Ep. 19 - To Be Or Not To Be... Comfortable with Ricky Diep | Devs:After Dark

I think the best bot you can make is a Midwestern chatbot, and it takes 30 minutes to say goodbye to you.

Hello and welcome to episode 19 of Developers After Dark. I am your host, who people like to call the T. We're here on Developers After Dark. What's that?

That's accurate.

That's— I mean, it's pretty much so I've heard. So I've heard. Um, but no, yeah, we're here, episode 19, on a nice rainy day here in the Midwest. Uh, nice and cold. Uh, basically we have a really, really awesome guest for you today. We're going to talk about some really amazing stuff that just happened just recently. But before we get into that, let me pay a couple of bills. And give a quick shout out to both AJ and Dennis for last week bringing the train into the station for last episode. I went back on Friday and I watched, and I wanted to also give a shout out to Kaitlyn too because she brought up something really, really interesting. And I actually, as I watched it, I went back and I looked at my own like Slack DMs, and she had brought up the point where it's like, I can't remember, I don't want to quote her specifically, but Paraphrasing of like, there's like the kind of like the humanity is lost when you start like DMing people like, hey, quick question, or hey, without actually asking how they're doing or how's your day or hey, it's been a while since we talked. And I went back and I looked and like a majority of my Slacks since, you know, since I've started over time have become less and less human.

Yeah.

So shout out to her for that because I actually started going back and as I started messaging people from that point forward, I actually started kind of reintroducing humanity into my conversations. 2 things.

It's just, it's an odd balance. I don't like, um, like superficial, like, conversation for the most part. It's like, just get to the point. But at the same time, I don't like to be that guy who jumps out from around the corner. It's like, yo, I need this now type of person as well.

So it's like this weird balancing act, right? There's that quick question, quick question. It's like, you know, instead of how are you doing, or hey, how's life, or I haven't talked to you in a while. So yeah, I, I started to make a habit to try and do that a little bit more, just I am so guilty of doing that.

Yeah, I did it like 3 times this past week. I think I did it to Lauren Pacifica once, and then, uh, who was the other— I think, I think I might have even done it to like, I don't know, probably like Hannah or somebody who just been like, hey, you know, QQ, because I'm too lazy.

Yeah, we don't even, don't even type out quick questions anymore, it's just QQ, right? No, but, uh, yeah, no, so shout out to Caitlin, uh, that, that's what makes her one of the best, uh, honestly. So, um, so let me do a— do real quickly Pay a couple bills here. I mean, obviously for those watching and those listening, you already know that, uh, devsafterdarkpod.com is the website. You can go there for episodes. We do them live on most Fridays, and then any back episodes, obviously you can go back and check out the whole episode catalog. Um, as always, if you want to know what is going on here at HubSpot, your best bet is going to be the HubSpot Developer Changelog. You can honestly go— and if I'm clicking on the right banner, that would probably help as well. You're gonna go to developers.hubspot.com/changelog. You'll find out the latest stuff going on, everything from like bug fixes to configurations to deprecations all the way through rollups. I mean, everything is there. And not only do you see the stuff announced too, but keep in mind too, there's also an upcoming tab too, so you can kind of see what's coming in the near future. That's always important to know as well. So check that out if you haven't already and subscribe and make sure that you are part of that email chain and you'll get notifications on stuff coming up as it happens.

Hey Nick, I just want to add to that. On the changelog, at the very bottom is a link to the community. And if you do have questions or comments about that specific changelog entry, that is your place to go to say, what's up with this? Or wow, this is amazing. I prefer the wow, this is amazing comments over the what's up with this, but Compliments more than complaints. Yeah, that's fair.

No, that's fair. That's a good call out, Dennis. Thank you. Thank you. One last thing too, the Academy of course is always a place you're gonna go, academy.hubspot.com, to learn anything, like everything you want to know, whether it's inbound marketing, whether it's SEO, like everything is there and you should definitely check it out. And most importantly, something coming up that's kind of a yearly thing, but it only happens In a week span, and that's gonna be the World Cert Week for 2025. If there isn't a better— if you wanna learn new stuff or you wanna re-up your certifications, now would be that time, or that week would be that time, which is all of next week, because HubSpot is donating $5 to educational-focused charities around the world for every certification.

No way. Yeah.

So that's— I have tons. Like most people, I put off my recerts or certifications to the very last minute. But if you're gonna do it, that would be the week to do it. So that way it goes towards a worthy cause. So check that out. And, uh, yeah, if you, if you're just recertifying, make sure you do it that week. And hey, if you want to learn something new, like I said, that's the week to do it. So yeah.

And I also heard Nick's gonna personally send a video to everybody to say thank you.

So yeah, he's been doing that lately. He's really, really in the game with like that, the just being a human.

See, every week these 2, Ricky, they come up with this new thing. Either I'm signing merchandise which nobody's gonna want, or I'm doing— it's, it's amazing all these things I'm quote-unquote volunteering for that I've never heard of before. So that's a— it's a very interesting—

We talked about the last meeting, right?

Yeah, yeah, you weren't there, but we talked about it.

