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7 - Just Make Stuff
Episode 7 • 24th May 2022 • Parts Department • Justin Brouillette & Jem Freeman
00:00:00 00:53:24

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The guys both need to Just Make Stuff. Design tools like pen and paper, Rhino, Fusion 360.

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Product Development

  • Jem: Be bold, say no to developing other people's products and invest in our own!
  • Product dev ideas
  • Being led by process or by needs?
  • The process around new ideas, sketches or straight to CAD? Which CAD first?



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Show Info

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HOSTS

Jem Freeman

Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Like Butter | Instagram | More Links


Justin Brouillette

Portland, Oregon, USA

PDX CNC | Instagram | More Links

Transcripts

Jem:

Come on windows.

Jem:

It's not that hard.

Jem:

You can do it.

Jem:

You know I'm replacing you.

Jem:

Just, just hang in there.

Justin:

It was all the things

Justin:

restarted my

Justin:

computer today.

Justin:

still crap.

Justin:

All

Justin:

over

Justin:

feeling better.

Justin:

You're back in the shop.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Oh, there you go.

Jem:

Recording.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Feeling

Jem:

95%.

Justin:

Wow.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

That's quick.

Jem:

A hundred percent.

Jem:

But this morning I'm like, yeah, not quiet

Justin:

Yeah, but.

Jem:

about energy levels.

Jem:

Good.

Jem:

Thankfully.

Justin:

No kidding.

Justin:

Awesome.

Justin:

Quite a see it.

Justin:

We're not like in a tent.

Justin:

Not that that wasn't fun, but.

Justin:

just for your sake.

Jem:

It's good to check-in.

Jem:

What's happening this week.

Justin:

did some job shop work, got some parts to go out.

Justin:

I've got a pile of whiteboard prototypes, or not prototypes to actually

Justin:

production run that need to go to the

Justin:

finisher, which is Nice This has been in process since like

Justin:

months.

Jem:

Nice now, is that what you're countersinking in the steel.

Justin:

Those

Justin:

were the reference for

Justin:

Mike House.

Justin:

I'm making, I made some custom

Justin:

like side tables for our bedroom and I was always intending them to be steel fronts

Justin:

and

Justin:

the slightly outside of my normal range.

Justin:

So I

Justin:

never actually got those finished like a year ago until they've been

Justin:

plywood, like crappy plywood, the other kind of a surprise for my wife.

Justin:

The whiteboards are also steel.

Jem:

Have you got a monitor, like a CCTV of the workshop up there, or like a

Justin:

Yes.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

that's fair.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

a,

Justin:

You're

Jem:

you're always looking out that direction when you're considering

Jem:

what's happening in the workshop.

Jem:

I'm like, oh, maybe you can see something Yeah.

Justin:

There's Couple of views and the printer's also going right

Justin:

now.

Justin:

I can see a little

Justin:

bit of that, so it's

Justin:

definitely helps me visualize what, what is actually happening out

Justin:

there?

Justin:

What are we working on?

Jem:

gazing out the digital window.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

pretty useful.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

How about you?

Jem:

I'm just glad to be back.

Jem:

Really.

Jem:

I had a couple of days working at home at the start of the week, cause

Jem:

I couldn't quite clear my cough

Jem:

and technically I couldn't go back until I was clear that,

Jem:

And working from home was fine, but you know, pretty hectic with

Jem:

the two little ones running around.

Justin:

Just go out to the tent again.

Jem:

So came back in yesterday and it's just really nice to be

Jem:

back in here in, in amongst it

Jem:

and

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

things.

Jem:

Yeah, but at the same time,

Jem:

get that perspective of having been off for a week and

Jem:

then coming back in and sort

Jem:

of, I was shocked this week to discover how much time I spend in

Jem:

meetings.

Justin:

oh,

Jem:

it's like, wow, this is my life now.

Jem:

Like,

Justin:

I'm going to quit

Jem:

you know, part of it was catching up on stuff I'd missed,

Jem:

but a lot of it, was.

Jem:

just stuff that's in my default diary, that's just meeting after meeting or call

Jem:

a

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

meeting with a client and so valuable stuff.

Jem:

But yeah, I guess having been away and then come back, I was like, oh wow.

Jem:

I thought I spent a lot of my week doing

Jem:

this now.

Jem:

So

Jem:

that was a good little perspective shift

Jem:

to become aware of that.

Jem:

But now I got pretty well.

Jem:

What kind of, I suppose we were running into the end.

Jem:

We have a media financial year.

Jem:

When does your financial year end?.

Justin:

I just somehow ended up with

Justin:

the calendar year.

Justin:

I don't know how that happened forever ago.

Jem:

but can you do either or over there?

Justin:

I don't really know.

Justin:

I know we had a lawyer help us start the LLC and I somehow that worked out.

Justin:

I know it's just always been calendar year, which is.

Jem:

Okay.

Jem:

Right.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Our financial year starts in July, 1st of

Jem:

July.

Jem:

So we're

Jem:

trying to hit a certain revenue target like the backseat six weeks to go.

Jem:

So chasing the custom work pretty hard And also

Jem:

like a bit of a marketing push, I think over the, next six weeks to try

Jem:

and get the web orders flowing again.

Jem:

But it's so weird.

Jem:

, like we chatted about the other day when we were talking marketing,

Jem:

. It's out of the blue this week.

Jem:

So I had a chat with Will from Concrete Digital.

Jem:

Who's our guy that helps us with marketing.

Jem:

And then I don't think he changed anything at his end yet.

Jem:

We just started making plans for the next, you know, six weeks.

Jem:

And then yesterday, just out of no way, mid-week Like we usually

Jem:

Don't sell anything on the website midweek it's always sort

Jem:

of after hours or weekends, you.

Jem:

know, people at home.

Justin:

Interesting.

Jem:

And then yesterday, Wednesday we had a, like, I haven't checked, but possibly

Jem:

a record day of sales just out of nowhere.

Jem:

So look

Jem:

weird.

Justin:

Whoa,

Justin:

something just drastically changed on your microphone.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

So that's

Justin:

Sound like, I was in your throat.

Justin:

Sounds good now.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Cool.

Justin:

Wow.

Justin:

That's that's fantastic.

Justin:

Did you get, do you see, I think Shopify has decent data on that,

Justin:

but it, you see like attribution, like you have any idea what it was.

Jem:

I find the attribution data really patchy

Justin:

The.

Jem:

black, almost all the sales that I looked at that came through yesterday.

Jem:

I would just like, you know,

Jem:

first session direct from,

Jem:

It was either a direct URL.

Jem:

It was just, just a direct visit from search

Jem:

Very rarely do we see an attribution to marketing efforts in Shopify?

Justin:

It's very frustrating when you like, have all this analytics set

Justin:

up And then you can't tell like the, most specific thing it's like this

Justin:

is, this should be always the case.

Justin:

I should always know.

Justin:

You know, like, unless somebody is using some, even if they're using a

Justin:

VPN, you'd still see that they clicked on a Google like link, you know, like

Justin:

it shows where they come in anyway.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I always find that interesting.

Jem:

I don't know if this is just me, but I find myself when I get

Jem:

served an ad that peaks my interest

Jem:

in Instagram or something I'll often close Instagram, and then go off to a set,

Jem:

you know, just open a new tab in Chrome

Jem:

and go direct search to their website.

Jem:

And

Jem:

, I'm definitely adverse to following,

Jem:

Link clicks through ads.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

I wonder whether that's more

Jem:

common

Justin:

Well,

Jem:

I think it is.

