Show Notes

In this episode of Nerdpreneur. We sit down with the co-founders of Pocket Bard, an innovative app that's transforming the way tabletop RPG players experience music and sound during their sessions. We chat with Alex Berner, Chase Harris, and Jason Kowalski as they take us through their journey from being college roommates with a passion for video game audio to building a cutting-edge tool that enhances immersive storytelling.

They open up about the philosophy behind creating interactive audio, their experiences in the gaming and audio industries, and the challenges of launching a startup aimed at the nerd community.

Whether you're a DM looking to bring your sessions to life or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is packed with insights, business lessons, and a behind-the-scenes look at creating an app for tabletop enthusiasts.

Download the Pocket Bard App: https://www.pocketbard.app/ 

The Pocket Bard app currently has a 4.45 rating based on 1,623 reviews on the Google Play Store​ and on the Apple App Store, it boasts an even higher rating of 4.8 from 40 reviews​!

Key Discussion Points:

  • Pocket Bard's Origins: How Alex, Chase, and Jason transitioned from video game audio to developing interactive audio for tabletop RPGs.

  • The App Explained: What makes Pocket Bard unique, including its adaptive music system, easy-to-use interface, and streamlined design for Dungeon Masters (DMs).

  • The User Experience: The team shares their process for designing an intuitive app that enhances the storytelling experience without breaking immersion.

  • Business Insights: The challenges of bootstrapping a tech startup, managing dynamic equity, and their decision to adopt a freemium model with a subscription service.

  • Lessons Learned: Balancing creative roles with business responsibilities, the importance of limiting work in progress, and the value of a strong team dynamic.

  • Future Plans: Teasers for upcoming features and content packs, including a new Tavern music pack and upgrades to the free fantasy essentials content.

Quotable Moments:

  • "We wanted to create an experience where Dungeon Masters could focus on their story, not the music. One button-click, and you're back in the game." — Chase Harris

  • "It's all about saving time and attention for the DM so they can deliver the best experience to their players." — Alex Berner

  • "When you download our app, you get a full experience for free, and we're committed to making it the best it can be without any sneaky paywalls." — Jason Kowalski

Connect with Pocket Bard:

To get the extended interview with Pocket Bard and bonus Talking Nerdy Episodes sign up to be a member of the "AWESOME Nerdpreneur Board!" *Ominous Thunderclap* by going to www.Patreon.com/nerdpreneur

New interviews with Nerdy entrepreneurs every month turning their unique passion into full-time income.

Next Episode Preview: Don't miss next episode where Chris and Frank will talk to Sienna Art Studios a Scientific artist based out of Portland. Hit follow so you don't miss it! 

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Follow us on Instagram @Nerdpreneurpod, Twitter @Nerdpreneurpod, and TikTok @nerdpreneur 

To connect with the hosts follow Chris @professorepicproductions and Frank @frankrbaileyiv

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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go to patreon.com

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nerdpreneur and become a

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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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00:10:15,680 --> 00:10:19,010
my very first game of D and D and

245
00:10:19,180 --> 00:10:21,040
immediately fell in love with the experience.

246
00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:22,450
I roped my wife in,

247
00:10:22,500 --> 00:10:23,800
roped some other friends in,

248
00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:26,340
and we had this incredible guy who

249
00:10:26,350 --> 00:10:29,670
was dming for us who he knew how to

250
00:10:29,700 --> 00:10:31,710
tailor the experience for what we wanted.

251
00:10:31,820 --> 00:10:33,200
And I'm talking,

252
00:10:33,270 --> 00:10:34,480
he had miniatures,

253
00:10:34,570 --> 00:10:35,800
he had terrains,

254
00:10:35,950 --> 00:10:38,680
he was doing all this voice acting,

255
00:10:38,770 --> 00:10:40,720
and he had music playing.

256
00:10:40,890 --> 00:10:42,360
But then there were these moments

257
00:10:42,410 --> 00:10:45,240
that I kept noticing of the action

258
00:10:45,290 --> 00:10:47,580
would change and he would say, all right,

259
00:10:47,620 --> 00:10:48,690
role for initiative.

260
00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:52,050
And things would kind of pause and even

261
00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:53,990
the experienced players around the table,

262
00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:55,920
the pace kind of lulled,

263
00:10:55,970 --> 00:10:57,170
and people would take

264
00:10:57,200 --> 00:10:59,180
out their phones and check Twitter.

265
00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:03,060
And I was like, what's happening? Well,

266
00:11:03,190 --> 00:11:04,820
he's back behind the DM screen,

267
00:11:04,910 --> 00:11:06,340
heads down in his laptop,

268
00:11:06,430 --> 00:11:07,830
picking a new playlist.

269
00:11:08,210 --> 00:11:10,880
And then eventually, oh, okay,

270
00:11:10,910 --> 00:11:12,030
the cool music started great,

271
00:11:12,060 --> 00:11:13,830
and we're back into it. And, you know,

272
00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:16,580
that was not the end of

273
00:11:16,590 --> 00:11:18,710
the world as far as an experience went.

274
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,

485
00:19:15,450 --> 00:19:17,540
and I'm really curious about what

486
00:19:17,570 --> 00:19:18,620
some of the lessons you learned about

487
00:19:18,650 --> 00:19:20,580
making that switch from composer to CEO's.

488
00:19:20,630 --> 00:19:21,910
But I also want to hear what

489
00:19:21,940 --> 00:19:23,760
Chase's role is before we get into that.

490
00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:26,310
So I'm sure that'll also

491
00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:29,060
include a lot of fascinating questions.

492
00:19:29,230 --> 00:19:32,220
So I always tell people

493
00:19:32,270 --> 00:19:34,990
my background is in audio technology,

494
00:19:35,140 --> 00:19:38,550
so I went to school for.

495
00:19:39,330 --> 00:19:41,540
I'm blanking on the name of my degree, but

496
00:19:41,550 --> 00:19:43,610
it's essentially an audio technology degree.

497
00:19:43,650 --> 00:19:45,630
Electronic production and design. There it is.

498
00:19:46,210 --> 00:19:47,870
And so that includes

499
00:19:47,900 --> 00:19:49,790
everything from audio engineering,

500
00:19:49,860 --> 00:19:51,310
being able to engineer

501
00:19:51,340 --> 00:19:53,270
and record and mix and master,

502
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:57,300
to kind of the more technical side of things,

503
00:19:57,390 --> 00:19:59,830
of being able to take a piece

504
00:19:59,860 --> 00:20:01,970
of software that needs audio

505
00:20:02,100 --> 00:20:04,790
and create audio solutions for it.

506
00:20:04,900 --> 00:20:07,380
All of my programming abilities,

507
00:20:07,470 --> 00:20:09,780
so I also do some software development.

508
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,320
All of my programming abilities are self

509
00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:14,380
taught with a lot of help from my dad,

510
00:20:14,430 --> 00:20:16,730
who's a professional software architect.

511
00:20:16,900 --> 00:20:21,690
And so my role in Pocketbard is all

512
00:20:21,730 --> 00:20:24,740
things audio technology and more recently,

513
00:20:24,830 --> 00:20:26,190
stepping into leadership

514
00:20:26,650 --> 00:20:28,210
of the audio team as a whole.

515
00:20:28,290 --> 00:20:29,470
So everything

516
00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:32,720
from spearheading our latest project, which

517
00:20:32,750 --> 00:20:35,630
is we're working on some cool tavern music,

518
00:20:36,530 --> 00:20:39,070
to kind of having that high

519
00:20:39,120 --> 00:20:42,610
level vision of what the audio

520
00:20:42,730 --> 00:20:45,150
landscape in the app needs to look like,

521
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:47,000
what kinds of music we're putting in it,

522
00:20:47,030 --> 00:20:48,860
how we're prioritizing different things,

523
00:20:48,990 --> 00:20:52,650
and then as we create new features,

524
00:20:52,820 --> 00:20:54,890
figuring out the implementation side,

525
00:20:54,980 --> 00:20:57,450
and from an audio technology perspective, like,

526
00:20:57,500 --> 00:20:59,250
how is that going to work if we want

527
00:20:59,380 --> 00:21:01,030
these sound effects to work this way?

528
00:21:01,070 --> 00:21:02,450
When somebody does this in the app,

529
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:03,880
what does that look like as

530
00:21:03,890 --> 00:21:06,790
far as implementing the audio tech side?

531
00:21:06,950 --> 00:21:07,730
He's being humble

532
00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:09,260
on the software development side, too.

533
00:21:09,290 --> 00:21:10,890
He's written a lot of the code.

534
00:21:13,270 --> 00:21:13,860
For a while,

535
00:21:13,890 --> 00:21:15,010
there was a misnomer

536
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:16,970
that I was the lead developer.

537
00:21:17,790 --> 00:21:20,090
I've been correcting people by saying,

538
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:21,090
even though I've written

539
00:21:21,120 --> 00:21:24,970
a lot of the code for a long time, when

540
00:21:25,020 --> 00:21:27,070
Jason was just kind of moonlighting for us,

541
00:21:27,190 --> 00:21:30,890
it was his job to fix my mistakes as a higher

542
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,010
level developer and software engineer than me.

543
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:36,450
Even though I wrote more lines of code,

544
00:21:37,230 --> 00:21:38,980
it wouldn't be there without

545
00:21:39,170 --> 00:21:41,020
him looking over my shoulder.

546
00:21:41,170 --> 00:21:42,290
Catch it up now.

547
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:44,700
It's really nice that the three of

548
00:21:44,730 --> 00:21:47,780
you have solid overlap with each other.

549
00:21:47,850 --> 00:21:50,210
Not only have you found your roles

550
00:21:50,260 --> 00:21:53,370
to make this machine move, you know, with.

551
00:21:53,420 --> 00:21:55,280
With three people, you know,

552
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,930
we often talk with people who are solopreneurs

553
00:21:59,100 --> 00:22:00,730
and how they have to do everything,

554
00:22:00,780 --> 00:22:02,330
and they've got a different struggle.

555
00:22:02,460 --> 00:22:03,430
And then there's, you know,

556
00:22:03,460 --> 00:22:04,770
the situation Chris and I have,

557
00:22:04,780 --> 00:22:05,650
where there's the two of us,

558
00:22:05,660 --> 00:22:07,090
and we can kind of divide things.

559
00:22:07,140 --> 00:22:08,090
If one of us says,

560
00:22:08,180 --> 00:22:09,910
I'm not that great at that thing,

561
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:11,040
how are you at it,

562
00:22:11,070 --> 00:22:12,180
and then the other says, actually,

563
00:22:12,230 --> 00:22:13,400
that's not that bad for me.

564
00:22:13,430 --> 00:22:14,400
I can do it. Sure,

565
00:22:14,510 --> 00:22:16,510
we end up divvying things up like that,

566
00:22:16,620 --> 00:22:18,540
but the three of you have found this role.

567
00:22:18,590 --> 00:22:20,060
I love to think of Alex,

568
00:22:20,190 --> 00:22:21,590
you are a musical composer,

569
00:22:21,620 --> 00:22:24,070
but you're also the composer

570
00:22:24,260 --> 00:22:26,590
to get people and every.

571
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,140
You're organizing an organizing composer,

572
00:22:29,190 --> 00:22:30,510
and I love that visual.

573
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:31,920
I'm already creating D and D

574
00:22:31,990 --> 00:22:33,950
classes in my head for you three.

575
00:22:34,850 --> 00:22:36,470
I'm trying to figure it out for everybody,

576
00:22:36,500 --> 00:22:38,730
but that one made sense to me pretty clearly.

577
00:22:38,850 --> 00:22:40,790
I'll get back to you on the other ones. But.

578
00:22:41,610 --> 00:22:43,520
So the three of you also,

579
00:22:43,670 --> 00:22:44,790
it stands out to me,

580
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,930
fall into this classic startup story.

581
00:22:48,090 --> 00:22:49,230
It's like, yeah,

582
00:22:49,300 --> 00:22:50,800
pretty recently after college,

583
00:22:50,870 --> 00:22:51,910
me and some buddies got

584
00:22:51,940 --> 00:22:53,870
together and we started an app.

585
00:22:56,290 --> 00:22:56,810
How often

586
00:22:56,850 --> 00:22:58,710
does that actually work out, too, right?

587
00:22:58,780 --> 00:23:03,510
Yeah. Like Dropbox and Facebook and Pocket bar.

588
00:23:03,670 --> 00:23:04,120
Yeah.

589
00:23:04,190 --> 00:23:07,420
Well, I mean, part of the reason it

590
00:23:07,460 --> 00:23:09,070
is our overlap of skills that

591
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:10,680
we've been able to get to where we are,

592
00:23:10,710 --> 00:23:13,680
because software developers are expensive,

593
00:23:14,300 --> 00:23:16,980
and the amount of music I've written

594
00:23:17,020 --> 00:23:20,520
would have cost us a lot of money to, like,

595
00:23:20,670 --> 00:23:23,130
dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of music.

596
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:25,860
So by having us

597
00:23:25,940 --> 00:23:28,510
be the main team and not get paid,

598
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,360
we've saved ourselves. I mean, honestly,

599
00:23:31,410 --> 00:23:32,280
I'm sure it's over

600
00:23:32,350 --> 00:23:35,430
half a million dollars. Right. Like, that's.

601
00:23:36,050 --> 00:23:37,890
Could we have raised that money for this idea?

602
00:23:37,930 --> 00:23:41,190
I don't know who you know. It's. It's.

603
00:23:41,380 --> 00:23:43,630
If you can find the right pairings of

604
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,230
skills that save you the most money

605
00:23:46,300 --> 00:23:48,510
and have a team that works together well.

606
00:23:48,660 --> 00:23:50,150
Like, I don't know how we could have

607
00:23:50,180 --> 00:23:50,710
gotten to this

608
00:23:50,740 --> 00:23:53,790
point without this team specifically. Right.

609
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:56,460
And I really like this number. We.

610
00:23:56,470 --> 00:23:57,790
We've started expanding our team.

611
00:23:57,820 --> 00:23:59,030
We brought on our first employees,

612
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:00,580
which they've been to amazing,

613
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,740
but just getting started when

614
00:24:03,870 --> 00:24:08,390
everything's on the line and you have to

615
00:24:08,580 --> 00:24:11,820
kind of rely on the hope of it doing well.

616
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,150
I do think that the attitudes and the

617
00:24:15,180 --> 00:24:17,610
culture that you have are super important.

618
00:24:17,700 --> 00:24:20,140
I think we're all optimists,

619
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,100
or at least have a positive bias

620
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:26,730
towards what we're working on,

621
00:24:26,850 --> 00:24:28,720
and that's really helpful to be

622
00:24:28,750 --> 00:24:30,750
able to maybe when a feature

623
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,710
gets delayed by four months from

624
00:24:33,740 --> 00:24:35,720
when we were hoping to still be like, nope,

625
00:24:35,750 --> 00:24:36,760
we're going to get to it,

626
00:24:36,830 --> 00:24:38,950
and it's still worth doing.

627
00:24:39,810 --> 00:24:41,370
Yeah, we haven't made money. Yeah,

628
00:24:41,410 --> 00:24:43,150
we're out of money. Yeah,

629
00:24:43,850 --> 00:24:45,510
we need to pay the bills,

630
00:24:45,850 --> 00:24:47,310
but we just got to keep going.

631
00:24:47,420 --> 00:24:49,630
So I do think that that

632
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,560
is a difficult element to quantify,

633
00:24:54,020 --> 00:24:56,680
but has really worked out in our favor

634
00:24:58,060 --> 00:25:00,900
and just trusting each other. You know,

635
00:25:00,940 --> 00:25:03,250
we've known each other for a long time. Like.

636
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:04,040
Like Jason said,

637
00:25:04,070 --> 00:25:06,440
I've known him since he got there,

638
00:25:06,550 --> 00:25:09,370
got to our town in fifth grade,

639
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:12,080
and just became friends right away.

640
00:25:12,150 --> 00:25:14,950
I've known Chase since 2012 at this point.

641
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,510
So having that trust

642
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:19,440
also is really helpful as well,

643
00:25:19,470 --> 00:25:21,280
so you can rely on the other people

644
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,260
having a similar level of dedication.

645
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:28,060
Also, we're not worried about

646
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,130
somebody kind of bailing or, I don't know,

647
00:25:31,140 --> 00:25:31,990
just the kind of

648
00:25:32,020 --> 00:25:34,120
things that you hear about a lot, I think,

649
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,380
are things that we've avoided. Right.

650
00:25:36,430 --> 00:25:38,260
And that's very helpful.

651
00:25:38,390 --> 00:25:40,100
Not just the things that

652
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,620
have a positive impact on success, but

653
00:25:43,650 --> 00:25:46,260
avoiding the things that make stuff fall apart.

654
00:25:47,770 --> 00:25:49,550
Like, can you give an example?

655
00:25:50,890 --> 00:25:52,030
Put you on the spot right there?

656
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:55,190
Yeah. No, yeah, I'll give a specific example.

657
00:25:56,130 --> 00:25:58,330
Equity disputes or issues

658
00:25:58,410 --> 00:26:00,790
with ownership and what people

659
00:26:02,370 --> 00:26:04,140
contribute and what they own.

660
00:26:04,190 --> 00:26:05,390
That's something that

661
00:26:05,890 --> 00:26:08,350
we've tried to navigate very openly. Like,

662
00:26:08,380 --> 00:26:10,930
we trust each other to have those discussions,

663
00:26:11,010 --> 00:26:12,420
and we actually found a system

664
00:26:12,470 --> 00:26:14,540
to love to give a shout out.

665
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:16,460
It's called slicing pie.

666
00:26:16,510 --> 00:26:19,820
It's a dynamic equity system where, basically,

667
00:26:19,950 --> 00:26:21,060
your contributions

668
00:26:21,150 --> 00:26:24,590
to the business are quantified,

669
00:26:24,740 --> 00:26:26,100
and it changes over time.

670
00:26:26,150 --> 00:26:28,020
So it's dynamic equity.

671
00:26:28,360 --> 00:26:30,850
The time you put in based on your role is

672
00:26:30,940 --> 00:26:33,540
calculated with a multiplier into slices,

673
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,030
and so is any cash you put into the business.

674
00:26:37,180 --> 00:26:39,900
So anybody's ownership of the business at any

675
00:26:39,930 --> 00:26:43,350
given point is just how many slices they've

676
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,650
contributed over the whole of the team.

677
00:26:46,810 --> 00:26:50,030
So we were able to, you know,

678
00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:52,230
Chase could take a week off, and

679
00:26:52,300 --> 00:26:54,850
me and Jason wouldn't be like, hey, you got.

680
00:26:54,890 --> 00:26:55,760
Why'd you get a week off?

681
00:26:55,790 --> 00:26:58,090
We didn't get a week off. Like, you know,

682
00:26:58,210 --> 00:27:01,190
equity would dilute and vice versa.

683
00:27:01,220 --> 00:27:02,980
If you really put in a lot of time,

684
00:27:03,030 --> 00:27:04,380
that would be represented in

685
00:27:04,390 --> 00:27:06,760
your equity and it changing over time.

