this'd hustle a podcast about digital product design. I'm Rick Messer, your co host with Anthony Armendariz, owner of Fun Size, a digital Products time studio in Austin High.

It was That was it. It's gonna be back doing this. Yeah, it's been Ah, about a

month. Think we took about a month off. Ah, I didn't have a plan to do that specifically, but things got a little crazy with, uh, you know, we're moving. Yeah, I think that was a big, big

part of it on boarding new folks and moving my busy.

Yeah. Things have been good. Um, we had discussed potentially, just kind of going into Well, we have a conversation going based on an article that came out about a month ago, Um, which was written by this guy from us to Jules, Jules and her. Yeah. All right. No. Yet her heart. I don't know how to say it exactly, but, um, at any rate,

this was published on the marvel app blawg and the articles called State of the Digital Nation 2016. I kind of got me thinking about some really, man. Somewhat profound things. Just just the concept of where basically how products were being built today and what that means for a designer, what it means to be a designer today is a far cry from what it meant to be a designer 20 years ago and any time before that, um and I mean, I would actually definitely say, you know, even more so the last 10 years because basically the thing that sort of caught my eye with a Z I'm reading this article it's talking about This is where digital design is. This is how companies are functioning. This is how big major brands are. Purchasing products sign companies. And and And the reason behind that is that Thebes, previous way that design agencies had worked weren't, you know,

is sort of a thing thing of the past. I'll get into what I mean more about that. But specifically, the thing that's kind of blowing my mind is that I realized that policy I started, like professionally, I think in like 2005. And until I feel like maybe the iPhone came out in 2007 and tell, then I feel like a desires job was advertising basically like when you boil it down, it's like marketing or advertising and in some form or fashion. And that's really the only thing that is now ever since, um, I'm not saying it's it's solely because the iPhone I'm just sort of false a Web SAS products. Yeah, but that's that's true. I feel like I feel like whether, you know,

I'm just sort of thinking of that year as, like a big paradigm shift, because essentially product products were created primarily, you know, with, um, executives and business people, you know, product people, Uh and then they would sort of delegate. You know, the requirements to engineering, which would be built and designed, was typically an afterthought. There's basically like libraries. They could choose from a previously designed,

gooey interfaces that some designer somewhere I want to meet, somebody who designed, like one of these. You know, you guys like from back in the day, But anyway, that design was definitely an afterthought. Maybe not you, xx exactly. But until very recently, designers jobs have been on Lee advertising, but now its product design. We are sort of empowered and given a seat at the table as it were to build products and participate in what should be built. So that was kind of the thing. One of the main main things that that I was sort of taken away from it was like, Oh,

my gosh, like I never realized this before. Um, but it's It's our job has always been advertising advertising a product. But now our job is to actually build the product. And there's some advertising as well. Yes,

um, I remember going to that transition to because my back, you know, my background was designing marketing websites and like, um, publishing And I remember when all of a sudden are students at the agency that I work for behavior design in New York. All of a sudden, all the work was all software. Like all of a sudden, I had to, like, learn how to design, like an Ajax, you know, experience like and I guess that's when it really hit me like, Oh, I actually have to understand this. Like it's not just styling. It's like it's actually how it works. Yeah, and that was That was a very big shift.

Yeah, I think you know, stuff from the early days software from the early days, you know, at some point. People realize that, Hey, we want it. We want to make it easy for people to use these things. So let's put someone in charge of that. And it's not like old products that we built were bad. It's just that we had never as a human race had never like, you know, uh, moved something that was a physical product that we're trying to mass produce and sell into, like a digital experience. So it's just simply that there were no rules,

I think, and, um, we have a lot of rules and we can identify. And even, you know, most in users can identify what like bad design is or bad user user experience is. But that's just simply didn't exist before. And now it's sort of like everybody has consumed so much of it that we're starting to get picky. And I think that's what has sort of elevated designed thio having a seat at the table for, you know, executives and what not to appoint head of designed to their product and kind of run run their company. With that way, Onda letting letting design be a strong poll, um, in different directions,

so so that That was one of the things that was super compelling. Something that was also evidence of the paradigm shift. I mean, we had that last season with Greg story, right? We had that, um, episode where he talked about that report he had access to and how the agency model, as it has been in the past, is sort of I'll just say weird. I don't want to say anything particularly directly derogatory, but just the past agency model is weird because, um, not only are you selling advertising, um, and making advertising,

