Episode 7

7 - Just Make Stuff

The guys both need to Just Make Stuff. Design tools like pen and paper, Rhino, Fusion 360.

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Product Development

  • Jem: Be bold, say no to developing other people's products and invest in our own!
  • Product dev ideas
  • Being led by process or by needs?
  • The process around new ideas, sketches or straight to CAD? Which CAD first?



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HOSTS

Jem Freeman

Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Like Butter

More Links


Justin Brouillette

Portland, Oregon, USA

PDX CNC

Nack

More Links

Transcript
Jem:

Come on windows.

Jem:

It's not that hard.

Jem:

You can do it.

Jem:

You know I'm replacing you.

Jem:

Just, just hang in there.

Justin:

It was all the things

Justin:

restarted my

Justin:

computer today.

Justin:

still crap.

Justin:

All

Justin:

over

Justin:

feeling better.

Justin:

You're back in the shop.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Oh, there you go.

Jem:

Recording.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Feeling

Jem:

95%.

Justin:

Wow.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

That's quick.

Jem:

A hundred percent.

Jem:

But this morning I'm like, yeah, not quiet

Justin:

Yeah, but.

Jem:

about energy levels.

Jem:

Good.

Jem:

Thankfully.

Justin:

No kidding.

Justin:

Awesome.

Justin:

Quite a see it.

Justin:

We're not like in a tent.

Justin:

Not that that wasn't fun, but.

Justin:

just for your sake.

Jem:

It's good to check-in.

Jem:

What's happening this week.

Justin:

did some job shop work, got some parts to go out.

Justin:

I've got a pile of whiteboard prototypes, or not prototypes to actually

Justin:

production run that need to go to the

Justin:

finisher, which is Nice This has been in process since like

Justin:

months.

Jem:

Nice now, is that what you're countersinking in the steel.

Justin:

Those

Justin:

were the reference for

Justin:

Mike House.

Justin:

I'm making, I made some custom

Justin:

like side tables for our bedroom and I was always intending them to be steel fronts

Justin:

and

Justin:

the slightly outside of my normal range.

Justin:

So I

Justin:

never actually got those finished like a year ago until they've been

Justin:

plywood, like crappy plywood, the other kind of a surprise for my wife.

Justin:

The whiteboards are also steel.

Jem:

Have you got a monitor, like a CCTV of the workshop up there, or like a

Justin:

Yes.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

that's fair.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

a,

Justin:

You're

Jem:

you're always looking out that direction when you're considering

Jem:

what's happening in the workshop.

Jem:

I'm like, oh, maybe you can see something Yeah.

Justin:

There's Couple of views and the printer's also going right

Justin:

now.

Justin:

I can see a little

Justin:

bit of that, so it's

Justin:

definitely helps me visualize what, what is actually happening out

Justin:

there?

Justin:

What are we working on?

Jem:

gazing out the digital window.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

pretty useful.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

How about you?

Jem:

I'm just glad to be back.

Jem:

Really.

Jem:

I had a couple of days working at home at the start of the week, cause

Jem:

I couldn't quite clear my cough

Jem:

and technically I couldn't go back until I was clear that,

Jem:

And working from home was fine, but you know, pretty hectic with

Jem:

the two little ones running around.

Justin:

Just go out to the tent again.

Jem:

So came back in yesterday and it's just really nice to be

Jem:

back in here in, in amongst it

Jem:

and

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

things.

Jem:

Yeah, but at the same time,

Jem:

get that perspective of having been off for a week and

Jem:

then coming back in and sort

Jem:

of, I was shocked this week to discover how much time I spend in

Jem:

meetings.

Justin:

oh,

Jem:

it's like, wow, this is my life now.

Jem:

Like,

Justin:

I'm going to quit

Jem:

you know, part of it was catching up on stuff I'd missed,

Jem:

but a lot of it, was.

Jem:

just stuff that's in my default diary, that's just meeting after meeting or call

Jem:

a

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

meeting with a client and so valuable stuff.

Jem:

But yeah, I guess having been away and then come back, I was like, oh wow.

Jem:

I thought I spent a lot of my week doing

Jem:

this now.

Jem:

So

Jem:

that was a good little perspective shift

Jem:

to become aware of that.

Jem:

But now I got pretty well.

Jem:

What kind of, I suppose we were running into the end.

Jem:

We have a media financial year.

Jem:

When does your financial year end?.

Justin:

I just somehow ended up with

Justin:

the calendar year.

Justin:

I don't know how that happened forever ago.

Jem:

but can you do either or over there?

Justin:

I don't really know.

Justin:

I know we had a lawyer help us start the LLC and I somehow that worked out.

Justin:

I know it's just always been calendar year, which is.

Jem:

Okay.

Jem:

Right.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Our financial year starts in July, 1st of

Jem:

July.

Jem:

So we're

Jem:

trying to hit a certain revenue target like the backseat six weeks to go.

Jem:

So chasing the custom work pretty hard And also

Jem:

like a bit of a marketing push, I think over the, next six weeks to try

Jem:

and get the web orders flowing again.

Jem:

But it's so weird.

Jem:

, like we chatted about the other day when we were talking marketing,

Jem:

. It's out of the blue this week.

Jem:

So I had a chat with Will from Concrete Digital.

Jem:

Who's our guy that helps us with marketing.

Jem:

And then I don't think he changed anything at his end yet.

Jem:

We just started making plans for the next, you know, six weeks.

Jem:

And then yesterday, just out of no way, mid-week Like we usually

Jem:

Don't sell anything on the website midweek it's always sort

Jem:

of after hours or weekends, you.

Jem:

know, people at home.

Justin:

Interesting.

Jem:

And then yesterday, Wednesday we had a, like, I haven't checked, but possibly

Jem:

a record day of sales just out of nowhere.

Jem:

So look

Jem:

weird.

Justin:

Whoa,

Justin:

something just drastically changed on your microphone.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

So that's

Justin:

Sound like, I was in your throat.

Justin:

Sounds good now.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Cool.

Justin:

Wow.

Justin:

That's that's fantastic.

Justin:

Did you get, do you see, I think Shopify has decent data on that,

Justin:

but it, you see like attribution, like you have any idea what it was.

Jem:

I find the attribution data really patchy

Justin:

The.

Jem:

black, almost all the sales that I looked at that came through yesterday.

Jem:

I would just like, you know,

Jem:

first session direct from,

Jem:

It was either a direct URL.

Jem:

It was just, just a direct visit from search

Jem:

Very rarely do we see an attribution to marketing efforts in Shopify?

Justin:

It's very frustrating when you like, have all this analytics set

Justin:

up And then you can't tell like the, most specific thing it's like this

Justin:

is, this should be always the case.

Justin:

I should always know.

Justin:

You know, like, unless somebody is using some, even if they're using a

Justin:

VPN, you'd still see that they clicked on a Google like link, you know, like

Justin:

it shows where they come in anyway.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I always find that interesting.

Jem:

I don't know if this is just me, but I find myself when I get

Jem:

served an ad that peaks my interest

Jem:

in Instagram or something I'll often close Instagram, and then go off to a set,

Jem:

you know, just open a new tab in Chrome

Jem:

and go direct search to their website.

Jem:

And

Jem:

, I'm definitely adverse to following,

Jem:

Link clicks through ads.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

I wonder whether that's more

Jem:

common

Justin:

Well,

Jem:

I think it is.

Justin:

I, I don't know.

Justin:

I guess I know exactly what you mean.

