Episode 1
· 29:23
Hey, it's Justin Jackson here. Thanks for checking this out. This is a recording between Kyle Fox and I that occurred early this morning. And to give you some background, Kyle and I have been talking about doing a podcast focused on building products for a while. And what we wanted to do with this call is just riff on a subject for about thirty minutes and see what might come out of it.
Speaker 1:It's pretty rough. For example, I'm just using this headphone mic, but I think it gives you an idea of who we are and what a podcast with us, a product podcast might be like. So give it a listen. We'd love to hear your feedback at productpeople.tv and here we go.
Speaker 2:Hello?
Speaker 1:Good morning.
Speaker 2:How's it going?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well.
Speaker 2:Hang on one sec here. I'm just gonna plug in my headphones.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Alright. There we go.
Speaker 1:There we go. Look at us on a Skype call.
Speaker 2:First step, complete. We're almost done.
Speaker 1:We're almost done. So do you want to talk about products? Sure. What do you think about that question about just thinking back to when you were younger, when did you get into computers and did you build anything that would have been like a software product?
Speaker 2:When I first really started getting into computers it was was when Netscape Communicator kinda came out.
Speaker 1:And Okay.
Speaker 2:One of my friends showed me showed me Netscape Communicator. He was, like, pretty into computers and stuff.
Speaker 1:So What year would have this been?
Speaker 2:When? Yeah. Oh, boy. 1997, '98 maybe.
Speaker 1:Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2:I was probably about 13 or 14.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So Netscape Communicator was kind of like Netscape's version of Microsoft FrontPage. It was kind of like a point and click, make a website type thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I remember it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's cool. That's that kind of dates both of us, I guess, then. But so, anyway, yeah, I guess I started kind of playing around with that.
Speaker 2:And at the time, I was like, yeah, I guess that would have been about the time I was, like, learning to play guitar and stuff too. And so I was, like, super into, like, heavy metal and stuff. So, like, pretty much all I did was, like, listen to music, play guitar, or make, like, fake band websites. So I would make, like, all these, like, Pantera fan pages and, like, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's kinda like where I started playing around with the, like, design side. I mean, I use that term loosely because it was more like dump every animated GIF I could find into an HTML page and call it a Pantera site. But anyway
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:To, like, the idea, like, woah. I can, like, use this computer to, like, make stuff that I want. Like, I can just think up something and then make it. So so that was kind of, like, fun, and I I made a couple, like, web pages, like, while I was in junior high and stuff. And and then actually the same friend who kinda got me into that, he showed me Visual Basic six one day.
Speaker 2:And have you seen that before?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah. Like, if you're not sure what Visual Basic is, it's basically like it's a Microsoft product that lets you basically drag and drop interface elements. It's kinda like interface builder for Xcode. You can drag and drop elements and then kind of, like, you know, create software screens. And then if you, for example, double click a button, it'll let you write some code to explain or define what that button does.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, he showed me, like, Visual Basic one day, and it, like, blew my mind because I guess I I had always, like I guess, had, like, I don't know how to say it, like, sensitivity toward, like, software and stuff like that. Like, I, like, I would just notice, like, if things were annoying to use or or whatever. I kind of of always wondered how, like, how software was made. So to see Visual Basic, like, and he was showing me how you, like, could drag things around and design screens. I was like, woah.
Speaker 2:Like, it was kind of like another, like, moment. Like, I could build anything, like, with this. Right? Like, I could build I could build a piece of software. And so I started, like, drawing fake interfaces for, like, all kinds of, like, random stuff.
