In this episode of Hello Chaos, host Jennifer Sutton welcomes Brad Weber, founder and CEO of Inspiring Apps from Colorado. Brad shares his entrepreneurial journey and how he got started in the business world. Tune in for real, raw founder stories every Sunday on Hello Chaos, a podcast by OrangeWIP dedicated to serving and inspiring founders and entrepreneurs.
Jennifer: A weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Every week we talk to entrepreneurs from different industries at different company stages of all shapes and sizes. We hear the real, the raw, and unbiased founder stories. and talk the good, the great, and the ugly of all parts of being a founder. It's why our mantra is where aha meets oh shit. We drop new episodes every Sunday. Founders can listen to us on a Sunday afternoon to get ready for the week ahead or on their drive time going into the office on a Monday morning. Pretty flexible like that. Hello Cast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP, that is OrangeWIP W-I-P for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities through hyperlocal media platforms that have been designed to inform, inspire, and create connections. to help founders succeed. OrangeWIP is an all-in-one content hub for founders with fresh and engaging stories, curated calendars, and local dynamic roadmaps to help the founder navigate their local entrepreneurial ecosystems. We've really done all the hard work for founders, so they only need to go to one trusted place in their market to get all the local information they need. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ. I'm the founder of OrangeWIP and will be your host today. And so excited to have Brad Weber. He's the founder and CEO of Inspiring Apps out of Colorado. Welcome to the chaos. Welcome to Hello Chaos.
Brad: Glad to be here, Jennifer. Good to see you.
Jennifer: Good to see you. So just start us out. Tell us about your entrepreneurial journey. Like, how did you get started in this crazy, crazy world?
Brad: Sure. So after my MBA program, I took a not-so-entrepreneurial path and worked for Anderson Consulting for a few years, now known as Accenture, and decided that that environment wasn't quite for me. So I left, branched out on my own, and was an independent software developer for about a dozen years. And that started getting a little lonely, and I was interested in growing a team. and working on bigger projects and tackling bigger challenges than I was able to do on my own. So I found inspiring apps. That's 16 and a half years ago now.
Jennifer: Wow. So you really you came in before a lot of the trends.
Brad: I will stop short of calling myself a trendsetter, but yeah, maybe before trailblazer.
Jennifer: There you go.
Brad: But yeah, about 30 years in software development now.
Jennifer: Whoa, whoa, whoa. So what's been the most rewarding aspect of starting your company and being a founder?
Brad: So in the early days, it was really rewarding to solve problems. And the problems were technical problems and problems for smaller businesses that I was helping, help them improve their efficiency and so forth. But Now, the rewarding part, honestly, the most rewarding part comes from working with my team. And we together get to work with a wide variety of clients in a wide variety of industries. So there's still plenty of fun to be had in solving the technical problems and addressing the business challenges. They're both larger now, but regardless of the type of project we're working on, it's really fun to collaborate with the team that I put together.
Jennifer: Yeah. How big is your team now?
Brad: We're about 25, 25 to 30.
Jennifer: Wow. Are they all in like in your vicinity or are they all over?
Brad: They're about half in Colorado and the other half spread throughout the U.S. So our, our model has become more unique in our industry and that we don't outsource or offshore any of our work. So it's an entirely U.S. based team of designers, developers, project managers, QA and so forth.
Jennifer: and kind of all housed under the inspiring apps umbrella. Yeah. So curious of what's been or what, you know, I mean, you're 16 years in doing this. What's been the biggest misconception people have about being an entrepreneur or a founder and how would you debunk that myth?
Brad: Biggest misconception. I suppose it's romanticized to some degree by things like Shark Tank. It's more challenging than I think people realize. I would also say that the highs are probably higher than people imagine, and the lows are probably lower than they imagine.
Jennifer: Yeah, and that leads me to the next question, because our tagline is where aha meets oh shit. Sometimes it's the oh shit moments that turn into the ahas or vice versa. But they are. It's like the super highs are really high, and the lows are poof. They are not fun. I think I've had to scrape myself off a pavement just in the stress and just the weight. So share, share with us a breakthrough moment or a decision that made, had a, you know, significant impact, like the aha moment in your, in your journey.