Justin:

And I think the,

Justin:

when you were describing it,

Justin:

I was thinking it's like kind of the best practice of not

Justin:

clicking on a phishing

Justin:

link.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like go commit yourself.

Justin:

Don't click on the link.

Jem:

Exactly.

Jem:

But yeah, not good to be back.

Jem:

Plenty of stuff going on.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

things continued to go fine without you.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Seemingly,

Jem:

That's something I've been considering too this week is what did I not do last week?

Jem:

That just worked without me,

Jem:

that I can now sort

Jem:

of having proven that can I what can I delegate or

Jem:

just get off my plate?

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

So that's been an interesting exercise.

Jem:

The other main thing that I think has come to light

Jem:

is,

Jem:

just how finite my R and D time is product development

Jem:

time.

Jem:

Either need to make some hard decisions about.

Jem:

Clearly saying no, or starting to sort of shut down doing product

Jem:

development for other people

Jem:

and just really.

Jem:

focusing on doing product development for

Jem:

us.

Jem:

I've been thinking about that a lot this week.

Justin:

Yeah,

Justin:

Well, you see, you must be seeing you, you've mentioned this a couple times.

Justin:

You must either

Justin:

a want to do it for yourself.

Justin:

I think we both have that feeling or you're seeing that like the rise in sales

Justin:

or something like you're, you're seeing a trend where it's becoming a better

Justin:

deal for you to do it for yourself then than other people for you,

Justin:

for the business.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I think it's just really hard to quote R and D for other people.

Jem:

And then make any money on it.

Jem:

While whilst it can be a really rich conversation and relationship with a

Jem:

client it's yeah, it's very hard to judge.

Jem:

I find it hard to charge enough for it legitimately.

Jem:

But I was interested

Jem:

in terms of product development, like what your process is in

Jem:

terms of idea generation, like, are you someone that's led by

Jem:

a problem?

Jem:

Oh, geez.

Jem:

Just find yourself coming up with random ideas.

Jem:

Like, yeah.

Jem:

What's your process there?

Justin:

oh boy.

Justin:

All it's been all over the place.

Justin:

I can very easily say though, right now that the best let's say products

Justin:

are the things that we've, that have worked the best that have sold that

Justin:

have had the greatest reception are all

Justin:

solving problems like genuinely.

Justin:

And it's usually.

Justin:

I think most of them have come from, oh my ideas, I guess, or my starting point.

Justin:

And they're usually something in my life that I don't like and want to improve.

Justin:

And when that genuinely works and it's not super super niche it turns into

Justin:

something that I have no, like the laptop stand, actually, my friend came up with

Justin:

that, but like this calendar I just never could visually like process the

Justin:

serpentine back and forth with a calendar,

Justin:

but I'd look at it and be like, ah, which week is, and then if

Justin:

you jump to the next line and

Justin:

it just was hard for me to see.

Justin:

So I made a calendar that was top to bottom one through

Justin:

31 and I printed it out.

Justin:

My friend had a plotter and

Jem:

let's just have linear

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

drop.

Justin:

I never intended to sell it really.

Justin:

And then,

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

that's kind of, I've slowly trained my brain from.

Justin:

Now it's like, well,

Justin:

could I make a thing that would be a product that would also

Justin:

be this problem solving thing?

Justin:

Cause obviously it's turned into a business, we've tried the opposite

Justin:

way over the years here and generated

Justin:

by, oh, we have all these great tools.

Justin:

How do we make a product that for example, the mill could make, and that never works.

Justin:

It's like almost perverse in it's wait that

Justin:

it creates a product and honestly never has it just never, you get so far in it.

Justin:

And you're like, well, what is this trying to solve in the end here?

Justin:

this isn't even a good

Justin:

thing?

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

That makes

Jem:

sense.

Jem:

I've definitely had that thought before, like trying to justify new

Jem:

tools or different equipment And trying to come at it from that angle,

Jem:

but it's yeah, it's almost impossible, Come back from that direction.

Jem:

I

Jem:

reckon,

Jem:

like I find it much more powerful to be, to have the limitation

Jem:

of what we've already got,

Jem:

whether it's the tooling or the

Jem:

machine that's available and then trying to solve a problem

Justin:

Yup.

Jem:

with what's available and yeah.

Jem:

Getting creative

Jem:

with the mains to do that.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I've definitely tried to train myself to think over the years,

Justin:

like there's a lesson that tried to teach us early on in school.

Justin:

That constraints are

Justin:

usually for the better in the end.

Justin:

Like if you, if you get an a blank check and somebody says you can use any

Justin:

tool you want, you can buy any tool.

Justin:

You know, community size, it's probably going to suck in the end.

Justin:

it's just not going to be good.

Justin:

There's probably examples of that.

Justin:

I don't, I can't think off the top of my head, but I guess an

Justin:

example would be a McMansion.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

You know, those like crappies probably mostly American there's

Justin:

there's websites dedicated to

Justin:

this where people have all the money and nobody will tell them no.

Justin:

and so they have 17 styles, a window on the front of their

Justin:

house.

Justin:

Cause they thought it looked cool.

Justin:

You know,

Justin:

constraints make for better things.

Justin:

I definitely know what you mean.

Justin:

There

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

absolutely.

Justin:

I've found on product development.

Justin:

I don't think I've had a better

Justin:

personal feeling about developing products than in the last like year

Justin:

and a half working on this Nack wall thing, because whatever it is about it,

Justin:

the like constraint being that it is.

Justin:

Kind of notched wall of a grid

Justin:

means that it's, you know, whatever we make that goes with it has to work

Justin:

on that system.

Justin:

These, these holes, you kind of start somewhere and it has to work with that.

Justin:

And almost every time we've made it in different places, all around the

Justin:

shop, just to test it, to kind of

Justin:

evolve different aspects of it.

Justin:

And it's

Justin:

like I mentioned before, the kind of morale around creating a

Justin:

thing to solve a problem for your

Justin:

own space.

Justin:

That could be something you sell is fantastic.

Justin:

And I just

Justin:

love

Justin:

every time.

Justin:

I think there's like one thing that we've really been

Justin:

challenged by, which was making just a simple peg or like a hook.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

They all looked either every time it's either, it looks like a

Justin:

thumb or like a male sex member.

Justin:

Every time cannot get away

Justin:

from it.

Justin:

I guess maybe this is the good transition to that.

Justin:

We made this little thing I showed on

Justin:

Instagram.

Justin:

It's just a peg and it goes with the T clamp and there's

Justin:

actually one holding up my bag.

Justin:

I

Justin:

put my bag on the floor until yesterday.

Justin:

It's got its own problems, but yeah, this was pretty satisfying

Justin:

to finally come up with something

Justin:

that wasn't, it still has a thumb I think, in the end, but

Jem:

It does.

Jem:

Yeah, it looks pretty heavy duty.

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

two inches thick.

Justin:

Probably, yeah.

Justin:

It's probably especially with the stele limit and Bakker.

Justin:

but yeah.

Justin:

it's simple for now.

Justin:

These are just

Justin:

prototypes.

Justin:

They need a little bit more polished shown, but

Jem:

That's cool.

Jem:

I'm interested looking at your wall behind you and like I've got, you know,

Jem:

peg peg boards, but I suppose more broadly when you're designing a system,

Jem:

how, how quickly did you commit to Like

Jem:

the spacing of the whole.

Jem:

And do you, do you have doubts as you move forward about whether that was the right

Jem:

decision

Jem:

and backwards compatibility and stuff Like that?

