Ep. 17 - Hall of Fame Edition with Anton Bujanowski | Devs:After Dark

Wait, did the thing not happen? Are we in the right place? Oh my God, we're not. Who set this up? Who set this up? Who?

Best intro ever.

Set this up.

When we get inducted into the Hall of Fame, this is going to be one of those clips they use to— you know what?

That was amazing.

That was good.

That was good.

I— that's gonna be our, uh, our intro into the introduction into the Hall of Fame when we're in there. That's what they're gonna play right there, and I love it. I love every minute of it. Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for attending another amazing episode of Developers After Dark. I believe we're on 17 now, so we're getting up there. We're getting up there. I like it. I like it. At least triple digits. Triple digits or we're a failure. Pretty much, that's how we're going to look at this. We're going to go for that. But no, we've got some really great stuff to talk about and we have a really, really great guest. But before we get into that, let me just really, really quickly go over a couple of things here. For me, one of the things as a friend, when a friend asks for help, you give them help, right? Have you ever watched Letterkenny? That's one of the things that they always stress. So I'm your friend. Everyone watching, everyone who's going to be watching.

If Dennis is asking me for help, I don't know.

Well, I mean, there's certain people we might exclude, but overall, when a friend asks for help, you help them. And I'm your friend. I'm all of your friends. You, you, you, and everyone out there. I'm going to ask for your help. In doing so, what I'm going to need you to do is I'm going to need you to vote for us for the Postman Award. Basically what's going to happen is there's a Postman Developer's Choice Award that's happening.

Mm-hmm.

It started on April 2nd. We're going to ask you to vote for HubSpot. We're going to say, call it a favor. Just do us a little bit of a favor because we're here giving you all kinds of information, all kinds of content. And all we ask in return is you to vote for us. So what you're going to do is you're going to go to the homepage of our site. You'll also probably find other advocates like Hannah. I'm sure Dennis, AJ, everybody has posted about this already. So, or you can go to the Developers After Dark homepage, and I'm going to do a little quick little banner here for you. And there's some instructions at the bottom of the homepage where you can also go and to vote. And basically, You're probably asking yourself, why should I vote for HubSpot's APIs?

Always.

Well, I mean, that's the question everyone would ask, and we've built the APIs with developers like you in mind, right? So we're constantly trying to improve our documentation and our developer experience, and all we're asking in return is one or two little clicks. So if you could do that and go to the homepage and check out everything there is there and just follow the instructions there, and you'll be able to vote. I think you can vote 3 times. I think it is, right? There's like a 3 vote.

Yeah.

So give us all your votes. That's all we ask for.

Unfortunately, you can only vote once for one. You can't put 3 votes to one, but it's a nice sentiment, Nick.

But you get, yeah, but you get 3 separate, like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you could, I mean, hey, you know, it wouldn't hurt. But no, yeah, but please do that because, you know, there's a lot that we're doing and a lot that, especially on the developer advocate side, Can I say there's some troubling news right now?

Oh, I just recently looked and I saw that we're in 4th place, which I think one might consider to be unacceptable.

Especially if you guys out there are our friends, that would be kind of troubling. I would expect at least a 2nd place. I mean, you always want to get that suspense, right? You don't want to jump to 1st right away because then it's kind of like anticlimactic. You really want to get like, we're fighting, we're fighting, and then like right across the finish line right at the end. But 4th place, I think we can do better. So everyone out there that's listening and everyone out there that's going to watch in the appropriate amount of time and before the voting ends, we really would ask if you could go out there and vote for us. We would really appreciate that. So go ahead and do that. And like I said, you'll probably see it posted all over social media and it's on our homepage too, the instructions. So go ahead and take a look at that.

And I must reiterate that Nick James LaPorte did say that he would autograph about 100 pieces of I mean, you could reiterate it.

You already posted on social media as if it's a real thing. But no, I won't be bribing people with signatures. I'm sure there's a legality there that we might not want to, like, you know, but I— the sentiment is I would, I would, I would do that for you, just so you know. I would do that for you. But on top of that, if you are wondering what's just going on in HubSpot in general, because the one thing we're talking about is just one thing, right? And we're posting it everywhere.

We're talking about it everywhere.

But there are plenty of other things going on, especially in the developer community. So what I'm going to want you to do is if you want to catch up on any stuff that we're doing, any new posts about any new content, any new things from anywhere from— I know Brooke has a lot of really great videos that are coming up that document a bunch of wonderful stuff. Hannah has stuff on there as well. So go ahead and take a look at it. HubSpot Developers on YouTube, that's the place you're going to want to go. And if you're specifically worrying about developers and things that are going on in the developer community here at HubSpot, you also have the changelog. That's going to tell you everything that's going on, all the changes that, that are happening that you're going to want to know. So also take a look at that as well. Dennis, let me ask you, are there any dehugs coming up that people are going to want to attend?

Well, can I actually— this rarely do I get this opportunity, but may I just put this over to Anton, who happens to lead this developer hub?

Oh, very insightful.

Yeah, so hi, everybody. Before we jump into the whole podcast itself, according— quick answer to the question if there are de-ARCs coming up for developer topics. Simple answer is yes. We have at least 2 dehacks planned for April, maybe 3. So yeah, stay tuned.

events.hubspot.com/developer, I think, will get you— hey, there we go.

Yeah, I got you done.

Thanks. Good.

And then also too, if you want to learn anything new and you want to catch up on any skills or uplevel yourself at all, you can always go to the Academy. That's academy.hubspot.com. You're going to find just about everything there. I'm frequently even going back. I'm even going back and looking at some of the stuff that I've already done from the Academy and just kind of brushing up on stuff. But it's one of those things where it's— that's another thing that HubSpot as a friend offers you and gives to you. So, you know, the little bit of ask back isn't so bad for just a couple of votes, but Um, yeah, check out the Academy. You're definitely going to want to go there as well. So without further ado, let's jump right into it. Let's introduce our guest. Anton, why don't you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Sure. So I'm Anton Burnovsky. I'm the founder of GraphiSpot. I'm a designer, developer, co-founder, and co-leader of the developer org. Alongside with Dennis and Toon and a lot of other things.

