Navigating the Digital Marketing Landscape with Enleaf | Adam Chronister

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Adam Chronister of Enleaf about the journey of entrepreneurship, the impact of COVID on business, and the importance of problem-solving in the entrepreneurial mindset. They discuss the transition from corporate jobs to full-time entrepreneurship, the significance of freedom and autonomy, and the challenges of navigating technology in business. The conversation also touches on the future of work and how technology will shape new job roles and opportunities.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Enleaf specializes in helping businesses with their online presence.
• Adam transitioned to full-time entrepreneurship during the COVID pandemic.
• The entrepreneurial mindset is about solving problems and taking risks.
• Different types of intelligence contribute to business success.
• Freedom and autonomy are key motivators for entrepreneurs.
• Transitioning from a side hustle to full-time requires overcoming fears.
• Technology can create challenges in business operations.
• Selling what people want is crucial for success.
• The future of work will involve new roles due to technological advancements.
• Entrepreneurs must adapt to changing environments and expectations.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.07)
No, I don't know enough to be dangerous. I don't know any German at all. Eins, zwei, drei. Here we go. Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you'll learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. A special shout out to our one listener in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. I wonder if that's where Phoenix, Arizona got their name.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (00:04.032)
Okay.

Christian Brim (00:28.688)
In any case, joining me today, Adam Kronister of Enleaf. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (00:34.414)
Thanks for having me. Yeah, glad to be here.

Christian Brim (00:37.648)
I'm sorry, I'm giggling at myself. So what is inleaf? Not to be confused with einleaf or onleaf.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (00:45.622)
Right. So Enleaf is a search marketing company based in the Pacific Northwest. for well over a decade now, we've been helping businesses with their web design presence or online presence or search marketing, really helping businesses get that extra push and visibility in the online sphere. So that's kind of who we are and what we do.

Christian Brim (01:07.792)
Mm-hmm.

Do you have a target client in mind, a specific demographic industry, anything like that?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (01:18.958)
We do have verticals that we specialize in. We do a fair amount in the travel hospitality and then often what I call like real estate adjacent companies. honestly, we've helped companies across verticals, from large SaaS and e-commerce businesses down to your single.

Christian Brim (01:25.882)
Mm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (01:42.398)
operator, entrepreneurial business. So really we do just about everything, but there are some verticals as mentioned that, you know, we've kind of carved out a name for ourselves. So that's always an honor, right?

Christian Brim (01:55.35)
Yeah, absolutely. It's always exciting when you can help somebody. I have a client after the show I'll connect you with that is a videographer in that space, in the hospitality space. So you guys should connect. So how long has Eindlief been in business?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (02:05.058)
Yeah. Great.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (02:15.438)
Since 2009. Yeah, that's kind of officially when the business started. Yeah, I would say Yeah, I'm I'm older than I sometimes am confused with so yeah heading on 44, but no it started it Really right out of college as honestly a side hustle. Honestly, the business only kind of went into its fall I Guess you know

Christian Brim (02:18.089)
long time. You don't look that old. Did you start when you were 12?

Christian Brim (02:29.7)
Okay.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (02:44.788)
limelight probably around 2020. That's when I took the business full time up until that point. It was really kind of a side hustle. Although I, you know, I tell people for the last three years that I was working in corporate doing the same kind of thing, you know, digital marketing. was director of digital marketer for a few companies prior to that. I was running the agency on the side and, you know, fairly successfully for, guess, a side hustle, but around, around 2020.

Christian Brim (02:59.94)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (03:14.574)
It was basically just the time to take it full time, right? It was, I kept telling my wife, hey, I think I'm doing the 80-20 backwards because the thing I'm spending 20 % of my time on is making me 80 % of my money. And so we got a game plan together and yeah, I haven't looked back since.

