Episode 128

128 - Introducing: AirShop

Justin unveils AirShop, a new app to streamline inventory & quoting, born from his own shop's needs. Jem's sales are up, he's dipping dowels & using AI coding! They discuss automation, 5-axis machines, and website woes, and celebrate good weeks.

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DISCUSSED:

✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic - New voice message option

  • DexArm 😍
  • Oops went live with AI pricing ꘎
  • Bulk Price Editor
  • First GeoCities order ꘎ !!!!
  • Within Tolerance EP - 246
  • 🟠 AirShop
  • Holy fugggen shit take my money ꘎
  • Quoting, inventory, what makes an ERP?
  • Coding in natural conversation ꘎
  • How do I finish SQ 👉 Shopify migration? ⠄
  • Shopify variant hell is back ꘎
  • Is typing dead ꘎
  • Finally a good week ꘎
  • Sex toy dowel dipper success ꘎
  • Two geocities orders ꘎

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Show Info

Please note: Show notes contains affiliate links.


HOSTS

Jem Freeman

Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Like Butter | Instagram | More Links


Justin Brouillette

Portland, Oregon, USA

PDX CNC | Instagram | More Links

Transcript
Jem:

Beep, beep.

Justin:

Car problems, huh?

Justin:

Beep, beep.

Justin:

Yeah, half asleep.

Justin:

I dropped the radiator cap down into the engine bay.

Justin:

It's like crap

Justin:

Oh,

Jem:

crawling around in the gravel at home.

Jem:

I just stuffed a rag in and drove to work anyway.

Jem:

I'll have to fix that before we make a whole bunch of deliveries today, I think.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

Okay, I got something for you.

sounds:

From the shop, go to the It's Hearts Department.

sounds:

Gems Down Un Justin's up Top talking Big tools, big brains, nonstop.

sounds:

CNC, ai.

sounds:

How to make it pay you building something better.

sounds:

Press play.

sounds:

No.

sounds:

No fluff, just business, just parts, parts department.

Justin:

That's enough.

Justin:

That's three minutes long.

Jem:

They're so generous with their minutes these days,

Jem:

the old, uh, generators.

Justin:

I would, would have taken half a minute, but it like, wouldn't do that, so.

Justin:

That's what you get.

Jem:

Thanks.

Jem:

A little morning pick me up.

Justin:

Uh huh.

Jem:

Uh huh.

Jem:

Oh, good.

Justin:

both had problems.

Jem:

Uh, yeah, no, pretty good.

Jem:

Good week.

Jem:

Good week.

Jem:

Finally a good week of 2025,

Justin:

I know, I, that's amazing.

Justin:

Good.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

things happened it seemed like.

Jem:

Yeah, yeah.

Jem:

Solid.

Jem:

Shopify activities as a result of my price rise incentive, I think

Jem:

pretty much for the most part, and.

Jem:

Still rolling, still rolling out price rises because it took me way longer

Jem:

than I thought it would to pick through.

Jem:

It's like, our old term Shopify variant hell, it's back.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Jem:

And I'm like, Oh,

Justin:

your screenshot.

Justin:

That was crazy.

Jem:

I like the Airtable one.

Justin:

You need like an AI for that or something.

Justin:

Just go through those, damn.

Justin:

those dang things.

Jem:

damn variants, I'll just delete them all.

Jem:

So yeah, still, still working on that a week later, but . Oh well, it's alright.

Jem:

Some things have been updated.

Justin:

slowly get updated.

Jem:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin:

bulk update ? I mean, I know it matters, but can you

Justin:

just do 5 percent everywhere?

Justin:

Just, just call it good.

Jem:

I, yes, absolutely, I could have.

Jem:

that would have been

Justin:

got a bulk pricer

Jem:

So

Justin:

want that.

Jem:

That would have been so much easier.

Justin:

can schedule it.

Justin:

You can have it revert.

Justin:

You can have it round.

Jem:

Nah, I've been much too thorough.

Jem:

Which, you know, is probably not a bad thing, at the end

Jem:

of the day, but um, yeah.

Jem:

I could have just done a 5 percent across the board, but there you go, here we are.

Justin:

Dumb.

Justin:

Geez.

Justin:

I'm joking.

Justin:

I'm joking.

Justin:

Joking.

Jem:

It's too early in the morning for those jokes,

Justin:

that I hurt your feelings already.

Jem:

cry, How's your

Justin:

We can't, there's just no more, we can't be critical anymore.

Justin:

It's just,

Justin:

this podcast is too soft.

Justin:

Uh, good.

Justin:

Our sales have done okay, but they have slowed from the fairly breakneck

Justin:

pace we were, we were having before.

Justin:

So

Jem:

Mmm.

Justin:

that's.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

Good, I suppose.

Justin:

I, I'm not going to, not going to say I wouldn't want to continue that.

Justin:

So

Jem:

Mmm.

Jem:

No, absolutely.

Jem:

I'd be quite happy to continue at this pace too.

Jem:

It's good, because it's all easy stuff to deliver.

Jem:

Mmm.

Justin:

yeah, right.

Justin:

It's not new things.

Justin:

And yeah.

Jem:

Yeah, I was looking at like the, the tumbler, unloaded the tumbler off

Jem:

the lathe yesterday, which was doing all the like abrasive finishing of all

Jem:

like a kit of parts, bolts and caps.

Jem:

Probably, I don't know.

Jem:

I didn't count them, but there's probably like 200 parts or something

Jem:

in the tumbler unloaded and they all looked beautiful and crispy.