Was it a meeting of 2? Because I obviously was not there for any of it. But with that said, Without further ado, I want to introduce our guest because there's also something else that we wanted to kind of discuss too that I wanted him to be the one to do it because there is no better person. So, um, without further ado, Ricky, why don't you introduce yourself, tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Yeah, so my name is Ricky, um, and I've had over 7+ years experience within the tech industry. I started in tech and I've always worked in tech. I've had a ton of other previous roles, which I'm happy to dive into if that's where the discussion leads to. But in short, I am currently the Principal Product Marketer for Developers at HubSpot for platform marketing. And yeah, that's a little bit about myself. And do you want me to jump into the, to skip ahead into the dev tools or I'll let you tee that up first?

Yeah, no, that'd be perfect. Yeah, like last week we had, we introduced, we kind of did the Spring Spotlight, you know, there was an event in New York, but one of the things that, is a really important focus for that would be the developer tools and the updates and some of the new stuff with regards to developer tools. And that's Ricky, like no better person to be able to kind of tee that up and tell everyone what that's all about. So yeah, why don't you just jump right into it?

For sure. I guess this is my part of paying the bills. So I'm here to really talk a bit about some of the developer tools that we have coming out. So I'm super excited to announce that as a part of our Spring Spotlight for 2025, we've also included a brand new suite of developer tools that are really designed to accelerate integration and app development for developers on the HubSpot platform. We have a ton of features and updates that we're really excited to share, but essentially developers are the backbone of what makes things possible.

Either Ricky just got quiet or Oh no. Coming back in in a different— you got that, AJ?

Yeah, I am on.

There we go. I don't know what happened. I'm sorry.

It sounded so good too. I was just listening deeply to that.

Sorry. I'll quickly trace back to where I was. As a part of our Spring Spotlight for 2025, we were really excited to introduce a brand new set of developer tools that we had that are really designed to help developers integrate and build applications faster on HubSpot. Developers are essentially the backbone of how things get created, how great the platform really is, so we really wanted to give them their own showcase. So later on, AJ, Dennis, and Nick will pop in a link to the chat on a page that fully highlights some of the things that we've launched for developer tools. It includes our latest updates and features. And some of the things that I'm super excited about, when I was building the messaging for some of this was our reimagined app development experience. You're able to build things within the CLI, you're able to have updates to our projects platform. We've really focused on API updates to really help with extensibility for what you can and can't do with this new HubSpot platform. And also my most favorite thing that we just did an AMA for on Reddit is UI extensions. This really allows you to create that first-party native experience onto HubSpot. that, that really improves your customer experience. And then lastly, one of the things is also unified app data. We're allowing you, with the power of app objects, to bring your own data regardless of what it is. We're more than happy to find a home for it on HubSpot. And all of these things are combined to really help developers go from idea to value even faster. So developer tools on HubSpot for Spring Spotlight 2025, check out the link and DM us with any questions. I'm more than happy to answer all of them.

You had me at faster time to value.

That's right, that's what it's all about.

Yeah, that's— I, I, I think a lot of the times when developers are building things, it's all about tech debt, bandwidth, and being able to have resourcing. We really, you know, took that step forward in doing more with less and really helping accelerate their time to value. Like, what are ways that we can bring your ideas to life faster and faster? That was the main premise of what we were, what we were releasing. And I was super excited when they onboarded me onto this project. So yeah, check it out.

Speaking of speed, I forget who it was. There was someone on LinkedIn I saw recently who, you know, the US has got this whole tariff thing going on right now and it's kind of freaking people out because you got to keep track of the tariffs, right? This guy built an app card in, I think, 10 minutes that displayed tariff rates to the countries of that contact or companies, you know, where they are located or they're shipping to, which is freaking amazing.

Amazing.

That's amazing. Yeah, I know, that's, that's super impressive. Uh, yeah, for those on audio too, developers.hubspot.com/ss25-dev-tools. Um, but yeah, like just being in that space, you know, on ecosystem quality to be able to like see some of the app cards and kind of review them, um, on the— just on the app world in general, there's like so much. I know the discovery cards were another thing too, that like, as, as we're reviewing apps and looking at them, like, those are some things too now that we take a look at and that we see come through. And it's just, it's so much more nicer now than, you know, you rewind the clock back, you know, maybe 5, 10 years or, or what, or however far back you want to rewind it. You've got that instance where I don't want to install 50 things to try to figure out if this is the right thing for me, whether that's apps, plugins, whatever the case may be. So I mean, the feature cards alone are really great. And then a shout-out to, like, Brittany and Marina on my team as well, because there's the upgraded app certification, and that's something that they work with directly to try to, like, raise that bar. Because, I mean, that badge isn't just, you know, for aesthetics that these apps have for the certification.

Mm-hmm.

There's a rigorous amount of things they have to go through in order to achieve that and maintain in order to achieve that. So it really does kind of show the level of quality that an app provider actually partakes in, in order to get it there. So yeah, just a lot of really great things. And Ricky, we appreciate you coming on and like, you know, telling everybody about it and kind of, you know, pitching it to everybody because there is so much of it that you do kind of— it's easy to overlook or it's easy like if you're just looking at the website to see like, oh no, this is really great and see all this and you'll still miss stuff because there's just so much.

