Jem and Justin chat about Jem's new Mac, the camera gear and methods they use for photoshoots and the future of digital fabrication.
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Camera Talk
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HOSTS
Jem Freeman
Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia
Like Butter | Instagram | More Links
Justin Brouillette
Portland, Oregon, USA
Oh good thinking.
Jem:Clap on that night.
Jem:Shall we?
Justin:Yep.
Jem:1, 2, 3.
Justin:So you got on your computer.
Jem:Yeah,
Justin:How's that going?
Jem:That's good.
Jem:It's a bit of a time suck.
Justin:Yeah, they are.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:it's fantastic.
Jem:Very happy.
Jem:Yeah, it turned up on Monday after saying last week that it was still weeks
Jem:away, which is what the tracking said
Justin:That's cool.
Jem:suddenly it was there and I've spent a lot of my precious R and
Jem:D time this week setting up rhino shortcuts and things like that.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:That'll happen.
Justin:That are you like get in between, I was like, I'm gonna start using the new one.
Justin:Then I just leave a bunch of crap on the old one for a
Jem:Oh yeah.
Justin:can't find
Jem:crap.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah, absolutely.
Jem:No, it's really good.
Jem:I'm happy.
Jem:Super fast.
Jem:So for the listeners, it's a MacBook pro 14 inch kind of mid spec, not quite
Jem:the base model, but I can't remember all the numbers that are attached to it.
Jem:16 gig Ram.
Jem:And so far, everything is very fast and snappy.
Jem:The one thing that I'm, coming from a fairly high spec, Lenovo ThinkPad.
Jem:I bought as a mobile workstation that year or so ago.
Jem:The one thing that is significantly slower is rhino
Justin:Yes, I should probably should have told you that.
Justin:Not since you use it so
Jem:knew, and you didn't tell me yeah, it's laggy.
Justin:I've been thinking about making this video cause I made
Justin:videos about fusion and rhino.
Justin:There really wasn't any, when the new M one stuff came out and
Justin:so I made a couple of those and they get a piece amount of views.
Justin:It seemed really great at the time.
Justin:And since using it for the last, since 20, 20 different incarnations of
Justin:the computers, now I've just come to realize they really need to make the
Justin:native versions for it to really it I'm having this problem all the time.
Justin:Now, especially with fusion that it just eats all of my Ram.
Justin:And then it just like, I, it was using 17 gigs of Ram the
Justin:other day, and I only have 16.
Justin:And I was like, how is that even possible?
Justin:Like what?
Justin:So yeah, they were a little bit, they can get bogged down
Justin:in terms of like multitasking and things made natively for it.
Justin:It's so
Jem:Amazing.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Cyrus.
Jem:Yeah, look, I don't know what the deal is with rhino, because rhino
Jem:is such a light application on PC.
Jem:Like it uses barely any resources opens fast.
Jem:It's really know.
Jem:Cause I, I, I think I mentioned I have my sandpit file open
Jem:pretty much all the time.
Jem:It's got
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:heaps of geometry in it.
Jem:And yet the first thing I opened on the new one was that sandpit.
Jem:And I was like, Ooh, just panning, panning around was significantly slower.
Jem:And so he'd, you know, 90% of the geometry and that helped significantly.
Jem:So if I'm running a light rhino file, it's fun.
Jem:It just gets bogged down with the big ones.
Justin:I've read a little bit that on their forum, that they're
Justin:really responsive on that they do have a work in progress.
Justin:I don't remember if it's seven or eight that you can use.
Justin:If you have a license and it's supposed to be native now or metal or
Justin:something, I don't really understand quite what it is, but it's supposed
Justin:to be improved and they're there.
Justin:They've been working on a native version.
Justin:So the trick with that will be, if you're trying to collaborate internally and
Justin:you have a beta and nobody else does,
Jem:everyone else is on rhino five, so they stuffed anyway.
Jem:It's all good.
Justin:Jem's just making files.
Justin:Nobody can use, I do that all the time on accident.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah, but it's fun.
Jem:And, and, you know, biggest highlight, I think I shared with
Jem:you on the slack was just getting access to that Numi calculator app.
Jem:I love it so much fun.
Justin:It's very new.
Justin:It's like the perfect kind of nerdy that we like.
Justin:It's just a little clean calculator with kind of some, natural language
Justin:kind of almost where you can
Justin:like kind of process stuff line by line.
Justin:But it's just, I have all these files that I come back to that over time.
Justin:Like they used to calculate the phone bill between my family members every month.
Justin:And you just put in a couple of things, knowing, calculate it out.
Justin:It's basically a little spreadsheet, but it can be on any Mac it's faster
Justin:than that to access, I think often.
Justin:And it just looks better too.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:And I think that's fine.
Jem:I don't think I'm the computer is just the battery.
Jem:Life is stupid.
Jem:Good.
Justin:That's true.
Jem:Coming from two hours max on the thing pad to seemingly
Jem:limitless battery life on this.
Jem:It's amazing.
Jem:So it's sitting and sitting on the couch last night with light room open,
Jem:just like trolling 8,000 photos for the website and you know, two hours
Jem:later they'd use 20% or something.
Jem:It's amazing.
Justin:And I've definitely noticed too, that the same thing applies for
Justin:anything that's native versus non native apps will suck more power because that
Justin:like conversion, Rosetta thing seems to eat like fusion is a battery hug.
Justin:So,
Jem:interesting.
Jem:Okay, good.
Justin:it's still really good.
Justin:You still get a lot out of it.
Justin:So, Yeah.
Justin:I'm happy with myself.
Jem:Awesome.
Jem:Good.
Jem:How's your week?
Jem:What's happening?
Justin:I've been printing like a madman I've got last time we
Justin:were live printing this one,
Jem:Yeah,
Justin:which we call baby pants.
Jem:baby pants appropriately.
Justin:that was like the first print I'd ever done.
Justin:I've probably done like 15 versions in digital model farm of our dust boot kind
Justin:of, I'm just trying to make it work and seeking through the concepts of like
Justin:how, if you had two and they came to one, like two, four inches came down
Justin:to one thing in the bottom or just all these different versions over, you know,
Justin:I said like, basically you're so, and so this one turned out pretty good and
Justin:we liked how it kind of fed it in some plywood testing and we mounted it up
Justin:to the spindle and it was mostly good.
