1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,400 Do you want to turn a simple open source tool into a 2 00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:07,080 powerhouse used by millions, catching Microsoft eyes and 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:09,320 revolutionizing workplace automation? 4 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:14,320 In this episode, Peter shares the journey of Market, an open 5 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:18,440 source framework for Slack, and how it became essential for 6 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:22,360 enterprise workflows. Learn the secrets of organic 7 00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:25,520 growth through product excellence, community support 8 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:29,120 and strategic partnership. Whether you are a developer or 9 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:33,320 an entrepreneur, find out how to leverage open source for 10 00:00:33,480 --> 00:00:38,280 explosive growth and impact. Plus, get insights into Peter's 11 00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:42,720 latest projects that empowers non corers with AI driven 12 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:45,600 automation tools. Unlock the potential of open 13 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:49,640 source as a growth engine and transform your ideas into 14 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,040 successful products. Hello Peter, how are you doing 15 00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:53,560 today? I'm great. 16 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:55,800 How are you? Good. 17 00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:56,360 Thank you. Good. 18 00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:00,720 Thank you, Peter. Before we start, do you have a 19 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:02,560 favorite GOAT? Something that inspires, 20 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:04,840 motivates you, you would like to share with our audience. 21 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:09,240 Yeah, I think about something my grandma said to me when I was a 22 00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:15,800 kid, and it is if you meet one annoying person in the day, and 23 00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:17,840 I'm paraphrasing, she says something much saltier. 24 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,320 But if you meet one annoying person in the day, that's bad 25 00:01:20,320 --> 00:01:22,240 luck. And if ever you go, you meet 26 00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:24,520 annoying people, you might be the annoying person. 27 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:28,440 And so I think about that all the time, like, am I having a 28 00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:30,240 bad day? Or is the world mean I have to 29 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:31,920 get me? And I think that's kind of like 30 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:35,880 how I bounce my main character syndrome. 31 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:43,320 Yeah, yeah. So, Peter, before we go further, 32 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:47,240 imagine you are in a room of full of founders, right? 33 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:49,880 They're sitting there, they're on their phone and they're 34 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:52,560 waiting for a speaker to arrive on the stage. 35 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:56,120 After a couple of minutes, you enter the room. 36 00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:59,400 The stage is yours, the spotlight is on you, the mic is 37 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:03,520 in your hand. What would you tell them about 38 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,520 your story? That they will stick with us for 39 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:10,199 the rest of the hour. I think, yeah. 40 00:02:10,199 --> 00:02:13,800 And this is the same thing I think of when I go to any kind 41 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:17,200 of function with people who I consider peers or people I want 42 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:20,840 to talk to you. But I tell people, take a good 43 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,680 look around. And your job today is not to 44 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:26,920 tell people how smart you are or how great ideas you have, but to 45 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:31,840 learn something that one of these other people know that you 46 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:34,840 don't. And I think that is like the way 47 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:38,240 to get ahead. You know, a lot of my stuff I've 48 00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:41,920 come into rooms not knowing very much and I just soak it in. 49 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:45,160 And I think the most crucial thing you could do as a founder 50 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:49,280 is be open and receptive to ideas that didn't come from 51 00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:53,560 within, because that is what you hydrate your future ideas with. 52 00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:57,200 Perfect. And, and I couldn't agree more 53 00:02:57,200 --> 00:03:00,640 with you on this one because this is something which every 54 00:03:00,640 --> 00:03:03,480 single entrepreneur have to understand in 2026, right? 55 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:09,840 So Peter, you have built a tool which is used by millions, 56 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,320 right? I would say, I would say would 57 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:14,280 have gone in hundreds, not just 10s, right? 58 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,440 Talk us through that story. Where did the idea of the tool 59 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:20,920 is? What what is the tool is called? 60 00:03:20,920 --> 00:03:25,440 Where did the idea come from and how did it end up in hands of 61 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:30,960 millions of people? Yeah, I, I think my history in 62 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,840 tech is like a lot of people in tech who aren't founders all the 63 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:38,160 way, where you are exposed to a lot of different technologies 64 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:40,480 and tool sets and you find your way into things. 65 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:45,440 And so like my very first start up where I got my first product 66 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:51,120 role was a product called Pando. And Pando was a peer-to-peer 67 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:54,040 file sharing tool and the technology was acquired and 68 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:56,520 every single person uses it every day in something called 69 00:03:56,520 --> 00:03:59,480 Windows Update. And I think like a lot of the 70 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:02,280 stuff that people build like that, you want to be like the 71 00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:05,520 name on the box and you want to build, you know, you want to 72 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:08,840 build the better toaster and the, and the better mousetrap. 73 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:12,480 But a lot of the towing, like my second startup is why I'm in the 74 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:14,720 industry around today, which is bot kit, which was a, a 75 00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,200 framework for making chat bots on Slack. 76 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:21,680 And when Slack was first coming out, it was a way to integrate 77 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:26,480 and you know, I wasn't Slack, you know, I don't, you know, I 78 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:29,280 would love to have slacks IPO and ex and all that. 79 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:33,320 But I, we were a foundational technology for the early work 80 00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:36,200 team infrastructure and we were day one partners with teams as a 81 00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:37,640 result. And we're day one partners with 82 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:40,000 Cisco Webex as a result. And I think a lot of the 83 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:43,200 opportunities that you make in this business are being useful 84 00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:46,640 and being responsive to the needs of different people. 85 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:50,560 And the more universally applicable you are like high 86 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:53,720 tide or raise all ships. And so I I encourage a lot of 87 00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:58,600 founders to find not even just a niche, but like a unserved, 88 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,640 untapped market where you may not be the Unicorn at the head 89 00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:05,360 of the pile, but you're the foundational technology and you 90 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:10,240 come along for the ride. Interesting. 91 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:21,120 And if I May, is that correct that it got Microsoft attention 92 00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:25,480 and how did it got that and why were they interested in in your 93 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:28,680 product? You know, I think this came at a 94 00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:33,840 time, this was in the 2000s and this was when CD and pricing was 95 00:05:33,840 --> 00:05:36,120 many more times more expensive than it was today. 