So yeah.

Indeed. I want to give a shout out to Dennis because I actually followed one of his tutorials to build an app card on YouTube like 2 nights ago. So I was doing a multi-flow card following one of the tutorials in the webinars that you did. Very, very straightforward. And it's super, super easy to do. So if I can do it, like, I feel like anyone can do it. So huge shout out to you for helping me out.

Thank you. Dennis, nice.

Nick, Nick, I want to push a little bit harder here. Like, you You say you're reviewing app cards now. So I'm not sure how, like, well-known this is. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. I don't know. But it's not all for private apps anymore, right? Like, you can actually put these on the marketplace.

So you can—

you can— what you had as a private app at one point in time, you could maybe have a little extra cash coming your way from getting these on the marketplace.

Absolutely. Yeah. Apps on the marketplace can have app cards within them, right? They'll just go through, you know, we'll do a review just like we would do with everything else, and then we'll take a look at it just to make sure it's not broken. Or, you know, there's a lot of collaboration that, um, I personally— this is on a personal note— like, a lot of collaboration that we do on our team to try to make sure that the best quality offering, if you will, like whether that's an app or a theme or an app card, is when it's put forward or when it's proposed to the marketplace, just to make sure that it's at its highest level, you know, when it goes live. Uh, so, you know, we do stuff on our end where we check and we look at it, and it's, uh, yeah, it's a really great thing because There have been ones that I've seen come through that I've seen that are just, they're phenomenal. They really are. There hasn't been one yet that I've seen where I'm like, why are they doing this? Like there's been the benefits that it adds to the CRM are just, I could like, as I look at these, I always try to look at it from a perspective of like, okay, let's say I'm a, and I love, Dennis loves this. Like I'm a realtor. Could I use this in this certain fashion or something? You know? So it's the scenarios I try to create as I'm looking at it.

15 minutes in, 15 minutes in, folks.

Did you like that? Is that a record?

I'm putting in the bingo cards.

Yeah, just, just Ricky, just so you know, like, I, uh, I used to work in real estate and I try not to bring it up in every single episode, but it's not true.

You try, you intentionally not, you work hard.

No, it's coincidence.

We call it a coincidence.

I thought the real estate thing was just in the 2 episodes that I watched.

No, it's in all of them.

Yeah, coincidence, totally coincidence. The other, the other like 16, don't even mention it. I don't even mention it. You just pick the 2 that were, that's all. But no, yeah, I try to like look through it through that lens and like try to like imagine there's a, you know, a scenario where I'm needing that in a particular case. And like they all just seem to fit very, very well and they're very intuitive. So it's, yeah, there's just a lot of good stuff going on with that. And yeah, you can now have them in the marketplace with your app and it's, it's just a world of difference. So.

Absolutely. And if there's app providers out there that are listening that are like, well, I don't have those in my like I would recommend putting them into your app, like making app cards, because it really does— like being able to not have to Frankenstein, right? Like back in the day where it was like, oh, I need to build my processes while I have like 7 different sites I need to do. Data isn't fractured in different areas. Bringing that all together under one roof is just good regardless of whatever platform you're on.

Right.

But yeah, I highly recommend anybody who's already on the marketplace without app cards in their apps, To build them. They're very, very simple and straightforward.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

And then there's definitely— there's documentation there that you can follow that make things really, really straightforward. So, um, but without further ado, let's get into talking about you, Ricky, because that's why we wanted you here. The second reason why we wanted you here. And, uh, let's kind of rewind it back. Well, I, I, you know what, they're like neck and neck. It's both. I mean, they're right there, so it's To be fair. Let's rewind it back as far back as you want to go and tell us how you first got into— what first sparked your interest in technology in general?

Oh God, you're making me really think. I think for me, I was in high school and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, as every high schooler does. When you start to think about college, you're like, what do I even want to major in? I was almost going to major in woodshop, But then I learned I'm not, I'm not handy enough. I took 2, I took one class and I was like, yeah, this isn't, this isn't for me. And then there was—

Department got called and you're like, nope, I'm out.

Yeah.

Right.

How many fingers do you still have remaining?

Yeah, I, I learned very quickly it wasn't for me. So then like, I think I dropped out of that elective and I selected the only elective that was still open, which was programming and C++. I had no idea what it was. And then I tried that. So then I didn't do too great in it, but eventually I was like, oh, there's really cool stuff that you can build with this. Like, I think we built like tic-tac-toe and Pac-Man and all that stuff. And I got really interested and I learned on it on my own. But I think what really sold me was all my friends were playing Batman: Arkham Origins, Call of Duty, Fallout, like all these games from like 12 years ago. Or 12, 15 years ago, and I didn't have a way to play it. So I built a PC, like I saved up like all my money and I put together a PC. I had really no idea how to do it. And I asked my friend, I looked on YouTube, pieced it together. It was kind of janky, but it worked. So ever since then, I was like, I think this technology thing is pretty cool on what you can and can't build with it. I got into Syracuse, um, and I majored in information science, minored in comp sci. So that's kind of how I got started into the world of tech. Why I specifically chose to work like in tech though is probably one of the stupidest reasons. I remember I had a bunch of internships in college where I had to like dress up and wear like suit pants and dress shirts and ties. And I remember I had one in New York City And it was so hot that summer. I was like, I don't like dressing up for work. And then I saw one of my friends, he just got back from an internship from like a tech company. I can't remember which one it was. And I saw him wear sandals to work every day and I was like, I wanna do that.

