Hey, welcome back to the hustle Platt cast today. We're gonna try something really new. We're gonna try and video here in a new room for the podcast. See how you experiment with video today. I'm here with my friend Mike Trow. So, uh, who's in town from Dallas on? We are drinking about Kony's Texas Rye 100 proof rye whiskey from Waco, Texas. Thanks for stopping

by, Mike. Yeah, Thanks for having me.

Uh, what brings you to Austin?

And so original trip was planned? I've got some college friends that we're all meeting at. An Airbnb way out. Kingsland. You know where kings and I don't know workings limits. I didn't I've never heard of it. But it's 90 is about 90 minutes northwest of here. Ah, and then my brother has kids, and they're all in Austin for UT life. So we're gonna go to dinner tonight, which was

awesome. Yeah. Thanks for making time to do this. It's really rare for me to have a guest that I can actually come in No good quarter person. So

it's always how do you normally do it?

They're normally all calling in remote. Oh, you know, So using like zoom at like you know, see you Sure it's each other. So why don't you take a moment to introduce yourself to? Sure listener So they know

a bit about you? Yeah. So, like Anthony said, my name is Mike Trow Zo I co lead a Design and Dev team for Tide cleaners and some of you might know it Tide cleaners that somebody might not. But it is so tied. PNG tied soap tide, laundry day NFL type. They have a service business like a service wing that has three service businesses, one that serves a suburban market, one that serves an urban market with a locker based model and then one that serves a campus market so university like trucks on campuses. And that's that's where I came through. I started with that business for a long time on. Now, in part of this team that is building enterprise software for all three a cz. The companies start to get on the same platform. That's what we're building.

Awesome. Why don't you tell people a little bit about the backstory? Like how you arrived at Tide and what that what that journey

was like? I'm not sure the company stories is pretty great. That so university laundry was a company that my college roommate founded Originally, this this business at S. M U was called Mustang laundry. And it was started by Blake Makowski, who went on to start Tom shoes. And so Blake sold it to somebody. They were gonna buy a similar service that my college roommate, Nathan Watkins, had started at Baylor after he when we all finish school on Nathan and his wife, Paige, right before she was about to start law school instead of selling to them, ended up buying the S M u business on. Then they took it and grew it to a a bunch of schools over five or six years and then for me personally. In 2007 Nathan called for me to do design work and to, you know,

brand work and so redid, redid the like the brand identity for university laundry on that eventually at the time moved to Texas and 2010 to take a like a bigger role with the company on, then moved to Dallas in 2014. Um, it was full time at that point and then 2017 the company was acquired by this wing of PNG called agile pursuits. And so we've So we've been under in that family for two years now. So

what is the mission of the of the organization here in like and how is like, what? I mean, what can you tell? What can you say about the kinds of things that kinds of challenges that you're that you're addressing in trying

to innovate? Yeah, that's Ah, that's a good question. Is a lot there. I mean, I think for the most part, you know, like the ethos of the laundry service business is that, you know, doing laundry is a is a drag. And so if we can provide a way for people to not do laundry that we have, the idea is this life, not laundry. And so there's just a lot better things to do with life than laundry. And what's happened is that there's also, you know, a really big chunk of there's a lot of dry cleaning, and so we obviously can't do that at home. On So Tight has offers. Both service is with the laundry

service. I don't know if we've ever really talked about this in detail. And so many different companies that didn't have design and engineering represented are doing design and engineering. I don't think you like laundry. Definitely wasn't something to me that I thought you would think about it. Think about, you know, design and innovation. All that's for stuff, right? I do think sometimes about like when I lived in New York, The one thing that I miss about living in New York is that there was a place in the service

for laundry. What

did you use it when they were just all like mom and pop businesses washing fold and directly? I mean, it wasn't like a digital service or anything like that. It was a service like you drop it off. It arrives at your at your home in a nice little package or tied up. Exactly. I mean, there's something really amazing about those kind of service is. But what can you tell me about, like, what kind of service is do you provide to your customers, or is it more of a second? Or is it more like R and D and internal innovation?

I mean, no, I mean, like for us all three customers can get dry cleaning done. One of the challenges that we face is that dry cleaning. When we bring shirts like a shirt that I'm wearing, this shirt's gonna get laundered and then pressed and then returned on a hanger and then, like a school sweater, would get dry cleaned, right? And so we offer both of that, obviously, like you would go into a dry cleaner, and then the washing fold is the same of what you're talking about, Okay? And so the mechanism of how to get it to us is different, probably than your than what you had in New York,

because you were walking somewhere to drop it off. And you could theoretically walk to a suburban tide cleaners if you lives close enough. But, sir, the urban model, you drop it in a locker eso they'll be lockers in thousands of buildings. It's Amazon locker style where it's like it just looks like a locker. You have a key, a key pad on, and that peace has a digital component, obviously, to tell us which locker you're in, and then we're gonna tell you which locker it comes back. How interesting. And then the campus side adds one other element, which is?

They still have. They have some lockers at some of the campuses on. And then they also will do. Ah, vehicle. So a big truck imagine, like a big UPS truck that sits outside of residence halls on campuses. And so there's 21 schools with these trucks that set out and, ah, students staff will be there. And then you would instead of walk into your corner store in New York. You just walk out your your residence hall, drop it with a student and then all of the digital component that is all the same. You get the text. It says, Hey, we got your clothes.

This is really cool. How many markets is is available in our now

it's a It's a really good question that I should know the answer to, uh, we're so hyper focused in a handful of markets as we're testing what we're building.

Okay, well, maybe. Yeah. So what markets are you? What are you focused on?

I don't know how many that dry cleaning stores. I don't know how many markets the number of cities that they're in.

I didn't even know that there was.