686
00:27:06,900 --> 00:27:10,220
So I think that's one thing we did

687
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,330
that was a systematized kind of

688
00:27:13,380 --> 00:27:16,020
approach to better facilitate

689
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:18,860
everybody feeling

690
00:27:19,010 --> 00:27:21,340
accurately or adequately valued.

691
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:24,480
But there's a level before that, too,

692
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,300
which is just the fundamental trust and

693
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:30,780
excitement and dedication to the product,

694
00:27:30,890 --> 00:27:33,070
and that sometimes just takes time.

695
00:27:33,260 --> 00:27:35,640
When somebody's been dedicating

696
00:27:36,220 --> 00:27:37,920
hundreds or thousands of hours to

697
00:27:37,950 --> 00:27:40,160
something over the course of four years,

698
00:27:41,100 --> 00:27:41,930
it can start to

699
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,560
count on people pretty confidently.

700
00:27:46,700 --> 00:27:49,030
Yeah. And, well, that's super interesting,

701
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,410
the dynamic flow of equity.

702
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,150
I'm guessing that that creates

703
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,830
a unique culture between the three of you, too,

704
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:01,780
where things continually get done as you see

705
00:28:01,830 --> 00:28:03,980
other people working and getting things done.

706
00:28:04,110 --> 00:28:05,980
It almost feels to me like

707
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,060
the dungeon master awarding loot. Right.

708
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:12,900
It's like based on experience, right? Like, oh,

709
00:28:12,930 --> 00:28:15,260
or you get this because you did more, right?

710
00:28:15,290 --> 00:28:16,490
Or you get more experience or

711
00:28:16,500 --> 00:28:17,830
an inspiration point or things like that.

712
00:28:17,860 --> 00:28:20,300
There's something weirdly fair by having

713
00:28:20,350 --> 00:28:22,660
it sort of be something outside of just

714
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,440
having to negotiate between each other.

715
00:28:25,610 --> 00:28:28,240
And it's interesting to see

716
00:28:28,270 --> 00:28:30,280
that that has actually created a good,

717
00:28:30,330 --> 00:28:32,400
cohesive environment within it.

718
00:28:32,410 --> 00:28:34,450
Do you think that being nerds who play D and D,

719
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,120
I'm assuming you all play D and D, but

720
00:28:37,250 --> 00:28:39,960
helped and contributed to that kind of being

721
00:28:40,260 --> 00:28:42,280
you guys being a party that works together?

722
00:28:42,780 --> 00:28:44,640
I definitely see the analogy,

723
00:28:44,670 --> 00:28:47,820
but I don't think the three of us,

724
00:28:47,900 --> 00:28:49,160
with the three of us all

725
00:28:49,190 --> 00:28:52,280
together have played d and daughter, like,

726
00:28:52,410 --> 00:28:54,290
with all three of us once,

727
00:28:55,350 --> 00:28:58,810
so we're not used to actually gaming

728
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:02,460
together at the table. So, yeah, I don't know.

729
00:29:02,490 --> 00:29:04,130
I don't think we even knew how well

730
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:05,750
we would work together in the beginning.

731
00:29:05,790 --> 00:29:07,340
It just happened to be that way.

732
00:29:07,450 --> 00:29:09,220
We're very similar in certain ways,

733
00:29:09,290 --> 00:29:11,440
very detail oriented and, yeah,

734
00:29:11,450 --> 00:29:12,180
I don't know, it just worked.

735
00:29:12,210 --> 00:29:14,060
And that overlap like we were talking

736
00:29:14,090 --> 00:29:17,010
about earlier just worked out very well.

737
00:29:17,820 --> 00:29:20,300
Yeah, the communication is, like, super easy.

738
00:29:20,420 --> 00:29:22,390
I feel like we communicate in similar

739
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,020
ways where I hear all the time about

740
00:29:25,060 --> 00:29:27,630
meetings being a waste of time or anything.

741
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:28,930
When we have meetings,

742
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,010
at the end of it,

743
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:31,840
I always feel super energized

744
00:29:31,950 --> 00:29:35,040
and excited about what we're doing.

745
00:29:35,190 --> 00:29:36,730
I feel like we got a lot done.

746
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,670
I feel like we made a lot of decisions.

747
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,680
So when we have our four hour meetings,

748
00:29:41,830 --> 00:29:43,320
whether a business or development,

749
00:29:43,410 --> 00:29:45,230
those are my favorite things.

750
00:29:45,420 --> 00:29:48,150
So I always look forward to those. Our

751
00:29:49,410 --> 00:29:51,590
development meetings are fun,

752
00:29:51,660 --> 00:29:53,710
even when I'm just kind of taking a backseat

753
00:29:53,740 --> 00:29:55,550
to listening to these guys talk about

754
00:29:55,620 --> 00:29:57,550
how they're going to execute on features.

755
00:29:59,250 --> 00:30:00,440
Can you tell us a little bit about

756
00:30:00,470 --> 00:30:02,160
the structure of those types of meetings?

757
00:30:02,230 --> 00:30:03,030
How is that run?

758
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:04,790
Just to give us a peek behind the

759
00:30:04,820 --> 00:30:07,050
curtain of what seems to be working.

760
00:30:07,130 --> 00:30:08,930
Is there a structure or is it just

761
00:30:08,970 --> 00:30:10,870
personalities that are gelling together?

762
00:30:11,630 --> 00:30:13,690
It depends on the meeting. Jason,

763
00:30:13,740 --> 00:30:16,450
do you want to give a background on, I guess,

764
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,010
how you run the software dev stuff?

765
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,120
Sure. Yeah. So there's

766
00:30:21,170 --> 00:30:23,170
this methodology called agile,

767
00:30:23,990 --> 00:30:25,860
and there are certain ceremonies that you're

768
00:30:25,890 --> 00:30:27,770
supposed to do as part of that process.

769
00:30:28,350 --> 00:30:30,550
So something like backlog grooming,

770
00:30:30,590 --> 00:30:31,880
which is essentially going through a

771
00:30:31,890 --> 00:30:34,640
bunch of items and adding details to it,

772
00:30:34,650 --> 00:30:35,340
what needs to be done,

773
00:30:35,370 --> 00:30:38,020
what's the acceptance criteria, and then, like,

774
00:30:38,050 --> 00:30:39,340
assigning priority,

775
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:42,100
how much effort it's going to take.

776
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:44,080
And then that kind of complements

777
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:45,940
another ceremony called sprint planning,

778
00:30:46,070 --> 00:30:47,820
where you actually set the

779
00:30:47,850 --> 00:30:50,700
direction for the next two weeks, let's say,

780
00:30:50,830 --> 00:30:53,510
and then you pull in work from the

781
00:30:53,540 --> 00:30:56,460
backlog and assign it to different people.

782
00:30:57,640 --> 00:30:58,690
So that's something

783
00:30:58,740 --> 00:31:00,430
we're trying to be better at now, like

784
00:31:00,460 --> 00:31:03,220
adding a little more structure and processes.

785
00:31:05,090 --> 00:31:05,830
But I think it's

786
00:31:05,860 --> 00:31:07,070
also something we're trying to balance.

787
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:08,020
Like we don't want to add

788
00:31:08,070 --> 00:31:10,100
too much process and waste time.

789
00:31:10,150 --> 00:31:12,560
So we're kind of slowly,

790
00:31:12,710 --> 00:31:14,110
incrementally adding

791
00:31:15,730 --> 00:31:18,150
those types of meetings on the technology side.

792
00:31:18,690 --> 00:31:20,520
But we do have a lot of other business

793
00:31:20,630 --> 00:31:22,350
strategy type of meetings as well.

794
00:31:24,010 --> 00:31:27,160
Yeah, I think like Jason described,

795
00:31:27,270 --> 00:31:29,350
those are pretty analytical, right.

796
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,280
We meet and it's within

797
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,160
two minutes or in the details, right.

798
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,540
Like it's really focused on being efficient,

799
00:31:37,590 --> 00:31:38,740
figuring out what the best

800
00:31:38,770 --> 00:31:41,700
course of action is on a small scale.

801
00:31:41,870 --> 00:31:44,180
For the larger strategy discussions,

802
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:47,460
it's generally a little bit more freeform,

803
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:49,300
with some exceptions.

804
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:54,330
So usually I like to lead them in a

805
00:31:54,340 --> 00:31:57,280
way where there's a specific topic

806
00:31:57,350 --> 00:32:01,890
that's being addressed and just, you know,

807
00:32:01,930 --> 00:32:03,870
usually like to hear all three of our

808
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,510
viewpoints because I do feel like we're.

809
00:32:07,290 --> 00:32:09,630
It's like a workshopping an idea, right.

810
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,590
And as we go around and kind of list our

811
00:32:11,620 --> 00:32:15,040
concerns with a concept or our thoughts

812
00:32:15,070 --> 00:32:17,540
on it or potentially pitch an alternative

813
00:32:17,630 --> 00:32:19,390
for whatever we're trying to decide.

814
00:32:20,730 --> 00:32:22,170
So I'll give an example

815
00:32:22,210 --> 00:32:24,720
because that's probably more useful.

816
00:32:25,740 --> 00:32:27,440
We get a lot of community,

817
00:32:28,660 --> 00:32:30,960
a lot of the community asking us, oh,

818
00:32:30,990 --> 00:32:32,960
will you integrate with foundry?

819
00:32:34,340 --> 00:32:35,920
Will you integrate with other virtual

820
00:32:35,970 --> 00:32:39,000
tabletop games like I play on this site?

821
00:32:40,620 --> 00:32:42,560
Could you build an integration for that?

822
00:32:42,670 --> 00:32:43,660
And that was something

823
00:32:43,700 --> 00:32:45,730
that we were trying to figure out. Okay,

824
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,550
how are we going to fit this into our roadmap?

825
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:50,440
We've already got all this other stuff,

826
00:32:50,590 --> 00:32:52,870
and we had a long meeting a

827
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,800
few months ago and just went around,

828
00:32:55,910 --> 00:32:57,160
listed our concerns and

829
00:32:57,210 --> 00:33:00,260
just came to the decision of, right now,

830
00:33:00,300 --> 00:33:01,980
we don't have the resources for this,

831
00:33:02,100 --> 00:33:03,040
and it will detract

832
00:33:03,130 --> 00:33:05,210
from our core offering right now,

833
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,920
which is our in person gaming experience.

834
00:33:08,460 --> 00:33:10,220
This is not something

835
00:33:10,300 --> 00:33:13,970
we want to detract from right now. And

836
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,710
that came about just through us kind of saying,

837
00:33:17,780 --> 00:33:19,550
what's our capacity right now?

838
00:33:20,130 --> 00:33:22,890
How realistic are we being about our timelines?

839
00:33:23,050 --> 00:33:26,820
Let's look back at our history.

840
00:33:26,910 --> 00:33:29,760
Have we been delivering on our items according

841
00:33:29,830 --> 00:33:32,230
to the schedule we've been hoping to,

842
00:33:33,090 --> 00:33:35,760
and just came to the decision as a team

843
00:33:35,950 --> 00:33:38,910
after a pretty free form discussion that

844
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,110
we were going to at least wait for that.

845
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:45,890
I've started in this new year,

846
00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:47,550
start taking a bunch

847
00:33:47,580 --> 00:33:50,990
of ideas from the book, working backwards,

848
00:33:51,180 --> 00:33:52,780
which I highly recommend.

849
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:57,260
It's about corporate practices at

850
00:33:57,290 --> 00:33:59,910
Amazon and it's definitely one of

851
00:33:59,940 --> 00:34:02,080
the best business books I've ever read.

852
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:03,950
There's some I'll read and I'll feel like, oh,

853
00:34:03,980 --> 00:34:04,550
maybe I got like

854
00:34:04,580 --> 00:34:06,710
two takeaways every page in this.

855
00:34:06,740 --> 00:34:08,260
I was stopping and

856
00:34:08,290 --> 00:34:11,440
writing notes of practical takeaways.

857
00:34:11,610 --> 00:34:14,040
So I kind of grabbed the

858
00:34:14,090 --> 00:34:18,989
idea of project proposals where Amazon,

859
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:20,510
they banned PowerPoints,

860
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:22,219
so basically

861
00:34:22,340 --> 00:34:24,969
they present projects and narratives,

862
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:27,409
a six page narrative form.

863
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,510
And I tried that with

864
00:34:30,679 --> 00:34:32,870
one of our awesome new employees, Nick,

865
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:34,239
who's working on customer support.

866
00:34:34,290 --> 00:34:35,639
And we worked together on a project

867
00:34:35,710 --> 00:34:38,850
proposal for basically an overhaul for

868
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,949
our entire customer support infrastructure,

869
00:34:42,030 --> 00:34:43,250
like how we answer emails,

870
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:44,429
what our standards are, what

871
00:34:44,469 --> 00:34:47,800
the resources are that anybody can reference,

872
00:34:49,420 --> 00:34:51,639
how people can be aware of what the status

873
00:34:51,670 --> 00:34:54,020
of bug fixes is and everything like that.

874
00:34:54,179 --> 00:34:56,620
We spent a few days writing

875
00:34:56,659 --> 00:34:58,980
up this six page narrative document,

876
00:34:59,020 --> 00:35:00,280
making it really good,

877
00:35:00,430 --> 00:35:01,920
and then came to

878
00:35:03,350 --> 00:35:06,250
Jason and basically just presented it,

879
00:35:06,550 --> 00:35:07,400
just sat there,

880
00:35:07,450 --> 00:35:09,610
read it through for 20 minutes,

881
00:35:09,720 --> 00:35:10,850
made some notes,

882
00:35:11,020 --> 00:35:12,440
made some alterations,

883
00:35:12,490 --> 00:35:15,010
and then just greenlit it. So

884
00:35:16,750 --> 00:35:18,640
this is something that I've always been

885
00:35:18,730 --> 00:35:21,600
really curious about and passionate about,

886
00:35:21,770 --> 00:35:25,540
is what the best way different

887
00:35:25,650 --> 00:35:27,810
pieces of information are presented,

888
00:35:29,130 --> 00:35:30,580
because there's a lot of things to consider.

889
00:35:30,670 --> 00:35:33,690
People read faster than they speak, people

890
00:35:33,770 --> 00:35:37,450
speak faster than they type, people text,

891
00:35:37,570 --> 00:35:39,710
like with what implement

892
00:35:39,780 --> 00:35:42,580
you're typing on changes the speed.

893
00:35:42,750 --> 00:35:45,130
These all alter how fast we can communicate.

894
00:35:45,170 --> 00:35:47,390
And certain ideas are

895
00:35:47,420 --> 00:35:49,840
better communicated in written format.

896
00:35:49,910 --> 00:35:52,430
Sometimes if I was going to try to

897
00:35:53,820 --> 00:35:55,800
convey something to a large number of people,

898
00:35:55,870 --> 00:35:59,440
maybe I would want to spend 200 hours

899
00:35:59,530 --> 00:36:02,840
writing the best thing I possibly could, right.

900
00:36:03,500 --> 00:36:05,880
And because that actually will make

901
00:36:05,910 --> 00:36:08,160
it better and save everybody else

902
00:36:08,210 --> 00:36:10,180
time from having to read an extra page.

903
00:36:10,220 --> 00:36:11,560
So it's about scale,

904
00:36:12,660 --> 00:36:16,040
it's about considering how the

905
00:36:16,070 --> 00:36:18,010
audience will best digest the information.

906
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:20,350
So I always try to keep that in mind.

907
00:36:20,540 --> 00:36:23,720
That ties back into our app design, too.

908
00:36:23,790 --> 00:36:25,730
How are we best going to present the

909
00:36:25,770 --> 00:36:28,120
information to the user so that

910
00:36:28,150 --> 00:36:29,840
they can immediately know what's happening?

911
00:36:29,910 --> 00:36:33,270
That's why we've had symbols with

912
00:36:36,170 --> 00:36:37,710
sound icons.

913
00:36:38,090 --> 00:36:39,980
We want people to be able to just look down,

914
00:36:40,070 --> 00:36:41,630
instantly recognize something visually,

915
00:36:41,700 --> 00:36:42,620
not have to read.

916
00:36:42,710 --> 00:36:45,120
If we had a text based app,

917
00:36:45,150 --> 00:36:47,020
it would be much less usable.

918
00:36:47,170 --> 00:36:49,220
So maybe that was rambling, but yeah.

919
00:36:49,290 --> 00:36:51,900
Anyway, that makes a lot of sense.

920
00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:53,620
And I applaud also,

921
00:36:53,750 --> 00:36:56,170
one of the things you said there where you say,

922
00:36:56,220 --> 00:36:57,150
turn down some

923
00:36:57,180 --> 00:37:00,590
of the stuff that people, not forever,

924
00:37:00,660 --> 00:37:02,780
but right now people were saying, oh,

925
00:37:02,810 --> 00:37:04,030
why aren't you on foundry? Or can

926
00:37:04,060 --> 00:37:06,650
you make something for this integration, right.

927
00:37:06,780 --> 00:37:10,740
And understanding who you're serving is really

928
00:37:10,810 --> 00:37:12,470
important when you're new in business. Right.

929
00:37:12,540 --> 00:37:14,110
And knowing who is your market.

930
00:37:14,180 --> 00:37:15,860
And I love one that you're promoting.

931
00:37:15,890 --> 00:37:17,560
People get together into in person

932
00:37:17,630 --> 00:37:19,540
D and D because as much as I

933
00:37:19,550 --> 00:37:22,280
think in person's d and D is like one,

934
00:37:22,310 --> 00:37:23,640
it is having a resurgence because

935
00:37:23,670 --> 00:37:25,610
we got out of the COVID times,

936
00:37:25,690 --> 00:37:27,980
but also I think it's really where

937
00:37:28,030 --> 00:37:30,320
people fall in love with the game.

938
00:37:30,390 --> 00:37:30,990
You know,

939
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:32,350
it is one of those things

940
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,010
that I've had people who have

941
00:37:34,050 --> 00:37:35,870
started just on the digital side of it,

942
00:37:35,900 --> 00:37:38,670
and it's hard to maintain their excitement

943
00:37:38,740 --> 00:37:40,730
in the same way as when you have that

944
00:37:40,770 --> 00:37:42,730
consistent group of friends getting together in

945
00:37:42,770 --> 00:37:45,990
person and you're app is selling convenience.

946
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:47,290
So that convenience,

947
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,080
that ability to just show

948
00:37:49,130 --> 00:37:51,320
up and not have to have planned,

949
00:37:51,780 --> 00:37:54,630
spend an hour or two going through YouTube

950
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,760
or Spotify or whatever looking for great music,

951
00:37:57,850 --> 00:38:00,880
you can just go and show up and finish your

952
00:38:00,910 --> 00:38:04,000
day and go right into the game and be able

953
00:38:04,070 --> 00:38:07,360
to provide the atmospheres at an easy level.

954
00:38:08,140 --> 00:38:09,730
And there's people that I just think

955
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:10,960
that saying no to that kind of stuff.

956
00:38:10,990 --> 00:38:12,700
And so you can be great in this one area.