Justin:And I immediately noticed like, oh, this is going to suck to keep attached.
Justin:Cause it was just basically like floating in there.
Justin:And I was like maybe a bunch of glue.
Justin:And I was like, that's a bad idea.
Justin:That's a bad idea.
Justin:Quickly chatted through and I added a few screw downs and kind of see like faces.
Justin:No.
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:And
Jem:Hold down points.
Jem:Yep.
Justin:little bit more of like but I guess on the backside that
Justin:sits on the plate and a little bit
Jem:Let's go.
Justin:but I think we may be able to finish the plates out of a Siedel
Justin:and then actually mounted up today.
Justin:That's been super exciting big improvement for us.
Justin:And then a lot of people seem to be interested in potentially having one
Justin:as well, which I'm excited about.
Justin:And
Jem:Myself
Justin:yeah, I'm
Justin:curious about that.
Justin:Yeah,
Jem:So you have modeled how many versions of that before printing one?
Justin:Well, you know how you do like versioning and fusion oil?
Justin:It's like, I've gone through like six different files with major idea changes
Jem:such restraint.
Jem:I don't know how you do it.
Jem:Like how do you not just print the first one?
Justin:Well, we didn't have a printer for like the first four versions of that.
Justin:So it was just kind of, that actually helped speed it up because then I knew
Justin:what I could print a little bit better.
Justin:Also that we could even print it.
Justin:Like it was kind of a, I was going to outsource that and like probably some
Justin:commercial, you know, crazy printer.
Justin:So
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:that helped a lot.
Justin:And and it just was easy, similar to probably how you were using yours.
Justin:It's just easy to kind of ignore.
Justin:Like it works, ours works.
Justin:Okay.
Justin:People sweep it up and you just get you're annoyed by it, but it's like,
Justin:well, it's not stopping us from working.
Justin:And I got to take the machine apart to fix it, you know, like I'm working on it.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Alice has got these silly little pneumatic push downs on the pressure foot.
Jem:And John had a little bump, you know, minor crash the other day.
Jem:And so both of the pneumatic arms are now bent, so they don't even retract out.
Jem:So the thing's just useless.
Jem:That's a stuck.
Justin:it does like a little kick move every time it comes down.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:That, and been kind of cranking on, planning for like a video shoot of
Justin:our Nack wall stuff beginning of June.
Justin:And so for he's cutting more parts right now or getting them finished and
Justin:trying to get it all prepped so that we can do more than just talk about it.
Jem:Fantastic.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:Good one.
Jem:Whether you shoot that.
Justin:I have a friend that's going to be nearby actually, and he's going to come.
Jem:Fantastic.
Jem:Awesome.
Jem:What do you shoot on when you're not just doing handheld?
Justin:I have a Sony a three S a three, a three alpha three.
Justin:I just got that like last year.
Justin:So I haven't used it all that much, but like it a lot and very crisp,
Justin:like compared to I had a, kind of a more entry Sony mirrorless and it,
Justin:it definitely improves upon a lot of the things that I liked about that.
Justin:How
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Had a Canon 7D
Justin:Hm.
Jem:for about 12 years and had a nice piece of glass on the front of it.
Jem:That was worth a lot more than the camera buddy.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:And I was doing a photo shoot maybe 18 months ago at work and
Jem:I just hit the tripod release and I didn't catch the camera.
Jem:I was just kind of on autopilot.
Jem:I just took the camera off and the whole thing just went and fell to
Jem:the concrete body was fine, but the lens literally snapped in half.
Jem:And thankfully it was insured
Jem:and the insurance payout got me a new Fuji XT4 for,
Justin:nice.
Jem:And I'd never had a sort of small whatever they called mirrorless
Jem:camera before, but I'm so impressed with the sharpness, like going through
Jem:shots last night, you can see the point very, very clearly say the
Jem:point at which the cameras switched.
Jem:And it's like, it goes from kind of soft edges on the Canon to
Jem:suddenly like everything's just ultra crisp and sharp and on the Fuji.
Jem:So I've been very happy with that.
Justin:Yeah, I have a similar experience.
Justin:The thing that I have noticed video was more than anything I was, you know, I had
Justin:the first one since 2019, the mirrorless is 4k and I would never shoot for a cake.
Justin:So it was just like, most people aren't using that on the internet.
Justin:Like, you know, using it as a format it's giant, it's hard to edit with.
Justin:And like with the improvement of computers and storage and all this stuff
Justin:now, I'm like, I'm always shooting for a K and it's so much better quality.
Justin:Like even when you edit it down to 10 80, that I kind of wish
Justin:I had done it a long time ago.
Jem:It's amazing that the file size is disgusting.
Justin:Yeah, for sure.
Justin:I mean, we were talking about this, I think offline, but like,
Justin:it's one of the few things that I don't really like put into cloud.
Justin:I just have backups here and then I do like a.
Justin:Back please backup of that.
Jem:Okay.
Jem:So you've just got external drives that you deal with video on.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I just kind of keep everything
Jem:that's cool.
Justin:yeah.
Justin:A
Jem:I need, I need to do that.
Jem:I've been procrastinating from buying an external hard drive fee years.
Justin:That was honestly a big change.
Justin:Cause I just, like, I think I realized that an eight gig or eight terabyte
Justin:external was like 180 bucks or something.
Justin:And I was like, oh my word, like, I can store so much video on this.
Jem:yeah, I just need to do that by the bullet.
Jem:Cause I, I literally don't shoot in 4k or I shoot less 4k because I'm
Jem:just bored by the file storage issue.
Justin:no, no, I totally agree.
Justin:And that was, that was a big restraint for me.
Justin:And I was always like, oh, that's stupid.
Justin:Like I don't need that.
Justin:And then I literally have a tick tock tick tock video I've made, I shot in 4k.
Justin:I edited it down, even on Tik TOK, I constantly get comments
Justin:about how good the quality is.
