Ep. 11 - Community Onion with SJ Morris | Devs:After Dark

I attempted to chop wood this past summer and it was the funniest thing ever. My kids were laughing, like, Nick, you were there, like everybody was laughing at me because it was the worst attempt at chopping.

I don't even think it broke the surface. There we are. That's such a beautiful intro. I love that.

It really is.

I love that.

Thanks for that. For sure.

Yeah. Well, we are here on episode 11 of Developers After Dark, and we have a really, really good episode. We're going to learn a lot of good stuff, very interesting stuff indeed. And, um, but before we get into it, obviously everyone knows that I'm your host, And I am always joined by 2 wonderful co-hosts. Well, let's pay a couple of bills before we get started. There should be probably a drinking game for every time I mention the changelog and going to developers.hubspot.com/changelog. But you should, if you haven't already, if you're not signed up for that to get the alerts for that, you should. It's basically how you know everything and what's going on at all times. Um, but another thing that you should really pay attention to is, um, Miley Cyrus once said knowledge is power, and you really want to— and with that power and that knowledge, you want something that's trustworthy and that has a proven track record.

What was it? Was it Miley Cyrus or was it Hannah Montana that said it?

We need a distinction.

I thought it was G.I. Joe.

Is there a difference really? Is it— I mean, um, but if you want that knowledge you should look no further than the HubSpot Academy. Now I know what you're thinking. I mean, we've all been there. You know, you got Bob 3 cubicles down that's, you know, talking trash about your social media marketing, and then you've got obviously Mary at the water cooler spilling the tea about who's bad on SEO. I mean, your problems are solved. Take my word for it. You will have social media marketing certifications that you can take. There's anything from SEO basic courses It is the place you want to go, and you will thank me for it later if you do want to uplevel. Think about it. When you— everybody's played Legend of Zelda, and you've all started out and you have no tools, you have no skills, you will not win. You will basically die. So you need to go to academy.house.

Geez Louise.

That's high stakes. High stakes.

Eventually I'm gonna get a message from them saying, please stop promoting.

I feel like there's a paycheck going to you. from the Academy on this, and I'm not getting a cut of it, unfortunately. So can you change that?

You know, there's something wrong with my Venmo. I'll, I'll look into that. I thought I sent it. It's weird. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, you definitely should do that. And, uh, it also too, I know we just had one that just passed, but the, um, we have upcoming Developer Hugs. Uh, you have Beyond the SERP, right? That's coming up actually tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Yeah. You can—

it's getting close. So, uh, if you haven't already registered for that or RSVP'd, you definitely should. And then of course you have the React-powered showcase on the 27th of February.

27th.

And that will be talking about the Elevate theme as well, uh, the HubSpot theme that you can use now, uh, as well as the Growth theme. This is going to be the newest theme that HubSpot has come out with, um, that you should definitely take a look at. You should have access to it now actually, uh, in your CMS. So Those are definitely 2 you don't wanna miss.

What's that?

I sense a theme here, sorry.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. But with that, let me— a friend of the show is here today to talk with us and has some very, very important announcements. So without further ado, I will let her introduce herself and tell everyone who she is and what she does.

Hey fellas, my name is SJ Morris. My pronouns are she/her. I lead developer community on the DevRel team here at HubSpot, and I'm looking forward to talking about all kinds of exciting things today.

Beautiful.

Well, why don't you start us out with what I would consider to be, only because of timing, obviously, one of the most important things coming up, and that is the mentorship program. Why don't you— and to start, why don't you tell people who aren't familiar with what it is, what exactly it is?

All right. Um, yeah, getting right into it. You know, I was trying to be subtly promotion— promoting this, but I'll just go— I'll go all in. Um, so last year we launched something called the Developer Mentorship Program, and that was a 3 3-month beta to see if there was demand in the community to essentially match folks who are looking to uplevel their skills and their career on HubSpot with folks in our community who have already done a really incredible job of building careers and becoming kind of iconic in our community. And it turned out to be a big success. There was a lot of folks really interested, and we handpicked these amazing mentors, some of the folks that you may know in the sort of DevRel HubSpot, um, you know, set of characters, folks like Jennifer Nixon and Anton Buzhnowsky and, uh, Toon Rutten, all folks that are very familiar to you, and some other amazing folks, uh, who we handpicked as our mentors for the first, uh, beta. But we are now expanding the program and we want to meet that demand. Uh, we went from about 25 participants total, actually slightly less than that, in our beta, and we're gonna have 100 this year. And we're moving Cool. 3-month program to a 9-month program. And, uh, essentially the goal is for anyone who's looking to build a successful career leveraging HubSpot, folks who want to come in with something super specific, say there's an app that they'd like some support on, or they want to just generally stay on top of, you know, AI trends, how that pertains to HubSpot, any of the other sort of ecosystem and developer-related topics, we're going to be asking folks to apply as both mentors and mentees to share their skills or to request the skills of those experts. And we'll be pairing folks for 9 months, as I mentioned. And we're super excited because we had a lot of demand last year. A lot of folks got a ton of value out of it. There's sort of a spirit of wanting to, you know, you mentioned Academy. We have so many great resources at HubSpot. To you know start to build your career, and this is something that you know is going to be a part of that and hopefully can turn into something broader from a HubSpot development career perspective. So we are launching the program officially on February 19th. Let's see what will be the best place for you to go if you the URL is kind of wacky, but if you go to developers.hubspot.com/developer mentorship. Developer-mentorship-program. You can find what you need. I just also realized there's a Bitly that you can use, bit.ly/ecomentors. You can go there and that will take you to the latest and greatest page. If you go today, the day that we are recording it, you will see the old page, but you can express your interest on the interest form. And then as of the 19th, we'll have our beautiful landing page live. That will give you all the details. We will be wrapping up the application period on March 5th. We'll take a week to go back and do our algorithmic and human matching magic. Then on March 12th, we'll announce the pairings. Hit me up with any questions that you have either on the Dev Slack or on the Dev Community, wherever you like, and I'll be happy to answer them. But yeah, I'm super excited to launch this. It's been sort of a dream of mine to launch a mentorship program for developers across all the companies that I've worked at for a long time. And so I'm just really happy that A, the community has responded really well to it, and B, that we can expand it and get more folks, you know, up and running on building their careers on HubSpot.

Loving it. We'll throw all that stuff in the show notes, by the way, all your links. So, and Nick does a very diligent job of getting those in there.

