Jody Haneke is a walking personification of the phrase, “build cool sh!t for your customers.” As the head of a bespoke software development company, Haneke and his team bring product ideas to life for his clients that truly want to harness technology for growth. 

Join Jim and Jody as they discuss building awesome digital experiences for customers that keep them coming back. 

3 Key Takeaways

• Harness Talent From Outside Your Industry: Haneke talks about being able to transfer what he learns from his healthcare clients to clients he’s working with in logistics. Cross-industry talent can offer fresh solutions to age-old problems.
• AI Isn’t A Magic Wand: Too many businesses are jumping on the bandwagon, claiming they do AI, but are barely using it to its fullest potential. Before diving into AI as a hopeful business solution, check if it aligns with your goals and see if it’s even possible to tailor it to your needs or the needs of your customers. 
• Understand your Weaknesses: Building a successful tech startup requires a diverse set of skills. But what if you're missing a crucial piece of the puzzle? If you lack a certain combination of attributes that every founder needs (like technical expertise, marketing savvy, or financial acumen), why not team up with a like-minded partner who complements your strengths and weaknesses? 

Resources

Jody Haneke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodyhaneke 

Haneke Design: https://www.hanekedesign.com/ 

About Our Guest 

Jody Haneke is President and Founder of Haneke Design, a software development company that was founded on user experience design, with in-house full stack custom software development capabilities. With clients such as NYSE, Paramount Pictures, and Target, Haneke Design launches digital products that amaze end-users.

Jody is on the Board of the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation and an Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR) at the University of Tampa. 

Haneke Design has won over 50+ design and user experience awards throughout the years and continues to expand its business solutions with a core commitment to process and innovation. 

About The Dirt Podcast 

The Dirt is about getting real with businesses about the true state of their companies and going clear down to the dirt in solving their core needs as a business. Dive deep with your host Jim Barnish as we uncover The Dirt with some of the world's leading brands.

If you love what you are getting out of our show please subscribe.

For more information on how we dig into the dirt check out our other episodes here: https://www.orchid.black/podcast

About Our Company

Orchid Black is a new kind of growth services firm. We partner with tech-forward companies to build smarter, better, game-changing businesses. 

Website: https://www.orchid.black 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/orchidblack/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OrchidBlack 

All contents of this show are rights of Orchid Black©️ and are not to be used unless authorized by written consent.

Jody Haneke 0:00

Yeah. I mean, I think we're following the same trends that everyone else is Google all the big guys. I mean, you get big, big, big. But if you really want to innovate, and you really want to do what we do and help our clients do, you then have to act like a startup. And so even if we're working with a big company, I mean, we see this now by having like, you know, Chief Digital Officer, that was like, kind of the first thing or like now there's product management and product people, right. So all of these design thinking like, all of these trends, and all of these things are basically a way for larger companies to act more like startups and all the positive ways.

Jim Barnish 0:40

Welcome to another episode of The Dirt sponsored by orchid black, a company that has mastered the science and art of maximizing value for b2b businesses. I'm your host, Jim barnish. And today we are going to talk about yet another way to maximize the value of your business via digital experiences that amaze and delight, custom products, custom software, building cool shit for your customers. Our guest, Jody handke, his company Hannukah design. If you get value from this, or any episode, don't forget to subscribe for regular weekly downloads on how to maximize the value of your business. Alright, Jody, welcome to the dirt. Great to be here. Yeah. Great to have you, man. So let's just start with the basics. Who are you? What do you do? Why should we care?

Jody Haneke 1:32

Jim Barnish 2:21

And how long have you been doing this God.

Jody Haneke 2:24

Jim Barnish 4:34

Yeah, that's awesome. And well, you know, you you focus on building these products and these experiences for your clients. And it's all with the idea of you know, them maximizing the value of their business, which is what this podcast is all about. So when you when you think about your approach to design, how does it How does it align with business value and maximizing business value for Your clients.

