Speaker 1: 0:00

First of all, I'd start with where are their developers? That's one of the best questions I've been asked. Man, Did you plan?

Speaker 2: 0:04

That's high praise. Actually, that was one that was not planned.

Speaker 1: 0:07

Wow, I don't know how to summarize this. This is crazy.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Welcome to Sell Me this Podcast, the show where we explore the art, science and strategy behind successful selling. In today's episode, we're diving into the fascinating journey of Robby, a seasoned professional who's navigated the world of sales and business growth from selling commodities to co-founding a successful software development company, launch Code. Robby shares invaluable insights on building trust in sales, the power of asking the right questions and the importance of aligning with your customers' needs. Get ready to uncover actionable strategies, hear about the lessons learned from cold calling to consultative selling, and gain a deeper understanding of how innovation and curiosity can drive success. Let's jump into the conversation and learn from someone who's mastered the shift from selling products to solving problems. Amazing, robbie. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to dive right into things. Why don't you share a little bit about your story and how you arrived where you are today?

Speaker 1: 1:13

Sure, yeah, cool. First of all, thanks for having me. This is an exciting little ecosystem you've created here. Yeah, it's been a journey, man, it's been a lot of fun the last I've been in growth. My entire professional career sold everything that nobody liked. I always like to say Commodity, price-driven, no value, that kind of thing, All the fun stuff, All the fun stuff, but that's the stuff that kind of gets the skin thickened. And then about nine years ago I had an opportunity to get involved on the side of things with a good friend of mine starting a software development company. Did it on the low key for about a year or so and then following I don't know, a couple of verbal yeses on some potential deals.

Speaker 1: 1:50

I thought this is great. This is a great opportunity to start something really unique that solves problems that people can't find off the shelf solutions for Really gets creative thinking going. You get some solution-based conversations happening where it's not like. Here's my speeds and feeds kind of idea. And that was the birth of LaunchCode, and that's been. It's been a ride, man. It's been a ride, A lot of fun. But that's the Reader's Digest version.

Speaker 2: 2:11

All right, so we're going to. I want to dive into LaunchCode in a second Yep, but one of the things that I think is probably Tell me a little bit about what print guided you towards, because I feel like that's a foundation that a lot of people don't really understand, how it can set up a lot of your career.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Yeah, on the print side of things, yeah, you're right, it's something that everybody hates, it's a necessary evil, it is what it is. It's such a great teaching tool. Yeah, teaching tool. But you look at the professionalism that came out of the print industry with the Xeroxes of the world and Ricohs, and then the smaller kind of like WBMs not so small now, like that kind of concept where you have to really stand out to make a difference. And I owe a lot of my success, fun career conversations, all the fun things to two people in particular within the Rico world, and that's Kara Hubik and Stan Barmeshkin. The name drop because they're great people.

Speaker 2: 3:12

The shout out's real 100% it is.

Speaker 1: 3:13

I learned a lot specifically from Kara as I grew through my professional career, but I think, getting your head around, you're not selling speeds and feeds, you're selling outcomes. You're selling the values and feeds. You're selling outcomes. You're selling the values and the challenges and outcomes your clients are looking to achieve and this is a component of it.

Speaker 1: 3:30

In sales, I like to say there's three different variations of it. There's product, like speeds and feeds, and then there's a evolution to that where you're talking about a solution-based product sale where you still have a product but you're trying to twist it into the outcomes your clients are looking for. And that's really what the Xeroxes and the Ricohs in the print space as a collective really help you hone. And then you get into the things like we do, like what you're doing with Deliver Digital and with what I do with LaunchCode. Is, it's true, solution-based sales? Because you're not walking in with an agenda or portfolio necessarily. You're going in to understand what your clients and the challenges they've got are, what the initiatives and goals they have and how do you help support that.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Yeah, and I feel like there's something special that exists about having to and I think we both have this shared experience go and cold call a doctor's office in front of a whole bunch of sick people. I think it builds this resiliency. But you're right, like that, switch over to okay, I'm selling something that's real, that's tangible, that I can touch, that I can press the buttons, I can do a demo on it to something that really you're ultimately selling trust and you're selling your understanding of their challenges. How did you find that transition going into LaunchCode, as you were moving from more of that solution-based sales to really that consultative sales at LaunchCode?

Speaker 1: 4:45

Wow, that's a really good. That's one of the best questions I've been asked man?

Speaker 2: 4:49

Did you plan that, that's high praise. Actually, that was one that was not planned.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Wow Looks and brains.

Speaker 2: 4:54

I tell you what no?

Speaker 1: 4:56

joking aside, that's a fantastic question. I think that for anybody that moves into a sales career, trust is the baseline for any relationship that you create. That's what sells right Is the ability for you to say no, the ability for you, short-term, to understand. You know what. I'm not going to do this, even though it'll benefit me, because long-term I'm going to see so much more of a return because I've done the right thing, do what's right, integrity. At the end of the day, and in sales you got one chance right.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Trust is very fragile and you break that and it's a real challenge for you to ever go back to any of those clients that you've worked so hard to get, to maintain, to grow, and I've always had that as a belief in my professional career and I've taken that and I was fortunate to be able to go back to all of my old clients that I had in my Ricoh days and tell them about the new cool thing we were doing with LaunchCode. And without that baseline of trust, none of that would have happened. So it's fundamentally the catalyst for the success of what LaunchCode became.

