thanks for tuning in to the Hustle Show about the ideas processes people and cultures behind. Designing meaningful digital products. I'm Anthony Armendariz, partner and head of Design It Fun Size, a digital product design studio. Today I'm here with Mikhail Chou, founder of Crew, a platform that connects Exciting Cos to freelance designers and designing disease. Unspool. ASHA Destination for free, high quality resolution photography Crew Collective and Cafe in Montreal. He's a writer contributor to AH Publications like the Next Web Inc magazine Ted and writes a whole lot of medium. Ah, he started his business one of his businesses, at least with his wife, and was formerly an Olympic Development soccer player. We met at Mont Oohs, and I thought that he should come on the show until a little bit of a story. McKell, Once you say hi and tell us a little bit about who you are and what your world

looks like, yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on this. I mean that it's crazy to even be like kind of talking about these stories. I remember. I came from the US, ended up in Canada, followed my now wife, Steph, who is my co founder and all of these things. Everything started actually in the basement of her parent's house. And it was the only way that we were able to stay in Canada and get everything going. S o I. I look at her parents were a really big part of helping make this thing happen. Uh and yeah, everything that has come from those beginning stages,

all the stuff that we learned, you're trying to make it work, trying to go from the country to a country and having debt. I had $40,000 in student debt at the time. No job. Everything was gonna be starting. And then I came to Montreal, Canada, and realize that you actually have to be able to speak French to get most jobs. So there was, like, just all kinds of layers of challenges on dhe. I noticed that we had just we just met. So it's not like we had years. We could months of being together to know how to solve problems, but we started to sell them,

you know, just one after another, after another after another. And within a couple of years, and I had found a job working at a small design studio here. My loans were paid off, actually, through this amazing action that her dad took. So her dad actually, uh, opened up a homeowner's line of credit. Hate off my student loans. And I paid him because the rate was better. This was at the time in, like 8 4009 Everything was going crazy with student loan interest rates. Eso without you know,

that level of support, it would have been very challenging to go at the pace that we did. But through all of that, that's those air deep challenges, those air, the challenges where you're not even thinking about how to cope products or you're not thinking about how to start cos you're just you're just trying to figure out a baseline how to survive financially, kick start something. And when you get through those sorts of things, I think it prepares you really well for some of the other things that we have now started to do. No said the projects with crew and unspool ash and our office space, the collective and cafe, how those things come about, you know, when you're making those things and they're doing. They're fresh. It has a lot of those challenges. Similar things of that we experienced together when I when I first came to Canada,

so was the was the goal originally to get out of debt and start a business or or how did the idea of the bit of starting a business come along? And how did you in your now wife decide that you guys were gonna do this together?

Yeah, I think I compare how we move forward. You know, financially with human freedom. It's very similar to, you know, pure mid off you're trying to solve. You have to get up to self actualization, right? So there's this principle in psychology where if you don't have your baseline needs met, you know, if you don't have food, shelter, these sorts of things, you can't even think about how to be great at something. You know, you're just thinking about survival at its basics here.

And, uh, I think it's very similar, you know, in that sense, where I was just focused so focused on that survival part, it hadn't really entered my mind that you were going to start a company in these sorts of things at that stage. It was just about like I can't even operate with this negative number. I'm just in the red for for two years, three years, people its force for a lot of people. I know how that feels on it feels like you can't really think about any home run opportunities. You've got this thing that sits there every every month and you see it slowly. If any going down your brain is just sitting on that, that's the level that we were at. But as it starts to clean off,

you know, you move up in the pyramid, you know, it's sort of like, Okay, I saw itself this a bit. I'm startinto get over the hump to think about some other things. You know what do how do you solve this long term? How can we create some sustainability in the future? You start Thio, open up some space to be able to think about that. And that's where some of these other you know the idea of starting a business came about.

You know, um, Natalie and I started fun size and we run it together and a lot of people ask us. Isn't that um really challenging to work with your significant other and, ah, you know, both of us. Ah, answer the same way. Like No, it's really easy. You know, like we we mess really well together and we enjoy doing this. How well do you guys work together? And how do you create the proper separation of of, you know, the focus you need to put on the business and innovative ideas and the next big thing, plus your home life and your relationship.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. It was even. I mean, we've raised a bit of investment on it's typically a no no in the investment world to invest in couples. So, like, a lot of investors were not interested in anything simply because we were a couple and we thought that was actually a little straight. Not not coming from that world were like, actually, you know, these are this is a very healthy relationship. We've proved we've been together for a very long time. We're comfortable being transparent and open with each other. I understand the cases where it can go wrong and those sorts of things, but I think any relationship can go wrong. Yeah, maybe if you guys are in a relationship started company together, the chance that it gets nasty or something increases. But also the chance that great things happen, I think increases as well.

