Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Justin, what an absolute pleasure. I'm so happy to have you on the show. I want to jump into the deep end and I want to ask you, amongst many things that you do, entrepreneur, and I'm not going to go over them, you teach design when you're standing, talking and doing your whole, what is the most important thing you want to give to your students?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: So I teach an unusual class at risd.
I teach the manufacturing techniques class in the industrial design department, which means I get all of the juniors and about half of the grad students and it's a required course. And what I tell them at the beginning of the class is I make a very, the reference is getting harder and harder to make sure that it lands. But I say this class is the red pill. So if you've seen the Matrix, you know which class this is. And I basically tell them academia is built around your ability to explore ideas with no constraints.
But as soon as you exit the RISD bubble, which is a very sort of tight bubble, and you get into the working bubble, which is a much, much bigger bubble, you have to start to be comfortable with constraints. And so my class is all about constraints. That, and the true creativity is found when you understand the constraints and you operate cleverly within the rules of the, of the game that you're playing, not when you're told, oh, you could do whatever you want, it doesn't matter. So I tried very hard to get young, impressionable, optimistic designers to understand that constraints are good, they're not bad. And don't be afraid of somebody telling you some rules. That's the way you're going to be able to explore really excellent ideas versus having no rules at all.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: That is so delightful. Just yesterday I spoke to an ex FBI agent and what he said was counterintuitive. He said that understanding the bureaucracy, understanding the rules, enables you to navigate it easily and quickly and allows you to be successful. And actually having rules as opposed to ambiguity can be a good thing. So it's so interesting, what does this look like from a perspective of, do you stay in contact with these students as they go into corporate and they kind of give you these reflections and stories? How does the, let's say, theory turn into reality?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: So the answer is yes, and some in a very direct way because they work here. So I've had the opportunity to employ a handful of students. I do stay in touch with the students who, I have no closed door policy with students. So if anybody wants to reach out to me after graduation or even during school, I'll always take their call and I'll always talk to them. There are a handful of students whom I've stayed in very close contact with. So tomorrow I teach on Wednesday, so today's Tuesday, I teach tomorrow afternoon. And my presenter for the first hour of the day is a student of mine from about seven or eight years ago, maybe 10 now, who started a company called Brevite which makes backpacks.
They blew it up on TikTok about five years ago. Four or five years ago, as TikTok was really growing, they caught this wave. It's grown the business a lot. And we had this really interesting dynamic which was at the beginning he was asking me how to navigate supply chain, how to build a quality system, how to grow a design team.
And then in 2020 I started a, my agency, built a startup which is in the soft goods business in the cycling industry. And then all of a sudden the tables were turned and now I'm the one saying to him, hey, I need help. And so he's been this really great voice for us to go back to, to say, hey, we're kind of exploring this way or that way. Can you give us some guidance? So he's presenting tomorrow to my class. He's got an hour long time slot. He's going to take 30 minutes to kind of talk about his journey, specifically about what his academic degree provided him and what his academic degree, more importantly did not provide him as he built the business.
And then we're going to open it up to questions from the group. So yes, I really like staying in touch with students. I like hearing what they're doing. Many of them go on to some pretty, pretty spectacular things. And those that want my continued advice ask for it. And those that don't go on to do whatever they're going to do. And it's fun to just kind of keep track of kind of who's where. So it's a really, it's a great way. You know, before we came on we were talking about feeling, well, our kids calling us old. It's a great way to both feel old and young at the same time, is to stay around young people and sort of get that youthfulness by osmosis and feel old because you hear them talk about what they want to do and you say, wait, no, I don't understand. So yeah, I really enjoy it.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: I started running with my son and he is kicking my ass. Like I am, I am like, like lagging behind, panting my, you know, barely breathing and like, God, I just need a, I need a Moment.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the same happens with students where, you know, intellectually, they just start sprinting right away. And it's like, you know, you can, you can walk a little bit first and really understand is the path you're going down the one you want to be on, or is it. Yeah, you know, you don't always have to go full gas from the, from the start. So it's a, it's a great, it's a great sort of juxtaposition of people with experience and people with inexperience, optimism, and realism. So it works.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: That's a wonderful point. I want to ask you, when you look at, you know, your entire personal life and career, and this is a hard question, what is the story that you would identify and tell about your hardest moment?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: About my hardest moment, Covid was the hardest moment by a long, long, long way. It put every piece of my career, family, ideology, sort of open for debate. You start to really question, why am I putting all this time and effort into this and what am I doing this for? It really helped to solidify some of the reasons why. I mean, I run two companies, I teach a class, I have two kids, I'm married to an amazing, amazing woman whom I've known for 27 years, six years.