Speaker 2: 5:58

That's amazing, and so, when you think about the types of customers that you were dealing with, how did you find that transition of the conversation as well, because I feel like they're different conversations. You have the trust, you have the foundation in place. Were you dealing with the same people? Were you creating new relationships? What were those engagements like?

Speaker 1: 6:14

Yeah, it's started with the same people, always, like when we started. Like when you're starting a company and I remember telling you the same thing when you were starting this out you have to literally talk to every single person.

Speaker 1: 6:26

You know, every single I'm not exaggerating Literally I called people that I hadn't talked to in 15 years. Hey, jeff, been a while, how's it going? They're like whoa, robbie. I'm like, yeah, it's been a while, I know, but it's really going through your entire phone book, your LinkedIn, your Facebook, your whatever other social channel. You got to go and have these conversations and tell people the good news and obviously it's the connection and re-engaging in the human to human element, but ultimately going through and asking for help, being vulnerable and willing to ask it. And that's what I did. Started it with literally everybody, all of the exact same clients I dealt with, and that evolved. A lot of people are willing to help, they want to help, and we got connections into some great follow-up conversations with and without them and the evolution came from that and fun conversations came after that.

Speaker 2: 7:17

So was there a specific challenge that you were looking to solve? Was there a gap in the market? Or was there just feedback that you were receiving from the folks who were talking to that they just weren't getting what they were getting.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah At the time and you got to keep in mind. This is now when it started, about seven years ago, so things have evolved yeah. Man, yeah, it certainly does With that, though at the time there was a lot of off the shelf solutions that existed still to this day, but there was always gaps. And I remember, with Rico I was we were selling everything. We were selling hardware and software and people and all the things.

Speaker 1: 7:50

Yeah, it was crazy, right, and with that, the software. Every time there's conversations, it was always like, okay, we need to do this, can I do this? And all salespeople, they're listening to this. No, you never want to say no, you just don't.

Speaker 1: 8:04

And I felt I was having to say no more and more and it was really limiting my ability to A help my clients and B grow what I was responsible for on the Ricoh side, and so I was like there's got to be something different here. And that's when LaunchCode came to be. And so when we were going into the conversations with people, it was very, it was very open. I was just going in and understanding their business, understanding the challenges, the pains, and I didn't have an agenda right, it was just learning. And it was being very curious and, well, tell me more, oh, why, and just being very intentional on that curious questioning, and through that it came into you know what. I think there's something we can probably do to help with that. If you're open to a follow-up, I'll bring some smart people with me when I can continue to entertain, but let's bring some smart people that can really be fingers on keyboard and help have a better conversation.

Speaker 1: 8:53

And that's really all it was, and so I didn't have all the answers. I didn't even really know if there was an answer, but it's. Yeah, there's gotta be something here. It sounds about right, and that's how it evolved. I don't know if that answers your question.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Yeah, so did you. You followed your customers a little bit and you were just curious and you asked some questions and then were able to surround them with the right people to help solve those challenges. Is that fair? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 9:15

it is fair and I didn't. I wasn't attached to an outcome and you hear true sales professionals out there, and that's the commonality in all of them is detached from the outcome. If I can solve for a problem, great. If I can connect you with somebody that can solve for a problem, awesome. If I can do it, even better. But I wasn't intentional. I got to close a deal. I got it. That's what really allowed for it.

Speaker 2: 9:37

And I feel like there's two elements that I want to build on from that. First of is the culture that actually allows it. I think that there's so many different organizations that I think force a whether it be metrics or whether it be specific KPIs that just guide people away from doing the ability to do the right thing and the ability to just be curious, listen to their customers and help them with the idea that at some point it'll work out. Yeah, absolutely, man. Do you see the world in the same way on that, or is there something?

Speaker 1: 10:06

Yeah, I think we come from similar backgrounds. When you're publicly traded, there's a little bit more pressure right.

Speaker 2: 10:12

All of a sudden, the shareholders have a voice.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's real. There's definitely a requirement for that to be you have to be cognizant of that like you comes down to doing the right things and that comes. That's your activities, that's your outreaches, that's your connects, and the more you can do that, the more that becomes less of a pressure cooker. Right, because you're giving yourself many opportunities and you're not hinging everything on one thing, closing one opportunity, getting across the line. Now it's a different pressure because and you as you're growing you'll see this.

Speaker 1: 10:42

And I felt it too with LaunchCode is I've got people with mortgages to pay. I've got car payments, I've got families, I've got. They all sit on my ability.

Speaker 2: 10:49

It's a different accountability.

Speaker 1: 10:51

It's another level of accountability. It really is and that's where it's I go back to. One of your initial questions was if I didn't have that pressure cooker, I wouldn't have been able to handle the elevated pressure cooker that comes with that added level of responsibility.

Speaker 2: 11:10

Yeah, and there's so many people that I talk to that come from some of those and I'll call them very transactional, entry-level sales roles that just set such an incredible foundation for some of the either challenges or hardships or these different scenarios that they face down a lot.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Yeah, and it's funny, a lot of people look down on that, right yeah, they look down on those industries but, like it's the one sales is looked down upon and it's the one industry that's not taught in any educational institution and it's the one industry that every organization on this planet needs. It's the school of hard knocks.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Dude, it's hard, so turn me in the corner a tiny bit. I think that you've Great intro, by the way. That was really good.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Thank you, you're so intelligent, you're questioning.

