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128 - Introducing: AirShop
Episode 128 • 11th February 2025 • Parts Department • Justin Brouillette & Jem Freeman
00:00:00 00:45:03

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Justin unveils AirShop, a new app to streamline inventory & quoting, born from his own shop's needs. Jem's sales are up, he's dipping dowels & using AI coding! They discuss automation, 5-axis machines, and website woes, and celebrate good weeks.

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DISCUSSED:

✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic - New voice message option

  • DexArm 😍
  • Oops went live with AI pricing ꘎
  • Bulk Price Editor
  • First GeoCities order ꘎ !!!!
  • Within Tolerance EP - 246
  • 🟠 AirShop
  • Holy fugggen shit take my money ꘎
  • Quoting, inventory, what makes an ERP?
  • Coding in natural conversation ꘎
  • How do I finish SQ 👉 Shopify migration? ⠄
  • Shopify variant hell is back ꘎
  • Is typing dead ꘎
  • Finally a good week ꘎
  • Sex toy dowel dipper success ꘎
  • Two geocities orders ꘎

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Show Info

Please note: Show notes contains affiliate links.


HOSTS

Jem Freeman

Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia

Like Butter | Instagram | More Links


Justin Brouillette

Portland, Oregon, USA

PDX CNC | Instagram | More Links

Transcripts

Jem:

Beep, beep.

Justin:

Car problems, huh?

Justin:

Beep, beep.

Justin:

Yeah, half asleep.

Justin:

I dropped the radiator cap down into the engine bay.

Justin:

It's like crap

Justin:

Oh,

Jem:

crawling around in the gravel at home.

Jem:

I just stuffed a rag in and drove to work anyway.

Jem:

I'll have to fix that before we make a whole bunch of deliveries today, I think.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

Okay, I got something for you.

sounds:

From the shop, go to the It's Hearts Department.

sounds:

Gems Down Un Justin's up Top talking Big tools, big brains, nonstop.

sounds:

CNC, ai.

sounds:

How to make it pay you building something better.

sounds:

Press play.

sounds:

No.

sounds:

No fluff, just business, just parts, parts department.

Justin:

That's enough.

Justin:

That's three minutes long.

Jem:

They're so generous with their minutes these days,

Jem:

the old, uh, generators.

Justin:

I would, would have taken half a minute, but it like, wouldn't do that, so.

Justin:

That's what you get.

Jem:

Thanks.

Jem:

A little morning pick me up.

Justin:

Uh huh.

Jem:

Uh huh.

Jem:

Oh, good.

Justin:

both had problems.

Jem:

Uh, yeah, no, pretty good.

Jem:

Good week.

Jem:

Good week.

Jem:

Finally a good week of 2025,

Justin:

I know, I, that's amazing.

Justin:

Good.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

things happened it seemed like.

Jem:

Yeah, yeah.

Jem:

Solid.

Jem:

Shopify activities as a result of my price rise incentive, I think

Jem:

pretty much for the most part, and.

Jem:

Still rolling, still rolling out price rises because it took me way longer

Jem:

than I thought it would to pick through.

Jem:

It's like, our old term Shopify variant hell, it's back.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Jem:

And I'm like, Oh,

Justin:

your screenshot.

Justin:

That was crazy.

Jem:

I like the Airtable one.

Justin:

You need like an AI for that or something.

Justin:

Just go through those, damn.

Justin:

those dang things.

Jem:

damn variants, I'll just delete them all.

Jem:

So yeah, still, still working on that a week later, but . Oh well, it's alright.

Jem:

Some things have been updated.

Justin:

slowly get updated.

Jem:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin:

bulk update ? I mean, I know it matters, but can you

Justin:

just do 5 percent everywhere?

Justin:

Just, just call it good.

Jem:

I, yes, absolutely, I could have.

Jem:

that would have been

Justin:

got a bulk pricer

Jem:

So

Justin:

want that.

Jem:

That would have been so much easier.

Justin:

can schedule it.

Justin:

You can have it revert.

Justin:

You can have it round.

Jem:

Nah, I've been much too thorough.

Jem:

Which, you know, is probably not a bad thing, at the end

Jem:

of the day, but um, yeah.

Jem:

I could have just done a 5 percent across the board, but there you go, here we are.

Justin:

Dumb.

Justin:

Geez.

Justin:

I'm joking.

Justin:

I'm joking.

Justin:

Joking.

Jem:

It's too early in the morning for those jokes,

Justin:

that I hurt your feelings already.

Jem:

cry, How's your

Justin:

We can't, there's just no more, we can't be critical anymore.

Justin:

It's just,

Justin:

this podcast is too soft.

Justin:

Uh, good.

Justin:

Our sales have done okay, but they have slowed from the fairly breakneck

Justin:

pace we were, we were having before.

Justin:

So

Jem:

Mmm.

Justin:

that's.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

Good, I suppose.

Justin:

I, I'm not going to, not going to say I wouldn't want to continue that.

Justin:

So

Jem:

Mmm.

Jem:

No, absolutely.

Jem:

I'd be quite happy to continue at this pace too.

Jem:

It's good, because it's all easy stuff to deliver.

Jem:

Mmm.

Justin:

yeah, right.

Justin:

It's not new things.

Justin:

And yeah.

Jem:

Yeah, I was looking at like the, the tumbler, unloaded the tumbler off

Jem:

the lathe yesterday, which was doing all the like abrasive finishing of all

Jem:

like a kit of parts, bolts and caps.

Jem:

Probably, I don't know.