Sandals.

So then that's kind of how I went down the rabbit hole of, okay, no matter what, I wanna find a way to break into tech or work into tech. So that's kind of how that all started was because of sandals and games.

I love that your biggest decision-making Aspect was attire.

Yeah, that, that is a huge thing. Like, I feel like I can't think with, with the tie on. Like, it's like strangling me.

So you have to feel comfortable in order to be comfortable in what you're doing. I, I believe in that completely. Absolutely.

I remember working an inside sales job where it was like you were required to wear dress pants, dress shirt, and tie, and I was like, I'm never meeting a client, right? There's no way. You have to dress the part. And I'm like, yeah, but the part makes me really uncomfortable and like sweaty all day long, so can we dress That's the comfortable part.

Yeah.

Oh my God. And I lived in the city as well, so like, like being dressed up on a subway, for example, in the middle of the summer is possibly the worst thing in the world.

You're like packed like this close to somebody else and you're like, you're sweating on my suit and I'm sweating in my suit and I'm like, exactly. Yeah, I don't like it.

Yeah, the Chicago L, the air conditioning never really worked at all. So, uh, yeah, no, I can, I can imagine that. So shout, shout out to The Metra in Illinois. Let me ask you, Ricky, PC building. So at an early age then you learned patience because I also— building computers is kind of a thing that I started doing at an early age and I kind of fell in love with it just because, you know, like the possibilities, right? And being able to build your own thing and then be, like you said, being able to play games or doing whatever. But that was your baby. You built that, right? Um, did that teach you— it, I mean, it taught me patience, uh, because, um, I, I'll tell you a story, but did that— do you have that same kind of experience?

I don't even know. I don't remember, honestly. I just remembered being so happy that I got it to work. Um, yeah, I took a lot of time to do— like, it wasn't like— because back then there weren't that many guides, not that many people did it, right? Like, when I did it, it was GTX 660, and we used to have the little SLI cables to connect both of the graphics cards together so that you can play like some of those like 1080p.

Yeah.

I'm really going back, like the 1080p games.

Yeah.

At like full frame rate. So it did teach me a lot about patience. Saving up money to buy all those parts was not cheap as a high school kid. Like I worked at a daycare, I corrected a bunch of papers and I just saved up a ton of money to be able to do it. So in terms of patience, like putting it together, I don't think I got the parts fast enough. I think it was like Saving up the money was what took the longest.

No, that's— no, I completely— I get that. Yeah, completely. I broke, uh, I broke one of the first computers I built for AJ before it even got done.

You broke 3 motherboards.

Well, one motherboard, I was, uh, I was working on it, right? And I had it like down and kind of on the side, and I had— was leaning over it as I was working. And at that time still, I, uh, hair gel instead of what I use now. And it was so hot in the room that it started like it dripped. I didn't notice it, but like one little drop just hit the board and I was— it wasn't paying attention and I'm like putting it together. I turned it on, you just heard the spark and then you saw the burn mark right where the stuff had hit the board and it was like, yeah.

That's so funny.

You get to learn. I liked building computers because you got to break stuff and learn it. Now, of course, when you break something like that and it's like these are $200, $300 motherboards, I'm just going off of like maybe today's prices, probably a little more expensive. of then. It's not as funny at the time, but looking back you can kind of be like, yeah, okay, I was an idiot, but that was cool. So it was like—

But it's one of those— You own it, you did it.

Like, isn't that the coolest thing in the world?

I like one of my favorite builds, uh, this is when, um, don't tell anybody, but I used to steal music on Napster, um, and this is before, you know, MP3 players were in your car. I, I and a friend built a computer that lived in my car And when you turn the car on, it auto-booted up to let me play music through the MP3 player on it. That was awesome. It's like you can do whatever you want, right?

Nope.

I imagine that's like a Dell, like duct taped to the trunk, right?

Just to keep it up where the spare tire is in the trunk. That's like, check this out, in the wheel well.

Yeah, you have to pull over off the highway because you gotta like, uh, reinstall Windows or do a Windows update, right? You gotta be like That is amazing.

Oh, God.

Let me transition to this. Tell me a little bit about some of the— now, because there's been some, like, up to this point, right, there's been some pretty cool milestones that you've, you know, achieved. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I was— again, we do have a little bit of a questionnaire where we kind of get, like, some ideas together, right? Because I don't like throwing people in, like, the water ice cold and being like, Yeah, we're just gonna throw stuff at you. I hope you're ready to answer weird stuff, you know. So, um, but yeah, can you, can you talk a little bit about some of those milestones?