And you start to sort of sit back and try to understand, okay, well, why are we doing this? Why are we going around in all these crazy circles?
And it, it caused me to really think differently about what work gives me back. And because so much about work, especially in the design field, is you're, you're pouring yourself into things and at some point you have to get something back.
That one way relationship is probably not sustainable over time. And so I started to kind of pull out of the work, what, what I wanted instead of always going the other direction. It's made me, it's caused me to have a different appreciation for why we're doing this. Because it's not if you want to get paid, if you're working for pay, this is the wrong business. And if you're working for impact and you're working for legacies of such a, such a grand word, but if you're working in that way, it causes you to think differently. I've employed, I don't even know, 60, 70 people over the course of my career. And you start to think like, well, I gave those people a job and those people then had an opportunity to learn, and they had an opportunity to then go on and either do something else or they're still here. And that's what the work is for, instead of the work being to get paid and pay your mortgage and go on vacation and buy your food. So that was easily the most complicated, difficult, probably six to 12 months of my career.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: I love that. It's so. I think it's so delightful to understand one's own why.
And it's not always clear to yourself. It really isn't. I wrote an article about the toxic goodbye. And my point of that article was that helping your employees find their next job is not only great business practice, it is the most joyful thing that you can do. So one of my employees, basically, I've been helping her for a month to break into a new industry. She sent me a text. Oh, Ari, I got it. And I felt such an elation and joy for her.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: And this concept of, you know, an employee being able to come to you and tell you that they want to look for their next challenge, for you to say, I'm so excited for you, and to help them do that and actively, not just support them emotionally and then them be excited with you and you. It's just such a different journey and you don't see that a lot. So I deeply appreciate what you're saying.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a.
I just was listening to a podcast a couple of days ago where there was a company that was measuring their. A part of the way that they measured their value slash success was the percentage of their staff being recruited for other jobs. And you think, like, why, why would you want. That's, that's. That doesn't mean they're leaving. That just means that somebody else has decided they are also valuable and therefore you're. Your team is. You've. It's a validation of the fact that your team is valuable. And it was an interesting way to look at your, you know, your team. And I mean, the reality is every entrepreneur, every leader of any organization, if you strip away the team that's behind them, they're pretty useless. And I'm the same. Right? Like, if there's not this whole crew doing all this amazing work, I can't do all this. And they're the most valuable asset of the organization, and they're the reason why we continue to move forward. And if someone finds an opportunity somewhere else, that relationship builds. A longer, more meaningful relationship over time. When you help.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I learned a lot from my first employers who are really good about that. You want to go find some. When I told them I was leaving, I was a very senior level person in the company. And both of them were genuinely happy and supportive of the move. And I still to this day not only have maintained a good. My relationship with them is better now than it was when I worked with them.
What am I, 15 years out, 15 years on? So it's a really valuable way to grow.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: That is so mature and business savvy, that approach. And it just surprises me how little people do it. Like, you see people get offended and it just boggles my mind. I always say that, look, you know, so I'll tell you a short story. One of my favorite bosses basically said he's leaving. And this was the boss leaving. I told him, you know what? I am definitely not happy with this. For me, for me. But I know you are doing the right thing for your family, for your kids. And at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. And he actually told me before he told our mutual boss.
And I was like, look, I honestly, you know, I'm sad. I'm genuinely sad and happy at the same time. And, you know, it was wonderful and he made the right decision and I was glad for him. I want to change the topic. You know, sometimes I'm in a car or a plane or a store, I just get mad because I look at a cup holder or I look at a, at a switch on a car and it's just like, you know what? That pisses me off. I am going to guess, I'm going to guess that you have a similar emotional turmoil when you look at things in the world. Am I right? Is that a fair guess?
[00:12:57] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: You know what one of my biggest ones is like in the car, when you have to push things, that clearly should be a turning knob. Like, something like that. I'm just like, what was the designer thinking here?
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to hear volume up, volume down.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Yeah, the volume, right? Like, like, clearly this should be a turn, like knob, as opposed to a, you know, or microwaves that you have to push 17, but I'm joking. It's not 17, but even, even four is too much. Like, there is no reason in hell that you should not be able to push one button on a microwave for it to start, right? No reason to explain why that should not be a thing. I want to hear, what are your pet peeves? Like, what are the things that you encounter? And you're like, can they please come to my class? And can we please talk about this?