but you also sort of convincing whoever is purchasing these things from you that it is absolutely crucial to their business, and without it, they won't survive. But the thing is, back before we had, like, advertising, that was a lot more digital. You know, advertising was definitely TV and billboards on whatever. But how do you quantify that? How do you quantify how many people, um, you know, see this billboard? And how that,

you know, what's the click through rate on a billboard, you know, was this what's the CTR? What's was wth e r a y for for a billboard. I mean, people throw stuff out there. But, man, I think it's just has been for years, largely bullshit. And I think that companies were getting smart enough now to see that because we have analytics know we have. You know exactly how much a user costs to get when you're advertising digitally. So, um, basically,

what What that boils down to is this paradigm shift that I'm talking about that is the digital nation, right? Um, is now Well, it's I guess it's digital. But, I mean, the advertising nation is I guess what I should refer to is the agency model and nation, and like how that's changing. And like we as designers that make up all these agencies what What does this mean for us? So, um, agencies in the past sort of, uh had had been selling making and selling this advertising and saying that it's worked. But now that we've got a good 10 years under our belts, as you know,

modern people that have digital products uh, you could see what the rial return right is on that. Like it. I think these things are being called into question. In fact, in the in the article, he lists that, uh, Pepsi had had fired their agency of record and link Thio TechCrunch article or something about that were basically they're like, Look, we just can't justify this anymore. Like this agency of record, which apparently I didn't I didn't know exactly what that meant until Thea article explained it. I'm sure I'm sure you did, Anthony. Um,

but apparently what that means is that they basically have the right to purchase, you know, airtime and purchase, um, sponsor spots. And what in the name of you know, if you're agency wreck for Pepsi, you could buy advertising for Pepsi, so they let him go, and that's, you know, that's a huge, huge deal. Um, so you I think you and your career, um are you kind of got a front row seat to see what the agency of the past has been and over the last,

you know, since, you know, I think 2007 because I think I phoned, but that's definitely debatable, but but what have you seen in in, like working at New York agencies in, like, you know, the early two thousands. Ah, And what What is going on now?

I guess for me. I mean, what's coming to mind most and hearing you talk to that is brought back some memories. I do remember working for a very large, very large at ad agency and there was an interactive I remember the time this month must have been 2004. I remember 2005. There was an interactive discipline inside of this agency, you know, like agency, other agencies. We had agency of record. And it was I remember it being about the ideas we were selling to people, right. We were We were selling them ideas for the, you know, for radio spots or for TV spots or for digital marketing and in the execution of these ideas. Like if it if it did have,

like, a website or a Web app or an interactive experience behind it, it was definitely an afterthought because the idea led. And then the actual development of the product was done with an outside vendor a lot, a lot of the time, and and, uh, I guess I bring it up because I get it. I wonder if a lot of these agencies were losing their value because they they're only bringing one thing to the table. Don't bring an idea versus execution. I don't know that is just a thought, but yeah. I mean, what I've seen lately Well, you know, my you know,

my novice brain. When we started this company, I think we thought, Oh, yeah, we're just gonna build. We're gonna build APS. That's what we want to do. But as we've started to work with a lot of companies that, um, are hoping that will bring this new product to market. I'm seeing all this other stuff that they need or that they that they really truly need. They may not be asking for it, but it's not just it's mainly about get building this product getting to market. But it's also about helping them find the product market fit and helping them market that and get it in front of people that would sign up for it and maybe even optimized for conversion. And you know,

the some of the marketing things that go around it that reading this article for those of you who haven't read it, I guess kind of transitioning into one of the one of the thoughts that really stood out to me was that They're predicting this in this article. They're predicting the future. So they're they're they're looking at what sort of happened in the past and where they predict things are going in the future. I do really respect what these guys have to say because their company has existed for a very long time, and they they're navigating it pretty smartly, in my opinion. But one of the takeaways was that it doesn't matter what you're what industry vertical that you're in. If you're only exploiting one service, you don't really have what it takes to build the true trust in the client that you can help solve the whole problem. If you're an advertising agency that can only come up with the idea, you're probably not able to build the product and your most definitely not suited for getting it to market and to use the research. And if you're a development company, then maybe you're missing design. Or maybe you're missing marketing. And if you're a design only company,

maybe you're missing the marketing and maybe you're missing the development. And so one of the things that they I don't know if this is what he actually meant. But one of the things that this article made me feel was that to to get the kind of digital product work that I imagined in my head I would want to do in the future, it requires being able to prove prove that you can, um, help a client navigate all of the parts necessary to get that product to market and and potentially even supported long term. Otherwise, they're dealing with multiple vendors, and they're probably gonna go. Purchase service is from people that can

or what A lot of these product companies they're doing, even start ups is hiring their own team internally. And that's an interesting angle, too, because a it's hard to hire people for it to work for your product for your startup and be, um, you're going to have, like, you know, just really potentially limited experience with that particular team where is hiring And, you know, this is definitely some people would definitely argue this, and and I understand why, but this is just what I think, Um, hiring an agency is a you know, to bring your your product to market is a a temporary expense because you're trying to get to a certain point.