Justin:

I, I don't know.

Justin:

I guess I know exactly what you mean.

Justin:

And I think the,

Justin:

when you were describing it,

Justin:

I was thinking it's like kind of the best practice of not

Justin:

clicking on a phishing

Justin:

link.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like go commit yourself.

Justin:

Don't click on the link.

Jem:

Exactly.

Jem:

But yeah, not good to be back.

Jem:

Plenty of stuff going on.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

things continued to go fine without you.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Seemingly,

Jem:

That's something I've been considering too this week is what did I not do last week?

Jem:

That just worked without me,

Jem:

that I can now sort

Jem:

of having proven that can I what can I delegate or

Jem:

just get off my plate?

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

So that's been an interesting exercise.

Jem:

The other main thing that I think has come to light

Jem:

is,

Jem:

just how finite my R and D time is product development

Jem:

time.

Jem:

Either need to make some hard decisions about.

Jem:

Clearly saying no, or starting to sort of shut down doing product

Jem:

development for other people

Jem:

and just really.

Jem:

focusing on doing product development for

Jem:

us.

Jem:

I've been thinking about that a lot this week.

Justin:

Yeah,

Justin:

Well, you see, you must be seeing you, you've mentioned this a couple times.

Justin:

You must either

Justin:

a want to do it for yourself.

Justin:

I think we both have that feeling or you're seeing that like the rise in sales

Justin:

or something like you're, you're seeing a trend where it's becoming a better

Justin:

deal for you to do it for yourself then than other people for you,

Justin:

for the business.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I think it's just really hard to quote R and D for other people.

Jem:

And then make any money on it.

Jem:

While whilst it can be a really rich conversation and relationship with a

Jem:

client it's yeah, it's very hard to judge.

Jem:

I find it hard to charge enough for it legitimately.

Jem:

But I was interested

Jem:

in terms of product development, like what your process is in

Jem:

terms of idea generation, like, are you someone that's led by

Jem:

a problem?

Jem:

Oh, geez.

Jem:

Just find yourself coming up with random ideas.

Jem:

Like, yeah.

Jem:

What's your process there?

Justin:

oh boy.

Justin:

All it's been all over the place.

Justin:

I can very easily say though, right now that the best let's say products

Justin:

are the things that we've, that have worked the best that have sold that

Justin:

have had the greatest reception are all

Justin:

solving problems like genuinely.

Justin:

And it's usually.

Justin:

I think most of them have come from, oh my ideas, I guess, or my starting point.

Justin:

And they're usually something in my life that I don't like and want to improve.

Justin:

And when that genuinely works and it's not super super niche it turns into

Justin:

something that I have no, like the laptop stand, actually, my friend came up with

Justin:

that, but like this calendar I just never could visually like process the

Justin:

serpentine back and forth with a calendar,

Justin:

but I'd look at it and be like, ah, which week is, and then if

Justin:

you jump to the next line and

Justin:

it just was hard for me to see.

Justin:

So I made a calendar that was top to bottom one through

Justin:

31 and I printed it out.

Justin:

My friend had a plotter and

Jem:

let's just have linear

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

drop.

Justin:

I never intended to sell it really.

Justin:

And then,

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

that's kind of, I've slowly trained my brain from.

Justin:

Now it's like, well,

Justin:

could I make a thing that would be a product that would also

Justin:

be this problem solving thing?

Justin:

Cause obviously it's turned into a business, we've tried the opposite

Justin:

way over the years here and generated

Justin:

by, oh, we have all these great tools.

Justin:

How do we make a product that for example, the mill could make, and that never works.

Justin:

It's like almost perverse in it's wait that

Justin:

it creates a product and honestly never has it just never, you get so far in it.

Justin:

And you're like, well, what is this trying to solve in the end here?

Justin:

this isn't even a good

Justin:

thing?

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

That makes

Jem:

sense.

Jem:

I've definitely had that thought before, like trying to justify new

Jem:

tools or different equipment And trying to come at it from that angle,

Jem:

but it's yeah, it's almost impossible, Come back from that direction.

Jem:

I

Jem:

reckon,

Jem:

like I find it much more powerful to be, to have the limitation

Jem:

of what we've already got,

Jem:

whether it's the tooling or the

Jem:

machine that's available and then trying to solve a problem

Justin:

Yup.

Jem:

with what's available and yeah.

Jem:

Getting creative

Jem:

with the mains to do that.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I've definitely tried to train myself to think over the years,

Justin:

like there's a lesson that tried to teach us early on in school.

Justin:

That constraints are

Justin:

usually for the better in the end.

Justin:

Like if you, if you get an a blank check and somebody says you can use any

Justin:

tool you want, you can buy any tool.

Justin:

You know, community size, it's probably going to suck in the end.

Justin:

it's just not going to be good.

Justin:

There's probably examples of that.

Justin:

I don't, I can't think off the top of my head, but I guess an

Justin:

example would be a McMansion.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

You know, those like crappies probably mostly American there's

Justin:

there's websites dedicated to

Justin:

this where people have all the money and nobody will tell them no.

Justin:

and so they have 17 styles, a window on the front of their

Justin:

house.

Justin:

Cause they thought it looked cool.

Justin:

You know,

Justin:

constraints make for better things.

Justin:

I definitely know what you mean.

Justin:

There

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

absolutely.

Justin:

I've found on product development.

Justin:

I don't think I've had a better

Justin:

personal feeling about developing products than in the last like year

Justin:

and a half working on this Nack wall thing, because whatever it is about it,

Justin:

the like constraint being that it is.

Justin:

Kind of notched wall of a grid

Justin:

means that it's, you know, whatever we make that goes with it has to work

Justin:

on that system.

Justin:

These, these holes, you kind of start somewhere and it has to work with that.

Justin:

And almost every time we've made it in different places, all around the

Justin:

shop, just to test it, to kind of

Justin:

evolve different aspects of it.

Justin:

And it's

Justin:

like I mentioned before, the kind of morale around creating a

Justin:

thing to solve a problem for your

Justin:

own space.

Justin:

That could be something you sell is fantastic.

Justin:

And I just

Justin:

love

Justin:

every time.

Justin:

I think there's like one thing that we've really been

Justin:

challenged by, which was making just a simple peg or like a hook.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

They all looked either every time it's either, it looks like a

Justin:

thumb or like a male sex member.

Justin:

Every time cannot get away

Justin:

from it.

Justin:

I guess maybe this is the good transition to that.

Justin:

We made this little thing I showed on

Justin:

Instagram.

Justin:

It's just a peg and it goes with the T clamp and there's

Justin:

actually one holding up my bag.

Justin:

I

Justin:

put my bag on the floor until yesterday.

Justin:

It's got its own problems, but yeah, this was pretty satisfying

Justin:

to finally come up with something

Justin:

that wasn't, it still has a thumb I think, in the end, but

Jem:

It does.

Jem:

Yeah, it looks pretty heavy duty.

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

two inches thick.

Justin:

Probably, yeah.

Justin:

It's probably especially with the stele limit and Bakker.

Justin:

but yeah.

Justin:

it's simple for now.

Justin:

These are just

Justin:

prototypes.

Justin:

They need a little bit more polished shown, but

Jem:

That's cool.

Jem:

I'm interested looking at your wall behind you and like I've got, you know,

Jem:

peg peg boards, but I suppose more broadly when you're designing a system,

Jem:

how, how quickly did you commit to Like

Jem:

the spacing of the whole.