Brad: Sure, there have been a number but I think the one that comes to mind, that comes to the forefront probably first is a change that I made surprisingly late in the business. You may consider this an oh shit moment as well, but the company was probably a dozen years old, Inspiring Apps. For all of those early years, I really wanted to run the company as lean as possible and as flat as possible. That resulted in an org chart that was basically a dot in the line. Everyone reported to me, the whole team was made up of peers. But as that line got longer, that was really difficult to manage for one. I absolutely became a bottleneck in that process. It was a few years ago now that finally hit my limit and realized that I was becoming a problem in the business and needed to kind of unflatten our environmental or organizational chart, I should say. So we created a leadership team, a fantastic group. And on the development side, also designated team leads for each of our areas of focus. So a cloud lead, a web lead, Android and iOS. And that has helped tremendously. I mean, not only has it reduced my role as a bottleneck, but I think it's been great for the team too. The people in those roles have really embraced it. And we as a company are moving forward more quickly and at a steeper incline than we had before. So it was absolutely the right kind of move.
Jennifer: And so what was the aha? Was it just like, oh, my goodness, I am not getting to the things I need to get? Or did somebody kind of rattle your chain to go, look, Brad, we, you know, you want to move forward, but you are, did someone bring that to your attention?
Brad: Uh, there were, there were a number of factors. So some of my own realizations, there were books that were nudging me in that direction. And then some, some outside advisors as well, uh, looking in and, and, uh, they were like, it's time.
Jennifer: Um, you know, Sandra, I, I just was talking to another founder this morning and she asked, uh, you know, a really good question. I'm, I'm curious to see what your answer would be. But she was like, how do I know when I'm ready to expand my team, to hire and expand to help with the management and the operations to run the company? She was like, how will I know that? And what role would be the first one that I would hire for to do that? I gave a very convoluted of, well, it depends answer.
Brad: That sounds like the right answer.
Jennifer: That's right. Because I think, you know, every company and situation is different, but I'm just curious, like, for you, what was that? Was it just, hey, I've got the sea of people, let me promote within and create that structure? Or did you hire some leadership to play oversight?
Brad: The leadership team that I referenced previously are all veterans at Inspiring Apps. All four of us have been at the company for at least 10 years. So a lot of experience and seniority in that group. My remarks that I think that going from being a solo entrepreneur and an independent developer for so long, the most challenging thing for me was to go from one to two. And then it was a little less challenging to get to three and four, and it gets easier. So in response to the person who'd asked you the question, it's hard at the beginning, but I think being honest with yourself about what you bring to the table and maybe what you're lacking, hiring what you're lacking is probably gonna give you the biggest bang for the buck in those early days, especially.
Jennifer: that's what I that's that's kind of how I answered it you know I said you need to figure out what your what your strengths are and if it's if it's uh you're better at business development and being the head and the visionary you know and just like doing sales and you can hire somebody that does kind of what your core competence you know and hire that or like for me um because I also own a marketing company and you know we just celebrated our 10-year um mine was the opposite of like I needed to scale with some of the similar competencies of and but I was still doing kind of the new business but I need some also to help with the project the details someone that can come in behind me and make sure that we could keep everything up to date. makes sense the project management side of it but uh everyone needs to kind of find out what their strengths are and then like you said add to it whatever the gap you're missing um all right so what uh what's been what was the biggest then oh shit moment in your in where you were like was it the same thing or did you have other holy crap what have i done uh there are definitely other things and all this goes although this goes back to
Brad: kind of the early days of inspiring apps, it's still a relevant lesson. And it's not, it's not tied to us as a technology company in any way. So it's a story I like to share, because I think there's some value in it regardless of the type of business you own. But I got my MBA in Colorado and there was a professor who shared a quote that stuck with me many years after. He said that all the risk in business comes from fixed costs. So when I moved from working on my own to growing a team, that little nugget was still in the back of my mind. And so I thought, Well, one of the biggest fixed costs I'm gonna have are employees. And so I made the decision to grow a mostly contractor team. And we grew quickly because if you do the math on our founding, we started in the same year that the iPhone was introduced. It was just good fortune, I suppose. And everybody wanted an app. And it was new for not only the consumers using the devices, but also we developers were building for it. There were some similarities. If you were a Mac developer, for instance, for years before that, it was an easier transition to the iPhone. But a lot of developers were just learning what they needed to be successful in the platform. So we brought in contractors to help us with our projects. And I was not in a place to manage a team that grew as quickly as we did. And we didn't have good processes in place. And those contractors had loads of opportunities. So anytime one of our projects got challenged.