Yeah, I find that that notion of risk with married couples, I just don't I just don't get it. I mean, I think when you you know, I've had businesses before with the business partner, and even then you have a great business relationship. It doesn't necessarily mean that your destinies are aligned. I think when you work with your significant other, you are directly tied to, you know, like there's the vision is much clearer and it's it's a it's a it's a do or die thing and anyway, it's That's, Ah, that's interesting.

Yeah, I think. And when you come home, you understand each other. This is empathy with what everybody went through in the day. And I've heard that from other entrepreneurs that have ended relationships because, you know, they're like my spouse or my other didn't understand what goes on today, and I think that that is one of the benefits. You totally get it without saying anything You know what you've been through together during that day?

Amen. Yeah, absolutely. You know. So you So you guys started? Yeah. You know, imagining you're starting this in a basement. Um, from nothing. Now you're now you guys were 20 or 30 employees of cost. What, Four countries or three or

four countries? Uh, or four countries? 30. Ok, 35 people.

Over. How long?

33 and half

years. That's pretty impressive. So, talk, talk. Let's talk more about crew. Where did the idea come from? What are you aiming to do? Uh, how are you guys set up like, what are some of the biggest challenges you're facing? And how did you get to where you are right now?

Yeah. So what the When the first kind of really interesting positions that I was able to get in Montreal was at a design studio that's right. Fell in love with what was possible with the Internet design. But I also saw

a lot of the thanks for tuning in to the Hustle show about the ideas processes, people and cultures behind designing meaningful digital products. I'm Anthony Armendariz, partner and head of design. It fun size a digital product design studio. Today I'm here with McKell Chou, founder of Crew, a platform that connects Exciting Cos to freelance designers and design a disease unspool. ASHA Destination for free, high quality resolution photography crew Collective and Cafe in Montreal. He's a writer contributor to AH Publications like the Next Web Inc magazine Ted and writes a whole lot of medium. Ah, he started his business one of his businesses, at least with his wife, and was formerly an Olympic Development soccer player. We met at Mont Oohs, and I thought that he should come on the show until a little bit of a story. McKell, once you say hi and tell us a little bit about who you are and what your world looks

like, yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on this. I mean that. It's crazy toe even be like kind of talking about these stories. I remember. I came from the US, ended up in Canada, followed my now wife, Steph, who is my co founder. And all of these things, uh, everything started actually in the basement of her parent's house, and it was the only way that we were able to stay in Canada and get everything going. S o I look at her parents were a really big part of helping make this thing happen.

Uh and yeah, everything that has come from those beginning stages, all the stuff that we learned, you're trying to make it work, trying to go from the country to a country and having debt. I had $40,000 in student debt at the time. No job. Everything was gonna be starting. And then I came to Montreal, Canada, and realize that you actually have to be able to speak French to get most jobs. So there was, like, just all kinds of layers of challenges on dhe. I noticed that we had just we just met. So it's not like we had years.

We could months of being together to know how to solve problems, but we started to sell them, you know, just one after another, after another after another. And within a couple of years, and I had found a job working at a small design studio here, my loans were paid off, actually, through this amazing action that her dad took so her dad actually, uh, opened up a homeowner's line of credit Hate off my student loans and I paid him because the rate was better. This was at the time in, like 8 4009 Everything was going crazy with student loan interest rates. Eso without you know, that level of support,

it would've been very challenging to go at the pace that we did. But through all of that, that's those air deep challenges, those air, the challenges where you're not even thinking about how to cope products or you're not thinking about how to start cos you're just you're just trying to figure out a baseline, how to survive financially, kick start something. And when you get through those sorts of things, I think it prepares you really well for some of the other things that we have now started to do. So the projects with crew and unspool ash and our office space, the collective and cafe, how those things come about, you know, when you're making those things and they're doing, they're fresh. It has a lot of those challenges. Similar things of that we experienced together when I when I first came to

Canada, so was the was the goal originally to get out of debt and start a business, or or how did the idea of the bit of starting a business come along? And And how did you in your now wife decide that you guys were gonna do this together?

