On this episode of the NTP Podcast we interview Vivek Jayachandran, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Jaegersoft. We discuss Vivek’s experience going from university to founding a Software Development consultancy company, the benefits of work placement and the importance of networking to grow a career in tech. Hope you enjoy the interview!

Listen to the Podcast

Watch the Episode

Show Notes

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.

• • Vivek’s LinkedIn
  • Jaegersoft’s LinkedIn
  • Jaegersoft’s Website
  • YouTube Resource
  • Forest Knight’s Blog
  • The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett Podcast
  • Calendly
  • VGuy Kawasaki Content

Find all local Newcastle Technology Events

• Event’s Page

Transcription:

00:00:13:22 – 00:00:25:02
James
Welcome to another episode of the New Tech People podcast. On today’s episode, we have Newcastle local Vivek Jayahandran, managing director and co-founder of Jaegersoft. Welcome.

00:00:25:05 – 00:00:26:10
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Thanks, James Thanks for having me.

00:00:26:11 – 00:00:35:01
James
We came to know each other a couple of months ago now. It’s been interesting to hear of your story. Can you share a bit about yourself and a bit about your background?

00:00:35:13 – 00:00:50:00
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I’m a I’m a new local. So when you for the last 17 years now studied through Newcastle University as a software engineer and we started the business up in second, third year of the degree, the value of the degree itself.

00:00:50:01 – 00:00:57:09
James
So yeah, that was probably one of the things I found most interesting. I was a full person, full person fan and team full university mates.

00:00:57:11 – 00:01:17:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Exactly. So the whole team, you know, we’re all we’re all, you know, newbie locals, you know, started in Newcastle Uni and we we’ve known each other for, you know, since the second year of the degree and you know, at the time had a lot of opportunity, a lot of, you know, you know, people hitting me up for, you know, freelance contract work more so and like development or whatnot and that’s how the business started.

00:01:17:16 – 00:01:18:14
James
So yeah, come from.

00:01:18:14 – 00:01:19:09
Vivek – Jaegersoft
The group together and yeah.

00:01:19:17 – 00:01:33:10
James
So that’s the backstory the founding story itself is four guys got to know each other. Second year university seen some opportunity in the market for custom software built essentially and then that’s that’s how the founding the founding teams come together.

00:01:33:16 – 00:01:38:10
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Essentially yeah yeah so you know web applications mobile application searching yeah yeah.

00:01:38:16 – 00:01:51:12
James
So that’s backstory Jaegersoft for people got to know each other second year university and just seen some opportunities in the market in software software you know custom software dev and you’ve build a team together to build that.

00:01:51:21 – 00:02:11:07
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Exactly. Exactly. So I’m not sure if you know because every engineering degree so even software engineering, you have to do industry placement. Yeah. So I was actually fortunate enough and you could even say it’s, you know, some sort of luck that I did my placement for them. So yeah, so honestly, one of the best experience experiences in general.

00:02:11:13 – 00:02:39:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. So good to work on the, you know, Clint and Trent and got to work firsthand with startups. Yeah. So I was the only software engineer, you know, part of the student cohort. Yeah. And as a result, that’s how, you know, a lot of talk, you know, a lot of requests for help and changing, you know, better dev work for us and yeah you know I joined did some contract work for you know interfaces across cross-platform mobile applications all over and I was like, yeah, you know what, let’s do it.

00:02:39:15 – 00:02:56:00
Vivek – Jaegersoft
But it got to a point where I got too much and I needed a new great bunch of guys, you know, from uni, you know, I’ve known them since second year and I was like, Yeah, let’s do this. You know, let’s there’s a gap here. There’s a bit of demand as we can see. Let’s, you know, we have a bit of interest in business.

00:02:56:00 – 00:02:59:16
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Why not just give it a go And yeah, so it started essentially.

00:02:59:16 – 00:03:12:10
James
Nice mate. You mentioned Trent chat back now I assume we’re talking about. Yes, there’s probably no no one in Newcastle that knows the startup scene or startups makes startups successful better than Trent. I think that guidance must have been invaluable.

