This Startup is being Recorded

E17 - Don't Confuse the CDN, CMS, and CRM!

• Valerie Garrison • Season 1 • Episode 17

Share episode

Agenda:

  • We’re ready to reveal the new company name!
  • Also, Executive Standup

Takeaways: 

  • Kate to keep wearing away at Francis’s fear of robots
  • Take away the pavlovian shock keyboards from the Support team
  • Eric to create final report on covert supply chain QA test
  • Create a decriminalized typography zone for Tech and Creative to resolve conflicts in
  • Try to subliminally convince John of different brand scents
Ben:

welcome to this startup is being recorded. This recording is improvised fiction. Similarities between it and the real world are entirely intentional. Now enjoy the recording.

Kate:

okay. Uh, Hey everybody. Um, oh my gosh. I can't believe this is the first recorded meeting. We're going to say this, but we are. No longer met a market. We are set, we are set. And remember, like, I hope you all have continued brainstorming ideas for what sit means because John really insists that CIT is an acronym. So it's all capital S Y T. Um, and we have like T minus two weeks to come up with what our name is. anyway, for anyone who's listening to this, we obviously record all our meetings, uh, for future employees and folks who want to learn about our company set. We are a couch marketplace right now, but you know, in the future, we're really helping shape trade for, for everyone and everything. And yeah, today we've got an executive stand-up to do, but, um, let's go around real quick, do introductions, uh, in case we got any new employees.

Thea:

I'll start I'm Kelly I'm the chief creative czar for SYT. So excited to say that.

Kate:

say,

Matt.Yachts:

I can go. Um, my name is matt.yachts. That's also my website and I am the CTO here at.

Kate:

I'm Kate I'm the chief of staff under John, the CEO of SYT, uh, here at SYT.

Eric:

And, uh, yeah. Are Carter chief products officer,SYT. Set. That's it.

Kate:

it said,

Thea:

Yeah, it sounds right. You know, sometimes you gotta go with those first ideas, just like in your gut and sit with that's great.

Kate:

Yeah.

Matt.Yachts:

My only problem so far is, uh, it's such a common word. It's starting to lose meaning like we, you know, we use it so much and I, now I feel like sit okay. Did I say that? Did I say it? Weird, said, sit, sit, see yet. I, Hmm. I'll get there.

Kate:

a good thing. Our office cat, like really doesn't know tricks. I used to try to teach teachers set, but at this point I think. Other, she'd just be sitting all the time if she actually knew how to do it. So it's probably a good thing. Um, she never caught on to the tricks. Um, anyway, let's go through standup. Anybody want to start?

Eric:

Yeah, I have some exciting news if that's

Matt.Yachts:

Oh yeah.

Eric:

announcing here,

Thea:

Yeah. Um,

Eric:

uh, we went hard at this. Uh, it took some convincing, but as, as you all know, uh, the New York times recently acquired portal.

Matt.Yachts:

Indeed.

Eric:

We were, we were trying to acquire world Wordle ourselves, but that we were outbid by the New York times as we all know. Um, but they did agree to allow us to integrate the New York times version of world into the city. Checkout flow. Uh, and so people, as people are waiting for the confirmation page for their shipping information and for their order confirmation, they can play Wordle, uh, and it's really increased customer engagement already in the last 24 hours. Uh, we're really, really excited about it. Um, so, um, kudos to our legal team, you know, using a couple of those precious minutes to help us with the contract there. Uh, and, uh, for the

Matt.Yachts:

so

Eric:

it up to.

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah. I've got to

Thea:

It,

Matt.Yachts:

uh, oh, sorry.

Thea:

no, no, go ahead. I was just going to a lot. I mean, this is absolutely amazing. Our time on spent on our pages on the website has dramatically increased.