[00:13:50] Speaker B: So my. I have this. I have this.
I'm going to answer your question without answering your question. I have this philosophy about the design field, which is people buy things because of the big.
Because of the big idea, because the big good thing that that provides. People reject things because of extremely small, nitpicky problems. So if you make an amazing thing that's big, grand. We encounter this oftentimes in technology clients that we have. I have this incredible technology that can do all of this work, and it can do it faster, cheaper, better than the competition. That's great. Everyone's going to get rid of that technology because you made it take too many clicks to get the data out or too many buttons to turn the device on. That's what you're experiencing with your car, because your car probably drives fine, it handles fine, it's comfortable, it's warm, it meets all the safety requirements, it looks the way it looks. Good enough. It holds four or five people. The seatbelts work, all the big things, they all work. Yeah, but what annoys you is the volume button.
I drive a Volkswagen ID4. I'm sure no executive from Volkswagen is going to find me on this podcast and call me out.
It is an entirely touch experience inside of a Volkswagen ID4. It is the most infuriating user experience you can possibly imagine. It's also dangerous, as now proven by some data that's come out of the eu. And yet the car drives phenomenally well. It's comfortable, it's quiet, its range is good, it's fast enough, it handles well enough. But if I were to get rid of the car, it's because I can't find the button to just change the radio station, because it's buried under layer after layer, and it's a touch and then a touch and then a touch. So, yeah, the whole world has kind of moved in this direction, where table stakes for goods, services, technologies have all elevated really, really high. And now it comes into the small things and the nuances that dictate whether your customer base likes what you've delivered or doesn't like what you delivered. And that's where I feel like people in our field have this incredible opportunity, because if you're doing this job well, you are predicting and identifying that problem you're talking about in your car before you ever know it was a problem. A designer two or three or four or five years ago said, hey, this is going to be a problem. And then they addressed it, and then you never got to that problem. And that's where our. That's where our. Our role has a lot of. A lot of power.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: So, on the other hand, I get incredibly Frustrated because there is no gratitude for problems avoided.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: No, none, never.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: And to explain what this means to make sure our audience is with us. So there's two kind of extremes of this, right? The one extreme is the firefighter that started a fire to get the accolades of putting the fire out. Now this is a real thing. There are stories that happens everywhere in the world over the years. Now the reason for this is that there is huge gratitude that you get when you solve a problem.
But the people who prevent problems, they go unnoticed, unappreciated and thankless. So there's an issue here in that you can only be blamed like, oh, and you can solve a thousand problems. You can have one mistake and that, oh, why did you. And they'll blame you before it's done. And if you believe in something and it's great, you'll still get blamed before it's done and before anybody has any data about it. It's, it's, you know, it's one of those jobs that can be incredibly thankless. And everybody has, I'm going to try not to curse, but everybody has an opinion, right? Even if they have no. So it's, it's, it's quite interesting.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: You have to be quite thick skinned. You also have to be willing to, you have to be okay with the idea. You're not going to solve all the problems and especially not in the first go. And if the process is built correctly, you build in to the solution finding that says we're going to do, we're going to solve the first block of problems and then we're going to find the second block of problems and solve those and then we're going to find the third block of problems. We're not going to find all of them all at the beginning. And if the, and if you're working in a way that is, if you're working in an organization that allows for that to happen, you can get to these incredible places really fast because you put something out there that's far enough along for people to tell you all the things you didn't know. And then you take that learning and you build the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And those organizations that have taken that to chord, they go really fast and they go really far. And those that don't, you see it immediately.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: So I want to play the devil's advocate.
I want to put you on a spot here for a second.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: There are two schools of thought. One is that innovation and creativity is a hectic process and innovation is Born in chaos. And that basically you should not have a process.
Then there's another school of thought that, yes, that is somewhat true, but processes can be incredibly helpful to achieve high fidelity.
What is the truth here? Where do you fall in this argument?
[00:19:53] Speaker B: I am firmly on the process side. This is not an accident. Good ideas are not an accident. People who have good ideas that then can execute good ideas is even less of an accident.
So the initial spark of inspiration might feel randomized, but it's not. It's because the person who gets inspired has built a world around them that allows them to see and listen and hear.
