Will Carpenter: The Scout App, Software Management, and Design | #22

Will Carpenter has recently developed an app called 'Scout' with Blake Pastrana (episode #5 & #21). Tom and Will discuss the app in detail and some of the challenges he has faced as an entrepreneur. They also talk about his experience as a project manager and with graphic design.

SPONSORS:
Drive Fitness: https://www.drivefitness.app/ to download the app

EPISODE LINKS:
The Scout App Website: https://joinscout.app/
Will's Twitter: https://twitter.com/willjcarpenter

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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Jvfsmf48ft9KX3j1qqx3D?si=3073783906bf42b0
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Transcript

Tom 0:00

Hello friends, welcome to the Drive Fitness Program. My name is Tom Driver and I am the host of the show. Today, my guest is Will Carpenter. Will has started a company with one of my previous podcast guests, Blake Pastrana. Together, they have built an app called Scout. Scout is an insight marketplace where you can find guidance by being matched with an expert or a mentor. So Will and I discuss the app in detail and we go over any challenges that he has faced as an entrepreneur. Willow is also a product manager at Bloomberg, so we discuss his experience and some of the lessons that he has learned in that job. Willow's also been doing graphic design since he was in high school, so we discuss his experience there and some of the general principles that he has learned over the years. As always, don't forget to download DriveFitness at drivefitness.app and now you can get on the waiting list to check out Willem Blake's app, which is called Scout at join scout.app. Alright guys, I hope you enjoy the episode. So what's good? What's up, man? Uh tell me about uh your job. Like where do you work?

Will 1:27

I'm a product manager there within Bloomberg Tax and Accounting. So I work with a team of developers and test engineers to create software as a service, essentially. Um, and the software is sold to enterprise clients, um, mostly Fortune 500 companies and some smaller to mid-cap companies. But essentially we're helping them complete very specific calculations that are related to the taxes that they pay uh and how they can sort of optimize. Uh it's funny, because in tax, the word optimize essentially means minimize the amount of tax that they're paying uh on to the federal government, yeah, and to each state.

Tom 2:15

Okay, and what is your position, Calligan?

Will 2:18

I'm a product manager. Uh so I am almost the middleman between sales. Um, I interact with customers a lot. Development is sort of the core aspect of what I do every day. So I form essentially I form a strategy for what the team will be working on, what the development team, the engineers will actually be adding on or improving within the application based on my understanding of the market and the existing product, where we can generate value and ultimately increase the revenue to the company for the companies that pay for the software. Okay.

Tom 3:00

But you didn't like start off as a product manager, right? Like what was your positions leading up to that position? I guess.

Will 3:07

So I started um as a right, as a business analyst, where which is really where I learned all the hard skills to go on to be a product manager.

Tom 3:18

What's the biggest difference between like the business analyst role you you used to have and then this product manager role?

Will 3:24

The product manager role is a lot more strategic and high level. So I'm less involved in specific details of how things are being built and what's being um worked on day to day, but more so uh what's really important is defining sort of a quarter by quarter roadmap. Okay, you know, strategically, where are we going in the next few months is is really important, you know, for a product manager to be able to define that and justify that.

Tom 3:58

Okay, let's talk more about like the business analyst role in for a second because like I'm curious the skills that you built up leading to this. So you're more big picture now, but when you were a business analyst in terms of like the software, what were you building um like weekly kind of roadmaps for people and software features like specifically? Yeah, so specifically things like that.

Will 4:18

As a business analyst, what was really the the key aspect that I learned in that role is just working in an agile development environment. So we have two-week sprints, um, and within those sprints we define a set of user stories. Uh so there's a lot of documentation that basically communicates throughout the team so that we're all on the same page about what's being built within that sprint. Um and the business analyst is really responsible for getting concepts into a format that is universally understood by the team in writing that documentation.

Tom 4:54

So uh you're meeting basically with like a customer, right? Helping translate what they need into user stories that the developers can then understand and implement, right?

Will 5:05

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Tom 5:06

Okay. And so then you moved on to be a product manager. What are you doing like on a day-to-day basis now? You're you're not actually building like specific user stories, but you're kind of overseeing a whole project. How are you spending your time then? You know what I'm saying?

Will 5:22

Yeah, so uh I still spend a lot of my time with the development team. Uh I'd say about 50% of my time just making sure that things are running smoothly within the sprints still. But the other 50% of my time looks a lot different. Um, I'm dividing that between working with sales and marketing to understand what that next thing will be, talking with customers again to understand what that next thing will be. Uh, just really getting input from all of the stakeholders that are, you know, from the customer who's using the product in their job to the executive who signs the bill at the end of the day, to the the marketing person who might have, you know, might be running a promotion and you know, an ad on LinkedIn or something like that. Um, you know, being being able to synthesize all of those inputs and and form it into a strategy of how do we advance this goal, essentially, whatever the goal might be.

Tom 6:28

And then do you oversee business analysts now? Do you implement that strategy by saying like, hey, business analysts, these are our big goals, and then they do the details, I guess? Or are you like overseeing developers or a little bit of both?

Will 6:43

Both, yeah. So the there's still a really fundamental part of being a product manager similar to a business analyst, where you're you're conveying concepts to people, except for as a business analyst, you you're focusing on an individual slice of a sprint, right? How do I how do I communicate this one little piece? Whereas as a product manager, every quarter, you know, any time that we have a new idea or a new strategy we want to implement, we have to put a lot of effort and time to evangelizing and communicating that. So while I'm not you know focusing on communicating individual pieces, that's you know, for somebody else on the team to to take on as their responsibility. I still need to make sure that they know what to communicate and what to document and and kind of explaining at a higher level, here's the objective, here's here's what we should do long term, and then giving them the necessary understanding so that they can chunk it into smaller pieces, more consumable pieces. Got it. Yeah.

Tom 7:55

Is it safe to say now you're more focused on how is the software gonna like generate revenue and things like that, where beforehand you were more focused on this feature, this you know, functionality of the software? Is that safe to say?

Will 8:08

Yeah, yeah. I think I think the another way to think of it is before I knew I knew what we were building, I was defining how we should build it. Whereas now I'm defining what we should build.

Tom 8:24

And like why we're building it. Exactly.

Will 8:26

Yeah, that's that's the that's the the hard question, right? And and it's funny because as a business analyst, it was like I was always very um focused on efficiency and like optimizing our ability to output software. And as a product manager, now it's like I realize that the speed and efficiency doesn't matter as much as what you're building, right? Because it's you you can be outputting a lot of garbage, but if it's garbage, then it's worthless. But and or you could output a tiny bit of gold, and that tiny bit of gold is worth all the garbage in the world, you know.

Tom 9:10

Um, so with dry fitness, I spent a lot of time rushing and like you know, building features fast and just making sure like I was working 80 hours every week or something. I was worried about things like that where as time went on, I feel like I focused more on taking my foot off the gas, thinking like, do we need these features? You know what I'm saying? Like, do we actually because we have built features that we just didn't we ended up scrapping, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So to have your mindset focus more on like how much time everyone's putting in, like how many features we're putting out this week, or or things like that, is is not always the best approach because if you're not building you know things the customers need or things that are important to the app, right? You know, it's gonna I'll just be a waste of time, you know.

Will 9:55

Yeah.

Tom 9:56

So that's cool that you've kind of like stepped through those rings too and and kind of move yourself up to a position where you're at least like even able to think like that, right? I feel like sometimes when you're on the ground level, you don't have the freedom and the the like the space to think about like how important one feature is to another. You're just thinking about like you were saying, like, what's the most efficient way we can build this feature, you know? So that's cool that you uh are now able to, I don't know, just think more big picture. I always get more excited personally thinking big picture compared to like the nitty-gritty stuff.

Will 10:32

Yeah. You know, and and it's funny because I I love working with developers, but one thing that I've noticed throughout my career working with developers is that they're even more in the details than the business analyst is, right? They're they're literally in the code. Yeah. So it's it's really um a talent and a skill that that I'm still working on. I think as professionals and as individuals, it's like we need to think about how we can convey things to people regardless of their perspective, if that makes sense. So a developer is is is in the weeds, in the the dindy-gritty details. If you pull them out of there and expect them to think big picture it now, you know, all of a sudden that's that's kind of like a jarring difference and a jarring change. So um, you know, just being able to get those ideas communicated and conveyed in a in a in a way that's not that's understandable, speaking their language almost, you know, in a way that's or or even better, speaking a universal language that doesn't necessarily require this understanding of the big picture to get just this little piece of it. Yeah, if that makes sense.

Tom 11:50

Yeah, it's like a weird balance, right? Because I don't know if I read this somewhere, but apparently like people will work better if they know why they're doing what they're doing, right? Like if you just section off this piece of code and be like, hey man, create this functionality. Like I need it. They'll work better on that piece of functionality if they understand like how it fits into the hole. You know what I'm saying? Right. But also, like you were saying, you don't also want to tell them like why they're doing it, and then also mention that like there's all these big picture things that you're worried about and have them worry about it, like because they need to worry about the functionality, right? There's like a nice balance between having them understand what they're doing, but not worrying about like the other big picture things that are going on because that'll that'll hurt their performance, creating the the smaller functionality. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, how do you communicate to developers? I don't know, do you have any strategies for kind of like helping people understand why they're doing something but not overwhelming them with you see what yeah, for me what's key is being very clear, I think.