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah. And, uh, as you know, as a CTO, That horrifies me. Uh, this is, this is all a band-aid for underlying problems, dealing with our payment processors. The fact that we have no automation, uh, for, for a lot of our shipment confirmation stuff. And that's handled by somebody copying cells between spreadsheets in real time, while a customer weights, uh, all of that is the worst, but, um, I've never seen. Uh, more gilded bandaid. This is, uh, just the, trade-offs never made sense in my mind until I saw it up on the site. And I, I realized like this is it. Like we've really accomplished something. And so thank you, Eric. Thank you to your team. Uh, for all this, we're going to keep, uh, You know, from, from tech side, we're going to keep pushing to modernize, uh, all of our other teams stuff. Oh, sorry. Uh, Kate, by pushing in this case, I mean, uh, angry phone calls and emails to, uh, to, you know, the shipping teams, uh, the people who organize them. Um, I'm pretty sure you get CC'd on all of these. Um, they need to agree to some kind of automation process and planning, uh, but in the short. People are people are, you know, they're, they're getting their three out of six, uh, and loving it.

Thea:

I'll also just save that, you know, we've been in talks with the New York times since we implemented this of actually doing a paid promotion. Once they rolled that out on Wordle to have couch B a, I can't tell you what day, cause I don't want to spoil it, but upcoming, um, we are going to roll out. With a small banner ad that refers people to play on our website. So really excited about it.

Kate:

Okay. That's so good. Um,

Thea:

God. What we sell is a five letter word. I'll just say really good foresight on our part.

Eric:

Sometimes.

Kate:

yeah. Um, and Matt, the teams have been thinking about automation, for sure. For sure. It's just it's

Matt.Yachts:

thank goodness.

Kate:

you know, last year we had that situation where we tried to implement robots in the factory and, and it went so poorly that frankly, there was just like a very visceral reaction to anything that sounds like it might have to do with like robot overlords.

Matt.Yachts:

I totally get it. Um, it's just that we're probably at like one, 200th of where we could be on throughput, selling couches. If we weren't reliant on. Individuals like copying from spreadsheet to spreadsheet, to Google calendar.

Eric:

Yep. We want to have the

Matt.Yachts:

this is the thing that computers are good for. You know, I agree like, you know, don't put those computers on two ton robots that are moving at 60 miles per hour through a warehouse, uh, tragic. But,

Thea:

With very pointy and.

Matt.Yachts:

I wasn't involved in that project.

Kate:

The pointy hands were helpful. They stuck into the couch and moved them much easier than any sort of opposable thumb type robots. We tried to identify, but. Okay, well, I will again have, um, another session with Francis where we, we try to reintroduce the idea of, of macros and, you know, really any type of automation in Excel, but she has control C control V down, pat.

Matt.Yachts:

Don't get me wrong. She's she's fast. Okay. But this is like a John Henry situation. Okay. And I don't want to see her getting carpal tunnel.

Kate:

situation

Matt.Yachts:

never heard them. The myth of John Henry.

Kate:

down.

Matt.Yachts:

tunnel tunnel digging man who, uh, went up against the, the first automated steam shovel and, uh, in the myth, uh, he won, uh, in a race to tunnel, but also he immediately died. Um, therefore proving that like the humans are not sustainable as tunnel diggers. And so automation ultimately won the day. It's a very confusing story, uh, morally, but,

Thea:

one die from like copy and pasting too much.

Matt.Yachts:

It definitely is an RSI risk. Uh, that's a lot of work on the pinkie unless you have a special keyboard. And I, she was not interested in my overtures about special people, words.

Eric:

the eyestrain. We're at least talking about a decrease in quality of life. If not length of life.

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah. Also her refusal to bring on someone, to do it in her off hours. I mean, she is clocking 1820 hours. And we can't take orders in the mean, and you know, the intervening.

Thea:

Yeah, that whole system that she has set up where she just gets like a red light in a mole alarm that goes off every time we have an order and the fact that she lives in this environment, I mean the blue light from her computer and the fluorescent light alone has to be toxic.

Kate:

it's her, her doctors have tried to give her direct warnings. They've tried to be gentle, but I mean, at some point she just, she just became. Being very distrustful of like medical institutions in general. Um, most of her advice now comes from, uh, some, some Reiki experts. Uh,

Thea:

Well, well, that's not criticized Reiki. I mean, it's, it's wonderful.