And they're constantly absorbing what they. What they experience, and then they're taking that. And that body of information that has been collected and sort of digested allows them to have some spark, but they're not. It's not chaos.
And then to take an idea, there's a. I can't even remember who said it, but somebody smarter than me said something to the effect of, ideas are a commodity. Everybody has ideas.
The problem isn't coming up with ideas. The problem is understanding how to action an idea into something that then is sustained over time and that is only built through process.
And that process is extremely.
The process feels chaotic, but the process itself is not. And if you're in the.
If you're in this sort of innovation space, the challenge for most people, especially executives, really have a harder time with this, I think, than people in the trenches, is that you can't see the end at the beginning. You can know generally where it is, you can know generally which direction to point in, but you can't see it.
And you have to be comfortable with that.
Otherwise you kill ideas before they're even born.
And depending on the space, some areas have a higher tolerance for that. The tech industry has demonstrated that they can build excessively valuable organizations through that process. And the military is just learning about this just now. The Navy's just starting to put money into startups.
The US Government's just starting to recognize that they can advance further, faster by leaning into this space rather than what they've done historically is push it as far away as possible for as long as possible. So it's an interesting time for people who are building new things because the opportunities are growing for implementation.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: I fundamentally believe in that. And the thing that I say is that any idea that you have, there are another probably 10,000 people who had that idea, if not more exactly the number of people out of that 10. So your idea is worth nothing, in my opinion.
But there's only maybe a thousand or a hundred people that decided to act on that idea. And out of that 100 people, there's maybe two or three that will be successful for that idea through execution. So that's how I explain it. I don't think there's value in ideas. I think that evolving an idea through incremental experimentation and research is such a delightful process. Let me ask you this.
Is there a one size fits all process for this process of innovation and design, or is it very, very. It depends.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: I think it's somewhere in between. I don't think it's very much. It depends.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: It is also not prescriptive. It is not one size, fit all, fits all, walk. If you think about it this way, and this is how, this is how I try to teach students, and this is what we try to advise our customers or our clients on. It's how we run our run our own business. If you think about this process as guardrails, there's a space in between where there's lots of room to navigate and then there's pretty clear lines in the sand where if you walk over that line, you're going to end up in chaos or you're going to end up in something that the market wholesale rejects.
So the magic of this is finding where the guardrails are and putting them far enough apart where everybody has room to move and close enough together where when you get to the end of the road, you're still on the road.
And that to me, really comes through experience. So when I see a really young founder I'm mentoring, a couple of Brown grads have a brilliant idea. It is brilliant if they can get the guardrails in the right place. From a market standpoint, a channel perspective, a target Persona and audience perspective, they have a billion dollar company in their hands. But if they don't, they're going to be dead in a year because they're going to go off into this place where the market doesn't care anymore and reality applies to every idea. Every idea. And I mean, what you said earlier is totally true.
These students from Brown who came up with this, they're not the first ones to think of that. There's a thousand other very clever people who thought of the exact same thing. The question is, who can execute that idea in an intelligent way that the market accepts? And then how do they build an infrastructure around it to allow it to scale and be sustained over time? That's who's going to win in that space?
And that's the heart. That is extremely hard.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: I agree. I would almost argue that if we, you know, continue this argument or thought process, really what it comes back to is t. Because if the idea is kind of there's a whole bunch of, you know, ideas out there and execution and understanding. In military jargon, we call it the rules of engagement. If you understand the bounds, if you understand the rules of engagement and you innovate within the rules of engagement. And in the business, you know, world, what you described kind of vaguely is, you know, the business canvas. Right. What are all these elements of what are our rules of engagement? If you kind of think of it in that context, it's your team.
And, you know, I'm a techstars alumni, and when I. When I was, you know, trying to get into techstars, the thing is, well, here's the five. The five things we evaluate. The first is team.
The second is team, and then the third is team.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: And then there's two others, and nobody gives a damn. Right. So. So I, you know, if you, if you're thinking or I'm sure you know this already, but I would say this to our audience. Anybody who's thinking about, you know, being successful, definitely your team should be your first consideration.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very true statement.
And the team starts small.