Jem:

And do you, do you have doubts as you move forward about whether that was the right

Jem:

decision

Jem:

and backwards compatibility and stuff Like that?

Jem:

I find that a really challenging area when you're developing more

Jem:

than just a singular product, you're trying to develop,

Jem:

A,

Jem:

world or a system of parts that all talk to each other.

Justin:

I got really lucky or maybe it was some kind of like

Justin:

years of design intuition.

Justin:

I doubt that.

Justin:

I think I just got lucky.

Justin:

I was working on it at like Christmas at my in-laws two years ago.

Justin:

I was like, I always get kind of, I won't say bored necessarily, but my

Justin:

mind wanders and everybody was off doing something and it's like, oh I should, we

Justin:

should get back to that grid wall thing.

Justin:

We were working on at one point

Justin:

and I came up with kind of the spacing that just seemed like it worked.

Justin:

it's a 200 millimeters.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I went with all metric, which is kind of crazy.

Justin:

And that the answer to why was that all, if I make the panel sizes, they fit in

Justin:

set on a standard sheet of plywood here.

Justin:

I can get three of these panels from one sheet of plywood and cut

Justin:

all the sides and all the spacings, like we don't have to get into

Justin:

fractions at all, which is fantastic.

Justin:

And it actually just, perfect reason to why metric is definitely better.

Justin:

I've never disputed that.

Justin:

It's just unfortunate here.

Justin:

So I think I got lucky in that sense and what's great about how this works

Justin:

is we actually have a, a hundred millimeter spacing on this wall.

Justin:

I was the first one we did,

Justin:

and it was just a little too much in the end, and this is

Justin:

kind of a nice, happy medium for now, but you can

Justin:

totally, he can't go.

Justin:

We couldn't go.

Justin:

Wider spacing and have things still work on it, but this way we

Justin:

can go down and then have more adjustability.

Jem:

Yeah, I guess 200 is quite big to start with, but it's also,

Jem:

it's a very neat number.

Jem:

So you can pop that and still have, things

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like one of the if we thought about the next version that

Justin:

we haven't sold this one yet,

Justin:

but would be to make smaller

Justin:

panels that have finer spacing

Justin:

yet.

Jem:

yeah.

Justin:

little organizer, board kind of things,

Justin:

but

Jem:

clip onto the bigger board.

Justin:

you

Justin:

totally could.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

We've made one of those.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like a nested endless stacking board of boards.

Jem:

Yeah, that's cool.

Jem:

I find 'em without kit of parts, shelving system, I committed

Jem:

to dimensions too early

Jem:

and now like two years later,

Jem:

I've got doubts or just, yeah.

Jem:

like, this things I really want to change, but at the same time, I want

Jem:

to maintain backwards compatibility for all the customers who already have

Jem:

one.

Jem:

So it's like, do I add another six components to the family

Jem:

to ensure that everyone can do everything?

Jem:

Or Joe, I just thought.

Jem:

Email, all of those customers who already have one and say like, Hey,

Jem:

we'll, we'll continue to service you, but there's this select group of you.

Jem:

Thanks for being, you know,

Justin:

Guinea pigs.

Jem:

Thanks for getting in early but we're going to change all

Jem:

the dimensions from here on it.

Jem:

So yeah, I'm a bit torn about that, And I was chatting to a

Jem:

friend about it who was like,

Jem:

just, you know, the sooner you do that the better,

Jem:

like

Jem:

for everybody,

Justin:

Even as you're describing that, I think you brought that up, a bit ago.

Justin:

It's easier for me to sit here and say, oh yeah, just do it.

Justin:

Because, assuming you're going to keep making it longer than you have the big

Justin:

question would be, is it somehow going to open up more opportunity, more sales

Justin:

in the end then unfortunately you got to like squash the old thing, And as

Justin:

long as you could come back to that, I suppose, but the real downside to

Justin:

that is in a lean sense.

Justin:

Why would you keep two product lines?

Justin:

Right?

Justin:

Like your

Justin:

inventory, you're wasting it.

Justin:

You're hoping those people hopefully buy something else from you

Justin:

when they may be already just they've got what they need

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I think most

Jem:

of, most of those people would probably just have the thing and

Jem:

that's

Jem:

as much as they'll ever have.

Jem:

So yeah, I just need to bite the bullet

Jem:

and I, but then it's committing, it's committing to the new numbers,

Justin:

Yeah,

Jem:

know,

Jem:

and then saying, cool, This is the new system that's gonna

Jem:

work for the next two years.

Jem:

And then I'll change my mind again and decide that it's not quite right.

Justin:

the version of that, I think I've probably brought this

Justin:

up, but people listening to this are like, you guys have already talked

Justin:

about this, but the version of that for me was, the thickness of these dang

Justin:

panels.

Jem:

particularly when it's pretty laminated and you

Jem:

can't affect the thickness,

Jem:

with finding that with the new hoop pine plywood we're using it's wireless,

Jem:

dimensionally stable in its thickness then,

Jem:

but Birch,

Jem:

we finding like 0.6 millimeter variation across, within the shape, not just

Jem:

across the pack, but within one shape.

Jem:

So

Justin:

yeah.

Jem:

what's that in

Justin:

Point 0.02, four inches.

Jem:

So yeah, that's all been a whole new challenge for us because

Jem:

we can put stuff through the wide belt, sander And tolerance things.

Jem:

But when the variations, you know, coming up to almost a millimeter,

Jem:

it's like, then you start breaking into glue lines and just messing things up.

Jem:

It's been tricky.

Jem:

But then when you've got your backing boards, which are like the HPL,

Jem:

but side's right

Justin:

There's like a backer sheet, but it's the same sickness.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

So you basically stuck with that thickness

Jem:

stuck,

Jem:

and then you got to hope that the next, you know, in a year's time, the

Jem:

stock

Justin:

exactly.

Justin:

That we can still get it that

Jem:

Come on, dude.

Justin:

yeah, honestly, you're making me feel a little bit better in this

Justin:

whole conversation of why it's not on sale yet because all of these things

Justin:

have been concerns the last year and a half of like killed at the first time.

Justin:

I think it was the beginning of 2021.

Justin:

We worked on it for about 40 days or something and we were just killing

Justin:

it, like so many great ideas.

Justin:

I think we built this side of the office right

Justin:

away.

Justin:

We were so excited.

Justin:

And then the world just had, I don't remember at that time, it was like

Justin:

the first time there were vendors were starting to talk about plywood,

Justin:

not being a thing or too expensive.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

This seems like a bad idea, you know, like we're early

Justin:

in this process and this product that we need may just disappear.

Justin:

so then we waited and kind of came up again and now it's kind

Justin:

of back in that, same place

Justin:

after we spent months and months working on it and, and had to

Justin:

adjust some of those tolerances, thankfully, before we ever sold any.

Justin:

So there's different incarnations around this office that the shop that, you

Justin:

know, don't work anymore on different

Justin:

versions.

Justin:

That's always the nightmare

Justin:

is that I've always thought, you know, people would buy a kit and then

Justin:

probably buy something else every time, but not like a whole new set of

Justin:

things.

Justin:

And that needs to work

Jem:

yeah, I would probably

Jem:

reverse it back on you and say

Jem:

no.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

yes.

Jem:

From a design point of view.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

And they still work,

Justin:

Yes,

Jem:

but 90% of the people who buy a Nack Wall kit

Jem:

may never buy more accessories ever again, like it's, they're going to put it up when

Jem:

they will and the home office or whatever.

