Episode 21

21 - The Naughty Corner

Motor fires, blown air lines, a semi-load of tubes, thoughts on hiring, and Baby Pants first impressions.

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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
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Sure.

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Geography

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It's our specialty

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podcast.

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Open.

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Oh, we got a whole list.

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We got a big list today.

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It's got a lot to do.

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Hold tight everyone.

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It's a two hour episode.

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Shall we do a little clapping

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Well, like, remember at the beginning, who are we?

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1 2 0 1, 2, 3, 4.

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Do you hear that?

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now what's that

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Oh, it's not working.

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Can't hear your pulse anymore.

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That's good.

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checking you alive, but yeah,

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Keep the pulse down.

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Good to be back.

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yeah.

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How was your rest of your trip?

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Oh good.

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I just woke out from quite an intense dream where I work out with this intense

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sense of needing to slow down and smell the roses or whatever that expression is.

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And I was kind of living in this like university city, and every

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lunch time I take my bike out and just go for a bike ride.

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And I think I just woke up thinking I need to slow down and.

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Take my time a little bit, but then also sort of driving in to work,

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thinking about how like incredibly privileged that is to think that way,

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Yeah.

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you know, yes.

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I have a stable job and family and blah, blah, blah.

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Mm-hmm

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yeah, it's a challenging

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thought, but

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I had a similar well, I, I don't know.

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I don't really mind sharing I in my, my personal therapy session this week, I.

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Was my therapist was saying basically the same thing to me.

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You need to slow down.

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You're doing a lot, you're doing too much.

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And I'm like, yeah, I know that.

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But like, how does that solve any of the things that I'm trying to like accomplish?

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And for me, like half the time that relates to like, I feel like I'm,

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you know, traffic is too slow and I can't get to work fast enough.

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And like, I can't get products here to make products FA you know fast enough.

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And I've seen no resolution in that at this point, even though we've talked about

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it a couple times, but it's interesting.

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I still have the same sense that I need to slow down, but

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I don't know how that works,

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you

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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We're so trained in the opposite direction, like

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trained to trained to hustle.

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Yeah, my thought, I suppose, in response to my dream, I was like, instead of

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leaning over my laptop, every lunchtime, like hustling to finish the latest

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email to get out and sell more product, I should just be going for a walk

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sure.

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No, I there's a lot of validity to that.

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Finding some balance I suppose

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Yeah.

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is the, is the easy answer,

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I think there was on like our national public radio thing.

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It's kind of broadcast all over.

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I, there was a story a while back about how like basically the, the, the

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hook of the story was it's illegal in France to sit in front of your computer

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or sit in your office and eat lunch.

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Like you have to go out and do something.

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So it's basically that exact story.

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And so then they went on to interview back and forth, like people in America,

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people in France, and like how they felt about their coworkers and.

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Yeah.

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And basically what it came down to is like all the, most of the people in France

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felt more connected to their coworkers.

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They figured out how to get along with them better.

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It seemed like because they had these other moments that weren't,

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that were more personal rather than just only work related.

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I mean, still work, but like you're forced to be not forced.

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You, you choose to be more friendly, I guess.

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I don't know.

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connected.

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Yeah.

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Ah, look, I can relate to that here.

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Like, eh, kind of letting work bleed into breaks.

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Like we have quite well, I'd say very structured break times here, and

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everyone tends to stop at the same time, particularly if work's under control,

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which it has been for quite a while now.

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So, but yeah, I, I, I let work bleed into, I I'll just finish this quote.

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I just need to, you know, get this out the door and then lunchtime half

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over and everyone's already sort of had their lunch and disappeared

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and off doing their own thing.

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So yeah, to,

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It, my dog, my dog used to come to work with me.

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So I wanna quit my job.

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In 2013, we got a puppy basically at the same time.

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And basically until the pandemic every day, I was the caretaker.

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So, you know, when I got a shop, she came to work with me.

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And while I'd always find it annoying that she like wanted

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me to, it wasn't even about her.

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It's just, I'm this, this person that like, I'm annoyed

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to have to stop, to walk my dog.

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Right.

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Like I just wanna keep working, like I'm in me.

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Like that was always good for me to like, have to stop and go walk the dog because

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you know, I, I got away from the computer.

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So I guess the lesson here is you need to get a dog at your office

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so you can go take it for walks.

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Does this hunter?

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Isn't it?

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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You have dogs

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to work?

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Once in a while my wife demands her presence to be her coworker at home.

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So I don't get to bring her as much, but she's always a hit here.

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yeah.

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Shop dogs are the best.

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Yeah.

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I, your, your, your new scene is interesting.

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I think I maybe prefer maybe your lighting set up.

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Isn't done yet, but I, the back, the last one is pretty good.

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I know, I know my lighting's not done.

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Haven't worked that out yet.

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Yeah, that's right.

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You could like

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of

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light out the boxes differently.

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So each box could be like a different light.

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I was yesterday, I was looking at this cuz this space is really narrow.

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Like it's I think 900 it's about three feet wide.

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Yeah.

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I mean I

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That's narrow.

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whoever designed this building intended this to be like a server cabinet, I think.

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And so I've got it.

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This shelf, which is sort of.

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1 5200 Mel D, which takes up quite a bit of elbow room.

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And I can't actually spin my desk chair around to get out.

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So I often like trip over myself, trying to get in and out of the room.

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But I was thinking of replacing this set of shelves with some thread boards.

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So it's only taking up as much like minimal depth and it only takes up

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space where I wanna saw store stuff.

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So I can put bulkier things up high and then have clear space down low,

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where I'm trying to actually work.

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But I'm happy with this setup.

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It's, it's been fantastic actually, actually over the last week or so

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since I've reconfigured this and made it a bit more comfortable,

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Yeah.

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it's been, it's been so good for my work focus cuz I'm, it's

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probably it's terrible functionally or whatever that expression is.

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Cuz I'm like staring into a corner with people behind me, but like

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it's been fantastic for my focus.

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Just not having any peripheral vision.

