How Three Friends Created Pocket Bard, a Game Changing RPG Audio App - Interview 28

Show Transcript

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You're listening to the shuttle class size

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version of this episode with Frank and Chris.

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To get access to the galaxy class size version,

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member of the awesome nerdpreneur board.

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Now enjoy the episode.

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Welcome to Nerdpreneur,

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where we have fun conversations with people

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making money from their nerdy passion.

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My name is Chris, and as always,

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I'm joined by my co host, Frank.

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Hello.

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And today we have three, count them up,

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three very special guests.

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They are the founders,

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owners and leadership team

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of a company called Pocket Bard.

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Their names are Alex Berner, Chase Harris,

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and Jason Kovalski.

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Welcome to the show, guys.

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Thanks for having me.

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Thank you.

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Thanks for having us.

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So, Pocket Bard, what is your nerdy passion?

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Interactive audio for tabletop gaming.

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Nice, nice. Well, for all of our listeners

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who may not be in that space, what is that?

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What is interactive music? Or. Tell me more,

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tell me more. Tell us. Yeah. What is this?

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So it's easiest to understand

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by comparison with non interactive audio.

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So let's say you're playing a game of d and d,

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and you want to set the stage.

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So you open up your

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favorite streaming platform for music.

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You queue up a playlist

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that fits the mood perfectly.

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But as anybody who's played

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a tabletop game or a tabletop RPG,

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knows the mood changes.

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You go from scene to scene,

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from points of action to points of reflection,

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and you want that mood to change. And ideally,

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just like when you're

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watching a movie or something,

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the music and the atmosphere

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should change with the mood.

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Well, if you're on

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your favorite streaming platform,

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as great as they are,

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there's some difficulty in changing that mood.

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You got to go and find the right playlist.

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Maybe you have something curated beforehand.

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But even then,

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if you curate for every possible thing,

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that could happen,

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now you're talking about

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scrolling through different playlists,

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and that just gets heavy handed. Right?

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So that's non interactive audio.

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We did was we took our

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experience in the game audio space.

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There's a whole lot

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of technology behind video game audio,

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and we said we can build something that lets

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you use all these adaptive strategies to

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make it easy at the table to switch the music,

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the sound effects,

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the ambience to exactly what you need in the

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moment with as little interaction as possible.

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One button, click here,

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a little tweak of a slider there,

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and all of a sudden,

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the music is perfect and

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you can focus back in the game.

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Nice. That's really helpful for, I think,

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people who may not know

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anything about what Pocket Bard does.

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And I want to clarify for people,

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this is an app, right?

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So you guys are a downloadable awesome app,

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and it basically for people

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who maybe don't play tabletop RPG's,

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my layman's terms of this is it basically

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gives me the ability to play atmospheric

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music at any point in the game based

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on wherever these players want to go.

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So if I want to be in a tavern, I

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can find something that sounds like a taverny.

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And if I want to go to a place

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that's more of a chilling haunted house,

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I could be able to move into that

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atmosphere and have it become that while

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I describe what that actually looks like.

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And I

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looked through your app a bit, and, Frank,

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did you use the app?

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Did you do any homework for this or.

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I actually have a bit of an anecdote

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about what Chase was just talking about. Yeah,

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I heard about Pocket

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Bard a couple months ago, actually,

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it was an ad on Instagram that you guys had.

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Instagram has me figured out pretty good.

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That algorithm works for us.

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Yeah, only the ads, though.

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The ads are nailed down.

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So your money was.

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Was well placed on that front. And.

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And it was funny because then,

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like a month later,

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Chris sent me this video from when you guys

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were at a trade show and I was like, Chris,

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I know about these guys. Like,

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what's your point?

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I thought he was cool.

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Yeah. I was like, oh, yeah,

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that's a great idea.

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So I had downloaded your app,

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and I had chase.

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You explained my pain point to a T.

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I have literally made a dozen

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plus podcasts or not podcasts,

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playlists with different music. I was

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trying to pull them up. I have, like, suspense.