I knew that's where you're going the minute, because I know I'm like 2 shows behind, so I knew that's where you're going with that the minute you said it. But, um, uh, SJ, I, I, I should mention too, right, that people should sign up as soon as possible because I believe the beta filled up very quickly.

It did fill up very quickly. I'd say that, um, there isn't going to be a specific, you know, like there's not a higher chance of getting accepted if you apply earlier. Not to say don't apply early, But it's all about demonstrating your commitment to being an active participant in the relationship for 9 months. That's really where our questions are gonna go. And it's all about making sure that we're able to pair you with someone who really meets your specific— as a mentee, someone who really meets your specific desired skills. And if you're a mentor, just being really precise about, you know, your availability and the skills that you have to share and how you'd like to help help, um, you know, upskill someone in the community. And potentially, you know, there's always a chance that you'll find your next great hire in this, uh, program. So that's incentive for mentors too.

That's, that's what I was going to ask you. Like, the being a mentee is a no-brainer to me, right? Yeah, I want to do that. The mentor, that's a tough one.

Like, yeah, there is some incentives beyond that. You'll get a really snazzy certificate and some badging that you can use throughout the community that's going to be exclusive to folks Who are our first, uh, you know, batch of non-hand-selected mentors from last year. And, um, you know, there's gonna be access to exclusive events and, um, networking opportunities that you won't be able to get otherwise. Um, and I do hope to sort of build kind of an alumni community out of the folks that participate in this.

Love it.

And also eventually, fingers crossed, turn this into, like I said before, kind of a, uh, sort of a starting point for things like job boards, things like, um, much more intentional connection from folks looking, um, and folks hiring. So I would say as a mentor, you get a ton of like additional credibility in the HubSpot community, more visibility for your work and for your agency or wherever you work. Um, and you know, like Honestly, we've actually had a lot of folks come to us like organically before we ever started this program. And I think AJ, you've even brought it up to me years ago. Like there are people who like literally offered their, their times. We have such a great community that, um, we don't even need all those fancy bells and whistles. There's so many folks willing to share knowledge. So, uh, all of that other stuff is icing on the cake, but, um, to make that icing delicious.

Was it, was it 100 mentees or was it 100 hosts altogether? What's the ratio you're looking for?

That's a really good question. That's gonna take—

Thank you.

I mean, in an ideal world, we have 50 mentors and 50 mentees. But hopefully, like, we're gonna have to see what comes in in terms of like what skill sets are most sought after and what skills are most offered. We tried to learn from last year in terms of like what the highest frequency was for the types of skills folks were looking for and make make that— make the categories a little bit more inclusive of those and not so specific, but also not so broad so that folks could fit into them well and would be able to pair successfully.

So you're saying like one of the groups isn't going to be like HTML? Like it's—

Oh yeah, no, I'm leading that group.

Or the proper way to build out a Mohawk.

I can teach you how to make a little kitten run around at the bottom of your screen.

Yeah.

Nice.

Use the marquee tag. Just use the marquee tag.

The marquee tag. Yeah. Retro coding with SJ. Very retro.

So yes, I recommend— yeah, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

I don't even know what I was gonna say.

No, I was gonna say, so I recommend just sign up as soon as you can. Don't wait till I do taxes 2 minutes before the day it's due. Uh, you know, and yeah, but, um, but yeah, if they need a mohawk specialist as a mentor, just, um, I know a guy that can, uh, help out with that. So, wow, good.

Also a mohawk that has no nose because the light on you is like—

So the mohawk has a nose?

I'm like Casper the Ghost with this lighting. It's amazing. I don't know.

Do you have like 12 monitors on you right now?

3, actually. It's like I need to— yeah, I, I'm working on that. As soon as the— I got the green screen, the cam, it will get— this will get— this will get sorted. It's okay. People don't come to look at me. It's fine.

Like 50%.

50%.

It's true. It's true.

The rest of it is just—

people don't— 50%. That's a big jump.

But enough about me though. Um, a little birdie did tell me, uh, named Dennis the Success Whale, uh, told me that, uh, a particular person maybe on this podcast will be taking over the developer hug for next month potentially?

Oh yeah.

Are we excited about that?

Not me. A whole bunch of fabulous women will be taking over the developer hug, low-key in honor of International Women's History. I don't know, like, it's just— we get a month, uh, this year, right?

Isn't that weird? It's such a weird thing.

I was starting to talk about this last, uh, our last podcast.

And I want to say Women's Month. It's such a strange thing to say.

I know, it's very odd.

You only get that if you talk after this month.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's why we're— this is our big chance. We were, you know, it's illegal for us to do a hug unless it's right.

So this is just worried the quality of the de-hug is gonna like jump when he's not doing it for a month. Yeah.

Very loosely, we're looking at talking about you know, getting past barriers to entry in tech, in tech just generally. So it won't be like ultra-specific to the lived experience of women. It'll just be about, you know, getting started in tech and, and some of the challenges that folks face. And, you know, that is one of the reasons why we launched the mentorship program. See how I did that?

Nice.

Um, but there, you know, I think a lot of folks listening here today can agree that, um, HubSpot is not the easiest platform to get started on depending on what you're trying to do. And so The best way I've found in my experience is to connect with the folks who know what they're talking about, or at least pretend to know what they're talking about to help guide you. That's one of my favorite aspects of community, is just pairing people together to make exciting things happen. Yeah, Dev Hug is going to be a lot of fun and all about that, and I look forward to it. That'll be what, March 27th?

Yeah, things we agreed upon.

Something like that.

Fantastic. Now, speaking of fantastic segues, you had mentioned breaking barriers and getting into tech. Before we— I want to ask you how you got into tech, but before we do that, I did want to acknowledge one admonishment that I should have so that way it does explain the last— well, the only one that will explain last week's episode title. Yes, in fact, uh, there are no 800-pound elephants. I think there's the 8,000-pound gorilla and then there's the elephant in the room, uh, but for some reason I, um, merged them together in a fit of genius and mentioned an 800-pound elephant in the room. And, uh, so if you're wondering where the—

It's a teeny elephant, isn't it?

It's a teeny tiny—

it's a baby. It's a really tiny elephant.

Yeah.

Isaac did defend me and their baby elephants can be So there is that. So I do kind of like lean on that as my excuse, but I did want to point that out because that, that did, uh, that was the—

I mean, how else do new, um, new things get created, new expressions? Like, maybe they're— it's like a slightly big deal but not a huge deal, like just a baby deal.