00:03:13:02 – 00:03:34:11
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Well, I mean, 100% because like I’ll be honest, because before that placement we had no idea, you know, us being, you know, engineering students. You know, we all had the idea that, you know, once we get that degree, we had to possibly leave New Year and just go, you know, work in Sydney, Melbourne or even overseas. Right. And even like the cell culture itself, like we just had no idea about that.

00:03:34:12 – 00:03:54:12
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Right? So doing that, doing a placement like, you know, the internship with the MOH and you know, kind of listening to listen to and just essentially don’t work, you know, with clients and, you know, Trent Bagnall and, you know, hearing those guys, you know, the charges that they’re building up and the stuff that you saw it and saw, it was like was amazing product.

00:03:54:12 – 00:03:56:22
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Also, we can do this. So. Yeah, Yeah.

00:03:57:12 – 00:04:18:18
James
Well, that’s nice. You mentioned a couple of points. I want to sort of dig into the work placement, right. How this all eventuated. We have a well, it’s one of the questions we ask most people that if they go through university, you know, the benefits of university, etc., and we dig into that that work placement. Yes, the opportunity to work in a commercial environment while still studying university.

00:04:18:18 – 00:04:25:16
James
Can you explain or detail that a little bit deeper and just give people an insight into what that experience is like?

00:04:26:01 – 00:04:46:12
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. So as you don’t know, you have to do a topic placement, right? If you do an engineering degree at Newcastle. Yeah. Now the funny story is we all, every one in the team itself, like all the engineers, we all started doing some of the for some of the field of engineering. So we all did mechanical Mechatronic, Mechatronic engineering.

00:04:47:00 – 00:05:14:24
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Some of us actually did placement for and you know, for that degree. But unfortunately it was not a pleasant experience. You know, it, you know, some guys at something, you go get coffee. So you know, this is, you know, room the from the lockers or whatever it be and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Right. Yeah. So, so uh, to, to the placement is important, you know, simply because that’s essentially your first foray into understanding what industries look.

00:05:15:01 – 00:05:40:23
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. So if it’s, if it’s a great place that you work for, right? You know, so for example, in my mark, my case doing the melt, yeah, we essentially got to work on product development right from the concept ideation stage and you know, doing feasibility studies and, you know, requirements gathering and, and experimentation, so to speak, and really, really help out founders building a real product.

00:05:41:03 – 00:05:54:24
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Right. So that’s essentially, you know, I fell in love with it. And, you know, it was an amazing experience because you learn so much more working in industry also, like than you would in.

00:05:55:15 – 00:06:20:01
James
I couldn’t agree with you more. I did I did bachelor business. I completely different, significantly less technical, but I think I learned more in my first three months, six months out of university. Got it that my three year degree just because the exposure to actual commercial environment decisions get made, how those different decisions affect business. Yes. Yeah. I have the very similar experience whilst doing a completely different degree.

00:06:20:02 – 00:06:51:06
James
Yeah, I think it’s for you in particular, the environment that you went into. It sounds like that provided you that fast track like exposure to ideation sized right through to actually designing a product and building an MVP as opposed to being thrown in a massive organization where you might just work on a couple of tickets. And as you said, even worse is that people get thrown in an environment and become the person that goes gets coffee.

00:06:51:12 – 00:07:13:09
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Exactly. Exactly. You know, it it really does influence you that early says you if you’re not doing your degree as to what you want to do, you know, once you complete a degree. And that’s exactly right. Like we essentially essentially got thrown to the deep end and and, you know, learned so much as a result. Right. So and that’s what we do essentially with the experts as well.

00:07:13:17 – 00:07:33:04
Vivek – Jaegersoft
So we specialize in the design and engineering of software products for start ups. And it’s amazing. Yeah, working with founders, understanding what they want. And, you know, it’s it’s, it’s, it’s fulfilling, you know, just having an idea and then taking it all the way into market fit and even seeing founders achieve success and go on to bigger and better things.

00:07:33:04 – 00:07:34:09
Vivek – Jaegersoft
It’s it’s awesome. Yeah.

