the right like, I understand how having these would have been better. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I think when when we first have people start to work on, you know, things that especially always doing

57:07
are, you know, it can just like, you know,

57:11
putting something out there that tanks

57:14
and then go Okay, let's have a

57:15
like, I think it's more interesting sometimes to look at the things that are tanking. Because when you do that that's where the lessons are, you know, like, that's no good because of this, what can we do next time, but you've got to get everyone into the same mindset and mindset. Yeah. So if they start day one, we start doing that they can be like, maybe they worked in an agency and maybe in an agency, the whole thing is when we talk about the stuff that's good, right, you can put into a presentation. Yeah, yeah. And And the thing is, it's false economy. Like

57:47
we're in a different position where,

57:49
you know, we don't have a board, we don't have to present. You know, make our jobs look great. All we want is an awesome result. If the awesome result is behind the failures is behind the good stuff, and it's all important. To look at and learn from, let's go look and learn from it. But in saying that you got to be make sure that that person that you're doing it with their mindset is that made it's okay to fail. We, you know, we're cool with that. And we understand that it's fine to fail as long as when every time we do it, we're doing something that we don't do it again next time. Well, we learned from it all We whatever, like I just think about, it's kind of like you're buying a lesson. It's like you're buying a course. But what about like, overseas? Because I think over simplification is one of the things that the feedback that I get from Tommy, which is like he's worked on a complex thing. Yeah, I'm on the outside. More. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And then you get into it. Yeah. I'll show you. Yeah. Shit. Yeah. Yeah. So how like, TJ, what do you like With what?

58:48
Yeah, I think you're saying the thought is that it's quite easy from the outset to see it really simply. Don't do that, that in that it's like, but it's always So much more nuanced within the project. The thing is after the fact everything's easy and simple. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's the way were you before Einstein when that was going.

59:12
But I guess that's the thing, right? Which is like, just because we're looking at something in hindsight, and I like, shouldn't we use oversimplification as a strength, like over simplification is almost like that second simplicity that Jason Fox talks about, which is like, second simplicity is the simplicity after all the complex shit. So it's like I was literally talking to like about this this morning. Yeah. And it's that he's making a website to sell personalised hats. Old Harvey, they'll come to you, and it's quite cool. But the thing is, he's building the site. He's putting it up. He's got all these hats. It's personalised, non personalised adult kids.

59:53
It's simple,

59:54
but when you're in it, and you're doing it, and I'm like, Man, what you've actually need is just a single page. And you go to the single page and you select the size, then you select the colour then you put into personally you don't have to get them to a page. It's just for adult get into pages kids get into cages babies. And he's like, Ah,

1:00:12
you're right.

1:00:13
And then we'll talking about and why isn't it funny how after all of this, it's just fucking simple.

1:00:19
Yeah, it's easy, but

1:00:22
simple as hard. It's not to get too simple quick and if you can get the simple quick, it's great. But sometimes you got to do the dance. And that's the thing is if you got to do that, do it but then if you can learn from that thing so that the next time you do something similar, you can get there faster. Then that's that is where you want to double down on so perfect example is Jane doing a photoshoot? This is a real world situation has happened the other way is like oh, I've got three cyclists we're going to go out here a windy roads gonna look awesome. I'm going to do all this stuff. This huge list of stuff to do. It's like in your how long it takes. It's like lock on shots, close up shots. Either way, you know, three different paths for different phones and I'm like,

1:01:04
man, like

1:01:06
we're not going to get any of this done.

1:01:08
He's like oh yeah and then it comes back to we're talking amongst ourselves is like you know he was like you know ido Tim just seem to myself Jane all looking at this thing I'm like all right, what we're going to have to do and we all come up with this together is what we actually need to do is be simple right at the start before we booked talent before we find this place where we're going to shoot before we do anything is like, what are we trying to achieve on this shoot now because what we did is we organised a shoot and then try to fill it with stuff to do and then we turned into this is actually more social shoot, this is a shoot for the socials longer lands further away. Couple of close ups here now but we'll be adding nail all that and do all that. And then hope you still need stuff for the ads. We're trying to do everything all at once. You know, nothing's going to come at any good so let's just go when we do this next songs go back from the start and then we get up. We start working on the process again, okay, so So, you know, someone's using the business and they haven't been doing it as long as the other four people in the room have. We've gone through all the friction, we know that, but now we got an opportunity to go.