Jody Haneke 5:02

I mean, really, our goal is to really understand what the technology trends are, and then a make the decision on whether or not they will have impact that these technology trends are applicable to our clients businesses. And then not only are they applicable, but then like how, you know, how do you apply some of these new things, you know, what was mobile, which was like, almost like the.com days, right? Where it was like, what's our mobile strategy, help us figure that out? Then moving into things like AR VR, and even like web three, but now like, the next big thing, AI, you know, everybody's just throwing it around. But what we do is we're like, does it even make sense? And how does it make sense? And how do we bring that into the fold for our clients? So that's how we think about it. And that's, you know, it's designed, but really, it's innovation. You know, I think, you know, when I went to school, you know, it was graphic design is what I was being taught, but really like, again, this was even before the terms were coined, it was design thinking, you know, and the same way you solve problems as, as a designer, is the same way that you have to look at solving problems and innovating for business, it's the same thing. So it was, it was fortunate that I had the experience on that design side, but also the aptitude to jump into technology and embrace and understand that. And then also to jump into a business that I had no idea how it operated, or how it worked. And then basically say, How do I take all these pieces and bring it together to solve a problem. And in some cases, you know, our clients come to us already kind of like partially there, you know, where they're like, they've done some research, they've looked at products in the market. And they've realized, or they've even been using some products off the shelf on them, that that are out there. And they've realized that it comes up short, or there's this unique thing that it doesn't do that, you know, applies to their business or industry. And they know that they want to create something, but they don't know exactly what that thing is. And they certainly don't know how to visualize it and and bring it to market effectively. So that's, that's where we come in. So in some cases, we're just suggesting and offering up ideas based on triangulating the technology and the trends and the business. But in other cases, our clients will come to us with a starting point of that. And then we refine it, or pivot or just apply our experience to that. And our experience, too, is like cross industry, right? So, you know, when we work with a client in healthcare, we think about what's going on in logistics. And we're like, there's, there's something here, right? There's something where we can take what's more traditionally done this way and healthcare, apply what people are doing here in this industry. And now all of a sudden, we're doing something unique and innovative for healthcare clients.

Jim Barnish 7:51

Yeah, that's really do you have any examples that you can speak to on that?

Jody Haneke 7:56

I mean, I think that like, you know, bringing, you know, a lot of folks in whatever industry you're in, are trying to implement, let's say, like, like a commerce aspect to their solution. And what's funny is just because they're in a certain industry, they kind of immediately just start kind of from scratch on what that part of the process looks like. And, you know, what we do is, you know, we'll come along and just say, what are people used to like defining and building user personas? And saying, like, no matter what, who you are, at what level you're buying stuff on Amazon on your phone, like, that's standard, right? So when we design a solution, why are we going to deviate from like, what is standard? You know, what I mean? So applying, you know, traditional aspects of how people like, purchase something, or how billing is performed, and just really going for what's kind of established and what's understood, and then just bringing that to whatever solution that we're working on. So yeah, I mean, a lot of those things that are really important. And like I mentioned healthcare earlier, we do a lot of work in healthcare, I mean, kind of in a lot of different industries. But I think healthcare is a space where it's almost like the end user, ie, like the patient has been totally and completely ignored. So going, looking at health care, through the lenses of like, consumer applications is like really exciting, you know, to basically say, Where's the innovation? Like, why are we not getting the results we want? Why are people not logging into a patient portal, and it's like, because it sucks, you know, it was not built. It wasn't purpose built for a patient. It was literally like, some large technology provider, whether it's the you know, an EMR EHR solution, just checking the box, that they've got something where a patient can log in and download their their blood test results and view a PDF. It's like, what point is that? How do we take that information, convert it into something that's more meaningful to the patient, you know? And how do you apply AI to scan those results and then infer something and then suggest something through a chat interface. I mean, that's the stuff that we're that's where our brain is constantly on basically on an everyday basis. So it's a lot of fun. It's challenging. But it's rewarding at the same time when we come up with something that's truly unique, and novel, and something that's going to help our clients differentiate themselves from the competitors and improve their bottom line results.

Yes, that's terrific, man. So like, when you when you're talking about buzzwords like AI, right, or industry trends, like AI, you know, how do you how are you guys leveraging your expertise in these areas? To contribute to solving real world business problems for your customers? Is it is it that they're starting with the technology first, and you're like, hold on, like, whoa, like, let's start with the business problem, or they usually at least starting with the problem and just getting excited about industry trends, or somewhere in the middle?