Yeah, Yeah,

until you mean So the last time that we caught up was that occurrence? Yeah, you mentioned that. But I didn't ask you, but I did sure have been asked her, like,

you know, there was like, Yeah, I don't know. Off the top my head, how many there are, How many are official? I don't know what numbers I'm hearing, right. There's number. There's a number of floating in my head, and I don't know if that's an internal or external number, but, like in in Dallas, there are three. Okay, then you might see tide dry cleaners,

right? As they are emerging into this name. And then the urban market may have a dozen cities. Roughly Chicago is where that business was built, and then the campus business has 21 campuses. Um, so there's there is some crossover. Dallas has all three s o. We have s m u T c U. Ah, then the urban model is there, and then the suburban models, they're swell in school. Yeah, and so that's where I am. And so that's where a lot of our recent activity has happened.

You're leading a design and engineering team you. I think you might be the first person on this podcast or yeah, first person, this podcast. I've talked to that. It's leading both a design.

Yeah, an engineering. I was like, Yeah, I would imagine that the engineers on our team would giggle at me, be leading them, Um, because it's my partner. Pete Coulter has all of the the tech and engineering knowledge, But we do have, ah, back and forth how we lied and how we co lead. And so I think I say it like that. Even though if anybody asked me a question about how a build gets updated through Iraqi, it's like I could probably explain it at an eight year old level, and then it would start to fall apart in terms of somebody wants. Somebody asked me that follow up question you'd like when,

Ah, it's not even important metaphor, but effectively. It's like once what somebody says, Oh, it sounds like you know what you're talking about. Here's a question about that. I'm like, Oops. Let me get you somebody who can answer that question,

right? I mean, I mean, I think isn't isn't that the job of the leader to not know to just give people what they need to do. The jobs. I mean, like something

I would I would hope so, Yeah, I think I'm learning a lot about leadership in this process, too. I think it's been it's been a good a good process for me. But yeah, it's it's great and the team is great. The team really cares about each other. The team really cares about the product and the team really cares about the process and so I'm learning a ton from them. As everybody has brought their experiences from all these other projects and products, they feel like we're in a in a good place. You know, there's obviously there are things were still learning and things were still getting better. And you know, one of the guys will always talk about like one of our values is is always getting better and it's a it's a great value and it's something that I think you know. Even as I grow up, it is something to be like. Oh, that's a value I could bring. Even in personal life,

it seems like it's so simple, but there there's something that want someone at fun size says all the time progress over perfection that I'm kind of I've been thinking a lot. I'm not a lot a lot about that, because it's really good, you know, in my position, like leading a team, you know, like I have toe, you know, I have to look at, like, the five year forecast in the three year and the one year. And then Okay, how do we break down quarterly goals in the design or to do that? And then I'm working across, like,

design, internal design culture and then, like, project delivery. And then, you know, all of that stuff both like hard stuff and soft stuff. Sure. And the O City person, Amy wants all that to be perfect. And I think that I think it is important that it's more important, I think, to to just be making progress. You know, I think a an internal team and the dynamics of a team and not very different than a piece of software, but like, you can't just like you're just not gonna solve something overnight. These things take time and a lot of a lot of work. They D'oh d'oh d'oh!

That I feel like for me, I've had to learn that everything is dynamic because I think for me perfection is that it's always been this unattainable goal for whatever even, you know, as a human. Like I think it's I was a perfect more way, more of a perfectionist back in the day that I am now. But it is. Everything's always moving. And so even if it even if it got perfect for 1/2 a second like that Mohammed Ali picture where there's the photographer behind Ali and he's standing over somebody like this, that shot is like it's It's such a minuscule moment in time when you see the video that you have no idea how fast that whole thing happened. And the picture looks like he's standing over somebody taunting him. And I think in the same way it's like life is always moving. And maybe for a moment things felt perfect. But then it's already scattered back in tow, evolving into whatever it's going to be anyway, if that makes

any sense. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that,

Yeah, I mean, it's just that was the one picture that came to mind that I thought I've seen this photo 100 times. Then I saw the video of it, and it just was like, Oh, this was very different than the photos of the story. The photo told

question for you. Can you tell me a little bit about your background? Like me? Should you start out as an engineer, as a designer or a designer? I mean, what's your what's

your story? Yes. Oh, um, in school, I studied finance in ice. Why at Baylor? Um, okay, I I think I have an entrepreneurial spirit. And so I thought, Oh, I would I would run to run a business. And so, um, let me figure out this. I also,

you know, if I look back at my education, I don't think I knew. I don't think I realized really in those moments that I was making decisions that that would affect my future. And I know that sounds really stupid. And on some regard, I don't know if they even did, but I didn't I didn't as a kid ever think I wanted to be an astronaut or a baseball player. At some point, I was I wanted to be a doctor. And so there's this this? Let's just do this general business education and we'll go to business school. I don't think I ever had a master plan, but by my career, anything like that. So when I finish school, move to California. Tried to act waited tables Did

you ever do anything? No.

Marshall are going on an audition. I went through acting classes and, you know, I was 22. And look, I don't think I knew who I was. And to understand somebody trying to say, Well, who is this person you're trying to play like? I don't think I had a concept of myself enough to even know. Let me step out of myself so that I can play an Anthony, right? I just It just never clicked until maybe I was 26 after I had quit acting and gone. That would have made more sense had I known what I know now. So how that's

that is an interesting thought I've never thought about How do you think child actors do

that? Great question. I have. No, I mean, I don't know, maybe Maybe there is a I have no clue. So let me We're gonna make up answers Because that's what we have. A podcast. Maybe there is a make believe. How would I play, Anthony? If I just was gonna try to play Anthony just, like, how would I play somebody from England? I would copy somebody from England. I don't know.

Child actors are copying kids. Don't tell me you don't hear me say that. I have no idea. But for me, that was the moment of, like, I couldn't get into somebody else's head because I wasn't. I didn't even know where my own head was to leave it. Yeah, it was just like, Well, don't you want Mike? It was like, No, we're trying to get, you know,

Rick anyway, never went on audition eventually. So in college, I was doing T shirts. That was my business. I had a T shirt business, and so I would sell to fraternities and sororities. Okay. What's great about the business is that everybody's pre ordering everything right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's money. You don't spend a dollar until somebody like Okay, we're ready to do it. We approve everything.