Speaker 2: 11:54

I don't even know where to take that, I know. No, you just take it. Yeah, take it, man. Thank you, you're welcome. I appreciate it. So if you were to describe the work that LaunchCode does today, what have you ultimately arrived at and what you're delivering for customers?

Speaker 1: 12:05

Yeah, the whole premise behind LaunchCode was to help organizations when they couldn't find things off the shelf to solve for a problem, let's build it for them, right? That's the baseline for the organization, and the premise around how it's evolved has been very interesting. As the markets evolved, we've gotten more into creating development teams and providing those as a service, and that's where the business ultimately ended up evolving to, and that's what also is supporting these companies when they're trying to create products and create a new line of the business, or it's a startup and they've got this wonderful idea for a product. That's the premise of the business. There's a bunch of companies like that out there that are doing the same thing. It's an interesting business model because it's project-based. It's hard to scale, but that's the baseline of, ultimately, what LaunchCode was created to do.

Speaker 2: 12:50

And so do you work both with kind of larger corporate entities that are established that have some of these needs that can't be met by off-the-shelf stuff as well as startups, or was there a specific leading that you had more experience with?

Speaker 1: 13:25

no-transcript. Oh man, we got to change the whole process and that's the last thing they want to do because they put so much effort into that. So that's where there's a real need in that space, or there was a real need in that space, and the evolution to that even further is now we want to create a company. There's a problem we can solve. We want to create something to solve for that, and that's where we saw some of these. I would say they're very rare, more rare companies that are your more traditional enterprise that have this kind of we'll call it like spunky startup kind of flair internally. It's not common, and there's a couple of them that we did some work with along those lines and that was a lot of fun because they got that creative mind let's go and they got funding, a lot of funding for it.

Speaker 2: 14:13

So and so this is a and I could probably spend the entire time talking about this one specific topic. But there's this huge difference. I mean, in Calgary, we're incredibly blessed to have this startup scene that is full of energy, full of life, they're doing incredible things, they're growing, they're starting to get really a spotlight on the global stage, and then you have this established enterprise, which I think has some of these aspirations but approach the challenges in different ways, different ways. And so when you talk about some of these organizations that have this kind of spunky startup DNA, is that across the whole organization or are these pockets of the organization that you're working?

Speaker 1: 14:51

with it's pockets. It's got to have somebody near the top, has got to be driving it, because you could have somebody even like a senior leader if they don't have somebody at the executive level. That's really got that creativity, yeah, and I would say they have to have a trying to use the right term they have to be willing, they have to be, they can't be so risk adverse and I think that's a really rare thing, specifically in canada as a whole.

Speaker 1: 15:18

We're very we're not risk tolerant people right, so they have to be more tolerant. Yeah, maybe I said that backwards, but I think you get what I'm saying there. I know I get a complete way of saying it.

Speaker 2: 15:27

And I think, that idea of risk as well. If you think about even traditional technology teams, most of the work is being how do I avoid risk? How do I make it so we don't get hacked? How do I make it so that our servers don't explode? Yeah, you're absolutely right man, it's a different DNA. Yeah, are you finding and you can choose to pass on this question Sure, are you finding that most of those leaders and those change makers come from the traditional technology side, or are they more on the kind of revenue side of the business that are driving that change?

Speaker 1: 15:55

I think it's a blend. I'm just trying to go through my head like… the conversations I've had, I think you're starting to see, as the younger generation is coming into more significant roles, they're pushing the envelope more than the traditional people that are there now and that might ruffle some feathers, but it's what I've seen.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Yeah, it really is. We've seen people traditionally wanting to always do it that way and that like we've lived it right. And you're starting to see that shift now and it's not necessarily just from the revenue side or from the growth side of the business. You're starting to see it more from an operational standpoint and it's exciting to be part of those conversations. When you get somebody that's like that, you're like oh man, this person gets it. This is exciting, let's go. And that gets fun fast.

Speaker 2: 16:39

So if you're, you have one of these change makers, you have some of these big ideas. I feel like the next question a lot of people ask is how do we even get started? There's so many technologies, there's so many startups, there are so many options for them to pick from. What advice would you have for one of these change makers and organization of how to even organize their thoughts or simply get started on some of these initiatives?

Speaker 1: 17:02

Yeah, good question it's. I think the first thing you got to identify is what problem you're solving, yeah, and if you know the outcome you're looking to achieve, it's okay. That's the biggest thing, first and foremost. If you've got that nailed, awesome, okay. What do I need to do to make that happen? And now it's about creating lists of okay in order for, if everything's paper-based or carbon, like even the carbon paper, remember three or four it still exists.

Speaker 1: 17:27

but okay, if we, if I'm trying to automate my entire floor, if my I'm trying to speed something up, or I'm trying to drive more opportunity top line or create more profitability in the business whatever that is by solving a problem that's out there, that is an ultimate delivery into my business from one of the things I just mentioned creating, then, okay, what do I need you to make that happen? Who do I have on staff? Who?

Speaker 2: 17:50

don't I have on staff.

Speaker 1: 17:51

More importantly, what organizations do I know in the marketplace? Who do I know in the marketplace? Who can I start leveraging conversation with and just exploring what that looks like? And there's one of the clients in particular that I'm thinking of that's done this in a very large enterprise, has created a company within the company, right, and it's more or less what he and he just went. He didn't go through months and months of like analysis on it and like pros and cons and doing like a SWOT and like none of that yeah Went through people that he trusted.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Going back to what we mentioned earlier Do what you say and say what you do, and there were some times we went through it, he's. I remember the story is like it was. It was over a game of squash in the office and we had a game of squash, we had some donairs and Hopefully the donairs were before.

