Episode 13

13 - Spaghetti Pants

Kitta Parts v2 and Baby Pants have launched, Jem is planning monthly product launches, and the guys discuss why money talk is taboo.

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Show Info


HOSTS

Jem Freeman

Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Like Butter | Instagram | More Links


Justin Brouillette

Portland, Oregon, USA

PDX CNC | Instagram | More Links

Transcript
Jem:

Super super tabs.

Jem:

How many applications do I have

Jem:

Closing, all the

Jem:

Good morning.

Justin:

Hello.

Jem:

Hello,

Justin:

I didn't even tell you I'm

Justin:

on vacation

Justin:

this week,

Jem:

Coming to

Justin:

I come to live for my bed.

Jem:

Why aren't you out playing?

Jem:

What

Justin:

I'll have, take a photo of this setup

Justin:

because.

Justin:

I've got this microphone sitting on the pillows as well as my laptop.

Justin:

And it's just balancing just right.

Justin:

So there's a good chance.

Justin:

We're gonna have a whole tumble over in the middle.

Justin:

Yeah, been good.

Justin:

Eh,

Jem:

are you doing here?

Justin:

it's a good break.

Justin:

Sometimes you just gotta,

Justin:

you know, take a break from the break.

Justin:

This is enough sun.

Justin:

I do have a beer

Justin:

though.

Jem:

Oh, fantastic.

Jem:

I join you, but , 6:00 AM.

Justin:

you need a whiskey

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I do.

Jem:

Uh, Cool.

Jem:

So you uh, launched baby pants and sold so many that you're like, right.

Jem:

see?

Jem:

you, Ricky.

Jem:

Can you just make a hundred of these I'm outta here?

Justin:

Good luck.

Justin:

No, basically.

Justin:

Yeah, no.

Justin:

Um, I haven't seen my family.

Justin:

They live in the middle of the United States for a while, so.

Justin:

Met up in um, Texas actually.

Justin:

So neither of us lived there and hadn't been to Austin before, so I was

Justin:

like, let's just see what it's like.

Justin:

And it's a hundred degrees here?

Justin:

so it's warm.

Jem:

awesome.

Jem:

Fantastic.

Jem:

How far from home are you?

Justin:

I think it's like, I'm gonna be around like 1800 miles

Justin:

maybe,

Jem:

Oh, so you didn't drive.

Justin:

Corner to the bottom center of the United

Justin:

States.

Jem:

Not a driving holiday then

Justin:

No, we did not.

Justin:

hadn't been on a plane since 2019.

Justin:

So that was

Justin:

interesting.

Justin:

I was a little anxious leading up to it and then we took off and I

Justin:

was like, oh, it's just a plane.

Justin:

Had you flown much other than your trip to Sydney?

Jem:

cool.

Jem:

Mm, no, I, I was the same.

Jem:

I hadn't got on one for a couple of years,

Jem:

quite a few years.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Mm, very cool.

Jem:

Beautiful.

Justin:

Mm-hmm it's good.

Justin:

It's been good.

Jem:

And Ricky's chipping away back in the shop.

Justin:

Mm-hmm finished a couple jobs

Justin:

we had, oh, I don't have a photo,

Justin:

but I'll, I'll definitely include it.

Justin:

There was a disastrous print the

Justin:

last couple days there was like half of a baby pants and then spaghetti for like all

Justin:

night.

Justin:

It, it was really bad.

Justin:

I don't

Justin:

know

Justin:

what happened.

Justin:

Like it

Jem:

that to our order.

Justin:

Sure.

Justin:

Yeah, you can have that.

Justin:

I'll put it in the

Jem:

I Had a dream this morning about

Jem:

unboxing baby pants.

Jem:

it was, it was, very well packaged.

Jem:

Um, one of my staff had picked it up at the post office

Jem:

and had unboxed it before I got there, which I was a bit annoyed about.

Jem:

And it was, it was smaller than I expected.

Jem:

I was like, Hmm.

Jem:

Oh yeah.

Jem:

It was kind of, I think reality, the duck size was

Jem:

probably

Jem:

like, yeah, three inches.

Jem:

Maybe

Jem:

it came in this cute little card, this cute little cardboard box.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

And then I

Justin:

That's adorable.

Justin:

It's made

Justin:

for ants.

Jem:

yeah.

Jem:

The bench top CNCS, I think.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah, I hope it works fine for

Justin:

yours.

Justin:

I think.

Justin:

I don't know why it wouldn't, but I've only tested it with

Justin:

the one type of machine so far.

Jem:

I'm sure it will.

Jem:

The spin all code matches.

Justin:

yep.

Jem:

I'm, I'm excited.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Cool.

Justin:

It's been its kind of like a mad rush finishing stuff.

Justin:

Cause I knew I was gonna be gone and

Justin:

then got it up and.

Justin:

Had a good response of our people have been very,

Justin:

kind and excited.

Justin:

So it's always a nice feeling when

Justin:

you put something out there and people respond well.

Justin:

Wow.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah, I was excited to see it go up.

Jem:

It was a lower price point than I was

Jem:

expecting, which was interesting.

Jem:

After all our chat about how many print hours are in it And

Jem:

stuff, I was like, I really didn't know where it was gonna fall.

Jem:

So that was,

Jem:

yeah, that was, that was intriguing.

Jem:

But yeah, pretty excited to

Jem:

get it on the

Jem:

machine and get some dust collection going.

Justin:

Yeah,

Jem:

practical point of

Jem:

view.

Jem:

It'll be great.

Jem:

you got some sales straight off the bat?

Jem:

Mm.

Justin:

yeah, I was, I mean, I've done a few things, right?

Justin:

launched a few things and it was surprising to have,

Justin:

it's always smaller things.

Justin:

it's never been something.

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

more considerable.

Justin:

I've done a lot of like planners and small things, there's always, some people

Justin:

it'll trickle sales for those things and it kind of happens over time, but there

Justin:

was somebody that bought within three minutes of the email going out of the

Justin:

baby pants.

Justin:

And I was like, oh,

Justin:

thank God.

Justin:

She's just like sitting there watching, waiting for people to hit the

Justin:

website.

Justin:

Or at least I'm always excited when something new comes

Justin:

out, I'm like, oh, see somebody gonna buy it

Justin:

yeah, it wasn't crazy.

Justin:

I think there's.

Justin:

Oh 10 or

Justin:

11 at this

Justin:

point, but that's nice.

Justin:

Nice for a couple days.

Justin:

And,

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Fantastic.

Justin:

you know, you either see it new, you wanted it the whole time, or

Justin:

it takes a while for somebody to go, oh,

Justin:

Hey, that's

Justin:

interesting.