96 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:40,120 And people had broadband computers and stuff and you 97 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:44,360 suddenly saw people had to appetite to download data faster 98 00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:46,840 than people had the budget to serve it. 99 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:50,760 And so that was like a pain point that was very real 100 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:53,840 material. And we had a technology where 101 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:55,120 you can effectively turn that off. 102 00:05:55,320 --> 00:06:00,640 Like you can see day one, you know, and day 2 result just by 103 00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:03,240 putting it in the mix. And that kind of taught me like 104 00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:08,200 a lot of a lot of solutioning. Sometimes you do like a yadda, 105 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:11,040 yadda, yadda when you pick something to a product and a 106 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:13,960 customer and the yadda yadda yadda is like we come to your 107 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,320 data Center for three months and write it. 108 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:20,680 And those are great and they're great to have a service 109 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:22,800 contract. But if you want to have like a 110 00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:27,080 relationship with a company for years, if you can come the 111 00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:29,080 meeting with the thing you're going to ship and you can ship 112 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:35,960 it the next day, that is such more of a force multiplier of 113 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:37,360 that. You have your business and your 114 00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:41,280 and your ability to like, yeah, this is something that's safe 115 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:44,560 and secure and ready to launch. And it all we have to do is your 116 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:48,040 processes to validate that works for you and then maybe customize 117 00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:52,600 it a little bit and versus like making something bespoke every 118 00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:56,640 time you engage with a customer or a client or a partner 119 00:06:56,640 --> 00:07:00,160 integration and that kind of like ship once and then 120 00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:02,880 horizontally expand. I think especially for small 121 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:06,360 nimble founders is really essential to grow your business 122 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:10,440 to the point where you don't require anyone individual big 123 00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:14,280 customer, but they all support each other and and raise you up. 124 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:20,200 Did you like? Did you rename it something else 125 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,560 after work later in this year? It was always named exactly 126 00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:29,120 same. I think like the the naming of 127 00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:32,000 all my products except for the ones I'm working on now. 128 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,120 Or As for like before my time, like I'm a play 3, I'm play for 129 00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:41,640 the the first product was called Pando, which is Latin for to 130 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:45,400 spread, which was a great idea for a peer-to-peer client. 131 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:48,920 But then we pivoted into the CDN services and so we became a 132 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:52,960 network product. And when we got acquired, our 133 00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:55,800 technology got acquired by Microsoft, they changed it and 134 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:58,880 it became part of a brand of a company called Reloaded games, 135 00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:02,920 which was gaming focused. And then when I was with Howdy 136 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:05,240 Botkit, Botkit is just such a great word. 137 00:08:05,240 --> 00:08:09,720 And, and I think like, like my, my rule for naming stuff is that 138 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:12,520 you got to be able to stay it on a conference floor or at a noisy 139 00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:14,760 restaurant or a bar or wherever you're talking to people. 140 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:20,040 And I think Botkit is a great word and that was a great naming 141 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:23,840 convention and people loved it. And, and it kind of like if you 142 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:29,280 create like a family of branding languages that is like very 143 00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:31,800 simple, then you can call things like Botkit Studio and Botkit 144 00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:35,600 Pro and all those things that kind of like, OK, when I read 145 00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:37,640 the name of it, I know kind of what it's for. 146 00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:39,880 And I think that's also like super essential. 147 00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:43,400 Like a lot of people like name their products like Poojibo or 148 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:45,480 Fufura, whatever domain they can get. 149 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:49,040 And it doesn't, it just kind of sits there and doesn't inspire 150 00:08:49,040 --> 00:08:51,840 what you're going to do with it. And there's so many companies 151 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:55,280 right there that like, I don't know what Datadog does or I 152 00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:57,080 don't know what does. I don't. 153 00:08:57,520 --> 00:09:02,480 I don't even know what. That's why I asked you this 154 00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:05,160 question, right? Like it, it, it got me 155 00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:08,080 interested. Like what is bot kit like where 156 00:09:08,080 --> 00:09:11,600 the name came from? And you know, so tell tell our 157 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,440 listeners more about what what kit was and why did you choose 158 00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:20,560 to keep it open source and what's the ideal customer 159 00:09:20,560 --> 00:09:22,440 persona and what's the use case for it? 160 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:27,280 Well, I think Bot Kit was one. It was designed to be open 161 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:31,880 source from the start because I think any tooling that is 162 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:35,680 designed for the enterprise has to start open source because 163 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:39,080 people need to be able to independently review the code 164 00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:41,200 and just from a security compliance standpoint, 165 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:44,360 understand how it works. And especially in a 166 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:48,440 communication product like Slack where, you know, it's hard 167 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:51,440 enough to get people to agree to use Slack in an organization. 168 00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:54,800 And then you'll have all these edges like, OK, well, we're 169 00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:57,560 going to integrate it with our services that uses Python. 170 00:09:57,560 --> 00:09:59,680 And over here we're going to integrate over services that use 171 00:09:59,680 --> 00:10:04,360 C# and you get all these like, you know, technical hurdles that 172 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:08,680 are entirely organization driven, You know, bifurcation 173 00:10:08,680 --> 00:10:12,560 and open source kind of gives you a open lexicon where 174 00:10:12,680 --> 00:10:15,720 everyone can talk about things together because conversational 175 00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:21,400 AI and most AI products are all-encompassing across the org 176 00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:23,320 chart. It's not a technical process, 177 00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:26,840 it's not a people process. It is a blend of everything, 178 00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:28,920 right? And so you need to have 179 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:32,880 something where stakeholders are able to the person who picks up 180 00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:35,800 the phone is as important as a person who writes the code, as a 181 00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:39,400 person cuts the checks. And they all have to weigh in on 182 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:41,240 this thing because it's how they work. 183 00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:43,480 And it reflects the culture and the ethics of the company to 184 00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:45,960 make it. And so Botkit quickly became 185 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:49,640 like a, it went from a coding platform into like a discussion 186 00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:52,640 platform, kind of like how Figma is where, OK, here's the 187 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:55,200 artifact. We're gonna talk about our 188 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:57,720 identity, you know, and what we're trying to say and what 189 00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:00,320 we're trying to do. And I think that's what led to a 190 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:04,680 lot of success because it was so unopinionated in the way that 191 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:09,400 like a blank Word document is or you know, a figma is that people 192 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:11,240 were able to do many, many different things. 193 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:14,720 And and you know, I tell people my consultancy, like what 194 00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:17,560 verticals you serve. I'm like mostly computers, 195 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:20,000 right? Because any industry that is 196 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:25,480 digital technology based is in my purview because it's all just 197 00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:29,440 a communication method. What? 198 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:35,240 What was the tell me like the best use case for that product? 199 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:40,640 Like what was the Vol factor? I think a lot of stuff you do in 200 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:44,280 work is performative. And I don't mean that as a disk, 201 00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:48,520 but like, you know, the daily stand up or like reports or 202 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:52,000 things like that. And Slack turn the rhythm of 203 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:55,720 business into kind of a, a, a social game. 204 00:11:55,760 --> 00:11:58,400 And this was before the pandemic where people were still working 205 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:01,080 offices and stuff. But we're still we're starting 206 00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:04,200 to get, we're starting to get more and more distributed and 207 00:12:04,640 --> 00:12:07,960 people, you know, I'm working with developers in Bangalore and 208 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:09,600 I'm talking to clients in London. 