Yeah, I think I compare how we move forward. You know, financially with human freedom. It's very similar to, you know, pure mid off you're trying to solve. You have to get up to self actualization, right? So there's this principle in psychology where if you don't have your baseline needs met, you know, if you don't have food, shelter, these sorts of things, you can't even think about how to be great at something. You know, you're just thinking about survival at its basics here.

And I think it's very similar, You know, in that sense, where I was just focused, so focused on that survival part, it hadn't really entered my mind that we're going to start a company in these sorts of things. At that stage, it was just about like I can't even operate with this negative number. I'm just in the red for two years, three years, people its force for a lot of people, and I I know how that feels on it feels like you can't really think about any home run opportunities. You've got this thing that sits there every every month and you see it slowly. If any going down your brain is just sitting on that, that's the level that we were at. But as it starts to clean off,

you know, you move up in the pyramid, you know, it's sort of like, Okay, I saw itself this a bit. I'm startinto get over the hump to think about some other things. You know what do how do you solve this long term? How can we create some sustainability in the future? You start Thio, open up some space to be able to think about that. And that's where some of these other you know. Do you have starting a business? Came about,

You know, um, Natalie and I started fun size, and we run it together, and a lot of people ask us, isn't that, um, really challenging to work with your significant other and, ah, you know, both of us. You answer the same way, like No, it's really easy, you know, like we We mess really well together and we enjoy doing this. How well do you guys work together? And how do you create the proper separation of of, you know, the focus you need to put on the business and innovative ideas and the next big thing, plus your home life and your relationship.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. It was even. I mean, we've raised a bit of investment on it's typically a no no in the investment world to invest in couples. So, like, a lot of investors were not interested in anything simply because we were a couple and we thought that was actually a little straight. Not not coming from that world were like, actually, you know, these are this is a very healthy relationship. We've proved we've been together for a very long time. We're comfortable being transparent and open with each other. I understand the cases where it can go wrong and those sorts of things. But I think any relationship can go wrong. Yeah, maybe if you guys are in a relationship started company together, the chance that it gets nasty or something increases, but also the chance that great things happen I think increases as well.

Yeah, I find that that notion of risk with married couples, I just don't I just don't get it. I mean, I think when you you know, I've had businesses before with the business partner and even then you have a great business relationship. It doesn't necessarily mean that your destinies are aligned. I think when you work with your significant other, you are directly tied to, you know, like there's the vision is much clearer, and it's it's a it's a it's a do or die thing. And anyway, it's That's Ah,

that's interesting. Yeah, I think. And when you come home, you understand each other's is empathy with what everybody went through in the day. I've heard that from other entrepreneurs that have ended relationships because, you know, they're like my spouse or my other didn't understand what goes on today. And I think that that is one of the benefits. You totally get it without saying anything. You know what you've been through together during that day?

Amen. Yeah, absolutely. You know. So you so you guys started, you know, imagining you're starting this in a basement, Um, from nothing. Now you're now You guys were 20 or 30 employees of cost. What? Four countries or three or four countries?

Uh, or four countries? 30. Ok, 35 people.

Over. How long?

33 and half years.

That's pretty impressive. So talk, talk. Let's talk more about crew. Where did the idea come from? What are you aiming to do? How are you guys set up? Like, what are some of the biggest challenges you're facing? And how did you get to where you are right now?

Yeah. So what the When the first kind of really interesting positions that I was able to get in Montreal was at a design studio that's right. Fell in love with what was possible with the Internet design. But I also saw a lot of the challenges that happened. You know, when you're doing designed as a service in a studio environment, you've got these short term projects. You have a team that is partially full time and short term. You're watching out for this balance line for the future that we planned this all out. You're working with clients, and a lot of the work with the clients ends up seeping into the actual creative work, and I saw it happen a ton where that would start to skew in the entirely opposite direction where we would have almost 70% of our company with people who weren't designing. You know, they were there to help make sure that these and I get it. There's the relationships are complex and these air tough projects that were working up. But I'm not coming from that industry. I felt that there was some things that could be improved,