Tell us. I mean, it's working with Dennis. I mean, I, you know, we— this is where we get all the dirt, right? This is where we get to know— Yeah, there's— right, we get to know like how awesome Dennis is, right? Is this where we get to all of that? Yeah. Okay, okay. Um, let's start out with— let's Kind of go, where did you first, what kind of first sparked your interest in just technology in general?

Very good question. I mean, as far as I remember, I was playing with technology from, I think, the age of 6 or 7, like at a very, very young age. I remember having a— or the first computer that I had was a Pentium 1 with Windows 95. And I had a floppy disk drive playing Prince of Persia and other games. I had Paint. And also, at some point, I think I got into CorelDRAW because my background is not development, but design. I'm coming from a design world.

Mm-hmm.

So you could say from Paint to CorelDRAW to GIMP at some point, and then from GIMP to Photoshop and then the whole Adobe suite.

Excellent. Let me ask you something really quick because you mentioned GIMP and all that. Like, what were your thoughts on GIMP when you first started using it? Because like, I know for me, like, I had dabbled in Photoshop and in like classes here and there and then like I knew GIMP was like its own thing and I was like, this is crazy that somebody's making this for free. And then, yeah, it was kind of like intense.

Yeah. I mean, for me, GIMP was more, let's call it accessible than Photoshop back in the days. So transitioning from GIMP to Photoshop was extremely hard for me, right? Because I was so used to GIMP at the time. Because, I mean, there were a lot of tutorials out there and you just get used to our tool once you use it for quite some time.

Right.

And yeah, GIMP, I mean, free tool, amazing tool. And I still recommend it to people who don't want to go into the whole payment thing with the Creative Cloud. Mm-hmm.

Wait, right.

So GIMP.

Wait, GIMP still exists?

Is it still available out there?

Yeah. I did not know that. Wow.

That's fascinating.

Yeah. Did you were, um, you're into vector art as well, right? So did you go through the whole Macromedia, Adobe, you know, like that transition?

I, I mean, After I finished school, I wanted to, or I thought about studying at the Macromedia School in Munich because this one existed back then.

Whoa.

So there was a whole school just for, yeah?

Yeah.

Like that.

Oh, okay.

Like a university, like a Macromedia University, I think it was called. And then everything that was related to Macromedia was acquired by Adobe.

Yep.

So no more Flash at some point.

Right.

And yeah, that's it.

So would you say that you enjoyed designing in Flash? No, I'm just kidding. 'Cause, you know, Flash, that was, I remember my first project that I made at school was Flash-based and I, I wanna say it was like, it incorporated elements of like, I don't know, like Humphrey Bogart or something weird. But it was like one of those things where like Flash was so cool. And now I look back and I look at what we have now and I go, what a trajectory like motion graphics has made. Like, it's just been crazy. Yeah, definitely.

Let me ask you, what was the, um, what was the point? Because there's always that one point, right, that people have in their life where, you know, as you start to— even if it's— even if you've already been introduced to technology, right, and you start to kind of Pick it up here and there. There's a point where someone starts to think, this can be something I can do for the rest of my life, or this is the point in which, like, a career gets started.

Did you ever—

did you have a moment where, you know, you were either doing something— because you said, like, you, you know, started off in design. Was there a moment there where you were like, okay, this is something I could probably do for a living or I could do for the rest of my life?

Yeah, sure. And I had this moment also at a very, very young age, I would say. Like I was around 13 something. And I remember that a classmate just told me like, hey, I've built a website with, let's say something similar to GeoCities, right? And I was like, huh, I can do this myself. Or I can try this, right? And then I've built my first website, GIF Overload, to narrow it down. But I mean, it was a website back in, what was it, 2002, '03?

Yep.

Right? And after that, I've dived into different tools that existed back then for building websites. And at some point it was like, okay, I want to change the design. So I've started downloading assets, modifying them with GIMP or at some point with Photoshop. And the next step was, okay, I want to modify the layout. So this is where I got started diving into HTML, CSS, JavaScript, like this kind of things. And yeah.

Nice. Where, um, what, like when you first got started with all of this, then like you started diving into everything. What was like one of the first things, like what, when you first started, what surprised you most when you first got started with everything?

I mean, When I started, we are talking about the early 2000s and technology back then was completely different. And I remember building websites with tables because it was a thing back then.

You can't, right?

And this just made a click in my head, like, okay, I can think of a table and every table will maybe contain an image because this is what was done back then.

Mm-hmm.

And so this means I can design something in Photoshop, slice it because this is what slices were used for back then.

Right.

And then generate some code and have my thought or my thoughts, my idea brought to life, so to say. And this is what made the click in my head.

No, I mean, that slice tool, that slice tool, man. Like when I, when I was, uh, first building emails for a company, boy, did I overuse that. Like, I just, just gimme an image, I'll slice the heck out of it. And then. All I saw, people started showing me all like how it renders incorrectly in all these different email clients. Oh.

Lotus Notes.

Lotus Notes. You remember, uh, image maps when those used to be like really big? Like you'd have like a big infographic and then like you'd have like your image maps.

You'd have to stay out the links on the hotspots, right?

Yeah.

The hotspots. Oh yeah. I was gonna ask you, Anton.

Yeah.

From going from— was there a— because you now have your own baby, right? You have your own thing that you're working on towards with. How was the transition? Because I think that's something like everybody kind of wants that in some way or another, right? It's fair to say that everybody wants to be able to say, This is— I own that. Even if you don't own your own thing, you still want that same mentality where it's like, I want to own that thing. I want to help nurture that thing and make it grow and be better. Was it a hard transition to go from not having something like that, like just working like, you know, you may have been working at a place, you know, as part of like, you know, one of the cogs in the whole machine to like finally having something that was yours? Because I imagine that's got to be scary at first, right?