Speaker 2: 18:35

No, it was after. You don't be throwing up on the squash court Like it's messy little grooves in the floor Like it's gross.

Speaker 1: 18:40

And what we ended up doing after that was like what do you guys even do here? And I said to him we build things that don't exist Really. Okay, so many more. And so that that's all it was. And then it was identifying what we don't do Right. And so he then said, okay, I have a problem that I can solve, for he identified the four things of paper and the manual processes and everything. And then he's okay, who do I know in my network? And he started having conversations with people, jumped into where he got a good energy exchange right and trust was built quickly and then just started. And then you can iterate and go and there's. But the problem that I've run into time and time again is everybody waits for it to be perfect and there's no such thing and they let perfect get in the way of good, and that's a real, that's a problem, because you'll never get anywhere if you're waiting for perfect.

Speaker 2: 19:24

That's a long-winded answer. I don't know if that. No, that's perfect, because they're always in pursuit of this thing that doesn't exist. They're always going to. There's always one more thing they can do. I don't know about you, but the more that I learn about problems yeah, because more knowledge just creates more questions?

Speaker 1: 19:44

Yep, absolutely. And then you just sit there and cycle in your own desire of what you think this thing should be and you never get anywhere. And the other thing that's very interesting and the common thing that I hear a lot of is people think they know the answer without talking to the people buying Like they're sitting there oh, it's going to be great, it's going gonna do this, it's gonna do this and it's gonna do this. Have you talked to the people that are going to use it, like your clients?

Speaker 1: 20:06

well okay, so that's a no not, yes, go right, go and talk to them, because you probably need a fraction of what you think, yeah, and then you could iterate as you get feedback when it's already live and it probably shifts very differently than what you would assume. It would start as and the execution.

Speaker 2: 20:22

I feel like there's so many people with great ideas, but taking it from A to B or zero to one, that's a great book by Peter Thiel. Yeah, yeah yeah Is that's the hard part is actually getting started, and so I. What advice do you have for people to actually go and get started? I know that sounds like an odd question.

Speaker 1: 20:39

No, it's not, though. Like it's really not, because I remember starting LaunchCode. I remember sitting down and I had left Rico. I sat down. I'm like what did I just do? You're like you leave somewhere where you're doing well, and as you sit down you're like I'm starting something from nothing, so what do I got to do? Pick there's something Totally.

Speaker 1: 21:01

And you hear it like you're starting to see more people realize it. You just got to start yeah, Just make one phone call and see what happens. Make a second phone call. It's literally, it's one step in front of the other, not thinking oh my gosh, how am I going to get a million dollars in sales or whatever. The number is Right. Just start with one phone call and just start. Right, that it's literally that simple. It doesn't need to be any more complicated. You don't need to solve the world's problems. You don't have nothing. None of that needs to be figured out. Just make a phone call and have a conversation, Just get started. I feel like if I had a mic I do have a mic I could drop.

Speaker 2: 21:39

I shouldn't do this one. Layla will get mad at you if you drop the mics. We don't want to do that.

Speaker 1: 21:41

I promise I won't do it.

Speaker 2: 21:43

But literally it's that simple, yeah. So if you think about the transition, then from OK, maybe they've taken a couple steps. They realized either the gaps that they have or the skills they have on their team, they realize what they need and they decide to go shopping. Yep, there are so many different options for people to help conceptualize some of those dreams, and we won't even open the can of worms around.

Speaker 1: 22:06

AI. Yet it's a big can, Nope let's not.

Speaker 2: 22:08

But even in the time when you started LaunchCode, there's a lot of competition in that app dev side of things. What were some of the things that set organizations apart from each other and what were some of the big buy-in criteria that people found really important from each other? And what were some of the big buy-in criteria?

Speaker 1: 22:23

that people found really important. Yeah, that's another good question. The big thing is communication. It sounds so simple. It is something that not a lot of organizations in general, not even an app dev, don't do. Well, they don't communicate. Like an email gets sent, no reply, a phone call no callback, there's fires and's no communication, like those are things that are so simple. Just call somebody back, like how would you feel on the other side being that individual not hearing?

Speaker 1: 22:50

But so that to me, is the easiest, quickest win and, especially in the bad and the ugly times, run at the fire and make sure you're over communicating. So that, to me, is the number one thing Hard stop. I will argue all day long afterwards Nothing. It's not that everything else I'm about to say is not important, but that is like just let the client If we stop there, you're fine. Yeah, I would be, cause now at least your client knows that's it Good, bad or ugly? They know right, and then actions can be taken on their side, cause they're probably reporting into other people that are part of the project and they're not looking good because they don't have answers. Like just communicate, and it solves a lot of problems right.

Speaker 2: 23:29

One of the things that I've said over and over again it sounds like we're completely on the same page about this is the tech actually usually isn't the hardest problem to solve. No, generally not. There are some things that are very complex technical challenges, but 90 of the use cases out there are not hard technical problems, they're hard change management problems. They're hard communication problems, the people side.

Speaker 1: 23:47

It's all about the people. It's all about the people and that's always going to be the hardest part. It always is right we're complex. So I would say that is the biggest thing that I would say right off the hop. But outside of that, when you start getting into the actual development of things I'm thinking of all the projects that we took over when there was issues it comes down to taking your time in terms of the early stage of stuff, due diligence, going through and really having certainty on what the client's looking for can be done right, and having certainty and communicating that back to them.