Justin:It's just because of shooting that way and then not, you know,
Justin:enlarging it or anything like that.
Justin:So,
Jem:Nice.
Justin:yeah, I wish I'd spend more time shooting, honestly.
Jem:Yeah, me too.
Jem:On that.
Jem:Shooting all day today, hopefully
Justin:Whoo.
Justin:What are you?
Justin:What is it?
Jem:most rare occasion.
Jem:I've carved out hopefully 90% of today for dedicated shooting time.
Jem:I've got a friend coming.
Jem:We'd kind of, we'd been wanting to do this throughout various COVID lockdowns
Jem:and it never quite made it happen.
Jem:And we finally sort of clear of
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:of that nonsense.
Jem:And so he's coming for the day and he'll get here about 10 o'clock and
Jem:we'll spend the rest of the day shooting content for the website and shooting
Jem:new products, try and get some video, a bunch of stills, just spend time working
Jem:together, setting up shots basically.
Jem:And hopefully not get too bogged down because in the past, when
Jem:I've tried to do stuff like that, I sort of set up one shot.
Jem:And by then, you know, a few hours later, I'm like, cool, I'm done.
Jem:I can't be bothered, packing this up and making another sane now that'll do.
Justin:Yeah, that's really interesting how we're doing that at the same
Justin:time, because I'm trying to plan out.
Justin:Kind of a meeting yesterday about, I was getting bogged down mentally,
Justin:just trying to process, like, what are we trying to accomplish with
Justin:doing this little video shoot?
Justin:I mean, that, it's a new thing is challenging for me to, I'm trying to
Justin:like formulate what the angles are and like pitching this to people, right?
Justin:Like what, what, what are the features and benefits, but I guess
Justin:the question I have all that is how do you plan video or photo shoots?
Justin:Do you have like a system or you just write a WorkFlowy?
Jem:Planning.
Jem:I don't think I've ever planned a photoshoot.
Jem:I no, I just wing it.
Jem:I totally just wing it.
Jem:And even if I have.
Jem:Pretended to have gone into it with a bit of a plan or a sketch or something.
Jem:It typically gets thrown in the bin pretty quickly.
Jem:And I just kind of let, let the dust, the process kind of lead me.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:I, as with most things I make, I think I'm similar with photos.
Jem:I just sort of do it fairly intuitively and just follow my knives and see
Jem:what looks good and what looks crap.
Jem:And don't, you know, cause I find if I'm too set on an idea and I'll try
Jem:and achieve that idea and I like, it's not working out, then I get frustrated.
Jem:Whereas if I don't have a fixed plan, I'll just follow my nose which is fine
Jem:if you're just trying to get some shots.
Jem:But if you're trying to communicate something, that's a very different story.
Jem:And I think that's where I fall down in my product, photography
Jem:and communication online.
Jem:I'm not really focusing on what am I actually trying to communicate to
Jem:our customers in the most effective, efficient way, and then shoot for that.
Jem:That that's hard.
Justin:Yeah, no, I totally agree.
Justin:So I, the last one I did was the whiteboard and it was just like at my
Justin:house, which is usually the easiest, cause this isn't a very aesthetic space
Justin:here and not that my house is, but it just has a blank wall that worked.
Justin:And I found that to be so much easier to just set up and like take some photos.
Justin:I keep thinking about is make sure videos to make into content
Justin:as well as usable on the website.
Justin:I can shoot photos all day of these things.
Justin:They're not that complicated The other thing is I can render this so well, like
Justin:not, not that my skills are so good, but it's just, so it's all infusion.
Justin:So I just have seen set up or if I want a combination of things,
Justin:I can just quickly render that.
Justin:I'm trying to prioritize, it seems like there needs to be some story because I
Justin:don't immediately think people are gonna see this Nack Wall and go, oh yeah.
Justin:Like I can put that in my space or something like kind of has to
Justin:be, they need a scale reference.
Justin:They need, I don't know.
Justin:You know what I mean?
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Narrative story, all those, all those things that are so much harder than just
Jem:picking up a camera or putting it in.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:and take so much more time and planning and critical thinking.
Jem:Yeah, totally get you.
Jem:So I you know, I'm still a hundred and no, I'm still like I'm still
Jem:working on Annie Shopify theme build the last night on the couch.
Jem:You know, I think I was secretly waiting for these computer to arrive before
Jem:I like spent time editing photos.
Jem:Cause I wanted this screen
Justin:it's really good.
Justin:Quality.
Jem:So I was sitting on the couch and I'd lie to Dean the last, you know, 10,
Jem:15 years of photography into Lightroom.
Jem:And I just scroll, scroll, scroll.
Jem:That's not, so that's not SEO.
Jem:I'll use that for this banner.
Jem:Just picking out random stuff like from this huge library of photos that
Jem:creates quite a nice look and you know, the website's looking really
Jem:nice, but there's new banners, but it's not, it's not intentional.
Jem:It's kind of just opportunistic.
Jem:It's not communicating.
Jem:To a point.
Jem:I can communicate an idea by my photo selection, but I'm not yeah.
Jem:Building something from scratch to really clearly say why this product
Jem:is good or, you know, so yeah.
Jem:Don't know I've got no answers for
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:Well, do you ever have this thing where you, like you work in a product
Justin:or a project so long that you kind of lose an outward sense of it
Jem:totally.
Justin:where it's like, isn't it just obvious, like I'll show my wife something
Justin:I'm working on and she's a designer and she'll just go with, it makes no sense
Justin:with the rest of what you're working on.
Justin:I'm like, okay.
Justin:Like, I guess I was just making a cool thing and I forgot about like, oh, it
Justin:has to work with these other objects.
Justin:Yeah, totally.
Justin:And even if it is a cool thing, It's hard to have that external sense
Justin:of how someone else may view it how someone else may want to use it.
Justin:And that's why you need to get your Nack Wall out into the world.
Justin:Yes.
Justin:Yes, I totally agree.
Jem:I had a brilliant email the other day from a customer because Jay, I've
Jem:been talking about this idea of how to we've got this dream for Kitta parts
Jem:of having an online configurator.