I would say yes and no. So, and of course, if you work as a cog in the machine, of course, it's— it might be easier, right? Because you don't have to think about where do I get the clients? Where do I handle the projects, communication, all those kind of things. You don't have to think or worry about that. But for me, it was always like, even when I was part of a team or working in an agency, every project that was on my table, I was like, okay, this is my baby. And I'm the only one who's responsible for that. What my colleagues added to the project back then was outside of my head, basically. So when I worked in design agencies or web agencies, I had websites. Just an example, a simple website. And I was like, okay, I have to do everything that the website will work.

Mm-hmm.

So transitioning from being an employee to having my own thing, sure, it's, it's confronting me with a lot more challenges because where do I get the clients from, finance stuff, all those kind of things that I not had to worry about before that, right? But from the work perspective, for me, it's basically the same.

Did it—

because I was, I was always at the beginning first starting out Kind of a sort of an introvert, right? I wasn't very— I didn't like to talk a lot. I know.

What?

Yeah, I know. I was right here. I am still to that to a certain extent, but like, did you find it— did you find that it was hard? Like, because I don't know personally, like, when you moved from that sort of, okay, well, this is mine now and there's a lot more things I have to do that are kind of more like higher level. Did you find that you really had to lean hard on kind of putting yourself out there more so than you would if you were just like one person as part of a team? Because like you're kind of like the front face now of your company, right?

Yeah.

So there's a lot more interactions and there's a lot more, you know, dealmaking, whatever you want to call it. But there's a lot more of that. And it is a very different approach than just being like, oh, I'm, you know, we're in a team meeting or, you know, we're talking with this vendor, but it's just me and my team and my managers talking to them, really. Like, did you— was that hard for you? Or was that just like, because you may, I don't know, like, maybe you're an extrovert at heart. Like, maybe it wasn't hard for you. But was there any type of like, learning experience there, having to go from one to the other?

Yeah, I would say I, I'm an introvert myself as well. But during the time when I worked for For the last partner agency.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I was the head of web and creative, so I had a team myself, and I had a team who were like, we can go into the client meeting, but we don't want to. We want to stick in front of our screens. Do the things that are required to do or requested to do, and you can go into the camera. And I was totally fine with that because since I have the experience as a designer and a developer, I could switch or I could talk to the client or whoever I was talking to, like, okay, from a design perspective, possible. From a developer perspective, this will take a lot of time. And we can think about alternatives who or which would be easier to implement, maybe cheaper to implement and such, right? And after the meeting, I went back to my team and was like, Hey guys, the designers need to do XYZ, the developers need to do ZYX, for instance. And it was very clear for, uh, to them, to me, and we had a great, uh, Voxel.

This is— so on that, that's one of my most challenging things when I was, uh, it's the sales versus reality type of part of it where You gotta sell it, right? But you also have to know those restrictions. I never— that, that, that's a hard balance. Like, how hard are you gonna push yourself to, like— and I imagine now that you have your own thing, that's gotta be even harder cuz you gotta make the sales, right? That's, that's on you.

Yeah. Um, so definitely a good point, uh, because I found myself quite often in a position where sales was like, dear client, everything is possible and we will do this in 1 week, right? And then sales after the meeting was like, hey, we can't do this in 1 week, right? And I was like, no.

Damn right.

We need at least 3 or 4 weeks.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Oh, but he all— or the client already got the quote for that. I was like, how?

Right?

Yeah.

But okay. And, um, I mean, this— I consider this to be a good thing right now because I can think of some numbers during the actual call. Much quicker than going to sales and talking with sales, creating a quote and such. So for me, it's a bit more of an optimized workflow here.

You're almost adjusting the conversation in your head as it happens versus having to go back and forth and have It's almost like, because within just programming and developing alone, right, there's multiple languages. But when you take it like a step backwards, right, and you look at it from like, let's say, the 10,000-foot view, there's almost like a multilingual type of aspect to that as well, where it's you have to talk as a sales, talk as a developer, talk as a designer, talk as— and while being able to— there's a great, great advantage to being able to kind of transcend all of these things and be able to, like you said, like you're in a meeting and you're able to talk as both the salesperson and as the developer. So the expectation can be kind of adjusted on the fly. I often wonder too, like, does it also, does it also kind of hinder it as well because you're not able to— because like, let's put it this way, like as a salesperson, if you're able to promise the world like that, that makes— that's going to make the sale, right?

Yeah.

Whereas when you start to step back into reality, it's more like, Well, we can't exactly build that website in like 15 minutes. It isn't just a one-click and you're up and done and ready to go.

You know what I mean?

So there's like this kind of give and take where it's, obviously I think it's more beneficial to be able to have that, like—

Yeah.

You're almost having a conversation in your head while you're having the conversation with the person you're trying to sell to. But yeah, it's just one of those things that always fascinated me because there's kind of like this balance, right, that you're trying to achieve where, yeah, you'd love to sell this person and be like, yes, I am definitely, let's, Let's get you signed up right now. I will tell you whatever you need to hear. But then, you know, realistically knowing that you're going to do it in your head, like from the program perspective, it's like, yeah, I can't do that. Right. So it's, um, that's a, it's a really, um, uh, kudos to you for, you know, being able to do that because it's not something everybody can do. Right. It's overwhelming.

It is.

In certain aspects. Yeah.

And then you have like the scope as well, right? Scope changes, like scope creep. All that stuff happens and you're managing all that. I don't, that's, that's, you know, kudos. As, as Nick said, that's really hard stuff to be able to manage.

And I have to agree with the comment that John made where like, it's, it's valuable having a developer in the room when you have like a sales call. I remember, um, even, even if it was just over the phone, I was usually the silent person sitting in the room. And then like the salespeople would be like talking to the person and then they would be like, yeah, can we do that? And I'm like, Yeah, let's do it. Writing notes and holding up signs of timelines and stuff like that.

Or you're just in the background going, no. Yeah, that too.

They were asking about specific features and I'm like, no, no, don't. Then they'll be like, yeah, we could do that.

I'm like, oh. Or you'd be like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator where you're just like this and you're like, no.