It was the nightmare fuel that, that kind of made the, uh, the title of last week's episode possible, uh, so I just wanted to point that out. So yeah, you can admonish me for that. That is, uh, that's okay. That's allowable, I guess. Um, but that aside, um, tell us how you got into the business. Like, you had mentioned that there were, um, like, as a segue, like, you know, getting in, like, there are barriers. There are, like, and with everybody that we've talked to, there's a journey, right? And it's, it's unique, right? There are, there's similarities, right? But Everybody kind of has a story, whether it's from Jana with cruise ships and Mona Lisas and paintings to just anything. There's always this kind of really unique story. So tell us how kind of you got into this, and it can be into tech or it can be into HubSpot, however you want to kind of tell the story. But how did you get into it?

So I'm, I'm old. And that means I have a lot of places where I can start here. I can go all the way back. I can go first job in tech-ish. You know what, I'll start there because it's funny.

Can you lean into your background? Like do it like more of a comedic set with this?

Yeah, I need a mic. Wait, I'm trying to— what is the—

what's the deal? What's the deal with tech?

Started in tech. Um, so, uh, once upon a time, um, I was a wee lass in my 20s living in Montreal, Canada. And, um, I graduated, I got an English degree at McGill, and I did not know what the hell to do with myself. Pardon, can we say hell on the show? I just did.

Oh yeah, great, great.

There goes our sponsor, Highlights Magazine.

All right, well, heck, from now on. Anyway, um, yeah, so I, I've spent a few years after university just being like working in retail and really being quite lost and not knowing to do with what to do with my fancy English degree. Like, what does one do with that? Um, and then I fell into, you know, I was— this is how long ago this was— I was looking on Craigslist for various gigs. I started doing editing, uh, a couple of editing gigs, uh, for local like agencies. And then I started doing some like French to English translation, not English to French, because, you know, good times in Montreal. Um, and then just dabbling. I was like, wow, that was back in the day when you could get like interesting jobs on Craigslist that were terrifying and sketchy. Um, and so there was an opening for something called affiliate marketing that I'd never heard of before. Um, and it turned out it was at a gambling company.

Of course it was.

Of course it was. That was my big moment. That was the start of tech for me. It was all about We made money when people lost money. So it was like pretty soul-sucking. However, this was back in the day when, um, I— my community was webmasters. Like, what is the webmaster today is what I'd like to know.

Do we—

there's no such thing, but it's sort of a developer. I mean, I don't know, it was like developer adjacent at the time in like the early 2000s. So these were like Really intense folks. Um, they wanted to make lots of money from their poker banners on their poker strategy websites. And so I learned a lot about a demanding community, um, and building community in the most, um, rudimentary online terms, like in forums, right? Which still exist today. We have them at HubSpot. Um, and so it was a crash course in community building. And eventually that job was too soul-sucking, so I will skip ahead quite a bit. Um, I did—

It does though, doesn't it? Not like online gambling in the casino industry is kind of like one of those— it's one of those—

I don't want to say unsung heroes, but when it comes to like technological advancements, it's wild how all of these sort of like, you know, shady parts of life, uh, actually are the, um Yeah. Big progressors in technology. And, you know, we're human after all. So, you know, I won't get into that too much, but essentially, yes. And I also feel like that was like a little taste of what it was going to be like working with developers before. Wow. Is there editing that happens here? No, because we're live. I just got like a big alert from security on my computer. It's time to update and restart your MacBook right now. And I can't make the screen go away. I'm just gonna keep talking. I can't see anything anymore, but I'm just gonna keep talking. Um, yes. So do you— would you like me to continue on my tech journey? This is part of my tech journey being—

Yeah, no, I mean, absolutely. Yeah. Like, how did it— so from there, at what point did the community aspect? Like, I guess like the question I'm probably most interested in is like, at what point throughout the journey, like especially with the starting off, you know, in like with casinos and online gambling and stuff, where did you kind of get that first taste of like, oh, like the community aspect? And like, this is, uh, because— And I try to equate this to like, for me SEO, right? Like, I didn't realize what it— not that you didn't know what community was, but like, I didn't realize like what it encompassed until I first got into, as Dennis will always love to hear, real estate. Oh, there it is.

There you go.

Um, there was a, there was a, there was a time where, you know, I was mostly just a developer and doing coding and doing, you know, nothing to do with that. But there was an instance where you first got that first experience into it where you're like, oh, this is a whole different avenue that I can kind of transition into and this can become a thing. Did you, did you, do you remember that moment for you where—

There were a couple of moments that led up to the, I guess, moment that made it like, oh yeah, okay. So there was, so at that, what I was doing back at the affiliate marketing company was 100% community building, but it was not called it then. That terminology Okay, uh, defer 12 hours. Yay! Okay, I'm free.

Yeah, you're back.

I'm back. Um, yeah, upgrading your computer is a big part of everyone's tech journey. It is a barrier to entry as well. Um, yeah, so there was a few moments along the way after that gig. Um, so I— after that gig, I did a few just sort of generic online marketing roles at some small companies in Montreal. But there was one company I worked at that did, um, voice of customer surveys called iPerceptions. And we launched this like sort of like free product that was, um, called— it's a very unfortunate name, but it was called 4Q. Um, and it was, it was fun. And I ended up— that product was kind of my baby. And so that was another product where we were referring to the community as webmasters because, you know, I love that. put this little JavaScript code on their site and they would get like, uh, Oddly, it was an on-entrance survey, which is like, lol. Anyway, it doesn't exist anymore, but it was meant to say like, will you take a survey at the end of this? And it would ask you 4 questions at the end to see if you achieved the task that you came to achieve. Very simple metric, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I was building community with all these webmasters that were leveraging this tool, and that was when community started to like pop up in the industry like around 2008 as a title. So that was my title. I was the community manager for 4Q, and I was like, okay, this is kind of cool. Like, admittedly, the, the world of community has been kind of vague in terms of like the actual job duties associated to it, and it was very vague back then. I was essentially like PMM support, um, all the things related to this little product.

Right.