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And just like mucking down and getting whatever I need to do done and not being

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aware of who's moving around me or,

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yeah, it's basically what we, what would be sent to if we were

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bad in like primary school, like you're in detention, basically.

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the naughty corner.

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It's fantastic.

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And I've, I've put acoustic felt on the walls, which does this weird thing.

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If I lean too close to it with my noise counseling headphones that like it

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freaks out the headphones, just like, whoa, this surface is too, too dead.

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I don't know what to do with this.

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there's no sign waves here.

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What do I do?

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How's.

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It's been actually mostly good.

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We've had kind of a mix of both good and bad where we've shipped.

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If you can see kind of see the back of it.

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There's eight dust boots to go out there to be picked up.

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So we've been, we have all the pre OORS are shipped actually, if including

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that, if you include that pile which is great took about a week to catch up.

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And so now we're.

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We've gotten, you know, new orders and we've been able to basically turn 'em

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around in a couple days, which is cool.

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Ah, fantastic.

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That's cool.

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so that's the, that's the best part of it.

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And I've spent a lot of time working on designing fixturing for the ATC pedestals

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and like basically making a way that I can actually make long enough parts.

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Cuz they're like the base for the long, longest pieces are 17 inches.

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So it's like most of my table and they're skinny and long.

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So I had to make a way to hold them basically, cuz there was no other, I don't

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have another work holding method for that.

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So I learned a lot about like that kind of thing, but the bad side of

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what's happened this week, which isn't drastic, but we had one of our vacuum

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hold down, motors, start on fire.

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I saw that.

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Basically spontaneously a wire slipped off of one of our hour

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meters that was connected to it.

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And it just fried one of the coils.

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So Ricky and I ran to the back room when the fire alarm went off,

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which is linked right up here, the back room, the center of the shop.

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And it was just filled with smoke.

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And I was like, oh no, the dust collectors finally lit up, you know, like

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Yeah.

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but it was just that motor, which is pretty crucial, for a

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lot of how we use that machine.

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The router anyway.

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We're gonna have our electrician come and hopefully rewire some of

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it because it just doesn't work.

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Part of the other problems.

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The switches are always going out on that ding thing.

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Like we've replaced the power switches four times

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Wow.

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the four motors since I've had it since 2017, they're just junk.

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Mm.

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Some changes coming with that.

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We had an airline blow off.

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Our Kaiser just shot

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off

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scary when that

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terrifying.

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Luckily we're very far away from it and I'm probably gonna go to some, some

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threaded versions for that little section.

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But yeah.

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Other than that, it's been good.

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Yeah.

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I think maybe on the bomb actually, Saunders talking about you can

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get these, can't remember what they're called, but they're.

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Valve that put in your airline near the compressor

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the

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fuse.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Fuse air F is such a cool idea.

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So if it, if your system suddenly dumps a whole lot of air, which only really

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happens, if you break a line, the fuse goes, Uhuh, it's not gonna happen.

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Like it's just a mechanical thing.

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That's a magically shuts down.

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When we were putting in the Kaiser, I was reevaluating all of the airline stuff.

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And I luckily realized we didn't have to replace everything I

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thought we were going to have to.

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And so I was like, oh, those interviews were cool.

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Maybe we should put one of those in and what I could find

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on McMaster, which is like the easiest way to order hardware here.

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There was no version that worked it just anyway, so I didn't do

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I had the same thing when I looked into them.

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I was like I'm confused.

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I don't know which one we need.

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they were all very large, like huge versions in our, we have like the

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toy version, basically, even though it's like considered industrial.

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Yeah.

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I think after learning about air fus, as I kind of went around the workshop

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and just put some extra hose buckles on things and just like made sure

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there were no spots where we could get too much whiplash, if a hose did go.

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That's kind of what I was wondering, like, is there like retention, like

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cable, so like something to hold it to the wall again or wherever it is.

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That's not just the original clamp, like, you know,

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Yeah.

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I just use those saddles, like pipe saddles

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yeah, sure.

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I think they're called a half saddle just with a single screw or

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you could use a double saddle with two screws and just like pin stuff

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I'd be very skeptical for the amount of power I saw coming off that thing,

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that one would hold it it was wicked.

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Cause it was a one inch line that whipped away for, it was like the

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main connection to the Kaiser.

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I guess I didn't crank it down hard enough.

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Anyway, dangerous.

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And luckily we're rarely ever in that space, but it is right by the forklift.

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So like, if you were forklifting, you just got lacerated, you know, by whipping air

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hose.

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So I'm gonna, that, that really is about the only thing I feel like in the shop.

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That's not really well connected, so hopefully we'll get that figured out.

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Cool.

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Yeah.

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Vac pumps.

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I'm always expecting our vac pump to die at some inconvenient moment.

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you know, you hear stories of bearings just going and they just stop instantly.

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We've actually got a spare one just parked under the wide belt

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sander, like ready to plug in.

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a compressor.

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Oh sorry.

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Spare vacuum pump for the CNC.

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Oh, wow.

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so if one, the hold hold down, pumps goes, we can just like

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So what's crazy about ours is they have these like very affordable little motors

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and they're used for like weird things, like house vacuum cleaners, like in house.

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And then also like car wash PO you know, like, how do they, I don't know if you

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have these, like, you go through the car wash and they spray you off those

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things, I guess are the same thing.

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And then also vacuum hold down.

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And so they only have a certain life and you have to replace the

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brushes like yearly at least.

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And I don't know why I had thought about like every year, every time

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we touch them, I'm like, I should have an extra one of these motors

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laying around, never bought one.

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Cause I was like, I don't wanna just have $200 sitting here doing nothing.

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And then luckily we can usually do fine with just three motors on

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and did until we got the new one today, but they're like 150 to $200.

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So I, I don't know.

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We'll probably.

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Hopefully keep one more ready, but the air compressor is a

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whole nother story anymore.

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Like, I dunno if you heard Grims talk about his spring God as a nightmare.

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Far out crazy.

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Your vacuum pumps sound very different to our vacuum pumps.

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My cheapest vacuum pump I can buy here is about five grand.

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So yes, the cool thing shops saver kind of found this company or

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contracted them to make these, they call it like an F one or an F four.