Yep, pretty much.

It takes a certain type of balance and that's Yeah, no, and kudos to you for being able to do that because like some people, like, it's just not possible. It really isn't because, and especially too, like you have to, and I, and the one of the things I wanted to ask you too, and it's kind of along, along the same lines of what we're talking about is like, how hard was it to kind of break out into those multiple, like things that you had to do?

Right.

'Cause I, I'm like one of those people that sometimes where if I get a, if I get a thing to work on, even if I have to work on multiple aspects of it, I'm very, I wanna be very hyper-focused. On one part until I'm done, and then I want to move to the next part, and then I'm gonna— it's not that I can't multitask, it's just I like to really focus maybe too intently sometimes on one part of it until I can consider it quote unquote done. Like, was there a challenge, or maybe there wasn't, but into going from— because, you know, a lot of roles that aren't— when you don't own something are sort of like that, where it's like, here's your thing, here's your API, this is what you're working on, or here's your You know, here's the thing you QA, QA that. Going from that to kind of like having to speak those multiple languages sometimes in your own head to yourself, was there a trick to that for you or did that just come, did it come naturally?

Yeah, I would say I'm still learning that because I mean, for the most time of my professional life, I would say, I was either the designer or the developer, but I was the sales guy, so to say, only after the actual meeting, right? So when we had an internal discussion about the potential project, then I was like, okay, technically we can do this, but the actual sales Told the company already XYZ, so we have to make it happen. But we need to adjust things and such.

And yeah, so right now I'm still learning that almost like you're almost reselling it to internally. You know what I mean? Like versus like what we're talking about.

Yeah.

So yeah, no, that's a good point. I guess you do get that kind of sales because you have to kind of convince everyone that this is possible and here's how we're going to do it. So yeah, no, that's. I didn't really thought of it that way. That's pretty cool. Let me shift gears a little bit and talk about— I wanted to kind of know, like, currently, like, do you have— are there any, let's call them either pivotal moments or milestones or anything that you've hit in your career so far that have just really stood out to you?

Yeah. I mean, There are a lot of such milestones, I would say. But one of the— I would also say one of the most important ones was when Jenny from the community team reached out and was like, hey, we have something new on the table. It's called Community Champions. Do you want to join?

Right.

Because this was the moment where I've started thinking, or it just was made clear, um, that, hey, I can help people in some ways, right? Because I mean, my relationship to the HubSpot community, I think a lot of people know that, that I super thankful for that. And I really, really enjoy the community and I'm thankful for the community because of the community. I was able to get to the point where I am now.

John mentions too, there might be a cape involved. Is that one of the— is there a milestone with a cape involved?

Yeah. I mean, the cape was one of the main reasons why I kept in the— or staked to the community.

Yeah, sure.

I have to say, you got to meet Dennis too. There's always—

I mean, yeah, pros, cons, pros, cons. I would say honestly, and this is a, uh, kudos to, uh, Anton, one of the, my pivotal moments, uh, was in the community. I was very active on the, uh, the forums and Anton mentioned me in a question for my, my opinion. I felt like, oh my God, I've made it to the next level. Anton's actually, you know, mentioned he knows who I am. So I felt so good.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

No, that's one of those things where it's like, Having people like you, Anton, and others in the community, it's— I mean, it's one of those things where I think people don't necessarily— like, you know what I mean? Like, anybody that just start to— that just first comes into the community, it's like, oh, there's a bunch of people here. And yeah, there's some people answering questions. But I think the longer that people stay, or the more people get to know the community as a whole, then they start to understand, like, there are some of those people. And like, don't get me wrong, like, most people in the community are pretty selfless as far as like what they're doing and the help that they're giving. But then there are those ones that they just, you just keep seeing consistently, right? There's, there's the Carters, there's you, where it's like you just, you know, with no expectation of anything in return. And I think that's what makes, you know, the HubSpot community, you know, as a whole, just something that's just far beyond anything I've ever seen or I've ever witnessed, at least in my career until I got here. So, I mean, yeah, huge thanks for that as well, because it's just There's just, people just don't, you know, you would take it for granted at first if you had no idea, right?

I mean, you'd never know that, Nick, 'cause you live in a basement and don't speak.

Well, I'm an introvert. I would never know that. So I don't, yeah, no, there's, but there's every once in a while I do kind of emerge, you know, to ask a random weird question or misquote something and then I just jump back into the hole in which I came from. So, But speaking of selfless things, I did want to ask you about too, you're not only a champion in the community, but you are also, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, a mentor as well.

Yeah.

That would be. So tell us a little bit about that because that's another thing too where kudos. It's not something you have to do, but you do give back at such a great extent.

Yeah. Thank you. Sure. So last year, SJ reached out like, hey, we have a new thing coming up called the HubSpot Mentorship Program or Developer Mentorship Program. And do you want to be part of that? Right. And it was a 3-month program last time. And I had so much fun meeting other people, sharing my knowledge, and they've also shared their knowledge. So I was also learning from them. And this year, when SJ again just made it Somewhat public, like, hey, we have the ecosystem mentorship program this year. And I was like, okay, where can I sign up? Right? Because it was an amazing experience last time. This year, I would say it's a very positive evolution.

Mm-hmm.

So, I'm really enjoying this and working with my mentees. Um, yeah.

Can you speak to the positive evolution? What, what, what really is, uh—

I mean, okay. Um, so last year, because it was the first one and nobody Really did know what to do, how to do. You know, it was kind of like the alpha. Yeah, version. I mean, it was fun and great experience. But this year, I have the feeling that it's way more. I mean, I. Wouldn't say professional, but it's just better in many, many ways than last year.

Right.