Will 12:57

And and having, you know, as humans, we're we're infinitely better at doing a single thing versus multiple things at once, right? So what when I convey uh something that's important, I will repeat it until I'm sick of hearing myself say it, right? Like I I don't trust that I've communicated something effectively until I've I'm absolutely floored and exhausted of hearing myself say it. Um and really being clear and um repetitive almost, it's almost it almost is like what you were saying with the the the features, like you were just kind of on a war path of releasing these features. Whereas if you had a singular vision or a singular thing that was your North Star, then you could probably be a little bit more targeted about what you were developing and kind of getting to it doesn't necessarily matter what you're building or what you're releasing, as long as it gets you closer to you're following that north star. And really what what I try to do is first of all, identify that North Star and keep reminding people, you know, repeat yourself and and and don't don't say, oh, by the way, also look at that southern star over there. No, it's like we're only talking about this northern star and anything else is secondary to that.

Tom 14:38

Pick a north star, like a goal or right, like a target that the whole team is focusing on, and then I guess be like reinforcing why that their specific task is helping contribute to that north star, right?

Will 14:50

Yeah, if you sort of test yourself and take a uh step back from whatever you're doing and say, is this getting me closer to that north star? That's like a simple question that has a complex answer sometimes, right? But anybody, I think if they understand what that north star is and whether or not they're they're on the right path, they can answer that about what they're doing, you know? And people are smart, you know. That that's one thing that I've learned is not to be overly prescriptive. I'll identify the North Star, right? And I'll I'll tell till I can't speak anymore, tell people we need to go towards it. I'm not gonna say get on the train at 2 p.m. and take it to this town to get us X amount. I'm I'm not gonna say move your right foot and then your left foot and walk towards the North Star. I'm just gonna say there it is, there's the goal. Let's collaborate and work together. And I want to hear your ideas of how do we get closer. You know, that's that's not for one person to decide, right? That's why we're a team, that's why we we each all of us bring interesting and unique perspectives to where we are and how we get to the next place. But in order for that to be productive, we all need to be facing the same direction, right? Um, so that's what I really focus on is making sure that we're all facing the same direction and then really collaborating and creating consensus on how we how we go in that direction. You can understand why a task that you're doing is beneficial, but you'll understand and appreciate it in a totally different light if if you had a hand in defining that task to begin with. Does that make sense? Like if somebody and this is probably true with fitness too, it's like if somebody just gives you a workout plan and is like, here, go do this, you know, that's gonna be really tough and it might not be you might not really appreciate, you know, all of the different pieces in it. Whereas if you sit down with with somebody who's who's a personal trainer or somebody who's has a lot of experience and you kind of collaborate and work together based on the goal of getting healthier, losing weight, getting stronger, then you'll be more invested in that fitness plan, right? Because you're you had a hand in creating it. It wasn't just sort of dictated to you. Right.

Tom 17:26

Sabrina's brother, whenever I talk to him about fitness, he's always saying, like when I ask him what his fitness routine is, he doesn't say things like, Oh, I'm trying to like get my bench press stronger. He says things like, Oh, I'm gonna make my chest bigger and I'm gonna make my body look this way. And he starts describing like how his body is gonna end up and like how that dictates his fitness routine, it always gets me much more excited about like working out and like listening to him and like following his plans because he translates it into like how it's actually gonna like look, you know. If a fitness trainer is like, Yeah, we're gonna make your bench press, the numbers go up, things like that. It's like, okay, cool, but why?

Will 18:03

Right, right.

Tom 18:03

Yeah, oh, but it's gonna make my chest bigger, and then I'm my posture, my posture is gonna get better, and like all these things when you connect those dots for people, it makes them much more excited about working out, I guess is what I'm saying. And I think it's the same for software, right? The user is gonna have this experience, like once we do these X, Y, and Z. This is what we're providing, right? Instead of just being like, oh no, the app is gonna work a lot better, it's gonna be more efficient. The time that it sends from the database to here is gonna be four seconds instead of five seconds. You're saying, like, so what?

Will 18:31

Exactly. Like, yeah.

Tom 18:32

It's like how do we connect that and be like, no, this user experience or the company's like revenue or you know, things that really matter to people, I guess, it can help them, I guess, get a grip on their smaller tasks, I guess.

Will 18:47

Yeah, it's funny because there's so many parallels to what we're talking about in in software. Sort of the old way of doing things, the old, the sort of the more typical product manager role, they would create a roadmap, you know, a very waterfall-based plan of like we will finish this feature on this day and we'll do this release on a week later, blah, blah, blah. And I think smartly people have totally thrown that away because number one, it's it's unreliable. And number two, it's it's it's really unhealthy for the team to just have this very pre pre-described, you know, uh it it it discourages innovation and and you know. But what people do now, and I think you hit on it perfectly, is it's all about the the objective, you know, objective-based roadmaps. And it's like we're not saying we're doing this at this date, but we're saying in this time period, we're focusing on this objective, you know, and and let's say for this summer, I'm focusing on improving my core strength or my cardiovascular strength. It doesn't it doesn't say exactly what I'm doing to do that, you know, it doesn't say I'm going to run a mile day one and then a mile and a half by week two. You know, it doesn't say that. It just says my objective is to improve my cardio cardio health, you know, and how we get there is sort of up to the experts who are working towards it, you know, or the individual to define that, you know. Um and it makes it so much more enjoyable, you know, because we're not we're not h focusing on hitting a deadline, you know, we're focusing on having an impact, you know, getting us closer to to the ultimate objective, right?

Tom 20:47

Um yeah, I think what I'm about to say moves away from software and just kind of talks about like work life in general, but I think people are more fulfilled when they have like autonomy over their life, right? It means like their time, what tasks they do, right? COVID and all this stuff, all this work from home, right? I think it's pushed us in a direction where like now you're you know, like you were saying, I'm not gonna tell them do this test, do this task. Like, I'm gonna tell them the objective, they're gonna figure it out, right? The more autonomy we give people, the more fulfilled they're gonna be, the better work they're gonna do. And now with COVID, there's no longer work from this time to this time, you know what I'm saying, or work at this place. Here's the objective work whenever you want, however you want, you know, whatever suits you best. I don't even care. Help me get to this objective. I feel like maybe with the industrial age, there was like this assumption that people work better when you tell them exactly what to do and then they do it. And I feel like that's all like unraveling, and it's like, no, people work way better when you help identify an objective and then let them do it no matter what the situation is, right? Like give them complete autonomy over their lives and how they do things. I think we're figuring out through this year that people work a lot better that way. Yeah. People work I think people worked a lot better working from home this past year than ever before.

Will 22:04

And and it's a shift, right? Like it it requires a lot of trust to be to do that, to say, here's what we need to get done, figure it out. Like go do it. You know, that's sort of a a risk that I'm taking on that person that I'm giving that goal to and saying, go do this, we'll do it in a way that first of all, we'll do it at all, you know, and second of all, we'll do it in a way that's up to my standards or my expectations. But taking on that risk is so worth it because I often find that I'm pleasantly surprised by what comes back. You know, if if you if you empower somebody then inherently it's like part of our human nature to want to um do well, you know, by by people. You don't you don't get tasked with something and then cognitively say, oh, I'm I'm really gonna screw this one up, you know. It's like people try, right? And they and they sense that this is this is um a different way of of doing things and the outcomes can be really positive, you know, ultimately, um more so than than I've found than than they're negative.

Tom 23:22

Um like people want to do a good job, they want to help the company succeed, they actually like more than we thought, they really want to contribute, you know what I'm saying, to the success of the project or the company, and it's almost like for years we just assumed that people wanted to do as little as possible, but they only do that when you micromanage them, right? But really, people want to do a lot, like people don't want to do as little as possible. It's interesting.

Will 23:48

The more you prescribe, the more you cut out opportunities for innovation, creativity, you know, the things that make us human and make us make people brilliant, you're just stripping that away and saying you should be an an input output machine. You know, I'll give you this thing, I want an output. I want this exact specified output. There's no room in there for for innovative thought. You know, there's creativity. Right. And and not only is that a huge amount of of potential value lost, but it also is just awful for the person who has to do it, right? It's like nobody wants to come to work every day and just be told do one, two, three, four, five, and then check out and go home. You know, it's like I like coming to work or I like working on something where I don't know there's there's no there's no predefined path, you know. That's kind of up to me to figure it out. And uh if there is a predefined path, you know, I have the autonomy and and the the power to say, hmm, is this the best way to do things? Is this the the way that I would do it? And you know, if I see areas to improve, then then you know, that's on me. I can do that, you know.

Tom 25:14

Um Yeah, when I left my last job, my biggest thing going into my next job was like I need to get paid for my creativity. Like I need to do something that allows me to be creative or like I don't feel fulfilled in life. Just because we're coding or building like features, you know, it might not feel creative, but as long as you feel like you can apply like a creative solution to whatever you're doing, you know what I'm saying? Like even though you're probably like helping the company hit this financial mark or whatever, like as long as you at least feel like you're applying your own taste or creativity or whatever it is to that solution, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, well then you're gonna feel fulfilled, you're gonna work harder better. Also, you're gonna probably stay at this company longer, help this company grow in the long term because of the way you feel about how you work, you know. Um, and so I don't know, that was something big for me. I was just like going to my next job, it's gotta be something that I feel like I'm expressing myself like in a creative way, you know. Yeah, I think I'm not alone. I think a lot of people need that, whether they realize it or not, you know?

Will 26:14

Yeah, yeah. Um and it doesn't have to be just you know, we think of creativity as you know, a visual thing or an artistic thing. But it like you're saying, it creativity can be in the most quantitative thing. There can still be cr room for creativity, right? There in the most analytical, technical, whatever, you know, as long as there's room for freedom of thought, you know, and freedom to have input, then that's like a very that can be a creative outlet, you know? Um yeah.

Tom 26:50

So I don't know, we've talked a lot about like managing people in communication, which I didn't expect. Like that's actually very interesting. But when it comes to like software, what through your care through your career have you learned about like specifically like what makes good software versus what makes bad software, or even like you were telling me last night, like what makes profitable software versus what's like not profitable software?

