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Episode #30: with Luke Bennis
1 Oct, 2019 | 41 mins 02 secs
1 Oct, 2019 | 41 mins 02 secs
On this episode of Newy Tech People I chat with Luke Bennis, Co-Founder/Digital Designer at Brandsynth. We talk about how he helped build this service, where the idea came from and his experience so far.
Hope you enjoy the episode.
Here you can source all the things we have talked about in the podcast whether that be books, events, meet-up groups and what’s new in the newcastle tech scene.
Welcome to NewyTechPeople today we got Luke Bennis from Brandsynth.
Brandsynth is a design automation service and so we all that we create your branded documents from your brand design variables so logo color imagery fonts then we auto generate through smart algorithms and layouts your branded documents so business cards letter heads email signatures presentations deal flyers just air all the essentials plus a few extra things and we’re gonna keep growing that list but the essentials of really important part early on last so it helps a business might have a logo or even doesn’t have a logo you come to you guys for a one-off fee you can have your logo design or input your logo and then you can turn it you know all the marketing collateral you need yeah so we we yeah we’ve taken the point where if you have a logo that’s that’s that’s a good place we don’t sort of create it for you we do have a little service in there to do like a nice solid font logo using google fonts to sort of write your name in a nice neat way which really feeds off like a larger trend of like eBay Google the really big players do that anyway their subtext logo so really early on it’s a great way to just grab that anyway so we do have that in there but really it you bring your own logo to it’s totally the way to go because there’s lots of logo generators out there really high quality once or not that not competing that space we’re about the consistency and the and the breadth of your branding that’s what we’re about and so you bring your brand in those variables and we’ll do sort of everything after that and keep it consistent but yes it takes look at things really nice too because it’s free as part of our subscription and it’s we give you the SVG and high-res PJ’s and all that sort of stuff as well so it’s kind of just thrown in there that will be interesting to see how much that’s leveraged I think yeah really nice man yeah I can speak personally mmm – are the challenges of creating on things when you small business starting out yep you’re on the cheap and I see I’ll get whatever it’s needed to be done and then trying to go from there and actually create some consistency with you brand is yeah as a real challenge yeah you know personally I did mine on the cheap and nicely before building a little bit I’m coming to you yes designer say like like I sort of helped us with the new attack people are gonna also have much am recruiting logo and then trying to create some consistency and brand through the website through yeah I don’t know images and everything we use so I hmm yeah and that’s that’s the thing like it’s it’s a brand is a business asset it’s a valuable thing right a logo is okay but it doesn’t some actually yeah a valuable thing it’s like a consistent bad brand is better than no brand correct but that consistency is really it’s difficult to get to but it’s it’s something to keep in mind like logos are kind of easy they’re the first step and obviously very important but yeah that consistency is a real challenge for everyone yeah hey great hi great and it’s a thing that a lot of businesses wine tackle until they’re later on but yeah it seems to solve that problem I know you know I really I’m for for my small business just get something done right get something out there yeah and then as the business builds there’s you know there’s more money in the bank and then you can turn to you know I came to you as a yeah as a design professional to get it done but it’s something like Branson’s was in place at that time I might have been able to use that from the start and had that sort of brand and since the arrive from the start right yeah absolutely and that like exactly that is what I hope will be in that as a designer I would prefer that to I prefer you to come to me with he’s my basis for stuff that I’ve really got let’s build on that yeah instead of me and I’ve got he’s my hodgepodge helped me wrangle it a little bit cuz we actually go back a little bit and start from the basics and move up and that’s not the most efficient way to do it necessarily but that’s just reality but yeah it would be great for you to go hey I’ve got this and this and these and these but now I sort of know what I want to sort of tweak and make more bespoke and build on top of it and maybe not even change some stuff because it’s just basic and working whatever that sort of thing so yeah Branson’s is about getting the first version one of everything and then once you get to the point you just talking about yes start building on it or replace these replace that but you’re doing you’re spending your money where you know it’s valuable and you know what you want to get out of it as well so yeah exactly that little process is right so I think I didn’t have to tell you that too much I say back to me that was nice bacon for personally I knew he tech people logo was done through freelancer yeah replica and I can straight out of confidently use a black and white and you know