Jem:

I find that a really challenging area when you're developing more

Jem:

than just a singular product, you're trying to develop,

Jem:

A,

Jem:

world or a system of parts that all talk to each other.

Justin:

I got really lucky or maybe it was some kind of like

Justin:

years of design intuition.

Justin:

I doubt that.

Justin:

I think I just got lucky.

Justin:

I was working on it at like Christmas at my in-laws two years ago.

Justin:

I was like, I always get kind of, I won't say bored necessarily, but my

Justin:

mind wanders and everybody was off doing something and it's like, oh I should, we

Justin:

should get back to that grid wall thing.

Justin:

We were working on at one point

Justin:

and I came up with kind of the spacing that just seemed like it worked.

Justin:

it's a 200 millimeters.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I went with all metric, which is kind of crazy.

Justin:

And that the answer to why was that all, if I make the panel sizes, they fit in

Justin:

set on a standard sheet of plywood here.

Justin:

I can get three of these panels from one sheet of plywood and cut

Justin:

all the sides and all the spacings, like we don't have to get into

Justin:

fractions at all, which is fantastic.

Justin:

And it actually just, perfect reason to why metric is definitely better.

Justin:

I've never disputed that.

Justin:

It's just unfortunate here.

Justin:

So I think I got lucky in that sense and what's great about how this works

Justin:

is we actually have a, a hundred millimeter spacing on this wall.

Justin:

I was the first one we did,

Justin:

and it was just a little too much in the end, and this is

Justin:

kind of a nice, happy medium for now, but you can

Justin:

totally, he can't go.

Justin:

We couldn't go.

Justin:

Wider spacing and have things still work on it, but this way we

Justin:

can go down and then have more adjustability.

Jem:

Yeah, I guess 200 is quite big to start with, but it's also,

Jem:

it's a very neat number.

Jem:

So you can pop that and still have, things

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like one of the if we thought about the next version that

Justin:

we haven't sold this one yet,

Justin:

but would be to make smaller

Justin:

panels that have finer spacing

Justin:

yet.

Jem:

yeah.

Justin:

little organizer, board kind of things,

Justin:

but

Jem:

clip onto the bigger board.

Justin:

you

Justin:

totally could.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

We've made one of those.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like a nested endless stacking board of boards.

Jem:

Yeah, that's cool.

Jem:

I find 'em without kit of parts, shelving system, I committed

Jem:

to dimensions too early

Jem:

and now like two years later,

Jem:

I've got doubts or just, yeah.

Jem:

like, this things I really want to change, but at the same time, I want

Jem:

to maintain backwards compatibility for all the customers who already have

Jem:

one.

Jem:

So it's like, do I add another six components to the family

Jem:

to ensure that everyone can do everything?

Jem:

Or Joe, I just thought.

Jem:

Email, all of those customers who already have one and say like, Hey,

Jem:

we'll, we'll continue to service you, but there's this select group of you.

Jem:

Thanks for being, you know,

Justin:

Guinea pigs.

Jem:

Thanks for getting in early but we're going to change all

Jem:

the dimensions from here on it.

Jem:

So yeah, I'm a bit torn about that, And I was chatting to a

Jem:

friend about it who was like,

Jem:

just, you know, the sooner you do that the better,

Jem:

like

Jem:

for everybody,

Justin:

Even as you're describing that, I think you brought that up, a bit ago.

Justin:

It's easier for me to sit here and say, oh yeah, just do it.

Justin:

Because, assuming you're going to keep making it longer than you have the big

Justin:

question would be, is it somehow going to open up more opportunity, more sales

Justin:

in the end then unfortunately you got to like squash the old thing, And as

Justin:

long as you could come back to that, I suppose, but the real downside to

Justin:

that is in a lean sense.

Justin:

Why would you keep two product lines?

Justin:

Right?

Justin:

Like your

Justin:

inventory, you're wasting it.

Justin:

You're hoping those people hopefully buy something else from you

Justin:

when they may be already just they've got what they need

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I think most

Jem:

of, most of those people would probably just have the thing and

Jem:

that's

Jem:

as much as they'll ever have.

Jem:

So yeah, I just need to bite the bullet

Jem:

and I, but then it's committing, it's committing to the new numbers,

Justin:

Yeah,

Jem:

know,

Jem:

and then saying, cool, This is the new system that's gonna

Jem:

work for the next two years.

Jem:

And then I'll change my mind again and decide that it's not quite right.

Justin:

the version of that, I think I've probably brought this

Justin:

up, but people listening to this are like, you guys have already talked

Justin:

about this, but the version of that for me was, the thickness of these dang

Justin:

panels.

Jem:

particularly when it's pretty laminated and you

Jem:

can't affect the thickness,

Jem:

with finding that with the new hoop pine plywood we're using it's wireless,

Jem:

dimensionally stable in its thickness then,

Jem:

but Birch,

Jem:

we finding like 0.6 millimeter variation across, within the shape, not just

Jem:

across the pack, but within one shape.

Jem:

So

Justin:

yeah.

Jem:

what's that in

Justin:

Point 0.02, four inches.

Jem:

So yeah, that's all been a whole new challenge for us because

Jem:

we can put stuff through the wide belt, sander And tolerance things.

Jem:

But when the variations, you know, coming up to almost a millimeter,

Jem:

it's like, then you start breaking into glue lines and just messing things up.

Jem:

It's been tricky.

Jem:

But then when you've got your backing boards, which are like the HPL,

Jem:

but side's right

Justin:

There's like a backer sheet, but it's the same sickness.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

So you basically stuck with that thickness

Jem:

stuck,

Jem:

and then you got to hope that the next, you know, in a year's time, the

Jem:

stock

Justin:

exactly.

Justin:

That we can still get it that

Jem:

Come on, dude.

Justin:

yeah, honestly, you're making me feel a little bit better in this

Justin:

whole conversation of why it's not on sale yet because all of these things

Justin:

have been concerns the last year and a half of like killed at the first time.

Justin:

I think it was the beginning of 2021.

Justin:

We worked on it for about 40 days or something and we were just killing

Justin:

it, like so many great ideas.

Justin:

I think we built this side of the office right

Justin:

away.

Justin:

We were so excited.

Justin:

And then the world just had, I don't remember at that time, it was like

Justin:

the first time there were vendors were starting to talk about plywood,

Justin:

not being a thing or too expensive.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

This seems like a bad idea, you know, like we're early

Justin:

in this process and this product that we need may just disappear.

Justin:

so then we waited and kind of came up again and now it's kind

Justin:

of back in that, same place

Justin:

after we spent months and months working on it and, and had to

Justin:

adjust some of those tolerances, thankfully, before we ever sold any.

Justin:

So there's different incarnations around this office that the shop that, you

Justin:

know, don't work anymore on different

Justin:

versions.

Justin:

That's always the nightmare

Justin:

is that I've always thought, you know, people would buy a kit and then

Justin:

probably buy something else every time, but not like a whole new set of

Justin:

things.

Justin:

And that needs to work

Jem:

yeah, I would probably

Jem:

reverse it back on you and say

Jem:

no.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

yes.

Jem:

From a design point of view.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

And they still work,

Justin:

Yes,

Jem:

but 90% of the people who buy a Nack Wall kit

Jem:

may never buy more accessories ever again, like it's, they're going to put it up when

Jem:

they will and the home office or whatever.

Jem:

And that might

Jem:

be it

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

And I think it's more important to get it out there

Jem:

and into real people's hands per user feedback and, and just to sell stuff.