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It's basically just one or four motors.

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And then there are these, these kind of things that work in

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series that is put into a box.

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And so they're very affordable.

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I think when you buy that system, it's $2,500.

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Maybe, and what's cool about them is they all work on single phase,

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which is like all residential service in America is single

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phase.

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And so like, that's why I bought it.

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Cause I, I put it in my garage first and it serves a four

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by eight machine really well.

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And to this date, like, yeah, it's, it's like eight grand or 15 to get like a

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rotary vein kind of blower pump style, which is the upgrade from what I have.

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And I just never thought that was a good investment at this point.

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So maybe, maybe if we

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upgraded,

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Gotcha.

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Gotcha.

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Okay.

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Makes sense.

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we just have stuff start on fire every once in a while instead.

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So baby pants was a hit hitting our floor this week.

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Yeah, I know.

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I saw that.

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I

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appreciate the

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video.

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That was great.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, look, I got that video out in a, in a, in a hurry.

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It would've been nice to have tidied up our our actual ducting connection

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a little bit, so it didn't look quite so less, less gaffer tape and more

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That's how they always look.

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Right?

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Like that's how that stuff is always though.

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like,

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impressive when it's not like that.

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but yeah, baby pants, super exciting.

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I dunno if you want unboxing impressions on the podcast or not, but

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You can say it.

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We can cut it if, if not,

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we can always chop it out.

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The, the one criticism I have of pulling out of the box was the.

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The adhesive on the inside, which looks, I dunno, what sort of glue it

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is, but looks like hot melt adhesive.

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I was just like, Justin, why have you chat?

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What's all this glue.

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So yeah, no, it's, it's an interesting, it's definitely an intentional choice and

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Of course.

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Yeah.

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I'm

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we decided, yeah, I'm glad kind of came up.

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We decided that more of keeping the boot together as an assembly was worth

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some aesthetic especially on the inside.

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oh, we've done in tests and other things.

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And this certain hot melt glue is made for HT P E And it's not super easy to control.

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It's like flow.

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So we have a little gun for it and we decided to put it on the

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inside rather than the outside where you'd see it all the time.

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It just is not as aesthetic as you'd want it to be.

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And yeah, I

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AB yeah, absolutely.

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No.

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Like, and I knew all of that pull to some example, you know, the box,

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I was like, someone asked me about it and I was like, oh, I'm, I'm

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sure that's like very deliberate.

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And I'm sure it's a great bond on both of those plastics and totally understand.

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it's tricky.

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Isn't it like getting that you want it to be strong.

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And so of course you're gonna do everything you can to make it as

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strong as possible and keeping it on the inside makes total sense.

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But

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It was outside inside, or we tried to do a little of both, but it's

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just, yeah, it's hard to control.

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And so it's like, all right, well, at this point, brand new product, I

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don't want a bunch of people going, oh, this broke because we only screwed it

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together.

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And so yeah, we put the glue on the inside.

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Maybe over time, we'll be able to like figure out how to minimize that.

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And

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I wonder if you can get black hot melt, like the same

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you can,

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and I had somebody recommend that, but the type we're using that's specialty for

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H D P E does not seem to come in that.

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But the other idea we had, which we haven't tried is just like black

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silicone which is an interesting thought.

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We don't know if it adheres, especially long term to HGP.

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So honestly the screws alone should hold really well.

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We've never like the one we've been using the whole time.

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Couple we've been using, we didn't glue the top at all, but we ever

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just like this hasn't been tested long enough, so yeah, no, I

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Yeah, that's cool.

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It's like when you pull bits of cars apart and you see like how much adhesive they

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pile into them behind the scenes, it's like, there's this black goop everywhere

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that's then been painted over, or

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Yeah,

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It's kind of almost more acceptable when it's black or like, it makes it

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feel more industrial or something.

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no for sure.

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Yeah,

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Cool.

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But yeah, no, in, in summary, baby pants, as you saw in the video, just like

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ridiculous improvement for us going from that ti tiny convoluted piece of crap to

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huge airflow and like big brushes, yeah.

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Immediately wanna add one to the other machine as well.

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Cuz the other machine is where we do our filthiest work with like

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machining this acoustic panel.

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We run this big half inch hoer with like a custom Shaer bit on it.

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And we run it all in one pass and just like this just stuff goes everywhere.

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How does that one tool change?

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Is it the same?

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Different tool changer.

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It's linear.

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Yeah.

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So yeah.

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Well done.

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Yeah, no, thanks.

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I, I was glad I got there safely.

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I think your example, other than not having dust collection, that

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machine, what you had before is about as dramatic as it gets like a two

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inch port is just like it's comical.

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Like that is basically what our ShopVac use here.

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It's like a hobby

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Yeah,

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So it made for a really good comparison video.

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So based on your notes, I'm guessing, you're thinking about

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how you're gonna sell more of this.

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What did I, what did I write down?

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You're gonna get a booth at a tool show and

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Oh, oh, I see what you're saying.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's kind of all compiled into one conversation of some friends that went

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to the woodworking show at Atlanta IWF.

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I was messaging with them after the fact.

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And one was like, oh, you should think about bringing some of

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your stuff there next year.

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You know, like the dust food and, and I was like, Hmm, yeah, never

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really considered like showing it one of those things before.

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I'm like our conversations about markets and stuff like that.

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I'm like, I wonder if this ever pays off because, this one person's

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example of the booth that they were associated with was 20 feet by 20 feet.

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And it costs $16,000 for a week.

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And that one doesn't surprise me all that much, but I was just doing the

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math of like, how would that pay off?

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Cause it's like, that's just a little part of it.

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Like you gotta bring a booth, you gotta pay for everybody to go there.

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All, you know, all this stuff.

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it's probably like double that booth cost.

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And so then I was just thinking, what if instead, there are companies like

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DMG is publicly said, like we're not gonna go to these things anymore.

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Instead what I've

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heard is we're gonna fly out prospective buyers to our facilities on our

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dime and like show them a good time.

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Basically show them our stuff.

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And that's a better investment than hoping somebody at a show wants to

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talk to them and like buy a machine.