957
00:38:12,740 --> 00:38:15,820
That's a really a wise and smart thing to do,

958
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:19,420
especially at this stage of the company. So

959
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:23,440
I guess you mentioned earlier that

960
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:25,110
you transitioned from being mainly

961
00:38:25,140 --> 00:38:27,780
a composer to then being like the CEO.

962
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,060
And I'm sure all of you have had to

963
00:38:31,090 --> 00:38:34,110
probably expand yourselves and read

964
00:38:34,220 --> 00:38:36,170
more business books or watch more business

965
00:38:36,220 --> 00:38:38,390
youtubes or listen to be able to kind

966
00:38:38,420 --> 00:38:40,350
of step into these bigger and grand roles,

967
00:38:40,380 --> 00:38:41,860
because you all do multiple things.

968
00:38:42,460 --> 00:38:45,270
So maybe we can take a second if each of you

969
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,720
could share some of the lessons you've learned,

970
00:38:47,850 --> 00:38:50,080
or maybe a lesson that's been really

971
00:38:50,210 --> 00:38:52,720
crucial that serves you now in the role

972
00:38:52,750 --> 00:38:56,320
that you're at and how you learned that

973
00:38:56,370 --> 00:38:59,880
lesson as you were coming into your role.

974
00:39:01,980 --> 00:39:03,000
Yeah, that's a good question.

975
00:39:03,070 --> 00:39:06,260
Sure, I can start. So, yeah, I often

976
00:39:06,300 --> 00:39:08,680
fall victim to chasing perfection.

977
00:39:08,790 --> 00:39:11,240
And oftentimes I think it slows me down.

978
00:39:11,750 --> 00:39:14,890
And especially early on in a company like this,

979
00:39:15,310 --> 00:39:16,720
I've learned it's really important

980
00:39:16,770 --> 00:39:17,890
to just launch and iterate

981
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,720
quickly and learn from your users.

982
00:39:21,890 --> 00:39:24,330
Establish that feedback loop early on,

983
00:39:25,310 --> 00:39:27,100
because oftentimes you're not

984
00:39:27,130 --> 00:39:28,460
going to know what the perfect

985
00:39:28,570 --> 00:39:30,650
implementation of some feature is.

986
00:39:32,710 --> 00:39:34,140
It's just important, I think,

987
00:39:34,170 --> 00:39:36,250
to just get the product and features out

988
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,380
there and then learn and then keep, you know,

989
00:39:38,410 --> 00:39:40,260
evolving as you go.

990
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:41,830
Would you say

991
00:39:41,860 --> 00:39:46,530
it's almost like a fire, ready, fire,

992
00:39:46,620 --> 00:39:48,760
aim strategy as opposed to a ready, aim,

993
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,560
fire strategy because you kind of aim after

994
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:53,730
you figure out what people like or don't like?

995
00:39:53,780 --> 00:39:55,860
Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it.

996
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:56,970
That's a good one.

997
00:39:56,980 --> 00:39:57,800
I'm going to write that down.

998
00:39:57,840 --> 00:39:59,360
We got a few good ones on this show.

999
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:01,500
When you're starting off with something,

1000
00:40:01,690 --> 00:40:05,240
you want to say yes to a lot, right? Like,

1001
00:40:05,310 --> 00:40:07,720
you want as many opportunities to test,

1002
00:40:07,890 --> 00:40:10,200
to get as much data as possible,

1003
00:40:10,660 --> 00:40:11,850
but at some point,

1004
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,420
you need to start saying no a bit,

1005
00:40:14,580 --> 00:40:15,650
and at some point,

1006
00:40:15,720 --> 00:40:17,920
you need to start saying no to most things,

1007
00:40:18,070 --> 00:40:19,360
and then at some point,

1008
00:40:19,390 --> 00:40:20,440
you need to start saying no to

1009
00:40:20,470 --> 00:40:22,200
everything unless you have

1010
00:40:22,230 --> 00:40:24,840
a really good justification for it. Again,

1011
00:40:24,890 --> 00:40:26,480
that's when you have something that's working.

1012
00:40:26,570 --> 00:40:29,240
And to use your example, ready, fire, aim.

1013
00:40:29,290 --> 00:40:30,690
When you're aiming right,

1014
00:40:30,720 --> 00:40:33,620
and you've got it aimed,

1015
00:40:33,780 --> 00:40:35,900
the sites are aimed well, right.

1016
00:40:36,020 --> 00:40:37,080
It calibrated.

1017
00:40:37,130 --> 00:40:40,930
You're not looking for anything else,

1018
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:42,360
because at that point,

1019
00:40:43,260 --> 00:40:47,270
anything else is a totally new venture. Right.

1020
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,510
We can't get, I guess,

1021
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,560
overconfident or expect that something

1022
00:40:52,630 --> 00:40:57,240
else we could do would pan out as well as,

1023
00:40:57,970 --> 00:40:59,120
as what

1024
00:40:59,150 --> 00:41:02,070
we've currently got going. So, yeah. Saying no,

1025
00:41:02,650 --> 00:41:04,080
because like I was saying earlier,

1026
00:41:04,150 --> 00:41:06,020
we're all pretty optimistic people.

1027
00:41:06,070 --> 00:41:07,670
I get excited about stuff.

1028
00:41:07,780 --> 00:41:10,470
People present ideas. I'm like, oh, that's,

1029
00:41:10,500 --> 00:41:11,110
that's really neat.

1030
00:41:11,140 --> 00:41:11,890
That'd be a lot of fun.

1031
00:41:11,930 --> 00:41:13,950
But it's my natural inclination

1032
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:16,130
to say yes to everything, and I just,

1033
00:41:16,210 --> 00:41:18,110
we can't do that anymore.

1034
00:41:19,210 --> 00:41:21,140
I absolutely resonate.

1035
00:41:21,310 --> 00:41:23,290
I just wanted to throw out there

1036
00:41:23,330 --> 00:41:25,390
a little thing that I've learned with Chris,

1037
00:41:25,510 --> 00:41:26,410
and it's something,

1038
00:41:26,460 --> 00:41:28,070
it's a lesson I've learned over

1039
00:41:28,140 --> 00:41:29,980
my entire lifetime working with people.

1040
00:41:30,030 --> 00:41:30,900
But with Chris,

1041
00:41:31,030 --> 00:41:33,580
I feel like the opportunity helped

1042
00:41:33,650 --> 00:41:36,620
me really get good at it, so, you know,

1043
00:41:36,670 --> 00:41:38,940
because Chris is very much an ideas guy,

1044
00:41:38,990 --> 00:41:40,380
and he gets really passionate

1045
00:41:40,410 --> 00:41:42,070
about the cool ideas he comes up with.

1046
00:41:42,140 --> 00:41:45,870
I feel like in any startup or any new venture,

1047
00:41:45,940 --> 00:41:47,820
there's got to be somebody like that

1048
00:41:47,870 --> 00:41:50,550
because it fuels so much of

1049
00:41:50,580 --> 00:41:53,150
your direction and it creates

1050
00:41:53,180 --> 00:41:56,020
these new ideas that I'm like, oh, yeah,

1051
00:41:56,050 --> 00:41:56,740
that would be cool.

1052
00:41:56,790 --> 00:41:58,870
But I'm also the structure guy.

1053
00:41:59,020 --> 00:42:00,820
I am the logistics guy.

1054
00:42:00,910 --> 00:42:02,580
And so when Chris says, hey,

1055
00:42:02,610 --> 00:42:03,740
we should do this thing,

1056
00:42:03,810 --> 00:42:07,190
I immediately just go, oh, shit. Oh, my God,

1057
00:42:07,260 --> 00:42:08,260
how am I going to find,

1058
00:42:08,370 --> 00:42:10,100
where are we going to? I don't even,

1059
00:42:10,190 --> 00:42:11,250
I know how we could do that,

1060
00:42:11,260 --> 00:42:12,090
but that would take to,

1061
00:42:12,180 --> 00:42:13,530
how are we going to wow.

1062
00:42:13,660 --> 00:42:15,620
And so that's where my brain goes.

1063
00:42:15,750 --> 00:42:17,220
But I've learned that,

1064
00:42:17,270 --> 00:42:20,150
you know what, it's okay. I tell myself,

1065
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,180
Chris had another really good idea.

1066
00:42:22,230 --> 00:42:23,660
I'm going to write that down.

1067
00:42:23,830 --> 00:42:25,720
If he brings it up a second time,

1068
00:42:25,870 --> 00:42:27,070
I'll write it down again,

1069
00:42:27,240 --> 00:42:28,670
and then I'll know, like, okay,

1070
00:42:28,700 --> 00:42:30,590
he's really thinking about this.

1071
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,830
You know, it's. It's. For me,

1072
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:34,720
I couldn't get

1073
00:42:34,750 --> 00:42:38,430
to the saying no as much more of, for me,

1074
00:42:38,460 --> 00:42:41,840
it's the say yes, write it down,

1075
00:42:41,990 --> 00:42:45,250
come back to it when I can. But it's totally.

1076
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:47,550
It's similar but different from, like,

1077
00:42:47,590 --> 00:42:48,740
when you have customers, like,

1078
00:42:48,770 --> 00:42:49,700
you're talking about, you know,

1079
00:42:49,730 --> 00:42:52,290
they want to see you on foundry. Like,

1080
00:42:52,710 --> 00:42:54,850
that comes down to your laser focus.

1081
00:42:55,270 --> 00:42:57,530
You guys have been on the market for, you said,

1082
00:42:57,580 --> 00:42:58,810
a couple years now,

1083
00:42:58,940 --> 00:43:01,690
so you kind of understand there's.

1084
00:43:01,720 --> 00:43:04,600
There's proof of success in your product,

1085
00:43:04,770 --> 00:43:06,480
so you're not as worried about that.

1086
00:43:06,530 --> 00:43:06,930
You've.

1087
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:08,230
You've gotten a good

1088
00:43:08,270 --> 00:43:10,350
idea of who your audience is. You know,

1089
00:43:10,470 --> 00:43:12,370
what their pain points are. I'm.

1090
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:14,730
I assume a bit on that one. And, you know,

1091
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:15,470
their pain points.

1092
00:43:15,510 --> 00:43:17,790
So you can create features

1093
00:43:17,830 --> 00:43:21,570
and products that cater to those. And that's.

1094
00:43:21,870 --> 00:43:24,990
That is an interesting distinction. Like,

1095
00:43:25,030 --> 00:43:28,660
that's a couple steps up from many of the other

1096
00:43:28,690 --> 00:43:31,340
people we talk to that are still, in some ways,

1097
00:43:31,410 --> 00:43:32,190
figuring it out.

1098
00:43:32,230 --> 00:43:34,220
And many of our listeners are still trying

1099
00:43:34,250 --> 00:43:37,060
to figure out who is my audience, you know,

1100
00:43:37,090 --> 00:43:39,790
what are their pain points? And eventually,

1101
00:43:39,940 --> 00:43:41,820
they'll be able to get that laser focus,

1102
00:43:41,910 --> 00:43:42,480
I will hope.

1103
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:43,980
And with what you're talking about,

1104
00:43:44,010 --> 00:43:45,580
they'll at least think about it.

1105
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:48,040
So very cool.

1106
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,710
I didn't want to miss Chase, though,

1107
00:43:50,900 --> 00:43:52,580
on the lesson for yourself.

1108
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:56,340
Yeah, I had three small ones, if that's cool.

1109
00:43:56,470 --> 00:43:57,660
I wrote it down so that I'd be

1110
00:43:57,670 --> 00:43:59,250
able to focus and listen and not

1111
00:43:59,260 --> 00:44:03,420
just be thinking about my answer. And actually,

1112
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,480
these all kind of come from other people.

1113
00:44:07,650 --> 00:44:08,930
None of this is lessons that

1114
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,560
I learned by figuring it out myself.

1115
00:44:11,860 --> 00:44:13,290
The first one is actually something that

1116
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,960
Jason said months and months ago about.

1117
00:44:17,740 --> 00:44:19,050
I think it was even just, like,

1118
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:20,280
an off the cuff, like,

1119
00:44:20,390 --> 00:44:21,980
we should kind of act like this.

1120
00:44:22,140 --> 00:44:24,640
And I took that, and just, like,

1121
00:44:24,710 --> 00:44:26,160
it started cycling in my mind,

1122
00:44:26,190 --> 00:44:27,600
and I was like, oh, no, no, no.

1123
00:44:27,670 --> 00:44:30,200
We need to take this to 110%,

1124
00:44:30,310 --> 00:44:32,690
which is limit work in progress.

1125
00:44:32,890 --> 00:44:36,380
If you have 18 irons in the fire, none

1126
00:44:36,390 --> 00:44:38,280
of them are getting the attention they deserve.

1127
00:44:38,390 --> 00:44:39,680
And so I don't even

1128
00:44:39,710 --> 00:44:40,870
remember what we were working on,

1129
00:44:40,900 --> 00:44:42,740
but Jason was like, we

1130
00:44:42,750 --> 00:44:45,170
should try to limit our works in progress here.

1131
00:44:45,290 --> 00:44:47,740
And I went, oh, yeah, that's right. And

1132
00:44:47,750 --> 00:44:51,420
so now we have a million things we want to do,

1133
00:44:51,510 --> 00:44:53,620
and it's so tempting to take

1134
00:44:53,670 --> 00:44:55,530
step one or step one and two

1135
00:44:55,650 --> 00:44:59,390
on 18 of those all at once. But like, nope,

1136
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,320
we're actually going to be serving the company

1137
00:45:01,390 --> 00:45:03,470
and the product and the business better

1138
00:45:03,620 --> 00:45:05,670
by finishing what we're currently working

1139
00:45:05,720 --> 00:45:08,000
on now and putting that attention here.

1140
00:45:08,110 --> 00:45:10,710
And I'll still be excited about the next thing.

1141
00:45:10,860 --> 00:45:11,860
Two weeks from now,

1142
00:45:11,910 --> 00:45:12,960
two months from now,

1143
00:45:13,070 --> 00:45:14,230
we'll get to it.

1144
00:45:16,010 --> 00:45:17,310
That's the first one.

1145
00:45:17,930 --> 00:45:19,800
The second one is also kind

1146
00:45:19,830 --> 00:45:21,030
of something that's been said here

1147
00:45:21,060 --> 00:45:23,730
before or said in this conversation,

1148
00:45:23,900 --> 00:45:26,210
which is that the

1149
00:45:26,260 --> 00:45:28,370
fact that we have a team of three, I think

1150
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,740
is actually something extra, extra special.

1151
00:45:30,890 --> 00:45:33,560
When you have one person, every single idea,

1152
00:45:33,610 --> 00:45:35,090
you just bounce around with yourself.

1153
00:45:35,140 --> 00:45:36,330
Maybe you have people you can trust,

1154
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:37,150
that you can talk to,

1155
00:45:37,190 --> 00:45:41,220
but ultimately it's you and only you. And I,

1156
00:45:41,330 --> 00:45:42,810
frankly think that's a problem.

1157
00:45:43,350 --> 00:45:45,250
Adding in a second person is great

1158
00:45:45,300 --> 00:45:47,100
because all of a sudden you have a mirror.

1159
00:45:47,170 --> 00:45:50,020
You can actually genuinely get somebody

1160
00:45:50,050 --> 00:45:51,740
else's perspective from somebody who has

1161
00:45:51,770 --> 00:45:55,600
skin in the game. And that's, that's, you know,

1162
00:45:55,720 --> 00:45:58,020
you're 100% better than you were before.

1163
00:45:58,170 --> 00:46:00,900
But I think having a third person in the mix

1164
00:46:01,070 --> 00:46:04,180
actually provides an extra mirror where

1165
00:46:04,310 --> 00:46:06,620
there might be times where Alex and I will talk

1166
00:46:06,650 --> 00:46:08,320
about something and we'll get caught up in,

1167
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:09,980
in a perspective that we happen

1168
00:46:10,010 --> 00:46:11,850
to share and Jason will come in

1169
00:46:11,940 --> 00:46:13,650
and we'll kind of shatter the

1170
00:46:13,660 --> 00:46:15,900
illusion and go, you know, hey, wait a minute.

1171
00:46:15,930 --> 00:46:16,980
Think about it this way.

1172
00:46:17,070 --> 00:46:20,500
And we both go, oh, that's right. And I think.

1173
00:46:20,670 --> 00:46:22,600
I think three is kind of a magic

1174
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:24,700
number for being able to do that. So that's,

1175
00:46:24,770 --> 00:46:26,460
that's the second lesson.

1176
00:46:26,570 --> 00:46:28,020
And then the last thing

1177
00:46:28,170 --> 00:46:30,920
is kind of a two parter.

1178
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:33,860
The first part is always do your best,

1179
00:46:33,950 --> 00:46:35,310
which seems obvious,

1180
00:46:35,500 --> 00:46:38,320
but the second part is the important part,

1181
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,000
which is do your best to

1182
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:43,020
communicate that you're doing your best.

1183
00:46:43,770 --> 00:46:45,150
When we first started

1184
00:46:45,220 --> 00:46:46,490
putting our product out there,

1185
00:46:46,530 --> 00:46:49,240
and there have always been bugs

1186
00:46:49,270 --> 00:46:51,160
that we want to fix or things like that.

1187
00:46:51,310 --> 00:46:51,870
In the beginning,

1188
00:46:51,900 --> 00:46:53,360
there were a whole bunch of bugs and

1189
00:46:53,430 --> 00:46:56,140
we would get a lot of feedback. And for me,

1190
00:46:56,310 --> 00:46:58,910
just the way my personality works,

1191
00:46:59,020 --> 00:47:01,220
that feedback always would hit me really hard.

1192
00:47:01,270 --> 00:47:03,590
I could read 205 star reviews,

1193
00:47:03,620 --> 00:47:04,490
but then I see the one,

1194
00:47:04,530 --> 00:47:05,550
one star review that

1195
00:47:05,580 --> 00:47:07,250
points out something that I'm like,

1196
00:47:07,410 --> 00:47:08,820
we've known about that for three

1197
00:47:08,870 --> 00:47:10,380
weeks and we still haven't fixed it,

1198
00:47:10,390 --> 00:47:11,810
or we've known about that for six months,

1199
00:47:11,850 --> 00:47:13,620
and we were just kind of hoping

1200
00:47:13,790 --> 00:47:15,630
we could get to it as soon as we can.

1201
00:47:15,750 --> 00:47:16,980
That's the one that digs at

1202
00:47:17,010 --> 00:47:18,660
me and that keeps me up at night.

1203
00:47:18,810 --> 00:47:21,580
And somebody said to me, hey,

1204
00:47:21,730 --> 00:47:23,690
when you see those people,

1205
00:47:24,110 --> 00:47:25,610
or when you have the opportunity

1206
00:47:25,660 --> 00:47:29,170
to talk to people who see that, first of all,

1207
00:47:29,790 --> 00:47:31,240
they're giving you something valuable.

1208
00:47:31,330 --> 00:47:33,130
But the thing that you can do that's actually

1209
00:47:33,180 --> 00:47:36,590
going to help you kind of mentally cope

1210
00:47:36,630 --> 00:47:39,250
with the fact that somebody has noticed a flaw

1211
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,790
in what you're creating is communicating

1212
00:47:41,860 --> 00:47:45,400
to them that you are doing your best.