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D and D suspense.

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I have D and D exploration d

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and d crafting d and d big boss battle.

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D and D smaller boss battle. You know,

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I had all of these playlists,

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and it was just.

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It was a cool idea,

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but then I had to go out and also find

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the music because the other people who've

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created these playlists don't have the same

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perspective that I do.

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And so I wanted something very unique.

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So then when I discovered your guys's app,

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I just thought, my God, this is like,

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where has this been? And you actually,

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what you said that was super interesting,

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was that it was from video game tech,

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which makes so much sense. Did

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any of you guys work in video game, or did you?

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Yeah. So Chase and I, at the end of college,

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we were college roommates,

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and both in video game audio minors,

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different sections of it.

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I was more in the music composition,

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and Chase was more in the, like, audio design,

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but we had a good pairing of skills.

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So right towards the end of college,

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we decided to start a video game.

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Audio company got pretty sidetracked,

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started making games

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instead of audio for games.

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Had a lot of experiences there,

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which will inform a lot of some of, like,

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a lot of our takeaways, I think,

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for future questions

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when we're talking about business, but, yeah.

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So there was a few years there

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where we were really focused on

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creating interactive audio for games. Right.

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Like looking for indie games to score,

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stuff like that.

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So that's where our expertise came,

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and we were kind of at a lull of stuff we

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were working on and basically just got

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this idea and been working on it ever since.

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Yeah, it's a really good solution. And I

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did use it in one game not too long ago,

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I downloaded the ship packet,

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the nautical ship themed one,

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and it was very fun.

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And one of the things I really loved about it,

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because I've used some of the

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older programs that are out there,

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respect to them and them kind of paving

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the way as they did over those years.

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But I always had to mess with them.

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I always had to correct them.

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Something would go wrong.

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But the cool thing was, with pocket Bard,

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I totally got to forget about it,

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and I set the intensity.

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I would every now and then add some sound

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effects like the weather and ambiance,

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but it was great and

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the players very much enjoyed it.

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What stood out to me was

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how simple it was for an app, because, I mean,

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when people have an app,

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I'm always like, seriously, all right,

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I gotta go download this thing. And then

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getting into an app, it's like, frustrating,

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usually that kind of thing. I was like,

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in and playing music within like a few,

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like a minute.

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It was really actually quite impressive.

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And you had, it was like, okay,

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the app came up,

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told me exactly what to do,

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and I didn't have to pay

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anything either to actually

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start testing the product and using it.

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So there's free music on there when you start.

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That is decent, good.

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And you can actually implement into

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your game and not just like one track.

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And then you try to upsell me to, like,

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every other track, there's like a. A

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bunch of different dozen different atmospheres

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that I can select from. I still, like,

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put campfire overlaid onto things. Like,

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it was a great

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experience just from that standpoint.

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So this leads into my questing, and we're

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going to get into some business stuff here.

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Cause I know you guys

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like to get to that streamlined.

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I want to just say, like,

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you guys have a rating on your.

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You have pretty

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good ratings on your app already, like 4.3

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with 1000 some odd votes. You have, like,

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248 reviews on the Apple podcast

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on the Apple Store with 4.8 rating. Like,

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this is good. Like,

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this is really solid

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amount of traction with your app.

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So I'm curious,

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where do you start when you're built? Like,

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when did you guys get into building an

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app and how did that come out to be, like, your

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business idea and how does that get started?

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So I was late to tabletop rpg's. Now,

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I love tabletop rpg's.

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I play D and D with my wife every week,

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and I love it,

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but that wasn't always me.

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And I think it was 2018 when I played

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my very first game of D and D and

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immediately fell in love with the experience.

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I roped my wife in,

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roped some other friends in,

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and we had this incredible guy who

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was dming for us who he knew how to

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tailor the experience for what we wanted.

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And I'm talking,

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he had miniatures,

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he had terrains,

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he was doing all this voice acting,

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and he had music playing.