Justin:

So I'm getting questions about I had a friend point out that

Justin:

you might as well

Justin:

just sell 'em before inch.

Justin:

they can, I just don't wanna be disappointed, you know, at the end of the

Justin:

day of buying it and doesn't perform as maybe you saw in our videos or something

Justin:

because it's lesser,

Justin:

but it.

Jem:

mm.

Jem:

You could just adapt, have a four inch adapter so you can use

Jem:

the standard baby pants would.

Jem:

With a producer

Justin:

How

Justin:

does that work?

Justin:

I was, I've been curious with yours, it's a five inch here

Justin:

to use inch size diameter hose.

Justin:

You've gotta use

Justin:

millimeter stuff,

Justin:

right?

Jem:

uh, I think it is all, it's one of those things,

Jem:

which I reckon is all Imperial

Justin:

Oh,

Jem:

disguise.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Kind of a lot of things here are listed

Jem:

as their metric size.

Jem:

But in reality, when you actually measure stuff, it's like, oh, this

Jem:

is just an, an Imperial standard that they've called one 50 or

Jem:

it's actually 1 52.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

All that

Jem:

Stuff's pretty interchangeable.

Jem:

So I expect it just to drop on, yeah.

Justin:

Okay, cool.

Justin:

And if not, we'll we can figure out some printed adapter that you can get somebody

Justin:

to make,

Jem:

I'm sure it'll be fine.

Jem:

Hmm.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Well, in-house printer.

Justin:

your website's gone up, you're fixing

Justin:

bugs.

Justin:

I found one bug for you.

Justin:

I think that.

Justin:

got Jay got that

Justin:

fixed.

Justin:

Uh, how's all that gone kid parts

Justin:

launched.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

pretty good.

Jem:

Had a strong weekend of sales,

Jem:

not not totally gangbusters, but I think similar to you, like a bunch of

Jem:

people who knew what was coming and were waiting and were ready to purchase.

Jem:

So we had a good sort of influx.

Jem:

new website is kind of where we left it last week.

Jem:

As

Jem:

in, we got it up, got 90% of

Jem:

the issues resolved on the

Jem:

day, and then there's still heaps

Jem:

of little jobs to do, which Jay is chipping away at now.

Jem:

But I haven't sort of got

Jem:

back there

Jem:

and done much more work on it, moved on to other things this week,

Jem:

but happy to have it up there.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

Happy with how it looks and it's good to have the new kid parts up there.

Justin:

Yeah, it looks

Jem:

I

Jem:

feel like, I feel like I've got my work cut out for me now to like, do

Jem:

some really good communication about what's changed and why and where

Jem:

the compatibility lies between the two versions and stuff like that.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I remember sending you some comment about like it?

Justin:

looks like it's going so well, but I'm seeing.

Justin:

I saw a couple people comment, like how do I adapt it into

Justin:

my existing one in my head?

Justin:

I was thinking that?

Justin:

wasn't possible.

Justin:

But you figured that out,

Justin:

you have a compatibility

Jem:

In my head.

Jem:

I can, I can do it.

Jem:

It's just hard to explain to people what's possible and what's

Jem:

not.

Jem:

So I just need to do some, some work on actually making that content to explain

Jem:

those differences, which, if I just sit down and do it, won't take me very

Jem:

long, but it's one of those tasks that I.

Jem:

Put off.

Jem:

Cause it feels bigger than it is.

Justin:

yeah.

Justin:

Mm-hmm I was, I was gonna ask what with your website, have you had to touch

Justin:

every product page to like adapt it?

Justin:

Cuz like I have weird quirks with a lot of 'em we're all like

Justin:

custom code, some stuff in the

Justin:

description and which is about like, after we talked

Justin:

last week, I was thinking like, why the hell am I.

Justin:

doing that?

Justin:

Like.

Justin:

It's such a ha hassle to have to

Justin:

adapt to your, whatever your new theme is.

Justin:

Or, you're saying like anything, custom's always a pretty big problem.

Jem:

it comes to updates.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah, we've had to touch every

Jem:

page.

Jem:

Definitely.

Jem:

Jay has done the bulk of that work with all the product pages sort

Jem:

of working through and checking

Jem:

everything.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

it's a big, big job when I think we've

Jem:

got 300

Jem:

plus variants online.

Jem:

So it's a lot of

Justin:

can believe that

Jem:

Yeah, by the time you add material

Jem:

options and size

Jem:

options to things, it, the variant

Jem:

list just goes bananas

Justin:

I bet kid aparts I had Like an exponential factor to that.

Justin:

Or, or do you, you don't sell like all the cart pieces, do you,

Jem:

all the way.

Justin:

do, do you sell like individual pieces of kid parts?

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Wow.

Justin:

It's a lot of

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Lot

Jem:

of

Jem:

parts, lot of skews.

Jem:

And now there's two versions online.

Jem:

Haha.

Jem:

to complicate things

Justin:

Like put a little dot of color on the end

Justin:

V

Justin:

one V

Jem:

yeah, I think we'll have to,

Jem:

But I spent oh

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

That's in the budget for January a laser.

Justin:

or your laser cutter.

Justin:

Hey.

Justin:

Nice.

Jem:

Hey.

Jem:

But I spent

Jem:

yesterday morning

Jem:

writing new programs for all the new

Jem:

lengths

Jem:

for the new kit parts, getting that tiled in, it's always fun.

Jem:

Cut and cut and paste a whole lot of G code and

Jem:

update it and then

Jem:

run it and try

Jem:

not to crash.

Jem:

And it's getting easier.

Jem:

I'm getting better at reading G code and telling what's going on and

Jem:

just more comfortable making those changes

Jem:

without the issue.

Justin:

Are getting anywhere

Justin:

closer to posting something.

Justin:

That's not needing a lot of edits out of fusion.

Jem:

no, I haven't made any further progress on that.

Jem:

I had

Jem:

a chat to

Jem:

oh, our fusion re Taylor at that trade show I went to recently

Jem:

was there like the Autodesk reps.

Jem:

And they've got a company called massive.

Jem:

I think it is

Jem:

that write post processes and

Jem:

specialize in post processes.

Jem:

And I chatted to them and they, they could write us a custom post

Jem:

to get exactly what we want out of

Jem:

fusion for the pencil sharper.

Jem:

So at that point I kind of stopped fidling with my post and thought, I'll

Jem:

just keep copying and pasting for now.

Jem:

And if the need arises in

Jem:

future, then we'll commission a post processor that just works.

Jem:

it's working pretty well.

Jem:

I've pretty much just got visual studio code open, and then I've just built an

Jem:

index in visual studio code of all my most commonly used functions and also code

Jem:

blocks of like, this is my entry block.

Jem:

This makes a block.