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Wow, that that's amazing.

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Isn't that crazy?

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How do you apply that mentality to digital marketing?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So like the contrast that, you know, that's one example, but I was just

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thinking, if I spent $20,000 on digital marketing, would I get a better ROI than

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taking myself and employees to a show?

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be an interesting comparison study.

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You would think so.

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I would say yes.

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A hundred percent.

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Unless we were going to like a dust collection conference, it's just that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's a bit of a mind bending example from DMG.

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That's.

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Yeah.

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I don't remember where I heard that.

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I feel like it was either on a podcast.

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I don't know that source, but it's just an interesting idea from such a big company.

Speaker:

I mean, you imagine what it costs to ship some of those like mil turn

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like what?

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and yeah.

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And rig them in and out of the show and all of that.

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Yeah.

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Phenomenal amount of money.

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That's interesting.

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Yeah.

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It's kind of first take for me.

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That's kind of like the difference between undirected ad spend versus really

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tightly targeted digital marketing.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah.

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mm, cool.

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Wow.

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A lot to think about there.

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for sure.

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Yeah.

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Speaking of digital marketing, I tried a new email platform this week.

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I got served an that on Instagram for, you know, One of these email

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making apps called flow desk.

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And I just, at first glance, I was like, oh, their templates look quite nice and

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designy and were just appealing to me.

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So got a free trial and had a crack and just coincided with this week when

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I needed to get outta an email for a new Kitco sort of pre-launch campaign.

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And so I made that and Harry and Jay was like, what gem?

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What are you doing?

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If you verified our DNS service, blah, blah, blah.

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And I was like, oh yeah, I've done it.

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It hasn't said it's worked, but I've done it.

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I sent off a few test emails and then a J again was like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

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whoa, what's going on with these fonts?

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Like they're nonstandard.

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They're not gonna display properly in other browsers.

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It's like, wow, let's test it.

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Who's got it.

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Some, who's got the worst old, like email, like Ben, sent me

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his old Yahoo address and I sent.

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A test to Aaron's Hotmail and we checked that things were displaying.

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Okay.

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And we're like, cool.

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Yeah, it's not too bad.

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Send it, send off our emails.

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did it convert?

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You sent me some stats.

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I don't

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the open rates were pretty good, like 50, almost 60%, which I was happy

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That's great.

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through rate was decent and conversions were pretty minimal.

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But a lot of those leads were pretty old as well.

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These were the list of emails we've been collecting on the website for

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people that were interested in this product, knowing that it was coming.

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But we've been collecting those emails for months now, I

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think since, or maybe even may.

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So some of those leads were pretty old.

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Hmm.

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So fair enough.

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If they didn't go

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but that leads me to think though, that there's two things maybe to

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that, The open rate is really good.

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I think for anything that's like a signup based thing where

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you're like intentionally trying to get information that those

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numbers usually are better right.

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Than just like your random marketing email.

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But the conversion could be low for a bunch of reasons that they

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were just curious or they wanted in to see what the potential was.

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But

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There was no price point on it earlier either.

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Yeah, exactly.

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That's really good.

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That's good.

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Those are good click through.

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Did they click on the emails?

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All right.

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I think it was like 13, 14% or something,

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Yeah, that's pretty good too.

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but yeah, I don't have much to compare that to cuz we've

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done so little with email.

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And I've never really looked at the metrics in Shopify, cuz we've

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sent previous ones direct from Shopify and the metric interface

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in flow desk is way nicer.

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So I it's like right there and you can go, oh cool.

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And you can see it changing throughout the day as

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yeah, it definitely interests me.

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I've been trying to find an alternative to, I think I said this before in a

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MailChimp that I've used forever for NA and Portland CNC, just because

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when I started the Portland CNC one, it was like, it was just the cream

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of the crop and it's still a good service, but I just have an ethical

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issue with their now parent company.

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And also I'm like, I've kept it under, I'm somewhat proud of this in a weird way.

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I kept the free plan on both of them the entire time.

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It, maybe I should have had a larger audience by now, but like but I've

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kept it under, I've kind of like cold the lists down whenever, like, you

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know, I'm getting close because it's.

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Until I go massively over that.

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I'm just gonna be flirting with this line of like

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people that actually are engaging or not.

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And

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Jim never opens my emails.

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He can get deleted off the list.

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know,

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See

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no, I did see somebody where you're talking about my

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dust boot semi info thing.

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And you had signed up on the show recently, and then I just saw

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somebody else from, from like butter signed up for that thing again.

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And I think you're, I was like, they must be trying this out

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to see if they wanna try to.

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no doubt.

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Yep.

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interesting how much I'll try it.

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30 days.

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That's good.

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That's a good amount of time.

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It's a good trial.

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Yeah.

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And I'd segueing again, I guess, to you, that thing, did you watch that reel?

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I sent you a Tyler, the creator

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talking about

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but I would need to.

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your stuff.

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It's just this great little clip that Aaron sent me a little while ago

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struck a chord with me cuz he talks about it, of you know, kids these

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days, they just throw, you know, one story up on Instagram saying I've got

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a new track and then, but that's it.

Speaker:

And he's saying like I'm out here a year later after my album

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dropped still promoting it.

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Like still talking to you, telling you about it.

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It's just like I put so much like love and effort into making this.

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Why would I stop telling people about it?

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And it just really struck a chord with me of.

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Because I, I have moments all the time of like feel like

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I'm just pushing stuff down.

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People's throat.

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Why am I telling them again about kid parts or blah?

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It's like, actually, no, I put like years of R and D into this product.

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I'm gonna keep telling people about it.

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And I, I should feel okay about that.

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I'm not a business man, I'm a business, man!

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I didn't listen to it.

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I can relate to that I think a lot of my content on social media has been about

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desperates for months and I'm sure the people that potentially see most of

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them are like, all right, something else now let's see something else, you know?

Speaker:

But what's crazy about it is especially the way that Instagram

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has gone towards reels.

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It's all discovery based now.

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So like the people that see your stuff.

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We'll be some of your existing followers, but a lot of it is new people.