Christian Brim (03:35.664)
Okay, so two questions, follow up questions. First is what was the impetus to go away from corporate? And two, how did that corporate experience impact how you do things in your business?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (03:57.228)
Yeah, so the tipping point for me was I worked for a company, again, in the travel hospitality space. So that's kind of led into why we specialize in the agency. So I was the director of digital marketing for a company that had a national, almost international footprint in vacation rentals. And then along came COVID and really

knocked this business on its feet, right? And this is a business that was, you know, they had a series C round of funding up to $100 million, investors from companies that you and I both recognize. And unfortunately, they were in the prime position to be, you know, kind of disrupted with COVID as with many businesses in the space, but their primary market was metropolitan locations.

Christian Brim (04:45.786)
Sure.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (04:51.246)
you know, that were travel destinations. And of course, there's no worse place to be during COVID. It wasn't like these were cabins in the wood or beach houses. These were, you know, San Francisco, Seattle, these kind of locations, right? So it was kind of the perfect storm. You know, it was one of those jobs. I called it like kind of the golden handcuff job. It was a beer on Friday.

Christian Brim (05:00.463)
Right.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (05:17.784)
job, a good place to work, honestly. think that's what honestly extended my career in corporate as long as I did, just because it was kind of hard to leave. But at the same time, I never felt really satisfied there, not because it wasn't a good place to work. Just, you know, I had that entrepreneurial itch. And that was that was really just kind of the push I needed to like take things 100 % full time instead of just treating my company as a as a

Christian Brim (05:32.779)
Mmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (05:47.084)
lucrative side hustle.

Christian Brim (05:49.806)
Yeah, I think that entrepreneurial itch, I sometimes refer to it as a psychosis is is is not something that can be scratched working for someone else. Not because not because you think that you've got something. To me, it's it's

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (05:57.55)
I can also agree with that.

Christian Brim (06:18.466)
it's about being able to own the outcome. you know, eventually working for someone else, someone's going to say, you know what, I, we like your idea, Adam, but we're not going to, we're not going to do it. And you know, at the end of the day, entrepreneurs solve problems. And when you run up against one of those problems that you're like, I know I can fix this. Like I, I can do this. And they say, no,

you know, that's, that's killed or launched, let's say launched a lot of entrepreneurs. So anything about your, your processes or, or how you do things in, in leaf,

come from origin in your working for someone else.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (07:10.134)
Yeah, honestly, a lot of them, like I would say the one, the one asset I or not asset, but opportunity I had with many of the jobs that I worked for, not all of them, but for most of my career, I guess in the corporate world, and I should use the word corporate loosely because most of the companies that I worked for, I would say about 80 % prior to going on my own were, were essentially startups, right? And so I learned a lot through not only that last, that last job, but

Christian Brim (07:33.989)
Hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (07:39.758)
One of my first jobs out of college was as a project manager for a software development company. And that's actually where I got my background. So I have a degree in computer science, but never really kind of honed into wanting to look at code all day. So I got about three fourths the way through my degree and realized like, I don't know if I'm.

I'm built to stare at code, but I do enjoy everything around web development and design. And then that later led to digital marketing. yeah, from my very first job out of college, was managing as a project manager, don't know, roughly 20 plus clients. And it was one of those environments where it's kind of like they just throw you in the water and they're like, have fun, figure it out.

And that was really the thing that sparked my interest and kind of my, I guess, my thought process and Hey, this is something I could probably do, you know, on my own later on. Right. and so that as well as other, you know, positions through the years and, know, various entrepreneurial type businesses, had helped quite a bit. Right. It was actually that first job too, where

I really started to kind of pivot into marketing. This business, again, being a startup, they were doing a lot of mobile application development, but they had really no great marketing presence, at least early on. And so around the time, this is when Twitter was relatively new and I started dabbling around with it and...

Christian Brim (09:05.306)
and

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (09:28.846)
I basically said, hey, I noticed we're not doing much in the realm of marketing. I'd love to maybe create a marketing campaign or something like that. And if you've ever worked at a lean startup and you raise your hand usually, it's like, yeah, go have fun. No, it's like, go figure it out. that's kind of what got me started in that entrepreneurial mindset was just being around it.

