It's been a while since way. Yeah, The hustle. All right. Eh, Everybody, we're here. Welcome to the hustle podcast. A podcast about mobile product design, Digital product design. Um, I'm here with Anthony. Okay, guys. And today we also have Fi joining us. Hey, Gus.

And we have a special guest today. This is Brandon from pair booking blue. You can plug your last name in there. I don't know. That's bright. And Buck bring bright buck. That is fierce. Less strong. Yeah. So today we wanted Thio just sort of doing impromptu episode. We had Brandon in the inn at fun size here in Austin today, and I was chatting with Anthony this morning about Let's just get Brandon on here and talk a little bit, because right now we're sort of wrapping up, like, four month engagement that we have done with you guys. And,

um, fee was sort of leading point on that. And so we thought maybe we would just get together and talk about how that went Also, Um, Brandon, if you wouldn't mind. Man, can you just give, like our listeners a quick little overview or elevator pitch or something? However, what you want. About? What? Pair? Booking

is your hand yourself too? Yeah. Uh, yes. Au pair booking is a full on booking agency, but it's built into an IOS right now. Application Android. We're working on you. Don't worry, but yeah. So it's an application that any artist, regardless of their size, you know, their demand, regardless of genre, can go and sign up and have the faith. Full booking process back them.

Um and so no longer does you know some, you know, indie artists need toe, you know, use like they're Gmail, necessarily. Thio have, like a contact in communication with venues and buyers difference thing. You know, we give each of our artists a unique You're a rail to their own offer form. The buyer fills out that form. They got a push notification with all the information about the show. And they can either approve that show, counter it, depending on different needs that they might need, um or just decline it if it falls in like their mom's

birthday, and they can make it. So, yeah, what's really interesting to me about that is that, like, that process is, like, so not automated in any way shape or form like even like, you know, dudes that are like pulling in, like, you know, 40 grand for, like, just the door, right?

It's basically all like, Hey, man, could you could you pay me? Yeah,

they're they're legit agencies out there. I mean, don't get me wrong that are representing mega artist, but it's a very time consuming process and it's very dated. I mean, you know, there are artists that, you know, I've even working for that are working with that. You know, we still use that word like going and edit a contract, you know, save it as a pdf and then e mailed to them They have to print it, sign it, scan it again, send it back. It's like, uh, this is 15 right?

So right. But so obviously that smoothing out yes, points

and for sure. So if you're a musician artist men check out pair booking dot com. You got questions? There's contact info on their, you know, Feel free to call us e

mail us any time on a rather good looking instagram account.

Man, we try. We try toe to go. The

on instagram is just

pair booking airfare booking. Yeah, that's a grand pear booking. Twitter pair booking and, uh yeah, so that's pretty much it and myself. I've been in the music industry for the last 15 years, doing different aspects from tour management management, booking agent all mainly on the business side of thing. I did do a little bit of touring, like playing guitar. Piano. Hey, my teen years. Okay? And now you're a CEO and product manager. Yes.

Yeah. So taking over the world. I live in San Diego. Eyes is this close to paradise. So it's good.

So we should wrap up here, and you can all go to Sanders

video. Let's do it. I like Austin like every aspect of awesome

I did too, man. But not right now, whether right now. Yeah, yeah. Um,

well, if you don't mind, before we get into, like, the project itself, I just want to talk a little bit about, like how we met. Yeah. Uh, we met from Via Joe Buchanan, who runs the balance podcast. Who's a designer at Google. Great balance or die. Yeah. What in what I remember from that experience was we met you. We hit it off really well. um we had a quick introduction call and without it seemed like within a very short period time.

We're just working together. And what really amazes me. What really amazed me about that was that you were so passionate about your product concept in its validation and roping in, like, your team in the stakeholders, you need to pull it off. Plus tiring a design agency in a development agency all at the same time that I can't even imagine what that is like. Yeah. No, it was It was a crazy a couple weeks. Really? Um, so that I mean, the idea for pair came in late January, if I remember. Right,

cause I think we start working in early February. In March. March. I'm sorry. So from a month

off, I remember it Well. Oh, that's right. That's right. You're right. As we're something. Yeah, my little baby.

That's right. That was march.

What? They was really born on the 11th.