Jem:

I think it's more important to do that then,

Justin:

Perfecting it.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Trying to get at the next, you know,

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

10% of perfection.

Justin:

I definitely agree.

Justin:

It's just always something.

Justin:

continue to find weird excuses, I think for why either it's material or.

Justin:

Waiting on something and just I'm trying to turn it into products on

Justin:

Shopify and a marketing website.

Justin:

that process has been slower than it should be too.

Justin:

So I definitely agree.

Justin:

I'm curious now for Kitta parts, have you come out with things

Justin:

and have people continued to

Justin:

buy ad-on pieces or is that really a thing for you?

Jem:

Yeah, I see a, little bit of activity with people buying extra

Jem:

bits and pieces, you know, an extra shelf or a few extra dowels.

Jem:

But in the, scheme of things, it's very, It's a very small volume

Jem:

for show.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

I wonder if there's an opportunity there for that.

Justin:

selling to those people, like marketing to those

Justin:

people, like through email or something like, Hey, did you know?

Justin:

You can add on a,

Jem:

If We had a decent yeah.

Jem:

If we had a decent, like email user base then totally.

Jem:

But we only started collecting emails in the last six months or something.

Jem:

So it's a tiny, tiny

Jem:

list

Jem:

and we've done a few like EDM email

Jem:

outs using the Shopify platform.

Jem:

And it's like, you can save the stats and it's like three people open This email.

Justin:

What's EDM.

Jem:

good

Jem:

point.

Jem:

Something direct mail, electronic direct mail.

Jem:

I

Justin:

oh, I see.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

marketing speak.

Justin:

I don't know any other,

Jem:

So can I buy it can I go on PDX, CNC and buy a Nack kit yet?

Jem:

No,

Justin:

No,

Justin:

no.

Justin:

I'm working on.

Jem:

on.

Justin:

On the marketing page and hopefully have it available here shortly,

Justin:

but yeah, everything's figured out

Justin:

to this point that there was always something we were waiting on.

Justin:

We had to change

Justin:

materials and it's been way

Justin:

too slow, but yeah, I just need to get it

Justin:

done

Justin:

there.

Jem:

stuff.

Jem:

That's what they say.

Justin:

Thanks.

Justin:

That's what I say.

Justin:

I wonder if this

Jem:

Oh, wow.

Jem:

I, just tried to find your CNC calendar.

Jem:

And I just went down the rabbit hole and found all sorts of awful things.

Justin:

my vertical calendar.

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

Yeah, Yeah.

Justin:

It's a weird, small world of printed calendars.

Justin:

That still exists.

Justin:

There's a group of people that still want them

Justin:

see if this works.

Justin:

This is the thing I've been working on

Justin:

See that tiny little printer screen.

Jem:

instead, a live view of your

Jem:

printer, get out.

Justin:

It streams via a raspberry PI And it's actually just like

Justin:

a PC webcam hooked into USB.

Jem:

Good.

Justin:

pretty cool.

Justin:

It's

Justin:

making a time-lapse at the moment, but so this is the, I

Justin:

don't have good words for it.

Justin:

It's the funnel that converts from five

Justin:

inch duct down to kind of the top of our spindle.

Justin:

There'll be

Jem:

I want to print.

Justin:

pretty great.

Justin:

this is from this morning at like nine o'clock

Justin:

it's going pretty well.

Justin:

It's PETG that should be pretty durable and it should

Justin:

improve like

Justin:

150% or so

Justin:

volume of what

Justin:

we've been using now with our ShopSabre.

Justin:

here's the little timeline.

Justin:

It's only a bit of it.

Jem:

Oh, nice.

Justin:

This is called OctoPrint.

Justin:

I think I mentioned it before, when I was bitching about

Justin:

Fanuc being so crappy, because this is free

Justin:

open source software that you can run

Justin:

your printer with and I can control it from my phone

Jem:

And do time-lapse in it.

Justin:

time lapse, like in, you know, I've got temperature graphs, I've got

Justin:

a, it has a plugin like repository.

Justin:

So all these, most of these things are, plug-ins like the Oakdale laps and yeah.

Justin:

most of

Jem:

I suppose it speaks to these is right.

Jem:

Like how many people have a

Jem:

3d printer versus how many people have a

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Fanuc Mill?

Justin:

Yeah, for sure.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

There's a lot to that, but it's just, I think about

Justin:

it as like, can I get OctoPrint to

Justin:

control my mill?

Jem:

that's awesome.

Justin:

Yeah, pretty stoked about that.

Justin:

So

Justin:

this is hopefully going to turn into a thing we sell because I

Justin:

mentioned it before our machine, the shop sabers just don't have

Justin:

very good stock dust collection.

Justin:

And part of the

Justin:

problem is the size of the port.

Justin:

And then also like just the way it's designed.

Justin:

I did a video about upgrading

Justin:

our ATC rack.

Justin:

And part of that plan was always to do this, this dust collection portion.

Justin:

And it's designed to be a direct swap for what comes on your ShopSabre And then

Justin:

you could potentially also add improvements.

Justin:

If you say, have the style

Justin:

of little pedestals that we designed

Justin:

to kind of improve it and focus it more.

Justin:

I haven't designed that part yet, but this was the first step and I've been

Justin:

working on it for like probably off and on

Justin:

for a year.

Justin:

And

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Well, okay.

Justin:

you fun.

Jem:

That's cool.

Jem:

That's pretty much exactly the part that we need to make

Justin:

Oh, really?

Jem:

for Trinity cause trainee D's dust collection is terrible.

Jem:

Like a guys from now

Jem:

150 mil.

Jem:

60 inch duct, you know, the word workshop system that comes down And

Jem:

then it goes through this adapter onto the machine spindle head.

Jem:

and it goes down to like a really small, maybe 50 mill hose, two inch.

Jem:

And then through this convoluted, like cast aluminum dust hood.

Jem:

And so it's

Jem:

terrible

Justin:

mil

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Way too small.

Jem:

And it's got this weird pneumatic dust foot.

Jem:

It's like a pressure foot take and flick a switch on the control

Jem:

and it pushes down on the material lightly, which is kind

Jem:

of cool, but it also just rides around and scratches everything.

Jem:

Cause it's not picking up all the dust.

Jem:

So it's just like grinding the chips into the surface of the film face plywood.

Jem:

So we Like John runs that up out of the way almost all the time.

Jem:

so we, we desperately need to rebuild that foot and make something that actually

Jem:

gets the dust out.

Jem:

but

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

on the Pencil Sharpener

Jem:

that has very agricultural dust collection and, you know, still doesn't have proper

Jem:

guards on it and things like that.

Jem:

I've definitely thought about being able to print, beautiful little scoopy

Jem:

foams for dust collection and guarding and things like that.

Jem:

And that'd be

Jem:

awesome.

Justin:

it's definitely, I've done a bit of the kind of organic

Justin:

modeling, funneling lofting.

Justin:

I tried fusion and rhino and

Justin:

trying to improve the kind of proximity to the spindle and the dusk, you know,

Justin:

creation by moving all that, close.

Justin:

Has led me down so many rabbit holes of like crazy offshoot, wraparound things.

Justin:

And like, and in the end, it's like, sure, you could maybe print that, but

Justin:

is it gonna break?

Justin:

Is it, does it even work?

Justin:

and so I've kind of pulled it back to this, place where somewhat organic,

Justin:

but I don't yet know if it's going to

Justin:

withstand the forces of like the hose attached to

Justin:

it and

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

So we'll find out I think this, we should be able to have

Justin:

it up and running this week.