Jem:

And that might

Jem:

be it

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

And I think it's more important to get it out there

Jem:

and into real people's hands per user feedback and, and just to sell stuff.

Jem:

I think it's more important to do that then,

Justin:

Perfecting it.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Trying to get at the next, you know,

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

10% of perfection.

Justin:

I definitely agree.

Justin:

It's just always something.

Justin:

continue to find weird excuses, I think for why either it's material or.

Justin:

Waiting on something and just I'm trying to turn it into products on

Justin:

Shopify and a marketing website.

Justin:

that process has been slower than it should be too.

Justin:

So I definitely agree.

Justin:

I'm curious now for Kitta parts, have you come out with things

Justin:

and have people continued to

Justin:

buy ad-on pieces or is that really a thing for you?

Jem:

Yeah, I see a, little bit of activity with people buying extra

Jem:

bits and pieces, you know, an extra shelf or a few extra dowels.

Jem:

But in the, scheme of things, it's very, It's a very small volume

Jem:

for show.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

I wonder if there's an opportunity there for that.

Justin:

selling to those people, like marketing to those

Justin:

people, like through email or something like, Hey, did you know?

Justin:

You can add on a,

Jem:

If We had a decent yeah.

Jem:

If we had a decent, like email user base then totally.

Jem:

But we only started collecting emails in the last six months or something.

Jem:

So it's a tiny, tiny

Jem:

list

Jem:

and we've done a few like EDM email

Jem:

outs using the Shopify platform.

Jem:

And it's like, you can save the stats and it's like three people open This email.

Justin:

What's EDM.

Jem:

good

Jem:

point.

Jem:

Something direct mail, electronic direct mail.

Jem:

I

Justin:

oh, I see.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

marketing speak.

Justin:

I don't know any other,

Jem:

So can I buy it can I go on PDX, CNC and buy a Nack kit yet?

Jem:

No,

Justin:

No,

Justin:

no.

Justin:

I'm working on.

Jem:

on.

Justin:

On the marketing page and hopefully have it available here shortly,

Justin:

but yeah, everything's figured out

Justin:

to this point that there was always something we were waiting on.

Justin:

We had to change

Justin:

materials and it's been way

Justin:

too slow, but yeah, I just need to get it

Justin:

done

Justin:

there.

Jem:

stuff.

Jem:

That's what they say.

Justin:

Thanks.

Justin:

That's what I say.

Justin:

I wonder if this

Jem:

Oh, wow.

Jem:

I, just tried to find your CNC calendar.

Jem:

And I just went down the rabbit hole and found all sorts of awful things.

Justin:

my vertical calendar.

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

Yeah, Yeah.

Justin:

It's a weird, small world of printed calendars.

Justin:

That still exists.

Justin:

There's a group of people that still want them

Justin:

see if this works.

Justin:

This is the thing I've been working on

Justin:

See that tiny little printer screen.

Jem:

instead, a live view of your

Jem:

printer, get out.

Justin:

It streams via a raspberry PI And it's actually just like

Justin:

a PC webcam hooked into USB.

Jem:

Good.

Justin:

pretty cool.

Justin:

It's

Justin:

making a time-lapse at the moment, but so this is the, I

Justin:

don't have good words for it.

Justin:

It's the funnel that converts from five

Justin:

inch duct down to kind of the top of our spindle.

Justin:

There'll be

Jem:

I want to print.

Justin:

pretty great.

Justin:

this is from this morning at like nine o'clock

Justin:

it's going pretty well.

Justin:

It's PETG that should be pretty durable and it should

Justin:

improve like

Justin:

150% or so

Justin:

volume of what

Justin:

we've been using now with our ShopSabre.

Justin:

here's the little timeline.

Justin:

It's only a bit of it.

Jem:

Oh, nice.

Justin:

This is called OctoPrint.

Justin:

I think I mentioned it before, when I was bitching about

Justin:

Fanuc being so crappy, because this is free

Justin:

open source software that you can run

Justin:

your printer with and I can control it from my phone

Jem:

And do time-lapse in it.

Justin:

time lapse, like in, you know, I've got temperature graphs, I've got

Justin:

a, it has a plugin like repository.

Justin:

So all these, most of these things are, plug-ins like the Oakdale laps and yeah.

Justin:

most of

Jem:

I suppose it speaks to these is right.

Jem:

Like how many people have a

Jem:

3d printer versus how many people have a

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Fanuc Mill?

Justin:

Yeah, for sure.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

There's a lot to that, but it's just, I think about

Justin:

it as like, can I get OctoPrint to

Justin:

control my mill?

Jem:

that's awesome.

Justin:

Yeah, pretty stoked about that.

Justin:

So

Justin:

this is hopefully going to turn into a thing we sell because I

Justin:

mentioned it before our machine, the shop sabers just don't have

Justin:

very good stock dust collection.

Justin:

And part of the

Justin:

problem is the size of the port.

Justin:

And then also like just the way it's designed.

Justin:

I did a video about upgrading

Justin:

our ATC rack.

Justin:

And part of that plan was always to do this, this dust collection portion.

Justin:

And it's designed to be a direct swap for what comes on your ShopSabre And then

Justin:

you could potentially also add improvements.

Justin:

If you say, have the style

Justin:

of little pedestals that we designed

Justin:

to kind of improve it and focus it more.

Justin:

I haven't designed that part yet, but this was the first step and I've been

Justin:

working on it for like probably off and on

Justin:

for a year.

Justin:

And

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Well, okay.

Justin:

you fun.

Jem:

That's cool.

Jem:

That's pretty much exactly the part that we need to make

Justin:

Oh, really?

Jem:

for Trinity cause trainee D's dust collection is terrible.

Jem:

Like a guys from now

Jem:

150 mil.

Jem:

60 inch duct, you know, the word workshop system that comes down And

Jem:

then it goes through this adapter onto the machine spindle head.

Jem:

and it goes down to like a really small, maybe 50 mill hose, two inch.

Jem:

And then through this convoluted, like cast aluminum dust hood.

Jem:

And so it's

Jem:

terrible

Justin:

mil

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Way too small.

Jem:

And it's got this weird pneumatic dust foot.

Jem:

It's like a pressure foot take and flick a switch on the control

Jem:

and it pushes down on the material lightly, which is kind

Jem:

of cool, but it also just rides around and scratches everything.

Jem:

Cause it's not picking up all the dust.

Jem:

So it's just like grinding the chips into the surface of the film face plywood.

Jem:

So we Like John runs that up out of the way almost all the time.

Jem:

so we, we desperately need to rebuild that foot and make something that actually

Jem:

gets the dust out.

Jem:

but

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

on the Pencil Sharpener

Jem:

that has very agricultural dust collection and, you know, still doesn't have proper

Jem:

guards on it and things like that.

Jem:

I've definitely thought about being able to print, beautiful little scoopy

Jem:

foams for dust collection and guarding and things like that.

Jem:

And that'd be

Jem:

awesome.

Justin:

it's definitely, I've done a bit of the kind of organic

Justin:

modeling, funneling lofting.

Justin:

I tried fusion and rhino and

Justin:

trying to improve the kind of proximity to the spindle and the dusk, you know,

Justin:

creation by moving all that, close.

Justin:

Has led me down so many rabbit holes of like crazy offshoot, wraparound things.

Justin:

And like, and in the end, it's like, sure, you could maybe print that, but

Justin:

is it gonna break?

Justin:

Is it, does it even work?