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But then there were these moments

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that I kept noticing of the action

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would change and he would say, all right,

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role for initiative.

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And things would kind of pause and even

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the experienced players around the table,

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the pace kind of lulled,

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and people would take

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out their phones and check Twitter.

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And I was like, what's happening? Well,

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he's back behind the DM screen,

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heads down in his laptop,

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picking a new playlist.

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And then eventually, oh, okay,

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the cool music started great,

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and we're back into it. And, you know,

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that was not the end of

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the world as far as an experience went.

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00:11:18,860 --> 00:11:20,990
But after having that a couple

275
00:11:21,020 --> 00:11:22,870
of times and having some conversations,

276
00:11:23,210 --> 00:11:25,390
I kind of said to him,

277
00:11:25,580 --> 00:11:27,200
how would you like if I built

278
00:11:27,230 --> 00:11:29,070
you an app where all that work

279
00:11:29,100 --> 00:11:33,770
you're doing that takes you 45, 60, 90 seconds?

280
00:11:33,890 --> 00:11:34,750
What if that was one

281
00:11:34,780 --> 00:11:36,380
button click or two button clicks?

282
00:11:36,470 --> 00:11:37,640
And we kind of talked

283
00:11:37,670 --> 00:11:39,030
a little bit about what he would need?

284
00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:40,710
And then I brought the idea to Alex,

285
00:11:40,780 --> 00:11:42,790
and we just blossomed from there

286
00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:44,780
about how do we make this experience

287
00:11:44,910 --> 00:11:47,390
a lot easier and build it into this

288
00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:50,330
interface that we're able to construct?

289
00:11:50,490 --> 00:11:52,090
We're familiar with.

290
00:11:52,270 --> 00:11:53,760
Everybody's got their

291
00:11:53,790 --> 00:11:55,520
smartphones at the table anyway.

292
00:11:56,340 --> 00:11:59,760
And so that was the origin of the idea

293
00:11:59,890 --> 00:12:03,030
and why that design philosophy of making

294
00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:05,720
this thing the easiest possible thing to use,

295
00:12:05,790 --> 00:12:08,390
so that you don't repeat that experience

296
00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:12,400
of being heads down for too long as a DM,

297
00:12:13,100 --> 00:12:14,590
that really informs

298
00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:16,800
everything we've done thus far.

299
00:12:17,420 --> 00:12:19,880
Totally kills the momentum when people do that.

300
00:12:20,250 --> 00:12:21,070
And in the end,

301
00:12:21,100 --> 00:12:22,700
there's thousands and thousands

302
00:12:22,710 --> 00:12:25,440
of hours of amazing audio out there, right?

303
00:12:25,470 --> 00:12:27,470
There's dozens of films,

304
00:12:28,370 --> 00:12:29,730
more than dozens of

305
00:12:29,770 --> 00:12:31,700
film scores that are incredible,

306
00:12:31,790 --> 00:12:33,960
been recorded by professional orchestras,

307
00:12:34,030 --> 00:12:35,830
with professional mix engineers.

308
00:12:36,850 --> 00:12:38,730
There's incredible audio out there.

309
00:12:38,850 --> 00:12:40,510
What we're offering really

310
00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:42,890
is just a comprehensive solution.

311
00:12:43,010 --> 00:12:43,760
It's the tool,

312
00:12:43,830 --> 00:12:45,870
it's the delivery of it.

313
00:12:47,070 --> 00:12:48,280
The goal is to save people

314
00:12:48,330 --> 00:12:49,740
time and attention because in the end,

315
00:12:49,770 --> 00:12:51,670
those are such limited resources,

316
00:12:51,830 --> 00:12:54,710
especially when you're already in a session

317
00:12:54,750 --> 00:12:57,730
where you have basically two to 8 hours,

318
00:12:57,780 --> 00:12:59,570
who knows how long people's sessions are?