that there was actual process. Like what if you just focused on that and tried to make that better? Eso actually left the studio after that with a couple friends Way took a shot at it, you know, he started small. There was just two of us and we said, What would it look like, the best sort of process to run this through based on everything that's been written everywhere? And we were new at this completely, so we just pulled everything in and started trying things on. At the same time, there was this startup accelerator that was started in Montreal. It's almost like Y Combinator, based in Montreal, and were foreign to the world of startups completely. But what we saw is,

you know, they were doing $25,000 for three months in this program. They will give you $25,000 in exchange, they asked for 6% of the company. So when we had started, we have some ideas of things that we wanted to do. We really looked up to 37 signals model where you build a base camp at the same time. It's taking a client where that really appealed to us. So we had some of these ideas sitting on the side. And we said, You know, if a client came to us today that will give you $25,000 you can build whatever you want and all. We want a 6% of it for us. Really? Hell, yeah,

That's amazing. Yeah, we want to do that for sure. So that's how we looked at that opportunity. And we apply. And we got in actually with no product, just a bunch of ideas. And I think when I speak to our investors now who is still heavily involved, he remembers back that time he says that it was really just a CZ a spark, and the people on our team that he saw saw that was potentially something there, that we would be able to figure something out. And when we started in that program, you we had so many of those ideas. It was it was tough because we're going up. There's 10 companies that get selected out of 500 companies that apply. A lot of these companies have millions of people using the products already,

and you're stepping into a three month process. We're at the end. You're pitching in a giant room off all the investors that you need to know in Canada and on the East Coast. So well, date for pretty high. Oh, man, we have never done this before. Uh, wow, that's that's a yeah, Yeah, and I think what they saw everybody saw went through that. We pitched way pitched. What we had it was we made a lot of progress. Don't didn't hit a 1,000,000 people using our products.

People saw what we went from on that first day. We're basically we pitched three different ideas we had was like even these terrible shirts that were like extra large locals were faded. We got them look beige. Just We just looked like we had no idea what we're doing to three months later, be able to articulate untidy A what we wanted to work on and speaking well about it, showing that we could build product and take something to market and do that without ever having done.

Yeah, that's that's crazy. Um, so can you. Can you give us a quick overview? What cruise mission is?

Yes. So the focus for crew was, too. If we could deliver high quality work to people who know how to do great work, that is the essence of what it's Yes, we're starting in design and development. That's the area that we know that we come from. It's one of the most challenging, and it's a lot of where the future of business is headed, and we want to help freelancers. Studios established consistency. That's one of the big challenges. Often, the reason why sometimes you're interested in joining a bigger agency or getting something full time is because it gives you consistency. And with crew, we wanted to have the backs of freelancers and studios who did good work, or we could take away a lot of that back off this stuff, dealing with finding consistent, high quality work, and you could focus a lot more on the creative process.

That that's big, right? I mean, one of our first employees. Actually, Rick, who used to host this podcast with me, left fun size to start his own studio. And, you know, he was talking on Twitter just the other day. He's like, Man, I like I'm doing a lot more business development in project management than I thought and I would imagine just based on my own experience of being a freelancer. Um, you probably you probably spend 10 to 20% of your time doing business of you probably spend 10 to 20% of your time doing, like logistics or admin stuff,

10 to 20% doing P M work. So, like if you're just working alone trying to navigate the space at best, you're working 50% on design. Unless you work 60 hours a week,

right? You're exactly right, and that's what I experienced when I started with one partner. I basically became the project managers, last designer for everything and business, and I noticed that. So it's like What if I could kind of product ties myself? If I could turn myself into a product and give that to every freelancer or studio, that could be really interesting. Get that amount of time that you're spending on logistics and project management down as much as possible, as close to 0% as we can at the same time how clients still feel that human connection that you feel when you work with in a creative act.

That's that's awesome. So, um, how many, Um, what is the mix on crude? Between small studios and as freelancers?

It's about 2/3 is freelancers and 1/3 is studios.

Okay, so I have a question for if you don't mind asking just cause I'm really interested, actually, fun size was started. We got our start by working with a company that was similar to yours many years ago. I was freelancing. I was using the service. It was called Scout see, and I and I worked. I did a couple project with them, and then all of a sudden I built a great relationship with one individual client, and that kickstart started the whole agency. So I I definitely see the value in all this. How? How What's the difference in work? You know, in ah,

you facilitating these relationship with freelancers versus studios? I imagine it's harder, but I'm curious because I think there's a lot of you know we've been We've been, ah, checking out crew. There seems to be a lot of really cool projects there. I mean, what has there been any challenges on the agent on the small studio side?

