WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.820 I went into the local mom's group here and I just said, who else doesn't have after school care? 00:00:03.820 --> 00:00:04.600 Send me a note. 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:05.300 We're fixing it. 00:00:05.300 --> 00:00:05.460 Right. 00:00:05.460 --> 00:00:09.680 Because I just knew there's no way we're the only ones, but no one's talking about it. 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:10.300 Yeah. 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:15.180 And by the end of the day, I had 75 email addresses of people who were like, me, me, me, me, me. 00:00:15.180 --> 00:00:16.740 It's like, oh, my God. 00:00:16.740 --> 00:00:20.520 Like, we're all just silently suffering in our homes in this tiny town. 00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:20.740 Right. 00:00:20.740 --> 00:00:22.940 There's only 14,000 people in my town. 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:28.020 And we're all just quietly suffering and screaming into our own individual pillows about this problem. 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:33.440 There's a different kind of sickness that comes from not seeing people in the flesh. 00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:40.180 We spent years locked in, logged on, doom scrolling through a world that doesn't exist. 00:00:40.180 --> 00:00:48.140 But out there, in pubs, in living rooms, on mountaintops, at knitting circles, people are still finding each other. 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:49.320 This is Real Meet. 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:50.980 I'm your host, Brian Feister. 00:00:50.980 --> 00:00:52.340 Let's go meet someone. 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:53.680 Hey, everyone. 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:56.600 Welcome to another episode of the Real Meet Podcast. 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:02.560 Today, I have the honor of Karen's company. 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:05.580 She is the founder of Launch by Lunch. 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:15.760 And they are a very cool service-based industry that's helping small businesses, I think, especially in the Boston area, if I'm not, if I'm remembering right. 00:01:16.340 --> 00:01:18.220 And so, Karen, thanks for joining me. 00:01:18.220 --> 00:01:18.920 I appreciate it. 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:20.100 It's my pleasure. 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:29.580 I'm so glad this is giving us an opportunity to catch up and spar on all of our favorite topics around connection, AI, and the future. 00:01:29.580 --> 00:01:31.280 Yeah, absolutely. 00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:40.160 Something I didn't warn you about in our pre-chat was, like, the way I always do this is I always ask people to tell their story. 00:01:40.820 --> 00:02:01.200 And so, you know, I'm curious if you could share a little bit about, you know, what was the spark for you that made you, because now I know that there's even, and you don't have to talk about it, but we talked a while ago about a project that you started that was trying to work in the sort of SaaS space, I think. 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:05.580 And I know that was, but that was only a couple years ago, right? 00:02:05.580 --> 00:02:13.680 And so, like, what was the real, you know, seed for you, I'm curious, that really made you passionate about in-person connection? 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:18.280 So, it was like, it was like a bomb went off in my life. 00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:25.520 And this is actually a lot of what the TEDx talk I gave was about, which is, it was 2022. 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:29.320 I was the president of a tech company at the time. 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:32.800 I was running it out of this room because we were just coming out of COVID. 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:33.780 Nice. 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:37.800 And my son was just going into first grade. 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:46.040 And I, our local public school district said, like, sorry, we didn't pull his number as a lottery number for after-school care. 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:47.640 We don't have a spot for him. 00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:48.820 And I was like, what are you talking? 00:02:48.820 --> 00:02:52.820 We think our child care issues are over once kids go to school, right? 00:02:52.820 --> 00:02:53.920 Right, right. 00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:55.120 They're not. 00:02:56.120 --> 00:03:01.640 And they really weren't back then because a lot of the districts had, you know, lost workers, et cetera. 00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:03.860 So, we don't have a spot for him. 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:05.320 You're going to need to figure it out. 00:03:05.320 --> 00:03:08.280 And I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:13.240 And so, over the summer, I scratched my head and was like, I guess I'll just try and figure this out. 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:19.940 Kids get out of school, for folks who don't know, in my town and many others, 1.30 on Wednesday. 00:03:19.940 --> 00:03:21.820 What are we talking about here, right? 00:03:21.820 --> 00:03:26.500 It's the middle of the afternoon and 2 o'clock every other day. 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:37.560 So, literally, unless you work from home or you're somehow able to, you know, find somebody who's willing to kind of be a quasi-nanny from 2 to 5 or 4. 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:38.320 Totally. 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:40.780 And nobody wants that work. 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:43.100 So, I tried it. 00:03:43.100 --> 00:03:44.360 I tried it for three months. 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:48.460 He would come through the door at anywhere between 1.45 and 2.15. 00:03:49.040 --> 00:03:50.920 You know, he's pulling on my leg. 00:03:50.920 --> 00:03:51.980 He wants my attention. 00:03:51.980 --> 00:03:57.640 I'm trying to figure out how to balance these Zoom calls with the, you know, the iPad that he wants in front of him. 00:03:57.640 --> 00:04:00.160 Like, that's not what I want for my child. 00:04:00.160 --> 00:04:02.300 And so, I would stop working at 3. 00:04:02.300 --> 00:04:13.420 I would then go hang out with him for a few hours, ignore all the slack bombs going off in my phone, and then at 9 o'clock at night, go back upstairs and go back to work until midnight. 00:04:13.420 --> 00:04:17.920 And so many people live that way, and I just could not do it. 00:04:17.920 --> 00:04:19.000 It absolutely broke me. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:24.380 And I think, more than anything, it broke my heart because that is not the kind of mom I wanted to be for him. 00:04:24.380 --> 00:04:25.800 It's not how I was raised. 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:29.940 And so, I just said to myself, like, I have to choose now. 00:04:29.940 --> 00:04:34.900 Like, do I be the mom he deserves or do I be the leader that my company needs? 00:04:34.900 --> 00:04:36.360 And I chose my son. 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:39.960 So, that was a revolutionary act for me. 00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:41.980 I'd never not worked a day in my life. 00:04:41.980 --> 00:04:43.080 I like work. 00:04:43.420 --> 00:04:43.780 Yeah. 00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:47.480 But I quit my job, woke up the next morning, and said, I'm fixing this. 