Speaker 1: 24:21

If it's not an option, provide alternatives, be a partner. Put yourself in the position of the client and what they're trying to solve for, and what would you want your partner to come and tell you? So be that partner. You know what I mean. So if there's things that could be done better, or if they have alternative ideas around what the outcome could be based off of the technology abilities Like there's, just communicate. Again, that's going back to communication. Crazy enough, but it really is. It's going through and taking your time and doing the due diligence. I think it's also having challenged the client. Challenge them in situations. Don't be a yes man or woman. Challenge them and that will ultimately bring a more stable, secure, robust and better experienced solution. On the other end of it all, If you go through and ask the hard questions, Communicating again Weird.

Speaker 2: 25:17

That makes sense, so weird. What are some of the things that people rush through too much? So you mentioned that, one of the things that people are too quick to get to the finish line. What are the, from your experience, the areas, over and over again, that if people only spent more time there, that they would get way better deliverables?

Speaker 1: 25:39

It comes down to not assuming that if I'm the client, don't assume your partner knows, be intentional, be thought thorough and it's we'll just have a dropdown and we'll. It'll be this and like they give very generalized statements and you're laughing Cause I think it's just it's a lot of generalized, with assumption that you're aligned on the other side of it. So it's being intentionally very deep on what the experience is, what the interaction needs to be, and it's putting that effort into that, because the more you can be clear and concise, the more the other person that's coding something that doesn't exist knows what's wanted. And so I would say that has skipped over a lot in a lot of the conversations we've had and that it's an assumptive state. We talked about that six months ago. Sure, yeah, we talked about it.

Speaker 1: 26:28

No, be intentional and have clarity around what you want. That comes up a lot in a lot of conversations and we're not the only ones when we were doing it. I know that's a commonality that's out there amongst a lot of organizations. You're creating something that doesn't exist and you have experience Yep, a hundred percent but you don't have that exact experience because it doesn't exist.

Speaker 2: 26:53

Yeah, and every organization has their own nuances, every industry has their own nuances, their own terminology, their own language, and it can only just snowballs, and snowballs too, especially if you're not aligned up front. Yeah, is that an area where you see a lot of misalignment, too is in that initial discovery, because I think that's especially when it comes down to cost. That's an area that always gets pushed back on a little bit. Is you want to spend X amount of time up front to understand those intricacies? But I feel like often, when it comes down to negotiations, that's the first thing that often gets pushed back on or cut.

Speaker 1: 27:21

Yeah, you're right, You're absolutely right, it is.

Speaker 1: 27:23

And I think that's where when we started to evolve things at LaunchCode and when we were in that time and I see it now as well and I like the model better where, if the client can have an on-staff project lead like a PO or like a technical lead, somebody that understands how it can be done, companies that can provide these development teams. So from the partner side, my statement of work is a team. Right, it's not this never ending scope of work that constantly evolves, changes and what you start with is never what you end with and that's always what it is, because things change, client requests come up mid cycles, like it always evolves and changes, as we know. So I think that's where the evolution. If I'm somebody listening to this and I'm like, oh, I got an idea and like, how do I do this? Have somebody in house as an internal, like specialist under the product or technical or architect or whatever the case may be, and then have a team that person can lead and develop to an internal project rather than outsourcing the entire thing.

Speaker 2: 28:29

So is that one of the reasons that you made that shift from the more deliverable base to more of the staff-on base?

Speaker 1: 28:34

Yeah, and because what we found at the time was that when we started launching, I wanted to create a different experience for people. Right, I wanted to have an amazing client experience, communicate weird and it's so simple but then have an amazing delivery cycle, have amazing experience from the UI UX. That was the whole goal when we started that and as we got through projects and it continued, we had some great deliveries, for sure, but there was always friction because the project scope would always change and no matter how much due diligence you do up front, it still changes to where what you talked about originally it now evolves into something like very different. So that means architect database. There's a bunch of stuff that has to change to support said new environment and then the change request comes along oh my gosh, no one's happy with the no.

Speaker 1: 29:22

And then it's more time and more money and so, like it's really it's, it creates points of friction and that's not why we started it when we did so yeah, that was one of the reasons was to evolve it into a more simplified delivery on our side. It was still a great client experience and still changing the status quo, but just less friction less friction.

Speaker 2: 29:44

I love the feedback that you've given and that advice you gave around having that kind of product lead on the really the customer side. Is there a specific role when you think about those initial leader champions that had that big, bold idea? Are they the product lead or is there a specific role that they should be playing, or does it really depend on the organization?

Speaker 1: 29:58

I think it depends on the organization. But at the same time, they need to be involved. It's their vision, they're the visionary behind this, they're the ones thinking through what that outcome is that they're trying to solve, for they know there's a problem, so they have a generally like a vision laid out. They're never going to be in the weeds on it, but that's where I think having somebody that truly understands the product side and that user experience is so important.

Speaker 1: 30:24

Like developers, everybody just thinks my devs a dev that's got like some UI UX, like no developers are phenomenally brilliant individuals when it comes to what they do. It's very rare that they have that ability from my experience anyways, to be really great at design and user experience at the same time. They just they typically don't, Not to say it doesn't exist, but but that's fairly typical. So that's why, bringing the best of both worlds, when you get like a UI UX designer and then a developer, you bring that together and that's a beautiful merriment of some very creative thinking and you get an amazing product at the end of it that solves the problem that you were looking for at the beginning. So you have to be involved from that leadership standpoint to have certainty on where that vision is trending and going and what deliverability looks like. But the day-to-day it's generally bringing in experts in those areas. So how much?