Jem:

I was like, wow, there's like 2, 000 worth of parts in that.

Jem:

And I haven't handled them individually at all, like,

Jem:

they've come off the pencil job.

Jem:

Now they've gone in the tumbler.

Jem:

Next they're gonna go in another tumbler to get finished.

Jem:

It's like, it's good.

Justin:

Tumblers all the way down.

Jem:

Tumblers?

Jem:

Oh, yeah, more tumblers.

Jem:

I added another one this week.

Justin:

Oh, what if they just cascaded?

Justin:

Like you could just like tip it over and it would, like a, a gold sifting machine.

Jem:

Yes, I like it.

Jem:

Just work their way from one to the next.

Jem:

Yeah, I built a new one to trial barrel finishing.

Jem:

Not sanding, but like actually applying the finish.

Jem:

Early days.

Jem:

I used an old motor of Laura's and I've already burnt it out, so I

Jem:

only got about a day of tumbling, but it seems, it seems promising.

Jem:

I reckon we're onto a good thing.

Jem:

Just got to get the balance right and the wax application

Jem:

right and stuff, but promising.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

All

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Very nice.

Justin:

Yeah, seems, seems positive all the way.

Jem:

the way down.

Jem:

Yeah, two Geocities orders in the end.

Jem:

From the, the weekend sale got to,

Justin:

it actually adds to cart

Jem:

no, no,

Justin:

and everything?

Justin:

Oh.

Jem:

to cut.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Um, I had two people send through their PDF that it generates and

Jem:

say, can I order this please?

Jem:

And I looked at it, I was like, Oh shit.

Jem:

I've stuffed up the pricing.

Jem:

It's not counting the dales correctly.

Jem:

And it's live on the website and both of those people were very,

Jem:

uh, very understanding that it was experimental and in development

Jem:

and they were like, Oh, cool.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I thought it was a bit cheap.

Jem:

Like that was sort of half price basically.

Jem:

Cause it was, I think it was only count, I think it was only counting the, the

Jem:

front row of dowels on the back row.

Jem:

And this is stuff that I'd fixed previously in the code.

Jem:

But in like the, you know, tens of iterations of through cursor,

Jem:

I think certain details had kind of just been lost along the way.

Jem:

And I wasn't test verifying them, you know, every code update,

Jem:

I'm not verifying every feature.

Jem:

And so I'd taken it live without doing due diligence and actually

Jem:

doing like full pricing review.

Jem:

Anyway, both of them were fine.

Jem:

They both converted into orders that I gave them a generous discount.

Jem:

And they both converted.

Jem:

So yeah, that was cool.

Jem:

Nice to see people using it.

Justin:

do you have any instinct whether They would have done the

Justin:

same in your original configurator?

Justin:

The fancy, the fancy expensive one?

Jem:

Don't know.

Jem:

Don't know.

Justin:

Let's just say no.

Justin:

Make you feel better.

Jem:

Convenient.

Jem:

Perfect.

Justin:

Checking a lot of boxes already.

Jem:

Did you buy that robot that you showed me last week?

Jem:

My fisher price, my first robot.

Justin:

Did you look at it at all?

Jem:

Yeah, a little bit.

Justin:

Do you have a little glance?

Jem:

I didn't watch any video videos.

Justin:

Thing called a Dexarm It's still for sale It's 1400 right now It's

Justin:

got, I mean, just what's included is kinda crazy I could probably resell it

Justin:

for a lot more Is it a toy you think?

Justin:

Just a

Jem:

Yeah, it's a toy.

Justin:

I mean, I'm obviously not going to use it for like production

Justin:

things, but like my theory was I could learn with it and like

Jem:

Oh, yeah.

Justin:

me understand.

Justin:

Even if it's faulty and.

Justin:

Child, targeted, I suppose it's this robotic.

Justin:

The company name, I don't know what the company, I think it's called

Justin:

Rotrix Dexarm, which is like a confusing plant, like weird word

Justin:

closeness to not quite robotics, but it's, it's got a, a slider on it.

Justin:

It's like a, tracked movement, but it's on a base on top of the track and

Justin:

you can swap out the end effectors.

Justin:

It also has like vision system.

Justin:

And the little programming system seems very simple, obviously, for STEM and kids.

Justin:

It's not going to be like a finook to program, right?

Justin:

Like, it's, very simple.

Justin:

And I just saw it and I was like, oh, me and my son need this, obviously.

Justin:

Like, he said, it's baby's first robot.

Justin:

And I was like, yeah, me too, though.

Justin:

Like, how do I, how do I get included in that?

Jem:

Yeah, like, I'm sure it'd be a

Justin:

really cool.

Jem:

cool excuse to learn a lot.

Jem:

But just, why don't you just get a UR10 and learn real things?

Jem:

Oh,

Justin:

Because it's five.

Justin:

No, I can't even do the math.

Justin:

This thing is 1400 used.

Jem:

I know.

Justin:

to be like maybe 2200 if you bought it as is not including

Justin:

the table that's also 1000.

Justin:

So, I don't know.

Justin:

Probably not doing it.

Justin:

Erin didn't seem too keen on um would have to be a business expense to get a

Justin:

toy I think at this point but she was like Yeah, we got daycare to pay for.

Jem:

exactly.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Any of you have played with a Dex arm, I'd love to hear about it.

Justin:

Uh

Jem:

Fun, fun, fun.

Jem:

Justin needs more toys.

Jem:

What are you doing?

Jem:

you sent me a video last night.

