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[3754.40 --> 3761.60] a long time business yeah so uh it was founded in 2008 uh i had no idea what i was going to do with
[3761.60 --> 3767.68] it it was pretty much just a name and then andre came on and we started doing consulting uh we did like
[3768.48 --> 3774.48] small little websites at first and didn't really enjoy that and was trying to figure out like you
[3774.48 --> 3780.40] know what is it what is that i liked doing and then stumbled in on like i love i love fixing code i love
[3780.40 --> 3785.36] i love turning into a mess into something that looks new so like a brown field into a green field right
[3785.36 --> 3790.80] that transformation process is something that i like genuinely enjoy doing so building a company around
[3790.80 --> 3796.40] that has has been a lot of fun there's people who like brand new cars and there's people who like to
[3796.40 --> 3802.24] restore yeah old cars and those people tend to be different people you know and some people just
[3802.24 --> 3808.88] love that well i think like like like for me like like i i've sometimes fantasized like if i had enough
[3808.88 --> 3818.88] money and time to do it i would probably love getting like a a late 1990s era car and like fixing it up
[3818.88 --> 3824.80] and turning into an ev like so so like kind of like it's almost like for me sometimes it's the bridge of
[3824.80 --> 3831.20] the old and the new so taking something that's old and breathing new life into it and making it do more
[3831.20 --> 3838.48] than it used to making it better than it was before i love it too i mean you and i we found common ground
[3839.04 --> 3844.40] i did some rescue projects back when i was consulting i loved it i kind of like being the hero you know
[3844.40 --> 3848.72] like this is all bad it's like well here comes jared he's gonna make it better yeah and i think i think
[3849.44 --> 3854.40] for me it's less about the hero and more about you know there are folks who think it's not possible
[3855.28 --> 3858.88] and it's it's almost like it's almost like a challenge and like a hold my beer kind of moment
[3858.88 --> 3864.56] like right like no this we can turn this around you don't have to start over this this can be made
[3864.56 --> 3871.04] better what's the gnarliest turnaround you've done maybe in terms of lines of code or time spent or
[3871.04 --> 3875.76] you thought you weren't going to be able to do it yeah so there was a there was a system several years
[3875.76 --> 3884.32] ago that you know they were kind of they were on a cloud um a cloud server uh and they weren't doing
[3884.32 --> 3889.60] a very good job keeping keeping this underlying server up to date so i wanted them to i wanted to help
[3889.60 --> 3893.52] them move from infrastructure as a service solution to more of a platform as a service solution
[3893.52 --> 3897.60] because i thought that the organization would be able to do a better job keeping up with that
[3898.16 --> 3902.48] and and then they wouldn't have to worry about like os level updates anymore like they could just kind
[3902.48 --> 3910.40] of focus on on their code because the os level updates were way behind um like eight years behind
[3910.40 --> 3914.32] like you know they hadn't they hadn't done any windows updates on this windows server for like eight years
[3915.20 --> 3921.52] and that was a that was a challenging transition it took a lot longer than i thought it would ended up
[3921.52 --> 3926.96] crediting the client some time because of that and just kind of recognizing that like i thought it
[3926.96 --> 3931.60] was going to go easier than it actually turned out to be we kept finding services that were running on
[3931.60 --> 3936.56] that server like in the background that we didn't you know we didn't know about and one of them we didn't
[3936.56 --> 3944.08] have a source code for uh that was fun to to grapple with that as a challenge yeah that was definitely one
[3944.08 --> 3953.36] that that was that was difficult okay long-standing business hits against this recent macroeconomic
[3953.36 --> 3958.40] downturn yes it is and it's gone south huh it has been challenging so we've lost a significant amount
[3958.40 --> 3964.16] of our revenue our team is probably about a quarter of the size as it was a year and a half ago
[3965.04 --> 3970.56] uh and i've talked with other business owners that have you know companies a similar business model to
[3970.56 --> 3977.36] ours software services and there are a lot that have been hit really hard a lot have gone out of
[3977.36 --> 3984.88] business uh andrea said she had read an article with a i i forget who it was i could probably find
[3984.88 --> 3990.24] it if you wanted it for show notes but it had a quote in there that you know there's a like an
[3990.24 --> 3996.00] extinction level event for small software companies going on right now and you know it's you know there's
[3996.00 --> 4001.12] a lot a lot more talent on the market so from a services perspective it's a lot easier for
[4001.12 --> 4006.56] companies to hire full-time than it used to be so i think you know there's less motivation to
[4007.20 --> 4012.64] work with contractors or stretch stretch your team out that way i also think it's just a way that
[4012.64 --> 4018.32] organizations have been trying to cut expenses and cut costs and you know when you look at a when you
[4018.32 --> 4023.76] look at a balance sheet when you look at a profit and loss statement contractors come out of a different
[4023.76 --> 4030.48] different part of that than full-time employees do so you know for your investors you know it can look
[4030.48 --> 4034.96] like the organization's doing better if you cut those expenses you know kind of further down on the
[4036.08 --> 4043.84] further down on the profit statement so yeah i think you know all of the economic factors that are going on
[4043.84 --> 4053.92] right now so inflation interest rates two wars you know the small medium-sized bank failures i think
[4053.92 --> 4058.64] silicon valley bank really caused a lot of vcs to really pull back some money i've heard stories of