Jem:So our customer can I drag and drop components almost like a game and build
Jem:their own set and, you know, click order and this fantastic email the
Jem:other day from a customer who wanted a custom kit of parts and using masking
Jem:tape on their wall that like taped.
Jem:They've made all the components out of masking tape and like taped it
Jem:up at full-scale on their wall and written like short shelf, short down,
Jem:Lawndale labeled it all photographed.
Jem:It, sent it through as like, this is perfect.
Jem:Like, this is exactly the tool we want to make, but in digital form
Jem:so calling on old developers out there who can help us with that,
Jem:cause we haven't found anyone yet.
Justin:I would love that.
Justin:That would be so cool.
Justin:It, a lot of the technology seems like it's now there with, I mean, every
Justin:iPhone that's come out in the last few years can do augmented reality
Justin:and like is that the right phrase?
Justin:You can then basically project the idea of a 3d object into the camera
Jem:yeah.
Justin:fun.
Jem:Yup.
Justin:And even Shopify supports it right now.
Justin:So you can export from fusion, this little file, and then people can do that.
Justin:But the problem is we're both probably running in the same thing.
Justin:They're not configured scenes, they're an object,
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:not six things.
Justin:It's.
Justin:But you could potentially, and this idea, right.
Justin:If you did or could configure it quickly enough for them that it made sense, maybe
Justin:your rhino scenes are quick to assemble.
Justin:You could then send them, send them a file and they can then
Justin:project it onto their space.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:And that's how I do it in rhino.
Jem:I've got so I find that's the fastest way to do it.
Jem:I've got blocks of the components and then I've got some smart text
Jem:blocks that count the blocks.
Jem:And so I can lay out the configurations and then I've got a little tally
Jem:down the side that tells me how many components I've used
Justin:oh, cool.
Justin:I don't know about
Jem:going ahead.
Jem:It, yeah, I'll show you in rhino.
Jem:It's a really neat little trick.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah, and that's quite fast and you know, it's nice being
Jem:able to design a set for someone, but just be, there'd be so good.
Jem:The customers to be able to configure their own stuff.
Justin:I've definitely been kind of bashing my head against the wall a few
Justin:times with we're trying to make kids have the Nack wall, but it's like pretty
Justin:tough to predict things for people in a predetermined, what somebody might
Justin:want and then make it, so it works.
Justin:But the alternative is how do they, how in the most basic sense, it's
Justin:like, if we don't show them something that's pre set up, then they have to
Justin:kind of arrange it and make it fit mentally, basically, because we don't
Justin:have a better, you have something,
Jem:yeah.
Jem:No, I'm just
Jem:agreeing with you Yeah,
Justin:were shaking your head.
Justin:Like, no, I have a thing.
Justin:And I was like, oh, tell me no,
Jem:no, no, no.
Justin:It's so the kit seems obvious to me is at least as
Justin:small, basic building blocks.
Justin:And then you have this much extra space to play with.
Jem:Yeah, I think that's essential because while you being so familiar
Jem:with the product may be able to mentally 3d model that configuration
Jem:in your mind the customer in our experience with stuff like that, kids
Jem:sell much, better, much, much better
Jem:because giving, just giving everyone individual components as options, unless
Jem:they've already bought a kit of parts and they're familiar with the system,
Jem:then they might be confident to buy a few parts and make another little thing.
Jem:But that, kit at the outset, I think, is essential for anything
Jem:like that, which is kind of system
Jem:based.
Jem:And again, I would push you to not sort of labor over it too
Jem:long in terms of what the perfect configuration is, and just like throw
Jem:a kit together and get it out there.
Jem:Cause you'll get feedback whether it's direct feedback
Jem:or whether it's people then by.
Jem:The bit that they feel is missing.
Jem:And if you see a pattern there, then you can update your kit
Justin:Yeah, that's good.
Justin:Good advice.
Jem:though, because then you end up with so many variants in Shopify
Jem:and then trying to manage all those variants and update them, keep them,
Jem:yeah.
Jem:Fun, fun.
Justin:nerdy for a second.
Justin:I, I think Saunders was talking about this, like bundling or
Justin:kidding plugin a long time ago.
Justin:I asked him about it and I don't remember.
Justin:He either sent me it or I found a different version.
Justin:It lets you take one product period and then that's a bundle
Justin:and then you can like attach other things to it, to create these
Jem:Cool.
Justin:pre bundled things.
Justin:And then the benefit of that is when us, as the sellers gotta fulfill
Justin:that, it's not just like, version a.
Justin:Or product day bundle.
Justin:It literally pulls all those names into, of each assembled item.
Justin:Sub-areas kind of thing, and also takes down the inventory
Justin:of those things it gets bought.
Justin:So you, you actually keep track of it because that's a nightmare I've found
Justin:with even small other kits of like planners and things is when one thing is
Justin:in for other products, it doesn't really track like, oh, we have 16 of these.
Justin:That's just like one says 16, one says 15.
Justin:Yeah,
Jem:there's a lot.
Jem:I need to look into that sort of bundling stuff as well.
Jem:We've, we've never bothered, bothered tracking inventory.
Jem:I find it too complex to keep on top of.
Jem:And then for it to be accurate, you have to, I think the, the Johns have talked
Jem:about this, but like, do you track it, do you spend the time tracking it or do you
Jem:just have like a Kanban level that when you hit that it just triggers production
Jem:and we've always done the latter,
Jem:and just, if we're running out of something, then we'll make more, but
Jem:don't try and sort of keep up with exactly how many things we have on the shelf.
Justin:I started out not knowing what the hell I was doing right with that stuff.
Justin:And I bought some
Jem:Um,
Justin:fives eight years ago that I was trying to track
Justin:everything, every screw that was me.
Justin:And I was so stressed out about the, all the time.
Justin:It's always breaking.
Justin:It was like another level of trying to be an accountant, but I never
Justin:wanted to be in the first place.
Justin:And finally, I think, I don't know what it was.
Justin:It was like podcast or something.
Justin:I was just like, screw that.
Justin:And I like jettisoned all that off and it just felt so good.
Justin:I think some of
Jem:Screw those screws.