We're gonna pay for it. And all you do is driver. And so I did that all the way through college and then really, maybe until 2017. I had my hands still in some T shirt and I will get two orders a year. Still, that people just know that I do it and I'm re ordering something, And so they'll email me and say, Hey, we need Here's the sizes we need in 15 minutes Recent, the Lincoln Order, the shirts. So that was a visit in college. But I would just do you know, if you look at fraternity sorority T shirt in graphic design, it is like a rip off.

Whatever you want to see, tweak it for your fraternity or sorority and then print it like that's the game. You know, that was I went to school. What? You're up 20 years ago. So this would've been my 20th reunion issue. So I did that. So I learned how to use illustrator and photo shop, didn't do much else, and then Waas in California. I got out of acting and I got into production TV production. So it worked on a show called Without a Trace. Was the stripper show We're done was like a CBS crime drama about missing persons And then I left that show and I got a job at Cold case, which is another like, an old cases,

no serious. All these, like Bruckheimer Super high contrast e steely light television shows in the early two thousands. And then I went into a movie called Sky High, which was like a Disney movie about, uh, super hero. High school makes sense. So, uh, Kurt Russell Kelly Preston.

What? What do you do on the movie?

So I was an assistant coordinator, okay, It's the way I was. Also explain it is that when you you have no idea what a, um, like an auto plant looks like you just something machine assembly line. And so somebody has to get the machines what they need to make sure everybody has what they need. And so there's a production office that basically is getting information in and then getting it going out. So, film, if you need film, we would be the ones to send somebody to get home, right? So I did that, and then one of my big jobs was to do air conditioning for this Big Jim set. I remember being up there on a Saturday all day trying to get temporary air conditioning, but it was too hot for the actors. Some of it is so random.

Yeah. I gotta stop you for a minute as your question, because it's kind of related. Sure. Well, I didn't know that there was a bee this relation, but Okay. So you you were studying finance? Yeah, and one of things that we were talking about, we were playing. The show is like, how Condo's ein impact of piano? Yeah. Many designers that I No, don't think about that. Yeah,

like how there, You know, that the nuances of, like, their cause and profit or underst understand these things yet, or, you know, um, and I think that even some businesses, like in emerging markets don't on quite yet understand that design can actually design equals profit, you know? Yeah. Happy users, customers, you know, dollar signs and all that.

Like when we were planning this show. And that was a thing that you said he won't talk about. Like, what's What's behind that? What? What can you tell me about sure how you think design can impact the company's

profit and loss. That's what I thought You know if if you say Hey, let's ask Anthony a question. I think that's what I'm I am trying to figure out howto to put into words. I have a bunch of random thoughts about it, from even from from brand design impacting a piano to feature design, right? And I think maybe even the future design is easier to calculate. What's tricky is that you know we can. We confined comp ce for adding a drive through to a restaurant. You have a coffee shop or a burger joint, and you can say, Okay, well, when people had a drive thru, it's gonna add 18% revenue. I have no idea if that number is right,

but whatever that number is right there is there you could find it. You could go to a business board and say, Hey, what's we're thinking about putting drive through? And what do people normally see what it's not gonna do? It may not double your business, right? I don't know. We could that probably more drafters if it did so at some point. What we don't have is a comp for what happens when this button is easier to read. Um, and That's the thing that I think that we as designers, when the more we get to the table talking about business, right? And so we all want to be at this table and this table. This is what this what stable talks about,

Like the table is talking about profit loss statements? Yep, that's it. So not that that's it, right? There's

obviously So I mean, it's not like I'm at those. Yeah, run my business. We talk about that. And it's not just about making money. It's about Well, what is what are the benefits

of that, right? Like everything will come back when

you have the cash in the bank. Then you have opportunities to take risks. Yes, you know, try new things hired, you know?

Whatever. Right? All of

the above. You get no opportunities. If there's

if you're in the red. Yes, you know, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so for me, as we brainstorm ideas and we brainstorm marketing ideas, some of these things I just We don't have any cops for I don't have any cups for taking friction out of a process. I don't have a comp for rebrand. And maybe maybe they're there Phantom and they're all gonna be all over the place

because there I read a really interesting article about that That's kind of related to the impact of design, specifically branding and packaging on Texas beer. Interesting. So

you haven't seen it?

There was a few different people that were interviewed in this but Christian Helm Studio was like one of the primary things because he's worked on you know, how many different breweries, like, you know, independence and awesome Bill works. And he's, you know, not just awesome but Texas beers. You have to look it up. But their independence, I think, was it was an interesting case city, because Independence is one of Texas. We'll want to Austin's like oldest craft beer Okay makers and they make really good beer. But when they re branded their revenues to spike tremendously and they haven't gone down, they just keep going up and up and up fascinating. And so,

like, they're like to use a research and a few things like that. I think they had, like, uncovered that like people started to make a connection between Well, is this is the product of stale as the branding looks right because that was pretty interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'm used to thinking about things in terms of digital product, but, Yep, I don't have a brain in background, but I I just read that, like, 24 hours ago or 48 hours ago, So I thought that was really,

really, really interesting. Where you from originally? Houston. Okay, I'm from Texas to have spent some time outside of Texas. And when I came back, one of the things that I saw was that, like, regional startups weren't really using designed to their full advantage here. Yeah, in this region. Yeah. I still think they're They're getting better right there. You know, startups grossed a start ups

are where Give me some regional startups just so I could get an idea of what that even means.

Well, I guess I just mean like, start ups that are born and grown localized locally. Okay. Like this Texas area amid not in the bay area, not in these coasts. Got it in this, uh, this area. I noticed that, and I think it still the case in many in many cases that they don't They may be hiring growing design teams. They still don't really understand. Like what design is. I think some companies think that designers just decoration right and that the real value is like getting the product out in the engineering team and all that. But they do understand that. Like, what happens when you really do design correctly.