Speaker 2: 31:08

should those leaders be focused on the economics of it versus the creativity of it? And I once again recognize that this is very subjective. Yep, it is. But what are some of the guardrails that you'd recommend putting in place to make sure that they don't just become large science projects?

Speaker 1: 31:23

Yeah, that's a good question. So if we're going down the scope work, have an MVP.

Speaker 2: 31:28

Okay.

Speaker 1: 31:29

Have something where you're not solving. You know the homeless population problem of the entire universe right, have let's start in V1 core problem to solve for and then deliver on it and then get clients using it. And then get feedback. And what we found time and time again literally every single one of our projects getting the MVP out the door as quick as you can, getting client feedback transitions into a different V2 than what you thought. So you're getting a better product at the end of the day for the people that are buying it.

Speaker 2: 32:02

So this really feeds into your. Don't try to conceptualize what the world looks like in 40 years. Try to ship as quickly as possible and then continue to iterate. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:10

Yeah, iterate and go, iterate and go, iterate and go. If we always joke internally, I'm like okay, for a presentation or a product or whatever we needed to show a client or whatever. I need a V 0.1.

Speaker 2: 32:19

You know what I?

Speaker 1: 32:20

need. You just need a framework and I'll do the rest.

Speaker 2: 32:22

Then we'll go to the napkin drawing. Totally yeah, start there.

Speaker 1: 32:25

Like really, cause then you're getting things out as quick as you can, you're not waiting two years to deliver on something, cause it's this, the complete and aid, is that product that you've created, when all you need to do is A to D yeah, and then you maybe needed to go like four to that. You're not even in the alphabet anymore. You know what I mean. Like it happened a lot, it really did. So I think that would be my biggest suggestion in that situation would be to minimize, take what you think and then cut it down and then ask your potential clients see what they say and then you go from there, and constraints drive curiosity as well.

Speaker 1: 32:57

Ooh, that's a good line.

Speaker 2: 32:58

I actually, so I stole it from Layla.

Speaker 1: 33:00

I could tell because you looked right over, I looked right over, so we were talking about it right before the show.

Speaker 2: 33:03

Yeah, and so I stole it from Layla, that's good.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Nice job, Layla.

Speaker 2: 33:07

Nailed it. Yeah, nailed it. I feel like you're becoming part of the show now. You know what.

Speaker 1: 33:12

I'm like that little voice in your head.

Speaker 2: 33:16

You can't see me, but occasionally I'm there. So then, when some of these things, so you have the MVP in place and you start to iterate, you start to learn. What are some of the pitfalls that you see organizations make as they take these MVPs?

Speaker 1: 33:33

and start to bring them out to the world? That's an interesting question. I haven't seen that a lot in the projects we specifically worked on. What I found was I think here's a misconception that I think- Okay, I love misconceptions.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:48

I think people think it's easier to scale a product than it is, because when you have an idea and you bring something out, I believe from some of the conversations we've had with a couple of partners, we're just going to, we're going to release this and we're going to get a bunch of clients closed and we're going to expand this, and then we're going to do this.

Speaker 2: 34:05

We're going to.

Speaker 1: 34:06

are you now Like it's like? I don't know Like it's? It seems easy in theory but hard in practice and and so it's less development related, more of the product and the business side of things. To scale that, because I believe people don't do enough due diligence by asking the people that are buying enough questions.

Speaker 2: 34:23

I think it gets glorified right now too right you hear all these stories of okay, we have these crazy valuations.

Speaker 1: 34:28

We have these.

Speaker 2: 34:30

There's so much money being thrown at some of these organizations that have this napkin drying and are changing the world with X, y and Z. But it is hard, right, it's not. It doesn't just flip a switch. And you hear so many of the success stories around funding, around things that are going well, but you don't hear the flip side of it, which is all of the challenges and all of the horror stories about what happens when it doesn't.

Speaker 1: 34:50

Yeah, even where it takes to get there, like all this overnight success that's taken 10, 20, 30 years. Yeah, like it's not that easy. And people, it's a glorified environment. Yeah, like it's. Yeah. Anyways, that's a whole nother subject. I feel like that's another podcast episode.

Speaker 2: 35:06

Yeah, a hundred percent, yeah, so when people are picking these partners to help walk them through this process, yeah, once again, I know we touched on it a little bit, but there's some of the alignment components that people should be looking for as well, because there are different types of organizations with different philosophies around how to approach some of this development work. Is there questions that you could think of? If you were to say here's the top two or three questions that I should be asking my potential development partner, what would you think those would be? That's an interesting question.

Speaker 1: 35:42

I partner. What would you think those would be? That's an interesting question I would. I've. First of all, I'd start with where are their developers and how? What's the communication structure and how does that look like?

Speaker 1: 35:50

That was something that we took over a lot of projects when they were overseas somewhere. No cameras didn't engage in conversation, communication, they would just deliver things without. So there was a lot of, there was a lot of challenges around the engagement model between their Canadian, their Canadian lead, if you will the client, the Canadian lead on the partner side and then the actual team doing the work. So I think it would look at the cadences on how you communicate and how I how do I, as the client, have transparency on what's happening on the day-to-day and what does that look like? Like, we provided dashboards when we were doing that and we would give insights on all of the that the client could log in at any time see the dashboard, see what the sprint was, see what the burndown was, see what everything was, budget time, all of it. We had it all there because we wanted to create a transparent environment. Not a lot of organizations did that out there, so that would be key.