changed up a little bit and then give us different variation yadda yadda yadda has continued to go and got some consistency through the website yeah yes now being rebuilt so yeah I think like a personal experience something like Branson to the early days would have been really valuable yeah and I think you see that with a lot of small businesses startups that consistency across platforms it’s a consistency with your social media posts and things like that yeah really good quality brands and they just look on point yeah and you can tell the brand and the start like this time yeah yeah yeah and it’s not about having like exactly the same thought the one image or something like that you know consistencies and just that it’s not about being boring and that sales but it’s just being within the bandwidth of your just your brain but setting a few like here’s our stuff and using everywhere some people can recognize it yeah yeah we’re not using a different font style on every day yeah yeah just a few yet just a few things yeah nice man yeah um one that back a little bit I like to you personally you obviously come from a design background give us a quick overview of like your career and then we’ll talk about your co-founder and then how Branson’s come together but you personally had that had that yeah I just saw that regular print branding graphic designer so I went to TAFE out of there worked at local printer Greg tap printing now I’m great printer and just was the in-house designer there and got to do lots of great work indeed heaps every day so that was really good training gran and they went to McDonald owns homes in the marketing department there and then after that sort of jumped out into the freelance sole trader wild wild west type scenario but was working with Shannon at crackler so as co-founder therefore co-owner there a little bit for a while and then have worked with him and still do now and then through that freelancing and working codex places a lot which was really good met Colin and Charles some social pinpoint so that was early on too so I’ve been with them from early on essentially contracting to these people and then sort out if you and then over time yeah we’re suing graphic design and then taught myself web design was doing that for the last few years quite a bit minutes and through social pinpoint because their assess product so the teaching as a product UI design you know jumped into that area of sort of design and coding a little bit inside swery and now that’s what I really like doing the most and want to keep doing and then so then obviously co-founding assess product fits into that really well because I can do a lot of the work that needs to be done there yes that’s me just regular graphic designer sort of through Web Design into into UI design and UX and whatever other words you want to throw around that but yeah the designer because now very nice yeah and then you’ve partnered with a co-founder to to get this product bill yep yeah Andrew Rutherford yeah so he and I met about a year ago now yeah and just got on well and and and he had a pre-existing piece of work and and so I was you know beautiful Newcastle style co-working so I’m you know Co workspace we flipped tangos coming in for a bit of space in our thing and Andrews working with them to do a bit of work and I I work with live tango for a bit of UI stuff Andrew sees that and goes yep that would you know really good that’s like the way that you solve that problem do you want to come and help me with my product to tighten it up and so we started working like that and I went he’s product did and then I sort of saw an opportunity there and I said well I I know what your product does on the back end and he’s what the design industry or what I do as a designer I think they click these things together so it’s just that he could like he could automate my job that’s what he software was doing so I sort of clicked those IDs together and then over time we started to do that project together and we have just come together to you know do it do this together yeah what was a timeline on this sort of product being buildings look like well he had some existing IP that had been working on so he was about three years in then and then we’re now so so it’s actually four years but in terms of brain-seed specifically that vertical like yeah not even a year yet about coming up to about November will be a year I believe so pretty fast yeah injuries unbelievably fast very talented but yet like it’s just been a lot of it’s been around like you know packaging the design part a little bit like you know he’s the type of thing we’re delivering so we’ve got to get it really on point for that and make it understood and then a lot of them Andrews learned a lot more about design and he probably ever wanted to in this as well like color conversions and what a logo is and how I think about placing it in order to automate it which has been really great like we have lots of discussions back and forth or I just tailed him what I wanted want to do and then he throws maths at me and I that we try and have come up with mutual understanding has been really great like I’ve well so yeah we algorithmically place stuff based on you know some really predictable parameters but it’s it hasn’t been easy to get to but yeah turns out the area of the logo is much more important than its width or height you know even the aspect ratio is where we started but it’s all about the visual weight in the area of it you know how