Jennifer: Oh, yeah. They were just like, OK.
Brad: Yeah. And so it left me with a real challenge growing any sort of culture because there was a lot of turnover in the contractor team. We did not do a good job of delivering on time. The quality wasn't fantastic. It was a really difficult time in the company's history for sure. And on top of that, I learned an important lesson. The pain was compounded by the fact that the financial structure that I set up was not well aligned between the income and the expense. So to sell projects, it was easier. Clients were happier to get a fixed bid on a project. The contractors were not up for that. So they were working in time materials.
Jennifer: Oh, Brad, you and I have, we could share so many woes. I feel like our paths, literally, you have just described the last five years of the marketing company, of me battling.
Brad: It's tough, right? Yeah, so what I learned was that the professor was not entirely right. Not all of the risks are in your fixed costs. A fixed cost model can work if your income is fixed, and a variable cost model can work if your income is variable and higher than your cost that you anticipated. But when they're mismatched, that led to a fair amount of chaos and financial loss for us at that time. So the solution for me was to, we had grown to like 30 contractors in the first couple of years of the business. It was outrageous. And so the solution was to scale back, we cut the team about in half, and hired full time employees to replace all of the contractors. And then we've just been gradually growing. And it is, it's a much more pleasant environment for me. I think it's a much more pleasant environment for our team. Yeah. And our clients are getting very high quality output from us now as well.
Jennifer: That is and so how long have when you did that restructure? How long ago was that?
Brad: I was over a decade now. Okay. Given how old we are. So maybe in the 12 to 12 to 13 year time like that, but it's a lot that I will never forget.
Jennifer: I have hope. I was like, we're the last year or two. We're in that rebuilding phase because we went through something very similar. We grew really, really fast the first five years we were. And when I started out, it was the model of, you know, I came from two and a half decades of being on the agency side, working on big brands. And I had a lot of people that reported to me. I had like 50 or 60 people that I was managing. and when I started the company I was like, I don't want to have employees.
SPEAKER_01: I want to deal with that.
Jennifer: I'm not dealing with that and yeah we had I think year three we were managing anywhere from like 30 to 40 contractors and that because I was like I'm just going to do 1099s Year four, I think, where we were like 40 or 50, you know, contractor, but everything was, you know, was very fragmented. It was, you know, specialized. But we were very similar. A lot of folks weren't, especially in certain roles like project management, account service, it was not a fixed cost. Creatives were a fix like I could get them to do a fixed cost but some like the client facing roles and it was like a as our Accountant was like it's like a little pellet that they're being rewarded of let me call the client I can drum up, you know, but it was this little like I'm just tapping on it. I need to make more money this month It's not in scope, but I'm servicing, you know, I just need to call a team meeting, you know, boop boop boop boop There goes the time. And it was this, the client only paid for us to do, like, we had estimated it for 50 hours. Why do we have 300 hours in this job? So, yeah, we had to redefine a lot of, like, bring more control in, redefined all our processes.
Brad: Right. Also, I don't know if this was an issue for you, but it sounded like you had contractors in roles they were directly interfacing with your customers. So they're becoming the face of your brand as well.