Christian Brim (09:42.99)
Yeah, we're not giving any resources, but make it happen.

Christian Brim (09:56.644)
Yeah. I love what you said about like, so you learned code, but you realized that's not what you wanted to do. And then you, you came upon marketing and, I think I'm going to make a statement and see if you agree with it, that, the best entrepreneurs understand that the skills that they have in your case, that could be.

JavaScript, could be SEO, could be HTML, whatever. That's not the essence of what you as an entrepreneur are. Your essence is solving problems, specifically marketing problems. You have some skills around that, but that's not what defines what you do.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (10:49.058)
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. mean, that's what I kind of realized early on, you know, because I was working and I was in charge of software developers with that first gig out of college. And the other thing that thing, you know, that experience taught me was that, you know, I was, you know,

I basically just got my AA degree in computer science. So it wasn't like a huge fancy four year degree or anything like that. I went to a local community college. But I was thrown into a scenario where I was the conduit between developers and engineers, software engineers who arguably were way smarter than I was. But ironically, without

You know, being fully transparent, I kind of got the sense like, I'm actually making more than a lot of these software developers. Right. and then I started, you know, that had me thinking about like, well, what are other scenarios like this? I love the, the Apple example, right? You had the two Steve, the two, the two Steve's like Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak. Right. And, both of them very intelligent, but arguably Steve Wozniak.

Christian Brim (11:44.772)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (12:08.395)
you know, was much more of an engineer than Steve Jobs. But if it was, if you understand that whole story, Steve Wozniak wanted to basically give away the Apple too. so, right. But yeah. And so Steve Jobs, you know, had the business intelligence, right. And it's like, can't, you can't just give this away. Like there's a, there's a commodity here, right. And you know,

Christian Brim (12:12.304)
Sure.

Christian Brim (12:21.208)
I wish he had, I paid a lot for mine. Or my dad did, I didn't pay for him.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (12:37.056)
Arguably Steve Jobs eventually became kind of the star of Apple and Steve Wozniak kind of fell in the background. And, you know, it was through my own experience and kind of adapting that to other examples like that out there that I realized like there are different types of intelligence, right? There's emotional intelligence, there's business savvy intelligence, there's obviously like, you know, the very intelligent engineers or data scientists. And

Christian Brim (12:54.96)
Mmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (13:06.486)
You know, the things you learn in school don't always apply in the boxes that we put them, at least in our expectations of, hey, I got straight A's through college and I got a doctorate in this or that. You know, and now it's like you look at most of the world's like leading entrepreneurs, a lot of them are college dropouts, not because they're not intelligent, but they just, realized there was a different path. And having been somebody who

at least in high school struggled quite a bit academically. And I had to hustle really hard in college too. It was no easy feat for me. That was really helpful in my journey realizing like, wow, I don't have to be the top of the class in everything I do because there are different aspects of personality and characteristic that can still help you get ahead. In fact, I think in a lot of cases,

I think you look at lot of entrepreneurs and they are the people that, you know, they struggled, you know, with attention in school and I was one of those, right? So.

Christian Brim (14:10.424)
Right. No, I mean, I think that axiom is true in some part that like C students are the ones that become entrepreneurs. You know, the A students and the B students become the employees. it's not entirely always true, but you know, it speaks to what you're saying. And, and then I, you, you used the two Steve's. also think of Walton Roy Disney and you know, how they were a fantastic

partnership because they were so different in how they approach things, right? And I find that, you know, finding that those competencies, those intelligences in one person is rare. It does happen, but I think we lean one way or the other and to just, you know,

dumb it down way too much. It's either you're the creative mind or you're the analytical mind. And when you can get those two together, either in a partnership or an individual, then you really have rocket fuel because it takes both in business. You have to have both.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (15:31.628)
Yeah, and you can't have a business of only entrepreneurs, right? That just is not going to work, right? And somebody has to be kind of leading the ship. every business has components and personalities that are integral to that business, right? And so I think it is good. And there are a lot of people I know that they...