But I liked it. I really liked kind of having this group of folks that had like a shared, like, you know, they wanted to get insights from their customers and that was the shared identity. And so I did that for a while and then moved on to a couple of more of those little rando marketing roles. And then, and actually worked at an agency, an account manager doing an SEO and agency for a while. So that's another thing. But then, like, I have such a problem of going, like, rabbit-holing when I'm telling these stories. So feel free to interrupt me at any time. I will fast forward to DevRel, the DevRel moment for me. So I have alluded to doing these sort of like dabbling in all of these sort of online marketing and some community roles. But I was getting a little, like, kind of fed up. I wanted something new. Interestingly, I got introduced to this tiny startup in Montreal in 2011 by my manager at that company, iPerceptions. They were a company called Context.io. They were an email API. I barely knew what an API was. All I knew about APIs at the time was that we needed to leverage data from the Google Analytics API. We had heard it thrown around at the agency a lot. I vaguely knew what an API was, but I wasn't super familiar. And at the time, APIs as products, like companies building their entire product on an API, was a fairly new concept. That was right around when like Twilio and SendGrid launched their first APIs to the world as like that was the offering of the company. You would pay to use these APIs. And so that was what Context.io was. And it was me and the founder who was an engineer and another engineer. And so I was essentially like, wearing all of the hats, um, which I low-key love. Like, you may have noticed that here at HubSpot I like to wear many hats and do lots of different things, um, and I think that, you know, the roles I've had since then allow me to. But the thing I love the most about that job was, um, building community with developers. And at the time, that happened largely through in-person events, um, so we did So it was so funny. I went to lots of hackathons as an almost non-programmer. I mean, I'm not a programmer. I like to pretend that if I've written a line of code, that I'm a programmer.

You're such a programmer.

HTML.

Yes. HTML.

Link.

Marky. Marky.

I've written some PHP. I've written some Python.

If you've ever Googled anything and got Stack Overflow, then that's a developer.

Yeah, basically.

Yeah, I've done that. I had— I used to have some green squares on my GitHub, but that, you know, as we know, that might not be programming. But in any case, I used to love going to hackathons. Um, it was kind of a weird arrangement because we'd have like our engineers on Skype and like me just like hyping up the product.

Very cool.

Um, but I just found like it hearkened back a little bit to the, um, gambling affiliate days because these folks were super no-nonsense. Like, you cannot, you know, like our goals with developers and developer marketing and developer connection was so much more about like shortening the path to value as opposed to all these other marketing metrics were like, ooh, they need to see, you know, brand exposure 7 times before they convert. And this is so much more straightforward. It's just like, here's what we've got. Does it work or not? Can you use it in your project or not? If not, sorry, you know, you're out of luck and you're going to find out really, really fast. And so I appreciated that transparency, that like lack of, you know, nonsense. And, um, they became my favorite kind of folks to work with. And the parts of the job, that job that I liked the most were really the community building aspect. So with each additional role, it was always kind of diverse. Because we know what it's like on DevRel. There's lots of different things going on. And I worked for a lot of smaller teams, but as the teams got bigger and as this industry has evolved, I feel like there's been more and more specialization. And as I've been able to like go down that path, I've been able to hone in on community specifically. Um, so yeah, that was like, I think that job was probably the moment for me where it cemented. And honestly, this, so I'm a boomerang for HubSpot. I was at the company from 2019 to 2020 as a Program Manager on DevRel. When I came back, I came back exclusively to focus on community. This is my first job that is 100% developer community focused. It all led up to this moment.

This is the icing on the cake.

This is it. I can retire after this.

Would you be happy with just any type of community? Developer-specific, is that something that's really It's really stuck.

It's really, really stuck. Like, that was the big career pivot for me. Um, I was— I, I've often wondered that, like, how would I feel with a customer-based community or like more B2B? And I think I could do it and still get, um, you know, satisfaction out of it. But again, there's something— it's just about like solving problems more in a more obvious way. than it is— and building relationships. Like, there's so many strong relationships in our community, and we've seen so much, um, you know, partnership and collaboration, and that I love to see. Um, but when I see someone post a question in our dev Slack or on the dev forums and somebody come in and just immediately unblock them, and then being like, oh my God, thank you so much, you helped me so much, like, it's just So it's so like, there's, there's no mystery to what that is. He literally got unlocked by the community, and it's just really satisfying to see.

Very much so.

Yeah.

How much does this extend to your own personal life? I mean, how, like, your lessons you learn in community, do you apply them?

Huh, that's a good question. I don't like tolerating BS.

I'm here all day, folks. I, I got the questions, don't worry about it. Next, take off.

Buddy, I also like straightforward, like, you know, I also appreciate that. And I, you know, I've dated several programmers, so that could be like—

Interesting.

Don't even get me started.

Am I right?

Yeah, that's so— yeah, the community has impacted my— I mean, that also just so happens that this is the kind of people I was meeting because I spent so much time around, you know, techies. Um, so I can't believe I just said techies, but you know what I mean.

I got you.

I think it's absolutely— we gotta bring— we'll bring webmasters back. We gotta bring that. I mean, if we haven't learned anything, we need to bring that back.

Retro coding with SJ, uh, for webmasters only.

Yes, yes.

Oh God, sorry.

I was gonna say, I always thought that it was easier working with developers. So like, I, I have a marketing background and I've marketed to both like consumers and developers, and I have to say like Working with developers is the easiest because it's so clear cut and dry.

Yeah.

And I think that's what a lot of businesses are kind of missing the mark on in some way is that they look at their audience and they go, oh, a developer, give them the marketing one sheet. Let's make the— and it's like, it doesn't have to be fancy. It could literally be like a Word doc. And I mean, we've done that with some of the beta things. We've had our documentation as Google Docs and it's still just as effective and like developers just literally want to know like almost black and white, like, what is it? Like you said earlier, right? Here's how it works. Here's how you use it. Does it work for your company? No. Sorry. This is, this is how it works though. Okay, but it works for that guy's company. So, or, you know, that girl's company. So we're gonna go. And it's just one of those things where like, they also, when it comes to feedback, and I think SJ, you probably share this sentiment, they are ruthless. And it's like, if you want feedback, ask a developer because they Do not care about it.

You are a gambling webmaster.

Yeah, it's one of those things where like I've seen some feedback come in and like usually like some feedback that I've seen in other places is like, we really love the product, blah blah blah. Developers are straight up like, this sucks. Like just right, like what they are trying to achieve is usually so specific.