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And like the amount, even the amount of times I've explained or shown or have

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FAQs, we still get the same questions over and over of people that either

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haven't seen something or it didn't get translated to them in a certain

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way that does this work in this way?

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And it'll be like, yes, of course.

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or, you know, whatever the answer.

Speaker:

And it's, it's amazing how many times you can post about the same thing.

Speaker:

And still there's always, there's always somebody else that hasn't seen it.

Speaker:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker:

And even as someone in your audience who has seen a million

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dust boot videos posts, personally, it doesn't bother me whatsoever.

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I mean, Some part of it, you know, I'm along with you for the ride in

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terms of watching you make that and bring it out and being supportive

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and like buying one and like

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all of.

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yeah.

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Or maybe it's just, cuz I understand I'm I'm also trying to make content

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and promote products on Instagram.

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So I was like, of course he's gonna keep posting about it.

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So yeah, I'm probably not the right person to judge that, but I don't mind Justin

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keep, keep telling me about dust boots.

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someday we will all be just creators and we'll all be engaging with each other's

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content intentionally to help our friends

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That's right.

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That's right.

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gem a project.

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What pro you need

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I

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what's your don't have to do,

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no, I don't have enough to do.

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I just had, you know what I said earlier about slowing down?

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Well, I need a

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you should add

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something on that.

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I just had a sense this week of like, why again, why did I fail another week

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to get up early enough to come in and.

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Do R and D playtime in the workshop and had a moment on Thursday after Thursday.

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And towards the end of the week, I walked out onto the workshop floor

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and I went and stood in front of the pencil sharper for a while.

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And I was like, oh, pencil sharper.

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I miss you.

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I wanna play with you again.

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Yeah, I need to get back out there.

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And I've got, you know, a list of ideas that I do wanna work

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on some weird fixturing and like getting some new complex, off

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access joints happening and stuff.

Speaker:

So there's no shortage of things to do, but I do have one particularly

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silly and potentially meaty project incoming Nick Atkins, who

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is a boat builder in Melbourne.

Speaker:

I've probably mentioned before.

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He is a bit of a like Grasser guru.

Speaker:

I think I got shared, maybe I just saw his content recently or something.

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I don't know why.

Speaker:

mm.

Speaker:

He was on a, a local podcast recently, the shop store podcast.

Speaker:

It was a great interview with him anyway, super interesting guy.

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He messaged me a couple of weeks ago saying, Hey, there's all these like

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massive plastic pipes that have come out of the docks that need a home.

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They're gonna get scrapped and recycled.

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They're like 700 mill diameter.

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What it's at like three and a half feet, diameter pipes by four meters long.

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They need a home.

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And Laura and I were just like, right.

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Let's , get these pipes.

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We need them.

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Cuz Laura and I have been sort of chatting late at night on the couch

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about how we're gonna build a commercial composting machine that can actually

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deal with the volumes of saw dust.

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We generate.

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Because we've kind of tested what we can, but we're just, you know,

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now we're just accumulating sawdust and we don't have enough space to

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actually process it fast enough.

Speaker:

So we need to build a composting machine that can keep up with our sawdust.

Speaker:

We saw these parts and we're like, yes, this is just like the perfect

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starting point to build this hair brain scheme, machine something.

Speaker:

We don't know what the machine is yet, but we know that these

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pipes are gonna be part of it.

Speaker:

So there's a, semi-trailer coming this morning after we record, like

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with about 60, 64 meters of this pipe and poor Ben, our production manager

Speaker:

has been like diligently cleaning the workshop lately of like all my junkers.

Speaker:

Like Jim, do you need these things anymore?

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No.

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Okay.

Speaker:

Get rid of this, sell that, put this in the bin.

Speaker:

And then this week I was like, Hey Ben, there's a semi trailer

Speaker:

of More gem stuff coming oh, wow.

Speaker:

It'll be

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up, Ben cleaned the shop out of Gem's stuff.

Speaker:

And now he is just bought a semi to, to fill it up.

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That'll be fun.

Speaker:

That'll be my project for a while

Speaker:

I, I don't know that it's gonna make any sense to explain it.

Speaker:

So I also don't know if you know how you're gonna do it, but I'm

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very curious to see how these giant pipes go into a semi-trailer

Speaker:

and end up dealing with compost.

Speaker:

Doesn't make sense to me right now, but I like, I like the, the

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mystery of it

Speaker:

Oh, it doesn't make sense.

Speaker:

to us either.

Speaker:

at least Laura's involved.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That's great.

Speaker:

Mm.

Speaker:

literally yesterday as we were like rounding out the preorders

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and I've also my, my R and D time is first half of my day.

Speaker:

I've just been working on fixturing and thinking about the ATC stuff.

Speaker:

And before packing boxes and working on the shop yesterday and I was staring

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at the router and I was like, oh, I've got another idea for a new thing.

Speaker:

Like, and that's usually an exciting, like, it's a good moment.

Speaker:

We usually talk about it for a while.

Speaker:

And we never like say no, don't do it.

Speaker:

But it's also like, that's like just how I'm wired, where it's like, alright, I

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got enough of the old thing figured out

Speaker:

give me another new thing.

Speaker:

Yeah that's cool.

Speaker:

No, I'm in the, I do the same thing.

Speaker:

I'm I'm terrible at finishing stuff, guess.

Speaker:

Thankfully, I have a team now to finish.

Speaker:

And be diligent and do their jobs well, and I, I scratch around doing

Speaker:

a halfass job, just starting things.

Speaker:

in listening back to our discussion about you launching new products

Speaker:

and how the list has gotten long.

Speaker:

I got defensive for you.

Speaker:

And I was just like, it's almost like, the man, but it's your own company.

Speaker:

like, doesn't make any sense, but like, they're trying to hold me back.

Speaker:

I just wanna make new things.

Speaker:

but it's not that at all.

Speaker:

It's just like, just do a good job, in certain ways does hold back.

Speaker:

The kind of like raw progress.

Speaker:

That's if you stifle that though, to a, to a certain degree, you turn into

Speaker:

a big stodgy company, in my opinion, like I, and there's other sides to that.