we use it and that sort of thing so it’s a big yeah we’ve got a few interesting ideas that we’ve used to be able to do this in an algorithmic way an automated way it’s not easy like your designs being manual for a long time yeah and so we’re trying to push against that a little bit yeah designers either hey yeah so far yeah it’s so far it’s a good thing because it you know I the only thing that comes out of brand synth will be something that I would would want to make yeah that’s you know as I look at it that’s what it’s all about it’s it’s definitely at the beginning safe solid design it’s safe being sort of a nice word so simple yeah but when you talk about getting a consistent brand across everything that’s exactly what you want like you get your name on it it looks like your stuff it’s consistent who’s that on top of that it’s the right file format you know it’s the right resolution it’s the right color space all that stuff you don’t have to think about as well so yeah yeah the old file for myself is taken care of as well I have been challenged for a long long time yes marking days aside yeah at the formatting this at home hey I’ll go digging for it yeah yeah awesome yeah every else so yeah yeah yeah so MB but what we’ve been able to do is separate the layout and design from that file type so you just you do that layer and as I once we can we can separate the file type so I can give you a JPEG PDF that sort of things that’s a nice little element of the tool that we’ve got very nice yeah how important do you think it was for you coming from that design background you know you’ve went through the web design but now into you know probably more into that technical side of it and important was a few you learn to code or learn more technical aspects of software very like there’s obviously people talk about does it suit designers code that sort of thing and I think it’s if the designer wants to work in software then 100% yes and it’s not I’ve never made production code right but it doesn’t like that’s someone else’s job so it’s not like you get a designer who can do both jobs that’s not what it’s about it’s about crossing boundaries and understanding what’s happening that like why I did design product design is sort of statically even design programs and then work with the developer to do so have done that for as well but the translation issue and the distance between what you’ve made and what you get is really large and also there’s a there’s a few areas of this so I’m really interesting but as a business if I put you know a thousand dollars in here to a designer to get this thing done and then I put probably a thousand two thousand into the developer to get it made but I Lou I lose a bunch of let’s call it fidelity or something in the middle here you’re actually losing money out on the initial investment because you don’t get the thing that sort of paid for out the other end there’s not develops fault at all but just that as a business sense it’s a really inefficient troublesome process but your coding is super important I I actually find all the design tools really frustrating the ones that are trying to help with UI design because they’re just trying to stop me from coding whereas learning that more and more and more it’s just maybe better and better and better so don’t use any of them anymore it’s just everything is code even though it’s static in station or CSS jQuery or JavaScript like so any developer there’s like yeah that’s the basic baseline but as a designer allows me to make things interactive responsive no I’m scalable yeah yeah so yeah I think that the differentiator is that you actually went to the to the lengths to learn that code where there are you know that there’s some middle ground where it’s you know people that just want yeah you know want a tool that can sort of turn in an axe into you know you like that yeah it’s about expressing an idea and like there is a link like there is a common language for it and so some of those tools are just as hard to learn as HTML CSS a little bit so it to me it’s just about like yeah you need to express it some sort of design idea and actually the code is the best way to do it because you want to hover and lose and like have spacing all those other things so yeah it’s it’s just super important and the other the other really important thing is like although I don’t write production codes say angel I have a shared master style sheet at least so I am I am contributing to the actual product there day one like I keep that tidy and I refine it so they’re like you know I do actually influence that and the efficiency gain is massive yeah so yeah and in even like more recently a social pinpoint I created a rudimentary a beginning design system for them which is just this set of design variables and parameters and objects in the interface that they have but it’s and is pretty simple but like it’s it’s very neat and tidy and I made it in a way that’s very accessible for the developers but it’s all in code it’s essentially a big set of code pens that I’ve gotten in my way for him to get to but because it’s in code all their designs now they can they pull it out and make it perfect so that translations got them because they know exactly where to get it they literally copy and paste it so it’s just like and I’m talking about making a button and some headings and some inputs you know some forms like box shadows and in just going here he’s the box show that we use and just that brings consistency