Yes, so one of the challenges a lot of comes from attracting projects. So the way we do that crew, it's in on automated way project is coming in. And so when it's in that fashion, we don't have a lot of people involved doing that. We often have to build a lot more trust to attract the project sizes that can meet the minimums of many good studios. So that's definitely one of the challenges that we have improved. So look at the first year average project budget size was $3000. These were small projects mainly meant for freelancers. Now we're at about $10,000 so that's about three X, you know, growing since in just three years, and we're starting to see six figure projects and very common projects are between 20 and 50 k. So we're starting to see that move up. And I believe that's a factor of the trust that we've been building, showing a lot of the work building.

A more trustworthy sites are. Service keeps improving. And so that's That's one of the things that we do wanna help with, because I know that often a studio can do great work. When there's a lot of components to a project, you've got three or four people that all work together. They know each other well. That's a really good recipe for building a product that has designed development. It might be cross platform, so, yeah, I think that's that's one of the challenges that we've been we've been working on

Awesome. Well, for those of either listening, if you're not on crew, should check it out. If you're a small studio or a freelancer, Um, you know, I don't know if it's invite only still or not, but it's definitely we're checking out. Um, so there was something that you sent me when we were planning this episode. I'll just read this just so we could get into talking about it. You said Often when we want to do something great, we feel we have to build great right away. And often this leads to building too much. And there's many problems with doing that.

Right? Um, I think you know, this is something from the agency side that I see all the time. And a lot of it is, um, acting as a consultant, working with usually a startup entrepreneur who thinks they know exactly what they need to do, and they just go straight away, met it, and, um, in in very little time, they burned through a lot of cash on designing and trying to build something that they don't even know has. Ah, market validation.

Um, what's what? What is, uh, what has been your approach to navigating, that that problem in in figuring out how to reach greatness and how to structure it in a way that makes sense to do overtime?

Yeah, I think there's a variety of factors that play into why you know the odds. Sometimes you against you when you build too big right away. Part of it is what you mentioned. Part of it is even just you lose momentum, people. You don't launch something. Nothing ever gets out there and keep changing. You know, copier, this little thing here there, you start to get in like the soup, and you're like, I don't even know where I am anymore. I don't know what's supposed to work. It was not. I had an original idea,

but I've gone through five or six different versions, but we haven't put that out in front of everybody. So then you've got, like, these five talking heads in your own head that are telling you kind of confusing you, and you create this own paradox of choice and they lose some confidence and put that up. And you know, now that you've spent you know, let's say more time, let's say three times more than you wanted to on this. So now you expect three times more for the return. And if you don't get that, that kills your motivation on. But motivation is what's key, especially for software products, especially to continue going and going and going keep building,

because that's what it is. You know, if you look every year, Apple's gonna change their stuff. You have to keep updating. There's gonna be a new thing. There's gonna be a shift that happens. It's evolving way too fast. So that's why I definitely think if you're building something online or software, it is one of the ways to go. Even if you're confident and what is the way to go? You know what does minimum viable product? What is this small thing look like? I often look at it as so I don't I don't write code. I could design a little bit. And I think those constraints are actually really good for testing Early ideas.

A lot of early ideas. I kind of need to start in this ugly, primitive way, because you'll you'll figure out where the with the nasty parts are, because you're gonna feel it yourself. You've got this hack job thing that you put together, and when people start coming into it, you're staying up all night answering, answering e mails to sell this one problem. You know where to design, you know, now you know where to put some development. Resource is, that's the big problem in this whole set of problems that sells this one big pain point.

So you're And that's kind of that's Ah addressing what you said earlier. That paradox a choice if you know where to focus your time, too, um, to create a delightful experience to customer than that's where you could spend your time get, get a win and working on a bunch of things without really saying anything happen and not knowing

where this money, right? So you're gonna build them all to a certain level, but you might realize you build eight things. Six of them people care 20% about yeah, two of them people care 80% about, but you built equally across all, and some of this might have just been extra now to lose people's attention with your product, so that even hurts the other two. So is this really interesting? I think mix of order of operations. You know, it happens in math, and I think it's super important. When you built and we dealt with this with crew with a splash and crew started, we could have built coat. I hope we have four co founders,

two of them designed and developed, and but we decided not to. We we actually had six months left worth of money, and this was one of the constraints that we had. And we knew that pretty much building anything that the way the way that we wanted it to look would eat up that time. Wait, master. Then we could prove what was really important to keep the company going and to keep the company going. We knew a lot of it. Waas based on the growth trajectory because that would prove there's enough people interested in this, even if it's basic and primitive. Hardly

works. So is that what you meant by Google Docks?