Jem:

While I was sleeping, of, uh, uh, what appears to be a rhino model of your shop.

Jem:

Are you, are you planning where the DexArm's gonna service the mill?

Jem:

Ha ha ha ha

Justin:

yeah, that'd be great.

Justin:

I mean, maybe wouldn't it be, I'd make a great video.

Justin:

What if I came, what if all of this was like, Oh, he thinks he's going

Justin:

to do this with a child's toy and I like figured out a way to automate

Justin:

like a five axis machine with.

Justin:

A one tenth price robot.

Justin:

Let's put a little rain jacket on it.

Justin:

okay, so Dylan and Chris, I'm with Untolerance, took some

Justin:

questions in the last episode.

Justin:

And one of them was, what do you think about

Justin:

a job shop that isn't investing in five axis machines at this point.

Justin:

Like, what do you say?

Justin:

I think maybe the full part of it was like, what do you think about

Justin:

in the next five years versus

Justin:

now or next year?

Justin:

Like, and both of them kind of unequivocally, I don't know.

Justin:

That's my take on it, but they had, you know, yeah, there'll be some

Justin:

shops that use manual machines.

Justin:

There'll be some shops that just use three axis.

Justin:

But if you're trying to like,

Justin:

be progressive, keep up.

Justin:

Compete, I think was one of the words they used, like you, you have to invest

Justin:

in this, like, and every person I've ever heard that's talked about getting

Justin:

a five axis Dylan included was like, I don't know why we didn't do this sooner.

Jem:

Hmm.

Jem:

Hmm.

Justin:

I can only hear that so many times wanting to move forward myself

Justin:

without like a very strong need.

Justin:

I'm fully aware.

Justin:

so it's just becoming more of a research project to like.

Justin:

We have this decent mill, but like my questions are like, you know, it's

Justin:

everybody that listens here knows my, my concerns, my frustrations.

Justin:

It took two hours to get one of our products set up a little bit different.

Justin:

The other day when we first started running them again, I

Justin:

was like, this is ridiculous.

Justin:

There's just a lot of little problems and I'm thinking like.

Justin:

What if we sell it?

Justin:

What if we get a different machine?

Justin:

Is it crazy to have just a 5 axis machine?

Justin:

And, you know, part of my interest is some form of automation.

Justin:

So whether that's like Gimble, it's like Flippers, or they have this

Justin:

really cool, I don't know if you've seen this one, he's coming out with

Justin:

a new intra machine palette changer.

Jem:

Hmm.

Justin:

It uses the side of the yeah, the a UMC's spindle to go over and pick up

Justin:

a pallet out of where the door normally is on the side and put it onto the vise.

Jem:

Cool.

Justin:

And then when it's done, you know, obviously do all that again.

Justin:

There's just like, there's, there's options now.

Justin:

And it feels crazy to just keep ignoring it.

Justin:

So whether it's a two year plan or a one year plan, like just can't keep ignoring

Justin:

it and need to think about it seriously.

Justin:

I think.

Jem:

Yeah, if you can make numbers work.

Jem:

Absolutely.

Jem:

I think it makes sense.

Jem:

Like, I, I, I buy into the competition conversation a bit of like, I've had

Jem:

the same thoughts when we were, you know, pre pencil sharpener, when we

Jem:

just had one three access machine and I was researching five access machines.

Jem:

It was very much like, well, like everyone's got a three access machine

Jem:

now, like if we want to stay ahead in terms of what we're doing, we want

Jem:

to be stay, you know, in the top.

Jem:

Whatever percentage of CNC businesses in the country, then yeah, we need 5 axis.

Jem:

I suppose that's become less of a focus for me as we've found like a, our product

Jem:

focus that feels less about the technology and more about the product, but I still

Jem:

feel it like, I guess we've got our own very unique machine now, which is,

Jem:

protects our product range to some extent.

Justin:

Sure.

Jem:

Which maybe tick ticks that box to some extent.

Jem:

but yeah, I get it.

Jem:

I get it.

Jem:

I get it.

Jem:

Particularly with your interest in automation.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

And I

Jem:

Breaking news.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

the day that I listened to it, then I chatted with Dylan it

Justin:

was like, Oh, you guys are, you know, triggering me with like, I'm more

Justin:

convinced now after that conversation.

Justin:

And then I got a five axis part RFQ that day, like that same day.

Justin:

And I was like,

Justin:

Just, you know, everything's pointing here, like, you know, obviously,

Justin:

like, I'm not going to just throw down a quarter million dollars

Justin:

on some silly whim, but like,

Justin:

I think of it as Like you have your machine that cuts your dowels, and your

Justin:

end caps and all those things, it's in some sense, it's an automated tool, right?

Justin:

Like you step away, it can fill up a box.

Justin:

don't have that in any sense.

Justin:

So that's what I'm interested, whether it's a lathe that's automated,

Justin:

whether it's a 5 axis machine.

Justin:

Like, something's got to give.

Justin:

And I think that is, especially the way things are going.

Justin:

I didn't put on the list, but we have basically an effective 45 percent increase

Justin:

in our imports from China as of last week.

Justin:

Because it's not 35%.

Justin:

It's there's added costs on top of that.

Justin:

So it's at least 45 percent on the product alone.

Justin:

And, you know, I'm not going to get into that, but

Justin:

like all of the consequences, there's consequences to it,

Justin:

regardless of how it happened.

Justin:

And

Justin:

I think the points have been made for, for a long time that an automated something

Justin:

is the way to compete with lower costs.