00:07:34:18 – 00:07:55:23
James
Yeah, it sounds fantastic, but you just made mention that you obviously and your team has found a nice little nation that building an MVP, you know, taking a concept or an idea through to MVP stage for those who, let’s say, sitting at home with an idea and they don’t have a technical team, they don’t have the technical chops to bring something to life.

00:07:56:16 – 00:08:05:14
James
Can you explain what that process looks like when you go and work with a potential founder? Yeah. On taking their idea through to MVP stage.

00:08:06:02 – 00:08:29:04
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s a tough process. It’s daunting, you know, And you know, we you could be a founder that, you know, you have a technical background or you’re not from a technical background. Right. But you know, right now, especially post-COVID, where I’ve personally seen like a wave of entrepreneurship, you know, people with amazing ideas, they they want to chase and they’re finally doing it right.

00:08:29:05 – 00:08:55:11
Vivek – Jaegersoft
So especially here in Newcastle. So, you know, it’s a tough process because at the end of the day, it’s just you and with the business, right? And there’s so much you have to kind of account for, for say, you know, building a product and getting it to product market fit, right. Yeah. So generally, you know, with founders, you know, if they do go with an accelerator, they have mentorship, you know, and CBD sales and marketing, that’s in that sense, right?

00:08:55:16 – 00:09:21:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. But chances are you, you do need a built, you know, that is probably the most likely the core product of year of your business. Yeah. And a it’s not as simple as just saying I’m going to outsource it to, you know, a freelance developer, for example, or even outsourcing it overseas and just say, hey, here’s, you know, 4050 CO build me exactly like this is what I want, right?

00:09:22:09 – 00:09:39:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Because the other day you might on the might understand that you’d need a product but what do you mean stop, Right. Yeah. You know, you know, you know, and that’s what we do. So we essentially kind of go with them in the early stages and even, you know, even go over the business model once in like, what are you trying to achieve?

00:09:39:15 – 00:10:00:03
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Right? The most important thing is you want to build something lean. You want to you want to you don’t invest too much money at the very start, right? Because at the end of day, every bit of every investment counts. Yeah, and we deconstruct that idea, but work with them through ideation design, prototype, and then we do the development itself, right?

00:10:00:03 – 00:10:01:09
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. So, yeah.

00:10:01:23 – 00:10:09:16
James
That’s fantastic, man. I think it’s you made a couple of points there as well. Like the start ups without our technical co-founder.

00:10:09:16 – 00:10:10:10
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, Yeah.

00:10:11:05 – 00:10:35:03
James
I think significantly disadvantaged. It’s not to say it can’t work but having somebody within the team who can make those changes, as you said, like the product that has as it evolves, it iterate so many times, having it every time outsource to an outsource team or somebody offshore, or even if it’s a a dev shop that’s its external to do that.

00:10:35:03 – 00:10:42:02
James
TomTom down through a startup through all those multiple iterations, makes it significantly harder than having that internal dev capacity.

00:10:42:14 – 00:11:06:18
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Exactly. Exactly. You know, and chances are like if you’re in an early stage startup and I your you capacity’s limited. Yeah and you chances are you have to focus on you know other aspects in early stages you know like I said sales and marketing for example right. Even if you’re technical founder like there is a lot of overhead in, you know, managing product development itself.

00:11:06:18 – 00:11:37:19
Vivek – Jaegersoft
So that’s essentially what we do. Oui, oui, oui, oui, oui. Jump in with that technical team. You know, we we integrate with your business, you know, your startup founder. We we work with you and you have our technical resources there. You disposable just to work with you off, you know, try and, you know, help you realize what your product should be and yeah and any feedback that comes through from Yeah yeah you know early early customer feedback for example we, we work through it and we build upon that and you really push up your product.

00:11:38:01 – 00:12:03:09
James
That’s awesome. Fantastic. Obviously starting small business comes with its challenges. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows yet for the next the next graduates coming through two years from now, three years from now, say the success that you’ve had and think about doing something similar. Can you talk to any of the challenges that you might have faced? Oh.