Yeah, so? So I don't even like a landing page, one page website. You do that for the first version? It was, I remember we split our days, so we need to with crew to attract projects. And we needed to attract designers of developers so the morning would be attracting designers and developers basically just set up a giant spreadsheet went manually through all the portfolios that we could find. We guess at how many we would probably deed, based on the number of projects that we could attract that we were attracting in the afternoon on way put it on a weekly basis. So we sent projects where I will send projects every Saturday at the start. And we'll just use that as the gauge for how many projects we think we can attract a week and we'll slowly grow. You will grow the designers we grow. The projects will just keep going back and forth and at the same time, every week. Then we'll see what was the biggest pain point in our process.

You know what what held us back from getting a project set up so that the first week it was authored even, you know, we'd find, Let's say, if someone was looking for a freelancer on Twitter would say, We have this This group of 50 designers that have all been handpicked, curated. We can send your products that this Saturday, and we'll introduce you to them on Sunday. That's a very low level thing for somebody to agree to, and we did all of it by kingdoms of the entire back and forth. We did it with 10 projects. That was a lot of work for us. So the first version for us was actually a form, you know, it sounds stupid.

Sounds so basic and you still don't even need any code for that. But we wanted to prove what's the next step? Great. Then we have before. And then the form started to work, and we could accept multiple projects coming in That it was like, how do we actually prove that this could be a business? So we needed to accept funds, and this could be a whole big challenge, right? The thinking is, in order to accept funds, you have to build a lot of trust. You have to show people that security and these sorts of things are some credit card. We kind of did a hat version again. So at the time,

Wufu, one of the form builders, had an integration with strike. So this was like the first time this was possible and they had a a trial account where you could do up to five transactions. So what we did is for each project we set up these trial accounts, Uh oof! Ooh. And basically would just send this one line thing. That's that. Put your email and your credit card and the amount and it would charge. So when somebody was ready to work with a designer That's how we would accept payment. And we thought, If if somebody's gonna do that and people are willing to do that, if we just make this better, people will a lot more fuel problem, right?

And they were doing it. You know, we had $2000 transactions going through this 5000, 10,000 and we said, Okay, this is probably proving that there's a business here. Yes, we know that we need to approve this thing, but we've spotted all the problems that we kept going on that week to week, over and over and over by the by the time it was 34 months later, we had grown. We were accepting almost $200,000 in projects, a month of approved work that was coming in, and it was turning into kind of that future vision that we had.

Wow, that's That's incredible. I wish more people would, you know, you know, take your advice on that. I just use so many people waste so much time and money too soon, you know, And it and it it's really painful to when you're in the consulting side because you know you're there to do what someone asks. And even if you advise someone like you, still, you know there's still your customer. But you know, usually when you're you're working with a new start up your you know, there's a small amount of money on the line, and sometimes it's someone's savings account.

Yes, it's very challenging cuts, You know. People come in, right? You probably get this week. It's all time. I'd like to build a nap that does this. Okay, that's great. But we've actually skipped a question. Do you need to build on? And that's a really hard question to ask when we're in the business of helping people built. You know, uh, I started to do this inside of crew. Actually,

sometimes we don't even talk somebody out of using us. And it's because I do genuinely believe that if they start in this way, slowly say they're gonna be to the point when they do need. Yeah, and they do need this other thing, the confidence level, the chance that we build it right. It's a lot higher. Really? Oh, yeah. I'd rather have come then and also have have the confidence that they built all of this. This stuff that's behind them now. They don't have to prove that at the same time as bringing a product totally new into the market.