Okay, so we probably start working together. The eighth was probably our kickoff march to the end of, uh, yes, The end of January. All of February was pretty much so. Yeah, all of February, You know, I wrote a business plan who raised the seed round of funding. We found our design team found development team, and we started working right away. What's it like having to make those decisions of, like, you know, all that,

all that budget and thinking about, you know, the, you know, the validation and all the, you know, plans necessarily feeling comfortable making those hiring decisions. Like what? Like how did you do that? How did you make that decision, man? I think I just I trusted my friends so much, you know, being and like And the fact of like when I say friends, Like, speaking of Joel and Josh,

you know, a guy involved with pair, you know, they were buddies for a long time, and Joel came to me is like, you know, no questions. You have to go with fun size, and so I just need, like, Okay, we're going to use funds, eyes theon. I'm saying like there was and just obviously I put you guys, this website and all that kind of stuff, it was like,

Oh, these guys have worked with legit, you know, cos product companies past their stuff looks amazing and you know, within the first, I would say 10 minutes of our phone call. It was easy conversations, you know, I'm saying, and like you guys know, what you're doing is like, Well, let's do this. You know, I think you guys were pumped on it, so we had the same.

You know, we didn't one of our earlier episodes. It's called Choosing the right clients. And and I think, you know, fee and I, After talking with you, we knew immediately, like, you know, you could just tell that first call, like whether you vibe or right, Like a good feelings and yeah, and so yeah, through that through that process, I mean,

I guess them eyes good and bad. I'm pretty quick at making decisions, and I'm saying I know what I like, and I know what I don't like, and I think I can pick that out pretty quick on it's like, Okay, that's our design company. Check. Let's move on like you guys go and do your thing and do it. Well, uh, I'm gonna be here. We're gonna supply as much information as we possibly can. See. You guys can, you know,

design the best product possible. Um, and I'm gonna go on and do my thing while you guys do your thing. And I think that's, you know, one of hopefully one of my strong suits that sticks out. But it's awesome. Yeah. And that definitely showed throughout the entire project. Just the vibes and everything that we've been been able to do is just like Brandon. You know, you hold us accountable, but also give us the breathing room to kind of let us do what we do, right?

Yeah. It seemed like the, um the process of working with you guys went really well. I was kind of watching from afar as like Fee and Andre were kind of killing it on on pair. And they're just kind of showing me some stuff as they went along. I thought it looked really great, but I was wondering if maybe you could tell us a little bit about you know, how that process went working with Brandon. Like what? What? I know you guys tried a few different things, right? Um, on this project, uh, that seemed to work really well, I'm sure there is maybe a couple challenges as well,

but could you talk about just kind of like, how you got things started, dialed up, And, uh, any unique process

is along the way. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of organic from the get go to kind of like, make sure you know where we're continuously refining our conceptual design face of. We wanted to use this opportunity to kind of play with different tools and things like that. So how we got started was kind of, you know, really, And Natalie and Andre and any designer who was kind of available to kind of pitch a concept kind of rally around and create mood boards to kind of set the like, the emotional design of pair because it's such a It was such a new product that we haven't where you worked on, and I really wanted to play with, um, just the overall design aesthetic and make make sure it felt different from any other competitors out there. So, um, from then we you know,

we started Pinterest, and then you start sharing mood boards and then kind of sharing that back and forth, kind of pick a look and feel that felt appropriate, right? So from then on. We just you know, we kind of went heads down and started. You know, each each designer kind of took inspiration from those boards and then made their own concepts. And we ended up presenting a style town to to Brandon first to kind of show like the why of the design that we went into, you

know? And were you sharing that Pinterest board the mood board with the climate Get time, overuse ordered it. OK, so you're seeing, like, the Pinterest board of like, hey, these air sort of like a like a collection of styles that were sort of like, yeah, working.

And I think the great thing is, like, way try to supply a lot of of assets to the teams like this is what we like and don't like. That was huge. And I think this is an interesting point and I don't want you to continue feed. But, you know, I think there's a feeling sometimes from like being a designer design agency that, you know, we know what's best right. You hire designing because we know it's best. We're gonna craft your strategy and and guide you through this process, and it's gonna take nine months, right? The difference here is that I think that's changing. You know, you are the subject matter expert,

you know, you know the music. You know, the music business. You know, your product concept. You came to the table with a lot of homework, like even wire frames and specs like, Sure, we helped you narrow that down bright, But but we didn't have it like we didn't have to approach it like we're the experts and we're gonna tell you it's right. And when it came to design, like, you know, But we were lucky enough that you kind of had a really good sense of what you needed to do. So we're able to do in a really productive way.

So I mean, that's really unique, I think. Yeah. And that definitely help. Like you came, you came to the table with taste, right? And that's something that we we look forward to in any any client for us. That's that's a dream client. I have someone come to the table with Well, I like this kind of typography. I like the way this photo is being treated like it's rare for a kind of be like, Oh, well, I kind of like this.