319
00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:02,000
But that amount of time to deliver

320
00:13:02,130 --> 00:13:04,570
a great experience to your players,

321
00:13:04,740 --> 00:13:09,030
and if even 5% of that is bogged down

322
00:13:09,150 --> 00:13:11,350
by the kind of stuff chase was saying,

323
00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:12,870
searching for stuff,

324
00:13:13,210 --> 00:13:15,430
trying to figure out what to do in real time,

325
00:13:16,370 --> 00:13:17,870
that's a long time.

326
00:13:18,020 --> 00:13:20,920
That's maybe half an hour when

327
00:13:20,950 --> 00:13:24,040
you add it up over a long session. So

328
00:13:24,110 --> 00:13:27,790
we're offering a time saver, attention saver,

329
00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:29,510
so you can focus more on the game

330
00:13:30,570 --> 00:13:33,310
and just really focusing on.

331
00:13:33,890 --> 00:13:35,670
We've been trying to establish kind of like

332
00:13:35,700 --> 00:13:39,730
company philosophies that we adhere to,

333
00:13:39,850 --> 00:13:42,910
and these generally evolve naturally.

334
00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:44,270
And one of them that I'm always

335
00:13:44,320 --> 00:13:46,800
referencing is product first right?

336
00:13:46,910 --> 00:13:48,630
If it doesn't serve the product,

337
00:13:49,690 --> 00:13:50,550
we need to be really

338
00:13:50,580 --> 00:13:53,230
careful about doing it right. Like,

339
00:13:53,340 --> 00:13:54,890
is this making the app better?

340
00:13:55,010 --> 00:13:57,930
Is this making the customer experience better?

341
00:13:58,090 --> 00:13:59,740
Is this improving the UI?

342
00:13:59,790 --> 00:14:00,710
Is it making.

343
00:14:00,860 --> 00:14:02,570
Is this an extra button? Click? Like,

344
00:14:02,610 --> 00:14:05,680
we've been very deliberate about every little

345
00:14:05,730 --> 00:14:09,010
design choice we've made with conceptualizing.

346
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:11,880
When somebody's setting up a scene,

347
00:14:12,660 --> 00:14:13,860
what are they thinking of first?

348
00:14:13,900 --> 00:14:14,930
Are they thinking mood?

349
00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:16,680
Are they thinking music?

350
00:14:16,770 --> 00:14:17,940
Are they thinking?

351
00:14:18,100 --> 00:14:19,120
What is their imagination?

352
00:14:19,190 --> 00:14:20,080
How are they crafting it?

353
00:14:20,090 --> 00:14:22,010
And how can we best adhere

354
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:23,920
and replicate that in the app to

355
00:14:23,950 --> 00:14:26,560
make it as user friendly as possible?

356
00:14:27,740 --> 00:14:31,090
We also view the app as never done right. Like,

357
00:14:31,130 --> 00:14:31,890
we're trying to get

358
00:14:31,930 --> 00:14:33,520
those ratings up higher and higher.

359
00:14:33,590 --> 00:14:35,070
We're trying to improve everything.

360
00:14:36,130 --> 00:14:38,210
When we find a better solution to do something,

361
00:14:38,290 --> 00:14:40,000
we'll probably do that.

362
00:14:40,190 --> 00:14:43,110
Right? We're not resting on our current design.

363
00:14:43,260 --> 00:14:45,370
We did a post recently on Instagram

364
00:14:45,530 --> 00:14:47,510
that showed all the design iterations

365
00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:49,550
of the app. There's been, like, seven,

366
00:14:49,970 --> 00:14:52,270
and I'm sure there'll be many more.

367
00:14:52,850 --> 00:14:55,840
So you're talking about the pathing the

368
00:14:55,950 --> 00:14:58,920
user experience to better suit the app.

369
00:14:58,970 --> 00:15:01,320
And then you were talking about

370
00:15:01,410 --> 00:15:03,440
all the different iterations you've had.

371
00:15:03,740 --> 00:15:07,920
How long have you been working on this app?

372
00:15:07,950 --> 00:15:09,400
To get to this point?