Justin:

and so I've kind of pulled it back to this, place where somewhat organic,

Justin:

but I don't yet know if it's going to

Justin:

withstand the forces of like the hose attached to

Justin:

it and

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

So we'll find out I think this, we should be able to have

Justin:

it up and running this week.

Justin:

I hope I'm pretty excited about, cause it's

Justin:

always been very challenged.

Jem:

You mentioned rhino then what's your go to,

Jem:

well, it comes back to idea generation as well.

Jem:

Like

Jem:

how quickly do you end up in CAD in a way, is your sketch environment,

Jem:

like, do you draw and then go to CAD or do you, what's your process there?

Justin:

I've always drawn poorly, But, I definitely refined some of

Justin:

that in school.

Justin:

And then I find it, most useful for like, we're just

Justin:

trying to chat in the

Justin:

ShopRite with each other about something and then I find it to be productive.

Justin:

I usually get a lot out of it if I make myself do it.

Justin:

But I'd say I've transitioned from rhino being my first tool to probably more

Justin:

fusion, I think just as I've gotten better at it, there's still the

Justin:

speed of which you can open rhino and get it created is unmatched.

Justin:

for me

Justin:

anyway, from so much experience, but how about you?

Jem:

same.

Jem:

I've definitely converted a lot of my processes to fusion,

Jem:

over the last few years.

Jem:

But I'm still a bit of a rhino diehard when it comes to just,

Jem:

like quick, quickly getting ideas

Jem:

out.

Jem:

It's definitely.

Jem:

Black.

Jem:

I have a rhino file open pretty much all the time.

Jem:

That's just called sandpit.

Jem:

And it's just like

Jem:

thousands of projects that I've either quoted or ideas and I'm fiddling with.

Jem:

And it's just yeah, it's just a dumping ground for stuff.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

And it's just such a fast environment, just

Jem:

sketching and work things out.

Jem:

I, unfortunately I same, same as you, like, I definitely find value

Jem:

when I pick up pen and paper.

Jem:

Absolutely.

Jem:

I need to force myself to do that more often, but.

Jem:

I jumped.

Jem:

Typically I jumped straight into rhino because I find pen and paper.

Jem:

I almost immediately get frustrated by the lack of scale

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

I'm like, but how do those two things elements like actually

Jem:

interact with each other.

Jem:

I need to draw this at true scale to get a sense of that.

Jem:

I mean, rhino in two seconds and the paper's pushed away,

Jem:

but

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

like I spent two hours on a zoom call yesterday detailing a project

Jem:

that we're working on with a client who I work very closely with like

Jem:

collaboratively with them on the design.

Jem:

And basically just shared my rhinos screen for two hours.

Jem:

And we problem solved all the little details with this project.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

And it's just, I find it a really fantastic environment

Jem:

for that stage.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's, it's so much different for those that haven't used it, I suppose, I

Justin:

always described rhino, like being able to play with Play-Doh straight away.

Justin:

Like you're immediately playing with Play-Doh.

Justin:

Whereas in fusion, you kind of got to make the formula to make Play-Doh and

Justin:

then make Play-Doh and it's in a one-way

Justin:

direction.

Justin:

Then you gotta go backwards through, you can direct model, but

Justin:

it's a lot more convoluted and.

Justin:

There there's a lot of parallel processes that can happen.

Justin:

I think in it, you can start modeling and then just leave it and go over

Justin:

here and start modeling and leave it, you know, like, and those could

Justin:

be separate iterations that are just a hundred inches apart or something.

Justin:

And then stuff like being able to do like a two curves

Justin:

sweep, right?

Justin:

sweep to where you can sweep off of two things with just one profile.

Justin:

Whereas in fusion, you can only do a sweep off of one thing and you have to

Justin:

have close profile.

Justin:

Can't just have an open profile.

Justin:

I was playing with that literally today and rhino is working on a

Justin:

customer project and it was just, it's just so fast to iterate.

Justin:

I

Justin:

don't know.

Justin:

I, wish there was some hybrid of the two

Justin:

would be pretty great.

Jem:

I reckon rhino, you can time travel and fusion is like

Jem:

linear

Jem:

time,

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

but let, one of my favorite tricks in rhino is to sort of be working through

Jem:

a problem or a project and go, ah, I've accidentally deleted something or that

Jem:

was bad at like a hundred steps ago.

Jem:

And I copy, I select everything I'm working on And I cut

Jem:

it like with clipboard

Jem:

And then I undo like, a hundred steps back to where I was And

Jem:

then paste in from the future.

Jem:

And then I've got like both

Jem:

versions of time.

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

I do that heaps.

Jem:

I haven't thought about it from a sort of time travel perspective, but like

Jem:

kind of what kind of works.

Jem:

you can just jump around and

Jem:

say flexible.

Justin:

I didn't find kind of on that same topic bit ago, I was playing

Justin:

around the web view of like the team of Fusion you know, like you get that weird

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

thing.

Justin:

You can compare versions in there

Justin:

and.

Justin:

See actual things that changed in each body or component

Justin:

compared to different versions.

Justin:

I mean, it's like tedious to go through.

Justin:

You got to like select each thing and it loads.

Justin:

And,

Justin:

but I find that, you know, if you really need it, it's there.

Justin:

On rhino though, I was curious, do you, have you ever used the history mode?

Jem:

the,

Justin:

They have a history.

Justin:

It's like history modeling and I've,

Justin:

I've read enough to know it's something like a timeline editing, but

Justin:

I've never really gotten it to work

Justin:

in my like quick efforts of trying to

Justin:

try it out.

Justin:

But

Jem:

Cool.

Jem:

I'll check that out

Justin:

you know, when you drag away like a

Justin:

dimension off of something

Justin:

and it says you broke history, never did that.

Justin:

Maybe

Justin:

I've yeah.

Jem:

No

Jem:

man was saying that.

Justin:

version five.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

a seven.

Justin:

I don't know.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

know.

Jem:

I'll join you on the seventh.

Jem:

Soon.

Jem:

When my Mac book

Justin:

Ooh, is that a couple of weeks?

Jem:

still a few weeks

Jem:

away, I think.

Justin:

Sweet.

Justin:

Are you on the process to buy a 3d printer?

Justin:

I think I saw you chatting with somebody else about that.

Jem:

Yeah, look I've.

Jem:

I think.

Jem:

I've had a Prusa in my shopping cart for a year, probably

Jem:

just kind of thinking about it and never, quite being able to justify it.

Justin:

Hmm.

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

it does

Justin:

seem like a lot.

Justin:

I think it was easy to transition from that

Justin:

from having this really jenky reality thing that never worked and it had printed

Justin:

enough

Justin:

things where I was like, oh, I

Justin:

see the value of

Justin:

this.

Justin:

And it was like 250 bucks.

Justin:

And then it was like, I just want this to work.

Justin:

Now we're wasting so much time.

Justin:

And then it was easier

Justin:

to spend the money on the thousand dollars over.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

It's interesting.

Jem:

It's a funny thing to admit, but I no longer feel free to spend

Jem:

company money on whatever I want.

Justin:

sure.

Jem:

Which feels really weird

Jem:

having sort of growing the company very like impulsively.

Jem:

I'm just like oh, I want one of those what's this tool, like

Jem:

go to the tool shop and spend thousands of dollars on Festool things.

Jem:

To now where I like a thousand dollars printer, I feel like I need to justify

Jem:

it to my team basically to say, I want to spend company money on this

Jem:

because I think it could benefit

Jem:

us in this

Jem:

way.

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

So I think that's why I haven't pulled the pin on a printer basically.

Justin:

sure.