I kind of like that, but kind of kind of prescribed that route the gate, and then for us to kind of refined that, like, that was a huge step forward for us on DME aid. That process, like, super streamlined, that conceptual design process you're talking about feel, like, really changed some things about the way we approach that. All projects, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And thio kind of pitch in a thought on that thio. I have been having lots of conversations with Natalie Fi. Andre, you know about how we're kind of putting these things together, and, um, one of one of the sort of like, like methods of doing conceptual design. I was hoping to get two was doing like this. You know, I think I came in with his ah, Brad Frost or someone. Another designer made a post about atomic design and sew. We were finding that, like we were putting concepts together and showing them,

like, right on the phone, right. But then they're sort of like what the client was sort of like, Why are we making these choices? Like why does this work together? How does things weren't They kind of get hung up on that. But, um, the way they did the pair conceptual design that I had seen from afar was that they actually kind of, you know, showed those Adams, if you will sort of expanded on and then reinforced it with showing them on screens at this time,

right? Yes. So, like I was presented, you know, a pdf that had, like, concept one, and then the kind of the mood board behind that concept here, all the colors, here's icon, the type and all this kind of stuff in the treatment. And then here's what it looks like on three different screens. And I got three of those, which was awesome. Chances are there was a lot of war that were designed. Yeah,

Yeah, did that. I'm very curious about this because we're continually refining the process, but, like, Did did like seeing those things sort of those design elements, like the typography, the colors and iconography sort of exploded out out of the context of a screen before you saw the screens. Did that help you in any way? Was it confusing? Was it like cool, but I just show me the screens or

no, for me, for it was perfect. I can't speak for everybody. Everything is gonna be a little bit different. I understand that. But for me to see, you know, the whole scope of of why this is the reason behind the concept is great. I mean, there's for yet

It comes from like, a like the way that interior designer's work, like they won't just design your room and say, Do you like this? They'll pick out like, little swatches of fabric. They'll put those together in, sort of like 11 area where you can sort of visualize the feeling of it. Rather called, like style tiles. That senator away putting right,

helps. You kind of figure out what the personality of the branded products heavy is it, you know? Was it friendly? Is it authority visit? You know, like, how does it make you feel right? Steps toward you know, when you're creating a product like this in three or four months from from scratch. I mean, I hope that that kind of helped. Yeah, it did. And it was kind of interesting to, and I'm sure this was maybe its struggle for you guys, but,

uh, more than it was for me. But we didn't necessarily have a brand or an identity when we started this project, and it was kind of one of those things. They're like, you know? So what kind of feel like, Well, we don't really know, You know, we don't really know yet because the product itself I really wanted it to speak for itself and for us to design around that, and we got there in it. I mean, we I think we killed it when it came to the brand as a whole, like S O. But which probably isn't the best process for every, you know, company to start out that way. But

I think it worked for us. You know, I think people get hung up a little bit too much sometime on what is the correct way to do this instead of just sort of like diving into making decisions, Like the way you guys didn't. I don't think that's gonna contribute.

Just kind of like a small note, like I mean, I got I got three concepts. I felt like that was the right amount. If I would have gotten 45 I probably would have felt a little too over would have made it harder for you. Yeah, a lot harder. You guys don't know this, but when I first saw the three concepts, I was on the golf course, you know, pulled them up on my phone and I stopped playing, just like, Hey, guys, I've got to go. It's just because these were so good.

I was so pumped on these, I could just focus on playing anymore. Luckily, it was only the 16th hold time, but on de So I was just, you know, I just like, man, I've got about I don't know how I'm gonna make a decision. I knew. I knew within a few minutes of looking at them which one I was gonna go with. I knew it was gonna be Concept three, but I wanted to see, like, if there were other elements and the other two that we could pull from, um and I think we man Gosh,

it looks so good. I'm so proud of it. It's good to hear that. I mean, I'm curious to hear your comments on a couple of things. We could tackle these in order for everyone. But I'm curious what it was like, um, being exposed to working in an agile fashion where we're like, You know what? We're going to try really hard to do this in three months, but we can't guarantee it, right? Like versus, like, you know,

doing it fixed scope. And if they're, you know, how did that work out for you? Like, you know, be brutally honest. Like what worked? What works worked in that process for you. What Didn't I think what worked what worked really well was just the transparency. I think that that's key, you know, in, instead of having all these like expectations kind of built up, like as far as like, this is what you're going to get,

you know, a type idea. It's like, this is what we plan on doing. Um, and we're going to work our ass off to get there, you know, I'm saying, like, I think that is awesome. And at the same time, like it works. I think it worked well, because it's both both ways, you know? I mean,