Christian Brim (15:38.222)
god no.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (15:56.502)
you know, they would hate being an entrepreneur or business owner. They would just absolutely despise it, right? I think that's probably the majority, honestly. Otherwise, I think there would be a lot more entrepreneurs. And then there's the twisted sick people like probably you and I who are the other camp, right? Yeah, right.

Christian Brim (16:04.133)
Yes.

Christian Brim (16:11.354)
who are mentally ill, I've already stipulated that, it's a psychosis. No, you're right, you can be an entrepreneurial employee. You can solve problems, absolutely. I think the distinction between an entrepreneurial employee and an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur I think generally has a higher risk tolerance in the sense that they will assume the risk and bet on themselves.

Right? Like that's, yeah, I think that's key. And, you know, in some cases they're delusional. you know, that and, and, and I mean that literally, I don't mean that tongue in cheek. It's like the, the thing that makes you able to see the possible, the visionary, right? Like it doesn't, the world doesn't have to be this way. could be this way. That ability to hold that vision,

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (16:41.122)
Yeah, that's key.

Christian Brim (17:11.037)
means that you have to ignore reality sometimes, right?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (17:16.558)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they've even done personality tests and like, they're, you know, most people in leadership, you know, politicians, entrepreneurs, even a lot of times people in, uh, leadership of police or military establishments.

Often have a certain level of narcissism, right? You know and obviously narcissism is kind of a dirty word in a culture and and there is an extent where it becomes dangerous and Not a good thing, but you call it narcissism or confidence, you know I'm not you know qualified to know where that line leads, but you do have to have a certain qualification of confidence to think like

Christian Brim (17:38.82)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (18:01.666)
Hey, I can do things that are hard or difficult. You you look at the, Elon Musk of the world and it's like, you know, he's launching rocket ships and, you know, disrupting industries like the vehicle industry. have to have a certain level of, narcissism, confidence, craziness, like hootspa, whatever you want to label that to think I'm going to do something that's no one's ever done. Right. And here, you know, like I'm no, I'm no, Elon Musk, but at the same time, like

the statistics in business success, I forget the specifics, it's usually like, the cards are usually stacked against you. So you have to have a certain level of confidence, narcissism, chutzpah, fill the label with whatever you want, but you have to have a certain level of that to think that you're gonna be able to succeed, right? And take that step, so.

Christian Brim (18:42.575)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:46.864)
100 %

Christian Brim (19:00.292)
Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. it's, find in my own journey that at some point that, that characteristic that you have that makes you successful allows you to be successful, becomes a liability in, in the sense that, right. Like in my case, it was.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (19:25.336)
Sure, left untapped.

Christian Brim (19:29.928)
I was so focused on the vision. I ignored reality. okay, you know, this is what you want, but this is what's actually happening. Right. And, you know, you can only ignore reality for a certain period of time before it, it, it has its way with you. Right. okay. I'm going to pivot and ask a question and then I have another pivot.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (19:42.466)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (19:59.994)
future pivot. So I'm giving you a fair warning. What you know, in this transition to doing it full time five years on, what was the biggest challenge that you experienced going from side hustle to full time?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (20:16.078)
Honestly, I think the biggest challenge that I had to overcome was with the transition itself. There was a period where I was becoming dissatisfied with working a day job. I had an opportunity to maybe take my side hustle full time.

And, you know, and then and then basically I got the okay, you know, my spouse is like, okay, let's save up a little money and let's take the take the leap, you know. And and that was the first time where I had to like, I had to be like, oh, wow, I now now I have to be responsible for.