Jennifer: Correct. And that was big, big, as we realized people were team Jennifer, not team bright. And, uh, and we were like, we need to change that. Um, cause that, uh, uh, that was for anybody that's out there. Don't let that, that's a lessons learned for me. Um, even though they're the, they might, You might think that they're loyal and they produce really great work. And it's just, I think it was more of a subconscious, you know, they were there to serve kind of their boundaries, not what they could do to help, like, you know, they're meeting with a client and the client's like, I need X, Y, and Z. And that contractor would go who, you know, very good at what they do, but they're like, hmm, I've got a dance recital. I really don't want to work more than like 35 hours this week. You know, and so they would just not, they would shield information from us. And it would be like months later, I would sit with a client and they were like, what's too bad. You couldn't help us with that project that you guys didn't have capacity. And I'm like, what? We didn't even, we weren't aware of that. Wow, so and it was like when you when you circle around they're like, oh, well, you know I just couldn't get to it and it was like, well, why? well, because you know, I like to I like to keep you know, just working this many hours and It just felt like it was too much of a headache or you know And I'm like, but at least raise the flag, right? They were more team Jennifer more not team, right so So yeah, we those were some of the the changes that we started to make and then yeah processes mapping those things out Putting that we'll call put the the guardrails on To make sure that we are Not, you know as they come in to be employees. How are we making them successful? So yeah, Oh Brad we yeah, we have a lot I Because that's where I was like on, yeah, on the pavement flattened.
Brad: Yes. We're proving the hypothesis that there's value in this podcast for regardless of the type of business you have. That's right. We've followed remarkably parallel paths.
Jennifer: So was there other than kind of doing, well, when you started out, would you have done it differently? when you first started out, would you have gone straight to hiring employees if you could hit rewind?
Brad: Yeah, there are risks on that side as well. I try not to second guess. I'm pleased with where I am today. So I had to get through the bruises and the high points to get here. So I think trying to tweak one thing and suggesting that the outcome would have been better is tough in hindsight.
Jennifer: Yeah, yeah. So what surprised you the most, whether about just being a founder, you know, company wise or maybe yourself personally? What is what surprised you the most?
Brad: Oh, that is a good question. I feel like the experience is lonelier than I expected. And I think I created an environment to maximize that loneliness and the organizational structure that we talked about initially. It's much less so now. I get much more opportunity to collaborate with my leadership team, with our team leads. Really, frankly, the whole team feels much more cohesive now. And that's more pleasant. But in the early days, especially going through some of the things that we had talked about, to feel like you're going through it somewhat alone, trying to shield the team from those stresses is harder than I expected.
Jennifer: Yeah. Well, and also, you know, it's like you want to shield them, but also sometimes you just can't let them in, um, you know, to some of those decisions. Or, you know, we, we had a few weeks ago, we had somebody on the podcast and they were like, somebody on their team would raise her. I want to be, you know, I want to be a lead. I want to be, you know, uh, promote me. And they're like, okay, we'll sit into these, you know, sit into a couple of these meetings. And they came away, they're like, nevermind. Like those were hard conversations, like you had to, were getting tough questions from a client. And you're making decisions that are like, how are you making decisions? And they're like, well, you know, sometimes you have to make the hard decisions or sometimes you have to sit in really uncomfortable meetings, but that's just what you have to do. They were like, nevermind, I don't want to be. I'll just keep doing my task role. So yeah, sometimes that isolation, people don't really get that exposure. So, okay, you're in Boulder. So how was the, you said that you kind of felt alone. Was there a community there? I mean, is there a good ecosystem of entrepreneurs where you are? Did you tap into that?
Brad: I did. And, and it's absolutely helpful. And we would have conversations much like you and I are now, but ultimately, this podcast is going to end and we're going to go our separate ways. I will leave energized, but I still have that energy has to take me through, you know, some of the challenges that I'm going to face without you around.