And then as it scales, keeping an eye on how that team's chemistry grows is super critical to. To maintaining forward momentum.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: You're touching on a somewhat inconvenient truth that sometimes, or I should say often, teams do need to change as they grow. And they don't, you know, it's not. It doesn't always make sense. Right. And in fact, my investor, she asked me, oh, Ari, like, when you're a $30 million business, are you going to be able to manage that business? And I said, you know what? There will come a time that I will need to hire somebody to replace me. And I completely acknowledge that.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: And I think many people think that, oh, no, they can do anything. And sometimes that's true, but that's probably the exception. You do want to bring on that talent who's been there and done that. And I met Miki Agual, and she makes bidets. Right. And she was. She's been incredibly successful. But she tells the story about how her first company was a pizza, basically franchise, and was doing horribly, and her pizza store, you know, the concept was great, the idea was great, but it just wasn't doing well. She hired an experienced food, you know, industry manager, and it just blew up.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: And her takeaway is that, you know, I'm not good at everything and I need to be humble and honest with myself. And sometimes that's the thing that brings you success, and that's okay.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: That's very true. I mean, I was deathly afraid of losing people from my company for the first, I don't know, eight or nine years. Like, I did everything I could to keep everyone, and I got to this point where it had started to harm the organization. And you start to realize, not that you want to send people away or push people out, but you don't have to try to keep everyone. And a lot of good comes from fresh ideas and new people and new enthusiasm. And I'm acutely aware of the fact that I certainly can't do everything and neither can anyone else. I think one of the problems is in the media space, we have absolutely overemphasized the founder billionaire success story.
And the reality is they are so incredibly few and far between. And the number for every Brian Chesky, there's a thousand startups that don't have their founder as their CEO when they're worth whatever Airbnb is worth.
And I picked Brian Chesky on purpose because Brian Chesky didn't start something else first, make a lot of money, and then start something after that. Elon Musk bought Tesla, and so he had already made a lot of money before he became the guy that he is today. Whereas a guy like Brian went to risd. Joe, his business partner, went to risd. They built Airbnb. Joe's now, I think, I don't actually know. I don't know those guys personally, but is out of that business and Brian's still very much involved in the day to day. And they. That is, that is the absolute anomaly.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yes. I would say that this much more aggressively, I would say that it is a sure method to fail.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: By following the path of these tech superheroes.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: If you're like, I'm going to be just like them. That's a prescription to fail. It really is. Yeah.
So. So let's, let's dig into this. Let's dive into this. When you think about the cultures that you have built into your organization that you have seen to be proven as healthy, successful growth cultures, what. What were would be the top two or three that you would mention?
[00:31:31] Speaker B: So it's a, it's something that we've certainly struggled with. I mean, my company.
So just to set the table here, my office. I have an office here in Rhode island, which is where I Am now. I have an office overseas. I have an office in Lyon in France, which is a small office run by a very trusted, very talented guy whom I've known for a long time, who happens to be French, which is why we're in France.
Having a company where you have two offices that are highly collaborative in the work that they do means you're constantly trying to ensure that you've got personal connectivity between all of the people involved, because if you lose that personal connectivity, it's very difficult to maintain enthusiasm for the work that you do if you don't have a personal connection with the person on the other end of the. On the other end of the slack meeting or on the other end of the zoom call or whatever it is. And so I am a very big believer of people being in the same room at the same time. And that. That aspect of our. It's a part of the human condition. Like, we aren't built to sit in our homes and never leave.
That's not what humans do. Humans get out of their homes and they go and they socially interact with others.
And so as we've started, you know, we're in a new office that we moved into a couple years ago, and we have worked really hard to rebuild those personal connections that really broke down from 2020 through kind of middle 2022. And it's been an interesting, challenging process for us because you feel like you're taking three steps forward and then you kind of take a step back and three steps forward and a step back. And for us, we're a creative team working in a very technical space. Oftentimes, the need for constant communication and collaboration is really, really high.
And so I go in waves of allowing it to happen organically and then almost forcing collisions to occur. And when I force those collisions to occur within our team, we. We operate. We operate more efficiently, but we also operate in a more. It's more. It's. You can. You can feel the energy in the team and that, you know, that that process really helps keep organizations. I. I've seen it in our clients. For companies that have gone really remote, like, they have no idea what's happening on the other side of the building, because the other side of the building is now further away than it ever was before because those people now are at home. And that's become a really. It's an opportunity for a company like us, and it's a very big challenge for progress.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: You know, this was like going dating myself 20 years back. But even when we were all working in the same office. We had this concept of silos that are just damaging our ability to work together and be successful. So this idea of even adding on top of this, that not only are we siloed just by the way our corporate culture works, we're also now physically siloed in different locations, maybe all around the world. It's, it's so incredible.