and high value yeah and it’s nothing like this there’s no code there it’s just a style sheet really yeah yeah it’s it’s super important I can see there like if you’re a designer sitting here and wanting to get to UI design it’s a big distance but if you have been through web design a bit then you know you’ve got some foundational stuff so I did do that so it is a difficult Road but web design provides a nice path as well so if you’re providing advice to a desire the moment they want to move down there you’d say go website first yeah totally because it’s also that’s a highly valuable skill as well like product design is a bit further down the line in terms of being niche but web design like so many opportunities for that and even even like that’s not saying code of website fully yourself work and that’s not even saying like you know you CMS like WordPress you can go back another step and go like if the client is a Shopify or Squarespace even you interacting in that environment and learning how it works is highly valuable in for that client you can do that like just you’re both using square base but you can Squarespace but you come in as a designer make improvement yep highly valuable and you’ll learn heaps and then over time you’ll move on to the next step three or four years down the line you’ll be making your own websites and be is just as annoyed at WordPress is everyone else once you take yourself a little bit you understand how well you can change oh I know how to do this once you want to be able to do the same elaborate morning yeah just feel fine that’s it you just go down that route yeah and web design is beautiful like that it’s just really a set of a thousand small tasks a thousand small things to learn eyes I saw it as and because you just build and build and build and by the time you’re into 200 you feel like you know what you’re doing and the rest of us just building on top yeah yeah that’s a continual anything right yes like you think you know how are you doing yeah you think you feel like you know are you doing again and then you look at on Safari like things like that that’s just consistent you know then you get into the top level is its baseline but it’s tough you got to get to and bring that baseline consistency for you know I mean I told myself so this is how I see it I just you know waning the deep end and redesign my own website five or six times before trying to provide it to someone else and but even then like you know just yeah main things as good as I could eventually just say you told yourself you didn’t do University or how you did pay for a bit TAFE yep would you do a TAFE just the deployment of graphic design yeah yep – two is two years yeah yeah and then you’ve taught yourself a bunch of but Zion and code have years to anything online to do that have you how’d you go about teaching yourself just know like and know online formal courses or anything like I have like some would try to dive in now those but purely like just even on Stack Overflow and all the other things like googling what you need at the time that’s why I seed in that really linear way like I was like okay I’ve made myself a wordpress site I’ve got that like on some hosting so now I want to adjust the thing and over time you just figure out how to move every part of it so which is that like how do I get this menu to do this google it find it move on so like web designer Depot and my wordpress beginner and all that all the main sites that you run into like I’ve just seen everything all essentially so yeah just that I’d be very very very very few occasion through you run into something that someone else no yes you don’t have a unique problem in your find yeah informations over there yeah it is it is all they like it in like you know if someone’s sitting around wanting to learn it and I’m saying more just don’t teach yourself right it’s like well that sounds pretty difficult and long but the idea is to have a project like because I didn’t set out to learn a thousand things I had a project and I need to change four or five and those things just were easy to learn and then it went from there so my own website was the best place that’s what that’s where I started smashing that up and I had like a friend who was a programmer and I said to him initially like look I want to try and do HTML CSS like what do I do he threw down the HTML for Dummies book at me and sort of help me unpack some of the crazy language inside of it which isn’t that crazy but yeah that was really good just to have someone yeah to do that so that’s really good because the Internet is so cold and it’s text a little bit contextualization from someone who’s really useful but once you get the baseline you should be off on your own so yeah he can have one percent of the credit it’s good to have a mentor so I’m done yeah but just the things he’s somebody you can bounce things off right totally yeah it’s probably probably experience that through building brand since at the moment is very like a partner it’s a co-founder who is super technical yes yes you’re not you know writing code day in day a you’ve met somebody there you can bounce off hey how do we do this how can we do this yes can we do this is probably a daunting question absolutely yeah yeah well in what’s kind of great his injury is fantastic he’s at he’s a like a back-end guy in general but and he’s really learning the front-end stuff which is great as well but yeah when it comes to just styling and CSS like I have got more