1213
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,030
And that's not always going to

1214
00:47:47,060 --> 00:47:50,220
solve the problem that they're having.

1215
00:47:50,390 --> 00:47:53,940
It's not always going to make them feel better,

1216
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:56,820
but something it is going to do is remind

1217
00:47:56,910 --> 00:47:59,390
you because you're telling somebody else that

1218
00:47:59,420 --> 00:48:01,180
you actually are doing your best and you're

1219
00:48:01,230 --> 00:48:02,810
committing to doing your best on something.

1220
00:48:02,860 --> 00:48:04,420
And so there's this kind of back

1221
00:48:04,470 --> 00:48:06,680
and forth psychological principle to it.

1222
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:08,650
So I've been trying to integrate that

1223
00:48:08,700 --> 00:48:11,320
in anytime I'm communicating people, whether

1224
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:13,760
it's telling them that, like, hey, look,

1225
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:15,060
I'm a foundry user, too.

1226
00:48:15,130 --> 00:48:16,110
I would love that. But no,

1227
00:48:16,140 --> 00:48:17,540
we can't do that right now,

1228
00:48:17,710 --> 00:48:21,460
or other tech questions or bugs or whatever,

1229
00:48:21,530 --> 00:48:23,960
I always try to make sure that

1230
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:27,140
in my answers I'm coming off as saying, hey,

1231
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:30,420
we will do our best. Whatever happens,

1232
00:48:30,450 --> 00:48:31,100
I promise you,

1233
00:48:31,130 --> 00:48:32,820
we're doing our best with that. And that

1234
00:48:32,850 --> 00:48:34,730
not only helps with the customer interaction,

1235
00:48:34,820 --> 00:48:37,220
it helps with my own ability to

1236
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:39,930
handle those interactions as well.

1237
00:48:40,020 --> 00:48:41,140
There's another thing

1238
00:48:41,170 --> 00:48:43,110
it does that I really like from,

1239
00:48:43,260 --> 00:48:44,660
I spent a lot of time in

1240
00:48:44,710 --> 00:48:46,740
customer support and customer service.

1241
00:48:46,890 --> 00:48:49,390
And the other thing that does is it

1242
00:48:49,540 --> 00:48:51,740
tells the other person they've been heard,

1243
00:48:52,240 --> 00:48:54,010
which I find a lot of

1244
00:48:54,020 --> 00:48:58,240
the time big companies forget to do. They

1245
00:48:58,270 --> 00:49:00,700
just see it and they say, you know, thank you.

1246
00:49:00,710 --> 00:49:01,850
Your feedback has been noted.

1247
00:49:01,890 --> 00:49:03,720
We'll send this higher up. And, you know,

1248
00:49:03,750 --> 00:49:05,560
it's not going anywhere. Like,

1249
00:49:05,630 --> 00:49:07,060
that was actually one of the things

1250
00:49:07,110 --> 00:49:09,210
I was taught at a company to do.

1251
00:49:09,370 --> 00:49:12,270
And they told us, yeah, it's going somewhere.

1252
00:49:12,380 --> 00:49:14,510
Well, I knew after very quickly, I

1253
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,580
knew it wasn't really getting reviewed.

1254
00:49:16,710 --> 00:49:17,730
And so saying that,

1255
00:49:17,770 --> 00:49:20,130
you know what, that genuine, hey,

1256
00:49:20,170 --> 00:49:21,800
we're doing our best. I mean, for anyone,

1257
00:49:21,870 --> 00:49:24,240
even if someone listening has an Etsy store

1258
00:49:24,350 --> 00:49:26,610
or some other place where they sell product,

1259
00:49:26,660 --> 00:49:28,780
where they get reviews, just saying, hey,

1260
00:49:28,970 --> 00:49:30,400
we appreciate that feedback.

1261
00:49:30,450 --> 00:49:32,530
We are trying our best to address this.

1262
00:49:32,830 --> 00:49:35,810
Your note has not been ignored.

1263
00:49:36,710 --> 00:49:39,130
But I love that the mindset aspect

1264
00:49:39,180 --> 00:49:40,890
isn't something I've really thought about.

1265
00:49:40,980 --> 00:49:43,010
It kind of holds you accountable,

1266
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:45,140
which is another thing that we've

1267
00:49:45,170 --> 00:49:48,570
been talking around is this accountability.

1268
00:49:49,550 --> 00:49:50,660
The magic three

1269
00:49:50,730 --> 00:49:52,310
that you were just talking about, Chase,

1270
00:49:52,350 --> 00:49:53,350
with the three of you,

1271
00:49:53,380 --> 00:49:56,430
there is this accountability for each of you.

1272
00:49:56,500 --> 00:49:59,580
There's the dynamic slicer app,

1273
00:49:59,630 --> 00:50:00,650
or what was it called?

1274
00:50:00,770 --> 00:50:01,910
Slicing pie.

1275
00:50:02,250 --> 00:50:03,180
Slicing pie.

1276
00:50:03,230 --> 00:50:03,960
That one.

1277
00:50:04,070 --> 00:50:06,640
I nailed it. And that is, you know,

1278
00:50:06,670 --> 00:50:08,440
there's accountability in there,

1279
00:50:08,590 --> 00:50:09,750
and everything that you're

1280
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,060
doing together has created that. Now, now,

1281
00:50:13,110 --> 00:50:14,830
we've talked a lot about

1282
00:50:15,290 --> 00:50:18,830
the three of you as a team, a cohesive unit,

1283
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:20,910
and we've talked a little bit about the app.

1284
00:50:20,940 --> 00:50:22,370
I'd like to dive a little bit more

1285
00:50:22,410 --> 00:50:26,310
into it as a business model. Specifically,

1286
00:50:26,380 --> 00:50:28,270
I'm just going to go for the jugular and

1287
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:32,310
ask about your money generating product,

1288
00:50:32,420 --> 00:50:33,890
because you have created

1289
00:50:33,930 --> 00:50:37,040
a phenomenal product that is freemium.

1290
00:50:37,230 --> 00:50:38,720
And like I said,

1291
00:50:38,790 --> 00:50:40,150
I've used it for hours.

1292
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:42,590
I have not been asked to pay anything.

1293
00:50:42,740 --> 00:50:44,710
There's also no ads that I've noticed.

1294
00:50:45,170 --> 00:50:47,830
I appreciate no ads very much.

1295
00:50:48,530 --> 00:50:51,430
So how do you guys make money?

1296
00:50:52,050 --> 00:50:56,160
Yeah, no, no ads. And that's lines, basically,

1297
00:50:56,230 --> 00:50:58,960
we've set out to, from the beginning,

1298
00:50:59,030 --> 00:51:01,370
create a solid

1299
00:51:01,450 --> 00:51:05,030
and comprehensive free experience. Right? Like,

1300
00:51:05,180 --> 00:51:08,890
we're moving towards an age where, like,

1301
00:51:08,970 --> 00:51:11,190
everything is free, I think.

1302
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,900
So we're in an interim stage,

1303
00:51:13,980 --> 00:51:16,150
but the expectations.

1304
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,640
People need to be able to try something

1305
00:51:18,710 --> 00:51:21,480
before they want to spend money. And also,

1306
00:51:21,610 --> 00:51:25,710
we don't need everybody to have to pay to.

1307
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:28,410
For us to be able to have this, be a company.

1308
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:30,540
So we've always wanted to

1309
00:51:30,540 --> 00:51:31,580
have that comprehensive free

1310
00:51:31,620 --> 00:51:33,070
experience so somebody could download it,

1311
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:34,210
and even if they can't afford it,

1312
00:51:34,240 --> 00:51:35,320
they don't want to pay.

1313
00:51:35,490 --> 00:51:37,700
They, like you said, you haven't

1314
00:51:37,710 --> 00:51:39,160
been prompted to pay anything.

1315
00:51:39,230 --> 00:51:40,390
You can use it for your games,

1316
00:51:40,460 --> 00:51:41,390
and that's actually something.

1317
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:42,550
We're even expanding.

1318
00:51:42,580 --> 00:51:45,360
I just finished up a whole bunch of

1319
00:51:45,390 --> 00:51:47,430
new music for the forest scene, which is free,

1320
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:51,190
so that will be in the app soon.

1321
00:51:51,850 --> 00:51:55,080
And to support that vision of

1322
00:51:55,150 --> 00:51:58,280
having a solid and ever improving

1323
00:51:58,390 --> 00:52:00,830
free version is our subscription.

1324
00:52:02,060 --> 00:52:04,160
There's a lot of reasons that we have this.

1325
00:52:04,250 --> 00:52:06,730
We definitely are aware that subscriptions

1326
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:10,360
are hated by a lot of people. Right.

1327
00:52:11,580 --> 00:52:13,640
It can definitely feel like

1328
00:52:13,710 --> 00:52:16,560
it sucks to not own anything,

1329
00:52:16,980 --> 00:52:18,910
but there's a lot

1330
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,620
of reasons why we went that way,

1331
00:52:21,780 --> 00:52:23,960
and I think that it actually.

1332
00:52:24,420 --> 00:52:26,130
It's fundamentally our belief,

1333
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,230
and nothing has changed our minds on this,

1334
00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:30,480
that it actually is in the best interest of the

1335
00:52:30,510 --> 00:52:34,150
consumer when you look long term, which, again,

1336
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:35,800
I think Chase mentioned,

1337
00:52:36,100 --> 00:52:37,500
our goal is we're thinking

1338
00:52:37,540 --> 00:52:40,080
five years from now or longer.

1339
00:52:40,250 --> 00:52:44,940
So when we think about pocket Bard in 2020,

1340
00:52:45,100 --> 00:52:46,280
what year is it? 2024.

1341
00:52:46,310 --> 00:52:49,480
In 2028 or 2029,

1342
00:52:50,380 --> 00:52:52,540
what will we be able to do with

1343
00:52:52,580 --> 00:52:56,440
this business model is totally

1344
00:52:56,470 --> 00:52:58,670
different than what we would do with, like,

1345
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:01,360
a one time per pack purchase.

1346
00:53:01,780 --> 00:53:04,360
We could have a lot more money right now

1347
00:53:04,530 --> 00:53:08,220
if we had a one time purchase model, right.

1348
00:53:08,260 --> 00:53:10,110
People are willing to spend. I mean,

1349
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,160
people love D and D, right?

1350
00:53:12,270 --> 00:53:14,190
They are willing to spend on this hobby.

1351
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:15,800
If they wanted to buy

1352
00:53:17,420 --> 00:53:20,600
a seafaring pack for I don't know what price,

1353
00:53:20,650 --> 00:53:22,250
but a lot of people would,

1354
00:53:22,420 --> 00:53:23,120
and a lot

1355
00:53:23,130 --> 00:53:25,180
of people turn down the subscription, right.

1356
00:53:25,290 --> 00:53:27,880
Because a lot of reasons which we can get into,

1357
00:53:27,930 --> 00:53:30,180
but that really is

1358
00:53:30,210 --> 00:53:32,900
the short term money making thing,

1359
00:53:32,970 --> 00:53:34,320
is the one time purchase.

1360
00:53:34,450 --> 00:53:35,930
But then there's no incentive for

1361
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:38,250
us to focus on what actually matters,

1362
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:40,570
which is improving the app over time,

1363
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:44,050
as we get better at this,

1364
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:45,930
as we have more resources.

1365
00:53:46,950 --> 00:53:49,130
So we've opted for this kind of

1366
00:53:49,670 --> 00:53:52,730
freemium model because we can have regular

1367
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,090
income to devote to what the product

1368
00:53:55,220 --> 00:53:58,890
actually needs to get better in a year.

1369
00:53:58,940 --> 00:54:00,940
It might not be content, right.

1370
00:54:01,130 --> 00:54:04,900
Maybe 15% of our budget goes towards content,

1371
00:54:05,010 --> 00:54:07,650
and the rest goes to overhauling

1372
00:54:07,720 --> 00:54:09,690
the design of the app and reprogramming

1373
00:54:09,740 --> 00:54:11,050
something from the ground up because

1374
00:54:11,100 --> 00:54:12,500
it's going to speed up everything. It's

1375
00:54:12,530 --> 00:54:16,290
going to allow it to live in a place where.

1376
00:54:16,380 --> 00:54:17,500
Where the consumer lives.

1377
00:54:17,550 --> 00:54:18,280
Maybe it will allow

1378
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:20,390
for that virtual tabletop integration.

1379
00:54:20,540 --> 00:54:23,250
There's so many aspects of the business

1380
00:54:23,300 --> 00:54:26,540
that are not covered by one time purchases.

1381
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,250
It's basically just produce content

1382
00:54:29,300 --> 00:54:32,700
as fast as you can and sell it,

1383
00:54:32,730 --> 00:54:33,300
and then there's

1384
00:54:33,350 --> 00:54:36,050
no incentive to go back to it. So, again,

1385
00:54:36,100 --> 00:54:38,320
we're focused on the long term app,

1386
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:42,800
and this is also regular income.

1387
00:54:42,950 --> 00:54:44,730
It's recurring each month,

1388
00:54:44,770 --> 00:54:47,790
so we can better tailor our expenses

1389
00:54:47,900 --> 00:54:51,180
and grow responsibly and not

1390
00:54:51,230 --> 00:54:54,790
just hire a bunch of people, spam our growth,

1391
00:54:55,370 --> 00:54:56,420
make a bunch of money,

1392
00:54:56,470 --> 00:54:57,830
and then just leave.

1393
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,190
Just don't push an update for a year.

1394
00:55:00,650 --> 00:55:04,190
So I want to kind of double down on something.

1395
00:55:06,150 --> 00:55:08,530
Where do you make money?

1396
00:55:09,670 --> 00:55:10,390
So we have.

1397
00:55:10,430 --> 00:55:11,490
Did I miss it?

1398
00:55:12,070 --> 00:55:13,090
Go ahead, Jason.

1399
00:55:13,990 --> 00:55:15,780
It's through the subscription model.

1400
00:55:15,890 --> 00:55:18,190
So, basically, there's, like, you know,

1401
00:55:18,310 --> 00:55:20,050
a set of content that's always free,

1402
00:55:20,140 --> 00:55:20,810
and then there's also

1403
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,390
a subset of content that's premium,

1404
00:55:23,470 --> 00:55:24,130
and you have to be

1405
00:55:24,140 --> 00:55:27,620
a subscriber to access if it's like.

1406
00:55:27,650 --> 00:55:30,080
Netflix before your tabletop game, right,

1407
00:55:30,130 --> 00:55:31,660
which basically means, like, when I.

1408
00:55:31,690 --> 00:55:32,630
When I go in there,

1409
00:55:32,660 --> 00:55:34,790
I saw the option to upgrade to get

1410
00:55:34,820 --> 00:55:37,300
some of these other environments or

1411
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:40,120
types of tabletop rpg,

1412
00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:41,120
which actually liked

1413
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:42,250
quite a bit because I was like, oh,

1414
00:55:42,260 --> 00:55:43,390
there's plenty here for me to play

1415
00:55:43,420 --> 00:55:44,520
around with and get a sense for

1416
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:46,960
what the app does and how it works.

1417
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:49,370
And is this even something that's functional?

1418
00:55:49,540 --> 00:55:51,340
And then to actually

1419
00:55:51,430 --> 00:55:54,100
go in there and say, like, oh man, I'm running,

1420
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,180
like you said, seafaring game.

1421
00:55:57,210 --> 00:55:58,060
I think seafaring is free,

1422
00:55:58,090 --> 00:56:00,160
but if I wanted to expand upon a pirate

1423
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:01,810
thing or something like that and have more,

1424
00:56:01,970 --> 00:56:03,490
maybe there'd be an upgrade

1425
00:56:03,530 --> 00:56:05,430
that I could go into and say, oh,

1426
00:56:05,540 --> 00:56:06,450
I'm going to join premium

1427
00:56:06,490 --> 00:56:08,270
so I can run that for my game.

1428
00:56:08,810 --> 00:56:10,800
And so that's it. I mean,

1429
00:56:10,950 --> 00:56:12,030
I think that's interesting

1430
00:56:12,060 --> 00:56:13,500
because I personally don't mind.

1431
00:56:13,550 --> 00:56:14,510
I know some people are saying

1432
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:15,850
memberships and subscriptions

1433
00:56:15,890 --> 00:56:17,220
and all that stuff is bad. I'm like,

1434
00:56:17,230 --> 00:56:18,200
I don't mind that stuff.

1435
00:56:18,270 --> 00:56:20,590
If the subscription provides good value,

1436
00:56:20,660 --> 00:56:21,310
there's a lot of

1437
00:56:21,340 --> 00:56:23,680
subscriptions that I'm part of, but

1438
00:56:23,790 --> 00:56:26,350
if I don't get the value out of it regularly,

1439
00:56:27,130 --> 00:56:28,370
then I'm going to leave.

1440
00:56:28,510 --> 00:56:30,090
And I think that there's a lot of

1441
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:31,700
companies out there that trick

1442
00:56:31,740 --> 00:56:35,220
people into doing their memberships, like, oh,

1443
00:56:35,260 --> 00:56:36,280
you get this.

1444
00:56:36,470 --> 00:56:37,250
That's what I'm worried

1445
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:38,590
about when I download an app, right?

1446
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:39,230
Everybody's had

1447
00:56:39,240 --> 00:56:40,620
that experience where it's like, oh,

1448
00:56:40,660 --> 00:56:41,720
you download an app that

1449
00:56:41,770 --> 00:56:43,890
promises some big transformation for you,

1450
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:45,800
and then you're immediately dinged

1451
00:56:45,830 --> 00:56:47,890
for like a year long subscription to

1452
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,810
it for 70 or 80 or $100 just to even

1453
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:53,160
access or try out this thing that says

1454
00:56:53,190 --> 00:56:54,660
it's going to solve this problem for you,

1455
00:56:54,700 --> 00:56:55,760
and then the thing doesn't really

1456
00:56:55,810 --> 00:56:57,080
work or it's not really delivering,

1457
00:56:57,110 --> 00:56:58,710
or they don't service it or all those things.

1458
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:00,430
I think that's a really valid concern.

1459
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,290
I didn't have that experience with you,

1460
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:04,020
which is one of the reasons I liked your app.

1461
00:57:04,180 --> 00:57:06,840
So I was like, oh, this is good.

1462
00:57:07,180 --> 00:57:09,500
When we were first kind of considering things,

1463
00:57:09,540 --> 00:57:12,150
there's a story that I had heard, I

1464
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:14,960
think I heard it on a podcast a long time ago,

1465
00:57:15,500 --> 00:57:19,150
about the kind of business strategy

1466
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:22,070
of how much do you give in a free trial

1467
00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:24,570
type of thing and how much do you pay? While I.

1468
00:57:24,710 --> 00:57:26,710
And it was called the happy meal mistake.

1469
00:57:26,860 --> 00:57:29,280
And I know this is like a little old school,

1470
00:57:29,350 --> 00:57:32,480
but imagine you're taking somebody

1471
00:57:32,510 --> 00:57:35,070
out on a date for the first time, right?