Speaker:

Yeah, no, I agree.

Speaker:

There has to be a balance and Yeah, while it's incredibly

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valuable to be held to account.

Speaker:

I am aware of that, of not letting systems override the creativity

Speaker:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker:

too much.

Speaker:

There's just needs to be like a, I dunno what you call it an MVP basically, right?

Speaker:

Like the bare minimum of where we launch a product.

Speaker:

I, if you get past that, it's, it's all gravy.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

All right.

Speaker:

Well, I have incredibly cool tech to share.

Speaker:

I don't know if you saw this

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ahead of time, the Penta web machine link there.

Speaker:

Um, just watch you open this.

Speaker:

Ah, so the pocket see people,

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Mm-hmm

Speaker:

what.

Speaker:

it's crazy.

Speaker:

What the hell?

Speaker:

can that look?

Speaker:

So good?

Speaker:

I don't know.

Speaker:

I immediately sent this to the other people at Autodesk and I was

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like, where is our version of this?

Speaker:

This is so cool.

Speaker:

That for the people that aren't visually seeing this it's Penta machine company

Speaker:

or machining, I dunno what their full name is, but they're the old pocket.

Speaker:

And see they're coming out with this new five axis machine we've talked about.

Speaker:

Um, but they have a web simulation of this machine that will be running at IMTS it's,

Speaker:

it's designed the everything's parts, but it's a full five axis simulation

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of the machine in a web browser.

Speaker:

And it's like super easy to control.

Speaker:

There's a link.

Speaker:

Whole, I recognize the part

Speaker:

yeah, it's that carabiner that designed the everything's been making.

Speaker:

So this'll be running supposedly at IMTS.

Speaker:

How do you say that?

Speaker:

Cara-beener

Speaker:

Carabiner.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Cool.

Speaker:

How do you

Speaker:

I just thought you said some Cina.

Speaker:

I just misheard you thought we had an aluminum situation.

Speaker:

it's in there?

Speaker:

I mean, incredibly attractive work holding too

Speaker:

with

Speaker:

very good.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That's cool.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

This machine is just like, I'm similar to our conversations about five access

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and like trying to find a reason, like, I'm trying to find a reason to buy one

Speaker:

of these things when they come out.

Speaker:

Cause they're just it basically like a large 3d printer enclosure,

Speaker:

but it's, it's a proper spindle five access machine with tool changing and

Speaker:

Oh, it's getting a bit hot and heavy in here.

Speaker:

It's pretty.

Speaker:

off.

Speaker:

Wow.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker:

I could just watch that for the next half an hour.

Speaker:

Cool.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Pretty good working.

Speaker:

So we, we have a lot of notes about hiring.

Speaker:

We both

Speaker:

Yeah, we do.

Speaker:

Does that mean you're hiring?

Speaker:

no, unfortunately not at the moment, hopefully soon, but I have

Speaker:

a friend that was wanting to chat about hiring for the first time.

Speaker:

And so I was kind of like reminiscing of my thoughts about

Speaker:

hiring for the first time and like how I feel now versus then, and.

Speaker:

The difference of the first person you hire versus the third or

Speaker:

the second, even the impact that first person makes is so dramatic.

Speaker:

Anyway, that I didn't have anything very specific, but just

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kind of thinking about it again.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I was chatting to a client slash fellow maker the other day.

Speaker:

He does sort of similar work, but he is still in that phase where he

Speaker:

is just a solo operator and we were chatting about, you know, how butter's

Speaker:

team has grown and how he's still running solo and, you know, enjoys it.

Speaker:

And I was just, you know, remembering back to those early, early days where

Speaker:

there's kind of, there is a sweet spot there where depending on the sort of

Speaker:

work you're doing, it can be really effective to be a single operator.

Speaker:

You can run quite high margins.

Speaker:

You probably have to work more than is healthy.

Speaker:

Yes.

Speaker:

make it all work, but like, there's a kind of a sweet spot.

Speaker:

We can work like six days a week and earn really good money and

Speaker:

do great work and just make it all hustle and make it all work.

Speaker:

But yes, I think, and then there's this kind of, I feel like then there's this

Speaker:

very awkward stage beyond that, where it's like a small support team, incredibly

Speaker:

effective, but like very hard to make the numbers work for a while there.

Speaker:

And I feel like there's a kind of a, I don't know.

Speaker:

I mean, everyone's business model is different, but just speaking

Speaker:

from our experience, was that sort of awkward in between stage

Speaker:

between like one on two people.

Speaker:

And now having a team of, I think, nine, including me,

Speaker:

I feel like we're now getting back to a sweet spot of like, cool.

Speaker:

All right.

Speaker:

The business model's starting to work again.

Speaker:

The margins are getting back to where they should be.

Speaker:

Whereas when we're kind of six, seven people, then it just really

Speaker:

wasn't working very well at all.

Speaker:

And obviously there's heaps of factors that lead to that, but it's not just

Speaker:

about team size, yeah, I do feel like there's an awkward in between stage

Speaker:

I have this continual thought and it's never cause I've,

Speaker:

I've also never made it pass.

Speaker:

I feel like I said this a couple weeks back, but where your

Speaker:

company's at, it feels like.

Speaker:

The point passed the awkward stage I, we had four people total at one

Speaker:

point and it felt great, but I always felt so much pressure we were always

Speaker:

flirting with not having enough money.

Speaker:

And and I think I'm just thinking back of like, if I had to answer for you, it's

Speaker:

probably that we've never kept the jobs.

Speaker:

I haven't done a good enough job of like selling enough jobs

Speaker:

that keep things consistent.

Speaker:

And I do have an interesting perspective now of, for the first time having

Speaker:

somewhat consistent sales of something.

Speaker:

like a product versus service that we still had really

Speaker:

low job shop, work revenue.

Speaker:

Last two months, at least it's been frustrating, but weirdly enough

Speaker:

though, like other sales of products have, you know, grown obviously in

Speaker:

a way that weren't there before, and that's definitely helped.