Justin:I think so maybe it was Saunders just saying like, well, we don't do that.
Justin:You know, like I don't either have to track every everyone or you
Justin:use some kind of leveling system.
Justin:And after that, it's just been so nice to not worry about that.
Justin:the other thing is we're both luckily in a non-emergency
Justin:based product world, right?
Justin:Like nobody absolutely needs fixturing to make their next part it's oh no.
Justin:My Kitta parts isn't here.
Justin:I can't put my shelves up.
Jem:those high expectations in the furniture game, Justin, you know this,
Justin:We talked about this last time though.
Jem:I simply must.
Jem:Yeah, no, it makes sense.
Justin:That's how you're working on coffee table.
Justin:That looks interesting.
Justin:Long's that been in the press?
Jem:John.
Jem:And I sat down yesterday and counted how many new products
Jem:we're sitting on yesterday?
Jem:I think we're up to nine.
Jem:Just, we've got a list going in their table.
Jem:And we're trying on the planning note, we're actually trying to plan product
Jem:launches for the first time ever.
Jem:Instead of me just like randomly dropping stuff on Instagram overnight
Jem:and saying, Hey, your product.
Jem:And then everyone else in the business going off jam, done it again.
Jem:Like now we have to catch up and do all the, you know,
Justin:yes.
Jem:the, get the instructions made, get it into Shopify, do the pricing.
Jem:But we're trying to do all of that stuff.
Jem:Pre launch, which has really slowed down now.
Justin:Yeah,
Jem:Output time towing.
Jem:I love dropping new stuff overnight and just go cool deal with it.
Jem:We'll work it out.
Jem:Let's just sell some things and see what happens.
Jem:But I guess we built such a machine now in the business and in air
Jem:table that we kind of have to be a bit more organized, but yeah, lots
Jem:of new product, which is exciting.
Jem:And a lot of it from staff , the staff royalty program is working really nicely.
Jem:There's a great energy at the moment.
Jem:And people have got some cool things coming through quite a couple of
Jem:quite ambitious ideas, which is great.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:Hmm, cool.
Justin:That's exciting.
Justin:Is that coffee table, a kitta parts system or is it just a separate thing?
Jem:It's a separate thing.
Jem:Just using the threading IP.
Jem:We've kinda sort of been trying to sort of double down on being aware of.
Jem:All the IP we're sitting on and all the time that we've spent developing
Jem:that and trying to capitalize on it a bit more, expand it, you know,
Jem:different ways we could use that.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Cause I, I have this thing, I'm aware that, you know, every man and his dog
Jem:has got a three axis machine these days
Justin:Yes.
Jem:and, you know, friend or friend of mine who has, you know, almost
Jem:no manufacturing experience has just bought, you know, big full-size
Jem:three access to put in his shed.
Jem:And so like it's becoming so common that I'm aware that we need to,
Jem:you know, stay ahead in some sense.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I've thought about that
Jem:and, and whether that's, you know, investing in a five-axis
Jem:machine down the track or.
Jem:What we're doing at the moment where we've built a custom machine that does
Jem:a very specific thing, and then just sort of investing in that technology
Jem:that we've made for ourselves.
Jem:I don't know.
Jem:What do you think about
Jem:that whole thing,
Justin:The more I've been around cam, especially fusion, when you talk about
Justin:its progress and like adaptive, clearing kind of things, or if you've ever played
Justin:with Steep and Shallow that my thought for the last year or so is the skills
Justin:that we have created for ourselves in programming and running CNC machines
Justin:are going to become nearly automatic.
Justin:We already have these tools that do the quoting.
Justin:So they only have to start applying the actual tool.
Justin:Here's a tool, here's how it would access it.
Justin:I think in the end, what we're going to end up is like machinists or Cam
Justin:programmers will basically be like checking to make sure it all worked
Justin:right before it goes out to the machine.
Justin:Similar to what you're saying, it's like a CNC could very well turn
Justin:into like a router can turn into basically what all laser cutter is.
Justin:You know, there's a lot of nuance there.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:But yeah, it's going to become less special, I think for sure.
Justin:It already had in the time I've been doing it, it's become significantly less.
Justin:The barrier to entry is lower.
Justin:There's a new think it's U S made CNC router maker.
Justin:That's selling theirs for like $8,000 for like the same size of machine that I have.
Justin:And I'm like, what?
Justin:How's that even possible?
Justin:Like, yeah.
Justin:I think it's the bearers lowering.
Jem:Do you have a sense of how you'll combat that?
Justin:No.
Justin:I mean, my strategy to all of this, I had this idea of back in school, was that
Justin:there was some level of sustainability for myself or business by having a
Justin:scattershot approach of everything from education to consulting, you know, like
Justin:a job shop stuff to product design.
Justin:And that hopefully one of those at all times I could keep
Justin:juggling to the right place.
Justin:I definitely, in the last, let's say year, eight months, six months have felt
Justin:like I've maybe pushed that too far.
Justin:And I'm trying to like come back to what's the right thing to be working on instead
Justin:of trying to juggle all these things at the same time, don't know if I'm doing
Justin:a good job at it, but how about you?
Jem:uh, Look, my solution to that question has always been the ahead
Jem:in investment in machines, but I'm not a hundred percent anymore.
Jem:That that's the right answer.
Jem:I think Is a discovery process of building commissioning and running.
Jem:The pencil sharpener has sort of led me down much more sort of nature route.
Jem:And so rather than going goal, if we want to stay ahead, we need to
Jem:invest 350 K in a five axis machine.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:I mean, I'd still love to do that.
Jem:That my thinking now is more like, we're sitting on so much sort of design IP,
Jem:and there's so much power in building a custom machine, potentially also
Jem:building low costs, single purpose machines that can make certain processes
Jem:really efficient in order to support a product line that is unique, I think.
Jem:Yeah, that that's kind of our approach at the moment and where my head's at.
Jem:as with all these things, it's my thinking tends to be very
Jem:fluid and changes week to week.
Jem:But
Justin:same.
Jem:yeah.
Jem:But I do love my robots.