Um, whereas I feel like, God bless marketers or other non-programmers, And I want to talk a little bit about how I feel like those lines are blurring, but we, we can today or another day, I don't know. Um, but marketers may not even know what it is they're trying to solve when they come in with a question. Um, they might just sort of have a vague, like, we need to increase our site speed, for example. And, um, you know, there might be some obvious things they can do. There might be some less obvious things they can do. Whereas developers coming in more with the question, like, Um, you know, my images are too large. How do I like reduce the size or whatever? That's even also a marketer question, but like, you know what I mean? I'm trying to be more specific.

Yeah. It's like, oh, sorry, go continue.

No, it's just that it's that specificity and that like knowledge of exactly what they're trying to achieve. And, but I think we take that for granted actually, because that's one of the things that the mentorship program and other sort of barrier to entry things are, because I've actually spoken to some developers who are so excited about they've been tasked to work with HubSpot. They're so excited about it, but they're not sure exactly where to start. Once they do get started, then they can get into that specificity. Um, but sometimes there is that sort of like that moment. Like, it was literally someone whose company had just switched from Salesforce to HubSpot, and he was about to change his like signature, his title, like from Salesforce developer to HubSpot developer. And he's like, where do I start so I can feel like I'm a HubSpot developer? And, um, you know, I was like, Try the Academy, try the CRM bootcamp, join the mentorship program. Like, these are all things that will help folks really weave that into their identity and then get into those, like, very specific community solved problems.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, I feel like it's almost a double-edged sword, the specificity of, like, a developer's needs, because when I was community manager on our forums, Everything seemed very transactional, right? Like, you get what you want. And that's all I'm here for is what I want right now. To get the people who have that feedback who actually are there to support and, you know, help others. That's, that's the hard thing with developers, in my opinion. I feel like—

They need—

Marketing is ambiguous in a sense. Like, you're always kind of asking a question, trying to figure out where you're going. It's stickier that way somehow, right?

Stickier in community. And so one of the things that I think is something I try to sort of share for folks who are building community programs for the first time, dev community programs for the first time, there's only ever going to be a tiny percentage of your dev community that is, like, offering lots of feedback, engaged every day in the community, answering those questions. by far the most, uh, the touchpoint that's most frequent is just coming in to get unblocked and then carrying on with your day.

Yeah.

There are some core folks that for whatever reason that, you know, we're trying to get to that secret sauce and understand what those reasons are, but like they end up getting hooked on what's possible for HubSpot and what it can do for their customers. And, um, they also just have kind of the spirit of wanting to be more involved with this thing that they work on every day and they want to give back to the community in all kinds of fascinating ways. And we know a lot of those folks. I think some of those folks have even been on this podcast. Yeah.

I mean, 2 of these folks are here right now. I mean, and we're not talking about this.

They're hired by the company. That's a thing too. Yeah. That's the pinnacle, right? Of, to me, like, I mean, not everyone in the community is going to get hired by the company, but like, you can't get more at the core of the community onion Then, um, oh my gosh, there's people here! Hi, Anton! Hi, Nicholas von James!

There's people.

Wait, people watch this?

What?

Yeah, no, I mean, obviously they do. But anyway, yeah, uh, I had a train of thought, but it's gone.

It's okay. SJ, are you listening to both the, the website as well as—

Am I messing with the sound?

I think you might need to mute the, uh, I have this little thing open.

If I stop this, will I go away? Wait.

Please don't stop it.

To kind of— what Dennis was saying too, I kind of feel like it's, um, the equivalent of, um, when you, uh, torrent movies online. People just come there, get what they want, leave. They get what they want and they leave, but no one really stays to help the community, as in sharing. That's it.

Oh, Nick.

You know what I'm saying? There's a very— there's a very distinct connection there.

How many of you in the Dev Slack have seen my auto messages that are like, a rising boat, tide lifts all boats, answer questions, it's all about karma? I think one thing is we do have like a broader Community Champions program at HubSpot that literally incentivizes folks to go into the community and answer questions. And we have a lot of devs in that community, including Anton, who's here today. Um, and, uh, we're super appreciative of those, and we understand that, like, why would folks— you know, there has to be a— ultimately, when— especially when it comes to, you know, career-based stuff and jobs, like, there has to be some benefit for you in the long run for doing this contribution. And, um, I, I, I personally feel like we actually are going to do some analysis behind the scenes soon, but I have a very strong theory that the folks that are most engaged and give back to the community are some of the folks that are actually doing, making the most impact on our customers. And so I'm excited to see if the data sort of validates that theory. But regardless, there's all of the developers that they inspire by answering questions, by being involved, that might have a ripple effect, even if we don't see it necessarily in the community. I think there's more like HubSpot dev awareness out there that we haven't yet tapped into that a lot of these like, you know, helpful champs and folks are helping make happen.

I agree.

Now with everything that comes with kind of managing a community, it does touch on multiple skill sets, right? So what do you do personally to try to kind of keep up with everything that's kind of going on in the— and again, you can't keep up with everything going on in the industry. So it's not like a question where it's like, how do you know everything about everything all at once? It's, but what are some of the things that you do or some of the resources that you use to try to kind of stay up to date with a lot of the things that are going on? Yeah, into what you're doing.

So also similar to other people you've had on this episode or on this series, I have ADHD, which I actually find very helpful when it comes to multitasking and procrastinating. And some of the ways that I procrastinate are by trying to, you know, scroll LinkedIn. Actually, Chris Riley of said ADHD and other skill set fame, who was on this show, introduced me recently to a newsletter called The TLDR. And the title says it all. Like, it's just the latest sort of like of that day, the especially like, I feel like we literally need these things daily, maybe hourly lately with all of the developments in AI. And, um, maybe I was okay with a weekly newsletter prior to this year, but now we need something much more frequent. And the TLDR is just like impactful headings. You can read more if you want to. It gives you a snapshot of like. the buzz and controversies and stuff like that. And I love a good juicy tech controversy too. So those things help. And then even internally, we have John McLaren on our team who is our appointed AI aficionado czar, whatever you wanna call it, who's been keeping us all really well informed about the latest and greatest and how it applies to HubSpot too. So there's a lot out there. I'm off Twitter now. I kind of miss that and I don't feel like I've gotten the same experience on the combination of like Bluesky and, well, actually I'm off Threads now too. Um, but Twitter used to be, um, used to be all of that community news, everything. And I missed the good days of Twitter so much, but I think it's hard to keep up with.