209 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:14,160 And we need something that is like in the moment, but better, 210 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:16,840 you know, less mentally challenging than an inbox full 211 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:19,360 e-mail. And so be able to go into a chat 212 00:12:19,360 --> 00:12:22,160 room of the project and say, Hey, what's the status of blah? 213 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:24,520 It's great. But then we keep became 214 00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:26,920 overloaded with all the pings and notifications. 215 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:29,400 So now we need to make little robots that I could push a 216 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:32,320 button and find out the status of a ticket or I can update a 217 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:34,480 ticket. And that's just kind of like our 218 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:37,760 revolving understanding of now that we're in agents, we want to 219 00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:41,600 have like a button that sends an e-mail or a button that auto 220 00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:43,240 replies or acknowledges something. 221 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:47,160 So yes, I've seen, I mean it, I don't need to reply a big long 222 00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:50,360 letter to mom that I what I thought about it, but I 223 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:53,800 acknowledge it and I prove it. And so these kind of things are 224 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:59,240 like, you know, I think we're seeing people are starting to re 225 00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:01,760 evaluate processes and how we do things. 226 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:05,400 And so, you know, we don't have to have a meeting to talk about 227 00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:09,280 an e-mail, you know, and maybe we don't have to have a Slack 228 00:13:09,280 --> 00:13:11,760 channel to talk about the meeting about the e-mail we had. 229 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:15,840 We could just like have an agent propose the thing and send it 230 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:18,720 out and everyone agrees to it asynchronously and we don't have 231 00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:20,640 to have a talk about it. So I think a lot of things at 232 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:25,120 work are being arbitrated via these technologies without like 233 00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:30,600 the burden of performative work sharing and you know. 234 00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:35,880 So, so it was a, it was a, it was a bot on top of Slack then. 235 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:37,720 And yeah, yeah, it was hot things. 236 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:40,040 Yeah. And and so like we were the 237 00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:42,440 number one bot because we were the only bot in the App Store 238 00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:45,800 and we had a bot called Howdy. And all it did was ask three 239 00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:48,880 questions of what do you, what did you do yesterday? 240 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:51,480 What are you doing today? What are your blockers? 241 00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:54,320 And it's so like primitive when you think about like all the 242 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:56,400 things that are in Jira and all the stuff today. 243 00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:58,920 But back then it was very helpful. 244 00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:01,760 I mean, we had so many different customers. 245 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:04,640 We had the Republicans and we had the Democrat National Party 246 00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:08,560 and we had, you know, all these like the Grammys and all these 247 00:14:08,560 --> 00:14:12,560 people like use this product and they made they made it fun. 248 00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:14,960 And they would send us screenshots of the chat of 249 00:14:14,960 --> 00:14:17,960 people like, you know, celebrating and like talking 250 00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:21,920 about the wins and all being distributed teams. 251 00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:26,560 Like they don't have to like, like if you have a move with the 252 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:30,280 sun development plan, you don't have to find the time, 8:00 253 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:31,680 Pacific Time that everyone can meet. 254 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:34,360 That's painful for everyone. We could just, you know, send 255 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:39,200 out the the the form and people respond to it and it's less 256 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:42,240 frictive than filling out a spreadsheet or updating a ticket 257 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:44,720 or whatever. And how many people do you think 258 00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:47,640 it started using? Do you have any number right 259 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:50,640 now? I think I think that at the peak 260 00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,480 we probably had 150,000 plus teams and some of the teams were 261 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:59,960 as big as you know, 3-4 hundred people teams so close to 262 00:14:59,960 --> 00:15:03,360 1,000,000 people doing daily standups a day with this 263 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:06,560 product. And the thing was like we also 264 00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:10,120 gave you the recipe for it and form a bot kit. 265 00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:15,200 So anything you could do in Howdy was really just the 266 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:17,280 showcase for what you could do with bot kit. 267 00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:21,840 And we even had examples from the bot kit code, the Howdy code 268 00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:24,520 in our repo. And people did that they'd like, 269 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:28,160 well, this is so simple and easy to make a bot that does a stand 270 00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:29,080 up. What else can I make? 271 00:15:29,360 --> 00:15:31,560 And so people started doing things like, here's a bot that 272 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:33,960 turns on the lights at 8:00 when I come in the office. 273 00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:38,160 And here's a bot that sends out the lunch schedule and people 274 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:40,040 can pick what food they want for the catering. 275 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:43,000 And, and it's feeling more and more sophisticated as people who 276 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:46,840 became more and more adept at. And so now a lot of these things 277 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:50,520 like This is why Salesforce bought Slack, because they are 278 00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:53,680 in the business of making tiny little workplace automations. 279 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:58,920 And Slack was the, the skeleton, the spine of which you can wire 280 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:00,720 this stuff into. And I think a lot of the stuff 281 00:16:01,080 --> 00:16:04,800 we see at work now is like you're trying to automate 282 00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:07,360 repeatable processes using technology. 283 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:11,000 How did you manage to spread the word? 284 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,320 Because there are a lot of people who work on open source 285 00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:16,480 project. It's not like you know it's 286 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:19,640 something reserved or or small in numbers. 287 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:23,120 What was the way it got so viral? 288 00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:27,360 You know, we were one of the first Slack fund companies, so 289 00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:31,480 that definitely helped, you know, like getting applying for 290 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:34,440 fellowships and incubators and stuff like that are very helpful 291 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:36,920 because you get to be on stage next to other people. 292 00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:40,960 And, you know, if I put out a press release, it'll land 293 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:46,040 differently than I and Slack and Google and Microsoft and Twilio 294 00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:49,440 put out a press release And those opportunities are really 295 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:52,360 good. I think that the risk for 296 00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:57,720 founders are that sometimes you're treated like a a services 297 00:16:57,720 --> 00:17:00,760 company And so you also have to like know your place and you 298 00:17:00,760 --> 00:17:04,640 know your vision. I think, like for us, I think, 299 00:17:04,839 --> 00:17:07,400 and the reason I think we end up getting required by Microsoft 300 00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:11,480 was our experience with Teams launch was very good because 301 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:16,160 they had their SDK and we had our SDK and they understood what 302 00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:19,240 we were for. And so they didn't make us do 303 00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:22,359 any more than we have to. And they supplied us all the 304 00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:25,200 stuff that they wanted. And so when the launch happened, 305 00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:28,359 it was very slick and smooth. And then other platforms it was 306 00:17:28,359 --> 00:17:30,960 harder because they they didn't, they wanted what Slack happened. 