Speaker 1: 36:40

How do I? I think that first and foremost is understanding where's the team, what's the communication structure and how does that look like? How are sprints structured and set up? Can I be involved in the standups, even if you want, like seeing what the willingness is for them to allow you to engage in the project itself? We wanted our clients it's a partnership we wanted them in the standups, we wanted them in the scrums, like we wanted them involved, because then you avoid assumption through the process and so involvement where they are and then how transparent are they with the process. And I think if you can get those three things covered, the rest of it can be worked out pretty easily. But those are the three areas I would say are very important, especially if they're not like you can't do this eyeball to eyeball thing.

Speaker 2: 37:20

How important is the technical side of it? You know you talked about the architecture and stuff but I feel like there's a lot of people that got hung up. In what language are we developing?

Speaker 1: 37:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:29

Are we using waterfall or agile Like there's, that's a whole nother conversation.

Speaker 1: 37:34

I know that's what that.

Speaker 2: 37:35

I think I feel like we have four or five episodes.

Speaker 1: 37:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:37

What is some of the things that people get hung up on that are inconsequential or like I think it depends?

Speaker 1: 37:43

Yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's a good question. Do they matter? What depends who you're talking to at the client. If you're having conversations with CEO, coo, the president like they're not going to care what, they don't care what the technology is, does it work with what we got? Yeah, cool, like they don't care. But when you're getting into the team around it, that's when that's going to be a point of conversation.

Speaker 1: 38:05

I believe that the modern languages are required in order for them to have the same look and feel as what they're expecting, cause what they use every day is now what they expect their internals to look like. So I do believe, like yournets and those types of things are maybe not as common, we're starting to see more now. So that's where I think it matters in some of those situations. And then integrations is it going to work together? Is it going to? We all know what APIs are. If we don't, it's handshaking, two, two systems. Is it going to work? And that's what the people that are making the decisions, that are signing the checks, care about. And then the intricacies of having a lead dev or a lead architect supporting the requirements that are there. Yes, they're important, but the decision makers generally in the projects that we worked on, didn't care, it's you make sure that it works on. My team Got it. Yes, sir, yes, ma'am, that type of thing.

Speaker 2: 38:51

And then there's people that are concerned, obviously, about the scalability and bringing the MVP into something where you're not having to do rework after rework and not having to do rework after rework, and I think that's where you got to do due diligence up front as the client.

Speaker 1: 39:01

What projects have they done? How do they make sure that it can scale? Where is it going to be used? How many users are?

Speaker 2: 39:07

going to be there.

Speaker 1: 39:07

What type of redundancies do we need to be in place? There's a lot of pre-work that's the due diligence stuff that has to come together in order for you to avoid the rewrites. And You're right, it's a mess when that happens, and that's what I found. If you don't do the due diligence up front and ask all those questions, then you build it for failure at the end of the day, so that's also on the partner as well.

Speaker 2: 39:28

That makes sense. What kind of financial models could people expect as they're embarking on some of these different evaluations?

Speaker 1: 39:36

I don't know, 50 to 5 million, that kind of thing, and then.

Speaker 2: 39:38

So yeah, cost I guess is different, but are most projects, time and materials. We talked a tiny bit about the risks of some of the yeah, yeah, if you're going to go scoped.

Speaker 1: 39:49

It's interesting, there's no one answer. I guess that's why I'm trying to get my thought wrapped around this, because there's not just one answer to this. Earlier days we'd give ranges because you don't know until and sometimes doing as much due diligence, you still don't know until six months down the road when you're like, oh, that's actually how it went, because it's all hypothetical until that point in time, even if you have a ton of experience. So we would give ranges but, like our clients would just go for the top end anyways. We're like, okay, so I got a budget for the top anyways, yep, because we just don't know, and we would only bill for the time that was used. So back to transparency. We would track all of our team's time that was involved in the project. We would provide reports on a monthly basis and show hours and then direct billables to hours, all directed towards the overarching scope of that high end of the budget that they've accounted for. And I've heard situations and we never did it this way, but I've heard situations of billing per sprint. I've heard situations and we never did it this way, but I've heard situations billing per sprint, and that's great and all but from the the from my side, from like the launch code hat side or the delivery team side.

Speaker 1: 40:48

How do you scale an organization when you don't have certainty on the, the way your billables are coming in every month? You don't, so how do you have a team around that If I don't? If I have, this is going to take 25 sprints, but we only build per sprint and you can walk away at any time. I carry a lot of the risk then, so we never went down that path, but I've heard of some people doing that. That's where I now go back, though, to that evolution, to the staff walk flat rate. It is. We believe it's going to be nine months. You have certainty on your budget every month coming through. It's a per person. Do on your budget every month coming through, it's a per person. Do what you want with these people. Right Now I've got a lot more. I have a lot more certainty on what my P&L is going to look like internally and what my spend is on the project.

Speaker 2: 41:28

So you can both manage that risk as the person that's consuming those services Because I can also imagine from a customer standpoint. It's incredibly scary to go on a road trip if you don't know how far you're driving Totally, and that's a great analogy.

Speaker 1: 41:40

And if you think about it too, who you're selling to? They might be okay with an agile approach and a purse sprint, but the CFO won't be. Yeah, they want waterfall.