Jem:

yeah, yeah.

Justin:

yeah, it's kind of it.

Justin:

It's kind of it.

Jem:

Yeah, I mean the pencil sharpener is not the most stable,

Jem:

autonomous machine by any means, but it is pretty, pretty fantastic.

Jem:

Yeah, it could be improved further.

Jem:

You know, putting those flyback diodes on it last year made a huge

Jem:

difference to its reliability.

Jem:

Um, but you know.

Justin:

does that, does that solve that?

Jem:

Yeah, yeah, it's still got a few quirks, but you know, it just cranks away

Jem:

now, you know, making parts just have to reload, you know, if it had a bar loader,

Jem:

it could literally just run all day.

Jem:

But you know, whereas loading.

Justin:

arm,

Jem:

We're loading 3 meter sticks of dowel into it and off it goes.

Jem:

And depending on what part it's making, that could be a 15 minute

Jem:

cycle or a, you know, 2 hour cycle.

Jem:

So it depends, but it is pretty fantastic having that.

Jem:

Just, yeah, it's a good feeling having those parts

Jem:

just crank away with low input.

Justin:

right?

Jem:

Mm hmm.

Justin:

Yeah, that's, I don't know that.

Justin:

I have a ton to talk about.

Justin:

I guess.

Justin:

I mean, if you're listening and you would like to suggest machines to

Justin:

look at, I am all ears and we'll talk all day with you about it.

Jem:

All day.

Justin:

I mean, I, I kind of went to IMTS for that reason, but I also

Justin:

was less convicted and less, you know, just, it's just a research

Justin:

project right now, but yeah,

Jem:

Do we get to talk about the, the elephant in the room today?

Jem:

I see you've written it down.

Jem:

I see an elephant.

Justin:

An orange elephant.

Jem:

And I wanna splash it with cash.

Justin:

So the software project I've been talking about for,

Justin:

I don't know, months now.

Justin:

We started in August after a, kind of had a breaking point, honestly.

Justin:

If I'm very transparent, I think I maybe talked about it here.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

I don't know what I said exactly, but I've been talking to Jim about it offline.

Justin:

a friend That's a software developer and I have spun up an app that will

Justin:

replace some of our needs at this point.

Justin:

I wouldn't call it an ERP, but when we release it, hopefully

Justin:

within the next month or two.

Justin:

It will be a way to manage your inventory and also your quoting.

Justin:

So you'll be able to integrate those two features.

Justin:

Whereas, I mean, my like problem statement for this is I, we spend a ton of time in

Justin:

taking an inquiry, looking at the parts, looking at what the customer wants, and

Justin:

then trying to convert that into a quote.

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

That's, you know, useful, easy, and we've done that kind of bundling together air

Justin:

table and quotient and Zapier and all these little things, but I've also had

Justin:

a ton of questions about that over the years through the podcast or otherwise,

Justin:

like, Hey, I don't have this either.

Justin:

I would love to build something.

Justin:

And I, I think you and I have the same answer every time.

Justin:

It's like, ah, I can show you what I have, but it's kind of a mess.

Justin:

And so I had actually talked to the friend is named Brady in 2019 about

Justin:

this, and we both kind of let it die.

Justin:

We had started scheming and it just wasn't the right time for either of us.

Justin:

And so now I have, what is that, six years of experience on top of that,

Justin:

of like what I hate, what I want.

Justin:

And so anyway, we have a thing called Airshop that, you can sign up for

Justin:

the wait list if you're interested.

Justin:

We're going to take some mic.

Justin:

beta testers probably within I want to say a month.

Justin:

The link in the show notes, but, , yeah.

Justin:

Excited.

Don:

In a world… where too many apps waste time and slow you down… one tool is

Don:

cutting through the clutter... AirShop.

Don:

Built for those who make, built to keep you moving.

Don:

Coming this summer.

Jem:

Very exciting,

Justin:

that clear.

Justin:

Hmm.

Jem:

Not even beta, just like access.

Jem:

I can look at it and it's pretty cool.

Jem:

I really like, I can poke around in there and it's, it's pretty

Jem:

exciting what you're building.

Jem:

I'm excited about it cause I feel like it could replace.

Jem:

You tell me, but right now it feels like it could replace

Jem:

Airtable and Quotient for me.

Jem:

And I'm interested to understand why, why you don't call it an

Jem:

ERP, what's, what's missing from it that means it's not an ERP.

Justin:

So in the software parlance, which I've learned an enormous amount

Justin:

working with Brady on this, we're shooting for something we call like an MVP, right?

Justin:

It's like the minimum viable product, which just easy to

Justin:

reference, but also very jargony.

Justin:

That means we need to limit the scope.

Justin:

And honestly, the scope is already pretty big in terms of those two things.

Justin:

There's also a flavor of a CRM, kind of a customer relationship management.

Justin:

tool here, so the way that my Airtable works is I have all these different

Justin:

bases and we get RFQs in from an embedded form, which we will have in AirShop too.

Justin:

So you'll embed a form on your website, you'll take files, what the customer

Justin:

wants, that comes into AirShop.

Justin:

You will then be able to convert it to a quote, basically from like a button.

Justin:

And that's not to say that it will auto quote anything.

Justin:

We don't have any like algorithmic quoting at this point.

Justin:

It's on the road map, hopefully, but just taking, taking that and turning

Justin:

it into a quote with the customer's information that they can review and

Justin:

that being all web based and you'll be able to send those things via email.

Justin:

And then the customer will be able to review it.