00:12:04:08 – 00:12:25:20
Vivek – Jaegersoft
There are a lot of challenges. Yeah, it is challenging. It’s challenging. I mean, I’ve I’ve I’ve always been passionate about business of well, actually, initially, you know, I started off as simply because, you know, I’ve read stories of, you know, Evan SPIEGEL from Snapchat or even Melanie Perkins from Canberra. And these guys have built amazing I mean, software, IP products, right?

00:12:25:20 – 00:12:50:01
Vivek – Jaegersoft
And that’s all, you know, I fell in love with that, you know, you know, wants to do that. And, you know, the opportunity came along where we could be a service business and doing service business, working with, you know, potential founders. So founders like that can be successful like that. Yeah, I was like, Yep, this is awesome. So we did it and it’s in the technical side of things.

00:12:50:01 – 00:13:17:04
Vivek – Jaegersoft
It wasn’t a challenge because, you know, myself, you know, I’ve got a, I’ve got background, you know, front end engineering and full sector of wasn’t too complicated in terms of what clients want and stuff. So with my team the technical side of things is was, is not really challenging. So if you are if you’re a unison through graduate who you know you do well at uni and you you spend your spare time doing know portfolio work of, you know, mobile dev or web dev or whatever.

00:13:17:04 – 00:13:30:19
Vivek – Jaegersoft
I think you should be sweet, right? Yep. But the business side of things, you know, you know how to market, how to, how to find work and you know customer success, customer journey all that is Yeah. Good sent about so yeah yeah.

00:13:31:03 – 00:13:52:24
James
You know by staying on top of that is there any any places you would point people. Is that going through those experiences and learning from them or has it been for you reading books, listening to podcasts, What’s been the biggest help for you in that? Those areas that aren’t your sweet spot? Yeah, you know the technical side, obviously, right?

00:13:52:24 – 00:14:02:20
James
Your jam and the rest of your team. But the business, the growth he said the south, the market. Is there any areas that you’ve learned on to upskill in that area?

00:14:03:02 – 00:14:32:07
Vivek – Jaegersoft
I mean I was pretty fortunate. I was lucky to have great mentors early on, but made a massive effort to really, really get in touch with and get in touch with the network, not just with the borrowers at uni, but also, you know, the people I did my placement with and whatnot. My biggest advice would be to really, really, really network, especially here in Newcastle, because, you know, Mobile New is a it’s a small, small a small in comparison to Sydney for example.

00:14:32:07 – 00:14:32:14
James
Yeah.

00:14:32:14 – 00:14:35:16
Vivek – Jaegersoft
But everyone, you know support each other.

00:14:35:17 – 00:14:57:18
James
It’s amazing and places advantage. I think people should and can take advantage of that. Being in Newcastle as opposed to Sydney. It is smaller but it’s big enough that if you are looking for somebody with a particular experience, a particular skill set, it’s highly likely that somebody here with that or has been through something similar and Newcastle people tend to be easier.

00:14:57:18 – 00:15:10:16
James
I get a hold off on, find out who they are, what experience they’ve got, and then I get out of the line. But then it’s relatively easy to to try to get somebody’s time in Newcastle. If you, if you go about the right way.

00:15:10:19 – 00:15:35:19
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. Honestly. And it’s, it’s amazing because of that amazing conversations with people who’ve had significantly more experience than us, you know, and they’ve they’re all willing to share, you know, the trials and tribulations and what’s helped them, what’s not, you know, they, they all, they all share stories, which is awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it’s important. It’s important. It’s really, really important to network.

00:15:35:19 – 00:15:43:02
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Even if you’re a student, in my opinion. Just go to the events and just talk. Talk to people. It’s people want to share the stories and people want to learn more about you.

00:15:43:09 – 00:16:04:02
James
Yeah, my couple of points, I love these points. So you mentioned you mentioned mentorship, you mentioned networking, you mentioned events. Is there any events or networking in particular that you’ve found super beneficial here in Newcastle? Because I feel like Newcastle pre-COVID was great when it came to events. Yeah, post-COVID coming back to the events, face to face events coming back.

00:16:04:02 – 00:16:12:23
James
But again, I love that advice for people. I feel like it’s great advice is, is that networking events, are there any particular event valuable.