For the idea of this right for a lot of this time I'm like, you know, I kind of put that on other people like you know My wife likes me to have a secure job and you know, I don't want her to feel You know anxious about taking the risk But when she when she basically gave me her blessing to do it then I'm like, now I have to now I have to deal with me, right? so that was the first time I had to kind of wrestle with that idea of

Christian Brim (21:02.5)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (21:18.298)
I don't have any excuse, right? Yeah.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (21:25.166)
Okay, now, now I have to deal with my own fears and insecurities about this not working. And then also there is the real, like, there was the real fear that, um, Hey, I feel unsatisfied in my day job, uh, as great as a business as it was, right? This is one of those, uh, businesses where it's, you know, beer on Friday kind of job. Everybody's like, Oh, this is the best job I've ever had. And I could see how people could, could think that, right? I, you know, cognitively I'm like, makes sense, but.

Christian Brim (21:29.786)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (21:55.122)
Again, I still didn't, I just didn't feel like I was where I needed to be. And so the other thing I had to overcome was a fear of what if I get to the other side, I start my own business and I'm still not satisfied. Then the problem's me, right? Now knock on wood, you know, once I really started going, I really felt like, okay, this is, this is, this is where I needed to be all this time.

Christian Brim (22:11.214)
Hmm

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (22:22.626)
And there are rough days. are days where I, you know, look back and like, huh, nine to five sounds really nice right now, know, clock in clock out kind of thing. But, deep down, I know like, you know, I don't think I could ever go back to working for somebody else. Right. I just, all the sweat equity, the long hours, the sacrifices, like all of it. you know, it's, it's worth it just with the satisfaction of knowing and,

Christian Brim (22:39.214)
Mmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (22:52.13)
really, I feel like it's kind of just in my DNA as maybe strange as that may sound to some, right?

Christian Brim (22:59.15)
No, it makes perfect sense. I'm, I've been unemployable for nine, 30 years. And, and I mean that in the sense that I could, contribute value to an organization as an employee. Absolutely. Would I make a good employee? Absolutely not. Like I, I would not. And that's, that's mean that's not them. you know, part of the, part of the

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (23:19.126)
Exactly.

Christian Brim (23:27.66)
Circumstances that led me to start a business was I was essentially a salesperson and I was a banker, but essentially a salesperson. And I had brought this idea to the CFO of like, here's this promotion I want to run and here's where they've done it before in another entity. And this is the results. And I'm like, clearly.

this is the path that we should take. And the CFO looked and he said, no, we're not doing it. And it was at that point there, because in that, in that instance, they were limiting my income potential, right? Like, okay. So, and that was the beginning of the end. As far as my, my dissatisfaction with working for others. Now, are there entrepreneurs that could

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (24:11.842)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (24:26.136)
maybe should work less and make more money working for somebody else. Absolutely. I see it all the time. Like, you know, they essentially create themselves a job and they end up with working harder for the same amount or less amount of money. And so they don't have the financial freedom and then they don't have the time freedom either. Right. Like,

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (24:34.37)
Right.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (24:54.21)
Yeah. And that's a good point. Like for me, like it was all about freedom. obviously the ability to not be capped in your income is a huge thing, right? Which, often if done done right, can, can be unlocked through entrepreneurship. But I was, I was never, I guess a great employee. No.

Christian Brim (25:00.869)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (25:05.05)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (25:10.693)
Yes.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (25:17.074)
You know, you'd talk to probably bosses and they would disagree because a lot of times I made them a lot of money and did implement things that worked for them, right? But I was always pushing the end flow. I was the first one in three different companies. I was the first one always to be like, hey, I want to work remote, you know, and this is pre-COVID, right? So like the idea of working, you know, from Latin America for three, four weeks.

Christian Brim (25:28.378)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (25:39.14)
Right.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (25:46.702)
Remote that nobody else did that and nobody else had the hoots but even ask or say, you know, this is kind of you know Non-negotiable for me, right? you know and so in that regard I was always pushing the envelope just because I I I wanted to live a life of freedom right where I didn't have to like, you know beg and plead or you know chalk up vacation days because

Christian Brim (25:49.432)
Right. Right.