I think I think you see both, I think you see some people who are like, Hey, let's have a session where we can really understand like, what AI means for our current tech stack and our current applications, and we can help people kind of on you know, we can be a real resource in those discussions, and even help workshop those things out, then you have other people who are not even thinking about trends. And and wondering what that how they apply. They're literally like, I got a pain point here. Like, this is the pain point, right? Like we need to read, we need to our sales cycle is entirely too long. So we need to go and look at what the steps are, where the where the roadblocks are, where the blockers are, where the delays are, and the need to come up with a solution to that right now. We're using a CRM, and we've got a customer over here. So then, then we're going through, you know that and not only just looking at, like, kind of what they have, and trying to solve the problem, but also like, Okay, well, what are some of the new technology trends that can address that? You know, can we introduce a kind of a chatbot? Here, instead of having all this back and forth email, you know, what I mean, where there's delays, because you're waiting for a response from like, an admin person in India, you know, so, I think, I think it's one or two ways, you know, it's one where they basically say, like, okay, help us understand, like, how to apply the new trends, or if they, they apply. And then the other is, like, we got to have those tools in our toolkit and bring out the right tool for the job. So it's a it's so it's constantly like training and learning. You know, you got to have those tools in your toolbox, but you also have to know how to use them. You know, it's just one thing to say, like, oh, we do AI, but it's like, okay, you have that tool, do you know how to use it, and you know, the best way to use it. And so, for us, that's a that's a constant. And I think that our clients find value in us, because that's hard to do, kind of like in a large corporate environment, you know, they're so busy, like maintaining existing systems, kind of keeping things alive, and then putting fires out. That, you know, they need some outside perspectives, you know, people that job it is to stay on top of those trends and make the translation into how it can make sense for that business. And that's, that's where we come in.

And when you're looking at a fortune 500 business versus a startup, right, is this, is this two different business units in the way that you guys operate? Or is it the same people serving both types of clients?

It there's no distinction. I mean, I think we're following the same trends that everyone else is Google all the big guys, I mean, you get big, big, big, but if you really want to innovate, and you really want to do what we do, and help our clients do, you then have to act like a startup. And so even if we're working with a big company, I mean, we see this now by having like, you know, Chief Digital Officer, that was like, kind of a first thing or, like, now there's product management and product people, right, so all of these design thinking like, all of these trends, and all of these things are basically a way for larger companies to act more like startups in all the positive ways. And so our approach, you know, when we're dealing with a fortune 500 company, and they want to build a product that never existed before, we're using lean, agile, MVP, you know, we're, we're using all the same processes, and terminology that we would with a startup and putting on putting them on that same track, in some cases, even building like, a budget and resources both on the client side in our side, it's almost a business unit just for this new product. A lot of the companies we deal with, wind up with a digital products, but they're a services company. So like, you know, literally like culturally even like the it's, that's a totally different way to think. So from day one, when we meet with people, and we realize we're going to help them invest a lot of money and build this product. We're telling them like, we're looking at them and saying, Do you have product people? You know, do you is that or is the same person who's handling your Cisco implementation also responsible for this technology like and the roadmap like, so we're having you know, there's, it's, it's interesting, I mean, you No, we're having business discussions with our clients and, and really trying to consult them as much as possible. And again, the big guys kind of act like the startups, you know, and in some cases, the startups, you know, acting a little bit like the big guys, which is just like, hey, let's, let's get the right adult supervision in the room, let's, let's fill in all those other gaps do we have? How are we going to handle payroll, you know, you know, what is our staffing needs and resources. So, but the process, the idea of bringing a digital product to market is pretty consistent, whether you're a large company or startup.

Alright, let's let's switch the discussion a little bit to a few things you mentioned early on that, you know, I'm always fascinated by which is kind of his journey, in growth, to being a founder and to evolving into a leader and all of those things that kind of go with being a CEO and founder and that evolution, is there. Is there any pivotal moment in your career, where diversifying your skill set or experiences, or anything like that played a crucial role in your professional growth?