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:49.020 And I went into Facebook. 00:04:49.020 --> 00:04:51.400 I'm frenemies with Facebook, you know. 00:04:51.400 --> 00:04:55.740 But I went into the local mom's group here, and I just said, who else doesn't have after-school care? 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:56.520 Send me a note. 00:04:56.520 --> 00:04:57.380 We're fixing it, right? 00:04:57.380 --> 00:05:01.580 Because I just knew there's no way we're the only ones, but no one's talking about it. 00:05:01.580 --> 00:05:02.220 Yeah. 00:05:02.220 --> 00:05:07.080 And by the end of the day, I had 75 email addresses of people who were like, me, me, me, me, me. 00:05:07.320 --> 00:05:12.660 I was like, my God, we're all just silently suffering in our homes in this tiny town, right? 00:05:12.660 --> 00:05:12.800 Yeah. 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:14.860 There's only 14,000 people in my town. 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:15.680 Really, wow. 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:19.940 And we're all just quietly suffering and screaming into our own individual pillows about this problem. 00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:23.940 So that 75, over the next couple of months, turned into 500 parents. 00:05:23.940 --> 00:05:24.640 Wow. 00:05:24.640 --> 00:05:27.920 And so it was like, it was a very, it was a great uncovering. 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:33.040 And we spent the next seven months basically building two new after-school care programs. 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:35.640 Because you can imagine the pile on of people who wanted to help. 00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:38.740 So we formed a board, Parents for After-School Solutions. 00:05:38.740 --> 00:05:42.680 And we actually, you know, so we started, this is a long story, Brian. 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:44.520 I don't know if you knew it was going to be this long. 00:05:44.520 --> 00:05:45.600 No, no, no, no, this is good. 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:54.180 This is, yeah, there's a, there's a, there's, I'm accumulating all kinds of things to say about this because I have lots of other stories in mind. 00:05:54.180 --> 00:05:55.000 But yeah, keep going. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:56.140 This is very interesting. 00:05:56.140 --> 00:05:56.740 Okay. 00:05:56.740 --> 00:06:04.060 So we, we actually started mapping all the town-owned land assets so we could understand like what buildings are not getting used and why. 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:08.880 And then built a parent database of those 500 parents so we could communicate with them regularly. 00:06:08.880 --> 00:06:11.060 Of course, we started a Facebook page for them. 00:06:11.060 --> 00:06:11.900 Yeah, yeah. 00:06:12.140 --> 00:06:19.700 And, and then did outreach to like a hundred local vendors who provide some kind of after-school care, you know, activities. 00:06:19.700 --> 00:06:27.860 And so, and then of course I had to go be political and there was, that was part of our election cycle for select board and town leadership. 00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:33.880 And I had to go make friends over there really fast, work on some of those campaigns in exchange for supporting our initiatives. 00:06:33.880 --> 00:06:36.400 It was like, how did this become political, right? 00:06:36.400 --> 00:06:38.900 How is after-school care political? 00:06:38.900 --> 00:06:41.540 Yet somehow it became that way. 00:06:42.140 --> 00:06:48.880 In any case, we got our rec department to say like, okay, we'll let, we'll let vendors plug in here after school. 00:06:48.880 --> 00:06:51.140 We brought the 15 vendors to them. 00:06:51.140 --> 00:07:00.460 And then I found my way to the CEO of a YMCA here and was like, you know, and I had found a summer camp, which was just sitting dormant September to June. 00:07:00.460 --> 00:07:01.700 It was only used in the summer. 00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:03.280 Like there's a huge financial opportunity. 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:06.200 Like there's a huge financial opportunity here and we really had to lay it all out for them. 00:07:06.200 --> 00:07:09.620 But they, at the end of the day, we're like, well, this is a no brainer. 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:11.140 Why didn't somebody say something? 00:07:11.400 --> 00:07:12.020 That's so crazy. 00:07:12.020 --> 00:07:13.060 That's so crazy. 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:13.640 Yeah. 00:07:13.640 --> 00:07:29.580 Well, I'll, I'll jump in a little bit and I think there's more to the story, but you reminded me of, you know, talking about dealing with, okay, you're juggling your son who's come home on the iPad and, and, and you're trying to do your job. 00:07:29.580 --> 00:07:46.520 And I had a friend, this is, this is not, this is just total anecdotal thing, but I had a friend who she, you know, she was on maternity leave and then that ended and then she went back and she just did her job and like was remote. 00:07:46.520 --> 00:07:51.840 So she was like able to get away with it while doing her job and having like a three month old. 00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:56.840 And I thought to myself, wow, that's, that's some real resilience. 00:07:56.840 --> 00:07:59.360 I would lose my mind. 00:08:00.200 --> 00:08:08.320 You know, but, and she did, she did ultimately realize like, okay, she can't really do her job and take care of a three month old. 00:08:08.320 --> 00:08:12.160 And so she let go of the job, but I couldn't believe that she did it. 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:17.700 I've, you know, her husband is my friend and I kept saying to him, I said, is she okay? 00:08:17.700 --> 00:08:20.200 Are you, is she seriously going to keep going on this? 00:08:20.200 --> 00:08:22.320 He's like, I guess, I don't know. 00:08:24.900 --> 00:08:31.540 Well, I will say that I, I do think parents, and I'll just say oftentimes it's moms, right? 00:08:31.540 --> 00:08:35.840 Become these sort of like logistical masters, right? 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:36.660 Yeah, yeah, true. 00:08:36.780 --> 00:08:44.040 Having to hold that mental load and the mental schedule of, you know, at that point, it's like, when did they last nap? 00:08:44.040 --> 00:08:45.420 And when do they need to eat again? 00:08:45.640 --> 00:08:52.360 And, you know, but, but getting like how to balance it all, you know, and like, who's doing pickup? 00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:56.680 Like, you know, especially once you increase the number of children in your life. 00:08:57.020 --> 00:08:58.880 I strategically only had one because. 00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:01.480 You knew where this was going. 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:03.280 I'm too selfish for two, yeah. 00:09:03.280 --> 00:09:10.220 But, but anyway, it was through that process, though, that I realized I don't, I don't know anyone in my town. 00:09:10.220 --> 00:09:11.400 I don't have community. 00:09:11.400 --> 00:09:14.280 By and large, our town does not have community. 00:09:14.280 --> 00:09:16.820 I live in a town where there's no sidewalks. 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:18.720 There's no sidewalks. 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:20.380 How far are you guys from Boston? 00:09:20.380 --> 00:09:21.320 You're. 00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:22.440 25 minutes. 00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:23.080 Okay. 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:23.500 Okay. 00:09:23.500 --> 00:09:23.920 Yeah. 00:09:23.920 --> 00:09:24.920 Wow. 00:09:24.920 --> 00:09:26.060 That's so interesting. 00:09:26.660 --> 00:09:30.940 So I, I didn't realize that that parallel was so strong. 