Speaker 2: 41:47

They want predictability. It'll be somewhere between $1 and infinity, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:51

I've never heard a close along those lines. That's a tough one to sign, that.

Speaker 2: 41:54

I'm going AI, so another thing that could probably take up a full episode. You got the time row, just so you know. But from a surface level standpoint what are? Some of the big changes that are coming to the development world, especially when it comes to custom dev with the impacts of AI. Oh man, you did this question at the end.

Speaker 1: 42:16

I don't know how to summarize this. This is crazy. I think I was talking to somebody yesterday, this week what the new evolution in some of the in the AI verse I'm just going to call it that Never existed six months ago, so it is wild how fast it's changing. And so for custom dev, I think it's a great enabler, and in order for clients to see success, you have to partner with somebody that understands the space well, and there's a couple of shops, specifically in Calgary and Alberta, that that really hone in on on that AI and ML kind of experience experience lean into the ones that are experts in that area, because they're the ones that have people that are constantly evolving in it.

Speaker 1: 43:06

I will say this you don't necessarily need the ai like you might just need to automate your manual process yes, when that would be a massive impact to the business. So from the partner side of things like the launch codes of the world, it's AI is a great conversation because it opens doors, gets people involved in conversation and it also backfills a lot of potential work to help drive business into your organization. All these companies will know that From the client side, they think they all need it, but they don't, I would argue, the fact of the relevancy in which they need it. So that's, I'm going to go ahead. You got thoughts. No, I'm going to go ahead. You got thoughts.

Speaker 2: 43:39

No, I was going to say there's a little bit of a frenzy around it. I think you're right 100%. There is a lot of AI washing going on and I think that is a dangerous thing. But also, ai has been around for a long time Decades. Yeah, the fuel sensor in my car that says whether or not I need to get Dude. Your car is like a 2024. And 2024. And it's also an electric car, but I do have a gas car at home. I have the fuel sensor in that car.

Speaker 2: 44:06

That's a form of AI to say whether or not I need an oil change, or whether or not I need to fill up my tank, or how far can I go. It's not as, anywhere near as advanced as some of the stuff out there. Oh, totally. But I think that the fundamentals of understanding the use case, understanding the business problem you're trying to solve it's just another tool in the tool belt, totally agree, and I think it's creating some really strong conversations, which is really exciting. But it's not. The world isn't changing tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 44:31

No, I think you nailed it and if you look back, I think it was what like 1972 or something.

Speaker 2: 44:36

No.

Speaker 1: 44:36

The chess player that first got beat by a computer or whatever. I think it was the seventies. Yeah, I can't remember his name. I think it was someone.

Speaker 2: 44:43

I was going to say but, I think it's like a Russian or something. I was going to say a Gary Kasparov, but I don't know if that. See, it sounds Russian. I think we're on the same page. Fact check.

Speaker 1: 44:50

Okay, yeah, layla says any further into that, because I have no intelligence behind that and can't back anything. I would say further to that, but I've talked to very smart people and that's the baseline to it. Like Gen AI Google translator is Gen AI. That came out in 2007,. I think somewhere around there early 2000s, so it's been around forever and I'm a hundred percent a believer of what you just said. Like it's just another tool, right, and it's on us as people to evolve and use the tool. And will it take jobs? Yep, 100%, but it's going to create more than it takes, and I'm a big believer that you've got to keep up with the technology and the space that's out there and use it to your advantage and leverage to grow. So I'm excited for it, man, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:37

I could go on but yeah, so I know we've talked a lot today already. I feel like we could keep talking for a couple more hours. It's our gift man, it's our gift. If you were to leave people that are listening with one last piece of advice around the way they can get the most value through some of these interactions with their different custom dev providers, what would that be?

Speaker 1: 46:05

One thing man I don't like being limited.

Speaker 2: 46:07

We just talked about constraints. Constraints are good.

Speaker 1: 46:08

Yeah, this is true, constraints are good. If I had to prioritize it, I like the communication. I really do, because I think you can go through and ask a lot of questions and do a lot of due diligence. Do your homework, understand the capabilities of the organization you're partnering with, know the clients that they've done work for, have conversations with them. I'm trying to say a lot to summarize what my thinking is here, but I've just seen so many projects go wrong because of a lack of that upfront, so I guess that's it right there.

Speaker 2: 46:37

So making sure that you have a partner with strong communication and do your due diligence on it.

Speaker 1: 46:42

Okay, upfront, understand the problem you're solving for, be crystal clear on the problem you're solving for and then over-communicate with all your potential options from partners. I'm going to go with that. It works Clarity communication. There's my summary.

Speaker 2: 46:56

Clarity Almost your 50%, that's 50%, all right, thanks for taking away from me. If people want to get in touch with you, if they want to connect with you, if they want to learn more, what's the best way for?

Speaker 1: 47:06

them to do that. Yeah, linkedin I'm pretty active on there. It's always the best you can find me. It's I'm sure you'll put I conversations around. How do we potentially help, give some guidance and support people as they go down that path, because it can be messy? Yeah, Amazing.

Speaker 2: 47:28

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 47:29

This has been an absolute blast. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 47:32

Yeah, thank you again.

Speaker 1: 47:33

Yeah, we'll do it again. I hope, I think we will.

Speaker 2: 47:35

I feel like we have episodes four through five, yeah, already lined up.

Speaker 1: 47:38

Yeah, layla's got the notes.

Speaker 2: 47:39

Awesome. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Yeah, thanks, man Appreciate it.