It's hard to keep up with like multiple channels and multiple, it's very hard to find that kind of, and again, you're never gonna find the one thing that covers everything, but Yeah. Just to at least find a good small handful of things. I've actually, what you mentioned, John, I've actually, when we were, I think we, I don't remember, can't remember if it was in a group channel on our HubSpot Slack here where I actually, we were trying to pitch that like a kind of like AI corner with John, you know, type of like segment is going to be necessary if not now, very soon, you know, with—

Yeah.

Well, we can like, we can automate a John bot, like With Agen and like just have him read the news every week. He doesn't even have to show up.

It's just— We had talked about the, uh, the AI and actors and will they be necessary at one point. We could just make— yeah, you're right.

Who knows?

Who knows? No, that's, that's fair.

There's this TikTok, um, account I follow that does the weirdest little like famous person AI video clips, and they have like Steve Harvey saying all this crazy stuff. And, uh, it's really funny.

Is it as great as, uh, the AI where they were, they were trying to get Will Smith to eat pasta? Have you seen that?

Oh wait, is that like with the immense amounts of pasta?

Like, yeah, where it just like, I can't, like at one point his jaw becomes unhinged like a snake and just starts like eating the plate.

I saw it, but I had to look away. So scary.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting.

What, what moment are we living in? But It's wild. It's wild.

Now, with as overbearing as technology and everything that comes with the amount of touchpoints that you kind of have to be involved in with the community, are there things that— and I always have to preface this with, you can never 100% get away from technology as much as sometimes we may want to. Are there things that you do as least techie as possible, I guess, is the best way to put it, to kind of remove yourself and unwind and try to like distance yourself a little bit from that stressfulness?

Yeah, it's funny because I live in a studio apartment in New York and I have a tiny desk and like my work world is literally the center of my apartment. But I do feel like I'm in 2 separate worlds from when I sit down in the morning and open my laptop and get my big second monitor running. And for the moment that, like, there's always that moment, and it's sometimes it's 5, sometimes it's 7:30, sometimes it's 3:30, um, where I'm just like, I can't do anymore. And I slap, slap the old laptop shut, and I do feel like I'm in a little bit of a different world. I have started this— this is like not advice, but you asked the question. Like, I have started this new ritual to unwind at the end of the day where I slap on a cold sheet mask from the fridge. Highly recommended to all of you and everyone listening. Very refreshing. And then I just turn on this— there's this really cheesy game that is 100% aimed for children that I play. I don't know if any of you, like, have seen the Netflix Games Beta.

Mm-hmm.

They—

I don't know if it's on everyone's Netflix or not, but—

Oh yeah, yeah, I actually— yeah, okay.

I mean, I don't know, I've never played any of the other games, but I play this game called Underwater Fruit Merge and it just turns off my brain completely. And I don't know if that's, that's still technically techie because it's a video game, but, um—

Oh wow, no, it should because it's hard to get away from it. It—

you—

there's like There's tech, tech things that you can do to unwind, and then there's like—

I mean, I also leave my apartment sometimes. Um, I just started doing Broadway jazz dance class. Last night was my first class.

Oh, nice.

How'd it go? Good.

Yeah, the dorkiest thing I've ever done in my life, and it's so much fun. Like, we're doing choreography for A Chorus Line, that song One from A Chorus Line, which if the younger folks in this room may not remember That particular Broadway play, and I'm not gonna sing it, but you can, if you YouTube it, One, A Chorus Line, you will see there are hats involved, and our dance teacher brought out the hats yesterday.

Oh, awesome. It didn't exist if there's no photos.

What I'm hearing is Inbound in San Francisco is gonna be fantastic this year.

Yeah, I was gonna say, there better be a, like, a tech talk with SJ, and then at the end she does kind of like the Hello, my baby.

Hello. It is that energy, and it's so silly. So I try to do stuff like that. And I also like— I, I don't think it's a problem yet, but I enjoy, um, tasty cocktails all around New York City, which is a good place to live in for those.

I don't think it's a problem yet.

Not a problem yet, but who knows? Check in like this year is like— it might push me to a point, but I'm good for now.

That's awesome. I love it.

Now, um, we all do for, for unwinding and fun.

Chop wood.

All right, I mean, that's a good skill to have. Like, you never know.

I don't doubt that though, Dennis, because you were a park ranger.

That's what I was thinking too. I'm like, that's not far from— yeah, I could see Dennis out there just with like—

Answer and very decisive.

Oh yeah, I do have an axe. You do have an axe. Put yourself creeping on people. You're creeping on people is what you're trying to say.

Publicly though, it's not. It's like there's one there because I know there's an Ireland trip coming up for a lot of HubSpotters. There's one of like a famous. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head now, but it's just like street corner where there's a bar and it's like it's just yeah. So I'm gonna suggest all the HubSpotters go there so I can see them.

Yeah, hilarious.

I think it's some bar probably.

Yeah, it is actually. That's the one. Yeah, yeah, it's red and it's got— yeah, yeah, that's— it's like there's always a party going on no matter when it flashes to that random. Yeah, always, always.

So is this the same one where you can watch Abbey Road and just laugh at all the people that recreate the Beatles album?

Yeah, that's one of them actually. Abbey Road is what— there's just the UK Abbey Road cam and it's just like, it's literally just focused right on that. Rain, sun, it doesn't matter. It's— yeah, it's—

people are—

I think it's interesting. Because if you're sitting here and you're working from home, right, and you're kind of stuck in the house and you're stuck, like, it's, it's nice to be able to be like, oh, there's a real world still. Oh yeah, that's right.

The pandemic, there was this website that you could go to that just like would, um, tune into someone's random webcam like anywhere in the world. And like, not like, like, like, um, Right. Like, to see where— what they're— it was to look out their window.

So like a window.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember this.

Out their window.

Yeah.

Um, so it's similar energy.

Yeah.

Wow.

I think it's necessary sometimes. I mean, especially now where like tech is kind of, uh, saturated, uh, everything. Like, you can still use it in a way to kind of— it's not like you're unplugging, but you are Yeah, because you're decluttering your brain.

Advocating for the actual going outside. I think it's kind of an important thing to do. I know you can—

yeah, I mean, my kid tells me to touch grass all the time.

Have you though? Have you?

Well, my— I, I have some sort of like cinch bug where my— that's— this was dead. So I mean, like, I have to fix that problem. But yeah, once that's done, yeah, I'll be able to touch grass.