00:16:13:00 – 00:16:43:20
Vivek – Jaegersoft
And absolutely so yeah we it was off because we saw during COVID and you know there was no events running at all. But now since events are coming back, there’s great, great niche specific, you know, niche specific to software, right. Also for in tech in general events run in Newcastle. So you know the the the data analytics one for example that I frequent on a lot it’s amazing you know great great you know talks and presentations that happen once a month, you know, on a Thursday.

00:16:43:20 – 00:16:56:16
Vivek – Jaegersoft
I think that’s, that’s yeah, yeah. And that’s one there’s 91, you know the guys at Sofi now. Yeah. They used to blasphemous as well. That was probably one of the first ones that I did. I went to and you know it. Yeah.

00:16:56:16 – 00:17:00:05
James
That was quite an issue as well because out of the hands on element to it as well which is awesome.

00:17:00:18 – 00:17:13:03
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Exactly. Exactly. And if you go and meet up and whatnot and you guys also do it and if you go on Slack Channel as well, the new Slack channel, it’s all it’s you know, it’s pumping finance It also. Yeah.

00:17:13:14 – 00:17:37:23
James
Now I feel like events and networking, especially for younger professionals or people at university trying to build a network, trying to look for mentorship, trying to grow that career or just learn in general is some of the best advice I could provide anyone as they’re coming up and looking to build a tech career, especially in technical fields that is highly likely.

00:17:37:23 – 00:17:57:11
James
You’ll find somebody that’s going through a similar challenge that you have. And I talk to like senior tech professionals who go to meet ups and really enjoy that, that back and forth with other people who have who are facing the similar challenges to them in their careers, might they might have a problem that they bounce off somebody else.

00:17:57:11 – 00:18:05:23
James
And, you know, just that conversation with another tech professional. And I’m saying you may have faced some challenges in figuring out problems that way. Yes, it’s beneficial.

00:18:05:23 – 00:18:36:06
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s about letting, you know, learn, learn, learn. You know, if if you go to a made up, for example, and you see, you know, people from industry that have seen if you experience, learn, you know, just talk to them and learn what they do and learn what they’ve done. And that chances are actually the strong chance they’ll ask you about your challenges, whether it’s June or you’re a very young person in business like myself, or if you’re a professional, like they’ll, you know, have a chat to you about your pain points maybe, and just drift off and tailor.

00:18:36:06 – 00:18:58:02
James
Yeah, I completely agree. My one of the other parts obviously podcast new tech people podcast. When you eat centric on this podcast you manage it’s you and your team had the ideas early days that you got to finish university. You have to travel outside of Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne and potentially internationally. But you found a nice opportunity here in Newcastle.

00:18:58:12 – 00:19:06:03
James
You talk about your experience with Newcastle today in a way where you say it going, Yeah.

00:19:06:13 – 00:19:37:05
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, it’s crazy. Like the vibes completely change and also probably. Q I see you guys as well, you know, cause we, we see the things that you guys post and you know, I did the podcast for example, you know, it’s really, really facilitated growth in the tech scene here. But so when we, when I first started union, when we first started uni, like I said, we had that perception that we had to leave, knew there was not much happening in the form of tech and software engineering or whatever it be in new itself.

00:19:37:14 – 00:19:56:04
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, that’s completely changed. Like we were slowly seeing, you know, you know, post code, for example, you know, a lot of these events and Madoff’s back is a lot more jobs coming your way as well, which is awesome. And and in the form of stop you know, start up events and whatnot as well it’s it’s it’s really picking up.

00:19:56:04 – 00:20:08:14
Vivek – Jaegersoft
So it’s a great ecosystem, you know, building up and it’s it’s you know, like I said, it’s great what you guys are doing and we want to be part of that as well. So we want to help facilitate that growth and build a bill that takes in Newcastle.

00:20:08:18 – 00:20:30:20
James
That’s right. You obviously guys met during university. You’ve talked super positively about, Yeah, you your placement through the university, how university experience as a whole. Can you give some people some insights into whether you think it’s been valuable, whether you would advise others to go through the same degree you’ve done? Any insights to that?