Jennifer: Yeah. Well, hopefully, Boulder, hopefully there's other people that you, like Mission, that you can connect with locally, because that's, that's been helpful for me. I think that's kind of what kind of saved me a little bit of my mental, my mental anguish. I became mental, more mentally tough, versus like focusing on mental health. I was like, I need to get tougher. Be more resilient. Okay, so what would people be surprised to learn about you that's not on your resume, it's not on LinkedIn? What's something that our listeners would go, wow, Brad, he's super cool.
Brad: Oh my gosh. You just added pressure to the question. So what I was thinking initially is just what do people not know about me, but now you've elevated it. That's pretty cool. Um, something unusual that people don't think about because it is just not something that people are exposed to other than every four years when the Olympics come around, but I play water polo.
Jennifer: Oh, nice. Have you always done that? When did you get into that?
Brad: Swimming all my life. I picked up water polo in high school, and I played in college and have been active since then as well. There's, believe it or not, a very accomplished master's team here in Denver. And we travel for tournaments and compete in the master's tournament every year. So that's exciting.
Jennifer: Wow. Well, we'll have to look out for you. So the two things you would change about your business, so you said that you're trying to figure out your new differentiator of which I'm shocked actually that was when you guys started out it was we just finished projects.
Brad: We do a great job too. I don't want to minimize it, but like I said, surprisingly differentiating, but it turns out not to be enough. We've finished a lot of projects and won awards for some of our work. I'm really proud of the things that we produce, but what is frustrating for us and our clients ultimately as well is when we create something that is seems to be fantastic and meet user needs, is not ultimately successful in the market. And we've found that more often than not, our clients come to us thinking that they know the customers that they're serving and the ways that they need to be served with a digital product, for instance, because they've worked with them in another capacity for years. And so we build products or have built products historically based on their assumptions of what users want. And so we've made a concentrated effort to expand our services. We're much more involved upfront in product definition and market research and user interviews to be sure that the product that we're going to ultimately build is the right thing for those users. That's right. So that's a big change. I'm sure that you've experienced similar things in your marketing roles as well.
Jennifer: Yeah, well, and so just give you a sense of my background, it's in research design. So that's one thing that when we launched Bright, it was really helping businesses not not to make the assumptions or doing the the heart or if they're making assumptions that we're all we're all agreeing like this is you know we've collectively made these assumptions so we don't get burned down the road of you know or we can make the recommendation like this is a big knowledge gap like you're gonna this is a really expensive assumption don't you think that we should do some research Well, ask some questions, go, go, not just internally, but also let's do a customer journey to see, you know, let's map that, um, their experience to go, to go also with, you know, digital product is an app the right way, or should we do something that's a browser based, you know, to kind of have those, those conversations. But a lot of it is, um, yeah, assumptions can be extremely, extremely dangerous.
Brad: And in hindsight, it's surprising sometimes the amount of effort that goes into trying to guess what people want when it is so much easier just to contact them and ask them the question.
Jennifer: Right, right. And it's not like, you know, surveys, because, you know, I design those things all day long. I mean, you're talking about, look, this is, you know, you can get a lot of information in three to five minutes. of in a quantitative sense, qualitative, it's a 30 minute, you know, conversation with, you know, with people to get. And, and it's just like, take the time you're talking about what it might delay a project two, three weeks, you know, maybe a month max, but we'll, but the, the information you gain just saves so much time and money.
Brad: Yeah, it's huge. And it's not something that's only an upfront task as well, but something that needs to be incorporated with each new release of the product that is put out. Again, a common tale we hear is that our customer service team is telling us what users want, but the customer service team is getting phone calls from angry users. And while that feedback is very important, it's not to say that it's not, you're missing out on the opportunity to talk to people who are satisfied with what we're using now. And you're missing out on conversations about whole different challenges that you could be addressing that might be different or even bigger than what you'd tackled initially.