like, you guys gonna work hard. I'm gonna work hard. I'm gonna try to get you the resources you need. And if if I don't get to the resources you need, it's falls on my shoulders. I mean, so I think it's just a great way of of keeping both parties accountable, because I could just sit back and be like you guys have to deliver X y and Z for this and you know what I mean? Just hover. Long takes and takes. And but I enjoyed the I think natural processes the only way. Yeah,

yeah, I think that kind of speaks to a little bit of the, um, attitude of what we sort of name. This this podcast for two is just hustling like it's actually, You know, some people kind of like view that word in a negative light like, Oh, man, you're just like working too hard or whatever. But what we like to do is, like, just constantly be turning stuff out and being like the, you know, transparent with our clients. Because well, to be honest,

we don't want to not be transparent, because if we're like doing something going in the wrong direction, you know, then that's only gonna hurt, you know, both but

the client and us is definitely. And I think that was maybe I don't know if I annoyed you guys in any way, but I like transparency, and I'd like to know where stuff is. And I'd like to kind of see progress and just simple updates. You know, I'm saying and so you know, the the constant slot communication, you know, is grades and the transparency that we had and transparency in our file sharing, you know, I mean, was great for me, and it just kind of gave me ease knowing like, Oh, he's working on that. I could see this file was updated a minute ago here, and I'm saying so I know that they're working on the project right now, and it's not just something like what? I

wonder what they're doing to Dio. And if you did, you guys sees a pivotal

tracker for this project. Okay, Yeah, that's what we use in do. It was great way still use it. D'oh! Okay, cool. Yeah, that's awesome. That's how we were just keeping track of Like what? What flow they need work on. Or like, what the progress is was

in on that. And what 11th for people there listening. Don't know what it is. Pivotal trackers like an agile development tool, kind of just to keep on track of like stories like what Everyone's working on your sign and point values and blah, blah, blah. Um, but it's It's like Brandon should never have to ask what we're working on if he has access to that, because he can only see like we actually like. Start it finished,

you know, deliver it all, and it allows me to go in and make comments. You asked. And I know we're doing a big pitch right now for people. I mean, in a way that we will see you in a sponsor rig had fun sized.

We're open to that. It's a tool that I used it. The last company I was at a product company, and it just really worked well for me, and I'm really glad we were able to adopt it with the way

we work now and prepare internally like we've adopted it internal. That's a phrase. That tower keeping track of all over development side of things, is we were looking at it for even like a marketing PR side of things like that. So yeah, way. Ah, Long time ago, we had an episode of the podcast called Death to Time Tracking. And it was at this moment where I think we kind of realized that for this client, an agency relationship toe work like it was all about a lot of it had to do with the tool because a lot of these agile tools, like, you know, say, troll Oh, for example, like,

let you plan things, but there's no understanding of what you're getting. Riley. You're paying fun Size, X, amount of money. What am I getting like? What is how to understand the effort? So, yeah, I mean, not to go off the rails, but I think that helps kind of keep both parties on the same page where this we're paying for their four. This is the effort. Let's do we can't with that exactly. Yeah,

And I think it was great transparency to even today we had. We were doing a standup slash spring planting this morning, and I pointed out to me as a man that you have to bump that up. There's no way that that's only that, because I know it's gonna take you longer. Wow, You know, it's like because I because I I you know, I've got his best interest in heart because I know he's gonna, in return deliver a great product what I'm saying and not be like, I've only got two point. So I guess this work, you know, I want this to be four, you know, because I wanted

to be the best. That's awesome. That may be the first time my clients ever asked us Teoh

times on the work. I know it's been great. That's cool. That's yeah, that's what we've been able to like. You know, it a rate as much as we can on certain things that you really needed the love, you know, so

cool. So, um, we're actually 25 minutes in. I want to maybe kind of try and keep it around 30 minutes. That's not too much, but I do want us wanted to know after, like, conceptual design. I know you guys did some interesting stuff with with using sketch for, like, the flows, and everything can talk

a little bit about that real quick. Oh, man, that was That was pretty scary to kind of dive into cause, you know, pair was the first pair was the first project that we're piloting sketch with, you know, like, that's good in them after

me. Well, we had kind of played with it projects before, but this was like the 1st 1 that we

ever had Always used it for 100%. Yeah, yeah, but not wire, but not interaction. Design it straight into visual design. Yeah, right. And, you know, with all the exporting features and you know, just everything that we knew that you know, it could do more efficient than other other design tools out there. We we wanted to kind of tackle that and use pair as a guinea pig toe kind of diving to sketch And, you know, with all the art boards and being able to keep track of the U R kit within each sketch file. That was huge.