Jem:

This is my like cutoff block.

Jem:

And I just sort of pace them in and check values

Jem:

and works pretty well.

Justin:

I'll play the John Saunders here.

Justin:

What happens if you crash that thing?

Justin:

Because you've been fidling with code, is it a big hit to kid aparts business then?

Jem:

Oh, I've crashed it so many times now.

Justin:

doesn't matter.

Jem:

it's look, I'm

Jem:

sure it does matter.

Jem:

It's

Jem:

I've damaged those Nikita spindles time and time again.

Jem:

But amazingly, And,

Jem:

we've replaced them

Jem:

fully

Jem:

once which is a fairly big job, cuz you kind of have to

Jem:

pull the whole X,

Jem:

Y access apart to gain

Jem:

access, to get

Jem:

the spindles out.

Jem:

I call them spindles ha the, the trimmers,

Justin:

True.

Jem:

the cheap McKee to

Jem:

trimmers.

Jem:

But I've, I

Jem:

keep crashing it since we replaced them.

Jem:

And I'm

Jem:

literally just taking a

Jem:

hammer and a

Jem:

wooden stick and like beating the, the shaft back into true.

Jem:

Not even with a like edge, like edge finder or anything,

Jem:

just like running the tool.

Jem:

Up against the Chuck and spinning it and finding the run

Jem:

out and like tap, tap, tap, tap, find the run out, tap, tap, tap,

Jem:

tap, and refine it down to like

Jem:

enough, you

Jem:

know?

Jem:

So it's

Jem:

concentric enough that it runs well again, so that I've got that down to a fine art.

Jem:

So if I crash really hard, I can kind of

Jem:

have it beaten back into shape in about 10 minutes, but I'm sure every

Jem:

time I'm doing that, I'm just slowly destroying the bearings or whatever.

Jem:

We'll have to replace

Justin:

it's almost like they're, I mean, they're priced here basically, like.

Justin:

A fairly normal CNC carbide tool.

Justin:

it's almost like they're consumable in a sense,

Justin:

those tremors

Jem:

the trim is, yeah, I know.

Jem:

Right.

Justin:

they're, they're just a CNC tool, basically

Jem:

shit.

Jem:

That's a,

Jem:

that's a good point.

Jem:

They really are that a similar price point.

Justin:

and even if you.

Justin:

Retired them from your pencil sharpening game, they could be.

Justin:

We used shop still.

Justin:

I'm sure.

Justin:

Just

Justin:

fine.

Jem:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jem:

I'm gonna have this blocks of Mykita trimmers.

Jem:

We'll just have three on every bench.

Justin:

give to Laura for a

Justin:

sculpture.

Jem:

yeah.

Jem:

Yeah, but this's kind of been my happy place.

Jem:

Just hanging out with the pencil shop of a morning.

Jem:

something that's changed here in the last couple of weeks

Jem:

is I've handed it off my hat

Jem:

as production manager

Jem:

to

Jem:

Ben.

Jem:

And Ben was naturally starting to sort of

Jem:

do this last few months since I had COVID

Jem:

actually it was

Jem:

that Monday, a Monday in the tent.

Jem:

I called Ben I

Jem:

was like, can you cover me?

Jem:

He was just like, it was a one line

Jem:

conversation.

Jem:

He was

Jem:

just like, yep.

Jem:

Gotcha.

Jem:

Since then, he's kind of.

Jem:

just

Jem:

naturally sort

Jem:

of upped his game and has kept his head around pretty much

Jem:

everything that's going

Jem:

on in the workshop.

Justin:

That's

Jem:

So it was quite, it was quite a

Jem:

natural transition

Jem:

to say, cool, this is your, your baby now in terms of production management

Justin:

what was his previous top responsibilities

Jem:

here.

Justin:

tasks?

Justin:

What was Ben's previous?

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

he,

Jem:

he is a,

Jem:

what we call a production operator.

Jem:

So a maker, and he was handling sort of the larger, more complex custom

Jem:

jobs because of his experience.

Jem:

You know, , he's proper experience.

Jem:

He's actually qualified.

Jem:

Unlike me,

Jem:

he's got a he's a joiner and has worked as a joiner in big join

Jem:

shops for a long time and has,

Jem:

, a lot of experience in the industry.

Jem:

So I think he sort of came in here a year or so ago and was like, Ooh, These, these

Jem:

people work in strange ways, but , was very flexible and adapted to our systems.

Jem:

And

Justin:

naive D is a good

Justin:

innovation tool.

Jem:

it really is really is.

Justin:

there's a Good chance that you're gonna hear my nephew and

Justin:

niece running around,

Justin:

but maybe it'll be some instead of the Kaiser.

Justin:

It'll be

Justin:

my .My new Kaiser's.

Justin:

I hadn't

Justin:

actually seen my niece.

Justin:

She

Justin:

was

Justin:

born during the pandemic and I'd never seen her

Justin:

until

Justin:

this trip.

Justin:

So that's been pretty cool

Jem:

That's

Jem:

amazing.

Jem:

How old is she now?

Justin:

just over a year.

Justin:

I think

Justin:

14

Justin:

months, maybe.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Okay.

Justin:

pretty cute.

Justin:

Pretty cute.

Justin:

They're running down.

Justin:

They just got down.

Justin:

with their naps.

Justin:

So they're running

Justin:

down the

Justin:

stairs right now.

Jem:

Awesome.

Jem:

As long as they're dressed as minions, little Kaisers um, I'm, I'm happy.

Justin:

Oh, my God.

Justin:

It'd be

Justin:

amazing.

Justin:

Uh, so good.

Justin:

I've been watching a lot of

Justin:

like their Disney style shows, right?

Justin:

Like I just saw frozen too for the first time.

Justin:

I didn't,

Jem:

The first time come

Jem:

on, came out eight

Justin:

I don't have little kids.

Justin:

We do every once in a while, we'll watch some kind of animated show, which we both

Justin:

I like, but it's just not top of the list.

Justin:

We're not flipping at Disney kids usually.

Jem:

those because I have kids.

Jem:

We've

Justin:

Good.

Justin:

point.

Justin:

Good.

Jem:

it's been, that's always been top of our

Jem:

watch list for Laura and I, and we still watch them.

Jem:

The kids

Jem:

don't get to watch movies.

Jem:

They're not old enough in our mind.

Jem:

So Laura and I are the ones dialing up the latest Pixar or Disney animation.

Jem:

Yep.

Justin:

Sure.

Justin:

No, it's great.

Justin:

We watched Luca actually, when we were both favoring from COVID

Justin:

and we both fell asleep before it was over, but it was really Good.

Justin:

What I remember of it, I was, have you printed anything else?

Jem:

Nope.