experience than him and so there is sometimes a little bit of like I’m over here prototyping something he’s like how did that like how did you do that sort of thing and we get a little bit back and forth but that’s where the front-end is kind of nice is Web Design you know and code meet so it’s yeah it’s really interesting to be able to have a little bit back and forth yeah cool I too like sort of met him your Casa obviously building a software product on Newcastle yeah um which is a group not don’t once a grant friend but it’s in a little bit more of it which is great I’m a how you found Newcastle for obviously you’ve had some success in finding co-founder but have that come about you’ve met you mentioned the lefty the lefty story a bit there you you know you spend some time together but how do you find that whole the Newcastle taxi in that we got I find it pretty good I mean I’ve worked in Coburg spaces for the last like five six years maybe more something like that so yeah in all sorts you know in a few of them and so that’s been really good but that’s been paramount like the cowork space to me is that underpinning thing to me in my experience because I like meeting Colin from social pinpoint he’s the CTO would be right here he’s more technical one you know we’re working just alongside each other and he needed some design work down and then we bonded over a mutual hate able to do apps and so then we started coming up we just you know we’re just doing that like what could we make that we did and we just went like that but I would never run into Colin other without that cowork space it’s just that right yeah so new cuz is really good for that technical space I think like there’s lots of meetups and and that sort of stuff but there little bit siloed I think cuz I would never go to the JavaScript meetup group which and I was a really good one yeah but only because I’m a designer and I code like a tiny little bit of code in like the toddler language yeah and I would want to go there you know I do this – araignee you know that’s why I wouldn’t go sort of like – but that’s why when you say a group she might miss out and a few things so but does that cross that stuff I think is really good weather which is where the code works places come in yeah yeah so I think it’s really good day like I don’t my experience is that just in being involved with nuit tech startups yeah that’s yeah that feeds into that or what was that I just believe that getting people together without an agenda like literally an agenda of speakers like they’re literally no agenda and then no outside agenda is just really positive like because you just find people yeah now I can super important and for those that don’t know looks done or the I guess the branding can you startups again can use try and get some weight again guess see there cuz super important yes um you know stars could probably do it some more consistency with their event schedule probably good yes that’s right when everyone’s volunteers yes yeah yeah put that on myself with all those dropped balls my time I’m sorry go experience in Newcastle give Iverson centigrades and start up saying over the last couple years as well yeah how do you say that continuing to evolve yeah I think it’s probably just more there are more COEX places that I think that probably really helps it and there are more meetups and hopefully things like new tech startups is a good one and places like I guess place like the business center and slingshot places where the the focus isn’t on like a particular skill but just the idea office of say a start-up I could have a technical and non-technical but the idea of a startup is sort of like some sort of leverageable product some sort of let’s use the word disruption I don’t really want to but some sort of disruptive product you know something new right so that in general combines us all yeah you’re a recruiter I’m a designer when would we have ever really connected apart from this idea around how interesting startups are yeah and and then all the parts that swirl around inside that yeah so you know we’re all just people who work in different domains that then overlap with that so I think anything in Newcastle that helps people generally interested in startups is a really positive thing because that’s where all that overlapping happens great opportunities and that’s the opportunity on the flip side of that was to be its challenge probably depends what you’re building because the Newcastle is you know the size of Newcastle is because it is meaning that if you’re in a bigger city you might have some not opportunities but some just there’s more stuff there’s more people but for some look like we’re building an abscessed product and what I would call you know just purely SAS so Newcastle shouldn’t really play a role we could be from Tamworth or something like that shouldn’t really matter but yeah I don’t know perhaps that her closest Sydney we all might be a problem just because you know people go there and don’t come back or that sort of thing like I can imagine it’s problematic in the recruitment area a little bit so yeah I don’t know my perspective is I don’t know this many challenges this is my first time building something so yeah i’m yet to find the challenge i guess but i see really positively so I’m probably optimistic yeah oh my and you’ve also found a really good co-founder and your technical yourself so computer I’m mmm and there is a total lack of technical talent in Newcastle on scale yes yeah