You know what, there is something to be said about different industries in different work. Like if you're a software developer. I started off as a software developer. Yeah. You need your, you know, at least six or seven of your hours, you know, in front of the computer, quiet, you know, you don't want these noises, you don't want people walking by.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: But that is not true for so many professionals. And when you talk about the power of serendipity, right. The, you know, on the way to lunch or having the chat at lunch and it's like, oh, you know, Ari, I talked to this customer and they said, da da da da da. I thought it was so interesting. I wanted to share that with you. They're not going to set a meeting about that. They're not going to. The frictions for serendipity are so incredibly increased in this digital remote world that it just kills serendipity, in my opinion. And it's such an important force for good. It really is.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: One of the things is actually one of our developers and he's just like, I just like being, it's like being around people and he's got his headphones on and he's sitting at his computer and he's doing the thing that he could do. He could very easily just do this from his. He works out of like his three season room or his living room when he's at home, but he's here all the time. And that collision, that accidental conversation is really, really valuable to him. It's valuable to the people around him. It's valuable to me. And there was a term that was used before COVID that I really liked, which was management by walking around.
And management by walking around got very difficult for a couple of years. And that strategy of just hearing through the wall and being able to understand, not just project based, not just business based, but personally, who's having a good time, who's struggling, who's stressed, who's up against a deadline that you didn't even know they had, who's struggling with a client or struggling with a problem. It gets really tough when you're not together. So that's where I think that's what we have worked very hard at. Very, very hard.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: The amount of times that I. Over. So I was coincidentally seated near sales, which. Which in retrospect, was the biggest blessing of my life. The amount of times I overheard a conversation of theirs. And at the beginning, I was kind of afraid to do this, but I came up and I said, I'm so sorry I overheard you talking about this. I. And I'm the. I'm the product vp. Product. Right. So I'm the product guy. So I come over and I'm like, I'm so sorry that I was, you know. You know, eavesdropping here. It's not on purpose, but I would. I would love to learn more about what your experiences are. And these so incredibly important things come up about, oh, this is actually preventing the sales teams from selling.
And then it's just amazing. And if you. Then what happened is that I actually started researching these things and I started bringing solutions and I started to solve shit. And then the salespeople were like, oh, this is great. We can talk to the executive team. They listen and they start working for us, and then they open up.
And I think it's incredibly difficult because salespeople, they kind of want to be great. And it's really difficult for a salesperson to ask for help. On the one side, they kind of want to be awesome. On the other hand. Yeah, sometimes you have the salespeople that will just complain about everything. So you have those two extremes, but, you know, getting that communication and feedback when you're in person and it's person to person, it's just such a fun experience. And I'll give you another compliment. I think the fact that your engineer enjoys coming to the office is such an incredible compliment to your culture and your organization and your team. Yeah, it really is. That's my humble and honest opinion.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: I agree. And I feel like we're. But it takes constant attention and takes constant. Can't sleep on it. And I'm not saying we've got it perfect by any means. There's lots of room for impertinence. I'm sure if you interviewed my team, they'd tell you all the things that we could do better to improve our culture, but it's something that we think about a lot because a happy and happy. I'm using happy with big air quotes. A satisfied, engaged team from any organization. I don't care if you're selling soap, you're in a school department, or you're doing creative, technical, design development work. They work. They work Better when that satisfaction is there and the open lines of communication are there and the ability to ask a question, get an answer is there. And I think that that's a really important aspect that some organizations, like I said, we've got some clients where you can feel it, this is going in the wrong direction. And it's in part because none of you have a relationship anymore. You don't even know who each. You don't even know. You don't even know each other anymore.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Other than through this little, you know, this window that we've seen for.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: So here's my, here's one of my biggest pet peeves.
I think that one of the sicknesses in corporate America today is this inability for us to be honest with ourselves and give honest feedback because we're trying to kind of maintain everybody's feelings. Now, I didn't give you the double sided, you know, here's the two opinions. I kind of gave you my opinion.
What is the. Now, I'm assuming that to a certain degree you agree that honest and open communication is important. What is the culture that you have built to enable creativity in a way that is both constructive, but also you're not afraid to say what you think.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: That's a hard, that's a hard question to answer. There are a couple of characters in the office who have pushed, who have pushed us pretty hard on this idea. So there's a, there's a, there's a little bit of a challenge in the art school space which a handful of people here have gone to art school, design school, specifically, where you're kind of taught early on that this idea of there are no bad ideas.