00:09:30.940 --> 00:09:35.720 So I, I used to live 30, 35 miles from Santa Fe. 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:36.660 So it's very similar. 00:09:36.660 --> 00:09:39.640 Also 10,000 in, in our town. 00:09:39.640 --> 00:09:41.240 And yeah. 00:09:41.240 --> 00:09:45.320 And, and, you know, my wife was exhausted just like having to drive. 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:54.160 It's like the danger is if you have to go to like into town twice where it's like, okay, now that's like, I mean, it's a little longer than, than you. 00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:59.680 Cause it, it might be 35, 40 minutes where it's like driving that twice is what? 00:09:59.680 --> 00:10:01.820 140 minutes, 280 minutes. 00:10:01.820 --> 00:10:07.260 It's like three hours and not just, you know, so it becomes a really big, wait, three hours. 00:10:07.460 --> 00:10:08.460 Anyway, you get the idea. 00:10:08.460 --> 00:10:08.820 Yeah. 00:10:08.820 --> 00:10:11.860 So I'm not good at math, but that's okay. 00:10:11.860 --> 00:10:13.020 Throw in some traffic. 00:10:13.020 --> 00:10:13.560 We're there. 00:10:13.560 --> 00:10:13.800 Yeah. 00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:13.940 Yeah. 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:14.200 Yeah. 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:17.560 But yeah, that's so interesting. 00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:17.980 Okay. 00:10:17.980 --> 00:10:18.640 Yeah. 00:10:18.640 --> 00:10:20.460 And so, yeah. 00:10:20.460 --> 00:10:33.580 Can you, you know, what's, what's really funny is through my own work with what I'm building, I've found that a lot of the customers I have tend to be outside of big metro areas because it does seem like that's a pattern. 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:34.560 You know what I mean? 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:39.660 Which is that, hey, people are like, hey, we want this to be our own community. 00:10:39.660 --> 00:10:46.080 We don't want to just be like part of like, you know, Boston with like millions of people or whatever, you know? 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:56.040 And so I have that outside of customers outside of like Vegas and Portland and, you know, like different area, you know, bigger Texas based cities and stuff like that. 00:10:56.040 --> 00:10:57.580 So it's interesting. 00:10:57.580 --> 00:10:58.720 I do think that's real. 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:05.080 And I think that the challenges and the needs of the suburbs are just different than in the city too, right? 00:11:05.080 --> 00:11:16.100 You tend to have more families in the suburbs with different time constraints, different availability, different like, you know, if it's a lot easier. 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:24.820 For a working parent to meet up with another parent if it's a family get together versus a one-on-one, right? 00:11:24.820 --> 00:11:25.840 Yep. 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:37.780 And so I found the same thing when I was building Purposely Social and I was thinking about how I was trying to establish like local hubs of this application. 00:11:37.780 --> 00:11:41.660 And the whole idea was it was meant to help busy parents make plans. 00:11:41.880 --> 00:11:47.160 So it would compare schedules quickly and just tell you who's available at the time that you have. 00:11:47.160 --> 00:11:51.920 So it was easy to figure out, to actually make the plan starting with that very small problem. 00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:55.620 But I definitely noticed the same pattern as well. 00:11:55.620 --> 00:11:58.580 And again, we're all in our cars in the suburbs too, right? 00:11:58.580 --> 00:11:59.320 Think about the city. 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:02.220 Everybody is walking around, wave to your neighbors. 00:12:02.220 --> 00:12:03.080 You see people on the street. 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:04.760 You have a lot more micro interactions. 00:12:04.760 --> 00:12:05.820 Right. 00:12:05.820 --> 00:12:09.000 We start to think about social health and like all the components of it. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:22.440 Those micro interactions are really, really important for our daily just our daily happiness, our daily sense of like familiarity, even like low-grade community. 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:30.480 Like it's a familiar face, you know, and I expect that when I go to the Starbucks at 8 a.m., I'm going to see that same barista every time, you know? 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:34.760 Yeah, no, that's such a good, man, that's such a good point. 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:36.740 Yeah, that's so interesting. 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:48.160 So now you, so your parenting adventure with the child aftercare and stuff like afterschool care, that was purposely social or they're distinct? 00:12:48.160 --> 00:12:52.400 Because I know about purposely social a little bit from our talks before. 00:12:52.400 --> 00:12:54.060 Yeah, separate is what I, is that what you're saying? 00:12:54.060 --> 00:12:55.200 They're totally separate. 00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:05.680 That adventure was what sparked the whole, my, my uncovering that our town was really lacking community and it couldn't really possibly just be our town. 00:13:05.680 --> 00:13:10.960 This seems like we're in a parent self-care connection crisis. 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:12.840 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:13:12.840 --> 00:13:25.420 And that, so after we got the children back to school and back to afterschool care for a full, you know, like 10-hour day, the, that September, I was like, I feel so different. 00:13:25.420 --> 00:13:28.640 I couldn't figure out what it was as I feel lighter and happier. 00:13:28.640 --> 00:13:30.600 And what is this feeling? 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:34.780 And so I was like, does everybody feel like this? 00:13:34.780 --> 00:13:36.640 What does it say about us? 00:13:37.020 --> 00:13:39.220 So I was like, I'm, I'm going to put out a survey. 00:13:39.220 --> 00:13:44.320 I want to know what other people are, how has afterschool care changed their lives, right? 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:46.060 Like whatever that looks like. 00:13:46.060 --> 00:13:55.480 So what I got back, the biggest findings I got back and I got a few hundred people to fill it out, which I think that, so feel good about this, the findings. 00:13:55.480 --> 00:14:02.140 It was 55% have now made a plan to exercise three times a week. 00:14:02.140 --> 00:14:02.960 Wow. 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:06.580 40% were taking mental health breaks every day. 00:14:07.020 --> 00:14:11.240 And 91% were happier around their kids. 00:14:11.240 --> 00:14:12.300 Yeah. 00:14:12.300 --> 00:14:13.040 Yeah. 00:14:13.040 --> 00:14:14.000 That's amazing. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:14.600 Yeah. 00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:22.940 And it was just like, oh my God, by doing this one simple thing to support people and support working parents, it was, it just made all the difference. 00:14:22.940 --> 00:14:28.200 But now think about the, think about the ramifications on family life for that, right? 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:35.480 And those children's experiences in their family with their parents, they go out into the world, all of us do, right? 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:40.460 And then, and then the ability to like see a friend or get physically healthier. 00:14:41.100 --> 00:14:43.200 This is, it's, it's life-changing. 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:53.740 And so that was really where I was like, okay, we've got to figure out a way for people to, to come back together more easily and to work around these crazy schedules. 