Kate:

sure. It's Eric, go

Eric:

I know, I know I brought this up and I keep, I keep bringing it up, but I don't think it's that unethical to convince her that robots have taken over. And the result is that, you know, she can no longer do the 18 to 20 hour days. You know, we are in fact, our robots and have replaced this program with a normal working environment. It would take away the fear and replace it with a sense of resignation, uh, but preserve her physical life. Uh, and I think we should at least reconsider it. And if

Matt.Yachts:

Oh yeah. Like,

Thea:

And Eric and I have worked on the script for that. We've staged it. We built the costumes. We've figured out the set around her office. I think we could very easily implement it whenever

Kate:

okay.

Matt.Yachts:

This is great. Um, yeah, we're on board. Um, you know, just let, uh, you know, Devin it know what you need, uh, to support this.

Eric:

Oh, that'd be great.

Thea:

that'd be great.

Matt.Yachts:

running our own version of the matrix, uh, around one person. And that's

Thea:

Yeah, could we borrow, um, what is his name? Uh, Gerald. He has like a very monotonous voice. He works on your team.

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah. Um, yeah, you probably want to snatch them up a little bit. Uh, some kind of a suit. Like he, he speaks in a monotone, but he's got a real punk aesthetic on his own. Um

Kate:

Hm.

Thea:

Yeah. I, I just think that he's a natural in the way that he moves and talks. I mean, all we'd have to do is put a costume on him and he'd be very believable.

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah. Sounds great.

Kate:

Okay. This, this seems just like, this seems like a series a problem, right? I think we're so close to that funding. We'll have to do the automation. I think it's good to have the plan, but let's just hold off until that's final.

Matt.Yachts:

Sure. Yeah. I mean they have no, they have no further requirements of, uh, order speed from us at the moment, which, you know,

Kate:

Right,

Matt.Yachts:

I'm tour.

Kate:

right. Um, okay. Thank you, Eric, for that update. Um, anyone else want to go next on stand-up?

Matt.Yachts:

Uh, I can go since we, we mentioned a transition stuff, um, as the, the new name is coming in, I just want to remind everyone of, uh, I guess specifically like Califia is team, but I know there's been a lot of work done to get our assets ready, uh, arts, uh, video for the new name, uh, redoing a lot of our, how to videos and so on. Um, just everyone. Remember the difference between the CMS and the CDN. Uh, because if you upload to the CDN, you're pushing that to thousands of servers at the global edges of the network and making them immediately available, uh, often overriding content that is already in the app or on the website that, uh, we are not ready to overwrite yet. Um, you should be using the CMS, uh, our content management system to stage those assets, uh, new logos videos, uh, photographs. Uh, and schedule them for release on the CDN.

Kate:

Right. You send out a lot of emails about this mat, if like.

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, to be honest, it's taken a few tries to get the messaging. Right. Um, and I think probably in one or two of those, I have mixed up the terms myself. Uh, so there's definitely depending on like, who's read which emails, there's a lot of misinformation out. Um, unintentional, I assume. Uh, but, uh, yeah, we just need to really clear it up, uh, new stuff, put it on the CMS and schedule it. The CDN is what we're using right now and leave it, leave it be.

Thea:

totally understand. I mean, our team has had a lot of confusion. Um, we are implementing, uh, Pavlovian training right now within our, uh, organization. As you know, we already have electric shock. Built into the keyboards of the creative team and it's a small shock, but right now, if they go to the CDM, they do get a small shock to keep them steered on the CMS. I just find these words are very confusing and we want this to be instinctual. So really on, on the same page with you, Matt, um, we might have a problem when we are ready to use the CDN because it is now. Mo we'll have to use your team because my team is now pretty afraid of it. Uh, I would say a little bit of resistance. There were some tears and cowering, um, but they're using the CMS and, um, you know, it's actually getting to a point where they like get hungry almost when they're about to use the CMS. So I think we're doing a really good job there. Um, on that part.