Christian Brim (26:07.92)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (26:15.116)
You know, and, and, and so for me, that's the big push. That's kind of the key lever of why I stepped out into it is I wanted to have the freedom and the autonomy to work hard, but also play hard and, know, allow me to work while I travel or, you know, simply take maybe a three day weekend one week because I feeling burnt out or I need a break, right. Without having to ask or beg somebody for that kind of permission. Right.

Christian Brim (26:43.054)
Yeah. And I think that, you you mentioned unlocking your potential. think the next step, which most entrepreneurs don't make is, is realizing that you have the ability to make money off of others efforts and getting beyond what you can do yourself. that's, that's really the key to.

growing a business or scaling a business is you mentioned the 80-20 rule. I talk about the Pareto pencil all the time and you know, entrepreneurs are, especially when they're starting out, they're wearing all the hats and my advice to them is the quicker you figure out what your 20 % is, what the thing that you do that is most valuable and get the other 80 % off of your plate,

by eliminating, automating or delegating, the quicker you're going to be successful. That's to me the key to building a business as opposed to just creating a job for yourself.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (27:53.902)
Yeah, 100%. From the time we started to the time where we're at now, like...

my role has changed, right? Where I'm not doing a lot of day-to-day. I don't really do a lot of our marketing outside of marketing the business itself, marketing a personal brand, doing podcasts like this, doing talks and speeches and whatnot. And so, yeah, like that's the other thing too is like if you're somebody that loves being in the

Christian Brim (28:04.56)
Sure.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (28:32.048)
know, in the trenches, like you may not be happy as an entrepreneur because a lot of times you have to be, I almost, I almost treat it like I'm almost like the orchestra conductor, right? Like, um, and all of our different team members are doing their different instruments, right? They're different roles in the business to keep things productive and, um, moving forward. Um, but I can't, I can't be playing the saxophone, uh, while I'm conducting the choir. just doesn't work.

Christian Brim (28:42.436)
Hmm, that's a good analogy. I like that.

Christian Brim (29:01.132)
No, no, it wouldn't. And a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in that because there's comfort in doing what you know. And when you start a business, there's all this shit you don't know. And so you gravitate to what you know and what's predictable. And so you can get stuck there, right? Okay, now my second pivot. And this is just me. Okay, so

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (29:11.564)
Yep.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (29:16.718)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (29:30.586)
Talking about technology, you're a computer science guy.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (29:34.531)
Yep.

Christian Brim (29:35.976)
what my experience has been with the new LLMs and I refuse to call them AI. and the, the, applications of those in technology. my experience has been that there's this gap, right? that between what the promoters promise and what the actual results are.

And my thought is I have learned coding in the past a couple of different times, but I have recently started to learn Python because not because I want to not because I want to review code, but because I need to understand the

the parameters and the limitations of the technology that's put forth to me. So the example would be, I most recently have attempted to create this custom GPT for our internal use. And I created it and it worked perfectly for me. And then I share it with my team and it doesn't work for them, right?

And so you ask GPT, well, why is this not working? And it gives you a bunch of reasons you try and you try and fix those things, you know, you limit the model, you uncheck this preference, blah, blah, blah.

And it still didn't work. so, you know, I'm like, I, I, my thought is if I want this application, I'm to have to create it. maybe not me personally, maybe I hire a developer, but I've wasted a lot of time and money in technology in the past doing it the wrong way. And, part of that was not knowing, enough, right? Like, and so I'm, I'm, I'm learning.

Christian Brim (31:40.29)
a skill not to use the skill, but to be able to either manage the existing technology or create a new technology with others. Am I crazy?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (31:59.353)
No, you're not crazy. mean, again, you're trying to solve a problem. I would say from the limited understanding of your question there as far as like, if I'm parsing the question, it's like, what went wrong? And I think the biggest thing, and we've seen this in our business too, because I do the same thing, not as much software, although I have created a couple of different software applications.

and gotten all excited and then realized my team's like, nah, that's not working for us, right? What I've learned in that similar scenario is that I either need to be building that with my team or creating a framework where they can build the software or the process, right? Because unless you're doing the day to day, unless it's solving your specific problem, like if you're building a tool to build, to solve your team member's problem or a client's problem,

Christian Brim (32:41.326)
Hmm

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (32:54.89)
but they're not involved in the creation of that process, you're kind of, you're going to hit friction, right? And it's the same thing in generalized software development, right? Like this is why, you know, people do user testing and users test it and say, well, this works, but this isn't really how we would like apply it. And that's honestly, that's just a lot of how technology works, right? I mean, take the at sign and hashtags in Twitter, right?