Jem:

I didn't count them, but there's probably like 200 parts or something

Jem:

in the tumbler unloaded and they all looked beautiful and crispy.

Jem:

I was like, wow, there's like 2, 000 worth of parts in that.

Jem:

And I haven't handled them individually at all, like,

Jem:

they've come off the pencil job.

Jem:

Now they've gone in the tumbler.

Jem:

Next they're gonna go in another tumbler to get finished.

Jem:

It's like, it's good.

Justin:

Tumblers all the way down.

Jem:

Tumblers?

Jem:

Oh, yeah, more tumblers.

Jem:

I added another one this week.

Justin:

Oh, what if they just cascaded?

Justin:

Like you could just like tip it over and it would, like a, a gold sifting machine.

Jem:

Yes, I like it.

Jem:

Just work their way from one to the next.

Jem:

Yeah, I built a new one to trial barrel finishing.

Jem:

Not sanding, but like actually applying the finish.

Jem:

Early days.

Jem:

I used an old motor of Laura's and I've already burnt it out, so I

Jem:

only got about a day of tumbling, but it seems, it seems promising.

Jem:

I reckon we're onto a good thing.

Jem:

Just got to get the balance right and the wax application

Jem:

right and stuff, but promising.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

All

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Very nice.

Justin:

Yeah, seems, seems positive all the way.

Jem:

the way down.

Jem:

Yeah, two Geocities orders in the end.

Jem:

From the, the weekend sale got to,

Justin:

it actually adds to cart

Jem:

no, no,

Justin:

and everything?

Justin:

Oh.

Jem:

to cut.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Um, I had two people send through their PDF that it generates and

Jem:

say, can I order this please?

Jem:

And I looked at it, I was like, Oh shit.

Jem:

I've stuffed up the pricing.

Jem:

It's not counting the dales correctly.

Jem:

And it's live on the website and both of those people were very,

Jem:

uh, very understanding that it was experimental and in development

Jem:

and they were like, Oh, cool.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I thought it was a bit cheap.

Jem:

Like that was sort of half price basically.

Jem:

Cause it was, I think it was only count, I think it was only counting the, the

Jem:

front row of dowels on the back row.

Jem:

And this is stuff that I'd fixed previously in the code.

Jem:

But in like the, you know, tens of iterations of through cursor,

Jem:

I think certain details had kind of just been lost along the way.

Jem:

And I wasn't test verifying them, you know, every code update,

Jem:

I'm not verifying every feature.

Jem:

And so I'd taken it live without doing due diligence and actually

Jem:

doing like full pricing review.

Jem:

Anyway, both of them were fine.

Jem:

They both converted into orders that I gave them a generous discount.

Jem:

And they both converted.

Jem:

So yeah, that was cool.

Jem:

Nice to see people using it.

Justin:

do you have any instinct whether They would have done the

Justin:

same in your original configurator?

Justin:

The fancy, the fancy expensive one?

Jem:

Don't know.

Jem:

Don't know.

Justin:

Let's just say no.

Justin:

Make you feel better.

Jem:

Convenient.

Jem:

Perfect.

Justin:

Checking a lot of boxes already.

Jem:

Did you buy that robot that you showed me last week?

Jem:

My fisher price, my first robot.

Justin:

Did you look at it at all?

Jem:

Yeah, a little bit.

Justin:

Do you have a little glance?

Jem:

I didn't watch any video videos.

Justin:

Thing called a Dexarm It's still for sale It's 1400 right now It's

Justin:

got, I mean, just what's included is kinda crazy I could probably resell it

Justin:

for a lot more Is it a toy you think?

Justin:

Just a

Jem:

Yeah, it's a toy.

Justin:

I mean, I'm obviously not going to use it for like production

Justin:

things, but like my theory was I could learn with it and like

Jem:

Oh, yeah.

Justin:

me understand.

Justin:

Even if it's faulty and.

Justin:

Child, targeted, I suppose it's this robotic.

Justin:

The company name, I don't know what the company, I think it's called

Justin:

Rotrix Dexarm, which is like a confusing plant, like weird word

Justin:

closeness to not quite robotics, but it's, it's got a, a slider on it.

Justin:

It's like a, tracked movement, but it's on a base on top of the track and

Justin:

you can swap out the end effectors.

Justin:

It also has like vision system.

Justin:

And the little programming system seems very simple, obviously, for STEM and kids.

Justin:

It's not going to be like a finook to program, right?

Justin:

Like, it's, very simple.

Justin:

And I just saw it and I was like, oh, me and my son need this, obviously.

Justin:

Like, he said, it's baby's first robot.

Justin:

And I was like, yeah, me too, though.

Justin:

Like, how do I, how do I get included in that?

Jem:

Yeah, like, I'm sure it'd be a

Justin:

really cool.

Jem:

cool excuse to learn a lot.

Jem:

But just, why don't you just get a UR10 and learn real things?

Jem:

Oh,

Justin:

Because it's five.

Justin:

No, I can't even do the math.

Justin:

This thing is 1400 used.

Jem:

I know.

Justin:

to be like maybe 2200 if you bought it as is not including

Justin:

the table that's also 1000.

Justin:

So, I don't know.

Justin:

Probably not doing it.

Justin:

Erin didn't seem too keen on um would have to be a business expense to get a

Justin:

toy I think at this point but she was like Yeah, we got daycare to pay for.

Jem:

exactly.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

Any of you have played with a Dex arm, I'd love to hear about it.

Justin:

Uh

Jem:

Fun, fun, fun.