Yes, that's, um that's awesome. So, um, if you want I mean, would you be open to sharing a little bit about how your product team is structured and how you guys focus on, like, major releases or features or certain experiential parts of the product? Like, How does how is the labor divided on how you get? How do you guys make decisions about what to build? And how do you structure whose

building crew specifically? Yeah, yeah, so we have a team about 10 designers and engineers. We have no project managers and no product managers. So that's that's one thing. That beef, we've actually noticed a lot within crew. It's one of the This is challenging. I think you can have a good product managers. You can have a good project manage. I often act as a product manager of Project manager sometimes, but we try toe reduce that to minimum. I think sometimes it can happen very quickly where you have a whole bunch of layers in between the work and the business goal and the more of those layers that happen, it's just more challenging to have a person who's actually building it relate back to the business school's. That's one of the structural things, Uh, that way have set

up a quick question about that. So does the. But does the buck stop with you, or you give these designers autonomy to make certain decisions? And what is it like seeing your original idea morph over time as different people are

working? Yeah, it's Ah, it's a great question. And we've iterated actually a lot on our process around this s o. We just have a conversation two days ago where first, what we're doing is I'm usually involved in the initial idea. Now what should this look like? What's the best way of doing it? But it's where else we're still in Google docks at this point, just thinking through and having conversations. Once we think we have it, it's It's like it's like Jell O in a anything, but it's not like fully stable, you know, we don't know exactly what's gonna be. We don't do like a full spec yet,

s so there's a lot of autonomy at that stage, it's still just written things that a designer or developer might start working on. Then we'll start working on it, and then I'll come in at a feedback stage pretty much right before it's about to launch. That's how we were doing. One of the challenges is I think I was coming in too late, right? So there's been a few major forks in the road that it already happened on. It morphed into something that was kind of different. And when you're building a product, you've got opinions coming from operations to. You got opinions coming from the support team, sales team and even myself. So when that all happens in the mix, sometimes the direction can shift into different ways, and it looks very different from the original,

and I think that's totally cool eso. But one of the things that we've introduced is because I I'm involved in the beginning. We're adding a couple more touch points for if there's a fork in the road that the designer or developer thinks there's a fork in the road. So I'm not saying that I'm not determining what that fork in the road. It's yes, their call, and we'll keep trying to improve that. That intuition over and over. What is a fork in the road, you know, is a fork in the road that the logo is off or is a fork in the road. That cop was not right. Or is the fork in the road like this major direction of feature? And I definitely let our team make those.

Yeah. I mean, it's got to be crazy for you. I mean, you guys have grown so quickly. Um, we've grown, but not as not as not as not as fast way started as one person than 23 and 1/2 years later, we're 13 but it's it's crazy to see how. What it doesn't matter what you're making, whether it's an agency or a company or a product, you know it. I want something that I'm just obsessed with is just seeing how the the future changes based on the folks that are working on it. I appreciate you sharing

that I enjoy. Once. I think it takes a bit of time for Let's say somebody new starts on your intuitions to sort of a line. You know what does good look like often for us, it's We call it good fast. You know, something that can be put up quickly, but also good. And if you all have the same idea of that once you have that that I think it's a very hands off process. So people who have been at crew for one plus year, that's usually the mark of. But when it happens with them, that happens faster. You know, within six months those product building processes are very fast, You know, I may be involved in the beginning and just a tiny bit like right before lunch is.

But to hone that intuition over time, it's really interesting. And then once you guys are in line with that intuition, it leaves room for whoever you hire whoever's working on that to at their peace, too. And that can surprise. I love that. Like that's my favorite part. When somebody build something that's way better than anything that I thought,

Yeah, yeah, I I used to when I was freelancing, Um, I was responsible for 9900% of all the work and and now it's, um I mean, I kind of like you maybe almost do no hands on work. It's that's been a train that's been actually as a designer and running, running a business. One of the hardest things for Mito to to to deal with diversifying the delegate is and allowing people to figure it out. But I don't know now I don't now I'm obsessed with that ability to, you know, go cross all these different work streams and, you know, plant ideas. But see them come to life by some rails. I have another question for you just because the nature of your business.

Um, how do you guys have value eight freelancers and studios that want to be part of crew? Who is it that looks at the work and says, Oh, this is great, you ex work or, you know this is tasteful. Like, How do you How do you decide

who gets in? Yes, so it's actually very similar to our full time hiring process. We'll look for, for example, let's see your mobile designer. You come on and say I built three APs that are all live minimum 40 reviews that are four and 1/2 starts. So that's that's like a basic requirement that we look for for the work that you've put up and said that you've done. And then we go through a series of looking at other things. You know, things like you're writing what you're tweeting about getting a full view of a person, as if we would hire them. And then we d'oh! Full interview. Never think this is all done by a human. So we have only a few 100 members that have been accepted to crew because I would rather have fewer members. Phil.