Matt.Yachts:

great. Well, yeah, definitely. Sorry to cause emotional distress on this. Uh, and you know, it's confusing when two pieces of technology seem to do the same or similar things, uh, and we're totally happy to, to step up and handle the transition from CMS to CDN when that time comes.

Thea:

Great. Yeah, that would be wonderful. And anytime you need us to do anything on the CMS, it has developed a cult-like following among the creative team. So we're, we're happy to do, to do anything with the CMS now, just, uh, not this year.

Matt.Yachts:

Great. Yeah. Very exciting. It's a powerful system. So it's cool to see people building their own workflows around it. Kudos to.

Thea:

Yeah.

Kate:

maybe we should be discouraging things like shocking our employees when they do something wrong or like, I mean, I'm pro like giving them food when they do things. Right. But, um,

Thea:

I understand that, you know, sometimes, you know, a carrot system works really well. Uh, and that's usually, you know, what we try in our team is to, you know, have positivity, but it just didn't seem to be working. And there was a lot of confusion. So we probably won't use the shock method in. Anything or a lot of things down the road, but it was really, really effective. Um, sometimes having that sense of resistance is a more powerful motivator.

Matt.Yachts:

Definitely reduced our number of incidents, uh, like pretty much overnight. And, you know, we went from a week of constantly having to replace the old assets on the CDN, uh, to the following week. Uh, none from your team at least Califia. And although there were, there were a few here and there, so, um,

Thea:

Yeah. I mean, the amount of people influencers we'd have to, we've had to pay to keep our name under wraps. Um, we've just, you know, we just couldn't risk it. Um, and my, my team, I think, understands that we have a balance of both dark and light in our, in my management style.

Kate:

Of course, of course. Okay. Well, it sounds like we're pretty much wrapped up with the CDN CMS Chuck thing, uh, S.

Eric:

on, sorry. W where, where is the CRM in all of this? Is there any behavioral modification for the CRM? I've noticed some weird cases come through. From our sales team.

Matt.Yachts:

oh, you know, I haven't been tracking that because it is internal facing. Uh, and I tend to fail, like, worry more about the stuff that our customers are seeing. Uh, what, what kind of stuff have you been dealing with there?

Eric:

Well, I just, you know, you kind of feed, you mentioned some sort of fear. I did, I did notice a number of, you know, customer support tickets have a very, very kind of tense language. And, you know, there were some of the call recordings that. More screaming than is typical. Now I'll just say, um, so I'm, I I'm just, I hope the, the behavioral modification hasn't bled into some of our other acronyms. particularly since we're now moving into an acronym based name as the company

Matt.Yachts:

Yeah,

Kate:

Oh God wait. Were those, those were those shock keyboards. Um, are those the, the Dell ones you ordered?

Thea:

Yeah, of course the Dell one.

Kate:

I just have no. If we're getting a new keyboards for your team, we should get new keyboards for my team. So the whole support team just had their hardware updated. And I mean, they said some of them has have tried, I think to tell me they don't like it, but yeah, it's not easy for them.

Thea:

Oh God. And that, I mean, without somebody. You know, trained, who's really reinforcing the negative versus the positive had forced when, I mean, if they're just getting it at random, they're living in a world of chaos.

Matt.Yachts:

I mean, I mean, so many of them work out of the CRM. That's how we track support requests. So, so it's a critical function of their oh no.

Kate:

Okay. Okay. Well, just after this right away, I'll just, uh, I'll go in there. I'll I'll take all the keyboards away. They'll use, they'll use the laptop keyboards. It'll be, it'll be fine. I'll be fine.

Matt.Yachts:

Good looking out for your team to get them new equipment though. You know, you, it's important to stay on top of that stuff and it's easy to let it slip.

Thea:

Yeah. I'm so glad. I'm honestly so glad that you finally upgraded from the typewriter system that you were, you.