Like I mean, you can't just like, you know, to your point. You can't just necessarily. If you were just designing a button and it has a positive reaction. Great. But like, if you're not doing the process to determine what where that button should be and what color should be and really understanding the problem, then one is luck, and one is like a intent, you know? And I think that some some company just think that design is like that this sort of decorative the skin decorative thing. Yeah, but if design is empowered to understand, uh,

well, I mean, it's a symbiotic thing, right? Like a lot of discussions about you're gonna be at the table. You have to understand how the business talks, right? So if you want if you wantto if you want impacted like a piano, whatever. You have to understand how the company and actually makes money

for sure. And this is this work. This is this thing I've just been digging into to try to understand how to talk about it, because I think as designers, we all respond to things that are done well, and I sure pretty things, too. But things that are done well, right? I think about design in terms of done well as opposed to decorated Well, yeah, or skinned. Well, I love things that are pretty think it's great, but when somebody has thought through what I'm going to go through, I think it's a really beautiful moment, and I feel like in that moment,

I feel like, Oh wow, man, somebody thought about this. This a spectacular the value of that for a business. Now, I don't know. It's hard to put into a quantifiable case, but yet we're going to be pitching ideas in these meetings if we are at the table or if we're about to be at the table. This is the language in which to say, How do we start to calculate what we are offering and what we can do and what problems we can solve into dollars on Maybe it's, you know, I think I would say, depending on the size of the business. That answer is probably different, because if it's a really big company,

if I solve a problem for a really big company, it's worth more to them, then a small cafe. You know, if I've solved the restroom issue at the cafe, where now everybody knows where the restroom is. And it used to be frustrating, right? But now it's It's not only that they know where it is. Maybe I figured out a way that because I did it really well, I figure out a way that the confusion is delightful, right? Whatever that is to go. Oh, my gosh. Have you been to this place there?

Bathrooms? A really easy to find. I don't see that happening, but whatever that moment is, I had a good experience. Now. Everything was great. You guys should go there. Is that do we start to say Okay, well, the value is really in the word of mouth. I don't know. This is what I'm I am out there trying to figure out, um, personally, because I think it's a kn interesting tool for us as designers because what I think what's happened is we We got this big wave of design could be really good for business.

And I feel like we have to figure out how to then say, this is how it can also affect the businesses numbers on. And I'm not like I like numbers. I think I am responding Maur towards something I see of, like, a void of, as opposed to, like, my my passionate about a profit loss statement. No, um, I just think that at the end of the day, we're gonna have to figure this out to be seated there.

Yeah, I think so.

If we can, I don't even know somebody might just eventually go. Yeah, you can't. It's all different

on on a lot of different things to, you know, like I think, you know, if you know, like, you know, it's designer, you know, designed has to speak the language of business, of course. And the business needs to learn to, you know, speak the language of design and business is starting to reach out and all that. And then there's the things that you need to do, like as a designer to like, understand the user.

You know the customer. Sorry. Don't like the word user like the customers. And sure what's gonna translate to retention and dollars? But then there is another way. I think that, like, design can impact a piano on. Let's look well, how responsible is like, How is the design operation or engineering operation set up and is a responsible spending money, right? I mean, I mean, I'm not trying to, like,

you know, poke at any companies. But I'm here about stories like Uber, for example, having a 60. What was it, a 40 or 50 or $60 billion quarterly loss? I think it was a $5 billion quarterly. Lost five billion. Okay, but it was a 1,000,000,000. It was five. Okay, Was not one billion. It was five. Okay,

so five billion, like, of course, like design and injuring. Can't account for a majority of that. But like there are parts of that, like I mean, you know where the talent is, how much they cost, how big the team is or you Do you have the right people. The right operation. Is it overstaffed?

Understaffed like? Is there an efficiency inefficiency? Part of this and I have no idea. I'd imagine they were. Yeah, I guess. Would it be a design efficiency thing, or would it even be

like a marketing? Well, here's right. I mean, like, I'm I'm kind of a dumb ass I'm learning about. I'm learning about Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. To make a dollar on camera. Don't mess. Is Theo Dumbasses? Yeah. One of the things that our financial controller told us you're three years ago was like, Look, there's no hard fast rule, But generally speaking,

the company is going to spend 10% of their oven roast sales revenue toe. You know, 10 10% of that kind of goes to marketing. All right, so

your point is maybe double a restaurant,

right? So, like, you know, like out of five billion? Like, what percent was that? Like you mean I don't know the math, but not a big trunk. And then you can kind of estimate that, like, part of that was design and engineering. I mean, it wouldn't be like it wouldn't be things that would move the needle astronomically in terms of the the five billion number, but like, it could be more efficient, like,

yeah, if you know if people are hiring people from, You know, if you didn't have to hire people are just in the bay area. Yeah, right. Or

sure, Sure, Sure, Sure. Sure. There was. There was extra. There was excess.

If you didn't need to have, like, 10 people that just do illustration 10% of the year.

Yeah. Yea, eah, because they did a lot of frustration, but

they're great. Yeah, like, there was all these tweets on Twitter, like all these awesome. Like, you know, designers and engineers were laid off. Well, yeah, you had

a five $1,000,000,000 loss. Yeah. I mean, that's that's what a $500 million quarterly marketing budget like that. I don't even that doesn't even really comprehend. Yeah, um, to me, how you would how you would spend that money. I just think the fact that this doesn't have uber on it after spending that would be shocking.

Yeah, I think they're like, uh, not everyone has that Yorkshire should have that job description, but I think that that efficiency is like, you know, understanding the problem, designing, designing solutions, that whole, you know, experience designed holistic thing is important because you can't. You have to know why. But I think also, I think efficiency is also the thing that I've been

thinking about. Can you talk a little bit about your process here and how you guys go from, Let's say, a a meeting to assigning people to a project.

Or is that like, like how we go from like sales discovery to assigning resource

is, yeah, let's just take it Post signature. How do you efficiently assign the right number of people? I don't know exactly. I'm obviously your staff is some of the friendliest people I've ever met.

Well, I mean, I mean, the content in the context is we're, you know, we're in agency, so we work in a different way than, like, you know, an internal team like yours work. But when we have toe, we have to understand a little bit about a little bit more about what value will look like and what success will look like before we could have, like, the proposal for sure. And then the proposal part is, you know, is usually a degree in which we can help bring that value to the company.