Justin:

I hope I'm pretty excited about, cause it's

Justin:

always been very challenged.

Jem:

You mentioned rhino then what's your go to,

Jem:

well, it comes back to idea generation as well.

Jem:

Like

Jem:

how quickly do you end up in CAD in a way, is your sketch environment,

Jem:

like, do you draw and then go to CAD or do you, what's your process there?

Justin:

I've always drawn poorly, But, I definitely refined some of

Justin:

that in school.

Justin:

And then I find it, most useful for like, we're just

Justin:

trying to chat in the

Justin:

ShopRite with each other about something and then I find it to be productive.

Justin:

I usually get a lot out of it if I make myself do it.

Justin:

But I'd say I've transitioned from rhino being my first tool to probably more

Justin:

fusion, I think just as I've gotten better at it, there's still the

Justin:

speed of which you can open rhino and get it created is unmatched.

Justin:

for me

Justin:

anyway, from so much experience, but how about you?

Jem:

same.

Jem:

I've definitely converted a lot of my processes to fusion,

Jem:

over the last few years.

Jem:

But I'm still a bit of a rhino diehard when it comes to just,

Jem:

like quick, quickly getting ideas

Jem:

out.

Jem:

It's definitely.

Jem:

Black.

Jem:

I have a rhino file open pretty much all the time.

Jem:

That's just called sandpit.

Jem:

And it's just like

Jem:

thousands of projects that I've either quoted or ideas and I'm fiddling with.

Jem:

And it's just yeah, it's just a dumping ground for stuff.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

And it's just such a fast environment, just

Jem:

sketching and work things out.

Jem:

I, unfortunately I same, same as you, like, I definitely find value

Jem:

when I pick up pen and paper.

Jem:

Absolutely.

Jem:

I need to force myself to do that more often, but.

Jem:

I jumped.

Jem:

Typically I jumped straight into rhino because I find pen and paper.

Jem:

I almost immediately get frustrated by the lack of scale

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

I'm like, but how do those two things elements like actually

Jem:

interact with each other.

Jem:

I need to draw this at true scale to get a sense of that.

Jem:

I mean, rhino in two seconds and the paper's pushed away,

Jem:

but

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

like I spent two hours on a zoom call yesterday detailing a project

Jem:

that we're working on with a client who I work very closely with like

Jem:

collaboratively with them on the design.

Jem:

And basically just shared my rhinos screen for two hours.

Jem:

And we problem solved all the little details with this project.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

And it's just, I find it a really fantastic environment

Jem:

for that stage.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's, it's so much different for those that haven't used it, I suppose, I

Justin:

always described rhino, like being able to play with Play-Doh straight away.

Justin:

Like you're immediately playing with Play-Doh.

Justin:

Whereas in fusion, you kind of got to make the formula to make Play-Doh and

Justin:

then make Play-Doh and it's in a one-way

Justin:

direction.

Justin:

Then you gotta go backwards through, you can direct model, but

Justin:

it's a lot more convoluted and.

Justin:

There there's a lot of parallel processes that can happen.

Justin:

I think in it, you can start modeling and then just leave it and go over

Justin:

here and start modeling and leave it, you know, like, and those could

Justin:

be separate iterations that are just a hundred inches apart or something.

Justin:

And then stuff like being able to do like a two curves

Justin:

sweep, right?

Justin:

sweep to where you can sweep off of two things with just one profile.

Justin:

Whereas in fusion, you can only do a sweep off of one thing and you have to

Justin:

have close profile.

Justin:

Can't just have an open profile.

Justin:

I was playing with that literally today and rhino is working on a

Justin:

customer project and it was just, it's just so fast to iterate.

Justin:

I

Justin:

don't know.

Justin:

I, wish there was some hybrid of the two

Justin:

would be pretty great.

Jem:

I reckon rhino, you can time travel and fusion is like

Jem:

linear

Jem:

time,

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

but let, one of my favorite tricks in rhino is to sort of be working through

Jem:

a problem or a project and go, ah, I've accidentally deleted something or that

Jem:

was bad at like a hundred steps ago.

Jem:

And I copy, I select everything I'm working on And I cut

Jem:

it like with clipboard

Jem:

And then I undo like, a hundred steps back to where I was And

Jem:

then paste in from the future.

Jem:

And then I've got like both

Jem:

versions of time.

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

I do that heaps.

Jem:

I haven't thought about it from a sort of time travel perspective, but like

Jem:

kind of what kind of works.

Jem:

you can just jump around and

Jem:

say flexible.

Justin:

I didn't find kind of on that same topic bit ago, I was playing

Justin:

around the web view of like the team of Fusion you know, like you get that weird

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

thing.

Justin:

You can compare versions in there

Justin:

and.

Justin:

See actual things that changed in each body or component

Justin:

compared to different versions.

Justin:

I mean, it's like tedious to go through.

Justin:

You got to like select each thing and it loads.

Justin:

And,

Justin:

but I find that, you know, if you really need it, it's there.

Justin:

On rhino though, I was curious, do you, have you ever used the history mode?

Jem:

the,

Justin:

They have a history.

Justin:

It's like history modeling and I've,

Justin:

I've read enough to know it's something like a timeline editing, but

Justin:

I've never really gotten it to work

Justin:

in my like quick efforts of trying to

Justin:

try it out.

Justin:

But

Jem:

Cool.

Jem:

I'll check that out

Justin:

you know, when you drag away like a

Justin:

dimension off of something

Justin:

and it says you broke history, never did that.

Justin:

Maybe

Justin:

I've yeah.

Jem:

No

Jem:

man was saying that.

Justin:

version five.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

a seven.

Justin:

I don't know.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

know.

Jem:

I'll join you on the seventh.

Jem:

Soon.

Jem:

When my Mac book

Justin:

Ooh, is that a couple of weeks?

Jem:

still a few weeks

Jem:

away, I think.

Justin:

Sweet.

Justin:

Are you on the process to buy a 3d printer?

Justin:

I think I saw you chatting with somebody else about that.

Jem:

Yeah, look I've.

Jem:

I think.

Jem:

I've had a Prusa in my shopping cart for a year, probably

Jem:

just kind of thinking about it and never, quite being able to justify it.

Justin:

Hmm.

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

it does

Justin:

seem like a lot.

Justin:

I think it was easy to transition from that

Justin:

from having this really jenky reality thing that never worked and it had printed

Justin:

enough

Justin:

things where I was like, oh, I

Justin:

see the value of

Justin:

this.

Justin:

And it was like 250 bucks.

Justin:

And then it was like, I just want this to work.

Justin:

Now we're wasting so much time.

Justin:

And then it was easier

Justin:

to spend the money on the thousand dollars over.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

It's interesting.

Jem:

It's a funny thing to admit, but I no longer feel free to spend

Jem:

company money on whatever I want.

Justin:

sure.

Jem:

Which feels really weird

Jem:

having sort of growing the company very like impulsively.

Jem:

I'm just like oh, I want one of those what's this tool, like

Jem:

go to the tool shop and spend thousands of dollars on Festool things.

Jem:

To now where I like a thousand dollars printer, I feel like I need to justify

Jem:

it to my team basically to say, I want to spend company money on this

Jem:

because I think it could benefit

Jem:

us in this

Jem:

way.

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

So I think that's why I haven't pulled the pin on a printer basically.

Justin:

sure.

Jem:

Or a laser I'd love the laser engraver.

Jem:

No, because five is not very good at would,

Justin:

No, I thought you had a laser,

Jem:

No.