00:14:53.740 --> 00:15:07.660 Like you're not going to stop the crazy schedule, but any way that we can start to carve out spaces for folks to actually take care of themselves, whether that's working out, calling their parents, you know, or like having dinner with a friend is important. 00:15:08.280 --> 00:15:09.600 Yeah, that is important. 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:10.900 That's, yeah. 00:15:10.900 --> 00:15:11.660 And you know, it's funny. 00:15:11.660 --> 00:15:25.980 I never give, this might be the second shout out I've ever given on this podcast, but you know, and I think I told you early when you and I first talked about my friend, Sarah, she's working on this where she's working on a product called Care Cow. 00:15:25.980 --> 00:15:45.980 That's a nice, convenient booking in road that then connects with, and so does like, you know, both sides for the caregiver and the people needing care and they can kind of like help to get care in, in the, the more ad hoc way. 00:15:45.980 --> 00:16:04.240 But, you know, so yeah, anyway, but yeah, it's, it's something I hear a lot about, you know, and obviously, I mean, I've got two kids, so I'm there, you know, I have my full-time job, but my wife is constantly trying to figure out where to get help. 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:13.480 And we've been, we've been, we just moved and my neighbors have been surprisingly interested in just helping, hanging out. 00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:20.040 And so that's been something that like, my wife kind of always wanted that her whole life and felt like she never really found it. 00:16:20.040 --> 00:16:25.400 So, you know, that was, that was really, that's been a joy about the process for us, so. 00:16:25.400 --> 00:16:26.740 That's amazing. 00:16:26.740 --> 00:16:36.760 When you were, when you were researching places to move, did, was there any part of you that thought about, well, what is the connectivity like in this community? 00:16:36.760 --> 00:16:41.540 Yeah, actually, my, my wife actually lived here 15 years ago. 00:16:41.720 --> 00:17:04.100 And so she, only for a little bit, like a year or two, I forget, but anyway, and it was, when I was really, really, I was hesitant to move because I was just kind of like, I like adventure and I like shaking things up, but also I have two really little kids under three and it was like, ah, I really don't want to do this, but I feel like I'm supposed to, you know. 00:17:04.100 --> 00:17:12.000 But anyway, so I was really hesitant in, in my own certain ways, you know, I don't, I don't know, like, I don't get really attached to things. 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:15.640 It's like, I, I'm a minimalist, you know, different things like that. 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.420 But anyway, I was really on it. 00:17:18.420 --> 00:17:22.680 I was not expecting it, but after moving immediately, I could tell the difference. 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:30.280 It's like, there's actually a, there's a temperature to just social climates in different places, you know what I mean? 00:17:30.280 --> 00:17:32.700 And it's much warmer after the move. 00:17:32.700 --> 00:17:39.400 And so, you know, I was not expecting that, you know, but it was like, here's one way to put it. 00:17:39.400 --> 00:17:47.820 After settling in a bit, our house is like, I can't believe how neglected this house was and how much money I had to spend to fix this house. 00:17:47.820 --> 00:17:49.540 That was a nightmare. 00:17:49.540 --> 00:18:01.300 But the location, right, when just the neighborhood, it's like the first time since I was a kid, it's like maybe 35 years ago that I felt like I could leave my doors unlocked. 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:02.080 You know what I mean? 00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:05.200 So that was a huge, huge change for me. 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:10.460 And it made me think a lot about that kind of thing and about how I always think about this. 00:18:10.460 --> 00:18:15.180 And I, I never knew who's listening and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. 00:18:15.180 --> 00:18:23.980 But it's also like, my nightmare was always living in some row home shoebox type thing because I like the outdoors a lot. 00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:27.280 So that's very antithetical to who I am as a person. 00:18:28.100 --> 00:18:35.460 But you think about that, that kind of dynamic just being sort of like always like in your little apartment all the time. 00:18:35.460 --> 00:18:36.140 You know what I mean? 00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:41.560 Like that, that's like, that's the, that's a special kind of hell that I can't even imagine. 00:18:41.560 --> 00:18:42.520 You know what I mean? 00:18:42.660 --> 00:19:01.120 And I feel bad because I don't want to like, you know, I know some people live that way, but I would, I, anyway, there's this like thing about levels of how much community you feel or what the temperature emotionally is of a place. 00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.560 And I was really surprised by that, so. 00:19:03.560 --> 00:19:20.560 There's a really great report called The Belonging Barometer that was actually written and based on findings from a town near me by somebody who lives like three towns away. 00:19:20.560 --> 00:19:24.740 But she's on, she does research at the national level on connectivity. 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:34.400 And then, and then looking at all of those things and how people feel about their neighbors, how people, welcome people feel in any given environment. 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:45.840 But then also, I'm sure you've read or are familiar with Bowling Alone, one of the very first books, you know, sort of written on connection and trends. 00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:49.720 And that gentleman, wow, I can't think of the author's name right now. 00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:50.760 I'm going to look it up in a second. 00:19:50.760 --> 00:19:52.800 I'm not, by the way, but sorry. 00:19:52.800 --> 00:19:54.120 Yeah, sorry. 00:19:54.120 --> 00:20:01.140 I went through a long spell of like, I didn't read a book for like 10 years, so maybe I missed it somewhere in that gap. 00:20:01.140 --> 00:20:05.800 I got back to reading again, but it took a long time, so maybe I missed that one. 00:20:05.800 --> 00:20:09.200 I'm going to, I'm going to give you his name right now. 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:13.140 So yeah, Bowling Alone, The Collapse and Revival of American Community. 00:20:13.140 --> 00:20:16.820 His name is Robert Putnam. 00:20:16.820 --> 00:20:22.040 And so he's been tracking these trends, like since the 70s kind of thing. 00:20:22.040 --> 00:20:27.200 And then put this book out again, I think it came out actually in the 90s or the early 2000s. 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:45.420 But it, it has the most incredible data on how connection and how much each one of us feels like we're part of something bigger, how it affects the economy, how it affects the democracy, how it affects the financial stability of the country. 00:20:45.560 --> 00:20:55.300 And so when I think about it now too, I'm like, wow, this is, it is so much bigger than just social health or how connected I am. 00:20:55.300 --> 00:21:02.600 It is, it actually has massive impacts on, you know, like macro, macro impacts on the world. 00:21:04.560 --> 00:21:08.600 So yeah, you should, you should check that out, that book out, Brian. 00:21:08.600 --> 00:21:10.220 I think you'd be into the data. 00:21:10.220 --> 00:21:11.320 Yeah, I'm sure. 00:21:11.320 --> 00:21:11.620 Yeah. 00:21:11.620 --> 00:21:12.740 Yeah. 00:21:12.740 --> 00:21:17.280 Maybe I can sound like I know what I'm talking about in some future, future episode. 