And then once we know like what? The what? The alignment is on the expected value, the expected mission, and then we can staff it. But by that point, like a design director has already been in us, you Ideally, the design director is likely going to take that on as an account relationship. Okay, is in that call. So then, depending on there's all these different slaves, right? Because as a service business, we're looking at all a spectrum of your projects.

And so then we we look for design leads that have that particular that specific DNA strength and then people that are strong contributors in that practice area and then people that are learning Okay, so, like that, I mean, way just had, like, a design management meeting today. And we broke it this down until, like, simpler constructs like It's so simple. I can't believe we hadn't thought about this poor. It was like, Okay, we have, like, you have like the sponsor,

right? You have a son of the leader, and then you have someone that is like the practice area leader, and then the next person down is the person that is mirroring that person, and then you have like, you know, like ideally like a junior person. That's not sure. And so, like, if that seems ideal to me, because then everyone is like, getting what they need, right? You have lights going up, the stakeholder needing what they needed,

going down right to the leader, you know? And then you have this sort of mirroring, mirroring effect. It's nice, but, I mean, that's idea. Idealistic.

And do you have projects that sometimes require five people off your team? Sometimes three, sometimes

11. Yeah. I mean,

where do you tryto say? Okay, here comes the proposal. I'm gonna fit it into a seven man, seven person box.

We have, like, some general frameworks for you know how we take initial projects with new clients. Yep. We usually take the first project as a testing. Um, with somebody new. Yeah. Okay. What's the opportunity? Do you really need you need us to drive, or do you just need is executed. Like, can we build the trust and stuff, but yeah, we've been in situations where you have, like,

a whole pot of seven people just working on one client. Yep. And then we've also have that throttling up down so that team might throttle between, like, three and seven people up and down quarters, depending on, like, what the customers like Finance Man. Yes, are like, like understanding their budget for the year. Yep. Breaking that out in the quarters and like making the team a just because we're usually kind of helping breather, helping people augment their team while they're growing and scaling or doing a project. So those are very different, but yeah. I

mean, yeah, it makes sense because your team work on more than one thing at a time. Um, Liquid Fi work on two

clients. It depends on what the like. The designation is that, like a project level, this is actually a challenge that we're basically why ask? Design directors have always managed a book of business. So, like, you know, a design director me, my wife is my business partner, And Ethan have all historically managed a book because we want to have, like, a relationship owner and someone that can, like, be along for the long haul. You know,

you you know, that might look like for, you know, three or four accounts. Okay? Someone that's like a design lead. Historically here has been managing like two projects, to different design directors, ideally one. But you know, that's what that's what I mean. Everything is Wild West in a consulting business. Yeah, it's kind of the Wild West, but now you know, like we've been,

you know, there's certain things you have to do when you're small to prove availability. Sure, and there's certain things you can do when you're when you have more capacity, more capacity, more access to cash and stuff like that. So, like the goal right now is to change that where there will be more absolute like that dedicated focus. Nice. But it could change, right? The life cycle of ah relationship or the project or a particular extreme doesn't always necessarily require the same people. Sure, which means it goes back to the efficiency thing. Like like you could always have your most, you know,

expensive person on every single task. If you want to maintain continuity, right. But now someone's not learning yet, you know now, now that person can help with a new big challenge because they're, like, kind of stuck there. So, like those of the you know, I would imagine that even internal team struggle with that, like new big initiative. How do you How do you distribute that? You know the skills amongst, like, you know, tons of new things

going on. It makes committed since, yeah, it's a good nugget. So in your pitches are you When you because we were gonna come back to this,

I'll answer this one. Then I will go back to interfere. You know, it's very but

when you guys, I'm because I might come back to this pl question. Do you Are you able to articulate projects value to that Companies, P and L. It's really hard. Okay to even is like the whole application or the whole product is still difficult thistles. The thing it is a difficult thing to calculate

for. From where we said, being like an agency, we we could help someone calculate like the advantages of working with an external team he has opposed committing to long term numbers explode. It's over. Head's gonna be in stuff like that in some of the advantages that some other advantages, like calculating value of like, for example, like one example would be like, let's say, you know, a company like I don't know, some big, fancy Bayer company. They cycle and people people come in, they do their tour of duty there. They move on months.

Yeah, you're 12 months where they want. Well, we can. We can work with that company for 1 to 3 years. Sure. Never lose excitement, right? Never lose momentum, like continuously bringing people in. And there is a value to that. Yeah. So, like, I mean people, you know,

like we can help people. The clients were talking to help them calculate that the cost benefit analysis of, like, continue to hire internally versus the externally or ideally like from our perspective, having a balance because we think that if you're if you're doing it design at scale, you probably need partners

a little bit of both. Yeah, Okay, that makes sense. And they've made the decision. The marketing or the investment risk is really probably made before they have this conversation with you.

I some regard. Yeah, I think so. And then just that just industry trend that I'm seeing, you know, just that I think it's kind of worth sharing with listeners is that I've always had this prediction that, like every seven about every seven years. There's this kind of up and down thing that happens. It's kind of related to technology and new innovations. And then the previous new innovations become commoditized. And so what's hap? What I think is happening is that when new innovation is introduced, you need experts. Yep. And then it becomes mainstream. You need special learning you need you need generalist. Okay,

that's brilliant. And a new innovation comes in you, Specialist? Yeah, like so it goes like that. So if you look at the last seven years of this product design industry, the industry has been more or less favoring generalists. Right, cause, like, people are doing things like building teams for the first time. Yes. You know, you need to You need to have the right kind of sort of mix and, you know, and you know,

specializations like, don't say that Content strategy, like as an example or like a visual design purist, like we're kind of out of the question. Unless you have tons, cash, throat and what's happening now. I think that, like, now that companies are understanding that design can impact business now they're starting think. Oh, yeah. Okay, It's research, you know, research like,

you know, like real hardcore. Do the deep thinking and also like, you know, as these things are exist longer, that's easier to find people to work on him. So I think that that's what I'm seeing. Like right now, I'm talking to a wide variety of like technology companies. Especially like the big hairy ones is that there seems to be a pause on hiring specialists. Internally, they're building teams of generalists because that they're thinking about efficiency and responsibility. Generalised can be kept busy 80% of the year, whereas specialist Mike don't be kept busy 10 or 20% year, Right? So it's interesting that some companies are things that thinking about then saying Okay,

we don't necessarily have like a dedicated icon designer. Our company, like that's an area. Yeah, to go out, we want the holistic product design or holistic. You design things like thinking internally because that makes sense, right? I mean, you want the big thinking internally? Most the time. You know,

anyway, it's good. It's good to have these conversations. It's funny that it's being recorded. Thank you. Yeah.