1472
00:57:35,220 --> 00:57:37,130
They don't know much about you.

1473
00:57:37,170 --> 00:57:38,710
This is like your chance

1474
00:57:39,770 --> 00:57:42,150
to get the other person to decide,

1475
00:57:43,170 --> 00:57:44,350
I'm going to continue.

1476
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:45,510
We're going to go on dates

1477
00:57:45,580 --> 00:57:47,550
number two and three and four,

1478
00:57:47,890 --> 00:57:49,680
and you show up,

1479
00:57:49,710 --> 00:57:50,970
maybe you're in a nice suit.

1480
00:57:51,020 --> 00:57:51,860
You're gonna pick the

1481
00:57:51,890 --> 00:57:53,710
person up from wherever they live,

1482
00:57:53,870 --> 00:57:54,860
and they say, okay, well,

1483
00:57:54,890 --> 00:57:57,000
where are we going? And you go,

1484
00:57:57,170 --> 00:58:00,340
we're gonna go to McDonald's. Well,

1485
00:58:00,530 --> 00:58:02,500
come on. That's like. That's

1486
00:58:02,530 --> 00:58:05,440
a little silly. And, of course, the person.

1487
00:58:05,490 --> 00:58:06,500
I don't understand, Chase.

1488
00:58:06,570 --> 00:58:06,930
Why.

1489
00:58:07,020 --> 00:58:08,570
Why is that a bad idea?

1490
00:58:10,190 --> 00:58:11,820
Can you elaborate?

1491
00:58:11,970 --> 00:58:12,830
You imagine that

1492
00:58:12,870 --> 00:58:14,850
you give the justification of, like, well,

1493
00:58:14,980 --> 00:58:15,690
it's a lot.

1494
00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:16,270
It's a lot of

1495
00:58:16,310 --> 00:58:18,240
investment to, like, kind of, you know, do

1496
00:58:18,250 --> 00:58:20,960
a more expensive meal. Let's, like, you know,

1497
00:58:20,990 --> 00:58:21,540
let's see if there's.

1498
00:58:21,580 --> 00:58:22,090
I don't know if you're

1499
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:23,200
that great yet, you know.

1500
00:58:23,230 --> 00:58:23,840
Yeah.

1501
00:58:24,740 --> 00:58:26,640
And it's a silly example,

1502
00:58:26,670 --> 00:58:28,640
but it illustrates.

1503
00:58:28,750 --> 00:58:29,330
And I actually.

1504
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:31,760
I think it illustrates more for business

1505
00:58:31,870 --> 00:58:34,640
than it actually has wisdom with dating,

1506
00:58:36,060 --> 00:58:38,660
but it illustrates that in a business context,

1507
00:58:38,740 --> 00:58:40,630
when you give kind of the free

1508
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:42,400
trial or the free version of

1509
00:58:42,450 --> 00:58:45,200
something and you have handicapped it,

1510
00:58:45,310 --> 00:58:46,280
what you're setting people

1511
00:58:46,330 --> 00:58:48,360
up for is a frustrating experience,

1512
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:50,920
and you're not actually convincing

1513
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:53,610
people that the premium experience

1514
00:58:53,700 --> 00:58:56,500
is worth paying for a lot of the time.

1515
00:58:56,670 --> 00:58:59,180
I find with a lot of freemium apps that the

1516
00:58:59,210 --> 00:59:02,400
free version is just deeply unsatisfying,

1517
00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:04,540
and it feels like they're relying

1518
00:59:04,610 --> 00:59:06,820
on that dissatisfaction to

1519
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:10,340
entice you into paying for the rest of it.

1520
00:59:10,430 --> 00:59:12,900
But for the most black hat innovation.

1521
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:13,900
And at that point,

1522
00:59:13,930 --> 00:59:16,040
why have the free version at all know?

1523
00:59:16,820 --> 00:59:18,110
I just delete the apps that

1524
00:59:18,120 --> 00:59:22,220
when they do that free trial, three days,

1525
00:59:22,260 --> 00:59:24,810
then it's $85 a month. I'm like, what?

1526
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:25,500
Not gonna lie.

1527
00:59:25,540 --> 00:59:26,340
I totally thought

1528
00:59:26,380 --> 00:59:28,240
it would be that way with pocket Bard. I

1529
00:59:28,270 --> 00:59:30,320
totally thought when I saw the ad, I was like,

1530
00:59:30,350 --> 00:59:31,200
too good to be true.

1531
00:59:31,290 --> 00:59:31,960
I'm gonna download

1532
00:59:31,990 --> 00:59:33,660
this and just prove myself right.

1533
00:59:33,780 --> 00:59:35,080
And I was like, crap.

1534
00:59:35,110 --> 00:59:36,920
There's a lot here for us.

1535
00:59:36,950 --> 00:59:38,880
We kind of decided from the beginning,

1536
00:59:39,070 --> 00:59:41,410
and Alex has alluded to this,

1537
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:43,290
as well already,

1538
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:44,810
that even if you

1539
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:46,600
decide not to pay for pocket Bard,

1540
00:59:46,690 --> 00:59:48,520
we still want it to be the best experience

1541
00:59:48,610 --> 00:59:52,610
that you can have for free. That's it.

1542
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:53,540
That's the goal.

1543
00:59:53,700 --> 00:59:56,080
Well, there's value also within

1544
00:59:56,270 --> 00:59:57,930
of just having a customer base

1545
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:00,590
that's continually using your app. Right.

1546
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:03,200
And whether that's them not paying,

1547
01:00:03,250 --> 01:00:04,890
just logging in and

1548
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:07,140
running their weekly d and d game. Right.

1549
01:00:07,270 --> 01:00:09,940
But down the road, you know, if

1550
01:00:09,970 --> 01:00:12,300
I've got a relationship with you of like, oh,

1551
01:00:12,330 --> 01:00:13,980
I've been in pocket Bard

1552
01:00:14,050 --> 01:00:16,670
every week for the last 15 weeks,

1553
01:00:16,740 --> 01:00:20,190
and you just released this, like, you know,

1554
01:00:20,220 --> 01:00:22,140
you just released a new dungeon pack.

1555
01:00:22,170 --> 01:00:24,760
That sounds really cool. And I'm like, oh, man,

1556
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:26,460
I wanted to do more of a scary dungeon.

1557
01:00:26,490 --> 01:00:27,950
They have this whole scary pack that's

1558
01:00:27,980 --> 01:00:29,630
gonna really make it more horror theme,

1559
01:00:29,660 --> 01:00:30,610
and I want to create

1560
01:00:30,660 --> 01:00:32,240
that atmosphere for these characters.

1561
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:33,550
I trust you.

1562
01:00:33,720 --> 01:00:35,750
I know you're not trying to screw me over.

1563
01:00:35,820 --> 01:00:37,060
You're not trying to just, like,

1564
01:00:37,150 --> 01:00:39,290
click this button and give me that $80. Like,

1565
01:00:39,330 --> 01:00:41,040
you've actually established a relationship

1566
01:00:41,110 --> 01:00:43,000
with me for that free version,

1567
01:00:43,150 --> 01:00:46,140
and you've shown up and given me what I wanted,

1568
01:00:46,270 --> 01:00:47,750
and now I'm willing to spend a lot

1569
01:00:47,780 --> 01:00:49,340
more money with you down the road

1570
01:00:49,390 --> 01:00:51,270
and your quality of client. Now, this might,

1571
01:00:51,300 --> 01:00:52,180
like you said, might take.

1572
01:00:52,230 --> 01:00:53,950
This might take you a little longer to build,

1573
01:00:54,100 --> 01:00:57,230
but you're building a foundation where once

1574
01:00:57,280 --> 01:00:59,630
I jump into that and I realize, like, oh, man,

1575
01:00:59,660 --> 01:01:00,800
this is awesome,

1576
01:01:01,340 --> 01:01:03,840
you're actually gonna want to.

1577
01:01:03,970 --> 01:01:05,100
I'm actually gonna want to stay,

1578
01:01:05,180 --> 01:01:06,120
and I'm gonna keep paying,

1579
01:01:06,150 --> 01:01:07,110
or I'm gonna actually want

1580
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:08,470
to know what's the next release?

1581
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:11,190
And you can always entice me with new great

1582
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,200
stuff because you're continuing to add to the.

1583
01:01:13,330 --> 01:01:15,470
Add to the app, right? Like, you,

1584
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:16,800
I'm assuming we haven't got every

1585
01:01:16,830 --> 01:01:18,000
single piece of music that's

1586
01:01:18,030 --> 01:01:19,920
ever gonna be made on it already.

1587
01:01:19,990 --> 01:01:20,780
You just said you made

1588
01:01:20,820 --> 01:01:25,490
new forest music, right? So, you know, let's.

1589
01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:27,260
Maybe that's a great place to go, is, like,

1590
01:01:27,300 --> 01:01:29,020
where are you guys looking to

1591
01:01:29,060 --> 01:01:30,690
expand and entice people with some

1592
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:33,250
of this premium stuff in the future?

1593
01:01:33,340 --> 01:01:36,570
And what can people look forward

1594
01:01:36,660 --> 01:01:39,420
to in the coming months and years?

1595
01:01:39,490 --> 01:01:40,780
From Pocket Bard,

1596
01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:43,780
I'll start by saying the next

1597
01:01:43,850 --> 01:01:46,780
big thing to look forward to is tavern.

1598
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,900
We have been planning and plotting

1599
01:01:50,950 --> 01:01:53,700
from the start for something pretty

1600
01:01:53,750 --> 01:01:56,580
incredible with our tavern music pack,

1601
01:01:57,200 --> 01:02:01,470
and I can't give a lot of detail at the moment

1602
01:02:01,540 --> 01:02:05,740
other than to say it's going to be a pretty.

1603
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:07,910
It's certainly going to

1604
01:02:07,940 --> 01:02:09,620
fit within the pocket part experience,

1605
01:02:09,770 --> 01:02:11,060
but I think it's going to elevate

1606
01:02:11,110 --> 01:02:13,310
things quite a bit beyond that.

1607
01:02:13,340 --> 01:02:14,960
We have a whole roadmap of music

1608
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:19,820
that we have planned, some free, some premium,

1609
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:23,140
and we'll continue to improve

1610
01:02:23,230 --> 01:02:25,980
the existing music that's there as well.

1611
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:29,500
And then we have some cool platform features.

1612
01:02:29,570 --> 01:02:30,820
I don't know if Alex or Jason,

1613
01:02:30,870 --> 01:02:32,930
you guys want to get into any details on that,

1614
01:02:33,020 --> 01:02:35,660
on any of the platform feature improvements,

1615
01:02:35,730 --> 01:02:37,900
but suffice it to say

1616
01:02:37,950 --> 01:02:40,580
that as we improve the pocket board,

1617
01:02:40,650 --> 01:02:42,430
the Pocket Bard platform itself,

1618
01:02:42,580 --> 01:02:45,940
all of those new kind of features and things

1619
01:02:46,130 --> 01:02:49,220
will become part of the core experience.

1620
01:02:52,730 --> 01:02:54,030
We don't really

1621
01:02:54,060 --> 01:02:55,720
have any features planned that are,

1622
01:02:55,750 --> 01:02:58,880
like premium only type features because

1623
01:02:59,070 --> 01:03:01,160
that's not really the direction that we

1624
01:03:01,230 --> 01:03:03,620
necessarily want to go with it at the moment.

1625
01:03:03,790 --> 01:03:05,790
Yeah, on the content side.

1626
01:03:07,690 --> 01:03:11,710
So I've been writing music for this since 2019,

1627
01:03:12,490 --> 01:03:14,490
so I now have four

1628
01:03:14,530 --> 01:03:16,770
more years experience doing this,

1629
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:17,940
and all of us do.

1630
01:03:17,970 --> 01:03:20,410
Chase has four more years experience mastering.

1631
01:03:20,500 --> 01:03:22,940
That's the stage that I send the music off

1632
01:03:22,970 --> 01:03:25,170
to him and then implementing it in the app.

1633
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:28,620
So we've all gotten better at what we do.

1634
01:03:28,770 --> 01:03:31,850
So I'm going back through and elevating

1635
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:35,570
the free fantasy essentials content to be

1636
01:03:36,790 --> 01:03:39,290
where the current standard of the app is.

1637
01:03:39,420 --> 01:03:42,790
We've released Sci-Fi seafaring horror,

1638
01:03:42,940 --> 01:03:44,600
and I think when we did Sci-Fi,

1639
01:03:44,630 --> 01:03:46,350
it just kind of brought the standard,

1640
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:47,060
in my opinion,

1641
01:03:47,110 --> 01:03:49,750
of the music in the app,

1642
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:51,080
the production quality,

1643
01:03:51,190 --> 01:03:51,870
the amount of

1644
01:03:51,900 --> 01:03:54,190
music in each scene, the interactivity.

1645
01:03:54,260 --> 01:03:56,470
It's at a different level than the free stuff

1646
01:03:56,500 --> 01:04:01,470
that 98% of our users are used to. Right.

1647
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:05,550
So I'm excited to go back and up the

1648
01:04:05,580 --> 01:04:07,910
level of that because that's something that

1649
01:04:09,330 --> 01:04:13,220
our expectations are luckily always

1650
01:04:13,270 --> 01:04:16,010
ahead of our customers in general. Right? Like,

1651
01:04:16,050 --> 01:04:18,130
we've used this app all the time.

1652
01:04:18,250 --> 01:04:20,290
I know the music backwards and forwards.

1653
01:04:20,330 --> 01:04:21,430
I know what could be better.

1654
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:24,080
I know where every track up that mix I did

1655
01:04:24,150 --> 01:04:26,100
three years ago doesn't sound quite right.

1656
01:04:26,270 --> 01:04:27,940
I know what we could do better. Now.

1657
01:04:28,070 --> 01:04:30,830
This scene needs like ten minutes more music.

1658
01:04:31,210 --> 01:04:35,980
I'm excited to show our users what new

1659
01:04:36,010 --> 01:04:38,810
standards look like that we are currently at,

1660
01:04:38,860 --> 01:04:40,440
but only a small subset of people

1661
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:43,420
are aware of with our premium content.

1662
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:45,690
Hey, nerdpreneurs. We'll get back to

1663
01:04:45,700 --> 01:04:47,620
the show in just a second.

1664
01:04:47,770 --> 01:04:49,260
We spent another 40 minutes

1665
01:04:49,290 --> 01:04:50,780
with Pocketbard talking through

1666
01:04:50,810 --> 01:04:52,860
their customer acquisition strategy,

1667
01:04:52,970 --> 01:04:55,150
how they established market share, the

1668
01:04:55,180 --> 01:04:57,670
most stressful times they've had as a startup,

1669
01:04:57,700 --> 01:04:59,020
and how they got through it,

1670
01:04:59,110 --> 01:05:01,290
and their experience at PAX and how they

1671
01:05:01,330 --> 01:05:03,550
leverage that event to grow their brand.

1672
01:05:03,700 --> 01:05:05,550
To get access to the full interview

1673
01:05:05,620 --> 01:05:07,190
and dozens of other interviews

1674
01:05:07,220 --> 01:05:09,200
with successful nerdy entrepreneurs,

1675
01:05:09,350 --> 01:05:12,030
join our awesome nerdpreneur board

1676
01:05:13,130 --> 01:05:17,280
by going to patreon.com nerdpreneur.

1677
01:05:17,470 --> 01:05:19,260
We don't advertise on our show,

1678
01:05:19,390 --> 01:05:21,040
and we keep doing this because we

1679
01:05:21,070 --> 01:05:23,080
love it and because of the support

1680
01:05:23,150 --> 01:05:25,870
we get from our amazing board members.

1681
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:27,910
The more board members we get,

1682
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:30,550
the bigger our guests will be and

1683
01:05:30,660 --> 01:05:32,990
the more cons and events we can go

1684
01:05:33,020 --> 01:05:35,280
to to meet other nerdy entrepreneurs

1685
01:05:35,350 --> 01:05:37,940
and discover their success secrets.

1686
01:05:38,110 --> 01:05:39,210
So if you want to see us

1687
01:05:39,250 --> 01:05:40,950
grow and keep doing what we're doing.

1688
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:42,590
The number one way you can help

1689
01:05:42,620 --> 01:05:45,220
us out is by becoming a board member.

1690
01:05:45,310 --> 01:05:47,310
So go to patreon.com

1691
01:05:47,650 --> 01:05:49,910
nerdpreneur and join today.

1692
01:05:50,370 --> 01:05:51,950
Now let's get back to the show.

1693
01:05:54,540 --> 01:05:55,140
All right,

1694
01:05:55,220 --> 01:05:57,980
so we're going to move on over to random rolls.

1695
01:05:58,020 --> 01:05:59,990
So these are less serious,

1696
01:06:00,160 --> 01:06:02,360
bit more fun questions.

1697
01:06:02,660 --> 01:06:03,760
I think everything we've

1698
01:06:03,790 --> 01:06:04,740
talked about has been very fun,

1699
01:06:04,780 --> 01:06:05,750
don't get me wrong.

1700
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:07,990
But let's go ahead and start with Chase.

1701
01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:10,010
You're just left most on my screen,

1702
01:06:10,080 --> 01:06:12,570
so go ahead and roll your d 100, please.

1703
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:15,800
I would also like to point out I've got.

1704
01:06:16,100 --> 01:06:19,540
These are my dice that my wife got me.

1705
01:06:19,570 --> 01:06:20,990
I don't know if they'll show up on camera,

1706
01:06:21,030 --> 01:06:24,170
but they're spider themed because

1707
01:06:25,150 --> 01:06:31,330
my current D and D character is connected to.

1708
01:06:31,750 --> 01:06:35,220
We play in the Exandria universe and

1709
01:06:35,250 --> 01:06:37,750
is connected to Lolf the Spider Queen.

1710
01:06:37,830 --> 01:06:39,240
And so playing

1711
01:06:39,290 --> 01:06:41,740
with these spider dice is cool. So. All right,

1712
01:06:41,850 --> 01:06:43,090
I will roll this.

1713
01:06:45,010 --> 01:06:47,210
53 in Star Trek,

1714
01:06:47,250 --> 01:06:50,070
there are six divisions, science, medicine,

1715
01:06:50,180 --> 01:06:54,300
command, con, security, and engineering.

1716
01:06:54,470 --> 01:06:57,550
Which division would you train into?

1717
01:06:59,930 --> 01:07:01,990
They don't have audio engineering.

1718
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:03,270
Yeah, sorry.

1719
01:07:06,170 --> 01:07:06,910
You know,

1720
01:07:07,020 --> 01:07:09,020
it's hard because life on

1721
01:07:09,030 --> 01:07:14,080
a starship is different than life here,

1722
01:07:14,200 --> 01:07:16,700
back here on Earth and at a startup.

1723
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,980
I think the other thing is,

1724
01:07:22,030 --> 01:07:23,560
this is interestingly appropriate.

1725
01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:25,700
I've been playing a lot of traveler lately,

1726
01:07:25,750 --> 01:07:27,860
which is a Sci-Fi TTRPG,

1727
01:07:28,010 --> 01:07:30,300
so my mind is definitely in that space,

1728
01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:33,860
but a ching. I think.