00:21:17.280 --> 00:21:22.220 I'll be like, yeah, I've read this book and it's like, I just, I know all this stuff. 00:21:23.280 --> 00:21:24.380 Oh, you didn't read that book. 00:21:24.380 --> 00:21:25.500 Oh, let me tell you about that book. 00:21:25.500 --> 00:21:30.660 Yeah, that's, that's awesome. 00:21:30.660 --> 00:21:31.880 You know, okay. 00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:39.680 So I feel like we've got a good sense of, I mean, that's a great story, by the way, and no need to apologize for it being long. 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:43.240 It's a great, it's a great win for your community. 00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:45.060 And I think that's something to be proud of. 00:21:45.060 --> 00:21:51.580 So I love, I love that you did that, you know, and I think let's talk a little bit about like where you are today, 00:21:51.580 --> 00:21:59.100 because I want to make some space for the more controversial thing we want to talk about, which is AI. 00:21:59.100 --> 00:22:05.920 And because you're working on that, I mean, I totally sympathize. 00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:12.220 There was a post not long ago on LinkedIn where somebody was saying like, talking about how, you know, 00:22:12.220 --> 00:22:17.860 it's like somebody they talk to is a plumber and they hate AI and they're mad about it. 00:22:17.860 --> 00:22:21.300 And I'm like, I totally, I agree with everything this guy just said, you know, 00:22:21.300 --> 00:22:26.660 and yet I use AI like to the tune of many millions of tokens, you know what I mean? 00:22:26.660 --> 00:22:30.920 And so I, I'm in both worlds and I know you are too. 00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:36.240 So tell us a little bit first so people understand some context around what you're working on now, 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:41.120 I think with Launch by Lunch, and then I'll be curious to hear some of your thoughts on all this stuff. 00:22:41.820 --> 00:22:46.440 Yeah, I don't think 20 minutes is going to be enough time for us, Brian, but we'll try. 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:46.860 No, it's not. 00:22:46.860 --> 00:22:47.480 It's not. 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:54.120 That's, that's why, that's why I was like, oh, I better, I better do the cutover because I know when our, when, when our meeting is ending here. 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:57.660 So my company is Launch by Lunch. 00:22:57.660 --> 00:23:07.360 We were founded in a moment of personal pain where Purposely Social, who I was just pre-Gen AI, right? 00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:15.600 So I couldn't build it myself because there really was no way to use language for coding at that point, or at least not commercially available. 00:23:16.600 --> 00:23:31.540 And, God, I can't, I will not say out loud the amount of money I spent on a developer building that product, which was still four months late, still 2x the cost, still, you know, just not what I envisioned and buggy as hell. 00:23:31.540 --> 00:23:35.740 And so it, I, it was so, it was just so, you know, and it didn't. 00:23:35.740 --> 00:23:42.820 So, so I just, just before you go further, since I'm the guilty party, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:23:42.820 --> 00:23:46.700 I was like, well, I'm the one who's being, who's being put under the microscope here. 00:23:46.700 --> 00:23:56.580 Yeah, no, I mean, I'd love to dig a little bit into that if you're even willing, like, and I want to be sensitive about how much you want to protect, like, the identity of, like, whoever actually did this. 00:23:56.580 --> 00:24:12.760 Because something that always comes up, because I hear this sort of anecdotally from you, and I always think this, and now we're going a little bit personal, but, you know, I, like, I, it's sad that, you know, it, man, there are so many ways to lose in life. 00:24:12.820 --> 00:24:13.360 You know what I mean? 00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:27.620 And it's always sad to hear somebody run into, because, yeah, I mean, I have friends that make lots of money just coaching people out of hiring offshore teams that don't give a shit about your product and, you know, like, stuff like that, right? 00:24:27.620 --> 00:24:28.180 You know what I mean? 00:24:28.180 --> 00:24:29.780 So, I get it. 00:24:29.780 --> 00:24:30.980 But, yeah. 00:24:31.100 --> 00:24:43.880 Anyway, I'd like to come back to it, I guess, but continue with, so you started this, right, with Purposely Social, and it didn't go well for those reasons. 00:24:44.620 --> 00:24:52.140 Yes, and, like, also the developer got behavioral, like, halfway through this, where I had built in, because I knew better, right? 00:24:52.140 --> 00:24:54.980 I knew, you know, I let him lay out the timeline. 00:24:54.980 --> 00:24:58.900 So, if you want more detail, I let him lay out the timeline for when things could get done. 00:24:58.900 --> 00:25:01.620 So, I wasn't saying, like, this must be done by this date. 00:25:01.620 --> 00:25:03.080 We laid it out together. 00:25:03.080 --> 00:25:05.120 It got put into a contract. 00:25:05.800 --> 00:25:12.900 I built in penalties for lateness, which weren't that big, but just there as a little bit of a stick, right? 00:25:12.900 --> 00:25:15.460 Let's say on the track we decided on together. 00:25:15.460 --> 00:25:16.400 Sure. 00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:23.380 And then he was a couple of weeks late on something and basically said, like, do you mind, like, not invoking the stick? 00:25:23.380 --> 00:25:26.060 And I was like, no, I'm going to have to invoke the stick. 00:25:26.060 --> 00:25:27.360 Like, this is what we agreed to. 00:25:27.360 --> 00:25:30.200 And, by the way, I'm now two months late for my launch, right? 00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:32.200 And it was supposed to launch October. 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:33.460 Now we're at December. 00:25:33.460 --> 00:25:36.600 It's like, okay, well, that has a significant impact for me. 00:25:36.600 --> 00:25:44.540 And I think one of the hard things, too, which is different now also, and I'll share that story in a minute, but, like, I couldn't do anything to help them, you know? 00:25:44.540 --> 00:25:44.940 Yeah. 00:25:44.940 --> 00:26:00.280 And that's a big failure on his part, I want to just say, because the thing is, like, the right way to do this, or how I like to think is my way is hopefully useful, is that you present, like, here's what's outstanding. 00:26:00.280 --> 00:26:25.900 You know, we're X distance from the target, you know, it's a week from now, and here's what's remaining, and here's the reason that XYZ is connected, and you have to bring the customer along, you have to bring the non-technical person along and say, like, okay, you know, well, the problem is, you know, we had a plan for messaging, but we failed to factor in, like, concurrency limits. 00:26:25.900 --> 00:26:35.400 And how many messages the platform can handle at one time, and we expect all, you know, it's like, are you designing for something that's not a problem yet? 00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:38.920 Are you just not really that skilled? 00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:47.680 Are you, like, not really able to, and by the way, defending engineers, I'll say one thing is, like, nothing ever takes the amount of time you think it will. 00:26:47.840 --> 00:26:53.180 So that's, that's just the way it works, and now, you know, you get to experience that yourself now, so, you know, that. 00:26:53.180 --> 00:26:54.560 Oh, that's exactly right. 00:26:54.560 --> 00:26:57.620 But, yeah, no, I get it. 00:26:57.620 --> 00:27:00.480 So that, so continue, this is interesting, this is a really interesting story. 