Speaker:

And I can now see this like potential where my dream of always

Speaker:

having those two things be somewhat like a 50 50 is, would be ideal.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

And then they can, play off of each other.

Speaker:

And I think in my, my perspective, I'd always rather have more product sales, cuz

Speaker:

it's just seems much more controllable.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

but I don't know.

Speaker:

I don't know how now how you get from one or two or four employees

Speaker:

and team size to that next stage.

Speaker:

And like, especially in that, like you didn't ever really

Speaker:

hire a salesperson, right.

Speaker:

and now current sort of thinking is not to think too much about the team size,

Speaker:

but let the work determine what we need.

Speaker:

So we are very much at the moment.

Speaker:

We're just like trying to really consistently push sales

Speaker:

Mm-hmm

Speaker:

than we ever have before.

Speaker:

And not, not think too much about the effect that that will have on

Speaker:

the workshop, but let the workshop feed back when it becomes an issue.

Speaker:

It's like, we, we, we have way more capacity in terms of what

Speaker:

we can do out there on the floor.

Speaker:

So at the moment, the struggle is trying to just like sell

Speaker:

enough, to keep them busy

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

beyond that point and find where the new bottlenecks are.

Speaker:

Cause at the moment that bottleneck is very much in sales and quoting.

Speaker:

So yeah.

Speaker:

I would love to hire someone into that sales position this

Speaker:

year, but we'll see how we go.

Speaker:

I have this problem with recruitment where just like in life probably where everyone

Speaker:

I meet, I'm just like, oh, I like you.

Speaker:

I wanna give you a job.

Speaker:

I'm like, I'm like that dog on app is like,

Speaker:

Like.

Speaker:

Yeah, I find it really difficult to sort of separate the, what we're actually

Speaker:

looking for in the job description from like meeting all these new people

Speaker:

and like having engaging interesting conversations with them and learning

Speaker:

about their back stories and just, yeah, I possibly need to be removed

Speaker:

from the recruitment process for that reason, so we can make more objective

Speaker:

like decisions about who we hire.

Speaker:

That is funny.

Speaker:

I have that same reaction.

Speaker:

we'll have deliveries from a company and sometimes I'm like,

Speaker:

oh, you're such a good employee.

Speaker:

Like, I , what's your name?

Speaker:

Like, we're, what's your phone number?

Speaker:

I,

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not that I don't need a delivery person, but like, would you, you seem like

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you could be very trainable and you could do something for us, you know?

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I think that's really interesting point and some not

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something you should suppress.

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I think you should be taking numbers

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basically a register,

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like, because when it comes to the moment, when you do need someone to help

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you, like, you don't want cold leads, you want be able to go back and go like,

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oh, is that delivery driver was awesome.

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I wonder if wonder if they're looking for work, just give

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them a call and suss them out.

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Do you remember me?

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I've had, I've had applications from which I don't think they were in any

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wrong position to apply, but it was, I've had applications from existing

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clients, repeat clients, like people that work an employee of theirs.

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And I'm like, I can't, even if you're the , I don't know.

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We'd have to have a weird conversation.

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If you were the best applicant your boss you're, you're the only

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assistant for your company, right?

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Like like, and I remember having the conversation with this person,

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the owner about how happy they were to have a new employee.

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And I was like, I cannot take that person.

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Like.

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No, I don't think it's ethical to poach people by any means,

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but I think it's important to, I suppose, be always scouting.

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And then that, that was something I sort of came to in the last week of

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like, I often haul back from putting recruitment processes in place because

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I don't like disappointing people.

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So I don't like saying, Hey, there's a job coming up at like butter, cuz

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then I have to disappoint a whole bunch of people who don't get that job.

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Yeah

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But.

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The distinction I came to was like, okay, I don't wanna be recruiting all the time,

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but I do wanna be scouting all the time.

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So I wanna be, if any little connections come up, I wanna be having conversations

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with people of like, Hey, we're not hiring right now, but like, what do you do?

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What are you interested in?

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is what we do come and have a coffee.

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And then, so when we do need someone in a hurry, it's just a matter

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of like, looking at that list and going, oh, who, who have I spoken to?

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Let's just see where they're at now.

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They might not be available of

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course, but they might be looking, they might be looking for a change as well.

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So.

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I don't know if it's ever proved fruitful yet, but I leave an

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application open all the time on their website, kind of for the same reason.

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Like not to, I don't, I don't know.

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Sure.

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To some degree it could be wasting people's time.

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I very clear on the website.

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Like we aren't hiring, but if you want to, you know, fill this

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out, that's on, you know, on you.

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And when you look, I look over all of 'em I can't remember that that's ever

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turned into anything at this point, but

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Hmm.

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Yeah,

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I like that.

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Yeah.

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If you actually use that as a resource.

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Fantastic.

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I mean, if it's just going into your inbox and you're never looking at it ever

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again, like

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straight to my spam actually.

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No,

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you, you're probably wasting your time and their time, but

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no, it's

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become a, usable list then

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Yeah.

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It's it's, I've had one air table list since I started trying to hire.

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So it's every application.

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Yeah,

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Very cool,

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yeah.

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I thought when you were saying scouting 365, you had found some

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software cuz you know, we're mostly a podcast about software

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dear.

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Yep.

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it's a Microsoft product office 365 now for scouting.

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Hm.

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Oh, I

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are here.

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Yeah.

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have a weird question, but you do a lot of this stuff.

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Have you figured out any systems for when somebody orders a product?

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Do you just put like, I guess maybe I'll go back.

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When you, when somebody orders a product and it has an assembly

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guide to it of some sort, how do you give that to the customer?

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But we tend to give them the wrong assembly guide.

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that's

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Uh,

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That goes down really well.

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What do we do we have, when a job gets bundled up and wrapped to go out

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the door, it gets a sticker put on it with the product name and a QR code.

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And that QR code links to some sort of asset, whether it be a video on

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YouTube of how to put it together or a PDF or a webpage, we've got a real

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mixed bag of assets from different eras, but it'll link to something useful.

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And that's, we've got, we've got a lot of work to tie those assets together and

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make new ones which are more relevant and better and blah, blah, blah.