307 00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:32,560 They didn't understand what Slack made. 308 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,680 And so, you know, that is also kind of like sometimes successes 309 00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,560 a curse and a blessing because they like get a naive oppression 310 00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:45,120 of like the work and the partnerships and stuff. 311 00:17:45,120 --> 00:17:47,680 So I think that is also a big part of it. 312 00:17:48,360 --> 00:17:52,000 Why? Why you didn't like? 313 00:17:52,080 --> 00:17:56,960 I understand why you did make it open source, which is fair in my 314 00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,960 opinion. But a lot of open source 315 00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:04,280 project, they have these kind of like revenue models where they 316 00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:07,240 either host it for you and then they make money. 317 00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:11,960 Or if they have a stand alone tool, then they have like some 318 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,840 premium features, which is like custom features, things like 319 00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:18,680 that. What why did you manage to get 320 00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:24,080 a, a feature like that or were there any other revenue models 321 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:25,440 for you? How? 322 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:30,480 How did you make money? Well, it's funny stories. 323 00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:34,560 Our acquisition offer came on the day that we were actually 324 00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:38,240 going to shut the company down. And the reason the reason we 325 00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:40,880 were shutting it down is because we pursued a couple of models of 326 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:43,200 like SAS hosting of the services. 327 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:50,280 And you know, like we wanted to have like a like a Patreon like 328 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:53,520 model, you know, where, you know, we get money from these 329 00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:56,160 companies. Like like Google had us be the 330 00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,480 official integration for Slack for dialogue flow for the first 331 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,120 five years of this existence. And they said go use Botkit and 332 00:19:02,120 --> 00:19:04,440 they just had a link to us and they would make these like 333 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:06,720 $1,000,000 videos of like go to Botkit. 334 00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:08,480 And we never saw a dying from them, right. 335 00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:11,840 And, and so I think that is also the challenge of open source, 336 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:14,240 right? Because they all use it and a 337 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,880 big Fortune 500 company doesn't have to give you any money if 338 00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:19,160 that's what your license provides. 339 00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:24,320 So, so the Microsoft acquisition was really a lifeline in that 340 00:19:24,320 --> 00:19:26,440 regard. And I think the reason they did 341 00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:29,080 so is because they understood the importance of open source as 342 00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:33,360 a driver of pushing Azure and their other business models. 343 00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:38,240 So I think a lot of the stuff is like like a lot of start-ups, 344 00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:42,640 like you want to become the, you know, MMR machine that prints 345 00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:45,960 out subscriptions. And it's kind of like we were 346 00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:49,640 such a basic building block of how to build these things that 347 00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:53,240 we would have to build something that looked a lot like AVS code 348 00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:57,920 or something that looked a lot like teams that have 140 people 349 00:19:57,920 --> 00:19:59,480 working on. And we were five people. 350 00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:02,800 And I think that's kind of like a death trap of like, you know, 351 00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:07,120 I don't need to have a, you know, IDE for bot kit because 352 00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:10,920 it's open source code and, you know, you can run it in VS Code 353 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:13,280 or get brains or whatever you want and. 354 00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:15,200 You know, even Microsoft tried to replicate this. 355 00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:19,520 They ported our product back at studio into the bot composer and 356 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,920 they ran into that problem too. It's like, well, why is this not 357 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,240 a BS code plugin or you know, or why is this, you know, so I 358 00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:30,720 think there's a lot of like people kind of do that dot dot 359 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:32,840 dot like, Oh yes, we need to have Figma. 360 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:35,880 And just like people don't really like Figma, They rather 361 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:39,320 just draw on a program and code another program and find that 362 00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:42,160 they should just talk right to each other. 363 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:47,640 So I guess it's kind of a long way of saying like the open 364 00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:49,640 source was a blessing in the curse because, you know, we had 365 00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:53,320 millions of sign ups, you know, and we had a sign up for the 366 00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:55,160 studio, which was like a free trial. 367 00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:58,360 And so we knew like these bots were being used at scale and big 368 00:20:58,360 --> 00:21:04,920 companies and they were, there's no interest in like paying 369 00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:09,480 revenue tax because the the Bard acquisition was so low that they 370 00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:13,600 kind of just like I already have the cow, why should I pay for 371 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:14,880 the milk, right? So. 372 00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:19,400 How would you be able to share how much you got acquired by 373 00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:23,200 Microsoft or? I think it's public. 374 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,040 I have to look. It's been a long time. 375 00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:27,200 But yeah, you could probably Google it. 376 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:31,560 I don't think Microsoft really announces their deals, so I 377 00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:35,720 don't know, but. In six figures, let's say. 378 00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:44,160 Yeah, more than yeah, in the six up so and and I think like, I 379 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,240 think the acquisition is also like a thing, like there was 380 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,040 roles at the new company and all that stuff too that are also 381 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:53,480 part of it. And you know, as a company, do 382 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:55,760 you want to be a serial entrepreneur or do you want to 383 00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,560 like work on your technology without worrying about 384 00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:02,120 fundraising and going out there and hiring people and having the 385 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:04,200 resources? Like we no longer have to worry 386 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:07,240 about sales, you know, we no longer have to worry about, you 387 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:10,200 know, we could just build cool products and cool code. 388 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,960 And that's also part of the price acquisition, I think 389 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:16,600 especially like if you're not looking to exit from the 390 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:20,760 industry that you started. Yeah, that's true. 391 00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:29,560 What would you advise for somebody, let's say 22 years 392 00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:34,680 old, Peterson, right, Just got out of the college and the young 393 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,560 Peter want to start an open source project. 394 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:42,840 What would you advise this young Peter, what you would have done 395 00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:46,920 differently when you started Kid Bot, Just so that our listeners 396 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:51,760 can learn? I would say don't discount the 397 00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:54,840 amount of community support you have to put out there once you 398 00:22:56,120 --> 00:22:58,440 you make it, because I think a lot of time that a lot of the 399 00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:00,360 time that we had probably could have spent building our 400 00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:04,640 business, we would spend in the community merging pull requests 401 00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,200 and talking to people and explaining how things work and 402 00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,320 being helpful. And I think that is often really 403 00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:12,520 unbudgeted. And you kind of like put it on 404 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:16,120 your team to like, I'm going to check the GitHub at 9:00 at 405 00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:19,040 night and stuff like that. And that's like, that's a job, 406 00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:21,960 that's a business. And, you know, that takes a lot 407 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:25,000 of time and dedication. Like at the time of the peak of 408 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,840 our success, GitHub listed as one of the top 10 new repos for 409 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:30,320 people starting out at programming. 