00:27:02.080 --> 00:27:15.420 So, and then, and then after that, he just, he sort of was like, he would cancel calls with me, he would try and do everything over email, he just was really annoyed. 00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:23.960 And, again, if I told you what I was paying him, like, you would be like, oh, my goodness, like, this person should have been, you know, nothing but gracious. 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:25.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:36.440 And so I ended up having to then pay and bring in a CTO from, from the Boston community to then be like, look, I need, like, love you, Brian. 00:27:36.440 --> 00:27:41.020 Like, I need a guy in the room who's a developer so that, like, we can get on these calls. 00:27:41.020 --> 00:27:43.520 And because I don't understand the language, right? 00:27:43.520 --> 00:27:45.680 I don't understand half of what he's telling me, right? 00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:49.700 Like, we don't have Claude yet to, to, to interpret this stuff for me. 00:27:50.220 --> 00:27:57.360 And that's a, that's a huge failure, no matter where you, I'll just say that to all of, cause I have a lot of people in my audience who are engineers. 00:27:57.360 --> 00:28:05.080 Like, that's a lot of the folks who follow me on, on LinkedIn, you know, and, uh, I have lots of other types of folks that follow me too. 00:28:05.080 --> 00:28:09.960 But I'll just say that to anyone listening who is an engineer, it doesn't matter where you are. 00:28:09.960 --> 00:28:12.860 It doesn't matter whether you started building websites. 00:28:13.320 --> 00:28:20.320 Like, when I started, I built a website for free for a friend who was a performing artist and needed a website. 00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:23.900 And then I built her teacher's website and I charged $800 for that. 00:28:23.900 --> 00:28:26.300 You know, that was 20, more than 20 years ago. 00:28:26.300 --> 00:28:34.820 And the point of this story, that what I want to say here is that it doesn't matter whether you're a, you're a one month old developer or a 20 year old developer. 00:28:35.260 --> 00:28:47.920 Like you can never put limits on how much you invest in bringing the customer along and understanding the decisions and the trade-offs because engineering is nothing but decisions about trade-offs. 00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:54.540 And if the people who own the product don't understand the trade-offs, you've failed completely if, if they don't understand those trade-offs. 00:28:54.540 --> 00:29:03.240 No matter how much time or inconvenience it is to you to explain it, however many times you need to, you know, so, but that's, that's my take on it. 00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:14.520 But, you know, it's so, it's so interesting now too, Brian, because as we, we, we haven't even really gotten, gotten into what Launch by Lunch is yet, but we, we, we build and we train small business owners, right? 00:29:14.520 --> 00:29:17.240 With AI, we build internal tools for them. 00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:22.540 And the, one of the most important things that we implemented early on was just a standard weekly meeting. 00:29:22.540 --> 00:29:28.700 It doesn't matter what we're working on or what we're doing or what, it's just, we're going to meet every week for at least 30 minutes. 00:29:28.700 --> 00:29:29.920 And sometimes it's longer. 00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:31.020 Yep. 00:29:31.660 --> 00:29:33.220 Because for that very reason, right? 00:29:33.220 --> 00:29:36.320 I'm like, I know exactly what it's like to feel like you're in the dark. 00:29:36.320 --> 00:29:37.120 Yeah. 00:29:37.120 --> 00:29:37.880 You're lost. 00:29:37.880 --> 00:29:41.820 By the way, then we are on the other side of it now having to try and make those decisions, right? 00:29:41.820 --> 00:29:43.520 And we can't make them on their behalf. 00:29:43.520 --> 00:29:48.560 So it's like our scars are very helpful in seeing the other side of the coin. 00:29:48.560 --> 00:29:49.480 Totally. 00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:51.180 In all of this. 00:29:51.540 --> 00:29:58.000 So in any case, Purposely Social was in a sad state of affairs in January, 2025. 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:02.460 It feels like it's been five years. 00:30:02.460 --> 00:30:03.180 Yeah. 00:30:03.180 --> 00:30:03.500 Wow. 00:30:03.500 --> 00:30:03.920 Yeah. 00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:04.420 That's, yeah. 00:30:04.420 --> 00:30:06.100 That's wild that that was just, yeah. 00:30:06.100 --> 00:30:06.520 Yeah. 00:30:06.520 --> 00:30:06.780 Okay. 00:30:06.780 --> 00:30:07.020 Yeah. 00:30:07.020 --> 00:30:08.620 Like almost two years ago. 00:30:09.280 --> 00:30:14.960 And I just kept hearing no code, AI, lovable. 00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:17.900 Is this shit real? 00:30:17.900 --> 00:30:19.900 Like that's what I just was going through my head, right? 00:30:19.900 --> 00:30:26.160 I'm like, I just spend so much money, but I'm willing to just like kiss away that and not 00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:31.700 even worry about it if this is real, because this is real, it changes everything. 00:30:31.700 --> 00:30:37.980 So I cleared my schedule for two days and I just sat down with lovable on the right and 00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:38.960 bolt on the left. 00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:42.380 And I just said like, I'm going to give the same prompts to both these tools and we're 00:30:42.380 --> 00:30:43.260 going to see what happens. 00:30:43.260 --> 00:30:47.640 And I, I built five apps in two days, right? 00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:49.120 It's not hard to do. 00:30:49.120 --> 00:30:53.200 You're just chatting with these LLMs and yeah. 00:30:53.580 --> 00:30:59.760 And so, I mean, what Brian, I can't tell you the experience I had. 00:30:59.760 --> 00:31:07.580 It's like my, my outlook on life on life fundamentally changed during that 48 hour period aside from 00:31:07.580 --> 00:31:10.340 what I knew was possible for me professionally then. 00:31:10.340 --> 00:31:17.160 And then I just saw all these trend lines in my head and I was like, I'm, this is what I'm 00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:18.040 supposed to be doing now. 00:31:18.040 --> 00:31:21.800 I don't know if you ever feel like this, but sometimes I feel like I just get little messages 00:31:21.800 --> 00:31:24.000 and it's like, you're supposed to go do this now. 00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:25.780 And that's how I felt in that moment. 00:31:25.780 --> 00:31:31.280 And I was like, I need to be the person who's going to bring this to the every man and like 00:31:31.280 --> 00:31:33.380 light up the world with new opportunities. 00:31:33.380 --> 00:31:39.280 So I put up a signup form the next day on Luma and I put it on LinkedIn and I was like, 00:31:39.280 --> 00:31:42.160 like a builder app in four weeks. 00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:47.000 Like we're going to do an accelerator program, like just building this shit in the air, but 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:48.380 like, that's what you do, you know? 00:31:48.380 --> 00:31:49.060 Yeah. 00:31:49.060 --> 00:31:53.380 So that's what I did and it sold out in two hours and I was like, all right, everybody's 00:31:53.380 --> 00:31:53.640 ready. 00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:56.460 And so then we, I sold six of those really fast. 00:31:56.460 --> 00:32:01.460 That took up the spring, learned a lot, eventually turned it into a community because people were 00:32:01.460 --> 00:32:03.920 like, I, this is very hard to do alone. 00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:04.320 Right. 