Yeah, so in terms of milestones, I assume that you mean like career or like where or how I got to where I am in terms of milestones. I guess like the first milestone I ever had was graduating from undergrad from Syracuse. Um, so that was a super fun milestone. Um, and then shortly after that, I got my first ever big boy full-time job at Microsoft. I did a ton of work as a support engineer. There, C#, really working together with clients to be able to resolve some of their business-critical issues. From there at Microsoft, I've had almost a 7-year career there and I've done a lot of really interesting things like I saw the the leap from Skype to Teams. I saw the leap from, you know, like this whole AI thing. Like I was in it from like one of the very early stages from when they were talking about this as a concept to, no, this is going to be the future. This is the direction that we're heading. So I got to see all of that, which was super cool. In terms of like milestones or some of the most proud accomplishments that I've had, One is I got to actually launch a new product a couple of months ago or almost a year ago. It's called Azure Managed Redis. Redis is an in-memory database or in-memory data store solution. I got to, from the very start of it to when it was released at Microsoft Ignite last year, I got to play a part in releasing that out to the public on stage. Another thing that I think is super memorable for me is I was able to help lead one of Microsoft's largest hackathons where we, you know, brought in a ton of developers, almost 10,000 developers across the globe to be able to build projects. We taught them about how to build their own ChatGPT, their own conversational AI, and we allowed them to do their own twist on it. So I think out of all the projects that I ever worked on at Microsoft, those were probably some of the 2 most memorable ones. I think a lot of the info is still public and out there if you Google it. Um, but also like really recently I graduated from my MBA at UIUC like last year. So—

Nice.

I think in terms of career and education, that's what I've done so far that I can remember off the top of my head. But yeah, I'm happy to dive into any of those if you need.

I think, I think it's necessary to actually have a line chart that graphs your milestones to your sandal wearing. So how your attire matches, I think it's an important cross-section we need to look into.

Yeah. I mean, that's beautiful.

I, I think my very first day of work I wore, I wore sandals. I was like, I'm gonna do it. 'Cause I saw my manager that was interviewing me, he did it. And I was like, I'm gonna do it too.

Yeah.

I actually, I actually started in Texas, so it was really, really hot. It was like 100 degrees every single day. So I was like, everyone's doing it. And I'm like, I'm gonna do it too. First day of work, I showed up in sandals.

Now, I imagine with milestones like you were talking about, especially at that scale, be— there's no room, or maybe there was and you had to change it. But there didn't seem like to me there would be a lot of room to be an introvert. You would have to have been somebody who was comfortable talking with people, or, you know, very kind of outgoing.

Was that—

is that something that like you picked up or was that just kind of something how you always were? 'Cause me, there was definitely a journey there from introvert to extrovert. Not that I would even consider myself an extrovert. I just talk too much. So there's kind of a difference in that. But how did you— I'm just curious, was it always like that for you to be able to do stuff like that or did you have to kind of ease into it somehow?

I think naturally, like I'm a pretty introverted person, but I think because I work in marketing, you have to put yourself out there a little bit more. So that's actually why I started in like engineering. Um, but then I found myself like, I'm not talking to anybody almost. It's just through DMs, Teams messages, and like the occasional call. I never got like the face-to-face interaction with people. So then I was like, maybe I should transition into something a little bit different where I could get that technical aspect of it, but I could also get that— Customer/human interaction side of it. So I actually shifted into a startup within Microsoft that got— they got acquired by Microsoft and then it was like an incubation within it. So it was called PromoteIQ, which is now Microsoft Advertising, I believe. So it was like a 50-person startup that worked inside of this massive company. And from there, like, I got to go to a ton of events. I got to just really had to put myself out there and wear a bunch of hats because Although I came in as a business manager, I still had to do a bunch of technical work. I still had to work on how a company would go to market with a feature, how would they go live with it. Then from there, I officially transitioned on the Azure side to an official product marketing role where I was going to events, delivering webinars, giving presentations to sales teams. I'm still very introverted, but I just say I have to do it, got to put myself out there and just put myself in that mindset to do it. And yeah, like, that's kind of how I am. I'm still very, very like, keep to myself, introverted, but when I have to, like, I'll flip the switch.

That's awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, that's just one of those things where like, that's just, you know, a tribute to people who are able to do that. Because like, for some people, that's not easy for sure, right? It's— there's that vulnerability of putting yourself out there that you're kind of like, if you're used to Like, I remember when I first started just doing tech stuff in general, it was like in a corner, just, you know, working on websites and like maybe very barely interacting with like my own teammates on the teams I was on, let alone people outside of that. So that's, yeah, that's just one of those things where it's like, if you can break through that, pierce through that kind of like wall there, then I mean, you're just on your way to like doing speeches, doing, you know, podcasts and other things like that. So yeah, that's a Kudos on that because not everybody can actually do that.

So indeed.

So, so let me ask you a really quick question just to go back a little bit about, um, you said you did your MBA at, uh, U of I Urbana. Were you in Illinois when you did it?