410 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,960 And that's incredible because I would answer questions, I 411 00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:36,160 realized this person doesn't know what JavaScript is like 412 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:37,480 they've never programmed in their life. 413 00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,320 And we've made it where they got pretty far into the process 414 00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:42,040 without having to know all that stuff. 415 00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:45,560 And that's like, it is a responsibility to a community of 416 00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:49,240 like, oh, we need, you know, I know a lot of people who are now 417 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,320 1520 years in tech because Bach had approved their first PR 418 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,480 ever. And that's like, incredible. 419 00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:58,000 That's an incredible responsibility. 420 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:02,760 And it's very important. And so, like, I would tell not 421 00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:03,800 to discount it. Yeah. 422 00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,320 Yeah, what I want to understand is, you know, our show is all 423 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,520 about founders entrepreneurship and everything, right. 424 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:15,600 And product LED growth is some of the best growths you can, you 425 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,480 could achieve in, in your entrepreneurship journey, right. 426 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:20,560 And you're the live example of it, right. 427 00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:24,280 You created an open source product and it was grown because 428 00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,200 of the product, not because you were, you were spending hundreds 429 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:32,120 of thousands of dollars for marketing or spending 10's and 430 00:24:32,120 --> 00:24:37,400 hundreds of hours doing, you know, SEO or you had a big 431 00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,600 client upfront. When you're working everything, 432 00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,480 what you expertise, your expertise lies in is basically 433 00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,640 developing great product, right? So product LED growth was 434 00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:53,000 something which you cashed on. What I mean by cash, non is 435 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:54,800 getting more eyeballs, not like cash. 436 00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:55,920 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 437 00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:00,760 So what I want to understand or what I would like you to 438 00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:06,400 communicate to our listeners is yes, you got an idea to work on 439 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:12,560 it is solving a pinpoint. And yes, as you suggested, as 440 00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:16,720 you advise, don't underestimate the amount of support you have 441 00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,840 to provide or not overestimate it also because your community 442 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,400 will provide the support depending more what kind of 443 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,720 product you have. But what else one could do about 444 00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:30,600 an open source project to make sure that it becomes successful 445 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,240 other than the product itself is great? 446 00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,520 You know, I think there's a lot of stuff you can do and it 447 00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,640 really comes to like building the same things you do when you 448 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,640 build a community, right? There has to be, there has to be 449 00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,880 organization and hierarchy, and you have to be supportive of all 450 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:48,440 kinds of different kinds of people. 451 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,480 And you need to have the energy and the time to be a good 452 00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,880 steward like you. You know, it's just like running 453 00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,840 like a restaurant or a bar that's like a neighborhood 454 00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,160 community. So I think a lot of communities 455 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,320 kind of implode because they're also not ready for the success 456 00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:05,920 of what is like we had a, our Slack had 20,000 people in it. 457 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,400 It was a free open source Slack. And what does 20,000 people 458 00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,800 moderation look like on a day-to-day basis when it's not 459 00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,480 your main job? It's like hard, you know, like 460 00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,240 we had to keep spammers out and we had to keep out hucksters and 461 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,680 people who were trying to like, you know, self promote and also 462 00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,000 make it a good place to find answers and be useful to the 463 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,400 community. And that's a full time job. 464 00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,240 And I have three other full time jobs on my plate. 465 00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:34,000 It's a product owner and yeah, so, so I think you also have to 466 00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,600 like prepare the mental capacity budget for things like that, you 467 00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:42,080 know, of like make sure that you have the energy in the day to 468 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,280 look at the PRS because if it starts, you know, it's like 469 00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:47,880 broken windows in a building, it's like starts to look run 470 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,600 down. People treat it worse and they 471 00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,760 and people get hurt. And if a person has a bad 472 00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,560 experience in the open source community, maybe they leave the 473 00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:01,200 industry, maybe they like don't, maybe it's like, I'm not tech is 474 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,960 not for me. And that is a huge like 475 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,400 obligation of like I, I have the opportunity to give someone a 476 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,000 good first impression on a career that could change their 477 00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,440 life. And so that is kind of like what 478 00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:13,840 goes into when you make open source. 479 00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:16,400 And if you're a founder and you're like, I just want to make 480 00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,360 money, It's like, you might not want to do open source then, 481 00:27:19,360 --> 00:27:22,160 right? Because it you know it, there's 482 00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,240 a lot of social impact and there's a lot of social 483 00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:25,800 implications when you do something like that. 484 00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,120 Sure, sure. So I usually advise the 485 00:27:30,120 --> 00:27:33,760 listeners on the show to if they're working on something and 486 00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,480 they want to, you know, get more eyeballs on it, they can create 487 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,760 communities on Reddit, they can post on Reddit, they can go on 488 00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:44,680 Facebook groups, they can do a lot of articles like, you know, 489 00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:48,120 SEO optimization for their product and, and website and 490 00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,040 everything. Any other places you would 491 00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:55,280 advise specifically for open source projects where they could 492 00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,440 go and spread the word and get more I's? 493 00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,360 Pay attention to your Slack overflow, you know, like make 494 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:07,800 sure, like I had a Google alert set up for all the coding 495 00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,760 communities. And you know, it's like a lot of 496 00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,520 people will inherit your code base, you know, like they'll 497 00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:16,280 build the POC and then leave the company. 498 00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:18,400 And then someone be like, how does Botkit work? 499 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,280 And how does this work? And they're looking at a version 500 00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,720 of your product that may be 10 years old that, you know, give 501 00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,200 them a little breadcrumb to find the updated doc and, and make 502 00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:30,040 sure you have that information out there. 503 00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,040 You know, pay attention to what people are saying about you, the 504 00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,960 Twitters and you know, the, the Facebook and all that. 505 00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,680 And be omnipresent, you know, make sure that you're driving 506 00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:44,480 the narrative of like what your product is about and what you're 507 00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,160 doing and all that. And be responsive. 