Will 27:15

Yeah, that's that's a really good question. That's a tricky question. That's a million dollar question. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to me, what makes software valuable is when it either does something that scales individual ability, you know. For example, social media. Um how how as an individual, if we if we are in a universe where social media doesn't exist, how can I get my content, my thought, my words, my pictures out to people? You know, the social media as a construct doesn't matter which platform specifically, just scales the individual's ability to reach other people, right? Um I think that's a huge aspect, you know, and and and in more business applications, um, you know, like what I do for work, it's like the software that we're providing companies, it's it does, it's not doing anything that's impossible for a human to do, right? But it just enables a single human to do it on such a larger scale than than would be feasible without software, right? And that's that's what I think of as a really intangible and and fundamentally what drives value for software. Like, for example, drive fitness, you know, you could with a pen and paper keep track of your exercises and assign yourself points and like m make a game out of it, but the burden of doing so, nobody would do it that way, right? But by creating software, it makes it so seamless and simple and you know it allows you to um like manage more things because like obviously if if you can do something faster with software, that's better, right?

Tom 29:24

That's that's pretty obvious. But like in the same way that you manage this project and these people, right? I feel like a software that allows a user to manage a couple different algorithms or a couple different features, right, that are like ongoing, like allows them to scale out like what they're focusing on with Drive Fitness, right? Like there's some uh like a one rep max like calculator, like things like that going on that like people could run that calculation, like you were saying, like they like people aren't dumb, they can do math, you know what I'm saying? But now they're like managing a couple processes that help them scale how they think about their fitness lives. They could do everything on pen and paper, but they don't have to. Yeah, it takes that it takes that away, yeah.

Will 30:04

Yeah, that's that's exactly what I'm trying to say. Like it it it enables a person to do so much more than what they could without the software, you know. It it really just scales the ability to do something, you know. That's that's where the value is. Like we saw we saw the explosion of TikTok over the last couple of years, and that's because there was kind of a a time where we just kind of were content with the social media platforms that we had. We didn't have a new player, you know, so to speak, come onto the play marketplace. But then TikTok came around and gave people an unprecedented avenue to reach other people with with it. Didn't matter that it I mean you could argue that the fact that it was you know what content people were able to share is kind of irrelevant. It's just the fact that that they were able to somebody could open up the app, publish something, and it would be in front of hundreds, thousands of people. You know, that's that's the success of TikTok. You know, that's the success of the social media platform.

Tom 31:15

And their algorithm, right, is so important because if I had 10,000 followers on Instagram, right, I could post my dog video and those 10,000 people would see it. But on TikTok, now it's going to 10,000 random people that all really want to see a dog video right now. You know what I'm saying? So it expedited the avenue, right, towards people that actually want to see what you're posting, right? Like if you go on other social media accounts right now, it just feels like you're seeing for some reason you're just seeing content you didn't want to see because it's all focused on the people you follow, not the content that they're posting, right? Like I might like this picture that you post today and I might not like the picture you post tomorrow. The social media that's like follower focused, you know what I'm saying, is gonna show me those two fit photos, but the TikTok algorithm it knows which one of those two photos I want to see and not see. And like that's the process, I guess, that made it just so much efficient and better and like scalable for people with a certain type of photo or or video, right? Unless you have something to add, let's switch the topics to Scout. Yeah, okay. So I've interviewed Blake already, but you and Blake have started a app together or a company, and you guys have built an app, it's called Scout. Tell me about it.

Will 32:34

Yeah, so Scout is essentially a marketplace for knowledge. You can think of it like Etsy for our one of our taglines is um a marketplace for insight, but it it's it's really similar to Etsy in that um somebody who's experienced or is knowledgeable on a topic can set up um their profile as a storefront, so to speak. And then scouts or um our users can then um interact with those experts and really get tailored one-to-one personal mentorship or advice or insight from that person. Um and basically what what our objective is is to allow people to monetize this extremely valuable experience and knowledge and insight that they've gained throughout their career, throughout their life, um in a in a new and different way, right? Um because we think that there's while there's a lot of avenues today to have your voice heard, right? And you know, you can start a podcast, you can start a blog, you can start a YouTube channel, you can do a number of create content in a number of different ways to share your expertise. There's not really a pure way to monetize that expertise in a in a valuable way, right? Um so this allows anybody with the right qualifications to essentially start their own consulting business.

Tom 34:21

There's a lot of very scalable solutions for knowledge, right, and for skills. If I know how to make a PBJ sandwich, I can make a YouTube video, boom, send that out to everybody. You know what I'm saying? But uh let's say there's someone who has these four allergies and they don't have a toaster and they don't have access to peanut butter or jelly, they need someone to help them make a sandwich, right? Like your app is gonna help bring together very um tailored solutions for people that they can't just publish this knowledge and show, you know, show everybody like it's it's someone who has a very specific like niche issue and that like it requires a um a custom solution, your app will help bring together people right who can then chart like okay, I'll I'll you pay me five dollars and I'll send you this specific recipe that takes into consideration your allergies and and your you know specific problems, right?

Will 35:22

I I like the the PB and J example. So what are my options if if I have a number of allergies and I still want to make a PB and J with what's in my cupboard? Um I can post online and wait for people to provide me answers. I can read some articles maybe that maybe they cover, you know, a topic or an allergy, one of my allergies or some of my allergies, but they don't really cover you know my specific allergy. And then, you know, maybe I go back to the forum and this one person's given me some advice, but I don't know who that person is. You know, what are their qualifications? And even worse, maybe maybe nobody responds. With Scout, what it enables you to do is to find the expert who knows everything there is to know about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I can ask them specifically based on my situation to help me and coach me through it, right? In a way that is super valuable to me as an individual trying to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but also in a way that the expert wouldn't spend time writing a blog post or writing creating a YouTube video about these allergies, even though maybe they know that really well. They know everything about PBJ sandwiches. Yeah. But it's just too niche of a topic to really put out there or monetize. But it's valuable to to me because it's relevant to me and specific to me. What we are building is a platform to allow those experts to monetize that knowledge and really create a business around it, so to speak. Um and and they're up, it's it's really up to them within the marketplace to set their own pricing. Um and you know, they can bring uh, you know, if if they bring existing clients or customers, then that works. Or uh the beauty of a marketplace is that if I get advice from one mentor on Scout, and then say a month later, you know, I'm I have uh something else, you know, a completely different topic that I need advice for, um, then I can find a different mentor for for that specific item um and uh from a mentor's perspective or from an expert's perspective, be introduced to to new customers um using the marketplace as well.

Tom 38:23

So the PVJ is like a good example, right, to like get people to understand this idea, but like what are maybe a couple different situations or like common things that you think your app is gonna be like good at solving? A car situation or like a workout situation, like what what are some of the top situations you think that your app is gonna be like the best at like connecting people for like problems and yeah, I think um you touched on a few right there.

Will 38:55

Um I think we we think fitness will be a really big one, um, but also traditional services I think will be a big one as well. So like your contractor, your general contractor, your plumber, your um electrician, your mechanic, um generally there's there's you you can't necessarily pick up the phone and call one of these businesses and um just ask for their advice, right? And they're they don't that's not really in their business model to consult, so to speak. But let's say John is an electrician, then he can create uh an expert profile on Scout, and it it's an extra source of income to him because you know um Jane, the the hobbyist, is trying to rewire uh a switch, and the tutorials online are saying there should be a white wire and a black wire, but she opens up the wall and finds a red wire and a purple wire. You know, she's not going to hire an electrician to come and look at this for five minutes and tell her which one she needs to cut, but she can talk to John, who he he's he's you know, doing wiring for commercial properties, whatever, in his day-to-day, but he can earn some extra income, you know, throughout the day by answering questions from people like Jane.

Tom 40:37

Okay, my toilet's broken. I some people just want a plumber to come to their house and fix it. You know what I'm saying? It's like that mid-zone of someone who's like, I kind of want to fix this myself. I don't know how to, I'm willing to put the time in to fix this problem I'm having, but I need a little bit of guidance, right? And so, like, I don't want to pay a plumber $100 to come fix this toilet, but I would be willing to pay a plumber five dollars just to like tell me how to fix it, right? It's like that mid-range kind of do-it-yourself kind of person, but they don't have the knowledge or whatever to actually do it themselves.

Will 41:10

Right.

Tom 41:11

That's interesting.

Will 41:12

And also, like, there's a use case of where I don't even know where to begin, you know. So, for example, um, in this apartment, the the front desk always calls us because the the unit below us has a leak, right? And there's their ceiling is leaking, and they think it's coming from our unit. Um and I did a bunch of Googling and research to figure out who is liable for that when we're in a a condominium, right, and there's pipes in between the apartments, and we don't know where this leak is coming from. In order to spot this leak, you know, we'd have to rip open the ceiling and you know who who should who should take charge of that and and who is ultimately responsible. And I could not find the answer online because it was just such a specific question and and something that I'm sure somebody knows the answer to this. You know, there are people out there who know the answer, but I don't really know where to even search for the answer, right? So um on Scout, you know, there's a platform where if you if you're somebody who knows the answers to these questions that are just so niche and nuanced uh that you don't even know where to begin, then then Scout provides an outlet for that and provides a way to to monetize that in a really direct way.

Tom 42:48

Yeah. One situation I had was like a pest problem. I had a bunch of random bugs in my house, and I had to like go on Reddit and like ask how dangerous is this? People directed me, these type of bugs live in this type of food, and I went through my pandering, cleared it all out. I was lucky enough to actually like get someone to like just respond to me on Reddit, but that might not have happened. How do you combat people going on Reddit and getting free advice? Yeah, I don't know. Do you have a strategy for why I should use Scout over like a free forum? You know?