Jem:

Justin needs more toys.

Jem:

What are you doing?

Jem:

you sent me a video last night.

Jem:

While I was sleeping, of, uh, uh, what appears to be a rhino model of your shop.

Jem:

Are you, are you planning where the DexArm's gonna service the mill?

Jem:

Ha ha ha ha

Justin:

yeah, that'd be great.

Justin:

I mean, maybe wouldn't it be, I'd make a great video.

Justin:

What if I came, what if all of this was like, Oh, he thinks he's going

Justin:

to do this with a child's toy and I like figured out a way to automate

Justin:

like a five axis machine with.

Justin:

A one tenth price robot.

Justin:

Let's put a little rain jacket on it.

Justin:

okay, so Dylan and Chris, I'm with Untolerance, took some

Justin:

questions in the last episode.

Justin:

And one of them was, what do you think about

Justin:

a job shop that isn't investing in five axis machines at this point.

Justin:

Like, what do you say?

Justin:

I think maybe the full part of it was like, what do you think about

Justin:

in the next five years versus

Justin:

now or next year?

Justin:

Like, and both of them kind of unequivocally, I don't know.

Justin:

That's my take on it, but they had, you know, yeah, there'll be some

Justin:

shops that use manual machines.

Justin:

There'll be some shops that just use three axis.

Justin:

But if you're trying to like,

Justin:

be progressive, keep up.

Justin:

Compete, I think was one of the words they used, like you, you have to invest

Justin:

in this, like, and every person I've ever heard that's talked about getting

Justin:

a five axis Dylan included was like, I don't know why we didn't do this sooner.

Jem:

Hmm.

Jem:

Hmm.

Justin:

I can only hear that so many times wanting to move forward myself

Justin:

without like a very strong need.

Justin:

I'm fully aware.

Justin:

so it's just becoming more of a research project to like.

Justin:

We have this decent mill, but like my questions are like, you know, it's

Justin:

everybody that listens here knows my, my concerns, my frustrations.

Justin:

It took two hours to get one of our products set up a little bit different.

Justin:

The other day when we first started running them again, I

Justin:

was like, this is ridiculous.

Justin:

There's just a lot of little problems and I'm thinking like.

Justin:

What if we sell it?

Justin:

What if we get a different machine?

Justin:

Is it crazy to have just a 5 axis machine?

Justin:

And, you know, part of my interest is some form of automation.

Justin:

So whether that's like Gimble, it's like Flippers, or they have this

Justin:

really cool, I don't know if you've seen this one, he's coming out with

Justin:

a new intra machine palette changer.

Jem:

Hmm.

Justin:

It uses the side of the yeah, the a UMC's spindle to go over and pick up

Justin:

a pallet out of where the door normally is on the side and put it onto the vise.

Jem:

Cool.

Justin:

And then when it's done, you know, obviously do all that again.

Justin:

There's just like, there's, there's options now.

Justin:

And it feels crazy to just keep ignoring it.

Justin:

So whether it's a two year plan or a one year plan, like just can't keep ignoring

Justin:

it and need to think about it seriously.

Justin:

I think.

Jem:

Yeah, if you can make numbers work.

Jem:

Absolutely.

Jem:

I think it makes sense.

Jem:

Like, I, I, I buy into the competition conversation a bit of like, I've had

Jem:

the same thoughts when we were, you know, pre pencil sharpener, when we

Jem:

just had one three access machine and I was researching five access machines.

Jem:

It was very much like, well, like everyone's got a three access machine

Jem:

now, like if we want to stay ahead in terms of what we're doing, we want

Jem:

to be stay, you know, in the top.

Jem:

Whatever percentage of CNC businesses in the country, then yeah, we need 5 axis.

Jem:

I suppose that's become less of a focus for me as we've found like a, our product

Jem:

focus that feels less about the technology and more about the product, but I still

Jem:

feel it like, I guess we've got our own very unique machine now, which is,

Jem:

protects our product range to some extent.

Justin:

Sure.

Jem:

Which maybe tick ticks that box to some extent.

Jem:

but yeah, I get it.

Jem:

I get it.

Jem:

I get it.

Jem:

Particularly with your interest in automation.

Justin:

Right.

Justin:

And I

Jem:

Breaking news.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

the day that I listened to it, then I chatted with Dylan it

Justin:

was like, Oh, you guys are, you know, triggering me with like, I'm more

Justin:

convinced now after that conversation.

Justin:

And then I got a five axis part RFQ that day, like that same day.

Justin:

And I was like,

Justin:

Just, you know, everything's pointing here, like, you know, obviously,

Justin:

like, I'm not going to just throw down a quarter million dollars

Justin:

on some silly whim, but like,

Justin:

I think of it as Like you have your machine that cuts your dowels, and your

Justin:

end caps and all those things, it's in some sense, it's an automated tool, right?

Justin:

Like you step away, it can fill up a box.

Justin:

don't have that in any sense.

Justin:

So that's what I'm interested, whether it's a lathe that's automated,

Justin:

whether it's a 5 axis machine.

Justin:

Like, something's got to give.

Justin:

And I think that is, especially the way things are going.

Justin:

I didn't put on the list, but we have basically an effective 45 percent increase

Justin:

in our imports from China as of last week.

Justin:

Because it's not 35%.

Justin:

It's there's added costs on top of that.

Justin:

So it's at least 45 percent on the product alone.

Justin:

And, you know, I'm not going to get into that, but

Justin:

like all of the consequences, there's consequences to it,

Justin:

regardless of how it happened.