There's like an evolution, right? There's always going to be that kind of, yeah, where it's like you start out with something great. Like, you know, I could give a really great example. Like, there's a podcast that these 3 guys started, and the very first one or 2, it was a little rough. And then, you know, it started to, as feedback came in, there was a bit of an evolution. And now it's this well-polished, you know, Top 10 tier. No, yeah, I think— okay, but no, it's, uh, yeah, no, like, I imagine, like, just with, with just about anything, right, there's that, that constant, um, there's that iteration, right? There's that always improvement that's always going to happen. John actually, uh, brought up a really good question too. I, I mean, we mentioned the selflessness of you, Anton, and, like, just giving in a sense where you're not expecting anything in return. But a good question is, has there something that you have gotten in return from this that you've like maybe didn't expect, right?

Yeah, sure. I mean, I got the cape, first of all. And this was something that I really did not expect back then. But I mean, there are a lot of perks that you get as a community champion and mentor and a few other things where I'm part of.

Right.

So I don't do the things that I do just because I got the thought in my, my head like, okay, if I do XYZ, then I will get eggs at some point. I don't think that way, right? Because the way how I see the community, if we take the community as an example, is on one side, I'm helping somebody to fix the current situation that he or she is facing. Right. But on the other side, I'm also learning for myself so I can provide better and easier help to my paying clients, so to say.

Mm-hmm.

And, I mean, one thing that, I mean, is also a benefit is Since I'm doing the things that I do in the community for quite some time, and I mean the whole developer area of the community, this is where I'm most focusing on. There are a lot of people reaching out to me via Slack, via email. LinkedIn, whatever, and are like, hey, I've read an article by you and I have something similar. Can, can we work together? And I will pay you to do something, right? So yeah, this works for me.

I'd also say that you have a, because of your voice, because of your participation, how helpful you've been, you're Your voice is heard within HubSpot, you know, internally. We hear you and like we take your feedback seriously. I know teams that have like, you know, have pictures of you on slide decks, you know, like, you know, this person had this thing to say. So yeah.

Just even thinking about it, like what, um, for those who may remember, we did a Coding with John session when we redid the developers.hubspot.com site and Literally, we were just showing a demo of like a Morse code kind of background thing. And then I think John made the comment of like, oh, we'll eventually like figure out a way to emit. And all of a sudden, like next day, Anton's full module code, everything just sent like, here, go for it. And yeah.

Yeah.

Like that just shows like the kind of person you are. It's like, you really are a helpful person. You just, you just want to create things and you want people to enjoy what's being created and share that knowledge. And if you were to look at the source code on the developer's site, you would see that there is an annotation. That it says like Morse code by—

Yeah.

So it's one of those things where like, like you're a part of the developer's main page because you actually actively contributed and it wasn't even— we didn't even ask. We didn't—

you just were awesome about it.

So yeah, seriously, it's things like that where like, I think that kind of helps answer John's question too, of like that getting something in return. Like you didn't, you didn't ask us to do any of that, but it's like you gave us such a great piece of functionality. And helped us out.

Yeah, I mean, thank you. Um, because again, I do a lot of things, uh, without expecting something in return. But again, I'm doing a lot of things to learn something new, right? And Since you've mentioned the Morse code header, it was like, I remember this specific moment last year where John just showed the Figma file.

Yeah.

And the first idea in my head was like, okay, this looks like a Morse code, even if John might not have mentioned that it's a Morse code, but My head was like, okay, this is a Moscow. So let's try create something and make it more dynamical because I I worked with HubSpot COS back in very old days, and since then it was always like, okay, you have. the amazing functionality of HubSpot and you can create basically anything. So let's combine those dots and make something easier to handle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it, and it, and it was brilliant because like, yeah, internally, like as we were building stuff with the Morse code on it, it's like, okay, we need to, you know, rearrange the dots and then, and then as soon as you built that, I'm like, just screenshot it. Like, Put it in the inspector, fix it up, and then we'll just screenshot that as the image code. It was fantastic.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Let me ask you, because of all of this, right? Because as a community champion, as someone who's also been a mentor, how big of a challenge does it become when you want to— because like you said, you take on some of these things and you work with people because you want to learn more. At what point does— because you are, you know, so giving on one end of it, but then does it become difficult to try to like pick and choose which things you want to do? Because I can imagine it becomes sort of a challenge when everybody wants to work with you and everybody wants to either do something or be involved in something. 24 hours in a day. I mean, unless you got a plan, Anton, to change that, how do you deal with that?

Maybe sleep. Maybe.

No, but so my— the most important thing to me is what is the mindset of the person, right? If the mindset isn't right, then I might not work with this person.

Yeah.

Because if there's no, let's say, connection, then I can say, hey, I can do it for amount X. But then this person will say, yeah, but let's do, if you don't give me 20% off, I won't sign the deal. Right? Just an example. And in this example, case, I would say, I don't want to work with you, like, technically, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because I have the experience that if people are starting with, hey, I want a discount, I want XYZ, then they the whole project will be quite difficult.

Yeah. Did you start out this way when you first started your company? Did you have that same mentality or is this an evolution?

I mean, now it's, it has evolved, right? But for me, It was a no-brainer basically, because I think that work should make fun, right? And you only have fun if you do the things that you love. And you can do the things that you love only if you work with somebody who's thinking kind of similar the way you do. So you don't have to convince him and go through all the discussion rounds and such.

And yeah. So what I'm hearing is I need to reevaluate my situation with these 2 other people who I have a weekly podcast with. Okay, noted.

That's— I mean, I was going to pitch you this thing I wanted to start that's like Facebook, but not quite like Facebook. It's sort of similar, but not, but you still do the same thing. But okay. Okay.

I see how it is.

Facebook? No.

Yeah.

I'll have to go, I'll have to go back to the drawing board and rethink that just a little bit, but I'll I'll come back to you with something. Don't worry. So, Anton, let me ask you this.

Have you ever had a project that you regretted not taking? Like, you don't have to give specifics or name names or anything like that. I'm not asking for the details, but has there ever been a project in like a specific industry where like you've been like, oh, I really wish I would have taken that project now?

Thinking there was this guy Zuckerberg who approached me about this thing and I was just like, get out of here.

No.

He ran MySpace.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm not sure because there are definitely a lot of projects from the past where I will think of after the podcast ends, right?