Kate:

yeah, that one was really challenging to train people on. Um, people make a lot of mistakes, which really is hard and typewriters, you know, and, and frankly screening all of our candidates by the speed in which they could type without mistakes was I think probably ultimately not the best quality, uh, for support.

Matt.Yachts:

So it was nice to have so many, like, you know, 1950s and earlier business books to help, right. With that hiring language.

Kate:

Yeah. Yeah. Those are really easy to check out from the library. okay. I can, oh, you wanna go to.

Thea:

no, no, no, go ahead, Kate. I can save be the dessert for less.

Kate:

okay. Great. Um, so my update, this is just a little awkward, but I wanted to bring it to you all. Um, we've been having a few issues with, uh, couches disappearing from the warehouse, um, like inventory numbers just aren't matching up. Um, and. One of a few of our inventory managers have told me that, uh, Eric, that it's you, that you're coming in at night and taking couches. I didn't, I didn't want to assume. I don't know. I, I just, this is what they told me. Um,

Eric:

Uh,

Kate:

maybe there's someone else that looks like you

Eric:

no, it's me. It's it's me.

Thea:

Okay.

Eric:

But this work, I was 80% through an elaborate and well-planned QA process so that we could understand where throughout the entire supply chain, we were seeing discrepancies in our numbers and whether they were being caught or not. And now the integrity of the experiment is, is in question, how many of you is anybody besides us and everybody watching? No.

Kate:

I mean, yeah, it was just a few inventory managers that I talked to. Um, I mean, I don't know, I don't know who they talk to. Frankly. The warehouse is just like gossip city. So probably everyone

Eric:

yeah, absolutely. Um,

Kate:

Wait, wait. So you were doing, you

Eric:

I was doing this on purpose. Yeah.

Kate:

a supply chain QA without telling you.

Eric:

Well, it's, I mean, Matt, you know, the security red teaming, you know, It's a well-worn process to inject chaos into the system and see how the system reacts. If I told people it was happening, they would have been more vigilant. Uh, and you know, I guess we, we haven't lost everything. We did learn that it took, you know, you know, 16 days for people to raise this to you, um, which is useful information. Um, we can maybe do some, some interviews and, and try and backtrack and see, see what we learned. Uh, sorry. I blew up a little bit. Um, just cause you know, sometimes like things to go perfectly, but there's, there's a lot, that's a valuable that we can still get from this. And actually, you know, it's, it makes sense that it showed up in the standup. So it's a good learning. It's a good money, but yes, I, I, will go and recover the couches from the locations I put them in and return them. and we'll, we'll shut the experiment down.

Matt.Yachts:

Okay. I mean, if I know you feel like the integrity is, uh, is now in question, but I would still love to see your after action on this,

Eric:

Oh, Yeah. absolutely.

Matt.Yachts:

Uh, you know, what, what have you learned, uh, who were you able to conscript into taking those couches, which couches, uh, went missing that were not part of your experiment and, um, you know, how can we get a beat on those?

Eric:

Yeah. I'll get stuff. We'll um, the team will actually, well, I guess we'll move the. The analysis for a week, which is, is good.

Kate:

Yeah, I just, okay. I just, you know, supply chain is kind of supposed to be my area and I really thought of you as a mentor, Eric, and like, I don't know what the fact that you didn't include me. Just makes me question our mentor, mentee relationship and. Is there something wrong with

Eric:

I would never, I would never compromise. How our mentor mentee relationship by making things easier for you than I would for anybody else.

Kate:

I appreciate that. I just thought, I mean, I could have been involved. Maybe I could have explained more ways for you to steal couches that would have been more effective.

Eric:

That is, that is something we should talk about after we do the after action plan. If you've got, if we walked through all the things I did and you have more ideas, I think that's a great thing for us to do.

Kate:

Yeah, no, there are definitely several ways that I absolutely know that you didn't do that are probably the highest, uh, likelihood of escape. anyway, this is just, well, yeah. Okay. Next week when we get coffee app, you're

Eric:

our one-on-one Yeah.

Kate:

6:00 AM on Tuesdays. Okay, good, great.