I know as he said it’s getting more access to that in one of the capital cities or something like that yeah just just through scope right so it’s just that sort of thing but on the flip side from an advantage perspective you’re you know you went through a beta testing over the past few weeks or months yep being Newcastle having probably closer tighter relationships that probably allowed you a better more honest feedback through a beta phase yeah yeah absolutely like you know you send someone out an email and it’s but you know I see it is only my personal relationship with them that you know gives them the obligation to open it and spend a bit of time looking at it which is great that’s why you build a network and relationships but this is not not just a network that’s like you know real relationships that we will want to work with each other and with each other’s stuff so oh yeah it was heavily relying on that um yeah because it was only it wasn’t that many people I didn’t send it out to the people who I sort of you I wanted to look at it they can look at it when the products done but people I knew you know I thought it liked me and I said okay I spend 30 minutes on it on air oh yeah yeah it was really important yeah yeah I spent um what’s how do you go to market with a a a SAS product built in Newcastle it’s a good question that’s something to figure out well no I’m gonna go content marketing is gonna be the main thing yeah um I ran the design space sorry around the design space content around yeah like II just the problem right you know if you’re if you’re a founder trying to get design I understand as a designer the problem because it’s a problem on the design side too so I want to just talk about that as much as possible II got sort of you know really did not generic but broad advice content around that because I really I find it quite interesting and I’m pretty passionate about that like design is a problem for all of us on both in terms of how manual and bespoke it is so there’s no way to really make it more efficient or cheaper in a good way so yeah content marketing around that because I find it really interesting medium is a great place for them if you ever read stuff on there but you know even I’ve got a couple of articles up there just sharing ideas and things that I’ve had and it’s just really cool somehow they’ve like curated high quality content even though anyone can put it up and now they’re quite doing that a super-clean that’s both yeah yeah it’s great it’s a nice place to take something and say just that but look to be honest where I’m trying to leverage the fact that a good product is always its best marketing so you know the product is good in my mind it mean that like we’ve had a bit of luxury of time yeah so you know this product isn’t we didn’t get an MVP out you can get eight months this is this is actually a product really in my mind you should you know they always say you should ship your MVP you shouldn’t be happy with it sort of thing it lost those bits we want to grow pretty happy with it to be honest it’s like there’s obviously stuff on the grow and change but yeah so I think we’ve actually got a part so I’m happy with I’m pretty sure when people use it that you know the that will pass it on to other people who are relevant so that’s yeah and then content marketing but and then we’ll move into the more traditional areas but yeah that’s something we’re gonna figure out a little bit more yeah but yeah look I might in my mind my vision is that this is I would like it to be the no brainer product for startups so that means that it’s a no-brainer meaning that every other style it feels good to talk to all the other ones yeah and then partnering so we’ll be like we you know we wish to and we’ll be partnering with sort of yeah the scale-up and incubator programs and I sort of stuff because fellow adverts a shared problem for all of us to get these startups design you know right and make communication really stop we’re talking about so for the incubator and us and everyone we want to get it done efficiently for them and done well so yeah that’s that that’s sort of thing to be your partner’s gonna be big thing so yeah I feel yeah yeah I mean not even a you know I don’t know what not even a feeling too much but just yeah I think they were coming to it but just just being and being able to offer it and what people offer be to discount perhaps and things like that just that they’ll help us get to startups as well so whoever wilt to us we’ll go and talk to him will reach out to all those groups the touch base with startups very nice yeah which nearly taking starts is good for yeah there’s a growing seen Andy Carson hexane as you said there’s sling shot there’s a little work up here the assassin is doing more and more and that’s not up space as well and the unis like obviously the Amy’s got programs going on so yeah we sort of touch base and we’ve got a pretty good design culture in New Castle I can give some really good agencies around so obviously if they can become your biggest allies yeah you’re in an even better position yeah totally agencies – I’ve talked to a couple of them they they like the product which is cool and yeah and I’m I understand that from a design and a business perspective I think it’s got links in that space so they’ll be able to provide some interesting products through it as well like obviously would extend the product for them yeah more bespoke more customized features yeah that’s really easy