Jem:So, you know, any excuse.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I think last few of Saunders, his tours have pushed my thinking quite
Justin:a bit beyond what I normally thought about in terms of like automation type
Justin:things with I've seen any of those.
Justin:I forget the names of them at the moment, but there's been a couple of good ones.
Justin:The metal quest one was quite a while ago actually, but that was pretty shocking.
Justin:Just the levels they go to, to do one sided setups of crazy tools
Justin:that go in and backside chamfer backtrack machine from one setup.
Justin:Those kinds of things, I used to live in Nebraska is where they're from.
Justin:This is interesting to me see such high level of technology thinking and just
Justin:progressiveness in that kind of machining level that allows them to compete
Justin:with, like they were saying like Asia basically, and keep stuff here versus,
Justin:I mean, I ran into that all the time.
Justin:It's like, we're not competitive with Asia in any sense.
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:recently ask us for our quote for a set of parts that would be tough to
Justin:make they're all 3d machines, small parts.
Justin:They were getting the made 30 times cheaper than what we could possibly do it.
Justin:And I was like, I don't know, man.
Justin:We pay a good wage.
Justin:I don't know.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah, yeah, I mean the, and that example that you gave a metal quest is a good
Jem:example of what, you know, how far you can push a simple machine to, like, you
Jem:don't necessarily need the big, expensive machine to be innovative and be ahead,
Jem:you can continue to push a simple machine harder and harder and get
Jem:more and more squeeze out of it, I suppose, to stay competitive and ahead.
Jem:So yeah, it doesn't have to mean investment.
Jem:That can be internal investment, I suppose, in terms of your processes and
Jem:thinking and innovating within that,
Justin:yeah, for sure.
Jem:that's something we've sort of chatted about for awhile as a business
Jem:is where we're growing, but we're growing internally with the resources we have,
Justin:Tell me more.
Jem:You know, you've got a set of tools, you've got a space and
Jem:we've got a team or very capable.
Jem:We don't have to add more people.
Jem:We don't have to add more machines.
Jem:We're not going to build another shed.
Jem:Let's grow within the resources that we have and maximize now output,
Jem:I suppose, out of those tools and
Jem:resources that we have.
Jem:So we could grow quite a lot.
Jem:Like we're aiming to sort of double our revenue over the next
Jem:12 to 18 And that's none of that should involve more people or more
Jem:equipment.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:That's all just internal.
Jem:You know, we might hit a point where like the Sprite base can't cope anymore.
Jem:We need to upgrade it or we need another spray booth or like we might
Jem:run into things like that along the way that we can't sort of plan for.
Jem:That internal growth thing is something that we seems quite feasible.
Jem:And we've been chasing that for a couple of years.
Justin:Interesting.
Justin:So do you have proof of it working already?
Jem:Yeah,
Jem:Yeah,
Jem:Yeah,
Jem:For shell.
Justin:Very cool.
Jem:And I think part of that is simplifying as well.
Jem:Not trying to be everything to everyone, which is something I've always tried
Jem:to be like, yeah, I've always been the yes, man of like, yeah, we'll try that.
Jem:We'll help you.
Jem:And that's how, that's how we've grown the business.
Jem:And that's part of my identity.
Jem:So it's been a hard thing to try and shift, but I can see the potential in.
Jem:The more stuff we say no to, and start to shut down.
Jem:The more opportunities I can see opening up in the areas that
Jem:we actually want to working in.
Jem:So
Justin:Cool.
Jem:it's tricky,
Jem:but,
Justin:I've felt like this for years and it's frustrating that we're always
Justin:like right on the edge of growth, like that, that have more and more all the
Justin:time, the equipment, the people, the resources to do those kinds of things.
Justin:And then the only thing I can blame at this point is myself, honestly,
Justin:for like why it hasn't happened.
Justin:But it always feels right around the corner.
Justin:Like there's so much more capacity.
Justin:so much more capacity than what we're pushing through at the
Justin:moment, like product, or like I was talking about before.
Justin:So we have products that don't don't sell or aren't scaling.
Justin:Like we want them to, and we can make a lot more of all of it.
Justin:Right.
Justin:And it's just not selling as if, as we'd like to.
Justin:So that's still high on my list it's basically necessary for
Justin:like the Nack wall to work.
Justin:You gotta be able to start selling it in a way that isn't just me, hopefully
Justin:posting on Instagram or Facebook marketing or something, you know?
Justin:So that's a big, big effort of mine lately.
Jem:yeah, it's tricky.
Jem:Huh?
Jem:I'll share a simple question that my business coach asked me the
Jem:other day after I shared some of our business goals, you know, and he,
Jem:his simple question to me was, you know, that's great, but how are you
Jem:currently getting in the way of this?
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:Cause it comes down to us at the end of the day where the business owners, it's
Jem:all our fault, it's all our problem.
Jem:And we're the ones that get in the way whatever it is we're trying to do.
Jem:I like that.
Jem:How are you currently getting in the way of this result?
Jem:I've got a paste it up and trying to sort of come back to that.
Jem:Think about it.
Justin:Yeah, no, I'm, I'm highly aware that that's probably largely great at
Justin:starting things, but it's not always my forte to continue or to push them beyond
Justin:maybe the beginning phase sometimes.
Justin:And so, or I'll just get bored of stuff, honestly.
Justin:yeah, so that, that's the part that I haven't figured out how to add
Justin:somebody else to the mix or something that helps push that beyond it.
Justin:I think that's, that's pretty critical for me.
Justin:Anyway, if I had to guess
Justin:you need a business coach
Jem:yeah, yeah, no, I'm the same.
Jem:Like I start everything and get excited about everything, but actually
Jem:execute, executing and completing is the heartbeat official having
Jem:feeling accountable to your team.
Jem:I find a really valuable tool, like setting up any sort of little
Jem:accountability loop within the business where you've told even, or external
Jem:to the business of like having someone that you chat to about your intentions
Jem:and I'm in leaving this like re listing or editing episodes of this.
Jem:I hear what I've said and I'm like, that's right.
Justin:I got to do
Jem:I had made a statement, you know, I said something and then
Jem:I, now I need to deliver on that.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:I think, yeah, accountability is a big one for me to
Jem:actually get anything done.