But—

Of course, yeah. Classic. But I think I wanted to create a full-blown app with a former team member of mine last year. And last year it didn't work out because he got a new job. And I mean, we all know that if you're starting a new job, Full focus on the new job, right? And right now we are talking about stuff. So maybe this project will happen at some point in the future. But this is one thing that I would say I regret not doing. And Another thing might be that I've never, that I've never really dived into game development.

Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. Like, I really wish, and I think it's just a matter of like the times, you know, like not to sound like, you know, I'm 99, the times they are changing, but Yeah, video games just weren't like— video game development wasn't as mainstream way back when. Like, even 10 years ago, it wasn't like the biggest mainstream thing. And now it's become so huge where like, I would love to like look into that. But yeah, it's one of those where like, where do you find the time, right?

Well, it's not just that, but you also have multiple, um, you have multiple kind of platforms that you can do it on. Like, there's people that are just right now just saying like, I'm doing nothing but VR games for head, you know, for like Meta Quest or I'm just gonna stick strictly with, you know what I mean? Like, so there's, you have a couple of different avenues now too, which I think makes it, I mean, that's not the, that's not the do-all and say-all as far as like why it's different, but I, it helps tremendously when you have different masteries you can kind of focus on, right? So it's one of those.

What I'm hearing is that the 4 of us are gonna create Sprocky the game and that's gonna be—

It'll take over the paperclip and it'll just be a HubSpot Sprocket and that's gonna be what, that's always what should have been like as far as like, AI and the CRM, it should have been him.

But, uh, I mean, he wasn't the developer extension that was out there, the community developer extension.

So was there? I don't—

yeah, yeah, that was a long— we'll, we'll take that offline, Nick. I'll explain that joke to you along.

We need, we need to resurrect that then. But, uh, but let me pull on, uh, let me pull on the mentor, uh, thread just a little bit. Um, a lot of the stuff you said has been very— I mean, it's, it's It's true in every sense of the way. Is there a— because you're a mentor and because you are giving back to the community the way you do, and even the people that you're mentoring, is there something like from your perspective that someone's given you as a piece of advice that's really stuck out or that's really kind of made an impact?

Definitely. So many years ago when I was just starting understanding HubSpot development. I had somebody from the community who I who invited me to a separate Slack channel, and we were constantly chatting. And this person is somebody that I would say. Was my mentor back then, and this person told me that as a HubSpot developer, you are a big fish in a very small pond. Yeah, and this still is stuck in my head, right? Because I mean, I don't want to dive into the whole Hubble versus React topic, but this is something that I think makes everybody, or the people who are working with Hubble, very unique, because not everybody can write a good Hubble code. So therefore those people are becoming the big fish, so to say, right? So yeah.

Excellent.

No, that's good. Is there a, I'm trying to think of, are there certain things that you Kind of instill, like, as a mentor, are there certain things that you are trying to instill in the people that you're mentoring as far as like, like, like someone gave you that piece of advice, right? Is there, are there pieces of advice that are kind of like things that you definitely want to instill in someone that you're helping out? Um, 'cause I mean, sometimes a piece of advice that you're given at a certain point in time might not necessarily be, you know what I mean? It might not be the advice that that person needs at that time, right? Like, for example, the one that you just mentioned. Is, you know, was good for you at a certain point, but like somebody who was just first starting out and maybe, you know, now, now that React is becoming a thing, maybe that's the Hubo versus React thing. Maybe in a couple of years might not be as they're coming up as a developer, something that's as much of a conflict there. Um, are there things that you kind of want to instill in the people that you're mentoring?

Yeah. So one thing that I tell to my mentees all the time is don't be afraid of making mistakes because from mistakes you will learn the most.

Amen.

Right?

Yep.

I mean, I remember that when I started, I did not understand the for loop. For instance, very simple example. I did not understand that. So I've tried to solve something without the for loop. It worked, right? But it were like, let's say, 200 lines of code. And if I would have get the idea of how to use the for loop, Then I could have written a code of maybe ten lines of code.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And I mean, I made the mistake back then. So, and the result was I had to understand for loops to not make the same. Mistake again, right? And this is where I've started to really dive into the documentation and understanding, trying out, be creative, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the thing that tripped me up with the for loops was the nested for loop. That threw me for a loop. I remember I wrote a kind of like an image gallery type thing for like a site that sold groceries. Like you could go through and you could view their product catalog. And I remember my first iteration of writing it, it was the most largest, longest, most complicated for loop I wrote. And then I showed it to my buddy Rob and he looked at it and he goes, you don't need like 40 of these lines. Like you can cut this with just one simple— Like he did it in one, like he cloned my module and then he rewrote my code And literally was like 50% less code. And I was like, I'm an idiot. And that was one of those things where like, I just wasn't familiar enough with nested loops to really think through it. But after that, like, yeah, you remember those things for sure.

Let me— I'm gonna— because we're gonna, we're gonna be coming up on time in a little while. But let me, let me kind of slow it down a little bit. And let me ask you about Anton, The non-developer. Let me ask you about how does Anton unwind? What does he do when— and again, we always make the statement that you can't get away from tech 100%, like most things you can't, but like, what do you do from a non-techie perspective to kind of unwind and kind of relax?

I mean, I really enjoy gaming. Like, I'm a Gamer. Not a professional gamer anymore, but, um, I mean, I was never a professional gamer, but, uh—

In our, in our heads, we all are at some point. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, but I really enjoy games. Uh, I have a small drone that I can just Start up, fly around, take a few pictures, come back and edit the images in Photoshop, for instance.

Nice. Bringing that to inbound, I imagine, right?

Yeah.

Is it allowed?

I doubt it.

I'm sure it's not.

You should, I don't know.

I think you have to have a, don't you have to have like a license for like anything that you fly as a drone? Like for the FAA here in the States, I think you have to have like a sort of like, uh, thing for your, yeah, for your drone. You have to have like a number for like a, An FAA number or something like that. All kind of paperwork.

Yeah.

And, um, besides that, I mean, the obvious things like meeting friends, going out to a bar, those kind of things.