Will 43:21

And yeah, so I I think that there's two really key aspects to it. Um number one, like you said, there is an element of luck involved that that person was willing to help you. Um and you're willing to to wait the amount of time to take that chance on somebody responding, somebody following up and actually helping you. There's a there's a there's a lot of unknowns involved there. Um the other aspect is is you don't know how qualified that person is. Like You don't know whether or not the information they're giving you is is trustworthy. In in that case, it's a little bit different because you know you could you could verify that the bug they're sending you match, but let's say in a legal matter or a medical matter or um uh investing.

Tom 44:19

This bug was important to me. This bug problem was really important. Right.

Will 44:23

I believe it, yeah. So figure that out. So with Scout, you know, obviously like any marketplace, there's there's um a re review system. So the community can vet these experts to say um they're qualified. Yes, they're qualified in this area. And and you know when you're reaching out to them, um you're you're reaching out to somebody who who has experience and has the the social proof, so to speak, to to to answer your question.

Tom 45:02

Yeah, like one thing that I did is like I had to go to that guy's profile. He he like gave me advice and I read like a bunch of other posts that he did, and I like basically on my own, I like saw some other posts, I saw him talking about other pest problems, like I did some investigation, and I was like, okay, this guy he works in pest control. I couldn't just take that for face value. And so I had to do some digging, I had to do some research with your app, what you provide people is like that level of trust. I trust this app to do that digging for me or like verify that he's actually works in pest control. Just verify him that level of confidence in like the answer that you're getting back.

Will 45:40

You understand? Yeah, and it's not even necessarily trusting Scout, it's it's just having a system where I I see the reviews that other people have left this person, you know, that there's um there's evidence from people who are in a similar situation to where I am now in the past, you know, thought positively of of this guy helping, this guy or girl helping. Um and then the other aspect is um like we talked about how there's a lot of unknowns involved with just posting to the forum. Um and you know, you may not get a response at all, right? And um you have to wait and and all these other things. With Scout, you know, you're able to directly get your problem in front of put it in front of somebody who has a high likelihood to have the answer. Whereas if you're posting online, posting on Reddit, whatever it may be, you're kind of at the mercy of whatever, you know, fate to to get that in front of somebody with the answer. Um whereas with Scout, you know, you're you're putting it you're you're really increasing your odds of of getting you know a positive response back, right? Um and then at the end of the day, Scout is is founded on the belief that whether he knows it or not, the guy who's posting on Reddit, he's contributing something extremely valuable, right? His his knowledge and experience in pest control, but also his ability to provide advice to people, you know, that's a skill, right? Being able to to share your your knowledge is a skill, and that's super valuable, and we think that there should be a place to monetize that.

Tom 47:49

Yeah, it was like really surprising that I got some responses on that. This person was just like on Reddit giving advice for free. Obviously, that's there the beauty of the internet is someone like for me to get that advice, but that is something that he should be able to monetize. It is val it was really valuable to me. You don't necessarily want to take away from like people getting that information for free, but at the same time, you also want to reward those people who are spending their time providing value to other people for free, you know. Yeah, at least a small amount, right?

Will 48:22

And I don't think necessarily uh like like like I said, I mean experts are able to charge what they deem appropriate, you know. If they if they want to offer their advice on Scout for free, that's that's totally an option. You know, there's nothing that says you have to monetize what you're providing on Scout, you know. Um it's really we're just creating a platform to facilitate those transactions of of knowledge, you know. Um, and whether those transactions have a monetary value or not, that's up to the expert and their um people who are seeking their knowledge to decide, you know.

Tom 49:10

Yeah, I wonder if like strategically it might be better for you to leave the monetization out at first. That's that's actually exactly what we're doing. Okay, yeah, yeah. Because like we can talk about like what challenges you face and like what you foresee. The one thing that like worries me about you guys is how do you initially get all those people onto the platform? Someone like me, I would love to use your guys' app. If I'm the first guy on there, there's no one to answer my question. And I feel like the monetary portion is gonna hinder like it could hinder getting people onto the platform, right? People are already answering questions on the internet, like we were saying, like if you facilitate those conversations at first, you know, scalable problems, like some guy answered the bug question for me, leave that on the app for maybe other people to find or whatever, you know, like start facilitating those like advice, you know, seekers and and needers conversations, then over time, this dude has answered 12 bug questions. Then a year from now, you introduce the monetization system and he's already had credibility. For instance, even like Clubhouse, they didn't start with monetization, they just added some sort of like payment process.

Will 50:24

I don't even I haven't even looked at it yet, but you know, I think that leaving the monetization out of the conversation at first might help you get that flood of experts using that process and people just used to using the app and you know and what we're focusing on uh now is getting uh the experts first, right? We're we're we're not we're not really none of our marketing is targeted towards the the person who wants advice, right? We're we're really focusing on the expert because um we know that if we can get experts to sign up, the people who are seeking advice will follow, right? If if I have if I have valuable information to share and I'm on this platform, then the people who are seeking that advice will come to the platform because of the people who are there, right? Um so it is it is tricky. It's like a chicken or the egg which came first, type type of thing. But our strategy has been to go after the mentors and say, um, look, you know, set up this profile, it's free. You have nothing to lose, essentially, by by taking a chance on this platform. Um and you know, worst case scenario, nobody's interested in the knowledge you have, and your your profile just sort of sits there. Best case scenario, you find it to be a really great avenue to to provide advice to people. And then maybe down the road, uh, you can you can get some start making some money out of out of those interactions.

Tom 52:14

Yeah, man, you do have a real chicken or the egg scenario going on because even those mentors, they're gonna like lose interest if there's not anyone on the platform yet to mentor. They both have to happen for you, boom, like at the same time. It seems very challenging. It'll be great if it happens, right? But how do we do that? Like, how do we get the mentor and the guy who needs him on the app at the same time right away? You know what I'm saying? What marketing strategies are you thinking about like implementing?

Will 52:41

Yeah, so so right now So right now we are um doing we're planning on some influencer marketing um and really doing macro um influencer mark market, micro I think they're called micro influencers, um influencers with basically less than 10,000 followers. Okay. So the idea there is that the collaboration it won't just be an ad read, will have the influencer actually set up their account on Scout, and that's sort of the the ad. And what we see that doing is accomplishing both the chicken and the egg. You know, we we get the we get a new mentor on the platform, but also their followers, for example, let's say a YouTuber is um a metal fabricator, um, and she demonstrates that um she's setting up her mentor profile on Scout. Well number one, her followers are pretty likely to s sign up for Scout so they can, you know, interact with her because obviously they're already engaging with her content on YouTube. Uh number two, there's also a pretty high probability that at least some of her viewers are maybe they're not metal fabricators, but maybe they are welders or they work in a machine shop and they they find her content entertaining, but you know, they're also they also have uh skills that would be relevant on Scout as a mentor.

Tom 54:29

And and initially I thought this app, and I think the long term it'll be very good at this, right? Is like matching people up with the expert, um, like connecting, like making that connection, right? But when we were talking about like how we're gonna get the ball rolling for this thing, you were saying that you want to find the expert who already has clients and then bring them on together, right? And so you kind of need to step in the middle of that already existing relationship, you know?

Will 55:01

So either already has clients or has an audience, a following. Um and this will be a way for them to essentially monetize their DMs. You can think of it like that.

Tom 55:17

Yeah, like uh I th I thought of a good example. Um there's this guy, this YouTuber I like, right? And he does reaction videos or like reviews, and his Patreon is set up in a way where his highest tier of Patreon, he'll review your music, right? So it's like uh YouTube, he has the edited reaction, right? And like there was this one um like album I wanted to see the full reaction, so it'll be like 20 minutes, right? Or even like 10 minutes, and then uh I wanted to see him listen to like the whole album, like you know what I'm saying? So then on I went to his Patreon, I paid for like the first tier, which was like like I could see him listen to the whole album start to front, you know what I'm saying? I thought that was cool, but on his Patreon, he had a higher tier and it was for artists, and he said, I will react or review your album. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so it's like you need to step into that like relationship he has with the people who pay him the Patreon tier for an album like review, you know what I'm saying? Like you need to somehow bring him and those people who want to pay him for that album onto your platform. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. So like you need to like we need to think of like ways, like how do you incentivize him to be like, hey guys, like uh if you want the album reaction, it's on Scout now. Like, how do you get him to go there and then pull his users over? Do you see what I'm saying?

Will 56:49

Right. And and I think that the the draw is the scalability. This brings us full circle to what we were talking about, what makes software valuable. But Scout is a one-stop shop almost to where you can uh reach your customers, clients, you can accept payment from them, you can receive reviews and you know grow your social capital on Scout, and you can provide the service in the application. You know, as a as a sole proprietor, as an individual running a business, um if if you're not tech savvy, if you don't have or or if you're not willing to to to pay pretty high fees, you're you're doing you're there's a there's a high degree of overlap between your personal tools, you know, your personal communication tools and your professional communication tools. You know, we we talk to people who uh who run uh their own business um and and it's it's absurd the number of them who use iMessage, their personal phone number to conduct their business, right? And the amount of uh exposure and overlap between their professional and personal life is problematic for them, right? They they in order to to do business as an interior decorator, as a nutritionist, you're giving out your personal phone number because you know you may not be in the position to have two phones. Um so with Scout, you know, it enables you to sort of have an application that really not only does it does it do your payment processing for you, but it also allows you to sort of have um your business um on an application that's dedicated to that rather than having it intermingled with you know your personal life, um, an iMessage or on your phone in general, really.

Tom 59:11

Like what other challenges have you already faced with it and what do you foresee like your challenges are gonna be?