Jem:

Don't think we have this week.

Jem:

I'm I've got plans for some guards and dust collection for the pencil shop.

Jem:

I think that's probably next to fiddle around with my cardboard ones that

Jem:

are hot glued on are only so good.

Justin:

mm-hmm yeah,

Jem:

they're quite

Jem:

effective at dust collection, but not so good at guarding.

Justin:

like a laser curtain.

Jem:

yeah.

Jem:

Well, that's the other way to think about it is just to box it in, like

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

not try and make each cutting tool.

Jem:

Protected,

Jem:

but just kind of put the thing in a cage and lock the door,

Justin:

mm-hmm

Jem:

walk away.

Justin:

oh, I know.

Justin:

I was gonna ask, did you, did you take down all those stories

Justin:

of you and the 3d print?

Justin:

The, with the, the squared around 3d print and call

Justin:

it?

Justin:

I remember we talked about 'em last show.

Justin:

And then I was like,

Justin:

you know, I was enjoying your stories and you're like, yeah,

Justin:

I thought I was grunting a lot.

Justin:

And then I went to look for 'em again, and they were all gone.

Justin:

I was like, oh man, maybe it was

Justin:

just 24 hours already.

Jem:

No, they must have expired.

Jem:

I didn't take them down.

Jem:

But I think I've saved pretty much every pencil, sharper story to highlights.

Justin:

nice.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

There's a pencil sharper highlight reel.

Jem:

That's probably hours long by now.

Justin:

I was gonna put, well, that's true.

Justin:

I

Justin:

was gonna put, if I kind of just like, didn't try very hard, but I was gonna

Justin:

take some of those there.

Justin:

Pretty funny and put em into the show

Justin:

last week.

Justin:

and

Justin:

then cause we had talked

Justin:

about it and then

Jem:

There we go.

Jem:

Nice.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Sorry.

Jem:

I dropped the ball on the edit last week.

Jem:

Oh.

Jem:

Any help with the edit?

Justin:

it's sorry.

Justin:

I was lying around.

Justin:

Yeah, I was glad I sent you that that one clip.

Justin:

It was a little too, too hot for, for publishing cuz I was like, I

Justin:

think I was doing it pretty late and I was like, this might be

Justin:

too much done.

Justin:

Got a little heavy, this

Justin:

drinking

Jem:

you did.

Jem:

So what's the plan when

Justin:

ketchup on catch on some emails.

Justin:

Started making a bunch of dust boots

Justin:

got material.

Justin:

I'm hoping some more prints get

Justin:

made, but Ricky actually, that

Justin:

was an interesting thing of

Justin:

like, I'd spent so much

Justin:

time myself.

Justin:

He'd printed quite a bit

Justin:

before.

Justin:

we started doing, we started using the PERA, actually.

Justin:

He used the other one quite a bit.

Justin:

And then

Justin:

I'd

Justin:

kind of had just been using it a

Justin:

lot to prototype stuff.

Justin:

So it really wasn't a, there wasn't a place for like him to help

Justin:

make production happen with it.

Justin:

Cause it was just like print one.

Justin:

Oh there's

Justin:

problems.

Justin:

Fix it.

Justin:

and then I was like getting ready to leave.

Justin:

And I was like, ah, man,

Justin:

I should, we should have gone over this a little more, but I

Justin:

was like, you know how to print?

Justin:

Just, you know make it work.

Justin:

And like the only time it's had a major spaghetti monster was when I was

Justin:

gone.

Justin:

But, other than that it's been pretty good.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

I don't have,

Justin:

honestly haven't thought too much about.

Justin:

What I'm going to be doing,

Justin:

which is nice.

Justin:

I don't usually check out too easily on vacation, but it's been a

Justin:

good,

Justin:

been able to be here.

Justin:

I think more than

Justin:

there.

Jem:

That's really good.

Jem:

Great,

Jem:

good.

Jem:

good.

Jem:

Do you manage to stay away from emails

Justin:

I did.

Justin:

I it depends on the amount of days.

Justin:

I do believe in that like certain amount of days away,

Justin:

I can like really disconnect.

Justin:

And just put some auto response responses on.

Justin:

And so far, we've only had one email that I saw that that was

Justin:

like, I have an urgent project.

Justin:

And I was like, is somebody bleeding?

Justin:

You know, like, I can't really help you

Jem:

like, Hmm.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I've been enjoying using the new focus modes on my phone at

Justin:

Oh, yeah.

Jem:

So I've got one set now that just automatically turns on work.

Jem:

Focus.

Jem:

When I arrive at this address.

Jem:

Which can be confusing at times.

Jem:

It's like, how did I miss so many calls this

Jem:

morning?

Jem:

It's like, oh, that's right.

Jem:

My phone automatically switched to

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

focus mode, but

Jem:

it's

Jem:

been really,

Jem:

it's been good.

Jem:

Like I'm a

Jem:

sucker for distraction.

Justin:

Oh, Sam.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

So an anytime slack pings off internally with a message.

Jem:

I'm just like

Jem:

Bob switching

Jem:

tabs, just have, a look at what it is.

Jem:

At least even if I don't respond, then I'm looking at it and

Jem:

thinking about it I'm trying to get better at that.

Jem:

Like, if

Jem:

something's really urgent, then

Jem:

, if it's someone here that can come and talk to me, or if it's Sarah, she

Jem:

can pick up the phone or get through.

Jem:

But yeah, I'm trying to get better at not responding to every little

Jem:

throughout the day immediately and kind of batching them a bit more,

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

particularly with slack.

Jem:

I don't, I never get email notifications, but yeah.

Justin:

Either say

Justin:

anything.

Jem:

Um, I get as the sort of channel owner, I get the, the email

Jem:

from slack every week that tells

Jem:

me how many messages we've

Jem:

sent as a team last week.

Jem:

And the number is a little bit frightening.

Jem:

I think it's sort of six or 700 a week internal messages,

Jem:

which, , it's an effective tool.

Jem:

But it does, does make me sort of question where effectiveness

Jem:

stops and distraction begins.

Jem:

And it's a blurry line.

Jem:

I think we

Jem:

we

Justin:

Mm-hmm I think I I've really liked it versus email.

Justin:

We don't pay for slack.

Justin:

we never have, cuz it's never, pushed it to a place where it feels like you need

Justin:

to you begin to rely on it as a tool,

Justin:

but then now the history drops off right at the end.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Then it's like a whole crap where, oh, we put it

Justin:

in slack.

Justin:

And

Justin:

so we have this problem where it's

Justin:

like, where did we keep something?

Justin:

And you know, you try to have your repository, but inevitably,

Justin:

if it was email or slack, you're gonna have one of this

Justin:

like messaging channels where something important

Justin:

is that you can't

Justin:

find.