1729
01:07:34,010 --> 01:07:35,340
I think for me,

1730
01:07:36,890 --> 01:07:39,510
it's got to be between command and engineering.

1731
01:07:41,530 --> 01:07:43,470
I think I might have to go with command.

1732
01:07:43,850 --> 01:07:44,750
How come?

1733
01:07:47,530 --> 01:07:50,790
I think my kind of natural leadership

1734
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:53,210
tendencies in something like

1735
01:07:53,290 --> 01:07:56,790
a starship exploration vessel environment,

1736
01:07:57,610 --> 01:08:01,960
I think I have a lot to lend to that.

1737
01:08:02,030 --> 01:08:05,550
And I feel like if I. If

1738
01:08:05,580 --> 01:08:08,970
I weren't in a command position, if I didn't,

1739
01:08:09,010 --> 01:08:10,810
if I didn't try for a command position,

1740
01:08:10,890 --> 01:08:11,990
I would feel like.

1741
01:08:12,610 --> 01:08:14,360
I feel like I would have more to give that

1742
01:08:14,390 --> 01:08:16,550
I didn't give myself the opportunity to.

1743
01:08:17,729 --> 01:08:19,930
Nice. Starfleet's all about everyone

1744
01:08:20,010 --> 01:08:21,090
living up to their potential,

1745
01:08:21,170 --> 01:08:25,029
so I resonate with that. Thank you.

1746
01:08:26,290 --> 01:08:27,840
All right, Jason, how about you?

1747
01:08:27,990 --> 01:08:28,300
All right.

1748
01:08:28,310 --> 01:08:32,529
Let me roll this online. Roller 60.

1749
01:08:34,670 --> 01:08:36,609
So this is a two part question.

1750
01:08:37,590 --> 01:08:40,590
If you had a band, first,

1751
01:08:40,710 --> 01:08:41,939
what spell would

1752
01:08:41,970 --> 01:08:45,020
you name your band after? And second,

1753
01:08:45,170 --> 01:08:48,130
what kind of music would your band play?

1754
01:08:48,510 --> 01:08:54,090
This is perfect for a tabletop RPG music app.

1755
01:08:55,920 --> 01:08:57,140
So out of the three of us,

1756
01:08:57,170 --> 01:08:58,260
I am the least

1757
01:08:59,399 --> 01:09:02,380
familiar with D and D and ttrpgs.

1758
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:07,470
The spell part might be hard what do I know?

1759
01:09:07,569 --> 01:09:08,770
Just call yourself fireball.

1760
01:09:08,819 --> 01:09:10,540
That's a great name for a band.

1761
01:09:12,080 --> 01:09:13,210
We can help you out, Jason,

1762
01:09:13,260 --> 01:09:14,220
if you want to.

1763
01:09:14,390 --> 01:09:15,830
Yeah. Chase, can you give me,

1764
01:09:15,850 --> 01:09:17,710
like three spell options here?

1765
01:09:17,850 --> 01:09:19,779
Well, what type of music first?

1766
01:09:19,830 --> 01:09:22,029
Then it would go from there.

1767
01:09:24,090 --> 01:09:25,630
Definitely something like melodic.

1768
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:29,390
Maybe like RMB or something.

1769
01:09:31,250 --> 01:09:32,229
Oh, yeah.

1770
01:09:32,970 --> 01:09:34,370
D and D, R and B.

1771
01:09:34,450 --> 01:09:37,109
Makes me think Melf's acid arrow.

1772
01:09:38,170 --> 01:09:39,390
Let's go with that.

1773
01:09:40,930 --> 01:09:42,750
That honestly is a.

1774
01:09:43,170 --> 01:09:44,970
For some reason that works for RB.

1775
01:09:45,090 --> 01:09:45,790
Yeah.

1776
01:09:48,899 --> 01:09:49,729
It'S kind of smooth.

1777
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:52,000
I like that with a little hit.

1778
01:09:52,109 --> 01:09:54,840
And then it kind of blows up at the end.

1779
01:09:55,260 --> 01:09:57,080
Maybe that part doesn't work, but.

1780
01:09:59,500 --> 01:10:01,150
All right, Alex, what about you?

1781
01:10:01,280 --> 01:10:02,720
All right, I got 89.

1782
01:10:04,140 --> 01:10:05,600
89.

1783
01:10:08,820 --> 01:10:11,490
Ah, nice. What makes

1784
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:13,960
a great friendship stronger?

1785
01:10:15,350 --> 01:10:17,770
Are there, like multiple choice?

1786
01:10:21,750 --> 01:10:26,600
No, but it has to be silly. No, it does not.

1787
01:10:26,690 --> 01:10:28,270
Makes a great friendship stronger.

1788
01:10:28,310 --> 01:10:30,730
So it's already starting out great, right?

1789
01:10:31,270 --> 01:10:31,690
Yeah.

1790
01:10:31,740 --> 01:10:32,130
Okay.

1791
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:32,850
Yeah, great.

1792
01:10:32,920 --> 01:10:33,650
Okay.

1793
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:42,700
That's a really good question.

1794
01:10:43,600 --> 01:10:44,950
Business partnership.

1795
01:10:45,100 --> 01:10:47,700
Yeah. Going into business together.

1796
01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:49,160
Start an app with.

1797
01:10:49,200 --> 01:10:49,560
Honestly.

1798
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:51,660
Honestly, though, that's actually

1799
01:10:51,730 --> 01:10:53,740
probably the best answer

1800
01:10:53,890 --> 01:10:57,020
that I would have, because realistically,

1801
01:10:58,480 --> 01:11:00,080
it's hard to find time

1802
01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:02,310
to hang out with friends. Right. Like,

1803
01:11:02,380 --> 01:11:03,610
stuff is like,

1804
01:11:03,700 --> 01:11:05,010
we have busy lives, especially

1805
01:11:05,060 --> 01:11:06,870
around this age. Right. This is like,

1806
01:11:06,900 --> 01:11:08,110
kind of the peak in busyness

1807
01:11:08,180 --> 01:11:10,980
in the twenties, thirties, forties. Right.

1808
01:11:11,880 --> 01:11:14,040
So it's part

1809
01:11:14,200 --> 01:11:15,990
of the reason I've always wanted to, like,

1810
01:11:16,100 --> 01:11:17,340
get people involved in

1811
01:11:17,390 --> 01:11:18,870
businesses or projects is so

1812
01:11:18,900 --> 01:11:22,720
I could hang out with them more. So honestly,

1813
01:11:22,760 --> 01:11:23,770
that's the right.

1814
01:11:23,860 --> 01:11:25,780
I think that's the right answer because

1815
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:28,320
I've been able to hang out with

1816
01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:30,660
Chase and Jason now so many more

1817
01:11:30,690 --> 01:11:33,480
hours a week than I would have otherwise.

1818
01:11:33,650 --> 01:11:34,390
And whenever.

1819
01:11:34,440 --> 01:11:35,260
And who launched

1820
01:11:35,300 --> 01:11:36,630
this business in the first place?

1821
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:37,440
I forget.

1822
01:11:38,740 --> 01:11:41,160
I mean, Chase and I kind of. Yeah.

1823
01:11:41,780 --> 01:11:43,850
Okay. I thought the answer

1824
01:11:43,880 --> 01:11:45,060
was going to be Alex, actually.

1825
01:11:45,140 --> 01:11:46,590
And that was all part of its plan.

1826
01:11:46,640 --> 01:11:47,760
This entire time,

1827
01:11:48,860 --> 01:11:50,210
this has been like an on.

1828
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:53,200
Kind of an ongoing threat.

1829
01:11:53,270 --> 01:11:56,520
There's an ongoing thread throughout this

1830
01:11:56,570 --> 01:12:00,840
business and previous projects. Businesses.

1831
01:12:00,920 --> 01:12:01,530
Chase and I had

1832
01:12:01,540 --> 01:12:03,980
a video game audio company previously,

1833
01:12:04,010 --> 01:12:05,780
like we mentioned, Jason. I.

1834
01:12:05,870 --> 01:12:08,960
Jason and I worked on a game in a college.

1835
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:10,730
He had a computer science project.

1836
01:12:10,820 --> 01:12:12,360
Like a math game.

1837
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:13,890
Oh, yeah. You wrote the music to it.

1838
01:12:13,940 --> 01:12:17,100
Yeah. Yeah. So we've. We've always

1839
01:12:17,150 --> 01:12:19,030
been finding ways to pair up

1840
01:12:19,060 --> 01:12:20,860
to work on fun stuff and the same

1841
01:12:20,890 --> 01:12:22,740
thing with other creative, creative projects,

1842
01:12:22,790 --> 01:12:24,260
working on songs with people.

1843
01:12:26,130 --> 01:12:28,430
It's a great way to feel

1844
01:12:28,460 --> 01:12:30,400
like you're being productive and

1845
01:12:30,510 --> 01:12:34,870
engaging in our capitalistic society,

1846
01:12:34,960 --> 01:12:36,520
getting the benefits of that while

1847
01:12:36,590 --> 01:12:38,300
also being able to hang out with

1848
01:12:38,390 --> 01:12:40,310
people that you enjoy being around,

1849
01:12:40,440 --> 01:12:43,380
because that's one of the things I try to

1850
01:12:43,390 --> 01:12:46,030
find as many dual purpose tasks as possible.

1851
01:12:46,930 --> 01:12:48,630
I'm working out,

1852
01:12:48,700 --> 01:12:51,920
and I'm on the phone with my mom

1853
01:12:51,970 --> 01:12:54,990
while I'm secretly on a meeting. And, you know,

1854
01:12:55,080 --> 01:12:56,640
not actually that, but.

1855
01:12:57,660 --> 01:12:58,910
But as many of those

1856
01:12:58,960 --> 01:13:00,300
things can fit together as possible.

1857
01:13:00,380 --> 01:13:01,670
I'm learning about

1858
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:04,360
business while I'm walking my dog. Right.

1859
01:13:04,550 --> 01:13:06,350
I'm always trying to do multiple

1860
01:13:06,400 --> 01:13:08,420
things at once and being

1861
01:13:08,460 --> 01:13:10,490
able to actually spend time with. I mean,

1862
01:13:10,520 --> 01:13:11,790
these guys are the people I,

1863
01:13:11,840 --> 01:13:12,680
other than my girlfriend,

1864
01:13:12,710 --> 01:13:15,000
that I see the most in the world, so.

1865
01:13:15,620 --> 01:13:16,750
So you would recommend

1866
01:13:16,800 --> 01:13:18,680
going into business with your friends.

1867
01:13:19,940 --> 01:13:20,980
Use slicing pie.

1868
01:13:21,020 --> 01:13:22,010
If you do that, though,

1869
01:13:22,120 --> 01:13:23,930
that's against common wisdom, right?

1870
01:13:24,080 --> 01:13:24,640
Yeah.

1871
01:13:24,750 --> 01:13:26,050
You just got to have the right friends.

1872
01:13:26,120 --> 01:13:26,570
Yeah.

1873
01:13:26,680 --> 01:13:27,320
Yeah.

1874
01:13:27,780 --> 01:13:29,000
It is becoming a bit

1875
01:13:29,010 --> 01:13:31,220
of a theme on nerdpreneur, though. Like, we.

1876
01:13:31,300 --> 01:13:32,440
When we do,

1877
01:13:32,630 --> 01:13:33,440
we usually are

1878
01:13:33,470 --> 01:13:35,420
talking to successful businesses, though, too.

1879
01:13:35,460 --> 01:13:36,720
So I want to give that caveat

1880
01:13:36,750 --> 01:13:38,700
that we have a natural filter for. Whether

1881
01:13:38,740 --> 01:13:40,900
you even get on this podcast is success.

1882
01:13:41,060 --> 01:13:42,770
So we're not seeing all the friendships

1883
01:13:42,800 --> 01:13:44,630
that dissolved over starting an app together.

1884
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:46,840
Maybe we should. Maybe we should.

1885
01:13:48,220 --> 01:13:49,960
But I can say that I think

1886
01:13:50,130 --> 01:13:51,680
there are a lot of people that,

1887
01:13:51,850 --> 01:13:54,080
at least in this generation,

1888
01:13:54,190 --> 01:13:56,230
that want to work with their friends and want

1889
01:13:56,240 --> 01:13:58,250
to do this more on their own terms and be able

1890
01:13:58,280 --> 01:14:00,260
to create companies in their nerdy passion.

1891
01:14:00,300 --> 01:14:02,400
And I think that that's something

1892
01:14:02,450 --> 01:14:04,540
we keep finding as we go out there,

1893
01:14:04,580 --> 01:14:06,360
as it emerges out of them talking

1894
01:14:06,390 --> 01:14:07,870
with their friends about an idea and

1895
01:14:07,880 --> 01:14:09,520
them seeing their friends struggle

1896
01:14:09,550 --> 01:14:10,640
with something and then being like, oh,

1897
01:14:10,670 --> 01:14:11,570
why don't we just fix this?

1898
01:14:11,600 --> 01:14:12,400
Or why don't we do something

1899
01:14:12,450 --> 01:14:14,330
to create something that's good,

1900
01:14:14,500 --> 01:14:15,660
having the spirit,

1901
01:14:15,690 --> 01:14:16,660
the entrepreneurial spirit,

1902
01:14:16,690 --> 01:14:18,090
to actually go and do it.

1903
01:14:19,950 --> 01:14:22,920
I know it'll create bonds and connections

1904
01:14:23,010 --> 01:14:25,730
and friendships at a much deeper level than

1905
01:14:26,470 --> 01:14:28,760
just playing D and d together.

1906
01:14:28,810 --> 01:14:30,360
This is like a real adventure, right?

1907
01:14:30,410 --> 01:14:32,930
Yeah. And I do want to point out that I think,

1908
01:14:33,060 --> 01:14:35,270
because it is actually legitimately very

1909
01:14:35,310 --> 01:14:38,450
important to keep in mind how many businesses,

1910
01:14:38,580 --> 01:14:40,100
either businesses get broken

1911
01:14:40,130 --> 01:14:41,970
up because friendships fall apart,

1912
01:14:42,020 --> 01:14:44,160
or friendships fall apart because businesses,

1913
01:14:44,250 --> 01:14:47,610
you know, go south. Like, that's definitely.

1914
01:14:48,110 --> 01:14:49,410
I don't know the data on that,

1915
01:14:49,440 --> 01:14:51,990
but it's probably not, like,

1916
01:14:52,030 --> 01:14:54,970
a fully positive outlook.

1917
01:14:55,350 --> 01:14:57,290
But I think we are all very,

1918
01:14:58,630 --> 01:15:00,980
very focused on what we are doing

1919
01:15:01,090 --> 01:15:04,010
as individuals to contribute to the team. Like,

1920
01:15:04,870 --> 01:15:08,750
I don't get the vibe that we're all like. Like,

1921
01:15:08,880 --> 01:15:10,860
stewing or seething. Like,

1922
01:15:10,990 --> 01:15:12,200
Chase didn't do enough.

1923
01:15:12,310 --> 01:15:12,880
You know what I mean?

1924
01:15:12,910 --> 01:15:14,630
We're focused on our individual

1925
01:15:14,780 --> 01:15:16,610
contributions to this and living

1926
01:15:16,690 --> 01:15:18,800
up to what we expect of ourselves

1927
01:15:18,990 --> 01:15:21,220
and being very self motivated people.

1928
01:15:21,310 --> 01:15:24,530
I think when we're stressed,

1929
01:15:24,690 --> 01:15:25,550
at least for me,

1930
01:15:25,580 --> 01:15:27,610
and I know Chase as well,

1931
01:15:27,770 --> 01:15:30,730
we're usually focused in on what we're

1932
01:15:30,770 --> 01:15:33,650
not achieving or bringing to the team. Like,

1933
01:15:33,740 --> 01:15:36,420
it goes more inward than outward.

1934
01:15:36,490 --> 01:15:38,130
But if you're predisposed to

1935
01:15:38,140 --> 01:15:40,520
go outward towards this

1936
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:42,810
person's not doing their thing or, you know,

1937
01:15:42,900 --> 01:15:45,520
and not be self reflective and take

1938
01:15:45,560 --> 01:15:47,580
ownership for the success of everything,

1939
01:15:48,040 --> 01:15:50,700
that would go badly very quickly.

1940
01:15:51,840 --> 01:15:54,820
Yeah, that ownership is. Yeah,

1941
01:15:54,930 --> 01:15:56,310
I definitely resonate with that. I mean,

1942
01:15:56,340 --> 01:15:57,450
I find that for Chris and I,

1943
01:15:57,460 --> 01:16:00,180
we both are very good at recognizing where

1944
01:16:00,230 --> 01:16:04,070
we ourselves need to fill in and other

1945
01:16:04,100 --> 01:16:09,510
people we've spoken to as well. Yeah. Well,

1946
01:16:09,660 --> 01:16:12,720
shall we move on to rapid fire, everybody?

1947
01:16:12,870 --> 01:16:15,230
So these are going to be,

1948
01:16:15,320 --> 01:16:17,830
as the name suggests, rapid.

1949
01:16:18,610 --> 01:16:20,310
And we've never done this with three people,

1950
01:16:20,380 --> 01:16:22,510
so we're going to figure this out.

1951
01:16:23,050 --> 01:16:24,220
And if you couldn't tell already,

1952
01:16:24,270 --> 01:16:25,390
we're long winded,

1953
01:16:25,970 --> 01:16:27,390
so we'll do our best.

1954
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:30,820
I was thinking, like,

1955
01:16:30,870 --> 01:16:32,980
do we want to go around and, like,

1956
01:16:33,920 --> 01:16:36,520
one after the other and just, like, rapid fire.

1957
01:16:36,560 --> 01:16:38,760
And you and I alternate, and then. Well,

1958
01:16:38,840 --> 01:16:42,530
I'm thinking I'll follow this pattern. Chris,

1959
01:16:42,580 --> 01:16:44,780
you can be the voice of chaos if you like,

1960
01:16:44,810 --> 01:16:47,260
but I'm gonna do chase. Jason. Alex.

1961
01:16:48,240 --> 01:16:48,910
All right.

1962
01:16:49,020 --> 01:16:50,860
Okay. Yes, he's agreed.

1963
01:16:51,030 --> 01:16:53,730
I will see how that goes. I can.

1964
01:16:53,780 --> 01:16:56,020
I can switch it all up in editing anyway,

1965
01:16:56,050 --> 01:16:57,190
so whatever you say.

1966
01:16:57,320 --> 01:16:59,190
I have the final say on it anyway.

1967
01:17:02,010 --> 01:17:05,950
Chase, three favorite pizza toppings.

1968
01:17:08,410 --> 01:17:14,230
Italian sausage, pineapple, and jalapenos.

1969
01:17:15,210 --> 01:17:18,350
Ah, the salty, sweet, and spicy.

1970
01:17:19,050 --> 01:17:21,830
Jason, what is your zombie

1971
01:17:21,860 --> 01:17:23,420
apocalypse weapon of choice?

1972
01:17:23,560 --> 01:17:27,680
Oh, I'll take a baseball bat.