508 00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,920 You know, if people are bad mouthing your product, maybe 509 00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,920 there's a gap, maybe there's a a process error and that's like 510 00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,400 free research. You know, like people like pay 511 00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:02,480 for that kind of insight of like being bad mouth on social media 512 00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:06,160 or being touted on social media. So you really do need to kind of 513 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:07,960 like leverage all that as much as you can. 514 00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:14,120 Did you had a lot of people, lot of advocates writing and talking 515 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:18,720 about Kid Bot or how did, Because I'm guessing if a lot of 516 00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,560 people are using it and you're saying there are 20,000 people 517 00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,640 on your open source Slack. Yeah, those people need to know 518 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:27,880 about you somewhere. And I'm guessing because you 519 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:33,120 were first on open source on on Slack primary you were getting a 520 00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,560 lot of attraction from Slack self. 521 00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:39,080 Right. Which is a very good way to to 522 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,080 to get in inside the doors. Yeah, Yeah. 523 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,520 Well, also like a lot of people, because we're open source 524 00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:49,320 technology, you know, when a big partner launches a product, they 525 00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:54,280 don't say, Oh yeah, we built it on, we built it on Redis. 526 00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,360 You know, it's like we're very happy to announce that we're 527 00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:00,040 using React 10. Like no one does that, right? 528 00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:04,000 So like sometimes you have to like steal their Thunder when 529 00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,160 they do their press releases and say built with Botkit, you know, 530 00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,360 just like a retweet. And then that kind of thing like 531 00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:11,440 resonates and they see you under all these posts like, Oh, 532 00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:12,760 another thing's built with Botkit. 533 00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,720 And so there's a little bit of like virality that happens. 534 00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,360 So if you help, like big people do cool things, it's nice if 535 00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,200 they bring you on stage with them when they announce it. 536 00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:26,080 But you should also like leverage every single bit of 537 00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,680 Free Press you can get, right? And, and like, say, you know, 538 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,200 like, you know, and, and do it. And kind of like as a proud 539 00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,800 parent, would you know, like, I'm so happy of my, my, my 540 00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,840 friends at Walmart for shipping this product with Botkit. 541 00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,600 It's very easy. Click here to find out how you 542 00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,680 can, you know, like you can turn all kinds of things and 543 00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:48,080 opportunities for a campaign for yourself. 544 00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,160 So. Awesome, great stuff. 545 00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,480 All right. So let's talk a little bit about 546 00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:57,840 the the deal and was there any negotiation or in just because 547 00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,240 you were closing down Microsoft came out, we will give you this 548 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,200 much and you took it or was there any kind of like leverage 549 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,040 you had? There, you know, there was a 550 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:08,160 conversation, Emily, you can always say no, right? 551 00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:12,040 Because it's like, like if you had the plans shut down, then 552 00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:14,880 you had the plan to, to be what it was going to be and we would 553 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,160 just do something else. And I think that's the other 554 00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:19,840 thing. It's like we didn't discover 555 00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,080 gold. We're, we had a team of creative 556 00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,480 people. Ben Brown was our CTO and he's 557 00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:28,200 full of ideas. And all my, all my people that 558 00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,000 have worked on there have done very successful things since. 559 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,280 And I think if you're confident in yourself and your ideas, 560 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,360 there's no way to really lose an negotiation, You know, just like 561 00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,520 buying a car, you know, you're just like, oh, I'll come back 562 00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,840 some other day and then wait, wait, come back, you know, like. 563 00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,120 And so I think like, even, you know, we weren't in a position 564 00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,800 of strength as you would have been if we were like Unicorn 565 00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,160 successful, right? Like if we had millions of 566 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,280 dollars at MMR and all that, of course they're going to go. 567 00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:57,440 She's just clearly different. But also like we're thoughtful, 568 00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:00,680 smart human beings and we're not starving and we can walk away. 569 00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,480 And so I think that kind of like comes down to the heart of it. 570 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:07,760 It's like, if you failed, what else would you do, right? 571 00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:12,560 And maybe it's keep on doing the company, you know, like, but 572 00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:14,760 there's all kinds of outcomes. Like I can find other jobs. 573 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,640 You know what, I don't mind, you know, if I shut down a company, 574 00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:20,560 I'll start another company. You know, it's not like the end 575 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,360 of the world. And I think like if you build 576 00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,520 your company like that, where it isn't the end of the world if 577 00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:30,440 you fail then because my first company that I worked at Pando, 578 00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:34,120 we were three pivots into the idea before we found something 579 00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,480 that made money. And so like, maybe the pivot is 580 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,400 a completely different product in a completely different 581 00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:41,280 industry. You know, like Slack itself is a 582 00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,120 pivot, right? Because they wanted to make a 583 00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:45,680 video game and the tool they made to manage to make in the 584 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,440 video game became the thing. And so like you have to be open 585 00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:51,640 to any kind of like opportunity like that. 586 00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:54,400 Indeed, indeed. Great. 587 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,720 So before we move to lower quick fire round and I wanted to ask 588 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:06,760 you like, what's the what's the best way for you to understand, 589 00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:10,520 like you said that you are working on something new, right? 590 00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:12,640 What is it you're working on? What's the idea? 591 00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,000 What's the product and who's it for sure? 592 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,360 Sure. So right now our company 593 00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:22,240 Toyville, we do a lot of consulting for people about 594 00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,480 automation. And I think right now automation 595 00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,440 tools are fundamentally broken. And internally we built the 596 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:33,560 stack that is both using AI and not to kind of determine what 597 00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,360 are the repeatable success stories. 598 00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:40,440 And when you make a product, Cuz the one thing the AI coding 599 00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,920 thing has done for the industry that's a net positive, I think 600 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,760 is the ability to build Apoc in a day, right? 601 00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,840 So when you build something, it's materially different than 602 00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:51,920 when you think about something because you only you could see 603 00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,720 how it works and you can use it in an experimental way. 604 00:33:55,080 --> 00:34:00,720 And it's very low cost of entry to like find out that it's a bad 605 00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,120 idea or not. And so I think this kind of 606 00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:08,520 tooling is very could be very simple and brought to the 607 00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,320 average user who's not a computer programmer and be able 608 00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,520 to figure out things because a lot of times our clients are 609 00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,199 very, very strong in their domain expertise. 