Yeah, that's a great question. And there's really, there's probably two things that come to mind. Probably the, the first one was a pivot that probably I probably made 810 years ago, where I brought in a Director of Design. So you know, from that point, I was, you know, it's, it's kind of like an architectural firm, where the lead architect kind of is the design director, you know, they're, they're providing kind of like the rough sketch, and then it goes off and gets refined and engineered. I was doing that from day one, and actually then going doing the work too. But I've made the strategic decision. As far as my personal career, is concerned, to hire someone to do that, I realized that, in order for us to grow, or at least sustain revenue, there needed to be a certain amount of sales and business development activities. And I was at a point where I needed to either decide to hire that person, or hire someone to do the design direction that I was doing. So that I could concentrate on the business development and being a CEO, like running a company. So that was probably the first major significant pivot or adjustment that was made, as far as you know, myself, and my leadership and what I was doing to contribute to the company. And then the other one was just kind of, you know, learning about how to really understand the cultural differences between people. And, and demographics and the different, you know, let's say generations of employees, we've, we've, it's on Gen X, you know, so it's kind of fit in that zone. But then you've got, you know, millennials, some boomers, right, you know, you've got a pretty big spectrum of people that are within a company like ours, and you really have to, you know, you know, I grew up with, like a kind of one size fits all management style. And I've learned, you know, through the good and the bad that that's not, that's not the best way to manage, and that you have to really understand people's DNA and kind of what makes them tick. And, and also make sure that people know, you know, we do great work, I'm so proud of the work that we do, I see just amazing things coming out of our team all the time. And I really had to make a significant pivot to make sure I express that, you know, you think it and you think everybody knows it, but you got to tell people, you know, you got to make it a real point to, you know, let people know, when they're doing great work. So that was another another thing, you know, so again, you know, one one was really delegating part of my original job responsibility as a founder, which is kind of like, I mean, everybody does it, you start by doing everything. And then basically divesting the things, that someone else you could hire someone else to do so that you could do the things that only you could do. And for me, that was business development. So that was number one. And then number two, was just really like, I mean, when you bootstrap a company, which we did, you know, revenue funded from day one revenue growth the whole way. You know, I own 100% of the company, you're not really thinking management style too much. You're thinking like, I gotta keep the doors open. So, you know, that comes with maturity and comes with time. And so that was probably the next kind of pivot for me it was just to, you know, switch that up and make sure that I was being sensitive to the culture in the organization that I have now.

Is there. Well, thank you for being so brutally honest. But also, is there a specific challenge that you faced in managing these diverse age groups and If so, like, how did you overcome that challenge?

Yeah. So I mean, the, you know, when the millennials came into the workforce, and our you could, every other article you could read was about people complaining about oh, well, they're gonna, yeah, like, they're not motivated, and they're entitled and all this, and I kept reading all that stuff. And and, and again, that's not my generation. And I kept thinking like, wow, this is, you know, and then I actually turned around and I looked at, like the majority of people in my company, and they were millennials. So I'm like, why am I? Why is that not as much of an issue for for what we do? And I didn't really, I mean, I was doing what I do. I mean, I didn't really change too much at that time. As far as how I was working with them. And I thought to myself, like, I think I know what it is, I think it from what I understand, you know, people nowadays in the workforce, especially the young folks or younger folks, they want to know that they're contributing to something bigger and better. They don't, you know, working on a piece of the puzzle on a cog in the machine where they don't really see a direct impact of the work that they're doing is a problem, you know, they want to and that doesn't just mean like, I want to work for a company that's contributing, you know, to society and more of a philanthropy philanthropy way, at all. It really means like, oh, I created something that never existed before. Oh, we have a case study where we built this technology that like, saved millions of dollars, like, wow, that helped that company and grow and scale and hire other people. Like when you connect what you're doing in your day to day job with those outcomes. You know, that is extremely rewarding, you know, and I think that generation feels that way more than any other one. You know, there's probably a boomer generation, you know, or my parents or something like that. I mean, like, work was work, like, you work like, okay, you don't love it, like you just, that's what you do. You know, and that's much different nowadays. And I guess I've just been fortunate enough, even personally, to always, I mean, since I graduated college, and being a designer, like none of it was ever work, you know, it was like being creative. You know, it started with drawing pictures and making like, mixtapes and stuff, like when I was in high school, like, it was cool. Like, I didn't even know that that was a job. So for me, it was like just a natural fit, because like everything, I wound up doing full time for a living was associated with something that I had passion for. And I could see it manifest itself as something that never existed before inventing things, you know. So not sure if that answered your question, though.

It does. But just on the flip side of that for a second, too, right? Like not everybody has the entrepreneurial mentality, where they're just going to naturally gravitate towards something, that they're gonna be able to change the world with something that they own. Right, right. And that's okay. And so to me, that's where like, a big part of that disconnect is, with millennials, is there a lot of them that don't want to go start their own thing? But that doesn't mean they don't want to feel ownership as part of a bigger system? Right?