00:32:04.320 --> 00:32:08.560 And this is where the intersection of connection and AI first came for me, which was like, 00:32:08.560 --> 00:32:10.900 wow, the same rules apply here. 00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:14.720 Like nobody wants to sit in a silo and try and learn AI on their own. 00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:18.000 Like that feels terrible and everyone's overwhelmed. 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:19.860 Everyone is overwhelmed. 00:32:19.860 --> 00:32:25.560 So, um, and as somebody who's been writing code for 20 years, I'll tell you, I'm, I'm, I have 00:32:25.560 --> 00:32:27.100 never been so overwhelmed. 00:32:27.100 --> 00:32:30.560 The mountain of, of code that I have to comb through. 00:32:30.560 --> 00:32:34.960 And yeah, of course, I'm not crazy enough to think that I'm going to like go through all 00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:40.520 million lines and there's trade-offs and this is like, this is the most intense, like 00:32:40.520 --> 00:32:45.700 grinder I've ever been through in my career by a long shot, but nothing even compares to 00:32:45.700 --> 00:32:50.960 it because it's like every single moment it's doing all this stuff and you're trying to decide 00:32:50.960 --> 00:32:52.440 like, is this okay? 00:32:52.440 --> 00:32:53.440 Is this correct? 00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:56.920 Is this, you know, and it's like, and you're, you know, you're doing that. 00:32:56.920 --> 00:33:00.840 And without being able to read the code, I mean, that's of course always like my concern 00:33:00.840 --> 00:33:03.180 with something like, like where you're at with this. 00:33:03.180 --> 00:33:09.700 It's like, but I think that also, and I want to not come off as a super skeptic here, the 00:33:09.700 --> 00:33:16.620 world is full of automation problems that never had a, like a partner to sort of take them 00:33:16.620 --> 00:33:20.700 on and like bring them through to the other side because it's just, you know, I've been 00:33:20.700 --> 00:33:24.920 on the side of, you know, the engineering team who's like, well, yeah, okay. 00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:27.520 We'd love to do this, but it's going to take X, Y, Z time. 00:33:27.520 --> 00:33:32.600 And it's like, it's just the value isn't there to justify the engineering spend. 00:33:32.600 --> 00:33:39.800 And, and so I think what you're doing is great because I think that the helping people to 00:33:39.800 --> 00:33:43.760 self-service and to realize what's possible there is a huge win. 00:33:43.760 --> 00:33:47.560 And then just to realize, oh, okay. 00:33:47.560 --> 00:33:52.920 And especially, I don't know where you're at with this, but if you're able to figure out 00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:57.860 where, where the edges are for, even for your own understanding, right? 00:33:57.860 --> 00:34:05.300 Cause it, like I have, there are limits to my own, what I'm exposed to from an engineering 00:34:05.300 --> 00:34:06.240 perspective, right? 00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:10.740 There are things that are, I'm going to go ask my, you know, my friend Adam about that 00:34:10.740 --> 00:34:14.080 because like, that's not my, you know, my wheelhouse, so to speak. 00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:18.900 And if you can identify those edges, figure out when it's time to bring somebody else in, 00:34:18.900 --> 00:34:24.780 but also like do lots of helpful work to take things that are sort of like low hanging fruit 00:34:24.780 --> 00:34:27.160 and like improve business, small businesses. 00:34:27.160 --> 00:34:28.660 I think that's a huge win. 00:34:28.660 --> 00:34:32.080 So yeah, I appreciate that. 00:34:32.080 --> 00:34:33.900 And I, and I think you're totally right. 00:34:33.900 --> 00:34:42.440 I think the, for us, we, we have drawn really firm lines around what we're not interested 00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:44.420 in doing for one reason or another. 00:34:44.420 --> 00:34:48.680 It might be because we feel like it's just like too far out of our expertise. 00:34:48.680 --> 00:34:53.780 It might be because I don't want to build your SAS and maintain it and build servers, et cetera. 00:34:53.780 --> 00:34:55.860 Like we're not doing any of that. 00:34:55.860 --> 00:35:01.120 Like we are doing a lot of like, let us help you understand the tool, which by the way, 00:35:01.120 --> 00:35:05.500 the tool changes every week, literally every week I go back into Claude. 00:35:05.500 --> 00:35:06.820 I'm like, oh, no, they moved a button. 00:35:06.820 --> 00:35:08.440 Oh, chat and coworker the same now. 00:35:08.440 --> 00:35:09.400 Oh, okay. 00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:10.760 Now we have auto approved. 00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:13.620 So it's, it's changing all the time. 00:35:13.620 --> 00:35:17.220 So helping them get comfortable, also helping surface conversations. 00:35:17.220 --> 00:35:21.820 I will tell you very recently, I was sitting around a table where half a team was super excited 00:35:21.820 --> 00:35:23.980 and the other half of the team was pissed. 00:35:24.680 --> 00:35:29.740 And, you know, wish I had known a little bit about that more before I sat down at that table. 00:35:29.740 --> 00:35:34.880 But it's really important to have those conversations and to move forward together. 00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:39.240 And we, you know, that's not going to happen on its own. 00:35:39.240 --> 00:35:48.920 And you're not going to be successful as a company if you haven't at least let people be heard and found a way to kind of meet somewhere in the middle around. 00:35:49.320 --> 00:35:52.920 Like, for most people, there's stuff they don't want to do in their job, right? 00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:54.120 So, like, let's start there. 00:35:54.120 --> 00:35:59.200 Like, what are the things you do all the time that you don't want to do and that doesn't require your expertise to do? 00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:01.780 So, starting there. 00:36:01.780 --> 00:36:03.720 Absolutely. 00:36:03.720 --> 00:36:16.700 But also that's why, Brian, we love the fact that Anthropic has put these programs, they've made these certifications available for folks who are part of their partner program. 00:36:16.860 --> 00:36:27.760 So, that I'm taking the same tests that a developer would take or an architect would take or PM would take to prove expertise within their platform. 00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:35.920 And so, I love that because it's forcing me to stretch and it's forcing me to learn new things if I want to, you know? 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:39.160 And, like, but I also think we have no interest in enterprise. 00:36:39.160 --> 00:36:45.400 So, I, to a certain degree, like, I never, I'm never going to have to get as deep as you are in this. 00:36:45.400 --> 00:36:47.060 That's interesting. 00:36:47.060 --> 00:37:02.880 You know, I wish we could dump out the vector space of your brain because I'm curious to know, like, what, you know, what you, if you're passing, like, a formal, you know, sort of coding test, like, you're talking about from Anthropic. 00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:09.380 You know, I was like, that's fascinating because I have a, I have a customer who, as some people, sometimes people get apologetic. 00:37:09.380 --> 00:37:11.120 You're, you're, you don't seem shy. 00:37:11.120 --> 00:37:12.740 So, some people get apologetic. 00:37:12.740 --> 00:37:14.620 They're like, oh, you know, I, like, built this on my own. 00:37:14.620 --> 00:37:18.820 Like, they know I'm an engineer and they're, like, worried that they're being judged or something like that. 00:37:18.820 --> 00:37:22.360 And I'm like, no, no, you're just, you're becoming an engineer in a totally different way. 00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:24.800 You know, it's totally, it's all good. 00:37:24.800 --> 00:37:31.060 I became an engineer by pasting wrong code off of Stack Overflow 20 years ago. 00:37:31.060 --> 00:37:38.180 And then, and then, and then realizing that I don't know what the hell is happening or what it's doing. 