00:20:31:20 – 00:20:51:09
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s it’s been it’s been great like I do a lot. I do love the University of Newcastle and the degree has been awesome. So I actually, I actually started with computer science. Yeah, I transitioned to software engineering simply because it’s essentially they are on the engineering related courses, right? Yeah. But in my opinion, very valuable.

00:20:51:12 – 00:21:15:12
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. And it, it’s one thing I do think it could be better though is having a, having a bit more of an industry influence with the degree itself. Right. So you know when I just said the transition to doing software engineering one of the courses, there’s a project management course that they run and throw and that cause essentially is essentially run by industry professionals.

00:21:16:18 – 00:21:42:17
Vivek – Jaegersoft
You know, one of them being from Rhodes Tech, the principal engineer from our second thought was once one of the best courses I’ve ever done, and I think we all agree on that. Yeah, you recently had Mark all this as well. Yeah, he teaches the Enterprise Enterprise architecture course in the as well, having someone from industry come in and talk about what they do and how what they teach is relevant to, you know, what they teach, how they teach is relevant to what they do.

00:21:42:19 – 00:21:56:21
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. Is, is it’s good, you know, it’s amazing. You know, it it keeps you. It keeps you thinking, you know, like, oh, man, like, this is awesome. Like, what I’m I’m learning what I’m building is applicable to next year and this is how it’s done.

00:21:56:21 – 00:22:24:17
James
And you’ve just mentioned like staying relevant. Understand what’s happening on in the industry. Earlier today you mentioned building of the portfolio. I feel like those are really two key differentiators I’ve seen with the best graduates coming out of university. Can you provide advice, you know, graduates at a starting early in their degrees or coming through on how they can best position themselves to be, I guess job ready coming out of university?

00:22:25:00 – 00:22:41:14
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. Yeah. And it just simply honestly for like keep building a portfolio. So and then on a day like you have to spend a bit of a bit of your time, right, whether it be aside from studies or if you’re in the process of trying to find a job, keep building stuff. Like at the end of day, you need to build stuff.

00:22:41:14 – 00:23:05:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
You need to stay on top of modern frameworks and languages or whatever, be learned, read and and actually for me now, I get a lot of value from the other content creators on YouTube, for example, that, you know, it revolves around web dev or software development and software engineering even that itself, you know, we myself and all the guys, we we frequent that a lot.

00:23:05:15 – 00:23:17:10
Vivek – Jaegersoft
We muscle a lot of content on YouTube, for example. And do a bit of writing as well you know medium articles on and you know, on, on. Joe On frameworks like I said, yeah, yeah.

00:23:17:18 – 00:23:34:19
James
That’s amazing. The world we live in now with the amount of free content, free relevant content and quality content now available online, YouTube’s phenomenal for it and like it’s a massive differentiator. The amount of free quality content available on YouTube that you would have had to pay for in years gone past is phenomenal.

00:23:35:00 – 00:23:36:19
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

00:23:37:02 – 00:23:56:19
James
My that’s. Yeah. Good advice and I would echo that in. We’ve made a bunch of graduate level placements as part of new tech people over the last half dozen years. And the biggest differentiator for graduates coming through is having something, having built something, having something. This show over and above your just your degree is healthy.

00:23:56:23 – 00:23:58:16
Vivek – Jaegersoft
And so you’ve.

00:23:59:04 – 00:24:25:16
James
You’ve finishing your degree. You launched a business with three co-founders. You’re building products as part of that business, I imagine, is a pretty busy day, busy, busy. And I don’t know how I manage it. We’re running a growing business here and I can understand the challenges, but how do you manage your day from a productivity perspective? How do you manage multiple balls that are in the air?

00:24:26:17 – 00:24:48:22
Vivek – Jaegersoft
That’s a very good question. Honestly, I love what I do. That’s the thing. Yeah, with the business, it’s I do spend a lot of time on it and we have to because we’re young business as well, right? Yeah. So honestly, just a routine. And like I said, if, if you do enjoy it, you do, you don’t really think twice about how much time you spend on it.