Will 59:20

Um yeah, so I think a challenge that we have thought about, haven't necessarily solved yet. Uh because I think that um sorry, we'll solve it right here. We'll talk it through is uh yeah, is how do you make it both niche and universal, right? Um because in a lot of cases someone may want a more an even more custom or specific solution to deliver their service to the client, right? Um but we're we're not in the business of creating a custom solution for a specific industry, right? We're we're trying to create a marketplace for a number of topics and and industries. So how do we balance that, you know, being sort of a universal uh avenue for the delivery of knowledge and insight, but also providing very specific expertise. Does that make sense? Um because I think there there's there's some universal ways, right? Um photos, videos, messaging, potentially audio, those are universal, right? But having a a diet plan, a fitness plan as a personal trainer integrated with the application, that's that's something that would be extremely valuable for the the dietitian or the personal trainer, but doesn't necessarily have value to the mechanic, right? So that's kind of a uh a challenge that we foresee and that we're we're trying to balance between you know um allowing the delivery of of this knowledge um in a in a meaningful and valuable way without custom tailoring a solution within a specific niche. Yeah.

Tom 1:01:49

Yeah, I think that is gonna be a problem. Like um, let's say, let's say you do like get past that initial problem of like, okay, how do we get the experts on the app? And let's say you are at the place where you are really good at connecting people up, you know what I'm saying? And someone, a fitness expert, gets connected with a client on your app, how do you keep them on your app? You know what I'm saying? Like, because like then they might he might DM him and say, hey man, let's go to Drive Fitness so I can provide you this custom workout program. And like you said, you're not gonna build those features in to Scout, right? Because that is too specific for you, you know what I'm saying? But then since you don't have that specific feature, it makes sense for them to go get the fitness plan on like something like Drive Fitness, right? How do you keep that monetization process happening on Scout and you know what I'm saying, while they're they're providing the plans on Drive Fitness, right? Like how um like I think it was five, you know, Fiverr. This kind of similar to Fiverr. Right, yeah. Um Fiverr, like if you uh say like keywords, like text me, it'll like ban your account, you know what I'm saying? Or like if you say an email, or like they keep that conversation on Fiverr and uh like like they will fucking ban you. Yeah, and if you go because that's they connected you to that they did you the service, right? And that's what you'll be doing. And like I honestly, like the guy who did my animations, I don't know if I should say this, but we eventually got off Fiverr and we were Skyping, and I would pay him differently because he was like, We were arguing about price on Fiverr, you know, and he was like, I was like, I don't want to pay this. He was like, they take too much of the cut, you know what I'm saying? Because all the payments went through Fiverr, and then we got off of Fiverr and I started paying him less, you know, over here, you know what I'm saying?

Will 1:03:39

It's like but you you were willing to accept that risk of paying him outside of Fiverr, yeah. Right? And I think I think what Scout provides is a level of um risk reduction, you know, for both for both the the expert and the the user or the customer, the client. So let's let's say in a world without Scout where I am just doing business over Skype, taking PayPal payments, if I do work and a customer doesn't pay me, then what are my options? Yeah. Don't really have much. Yeah. Or opposite, if I'm uh a client and somebody I enter an agreement, somebody is gonna do some XYZ for me, and I pay them and they don't do XYZ, my options are limited there too. But Scout as a platform provides in similar to Fiverr, the reason why they're taking a cut is because that platform is providing a service, right? So there's there's a level of accountability, like you're saying, where the the user doesn't necessarily have to trust every single expert that they interact with, so long as they trust Scout as a platform.

Tom 1:05:09

You guys, and similar to Fiverr, they need to police the situation, right? They need to step, like if someone doesn't make a payment, they need to step in and be like, hey, uh, you owe this person money, right? Right. They need to play the like it's like a referee. It's like playing, you know, right. The other way is like playing soccer without a referee. You know what I'm saying? Right. It's nice to have the referee there, a third party person who's like, that was a foul. You know what I'm saying? Like, here are the rules, here, here, here are the here, here's the structure, the guideline. Yeah. Yeah. Like the best thing is to incentivize people to make your app so cool, so so valuable that people want to communicate and p do payments on the app, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But there is gonna have to be a level of like uh I don't know, punishment's the right word, but like um regulations on things like like outside communication and and Moving the conversation outside of Scout or policing and regulating the payment system or the whatever is promised, you know what I'm saying, is completed. Right. Yeah. So that's and that is value. That is value, you know what I'm saying? But it's also like you're gonna have to play um referee, you know what I'm saying? You're gonna have to be that that strong hand, you know, uh between that connection, you know? Right, right.

Will 1:06:26

Yeah, and I and I think in the same way that there are people who I think it's probably rare, but somebody may outgrow Fiverr to the point where there are people who are not just looking for a generic job to be done, but they're looking for this person to do that job enough to the point where they're willing they're willing to go to that person's individual website and paying them in the same way that eventually maybe there's somebody who outgrows Scout and says, um I'm gonna take my clients to my own website and and do this. And that's that's okay. We're okay with that, you know, because that in a way speaks to the value of Scout, you know, it's it's a really low risk way for an entrepreneur to get their start without investing in a website, without you know, building up all of that uh trust through other means, you know. Um Scout is a is a springboard almost, you could think of it. Um where that's that's a good problem to have if you're if you're considering do I move off of Scout to my own website. That's a good problem to have, right? Yeah. Um, and we want to get to a point where um, you know, we have users who have to make that decision. And the best part is is that they're not exclusive to each other. You can be on Scout and also have your own website, right? And you can just think of Scout as an additional source of income, you know. Uh if you get natural traffic to your website and you're generating income there, what's the problem with also generating income on Scout? Yeah, right.

Tom 1:08:29

Um, like me and that guy did move off of Fiverr, right? But let's say we did 10 transactions total. After like the second transaction, I think me and him were ready to leave, you know what I'm saying? But we stuck around and we did like transactions one through five on the platform, and then we moved off and did like six or ten. You know what I'm saying? And I think that has a lot to you could view it as like wow, they lost that service or they lost that um that business there, but I think it has a lot to say about the system they set up on Fiverr that we stayed from transaction three through five, you know what I'm saying? Because like he was saying things like I I want the app to like um see like a couple more transactions with us, like I want you to leave me more reviews. That that was one thing like he was like, I I want more to happen on this app first, you know what I'm saying, so that I get reviews, the app sees that I'm doing business, you know what I'm saying? Like there were certain aspects of that platform that really made him want to stay around a couple more transactions before we left, right? You know what I'm saying? And so even though uh we we ended up like doing like the bulk of our payments, you know, on PayPal and stuff, like offline, you know, I ended up doing half of them on Fiverr uh to leave him reviews to make it to build up his profile on on that page and to help he like he he still needs that to meet new people and do other things, you know. And he was like he was very worried about like his social status with Fiverr, basically. You know what I'm saying? And that like was very important to him. He was like willing to lose some money over like things like reviews, you know? Yeah, um it was interesting.

Will 1:10:09

And it and it's it's interesting as well, bringing it back to Scout because with Fiverr, it's there's always a hard output, right? It's it's you're you're you're paying for a product, right? Whereas on Scout, you're paying you're really paying for um the expertise or the advice, the the coaching. It's not it's not as tangible, right? So I think it's it's almost more value from the platform because it's it's a little bit of a gray area of it's not as easy as saying, yes, this is done, product delivered, you know, there we go. It's more intangible.

Tom 1:11:00

Yeah. Like once me and him made that connection, uh, from my perspective at least, we didn't need that platform anymore. You know what I'm saying? And what you're saying is that you want to build Scout in a way where once we make that connection, we still need the platform or it still benefits us to use the platform because exactly that's the key. The way the advice is being the way that he's advising me, you know what I'm saying? It's important for some reason, right? It's important that I get that advice through the app, right? Whether it's like the communication is better or just the format or whatever it is, it's like I don't feel like I need to leave the platform. I feel like I'm getting better advice on the platform for what I mean.

Will 1:11:44

And and the challenge is, and and I think that you hit the nail on the head, we want to make it beneficial for both parties to stay on the platform. Yeah. Like there, there we shouldn't have to. I I I want to be in an ideal world where we're not having to police it in a way that Fiverr maybe does, and you know, maybe we will, who knows at this point. But our our our North Star, our objective should be to make people want to keep it on the app.

Tom 1:12:22

Yeah.

Will 1:12:23

And and the the backup plan can be we police certain things and and yada yada yada, but that's that's secondary objective. The primary objective is making this app application such a great service where both parties benefit from keeping it in the app.

Tom 1:12:49

So what I can gather is that, and this is a good what I was gonna ask you is like what is the difference between you and Fiverr? I think you already answered it, which is saying that like they deliver a product or like a tangible thing, where this your app is more for advice, right?

Will 1:13:03

Yeah.

Tom 1:13:04

I think that's cool, but also I think that like I think a challenge you're gonna have is like that's a big like gray area where it's like a deliverable, it's like I asked for an animation, I got an animation. You know what I'm saying? Boom, this is what it is, this is what I wanted. Where on your end, it's like advice. So what are they promising? Are they promising the advice or are they promising that the advice will help them do the thing that they're doing? So say like this say I have a plumbing problem, right? And I pay someone for advice on the plumbing problem, they give me perfect advice, but I'm too dumb and I can't fix my plumbing. Like, are they promising I'm gonna fix my plumbing problem or are they promising they'll give me the advice that could fix it? You see what I'm saying? Like how that's that seems like a challenge.

Will 1:13:49

In the same way that when you hire a consultant, you're paying for the them to take a seat at the table, right? You're not necessarily paying for the outcome of that, right? So on Scout, you're paying to get their input, right? You're not paying for them for the the outcome of their input, right? Does that make sense?