So especially how I work, I like spend a lot— especially in winter, I spend a lot of time inside, and then I'll just like go on a trip And that will get all my outside energy. Like for Ireland, for example, whenever I have the opportunity to travel for work, I like to extend it a little bit either before or after and, um, take a little vacation time and go exploring because, you know, I'm there. I'm there.

Oh yeah, yeah, when in Rome. And that's, that's why I took extra days for inbound because I wanted to hang out with Dennis because it was just like, it was necessary. I mean Outside, when you get a chance to hang out with the legend, you, you make time.

What did you call him before? The success whale? I need to know what that is about.

Oh, there is a, uh, uh, this is a little inside baseball, but, uh, there, um, I believe John, who's been on the show before, uh, had posted something about—

No, Steve. Steve.

Was it Steve?

Yeah.

I thought it was—

okay, because I, I stole the image and I'm gonna use it, so I figured I gotta give somebody credit for it.

I didn't know who, but, uh, All of our boss, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Boss, boss. Which we gotta have on the show at some point as well.

Yes.

But yeah, it was, uh, somebody had posted something about, what was it, like Fail Whale? And then like somebody had posted something with the, the butterfly wings on it and I said, oh, that's Dennis the Success Whale. And that's the man, that's gonna be the mascot for Developers After Dark.

Yes.

Yeah, I gotta edit the homepage and get that up.

I see where you're going with that. I mean, it doesn't have the cute rhyming factor of the fail and the whale.

Right.

There's not really an animal that rhymes with Success.

So Dennis changed your name. So that's the only reason it really gets to work.

So, um, okay.

I kind of wanted to piggyback actually. Um, I did have a question for you that I want to piggyback off of mentorship. Um, has there been any advice that someone has given you, like someone that like you would consider like a mentor, that has really been impactful for you throughout either life or your career?

Yeah. So there is someone that when I first started in the DevRel world at that company, Context.io, I was like, what the heck is this world? What's going on? And I just started like, this was back in the days when you could just reach out to anyone on Twitter and they would respond. And I reached out to a bunch of folks doing dev advocacy, doing DevRel at other companies. And there was someone named Tim Falls who worked at SendGrid, who was leading developer community at the time there. And I was like, oh, developer community, that's a thing, how interesting. Um, and he was so generous with his time with me, uh, back then. He was basically just like— I mean, it was very community of him, first of all. That's one thing that I also love about working in the community industry or world is that they're just like— everyone is so generous and kind with their time. It's just part of like who gets drawn to this world. And so Tim was one of those folks and he just introduced, like, it's not so much, there were some things he said later in our sort of like working relationship that have stuck with me, but he just introduced me around to so many people. And ultimately, like down the road, he was the one responsible for me getting into HubSpot. He knew our former head of DevRel, her name was Elizabeth Ruskito. I think I'm saying that right, Rashido. Anyway, um, and, um, he had mentioned me to her as someone to come join the team, and then she reached out and the rest was history. Um, but he, he's just been around and always available to me, and I've tried to, um, to reciprocate that whenever he's needed anything. And it's always just been, you know, out of the goodness of his heart. And he's also just tremendously smart when it comes to community. He, um, I think I may have shared this concept with a few of you at some point. He introduced me to this concept called the community onion, which then became the, um, the model that we saw for a company called Orbit. It's the same concept. So essentially, like, you have all of these different tiers of engagement for the community, and the folks in the middle are like the most engaged, but it kind of radiates outward and like sucks people into the orbit or the layers of the onion. And so I've just used that as a frame of reference for so long. And that was Tim's original baby. Um, and he also, yeah, he's just been an inspiration to me for a super long time and has always been, you know, available to me. So someone like that, like, yes, this is gonna be a 9-month career that, or a 9-month opportunity that you'll have with the mentorship program, but The hope is that you meet someone like that who becomes like a mainstay and has supported you and connects you with opportunities for the rest of your life or the rest of your career. And so, you know, being able to try to like speed up that process for folks and make that happen as part of this program is something I'm so excited about. So everyone can find, you know, someone that's just, I don't know, even if it's someone who's just gonna cheer you on for this scope of a project, like—

Yeah.

Sure, it's just so powerful.

And too, Community Onion is a great title for an episode. I just thought it was like, peel away the layers of our community. I do like that. That is fantastic. Um, one of the— I know we're almost, we're almost coming up on time, but I wanted to— one of the last things I kind of wanted to ask you was, um, what would one of the things that— I mean, and you can choose the tech in general or at HubSpot, what were one of the one things or a few, whichever, that surprised you the most when you first started? What were some of the things? Because I know for me, I mean, and not to steal an answer, but traditionally, especially starting at HubSpot, drinking from a fire hose, right? That's one that you can ask anybody and that is like, that's solid. That's on everybody's list, right?

Mm-hmm.

So it's almost like kind of a gimme. Are there any others like that that you kind of came across where you were like, oh, wow, this is— I didn't expect this?

Well, it's not specific. It's not— well, it applies very much to HubSpot, but it wasn't originally learned at HubSpot. So prior to working at HubSpot, I spent time at Shopify and HubSpot, Mailchimp, HubSpot. But there was— Shopify was the first company I worked at where developers weren't the primary audience for the product. Customers and merchants were. And so what surprised me the most was how much— what a different, like, what a different journey it is for a team that works with developers at a company that is customer obsessed and the education that you need to do internally to demonstrate the value of developers throughout this company. And, like, you have to be strategic about it too. Like, it's not— obviously not everyone's going to understand our technical audience or our developers at the company, nor should they. But I think it's the right folks making specific decisions that kind of domino down to us. Like, that difference, like— Oh, hello.

Welcome to the special guest before as we're wrapping up. Sorry, keep going.

I didn't know there was a little Nick out there. Now I know.

Community.

Yeah, the community just grew. Yeah, so that's it. It's just sort of like the nuances between working for a company that is developer-first versus what we call developer-plus. And, you know, for another episode, how those lines are blurring. Ooh, AI.

Wow.

Wow.

Well played.

Hopefully my Inbound talk will be selected and Jenny Saweirda and I will be talking all about that at Inbound. So.

Nice. That would be awesome.

Yeah, I hope so. Fingers crossed.

That's fantastic.