Justin:

So that's about my only thing I don't like about slack

Justin:

or

Justin:

that's become somewhat of

Justin:

a

Justin:

challenge,

Justin:

I guess

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Well, you've got that nice, like in internal Wiki, right?

Justin:

It's just, you know, the friction though, right?

Justin:

That's why Slack's so successful is you literally alt tab to it and then

Justin:

immediately send a message like, Hey, this dimension is

Justin:

this, but then it's there.

Justin:

And it's like, what channel was

Justin:

that?

Jem:

yeah, yeah, totally.

Jem:

We've been trying to use group channels a little bit more lately.

Jem:

I think as part of the transition

Jem:

of Ben taking on

Jem:

production management, I renamed one of

Jem:

our

Jem:

channels, which wasn't being particularly effective to production.

Jem:

And so there's everyone sees certain messages now.

Jem:

So there's, I was aware that we're doing a lot of, I would tell Ben something

Jem:

and then Ben would talk to John.

Jem:

John would talk to Josh and it was like this kind of the, before

Jem:

conversations happening concurrently.

Jem:

trying to do a bit more sort of just group

Jem:

messaging of, Hey, this job's ready.

Jem:

This is the handover video.

Jem:

This is the detail for this job , so even it means certain people will get spamed

Jem:

with it who it's not relevant to, but at least it's there if they need it and they

Jem:

can go back and look at that channel.

Jem:

If they're trying to find some detail.

Jem:

And the history thing doesn't, we've had people here have sort of complained

Jem:

about the fact that the history's gone and they go, can't go back and find a

Jem:

document from three years ago or whatever I'm like.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

But the pace at which we sort of move on and change standards and innovate

Jem:

means that it's pretty much all redundant

Jem:

information.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

certain things.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

It might be handy to be able to search back, but 99% of it is like

Jem:

useless,

Justin:

for sure.

Justin:

well, I was gonna ask about that.

Justin:

Have you used it all or you tested out fresh task?

Justin:

Was it something you liked?

Jem:

really like the look of it.

Jem:

Haven't it's on the project list.

Justin:

Sure.

Justin:

I'm

Jem:

Jay, and I really like the idea of having some sort of overlay that can

Jem:

help us manage client communications.

Jem:

Cuz at the moment we use, we use Google suite, whatever it's called, like

Jem:

Gmail, basically with our own domain.

Jem:

Around the messaging around in custom jobs is basically just a draft email

Jem:

that sits against the email conversation.

Jem:

So we have like 3000 draft emails in Gmail with all these notes

Jem:

against different jobs and it's.

Jem:

Okay.

Jem:

It's kind of a hacky way that.

Jem:

we've just always done, it's not ideal.

Jem:

Like if we wanna sort of tag each other into things or sort hand over a

Jem:

custom job for Marin to me, it's just yeah.

Jem:

Could be heaps better basically.

Justin:

we kind of use air table

Justin:

for that.

Jem:

you've mentioned dear.

Justin:

Try to, I

Justin:

mean, it's just been such

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

a, whenever it's down to

Justin:

slim as just Ricky and

Justin:

I, it ends up being a lot

Justin:

of like

Justin:

just slack back and forth, but whenever there's multiple people involved,

Justin:

More than that.

Justin:

I tried to create a

Justin:

project aspect of

Justin:

Airtable that has tasks associated with each project.

Justin:

So

Justin:

then theoretically, everything that's important should just go in

Justin:

like a notes field of the

Justin:

project and that way.

Justin:

And I kind of do it like an itinerary or not itinerary, but like a log also

Justin:

of like when they paid deposits

Justin:

and when it's due and all this kind of stuff's

Justin:

there.

Justin:

So that's a little

Justin:

bit better.

Justin:

Than what we

Justin:

did before.

Jem:

having one master place for information, I think's important

Jem:

for sure.

Jem:

The other thing that's come up for me over the

Jem:

years is, , we've got eight staff at the moment.

Jem:

And we've had, we have really good staff retention, but you

Jem:

know, there's natural

Jem:

rollover.

Jem:

So over the years we've had

Jem:

quite a few staff something I've become aware of is not everyone perceives and

Jem:

absorbs information in the same way.

Jem:

And so there's definitely

Jem:

moments in time, where you become aware that whilst their table or workflow,

Jem:

it might be a really effective written communication tool for one person.

Jem:

It might be really hard and unintuitive for someone else.

Jem:

Like someone might be struggle with interpreting just like a workflow.

Jem:

We like just a screen of black and white text and sort of picking out

Jem:

what's important outta that where someone else can kind of scan it

Jem:

and go, oh yeah, that's important.

Jem:

That's important.

Jem:

The rest of it's, whatever.

Jem:

And that was one of the drivers from us to switch away

Jem:

from workflowing build our ERP and air table was sort of, how can we

Jem:

make this a bit more rich, rich, and customizable with the different views.

Jem:

So it's

Justin:

Yep.

Jem:

someone, , I can have my own view.

Jem:

That's got my own color coding or sort of is adapted to how I wanna see information.

Jem:

And that's limited to a point obviously, but I think it's helped, but

Justin:

I noticed that pretty early

Justin:

on.

Justin:

And

Justin:

what

Justin:

the success of air table I

Justin:

think for

Justin:

us was we did have a handful of different.

Justin:

You always do different types of

Justin:

people, different interests in ways that they've taken information

Justin:

and

Justin:

all the other

Justin:

ways it felt like maybe

Justin:

you get the options.

Justin:

Let's say it's a project based

Justin:

thing.

Justin:

Like we used flow before or TRS similar where you either get Kon or

Justin:

like a list of some sort.

Justin:

And I think there was some

Justin:

success.

Justin:

Spare table being able to have

Justin:

personal

Justin:

views, which kind of took some, I still, you know, a little bit confusing for the

Justin:

people that don't sit at, look at their computer all day.

Justin:

Like I

Justin:

do you know, they're actually making stuff, that's been really successful

Justin:

as certain like Ricky always.

Justin:

You know, I noticed he uses like one or two views in air table, cuz

Justin:

that's all, you know, like that was kind of, part of my attention

Justin:

was like, here's what you

Justin:

need to pay attention to.

Justin:

Like, don't dig through all this stuff.

Justin:

Like you don't need to, unless you are interested, go for it.

Justin:

But if you just wanna find what you need to work on, here's just a

Justin:

couple views it seems to be successful cause he doesn't miss anything, you

Justin:

know, like, and I like that, that you can at least tailor something maybe a

Justin:

little bit more to your taste and it's not forced as everybody's view has

Justin:

to

Justin:

be this.

Jem:

Yeah, I think the person will be things fantastic.