Justin:

And

Justin:

I think the points have been made for, for a long time that an automated something

Justin:

is the way to compete with lower costs.

Jem:

yeah, yeah.

Justin:

yeah, it's kind of it.

Justin:

It's kind of it.

Jem:

Yeah, I mean the pencil sharpener is not the most stable,

Jem:

autonomous machine by any means, but it is pretty, pretty fantastic.

Jem:

Yeah, it could be improved further.

Jem:

You know, putting those flyback diodes on it last year made a huge

Jem:

difference to its reliability.

Jem:

Um, but you know.

Justin:

does that, does that solve that?

Jem:

Yeah, yeah, it's still got a few quirks, but you know, it just cranks away

Jem:

now, you know, making parts just have to reload, you know, if it had a bar loader,

Jem:

it could literally just run all day.

Jem:

But you know, whereas loading.

Justin:

arm,

Jem:

We're loading 3 meter sticks of dowel into it and off it goes.

Jem:

And depending on what part it's making, that could be a 15 minute

Jem:

cycle or a, you know, 2 hour cycle.

Jem:

So it depends, but it is pretty fantastic having that.

Jem:

Just, yeah, it's a good feeling having those parts

Jem:

just crank away with low input.

Justin:

right?

Jem:

Mm hmm.

Justin:

Yeah, that's, I don't know that.

Justin:

I have a ton to talk about.

Justin:

I guess.

Justin:

I mean, if you're listening and you would like to suggest machines to

Justin:

look at, I am all ears and we'll talk all day with you about it.

Jem:

All day.

Justin:

I mean, I, I kind of went to IMTS for that reason, but I also

Justin:

was less convicted and less, you know, just, it's just a research

Justin:

project right now, but yeah,

Jem:

Do we get to talk about the, the elephant in the room today?

Jem:

I see you've written it down.

Jem:

I see an elephant.

Justin:

An orange elephant.

Jem:

And I wanna splash it with cash.

Justin:

So the software project I've been talking about for,

Justin:

I don't know, months now.

Justin:

We started in August after a, kind of had a breaking point, honestly.

Justin:

If I'm very transparent, I think I maybe talked about it here.

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

I don't know what I said exactly, but I've been talking to Jim about it offline.

Justin:

a friend That's a software developer and I have spun up an app that will

Justin:

replace some of our needs at this point.

Justin:

I wouldn't call it an ERP, but when we release it, hopefully

Justin:

within the next month or two.

Justin:

It will be a way to manage your inventory and also your quoting.

Justin:

So you'll be able to integrate those two features.

Justin:

Whereas, I mean, my like problem statement for this is I, we spend a ton of time in

Justin:

taking an inquiry, looking at the parts, looking at what the customer wants, and

Justin:

then trying to convert that into a quote.

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

That's, you know, useful, easy, and we've done that kind of bundling together air

Justin:

table and quotient and Zapier and all these little things, but I've also had

Justin:

a ton of questions about that over the years through the podcast or otherwise,

Justin:

like, Hey, I don't have this either.

Justin:

I would love to build something.

Justin:

And I, I think you and I have the same answer every time.

Justin:

It's like, ah, I can show you what I have, but it's kind of a mess.

Justin:

And so I had actually talked to the friend is named Brady in 2019 about

Justin:

this, and we both kind of let it die.

Justin:

We had started scheming and it just wasn't the right time for either of us.

Justin:

And so now I have, what is that, six years of experience on top of that,

Justin:

of like what I hate, what I want.

Justin:

And so anyway, we have a thing called Airshop that, you can sign up for

Justin:

the wait list if you're interested.

Justin:

We're going to take some mic.

Justin:

beta testers probably within I want to say a month.

Justin:

The link in the show notes, but, , yeah.

Justin:

Excited.

Don:

In a world… where too many apps waste time and slow you down… one tool is

Don:

cutting through the clutter... AirShop.

Don:

Built for those who make, built to keep you moving.

Don:

Coming this summer.

Jem:

Very exciting,

Justin:

that clear.

Justin:

Hmm.

Jem:

Not even beta, just like access.

Jem:

I can look at it and it's pretty cool.

Jem:

I really like, I can poke around in there and it's, it's pretty

Jem:

exciting what you're building.

Jem:

I'm excited about it cause I feel like it could replace.

Jem:

You tell me, but right now it feels like it could replace

Jem:

Airtable and Quotient for me.

Jem:

And I'm interested to understand why, why you don't call it an

Jem:

ERP, what's, what's missing from it that means it's not an ERP.

Justin:

So in the software parlance, which I've learned an enormous amount

Justin:

working with Brady on this, we're shooting for something we call like an MVP, right?

Justin:

It's like the minimum viable product, which just easy to

Justin:

reference, but also very jargony.

Justin:

That means we need to limit the scope.

Justin:

And honestly, the scope is already pretty big in terms of those two things.

Justin:

There's also a flavor of a CRM, kind of a customer relationship management.

Justin:

tool here, so the way that my Airtable works is I have all these different

Justin:

bases and we get RFQs in from an embedded form, which we will have in AirShop too.

Justin:

So you'll embed a form on your website, you'll take files, what the customer

Justin:

wants, that comes into AirShop.

Justin:

You will then be able to convert it to a quote, basically from like a button.

Justin:

And that's not to say that it will auto quote anything.

Justin:

We don't have any like algorithmic quoting at this point.

Justin:

It's on the road map, hopefully, but just taking, taking that and turning

Justin:

it into a quote with the customer's information that they can review and

Justin:

that being all web based and you'll be able to send those things via email.