I mean where, I mean, I guess we were just sharing What were, you know, most everyone's kind of probably, you know, asking some questions or thinking about things in a different way. We probably don't have all the answers. No, I know what I'm done. I wanted to bring this, you know? Think Thanks for letting me interrupt. Interrupt you? Yeah, earlier. But it's really interesting that you've had such an interesting,

like path in to design, you know, like start, you know, like, you know, wanting to be an astronaut. Wanted to be a doctor going, you know, studying finance. You know, like, interested in acting. Yeah. Being in being in production. All this stuff Question for you.

Yeah. In the things that you do at work. Do you ever feel black? You're an astronaut or a doctor. Do you ever feel like you're There's any part of that thing you wanted to be when you grow up? That is in your job today.

What a great question. This is how I would describe it. I think there are aspects. There are aspects of those jobs that are mirrored. I don't think I've ever thought in the moment. I bet this is what it felt like to be on the moon, um, or to be in space or toe save a life. But I think there are moments that are, and for me, what I would really like, what I really enjoy. And these have nothing to do really with being an astronaut or being a doctor. But maybe the ballplayer part, Uh oh, yeah. So I think that,

um when the team rallies and we all saw the problem together, especially one that you know. So we will, you know, we will hear about a problem from the business that we're supposed to solve in the software. Maybe it's something they've already they already have and that we were gonna replace, and the team will will circle up and beat it up together. And maybe that, you know, we stay a little late and come up with something and come up with a solution that's that's new, a new way to solve this problem that that nobody has thought of. And in those moments,

you're this space man

exploring. Yeah, like whatever it is, it's like it's like the the resolution of these childhood dreams. Yeah, but it doesn't necessarily. I don't necessarily go This is what it would've been like toe win the World

Series. I asked that question because I was just talking with my my my leadership coach last week because she was in town from Oakland conducting a, um she does this training thing called. So now you're a manager.

Okay, wait. This is somebody you meet with on the regular

who lives in a Yeah, I have, like a coach that Isaac that I meet with, like, once a week, brilliant she comes from. She has a really interesting back. She's not a designer, but like she really, she gets it on design leaders. That's also in over a happy hour. She was, She was. She was telling me that like she's found that that's an interesting question to ask people like for coaches to ask the people they're mentoring, but also like a good question for, like a design delete leader to ask their designers because I don't remember the whole INS announces issue, saying like you can kind of if you kind of get an idea by asking like that question,

you could kind of get an idea of, like, some of the things that, like people valued when they were young. Yeah, and even though there are you sure, you know, exploring the moon? Wait, you haven't been, like, you know, exploring new technology. But there might indicate some level of like, how people think and feel about things. Yeah, I thought I thought it was pretty interesting. That's a great question. We'll talk about

it, actually, actually think that even the question will change the way I view my job in a weird way, because I think now I can go back and start to look through it through that lens because I don't think I've ever I've ever thought of it in that way. It's like you have made a connection in my brain that I can now go look for

that make sense. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty special. The question is whether it's, you know, like, how, really, you know, like, there's things there, but yeah, I thought it was really interesting. Yeah, it's a tactic that I that I'm going to start using in the coaching that I do with the people on my team. Okay?

Yeah. Good. Yeah. So let's talk about values little bit. Yeah. How do your values influence your leadership.

Yeah. This question actually wanted to ask you. I think that articulating my values has been actually more difficult. Then I thought previously I don't think I I know

I have them talk about personal values

or organizational know, probably personal values. I think I can look at my life and say, Oh, I definitely have values. And something so cool hit me with the top three like candy, you know, like I mean, look it, it's hard for me to articulate on own them. And so I've been in the process of trying to do that. And then I can almost say, Well, how do I approach a team member that needs something in their personal life that will hold up an amount of work that the team is counting on what is more important to me, the personal life. So in that moment, I can see Okay.

Well, uh, the human experience for that person is more important than our team goals. That's a value. I'm not sure. I knew I had until I stopped and said, Well, what are my values? And so I'm in the process of doing this. I was curious. You know for you. If you've done this before, you seem like someone. Who when I when I read about things you do are you know, when I watch the video occurrence, uh,

you value your team, you value your team like a family. Caring for people is a very high value for you. Ah, and I was just curious to talk through that for you. How How have you gotten here? Can you articulate it? Is it something you just do that makes sense?

Yeah, I guess the context is that I've been in this business for very long time. I start like, you know, my first job designing being a designer was in 1999. Okay, so that's 20 years. Yeah. And I worked in a lot of different places and enough to no, like what I think like to pick up the things that I think a right or wrong or or whatever from experience. Yeah, watching other leaders, like, you know, like interacting with bought, like so many. Like I've been ableto bit mix and match that.

So I think like when when Natalie and I started this company, we may not have known how to like, really do this at scale. But we knew enough to know that, like, Okay, look, people are gonna have options when they come T s o, like, very, very first thing that we have to be great at Probably ought to be like our culture and value system we probably needed We probably need to rink that higher than, like, actual output that we're doing because we have to have people to do you know how to do this? So I think that like, there's, ah,

you know, how I think about things like at work and at home, er they're almost different. Or maybe, I don't know, not different about none of similar priority. Like I you know, I could put everyone at work over, you know, business related stuff of people over money and stuff like that. But I also kind of put the company over me over personal things more than maybe I should, and that's now starting to be in a non negotiable thing now that have, like, a baby and all that. So I'm trying to learn how to balance that, but I think like so I'm not as good as that.