[4059.52 --> 4065.76] companies that were funded with like you know say 30 million dollars had their funding pulled uh and so
[4065.76 --> 4070.72] the you know the business had to shut down where the investor was just like you know the money i've
[4070.72 --> 4076.48] given you i want back or the money i haven't given you yet you're not getting um so that's you know
[4076.48 --> 4080.64] that's definitely definitely a challenge that's going on right now so i kind of think of like
[4080.64 --> 4086.80] that vc funding almost as like plankton in an ecosystem and like that dries up and the smaller fish
[4086.80 --> 4091.36] get affected first and then and then they're not using services from the bigger fish and then so
[4091.36 --> 4096.64] they start to they start to get affected so i think there is that kind of like that ripple effect to the ecosystem
[4096.64 --> 4103.68] is that similar to krill plant things like krill yeah yeah the little guys basically the smallest of
[4103.68 --> 4108.64] the small that yeah that the the whales chase yeah and that drives up and you got a big wheel that's
[4108.64 --> 4113.12] just hungry right the big well the big whale can go without food for a little while but it's going to
[4113.12 --> 4117.68] start to affect it too so and then what does that eat you know it's like oh man my krill is gone
[4118.24 --> 4123.60] i guess it'll die we think about this too like how has the the market shifted in terms of what it
[4123.60 --> 4128.40] perceives as value because when you have less you scrutinize more you think well was that really
[4128.40 --> 4135.52] that i just spent my money there because we had the money and yeah we thought it was viable and so
[4135.52 --> 4141.04] it was viable and now that we reconsider because i think in the last three years since the pandemic
[4141.04 --> 4146.96] we basically the whole globe has been reconsidering almost everything absolutely right and so in a
[4146.96 --> 4155.44] reconsideration of what the value is do you think that the value of these rehab projects has changed
[4155.44 --> 4160.80] or do you think it's just that there's no money uh i think the value i think the value has changed i
[4160.80 --> 4166.88] also think that low code no code platforms have had a factor as well you know it's a lot easier for
[4168.80 --> 4172.96] it's it's a lot easier to build something kind of quick and dirty that you know might meet your
[4172.96 --> 4179.92] immediate needs and maybe do that as an experiment for starting over without having to like engage
[4179.92 --> 4185.60] a development team and you know that's that's a capacity that that's great like you know it will
[4185.60 --> 4192.00] be an enabler for business and so i think like on the larger economic scale that's that's good and you
[4192.00 --> 4198.08] know it does kind of affect the organizations that would have helped build the thing that that low
[4198.08 --> 4204.40] code no code platform you know is now building instead yeah the um i do think that for the
[4204.40 --> 4209.76] maintenance side i predict in the next five years and kind of within the next five years you'll have
[4209.76 --> 4214.56] organizations that have really built a lot on top of those low code no code platforms and start to bump
[4214.56 --> 4220.24] up against the constraints and want to start to break out and so i think there'll be a market for
[4221.12 --> 4227.52] helping organizations you know move that functionality outside of those platforms or find ways to extend
[4227.52 --> 4232.48] that functionality maybe through extensions that the vendor provides or things like that where there's
[4233.04 --> 4239.68] custom custom software that needs to be built there yeah i do see that as an opportunity and and yeah you
[4239.68 --> 4243.92] know that has an effect and i'm sure ai is having an effect at some point as well i don't know how to
[4243.92 --> 4249.68] quantify that and it's you know i imagine it's and it could just be part of like a wait and see
[4250.56 --> 4254.56] on a lot of organizations when they're trying to make hiring decisions or how they're going to grow their
[4254.56 --> 4259.12] team maybe they're just waiting to see how productive their teams are going to be and how
[4259.12 --> 4265.44] that productivity might change yeah as they start leveraging ai you mentioned in our conversation
[4265.44 --> 4273.44] yesterday which was not on the air obviously yeah uh and to some degree even tmi but you mentioned
[4273.44 --> 4278.56] this desire to or the the essentially the business model is wrong i'm tldr-ing it and you can fill in the gaps
[4278.56 --> 4284.48] the business model is wrong it needs to change and you consider products yeah in and around what
[4284.48 --> 4290.00] you already do but a product that you can buy that has a finite value that's maybe easier to buy even
[4290.00 --> 4294.00] yeah because there are a lot of problems that we've seen over the years that many teams have been
[4294.00 --> 4300.80] facing and i do think there's a market for building building solutions to help teams solve those problems
[4300.80 --> 4306.08] themselves without having to hire an outside contractor or an outside team and so there are aspects
[4306.08 --> 4313.44] that i think could be productized and we've gotten started a little bit on on on one one product we've
[4313.44 --> 4317.76] been working on it for a couple years don't really have you know we've got like an alpha demo that we've
[4317.76 --> 4322.56] shown to people i've gotten some feedback on we're still kind of working we're hoping to have a beta out
[4323.44 --> 4327.84] you know probably first quarter next year is is kind of realistic for having something that people
[4327.84 --> 4332.80] could actually sign up for and give us better feedback on uh that's called freshly it's it's around
[4332.80 --> 4340.64] um analyzing dependency fresh freshness and looking at how how fresh or out of date software dependencies
[4340.64 --> 4346.88] are like third-party dependencies most of them open source dependencies and you know really assessing