Speaker 2:Like, I can't even really think of any examples, but, like, basically, I would just drag form fields around and, like, pretend I was, like, designing software for, like like, point of sale systems and stuff like soup like, super nerdy things for a 16 year old kid too. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, so that's and then that so that's sort of where I started, I guess, getting into the code side too. I was like, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of cool that I can, like, make these screens, but I can't make them, like, do anything. So that's sort of when I started, like, diving into figuring out how to make interfaces actually work. So diving into the code side of things. And, I guess, like, through most of that period, like, I didn't really I didn't really, like, build any products. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, what you'd call products. It was mostly just, like, and, like, just, like, yeah, mucking around with, like, different tools and, like, getting a feel for how things are are built.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And just kind of, like, sharp I guess, like, sharpening that, like, awareness of those things. Like, I remember one day, I I used to work at a hardware store in high school, and the, like, the checkout system was, like, you've you know, those old archaic. They look like nineteen seventies Unix terminals, like monochrome screens type thing.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And and so but I had worked there for a while, so I had totally got used to, like, the, like, insane key combinations required to, like, scan an item and accept a payment. It was like, you know, control f four to open the cash register and just, like, junk like that. So but I remember one day, like, checking out these two customers, and, the one guy, I guess, turned out to be, like, an exchange student for the for the local college, and he started, like, talking wildly in some other language and, like, pointing at the screen I was working on and stuff. And I kind of I was like, what's going on? And and, like, the girl with him, which I guess was, like, where, you know, he was, like, staying on his exchange, was like, oh, well, he's, like, he's, like, an interface designer.
Speaker 2:And, like, what he does is he, like, designs how software works for people. And he is like he he's just, like, pointing out all the flaws with with your system. And I was, like, kind of, like, another one of those, like, moments where was like, woah. Like, people like, I always kinda felt, like, you know, weird for caring about how software was to work. You know?
Speaker 2:Like, all my friends and parents and stuff and, like, the people I worked with at the hardware store, they're like, whatever. But I was always like, well, it could be better. Like, why isn't it better? And why does nobody care? And then this, like, random guy coming to a hardware store just, like, sees what I'm working on and just, like, has this, like, you know, moment of passion where he's just, like, ex like, I, like, I had no idea of the things he was saying, but just, like, how, like, animated he was talking about this.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, wow. Like, there's people out there who, like, actually really care about this kind of stuff. And so it's kind of, like, another one of those moments where I was like, I don't know. Like, maybe this this is kind of, like, something I could do too. Like, you know, this whole idea of, like, building things that, people work with and approaching it with, like, you know, like, let's not just make it work, but, like, let's make it, like, a a quality thing.
Speaker 2:So Mhmm. So, yeah, I guess that's that's sort of where, like, all of those, like, things kind of came together and, like, I guess that's kind of why now I'm, like, I'm not just, like, really a coder and, like, not just a designer. Like, my end goal is to to build awesome things that are like a pleasure to use and that people find useful and stuff like that. And, so, yeah, that kind of just brought everything together for me. I guess that's kind of like yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's interesting. That That's a good way to phrase that question too is like, what were the things that you did when you were a kid, the kind of experimenting that led to an interest in products or what were the things you noticed about yourself when you were a kid that you know, even that idea of looking at the hardware store terminal and saying, you know, this could be way better. I think people that love products often have that that sense of this could be way better. Why isn't this better?
Speaker 1:I'd like to make this better.
Speaker 2:And you can feel like really like an outcast because, like, it seems so obvious to, like, you know, people who are sensitive to products and stuff.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:For like 90% of the world, first of all don't see a problem and then they're kind of like, Why would you even care anyway? They seem really obtuse to it, so. Doctor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I I think we've established something else and that is that I'm a I'm a little bit older than you because you said you were, in '96 you were how old? Is that
Speaker 2:in '96. So let's see. Was born in '84.
Speaker 1:Okay. You're you're four years younger than me. Okay. And when when I was trying to think about when I started kind of experimenting with software and we always had computers in my house ever since I was like five. But when I was 12, I think it was when I was 12, I was really into the BBS scene.
Speaker 1:Were you ever into that scene? Bulletin board service scene?