I must say we did, um, last inbound, uh, we, uh, what was it? Was it right, Dennis? Wasn't it last inbound? We all met, like me, you, Anton, right? Didn't we all meet? At Lasting Bound, right?

Yeah.

Was it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was, I mean, I think, I think that was one of the coolest things. I think, uh, it was actually getting to meet like you and some of the other people. Like, I think, I think Jennifer was there too as well, but it was like, that was one of those things for me where it was like, you do this every day, right? But you, and you talk to people, but you don't actually get, you know what I mean? That first time you actually get to meet somebody and you're like, oh, this is a real human being. This is cool.

You know what I mean?

It was like one of those things where just, That for me was one of those cool things where I was really, really fortunate to be able to get to do that. And yeah, no, that was, I just wanted to bring that up because I do remember distinctly, we, you know, we met and then we all went out to lunch, I think like right across the street from the thing. And it was just like, it was one of those things where I don't know too many jobs where I've ever had that experience, right? Where like either clients or, you know, users of whatever it is, like that much of a, you know, kind of an intimate experience where you get to meet them and talk to them, hang out with them. And it was just, it was fascinating to me. And I wouldn't change it for the world, but I just wanted to say that was one of those things too, where even Anton, real-life Anton, is just as cool as, you know, as people might be watching you here. It's, yeah, I can't get over that, that that's just one of those things we get to do.

Can't wait to see you in San Francisco, Nick, to recreate this entire thing.

That's clever, Dennis. Real clever. Yeah, I might not be attending that one just because, you know, Alters and everything.

So I do have a question for you, Anton, and actually Brooke asked this, and that's what is your favorite game that you're playing right now?

Right now I would say Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Nice, nice.

Are you a big fan of the Assassin's Creed franchise, or is it just like that specific?

Because like Black Flag all day long, like the pirate theme, that is—

yeah, pirate-themed things.

So did you hear that they are remaking it?

Really?

It will be— yeah, there will be Black Flag remastered coming up.

Hmm.

Did you have to get that? Did you like the movie with— what was it, Fassbender?

Was it—

was In the movie, was he in the Assassin's Creed movie?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you like that movie? I watched it and I was like, it's all right.

Yeah, same. Okay, it was like, for people who don't know the games, it was a cool movie. But for those people who know the games, who really enjoy the games, I would say the film or the movie was like okay-ish. Right.

But yeah.

Fun.

Yeah, there's— people had mixed reviews on it, so I was just curious what you thought about that because I was like, I, I, it was all right. Yeah, it was definitely all right. I don't want to trash on the movie, but it was all right. Um, let me ask you, um, do you have like between the things that you do— actually, didn't you mention, uh, because you mentioned in there, um, And I wanted to ask you about this, but this was one of your bucket list things that was to travel through Greenland in a van. Like, what made you pick that as a bucket list thing? I was just curious about that.

I mean, I'm coming from a place where it's not— let's just say I enjoy the cold environment more than the hot environment. And like traveling in a bus through the, uh, in Greenland, I mean, it was just a random idea, but at some point I was always, uh, like rethinking that thing.

And yeah.

It's— no, I'm with you 100% on that, on the cold versus the warm. I— if you've ever been to Florida, I went to Florida once. This This does not work in Florida. It just, it can't do it. It's literally, it's, it just, it's like a dead flower. It just wilts. So the hot environment for me was just, I, no, I, I like nice cool, maybe like for here in the States, like a 60-degree. So there's just, yeah, it's just, yeah. It's one of those things. Uh, do you like, is it hard for you to balance? And, and with some people, and I'm amazed at this, that, that it actually is easy for them, but Is it hard for you to balance the work life? Because I mean, there's certain people that have a really hard time with it. And then there's some people I talk to where they're just like, yeah, no, it's easy. Why don't you just— right there, there's a line right there. Just draw it. And I'm like, really? And how do you take that? I mean, is it easy for you?

No.

Short answer, no, because I can't shut down my brain. Right? Because even if I turn off my working machine, my head still is thinking about things.

Right.

And I have 2 whiteboards on the right of me, which are filled with ideas and thoughts and whatever. And every time I go through my apartment, I'm seeing the whiteboards and I'm Starting, okay, I can think about that and this and XYZ, you know? So it's very chaotic, so to say.

Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, no, that's, that's a hard thing to turn off, especially when you have so— well, and the thing is too, like the, just from what you've mentioned, there's like, there's mo— I mean, there's multiple things you're involved in and then there's multiple people that want to be involved in things with you. So I mean, yeah, I imagine there's gonna have to be a 3rd whiteboard in there for you, Anton. That's the only thing where at this point, right?

I can vouch, he does not shut down. Yeah, I, I don't know, I've been on Slack with him all hours of the day, night, and he's— Anton's always working.

Well, I mean, speaking of night, it's, it's like 7, 8 o'clock at night by you right now, isn't it, Anton?

It's 8 PM for me.

Ah, so see, we actually do have an after dark.

This is one of the first— yeah, this is one of the first developers, ladies and gentlemen.

Yeah, actually, also one of the first guests that is actually Yeah, nighttime.

I think you and Tuan, I think, were the only 2 people that have actually had this. It's actually been after dark. This is good. So, so there, for all of you naysayers out there, it does happen at night sometimes. There you go. Take that. Take that. Um, but no, yeah, I, I think it's, um, it's one of those things where you have to, you know, some, some people actually just have to force themselves to try to disconnect and I mean, it can be both a gift and a curse, but at the same time too, it's like you would hate to ever lose that sharpness, right? You'd hate to ever be like kind of complacent because that's people who, like for me, like I, me and AJ are kind of like that as well. You know, when we're, even when we're not out, like, like what, AJ? Like a couple weeks ago we had dinner or lunch at this place that we wanted to have like a developer meetup at.

Mm-hmm.