So when I started in the program, I was there, but then I started during like right when COVID happened. So then it kind of went remote. And then I think all the people that did move there, they moved out of Urbana. To wherever in the world that they all went. So it, it, they ended up shifting the entire program to fully remote. So that's what I did. But then there was still like a bunch of, like, I had met up with a bunch of teammates for capstones. We still had all of those things. They tried to make the experience as immersive as possible. So I've only stepped foot in Urbana maybe like once or twice. But it was like right during COVID like I got in and then COVID happened and then I couldn't go there anymore.

But yeah, Nick and I went to Eastern, which is like 30 minutes south of there.

So, oh really?

Yeah, yeah, we're already still on.

Yep, there's really no good reason to go there, Illinois in general.

It's kind of not that I've found yet.

Like crazy, there is.

I mean, Chicago, The Bear was filmed there if you guys ever watched.

That's right, The Bear.

Yeah, they actually have tours in the city that you can do, like the Bear tour, and you'll go to like the different restaurants that they mention stuff like that I've seen.

I've actually been to like the original like location, like where it was based off of. I think it's called MrBeef or something. I went there last year because Microsoft Ignite was there and I was like in town and I was like, I have to go see this because I love the show. Um, but yeah, it's literally like a perfect recreation of what it looks like in the show almost.

That's awesome.

That's cool.

Speaking of, uh, Ignite and things like that and conferences, what are some of the, um, It can be recently or maybe in just in the past. What are some of like some of the recent events or conferences? It could be workshops too that you've attended that really kind of, you know, sparked your interest or it was really something that was really memorable.

Yeah, I think throughout my time, I think I've attended a ton of— I had like the really grateful opportunity to attend a ton of different tech conferences, some being like MongoDB World, Microsoft Build, Microsoft Ignite, you know, all of those. Basically almost every major Microsoft conference I was grateful enough to get the opportunity to attend. I think one of the most memorable ones is the AI tours that they do, which is essentially they showcase to you how AI can really transform your business. It's really taking the super technical concept of AIs where it's just like if you were to talk to someone super technical about it, it would be like vector embeddings, RAG patterns, and, and, and how do you translate all of that into like, what can you actually do with it? I think that was like one of the premises of the tour, and that was super exciting to be a part of, and I thought was super cool. They do it like in all different cities. I sound like a, a paid ad for this, but I'm not. Um, it was—

we just want 10%. We, we just want 10%. That's all we're asking. It's not, you know.

It was like the last like 3 years of my life, so that's why I was like, oh. Um, but yeah, it was super fun. Like I mainly just went to the ones in New York cuz it's right there, but it was super fun, like getting to meet a bunch of customers. I went to this one that was called National Retail Federation, which is like, how can you use AI to transform retail businesses? Right? Mm-hmm. So when you're thinking about, you know, like content creation for marketing campaigns, like how do you write a description? How do you like upload a bunch of things to your website? Using AI to transform that. And that just wasn't for Microsoft. That was for like a bunch of other people. And then also like the most recent one is the Product Summit, which is where I got to meet all you lovely people. It's my very first day of work. It was very overwhelming, but I'm—

Seriously, I can't believe you did that.

That was—

that's awesome.

It was, it was crazy. Like, I don't think I even had my like email fully set up, but it was a crazy experience. I was like, hey, I'm Ricky. And I'm like, I forgot your name already.

But, uh, unfortunately, I don't, I don't recall you wearing sandals, uh, at that point, which is a little upsetting.

Not sticking to your morals here. I don't know. That's—

I know. Next time, next time you guys are gonna catch me just sandals. Um, it was cold in Dublin though when we went. It was like freezing at night. But yeah, that was super fun, like getting to meet you all for the first time. Um, I think it was really interesting because a lot of you guys were meeting for the very first time too. So it was almost just like, oh wow, like we're all meeting together for the first time. It was a little bit awkward in the beginning, but then I learned that like you guys are all super nice and super chill. So—

Well, you're fortunate because AJ and Nick weren't there. They— because they refused to—

How did they know that was coming up? How did I know that?

Yeah, introvert might be part of the problem, you know, or just like the fear of everything.

Nothing taller than Buckingham Palace. That's what I told you, remember? Nothing can go any higher than that.

And then that—

That was corrected in the next episode. Yeah, right. Then it was completely wrong.

No, I get it. And as I told Ricky, there's, there's a bunch of stuff that comes out of my mouth that is completely wrong.

Completely wrong.

So much so that we even made a banner like this that, you know, for when that happens again.

But Ricky, when you did that, uh, uh, National Retail Federation—

it was a federation called NRF, I think.

NRF, let's call that. Uh, and you were— how long ago was that? Just out of curiosity.

November, I think it was like right November, September, some time frame around there.

So, okay, I was wondering how AI has changed since then, but I guess I was not terribly far back. But things have changed.