Justin:

And accept the quote and then automatically be allowed to pay a

Justin:

deposit through Stripe, which is like also a huge roadblock for us if I get

Justin:

hit by a bus and then I'm laid up, we don't make any more money on Job Shop.

Justin:

It's just done because invoices.

Justin:

That's a problem I've created, right?

Justin:

Why not just check a box that says, allow customer to pay deposit or full amount.

Justin:

And so we already built those things in and we're just kind

Justin:

of polishing how it all works.

Justin:

But trying to streamline the process of inquiry to getting paid for your

Justin:

work so that you can start on it.

Justin:

And from there, we will keep building out like project management

Jem:

cool.

Justin:

Got to see if people want it first.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Of course.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I think it'd be good to get some testers in there when you're ready

Jem:

and have people play with it.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Um, I'm

Justin:

Yeah, soon, hopefully.

Jem:

certainly keen to fang around in there and have a go,

Jem:

but Allah, you sent me some stuff.

Jem:

I can't believe you must've been up real late.

Jem:

He sent me a

Justin:

I've been staying up way too late lately.

Jem:

of some label generation.

Jem:

I was like, what?

Jem:

It generates labels too?

Jem:

That got me pretty excited.

Justin:

Yeah, it'll We're currently building, but it's been on the plan

Justin:

the whole time for the initial release to have I guess you'd call them Kanban

Justin:

cards and then like labels for bins.

Justin:

It's kind of like first two versions and they'll likely be multiple sizes.

Justin:

So I was taking some interest, polls of what's the size

Justin:

of labels you like to make?

Justin:

And hopefully we'll be able to like offer the most popular ones.

Justin:

So you'll be able to print a label to put on like your little storage bin

Justin:

of like screws or whatever that is.

Justin:

It's going to have QR codes and all that stuff auto generated.

Justin:

And then a Kanban card that you'll stick.

Justin:

Hopefully, right in that thing, that's probably laminated, and then you'll

Justin:

take that Kanban card, go scan it with a QR code, we also have this cool

Justin:

thing we created called, called the AirShop code, but like a quick code,

Justin:

so it's like a human readable QR code in my mind, where it's four characters,

Justin:

and it's auto created whenever you add an inventory item, such that X2C7

Justin:

will, when you search in the app, will automatically pull up that item.

Justin:

So you don't have to, like, look for, Uh, I need that M6, socket head cap screw

Justin:

that's, that's kind of short at the top.

Justin:

I think it's stainless, but I don't really remember.

Justin:

I think it's 30 mil long.

Justin:

Like, there's all these weird details to remember.

Justin:

This happens all the time in our shop.

Justin:

Like, Ricky will go, hey, we need those screws for the ATC pedestals.

Justin:

And I'm like, there's four types.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Which ones?

Jem:

Which ones?

Justin:

I just want a four digit code.

Justin:

Just tell me that code.

Justin:

And if I'm running across the shop, I can remember it, hopefully, so.

Justin:

I just have, like, endless lists of things I want to build out for this, so.

Jem:

It's cool to see you with like a, an output, like I feel like this

Jem:

ties into so many things that you and I have talked about, but like the

Jem:

kind of things that you've made videos about for years or the things you do in

Jem:

your shop, it feels like this is just like the perfect sort of tangent for

Jem:

you to like put your attention into.

Jem:

It's awesome.

Jem:

It's cool to see.

Justin:

It's so satisfying to, and I've shared a lot of these with you

Justin:

as we've spun them up, but you know, you come up with this like big game

Justin:

plan of how do we attack this project?

Justin:

And it's like all custom built, like a app.

Justin:

It's not built on anything like Brady has built at all.

Justin:

He's a software developer by trade, like,

Justin:

and so I just like message him one day, like, God, man,

Justin:

I'd love to do this feature.

Justin:

Which was the quick code idea.

Justin:

10 minutes later, I got a slack with a demo of how it worked.

Justin:

And it's like,

Jem:

Sick.

Justin:

this is amazing.

Justin:

This is so cool.

Justin:

Like, like things I've thought about for years.

Justin:

I'm now like getting to like be able to do

Jem:

Having just mucked around with my like kid aparts configurator and

Jem:

like going round and round in circles chasing, I know you've got Brady who's

Jem:

proper real software dev, but like I just

Justin:

software person.

Jem:

poking around through air shop, like I just, you know, tried to add a supplier

Jem:

or something, add a source for components.

Jem:

I'm struck by like how many little things you're going to have to like

Jem:

make work and pull together.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

that feels, it feels quite overwhelming even to me, it

Jem:

must be a huge list of stuff.

Justin:

Yeah, and that's, I am really good at continuing to add to the

Justin:

list.

Justin:

And so we've had this the last two weeks, two weeks now is in January.

Justin:

Sometime we had this discussion of like, we need to cut, we can't

Justin:

add all of these cool features.

Justin:

I literally come up, I come up with two to four ideas for this thing.

Justin:

Just working.

Justin:

driving

Jem:

Per minute.

Justin:

I just have to put them in a side, I put them in a side list and I'm like, we

Justin:

can't think about these things right now.

Justin:

it's going to be great and we'll keep adding to it.

Justin:

But, yeah, you know, dashboards and, auto responses.

Justin:

It just like, just endless like thoughts.

Justin:

And so there's, right now we're finishing the features we're

Justin:

going to keep in for the launch and then trying to clean up and.

Justin:

Polish.