Jem:

I use that really heavily in our quoting register.

Jem:

it's just filtering everything down to just what I wanna see and just the

Jem:

views, or even making clients specific views of like, for our biggest clients,

Jem:

like who are the people that I need to follow up with, just gimme those

Jem:

jobs.

Jem:

And

Justin:

Nice.

Jem:

so, so powerful.

Jem:

I love It, It's good.

Jem:

I was struck the other day of like, we have so much information in an air

Jem:

table now and it still runs so well.

Jem:

It's relatively responsive.

Jem:

You can find stuff quickly.

Jem:

I dunno how many, how many individual lines of data there must be in there now,

Jem:

but it's like, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing.

Jem:

And that, that amazes me the internet.

Justin:

It, it will I'd say the one thing you can't do is if like

Justin:

on one of our, all of our inquiries are on one thing and there's

Justin:

only 1300 or something like that, which you can't

Justin:

just scroll through.

Justin:

I can't

Justin:

anyway.

Justin:

It like won't load fast, you know?

Justin:

but if you just search or.

Justin:

you know, kind of pick spots.

Justin:

works right.

Justin:

And maybe just how I have it

Justin:

shown,

Jem:

Mm

Justin:

but yeah, it's pretty clean.

Justin:

I would love to get to this place with it where

Justin:

I've set it up often.

Justin:

then I just have too many things going on, I

Justin:

think off to most of the time, but you know, um, we have this bear table for

Justin:

parts department, right?

Justin:

We have all these

Justin:

different things and I would love.

Justin:

If the permissions were fine,

Justin:

you could set permissions to be able to have like a master

Justin:

search

Justin:

of like, I wanna see across all these things, like Google drive

Justin:

style.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

Cause it's very

Justin:

siloed

Justin:

to a base and sometimes even a table.

Justin:

And they've got these weird extensions that you can search

Justin:

some stuff, but

Justin:

it's like not quick to get

Justin:

to.

Justin:

And

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

That's

Jem:

been one of my complaints probably is search

Justin:

Mm-hmm

Jem:

coming from workflow where search was just so fast and responsive and global.

Justin:

Yep.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

That siloed nature is a bit

Jem:

annoying, but I reckon it will come.

Jem:

They seem pretty good in terms of they're developing stuff pretty quickly.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

What's what are you working on?

Justin:

That's new.

Justin:

Anything?

Jem:

to ask you the same,

Jem:

like instead of pushing,

Jem:

pushing pixels around air table, what are, what are we doing in

Jem:

reality?

Justin:

Well

Jem:

uh, What's new.

Jem:

I

Jem:

am starting to switch my focus a little bit

Jem:

towards the next product I wanna

Jem:

launch,

Justin:

that often nice.

Jem:

which is our competitor.

Jem:

Nawa watch out,

Justin:

Thread,

Justin:

board.

Jem:

thread, board.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I've put a, starting to put a product launch structure into place.

Jem:

So instead of it just being a arbitrary randomness,

Jem:

I'm gonna, oh,

Jem:

I

Jem:

think I'm gonna try for monthly.

Jem:

Cause we've got

Jem:

we've got such a backlog at the moment of cool stuff that we're

Jem:

sitting on that staff have designed, or I've got sitting in the wings.

Jem:

We've got like six to nine months of backlog.

Jem:

gonna see if it's possible to go monthly,

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

to see what happens, but.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

place where I find, what I get into is this place where we have

Justin:

idea a lot of good ideas and they're

Justin:

like, kind of all, but production ready, basically.

Jem:

Mm,

Justin:

Or there's some last final detail about like, I don't know, just

Justin:

something isn't quite figured out and it just kind of, yeah, it'll sit too

Justin:

long.

Justin:

Is that how you have things

Justin:

or are

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Some things are definitely in that category.

Justin:

yeah.

Jem:

I think thread board's one, that's been, you know, prototyped

Jem:

and tested and it's probably a couple of years old now, really, but due to

Jem:

not resolving, basically not resolving the accessories

Jem:

to a point where I'm happy with them has meant

Jem:

that it's kind of just stagnated.

Jem:

So, yeah, just make stuff.

Jem:

Well, the plan is to just get a few accessories going and get it up

Jem:

there as a, a wall system and Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

where are you at with your wall system?

Justin:

It definitely got put a little bit on the yeah, back burner of, I went

Justin:

for the thing that seemed most obvious and easy to complete, which was the dust

Justin:

boot.

Justin:

It just felt like It was an easy win.

Jem:

it's contained,

Jem:

Right?

Justin:

yeah, it's one thing it's not a series of.

Justin:

Panels with a bunch of other stuff that, I mean, and the other really

Justin:

encouraging thing was every time I'd post about it, I'd have somebody

Justin:

say, like, I wanna buy that now.

Justin:

You know, it was just like very awesome

Justin:

to

Justin:

see interest and solving a very known problem in some

Justin:

way or trying to solve, you know, and making it better.

Justin:

So close.

Justin:

through our.

Justin:

Pressure some ways I've felt like I've made some good progress

Justin:

on getting things on Shopify.

Justin:

And we're kind of,

Justin:

just at this place of, I need to document

Justin:

it

Justin:

and finalize some pricing on it.

Justin:

That's I part for me at this point is how to price

Justin:

both to make profit as well

Justin:

as um, what will the market feel is a fair price kind of thing.

Justin:

the

Jem:

you about pricing at some point

Justin:

Oh, sure.

Jem:

compare notes.

Jem:

Given that we're, we're on the opposite sides of the world and are

Jem:

not direct competitors.

Jem:

I feel like we're well placed to have a, an in depth conversation about pricing.

Justin:

well, guess you've stumbled onto my plan.

Justin:

The whole time of getting to, know you.

Justin:

I

Justin:

was playing and move into the Australian market

Justin:

actually.

Justin:

So

Jem:

you're welcome to bring it

Jem:

on

Don:

An epic battle of wall systems is afoot, will both of a our hosts survive!

Don:

? Justin: long term plan.

Don:

No,

Don:

Sounds quite too

Jem:

Who, who are you gonna

Jem:

side with Don

Jem:

over you?

Don:

I would flip a coin but I don't have hands.

Justin:

you'll have to edit.

Justin:

I

Jem:

Shit.

Jem:

Where was I?

Justin:

dunno.

Justin:

Pricing and

Jem:

Pricing.

Jem:

Yeah, pricing it it frustrates me eating, eating lunch.

Jem:

It fr it frustrates me that talking money is kind of taboo.

Jem:

This is something that annoys me as a business owner and maybe it's

Jem:

cuz I'm a business owner, but I

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

really enjoy whenever the opportunity arises to have a Frank

Jem:

conversation with someone about financial

Jem:

stuff, whether it's business personal,

Justin:

Yep.,

Jem:

you know,

Jem:

even, even rental like everything about it.