Speaker 2:Just missed that wave.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that was probably right before you. And in like 1992, basically they were all text based. So you would you would call into a computer like the best ones in Edmonton would have six lines and so you would call in with your your phone and a modem. And I always remember being fascinated with BBS software and the games that ran on them.
Speaker 1:So there was these games like there's a game called Legend of the Red Dragon and there's another one called Trade Wars. And these were text based games but I just remember loving them. And you could have multiple players. They were like early text based MMOs basically. And, I just remember loving them and being interested in them.
Speaker 1:And, those were the like that was my first kind of foray into like fiddling around with products is that I would try to build my own text based games for for BBS's. And, I never had anything that went like crazy or anything, but you could all the software is basically open source, like you could download it and just kind of, yeah, fiddle around with it. If you there's kind of like these loose frameworks for building games. So I remember doing that and then in '94, there's was it '94? The there was a the first GUI for BBS's came out, so they were all text based.
Speaker 1:And then there's this guy named Seth Hamilton out of Hamil no. Was it Seth Hamilton? Oh, man. He was he was his name was Seth and he was out of Ontario and he built this bulletin board system called RoboBoard FX and it was basically BBS software that was visual. It had it was, it had a GUI and you could draw all of the menus and screens using vector based graphics.
Speaker 1:So you would have a client that would like interpret all this and basically it would just draw out all the screens, as vectors. And you could also put in JPEGs and things like that. And it was huge like when this came out, people were blown away because this was even like Mosaic was kind of out in on the the web world, but the the BBS world and the Internet were kind of like these parallel universes, right? And so I just remember when I saw RoboBoard, I was so excited as a like 14 year old kid. And there's a guy in Edmonton that's started a RoboBoard BBS called Absolute Future.
Speaker 1:And I, I basically contacted him and said, hey, let me draw do all your drawing for you. And it was I I we didn't call it like interface design or anything. I just called it drawing because the the tool for creating these, screens was, it was like a drawing it was like illustrator, like a a really, kind of dumbed down version of illustrator that you could build in, interactions. You could like draw like I I remember for absolute future we had like a castle with like the first screen you'd see and then you would kind of say here's where the buttons are going to be and this is where it'll take you. It was really interesting.
Speaker 1:So I remember being 14 I think and and doing that and and feeling like this is like being able to design something and and building interaction and then have people use it. So you know, as a kid when most of my products that I built would be like for my family, you know, like I build something and it'd be like, I don't know, like CD ROMs, like I I would author multimedia CD ROMs for gifts for Christmas. But this was like something where bulletin board services could have thousands of users. And so this feeling of like building something and drawing all these screens and linking them together and then having all the different interactions you could do and then have that being used by potentially hundreds of people. There's something about that that was really kind of attractive to me back then.
Speaker 1:Then the web hit and then I I got into to web based stuff. But that that early BBS scene was was pretty, formative, I guess you could say for me. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think like that's totally the, it's kind of like similar where it's like discover that you can make something that can, like, reach and affect people. Like, that's it's totally like a rush, I think. And, like, for people who, like, aren't sensitive to, like, the things they interact with their in their environment, like, the people who get annoyed when things don't work right and they think, like, this could be so much better. When you have that, like, moment where you're like, wow.
Speaker 2:I can build something and put it out there and people can, like, see it and use it, like, it's like this huge, like, empowering feeling. And I I think that's why, like, there's so many, like, passionate people that do product development because, like, you know, you're like a kid. Right? And you're, like, making this, like, castle so that people on the Internet can like like, you know
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly what happens on VBS is like his discussions. Right? Like basically is how it works?
Speaker 1:It it was every it was basically like the early web. The it was pages and you would have discussion forums and games and you could like download images and games and so it was like this whole it was almost exactly like the web but you had to call in with a and you were calling it as like one to one. For every user you had to have a phone line basically. Yeah. Can you can you remember sorry, not remember but can can you think of like what the first software product you made money on was or or have you been able to sell any software products?