Absolutely. So yeah. And that's why that I mean, that leads into everything I was saying earlier, in that why companies that are smart, try to create a startup culture within a larger organization, that's how you're gonna get the most out of people, a that's, that's proven to be successful. And in inventing products and bringing new innovation and IP to market. As a big company, it's just proven that that's the right method to do. It's probably also a great method for retention, and attracting talent. And what we do, I mean, we've been in business for 23 years. But if you were to come around our office and talk to our people, you'd be like, Oh, my God, this is just like a million startups in one company that's been around forever. So if you want a job working for a company, where you're not going to go and start your own, you may even be like risk adverse to go work at a startup work, great environment for you, you know, because you get an opportunity to work with a company that's been, you know, revenue funded from day one, profitable, solid, stable, and also be working on a with a bunch of startups and building and inventing new technology. So that's not a pitch to come work for us. But obviously, online.

So no, as part of that, comes this continuous learning, right, in different and diversification of skill sets, and, and obviously enjoyment, but like, I'm just curious as some of the things that you're doing at Hana key to, you know, really drive and adapt the team to this ever evolving tech landscape, or is there anything around professional development or continuous learning that you've got, like in a programmatic way for folks on the team?

Sure. So So two things on that one. There's a certain amount of DNA Be involved in an individual who's going to perpetually learn, no matter what, you know, these are the, you know, go back to like When Swift came out, which is the current programming language for iOS. And before that was Objective C, you know, we had guys who like spent the weekend and came back and they're like, Okay, I think I got it, it's like literally learning a new programming language, you gotta want to do that or you don't, you know, and that doesn't mean you know, there's not value for somebody who's like, I went to a trade school or some kind of vO tech thing I learned dotnet back end development, and I pretty much just want to hang my hat on that and find the right job where I can just crank, there's that there's plenty opportunities out there, and you can do very well for yourself. But somebody who's like, you know, here's, here's my toolbox is more than one tool. And I want to continue to make that happen. So there's that, right. So there's, we want to find the people that are the ladder. And then also, we do provide, you know, all kinds of opportunities for people to, they can gain access to online training, through all the tools that we subscribe to, we do provide, you know, we do look at forecasting their time. And of course, our type of services business, we need to have a certain level of utilization. But anytime there are gaps we always look for, okay, this is an opportunity next week, you've got about two days, you know, to go and just dive into AI, you know, okay, let's talk about what what we can do, maybe by the end, you can demo something for us. We also do weekly developer lunches, so once a week, we bring lunch into the office, and we do go into the office still, which is good, three days a week. And they all get together. And you know, we do have some virtual folks, they get online, and we all group together. And what they'll do is they'll somebody will choose a topic, and they'll go through about something that they learned or scaled up on or you know, watching some videos, and then have some discussion around the table, we do that for every department. So we do that for our delivery department, all the project managers get together and resource managers, so they get together do the same thing. And of course, our our design team as well. Design and strategy. So you know, I think even just that one thing, right, like putting that team together, you know, once a week bringing lunch in, and provides a great opportunity to, you know, really improve on the culture, just people getting to know each other and kind of hang out a little bit. But then also we use that as an opportunity to introduce kind of new technologies, new topics and new trends.

Yeah, very cool. When when you you know, maybe just rewinding a little bit, were there any moments that you took on a little bit more than you can handle maybe it's, you know, too many team members growing too fast, maybe it's too much cash burn in another way, maybe it's, you know, too many clients that maybe not weren't large enough, and you weren't able to sustain the pace, but anything that you took on more than you could handle?