610 00:34:17,199 --> 00:34:22,280 I talk to lawyers and doctors and heads of contact centers and 611 00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,719 people who know stuff and they've known it for 30 years 612 00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:29,199 and they're very smart and they don't know Python And JavaScript 613 00:34:29,679 --> 00:34:33,520 and all those tooling. And I tell them that you are 614 00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,719 more essentialist project than me because you know where all 615 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,560 the bodies are buried in your line of business. 616 00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:40,520 And so how do we empower those people? 617 00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,920 And so the tool we're making at Toilville, it's called rituals 618 00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:46,960 because you know, you come in to work and it's a day of work and 619 00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,560 it's a ritual. And how do you take, you know, 620 00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,320 you have a, you're sitting at your desk all day and you're 621 00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,080 talking to a microphone and you're like, make me a report, 622 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:57,240 right? Or do this or do that, whatever 623 00:34:57,240 --> 00:35:00,080 the task is. And there's processes that are 624 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,320 wrote you do everyday and that's a computer program. 625 00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,560 And then there's something new, then you have to like build it. 626 00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:10,520 So how do you make it where you don't have like 8000 programs 627 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,400 bespoke every time is you make real software. 628 00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,160 And so that's the kind of tooling that we're thinking 629 00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:17,280 about. We use it internally all the 630 00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,400 time. I can take an Sow and I can 631 00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,720 bring a proof of concept to the first meeting and then the 632 00:35:23,720 --> 00:35:25,600 second meeting we can give them something they could ship. 633 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:31,360 And I think that kind of buried entry where the the POC is 634 00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,280 actually V1, right? And then the thing you launch 635 00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,600 with is maybe V2, right? You get it. 636 00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:43,440 And so instead of shipping more code, we ship more developed V 637 00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:45,680 ones. And I think that is kind of the 638 00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:50,000 opportunity for AIS not slop, but like ownership code that's 639 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:55,320 completely safe and compliant and works with screen readers 640 00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,200 and all that stuff that gets cut from V ones all the time because 641 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:00,640 you don't have time or budget to do it. 642 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:03,480 And so I think that will make better. 643 00:36:03,720 --> 00:36:06,840 We can make better V ones. We don't need to make more of V 644 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,760 twos and threes and fours. We just have to make everything 645 00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:14,160 that much more improved. So that's the kind of tooling 646 00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,760 we're working on and we hope to have something in beta this 647 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:20,800 summer for the public. Indeed, indeed, great stuff. 648 00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,960 So let's move on to our biking around then. 649 00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,040 I've got 6 quick fire question for you. 650 00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,040 At any stage, if you feel you don't want to answer one of 651 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,520 them, just give me a skip and then we'll move on to the next 652 00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,200 one. OK, question number one, what 653 00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:40,560 are the top 3 strategies to work and produce more traction for 654 00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:42,920 your open source project in 2026? 655 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:51,560 I think 1 is understand that everyone is a different kind of 656 00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,080 learner. And So what that means is you 657 00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:57,640 have to have a good read me, but you also have to have a good 658 00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:00,440 video explainer and you also have to have a good website. 659 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,600 Like if I come to your website and if I can't tell in five 660 00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,880 seconds what you're trying to solve, there's a problem, right? 661 00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,880 And if I watch your video and I can't tell in the 1st 30 seconds 662 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:13,280 what the video is going to show me how to do, I go to the next 663 00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:15,640 video and the read me has to be the same too. 664 00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,360 You got to be able to skim it and get to your answer quickly. 665 00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,320 And this is easier now you can have your AI agent read it. 666 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:24,320 But like people like to read and everyone can be different. 667 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:29,480 So you have to be a good teacher 1st and making your information 668 00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:31,680 available. So that's all one. 669 00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:36,080 So become a good teacher and 2nd is become a therapist. 670 00:37:36,240 --> 00:37:38,560 So people are gonna tell you all kinds of problems you feel like 671 00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,240 have nothing to do with your open source framework, but 672 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:45,400 they've come to you because they maybe paint themselves in a 673 00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,680 corner of a bunch of tools. And like Slack requires me to do 674 00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,520 this and the API we're using requires me to do this. 675 00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:54,120 And how do I do this in you? And so now you have to learn how 676 00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:57,240 Slack works and the API works and solve all that. 677 00:37:57,240 --> 00:38:00,400 And maybe there's Occam's Razor where you do it before it goes 678 00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:02,680 into things and then send those out. 679 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,960 And so a lot of the tooling I do is like a lot of my clients end 680 00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:10,880 up like getting rid of 30% of their subscriptions because 681 00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:13,040 they, instead of making something complicated, 682 00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,800 orchestrating things, you just go back to the source and make 683 00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,760 it right from the get go. And I guess the third thing is 684 00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,200 like, be open, like, you know, take criticism to heart and 685 00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:25,480 realize you can't be everything to all people. 686 00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,360 There's gonna be someone who's just, like, you're a JavaScript 687 00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:29,640 framework. I can't use you. 688 00:38:30,240 --> 00:38:34,160 OK? Sometimes decisions become 689 00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,320 culture wars where it's just like, are you Nintendo or are 690 00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,720 you? Xbox. 691 00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:42,760 Yeah, yeah. And it's just like, you know, 692 00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:43,520 like. I don't. 693 00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,440 I don't. You know, I'm unity, you know, I 694 00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,400 want to be everywhere. You know, I don't I don't I 695 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,640 don't have a platform in the race unless Nintendo wants to 696 00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,240 buy me, then sure, I'll be a Nintendo exclusive. 697 00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,680 And I think like that kind of like openness, but also like non 698 00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,360 partisanship is like a super. It's almost like a diplomacy 699 00:39:02,720 --> 00:39:07,120 where like, sure, like I worked with Walmart and that's the 700 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,840 first question they would ask any vendor or partner or 701 00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:12,840 anything. It's like where's your cloud? 702 00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:17,280 And if the answer is AWS, the conversation ended because they 703 00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,480 refuse to use anything Amazon surfaces, even if it's like via 704 00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,360 vis A vis, you know, like they just it was a non starter. 705 00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:28,360 And so like, that's not your problem as a startup. 