1:02:10
Alright, let's simplify this. What

1:02:11
do we actually need? What is it going to look like? Then we go. And then if we need those kind of shots, who do we need? What do we need? Where do we need to go? How many people do we need? Like, and then you'll end up in the right place. But if we don't go through that, we're never going to get to the point of making it simple. So at the end of it, it's like, well, this is really easy. Yeah. And there's optimism at the start to, which is, we can do everything like yeah, and let's use everything. I'm thinking my head. We can't do all that. Yeah, the thing is, how many shoots have you done? Yeah, shooting, learning learnings. Yeah, but the thing is, you can share that quickly and get it out in the open and and sort of get, like not, not everyone needs to go through all the same pain to get to the end result, as you may have had to in the learning ship done before. So it's how do you convey that how do you put that into a bit of a system That sort of helps people achieve I suppose. And it then all of a sudden, the conversation is not about you're wrong. You're right. It's that never even comes into it's like, how can we do this better? How can we get to this where we are now? Like we were in a meeting, and it was like, Ah, now we clear. Okay, we're clear. Let's forget about what we're doing. How next time we get to this clear point fast,

1:03:24
which I think

1:03:25
what do you think teacher? I reckon I don't necessarily do the you're wrong. I'm right. I think it is very much like, what is the the learning Tell us about it? And that's why I think

1:03:35
I said this, because I were asking you about it, say you do a shoot. And then there's a nuance of what the shoot was, was it Minimum Viable? Was it something that we'd actually don't understand? And then in what we what we're doing is, in hindsight, looking at where the pain points were, and it's easy to go, obviously, they're all here, but then it's like, the top of shoot that fix that shoot.

1:03:57
That's gone. Yeah, yeah. And it's just learning From that, shoot,

1:04:00
yeah. Yeah, definitely. And so then it's

1:04:03
retro. So it's the it's like what the purpose of a retro is and the retro is not to, not for any, like blind game or being known to have done that, but it's like, okay, for the next one. What or what are the little things that we need to do to be able to make sense? Yeah, make it better.

1:04:22
Yeah. I think you're also putting a restriction on when the retro happens, because it can be a moment to sort of disengage from something you

1:04:33
Yeah, I reckon that's a really good point. So it's, it's easy though to go back when when, when you sort of if you're still in the stress of it, and you still have like, you gotta have a letdown period. But then you can't let it go too long. Or just forget stuff. So what I did it in the car on the way home from that. And so,

1:04:53
it was like the he's the fucked up it. It had to happen for me to even realise, oh, we need a rule of It's the day after.

1:05:02
Yeah, I was gonna say right, then you're not in the best position to take on any of that.

1:05:06
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so I think

1:05:09
that's why what but I think that it's if you build in a retro by default as well, because the thing is even if like, if something's good, then there's probably learnings that we could have typed like, why was that? Good?

1:05:20
A good

1:05:22
notes everything. Every shoot a great should f backed up shoot, and that's why they even working at invito It was like at the start, it was like you don't have retros when shit went bad. Yeah. And so we all do what it will fucking therefore it was like throwing everybody under the bus. The thing is, the thing is like, it's not. Something's good, something's bad. It's a scale. Like if you're doing something, these are like we're always doing complex, more complicated things, right? There'll be parts of the good, they'll be parts that are bad. There'll be parts that are okay and could get too great. So, exam for us is like our last Black Friday sale. On a whole, amazing,

1:06:02
great, it, it'd be easy just to pat yourself on the back.

1:06:06
But then it's like, okay, let's look at

1:06:09
individual emails individual, this individual, let's dig down into the details. We found out we missed something big, like, Oh, wow. But the thing is not not to feel bad about it's like, Whoa, that's an opportunity. If we do that right next time imagine where we end up, which is a different mindset, a different mindset because it's an opportunity and yet a fuckup. But if you get past that, and you get to the point where you like,

1:06:31
well, it's done. We can't change that

1:06:34
one cuz I was ready for that. I think that

1:06:36
like I said, Tommy, I think he's criticism of me is that I don't set like I'm

1:06:41
quickest to

1:06:42
go to what's the learning? What can we do better? I'm like, where it's like I do that not so much like yeah, there was actually like, amazed everything else was fucking great. It was just this one thing, but my thing is that like, the great stuff is great. That's good. Like, we don't need to do it. Like there's no learning necessarily there for that. But for these like other Things are

1:07:01
things at the individual level, right? So you say both you guys are

1:07:04
quick, you gotta celebrate the wins. And

1:07:07
like, I have to,

1:07:09
I don't do it. Naturally, I just move on. But you got to be aware of that.