Alright, so I don't know, there's, I don't know how much time you have. But like every example you mentioned, there's, there's probably a story around that. So I do think that we're pretty selective now about on the startup side, there's a big difference between an actual startup meaning I quit my job, I put a team together, I raised money, and I'm gonna go build this thing versus, you know, somebody who sends us an email that says, you know, I work all day as an AI as an attorney, or a CPA, you know, my son has his I cool iPhone, and I think I can create an app to do XY and Z and you want to talk to that person or like, Okay, well, what are your What are your plans? You know, I don't know, you know, I think I think I got some a little bit of cash in the bank, it's something that, you know, I wanted to mess around with, I think that we've, we've gotten way more realistic with those folks from like, the very first discovery call, you know, to the point where we let them know that there needs to be some level of commitment to this, that typically, a startup involves funding and involves creating a team, and that team can be pretty lean on his side, you know, lean on us heavily in the beginning, and then kind of fade out. So we're just we're just educating those folks, you know what I mean, and then we, we perform, it's probably about a three or four week definition sprint, which is something that we've created. It's got elements of like Google Design, sprints in it, and whatnot. And it's meant to take like the vision, which might be like a PowerPoint, or like an executive summary of a vision of a product and like fully fleshed out, as far as defining all the epics and user stories, acceptance criteria, doing some prototyping and things of that nature, so that we can really accurately estimate and we can build a roadmap and then estimate like maybe what the first version of the app is going to be. And if somebody is not willing to invest that much time, three to four weeks, not a lot of time, but in our team to come in and help them figure that all out. We won't work with him. You know, you know it. We know it's, we know that that is typically not a good fit for us. So as far as like, you know, what we've said kind of lessons learned about out like clients and kind of the where we can achieve the best results for them, they have to be serious, you know, from a startup perspective, they really have to be committed, we treat it like, we treat it like a venture capital firm, you know, because if because if that if your VC were to hear a pitch from a startup who's got their act together, they, you know, they've got a team, the person quit their job to go run this startup versus the guy who's got the day job, and he's trying to scrap something together on the side, the VC will never invest in the ladder, it's not gonna happen. So we we kind of feel the same way, we know that there's, the things are not going to go well that way. So that's one thing that really helped us kind of narrow our focus on the startup side on kind of the right fit both ways. For us. And then the other thing is, you know, we probably like, over, you know, we've had times, it's been a long time, we have 20, full time, and people full time, folks, right now we've been as high as maybe almost 30 There's kind of a sweet spot for a services company like us, you know, if you're going to get over 30, full time resources, or even close to 30 You have to have a different a whole different organizational structure, and probably even be in a different in a slightly different business model type of situation, versus kind of like, staying kind of lean and mean, you know, 20 to 30 employees own. So, you know, you had asked about clients and kind of like narrowing that focus and figuring out kind of, you know, who who's best to work with, again, both ways. And also like headcount and, and burn rate for services company, you know, if you're, if you're going to be revenue funded, and not have outside investment, and you are going to stay that way, you really have to find the right balance of full time headcount in order to to achieve the best results. I think once you get to that point, where you're saying, we're going to grow this thing, headcount wise from an FTE full time, headcount wise, now you're talking about maybe doing like, like, like a roll up of regional offices, you know, what I mean? Like, where you, you're, you're trying to, you know, you're creating kind of more of like, a platform of different companies in different markets, versus having kind of like, one place with just one owner and 200 employees and do what 100% pressure professional services? That's a really hard thing to do.

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned that that transition of, you know, kind of 2030 plus people and shifting of business models, shifting of organizational structure shifting, have a lot of things, did you, when you when you mentioned that, did you notice that when you hit 30 People that things started to change, and that you weren't ready for it? And is that what led to you decreasing the workforce?

Well, it will a couple things. One is I already knew that. So back that company in the.com days, we grew to over 100 employees, and, and we were doing services. And it was good, because it was, you know, the floodgates were open, you know, it was literally the.com days, and we were helping everybody get online, you know, both venture backed startups and brick and mortar. So it wasn't a problem. But, you know, once that started, some of that funnel starts drying up, it's really hard to keep, you know, keep all those folks busy. So I just think that there's a different model for services company that wants to grow exponentially beyond the size that we are at right now. That includes different geographies, maybe working together, and also some some amount of nearshore type solutions that allows for kind of surge scaling up and down without having, you know, full time bench resources here in the US.

Sure. So your your 20 can become 40 or 50. Real quick with with, you know, the leveraging of additional resources.

Yeah, so we I mean, we already have a model I mentioned, we're 20 full time, but we have probably almost the same amount. And subcontractors that we we basically use for surge. So you know, we try to maintain a certain baseline level of profitability and utilization with our FTE headcount. But our growth really is around like, you know, having the ability to like, like, say yes to sales opportunities and business development. And should those things overlap and happen, our ft resources move into like code review and oversight and we start spinning up the outside folks, and those outside folks, we're not hiring, we're not looking for cheap solutions. Like that's not the idea. The idea is just affordable resources that we can spin up and down that deliver the level of quality that we want. So yes, are there a few maybe Mexico, South America and maybe one in Eastern Europe, plenty on the US soil, who you know, work with us just kind of 1099 Who we reach out to when we need to split them up. And all of them kind of filter their work through our, our dev leaders that provide the oversight for each area of our stack, all the code gets reviewed, it gets merged in, and, you know, it's, it's a good, that's our model. That's our model right now. That's, that's what we're doing. For for the time being. And I think that, you know, any moves towards like a big, exponential growth in revenue or headcount is going to be way more strategic than just more of this, you know, again, it might involve geography, and maybe some type of rolling together of maybe a couple of different companies.