1973
01:17:27,810 --> 01:17:29,820
I think I can do some damage with it.

1974
01:17:29,900 --> 01:17:30,860
That's a good one.

1975
01:17:30,980 --> 01:17:34,880
Harley Quinn style. Love it. Alex,

1976
01:17:35,300 --> 01:17:36,360
this isn't on here,

1977
01:17:36,390 --> 01:17:37,340
but I have to ask,

1978
01:17:37,420 --> 01:17:38,880
how do you cleanse? Like,

1979
01:17:38,930 --> 01:17:41,070
when you're at the perfume stand and.

1980
01:17:41,160 --> 01:17:42,300
Because everybody does that. Right?

1981
01:17:42,340 --> 01:17:43,070
And you have to smell the

1982
01:17:43,080 --> 01:17:44,780
coffee beans to cleanse your nose.

1983
01:17:44,860 --> 01:17:46,850
What do you do to cleanse your ears?

1984
01:17:47,040 --> 01:17:49,240
Oh, that's a great question. I'll usually.

1985
01:17:49,760 --> 01:17:50,270
I mean,

1986
01:17:50,340 --> 01:17:53,180
sleep is the only actual effective thing, like,

1987
01:17:53,290 --> 01:17:54,780
waiting to the next day.

1988
01:17:55,360 --> 01:17:56,610
But I'll often go

1989
01:17:56,620 --> 01:17:58,700
to the gym and listen to music. That's

1990
01:17:58,790 --> 01:18:01,700
the opposite. Like, just metal, you know?

1991
01:18:02,720 --> 01:18:04,680
Nice. So you weren't. You guys aren't planning

1992
01:18:04,720 --> 01:18:09,160
to do any dwarven metal music yet? I. Well,

1993
01:18:09,320 --> 01:18:10,040
because that

1994
01:18:10,080 --> 01:18:12,910
was something I went deep into. It is.

1995
01:18:12,980 --> 01:18:15,260
There is a dwarven metal band that we're in

1996
01:18:15,270 --> 01:18:18,020
the process of getting on the podcast. So nice.

1997
01:18:18,570 --> 01:18:19,280
So anyway,

1998
01:18:19,350 --> 01:18:21,150
I guess that's not planned yet.

1999
01:18:22,050 --> 01:18:23,580
We'll put you guys in touch with the band.

2000
01:18:23,630 --> 01:18:25,270
Sweet chase,

2001
01:18:25,400 --> 01:18:26,110
Lord of the Rings,

2002
01:18:26,160 --> 01:18:27,470
the books or the movies.

2003
01:18:28,130 --> 01:18:30,590
Oh, my gosh. I have to make the

2004
01:18:30,660 --> 01:18:32,950
biggest nerd confession in history.

2005
01:18:34,450 --> 01:18:37,150
I saw the first lord of the Rings movie once.

2006
01:18:39,610 --> 01:18:41,510
And it stopped that, period.

2007
01:18:43,650 --> 01:18:44,950
That's the end of it.

2008
01:18:45,370 --> 01:18:48,490
I make every apology necessary. I understand.

2009
01:18:48,570 --> 01:18:50,750
I committed a big sin here.

2010
01:18:51,130 --> 01:18:52,750
Whatever happened at pocket Bard? Well,

2011
01:18:52,780 --> 01:18:54,080
we found out they never watched Lord

2012
01:18:54,110 --> 01:18:57,150
of the Rings and their evaluation went.

2013
01:18:57,320 --> 01:18:58,240
Did you at least.

2014
01:18:58,350 --> 01:19:00,430
Was it at least the extended version?

2015
01:19:00,620 --> 01:19:01,630
Yes, it was.

2016
01:19:01,700 --> 01:19:03,430
Oh, thank goodness. Okay.

2017
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:04,790
I would not have gone into

2018
01:19:04,820 --> 01:19:06,430
film scoring without Lord of the Rings.

2019
01:19:06,480 --> 01:19:09,910
That was like everything to me in childhood.

2020
01:19:10,020 --> 01:19:13,010
I think I would appreciate it more now. Again,

2021
01:19:13,170 --> 01:19:14,330
this is part of the.

2022
01:19:14,450 --> 01:19:16,620
As I mentioned at the top of the episode,

2023
01:19:16,710 --> 01:19:19,650
I didn't get into d and D until late in life.

2024
01:19:19,810 --> 01:19:23,500
The real reason is because I grew up a

2025
01:19:23,510 --> 01:19:27,110
Sci-Fi lover and I had this strange, just like,

2026
01:19:27,200 --> 01:19:29,940
gut aversion to high fantasy where

2027
01:19:30,030 --> 01:19:32,660
I just immediately would find myself

2028
01:19:32,750 --> 01:19:35,630
bored and never gave it a real chance.

2029
01:19:35,780 --> 01:19:39,190
And I feel so differently now.

2030
01:19:39,910 --> 01:19:40,860
I really wish that

2031
01:19:40,890 --> 01:19:42,310
I had learned to appreciate it sooner,

2032
01:19:42,350 --> 01:19:44,740
but that that's honestly the reason that Lord

2033
01:19:44,770 --> 01:19:47,370
of the Rings was never a big thing for me.

2034
01:19:48,390 --> 01:19:49,650
Get another shot at it.

2035
01:19:49,680 --> 01:19:52,240
Maybe that'll be a viewing party.

2036
01:19:52,290 --> 01:19:53,200
It's on the list now.

2037
01:19:53,290 --> 01:19:54,540
Yeah, once

2038
01:19:54,570 --> 01:19:56,060
you guys have some real time, you know,

2039
01:19:56,090 --> 01:19:57,490
once the stat picks up.

2040
01:19:58,590 --> 01:20:01,410
All right, Jason. Harry Potter.

2041
01:20:01,600 --> 01:20:04,850
What Hogwarts house are you in?

2042
01:20:06,910 --> 01:20:07,780
I think I just took

2043
01:20:07,810 --> 01:20:11,860
a quiz and I forgot what I got. Shoot.

2044
01:20:11,970 --> 01:20:13,010
Hufflepuff.

2045
01:20:15,550 --> 01:20:16,610
Slytherin.

2046
01:20:17,750 --> 01:20:18,580
Okay.

2047
01:20:18,730 --> 01:20:19,580
All right.

2048
01:20:19,770 --> 01:20:20,930
What did I get?

2049
01:20:21,790 --> 01:20:22,670
I dig it.

2050
01:20:22,750 --> 01:20:23,370
You know,

2051
01:20:23,480 --> 01:20:25,250
I recognize a snake when I see one.

2052
01:20:25,320 --> 01:20:28,220
You know, I could see, hey, slytherin.

2053
01:20:28,290 --> 01:20:29,530
This has been a topic before.

2054
01:20:29,600 --> 01:20:31,070
Slytherins get things done.

2055
01:20:31,150 --> 01:20:33,690
I will say I say that as a slim.

2056
01:20:33,730 --> 01:20:35,940
I could see Jason as any of them. To be honest,

2057
01:20:36,030 --> 01:20:37,260
I'm really not sure.

2058
01:20:37,390 --> 01:20:38,990
I was going thinking Gryffindor,

2059
01:20:39,040 --> 01:20:40,190
but I'm not sure.

2060
01:20:40,770 --> 01:20:42,310
No, it wasn't Gryffindor.

2061
01:20:42,850 --> 01:20:45,810
Alex, what is your favorite personal

2062
01:20:45,890 --> 01:20:47,870
growth or business book that you've read.

2063
01:20:49,610 --> 01:20:52,070
Is favorite have a plural or.

2064
01:20:55,410 --> 01:20:56,670
Sure. Me. If you have two

2065
01:20:56,700 --> 01:20:58,620
on the top of your head, go for it.

2066
01:20:58,730 --> 01:20:59,540
Books have totally

2067
01:20:59,570 --> 01:21:01,810
changed my life. Mindfulness. In plain English,

2068
01:21:01,940 --> 01:21:04,740
that was the first like life shifting book.

2069
01:21:05,320 --> 01:21:07,780
Power of habit was another one.

2070
01:21:08,880 --> 01:21:15,140
Build Tony Fadal and working backwards, chase.

2071
01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:18,900
As a avid Sci-Fi fellow Sci-Fi lover here,

2072
01:21:19,400 --> 01:21:21,620
your favorite Sci-Fi ip.

2073
01:21:24,130 --> 01:21:26,280
Oh, favorites. So difficult.

2074
01:21:26,430 --> 01:21:28,390
I have a lot of love for.

2075
01:21:30,290 --> 01:21:31,500
There are some very

2076
01:21:31,590 --> 01:21:34,450
strong runners up right now, though,

2077
01:21:34,570 --> 01:21:36,510
I have to say. The Expanse.

2078
01:21:38,090 --> 01:21:42,070
Nice books or the tv show or both books.

2079
01:21:42,220 --> 01:21:45,420
Okay. I have been completely captured,

2080
01:21:45,550 --> 01:21:47,550
and I'm loving it.

2081
01:21:48,010 --> 01:21:50,160
Okay. I'll give it a more serious

2082
01:21:50,230 --> 01:21:51,440
consideration the next time

2083
01:21:51,470 --> 01:21:53,510
I'm looking for a series to dive into.

2084
01:21:53,970 --> 01:21:54,810
I've tried

2085
01:21:54,890 --> 01:21:56,860
watching the expanse, like, three times,

2086
01:21:56,910 --> 01:21:57,750
and I cannot.

2087
01:21:57,840 --> 01:22:00,430
I just cannot get into it. I don't know.

2088
01:22:01,450 --> 01:22:02,750
I feel like it should be good. Like,

2089
01:22:02,800 --> 01:22:04,260
everything says to me.

2090
01:22:04,270 --> 01:22:04,890
It should be good,

2091
01:22:04,930 --> 01:22:06,350
but I just can't. I can't.

2092
01:22:06,420 --> 01:22:07,810
It just doesn't work for me.

2093
01:22:07,850 --> 01:22:09,760
But I would like to maybe try the books.

2094
01:22:09,790 --> 01:22:11,230
I didn't know they were actually books.

2095
01:22:11,300 --> 01:22:13,250
Yeah. Very, very good.

2096
01:22:13,330 --> 01:22:13,710
And it's.

2097
01:22:13,740 --> 01:22:15,680
It's. It's so hard to pick favorites, right.

2098
01:22:15,710 --> 01:22:16,550
Because there's

2099
01:22:16,580 --> 01:22:19,290
so much legacy of, like, obviously,

2100
01:22:19,380 --> 01:22:23,090
things like Star wars and Star Trek have such.

2101
01:22:23,180 --> 01:22:27,850
Such weight in the history of my

2102
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:33,050
interest in Sci-Fi right. Or even, like, Dune.

2103
01:22:33,350 --> 01:22:36,490
I had such a big dune phase where I was like,

2104
01:22:36,540 --> 01:22:38,090
this is incredible.

2105
01:22:39,430 --> 01:22:40,610
But I think right now,

2106
01:22:40,640 --> 01:22:42,410
I'm just obsessed with the expanse.

2107
01:22:42,950 --> 01:22:44,460
Nice. I'm still

2108
01:22:44,490 --> 01:22:47,380
in my dune phase right now. So, Jason,

2109
01:22:47,510 --> 01:22:49,490
what's the coolest Batman gadget?

2110
01:22:49,540 --> 01:22:53,870
Ooh, whatever that thing is called

2111
01:22:53,940 --> 01:22:56,340
where he can just hook

2112
01:22:56,370 --> 01:22:59,020
onto buildings and fly up and down?

2113
01:22:59,760 --> 01:23:00,940
Is there a name for that, like.

2114
01:23:00,970 --> 01:23:02,450
Bat grip or whatever? I think it's, like,

2115
01:23:02,460 --> 01:23:03,700
the bat grip.

2116
01:23:04,360 --> 01:23:05,290
It depends on

2117
01:23:05,340 --> 01:23:07,180
which series you're talking about, but, yeah.

2118
01:23:07,230 --> 01:23:08,820
Bat gun. Grappling hook.

2119
01:23:08,910 --> 01:23:09,600
Grappling hook.

2120
01:23:09,640 --> 01:23:11,590
Yeah, the bat hook.

2121
01:23:11,660 --> 01:23:12,830
Yeah, the bat hook. Yeah.

2122
01:23:12,860 --> 01:23:13,030
Right?

2123
01:23:13,060 --> 01:23:13,670
Yeah.

2124
01:23:16,130 --> 01:23:17,470
Alex, that would be pretty cool.

2125
01:23:17,500 --> 01:23:19,190
Alex, who is cooler, Indiana

2126
01:23:19,220 --> 01:23:20,710
Jones or Lara Croft?

2127
01:23:21,450 --> 01:23:22,460
Indiana Jones.

2128
01:23:22,550 --> 01:23:24,520
I've never played any of the Tomb Raider games,

2129
01:23:24,630 --> 01:23:27,080
so I have no idea.

2130
01:23:27,230 --> 01:23:28,390
Excuse me. I'll be back.

2131
01:23:28,440 --> 01:23:28,830
Yeah.

2132
01:23:28,900 --> 01:23:30,950
You're gonna tear this company apart.

2133
01:23:31,370 --> 01:23:33,890
I've seen her in Xbox magazine ads,

2134
01:23:33,930 --> 01:23:35,750
and that's the extent of

2135
01:23:35,940 --> 01:23:37,910
my knowledge of Tomb Raider.

2136
01:23:39,020 --> 01:23:40,600
I do love Indiana Jones.

2137
01:23:40,900 --> 01:23:44,150
Yeah. The movies. Angelina Jolie were fun.

2138
01:23:44,200 --> 01:23:46,530
I rewatched the second one, like,

2139
01:23:46,720 --> 01:23:47,870
six years ago,

2140
01:23:48,000 --> 01:23:49,130
and I don't know

2141
01:23:49,160 --> 01:23:50,710
who was in charge for wardrobe,

2142
01:23:50,760 --> 01:23:53,510
but she had some of the weirdest style.

2143
01:23:53,560 --> 01:23:54,540
It was so funny.

2144
01:23:54,580 --> 01:23:55,960
She had this really cool,

2145
01:23:56,010 --> 01:23:58,280
probably super vintage gold

2146
01:23:59,460 --> 01:24:01,520
swirling dragons on the back.

2147
01:24:02,660 --> 01:24:03,740
I just remember thinking,

2148
01:24:03,820 --> 01:24:06,540
that's so odd for Lara Croft. Like, that

2149
01:24:06,570 --> 01:24:08,790
is not at all what I would have envisioned.

2150
01:24:08,830 --> 01:24:09,480
I thought she would be

2151
01:24:09,490 --> 01:24:12,730
more like the Indiana Jones style, but cooler.

2152
01:24:13,070 --> 01:24:15,610
And so the tvs don't hold up. Well,

2153
01:24:15,700 --> 01:24:18,380
what I'm trying to say is that the video games,

2154
01:24:18,490 --> 01:24:21,370
the newer video games do a great job.

2155
01:24:22,390 --> 01:24:24,770
Yeah. That's just something that.

2156
01:24:24,880 --> 01:24:28,210
I've missed so many of those. I was so.

2157
01:24:28,630 --> 01:24:29,520
Everything was like

2158
01:24:29,530 --> 01:24:32,590
Lord of the Rings or Star wars, and I.

2159
01:24:32,650 --> 01:24:34,280
I miss all the other franchises.

2160
01:24:34,330 --> 01:24:35,400
Or Harry Potter.

2161
01:24:38,180 --> 01:24:40,800
So, Chase, do you believe in aliens?

2162
01:24:41,660 --> 01:24:43,120
It depends on what you mean.

2163
01:24:43,820 --> 01:24:46,080
Does extraterrestrial life exist?

2164
01:24:47,100 --> 01:24:48,670
Almost to a certainty.

2165
01:24:48,800 --> 01:24:50,460
Has it ever visited Earth?

2166
01:24:50,580 --> 01:24:52,040
Almost certainly not.

2167
01:24:53,460 --> 01:24:54,340
That was a very nice,

2168
01:24:54,380 --> 01:24:56,500
succinct answer to a complicated question.

2169
01:24:56,580 --> 01:24:57,320
I like that.

2170
01:24:57,410 --> 01:24:58,900
I feel like you just stopped Chris

2171
01:24:58,940 --> 01:25:02,060
from asking something else based on. I haven't.

2172
01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:05,650
That's all right.

2173
01:25:05,700 --> 01:25:06,850
The most interesting part of

2174
01:25:06,860 --> 01:25:07,910
it is whether we think they've

2175
01:25:07,980 --> 01:25:10,460
arrived here or not, but. Yeah. Yeah, no.

2176
01:25:11,760 --> 01:25:14,220
All right. Jason,

2177
01:25:15,040 --> 01:25:17,100
if you could have.

2178
01:25:17,960 --> 01:25:19,300
I realize now this suddenly

2179
01:25:19,350 --> 01:25:21,160
sounds like a work interview question,

2180
01:25:21,200 --> 01:25:22,580
but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

2181
01:25:22,960 --> 01:25:26,550
If you could have lunch with anyone in history,

2182
01:25:26,730 --> 01:25:27,890
who would it be?

2183
01:25:28,590 --> 01:25:30,220
Alive or dead? Doesn't matter.

2184
01:25:30,250 --> 01:25:31,840
Yeah, doesn't matter.

2185
01:25:31,890 --> 01:25:33,050
Anyone in history.

2186
01:25:38,710 --> 01:25:41,370
I'll just go with. With Elon Musk.

2187
01:25:42,870 --> 01:25:45,210
Very topical these days. Yeah.

2188
01:25:45,550 --> 01:25:48,720
What would you guys talk about? Any, like,

2189
01:25:48,770 --> 01:25:50,690
coding or anything, or. Is there anything.

2190
01:25:50,740 --> 01:25:51,350
Probably a lot of

2191
01:25:51,390 --> 01:25:54,310
engineering conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2192
01:25:54,460 --> 01:25:55,900
Nice. Nice.

2193
01:25:56,280 --> 01:25:58,780
Alex, how many cats is too many cats?

2194
01:25:59,480 --> 01:26:00,240
I mean,

2195
01:26:00,360 --> 01:26:01,860
how big is your apartment?

2196
01:26:04,520 --> 01:26:05,640
I'm a dog person,

2197
01:26:05,720 --> 01:26:07,590
but I do like cats. I don't know.

2198
01:26:07,620 --> 01:26:08,380
I would say real,

2199
01:26:08,430 --> 01:26:09,460
if I'm trying to be honest.

2200
01:26:09,530 --> 01:26:13,030
Probably four would be too many, right?

2201
01:26:13,220 --> 01:26:15,780
Three probably seems acceptable to me.

2202
01:26:16,800 --> 01:26:18,700
No experience with them, though. So.

2203
01:26:20,220 --> 01:26:20,860
You know what?

2204
01:26:20,900 --> 01:26:22,410
Just take a dive in.

2205
01:26:22,440 --> 01:26:23,360
Just start with three.

2206
01:26:23,430 --> 01:26:23,870
Yeah.

2207
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:25,840
Just see how that goes, man. Yeah.