Justin:

There's a lot of, we'll continue to find a lot of bugs and things that don't

Justin:

work great with the people that want to

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I

Justin:

us early on.

Justin:

so definitely if you're interested in this kind of thing, even if it's not

Justin:

like for the first exact phase, we come out with it, definitely sign up

Justin:

and we'll, we'll keep you in the loop.

Jem:

just pictured you as like the dog from Up.

Jem:

I was just like, Oh, oh, pretty, pretty.

Jem:

I've had another idea.

Jem:

Oh.

Justin:

I literally, for a long time I was doing that.

Justin:

I was like, He didn't say this, but I was like, Oh, I need to, I

Justin:

need to put this somewhere else.

Justin:

I need my energy to go to like a job pad somewhere that's not distracting

Justin:

the person that makes all the things.

Jem:

Mm. Very cool.

Jem:

Very cool.

Jem:

Exciting.

Jem:

Nice.

Jem:

Good to about it here.

Jem:

Bring it out into the world a little bit.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's exciting to like get to that point.

Justin:

So the reason this is coming up is that I realized while editing my friend

Justin:

David's robot shop tour of Loupe, his company, there was this point.

Justin:

And it happened while I was recording it with him where we're going

Justin:

through his inventory wall, which is super sexy, like all these bins.

Justin:

And he's like, yeah, I'm inspired to make some QR codes like you did in your shop.

Justin:

And I almost blurted out in the middle of it.

Justin:

I was like, I have something for you.

Justin:

I don't know if I want to talk about it yet.

Justin:

But I was editing.

Justin:

I messaged Brady and sent him that little clip.

Justin:

And I was like, isn't this the perfect spot to put in like a little tiny 22nd

Justin:

thing about how we have this app coming.

Justin:

Sign up for, you know, if you're interested.

Justin:

So we did that

Justin:

and thus had to like get it all public.

Justin:

and so we've got some signups from just that little 20 second clip inside of

Justin:

a 55 minute video, that's a tour.

Justin:

So a video is live.

Justin:

so has the air shop marketing page.

Justin:

but it was like a good kick in the pants of just like, yeah, this has got to go.

Justin:

There's gotta be a time when this becomes public because.

Justin:

We both can stay up all night working on this and nobody will know about it.

Jem:

Awesome.

Jem:

I'll check out that video.

Justin:

Sorry, I've talked a lot.

Justin:

What else is

Jem:

No, it's exciting.

Jem:

Oh, look, I haven't.

Jem:

I'm still tinkering with my little toy code project of the configurator.

Jem:

Making some little updates and stuff, fixing pricing errors.

Jem:

Um, but yeah, on the week, you know, whether or whenever that was Monday when

Jem:

I was fixing those pricing errors and making a few other little minor changes, I

Jem:

just like had a moment of being blown away again by just like I'm updating code just

Jem:

in natural language and here I am, you know, I transcribe everything these days.

Jem:

I'm literally, I pretty much don't type anything except for correcting errors.

Jem:

And so I was at home of an evening just talking into my own mic of like, no, this

Jem:

didn't work and describing how I wanted it to be different and punching that into

Jem:

cursor and watching it make the updates.

Jem:

And it's just like, It's pretty wild.

Jem:

Just seeing, yeah, the tech, where it's at.

Jem:

And I'm super keen to try, allegedly, i3 mini is really good,

Jem:

and it's now available in Cursor.

Jem:

I haven't, haven't given that a go yet, but keen to see if I can

Jem:

make some progress with that.

Justin:

I got to be honest, I'm getting fairly confused at

Justin:

like how many models there are

Justin:

available and the naming structures for them.

Justin:

Like many to me references fast and not as capable.

Justin:

But yet, maybe that's not true anymore?

Jem:

I don't know anymore.

Jem:

Mm

Justin:

is branding these

Jem:

Mm

Justin:

nonsense.

Justin:

4 aught?

Justin:

Is that what we were calling 4 0?

Justin:

4 what?

Justin:

I don't get it.

Justin:

Like, they have so much money.

Justin:

They can hire all of the branding companies in the world

Justin:

like, cool names for them and they decide with like, these random suffixes.

Justin:

I don't get it.

Jem:

I know that's weird.

Justin:

But I have that same reaction, like, and I feel like I've maybe

Justin:

said that I think I was going on and on about cursor to my wife, to

Justin:

Ricky, to anybody that would listen.

Justin:

And it's interesting to see people jump into that too and be like, Oh yeah,

Justin:

I can, like I messaged you this week and I was like, I realized listening

Justin:

back to the podcast last week, we can just make our own Shopify apps now.

Jem:

Yes.

Justin:

I did it, and I even just did it to fix that knack

Justin:

problem with the orders, I

Justin:

created all these new orders via Python script on my computer through

Justin:

the API that I created a developer.

Justin:

It's not, I'm not really like account.

Justin:

It's just what they let you do it as like a Shopify customer.

Justin:

It's just like built into your account.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

Explain the mechanics of this to me.

Jem:

Cause I, when you first mentioned it, I was like, Oh, do you mean like

Jem:

published apps that people can buy?

Jem:

But you're talking about just sort of internal apps as well.

Jem:

Right.

Justin:

Yeah, it

Justin:

doesn't need.

Justin:

I mean, I'm sure they I'm sure that has some auto review if you're doing

Justin:

something crazy, but I think they've just made it in such a way that if you're

Justin:

trying to do stuff to your own shop.

Justin:

And you mess it up, that's your own, you know, not your own problem.

Justin:

Like they're not going to help you try to solve all the problems with.