373
00:15:10,620 --> 00:15:14,480
We started in August 2019 and

374
00:15:15,060 --> 00:15:19,400
had a bit of a lull in the COVID times,

375
00:15:21,060 --> 00:15:24,720
but have been going really, like,

376
00:15:24,750 --> 00:15:29,260
focused really hard on it since. Jason,

377
00:15:29,380 --> 00:15:30,650
when did you come on. It was like,

378
00:15:30,680 --> 00:15:31,400
when you came on.

379
00:15:31,450 --> 00:15:34,630
That's when we all really got to work.

380
00:15:34,760 --> 00:15:37,760
I think it was around 2021, the COVID period.

381
00:15:37,830 --> 00:15:40,400
Right. Or maybe shortly after that. I forgot.

382
00:15:41,140 --> 00:15:42,300
Yeah, I think so.

383
00:15:42,460 --> 00:15:43,960
But we first released

384
00:15:44,340 --> 00:15:45,820
like a year and a half ago, I think.

385
00:15:45,860 --> 00:15:46,160
Right.

386
00:15:46,230 --> 00:15:47,720
Or has it been two years? Almost.

387
00:15:49,230 --> 00:15:49,660
Wow.

388
00:15:49,730 --> 00:15:51,160
Yeah, it's almost two years.

389
00:15:51,210 --> 00:15:52,890
Two years in beta. Yeah.

390
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:55,330
And a year in out of beta.

391
00:15:55,990 --> 00:15:59,020
So, Jason, what is your role? We haven't

392
00:15:59,050 --> 00:16:00,740
had a chance to hear from you yet.

393
00:16:00,930 --> 00:16:02,440
How do you play a part in this team?

394
00:16:02,490 --> 00:16:06,810
Yeah. So I am mostly on the technology side.

395
00:16:07,230 --> 00:16:09,470
I've known both of them for a long time now,

396
00:16:09,510 --> 00:16:11,290
like almost a decade now.

397
00:16:11,710 --> 00:16:13,930
I grew up with Alex in upstate New York.

398
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:16,380
We went to middle school, high school together,

399
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:17,570
and we both ended

400
00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:20,400
up going to college here in Boston, where I am.

401
00:16:21,420 --> 00:16:23,760
And then I actually also met Chase around.

402
00:16:24,300 --> 00:16:27,630
Was it freshman year, I think. Oh, yeah,

403
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:30,040
because I got your roommates then. Yeah,

404
00:16:30,150 --> 00:16:32,610
but, yeah, I mean, we. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

405
00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:35,350
So I was a business major

406
00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:37,360
and then pivoted to software engineering,

407
00:16:37,860 --> 00:16:39,550
got a job out of college.

408
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:40,720
And then these

409
00:16:40,750 --> 00:16:42,230
guys came to me and said, you know,

410
00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:43,290
we're working on this app.

411
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:44,360
Maybe you can help.

412
00:16:44,500 --> 00:16:45,630
So that's when I kind of

413
00:16:45,700 --> 00:16:47,680
part time started to work on it,

414
00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:48,600
and at that point,

415
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:50,450
I had no idea where this would go. Honestly,

416
00:16:50,500 --> 00:16:51,420
I was just, like,

417
00:16:51,530 --> 00:16:53,520
happy to help out wherever I could.

418
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:55,920
So weeknights or weekends,

419
00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:56,660
whenever I could find,

420
00:16:56,710 --> 00:16:57,720
scrape away some time,

421
00:16:57,800 --> 00:16:58,940
I would work on this.

422
00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:01,430
And then the last year,

423
00:17:01,460 --> 00:17:03,460
we've just been getting so much traction,

424
00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:05,150
and I've been spending more

425
00:17:05,180 --> 00:17:08,180
and more time on pocket Bard. And actually,

426
00:17:08,310 --> 00:17:10,750
the start of this year, January 1,

427
00:17:10,819 --> 00:17:11,829
I decided to quit my

428
00:17:11,859 --> 00:17:13,660
day job and come on full time.