Jem:

Or a laser I'd love the laser engraver.

Jem:

No, because five is not very good at would,

Justin:

No, I thought you had a laser,

Jem:

No.

Justin:

maybe somebody else.

Justin:

Interesting.

Jem:

love to be able to engrave

Jem:

basically put our logo or client logos on components.

Justin:

Would it be a standalone machine?

Jem:

don't know.

Jem:

I was looking at whether we could add that lies ahead to

Jem:

one of our existing machines.

Justin:

They're usually pretty low wattage, I think,.

Justin:

that's been a little bit tempting to me cause it's just one process then,

Justin:

and you're not having to reset up, make new files, like it's already

Justin:

there SIM you don't have to flip the part of or something.

Jem:

yeah, I think the the most eligible candidate is the Pencil Sharpener because

Jem:

the Masso control has an output for

Jem:

pulse with modulation or whatever, the laser needs.

Jem:

so I think.

Jem:

I could potentially just add a lies ahead to the Pencil sharpener is the sixth

Jem:

tool just like engrave the side of the dowel or the top of the bolt handle.

Jem:

And I'm not sure

Justin:

You can't

Justin:

actually turn the dowel.

Justin:

It's locked into either

Justin:

jaw.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

correct.

Justin:

Hmm.

Justin:

It's interesting.

Justin:

I could totally see that one.

Justin:

The thing we've been talking about, we've more and more needed to brand

Justin:

things as we've been ramping up more products and we just use the engraving

Justin:

tool on the router and it it's.

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

It's not great.

Justin:

Usually a little bit rough and Ricky has to blow them out.

Justin:

It's finished gets stuck in it.

Justin:

So we've been

Justin:

talking about just making a little

Justin:

at small brass brand, like you heat up and then we can just stamp it on things.

Justin:

So I've, I've had

Justin:

that as a project to do for a long time in the middle and just haven't got it up.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I've mailed a few branding irons on our router.

Jem:

They work really well.

Jem:

I get frustrated with the electric sodering iron not being hot enough

Jem:

or taking so long to heat up.

Jem:

It's not just like a quick, I just want to brand on that.

Jem:

Boom, you gotta wait like 15 minutes for it to get really hot.

Justin:

oh, wow.

Justin:

Okay.

Jem:

But I I had a little project, which I never finished.

Jem:

I bought an induction heating coil thing, and I had this plan to convert an old

Jem:

drill press into a branding station.

Jem:

So there would be like a brass brand in mounted in the drill press chalk and with

Jem:

an induction coil just mounted around it.

Jem:

So just be like pump, pump, pump.

Jem:

But I bought some parts on eBay and I don't think they were powerful enough.

Jem:

like I couldn't get.

Jem:

I could hate up like mild steel, really hot, but then the bras components that.

Jem:

I was making the branding iron out of didn't work as well with the heat source.

Jem:

And I wasn't generating enough energy,

Justin:

crazy.

Justin:

Well, I know the next

Justin:

step you need to

Justin:

make

Jem:

a box.

Justin:

the next step to

Justin:

that is obviously you've got to have some

Justin:

switch that

Justin:

throws a flame,

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I foot

Justin:

at least for a video.

Justin:

I mean,

Jem:

That'd be

Jem:

nice.

Jem:

we'd have you ever used those diamond engraving tools on the router,

Jem:

but they're not designed to spin.

Jem:

They're like a little spring loaded pressure foot and you

Jem:

can do like really fine, like scratched in engravings with them.

Justin:

I haven't no

Jem:

We've messed around with them a little bit.

Justin:

like

Jem:

Cause we.

Jem:

Probably Yeah.

Jem:

Metals and plastics.

Jem:

I think they're designed for, we've tried to use them on film face plywood,

Jem:

just to like put fine text or logos into them because

Jem:

I've got one client pot that we make, which has the client logo on.

Jem:

It's quite a complex little logo and it's like, you know,

Jem:

five minutes of machine time or something to come in with a 0.2 engraving

Jem:

tool and slowly pick it all away.

Jem:

And then you've got to get the depth.

Jem:

Absolutely perfect.

Jem:

Otherwise it looks crap.

Jem:

And

Jem:

so we're trying to I know Right.

Jem:

We tried those diamond tools cause we thought it would take

Jem:

out the thickness variation and not have to worry So much about,

Jem:

you know, whether the plywood was 12.2 or 12.4 and how that affected the engrave.

Jem:

But,

Jem:

Didn't get amazing results, but haven't done heaps with it.

Justin:

I have wondered something.

Justin:

I think I saw this at a

Justin:

show or I just imagined it,

Justin:

basically, you know how, like a sewing

Justin:

machine has a pressure foot.

Justin:

Apparently you're talking about this in a couple of different scenarios.

Justin:

I want a round over or

Justin:

chamfered tool that basically floats on a pressure foot.

Jem:

pretty sure that Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I think they do

Justin:

like some kind of crazy expensive attachment.

Jem:

I've seen them on like big five axis machines where you've

Jem:

got heaps of room For tooling,

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

the big aggregates and solos and

Jem:

like what your tools go from being an ISO30 to Like this thing, as big

Jem:

as your head, I feel like I've seen sort of round over pressure of what

Jem:

sort of things in that application.

Jem:

maybe

Jem:

maybe at a show as well.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I don't remember

Justin:

where I saw that, but we've talked about that.

Justin:

We didn't do round overs on our machine for so long, especially

Justin:

smaller ones because like you're saying the material never flat.

Justin:

so

Justin:

not going to, we're not going to face the whole sheet to do around over, like,

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

you wouldn't do otherwise.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

We've never really done it We did some big ground overs on a job the

Jem:

other way, which was 32 millimeter.

Jem:

That's that one and a half inches or something

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

that was fine.

Jem:

Last time we made these tables, we did the huge round over on the inverted

Jem:

table router, just like my hand on, you know, I had an extra coffee And.

Jem:

sort

Jem:

of,

Jem:

I was like shaking by the time I'd finished just from the adrenaline,

Jem:

cause was kind of sketchy.

Jem:

Anyway, this time we did it all on the same side, it was,

Jem:

the result was so much better.

Justin:

nice.

Jem:

No chatter.

Jem:

John dismayed, a fixture that the part's kind of what seated

Jem:

into and did a great job.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I find that to be the hardest part with the iMac bases up there, like chambered

Justin:

on top, which is goes well at super easy.

Justin:

But when you flip it over into a fixture, we do a round over and it's machined.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

But even the fixtures and just the way everything aligns,

Justin:

it's hard to get it just right.

Justin:

So that you don't notch it on on accident and you kind of just have to

Justin:

do them light and then sand them in.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

That's kind of always a tainted my view of how to properly do it.

Justin:

And like, I think this little guy was the

Justin:

first time I actually got it.

Justin:

It's just such a different accuracy and ability to hold things that I

Justin:

was not, I've never visualized that in my head of like, oh, I can do

Jem:

Um,

Justin:

round over on

Justin:

a second off.

Justin:

That'll totally work.

Jem:

I guess you controlling every surface in that part though, right?

Jem:

It's not like the factory surface of sh plywood

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

For sure.

Justin:

Exactly.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Have you

Justin:

ever measured the surface of

Justin:

your router bed?

Justin:

Like the flatness?

Justin:

I had a guy that worked here that did that when we first

Justin:

moved and I was pretty astounded.

Justin:

I think

Justin:

one spot there was a low spot.

Justin:

It was like 20,000.

Jem:

This is after you've surfaced your MDF or just measuring the aluminum table.