When you look at things from a market perspective, you know, Rise of DIY, or do it yourself, websites, and no code tools to do it yourself build products, you know, when you look at some of these trends that are happening, or Gen, you know, Gen AI, what however you want to look at it, it's things that are, in some cases democratizing the ability for people to use these tools to build products and build sites, you know, what? How do you see all that coming together, you know, 510 years from now, to put Hannity in, like, a supreme position to deliver as much value as possible, but still leverage those types of tools.

So, you know, we're all learning, and we're all seeing how this plays out. But I really think that having tools that automate the creation of digital products is a wonderful thing. You know, even in creating like JavaScript frameworks, like that's, that's, that's an example, you know, we're basically, instead of having to write all this hand code, all this JavaScript, we're gonna use a framework, it's going to make it easier, take that amount of time, cut it in half, everything that we're talking about, with a no code, low code, this and everything. That's great. You know what I mean, ultimately, everyone's trying to build something. And the more efficient, the quicker you could do it, the less skilled, you might have to be in a certain area. Great, I think that I think those things are phenomenal. However, knowing what to build you right, like the instructions, the idea of like taking the world of possibilities of things to build is going to be is going to require human interaction for a very long time. You know, I don't see that. I don't see that being replaced anytime soon. And I see everything about the automation, the AI, the GPT, I still see them as tools in the toolbox. For someone who wants to build digital products, we just have to figure out how to use them. And if it means that, you know, one guy on my team can now do the work of four, that's awesome, you know, or he can do more work on Oversight and strategy with the client and less work writing every line of JavaScript. Absolutely. Let's go, you know, we're not looking for, we're not looking for like, how do we slow things down and Bill more hours? You know, what I mean? Like, look, we do good work, we're gonna get paid. I'm, I'm, I'm wanting an efficiency, you know what I mean, I want to build, I want to bring more products to market in less time. And so all of these things, I think, play well for us right now.

All right, last question, before we hop into the founder, five, cuz I was going to do that. But now you just brought up another question. So, you know, so many dev shops, or, you know, so many professional services firms in general focus, everything to cost per hour or cost based pricing. Right. But I've heard you mentioned a few things that lead me to believe that you guys leverage more of a value based pricing model in the way that you don't necessarily think about hours, you think about efficiency and value to the customer. Right. And not to say that you don't have to back it into an hourly thing at some point. But but, you know, have you spent much time thinking about forehand key or, or even prior, you know, cost based pricing versus value based pricing that got you to land on your model today?

Well, I think that to be clear about terminology costs, cost based pricing, I think what you're referring to you just to be clear is is time and materials, right? So there's an hourly rate established, estimates are giving and then you build time and materials. And then a value based pricing would be more associated with a fixed fee model in a time and material versus fixed fee. And value based pricing, doing a fixed fee is because hey, you know, we're bringing a lot of like, like value to this already. Right? Like, you know, so we are going to, we're going to add, we're going to give you a price that's based on the value of what we're delivering to you. So as far as we're concerned, it's really complicated not to do things on a time and material basis when you're working on products that involve third party dependencies. Almost every single project that we are actively working on involves our team, of course, but also our clients back end team, our clients, third party database provider who has an API that we find out is not actually complete yet. And now all of a sudden, we're helping them test it, you know, which was never part of what we thought we need to do. But hey, we're gonna jump that jump in there and help you out. So, you know, the unfortunate aspect of doing what we do at the level that we do it, we have to be accountable from Montana material bases. Now, that being said, you know, we've done work with some some folks who, who we can't bill, time and material, but let's say, there's, there's some clients that we've had that have grants, a Grant says, Hey, we're going to, here's a grant for X amount of dollars to go build this AR application. Well, you know, if we want it, if we want to do that work, like we have to commit, we have to figure out that, you know, we can do it within the grant. And we have to commit to get it done. And we've done, we've done things of that nature. And typically those things are done, where we can look at, we can put everything in a box, you know, we control the box. And if we can control the box, then I am much more open to be to doing, you know, a fixed fee or value based pricing on those types of projects. So,

got it. Got it. All right, awesome, man. So let's hop right into the founder five to close us off. So first one here is top metric or KPI that you are relentlessly focused on.