Jem:

I feel like it's such a big part of our lives that it, it just annoys

Jem:

me that it feels like it's something that we can't sort of, we feel Funny

Jem:

about talking about good use of words, Jim, funny, talking funny.

Justin:

Funny talking

Justin:

men.

Jem:

yeah, yeah.

Jem:

Do you?

Jem:

know,

Jem:

what I mean?

Jem:

Do you have

Justin:

Yeah, no, I do.

Justin:

I do.

Justin:

I try, I think we may be somewhat similar and I, I know what

Justin:

you mean, even in this sense

Justin:

of, I think in a business sense

Justin:

where it becomes, do you know the company ever lane.

Jem:

Ever who no sponsored.

Justin:

Everlane?

Justin:

It's like a clothing company.

Justin:

Uh, maybe it must be American only, I'm not like a huge proponent

Justin:

of them, but my wife likes

Justin:

her clothes.

Justin:

Um, I sponsored not by

Justin:

Everlane.

Justin:

they're all about transparency, supposedly.

Justin:

So

Justin:

like they tell you how much their ads cost.

Justin:

They tell you how much the profitability is.

Justin:

And I think where it comes into play.

Justin:

Where I have some sensibility about that is

Justin:

it's probably on either end.

Justin:

If I'm not making much

Justin:

money on something I'm conscious of it.

Justin:

Or if for some reason

Justin:

we

Justin:

found, which never

Justin:

happens uh, a way to make a lot of money on something, right?

Justin:

Like the margin's amazing.

Justin:

I think that's where I would feel weird about it, but somewhere in the middle

Justin:

I'm.

Justin:

You know, internally, I try to share, as we both talked about that,

Justin:

I try to share as much as I can, because I

Justin:

think it helps people be responsible about how they spend their time

Justin:

and, feel a part of, you know, things and make good decisions.

Jem:

Mm.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Like I would, , in this context of

Jem:

this podcast, I would like to be able to talk about finances more freely

Jem:

of yeah, we sold X on the weekend, or like, , last week sales went really well.

Jem:

This financial year was terrible or,

Jem:

And, , I'm quite comfortable talking to you about that offline, but yeah,

Jem:

there is a sense of sort of, yeah.

Jem:

Protecting oneself by not giving away that sort of information.

Jem:

And I'm not sure what that's about.

Jem:

Um, we've gotten heaps better at sharing that internally.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Uh, Like we Sarah presented our 20, 23 budget last week to the

Jem:

whole team and that was like full P and L budget basically on screen.

Jem:

Um, Absolutely everything in there and, you know, , a bottom

Jem:

line, a projected profit,

Jem:

if we can get the sales that we need to get, which are quite ambitious, then,

Jem:

you know, the profit looks really good.

Justin:

Mm-hmm

Jem:

I think everyone here is on board and understands, you know, , what

Jem:

that bottom line means for the company and the why it's important

Jem:

that we need to push for that.

Jem:

But yeah, I've definitely have I've in the past.

Jem:

I've been much more hesitant about sharing sort of bottom line profit

Jem:

if there was one, whereas, you know,,

Justin:

Well, there's another side

Justin:

to that.

Justin:

I don't

Justin:

know.

Justin:

I suppose at any point here, we just cut out what we

Justin:

don't

Justin:

want out there.

Jem:

oh, I know.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

In terms of the,

Jem:

recording.

Jem:

Fine.

Jem:

We'll cut.

Justin:

the, the other side of that, as

Justin:

business owners,

Justin:

what it comes out

Justin:

to be, especially in America

Justin:

is there's this whole conversation of like, the owner is gonna take

Justin:

whatever's left over and make good on the

Justin:

situation.

Justin:

Which is fair to a

Justin:

point.

Justin:

As long as you're not taking advantage of the

Justin:

people that work for you.

Justin:

But

Justin:

that, that's part of some of

Justin:

the conservatism I think of talking about it is, oh, well, there's a whole

Justin:

group of people out there

Justin:

that love to talk about that kind of thing.

Justin:

Like I'm making so much money.

Justin:

It's like, you know, right.

Justin:

it's

Justin:

not apparently neither

Justin:

of us are in that

Justin:

game, but,

Jem:

No like that podcast you shared recently the um, what was it?

Justin:

how to make a million dollars, my first million.

Justin:

That made me throw a half of it, but at the other half, it's

Justin:

like, oh, that's

Justin:

interesting.

Jem:

that was a super, super interesting.

Jem:

episode.

Jem:

I really enjoyed that.

Jem:

But Yeah.

Jem:

No you're right.

Jem:

There's yeah, the whole, whole SWA of people who are very

Jem:

happy talking about that.

Jem:

stuff and I'm quite happy listening to that

Jem:

stuff.

Justin:

financial podcasts make a lot more

Justin:

money, so of YouTube.

Justin:

So I'm gonna probably change this one on

Justin:

YouTube so that it's financial.

Justin:

So that we get a

Justin:

little higher.

Justin:

We don't even make money on it.

Justin:

So I don't know what I'm

Justin:

talking about, Yeah, I know you mean though?

Justin:

It's hard.

Justin:

There's a whole lot wrapped up in, I think culture.

Justin:

to me anyway, what comes up with that?

Justin:

Why it feels weird is a, is the kind of discussion about equality of, have,

Justin:

and have nots kind of thing, right?

Justin:

Like the people that theoretically make all this money on the back of people

Justin:

that maybe are working a lower wage,

Justin:

this is not describing either of our businesses, but I think

Justin:

that's the, you don't become a billionaire, right?

Justin:

They always say.

Justin:

Taking advantage of some

Jem:

Mm,

Justin:

if you paid everybody a hundred thousand

Justin:

dollars that worked for

Justin:

you

Justin:

in your mega opoly to get to your billion dollar status, like you probably

Justin:

wouldn't have made a billion dollars.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

yeah, I think I have some sort of.

Jem:

I'm gonna say hangups about profit.

Jem:

I definitely have some, yeah, BA base level discomfort with the

Jem:

concept of profit and profitability which I definitely need to work on.

Jem:

And that's something my business coach has helps me with a little bit of like

Jem:

he's, he's exci genuine, I think genuinely excited about what we're trying to do in

Jem:

terms of the kind of triple bottom line business model of people, planet profit.

Justin:

Mm-hmm

Jem:

he keeps trying to, having to sort of remind me of gem, you have to make

Jem:

profit for this business to work and just, you need to reframe your thinking about

Jem:

what that profit is or the profit is Yik.