Because, you know, when mean me and Andre were collaborating on the OS app, it was it was huge being able to, you know, make symbol create symbols for, you know, for buttons and other things like that to kind of keep keep track of everything. If we made changes on one screen, it would apply toe all the other screens,

you know? So you do you find yourself doing that a lot. Like using symbols that were actually updated and just, like, went throughout the entire, like flowing?

Yeah, it was it

was great. And not to get too

designer. No. Yeah. I mean, without getting into details. Like I I realize that sketch added a huge value to this project because we were moving so fast and iterating really quickly. So yeah, using that tool and yeah, just using that tow you. So for the listeners, like, we basically designed the core of this Wanda toe pair application in about three months time frame? Yeah. If we had used a different workflow, what would it? How long do you think that would have taken to do the same on the work man? 100. Some screens.

Oh, that's a good. That's a

good detail that without the, you know this particular I'm just curious. It's like from your perspective, like, you know, if we were using different tools to do this to do all this work, it would probably double the time because we also made the Web app in

sketches. Well, so yeah, Yeah. I mean, uh, I think overall it just empower, you know, having a system set up like that where it's, like, easily to dynamically change a lot of things. It sort of empowers a designer to make a change. What they know is, like, better for the overall aesthetic. Without the, like, worry about the the debt that incurs We're gonna change this type type setting. We're gonna have to go back and update all these screens. So

for those of you that haven't seen it already, I mean, Photoshopped now has our words, And you could do similar stuff in photo shop

now. Yeah, we should talk about that on a different one about how, like, recently, I tried to basically make photo shop. You know, C has 15 work in harnessing the same sort of like, symbols and power, the power, the library, like libraries. But that would be an interesting episode as well. Um, but yeah, sorry to get too deep enough that some aspects of things, Brandon,

but, um, yeah, I just felt like, you know, as a fly on the wall watching this this product go It seemed to go really smoothly and like we have a lot of like ideas like this is the best way to work on, but really seems to have clicked on a lot of points on the project

with you guys for sure. I mean, the whole process from start to finish has been great on, uh, you know, I will use fun size as long as I possibly can. So

nice, cool. Any important up upcoming like milestones that we should be aware of their

yes, au pair. The application will be on the APP store in August, which were, you know, really pumped about. Proud of. And so, yeah, if you're an artist out there touring musician, speaker communicator and go check it out. Search pair booking on the APP store. Download it. You know, there's our web sites out there. We've got a lot of great things in store for artists. That's what we're most excited about being an agency that is,

has our artists in the best interest in mind, you know? I mean, so you know, you never know what, uh what kind of fun? Goody. We're going to send your way. Her surprise. So

nice Yeah. Uh, yeah. And if anybody wants to see, like, some of the design work that we're doing for a pair with you, No fee. And Andre And I think Natalie even maybe had been dribbling and see and check out our onsides dribble paged to see some of that stuff. Um, but yeah, I think you know, just kind of call call this episode wrapped up for now, is it? Was there anything else that either of you guys wanted t just like mention? Oh, we were probably maybe gonna do, like,

one thing this episode and maybe one other for the hustle podcast to sort of wrap up what we're calling season one of our podcast. And then we're going to kind of, uh, retool some things and come back with service in new formats and everything were also kind of getting into a new space. Right now. We're recording in a new room for the first time, and so we're excited. Thio, maybe get this, get it going a little bit more often in a little bit in some new and exciting ways. So I just wanted to kind of mention that, but thank you, fi. Thank you, Anthony. You.

Hey, there it is. Let's just do it. Let's just get the ground. You nto We're just gonna take a picture real quick.

Don't mind us.

You don't mind us

Three. Awesome. Perfect. What a great way to Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you guys for killing it. And, uh, and seriously, anybody. You need a product development company. Don't look anywhere else. Fun size

to go. Appreciate you. All right. Today's episode is sponsored by Ben Shot Co. Let's face it, bookkeeping is never fun, but it's something you can't escape. Benches. The online bookkeeping service that does your bookkeeping for you. When you sign up to bench, you're paired with your own dedicated human bookkeeper and you collaborate with the bookkeeper using the bench. It's everything you need to cross bookkeeping off your list forever. If bookkeeping is taking too much of your time and you just want it done, check out www dot bench dot c o. That's bench dot co. They've got you covered. Hustle is brought to you by Fund Size, a digital product design agency in Austin, Texas, that creates delightful innovative products for mobile web and beyond.