Have you—

has there been any— speaking of Inbound, has there been any other type of Kind of meetups or conferences and stuff that you've gone to recently that kind of—

I've been like, as I've progressed in age, the energy levels I have for those things have reduced. And so now all of my like event and conference energy is dedicated to HubSpot mostly. I did used to go to South by Southwest and TechCrunch Disrupt a lot when I lived in San Francisco. And whoa, was that fun. South by Southwest was a blast. We were working there, but I also got to like, you know, be at the whole thing. It's really all-encompassing, um, and super cool. And the thing I think was the funniest part of South by Southwest for me was I'd be exhausted, I'd be at the airport, and I was leaving after, you know, working at this, uh— we used to have like an API lounge when I worked at a company called Nashree, and all the APIs we worked with had like little booths, and we had like popcorn and Bloody Mary machine. It was crazy.

It's like the lounge at airports, right?

Like where you see like an airport but in a conference center basically, and you did need special permission to get in. So yeah, um, anyway, so I would be at the airport exhausted, and then like it was the end of Tech Week and Music Week would be starting, and all of these cool musicians would be like landing on the planes and they'd look so dope. And it was like all the nerds at the airport like waiting at the gates, and it was just like such an obvious transition at the airport on like a couple of specific days. Um, that was really funny to me. But, but yeah, no, I don't, I don't, uh, go to as many things as I would like to. I'm starting to look at doing more local events here in New York. There's a lot of stuff popping up. Like, I might check out some AI stuff, uh, locally soon. Maybe Dennis, you can come and join me.

Yeah, for sure. I feel like it was a trend, Nick. Like, you asked this question to everyone. I feel like no one's really doing events these days.

I— that's— I mean, I really want to start it a little bit. Oh, sorry, I cut you off.

Yeah, just I think the pandemic shifted our energy a little bit. Like, we really— I could do a whole other episode about how the pandemic changed DevRel too. And, um, but I, I agree that there's not as many events. I do start— I do feel like the local meetup is starting to make a comeback. Like, our own Brooke was at an event last night and brought some pizza off of HubSpot. And like, those are the types of things that I used to do all the time. And like 2011, 2012. Um, and like, that's organic community and it's the best. Like, that's— I don't know, that's my favorite kind of stuff. Like the—

I do keep slacking another LaPorte that works at HubSpot to try to set something up as far as a local meetup, but I, I don't know, I keep getting ghosted. I mean, I know the lighting may throw you off, but yeah, there's no need to ghost Casper.

Like, the right person?

I don't know, man.

I don't know. I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I have a message for you.

I don't know.

I don't know. I want to, I want to start doing more of that because I remember the last one me and AJ went to was one in the city in Chicago where we got to meet HubSpotters that like we would've never really ever talked to just because like cross our paths would not have crossed, right?

Yeah.

Just because of the departments. And I felt like that was so And there were even some people that we talked to were like, oh, you're doing that? Like, that's— I'm doing this. And it's like, it may not have been like directly related, like apples to apples, but there was still some sort of like interest, right? Like this huge interest never would have happened, right? And I just feel like that to me—

Serendipity.

Oh, it's beautiful.

Unfortunately, it's hard to measure the ROI on serendipity. And like, uh, we're definitely under the microscope a little more than we used to be, but Also no John Cusack, so we can't, right?

We see we want to see, right?

What was it? Was it Kate? Kate, not Winslet.

No. Uh, oh my gosh, she's in the movie Underworld.

Yeah, Kate Beckinsale. We need them.

Without them, it's the old video store employee.

Yeah, it wasn't— it wasn't from 1991 to '94. I only operate in those years, so I don't—

I really don't know, like, pop culture trivia, Pop Culture Jeopardy. Another thing I love.

Yeah, nice, nice. I have a, I have a rare condition where I'm stuck in between 5 years of, uh, movie references, and I, I don't, I don't know anything else outside of that, which is—

we can do like hyper-specific trivia with you.

Like, it would have to— yeah, it would have to be movies within 1991 to 1995. If not, I have no idea. Really interesting. Like, basically when Jennifer Love Hewitt got into movies, it was like that stretch, like those 4 years. That's about it. And then I had no other—

Jennifer, like J— J— never mind. I was trying to make a JLo thing happen, but then the H got in the way. And so anyway, very nice.

Well, we are coming up on time, and I do want to thank you, SJ, for coming on. And I do encourage everyone, um, to sign up for the mentorship program. They should—

On the bottom of the screen right now, it's gonna— oh, there it is. What?

Dennis, you got to give me access to doing this kind of stuff.

That's not gonna happen, buddy.

That's not gonna happen.

Yeah, if you go to that page now, it'll be the old page, but click on the waiting list thing, and then by sometime, maybe even before the 19th, it'll be a beautiful page that our own Ashley, uh, Ashley Webster is working on. She got web in the name for a reason, right?

Huh?

Yeah, there you go.

Perfect.

Love it. But no, I wanted to thank you for coming on and sharing your story.

So much fun. Thank you for having me. I reached out to Nick and I'm like, can I come and talk about the mentorship program? And he's like, yes, this week, let's go.

And I'm like, I'm also bad with calendars too, because I was like, yeah, no, Friday should be fine for everybody. Why can't people do Friday? And then I forgot it was Valentine's Day.

So I'm like, I can do it. I was just like, don't even get me started. Okay, sorry.

No, I just, I, I, I, I'm oblivious to, uh, just like calendar. It's just like I, I have this weird— I operate on like a 24/7 schedule, which is not healthy, but like I do. And it's— everybody else is kind of like, what is wrong with you? Which is the question I get normally, just, you know, in general.

But Valentine's Day is a sellout holiday anyway, so it's all good.

I mean, that and Sweetest Day. I mean, the two of them together. I mean, it's— but, but we'll, uh, we'll leave that for another episode. Uh, but I, I will, uh, I just want to say thank you, and I will leave everyone with this little fact that they may not be aware of. But, uh, originally when the Beatles wrote Hard Day's Night, it was the night after a crit-sis. So that's the reason why that was actually created. Just in case, I don't know if anyone knew that, but that's literally a fact.

That's what a crit-sit is. I think it's a HubSpot-specific term, but I'm not sure.

Critical situation. Yeah, yeah, I mean, they use it, but that's the reason for that song was written because the night before there was a crit-sit.

Yeah, well, it was originally titled Dumpster Fire, but they didn't think it would sell.

So yeah.

Marketing. It's not catchy. I like it. I like it.

But yes, thank you.

No, no problem.

So I thank everybody for listening and watching, uh, wherever you consume or how you consume your podcast. And, uh, yeah, we'll see you next week.

Thank you so much. Bye, y'all.