Tom 1:14:27

Yeah, but like how but then I get that, but then like like how else do you judge the advice? You see what I'm saying? Like if I take the advice and I fix my plumbing problem, we'll judge that advice based on if I fix my plumbing problem. Like, you see what I'm saying? But like, how do we but you're saying like uh they're just giving you the advice, like it's like hard to just judge the advice based on the advice, you know, because like um maybe I'm the idiot, like maybe it was really good advice and I'm the idiot and I couldn't fix it, you know what I'm saying? Or maybe it was really bad advice, you know what I'm saying, and that's why I couldn't fix it. But whether or not I fix it is the only tangible thing here.

Will 1:15:12

Yeah, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, and it just seems like I think that that challenge exists with with products as well. I mean, let's say that you know I'm paying for somebody to create a logo for me on Fiverr and they create create something that is from a designer's perspective a a masterpiece. But I just have terrible tastes. Um, I want it to be the most gaudy colors and just break all the rules of design principles. And I leave I leave a terrible review because even though this logo was phenomenal, you know, there what I'm trying to say is I think that that bias exists. Uh it's a possibility and that's not unique to Scout, I think. Um so while it will be a problem, I think this the the people that are successful on the platform, as with any platform, are the ones who who consistently deliver high quality knowledge and advice the most often, so to speak. If we assume that, you know, maybe one in ten of those people are really just like the the the one who it doesn't matter how high quality the advice is, it's not it's not what they were looking for. They really wanted what you could consider bad advice, that will that will be sort of overshadowed by the nine out of ten who are rational, you know, so to speak.

Tom 1:17:02

So like it should work itself out because um yeah, if you're consistently giving good advice, you know, like that the one guy who can't do anything, like the one guy who can't implement your good advice is should be an outlier. Right, like the whatever rating system you have should kind of like smooth smooth out problems like that.

Will 1:17:21

If if I order a five-star spoon on Amazon and I was expecting, and I what I really needed was a shovel, because I'm digging a hole. That's a one-star spoon to me, but the majority of people rated it five stars because they they were expecting a spoon, not a shovel. Yeah. And it's a good spoon, you know? Um, so yeah. Interesting.

Tom 1:17:46

Um why why this idea? Like you said at one point uh you had like um like an AC issue and you couldn't find this online. Is that kind of something that like led to this idea? Like why like why?

Will 1:18:03

Yeah, no, that's a great question. Um and I think we landed on this idea because I'm I'm a I'm a big fan of working on products that I use and products that I want, essentially, you know? Um and really as as Blake and I, my my co-founder, sort of matured in our careers, we realized that there's just a huge amount of knowledge that is just while while there's so much on the internet and there's such an abundant resource of knowledge, there's so much information that is just not documented, not it doesn't, it doesn't exist in uh in a consumable form in enterprise. You know, there there's there is institutional knowledge that exists uh particularly in technology, which you know obviously is relevant to us because that was where we were working, that you you can't, you know, like for example, how do these algorithms work on these social media platforms? You can get you can read about people's best guesses online, but no one really knows. No one really knows, exactly. And and that's just one example, but it there's so many different things where unless you have access to an individual who is who has that experience, you can't really learn these things. Or if you do, it requires you being there and sort of getting that experience yourself. So the reason why we created Scout was really initially to surface all that information um because we we we know for a fact that the knowledge is exists, you know, it's just there hasn't been the right medium for for it to get out there, you know, for for whatever reason, um, and to to really make it accessible to people. There's so much information online, right? But that can almost be a hindrance. You know, there's so much value in a one-on-one conversation between somebody who's been there, done that, and somebody who wants to be there, who wants that knowledge. There's so there, it's unbelievable how much you can obtain just with a single conversation, right? You know, you can you can gain so much insight from a single conversation, more than hours of watching videos or you know pages and pages of content that you're reading, because it's it's personal, you know, and that's what we're trying to synthesize down into an app. Um and and it's funny because throughout the app's development, there's so many cases where we just think to ourselves, gosh, I wish I I have this problem and I wish the app existed so that I could get past this. Yeah. And that's that's kind of when we realize it's like, okay, this this is something, you know, worth worth continuing on. You know, if as we're making it, we're like, God, I wish I had it to help me make it. It's almost like, you know, yeah, wow, maybe there is something to this, you know.

Tom 1:21:47

No, as you're as you're saying it, I'm like, certain aspects of this would help me in my journey as well, right? Like build my app or build um specific aspects of it, right? You know, like I went on Fiverr for animations and stuff, like uh I could get a consultant and do it myself through your app, maybe, right? I could get advice on how to build my own animations. I mean, there's a lot of uh there's a lot of um applications where this app could help build an application. Yeah.

Will 1:22:19

Yeah. Throughout the app, the a a theme, a visual theme, and this might be a good segue because I know we want to talk about design, is um it has a exploration theme to it. You know, there's um uh our our logo is even, you know, uh a dotted line leading to an X marks the spot. And um, you know, throughout the app, there's there's compass imagery, that there's um uh you know, paper airplanes, there's lighthouses, telescopes, you know, it's all very journey and expedition focused. And really that's what we want to be is is a toolkit for anybody who's going through um a challenge or you know um something unknown in their life, you know, just not feeling like the only way to overcome it is to just spend hours on Google, you know, reading high-quality information, reading low-quality information, watching um, you know, YouTube videos, whatever content you can get a hold of, but instead having the ability to find somebody to be a guide, so to speak, or a coach, so to speak. Um and you know, we think that the the gains that you'll get from just having access to that, like the more you use it, the more value you will get in your life. Let's say like like uh it doesn't even have to be like a challenge, so to speak, like I wanna, I wanna, I'm building my my next uh startup or whatever. It can be like I'm getting married, you know, and planning a wedding, you know. How many questions come to mind? I don't want a whole I don't want to hire a wedding planner because that's just like a huge amount of overhead. I just have a few questions, you know, where do I get started? You know um, so we we think that there's just a huge amount of potential um and are really just kind of excited to see where it goes. Because we think that as a as a new medium for knowledge sharing, um there's there's really a huge amount of of potential.

Tom 1:24:53

Yeah. No, I'm excited too because I I think I was telling Blake this at one point, like your idea is like universal enough and kind of like vague enough where like we both have been spitting out ideas of like where this could go, but like it could also be really good at something that we don't foresee. You know what I'm saying? Like that's kind of exciting too. Like there could be some random niche of like building like beanbags, or like I don't you know what I'm saying? Like something like that's so random, but like there could be like something that like this is so good for that you and me don't see. And like I think that's gonna be like the key. I think I've said this to you before, but like that's gonna be the key to your guys' success is like how flexible and like responsive you guys are to your user base and like what those unforeseen um like niches are, you know. Right. Like for drive fitness, it's like a very specific thing I'm trying to do, you know? Whereas like um you guys just have this platform set up now, and I think it'll be very interesting seeing like like where it like your user base takes you guys because it's like almost like uncertain right where it's gonna head and like what problems it's gonna be the best. Maybe wedding, maybe it like maybe two years from now you're gonna have like a wedding planning app. You know what I'm saying? Like maybe that's like that was really good for wedding planning, and like this is like our thing now. Like, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Well maybe it's something else, but like uh you guys definitely have the structure there to help people bring people together, solve problems, and whatever, and it's like I don't know, it's gonna be it's gonna be kind of cool to see where it where it heads, you know?

Will 1:26:30

Yeah, no, I'm I'm just as excited. I mean, it it's almost like think about Amazon, sells anything you could possibly dream of, and not to mention, you know, AWS, one of the biggest technology players, yada yada. It started with books. And when Jeff Bezos quit his job at the hedge fund, I don't think that he knew that he was going to sell everything, but I also don't think that he was going to just sell books for the rest of his life online. Yeah. You know, there there was a there's a vision behind it. He wasn't gonna he said, let me start with books and use that as a springboard. Yeah, and and they're the most customer-centric, customer-driven company in existence, where you know, if something performs well, then they chase it, you know, they latch onto it and like really make it maximize the potential there. And that's what made Amazon what they are today. You know, Books was just point A along the journey, and then they allowed the customer and the market to really allow to evolve Amazon into what it is today. Yeah. And that's kind of the same approach that that we're taking with Scout in that we're creating a framework, so to speak, and we think This is point A. We have a theory about where B, C, D, E, F might be, but we're not we're not signing ourselves to that. You know, we're not we're not committing and hardlining on this is gonna be B and this is gonna be C. We're open to to what should be B or what can be B, you know, N D and E and F, you know. Um so yeah.

Tom 1:28:31

I feel like you guys need your books though. You need your like tipping off point, you know?

Will 1:28:35

Right. Yeah.

Tom 1:28:36

I like honestly, like even just going to Bezos, right? He apparently like boxed all like the books in the beginning. Like he was like he was sitting there like taping things together and setting them out. Like he was doing like the nitty-gritty. Right. Like I wonder if you and Blake should be the first people on your app and like your books should be app development advice, like advice. You know what I'm saying? I wonder if you guys need to just do the nitty-gritty work of like being the two experts, the first two. Yeah, and we are.

Will 1:29:06

We are the first two. It's funny because we always develop empty states, right? If you if you have a list in an app, you develop, like let's say there's um uh a list of messages. Well, when the user first logs in, that's gonna be empty, right? So you you make it pretty and you make it, you know, you it's an opportunity to engage with the new user. And we we purposefully did not define an empty state for the feed of mentors because we know on day one we will be populated in there. There will be we will be the only people who ever sees that empty. And I think that's kind of a cool, I don't know, a little thing, an Easter egg, so to speak. Yeah.

Tom 1:29:55

Um I thought of like adding me and Dramazos as everyone's first two friends on drive to like here you go, you got two friends.