Christian Brim (32:56.739)
Right.

Christian Brim (33:00.72)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (33:20.516)
Yeah, I-

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (33:24.162)
Those came about because in the early days of Twitter, there was no way to like comment on someone else's, you know, tweet as they called it. And so the, the, the user base created the hashtags and the ad signs to solve a problem. Well, now it's a, it's a huge component of the software only because the users directed that. Right. So I think that's key.

Christian Brim (33:49.216)
I agree with you 100 % because that's part of been, that's been part of my experience as well. Like building something that nobody really wants. Like you think they should want it. That, that, that always goes back to this axiom that, that I say, you got to sell people what they want, not what they need. Right? Like I've, I've, I've made that mistake even as recently as this year. Like, you know, you, you, can't

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (34:01.998)
Sure.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (34:10.35)
Yeah, exactly.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (34:16.366)
Sure.

Christian Brim (34:18.234)
create something as good as it may be and as beneficial as it may be. If it's not something they want, you can't create it because they're not going to buy it. But, you know, going back to the LLMs, I think and they admit this, like they don't know how it works, which I get because that's what algorithms do. They work at a level that we can't. And so we can't

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (34:45.276)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (34:46.818)
really untangle it and say this is exactly what we need to fix, right? Because we don't know how it works. And, you know, I think there's a lot of potential with the technology, but I think it has to... I think if you're going to use it in your business, at least for me, I've come to the conclusion that I've got to know more to be able to apply it.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (34:51.096)
Right. Yeah.

sure.

Christian Brim (35:16.002)
I can't, I can't. mean, yeah, you, can use LLMs are great for writing copy and, for, but, but like, don't know how these, you know, they talk about, LLMs, destroying all these developer jobs. And I'm like, I don't understand how, because like, I I'm like, I, you, generate code in, in a, LLM and you drop it in and it doesn't work. So like, I mean, like how, how

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (35:44.162)
Yeah. Well, think, yeah, I think, and I think there's, and there's been a recent, I think it was a white paper study that came out that really kind of started talking about like the reality of...

Christian Brim (35:46.052)
How does that eliminate a job?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (36:02.158)
kind of some of the thought process around LLMs and AI, know, there's basically two kind of schools of thought, one that is gonna be like dystopian, right? It's gonna kill all the jobs. And then there's also this utopian idea that, hey, it's gonna replace the need for work and we're all gonna get, you know, UBI and life's gonna be perfect. Well, this white paper or case study,

Christian Brim (36:22.362)
Right?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (36:28.002)
basically detailed how like a lot of that stuff, you know, seems to be a little bit more inflated than what we would have thought. Right. Yeah. And there's a lot of startups now that, that are losing a lot of money because they, put too much trust in large language models and for. Yeah.

Christian Brim (36:35.096)
A little bit.

Christian Brim (36:46.02)
Which again, they can't understand. mean, you know, like, so like, how do you, how do you develop something with it when you can't, you don't know, I mean, yeah.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (36:54.466)
And what I found, there's this big push for vibe coding, as it's often called. It seems like you can get a product to about 80%, 90%. But it's that last 10 to 20 % where things fall apart. And so I could imagine a scenario where I don't think jobs are going to be as disrupted, at least.