for us to do so yeah we’ve got a really like the product is scalable not scalable flexible really and that you know if you want this to be like that this is not too bad for us to change it and it’s not us forking the product which is a classic problem of like having slight revisions so yeah and we’re just looking at what to do as well talk to the partners around those pins but yeah I think the design agencies like where can people find Branson Brinson calm so yeah jump on there and you can try it out and there’s more info around like the park there obviously and some setup guides and what sort of stuff and then I do I’ve got we finished common case if anyone still linked off to a couple these other projects but so we’ll link up both those anyway I’m more in bed Oh last question on the prep and we had the biggest failure / oh [ __ ] if I’m on time again I’d do that different that you’ve experienced during this release last year working on Brent sense if I didn’t it like yeah what was it what if I mocked up you mean like yeah um what’s a war story you’d be like all my life I find my time again I wouldn’t do that which might help somebody else building at peace with self where yeah look I think I’ve had a bit of a lunch of time and space to make the thing because I’ve been able to freely and set the same like sustain myself so I haven’t quite gone all even let’s say I wanted to but haven’t done that which i think is one of the biggest challenges of building anything but but on the flip side of that like I sort of wish I went all-in sooner if that makes sense in that like if you’re going to build something and you believe that this might be your future that putting in the effort and and yet making the commitment to it is really important so actually I sort of would like like that to go back earlier and some more full-time yeah it’s not no it’s not it’s not easy I mean I just hope I’ve got my 18 months old at home my daughter’s I’m part time with her so it was a terrible time for me to make a new business and a new product but you know there’s never a good time there’s never a good time yeah it’s just yeah so balancing out all those things but yeah I’m a fortunate I’m sorry I don’t have a bad thing so we haven’t done it yet so like as in like you know we’ll probably have a bad thing that will come and I’ll have a great answer for that but so if I would just been ticking along and had the luxury of time and space to make it a little bit so that’s not usual so that’s what I’ve been learning from other people finding that information yeah yeah no that’s cool you know by yourself you’ve a part time not a part-time dad you’re a full-time dad yeah yeah that’s right I’m dead mom I call myself the dead mom yeah you’re doing that while building a software product you’ve done freelancing on the side as well to give my kid their bills being paid yep how do you how do you manage out from a Productivity perspective I just well I mean the best thing about productivity is a less amount of time you have the more you like to get something done you’ll just get it done faster so I’ve just am super efficient we’ve got to get done and have a few days to do it um but yeah look I also manage it in the sense that my freelance is built off a few key relationships so that means that it’s probably not as overwhelming as it sounds so I know I’m doing this where stops coming from and that sort of yeah and you spoke about your mutual distaste after dualists with : before yeah – de lesseps yeah have you found anything that is your box yeah not quite like I I still have my version of the to do app in my head that I want to make and I haven’t seen it yet so it’ll come out and these things that do parts of what I want to do but they don’t do it not that mine would be that good I don’t know but I just want it but I use notion that has been a lifesaver know she’s smashing notion so there’s a new apps a new unicorn that everyone can have a look at but I’m yeah it is a wiki so it’s like it’s like you never know but but it’s more markup based like a lot simpler but just a lot more powerful really simple like yeah like it’s free for ages which is great I paid for it but yeah it’s a great app I collect everything that I do in oh I buy you know I put it every night into it it has an extraction for that that I mean you know survey money out there’s using Evernote which I am which you are then have a look at notion it was Evan that’s good not bad but I know she’s just so good note-taking perspective yeah just know it’s a bit everything like I mean you know I embed you can embed everything so notion is where I collected all that design systems off for social pinpoint and then because you get a live link for that page it’s like making many websites I mean it is a wiki product yeah we make wiki’s in it but you can yeah you can just do a page or you connect them or you know so it’s really flexible I do all my personal stuff in it and all my client works and when you do a UI with me or some other work I actually create a page for us and I put stuff in there and explain something like images and explanations and it’s like a little wiki of the work it’s not even email alright anymore so it actually takes me out of email and out of my other note-taking others that is a big wrap it’s very good issues but yeah well yeah if you can tell Branson’s as well see yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah everybody’s in those compelling oh no an ocean that’s very good awesome you’re