Justin:

Whatever you're.

Justin:

Yeah, so we have like a phenolic bed, the table, and yours would be

Justin:

aluminum, I guess then.

Justin:

But yeah, measuring with

Justin:

like a indicator

Justin:

driving back and forth and you would just, you measured it

Justin:

and putting it into a little, like, like it was an Excel

Justin:

table and then he colorized it.

Justin:

So I still have that.

Justin:

I don't know if it's still accurate, but it's pretty shocking.

Justin:

I like to show that to people that start here and they're

Justin:

like, well, what do you mean?

Justin:

It's not flat?

Justin:

And

Justin:

I'm like, nah, fortunately not.

Jem:

Is that relevant though?

Jem:

Once you've decked your sacrificial.

Justin:

I don't think so.

Justin:

I mean, if it's moving around, I

Justin:

mean, it matters in the sense of if you're putting something like we've more and

Justin:

more like you were, you commented on that video of our fixture plate, right.

Justin:

Sits on top of the table or anything you

Justin:

stack up yourself.

Justin:

It's not faced.

Justin:

And.

Jem:

Awesome.

Jem:

That doesn't sit on

Jem:

top of the

Jem:

sacrificial sheet.

Jem:

You take the sacrificial off to do that.

Jem:

Oh yeah.

Jem:

Okay.

Jem:

Then that matters.

Jem:

Why we can't take our sacrificial off.

Jem:

We glue it

Justin:

we used to do that.

Justin:

We did that a

Justin:

couple of times, but we switch it so often

Justin:

part of the way

Justin:

we and

Justin:

especially when we're doing more job shop work, we had just kind of

Justin:

trained ourselves into point, oh, what's the best way to hold apart.

Justin:

And often it's not the vacuum sacrificial table because of the surface area

Justin:

or, you know, any of those things.

Justin:

And so we've over time, tried to create different little fixturing

Justin:

setups and are pretty good most of the

Justin:

time.

Jem:

Nice to have a listener question for the first time.

Justin:

Yeah, for sure.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I was curious what,

Justin:

What your answer to that was

Justin:

The Shopify day or table thing.

Jem:

we use an app called AirPower,

Jem:

which shows just in a Shopify app store, not the Airtable apps.

Jem:

Seems good.

Jem:

Initially we just used it

Jem:

because we only switched to Shopify a couple of years ago.

Jem:

And initially we just used it to set Shopify up and kind of

Jem:

populate all the bulk data.

Justin:

Oh, wow.

Justin:

Interesting.

Jem:

seeing sinking, you know, hundreds of meta fields or

Jem:

whatever they called, stuff like

Jem:

that.

Justin:

you still

Jem:

Sinking.

Justin:

You still sync date, product data

Jem:

You would do now we'd set up the website and then we

Jem:

kind of turned our power off.

Jem:

Cause we're like, cool.

Jem:

It's done.

Jem:

But then when more recently we turned It back on because we

Jem:

started using it more actively

Jem:

to sync regularly between Airtable and Shopify you can basically control your

Jem:

entire Shopify store just from air

Jem:

table,

Jem:

every product, every price description.

Jem:

Yep.

Justin:

Hm.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

It gets scary when you like hitting the sync button.

Jem:

You're like, did I check all the right things?

Justin:

oh

Jem:

You can potentially like destroy your Shopify.

Jem:

So

Jem:

if you're not, if you don't sync it correctly, but yeah,

Jem:

that's really powerful.

Justin:

that's interesting.

Justin:

I wasn't even thinking about it in that regard.

Justin:

I think the question maybe had maybe it was just about

Justin:

Shopify in our table, but I was

Justin:

thinking of it as, I guess I thought you were syncing orders out of

Justin:

it or something out of Shopify.

Justin:

How do you, isn't that part of your

Justin:

ERP that you like sync your orders to the Airtable

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Oh, it is from Shopify coming to anti-people automatically.

Jem:

I honestly don't know which channel they're coming through anymore.

Jem:

Whether it's through airpower, through

Jem:

Zapier.

Jem:

It's one of the two.

Justin:

And then you keep track of them

Justin:

going through kind of work production until they ship in air table.

Jem:

Yeah, Yeah.

Jem:

All their production workflow goes through.

Jem:

It able was still got some weird double ups.

Jem:

like we still go back into Shopify right at the end to like fulfill the order

Jem:

and notify the customer through Shopify

Justin:

Hmm,

Jem:

because we haven't seen.

Jem:

The connection to that level where we can like ideally it'd be nice to be able

Jem:

to say project complete in air table.

Jem:

and that.

Jem:

sends the Shopify email if I feel things being shipped or whatever,

Jem:

but we're kind of doing it in both places at the moment when it

Jem:

comes to the final fulfillment.

Jem:

But yeah, most of that, all the production happens in

Jem:

air table.

Justin:

All of our job shop work, probably the thing of

Justin:

the most developed in Airtable.

Justin:

From an inquiry form through all the way to like,

Justin:

you know, all the tasks, the projects for the project are there.

Justin:

And then

Justin:

you can click a check box and it'll send the customer like the

Justin:

final pickup email with the invoice

Justin:

and stuff as all automated.

Justin:

That all happened bit by bit over time.

Justin:

It was like, oh, I think I could add this part.

Justin:

You know, like it was never like all at once.

Justin:

And now I'm a little daunted I want to try to put Shopify orders through cause

Justin:

we use I've always used Shipstation, which combines orders and you can do the kitting

Justin:

and stuff and make templates for shipping

Justin:

I don't know all of our products to date have always been

Justin:

kind of on the shelf ready.

Justin:

So I've never had to like produce them

Justin:

or kit them in certain ways.

Justin:

I'm thinking at this point that the whole Shopify to air table

Justin:

thing would be not needed, but

Justin:

maybe, maybe I don't know.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

We were pretty much print on demand with almost all that products now.

Justin:

Hmm.

Jem:

There's a few things that we keep on the

Jem:

shelf.

Jem:

But even the pots that we do keep on the shelf, it's typically like, cool,

Jem:

what's the order pull some of that.

Jem:

Some of that put it together

Jem:

into the customer's order.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

There's almost nothing which is just like, oh, one of those, thank you, boom.

Jem:

In a box,

Jem:

like everything either gets assembled or made in some way.

Jem:

So it all goes through the production

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

workflow in air table where we, can tag people to be responsible for It

Jem:

or

Jem:

allocated

Justin:

You think is there, I guess my

Justin:

sense

Justin:

is that here in America, like there's such a.

Justin:

Such a high

Justin:

priority for things to be ready to ship and like pre shipping and stuff like

Justin:

that.

Justin:

Is that yeah, I said the same for you.

Jem:

Anecdotally, I reckon that's less of a thing here.

Jem:

Amazon, or that sort of a warehouse style.

Justin:

Yeah,

Jem:

Shipping is definitely a thing here, but

Jem:

It's

Jem:

less, I think, culturally pervasive.

Justin:

yeah,

Jem:

And So, yeah, we've, very rarely had any sort of issue

Jem:

with having one to two weeks on a product shipping out.

Jem:

I could, as long as that's clearly

Jem:

communicated,

Jem:

upfront and expectations are set and that works quite well for us.

Jem:

Obviously we're always trying to do better because shorten those late times.

Jem:

Cause I feel like it's more attractive to a potential customer.

Jem:

I can say, Oh, one to two days instead of one to two weeks.

Jem:

But,

Justin:

Yep.