B. You're working with people that have done this before and have built successful products and they can prove it. You know, um and I don't know, maybe there's a c in there, but those were the two things that I kind

of think I think that the sea is maybe the hybrid that we see a lot like companies that have some expertise internally that they pair with us. They're actually strong contributors, but they either don't have enough of enough independent contributors or

or they just need an outside view. Yeah, they have enough. But they are like, let's put some money into an agency that understands, like, modern digital product design and see if we really want to build what we think we're gonna build. Let's open up. The possibility is on what this thing could be, Um, and I feel like that is pretty much what? What? Most of at least the clients have fun. Size 10 tend to be doing,

and boy, has that changed. I mean, I know you'll remember this, too, but remember until recent years the agency or the freelancer, whoever was hired to do the job with. Go through the motions, go through the process. Phase one, Discovery phase two, whatever wire frames. And then you present this thing to the client. Like, here is this app that that you've contract me to build, like, what changes would you like?

And now that you know that I would never I haven't seen that, like, happened in a while. It's you're building it with the building it together. They're looking. Also, people are looking to hire freelancers, employees, agencies that are willing to go through that process together rather than just be presented with something and then have toe, you know, uh, you know, make decisions on the spot that steer it. Yeah, maybe

do this. This article is fucking long. You gotta be ready yet. A put your big boy pants on Thio. I read this article. It is really long. It's thoroughly entertaining all the way through. It's kind of like a mini book. In fact, it is actually separated and chapters. Yeah, but anyway, I was just going through and trying to find something, something that is a quote. That's very relevant. Guy, this is a This is a quote in the article by a guy named Dan.

I Air. Really? Really Dan Air Lee. Let's call it the digital product is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about it. Not many know how to do it. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it. So everyone claims that they're doing sort of, uh, you know, it's kind of like

everyone putting u Ex designer on there.

Yeah, I'm a pro Bono. Yeah, lean u ex Atul, You ex agile design U ex. Okay, Uh, I think it's funny because, you know, I hear other product design podcast that talk about just like titles all the time cause nobody can figure them out. And I feel like that, Um, that quote is sort of like what it kind of like what it is like none of us know, like exactly how to describe what we do, because we do a little bit of everything, and then that doesn't sound good. So then we want to sound like experts,

you know? So, yeah, it's the reason I believe that that is that nobody really understands. It is because it's such a volatile change that we're going through as an industry right now. The way products being built right now is never been the case like people have never made money off of something that you cannot actually touch her feel. It's all like thoughts and content that's coming from other people, and people are interacting with it and paying either through advertising or subscription or whatever. But that has just never been the case. And so there's all of us designers that air designing these digital experiences because we're used to them because we've understood sort of, like do's and don'ts about that. And we're drawing our own conclusions and we kind of all, you know, we had. We just have to keep sharing, I think writing articles,

reading about it, you know, commenting back and forth. Excuse me and having like, a conversation together, Um, but the whole thing about who who does it best or, um, who does it the way it should be done like That's definitely, I think, bullshit. I think way we're doing what we think is right. But next this time next year, we're going to be doing a lot of different things than we do right now, and that's because we're in a changing industry, like it's different today.

than it was before. And it's just nobody has time to officiate titles or anything like that. Everybody just needs to, like, get the product out the door like, let's try and build this thing and see if we can build up, See if we could make money, see if we could build a product, see if this thing's gonna float. Um, so I kind of think that is what resonates with me with that quote. Like everybody thinks that they're doing it. Everybody thinks everyone else is doing it. So they're like, Yeah, we're doing it too. Yeah.

I mean, I honestly on that point on it from a different topic. I suffer from the same issue like another. Another big thing. In this article, Jules goes into what he sees as the future of the digital products studio, and he describes as being three pillars. One agency client service is to building own product and three investing in your clients.