Jem:Then I need to deadline and I need to feel accountable to someone else.
Jem:And then I'll get it done
Jem:if there's no deadline.
Jem:I'm stuffed.
Justin:the deadlines are killer for me.
Justin:Cause it's like, but you know, you set your own deadline and then what it
Justin:just comes and goes because somebody wanted a quote, you know, like, yeah,
Justin:I haven't been doing well at that.
Justin:I was gonna say, oh, speaking of accountability then I guess
Justin:we'll just, we'll start now.
Justin:How have you started changing your Kitta parts, sizes, dimensions?
Jem:Nope.
Jem:I have not
Justin:What's the first thing you gotta do there?
Jem:first steps.
Jem:I like it.
Jem:I'm asking the hard questions.
Justin:I just cut it off before you can ask me about what mine.
Jem:Yeah, I think I've gone the opposite direction.
Jem:Even chatting to John yesterday about new products.
Jem:He was saying he'd taken some offcuts or not ask guts some
Jem:seconds, like a blemished kid apart stuff, home to make a little shelf.
Jem:And he'd made kind of a half size, one of the normal, the normal regular set.
Jem:And he was like, Jem I think we should offer like a half size set.
Jem:Cause it'd be a better price point.
Jem:And
Jem:I thought, yeah,
Jem:cool.
Jem:Would be great idea.
Justin:sure.
Jem:Let's let's do that in the photo shoot tomorrow and like
Jem:just put a house size together.
Jem:And then that means there's now another kid of pots out in the world.
Jem:If we bring that online,
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:make making excuses.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:That's definitely the easier method to continue with the
Justin:thing that's already doing.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:I had a customer out during the week.
Jem:Who's really keen.
Jem:On a Kitta parts that can take vinyl records.
Jem:And that's one of the key critical dimensions.
Jem:The new system will include is the ability to store vinyl natively, which the current
Jem:one can't but not high shelf spacing.
Jem:So I think first step is to do a couple of custom orders for vinyl configurations
Jem:and maybe collaborate with a customer.
Jem:Who's got a really nice set up or nice like audio gear and say, we'll
Jem:make you this beautiful thing, maybe at a discount or something in exchange
Jem:for a photo shoot at the other end.
Jem:So we can get a shot of it with your, you know, a beautiful 10
Jem:tables and amplifier and all the stuff that's really hard to do.
Justin:It's a good, a
Jem:When you don't have any of that stuff.
Justin:That's been one of the hardest things I've been trying to work through
Justin:with Nashville is like literally got to attach it to a wall, to take photos of it.
Justin:And most people don't want holes in their wall after the fact.
Justin:So I thought, okay, I'll give it to them, but then they want it.
Justin:I don't know.
Justin:I don't have any friends that like this works out with.
Justin:So that's a good idea.
Jem:yeah,
Justin:Hmm.
Justin:Now so when you're changing this, is it a programming thing?
Justin:Cause I, I would imagine your design capability.
Justin:This is a fast change, but it's more of a decision-making and then execution
Justin:of changing the production files,
Jem:To be honest, the production side of things would be so quick.
Jem:Cause I haven't.
Jem:Yup.
Jem:Shopify updating all the digital assets I think would be the slowest.
Justin:Air power, man.
Jem:Oh, yeah, pat was there, but you still got to populate it all.
Justin:Yeah
Jem:that excuses, the biggest hurdle for me is just making that
Jem:decision on the new dimensions and
Jem:committing to it.
Justin:yeah
Jem:so if I start with a couple of custom jobs, that'll help me move me along.
Justin:yeah.
Jem:Cause I feel more accountable to my customers than I do to my own deadlines.
Jem:And so things will happen.
Justin:That's true.
Justin:Huh.
Justin:Cool.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I mean, even if you're just I think we talked about this, there's a company here.
Justin:They came up with this phrase that I had an email it's called a render
Justin:type and they just make renderings and then throw them out there
Jem:Uh, what
Justin:render.
Justin:type.
Justin:R E N D E R T Y P
Justin:E.
Justin:So that's the idea that like you just make a rendering and not the real thing,
Jem:Oh like PR PR
Justin:See if it's at, see if it's interesting.
Justin:It gets enough reaction instead of investing more time into it.
Justin:If it gets no reaction or you can do pre-orders theoretically, but you could
Justin:maybe like you're saying, make your digital version, throw it out there.
Justin:See if you get new takes.
Jem:I've done this.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I'm
Jem:done.
Jem:The challenge with that is capturing that, you know, did this exact thing
Jem:with the vinyl specific killer parts last year, it was one of the most
Jem:popular posts I put on Instagram ever.
Justin:Oh
Jem:And I, and I did nothing with it.
Jem:Like it was capture that's.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:I find that really hard to then go.
Jem:Cool.
Jem:Lots of people engage with that.
Jem:Lots of people want that right now.
Jem:What's the next step.
Jem:And I didn't, I didn't
Justin:Yeah, it's easy to get lost in the other things.
Jem:Well,
Justin:I mean, the first time we ever showed the Nack wall publicly
Justin:really we'd spent months working on it.
Justin:We went to this local makers market thing for the holidays,
Justin:and I did just a time-lapse on my phone, set it up across the space.
Justin:and we just basically were setting it up on this little display,
Justin:rearranging stuff to make it look good.
Justin:It's one of the most popular posts I've made.
Justin:It was literally, I was trying to catch people in the local area.
Justin:Hey, come check us out at the maker's market.
Justin:I'm like our CNC page, not the Nack one add like crazy.
Justin:All over.
Justin:And I was like, oh, okay, well, that's really encouraging.
Justin:I don't think it got anybody to go to the market, which didn't really matter.
Justin:But same thing.
Justin:Right.
Justin:It's it had huge engagement.
Justin:It's not that that's like made me get it out to sale faster,
Justin:but it made me feel good.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:You probably thought of this kind of thing too, I like to try to capture
Justin:people's interests whenever possible, off of social media with like I've
Justin:been using air table farms quite a bit.
Jem:Yeah,
Justin:if you're interested in this thing, sign up on the form and
Justin:the, you know, link in bio and that way you have an email or something
Justin:to follow up with a phone number.