Justin:

And then the customer will be able to review it.

Justin:

And accept the quote and then automatically be allowed to pay a

Justin:

deposit through Stripe, which is like also a huge roadblock for us if I get

Justin:

hit by a bus and then I'm laid up, we don't make any more money on Job Shop.

Justin:

It's just done because invoices.

Justin:

That's a problem I've created, right?

Justin:

Why not just check a box that says, allow customer to pay deposit or full amount.

Justin:

And so we already built those things in and we're just kind

Justin:

of polishing how it all works.

Justin:

But trying to streamline the process of inquiry to getting paid for your

Justin:

work so that you can start on it.

Justin:

And from there, we will keep building out like project management

Jem:

cool.

Justin:

Got to see if people want it first.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

Of course.

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I think it'd be good to get some testers in there when you're ready

Jem:

and have people play with it.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

Um, I'm

Justin:

Yeah, soon, hopefully.

Jem:

certainly keen to fang around in there and have a go,

Jem:

but Allah, you sent me some stuff.

Jem:

I can't believe you must've been up real late.

Jem:

He sent me a

Justin:

I've been staying up way too late lately.

Jem:

of some label generation.

Jem:

I was like, what?

Jem:

It generates labels too?

Jem:

That got me pretty excited.

Justin:

Yeah, it'll We're currently building, but it's been on the plan

Justin:

the whole time for the initial release to have I guess you'd call them Kanban

Justin:

cards and then like labels for bins.

Justin:

It's kind of like first two versions and they'll likely be multiple sizes.

Justin:

So I was taking some interest, polls of what's the size

Justin:

of labels you like to make?

Justin:

And hopefully we'll be able to like offer the most popular ones.

Justin:

So you'll be able to print a label to put on like your little storage bin

Justin:

of like screws or whatever that is.

Justin:

It's going to have QR codes and all that stuff auto generated.

Justin:

And then a Kanban card that you'll stick.

Justin:

Hopefully, right in that thing, that's probably laminated, and then you'll

Justin:

take that Kanban card, go scan it with a QR code, we also have this cool

Justin:

thing we created called, called the AirShop code, but like a quick code,

Justin:

so it's like a human readable QR code in my mind, where it's four characters,

Justin:

and it's auto created whenever you add an inventory item, such that X2C7

Justin:

will, when you search in the app, will automatically pull up that item.

Justin:

So you don't have to, like, look for, Uh, I need that M6, socket head cap screw

Justin:

that's, that's kind of short at the top.

Justin:

I think it's stainless, but I don't really remember.

Justin:

I think it's 30 mil long.

Justin:

Like, there's all these weird details to remember.

Justin:

This happens all the time in our shop.

Justin:

Like, Ricky will go, hey, we need those screws for the ATC pedestals.

Justin:

And I'm like, there's four types.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Which ones?

Jem:

Which ones?

Justin:

I just want a four digit code.

Justin:

Just tell me that code.

Justin:

And if I'm running across the shop, I can remember it, hopefully, so.

Justin:

I just have, like, endless lists of things I want to build out for this, so.

Jem:

It's cool to see you with like a, an output, like I feel like this

Jem:

ties into so many things that you and I have talked about, but like the

Jem:

kind of things that you've made videos about for years or the things you do in

Jem:

your shop, it feels like this is just like the perfect sort of tangent for

Jem:

you to like put your attention into.

Jem:

It's awesome.

Jem:

It's cool to see.

Justin:

It's so satisfying to, and I've shared a lot of these with you

Justin:

as we've spun them up, but you know, you come up with this like big game

Justin:

plan of how do we attack this project?

Justin:

And it's like all custom built, like a app.

Justin:

It's not built on anything like Brady has built at all.

Justin:

He's a software developer by trade, like,

Justin:

and so I just like message him one day, like, God, man,

Justin:

I'd love to do this feature.

Justin:

Which was the quick code idea.

Justin:

10 minutes later, I got a slack with a demo of how it worked.

Justin:

And it's like,

Jem:

Sick.

Justin:

this is amazing.

Justin:

This is so cool.

Justin:

Like, like things I've thought about for years.

Justin:

I'm now like getting to like be able to do

Jem:

Having just mucked around with my like kid aparts configurator and

Jem:

like going round and round in circles chasing, I know you've got Brady who's

Jem:

proper real software dev, but like I just

Justin:

software person.

Jem:

poking around through air shop, like I just, you know, tried to add a supplier

Jem:

or something, add a source for components.

Jem:

I'm struck by like how many little things you're going to have to like

Jem:

make work and pull together.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jem:

that feels, it feels quite overwhelming even to me, it

Jem:

must be a huge list of stuff.

Justin:

Yeah, and that's, I am really good at continuing to add to the

Justin:

list.

Justin:

And so we've had this the last two weeks, two weeks now is in January.

Justin:

Sometime we had this discussion of like, we need to cut, we can't

Justin:

add all of these cool features.

Justin:

I literally come up, I come up with two to four ideas for this thing.

Justin:

Just working.

Justin:

driving

Jem:

Per minute.

Justin:

I just have to put them in a side, I put them in a side list and I'm like, we

Justin:

can't think about these things right now.

Justin:

it's going to be great and we'll keep adding to it.

Justin:

But, yeah, you know, dashboards and, auto responses.

Justin:

It just like, just endless like thoughts.

Justin:

And so there's, right now we're finishing the features we're

Justin:

going to keep in for the launch and then trying to clean up and.