Like living up to my own values on a personal level. As you know, as I may be m like works. I think most of my most like I've been in the design business for 20 years. I'm 41 years old, so half of my life has been doing this. It that defines me, I think kind of more than anything. But I think that, like, you have to rock, really just live up to them like I mean, because people are, you know, people can sniff that out. What People can sniff out,

like value really quickly, right? Like I mean, if you you know, if you're telling your wife like, yeah, I value, like, this is our family time and you abused that, Yeah, like you don't really value that, right? So if you tell, like if you have a company or a team value like, well, this is a value and,

like, you know, hold people accountable to that, then it's not really something that people care about. So I think like the poster. But the biggest thing for me is learning how it is learning how to act and exercise on that swiftly, you know, like once when someone like is upholding a value are bringing that up like making sure that people are aware that when when, if someone is, is not then pushing, you know, pushing back or are parting ways that person fast. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that like, it's different.

I guess it's different when you own a business. And when you work in a company because, like when you work at a company, there's no you haven't No, You don't have really any control like,

yeah, I mean, I think depending on the company, you know, I feel like one of the great things about being a part of this is, for the most part, we have a lot of autonomy on how

we match. So how What? How are you? Are you okay? Yeah.

So that does feel like we're in a good space. That went.

I think the problem with my values and how it influences my leadership is Sometimes I wonder if they're actually appropriate like I like, I feel like it's pretty important to be to be pretty transparent, straight with people like, just be really honest, you know, and

about work or about in life.

Yeah. Okay. You know, So, like, sometimes, like when Now, you know, that made sense. Where four people, eight people. 12 people. Like now that you know, now that this even worse company Yeah, sure. 25 people, But like,

that's amazing. Another way. If you try toe, if you don't, If you try to work, sometimes that can actually work against you. Right? Because transparency might mean like it could mean something like, Hey, guys like, I know your boss. But I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm trying to invest. I can about to make a decision without the information. Yeah, um,

can we You know, can we work on this together, which is, like, we're, you know, like or it could be seen as a sign of, like, not knowing what you're doing. Yeah. Or like not to be able to make a decision. I have a fear that sometime.

Yeah, and I would imagine I mean, you're you in our interactions, you've always been very genuine. If somebody wants to work at a place, um, that somebody will always protect the veneer of success. They'll go find a job where that happens. Yeah, I mean, I say that to encourage you, at least in your, uh, letting people see you. I don't know, because I think I believe

in the same thing. Yeah, I The position that we're at, like a service agency, you know, as an agency is difficult because especially the growth in Texas, right, like growth in Texas over the last year. Boom. Last year's boom, last three years boom, went the last two years have been boom, boom boom. People could go work wherever they want. Like there's tons like there's tons of big. You know, all the Bayer people are coming in.

There's tons of jobs. People go where they want. So I think that it's it's really important to stick to the values because the reason why someone might be choosing not to work at one of these big companies and joining US startup or during agencies because of those values. And so if if you don't enforce them, then it can have this, you know, greater impact on, then it can really affect the culture. So I don't know, like, I don't even know if that is what the question,

you know? I mean, you know, I think it's good. I mean, do you take time to try to articulate them herself, even to

know them? Yeah. So it's a journey, right? Like when we when we we created when Natalie and I created this company, the company was now and I So we we started out with a set of values that were just related to us, right? And then there was, like, four people, right? And I don't know when we started actually creating company values, but it had to be somewhere around, maybe year, too. Okay,

right. How many people at that? 0.6.

Yeah. Okay. 678 And then, you know, we've kind of will incrementally update those, but even even even elect. Even then it was just, like, mean or Natalie and I creating those four are people. Sure, which against you could do if you're the the

owner or whatever, But did you feel like in those moments, those were yours or those were fun size? Okay, so those

were Yeah, and then it reaches family where you realize Well, you know that

we have to own it. Yeah.

Yeah. It's gonna be a company thing. Yeah, you know, so we we do this exercise we hired Peter Mur holds who's ah, bet on this podcast twice. Someone that I don't know if you know who that is or not. But he liked was founder of Adaptive Path. Like, you know, I don't think, you know, like, really important for people even having a you know, the idea of user experience being one thing. And like we brought him in, he did this exercise of this where we were and it was just like it was just a leadership team. But like, seeing that these new values emerge, we're really interesting. And it really helped us understand

life. He helped put them on paper.

Yeah, okay. It it was really interesting because, like, going through that exercise, like, even if they don't actually change the actual like, even if we never going to document actually change our values, it was really good for, like, the leadership alignment, because it answered a lot of questions that we were asking ourselves. Like, How big does this team need to be? What? What kind of design service is what I would do? What?

What do we want to be great at? Like what kind of people we hire like the, you know, things that came out of this relation embrace misfits, right? And instead of like that, right, it wasn't about, like, you know, transparency and communication. It was It was it was other

more Ethan. Really? Yeah, exactly.

So it was really It was really cool to do that. That's cool. Yeah. This is just start to do its thing a little bit. That the whiskey? Yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's, uh, I forgot to tell you that it's 100 proof feeling extremely strong. It's very strong, but it's good. I'm

a major lightweight, So it's no surprise that I had a had a light lunch s Oh, that's good. It feels

good. Well, least you picked a good like and you went to school in waiting

at one school Waco. And then it was there from 2010 to 2014 when back onis was under the bridge before they moved into their new digs. Um, so

I want you know what? What I was thinking would be cool would be to get, like, a group, just a few people from Austin and a few people from Dallas and let go to Waco and, like, go to the balconies. Distillery. We should do that and come in, Go drink some whiskey. The whole, like. I don't know what there is to do in Waco. Lie,

but, like, yeah, there's a lot way we could. Ah, we call Cory over at Milo, and he can He can cook dinner. Um, he's got a great shop. They're great. Great restaurant would be fun.