Jennifer: Exactly. And to understand how you fit with the competitors. And not just the competitors that you think that they're looking at, but looking at it from just, you know, we say what, you know, what is your audience that you're trying to serve? How are you empathizing with them? How do you know? What are they looking at? What are they hearing? What do they have to do to get their job done? And it's interesting when you kind of get people to think outside versus they're thinking in their little silo task. We just did a workshop for a Fortune 500 company located here in South Carolina and having their team in there and they're like, well, this is what we know. You know, this is what I think they do. And I'm like, but you're looking at it from like how you sell to them. Right not sitting in their seat And you're making the assumption that they're already doing business with you who's not doing business with you exactly And they were like, oh I didn't even think of it that way and I'm like, yeah think of it as just a You're sitting in, you know, their shoes, you're empathizing with them, and they could, the market is their oyster, right, or their ocean of life. They can go anywhere to get their problem solved. How are you How are you looking at it through their lens? And too many times companies just, especially the smaller mid-sized companies, they jump in the lead. And it's like, you're spending the money already. Let's make it a wise investment.
Brad: Yes, I agree.
Jennifer: Oh, go ahead.
Brad: Yeah, I was just going to say, I was going to jump to the second thing, unless you have more to say about that.
Jennifer: No, no, no. OK.
Brad: The second thing was a surprise for me. I will tell you that in the early days, it was surprisingly hard to name the company. You would think that would be easier than it was, at least for me. But Inspiring Apps turned out to be really a great name for us for a long time. And only now, like in the last, let's say six months, we're hearing for the first time that it may not be inclusive enough of the things that we do. For the first time, we've gotten feedback that people still love the inspiring part of it, but make assumptions based on the apps part that we only build mobile apps, for instance, whereas we're working on web projects and desktop and cloud services for back-end projects. We're just now wrapping our heads around what that means for us.
Jennifer: So that could be a change. So a name change in your future.
Brad: It's on the table. Nothing to announce in the very early stages. Like I said, we just recently got feedback that kind of got our attention about that. And we want it to be representative of the actual work that we're doing, which is vastly expanded from that.
Jennifer: Well, that makes sense. You need help. You know, I know a team. So what, so I know you do water polo. Is there anything else that you do in your free time to deal with stress? And, and like, how do you, how do you just relax and, and de-stress, get re-energized?
Brad: So the big re-energizing comes from sailing, if I can fit that into the schedule. I do really enjoy sailing, and in the ocean in particular. Beyond that though, you can't wait for your annual vacation or a couple of times a year to recharge. So I'm frequently at the pool working out and it helps me clear my brain to stare at that silly black line at the bottom of the pool for an hour. Let my brain rest or just process things in the background. So that's really good for me.
Jennifer: That's fantastic. I love that. So you're a water, you're just a water person. I enjoy the water, yes. Where do you sail? Like where do you sail?
Brad: Oh, in the Caribbean or the Bahamas. Oh, so like total beach. It's more exotic than over in Europe or something like that.
Jennifer: Oh, that's not like… I wish I could do that. I'm a North Carolina coast beach person. There's nothing better. So OK, I've got a couple more questions. So if you had to sum up your entrepreneurial journey, your founder journey, in just one word, what would that word be and why?
Brad: It really has been exciting for me to face these challenges with a team like I've mentioned and to grow something that is bigger than myself. I've grown a lot personally over the 16 plus years of doing this with inspiring apps.
Jennifer: I love it. Rewarding, rewarding. I ask every founder this question. I've gotten only, I've gotten a different word every time.
Brad: Good.
Jennifer: I love it. And I know we're expanding some echo here. I don't know if that's trying to, well, we can edit that out. Is there, my last question here is, is there a piece of advice that you've received from another, I know you talked about your professor gave you advice that you thought it was good advice, but then you're like, you know, experiences always tell something different, but is there a piece of advice that you got from either another founder or from a, you know, a book or a podcast or anything that you really took to heart and applied?
Brad: Wow, there's been a lot of learning and advising over the years. It's hard to pick one. I think, yeah, not a particular quote or a particular person, but just constant reinforcement that the team is the most important thing. If you bring the right people together, then together you can overcome challenges and reach really pretty incredible heights. So focusing internally, at least as much as you think about serving your customers, I think has served me well over the years.