Christian Brim (37:06.416)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (37:21.258)
employment as a whole is going to be as disrupted as like some of the dystopian, you know, thought leaders think. But every technological shift, you know, maintains an environment where the roles shift, right? So in our business, for instance, you know, we started referring to our writers as prompt engineers and editors. We still have people that need to

Christian Brim (37:39.684)
Yes.

Christian Brim (37:47.664)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (37:50.862)
create prompts or systems to create content, they still have to optimize that content for search engines and now large language models. They still have to edit that to make sure that there's not too much hallucinations or that the content's accurate. And so it's not that we've replaced our writers, it's just that their roles have shifted, right? Or the roles that occupy that seat have shifted.

And it's the same thing, I think, in software development and all these other environments where there may be people that have to switch roles, you know, that was a pure coder that now has to be more of a QA, code QA analyst, right? But that's the case with every technological shift, you know. There are new problems that need to be solved. I mean, the whole business that I primarily operate in, in digital marketing, didn't exist, you know.

Christian Brim (38:26.404)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (38:30.468)
Right.

Christian Brim (38:36.899)
Absolutely.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (38:47.182)
20-30 years ago and there's a good chance that the the jobs that my kids will be doing You know in 20-30 years from now don't exist yet now, right? And that's just that's how technological change works

Christian Brim (39:02.542)
Yeah. mean, one of the things I did, this is 10 years ago before the introduction of LLMs is I did a deep dive, read a bunch of books on AI. And I also read a book about the industrial revolution. because to me it w there was a parallel between like what, what did the industrial revolution in, the Western world? mean, some places of the world, the industrial revolution is still happening, but like,

you know, what, what changed and what didn't change, right? And yeah, it, it might have eliminated some jobs because it made those people more efficient, but it created other jobs to what you're saying. So like, you know, the tractor replacing the horse, might allow the farmer to do more, right? So there, there are fewer farmers, but now you have to have people that can work on and fix and sell and everything else, the tractors. So

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (40:00.898)
Yep. Well, and we see the same thing too. Like, you know, it's funny because I think there's going to be a re-emergence of nuclear and it's like, what, what, is this? How is this relevant to the conversation? But it's there's, there's an excess need of energy to power all of these large language models and the silicon ships. Right. And so that is, that's stirred the Silicon Valley types to really think about.

Christian Brim (40:01.806)
You know, it.

Christian Brim (40:10.992)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (40:19.919)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (40:27.882)
you know, energy sources that used to be kind of off limits to that same, that same ilk, right? And so now it's like, well, if we, we start firing up these nuclear power plants, like, well, now we need people to start working there, right? So we have to create educational programs to get people familiar with running a nuclear power plant or whatever other disciplines are part of that. And so that's a, I mean, that's a technical, even though that's kind of a, technology that's coming back around again, like

Christian Brim (40:32.026)
Correct. Correct.

Christian Brim (40:41.434)
Right.

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (40:58.446)
It's one of those things where we see the puck kind of moving into different spheres that are going to create new jobs and new opportunities that were not as prevalent or relevant 10, 20 years ago.

Christian Brim (41:11.458)
Right? No, I agree. I was reading an article this weekend about some designer that was more busy than ever because people she was she was basically fixing the design elements that LLMS created. Right. And so like, now she's got more work than she knows what to do, because everybody is bringing all this stuff that they thought was going to be free and worked. it's like, well, that

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (41:39.778)
Yep.

Christian Brim (41:40.494)
Yeah, I would like to tell the listeners how to find out more about Enleaf, aka Eindief and Adam. So how do we find out more?

Adam Chronister - Enleaf (41:53.134)
You know, we're pretty prevalent online. mean, honestly, a quick Google search, you're going to find us. But I think the best place is right on our website. So enleaf.com. It's kind of a funny word. So I'll spell it. It's E-N-L-E-A-F.com. You know, on that site, we have not only examples of our work, a little bit more of an introduction of what we do, but even some free marketing tools that the community is welcome to take advantage of.

Christian Brim (42:20.43)
I love that. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you didn't like what you heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you like, and we'll replace Adam. Until then, ta-ta for now.