Jem:

I feel like it's less of,

Jem:

an expectation.

Jem:

Here I don't know.

Justin:

I've resisted the free shipping thing for a long time

Justin:

and the world has started to shift to that and it just had never made sense.

Justin:

I was like, how I'm thinking about it again right now,

Justin:

how absurd it is to like, try to compete with these billion dollar companies.

Justin:

basically it's like we're trying to compare and that's what the

Justin:

consumer basically has built up in their mind is, oh, what do you mean?

Justin:

It's not free shipping?

Justin:

And there's so much data to prove that this is where I finally

Justin:

changed my, my process on that was

Justin:

for here.

Justin:

Anyway, there's so

Justin:

many data points of how much lower conversion rates

Justin:

are.

Justin:

Cause people get to the end of checkout and all of a sudden there's a price

Justin:

added and they're like, what do you mean.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

for Oregonians were relived.

Justin:

Like there's no sales tax.

Justin:

So

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Right.

Justin:

a price is a price.

Justin:

And that's kind of been a weird thing in America, too, where sales tax

Justin:

is really complicated where it's by state and different states have been

Justin:

adding it on their own.

Justin:

It's not

Justin:

sinked.

Justin:

And we, and literally the small business owner has to

Justin:

deal with it for each state.

Justin:

It is a nightmare.

Jem:

Frightening,

Justin:

It's crazy.

Justin:

I don't know where I was going to hold other and it's tough and

Jem:

Just conversion like shipping.

Jem:

Yeah,

Jem:

I, again, this is a funny thing to talk about, you know, send me publicly, but

Jem:

for years, for years I

Jem:

resisted doing anything like free shipping.

Jem:

Like I just hated the idea of hiding concealing.

Justin:

Yup.

Jem:

Anything in a product process, just like the product

Jem:

price should be the product price.

Jem:

And

Jem:

then

Jem:

the customer should clearly say like how much shipping is going to be.

Justin:

Yup.

Jem:

12 months ago, something I was told to finally talked into changing that

Jem:

a little bit starting to build in some packing, handling time into the product

Jem:

price building in like the fees that the carriers would charge

Jem:

us on everything they shipped

Jem:

and just putting some of that stuff in.

Jem:

And then, so the customer still sees a shipping,

Jem:

gets a live shipping quote from

Jem:

the

Jem:

carrier when they check out.

Jem:

that phase much smaller than what they used

Jem:

to say.

Justin:

Oh, I see.

Justin:

You're like

Jem:

And.

Justin:

it kind of,

Jem:

Subsidizing well, subsidizing within the product price or the product price.

Jem:

Now it's old,

Justin:

Shifting.

Jem:

the same, but it's just shifted slightly.

Justin:

Yeah, same as as what I do

Jem:

And it

Jem:

made a massive difference to conversion.

Jem:

Like it freaked me out.

Jem:

I was just like, wow, this is really a thing.

Justin:

Oh man.

Justin:

It's kinda sad, but yeah, it's

Jem:

I know

Justin:

it definitely works.

Jem:

definitely works.

Jem:

And even with my awareness of that, of what we're doing and how

Jem:

effective that is, I still, you know, as a consumer, if I'm on a website

Jem:

and I see free shipping and I'm

Jem:

like, it's like little candies that go off in my mind and like, oh Yeah,

Jem:

great.

Justin:

Yup.

Justin:

Well, you know, so it's interesting you bring that up, you know, those

Justin:

little, like, I don't remember if you do it or not, but in the

Justin:

last week I had this click for me.

Justin:

There's basically a very small checklist that you look for when

Justin:

you're going to somebody's website.

Justin:

Right?

Justin:

and you don't even think about this

Justin:

I'll tell you my, my version of this it's like, is it

Justin:

sustainably made probably in some way?

Justin:

Like how do I know?

Justin:

Where, where was this?

Justin:

That's a pretty high thing

Justin:

now.

Justin:

For most, I think is it free shipping?

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

quickly am I going to get it?

Justin:

compatibility potentially with other things.

Justin:

So there's like all these different factors and it

Justin:

depends on what you're shopping

Justin:

for, I'm going to call them like

Justin:

product

Justin:

feature icons, right.

Justin:

Often, like they're like shown around proof points.

Jem:

yeah,

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

I like that.

Justin:

But there's all these plugins on Shopify that make those

Justin:

icons for you

Jem:

yeah.

Justin:

and you can make your own, but a lot of them have hundreds of

Justin:

thousands of icons you can choose from.

Justin:

I mean, like I have one or two, that's basically like for the products that

Justin:

ship free, you have a little free shipping button, we do make a pretty

Justin:

strong effort.

Justin:

Almost all of our packaging is completely recyclable, but

Justin:

I don't have that anywhere.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

but those little things I think are there trust, trusted?

Justin:

Honesty transparency.

Justin:

Right?

Justin:

Those are pretty important.

Justin:

I think it's become more and more.

Justin:

I keep reading this marketing reports that say that this is important to

Justin:

consumers and I I'm just not doing that.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

And I think that would help a very small amount of

Justin:

people feel more confident to purchase something.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I would say help.

Jem:

A lot of people feel more confident.

Jem:

we've been trying to trust those little

Jem:

icons, whether they're true or not.

Jem:

And, I think they're highly effective.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Do you have things like that?

Justin:

Thank you.

Justin:

Describe it in text often, right?

Jem:

Yeah, we're pretty texty you've got some little proof point icons,

Jem:

I think, on our front page, but not sort of on our product pages

Jem:

as

Jem:

such

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

that's probably going to change with our new

Jem:

Shopify two bono theme build that's still in the works.

Justin:

Yeah,

Justin:

those are big projects.

Jem:

They are,

Justin:

What's your plan.

Justin:

Get back into the

Justin:

you're already back.

Justin:

It seems like I figured there'd be a little more

Justin:

Mental fog or physical fog or something, but you seem good to go.

Jem:

I think, Monday, Tuesday, I was a bit, I was pretty overwhelmed

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

getting back into the week and working out what the hell was

Jem:

going on but I'm not feeling good.

Jem:

I think it was, it was good.

Jem:

It was a really aside from being sick, but it was a really good mental break for

Jem:

me to be out of the business for a week.

Jem:

And really good for the team here to.

Jem:

Do it all themselves for wake and sort of break some of those little

Jem:

dependencies, which just naturally a

Justin:

Be nice if we could plan those things.

Justin:

Cause I have the same experience.

Justin:

Every time I go away for like even a short vacation where it's a couple

Justin:

of days or something, it's all these things come up like, oh, why have

Justin:

I been, why have I been doing this?

Justin:

Why haven't somebody else?

Justin:

It's like, what is going on?

Jem:

yeah.

Jem:

Awesome.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Cool man.

Jem:

Well, I hope your print works out.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Thanks me too.

Justin:

I haven't checked it in a while.

Justin:

I'm anxious.

Jem:

I expect to see some nice, organic, slow-mo dust footage.

Justin:

no.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

I almost bought a fog machine recently for this exact reason.

Justin:

I still might.

Justin:

I've thought about maybe getting just dry ice instead.

Justin:

I don't really want to fog.

Jem:

Yes, you do.

Justin:

I have a couple of things that would work pretty well for it.

Justin:

Now I didn't even think about the dust spindle thing.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

I need one, I guess.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

The Prusa needs one in enclosure.

Jem:

Just for those rave lights.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Oh, that'd be good.

Justin:

Some of the Lego people in there that are like raving.

Justin:

All right.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

See ya.

Justin:

Right.

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