Justin:

Your own apps, right?

Justin:

Like, but, but it's kind of off to the side.

Justin:

So like the main Shopify store should just work.

Jem:

Hmm.

Justin:

you choose when you're creating the type of app, whether it will be for

Justin:

the store or for private use, I think I'm oversimplifying that, but then you

Justin:

choose all of the different API nodes.

Justin:

Checkboxes is what I saw them as and Claude just took me through that entire

Justin:

thing I wasn't even I don't think I was using cursor at that point.

Justin:

It was like

Jem:

Oh, really?

Justin:

in sim theory and It was like yeah, you need to check these boxes

Justin:

so it can read and write and do these things with draft orders Name it this

Justin:

we'll call it this and here's the Python code For your local computer.

Justin:

Oh, you need to you need to pip three down these These packages so that you

Justin:

can do these things on your computer.

Justin:

It's just like every step, right?

Justin:

That cursor would probably make that even simpler that, you can

Justin:

just make custom apps for your own, your own store, like really easily.

Jem:

When you brought that up, I immediately went and looked at my, like,

Jem:

the app section of my Shopify store.

Jem:

I was like, Ooh, what am I paying for that I could replace with cursor of an evening?

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

Well, you're already doing that.

Justin:

Like you could

Justin:

probably turn your configurator into an app, right?

Justin:

Like, I don't know what benefits you get out of that,

Jem:

Hmm.

Jem:

I don't

Jem:

know.

Justin:

right.

Justin:

Like it, maybe it becomes easier to integrate.

Justin:

If you change the rest of the store, it doesn't get wiped away with

Justin:

like a theme update or something,

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

Ask Chris or ask, uh,

Jem:

I will.

Justin:

debris.

Jem:

I'll check it out.

Jem:

I just asked the, uh, Shopify sidekick baked in AI and it just gave me a

Jem:

link to where I can enable custom app development on your store.

Jem:

And it says this cannot be undone.

Jem:

It's like, Oh, okay.

Jem:

I won't click on that right now, but thank you.

Justin:

Yeah, I try that thing every once in a while still, and, I tried to get

Justin:

it to have it make me a draft order with two draft items and it could not do it.

Justin:

It gave me a link to draft orders.

Jem:

Yeah, yeah.

Justin:

I don't know how to get the draft orders?

Justin:

What are you here for?

Jem:

Thanks man.

Jem:

I'm just a sidekick.

Jem:

Okay.

Justin:

amazing at analytics.

Justin:

Like I asked it, yeah.

Justin:

What were our top five selling items in the last year?

Justin:

And that's probably a report, but it made me a custom report

Justin:

and it was useful for that.

Justin:

So on that topic, I've had this weight over me of, having basically

Justin:

a duplicative website I. Still have not made much progress

Justin:

migrating my Squarespace to Shopify and finally finishing that.

Justin:

So I know it's probably a confusing experience for customers.

Justin:

Because we have like duplicate blog posts on both pages, both things.

Justin:

There's contact forms on both.

Justin:

There's, you know, all this stuff.

Justin:

I'm just still paying for it monthly, which isn't like a crazy

Justin:

cost, but, I've just struggled.

Justin:

Like I cannot prioritize the time to do it.

Justin:

I probably need to like look at Upwork, but I, I wrote

Justin:

this this week and I thought.

Justin:

I just need to ask Jim or people listening.

Justin:

Like, how the hell do I just finish this?

Justin:

Like, what am I, do I just need to block out two days for it?

Justin:

Or do I need to try to hire somebody?

Justin:

Like what?

Justin:

It seems silly at this point that it's just.

Justin:

Internet debris.

Jem:

What happens if you turn square space off?

Justin:

Still probably 60 percent of our traffic.

Justin:

And so I would cause a ton.

Justin:

Well, part of it's I need to make all these redirects

Jem:

dead links.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

DNS and all this stuff.

Justin:

and it will kill a huge amount of traffic.

Justin:

Which is bad.

Justin:

Part of why I haven't done anything rash.

Jem:

Are you just paying double fees, basically?

Jem:

Is that

Justin:

Yeah, it is.

Justin:

It's a confusing experience for sure.

Justin:

Like, most people when they search for us, they land on portlandcnc.

Justin:

com, which is Squarespace.

Justin:

Then they click almost always to the store.

Justin:

But if you search there, you're not going to find any of our

Justin:

products on on Squarespace.

Justin:

So, like, there's a good chance we're losing people that are

Justin:

just like, well, this site sucks.

Justin:

You know, like, you know, there's just all of my effort for years now has

Justin:

gone into Shopify, which it's always been intended to be the takeover.

Justin:

I don't know.

Jem:

So yeah, Squarespace is basically just a landing page for you at

Jem:

this point, but there's a whole bunch of content on there as well.

Justin:

Hundred some blog posts.

Justin:

Which I have migrated, but there's still the problem not to get too detailed.

Justin:

It's like, I'm still, it's called hot linking and I'm hot linking images

Justin:

still because I didn't get all the migrated right with this tool I use.

Justin:

So there's still Squarespace images on my Shopify store blog posts.

Justin:

And they also look, it looks like a disaster in some of those pages.

Justin:

Like, so all the traffic still comes to Squarespace.

Justin:

I can forward it all, but then if I kill Squarespace, all

Justin:

the images die on Shopify.

Justin:

until I rehost them.

Justin:

It's just, there was no, the only automated way I could find

Justin:

is I paid a hundred some dollars for this plugin that did it, but

Justin:

then it didn't rehost the images.