Tons of work for each member, then have the issue that often happens. I've seen a lot When I was freelancing and looking at the different options for where we could find work online. A lot of them gets diluted very quickly, with thousands and thousands of professionals or people who say that they claim to be designers sorts of things. The betting conditions go down and then what happens is everything competes on price and you get this really bad dynamic where people aren't necessarily looking for ah, high quality result anymore. They're looking for something that gets the job done. Chips price. So we're building all the mechanics we can to try to prevent that. And sometimes it actually stunts our own growth because we're turn away. We turn away 70% of the projects that get posted on crew, and I think it's just important to slowly grow. We need to let in a few members as we grow. The project's make sure everybody has enough work, and we're evaluating each member as if they're enjoying it.

That's really interesting. Well, what's next for you and crew? What are the big things that like, What do you think you were gonna be doing next

year? Yes, I think when we introduce the call, there's a bunch of stuff that you've done working on his crew. There's Hot splash. There's our office space that we turned into a cafe in court in Space I What are really focuses now is turning. It worked on all of those things and making them better, So we're not looking to do five more projects. We're looking to take existing projects and just knew the goatee on them. So for crew, for example, really obsessing about how can we go so far in the managing the project thing where it takes away all unnecessary back and forth communication are US designer don't even have to worry about telling a client what they need to be looking at this milestone, you never have to follow up with payment of the feedback that tools that we built It are all basically guiding you through this process makes it enjoyable for everybody. That's I want to get into that level rather than building, you know. So next crazy feature that has this big gamble attached to we're not sure it's gonna be useful. Yeah,

maybe it could be like help us grow a ton. But I'd rather grow through building a really great product for the existing customers. Have them refer to people that they trust. It's ultimately this. This whole community is based on trust.

I can't agree more. Ah, you know, I think especially when you're doing design work, whether you're an agency or or a freelancer. Ah, the the most critical thing Thio to do is build that trust so that, you know, people open up their doors and let you tackle, you know, bigger, more exciting problems. And, you know, that's I think that your ability to build trust is there might be a few people that hate me for saying this, but I think that's more important than the actual

work that you know. It's very important. I mean, things is right in line with why we look at two factors for every member or studio that applies is not only the quality of work, that how your portfolio looks but how we work. And that's really hard to evaluate so often. When somebody goes and crew, there's, there's an evaluation that's done. We're watching a performance in the projects of how we work. It's not just great, like the result was good, but there's a second element, and we've seen it first hand so many times. If you work really well a plus, your person to work with your design actually doesn't need to be a plus. It's almost like this mental shift that happens.

People feel confident, and there's this just trust that builds that. Yes, I'm gonna get a work great if you could do a plus work, but you're already a plus to work with, and that's a whole another level. That's a whole another bar that a lot of people don't pay attention to.

Yeah, I think that's really important to me too, Because I think, you know, sometimes especially, you know, young designers, for example, I haven't been around the block long enough to really work in enough places to build a diverse portfolio. And so their portfolio generally looks like, you know, the opportunities that were given to him, and and so you kind of have to. Well, I think you have to be willing to look at evaluated freelancer or a designer By what? What is their potential? Do they understand?

The process is necessary to arrive from point A to point C. And are you gonna love working with them? Because, you know, and this is something we tell our clients is like, What you're going to get out of this is largely related to how well we work together. And and I think that's awesome The way that you guys, um, the way you guys look at this, I've been telling a lot of my my friends about it want until everyone how they can, how they confined you on

their webs. Yes. So I'm on Twitter Macallan show M I k A T l C H O media. It's the same handle. That's where I do a lot of my writing on also ink. So if you just scoop my name, a bunch of these links will pop up. And Cruz itis crew that CEO c r E w dot ceo.

All right. Well, thanks again, man. It's been It's been a pleasure to talk to you

again. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks.

We'll see you next time. I guess. This'll Episode of hustle is brought to you by envision Designed better, faster together Learn more at in vision app dot com Hustle is brought to you by fun Size, a digital product design studio that crafts delightful digital user experiences with inspiring product companies. Follow us at hustle cast and fun size on Twitter.