Thea:

Okay. Well, I think that leaves me. My team has been working incredibly hard on switching over all of our assets, uh, and just really building a brand around sit, you know, sit is just a name and now we need colors and fonts. And it's been honestly incredibly hard with the minimum feedback that we get from John on this. So, you know, we're kind of flying in the dark a little bit. Uh, the only. Thing that he really sent any feedback on was the scent, which I was not a huge, you know, lift it came from. I think you've heard the idea that the creative team has that we should spray our couches down with a light scent brand sense so that like, you know, there's things like tide, right? Tide has a very distinctive brand, send people really get addicted to it. We really wanted one. I set several options to John. He ended up coming up with his own scent, which contained something called Amber grease, uh, which. Frankly whale vomit and illegal in the United States. So our team has been, um, trying to figure out the feasibility of that while we're also doing the heavy lifting of all of the other brand identity pieces.

Kate:

Oh my God. And we just, I mean, I know we have to change scent, but we have so much left over from the Metamarkets.

Thea:

I know, I. Totally hear you. You know, our team is all about sustainability. I can definitely get our team to work on where we can possibly donate that scent, you know, to, to possibly zoos. They don't smell great. Um, or other places, perhaps the ocean at high tide. Um, yeah, we can, we can think about that. Honestly. We've been working around the clock though. Um, and this Amber grease thing is, um, Uh, you know, really my team's in a really fragile state. Uh, I'll be honest.

Kate:

Ooh. Okay. Um, probably doesn't help all the emails I see between you and Matt about, or I would say your team teams. Uh, I know there's a lot of communication happening. That's

Matt.Yachts:

The, uh,

Kate:

the best.

Matt.Yachts:

I want to apologize for some of that. Um, they got really excited about solving this acronym problem, um, but went about it in a, a really attention hungry way. Um, CC-ing your team on this very long thread and then rehabbing them every time they removed themselves. And, uh, I apologize for that. Califia.

Thea:

It's it's okay. I'll be honest though, that we are going to have to figure out how did you better connect, uh, communication, because most of my team have now blocked your team, um, due to that thread, um, I it's just, it's been too much and, you know, we already went through the shock treatment and all of that piece. Uh they're just,

Matt.Yachts:

are high.

Thea:

yeah, I mean, And, um, you know, I have to bring up, you know, the incident of your team actually like putting up signs and doing a ticker tape parade in favor of their favorite iteration of CIT. I was, you know, uh, very well-designed, but maybe the wrong time for it.

Matt.Yachts:

they're just very straightforward people. And so settle your torso. Like it just felt like it fit with all of the things we were trying to do. to tell them that it's. That's all that sitting is, this is what that means. So like it's not, it's not meaningful that, yeah. Um, I don't know that they have a hard time, uh, sometimes grasping, you know, the, the more communication, the meaning, the art, uh, the artistry, a signup language. Um, if it's not, you know, for concision than, uh, they, they don't quite grasp it. So yeah. We'll have to figure something out. I'm sorry. Califia.

Thea:

Yeah, it's. It's fine. We're, you know, we're getting through honestly, again, compared to this set issue. Um, it's it hasn't been the worst thing that's happened to us this week. Definitely. Um, what was suggested that we do to shampoo by Jod was the worst thing that happened to us this week.

Kate:

John. Ah,

Matt.Yachts:

is the problem with him, palling around with all these CEO's he's he's got way too much pull at SeaWorld, and that is gross.

Kate:

I

Thea:

it really is.

Kate:

do. They just sit around and talk about aquatic, sea creatures all day like that. I feel like that's the only thing that he ever sends to us.

Eric:

I mean, what do you think Necker island.

Kate:

I don't know.

Matt.Yachts:

Uh, just hope this phase and soon, you know, it's like when he was obsessed with the, all the animals in Australia, that

Eric:

Uh,

Thea:

Yeah. Oh my goodness.

Matt.Yachts:

time with, uh, wildlife control in a lot of different places. He who knew he had that many houses.