1:07:13
And sorry, how do you then correct it? What do you do? I'm still working on a lot of stuff. If you worked out a way of like, okay, is it like a shit sandwich? But then all these things become a thing that you know. So when Josh says, He said that, that was really good that you did that shirt then you're waiting for the punch, you know? And like, if it's that sort of thing. Now, I mean, even like, just being like, I know, personally, I just move on to the next thing. And I think that's an aid when you when you like, maybe first starting stuff or you're just doing stuff with yourself. But then when you got to more people around you, partners, employee, that kind of thing you've got to like, I think there's a lot to be said for like putting a time aside or, you know, going for lunch. was saying and saying these people going to lunch and even if you go to lunch all the freakin time anyway saying it's because of this. Yeah, just tying it to something and then and obviously you got to tell people great job and I think you know you can get up and say to everyone we did a really great job good good work, but good luck but you what probably is better especially if you still it's like you know you just you're doing something like a great work man like Didn't we smash it like yeah

1:08:29
well I think and then you I think it's reading the room I think it's

1:08:32
everyone's different you

1:08:34
setting the scene I think is appropriate. So it's like

1:08:37
the the

1:08:38
post retro is let's bring good bad everything to the table. Yeah, and what can we learn? I think then that's like, but also no one's fault. It's just what happened that it's so less emotionally charged then.

1:08:51
Yeah, you know, no. different for everyone. But I think

1:08:55
I think I'm

1:08:56
I find it quite easy not to be emotional with myself. kind of stuff. Other people, definitely not. And if you're less emotion, if you are almost, if you come to something like this with no emotion, and you're just being super logical that can be super fuckin annoying for people who are a little bit more emotionally shy. So it's sort of that simplification thing, right? simplification is actually both sides

1:09:22
realise where each other's at.

1:09:24
And that's almost like a less emotional in some regards. It's like odd this this, this and this. But then I guess it's also tied into if the if that was evoked from because the thing is that we've done a lot of shoots like having, of course, yeah, like, over all the years that we've both been doing video, we've had so many different shoots, and then we saw commonalities between them. Yeah. And that's where you need to

1:09:48
look for that stuff. It's like what do you think Robbie pointing out? going quickly to those things, is a link you've made in your mind to

1:09:57
not not

1:09:58
feel emotional. So it's like it's the antidote to entering into some anxious, anxious state or if you're feeling anxious, the solution is actually to point out these things. So then becomes personal in internal. Isn't that that emotional anyway?

1:10:11
Yes. So, like you so if if it doesn't matter if you're speaking calmly on the phone, if you're like, there's a shooting you just straight, like, the impulse is to get on the phone and try and fix it.

1:10:22
Yeah, because it doesn't allow it to be emotional. It doesn't bring out all that anxiety, though.

1:10:28
Like, I remember when, like a few years ago, we'd be launching products from not not a not a shoot, but it's similar things like multiple things have got to happen at in a short period of time. And different people doing different things to get a good result, right.

1:10:43
And we have angst around that in the fact that sometimes just wasn't clear who was doing what.

1:10:51
And then when we've made a better process around doing something like that, even though proxy different and everything was just a bit of process around it. It gets everyone on the same page, but also that the anchor and it is gone because you've got this thing you can rely on that you trust and you can fall back to and it's kind of like a tool that will

1:11:13
get you there anyway even if you get lost for a second cuz you

1:11:15
know we're doing this stuff you'll get you trip yourself out in your own mind, I should be doing this I should be doing, I should have done that already have done that I've forgotten this. The problem with with all that is you're relying on, you know, a flawed system about memory and all the rest of it. And also, it's so easy. As soon as you have more than one person doing thing. You think he's doing that he thinks you're doing bystandard drums Yeah, and then no one, something will get forgotten. The thing is, if you've got that system to go back to and you can check, you know what that person has done. You know, what was it a checklist? What does that system look like? We do it with like in base camp with checklist template, a checklist with different things that we're doing