Utilization.

All right, second one is a top tip for growth stage founders like yourself.

My top tip would be to be very honest with yourself, and what your strengths are. honesty with yourself is the most important thing. And if you don't have a certain combination of attributes that a founder needs, go find a partner to fill those gaps. And do that in a brutally honest way. I think that would be my biggest piece of advice. And then as you grow it, make sure you're constantly hiring and delegating and divesting things that you might have done in the early early stages that someone else can do so you can concentrate on the things that you are the most effective app or can be the most effective to the company.

I have a favorite book or podcast that's helped you to grow.

I'll spit one out. That's somewhat personal. But I think it's it's definitely being well and healthy, I think is a really important part of being a leader. And so Ben Greenfield is podcast. He's a he's a biohacker type person. So a lot of a lot of really good stuff in there about, you know, keeping yourself well and balanced both mentally and physically. You know, which, as you get older, you start to realize, you know, these are important things if you want to still hit it hard every day. Be clear, clear, clearly focus on the task at hand. I think it's really important to be well and that podcast is fantastic.

And what does it bring Ben Ben Greenfield,

Ben Greenfield?

You know what it's called?

I think his name is if you search his name, it comes up.

Okay, got it. Got it. All right, we can happen in the next one piece of advice that count bears,

Ben green, Ben Greenfield life.

Ben grief. We'll also probably looking up Ben Greenfield, you'll find it. Yeah, you're good. All right, piece of advice that counters traditional wisdom.

I mean, this one allowed us to still be a company, which is, you know, you might really think there's no possible way we'll be able to do that project. We're so busy with this current one. Just say yes to every opportunity, or at least say yes to those conversations. Don't ever get so in the weeds on whatever, whatever it is you're doing. Especially this is a services company piece of advice, too. You know what I mean? Like, it's so easy to start and have, you know, one client that's feeding half of your staff, and then all of a sudden that one client winds up drying up on funds or pulls away or pivots or something and now all of a sudden you're looking around, like what do we do next? So saying yes to conversations, being a startup services company is is a is a lifesaver? It's it's absolutely one of the best pieces of advice for early stage services companies.

All right, last one, what is going to be the title of your autobiography?

You know that this is a this is a tough one. Being creative, too. It's always like, Oh, I'm gonna say something creative. So like, it has to be awesome. But I I think that in my life, I you know, high school As a terrible student, you know, I did, you know, I just, I really felt like, I don't know, like, what am I going to accomplish in this life because back then everything was like, I went to private high school and everybody was doing well, and going off to these different colleges and stuff. And I was like, I'm good at art. So, I got to art school, and then majored in graphic design, and then all of a sudden, I just was like, Oh, I have something here. And then what I decided was, I'm going to show all those people I went to high school with that, you know, I can take this and make this something, and I did it through brute force. So I think the title would be brute force.

Nice, like brute force, I will you've given a ton to our listeners, today, God sued time for a little bit of self promotion, how can those listening help you out?

You know, at the end of the day, you know, there's there's two things we need as a company. And obviously, we want to work on great and exciting products. So and, you know, any, anybody who's really, you know, interested in an innovation, and you know, again, they can be just kind of, hey, I think there's something here. We love having those conversations, and we love bringing our experience to bear, and kind of help people understand the trends and what they could mean for creating products within your existing company, or spinning out, you know, a part of your company. So, you know, if you all at all want to have a discovery conversation about those things, just Aniki design online, you'll be able to hit us up and I'd love to talk to you. And then the other thing is, people, you know, we're never we never stopped talking to talent, you know, design developers, you know, hey, maybe we could work together, maybe not, but we love the community here in Tampa, you know, that's where we're based out of and so you know, if you're in the area and want to swing by and say hi, and show us your show us what you're working on. We'll show you what we're working on. That'd be great, you know. So we're at Annika design.com Hit us up.

Alright, God, thanks for joining us. Thanks, everyone for listening in. And we'll catch you guys next time on the dirt. Take care. Thanks.

Thanks so much.

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