Jennifer: That was my, I think that was my aha through my journey of I've learned, especially over the last like five years, we're really in the people business.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
Jennifer: Um, not just people client wise, but really, um, building your team of, I can't stress the attention you need to, to, to give to your team, um, and their experiences and, uh, and helping you grow and, and. Coming alongside you, lifting, lifting everybody up together. It is a, for everybody that's out there, people, people, people. people. Is there, and you basically rehired, I mean, you did a big shift of from contractor to employee, like in a short time frame. How was that? Like, I'm just going, I knew how challenging it was for us, but, you know, how did you deal with that?
Brad: It was challenging having a few people that were really core, that were already employees that were critically important to the company's success at the beginning and shared values with me. We were able to create a culture that we could grow and have that spread and maintain some consistency in that regard. There were definitely some mishires in the beginning. Absolutely. That's not to say that all contractors are bad and all employees are great. There were challenges and there were successes on both sides, but we definitely tripped up. We stumbled a little more in the early days of hiring those employees until we figured out more about, one, what we needed. in order to be successful, and two, who we were as a team that somebody could come in and be successful interacting and collaborating with the other folks who were here. So I don't want to paint the picture and suggest that it was necessarily a smooth road. But But I'm really glad we are where we are now. And the hiring gets easier. That's right. Repeat my message from before. It does. You hire better, more consistently, I think, as time goes on as well. That's right.
Jennifer: Well, and like you said, trying to redefine who you are, the type of people you want to hire, you change your whole approach to recruitment and onboarding and all that. I mean it's very different from like 10 years ago and I'm sure it's different for you like from 16 years ago of you just you learn a lot about yourself and the company by having that stuff defined. Did you see any shifts in the type of people either that you hired or pre and post COVID or your recruitment differently from pre and post COVID? Did it affect, did COVID affect you guys?
Brad: in, maybe not in the ways that you're, you might think, or that your listeners might think. So one of the ways that I feel like we were innovative, and if we go back to trend setting, the start of this. That's right. Is that we, the company started 100% remote. So we were, you know, two or three people, four people, I don't remember exactly what the cutover when this cutover happened, but we were all working at home and it was, it was fine. The company was small. The projects were still small ish, but I knew we needed a space to be able to meet. And it was still back in the days where there was some validation of you as an entity by, by having four walls that You could call your own. So we got an office, but the people who had grown accustomed to working remotely were not as enthusiastic necessarily about going in all the time. So we were way out of our time, I think, in working remotely two days a week. And we did that for a decade leading up to the pandemic. when the whole world was told to go home. Inspiring Apps team just went from two days a week to five days a week and didn't miss a beat in terms of the productivity or the type of work that we were doing. I know a lot of companies struggle with that, but we already had the systems in place, how to function in that environment. What was challenging, of course, in the business is the same thing that was challenging for us interpersonally in our own, our personal lives, is just the lack of human contact. Everything was this kind of interaction. now. And it wasn't quite the same for sure. But in answer to your recruitment question, it also really opened up the options for us. We tried to hire as much as we could in Colorado. We had a satellite office in Austin, Texas as well. And when we were all remote, then it truly didn't matter where you were in the country. And so we started hiring, and now I think we're in a dozen states across the US or something like that, which complicates some HR payroll. But it has simplified the recruiting because there's plenty of talent in Colorado. It's not as if we had hired the last good person. But if you can expand your reach when you're looking for, for folks, and you, you're not as concerned about geographic boundaries, then we, the number of applicants that we get for roles today is phenomenal. It's amazing to me.
Jennifer: Wow. Do you have a full-time HR person on staff, or do you outsource your HR?
Brad: We, we jumped on the PEO bandwagon. Yeah. And that's the first one was not a good fit for us, but we've been with the same one now for a year and a half or two years. And I've been satisfied with that experience.
Jennifer: Oh, good. Yeah. We do the same. It's Yeah, that PO experience is a game changer. So let's see. So what's on the horizon? I mean, we talked about kind of a possible brand change. Where are you heading?