1:11:52
and that that is

1:11:56
Yeah, that's been a game changer for us. It just means everyone knows what they're doing. If something is not done, it's just right there. And you can go back and do it. And I think the thing is when the thing is, you can't start with that, you've got to go through all the pain to get to there. Because if you just write it, it's going to be wrong. Or if you just start a process today, it's going to be wrong. And there's no way you're going to remember all the things that happened on all those shoots today. But as you start going through some of this process, and you get to the point where you're like, this is a start, because all these things are like a never done. Yeah, yeah. And you got to start, then you go to the next shoot, and you just add one thing to it. You go to the next shoot, add one more thing to it, or you change something, or you go to the next shoot, you know, this is slightly different. What if we ask ourselves this question at the top here that says, Is this for a product or an interview, I don't know something right? And then you can just start laying all this down you like if it's an interview, we go down this route. If it's a product shoot or lifestyle, shoot, we go down this route, and then you can get to the point where you've got system that you can all rely on and I think, you know, that stuff's working when all of a sudden you don't have it and people asking for it when they're doing that you're like, Okay, this is working they're relying on it now and it's good because that becomes the there aren't like it becomes everyone's tool to six and even to the right try like being able to the ROI Yeah, because the reason why we're just doing it randomly is because we don't have anything where it's like, rather than it being this person's opinion versus this person's opinion, it would be much nicer and simpler if we just had Yeah, the decision of the checklist and did we do everything on the checklist hundred percent and the other thing is, I suppose with that, I reckon is you know, you might be doing things that are similar to each other. And then you do one thing that's an outlaw, and you go and do these other things then you come to doing the outlier and you like it was like a year ago that you did last did that kind of shoot, you'd be like, like, trying to bring that all up is so hard work. Like for good. Good example for us. Something happens once he is Black Friday, we just go back and open Black Friday from the before we start looking at everything and going on and then you don't you you realised like I was doing the SMS campaigns. I'm like, I'm lost. And I will go back and look at all the old SMS and I read all this stuff we wrote about it. And in like five minutes, I was back up to speed that took me like, two days before, if we didn't have this, behind the behind

1:14:22
how much of businesses being up for dealing with some kind of pain, and the pain could be something new or totally

1:14:30
new challenge, I think.

1:14:34
But, yeah, I think you

1:14:40
definitely think it's

1:14:42
pain to some extent. But eventually you'll get to lock the pain, like, it's like, you'll have to use your term lean into what I'm gonna be like you'll be leaning. You'll be leaning into that because you realise once you do it, and it hurts and you get better and it works. You'll stop realise that you reckon I feel like I do it now like I we get to somewhere we're doing something and I'm like this is familiar to Tom before this happened yeah and then you go this is going to be good in the end

1:15:12
yeah what's that good run? Yeah great run is really fit still struggling feel a bit of pain when they're going for a run Oh My name's not good I

1:15:20
can run all day UK or you know but they like I've had this before I can get through it I know I can't and it's the kind of thing like someone hands you like a widget or a lock or something and you got like a quad lock maybe and you got to take it off if you don't know how to if you don't hundred percent note comes off and how to do it it could be hard but when you know what to do it's just like

1:15:39
because you've done it before

1:15:41
and once you've gone through it you can lean into it and go through it again and again and again and it and it gets a lot more running one so

1:15:51
only reason the runner can do that is because he's had been Sony before. The first time he has it he's like oh shit Can I get through this? Well even like Seth Godin talks about with like, using the running analogy with run as you are going to get tired. It's not about how do you not get tired? It's where do you put the tired? Yeah. How do you deal? How do you deal with it? I think that like, even with all of this sort of stuff, it's just because there is friction, it doesn't mean that things aren't going well. It's just part of any project. Yeah, I mean, I think yeah, this is, this is a bit of a problem. I think with how much contents out there everyone's killing it. Everyone's getting up at 5am and it perfect and they're having no issues. they've solved everything in their life by doing that. solar panels. Yeah, like cold water. whatever that thing is. You set off all of this 25

1:16:48
times do you have By the way,

1:16:49
I'm not that many up three.

1:16:51
That's really handsome this size is?

1:16:56
No Well, what do I have? Yeah. Well, I have inside the sonar speakers as well, but I don't count them just be too many. I haven't turned off because they both is the sun us functionality with the speaker smarts. Okay, yeah. Do you see that they're doing the new thing with the hardware around, you know, they're suing Google. Really? Yeah, well, they're also doing a whole programme where you can get I think it's like 3030 or 40% off

1:17:28
but they brick your old Sonos.