Jem:

Is all the good things you wanna do in terms of our sustainability

Jem:

initiatives, that's investing in the company and new and exci exciting sort of

Jem:

innovations basically.

Jem:

So I've got that up on my whiteboard next to

Jem:

my desk is like, whenever I'm quoting a job And and I feel like it's too

Jem:

expensive or something, I can kind of look across and go, oh yeah, that's right.

Jem:

That's why we're here.

Jem:

That's what we're trying to do.

Jem:

It's our kind of

Jem:

our mission is like,

Jem:

profit for good.

Jem:

But yeah, it's, it's something I struggle with for sure.

Jem:

Mm

Justin:

Yeah, I put on the beginning of the year, I was

Justin:

thinking about goals January.

Justin:

I hadn't done it for a couple years cause I was survival mode from pandemic.

Justin:

I feel like that is something to that.

Justin:

Or I just felt like there was no time to pause and reflect or something.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

the beginning of the year, that was definitely my, like, after so much

Justin:

development with knack wall and

Justin:

just,

Justin:

we were running, very lean and I put, I made this crappy

Justin:

little

Justin:

like hu out piece of paper that I put mailing tape and put it on my monitor

Justin:

that literally it was just the word profit

Justin:

so that I was just constantly staring at it.

Justin:

Cause I was like kind of getting comfortable with the

Justin:

idea of, of it being too.

Justin:

Of just kind of in development, cuz

Justin:

that phase is it's kind of a honeymoon for me anyway.

Justin:

It's I like, I love that just like constant fiddling and like

Justin:

it's very internal.

Justin:

we, we don't need, well, that's not true at all.

Justin:

We need the people to be investing through

Justin:

buying things in some sense, but

Justin:

on a daily basis it's really easy to just go, oh, what's the next challenge?

Justin:

Oh,

Justin:

it's

Justin:

fixturing for this piece of the knack wall.

Justin:

And kind of get stuck in that without somebody like I'm thinking more and

Justin:

more probably from talking to you about needing to have some external

Justin:

influence, like a business coach or something that's saying you need to

Justin:

do this, you know, just a place to reflect that's outside of myself,

Justin:

that outside of my own decisions every day, that can be so, you know, siloed.

Jem:

yeah, yeah, totally.

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

I think we're similar in that respect of we're more interested in the next

Jem:

fixture than perhaps what we should be thinking about as business owners.

Justin:

I think we're very similar.

Justin:

I mean, you're views ahead of me, I think, but I think you having said

Justin:

that.

Justin:

And I had thought about something like a business coach is honestly

Justin:

that I don't know how to find one at this point is my biggest challenge.

Justin:

Like I

Justin:

would happily be doing that.

Justin:

final step there is.

Justin:

I'm very, very aware and very sure of in myself that, that I am

Justin:

not a business person at heart.

Justin:

I am a person that likes to like, solve the problems around

Justin:

a product and make it good.

Justin:

And that doesn't, unfortunately it's come more and more clear

Justin:

over the past few months.

Justin:

Like it's not helping me sell things, I need an external influence in that way.

Justin:

And hopefully that becomes somebody that works in the company.

Justin:

That's also like more business

Justin:

focused.

Jem:

that'd be nice.

Jem:

I'm thinking about Grims Mo now and like

Jem:

his journey,

Justin:

Mm-hmm

Jem:

um, and whether he will ever get to a point where he is actually.

Jem:

Hires a, like a GM or someone else to actually run it.

Jem:

And he just could commit to his, like, , just mucking around on

Jem:

machines and doing what he he's best at and what he really loves.

Jem:

Um,

Justin:

dream.

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

dunno,

Jem:

dunno.

Jem:

I think there's

Jem:

definitely a scale at which that's not possible, just in

Jem:

terms of revenue and turnover.

Jem:

Like I think businesses need to be of a certain size before they

Jem:

can, well, both afford someone in that role, but also there needs to

Jem:

be so much structure in place for the leader to be somewhat absent.

Justin:

Yeah,

Jem:

Yeah

Justin:

I just thought about that.

Justin:

Have you, we talked about that quite a while back, but the,

Justin:

NC pocket they're making, working on the fifth access, kind of

Justin:

like next step up.

Justin:

And I keep thinking about

Justin:

that for myself.

Justin:

Like

Justin:

that's kind of.

Justin:

that's definitely where I would hope to go to in

Justin:

business down the road is like, we've got this kind of machine that

Justin:

makes

Justin:

good products that people need or want.

Justin:

And there's people that know how to make all those things.

Justin:

And I don't have to be involved with every step of it and that I can say,

Justin:

all right, well, I'm gonna go in my room over here and work on this new

Justin:

cool machine that we can hopefully sell.

Justin:

That's that's very ideal to

Justin:

me, kind of what I always, and,

Justin:

and it's, it's very

Justin:

privileged, I think, to be able to think about it that way or

Justin:

to hope to get to that place,

Justin:

because

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

It may never happen, I guess to that degree, that's just kind of my like dream

Justin:

position of that's.

Justin:

What I would like to be doing is let's be, I'll be.

Justin:

Idea spinner over here on the corner.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

I wrote chance

Jem:

Tinkering.

Jem:

Is that what you were trying to write?

Jem:

I couldn't work that out.

Justin:

reason, instead of coach.

Jem:

well, I should let you get back to your holiday.

Jem:

I think

Justin:

Yeah, Sounds good.

Justin:

Hmm.

Justin:

I

Jem:

there's no beaches in Texas.

Jem:

Are there

Justin:

There are we're it's so big.

Justin:

It's such a big state.

Justin:

So like we're still pretty inland though.

Justin:

Few hours away from the beach.

Justin:

It's on the Gulf coast

Jem:

Oh yeah.

Jem:

Oh, it's got heap.

Jem:

Heaps coast.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Okay.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Well it's, it's a big

Jem:

stay,

Justin:

It's

Justin:

enormous.

Justin:

you're like what an hour and a half from coast.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

exactly.

Justin:

It's kinda like Portland, I

Justin:

guess.

Jem:

Oh Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

I got nothing else.

Justin:

My mind's on vacation,

Jem:

Good.

Jem:

Get back to it.

Jem:

Enjoy.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

always.

Jem:

Good.

Justin:

I guess.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's good to chat.

Justin:

See.

Jem:

Thanks See,

Justin:

I don't know how

Justin:

that audio's gonna be.

Justin:

I've um, been balancing

Jem:

yeah.

Jem:

Show this.

Jem:

Ah, you do

Justin:

on this, pillow

Justin:

it, it fit in this like this foam cut out thing.

Justin:

And I was like, that seems like

Justin:

one

Justin:

I could

Justin:

I could bring, this is the one I used on our first one that was really

Justin:

sensitive.

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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