706 00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:32,280 You shouldn't because Walmart executives have such hatred for 707 00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:33,760 Amazon that they won't work with them. 708 00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,160 You know, you should be in a position like, OK, we'll spin up 709 00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:38,640 something in Google Cloud for you. 710 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:41,400 You know, like you should be flexible and nimble and be like, 711 00:39:41,720 --> 00:39:45,080 OK, yeah, we'll give this opportunity will pay for itself 712 00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,480 in the dedicated Google infrastructure or not. 713 00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:50,800 And then you found the kick rocks, you know so. 714 00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,840 Got it, got it. What book would you recommend to 715 00:39:54,840 --> 00:40:00,800 our audience and why? I read this really fascinating 716 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:05,600 book recently that's from the 90s and this Blogger called Joel 717 00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,360 and Software wrote a book about PM ING at Microsoft in the 90s 718 00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:14,480 and it's so. Interesting because the 90s were 719 00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,160 materially a different time to make software, and yet they have 720 00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,440 all the same problems. You have all you know about 721 00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:21,120 capacity and Sprint planning and all that. 722 00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,120 And I find, like, reading old books very fascinating because 723 00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,200 they're like they always say within five years people are 724 00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,440 going to do this. And here we are 20 years later 725 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:31,520 and it still hasn't happened. And so, yeah, read that, find 726 00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:32,920 that. I forget the name of it, Joel 727 00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:36,720 and Software wrote the book and I picked it up at a dollar sale, 728 00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,880 at some book sale. And I always find it more 729 00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,800 interesting to read like fake are unproven predictions of the 730 00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,360 future from the past and current predictions of the future from 731 00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,040 now. Because you'll see that people 732 00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:51,480 did the same thing over and over again. 733 00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,440 Like in the 70s when chatbot first came out, people wrote all 734 00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,120 the stuff they're writing about AI today. 735 00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,600 And so like, you go back there and read different perspectives 736 00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,560 of, OK, we thought AI was coming in the 80s and we thought it was 737 00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,880 coming in the 2000s. And what do you think then? 738 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,160 That's still true. So I think, you know that that's 739 00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:10,760 always a good reading tip For me. 740 00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,400 It's go find a $0.99 book at the book sale, that is. 741 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,520 Sure. What's 1 attribute or 742 00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:19,920 characteristic in your mind of a successful founder? 743 00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:29,760 I think confidence in yourself without losing empathy and 744 00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,080 understanding of others like I like. 745 00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:38,320 I'm in my 40s and I think I'm at the stage now where I know which 746 00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,720 of my ideas are fundamental and don't change and know which my 747 00:41:42,720 --> 00:41:45,960 ideas are openness change and fluid and dependent on the 748 00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,880 situation I work in. And that just takes experience 749 00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:53,560 of like, OK, here's my non negotiable ethical things I 750 00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:56,280 won't do. And here's the things that I am 751 00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:00,160 empathetic to why you would do it, but I'm opposed to you doing 752 00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:01,440 it. And here's the reasons why you 753 00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,080 should dig is. And here's like the things I I 754 00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:05,640 you can't do and you shouldn't do. 755 00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:07,840 And if you want to do, I don't want to work with you. 756 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,200 And it's hard. It's hard to walk away from a 757 00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:14,440 sure thing if the person is doing things that are contrary 758 00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:16,520 to things you believe in. Yeah. 759 00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,760 What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit? 760 00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,640 I'm don't think inbot. No, no, no. 761 00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:30,360 You know, the, the, the I am really obsessed lately with 762 00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:37,080 making list. I'm super into like list making 763 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,120 of like taxonomies and and things like that. 764 00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,400 I find it very relaxing, like doing the crossword puzzle. 765 00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,480 And so like part of the tool that we're making now is it's 766 00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,200 kind of a Rosetta Stone for APIs. 767 00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:52,240 And so I take like 4 APIs and I just categorize it into what an 768 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:55,800 Uber API would look like. And it's just like, it's fun. 769 00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,640 It's kind of like you remember back in grade school when you do 770 00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:02,240 like sentence diagramming, like here's the noun and the pronoun 771 00:43:02,240 --> 00:43:04,120 and the verb and how they work together. 772 00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,320 And that kind of like is a good way to look at your processes. 773 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,960 I think of like, OK, I get an e-mail and I copy the e-mail in 774 00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,880 the sales force and I type up the thing and you're like, wow, 775 00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,120 all these jumps I'm doing, like, how do I like cut out this 776 00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,080 exception and all that? And I think that is like very 777 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,880 relaxing to do versus like going on podcasts and answering emails 778 00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,600 and stuff. Sure, what's a new or a crazy 779 00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:29,640 business idea you would love to boss you if you had time? 780 00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:35,960 I feel like there's many people in the world that have 781 00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:41,640 incredible business acuity, like your uncle with the corner store 782 00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,960 and your, your, your cousin who does the swap meets and the 783 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:50,280 hustle culture that don't have access to things like stock 784 00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:55,160 trading and like, and where are the AI assistance for people 785 00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,800 like that who can, who have intuition about the art of the 786 00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,640 deal and how you turn into something that's illegible, 787 00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:07,080 legible and illegal and, and as effective as the Bear Stearns of 788 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:08,880 the world. I would love to see kind of like 789 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:12,840 an Uber for Bear Stearns. Sure, sure. 790 00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,360 Last but not least, what's an interesting or fun fact about 791 00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,720 you that most people don't know? I'm on IMDb. 792 00:44:21,720 --> 00:44:27,920 Interesting which film? I was in a documentary about 793 00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:33,080 chiptune, which is video game music made with video game 794 00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:35,760 systems, but performed in huge concert halls. 795 00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:42,360 And so when I was in New York City, my side project was I 796 00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:46,200 organized this huge festival with a bunch of people, and so 797 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,640 we documentary about it. So yeah, look me up on IMDb. 798 00:44:50,720 --> 00:44:51,800 Perfect. I'm going to do that. 799 00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:55,640 Peter, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your 800 00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,040 story and back in last year's and building this business and 801 00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,360 some of the ups and downs. If people want to get in touch 802 00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,920 with you, people want to ask you questions, what's the best way 803 00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:06,360 to do it? You can reach my consultancy toy 804 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,680 though at peoplemakeitbetter.com. 805 00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:12,160 That's pretty straightforward and fair enough. 806 00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:14,400 Great. Peter, thank you so much for 807 00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,040 joining us today and sharing your inspiring journey and the 808 00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:19,880 impactful work you're doing through your services and 809 00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,120 product. It's been an absolute pleasure 810 00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:25,320 having you on Founders Podcast. Thanks for having me, Ash.