Will 1:30:01

Right, yeah, it's it's similar to MySpace and I think it's MySpace where Tom, the the founder, was friends with everyone on MySpace. Yeah, everybody joined MySpace was a friend of Tom. Yeah, you know? So yeah.

Tom 1:30:15

Yeah, I wonder if marketing it as scout, like the place where you get development advice at first, could be like the book moment where you say, and then and then we can you can spread off and do all these other things, but like that would be an interesting um like way to market it, you know, and be a guaranteed moment where I might like even like specifically me, actually could sign up, Blake and start advising me. I pay him through the app, like boom, yeah. Now someone, me using the app, getting advice from Blake, and and that could get the ball rolling, you know. That's that's um probab I don't know, probably the best way to get it rolling, I feel like, you know. Yeah, that's a great idea.

Will 1:30:57

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's kind of the same uh mentality of of of targeting influencers is that um w we we we have our expertise within our fields, right? That we can provide, but there are influencers out there who have expertise in areas that we just don't even understand, right? And so we can we can grow like you said, get the ball rolling on they're not mutually exclusive, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Like I I think we'll we'll we'll push for for other people to get their foothold in their area, and simultaneously we will will lead the charge in our area. Yeah. Um, so yeah.

Tom 1:31:56

Because it would be a good test like to see if Blake can advise me through your app, and if there's any moment where me and Blake are like, let's text, that's a problem for you, right? Like it's like it's like any time that like me and Blake would want to do this outside of your app.

Will 1:32:12

But it's a little different there because you have the you have the value and the benefit of of having that existing personal relationship with Blake, right?

Tom 1:32:23

Yeah, I think I think But me and Blake can't like to say me and Blake can't communicate we have our phone numbers and stuff, but right.

Will 1:32:30

But imagine somebody who's trying to build an app and doesn't know a Blake.

Tom 1:32:35

Yeah.

Will 1:32:35

That's where Scout like really shines, right? Yeah.

Tom 1:32:38

All I'm saying though is that like me and Blake already have a relationship. If we can't use your app, those people really can't use your app. Right. You see what I'm saying? Like obviously, once someone like me and Blake can use your app happily, like that's not the true test, right? You need to go, you need to go, like you were saying, like find a way for someone like Blake to communicate that doesn't have a relationship. But that would be like a good test uh like scenario where it's it's like if if me and him uh would prefer to text or do you know what I'm saying? If me and him who have the existing relationship can't he can't advise me 100% using your app, you know what I'm saying, then like that's something you need to fix before moving on, right, to the other test scenario, I guess is just what I'm saying.

Will 1:33:27

Yeah, and and I don't think it's a it's a pass fail, you know, it's it's almost like okay, this this aspect is is challenging. How do we improve that? Yeah, you know, not okay, we failed, like let's reinvent the wheel. You know, it it's like yeah, we'll be iterative and you know, see what works and what doesn't. Of course.

Tom 1:33:52

Yeah. Um uh one more even one more question before we move on to design, which is like, I feel like similar to Fiverr, this idea sounds like good for just like a web browser website. Like, why why an app, I guess.

Will 1:34:07

That's definitely the plan is to to be cross-platform and have have it on the web as well. But like why start with an app? So we we felt that an app would was the appropriate top priority, you know, starting point because the the access to uh to information on mobile, I think, is really key. You know, when you're when you're I think there's a certain level of I'm I I'm in a task and I need this information. Like the information is is secondary, right? Like I'm I'm I'm fixing this leak. That's priority number one. I need this information, is like a a subtask, right? Of the main thing. Whereas when you're on the web, it's like that's that's the the thing at hand. That's like what's in front of me, right? Um and also from the mentor's perspective, or from the expert's perspective, it's uh the ability to integrate this really easily into their uh existing routine, right? They're not having to, you know, completely distract themselves from their day job or their their work to earn income on Scout. It's just more so I'm again, my primary task right now might be I'm working on my job, but you know, I can also earn revenue as a subtask of that using my mobile phone. Right.

Tom 1:35:56

Yeah, I feel like it just boils down to also like people just prefer to communicate on mobile these days. Right. You know, might not have been the case um even three or four years ago, you know, but like at this point in time, most people even they do work at a computer, but they would like to communicate on their phone. Right. Like even by the end of my last job, like I had Slack on my phone, I would, you know what I'm saying, spend a lot of time messing people mobily on Slack instead of at the computer. You know, even if I'm s even if I'm freaking sitting there, it's just like the preferred, you know.

Will 1:36:31

Uh across the board, I think things are shifting towards where most products are mo are built mobile first, you know, where the website is at least you know, I'm very biased in this case, but I think that that's the way it should be, in that the the flagship application, like the the most important application is the mobile version, and then the website is sort of secondary to that. Whereas, you know, not too long ago it was the opposite, you know, where the Facebook website had all the bells and whistles and you could do everything, and the mobile app was just kind of like uh uh secondary to that. Whereas now the Facebook mobile app gets the gets the newest stuff first and then they bring it to the website, right? Because it because that's where eighty percent of their traffic comes from, right?

Tom 1:37:31

So yeah, it's interesting, and with like the next generation coming, like they're used to doing everything mobile. Like I still prefer to do a lot of tasks on the desktop, but like I'm old now, man. Yeah, like I was editing some video for the podcast. Like I was actually trying to edit it down to like a TikTok style video. It was like a podcast clip, and it wouldn't like I would edit it on my computer and I would like try to like format it right for like the t the TikTok style. It just kept looking weird and weird, and I'm like, oh, I should fucking edit this on my phone. Like, right, you know what I'm saying? Like that's like obviously how I should be doing this, you know. It's just like very weird because to me, like editing is like definitely a computer task, but like to all these kids, like they're editing all these TikToks on their phone. Like, that's not like why would they fucking edit it on their computer? But I don't know, I'm just like old fashioned, like no, it's just like you and me probably like need to be sitting at a desk to like edit a video on the page.

Will 1:38:22

And it's funny because I totally relate to there's tasks in my head that I file as like desktop tasks. You know, I need a keyboard and a mouse and a monitor, yeah. And then there's other things that are like phone tasks, you know. Um and and I think it really comes down to at least for me, um the quality of the tools on mobile, you know. I think that we've come such a long way in the last five years to where because of that mobile first approach, um, you know, it's funny, and this this segues nicely into our design conversation, but I almost find web design a cakewalk compared to mobile, right? There's so many extra dimensions and constraints to consider when you're doing mobile, um, versus like a website, it's like you have an infinite canvas, you know, it's just there's and there's so much established understanding and knowledge of like how websites should look and work and feel and yada yada yada. Whereas we're still kind of fig ever as a collective, we're still kind of figuring that out from mobile.

Tom 1:39:36

Yeah.

Will 1:39:37

Um, it's not it's not an area where we have 20 plus years of established knowledge.

Tom 1:39:46

Yeah, it's interesting. I don't want to talk about Clubhouse too much, but on Will's app and on Clubhouse, they don't have tabs at the bottom. It's uh like a page that pulls up and over, right? A second page. It's like a little bar at the bottom, right? So why did you go with that style?

Will 1:40:02

I initially found the bottom sheet. I think the first exposure I had to it was in the Apple Maps application. Um, because they've had that uh bottom sheet search functionality where the map is behind it and this bottom sheet just kind of expands and and lowers for a long time, right? What I really like about it is it solves a really key issue on mobile, which is um permanence, right? We want some understanding that we'll be able to get back there.

Tom 1:40:41

Like let's say I'm scrolling on Instagram and I'm looking at a photo, and I'm like, oh, this is Will's photo, and I go to the search functionality and I search your name, I view your profile, and then I went back to the home screen and it your photo wasn't there anymore. It like reloaded. That would upset me. Right, exactly. And it doesn't do that, but what you're saying is that uh for some reason users maybe had the feeling like when they leave a screen and come back, it won't be the same, or like they just don't like, and this allows you to like pull something over it and down and then you don't have to never leave.

Will 1:41:14

Right. So the beauty of the bottom sheet is that it doesn't have this destructive quality to it. I have more of an understanding that that thing that I was previously looking at is behind the bottom sheet, and it will continue to be behind it, and I can dismiss this bottom sheet, and that thing underneath it is still there in my mind. Yeah. Um, and and I think that's really important on mobile because, like I was saying, like there's so many constraints and being able to convey a certain level of fluidity and like rapidness in really simple ways is like critical for mobile, right? If you're using a web application and you're finding yourself constantly opening things in a new tab versus just using the application, then that's a design problem, right? So this is a way to do that in mobile, you know, almost almost have that ability to open in a new tab. You know, you you get the you get the confidence there's two separate things. I'm not destroying my state by clicking on this button or clicking on this link. You know, I'm more likely to to click around and explore the application and and move through it because I'm both grounded with that with that background state I know is is there, but I also have this flexibility of bringing in this other thing. Yeah. So in my mind, it it really I don't know, it just works.

Tom 1:42:51

Yeah. No, it's very intuitive and it helps you manage these two screens better. Yeah, so from like a startup perspective, I think it's really cool that you're into design because something that I've learned, I think everyone who's who uh creates a startup learns that you kind of have to be like um like an everyman kind of guy. Like you have to like do all these different skills or learn them, or just like you know, usually there's two people in a company, and like um like you just have to the two of you have to between those two people, you have to do every position.

Will 1:43:28

Like your HR, your accounting, your marketing, yeah, yeah.