2208
01:26:25,870 --> 01:26:26,740
Get back to me.

2209
01:26:26,820 --> 01:26:28,400
Let me know how you're doing at.

2210
01:26:28,410 --> 01:26:29,720
The end from different locations.

2211
01:26:29,810 --> 01:26:31,830
Throw them all into one room, get.

2212
01:26:31,840 --> 01:26:32,960
Them off the street. Yeah.

2213
01:26:33,050 --> 01:26:34,370
Chase, I'm thinking

2214
01:26:34,400 --> 01:26:37,320
we do one more round here. Chase,

2215
01:26:38,180 --> 01:26:41,080
what character would you cosplay at Comic Con?

2216
01:26:45,130 --> 01:26:45,950
Mmm.

2217
01:26:48,290 --> 01:26:51,010
My wife and I have been talking about hopping

2218
01:26:51,050 --> 01:26:54,120
on the critical role cosplay bandwagon.

2219
01:26:54,230 --> 01:26:56,560
We're both big into campaign three.

2220
01:26:56,630 --> 01:27:00,470
And so I would love to.

2221
01:27:01,890 --> 01:27:04,230
I'd love to see if I could pull off

2222
01:27:04,650 --> 01:27:07,750
Dorian from earlier in the season.

2223
01:27:08,330 --> 01:27:12,020
He's a air genasi Bardeenen,

2224
01:27:12,100 --> 01:27:13,780
and that'd be cool.

2225
01:27:13,970 --> 01:27:15,010
When you say season three,

2226
01:27:15,040 --> 01:27:17,260
are you talking Vox machina on Amazon prime

2227
01:27:17,330 --> 01:27:19,480
or are you talking the actual live stream?

2228
01:27:19,490 --> 01:27:21,060
No, I'm talking about the actual. The

2229
01:27:21,090 --> 01:27:23,790
actual actual play live streams.

2230
01:27:23,830 --> 01:27:25,750
Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Because

2231
01:27:25,910 --> 01:27:27,490
I am not in the know.

2232
01:27:28,310 --> 01:27:28,990
All good.

2233
01:27:29,070 --> 01:27:30,650
Except for the animated show.

2234
01:27:30,720 --> 01:27:31,850
That's all I got.

2235
01:27:33,710 --> 01:27:35,090
Which was very good.

2236
01:27:35,280 --> 01:27:37,050
It's very good. It's very fun.

2237
01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:41,780
Jason, what's your favorite movie franchise?

2238
01:27:43,960 --> 01:27:45,430
Honestly, I'm a sucker for

2239
01:27:45,500 --> 01:27:47,440
a lot of the Marvel universe. Universe.

2240
01:27:47,480 --> 01:27:50,100
So something, something there.

2241
01:27:51,680 --> 01:27:53,960
The whole thing can be a movie franchise.

2242
01:27:54,000 --> 01:27:55,340
You could just say Marvel.

2243
01:27:55,920 --> 01:27:58,330
It definitely works for a movie franchise.

2244
01:27:58,380 --> 01:27:59,580
There's only a couple.

2245
01:28:02,320 --> 01:28:03,320
A handful.

2246
01:28:03,510 --> 01:28:06,720
Alex, if you could visit

2247
01:28:07,900 --> 01:28:12,950
any fictional setting, you know, fantasy,

2248
01:28:13,040 --> 01:28:15,440
sci-Fi you know, anywhere,

2249
01:28:15,740 --> 01:28:18,920
and you could spend a week there,

2250
01:28:19,500 --> 01:28:20,680
where would it be?

2251
01:28:25,940 --> 01:28:28,360
Probably. I mean, I would want it to be as

2252
01:28:28,410 --> 01:28:31,020
different as possible, right? Like, the most.

2253
01:28:31,190 --> 01:28:32,780
So I would go something.

2254
01:28:33,080 --> 01:28:34,530
I would go Star wars,

2255
01:28:34,660 --> 01:28:36,660
and I'd probably go to, like,

2256
01:28:36,690 --> 01:28:37,910
the video game locations,

2257
01:28:37,980 --> 01:28:39,510
like knights of the old Republic,

2258
01:28:39,660 --> 01:28:40,840
all those locations there.

2259
01:28:40,880 --> 01:28:42,590
Because being able to actually, like,

2260
01:28:42,780 --> 01:28:44,610
be immersed in the places I was

2261
01:28:44,660 --> 01:28:47,280
for hundreds of hours as a kid,

2262
01:28:47,400 --> 01:28:49,100
I feel like that would be pretty cool.

2263
01:28:49,520 --> 01:28:51,340
And travel at light speed and, you know,

2264
01:28:51,370 --> 01:28:51,950
stuff like that,

2265
01:28:51,980 --> 01:28:53,140
that'd be pretty sweet.

2266
01:28:54,040 --> 01:28:55,020
Heck, yeah.

2267
01:28:55,760 --> 01:28:56,490
Can I ask

2268
01:28:56,540 --> 01:29:00,400
one more question of Chase? So, Chase,

2269
01:29:01,220 --> 01:29:03,360
are you related to Seth Rogen?

2270
01:29:04,940 --> 01:29:06,720
You had to do it.

2271
01:29:06,870 --> 01:29:09,630
I. I'm from Vancouver. I just gotta ask.

2272
01:29:09,680 --> 01:29:11,320
I've the whole interview, I've been like,

2273
01:29:11,350 --> 01:29:13,100
this guy is like a mini sister.

2274
01:29:13,140 --> 01:29:13,840
I was.

2275
01:29:16,220 --> 01:29:18,760
When I was getting married,

2276
01:29:19,820 --> 01:29:24,150
my wife went and did her, like,

2277
01:29:24,190 --> 01:29:26,210
bachelorette party with, you know,

2278
01:29:26,240 --> 01:29:27,760
her sisters and her cousins,

2279
01:29:27,850 --> 01:29:29,530
and they went to

2280
01:29:29,700 --> 01:29:31,220
this place in Michigan where they, like,

2281
01:29:31,250 --> 01:29:34,010
kind of spent the day out doing fun stuff.

2282
01:29:34,080 --> 01:29:35,900
And one of the things

2283
01:29:35,970 --> 01:29:38,170
that one of her bridesmaids

2284
01:29:38,240 --> 01:29:41,010
did for her was they took these, like,

2285
01:29:41,060 --> 01:29:42,470
popsicle sticks and printed

2286
01:29:42,510 --> 01:29:44,050
out pictures of my face

2287
01:29:44,120 --> 01:29:47,890
and made fans of me because, like, you know,

2288
01:29:47,980 --> 01:29:49,850
she's Chase's fan.

2289
01:29:50,620 --> 01:29:53,560
The number of people who stopped them and said,

2290
01:29:53,630 --> 01:29:56,360
are you guys some kind of Seth Rogen fan club?

2291
01:29:56,450 --> 01:29:58,880
What is this?

2292
01:29:58,950 --> 01:29:59,780
I'm not kidding.

2293
01:29:59,860 --> 01:30:01,840
This is a real thing that happened.

2294
01:30:03,180 --> 01:30:04,880
Wow. I've never seen the resemblance.

2295
01:30:04,950 --> 01:30:06,240
Now I can't see it.

2296
01:30:06,350 --> 01:30:06,790
No.

2297
01:30:06,880 --> 01:30:07,840
Are you serious?

2298
01:30:13,060 --> 01:30:14,480
I just thought that was Chase.

2299
01:30:16,350 --> 01:30:18,820
Well, sorry to break the illusion,

2300
01:30:18,890 --> 01:30:21,780
but it's. I. I've seen, like I said,

2301
01:30:21,810 --> 01:30:24,770
I'm from Vancouver, canadian. Like,

2302
01:30:24,860 --> 01:30:26,890
he's a treasure here. I know.

2303
01:30:26,920 --> 01:30:27,890
I go to the same thai

2304
01:30:27,940 --> 01:30:30,800
food restaurant that he goes to, and it's like,

2305
01:30:30,850 --> 01:30:32,500
am I about to interview Seth Rogen,

2306
01:30:32,530 --> 01:30:35,090
or is this like his, his kid or, like,

2307
01:30:35,120 --> 01:30:36,830
his nephew or something like,

2308
01:30:36,870 --> 01:30:38,990
what's going on here? But, uh,

2309
01:30:39,110 --> 01:30:41,250
it's just also your voice is like

2310
01:30:41,600 --> 01:30:44,160
bang on anyway with very different laughs.

2311
01:30:44,320 --> 01:30:45,660
His laugh is great.

2312
01:30:46,120 --> 01:30:47,930
Yeah. His laugh is infectious.

2313
01:30:47,980 --> 01:30:51,670
It's distinct. All right, now we can.

2314
01:30:51,780 --> 01:30:54,260
Okay, last thing I'd like to ask is,

2315
01:30:54,330 --> 01:30:56,830
is there anything any one of

2316
01:30:56,860 --> 01:30:59,940
you three would like to talk about? You know,

2317
01:30:59,970 --> 01:31:01,980
maybe a lesson or a takeaway

2318
01:31:02,030 --> 01:31:03,760
or something that we haven't touched on?

2319
01:31:03,880 --> 01:31:04,910
Or maybe there's. There's

2320
01:31:04,940 --> 01:31:07,900
a nugget that you'd like to really, you know,

2321
01:31:08,050 --> 01:31:10,610
bring up again just because of its importance,

2322
01:31:10,910 --> 01:31:13,090
or is there anything that running a business

2323
01:31:13,160 --> 01:31:14,960
like you have been doing and starting it

2324
01:31:14,970 --> 01:31:17,430
is something that anyone in similar

2325
01:31:17,510 --> 01:31:20,610
situations or not similar situations,

2326
01:31:20,720 --> 01:31:23,490
would you think benefit from hearing?

2327
01:31:24,670 --> 01:31:26,690
I think for me,

2328
01:31:28,510 --> 01:31:31,290
going in to make a product for a market

2329
01:31:31,360 --> 01:31:35,520
that already exists is a much better idea

2330
01:31:35,590 --> 01:31:38,070
than trying to create a market from scratch.

2331
01:31:39,210 --> 01:31:41,410
When Chase and I had a video

2332
01:31:41,450 --> 01:31:43,910
game audio company that made games,

2333
01:31:44,970 --> 01:31:48,010
we were trying to create a niche that was not

2334
01:31:48,050 --> 01:31:50,990
easy to market to or didn't already exist.

2335
01:31:51,160 --> 01:31:52,710
We did not have a million dollar

2336
01:31:52,740 --> 01:31:55,400
marketing budget and that did

2337
01:31:55,430 --> 01:31:57,310
not get the traction that this app has.

2338
01:31:57,380 --> 01:31:59,200
And my biggest takeaway from

2339
01:31:59,360 --> 01:32:01,560
those two years of our lives,

2340
01:32:01,600 --> 01:32:03,020
year and a half, whatever it was,

2341
01:32:03,480 --> 01:32:06,440
was next time we work on a product,

2342
01:32:06,600 --> 01:32:09,220
make sure that it's actually solving a need,

2343
01:32:09,600 --> 01:32:12,310
addressing an existing pain point

2344
01:32:12,460 --> 01:32:15,580
in a market that is easy to

2345
01:32:16,400 --> 01:32:19,940
connect to and get in contact with.

2346
01:32:20,130 --> 01:32:24,590
So I would recommend making sure that what

2347
01:32:24,620 --> 01:32:28,000
you're working on is valuable to somebody.

2348
01:32:28,110 --> 01:32:29,440
Doesn't have to be a lot of people,

2349
01:32:29,530 --> 01:32:30,980
doesn't have to be everybody.

2350
01:32:31,140 --> 01:32:35,110
But if you put it in front of 50 people

2351
01:32:35,240 --> 01:32:38,040
that you think it matters to them and

2352
01:32:40,900 --> 01:32:43,080
they need to understand why it matters

2353
01:32:43,170 --> 01:32:45,370
and be able to confirm that that

2354
01:32:45,400 --> 01:32:47,920
is something that they would pay for. Right.

2355
01:32:48,340 --> 01:32:49,920
That will help you determine if it's

2356
01:32:49,950 --> 01:32:52,120
worth putting the time and money into.

2357
01:32:54,820 --> 01:32:56,400
I'll just say really quick,

2358
01:32:57,860 --> 01:32:58,990
focus on the journey.

2359
01:32:59,040 --> 01:33:01,080
Learn from your mistakes. Be persistent.

2360
01:33:01,660 --> 01:33:03,440
Don't focus on the outcomes as much.

2361
01:33:03,490 --> 01:33:05,800
Focus on maximizing your chance of success.

2362
01:33:06,500 --> 01:33:07,600
That's all I got.

2363
01:33:08,700 --> 01:33:09,880
Take ownership.

2364
01:33:12,340 --> 01:33:13,550
There's a lot of wisdom in

2365
01:33:13,560 --> 01:33:14,740
the phrase discipline equals

2366
01:33:14,780 --> 01:33:16,720
freedom that I feel like I've.

2367
01:33:17,830 --> 01:33:19,250
When I learned that,

2368
01:33:19,440 --> 01:33:20,940
I think that opened a

2369
01:33:20,970 --> 01:33:23,690
lot of things that a lot of,

2370
01:33:23,840 --> 01:33:25,490
like those possible versions of

2371
01:33:25,520 --> 01:33:27,610
myself that Alex was talking about earlier,

2372
01:33:27,950 --> 01:33:31,770
I think that's one of those key turning points,

2373
01:33:31,840 --> 01:33:32,550
at least for me,

2374
01:33:32,590 --> 01:33:33,590
was kind of learning

2375
01:33:33,630 --> 01:33:37,490
to integrate that principle and go, okay,

2376
01:33:38,710 --> 01:33:39,810
this is useful.

2377
01:33:41,670 --> 01:33:43,980
Well, guys, this has been great. Thank

2378
01:33:44,010 --> 01:33:46,960
you so much for coming onto the podcast. Alex,

2379
01:33:47,010 --> 01:33:48,410
Chase and Jason,

2380
01:33:48,890 --> 01:33:50,870
how can people support you?

2381
01:33:50,920 --> 01:33:53,360
Find you and pick up Pocketbard so.

2382
01:33:53,390 --> 01:33:55,230
You can download Pocketbard on the Apple

2383
01:33:55,280 --> 01:33:58,320
app Store and Google Play Store. Coming

2384
01:33:58,390 --> 01:34:01,710
soon in beta to the Windows store as well,

2385
01:34:02,490 --> 01:34:04,380
which we just got our code

2386
01:34:04,390 --> 01:34:06,350
to go download at our dev version today.

2387
01:34:06,420 --> 01:34:07,350
So that's exciting.

2388
01:34:07,420 --> 01:34:08,090
Yes.

2389
01:34:08,250 --> 01:34:09,640
Nice. Congrats.

2390
01:34:09,790 --> 01:34:11,550
So you can just download the app,

2391
01:34:11,580 --> 01:34:12,980
share it with anybody you think would be.

2392
01:34:13,030 --> 01:34:14,340
It would be interested in it.

2393
01:34:14,430 --> 01:34:16,180
Lots of people use it. Some

2394
01:34:16,190 --> 01:34:18,190
of the coolest messages we get are from, like,

2395
01:34:18,240 --> 01:34:20,550
people using it to read their kids

2396
01:34:20,600 --> 01:34:23,150
stories as they're going to bed, or, you know,

2397
01:34:23,850 --> 01:34:26,470
kids like using it to torment

2398
01:34:26,520 --> 01:34:28,910
their siblings using the horror sounds.

2399
01:34:30,890 --> 01:34:33,000
So the, you know, it's.

2400
01:34:33,030 --> 01:34:34,830
It's an interactive audio app.

2401
01:34:34,860 --> 01:34:36,490
So if you want to dynamically

2402
01:34:36,570 --> 01:34:38,430
control soundscapes and audio,

2403
01:34:38,540 --> 01:34:39,480
just download the app,

2404
01:34:39,510 --> 01:34:40,700
give it a try. Like we said,

2405
01:34:40,710 --> 01:34:41,750
there's a lot of free content.

2406
01:34:41,840 --> 01:34:42,950
And if you like what we have

2407
01:34:42,980 --> 01:34:46,350
there and want to support us, subscribe.

2408
01:34:46,420 --> 01:34:47,710
That's super helpful.

2409
01:34:47,820 --> 01:34:50,110
So that's what helped us keep developing,

2410
01:34:50,160 --> 01:34:51,230
keep the app going.

2411
01:34:52,410 --> 01:34:55,630
You can find us on our social media, Instagram.

2412
01:34:55,680 --> 01:34:57,150
It's all just pocket barred.

2413
01:34:57,730 --> 01:34:58,830
We've hit the point where you

2414
01:34:58,840 --> 01:35:01,270
can just google it and you'll find it. So.

2415
01:35:01,460 --> 01:35:02,740
And just one more

2416
01:35:02,750 --> 01:35:04,460
shout out to our discord community.

2417
01:35:04,550 --> 01:35:05,440
That's where we tried to

2418
01:35:05,470 --> 01:35:07,570
host all of our community events.

2419
01:35:07,610 --> 01:35:08,640
We have awesome

2420
01:35:08,750 --> 01:35:10,750
moderators and discord managers there,

2421
01:35:10,800 --> 01:35:12,610
Dom and Zach. They're amazing.

2422
01:35:12,690 --> 01:35:15,680
Respond to people's feedback.

2423
01:35:15,730 --> 01:35:17,730
We try to be as active there as we can.

2424
01:35:18,470 --> 01:35:20,280
But, yeah, we post development updates

2425
01:35:20,330 --> 01:35:21,180
there and try

2426
01:35:21,210 --> 01:35:24,290
to just keep a lively, active community.

2427
01:35:24,380 --> 01:35:26,640
So if you want to get in contact with us,

2428
01:35:26,770 --> 01:35:28,170
that's probably the best place.

2429
01:35:28,990 --> 01:35:31,720
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, guys,

2430
01:35:31,770 --> 01:35:32,750
for joining us,

2431
01:35:32,790 --> 01:35:34,270
sharing your wisdom and your

2432
01:35:34,310 --> 01:35:35,760
journey and inspiring others

2433
01:35:35,810 --> 01:35:38,570
to pursue their neuropreneur journey.

2434
01:35:39,040 --> 01:35:40,820
And thanks for listening, everybody.

2435
01:35:40,910 --> 01:35:41,980
And as always,

2436
01:35:42,760 --> 01:35:44,060
keep it nerdy.

2437
01:36:02,960 --> 01:36:05,030
You just finished the shuttle class version

2438
01:36:05,060 --> 01:36:07,090
of this episode with Frank and Chris.

2439
01:36:07,220 --> 01:36:09,500
If you want to hear the galaxy class version,

2440
01:36:09,590 --> 01:36:11,230
go to patreon.com

2441
01:36:11,340 --> 01:36:12,700
nerdpreneur to become a member

2442
01:36:12,730 --> 01:36:15,220
of the awesome nerdpreneur board.

2443
01:36:16,800 --> 01:36:17,780
Thanks for listening,

2444
01:36:17,830 --> 01:36:19,760
and as always, keep it nerdy.

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