Thea:

Yeah, it was, it was, um, we had a cash in a lot of our, our tips and, um, you know, what can I say, Hugh Jackman will never speak to me again.

Kate:

well, okay. I'm sorry to hear about all the challenges Califia. Um, are we still on track for end of next week to. Ready, uh, ready with the creative assets ready to kind of do launch the week after if the new name

Thea:

I think we're mostly ready on the name, the colors. Uh, we are having some negotiations with the topography people, as you know, they raise their rates and it's been a lot of back and forth. Negotiations. Um, you know, but I think after a very long sailing trip this weekend that I can finally say that, uh, it is on track and on budget, um, which is very exciting. Minus of course the buddy we spent on the sailing expedition, I will say that, uh, At the first iteration that they gave us, uh, they weren't really happy with us and it wasn't really legible. Um, I'm not even sure it was in Arabic characters, but, uh, I think we're working through some of those issues. So I think you should now be able to read the new font when we roll it out.

Matt.Yachts:

um, I would like to ask that, uh, someone on your team, uh, on, you know, unblocked me, maybe I can be the liaison for this, but, um, my team has been going through the, uh, the font files they sent over, uh, the ones for print, uh, the ones for the app. Um, most of those are coming through fine. Uh, but they've been. They've been slipping stuff in to some of the other versions, some of the web font versions and not on every page load, uh, long story short, like there've been some rude messages popping up in the beta, uh, for the website and, and it turned out not to be anything, uh, in the database or the CMS. Uh, it turned out to be packed into the font files. So, um, let's connect about that. And, uh, You know, I hopefully squash this beef. Um, I

Thea:

Is it.

Matt.Yachts:

type type foundries are really demanding.

Thea:

Yeah, it's been really bad. Um, is it the bugs be decapitated in the PB and D

Matt.Yachts:

Okay. You've seen that one. Yeah.

Thea:

Yeah, I, I have seen that one. It is obviously really terrible for our brand. Um, yeah, so we can definitely squash this,

Matt.Yachts:

ones have been, um, very clever uses of ligatures so that they will catch only certain combinations of characters and words, and then replace them, uh, often with the same decapitated Bugsby picture. But, uh, sometimes with the names of our competitors, uh it's. Yeah.

Thea:

It's um, yeah, I, we might have to move to a new typographer after this, but honestly, we are so close to the end that, um, To suit to move over to somebody else. So we're going to have to just, um, hold on and, you know, keep pushing through. And, um, luckily we have somebody on our team who is doing, who has experienced and topography. Who's kind of filling in, um, had just become really good at turning the Bugsby to capitation into something that kind of looks like a automate. So, um, that.

Matt.Yachts:

I know that tensions are high, but we probably should pair somebody. Um, because my team has been working on some, some hacks for this as well. And. Uh, I think number one, we would like to go through and, uh, provide you with some simplified files where we strip out from the variable fonts, the sliders that they have, uh, for, um, being penny pinchers, uh, for lack of a better word. Uh, tightwads, there's a, there's a slider in there for how much of a tightwad we are as a company. Uh,

Kate:

what are we being braided? That right now?

Matt.Yachts:

Uh, well, it's it's variable so we can set it in, uh, in our code and our, our CSS. But, um,

Eric:

they're making us decide.

Matt.Yachts:

the joke is on us is that like, no matter where you put it, it just moves around where the insults show up. Um, yeah, if you, if you try to set it all the way to zero, then the font just disappears and is replaced by a text, uh, like, you know, call us with their phone number.

Thea:

Okay. Um, I think I, their phone number. Okay.

Matt.Yachts:

it's a, it's a message to us. They expected us to find this.

Thea:

okay. Um, yeah, I think Matt, if you could just choose a couple of employees that. Basically have a true Swith. Um, we could definitely find to demilitarize space between, um, the barricades that we put up in the creative team for us to talk, you know, through this. Um,

Matt.Yachts:

we can keep it super focused. We'll make like, this is the topography zone and only business about typography is carried out here. Uh, everybody can leave their politics, their respective teams.