Yeah. Which we

should do that. I have, ah, handful of, ah, Waco friends. A lot of Waco friends, so that'd be fun.

We definitely need to do that. So let

me as soon as we're done here. That's an easy, easy, easy one.

I got a couple of questions for you on. Thanks for asking me questions like that. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Um, what's the biggest challenge that you're facing right now? I guess since this is this is the design. Yeah, you can framing. And like, the most challenging thing related to design,

there's definitely, like, an internal clock here where I feel like I need to answer this, you know, like, I need to know this answer, but I think it's a good question I think, you know, I think we have a handful. I mean, I think from a team, I think for me my own personal understanding of how designed how these decisions actually like what we talked about earlier, how they do make financial sense. I think it's something I'm gonna keep pursuing. Um, I think it's a team. As we are a team,

I think we're about 16 people. And as we get different types of requests or different types of projects or different types of work, you know, we have, Ah, a team that does back in work than a P. I work. We have a team that does client work. We have team that does design work, and then we have a team that does discovery, and we have a team that does que a work and all of those teams get pressured during different situations on I think the challenge is just to try to smooth that process, because how do you not overload certain groups of people during certain times a year? And so we have we changed that the cadence of the way we approach work a little bit on. I do think it's helped but we're still small, and that's the smallest little tweak can put. A lot of,

you know, stack a lot of work on to one of those groups, so I think that's the thing that I wouldn't say keeps me up at night. But that's the thing that I'm always thinking about, you know, where where can we improve and where can we tweak? I think we always have. You know that the worst serving businesses and the businesses air changing and the businesses are evolving, and that's probably the most fun part about it, he said. It's not static.

I didn't realize there was, ah, client service aspect.

There is, Yeah, so we're certainly were certainly serving the three businesses and so that's always a little bit of a challenge. And I you know, I, um, had a, uh, design Web shop with a friend in a couple of friends when I was in California and that it's still in existence. I'm not involved with it near like I waas, but that experience of client service has been extremely helpful for me now because we are saying Okay, well, I think you guys want this and you guys want this. How can we see this the same way? That's always a challenge. I think it's a fun challenge that energizes me. Um,

I think the challenge of maybe it's because that typically falls on me. That's typically my role in this. What I'm the only there's like a couple of us that do that. You know, Pete and I will be the ones who who mainly do that. Getting the team feeling like the right amount of work is coming to them with the right amount of time to give somebody a chance to do excellent work, right? Because there are times where we say, Hey, today is gonna be harder to do your best work because there's a lot piled up on you. Um, and so you might have to make sacrifices and start to push up against values of your your personal life. And so how do we

you know, I think that's you mentioned something similar to that earlier, and I won't mention any names. But I know this guy named Hee Hee I wanted Oh man. So I know this guy. He was one of our first clients, and he's one of the best engineers ever worked with. He sold to companies, to to the biggest Barry companies that you can think of. And he was kind of the engineering co founder of, like, this new, exciting company that another Very so general, I can't figure anything out of d. C he made. But he hit this point in his life where he, um he wasn't feeling well,

okay, He needed to take a break, take a break. And the owner of the company was like, Well, you know, it was a total, like, wasn't an embrace. It all and eventually just pushed this person out. But I think that, like, if you think about all the things we're talking about, like understanding how the company makes money Yep. And efficiency and innovation. All that that happens when you have trust in relationships and that those air built over years.

Yeah, right. So, like, you know, and what you like, if you think about it like, what is three months in terms of like, what could be accomplished in the rest of that year? Yeah, if you understand those, if those things are there, I don't know, but yeah, some people, you know, My you know Bearcats might look at that differently.

Sure. Yeah. So that's it. That's that's probably are are by the thing that got me thinking the most.

So since you said that this thing wasn't the thing that keeps you up at night, what is the thing that keeps you up at night?

You know, that's a good question. I don't know, man. I don't know if I can even answer that publicly. Um, I think that I am always trying to find peace. So, um, but I'm an over thinker and an over analyzer on, and I think people would tell me, Hey, actually, the key to peace is to not do that. I think that is the thing preventing you. But I think I'm you know, I think I'm growing up a lot,

and I am learning that on some regard, um, meat. For me to be open is to also accept myself, and so that's a challenge. It's just a challenge to say, Oh, this is a thought I had or I don't know that answer or on sometimes in work settings, I think it's it's pretty easy, I think, in relationships it becomes a challenge. Outside of work. I think that it is obvious on my team that I'm not the smartest person in the room. And that's a that's a blessing, right? And I think,

um, so I think for me, it's like it's just always trying to be okay and to accept all that's going on in my head. So I don't know. There's probably keeps me out tonight. Uh, so Yeah,

well, I appreciate you hanging out in the office today, I think. Are you gonna be around tomorrow? I am. Yeah. Okay. Um I know you have, Like, you got a dinner to get going. You so I'll let you go. But I managed to let people know how they can connect

with you. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um, I guess Like Instagram and Twitter, it's probably the best thing. Is that his hobby? You answer this. This is what I would say my instagram and Twitter, both em tro zo ntr o zi zi Oh, um, also, if you're in the DF Debbie area, um, you should download this app called Tide Cleaners D f w and tried out. You can email me at mike at university laundry dot com and you can tell us like we like I said to Anthony,

we do want feedback. We always wanna get better. So if you want to check it out and download the app I'd love your feedback. I'd love to say, Hey, this was confusing or this was easy. And you can tell me all the bad things. I feel secure that I can hear it, so yeah,

thanks. So good. Thanks for making time. And yes, sir, this is all thanks for having me, you know, thanks for being willing to talk, you know, talk openly and yeah, of course. It's a pleasure to hang out to afford a hanging out with you tomorrow and maybe hopefully Sunday. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Thanks, everyone for tuning in talk soon. Yeah,

thanks. Tussle is brought to you by Fun Size, a digital service and product design agency that works with inspiring teams to uncover opportunities of all popular products, bring new businesses to market and prepare for the future. Learn more at fun sized dot C I'm a stubble market. A product designer. Fun size.