So if I could just clarify, clarify the second to Lake, the 2nd 1 was building your own products, like as an agency, like building your own product, like just dream, Okay. And then the 3rd 1 is investing in your client's meaning, actually putting money into product or

and if it was anyone else writing this article, I probably would have glossed over this. But here's why. I took it seriously. Us too built Monument Valley and made millions of dollars us to also invest money. Actual money, actual cash Not not just designed for equity but actual cash into their customers. Several of them, like one of them, is marvel, right? And this is sort of it has to be some sort of proof that that might lend us to imagine what customers air wanting right? They want a long term partner that can build with them, but they need skin in the game like they want to hire an agency. But you know, they want that agency t actually invest in it so that it could be a long term thing to actually build and support and tests and make it better over and over again instead of just being a one off project. And it's also may be shedding light on.

Well, maybe revenue is a little bit different for agencies now, so agencies air having to think of other ways, too. Build that revenue. Maybe that's own product. I don't know their own product. One is something that I'm not sure, but I suffer from what I suffer from that everyone else is doing. It is this whole venture's thing. I see it happening all the time with company, you know, companies like us, too. In the article, they go on a detailed list of all the agencies that have created adventures arm or a completely separate business just to invest in companies.

And these aren't just small companies like frogs doing it. R g a. Is doing it. There's gotta be a reason why, right? And I would have to predict it's because that's what the customer is asking

for. Well, I mean, when I think that when you know once a company starts becoming successful, you know, and you know it's well known and it's is large and it's growing, and it's maintaining that. What what do you do when you get a lot of money? What do you do? You invest it. So what better to invest in then? The thing that you've seen, the details you sort of lifted, you know, up underneath the curtain and you know how the whole thing works. And if you believe in it like that's actually like a beautiful way to you know? What better compliment can you pay your client, then Thio actually give money Dim thio, you know, put fuel

on the fire and then for your other customers that are just typical customers. Like you said earlier, Rick, you can prove that you know how to do that, right? You know how to navigate that space. You know, when design needs to be injected and when it should cost money and how much it cost. And when people should put skin in the game and how to build the products, how to market how to track the audience howto make it better over time and howto be a long term partner. What a better way to do that. I mean, I don't know. It was it was mind blowing for me because, well, you know, the other part that little bit more boring is that they actually go into detail describe like,

how much money you actually have in the bank to do this. But it made me think Well, you know, we've been trying to get our solution for this figured out because not not not the majority, but a lot of the a lot of the more interesting customers that come to fund size are looking for a partner to put some skin in the game, and we just haven't been able to crack the nut on it. And, um, yeah, I don't gotta change it there, but

well, I mean, we're still still young company man, um, trying to find something that was basically, like a list over the past. Um, I think it's like three years or so of agencies that had been acquired. Bye. I think mostly consulting companies. It's kind of kind of crazy. I mean, there's been a couple over here that if it a little close to home, right? Um, obviously, everyone knows about ah Tien lacks being,

you know, wasn't an acquisition. They dissolved it or whatever. You know, whatever that scenario was. But, um Then let's see fjord, where, uh, Natalie usedto work was acquired by X ensure. They also took campman, and then our own Austin's own a chaotic moon was also acquired by

Accenture. That's another example of a company, a company like Accenture that has, like I T solutions. Realizing that they need to help their customers with the full service, they're customers. Also need design and development. Yep. Yeah. Um and, you know, I was actually, um, meeting that I had beers with Peter more holes a week or two ago, and he lives in San Francisco, and he was telling me some stories about how hard it is to even run an agency in California. Uh,

because of the talent, right? Well, the talent issues one, right. The bigger companies, they're eating them up. But if you and then the other challenges if you actually have the talent, um, you know, you're being, you know, the It's too hard. Well, there's a lot of other things that the costs and all that. But you're constantly these companies were constantly bombarded with offers to be acquired.

I mean, right now, as we speak, I don't know if I can think of two or three small, strong product design studios that have not been bought. Like I just don't know what the how long you stay in business there, you probably go a different direction. I don't know. Maybe not too valuable for this conversation, but

no I think that's that. That is the conversation. Sort of like, what is the future of the Park Design Agency? Because that's what we're in. And that's what we talked about. And the past has been like advertising agency, and the president is the product design agency,

so and that that was a trend that's repeated itself. Only, you know. When was it? What was it? What year was that? You know, back one of these companies, like a razor fish and all these companies were being acquired. They were digital like mostly like advertising agencies and digital marketing companies that were being acquired by the bigger conglomerates. I don't know if that's still happening now. It's the product design studios that we're going to that transition of being merged and acquired. And

yeah, to ah, your friend's point. Who's your friend that we had lunch with the other day? He's like the owner of the digital products. Some earthy calls from it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His point was that that was sort of like a huge trend that was happening very, very quickly. And you're hearing it like every month. You heard about, like at least two new ones But actually, it hasn't. You ever heard of any, like,

over the past, like, six months or so. So I wonder if that is already subsiding or not, but I don't know. It's interesting, Um, kind of where we are today. I don't know. I like the the idea of building, you know, your own products. I think it's an interesting question. Um, that you pose about weather, you need to offer a full service or not,

because, I mean, there's always gonna be a client that has, you know, certain certain needs, you know?