00:24:48:24 – 00:25:00:24
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. But at the same time you know it’s important to have, you know, a good balance and you know, make sure your personal life, you know, you start off your vessel off as well. I try and train when I can and stay fit and so do the guys as well.

00:25:01:07 – 00:25:01:13
James
Yeah.

00:25:02:07 – 00:25:04:14
Vivek – Jaegersoft
I spent some time family as well. Yeah.

00:25:05:07 – 00:25:29:12
James
Yeah. I mentioned earlier as a business and the way balance down tradition go hand in hand so. Well no, I live with the best intentions. But I think the other key part you mentioned there was that health. I think it’s something come it’s getting more and more air time these days and the hustle culture. Yeah, that was a brand maybe, you know, the last 3 to 5 years.

00:25:29:20 – 00:25:50:14
James
I feel like it’s starting to fall away a little bit. You can have a hassle for so far, so long before you going to burn out and that has becoming something that people acknowledge now. Yeah. And having, you know, that element of fitness or or family time, I feel like the fact that you guys are conscious of that at such an early businesses, you’re probably ahead of the curve.

00:25:50:22 – 00:26:15:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I’ve made music as well, you know, spending ungodly, ungodly hours just working on something to do with a business or work or wherever. BE Right. But then you come to realize what’s, you know, what’s the output actually, you know, what’s the output actually like, you know, is that the case of you just spending hours in sake of hustling or actually working?

00:26:16:02 – 00:26:39:23
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Could you be working smarter? Yeah. Example, you know, because, you know, like if you if you’re spending a lot of time, right, If you are, that’s my biggest criticism of hustle Hustle culture is yeah you you tend to just spend a lot of hours just you know, for that specific goal or dream or a B, but sometimes if you take one step, take a step back and just say, and maybe I could be like a bit smarter.

00:26:39:23 – 00:26:45:03
Vivek – Jaegersoft
And yeah, you know, things like, you know, the four hour workweek and all, you know, there’s a bit of a culture of around the Yeah.

00:26:45:03 – 00:26:45:14
James
For sure.

00:26:45:15 – 00:26:46:08
Vivek – Jaegersoft
It’s helping that but.

00:26:47:04 – 00:27:07:18
James
Now I read that and try to look into that getting a visa is years gone by I think there’s some theory there that definitely works in real life. I think, you know, taking it word for word and working a four hour workweek really impossible. And it depends on what you want to actually achieve that. And there’s definitely some some good pieces about that you can take in a plot of everyday life.

00:27:07:21 – 00:27:30:05
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and look out probably a bit too early to kind of incorporate four, four hour what is a four hour workweek or whatever it is. But, you know, for me, it’s a lot about learning. So the other day there are things that you have to do for whatever big work school business. Yeah, but I do I am mindful of the, you know, the extra time that I do have doing that.

00:27:30:05 – 00:27:34:22
Vivek – Jaegersoft
I don’t I’m trying, you know, get up to scratch on the things I should be doing, you know?

00:27:35:10 – 00:27:44:00
James
Right. Learning all of it. You’ve mentioned YouTube. You’ve mentioned medium from a blog’s perspective. Is it those two, are those your main points of call.

00:27:45:00 – 00:27:47:15
Vivek – Jaegersoft
And podcast as well? The podcasts and podcasts and.

00:27:48:09 – 00:27:51:24
James
Who are the people you follow, whether it be YouTube medium or Cos?

00:27:52:14 – 00:28:13:22
Vivek – Jaegersoft
That’s a good one. So with YouTube actually we we love Fischer. So far she’s been for me, you know, just to quickly understand a new language or framework or whatnot, that’s it’s amazing. Like they do the things of like you know, learn Rus in 100 seconds or whatever and it’s awesome but size and yeah, you know the, the short attention span world that we live in, it’s awesome right.

00:28:13:23 – 00:28:44:08
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. There are some bloke the would you call it like vlog low content girls. Yeah I think what’s the first first night That’s a good one That’s more so in he’s more so surrounding the lives of a computer scientist or software engineer. That’s great. Yeah, but yeah, but in terms of podcast, so, you know, I’m also listening to, you know, business related ones and you know, you take as one, you know, it’s not a lot and Darko is a good one.