1:17:31
So they're saying like, this is old technology we don't want to get out in the second hand market. And so because I had all those old play fives or whatever and yet so it was I ended up in an interesting spot every time like unless I go super, because I guess the whole thing was they were doing the mesh network stuff right. Whereas now wireless is ya betta imply fi Yeah, awesome. Yeah. No, I get Yeah, I still like this stuff and want to support them. But they're in a tricky spot, I think. Did you see

1:18:06
Apple's wearables? Like, bigger than right?

1:18:10
If you put together? It was?

1:18:12
It was the Swiss the Swiss watch, like swatch and stuff

1:18:16
for them on there. Yeah, if you put together like a lot of it's the airports together watching the airports, it's bigger than, like Rolex, Tiffany's sonar, a whole heap of brands. They just dwarfed everything by themselves like a fortune 100 company, man.

1:18:33
It's just the wearable,

1:18:35
just the wearables now my toe gronk Peter Shepards got this new device. I forgot the name. It starts with w i think it's for tracking sleep. Oh, yeah. But it's just it's, you don't pay for the hardware, you pay a subscription. It's 30 bucks a month. And it does all of these sleep. And it's a it's really thean it doesn't have any strain on it. Almost just looks like a Like a Velcro band. I think I'm thinking of getting into it maybe really do you need a sleep tracker?

1:19:07
Do you think do you need to have a problem to be using something like that?

1:19:10
Well he was saying that last night when he did it. He was like he woke up in the middle of the night and he was like, angry is like you can affect your sleep data. Trying to get dislike real quick. bragging you want Zani when you try to fall asleep? Just get a bit of work to remember that app like this years ago. Remember the jawbone up? No, no just used to just get used to say just put your phone was when they first had like accelerometers in that and off and you put your iPhone on your bed and it would tell you how well you slept that went massive. It wasn't real.

1:19:48
I don't know if any of this stuff works, but

1:19:51
it was the one that like TJ tried one way it records the audio just play back where you make noise

1:19:57
and it just caught me fighting

1:20:01
Yeah man the accelerometer stuff's interesting. The you were telling like when it when it comes to you in the Apple Store, like, can you buy quad lock at the Apple store or not online online? Yeah. What's the keto about the process of that? Or is that all NDA? Probably Yeah. That's a bit of a nightmare. Yeah, it's a long part. Like they go through so much stuff. Yeah. And it it's changed over the years. It used to be that Apple did the testing and they outsource the testing and it's Yeah, it's just it's all over this you have to get a new test every single time like yeah, every model

1:20:32
Yeah. So a lot of work it is a lot of work for

1:20:37
this is one of those things like you say to someone Oh, yeah,

1:20:39
we sold an apple but really that's amazing. No one buys anything outside of iPhones and Mac books and shit right? I could be accessories pretty much I mean, go to it's even hard to find stuff. Yeah, like I was. I was trying to buy a laptop stand the other day from Apple. Someone new and you literally had I got is go to the search bar and type in 12 steps. Because, because I know the brand of the laptop stand that I needed. And that is how many people doing that. Yeah,

1:21:06
I know that many of you go to exit strategy for the business or is it?

1:21:12
We've done that dance before back in the day with different people. And it was it was done it twice. But like now, best decision we ever made is not selling. So just because of how much it's grown. I yeah, yeah. And one time we were doing it with the company in the US and we'll grow a lot at the time and sort of a company wants to buy that are more like a distribution company. It was very opportunistic. I've talked to like like the Belkin and Logitech early early days. And they actually came up with the thing that's both of them independently come up with the right, the right call and this at the time and that was that really were, you know, more of a sporting sort of lifestyle brand then a C brand. We Cuz you might tronics, a near old traditional consumer electronics brand. So talking with those guys at the end of that sort of press, they're like, you know what,

1:22:08
both separately said that way you will be

1:22:12
popular is not where we're strong. And I say amen. But they doing too much of their own way. We're probably too Yeah,

1:22:19
yeah, probably to

1:22:21
compensate by people

1:22:23
effectively using these instead of guns. What

1:22:25
if I wanted to diversify? Whatever? Yeah, I'd say like them developing a really good, they got software like that. Yeah.

1:22:34
And so it is in your mind about, okay. Because you were saying we need an exit strategy.

1:22:39
Yeah. I mean, the exit strategy would be that effectively one day, and this is going to be worth more to someone else than it is to us. It's like any company of worth, that will be a point in time where that is that. The thing is, I still think we're a bit unique or different in the space. And, you know, we don't even do much we do hardly any Or anything anymore, like people don't even know.