Justin:

maybe somebody else.

Justin:

Interesting.

Jem:

love to be able to engrave

Jem:

basically put our logo or client logos on components.

Justin:

Would it be a standalone machine?

Jem:

don't know.

Jem:

I was looking at whether we could add that lies ahead to

Jem:

one of our existing machines.

Justin:

They're usually pretty low wattage, I think,.

Justin:

that's been a little bit tempting to me cause it's just one process then,

Justin:

and you're not having to reset up, make new files, like it's already

Justin:

there SIM you don't have to flip the part of or something.

Jem:

yeah, I think the the most eligible candidate is the Pencil Sharpener because

Jem:

the Masso control has an output for

Jem:

pulse with modulation or whatever, the laser needs.

Jem:

so I think.

Jem:

I could potentially just add a lies ahead to the Pencil sharpener is the sixth

Jem:

tool just like engrave the side of the dowel or the top of the bolt handle.

Jem:

And I'm not sure

Justin:

You can't

Justin:

actually turn the dowel.

Justin:

It's locked into either

Justin:

jaw.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

correct.

Justin:

Hmm.

Justin:

It's interesting.

Justin:

I could totally see that one.

Justin:

The thing we've been talking about, we've more and more needed to brand

Justin:

things as we've been ramping up more products and we just use the engraving

Justin:

tool on the router and it it's.

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

It's not great.

Justin:

Usually a little bit rough and Ricky has to blow them out.

Justin:

It's finished gets stuck in it.

Justin:

So we've been

Justin:

talking about just making a little

Justin:

at small brass brand, like you heat up and then we can just stamp it on things.

Justin:

So I've, I've had

Justin:

that as a project to do for a long time in the middle and just haven't got it up.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I've mailed a few branding irons on our router.

Jem:

They work really well.

Jem:

I get frustrated with the electric sodering iron not being hot enough

Jem:

or taking so long to heat up.

Jem:

It's not just like a quick, I just want to brand on that.

Jem:

Boom, you gotta wait like 15 minutes for it to get really hot.

Justin:

oh, wow.

Justin:

Okay.

Jem:

But I I had a little project, which I never finished.

Jem:

I bought an induction heating coil thing, and I had this plan to convert an old

Jem:

drill press into a branding station.

Jem:

So there would be like a brass brand in mounted in the drill press chalk and with

Jem:

an induction coil just mounted around it.

Jem:

So just be like pump, pump, pump.

Jem:

But I bought some parts on eBay and I don't think they were powerful enough.

Jem:

like I couldn't get.

Jem:

I could hate up like mild steel, really hot, but then the bras components that.

Jem:

I was making the branding iron out of didn't work as well with the heat source.

Jem:

And I wasn't generating enough energy,

Justin:

crazy.

Justin:

Well, I know the next

Justin:

step you need to

Justin:

make

Jem:

a box.

Justin:

the next step to

Justin:

that is obviously you've got to have some

Justin:

switch that

Justin:

throws a flame,

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I foot

Justin:

at least for a video.

Justin:

I mean,

Jem:

That'd be

Jem:

nice.

Jem:

we'd have you ever used those diamond engraving tools on the router,

Jem:

but they're not designed to spin.

Jem:

They're like a little spring loaded pressure foot and you

Jem:

can do like really fine, like scratched in engravings with them.

Justin:

I haven't no

Jem:

We've messed around with them a little bit.

Justin:

like

Jem:

Cause we.

Jem:

Probably Yeah.

Jem:

Metals and plastics.

Jem:

I think they're designed for, we've tried to use them on film face plywood,

Jem:

just to like put fine text or logos into them because

Jem:

I've got one client pot that we make, which has the client logo on.

Jem:

It's quite a complex little logo and it's like, you know,

Jem:

five minutes of machine time or something to come in with a 0.2 engraving

Jem:

tool and slowly pick it all away.

Jem:

And then you've got to get the depth.

Jem:

Absolutely perfect.

Jem:

Otherwise it looks crap.

Jem:

And

Jem:

so we're trying to I know Right.

Jem:

We tried those diamond tools cause we thought it would take

Jem:

out the thickness variation and not have to worry So much about,

Jem:

you know, whether the plywood was 12.2 or 12.4 and how that affected the engrave.

Jem:

But,

Jem:

Didn't get amazing results, but haven't done heaps with it.

Justin:

I have wondered something.

Justin:

I think I saw this at a

Justin:

show or I just imagined it,

Justin:

basically, you know how, like a sewing

Justin:

machine has a pressure foot.

Justin:

Apparently you're talking about this in a couple of different scenarios.

Justin:

I want a round over or

Justin:

chamfered tool that basically floats on a pressure foot.

Jem:

pretty sure that Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I think they do

Justin:

like some kind of crazy expensive attachment.

Jem:

I've seen them on like big five axis machines where you've

Jem:

got heaps of room For tooling,

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

the big aggregates and solos and

Jem:

like what your tools go from being an ISO30 to Like this thing, as big

Jem:

as your head, I feel like I've seen sort of round over pressure of what

Jem:

sort of things in that application.

Jem:

maybe

Jem:

maybe at a show as well.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I don't remember

Justin:

where I saw that, but we've talked about that.

Justin:

We didn't do round overs on our machine for so long, especially

Justin:

smaller ones because like you're saying the material never flat.

Justin:

so

Justin:

not going to, we're not going to face the whole sheet to do around over, like,

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

you wouldn't do otherwise.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

We've never really done it We did some big ground overs on a job the

Jem:

other way, which was 32 millimeter.

Jem:

That's that one and a half inches or something

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

that was fine.

Jem:

Last time we made these tables, we did the huge round over on the inverted

Jem:

table router, just like my hand on, you know, I had an extra coffee And.

Jem:

sort

Jem:

of,

Jem:

I was like shaking by the time I'd finished just from the adrenaline,

Jem:

cause was kind of sketchy.

Jem:

Anyway, this time we did it all on the same side, it was,

Jem:

the result was so much better.

Justin:

nice.

Jem:

No chatter.

Jem:

John dismayed, a fixture that the part's kind of what seated

Jem:

into and did a great job.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I find that to be the hardest part with the iMac bases up there, like chambered

Justin:

on top, which is goes well at super easy.

Justin:

But when you flip it over into a fixture, we do a round over and it's machined.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

But even the fixtures and just the way everything aligns,

Justin:

it's hard to get it just right.

Justin:

So that you don't notch it on on accident and you kind of just have to

Justin:

do them light and then sand them in.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

That's kind of always a tainted my view of how to properly do it.

Justin:

And like, I think this little guy was the

Justin:

first time I actually got it.

Justin:

It's just such a different accuracy and ability to hold things that I

Justin:

was not, I've never visualized that in my head of like, oh, I can do

Jem:

Um,

Justin:

round over on

Justin:

a second off.

Justin:

That'll totally work.

Jem:

I guess you controlling every surface in that part though, right?

Jem:

It's not like the factory surface of sh plywood

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

For sure.

Justin:

Exactly.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Have you

Justin:

ever measured the surface of

Justin:

your router bed?

Justin:

Like the flatness?

Justin:

I had a guy that worked here that did that when we first

Justin:

moved and I was pretty astounded.

Justin:

I think

Justin:

one spot there was a low spot.

Justin:

It was like 20,000.

Jem:

This is after you've surfaced your MDF or just measuring the aluminum table.

Justin:

Whatever you're.