I mean, I think from an enterprise standpoint, like enterprise adoption is pretty slow because security risks, you know, time to deployment and all those things which are solved developer tools if you check out the website. Um, but from where it's changed now, I think agents is a really big push. 'Cause back then I think it was like the only people really talking about agents was Salesforce.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, and, and Agentforce. But I think that's become a really big shift and a priority for a lot of tech companies is how do you build a team of agents? How do you have people and agents working together and, and having that entire network kind of like what Dharmesh talked about? Mm-hmm. I think I see that really coming to life ever since NRF, and that was only like 5 months ago. I think that's super crazy, like how fast this technology moves. Image generation wasn't really a thing back then with ChatGPT. So that was a huge thing. I feel like this space, I was talking to John about it every single week. I feel like I talk to him about this. Something new happens and he has like, he's like, Dude, this is so much to keep up with. And I'm like, I know. It's like so many new things. He'll tell me about a new tool. I'm like, I've never heard of this. And I'll go down a rabbit hole and I'll tell him about something and he'll go down a rabbit hole. And it's just like a never-ending, like, learning cycle with AI. So like next week when you guys do this podcast, you should check in again to see what's changed with AI.

I mean, you're talking about McLaren, right, John?

Yeah. Yeah.

Without him, honestly, I, I think like our entire department would be lost with AI, you know, as far as like the, the rapid changes and stuff. He's like, He's been keeping up on it a lot.

He's on top of it.

He must just like eat, sleep, drink everything AI like 24/7. I don't know if he sleeps anymore, to be honest.

I'm not fully convinced he's not AI himself. Jury's still out on that.

Nope, that is fair. That is fair. Let me ask you, uh, Ricky, you've, um, you talked about the conferences and stuff. You had mentioned that, um, building content for conferences is one of your Um, probably favorite parts, right, with working in tech is— yeah, what, what are some of the things that kind of makes that one of your favorite things?

Okay, this is gonna sound really stupid and really nerdy, but I really love like visual design on how things look in terms of like websites.

Oh yeah.

And like how, how things are put together. Like, I'm like a geek for it on how it looks. Like, I don't have like an official UX background, but I wish I Like if I were to go another life, like that's the direction I would go and like be like a UX researcher. But for me, like colors, patterns, and how things look like the visual appeal of it, there's like really, really like what draws me. And for me, like when I put together content, you're putting together slides, PowerPoints on how things should look, but you're also thinking about how it should make that audience feel.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I feel like When there's any new like tech announcement, like for the new iPhone or for like the new Nintendo Switch that just came out, whatever it is, you as the product marketer, the visuals that you make, whether you outsource them or you create them yourself, you elicit a feeling that you want from the audience. And that's like what I love about like doing conferences, webinars, and things like that.

Mm-hmm.

I also feel like I love like colors, patterns, like matching things together. And I think this really came from my. This is like a whole other topic. Like my love for, like, I used to collect a ton of sneakers and like the color patterns between how those different things look together. That's kind of what I applied to like, oh, this is how design should look and this is like what colors complement one another. So yeah, like I can nerd out with AJ about it for like an hour. I think we did for like just picking out a stupid banner color. I was like, dude, we should do this hex code or whatever. But like for me, like making PowerPoint slides is one of the nerdiest and most fun things that I like can really focus on.

Man, I hear you.

Go ahead, go ahead, Dennis.

Go, go.

I was just gonna say, I mean, a very small thing. It's like, I, I hear you on that, but I suck at it, and I get stuck on slide number 1 for about 7 to 37 hours trying to, you know, get it right.

I'm the opposite. I'm like, give me an idea and I just start— just, I literally have to have people be like, stop.

Like, let's Yes, this is true. This is true.

I will, like, if you just give me like one rough idea of a sketch, I'll be like, oh, I'll have a whole concept for you in like 3 hours. Just gimme a minute. And I just go.

Yeah.

But let me ask you this, Ricky, because this is something that I find very interesting is that there's 2 different audiences, right? When we're talking about like, at least in HubSpot, like how we market, we market to the general consumers who are the marketers, the businesses and stuff. And then we have the developers, right? And that's a whole nother ballgame of marketing.

Yeah.

And that's where I find it interesting because it's like taking the normal concepts that you would for like color contrast, you know, color theory, you know, imagery, but you have to apply it to developers. And like, they're not all about the fluffery. They're not all about like the bigger marketing things. It's like straight to the point.

Yeah. I feel like developers are the most blunt audiences. Like, they'll tell you exactly what it is. Like, I kind of got tossed into the world of developer marketing when I was in Azure. There was kind of just like a gap for it and it was like a project that I could just take on and start to build. They were like, hey, you have a technical background, you can figure out how to talk to these people, right? And I'm like, sure. For me, I think you're exactly right. Like, developers are not about the fluff. They're not about like business value or like what this actually— like, here's what you can do with it. They want to know like, how do I do it? They want to be hands-on. They want to be able to develop things. They want to be able to build. They want to be able to break things. They want to be able to tell you this sucks and this doesn't work and this is great, I like this, but this should change. This audience is very, very unique in how you market and when you tell them things. So I think it's super important as a product marketer for developers to be able to speak that language. Like, you can't just tell them like, having this feature would be really great if you added it to your app. How do you add it to your app? What is the value? Is this worth it? Like, how do you do it? What's the tech debt behind it? Like, you have to be able to talk to them in terms that they understand. And that's something that I'm still learning every single day with you guys. Um, but also just like experimenting with this audience. They actually love being able to experiment. And I feel like a lot of companies struggle to reach this audience. And I think that DevRel and people in developer marketing are in a really unique position to be able to, you know, successfully market themselves in whatever job market or career direction that they go into. This is like a whole new silo of product marketing that's evolving that I've seen recently in a couple of years. So I don't even know if I answered your question, but—

No, you totally did. And I think, I think anybody who's listening and is listening to the way in which you're speaking from a marketing standpoint can understand exactly what a developer marketer needs to know because like you're talking technical concepts, but you're talking about them at not just a high level, like you're giving specific technologies, you're giving specific examples.