Speaker 2:I think, like, the first real real undertaking, yeah, of mine that I did, like, kinda for myself that actually made money would probably be photojournal. Was kind of like, I guess, like, in like, when I went to college and stuff like that, 37 signals was kind of just coming out. And so up until that point, you know, my I was sort of thinking, like, I can build something and, like, you know, be building software and products and stuff as my job. You know? So it's kind of like, I can get a job doing this.
Speaker 2:And I, I just kind of always had it in my head that I had to be like working for, like, a bigger company in order to be able to do that. You know? So, so I never really, like, I guess, built and tried to sell my own stuff. I like I said, I had all these, like, different experiments and things like that. And I shouldn't even say experiments, like, actually, like, useful stuff.
Speaker 2:I worked at a call center for a while, and the computers were, like, completely locked down, but we had, Excel on
Speaker 1:them. Okay.
Speaker 2:And so I I learned that you could, like, write Basically, you could write, like, macros and VBA script, which is basically the same thing as Visual Basic. Like, you could design screens and stuff. So I wrote this, like it was a spreadsheet. Like, it was an XLS file. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, like, when you got a call, when a call came in, it would, like, pop up and start recording the, like, the length of the call, basically.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:You, like, had to like, to hit certain metrics, you had to, like, make a certain number of offers to the customer. So you had to, like, offer to it was for cell phones. So you had to, like, try and upsell them on a new phone or a new plan or whatever. And then so I had, like, all these different buttons where you could record you having made the offer. And then when the call ended, it would enter it into a spreadsheet and then generate charts basically of, like, your average call time and, like, how many offers you made versus how many were accepted and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So, like and I, like, I passed it around to, like, my friends that I worked with, but I never, like, you know, tried tried selling it. So Yeah. You should have. Yeah. Probably.
Speaker 2:Although, the company I worked for at the time was a little bit they were scary. So They wouldn't have been excited about that. I probably would have got sued somehow. They would have been like, you made this on company time?
Speaker 1:Yeah. They would have been not not too impressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah. So, like, I made, like, actually useful things, but it never really I guess I never really thought of selling my own things. Maybe it's just like a confidence thing. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Until I started, like, really until 37 signals kinda came out. And I just saw, like, there were just a couple of guys basically at the time who, like, were solving their own problems, and they were kinda like, you know, we made this for ourselves. It's all it solves a problem we had. You might solve, or it might solve your problems too. And then this whole other side of, like, the value side of it, where it's like, you know, because it's giving you value, we think you should pay for it type of thing.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And so, like, that was like another one of those moments where it's like, okay, I can make something, ask people to pay for it and not feel, like, sleazy about it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like, that's a whole other conversation is like that hurdle for people to overcome for charging, charging people money for their, their products. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, I, I don't know. That's like a big, big hurdle, I think, for a lot of people. But anyway, 37 signals was kind of like where I was like, I can build something and sell it myself. Like, I don't need to just be making products for a bigger company. I can, like, put things out there on my own.
Speaker 2:And that's sort of like, I was kinda looking around for different things to try making, and that's sort of when, at the time, Photojournal was like a good fit for for where I was at at the time. So so, yeah, that was kind of like the first first product on my own that I started like looking at developing and selling. So, how about you?
Speaker 1:Well, again, I think I'm gonna well, I I think my first there could have been others because like I said, I I would sometimes build things and like sell it to try to sell it to my dad for his work. I think another difference between you and I is I am definitely more business minded. I've always been into computers but in terms of building things, I would always come into these roadblocks. Like I asked for Turbo Pascal when I was 12 or something like that because I wanted to build things But I just found, coding and especially like coding in that IDE, like it was just too much, too hard for me. And so I remember often being frustrated with like trying because I wanted to build things but couldn't.