Justin:

Polish.

Justin:

There's a lot of, we'll continue to find a lot of bugs and things that don't

Justin:

work great with the people that want to

Jem:

Yeah.

Jem:

I

Justin:

us early on.

Justin:

so definitely if you're interested in this kind of thing, even if it's not

Justin:

like for the first exact phase, we come out with it, definitely sign up

Justin:

and we'll, we'll keep you in the loop.

Jem:

just pictured you as like the dog from Up.

Jem:

I was just like, Oh, oh, pretty, pretty.

Jem:

I've had another idea.

Jem:

Oh.

Justin:

I literally, for a long time I was doing that.

Justin:

I was like, He didn't say this, but I was like, Oh, I need to, I

Justin:

need to put this somewhere else.

Justin:

I need my energy to go to like a job pad somewhere that's not distracting

Justin:

the person that makes all the things.

Jem:

Mm. Very cool.

Jem:

Very cool.

Jem:

Exciting.

Jem:

Nice.

Jem:

Good to about it here.

Jem:

Bring it out into the world a little bit.

Justin:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's exciting to like get to that point.

Justin:

So the reason this is coming up is that I realized while editing my friend

Justin:

David's robot shop tour of Loupe, his company, there was this point.

Justin:

And it happened while I was recording it with him where we're going

Justin:

through his inventory wall, which is super sexy, like all these bins.

Justin:

And he's like, yeah, I'm inspired to make some QR codes like you did in your shop.

Justin:

And I almost blurted out in the middle of it.

Justin:

I was like, I have something for you.

Justin:

I don't know if I want to talk about it yet.

Justin:

But I was editing.

Justin:

I messaged Brady and sent him that little clip.

Justin:

And I was like, isn't this the perfect spot to put in like a little tiny 22nd

Justin:

thing about how we have this app coming.

Justin:

Sign up for, you know, if you're interested.

Justin:

So we did that

Justin:

and thus had to like get it all public.

Justin:

and so we've got some signups from just that little 20 second clip inside of

Justin:

a 55 minute video, that's a tour.

Justin:

So a video is live.

Justin:

so has the air shop marketing page.

Justin:

but it was like a good kick in the pants of just like, yeah, this has got to go.

Justin:

There's gotta be a time when this becomes public because.

Justin:

We both can stay up all night working on this and nobody will know about it.

Jem:

Awesome.

Jem:

I'll check out that video.

Justin:

Sorry, I've talked a lot.

Justin:

What else is

Jem:

No, it's exciting.

Jem:

Oh, look, I haven't.

Jem:

I'm still tinkering with my little toy code project of the configurator.

Jem:

Making some little updates and stuff, fixing pricing errors.

Jem:

Um, but yeah, on the week, you know, whether or whenever that was Monday when

Jem:

I was fixing those pricing errors and making a few other little minor changes, I

Jem:

just like had a moment of being blown away again by just like I'm updating code just

Jem:

in natural language and here I am, you know, I transcribe everything these days.

Jem:

I'm literally, I pretty much don't type anything except for correcting errors.

Jem:

And so I was at home of an evening just talking into my own mic of like, no, this

Jem:

didn't work and describing how I wanted it to be different and punching that into

Jem:

cursor and watching it make the updates.

Jem:

And it's just like, It's pretty wild.

Jem:

Just seeing, yeah, the tech, where it's at.

Jem:

And I'm super keen to try, allegedly, i3 mini is really good,

Jem:

and it's now available in Cursor.

Jem:

I haven't, haven't given that a go yet, but keen to see if I can

Jem:

make some progress with that.

Justin:

I got to be honest, I'm getting fairly confused at

Justin:

like how many models there are

Justin:

available and the naming structures for them.

Justin:

Like many to me references fast and not as capable.

Justin:

But yet, maybe that's not true anymore?

Jem:

I don't know anymore.

Jem:

Mm

Justin:

is branding these

Jem:

Mm

Justin:

nonsense.

Justin:

4 aught?

Justin:

Is that what we were calling 4 0?

Justin:

4 what?

Justin:

I don't get it.

Justin:

Like, they have so much money.

Justin:

They can hire all of the branding companies in the world

Justin:

like, cool names for them and they decide with like, these random suffixes.

Justin:

I don't get it.

Jem:

I know that's weird.

Justin:

But I have that same reaction, like, and I feel like I've maybe

Justin:

said that I think I was going on and on about cursor to my wife, to

Justin:

Ricky, to anybody that would listen.

Justin:

And it's interesting to see people jump into that too and be like, Oh yeah,

Justin:

I can, like I messaged you this week and I was like, I realized listening

Justin:

back to the podcast last week, we can just make our own Shopify apps now.

Jem:

Yes.

Justin:

I did it, and I even just did it to fix that knack

Justin:

problem with the orders, I

Justin:

created all these new orders via Python script on my computer through

Justin:

the API that I created a developer.

Justin:

It's not, I'm not really like account.

Justin:

It's just what they let you do it as like a Shopify customer.

Justin:

It's just like built into your account.

Jem:

Yes.

Jem:

Explain the mechanics of this to me.

Jem:

Cause I, when you first mentioned it, I was like, Oh, do you mean like

Jem:

published apps that people can buy?

Jem:

But you're talking about just sort of internal apps as well.

Jem:

Right.

Justin:

Yeah, it

Justin:

doesn't need.

Justin:

I mean, I'm sure they I'm sure that has some auto review if you're doing

Justin:

something crazy, but I think they've just made it in such a way that if you're

Justin:

trying to do stuff to your own shop.