Tom 1:43:33

Exactly. Like Dramazis takes is like the technical um role, and then I'm like exactly I'm like in charge of like marketing, I'm in charge of like design, I'm in charge of HR, what I don't know. There's a bunch of shit that I do, right? And I think that like your experience with design makes you like a huge asset, right? To scout and to just a startup life in general. I mean, there's if you were just the business guy and Blake was the tech guy, right? There's so much that he would have to to go design, right? Um, that he's not necessarily skilled in. So it it like adds so much to your team to be able to do things like design your logos and stuff. Um if anyone's listening to this, go check out Will's app because you know they they don't just have cool logos, like the it'll be like a little animation when it loads in, like um like the S will you know do a little swiggle. Um so I don't know, like can we just talk about like your experience with design, like when you started doing things like that and and uh just like what's funny?

Will 1:44:33

I I tweeted a thread about this because I'm I'm as both a a customer and as a entrepreneur, I'm fascinated by Adobe, right? And that's that's kind of like where my story with uh with design starts is in maybe eighth grade, I downloaded Photoshop CS3 and taught myself just from reading online or YouTube tutorials how to use Photoshop for the explicit purpose of making funny uh edits of my friends and I. Like redoing movie posters with like our faces, you know, replacing that. And as they say, the rest is history, kind of like I and it I never would have thought that like I would still be using what I now use as Illustrator more than Photoshop, but like back then in middle school, thinking that you know that would be a software that I would continuously use throughout my career, and it has been. I can't tell you no matter the role I've had throughout my career, there have been times where it's like I've been able to be instrument, you know, projects in school, you know, uh internships, uh random odd jobs. It's like there's so many times where Photoshop is like a super power skill that you can deploy and just make something visually pleasing, you know. Um and yeah, that's that's really how I got started um was just tinkering around in Photoshop. And then um I went on to Illustrator and After Effects and um now we use Adobe XD for all of our mock-ups. Um and yeah.

Tom 1:46:45

Yeah, I think basically anyone today needs their own website, you know what I'm saying? Even if it's just a website that has like a picture of you on it with a downloadable version of your resume, you know what I'm saying? Everyone kinda needs a website and that skill, you know what I'm saying, of Photoshop or whatever it is, uh really would help anybody. You know what I'm saying?

Will 1:47:04

Yeah, yeah.

Tom 1:47:05

And um it's interesting. So you said you started with Photoshop and now you use Illustrator a lot. What is the biggest difference there, like in those two products?

Will 1:47:14

Uh so and why without getting like two in the weeds, Photoshop is raster-based, which means it's rendered pixels essentially. Okay whereas Illustrator is vector-based. So it's uh it doesn't it's not constrained to specific number of pixels. You can uh so you always design logos and icons and anything that you don't know what the final size should be, you want to do it in vector-based because you can um basically think of raster as like rasterized images as like um a a fixed grid, right? So once I define that grid, I can I can compress it and make it smaller, but I can't make it big bigger without adding more information somehow. Okay. Uh whereas Illustrator, it's it's not tied to a grid of pixels. It's like I don't know where the specific colors are on a location. I know the the lines that connect and the block of color that fills in those lines. So I can scale this to put it on the side of a building, you know, or I can scale it way down to put it on the the top of a um a thumbtack. Um whereas with a with a pixel-based image, you know, we all know if you blow up an image to put it on the side of the building, you better hope that that's like a very high-resolution image, right? Yeah. So yeah.

Tom 1:48:51

Interesting. Um do you have anything else to add about just like design? Like it could be either from like a logo design or like the way you think about designing apps or websites, like what is there any maybe like the universal, like just like system or like philosophy that you have towards design? Like I I know like probably simplifying things, yeah, is a big one. But like what yeah, what like you have anything else to add about just designation?

Will 1:49:20

I think yeah, I think two items that are really important to me uh in terms of design, and I think in some ways don't get enough attention are um color theory, you know, um and typography. Um those are two I I can't even explain how important those two are for design. Um and understanding uh the interactions between I mean Blake will Blake can attest, but But I spend hours and numerous variations to get a color right, a single color. And once I get it right, it's like I can't stop obsessing over it. And if I don't have it right, I can't stop tweaking it, you know, until it gets better. And same with typography. I mean, typography is a whole, you know, almost like classic uh building block of design, you know.

Tom 1:50:34

Um and yeah, the font in drive fitness right now is terrible. I need to.

Will 1:50:38

I was gonna say something about that. Yeah. Um yeah, yeah. But the those two um color theory, I think, is is uh uh critically important, you know, um for you know, you can convey uh we talk about how in mobile how important it is to convey ideas almost uh intuitively without you know without speaking or s or stating them explicitly. You can do that with color, you know. Um, you know, red red has so much meaning in software, you know, green has so much meaning.

Tom 1:51:18

Um yeah, red brings out a certain energy in people like that I pick for dry fitness because it's like fierce intensity, you know.

Will 1:51:25

And even within red, like a softer red is super different from a very sharp red. You know, the fact that we can even say sharp versus soft red, like that that those are the types of conversations and things that you should be asking yourself when you're when you're defining your brand and your color palette. Um and same with typography, you know, there's there's um you know I I always say it's funny because um people obsess over the logo for the company. And to me, I I obsess more so on the typeface because it's like you can convey professionalism, you can convey experience, you can convey playfulness, attitude. I mean, there's so much you can convey with a typeface.

Tom 1:52:16

And more than anything, this is the way we receive information, you know what I'm saying? Through the text, so it's like super important, you know.

Will 1:52:23

Yeah, it's it's it's almost like we we put so much emphasis and attention on the the words that were on in our car copy. But uh what's uh arguably just as important is uh the the way that those words look, you know? Um yeah. So I think for Scout.

Tom 1:52:50

Or is there a couple different things? There's three, yeah. Do you know them? Yeah, yeah.

Will 1:52:54

What are they? So um unless it's a secret, but no, no. So the the Scout logo itself is actually not a typeface. That's that's like um You drew it. Yeah, that's that's a vector that I designed. Um but within the app, so I I guess that doesn't really count as one of the three, but it's it's somewhat based on uh a font called Renoguer Soft. Okay. And then there's um two primary fonts in the application. HK Grotesque, which is like a font from uh it's a Swedish font from the 1950s, I think. Okay. Um it's like very Art Deco, San Serif. Um that's used primarily for headings and text entry and input. Um and then the main body font uh of of text within the application for block text is uh is called Museos Lab.

Tom 1:53:52

Okay.

Will 1:53:53

And that's a serif font, which is kind of rare these days.

Tom 1:53:56

So super interesting. Yeah, I um I have like a header font. I just use everywhere in the app. I need to pick out a body font. Like the header font does not look good everywhere, obviously. You know, so I'm at that's actually one of the next updates I'm working on. So this was interesting. I'll I'll look into those, maybe pick something along the lines for like the body, because I need I and the I need a new one. I need a new one.

Will 1:54:18

Yeah. And and worst case scenario, like the the fonts that I think it's San Francisco is the um the iOS default font. It's great typeface. I mean it it's like it's always challenging like not to use that because it's so good. Yeah it's it's it's yeah. Apple Apple is always since since the Apple won, you know, Steve Jobs obsessed over typefaces, right? So um they've always had, in my opinion, the best company functions.

Tom 1:54:54

And I've asked you before, like, how do you design, like, how do you think about like future trends of design and stuff, and you always told me like you look towards Apple's um like native app not native, but um their built-in applications and see like what you think the new trends are. And you told me once that uh not just because they design good like apps, but because they build the tools that help you design apps, right? And so like they're always gonna utilize the new tools that they have, and that that kind of usually directs what you think the next trends are gonna be, right? Based on what tools they even just give people to use, you know? Right.

Will 1:55:35

So it's it's kind of the same way with their uh products. It's like they're they're not gonna they're never the first to do something, but when they do something, it's like everybody else will follow. Yeah. You know? They don't do anything. It's like the um it's like uh face detection or or face ID, you know. They weren't the first ones to do that, right? Uh-huh. But as soon as they did it, they set the bar, and everybody else is trying to meet that bar now. Right.

Tom 1:56:08

So can we just talk about how terrible of timing that was with the mask? I know, yeah. I'm not the first person to say this, but like so many times in the past year, I'm like, I missed the thumbprint one. Yeah. I wish they didn't. Yeah. Like, how would they have known? But like, yeah. Okay, man, so we're gonna wrap it up. I am very excited about your guys' product. Um you know, I've looked at it, it looks great, and you know, it's something you guys have been working on for a long time, so I'm proud of you guys. Um you have any final words before we wrap things up?

Will 1:56:37

Um no, I'm I'm excited to let this let our sort of baby out into the world and see where it goes. I think this is a super interesting conversation to kind of explore um what what it could become.

Tom 1:56:52

So uh it is such a baby, right? It's not like a product that it's like it's like I always say it's like a living, breathing thing, right? Oh yeah. It's just like you once it's once it exists, you know what I'm saying, especially with user feedback and stuff, it's like out of your control. It's like, well, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know where this is gonna go, kind of kind of kind of vibe. Yeah. You know, there's only you can only kind of put in motion. Um for anyone who's interested in checking out your beta, right? You guys are in that process. What is the website we can send them to?

Will 1:57:20

Yeah, it is joinscout.app. Um and right now we're we have a a wait list, but people can sign up there. Um, and then we basically will start bringing people off the the wait list to you know slowly scale into the beta. Um, and then from there we'll be collecting feedback and eventually we'll be on the iOS App Store. Awesome.

Tom 1:57:43

Well, good luck. I hope it goes well. And for those of you guys who want to download it or um get on the wait list, it is joinscout.app.

Will 1:57:51

Yeah. All right, thanks, Will. All right, thanks, Tom.

Tom 1:57:53

Peace. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode. If you want to check out Scout, you can go to join scout.app. And of course, if you want to check out Drive Fitness, our website is drivefitness.app. Peace out.