Thea:

That sounds really great. Yeah. And, you know, we might have to figure out how to put more Mudget in typography. I know we extended ourselves with both the couch campaign and the bug speed campaign for office, but, um,

Kate:

We

Thea:

know,

Kate:

raised a series a, we can't spend like another$50,000 on type.

Thea:

believe me, this is the last resort that I want to get. Um, I thought we

Kate:

At Google font.

Thea:

Handle this, uh, yeah, I mean, we're, this is our brand at stake, you know, and not just our brand, but John's brand. And I think that he certainly, if he wants Amber grease in our perfume, he's not going to want us to just choose a Google thought. He's really looking at it. Very luxury rebranding, um, a very high-end rebranding and he's the one actually who referred us. Danish firm, uh, they're the ones who invented Helvetica. So, you know, like he chose the best of the best and we're just going to have to like,

Matt.Yachts:

The best of the best of

Eric:

Now we're paying for it. Yeah.

Thea:

yeah, the best of his way. Yeah, exactly. Yes. We're definitely paying for it. Um, but uh, we are

Kate:

it's almost over.

Thea:

going to have to, going to have to go through, you know, these are, this decision was in some ways made for us and, um, we'll have.

Eric:

I,

Thea:

Push it through.

Eric:

I can offer a 10,$10,800, uh, from the QA experiment budget that will no longer be. Uh, so he wouldn't reallocate that to the topography pod project. Um, maybe that'll start to get us in the way

Thea:

That's really great. Um, Chelsea also has some explosives that she didn't use in the past that she is selling off that I think can also add to our budget, um, just to help make up for some of the losses that we had with bugs bees lost it in, uh, Iowa.

Kate:

Yeah, that was so sad.

Matt.Yachts:

And, uh, my team has been doing good about, uh, banking overtime, not drawing on it too hard. So, uh, we could take some of the. Maybe our type specialist will be somebody from the night shifts or a couple of folks that normally sit the server room, uh, at night and they can, uh, take some overtime for doing font work in the day. I've got a little extra budget dropped for that.

Kate:

Okay, great. We just got to make it through it. We're close to the series. I could feel it. Um, okay. Any, any other we're a little bit over time, but any other major items? Okay. Awesome. Um, I actually do have like a one-on-one meeting with John later this week. Um, I

Thea:

Wow. That's that's crazy.

Eric:

Sit down.

Kate:

sit down. Yes. Um, I'll let you know how it goes. Um, but yeah, other than that, uh, it seems like we're all resolved.

Thea:

And honestly, I, I, if you could just, um, I have some other set samples that I swear smell just like the mustiness of Amber grease. If you could just like maybe convince him, um, it would, it would be such a, such a huge gain for us.

Kate:

sure. We can plan some like subliminal messaging there. Um, spray them with various parts of the coffee shop, that kind of thing.

Thea:

That would be great.

Kate:

Okay. Okay. Awesome. Well, in that case, I'm going to stop the recording and we'll all get back to work.

Matt.Yachts:

All right. Thanks everybody.

Ben:

This meeting has ended. To subscribe to this startup is being recorded. Go to the podcast player of your choice and tap a button that likely says subscribe. More content is on Twitter at startup recorded, or shoot us an email with ideas, feedback, or your personal startup horror story. At hello@startuprecorded.com. Kate is played by Valerie Garrison. Valerie is a health tech product manager and regularly plays with the improv troupe letters to chicken online. You can find her on Twitter at thevalgarris eric has played by Barry wright Barry is a product manager at Spotify and a co-founder of Highwire Improv. Find him by his name on LinkedIn, where he holds regular office hours or at highwireimprov.com. Matt is played by Martin Mcguire. Marty is a senior web engineer and improviser in New York city. You can find Marty's comedy code and cats on his website at M M G dot R E. Calathea is played by Robyn Stegman. Robyn is a digital campaign manager for ocean Conservancy and is a comedian mostly found at Highwire improv. You can find her on all the social medias. And she does mean all at rsteggy thank you for listening.