1:23:04
I know probably four or five years ago, there was heaps more around quad lock in the media and that kind of thing. Now, there's just heaps more quad locks out there. But people don't really notice

1:23:13
that even like,

1:23:14
so we're not chasing that kind of thing on a daily basis because we don't raise money. So no one talks about anything, we just sell lots of units and get lots more customers. But

1:23:28
what we are doing is building

1:23:30
a really, really good business a really good brand strong brand. People come back and buy it eventually. I'm sure someone either p or another brand or someone will be interested in this at one point. We're not it's not like we need it anytime soon. Yeah.

1:23:44
What I do love about quite lucky is that you get behind and sponsor local events. And one of those events that you sponsoring is the adventure club. That's a daily talk show has

1:23:53
this is a message teacher not

1:23:57
haven't spoken to him since that was two weeks ago. I said Matt, would you sponsor the event? And

1:24:03
I don't know what that actually means.

1:24:04
Going orders Rob. So let's just leave it at he's sponsoring the event or at least get a

1:24:10
representative from there on the damn

1:24:12
way. Can you sponsor a service of my bike is nothing on the way in think was on the wane. I was listening to the podcast on Instagram because I thought one of these guys if I ring the doorbell they don't a podcast. How's that work? Yeah. No, I didn't do it. So I just miss it. Nice run down and opened up on the live chat. I'm out the front.

1:24:34
But I heard you say

1:24:37
that you can tell us your favourite ice cream. Oh, no.

1:24:40
You said you said I'm gonna come into the service when you buy

1:24:43
now. He mentioned that I said absolutely not.

1:24:46
The CEO,

1:24:48
the founder of do it but I'm looking at it too. It

1:24:50
is any

1:24:52
time right if it's been sitting on the balcony, it needs a whole new chain and just they

1:24:56
just need to raise up. I want to get the

1:25:00
Me rap of the Yeah,

1:25:02
yeah, a little bit the thing is you got to get all the parts and you got to go to do it all

1:25:06
he was suggesting taking my specialised blocking getting curved. Block.

1:25:11
Yeah. Anyway,

1:25:13
shorts are great but just take it down the local bookshop and just get a service

1:25:17
and all because I knew the last time I was looking at it was wrapped and wrapped up also in getting a bike trainer, a secure I'm going to get it server selling and again an indoor bike trainer and get him a stand for my MacBook Pro. It's making a lot of things in front of the just writing the book, which you have. But

1:25:37
you'll be riding my challenge network.

1:25:40
You'll be riding on Fifth 29th

1:25:43
Saturday I'm gonna come sure what's a check what happens.

1:25:48
The sponsors just check if he can come. Yeah,

1:25:51
yeah, bring

1:25:53
a scabby so we're going to do a bike ride, and it's going to start at a car park so you can park So you can bring the bar says no right

1:26:01
to

1:26:02
not a ride to the went too far for you. Where are we going? Well, we're gonna work it out all those details you

1:26:09
know the details will come the car park we're gonna ride it's gonna be fun. We're going to get lunch. So there's a car park and there's a road Yep, that's what you know if Do I need to wait?

1:26:21
You can wait what you want

1:26:23
to see. info skins.

1:26:26
Yeah, I could I literally spent 400 bucks on my rapper lycra bike shoes. That's okay. That's all right. Let me go on a shot by some human I think if you're clicking your crash,

1:26:40
yes, please just

1:26:42
change to just standards. The standard pen sort of

1:26:47
use them now. I've got some pedals if you need it, we can just

1:26:50
put some standard while you're servicing.

1:26:54
Alright, great. So details to come back. Yeah. Glad that we got the main sponsor, guys.

1:26:59
Thank you, Rob. Today's talk show Hi, that Elidio show.com is the email address if you enjoyed the show, give us a five star review on Apple podcasts also, you just did a podcast with the founder. Yes. Well, so and they've just released a course.

1:27:13
Yeah, the actual course courses up near the course. What's the e commerce masters course. So it's specifically for people that already have an e commerce store. And you may be doing okay, but you want to scale it up. And then they've got one that sort of proceeds that which is the stand scale course which is run by grider. And that's if you're just starting your sort of e commerce journey, I suppose you could call it so two sides of it

1:27:39
says can put the link to say that total in the show notes

1:27:43
say tomorrow, guys Hey guys.