pretty educated dude you’re obviously build pieces on blank you can for my family you know your stuff let’s put it that way where do you do your learning well online so like like any good nerd I have a good feed of things that I’ve called down to follow a few websites and but mostly you really like a reading has been a big place like it that’s why they let’s start with those few websites ready yeah well it’s a bit of a collection of few design ones and some just for I there’s no single one like you know place up web designer Depot and some really big ones that people know like I see on top of those and CSS tricks places like that but those things in aggregate really like I just sort of watch what’s happening on those and pick up yeah tips and tricks through them and otherwise like yeah actually fit I look at that much design stuff but yeah I read like a lot of feature in which I find really helpful so I’m actually a little bit down yeah out of scope that hands off on the design space just because I you know find it not useful yeah so look for other places to learn really like I’ve gotten a lot into behavioral economics like so like the free economics podcast is really good yeah that side of things because that’s you know money and psychology smash together so that’s a really good like it’s like it’s just business right but also design designers like me visually communicating something to you but also like emotionally and basically trying to manipulate you into some sort of feeling about it right so that’s that’s ecology it’s all psychology it’s all those bits so like I try and yeah I like to read about other things I find it also use each other so that’s why you know your design then your code a bit and you do some other things I’ll do a bit of video editing in animation and try and pick up all those bits at least a little bit yeah and then and then feed them all back together see what you know yeah so that yeah I just read the nonfiction a lot and then I’m reading my personal MBA at the moment which is amazing what’s that just yeah like it’s just the book that summarizes an entire enemy a into like you know a absorbable part but it’s just really succinct amazing I remember who wrote it I’ve sort of seventy percent throughout the moment so I haven’t turned back to the cover yet but yeah I can’t reason a bit it’s very it’s quite famous it’s been around for a long time me Andrew gave it to me and so you should really smells a lot of two pages it’s it’s amazing so because I don’t have any business education apart from just being around sort of other businesses and starts and design agencies are an interesting place to get business experience because we’ve helped we help lots of clients do stuff and so we get to know about them and their business and what they’re doing especially when you help us startup yeah I’m so looking from the outside in it’s been really interesting across lots of businesses but that not that that’s real knowledge that’s just like actual
experience a little bit of experience just seeing stuff but yeah so now I’m trying to actually put it all into practice yeah my you can learn lots of experience but yeah if you ever buy that with simulation so yeah yeah boy you know you personal experiences and CSer the chronology you probably all the better for all right totally yeah yeah that’s what I’m trying to do that if you had to wheel it all back and give yourself some advice oh yeah you just said I’m from the actual building software product you jump into the area yeah but what about hope on a whole career-wise yeah well I think as a designer because that’s what I’ve been you know most of the time would be to key into the business side of things more or understand where you fit as a designer in the business because you know yeah you know you saw that generally here like I’ll get the design to do that but you know how long is that gonna take and what am I gonna get out of it and it helps you key into what value actually providing so you know like I don’t know I was a designer for years without ever really considering that that element of it was like oh he’s a brave do this thing together so yeah King into that soon it would be really good to just understand business in general but also where your value comes from you know yeah there’s an occurring appreciation for design though yeah yeah and not no longer being seen as a pure cost Center but actually and set to the business yes yes some ROI yeah you can actually prove it these days rallies oh yeah this is yeah that’s probably part of isn’t that we didn’t track and maybe and do things like that yeah you mean you like your changes that have like to increase conversions of the other 2x X percentage increase in revenues or whatever yeah yes ma’am hmm for people say well brand since calm yep yeah Bri and d sy and th yes calm like a synthesizer so April May I will and cut up in the show notes and then you’ve mentioned your personal website over to it there that easy so you can touch the yeah absolutely yeah and brain since the moment let my websites just there’s a whole my email but um BSO brain since that’s the one like I’m sitting by the contact form waiting refresh yes just hoping that this took part doesn’t work yeah I think that doesn’t count to my yeah good luck with Branson I’m sure I’m sure to do well and hopefully yeah it really kicks off for you guys thank you thanks for coming on the podcast today my pleasure man thank you
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