Justin:

And you mess it up, that's your own, you know, not your own problem.

Justin:

Like they're not going to help you try to solve all the problems with.

Justin:

Your own apps, right?

Justin:

Like, but, but it's kind of off to the side.

Justin:

So like the main Shopify store should just work.

Jem:

Hmm.

Justin:

you choose when you're creating the type of app, whether it will be for

Justin:

the store or for private use, I think I'm oversimplifying that, but then you

Justin:

choose all of the different API nodes.

Justin:

Checkboxes is what I saw them as and Claude just took me through that entire

Justin:

thing I wasn't even I don't think I was using cursor at that point.

Justin:

It was like

Jem:

Oh, really?

Justin:

in sim theory and It was like yeah, you need to check these boxes

Justin:

so it can read and write and do these things with draft orders Name it this

Justin:

we'll call it this and here's the Python code For your local computer.

Justin:

Oh, you need to you need to pip three down these These packages so that you

Justin:

can do these things on your computer.

Justin:

It's just like every step, right?

Justin:

That cursor would probably make that even simpler that, you can

Justin:

just make custom apps for your own, your own store, like really easily.

Jem:

When you brought that up, I immediately went and looked at my, like,

Jem:

the app section of my Shopify store.

Jem:

I was like, Ooh, what am I paying for that I could replace with cursor of an evening?

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

Well, you're already doing that.

Justin:

Like you could

Justin:

probably turn your configurator into an app, right?

Justin:

Like, I don't know what benefits you get out of that,

Jem:

Hmm.

Jem:

I don't

Jem:

know.

Justin:

right.

Justin:

Like it, maybe it becomes easier to integrate.

Justin:

If you change the rest of the store, it doesn't get wiped away with

Justin:

like a theme update or something,

Jem:

Yeah,

Justin:

I don't know.

Justin:

Ask Chris or ask, uh,

Jem:

I will.

Justin:

debris.

Jem:

I'll check it out.

Jem:

I just asked the, uh, Shopify sidekick baked in AI and it just gave me a

Jem:

link to where I can enable custom app development on your store.

Jem:

And it says this cannot be undone.

Jem:

It's like, Oh, okay.

Jem:

I won't click on that right now, but thank you.

Justin:

Yeah, I try that thing every once in a while still, and, I tried to get

Justin:

it to have it make me a draft order with two draft items and it could not do it.

Justin:

It gave me a link to draft orders.

Jem:

Yeah, yeah.

Justin:

I don't know how to get the draft orders?

Justin:

What are you here for?

Jem:

Thanks man.

Jem:

I'm just a sidekick.

Jem:

Okay.

Justin:

amazing at analytics.

Justin:

Like I asked it, yeah.

Justin:

What were our top five selling items in the last year?

Justin:

And that's probably a report, but it made me a custom report

Justin:

and it was useful for that.

Justin:

So on that topic, I've had this weight over me of, having basically

Justin:

a duplicative website I. Still have not made much progress

Justin:

migrating my Squarespace to Shopify and finally finishing that.

Justin:

So I know it's probably a confusing experience for customers.

Justin:

Because we have like duplicate blog posts on both pages, both things.

Justin:

There's contact forms on both.

Justin:

There's, you know, all this stuff.

Justin:

I'm just still paying for it monthly, which isn't like a crazy

Justin:

cost, but, I've just struggled.

Justin:

Like I cannot prioritize the time to do it.

Justin:

I probably need to like look at Upwork, but I, I wrote

Justin:

this this week and I thought.

Justin:

I just need to ask Jim or people listening.

Justin:

Like, how the hell do I just finish this?

Justin:

Like, what am I, do I just need to block out two days for it?

Justin:

Or do I need to try to hire somebody?

Justin:

Like what?

Justin:

It seems silly at this point that it's just.

Justin:

Internet debris.

Jem:

What happens if you turn square space off?

Justin:

Still probably 60 percent of our traffic.

Justin:

And so I would cause a ton.

Justin:

Well, part of it's I need to make all these redirects

Jem:

dead links.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

DNS and all this stuff.

Justin:

and it will kill a huge amount of traffic.

Justin:

Which is bad.

Justin:

Part of why I haven't done anything rash.

Jem:

Are you just paying double fees, basically?

Jem:

Is that

Justin:

Yeah, it is.

Justin:

It's a confusing experience for sure.

Justin:

Like, most people when they search for us, they land on portlandcnc.

Justin:

com, which is Squarespace.

Justin:

Then they click almost always to the store.

Justin:

But if you search there, you're not going to find any of our

Justin:

products on on Squarespace.

Justin:

So, like, there's a good chance we're losing people that are

Justin:

just like, well, this site sucks.

Justin:

You know, like, you know, there's just all of my effort for years now has

Justin:

gone into Shopify, which it's always been intended to be the takeover.

Justin:

I don't know.

Jem:

So yeah, Squarespace is basically just a landing page for you at

Jem:

this point, but there's a whole bunch of content on there as well.

Justin:

Hundred some blog posts.

Justin:

Which I have migrated, but there's still the problem not to get too detailed.

Justin:

It's like, I'm still, it's called hot linking and I'm hot linking images

Justin:

still because I didn't get all the migrated right with this tool I use.

Justin:

So there's still Squarespace images on my Shopify store blog posts.

Justin:

And they also look, it looks like a disaster in some of those pages.

Justin:

Like, so all the traffic still comes to Squarespace.