429
00:17:14,940 --> 00:17:17,310
So, yeah, very, very happy and

430
00:17:17,319 --> 00:17:18,560
grateful that I got to do that.

431
00:17:18,589 --> 00:17:20,450
Yeah, you made the leap.

432
00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:21,300
Yeah. Yeah.

433
00:17:21,420 --> 00:17:22,720
Congratulations, man.

434
00:17:22,790 --> 00:17:23,440
Yeah.

435
00:17:24,300 --> 00:17:25,210
Were Alex and

436
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:27,560
Chase already full time in this? Was

437
00:17:27,589 --> 00:17:31,080
this already your full time gig? Yeah, yeah.

438
00:17:31,230 --> 00:17:32,070
So we didn't get

439
00:17:32,080 --> 00:17:34,410
to hear what your roles are. I know he's.

440
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:35,990
Jason's born in the tech side and

441
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:37,180
helped with a lot of that development,

442
00:17:37,260 --> 00:17:39,120
but what were you guys doing?

443
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:40,690
Or what are your roles now?

444
00:17:42,710 --> 00:17:44,520
So I started out.

445
00:17:44,610 --> 00:17:46,360
When Chase first came to me with this idea,

446
00:17:46,410 --> 00:17:47,810
I was mainly the composer, right.

447
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:49,970
So I wrote the music,

448
00:17:50,470 --> 00:17:52,250
generated the audio assets,

449
00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:54,880
and kind of split just the

450
00:17:55,050 --> 00:17:56,610
design and figuring everything

451
00:17:56,680 --> 00:17:59,640
else out that we had to do 50 50, I guess.

452
00:17:59,770 --> 00:18:02,210
And then back when we started

453
00:18:03,550 --> 00:18:06,430
being more like Jason came on and

454
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,370
we started operating more like a business,

455
00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:11,030
I realized it would be helpful to

456
00:18:11,040 --> 00:18:12,680
have somebody just kind of take on the

457
00:18:12,730 --> 00:18:15,070
business leadership part of it. Right? Like,

458
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:18,040
get paperwork filed, keep, you know,

459
00:18:18,110 --> 00:18:19,400
do our bookkeeping,

460
00:18:20,820 --> 00:18:24,840
keep an overall kind of

461
00:18:25,780 --> 00:18:27,830
view of the business strategy at all times,

462
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:29,520
making sure everything's working together.

463
00:18:29,670 --> 00:18:31,970
So I kind of leaped into that role.

464
00:18:32,170 --> 00:18:33,750
I just pitched it to Jason.

465
00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:34,900
Jason just wrote

466
00:18:34,910 --> 00:18:37,070
up a long message one day. I was like, hey,

467
00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:39,010
so I think we need to move faster,

468
00:18:39,130 --> 00:18:40,820
and I think if I just kind

469
00:18:40,830 --> 00:18:42,250
of step into this role and help

470
00:18:42,290 --> 00:18:44,070
keep everything on track and organized,

471
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:45,040
that'll be helpful.

472
00:18:45,110 --> 00:18:47,150
You guys can focus more on what you're doing.

473
00:18:48,050 --> 00:18:49,230
So since then,

474
00:18:49,340 --> 00:18:52,190
I've been the CEO role as well,

475
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:53,270
although I hate saying

476
00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:55,280
that because of all the connotations,

477
00:18:55,390 --> 00:18:57,590
but it's what I do.

478
00:18:57,670 --> 00:18:59,630
So composer 50% of the time,

479
00:18:59,700 --> 00:19:02,340
CEO 50% of the time, and

480
00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:08,390
design app design as a team that we all.

481
00:19:08,420 --> 00:19:10,060
Do just kind of wear many hats.

482
00:19:10,110 --> 00:19:11,860
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

483
00:19:11,970 --> 00:19:12,910
It sounds like you guys

484
00:19:12,940 --> 00:19:15,380
are jumping around a dynamic team, for sure,

48