Justin:if
Jem:yeah,
Justin:farther with it,
Jem:yeah.
Jem:That's a good idea.
Jem:We have done that with one new product that we've kind of got
Jem:listed as presale and that's good.
Jem:It'll be interesting to see when we finally get it.
Jem:How many of those leads convert, but Yeah, definitely good to have those eight.
Jem:Definitely better to have those emails than just
Jem:comments on Instagram, but shell.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah, I like that.
Jem:I'm Maritool till thing you sent me.
Jem:That was a bit mind bending.
Justin:I think about that all the time.
Jem:How did you come across that?
Justin:I just follow them.
Justin:There are local analytical United States manufacturer and the founder, I believe
Justin:Frank seems to run their Instagram and he just told the story one time back
Justin:in 2019 about how they used to make crazy amount of parts, brass parts,
Justin:like fittings, and they would bid them.
Justin:This was before he started marketing.
Jem:Okay.
Justin:bid them basically at a loss and then sell the scrap
Justin:to make profit in the end.
Justin:And I was just like, what?
Justin:Like, God, I
Jem:That's my that's my brain a little bit.
Jem:Just trying to work the logic of that out.
Justin:I think it's probably not uncommon.
Justin:I would imagine.
Justin:I mean, maybe it, maybe it is, but that competitiveness to try to take jobs,
Justin:you've got to squeeze every little, last bit out in that kind of market.
Jem:Yeah.
Jem:I mentioned that market's ultra competitive,
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:making little bras, threaded
Jem:any small pop.
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:So he's showing like a brass fitting on this post I'll share.
Justin:Cycle time is 3.8 seconds.
Justin:Part is made from one in one quarter inch hex brass and is 0.5, five long.
Justin:You can make 220 pieces per 12 foot bar.
Justin:Each bar was $66 30 cents in material.
Justin:They bid 25 cents for the part, and then they would just
Justin:make their profit on scrap.
Jem:Wild
Justin:Oh
Jem:it does make me think about ask graph.
Jem:Cause we didn't, we didn't have scrap that can be sent to the metal recyclers.
Jem:So very rarely,
Justin:Yeah.
Jem:but we have a lot of timber sitting around.
Justin:maybe we get into that.
Justin:I want to talk to you about your workshop at some point, I have it on here,
Justin:but I find it to be incredibly cool.
Justin:I don't really know anybody, anybody else doing those kinds of things?
Justin:Also your same thing with trying to compost your plywood or your
Justin:scrap material to is pretty cool.
Justin:Like both, both great things that I think I'd love to hear you
Justin:discuss in a little more detail.
Jem:Yeah, we'll get into that another time,
Jem:but yeah, certainly no shortage of remnant material in our workshop that
Jem:we could convert into sales with a bit of time and energy, but so easy
Jem:to just be led into the next project and into the next sheet of plywood.
Justin:I'll give myself a little credit.
Justin:We do these certain parts, those little shelves behind me.
Justin:I've been setting up the small and the medium sized ones to be
Justin:a patterning of kind of two rows.
Justin:So it only takes like, 15 inches by a full sheet with.
Justin:And so you can basically cut them out of any type of little scrap.
Justin:And especially if we've been prototyping them, you just need a little piece to cut
Justin:two sets of tape two sets the shelves.
Justin:And I'm hoping that over time that helps reduce waste for, like you're
Justin:saying, like we have a little bit of scrap go make some shelves,
Jem:Cool.
Justin:just, using like NC programs a little bit smarter than I used to
Justin:in the past, I think with not having to have somebody set ups, but then
Justin:being able to just post using the patterns more smart, more intelligently,
Justin:find that pretty, pretty nice.
Justin:More smartly
Jem:great sentence.
Justin:Words.
Jem:Yeah, I think there's a lot of power in making good fixtures
Jem:to deal with small remnants.
Jem:Absolutely.
Jem:I'm going to go off and do my unplanned.
Jem:Photo-shoot
Justin:I can't wait to see your unplanned.
Justin:Photo-shoot
Jem:maybe I'll spend an hour or so before, before he gets
Jem:here to do some planning.
Justin:what's your storytelling method.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I'm hopefully gonna get this dang thing put together so we can do some ducting.
Jem:wait to see.
Justin:I know.
Jem:Does it seem strong?
Jem:Is it going to
Jem:snap
Justin:here's what's crazy about it as I was definitely concerned.
Justin:PETG is very flexible.
Justin:As
Justin:Ricky has told me a few times, what's crazy.
Justin:And I suppose I should know this from the minimal engineering
Justin:classes, I took you put the clamp on for the duct, super strong.
Justin:It like completely makes it rock solid.
Justin:I haven't even attached to this part yet, but I think the same thing will apply
Justin:that when they're both attached, then you're just waiting on it to de-laminate.
Justin:Maybe
Justin:this is my, my only concern there, but it's
Jem:thickness.
Justin:it was 70,000 on the first one.
Justin:This is 75, mil,
Justin:maybe
Justin:about two mill.
Justin:Oh
Jem:Sweet.
Jem:Thanks.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:I don't know.
Justin:We're just going to have to like, you know, yes.
Justin:I really want to like sell them, but I think we need a
Justin:torture test that a bit because
Justin:it's
Jem:for sure.
Justin:time I've ever tried this kind of thing.
Justin:Yeah.
Justin:That'd be cool.
Justin:Hopefully it improves.
Justin:If nothing else, it has way more volume.
Jem:Fantastic.
Jem:Yeah, go and break it and then make a better one.
Justin:Yes.
Justin:Hopefully break.
Justin:Just, just make stuff.
Jem:I,
Justin:Somebody said that once.
Jem:someone did.
Jem:Yeah.
Justin:All right, I'll see you later, man.
Jem:See ya.
Jem:Bye.
Justin:But I listened to this podcast that they never have a sign off.
Justin:They don't say buy, they just cut it off suddenly.
Justin:I've listened to 50.
Justin:A hundred of them gets me every time.
Justin:I'm like my podcasts stop.
Justin:Like what's wrong.