Brad: Well, there are always new technologies for us to explore and think about how we might apply those to client challenges. And of course, AI has been dominant in the headlines for… They can just do an app.
Jennifer: You don't even need your team. It just does it for you.
Brad: That's interesting. So there are a lot of people who think that, and it is true that some of the mechanics can be automated. I'm glad you made the comment, because I may have forgotten to talk about this myself. But AI, I think, is going to change a lot of how we do our work. But people ask me frequently, are you concerned that AI is just going to replace your team, that people aren't going to need inspiring apps anymore? And the thing Where we bring value, and we always have, is in being able to think about the right solution. And as I mentioned, we're putting even more emphasis on that now. Interviewing users and aggregating their feedback, trying to find patterns in that. And knowing what to build is where most of the value is. And if we get some help from tools to do the building faster, then great, we're going to be even more competitive in this space. I don't think anytime soon, we're going to have AI deciding what the right product is for the market.
Jennifer: Exactly, we feel this people are like, oh you're on that, you know, the marketing agency's a creative side AI is gonna tell like We've used a lot of this I think we tested something like 200 different AI tools both in the creative space the writing space That you know the video, you know cinematography, you know visual space and then operations and And and yeah, I think AI is is great as like an operational assistant for People for like even creative teams like a great copy, but it can't it cannot replace the human creativity of concepting Or like you said, it's like the strategy and the resources. I'm like, I've tried some of that AI. It's not, it just, it doesn't even, some of that stuff doesn't even help me. And I know how to design it. And it doesn't even come close. So that we've said it, you know, where humans will not be replaced is at the top. Or after it comes out, and like, who has to filter and do the oversight? And it's like, you know, and is this the right thing? Is it the right message? Is it, you know, the right tool and tactic and all that stuff that comes out? That has to be a human eye. All it does is just help the team who knows what to, how to use it. It just, it's like, it's their assistant. Just like if there's an AI for for app and programming, it's it's more of just an assistant to them Which yeah, like you said it just helps with Can we get there faster? More operational excellence and competitive advantage of whether it's cost or time But but yeah, it is not replacing humans create the thinking. Not yet. Well, even then, I don't even know if it would, as smart as it gets, I don't know. I think as humans, I think we sniff out the BS and the bullshit. Like we can, you know, even if you use, that's what it's like when we know something's not working, like we put stuff through some, Tools of like create a video for us or create a website. It feels so fake that When in branding and marketing it actually repels customers, yeah Because nobody wants to work. Yeah, nobody wants to work with a disingenuine brand and a company, right? So yeah, I feel safe Good You should, too. You should feel sorry. Thank you. All right. So, we're out of time. I can't believe it. Like, we're even with all of our little tech glitches, which we'll edit out. But I'm always like, I love talking to you, Brad. This is great. We have a lot of synergies. I think our journey, unfortunately or fortunately, you know, I think we have a lot of Commonalities there. Where can people find more information about whether it's you if they want to connect with you further or with Inspiring Apps? How do you want people to connect with you?
Brad: You can find me on LinkedIn and Inspiring Apps as well for that matter. We're at Inspiring Apps and the website probably has the best information, best place to start, inspiringapps.com.
Jennifer: Perfect. And we will tag this in the podcast. And just to remind everybody, the podcast episode will be published this coming Sunday and available on all podcast platforms. Thank Brad for being on our show today. It was great. A lot of good advice. So like, share, comment, help us grow up and build a more connected community. Hello cast is one of the many resources brought to you by orange whip that's orange whip WIP for work in progress We are a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities We are 100% free and are in three, South Carolina cities today But looking to expand to a city near you every market needs to have an orange whip we are a one-stop content hub just for founders and doing all the hard work, curated calendars, local dynamic roadmaps, fun and engaging stories, really informative stories, resource spotlights to understand the organizations that are literally in your backyard to help you succeed. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us, send an email to hello at orange whip.com. Y'all, thank you for tuning in to hello chaos. It's where I made so shit. I am your host Jennifer Sutton JJ. We will see you again next week