Justin:

Yeah, so we have like a phenolic bed, the table, and yours would be

Justin:

aluminum, I guess then.

Justin:

But yeah, measuring with

Justin:

like a indicator

Justin:

driving back and forth and you would just, you measured it

Justin:

and putting it into a little, like, like it was an Excel

Justin:

table and then he colorized it.

Justin:

So I still have that.

Justin:

I don't know if it's still accurate, but it's pretty shocking.

Justin:

I like to show that to people that start here and they're

Justin:

like, well, what do you mean?

Justin:

It's not flat?

Justin:

And

Justin:

I'm like, nah, fortunately not.

Jem:

Is that relevant though?

Jem:

Once you've decked your sacrificial.

Justin:

I don't think so.

Justin:

I mean, if it's moving around, I

Justin:

mean, it matters in the sense of if you're putting something like we've more and

Justin:

more like you were, you commented on that video of our fixture plate, right.

Justin:

Sits on top of the table or anything you

Justin:

stack up yourself.

Justin:

It's not faced.

Justin:

And.

Jem:

Awesome.

Jem:

That doesn't sit on

Jem:

top of the

Jem:

sacrificial sheet.

Jem:

You take the sacrificial off to do that.

Jem:

Oh yeah.

Jem:

Okay.

Jem:

Then that matters.

Jem:

Why we can't take our sacrificial off.

Jem:

We glue it

Justin:

we used to do that.

Justin:

We did that a

Justin:

couple of times, but we switch it so often

Justin:

part of the way

Justin:

we and

Justin:

especially when we're doing more job shop work, we had just kind of

Justin:

trained ourselves into point, oh, what's the best way to hold apart.

Justin:

And often it's not the vacuum sacrificial table because of the surface area

Justin:

or, you know, any of those things.

Justin:

And so we've over time, tried to create different little fixturing

Justin:

setups and are pretty good most of the

Justin:

time.

Jem:

Nice to have a listener question for the first time.

Justin:

Yeah, for sure.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I was curious what,

Justin:

What your answer to that was

Justin:

The Shopify day or table thing.

Jem:

we use an app called AirPower,

Jem:

which shows just in a Shopify app store, not the Airtable apps.

Jem:

Seems good.

Jem:

Initially we just used it

Jem:

because we only switched to Shopify a couple of years ago.

Jem:

And initially we just used it to set Shopify up and kind of

Jem:

populate all the bulk data.

Justin:

Oh, wow.

Justin:

Interesting.

Jem:

seeing sinking, you know, hundreds of meta fields or

Jem:

whatever they called, stuff like

Jem:

that.

Justin:

you still

Jem:

Sinking.

Justin:

You still sync date, product data

Jem:

You would do now we'd set up the website and then we

Jem:

kind of turned our power off.

Jem:

Cause we're like, cool.

Jem:

It's done.

Jem:

But then when more recently we turned It back on because we

Jem:

started using it more actively

Jem:

to sync regularly between Airtable and Shopify you can basically control your

Jem:

entire Shopify store just from air

Jem:

table,

Jem:

every product, every price description.

Jem:

Yep.

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

It gets scary when you like hitting the sync button.

Jem:

You're like, did I check all the right things?

Justin:

oh

Jem:

You can potentially like destroy your Shopify.

Jem:

So

Jem:

if you're not, if you don't sync it correctly, but yeah,

Jem:

that's really powerful.

Justin:

that's interesting.

Justin:

I wasn't even thinking about it in that regard.

Justin:

I think the question maybe had maybe it was just about

Justin:

Shopify in our table, but I was

Justin:

thinking of it as, I guess I thought you were syncing orders out of

Justin:

it or something out of Shopify.

Justin:

How do you, isn't that part of your

Justin:

ERP that you like sync your orders to the Airtable

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Oh, it is from Shopify coming to anti-people automatically.

Jem:

I honestly don't know which channel they're coming through anymore.

Jem:

Whether it's through airpower, through

Jem:

Zapier.

Jem:

It's one of the two.

Justin:

And then you keep track of them

Justin:

going through kind of work production until they ship in air table.

Jem:

Yeah, Yeah.

Jem:

All their production workflow goes through.

Jem:

It able was still got some weird double ups.

Jem:

like we still go back into Shopify right at the end to like fulfill the order

Jem:

and notify the customer through Shopify

Justin:

Hmm,

Jem:

because we haven't seen.

Jem:

The connection to that level where we can like ideally it'd be nice to be able

Jem:

to say project complete in air table.

Jem:

and that.

Jem:

sends the Shopify email if I feel things being shipped or whatever,

Jem:

but we're kind of doing it in both places at the moment when it

Jem:

comes to the final fulfillment.

Jem:

But yeah, most of that, all the production happens in

Jem:

air table.

Justin:

All of our job shop work, probably the thing of

Justin:

the most developed in Airtable.

Justin:

From an inquiry form through all the way to like,

Justin:

you know, all the tasks, the projects for the project are there.

Justin:

And then

Justin:

you can click a check box and it'll send the customer like the

Justin:

final pickup email with the invoice

Justin:

and stuff as all automated.

Justin:

That all happened bit by bit over time.

Justin:

It was like, oh, I think I could add this part.

Justin:

You know, like it was never like all at once.

Justin:

And now I'm a little daunted I want to try to put Shopify orders through cause

Justin:

we use I've always used Shipstation, which combines orders and you can do the kitting

Justin:

and stuff and make templates for shipping

Justin:

I don't know all of our products to date have always been

Justin:

kind of on the shelf ready.

Justin:

So I've never had to like produce them

Justin:

or kit them in certain ways.

Justin:

I'm thinking at this point that the whole Shopify to air table

Justin:

thing would be not needed, but

Justin:

maybe, maybe I don't know.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

We were pretty much print on demand with almost all that products now.

Justin:

Hmm.

Jem:

There's a few things that we keep on the

Jem:

shelf.

Jem:

But even the pots that we do keep on the shelf, it's typically like, cool,

Jem:

what's the order pull some of that.

Jem:

Some of that put it together

Jem:

into the customer's order.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

There's almost nothing which is just like, oh, one of those, thank you, boom.

Jem:

In a box,

Jem:

like everything either gets assembled or made in some way.

Jem:

So it all goes through the production

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

workflow in air table where we, can tag people to be responsible for It

Jem:

or

Jem:

allocated

Justin:

You think is there, I guess my

Justin:

sense

Justin:

is that here in America, like there's such a.

Justin:

Such a high

Justin:

priority for things to be ready to ship and like pre shipping and stuff like

Justin:

that.

Justin:

Is that yeah, I said the same for you.

Jem:

Anecdotally, I reckon that's less of a thing here.

Jem:

Amazon, or that sort of a warehouse style.

Justin:

Yeah,

Jem:

Shipping is definitely a thing here, but

Jem:

It's

Jem:

less, I think, culturally pervasive.

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

And So, yeah, we've, very rarely had any sort of issue

Jem:

with having one to two weeks on a product shipping out.

Jem:

I could, as long as that's clearly

Jem:

communicated,

Jem:

upfront and expectations are set and that works quite well for us.

Jem:

Obviously we're always trying to do better because shorten those late times.

Jem:

Cause I feel like it's more attractive to a potential customer.

Jem:

I can say, Oh, one to two days instead of one to two weeks.

Jem:

But,

Justin:

Yep.

Jem:

I feel like it's less of,

Jem:

an expectation.

Jem:

Here I don't know.

Justin:

I've resisted the free shipping thing for a long time

Justin:

and the world has started to shift to that and it just had never made sense.