Justin:

And now I've got to go through each one.

Jem:

full on.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's just a lot of tedious work

Jem:

What a hot mess.

Jem:

Yeah, you just gotta do it.

Jem:

Either don't do it or do it.

Justin:

a month of cost,

Jem:

Yeah, exactly.

Jem:

There's a low incentive to make it happen, right?

Justin:

right?

Jem:

So just leave it alone.

Jem:

No, I don't think it's worth it.

Justin:

it's such a mess.

Jem:

Uh, yeah,

Justin:

It's not, it's not really the cost.

Justin:

It's just that it's it's the experience.

Justin:

It's the it's the weight of it being a mess and always trying to want to

Justin:

improve, you know, customer experience and convert like it also messes

Justin:

with I can't really see conversions on Shopify as well as I'd like to

Justin:

because I see this like referral from.

Justin:

The Shopify or the Squarespace page in the conversion details, and it's like,

Justin:

that's not actually like a referral.

Justin:

that's my website, you know,

Jem:

that's mine.

Justin:

but it sees it as something else.

Jem:

So shop.

Jem:

portlandcnc.

Jem:

com is the Shopify page.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

will, yeah, eventually just turn into pdxcnc.

Justin:

com.

Justin:

And that will be everything.

Justin:

That will be the shop that will be blog post.

Jem:

Can you block it?

Jem:

Like, I think it's unrealistic to go, Oh, this is going to take me two days.

Jem:

As if you're ever going to find two days to do it.

Jem:

Like.

Jem:

Can you block time, block a certain time per day or per week just to

Jem:

chip away at it, make progress,

Justin:

I think so.

Justin:

I think that's a way to do it.

Jem:

fix one blog post a day.

Jem:

I don't know.

Justin:

I've thought a lot about like trying to upwork it or something and

Jem:

Oh yeah.

Justin:

maybe I just need to try and see what somebody might quote me to do it.

Justin:

But

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

anyway, just thought there might be like a

Justin:

I'm hoping for a miracle, I guess, and, and, uh, just try to find

Justin:

some stupid solution that's not, Hey, didn't you know about this?

Jem:

I will have to total off soon.

Jem:

I've gotta, find my radiator cap before the van is packed to go to Melbourne

Justin:

you have one of those, like, endoscope, cameras that

Jem:

and to it's at home.

Jem:

But yeah, I do have one of those.

Justin:

I would like to get one of those someday.

Justin:

I feel like there's been enough situations where I'm like, That would be useful.

Justin:

stick a camera in a weird little

Jem:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, handy things.

Justin:

health inspections.

Jem:

Yeah, exactly.

Justin:

It's very sanitary.

Jem:

Speaking of jamming small things into tight spaces, uh, we've

Jem:

had great success this week with our dowel coating, coating rig.

Jem:

It's officially in production now.

Jem:

Coated, I don't know, 100 metres of, 100 metres of dowel probably this week.

Jem:

In the dipper.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

It's got its quirks.

Jem:

It's a bit hard to clean the dowel dipper.

Jem:

But, um, the results are great, much nicer than the hot wax.

Jem:

And so we've yet again switched.

Jem:

Things over.

Jem:

More notes in Airtable about which customers have what and blah, blah,

Jem:

blah, which version changes in the product changelog in Notion.

Jem:

But onwards.

Jem:

Progress.

Jem:

Yeah, I'll make a video about it at some point.

Jem:

It's working well.

Justin:

video.

Jem:

yeah, kind of, kind of, yeah.

Jem:

I mean, it's still, still a process, still manual labor, uh, but it's working well.

Jem:

And if I can change this second tumbler to actually work with the barrel finishing,

Jem:

it means that the wax dipping process will be, will close out that chapter.

Jem:

So glad we tried

Jem:

it.

Jem:

Yeah, but

Justin:

I would love, I mean, again, for my selfish desires, I would

Justin:

love to see the whole process.

Jem:

I know, right?

Justin:

from stick to, to knob.

Jem:

Yeah, I need to do more of that.

Justin:

Uh,

Justin:

I mean, I don't know that you need to.

Justin:

I just, I imagine the process and I think it actually would be pretty cool.

Justin:

Maybe you would be that new, was he Japanese guy that, that made

Justin:

the thing that you referenced the video that you kept watching

Justin:

the, the pool

Jem:

The pull Q dipper.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Could you be the new guy, the new guy that people

Justin:

reference about their pool cues?

Jem:

Maybe,

Jem:

maybe.

Jem:

I mean, it is nicer than that

Jem:

one.

Jem:

Rodney!

Jem:

Yeah, I

Justin:

Jem's dipping rods again.

Jem:

should go.

Justin:

Okay.

Jem:

Shanks, man.

Justin:

Sounds good.

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

Goodbye.

Jem:

Cut off.

Jem:

Thank you.

Jem:

See you next time.

Jem:

He's got buttons.

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About the Podcast

Show artwork for Parts Department
Parts Department
Justin Brouillette (Portland CNC) and Jem Freeman (Like Butter) discuss CNC machines, their product design and manufacturing businesses, and every kind of tool that they fancy.

Listen for free

About your hosts

Profile picture for Jem Freeman

Jem Freeman

Co-founder and director of Like Butter, a CNC focussed timber design and manufacturing business in their purpose-built solar-powered workshop. Castlemaine, VIC, Australia.
Profile picture for Justin Brouillette

Justin Brouillette

Founder of Portland CNC & Nack