Justin:

I can forward it all, but then if I kill Squarespace, all

Justin:

the images die on Shopify.

Justin:

until I rehost them.

Justin:

It's just, there was no, the only automated way I could find

Justin:

is I paid a hundred some dollars for this plugin that did it, but

Justin:

then it didn't rehost the images.

Justin:

And now I've got to go through each one.

Jem:

full on.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

It's just a lot of tedious work

Jem:

What a hot mess.

Jem:

Yeah, you just gotta do it.

Jem:

Either don't do it or do it.

Justin:

a month of cost,

Jem:

Yeah, exactly.

Jem:

There's a low incentive to make it happen, right?

Justin:

right?

Jem:

So just leave it alone.

Jem:

No, I don't think it's worth it.

Justin:

it's such a mess.

Jem:

Uh, yeah,

Justin:

It's not, it's not really the cost.

Justin:

It's just that it's it's the experience.

Justin:

It's the it's the weight of it being a mess and always trying to want to

Justin:

improve, you know, customer experience and convert like it also messes

Justin:

with I can't really see conversions on Shopify as well as I'd like to

Justin:

because I see this like referral from.

Justin:

The Shopify or the Squarespace page in the conversion details, and it's like,

Justin:

that's not actually like a referral.

Justin:

that's my website, you know,

Jem:

that's mine.

Justin:

but it sees it as something else.

Jem:

So shop.

Jem:

portlandcnc.

Jem:

com is the Shopify page.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

will, yeah, eventually just turn into pdxcnc.

Justin:

com.

Justin:

And that will be everything.

Justin:

That will be the shop that will be blog post.

Jem:

Can you block it?

Jem:

Like, I think it's unrealistic to go, Oh, this is going to take me two days.

Jem:

As if you're ever going to find two days to do it.

Jem:

Like.

Jem:

Can you block time, block a certain time per day or per week just to

Jem:

chip away at it, make progress,

Justin:

I think so.

Justin:

I think that's a way to do it.

Jem:

fix one blog post a day.

Jem:

I don't know.

Justin:

I've thought a lot about like trying to upwork it or something and

Jem:

Oh yeah.

Justin:

maybe I just need to try and see what somebody might quote me to do it.

Justin:

But

Justin:

yeah,

Justin:

anyway, just thought there might be like a

Justin:

I'm hoping for a miracle, I guess, and, and, uh, just try to find

Justin:

some stupid solution that's not, Hey, didn't you know about this?

Jem:

I will have to total off soon.

Jem:

I've gotta, find my radiator cap before the van is packed to go to Melbourne

Justin:

you have one of those, like, endoscope, cameras that

Jem:

and to it's at home.

Jem:

But yeah, I do have one of those.

Justin:

I would like to get one of those someday.

Justin:

I feel like there's been enough situations where I'm like, That would be useful.

Justin:

stick a camera in a weird little

Jem:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, handy things.

Justin:

health inspections.

Jem:

Yeah, exactly.

Justin:

It's very sanitary.

Jem:

Speaking of jamming small things into tight spaces, uh, we've

Jem:

had great success this week with our dowel coating, coating rig.

Jem:

It's officially in production now.

Jem:

Coated, I don't know, 100 metres of, 100 metres of dowel probably this week.

Jem:

In the dipper.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

It's good.

Jem:

It's got its quirks.

Jem:

It's a bit hard to clean the dowel dipper.

Jem:

But, um, the results are great, much nicer than the hot wax.

Jem:

And so we've yet again switched.

Jem:

Things over.

Jem:

More notes in Airtable about which customers have what and blah, blah,

Jem:

blah, which version changes in the product changelog in Notion.

Jem:

But onwards.

Jem:

Progress.

Jem:

Yeah, I'll make a video about it at some point.

Jem:

It's working well.

Justin:

video.

Jem:

yeah, kind of, kind of, yeah.

Jem:

I mean, it's still, still a process, still manual labor, uh, but it's working well.

Jem:

And if I can change this second tumbler to actually work with the barrel finishing,

Jem:

it means that the wax dipping process will be, will close out that chapter.

Jem:

So glad we tried

Jem:

it.

Jem:

Yeah, but

Justin:

I would love, I mean, again, for my selfish desires, I would

Justin:

love to see the whole process.

Jem:

I know, right?

Justin:

from stick to, to knob.

Jem:

Yeah, I need to do more of that.

Justin:

Uh,

Justin:

I mean, I don't know that you need to.

Justin:

I just, I imagine the process and I think it actually would be pretty cool.

Justin:

Maybe you would be that new, was he Japanese guy that, that made

Justin:

the thing that you referenced the video that you kept watching

Justin:

the, the pool

Jem:

The pull Q dipper.

Jem:

Yeah.

Justin:

Could you be the new guy, the new guy that people

Justin:

reference about their pool cues?

Jem:

Maybe,

Jem:

maybe.

Jem:

I mean, it is nicer than that

Jem:

one.

Jem:

Rodney!

Jem:

Yeah, I

Justin:

Jem's dipping rods again.

Jem:

should go.

Justin:

Okay.

Jem:

Shanks, man.

Justin:

Sounds good.

Justin:

Okay.

Justin:

Goodbye.

Jem:

Cut off.

Jem:

Thank you.

Jem:

See you next time.

Jem:

He's got buttons.

Chapters

https://airshopapp.com/?ref=pd-128-cta-chptr1
https://airshopapp.com/?ref=pd-128-cta-chptr2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R5PAWFodbo
https://likebutter.com.au?ref=pd-128

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