Speaker 1:And I think that's why I ended up really liking the web because there's just more tools and a guy like me that maybe will never be a great coder could build things. I think the first thing that I made money on was I was probably three or four years out of college, 02/2002, 2003 and working for this non profit. And basically every non profit in the world needs donation software. And we had this donation software that we used and it was just terrible. And so I built something else in Microsoft Access which is similar.
Speaker 1:You could have you could build these front ends like all the form fields and they had like a kind of a visual way to design those screens. And then on the back end you could write code to to make it do stuff. But, for a guy like me it was a lot easier because you could have you know, the database was created automatically and you could kind of say, okay, this is going to go here and it was just easy way to kind of get started. And, so I built this donation software that would come up with a menu screen and people could choose. I want to enter a new donor.
Speaker 1:I want to search my donors. I want to run a report on how many donations we've received this month. And so I worked on this for a long time and I started using it myself and, then I decided there's a big kind of national conference and I thought, you know, think I could probably sell this to other people. And, and I think for me I was always kind of thinking like, like at the time CD Roms, oh man, like CD ROMs would come and they would have a lot of things on them. So you wouldn't just have like one program, you'd have maybe a 100 programs.
Speaker 1:So I remember feeling like, okay, I'm gonna put this on a CD ROM naturally, but I'm going to have to add add other stuff to make it worthwhile. And, I'm also wanted to build like an actual, like, interactive menu system on the CD ROM. I don't know if you if you ever hit what where you were in that but CD ROMs were a big deal for, like, products and, like, authoring CD ROMs. And so I built this whole thing where people would put in the CD and it would come up with this menu system and they could go to my donor software which is one piece. It was like the kind of the central piece.
Speaker 1:But then I also spent way too much time building this interactive training software where they would, they could like click on the thing and then see a video of, you know, what we were training. But then I also even got it transcripted. So there was like a tran like a text transcript and then like resources you could like use. So it's pretty ridiculous. So I I packaged all of this together, this donation software and this interactive training and and made a bunch of them and then went to this national conference.
Speaker 1:I think I sold them for $20 apiece and I think I sold like 12. But I it was that same feeling of, know, I built something that was that was valuable for me and other people saw it and said, oh you know that'll be valuable for me too and I didn't sell very many but I still had that sense of, man this is amazing like building something and then like packaging it together and then releasing it and and seeing if people will buy it and then having some people actually buy it was, was amazing. And
Speaker 2:then Totally.
Speaker 1:And then the people that did buy it, even though it's a small group, just remember like they would contact me after and they would say, oh man, like more people definitely need to get this because this is like changed the way I run my my office and so that getting that feedback as well of, you know, you've built something valuable that, you know, that was amazing. So, yeah, I think that was the first product that actually kind of made money on, but and since then, you know, I I spent like seven years in working for non profit. So I was actually out of tech for a long time. I wouldn't say that I've had a huge success in selling selling other products of my own but that I I definitely remember that feeling of like selling something and you know it being just that just feeling amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Totally. It's, like like I said earlier, it's like kind of a rush to like think that you're helping somebody out while also, you know, getting money for it. That's the strongest way to, like, gauge people's reaction. Right?
Speaker 2:It's like if they're if they're willing to pay for something and especially if they're willing to continue paying for something, like, you know, they say people vote with their wallets. And so when they're voting for you for something you've made, it's like a totally just warm, fuzzy feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've been going for about forty minutes. Do we want to do you wanna delve into something else or do should we should we should we stop for now? The the the next question was what is something that you'd like to build?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So maybe maybe we could wrap it up and like save that one for another like for the next call. I Yeah. Don't
Speaker 1:That that sounds good. Well, and maybe just to wrap up this recorded part, let's maybe just like introduce yourselves like I'll say, I'm Justin and I'm a product manager for a software company, a web app called Industry Mailout.
Speaker 2:Cool. And my name is Kyle and I'm a freelance web designer and developer. And I also run Photojournal, which is a hosted blogging service for professional photographers.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Perfect. Well, let me stop recording here.
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