Well, you know, and honestly, this this thing, you know, we've talked on a couple of episodes about this, and we've had all these other conversation internally about, you know, being very open about it on the podcast, Like what we should do. Development. I think this is this article was a turning point for me that it was that the answer seemed 1000% crystal clear. Yes,

Well, as much as I want that, I I'll play devil's advocate for you, right? Because the what What do you say about like right now? Like when we're done with the project, we're sort of done with a project, You know, we give them the design files, and that's sort of the end of our responsibility. It's not like we don't talk to them anymore, but we're not really on the hook for anything after that. So, um, how do you feel about, you know, for building an app for somebody? Do we? Are we responsible for keeping it running like Is that like a good a good way to do it? Um,

that's a very good question. You know, I don't know, but I know that I I feel like we at least need to like, maybe you've said it better at least have the under the deep enough understanding of what the client's gonna be going through once they get that hand off to help them navigate it right. It may not be actual development, but it might be, you know, staff members that no engineering that could help make design decisions from an engineering perspective. I don't

know. I really don't think that's what Ben said they doing rally

anyway and also on the same topic. I think marketing right, because if it's true that you know, and I think it is About 25% of our annual customers are brand new companies, service's or products, and they want us to help them launch them. We should understand the marketing part of it if we really want to help them be successful, like we should be able to not only designed them oh, marketing page, but understand howto monitor and adjust for the conversion. And you know, so that we can act actually get the download so that we can continue the relationship. So that Klink I don't know, it's

timed. Iris, you know?

Yes, You know Steven's company, Steven Rae's company Hey, works. He's the chief creative officer for a company called Die Alexa and there an example of AH product design agency that's doing that like part. Part of their standard engagement service is is you know, when they launch a product, say, an iPhone app, they'll also do the marketing. And part of what they do is they actually run tests on that design, and they'll and they'll they'll do. Optimization is on it, Not forever. Not snot forever support, but for a duration was I thought that was pretty interesting, that they'd actually do

that. They have a support retainer or something?

I'm not sure. I think they have. Ah, just ah ah. Division of their company that supports product designed with some of the marketing stuff. Like what kind of language about a future actually helps, you know, you know, attracted user, create the conversion, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, marketing's crazy man. But, I mean, that's actually kind of back to the point to that. Like, you can track it now, like you can actually track marketing now where? You know, I'm sure they had metrics back in the day, but I think the fact that they are largely, um, did just never accurate.

They were. They would be like those codes on the direct mailers. What? You know, you get a direct mail pieces from, like, best Buy, and you put in,

like, four digit could use this code to save 10%.

Yeah, everyone should read. This article should take. Everyone should take an hour or two and actually read this because I think it's wildly inspirational. And I think it relates to anyone that is running a business, or even that, even if that business is just a freelance

business. Yeah, I think it's kind of, uh, you know, the 1st 2 sections or sort of painting a picture. And that is from the, uh, from the industry's perspective, while from, you know, the the advertising perspective. Then from the agency perspective and then it started, turns a corner and looks at What is the product design studio of the future look like? So it's kind of it's kind of a nice look back in ahead kind of format, but

post a link on the show notes, and you guys should check that out, tolerate jewels and thank him for taking the time to write

right there. Yeah, that's cool. Well, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up, so thanks a lot for listening in everybody and we'll catch the next one. Hey, thanks so much for listening today. This is Rick. I'm sure you've all heard of envisioned. The product is practically synonymous with screen design. We're stuck. That envision is now a sponsor of hustle. Something we love about in vision is that they are so highly involved in the community. These guys really care about where design is going and the support creative with loads of design. Resource is you like kids designed process and interview articles on their block, which is great for just general inspiration when building products.

Aside from being a great prototyping tool, they also have features for a project management, creating mood boards and presentations, live collaborative screen share ings and, like a 1,000,000 other useful things. I literally do not have enough time t even list all their features, but they pretty much got what you need. Bottom line. They don't just want you to be a user. They want to empower you with their tools so that you can do your best work. And I think that's pretty cool. Overall takeaway. If you haven't heard about in vision or haven't checked him out in a while, just play around with their latest features. They have a free trial and a really impressive lineup of industry leading design and project management tools. Their home pages.

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