00:37:38.180 --> 00:37:44.640 And I thought I knew and I, I just thought it was going to magically fix my problem because somebody else seemed to have the same problem. 00:37:44.640 --> 00:37:48.420 And then you realize, well, turns out there's a lot of nuance to this. 00:37:48.420 --> 00:37:49.600 And, you know. 00:37:49.600 --> 00:37:51.160 Who can fault you for that, Brian? 00:37:51.160 --> 00:37:53.180 It was a good theory to test. 00:37:53.680 --> 00:37:56.420 Yeah, well, you know, I faked it until I made it. 00:37:56.420 --> 00:37:58.520 So here I am, you know, that was 20 years ago. 00:37:58.520 --> 00:37:59.900 But anyway, yeah. 00:37:59.900 --> 00:38:02.620 So, but all that aside. 00:38:02.620 --> 00:38:09.240 Yeah, I would be fascinated just to, I don't, there's no way, there's no space or time to do this. 00:38:09.240 --> 00:38:10.660 But just to see. 00:38:10.660 --> 00:38:17.440 Here are the things that you're, like, able to talk about without the help of AI that you've learned about. 00:38:18.060 --> 00:38:28.260 From being in the space and, because I, so I used, I first used ChatGPT to learn a new programming language three years ago. 00:38:28.260 --> 00:38:34.960 When it was, like, you didn't have the tools that are being used, like Claude and, like, the CLI tools that are now useful. 00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:39.580 That you didn't get the benefit of it knowing the context of your code base then. 00:38:39.580 --> 00:38:43.940 You just, like, pasted the part that you didn't understand and you asked it questions. 00:38:43.940 --> 00:38:44.560 You know what I mean? 00:38:44.980 --> 00:38:49.140 And so, you know, I, so anyway, I knew then that's why I started my business. 00:38:49.140 --> 00:38:51.720 It's because I knew that this was going to completely change everything. 00:38:51.720 --> 00:38:53.760 The whole world was going to change because of this. 00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:56.980 It was clear to me immediately, you know. 00:38:56.980 --> 00:39:04.640 And so I was, like, and what's going to happen is, you know, and I have my own journey of, like, figuring out connection and community. 00:39:04.640 --> 00:39:11.840 I moved across the country, had no friends, went through that whole loneliness thing that people talk about. 00:39:12.840 --> 00:39:16.640 And I knew that human connection was going to be the primary value. 00:39:16.640 --> 00:39:22.280 Because code is, like, you know, it's still important, right? 00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:23.100 We all know that. 00:39:23.100 --> 00:39:26.080 But at the same time, it's becoming more commoditized. 00:39:26.080 --> 00:39:28.860 And so that's, it just is what it is. 00:39:28.860 --> 00:39:32.200 There's no way to have that not happen. 00:39:32.200 --> 00:39:34.240 So you just have to deal with that reality. 00:39:34.240 --> 00:39:34.980 You know what I mean? 00:39:34.980 --> 00:39:41.400 And figure out where you're going to slot yourself into the evolving world and how that's all going to play out. 00:39:41.580 --> 00:39:46.320 You had a great post about this a couple of weeks ago about moving. 00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:49.380 And, yeah, you had a, and you were, there was a picture of you, like, outside. 00:39:49.380 --> 00:39:51.220 It looked like some kind of farm or field. 00:39:51.220 --> 00:39:59.180 And talking about all the pain of wading through all the code to just, to get to connection in mass on the other side. 00:39:59.180 --> 00:39:59.960 It was great. 00:39:59.960 --> 00:40:01.120 Thank you. 00:40:01.120 --> 00:40:01.980 I appreciate that. 00:40:02.380 --> 00:40:15.560 Yeah, so I think one thing on my mind, you know, and we're, you know, as we kind of are coming toward the end of our time here, is, like, I'd like to map this all back to connection. 00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:44.180 And the idea that, like, because I think one of the things that you've said, and I don't want to say it for you, but it's something along the lines of, like, the idea that can code, can these kinds of tools, instead of just making our lives, like, you know, more, like, more pressured or more stressful, can they actually help to lighten the load for us so that we can sort of, like, live a happier life? 00:40:44.180 --> 00:40:49.560 Because, you know, like, as the book that I haven't read yet talks about, you know what I mean? 00:40:49.560 --> 00:40:52.980 So I'm curious your take on all of that. 00:40:52.980 --> 00:40:54.340 Yeah, I love that. 00:40:54.340 --> 00:40:56.400 And this is a perfect note to end on, I think. 00:40:56.400 --> 00:41:13.180 I have a, I just gave a talk on this last night, actually, and to a chamber of commerce nearby full of business owners who are overwhelmed and, you know, some of whom have very mixed feelings about all of this, but all of whom kind of know that, like, there's opportunity. 00:41:13.180 --> 00:41:15.180 If they can, like, find their way through it. 00:41:15.180 --> 00:41:18.480 But in any case, the idea being that there's a pile, right? 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:29.140 There's a pile in your life, whether that's figuring out pickups with your partner or it's invoicing or it's client communications that are, or newsletters, marketing, whatever. 00:41:29.340 --> 00:41:30.340 Like, there's a pile. 00:41:30.340 --> 00:41:35.460 And that pile doesn't necessarily require your expertise or human touch. 00:41:35.460 --> 00:41:36.740 It's different for everyone. 00:41:36.740 --> 00:41:43.560 But the idea is, like, let's use AI to take care of the pile so you can take care of yourself and the people in your life. 00:41:43.740 --> 00:41:59.240 And so the people in the pile, and I, that's how I see AI clear the way of all the, like, nitty-gritty back-end stuff that doesn't need you so that you can go to the gym, have dinner with a friend, go for a walk, be healthy. 00:41:59.500 --> 00:42:01.220 Like, I truly see it that way. 00:42:01.220 --> 00:42:10.320 And, you know, and I ask everybody when I give the talk, like, turn to the person next to you and tell them what you're going to do with the two hours that you're going to free up tomorrow when you start using these tools, right? 00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:14.020 And it's like, wow, having them paint a vision, it's so important. 00:42:14.020 --> 00:42:16.020 That's awesome. 00:42:16.020 --> 00:42:16.320 Yeah. 00:42:16.320 --> 00:42:16.840 Yeah. 00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:18.080 No, I love that. 00:42:18.080 --> 00:42:26.920 And I just want to, I want to clarify just, because sometimes I get, I rabbit trail and I just want everybody to be clear as we're, as we're wrapping up that. 00:42:27.900 --> 00:42:42.340 Karen's launch by lunch is, is helping folks to, small businesses especially, and like ordinary folks to adopt AI and to learn these tools and to build things that they couldn't build before. 00:42:42.340 --> 00:42:44.700 And so I think that's a great mission. 00:42:44.700 --> 00:42:54.660 And, you know, I think it's, it's great that we've got people out there helping, because I agree, it's, it's often scary to learn these things on, on your own. 00:42:54.660 --> 00:43:01.640 And, and, and you should be a little scared because it could delete your computer like it's tried to delete mine. 00:43:01.640 --> 00:43:02.360 You know what I mean? 00:43:02.360 --> 00:43:05.460 So like, I'm glad that Karen's there to help you. 00:43:05.460 --> 00:43:07.220 So you should, you should go talk to her. 00:43:07.220 --> 00:43:08.680 Thanks. 00:43:08.680 --> 00:43:09.500 Thanks, Brian. 00:43:09.500 --> 00:43:12.180 My pleasure. 00:43:12.180 --> 00:43:13.060 This is really fun. 00:43:13.060 --> 00:43:13.820 Okay. 00:43:13.820 --> 00:43:14.400 Bye.