And our mind, like we couldn't even, we could not not talk about just like, development stuff, and it just kind of goes off into this tangent into like a million other things totally work-related. And then it's very hard. You almost have to like try to force yourself to be like, so did you watch the game yesterday? Like, you can't— it's just like, it's very hard to not be like, well, we could do this and this and this. So yeah, it's, um, I don't know how some people do it. I really don't. But I would hate to lose that sharpness, right? Because that's kind of the— you're kind of operating at that level. You're constantly, like you said, Anton, you're trying to keep yourself Involved, engaged, and it's really, you're keeping yourself sharp. And it's like to try to undo that is almost trying to fight against that mentality. And I would hate to never be— I'm not saying I'm sharp at all. I mean, there's, there's plenty of people listening, watching that could probably argue that case. But, um, you would hate to lose that drive to be that way, I guess, is kind of what I'm getting at. So, um, as long as you love it, right?

As long as you love it, you don't burn yourself out doing it. That's the, uh, yeah, right.

True.

Yes. No, that's, that's a perfect, that's a perfect way of looking at it.

Absolutely.

To kind of round everything off, are there any things that you've done recently, Anton, as far as like any conferences, any things like that? Or is there anything people will be able to see you at in the future?

So my last conference was Inbound 24. And the next time people can or will be able to meet me will be Inbound 25 in San Francisco.

Nice.

Tickets are on sale.

Yeah.

So I'll be coming to San Francisco this year.

Very nice.

That's amazing. Yeah.

No, I love it. I love it. Yeah, no, I just, I wanted to say thank you, Anton, because, you know, these are the type of conversations, like we've been saying for quite some time now that like, this is what we want people To be able to kind of experience, right? We want to be able for people to see the different, because it's the, yes, everybody has a different type of journey, but there's some things within those journeys, right? That are obviously different, but they're so impactful because like there are certain things that you've done, like especially, and I know I keep kind of harking on it, but like the selflessness of your nature is just kind of one of those things that I personally don't really have. to a certain extent, and that I kind of wish that I could do more of. I really wish I could. And it's something that I have to work on, right, as a person. But, you know, for you and just kind of like as a good example of like what you can kind of accomplish by being, you know, somebody who's a mentor or somebody who's a champion, like there— this— it isn't just like a status symbol. There are certain things to it where you're impacting people. And then you get— you're sort of impacted yourself, right? So I just, you know, from the bottom of my heart at least, and everybody I can assume here, we just want to thank you for that because that's just something that's— and it's an example we want other people joining the community to see and be like, you can also— you should and could also do this. It's not, you know, it's not out of reach for anybody to be able to accomplish these type of things.

So yeah.

Yeah, so thank you very much for that. I mean, that's fantastic. Is there places that people can, if they want to get in touch with you, if they can find you or anything you want to give a shout out to?

I mean, as you've mentioned, I'm in the community. So you can find me in the community, write me a message there. The next best place would be, I would say, LinkedIn.

Excellent.

Um, yeah.

AJ, Dennis, did you have anything else that you wanted to— that I didn't ask?

No, no, just like, just reiterating again, like, thank you for like all the help with the developer side stuff too. Like, like I said, you've been a huge help throughout the community. And I mean, I remember very early on, like when you were in the community at the start and like all that, because I think we were all in there together at one point or another. So yeah, it's definitely— I know I've learned a lot from you. So thank you.

Yeah. And, uh, how many events on D-HUG right now? I mean, you know, that's, that's all you— year plus, year plus doing that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's another thing too. Yeah. That's just like another thing to add to the list of just things where it's like, yeah, nobody— you didn't have to do that. It was something that you wanted to do. And that's something like, and especially like, I think that's even, um, for me, that's even more, not even more cooler, but It's one of those things where it's like, this isn't something that you just went off and said, well, I'm just going to do this. Like, you actually worked with Dennis, you know, and it's like, it's like a collaborative thing where it's, you know, because some people, don't get me wrong, like there's people that, you know, that are in the community there and they're doing very well for themselves. But, you know, like you're someone who's also kind of interacting back with HubSpot, right? Where it's like, because, you know, I'll be honest, like I've done this in certain communities as well where I've jumped in. just to get what I needed and ask a question, and then I'm out. They probably haven't seen me for months, right? Where other people like you, for example, is— it's— you're not just in there and then gone the next day. It's like, it's almost like a staple. It's something that's there continuously that just doesn't— do you know what I mean? Which is a good thing. I don't mean that like, oh, geez, here's Anton again. He's always around, this guy, you know? But it's like, it's a good thing.

Yes.

You know, it's, you know, give me, you know, Multiply that by more people doing that, and there's no— the limit for the community is just kind of— it's endless. So it's a really cool thing. Yeah.

I had to surface this from John because this is just the perfect dad joke.

Yeah. So now people are just going to come up and randomly hug you all the time now. So hope you're ready for that. That's just going to be a weird thing that people do.

So yeah, I'll be looking out for this at Inbound.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

But yeah, I'll give you one for me. So he'll be— yeah.

Yeah.

But no, thank you again. And yeah, so yeah, from everybody here and everybody watching and then everybody who's going to watch at some point, we just want to say thank you. And thank you to everybody tuning in again for another wonderful episode. I didn't come up with a quote for the end of this one because I just didn't— I completely forgot about it. But what I will leave you with is this little thing where, as we're talking about this stuff, right? And as we're talking about the technologies and as things come about and start to, you know, pretty much exponentially grow as far as the amount of things and the variations on how things change, you know, technology is going to kind of force some people to reinvent themselves, right? And it shouldn't be something you should be afraid of. Because if you take a great example of singer-songwriter Jason Derulo, Mm-hmm. he was very unsuccessful at the very, very beginning because He originally spelled his name JSON, which, I mean, as a data exchange format, he was always being confused with that, right? So very unpopular at the time because, you know, there's a lot of confusion. So he changed his name to J-A-S-O-N, and then he's the JSON Derulo we know now. So don't let technology make you afraid. Don't let it stop you from reinventing yourself because it's going to make you a better person in the end when you get out to the other side. So I'll leave you with that.

Because it was just JS Owen, he couldn't comment on anything though.

Uh, that's true. I'm stopping this now.