Justin:

I was like, how I'm thinking about it again right now,

Justin:

how absurd it is to like, try to compete with these billion dollar companies.

Justin:

basically it's like we're trying to compare and that's what the

Justin:

consumer basically has built up in their mind is, oh, what do you mean?

Justin:

It's not free shipping?

Justin:

And there's so much data to prove that this is where I finally

Justin:

changed my, my process on that was

Justin:

for here.

Justin:

Anyway, there's so

Justin:

many data points of how much lower conversion rates

Justin:

are.

Justin:

Cause people get to the end of checkout and all of a sudden there's a price

Justin:

added and they're like, what do you mean.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

for Oregonians were relived.

Justin:

Like there's no sales tax.

Justin:

So

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Right.

Justin:

a price is a price.

Justin:

And that's kind of been a weird thing in America, too, where sales tax

Justin:

is really complicated where it's by state and different states have been

Justin:

adding it on their own.

Justin:

It's not

Justin:

sinked.

Justin:

And we, and literally the small business owner has to

Justin:

deal with it for each state.

Justin:

It is a nightmare.

Jem:

Frightening,

Justin:

It's crazy.

Justin:

I don't know where I was going to hold other and it's tough and

Jem:

Just conversion like shipping.

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

I, again, this is a funny thing to talk about, you know, send me publicly, but

Jem:

for years, for years I

Jem:

resisted doing anything like free shipping.

Jem:

Like I just hated the idea of hiding concealing.

Justin:

Yup.

Jem:

Anything in a product process, just like the product

Jem:

price should be the product price.

Jem:

And

Jem:

then

Jem:

the customer should clearly say like how much shipping is going to be.

Justin:

Yup.

Jem:

12 months ago, something I was told to finally talked into changing that

Jem:

a little bit starting to build in some packing, handling time into the product

Jem:

price building in like the fees that the carriers would charge

Jem:

us on everything they shipped

Jem:

and just putting some of that stuff in.

Jem:

And then, so the customer still sees a shipping,

Jem:

gets a live shipping quote from

Jem:

the

Jem:

carrier when they check out.

Jem:

that phase much smaller than what they used

Jem:

to say.

Justin:

Oh, I see.

Justin:

You're like

Jem:

And.

Justin:

it kind of,

Jem:

Subsidizing well, subsidizing within the product price or the product price.

Jem:

Now it's old,

Justin:

Shifting.

Jem:

the same, but it's just shifted slightly.

Justin:

Yeah, same as as what I do

Jem:

And it

Jem:

made a massive difference to conversion.

Jem:

Like it freaked me out.

Jem:

I was just like, wow, this is really a thing.

Justin:

Oh man.

Justin:

It's kinda sad, but yeah, it's

Jem:

I know

Justin:

it definitely works.

Jem:

definitely works.

Jem:

And even with my awareness of that, of what we're doing and how

Jem:

effective that is, I still, you know, as a consumer, if I'm on a website

Jem:

and I see free shipping and I'm

Jem:

like, it's like little candies that go off in my mind and like, oh Yeah,

Jem:

great.

Justin:

Yup.

Justin:

Well, you know, so it's interesting you bring that up, you know, those

Justin:

little, like, I don't remember if you do it or not, but in the

Justin:

last week I had this click for me.

Justin:

There's basically a very small checklist that you look for when

Justin:

you're going to somebody's website.

Justin:

Right?

Justin:

and you don't even think about this

Justin:

I'll tell you my, my version of this it's like, is it

Justin:

sustainably made probably in some way?

Justin:

Like how do I know?

Justin:

Where, where was this?

Justin:

That's a pretty high thing

Justin:

now.

Justin:

For most, I think is it free shipping?

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

quickly am I going to get it?

Justin:

compatibility potentially with other things.

Justin:

So there's like all these different factors and it

Justin:

depends on what you're shopping

Justin:

for, I'm going to call them like

Justin:

product

Justin:

feature icons, right.

Justin:

Often, like they're like shown around proof points.

Jem:

yeah,

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

I like that.

Justin:

But there's all these plugins on Shopify that make those

Justin:

icons for you

Jem:

yeah.

Justin:

and you can make your own, but a lot of them have hundreds of

Justin:

thousands of icons you can choose from.

Justin:

I mean, like I have one or two, that's basically like for the products that

Justin:

ship free, you have a little free shipping button, we do make a pretty

Justin:

strong effort.

Justin:

Almost all of our packaging is completely recyclable, but

Justin:

I don't have that anywhere.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

but those little things I think are there trust, trusted?

Justin:

Honesty transparency.

Justin:

Right?

Justin:

Those are pretty important.

Justin:

I think it's become more and more.

Justin:

I keep reading this marketing reports that say that this is important to

Justin:

consumers and I I'm just not doing that.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

And I think that would help a very small amount of

Justin:

people feel more confident to purchase something.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I would say help.

Jem:

A lot of people feel more confident.

Jem:

we've been trying to trust those little

Jem:

icons, whether they're true or not.

Jem:

And, I think they're highly effective.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Do you have things like that?

Justin:

Thank you.

Justin:

Describe it in text often, right?

Jem:

Yeah, we're pretty texty you've got some little proof point icons,

Jem:

I think, on our front page, but not sort of on our product pages

Jem:

as

Jem:

such

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

that's probably going to change with our new

Jem:

Shopify two bono theme build that's still in the works.

Justin:

Yeah,

Justin:

those are big projects.

Jem:

They are,

Justin:

What's your plan.

Justin:

Get back into the

Justin:

you're already back.

Justin:

It seems like I figured there'd be a little more

Justin:

Mental fog or physical fog or something, but you seem good to go.

Jem:

I think, Monday, Tuesday, I was a bit, I was pretty overwhelmed

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

getting back into the week and working out what the hell was

Jem:

going on but I'm not feeling good.

Jem:

I think it was, it was good.

Jem:

It was a really aside from being sick, but it was a really good mental break for

Jem:

me to be out of the business for a week.

Jem:

And really good for the team here to.

Jem:

Do it all themselves for wake and sort of break some of those little

Jem:

dependencies, which just naturally a

Justin:

Be nice if we could plan those things.

Justin:

Cause I have the same experience.

Justin:

Every time I go away for like even a short vacation where it's a couple

Justin:

of days or something, it's all these things come up like, oh, why have

Justin:

I been, why have I been doing this?

Justin:

Why haven't somebody else?

Justin:

It's like, what is going on?

Jem:

yeah.

Jem:

Awesome.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Cool man.

Jem:

Well, I hope your print works out.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Thanks me too.

Justin:

I haven't checked it in a while.

Justin:

I'm anxious.

Jem:

I expect to see some nice, organic, slow-mo dust footage.

Justin:

no.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

I almost bought a fog machine recently for this exact reason.

Justin:

I still might.

Justin:

I've thought about maybe getting just dry ice instead.

Justin:

I don't really want to fog.

Jem:

Yes, you do.

Justin:

I have a couple of things that would work pretty well for it.

Justin:

Now I didn't even think about the dust spindle thing.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I need one, I guess.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

The Prusa needs one in enclosure.

Jem:

Just for those rave lights.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Oh, that'd be good.

Justin:

Some of the Lego people in there that are like raving.

Justin:

All right.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

See ya.

Justin:

Right.

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About the Podcast

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

Listen for free

About your hosts

Profile picture for Jem Freeman

Jem Freeman

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

Justin Brouillette

Founder of Portland CNC & Nack