But in truth, when you get out into the world, there are lots of really bad ideas. And being comfortable being told that your idea is a bad idea without it being a threat or without it being a personal attack takes trust and nuance and time.
And it's not because there are bad ideas and it's okay. And some people who are super smart come up with really stupid things. And that doesn't mean that they're, that they themselves aren't good at their jobs or aren't capable, competent people. It just means sometimes we make bad decisions. I am certainly to blame for some very stupid decisions over the course of my career. There is no question about that. And when you have the ability to confront that in a, in a logical, non confrontational way, I think it really builds trust amongst a team where people just say, look, I think this is a bad idea. And here's why?
And if you aren't possessive of your own ideas, but instead open to hearing what other people are saying, you can choose to agree or disagree.
But shutting that down because of concerns about politics or concerns about.
And I don't mean geopolitics, I mean internal office politics, it makes for a pretty unhealthy culture. So I think we're pretty good at telling each other when we think we're doing the wrong thing in a way that's not mean, not confrontational.
I also think that we're pretty good at telling clients when we think they're doing the wrong thing without being mean and confrontational. And what I found oftentimes, especially with executives, is when you are open and honest with them about their own ideas, about their team's ideas, about the direction that their organization is going in. They have so few people in their inner circle who will tell them the truth, that they oftentimes are even more. Are even more accepting of somebody coming in. And if you can justify and validate that opinion and you're not doing it in a way, that's rude.
I've been around a lot of CEOs and CMOs and CTOs who kind of go, huh, I never. Nobody ever told me that before.
And it's like. And you don't want to say this, but, like. Because everyone's afraid of you. And that may be irrational, but it's oftentimes true. Like, they're afraid to tell you because you're their boss's boss.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: And they're worried about what's going to happen to them. And so cultures of companies that have stripped that away, that's a powerful tool because the person on the ground selling knows something that the chief Technology officer could never know.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: That's the reason why they speak English in jal. They don't speak Japanese. Right.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: It's exactly that.
It's such a. I'll tell you a short story. I had this one employee name. His name was Boris. He was like, a complete asshole when it came to, like, ripping you to shreds, to smithereens on why you are an idiot. Here's. I love the guy. Any project or idea I had, I went to him first.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: And I told him, boris, I want you to tear me to parts.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: And I would come with a notebook, and I would write down every single thing he said.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: And 30. 30% of it was mean, spurted. And I. I was like, okay, that's fine. This is the banter we're having. It's fun. And we developed a good relationship, but 70% of it was, oh, my God, I need to go now and figure out how to fix this.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: So having that mindset of this is not a personal attack against me. These are the risks I need to think through on how to solve now if I can't solve them and I want to abandon the idea. Okay. But if I've now identified another five issues and I have now five solutions to this. Wow. I've. I've leveled up my idea. Right. I'm, I'm at the next stage now. So I felt what you've talked about, I've lived through it. And I so appreciate your perspective. The very difficult question. Okay, the question I asked all my guests last question is, if you had to go back to 20 year old Justin, what would you advise him?
[00:46:06] Speaker B: Be more patient. I think the frenzy to get out of college, get a job, move up that job as quickly as you can. I was in my 20s when I got handed my first P and L. And thankfully I didn't totally eff it up.
But the idea that I think I was 29 years old when somebody slid a P and L across the table to me. And literally without naming names, he said to me, can you fix this? And I look at the bottom and I said, are we really losing that much money a month? And his answer was, can you fix this?
And that constant desire to sort of turn up the speed early probably put me in a position where I missed out on learnings that I could have had if I had been a bit more patient with the way that I sort of plotted my course. And I see it now in my students of this sort of frenetic desire to get there faster.
And I think that there's value in sort of being a bit more patient, pacing through this, really becoming more knowledgeable with each stair that you take, rather than trying to just get to the next stair.
And that's, I think, the advice I would give myself. I probably wouldn't follow it, but I should have.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: I just love your honesty and vulnerability here. You know, when I, when I finally got that thing that I wanted, I suddenly came to the understanding, this is awful. Like, why did I ever want it?
[00:48:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: So I wonder if your advice would have benefited.
It would have benefited myself as well.
Justin, what an absolute delight. I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for coming on our show today.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. It's been fun.