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But they scan it with their phone and pull some sort of link up that should

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help them put it together basically, or tell them how to look after it.

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We've got one that goes on as well, which is like a care and maintenance QR code,

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and just takes them to a webpage where it,

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they can click through tabs and see which material they're working

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with and how to look after it.

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I was just struck by the idea.

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So like we just, I just make like a most of the time I'll make some sheet

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that gets handed out, you know, put in the box, got a Nat attacking me.

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And I realized while packing a dust boot, you probably saw it's like the little

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sheet that has like some QR codes on it.

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Cause I, I try to do the same.

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I like a QR code or a link to a web asset that can, it can always be updated.

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So like, If it's in transit or something happens, like they can always get back

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to the thing that's important, like the guide or whatever that is, you can

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always be updated on the other end.

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And I realized one of them, one of them, I hadn't put anything in the box.

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So I just emailed them personally.

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And it was like, Hey, this is what I forgot to put in the box.

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You need this to, there's a couple details.

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If you have a shop saver that are pretty important about the dust boot,

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don't remember seeing that in the box.

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you just dump it

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was just so excited about the stickers.

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I was like, yeah.

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Stickers.

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Yeah.

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I, I try to put it in a way that you can't miss it, but I guess you can miss it.

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I

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interesting.

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Anyway, I had this thought that I also wanna send everybody that

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orders any product, whatever we're putting in the box.

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I also wanted to come digitally to you and we send you the shipping notification.

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And so I was trying to think of like, How do you do that?

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If it's not built into like your shipping system or like, could it be in Shopify

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if that's what you're shipping with?

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is there a, is there an app or a thing that's like for kid parts,

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here's the PDF that gets slipped off with it, you know, I don't know.

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And it comes in the email, so you have it in two places.

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And there's never, like, you could forget the one in the box

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on accident, and then I dunno.

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Yeah.

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I think Jay's built that in air table and Shopify.

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I dunno if it goes, it goes to the customer in a paper form, but it

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could easily be an email as well.

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Jay's built a product builder in air table that you, we can build out all the.

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Components of every product

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Wow.

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and quantities of each kit.

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And then that's linked to the order printer app in Shopify, so that when

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an order comes in, it automatically pulls those parts out of air table and

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builds a, a checklist for shipping.

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And so that gets ordered.

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That's what we look at on the workshop floor of like, oh, someone's ordered

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the key parts that should contain these parts, check, check, check,

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check, check, all the boxes, initial packed by gem that goes in the box.

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So we've checked it.

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And then it goes to the customer as well.

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So they've got like a checklist of what should be in the box.

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And it it's quite a convoluted

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beast that Jay's built.

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It's quite hard to drive and add new things to it, but it is,

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it was quite complex to make, but it's the end result is.

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yeah, for sure.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Well, I, it's kind of about what I'm doing too and It's like some things I

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wanna put effort into, like, I want that solution, but I also don't want to spend.

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Weeks on figuring that out.

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And then each new product, like you're describing a product builder, right?

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Like that's kind of what you need, but it's also very complicated to like

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set up if it's also complicated to set up and use, it's a problem for me.

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Like we have a whole knack wall thing that's made, but it's super

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complicated to continue to use.

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And thus, I haven't used it because it's too complicated.

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yeah,

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anyway,

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yeah.

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Look, and that's one of the things that I'm ignoring on the product launch list

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of like, I don't want to go into air table and try and remember how to build out

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The components of this new product.

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I just.

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Sell units and get it out to people.

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So yeah, it's always a balance.

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And of a little follow up on that same idea.

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Rick.

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And I very quickly just adopted the idea that we would just start putting

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in any concept of a product straight into the same inventory, like database

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of airable for a product at the beginning, because we kept having that.

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We talked about that problem where I would just have stuff like where's

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the, where's the nuts and bolts for this product.

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Oh, I don't know.

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It's in Justin's email probably or like even honestly it's been really helpful

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cuz I'll do like revision detail notes in that now just in a note in the air table

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product about like, oh, we changed the spacing of this, to this, on this version.

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And it's like, now I have it somewhere versus

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That's cool.

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just so simple.

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Yeah, that's cool.

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That reminds me, we've got a change log for products somewhere, and I'm

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sure it's an air table, but I don't know where, so I, I don't use it.

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So that's

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yep.

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the, the, the dangers of building complex systems.

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Mm.

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Oh, well, let's just go make some new stuff.

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for sure.

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I need to work on my cabinets this weekend.

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So that'll be, that's my next step.

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Making fronts for the

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cabinets.

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We've got 'em Aaron's, Aaron's built them all over our house.

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The, the boxes, the first floor, we just have like Ikea boxes all around now.

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And so I just have to, and I got the bamboo, so I have to

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cool.

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figure out how to make the fronts work for off my machine, onto their boxes.

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Awesome.

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without, without making it complicated fusion model.

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I'm not gonna let myself mess around with like making the perfect parametric shit.

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I'm just gonna like probably rhino.

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Honestly, I might just rhino model each cabinet.

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So it's done.

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And I don't break anything.

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Yeah, sounds fast and efficient.

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Get it done.

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get done.

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Smash through quite a bit there.

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I woke up earlier today.

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I'm feeling good.

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Good.

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What's early.

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Six, not early for you.

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Hmm.

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Hmm.

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That's good.

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That's respectable.

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I watched the sunrise behind you, basically.

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You did.

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Yeah.

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It's gotten

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Hey, no, you, you can't say you got up early just cuz you watched my sunrise.

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doesn't count you.

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Got up early cheer time.

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I think that counts.

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cool.

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I'm hot

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But

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need to turn my air

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yeah, I'm gonna go and see where I'm gonna store all these pipes.

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Where are you gonna put that semi trailer?

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Yeah, yeah.

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Have you told Ben about this yet?

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Yeah.

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I don't know if he quite believes me, but yeah.

Speaker:

No, I really, I bought a semi trailer.

Speaker:

Cool man.

Speaker:

All right off.

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About the Podcast

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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.
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Justin Brouillette

Founder of Portland CNC & Nack