00:28:44:13 – 00:28:54:24
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. Good insights into people who’ve built successful businesses and Yeah and there’s a Guy Kawasaki one as well, which is also great. Yeah yeah. So the.

00:28:55:07 – 00:29:24:18
James
Not aspect. Yeah again I think again very very good advice for for others is you know optimizing learning and continuing that learning journey as here I’m going to hit back on that productivity part one more time is is there any tools that you’ve found successful actual practical takeaway that somebody could use from a productivity perspective, whether it’s to use a counselor to teach our kids to use to do do you use Evernote DOS?

00:29:24:22 – 00:29:50:13
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you’re going to have to like in the modern, modern business of modern professional, you have to change. You would be using a tool. And yeah, I mean we use calendars and, but you know even casually for example, to just really just streamline the process of organizing meetings and stuff. And we’re mindful of meetings as well, like it being been a small team, you know, like, yeah, yeah.

00:29:50:13 – 00:30:09:22
Vivek – Jaegersoft
How much face a face do you really, really need? It could simply be an email or just envisage, but we still make sure there’s face to face meetings and whatnot. But you know, look, Chuck chart slack, you know, email it, It’s, it’s efficient to get, you know, to report and just touch base with privacy.

00:30:09:22 – 00:30:12:06
James
Reducing meetings for the sake of meetings. Exactly.

00:30:12:06 – 00:30:35:22
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Exactly. Terms of engineering and project bomb itself. Jurors the jury is amazing. You know it’s very we’re we’ve been using for years now actually since the election from uni and for from project management and issue tracking it’s it’s it does wonders. Yep. And yeah there’s also personal personal you know tools that are used to be productive like, you know, a life notion.

00:30:36:05 – 00:30:48:01
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah. It’s a you know there’s, there’s brilliant things, a notion like dumbed down like CRM, like dumbed down cells. So I remember one of which I like to use simply because I need.

00:30:48:12 – 00:30:50:04
James
Someone’s pulse or something like that.

00:30:50:04 – 00:30:56:12
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, exactly. Look for small team. We don’t need a robust CRM, for example, you know? So yeah.

00:30:56:14 – 00:31:17:10
James
So aspect, we’ll wrap it up. But my last question, if you had your time over, you’re still early on in your career, early business now, but if you had your time over again, is there any advice you give the younger version of yourself to, to maybe help change the trajectory or or maybe not make a mistake?

00:31:17:10 – 00:31:46:14
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, enough a show for sure. Honestly, it would be probably starting networking a bit earlier. Yeah. Just because. Yeah, it it’s so helpful, especially here in Newcastle. So probably starting that early would have been amazing and also stressing less and focusing a bit more personal life as well. Like just kind of just hanging out friends or just taking a bit more time away from work to kind of really just focus on self cause yeah, without a doubt.

00:31:46:14 – 00:31:49:20
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Honestly, boost productivity. I think, you know, if you do do that. So yeah.

00:31:49:24 – 00:32:08:19
James
Definitely ahead of the curve mate. I think if you can learn those mistakes or learn those things early in your career rather than going through, you know, burnout out. So multiple burnouts which most people do at some point in their career, I think, yeah, you’d be saving a great deal of time and energy, of saving it. But thanks for coming on the podcast today.

00:32:08:19 – 00:32:16:10
James
If somebody wanted to reach out, they might be looking for some career advice. I might be looking to have an MVP built. How do people get a hold of you?

00:32:16:17 – 00:32:29:13
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Yeah, no, for sure. So you can visit websites. So yes, I’ll talk to you from social media as well. So Facebook, Instagram and also primarily LinkedIn. So yeah, you know, myself and the team, we’re all there so reach out and. Yeah.

00:32:29:21 – 00:32:31:14
James
Yeah. So appreciate coming on today.

00:32:31:14 – 00:32:32:16
Vivek – Jaegersoft
Any time. Any time.

00:32:32:16 – 00:32:34:23
James
Just.