Yeah.

And I think that's where a lot of like how you said, like a lot of companies are struggling to do it because they don't have somebody that can speak to that level because there is a certain level of understanding you need to know from the developer aspect to be able to market effectively.

Right.

Yeah. Not to mention too, I'm pushing for Rosetta Stone to have HubSpot speak added to the list of languages that you can learn because there's a whole Like, somebody out there that you have to be able to, like, figure out, if that helps. But, um, let me— let's take this, let's shift it from career to who is Ricky outside of work, because that's always one of the ones that, uh, when we get to this portion of the podcast, uh, I like because it kind of gives an insight just not into, like, who you are as a person, but like some of the things that we do outside of work also shape us and shape the way we are within the walls of HubSpot or wherever the person may work. What are some of the things that you like to do that are— well, we always like to preface it with as non-techie as possible because obviously you can't get— and some things you can't get away from tech, but what are some of those things that you like to do to kind of like unwind?

I think for me, Especially during like the era of remote work, drawing that barrier. I've, I'm, I'm sure a lot of other people struggled with this too. Drawing that barrier between like what's work and what's outside of work is super, super hard. So I've really tried to set that boundary for myself to try to be like, okay, this is like outside work hours. I should really only focus on this. Things that I find that I do besides like walking my dog or like hanging out with my dog, taking her to the park. This is gonna be like a really nerdy thing, like travel hacking. I'm sure like a lot of people in tech do this, but I love traveling, like especially if you can do it for free or like little to no cost. So I hope like American Express and like Chase aren't watching this, but like being able to like, you know, earn signup bonuses, you know, maximize the value of your points to get like a business class flight for like a couple hundred bucks. That's stuff that I love to do. Like being able to like go to super nice hotels with just like a couple of dollars, just because you learned like how to work the point system is something that's super interesting to me. There's like a ton of YouTube videos about it, a ton of Reddit blogs about it on how people like open up a bunch of credit cards to do this. So that's something that I love doing and I kind of geek out on. I don't know if that counts as techie, but that's—

No, that sounds all good.

Yeah.

Digital nomad. This is awesome. Like, yeah, we just lost American Express as a sponsor, but I mean, it's okay.

It's okay. Thanks.

We still have Five Nights magazine, right? That's okay.

Oh yeah. Um, I think like I went to Switzerland like a year or two ago for like $100. Like I'm talking like hotels, uh, flights and everything for just like $100, just like learning how to like how points work. So that was super cool. Um, and then outside of travel hacking or whatever you call it, I love to try new restaurants in New York City. This is a very basic hobby, I know. But, um, like any new restaurants that come out, like I have like a Belly account. Belly is basically like New York's version of Yelp. Like they— you can like rate different types of restaurants. That's something that I've been really into. I think I've tried almost like 200 restaurants on that app and I, and I rated a ton. I talked to Abby on my team about it as well too. So she's also on Belly as well too. Um, other than that, like one of the other things that I do is I track this app. This is not sponsored, but I use SeatGeek a lot to find like events for things. And if you wait, this is like a hack for the audience. If you wait till like the very last minute for the event or like that hour or the morning of, you can get some pretty sweet deals on some of these events cuz people are trying to like offload these tickets last minute. So I've gotten like a concert to like Post Malone for like $40, or like I got to see like a Broadway show for like $20 just because I would like stalk the app. Like, okay, like this is coming out this day and I'll just buy the tickets the day of. And that's kind of how you like do New York on like a budget if you want to do like a bunch of events and all those cool things people do. So it's not sponsored by SeatGeek, but if they want to sponsor the podcast, Please.

Yeah, I mean, we just lost one sponsorship. Might as well get another one.

I keep clicking reload on my email just to make sure nothing's coming in yet.

Just—

but, um, you mentioned Post Malone. Were there— is there any other ones that you've been to as like far as like concerts or plays and stuff that you really like kind of fell in love with recently? Or is there anything?

Um, Post Malone was the most recent one that I've been to. I've been on a really big country kick lately, so Luke Combs has been another one that I've been really into. I got to see Drake for like less than $100.

Um, it's pretty accurate for to go see Drake, I guess.

Yeah. Um, what's another one? I feel like I've been to so many, like I can't— Yankees games. I'm not the biggest baseball fan, but I go to them because you can get tickets for like a dollar on the app. Like you can find some pretty sweet deals on there. Uh, Nets games, Celtics. I'm a huge Celtics fan, so whenever the Nets play the Celtics, I try to go to But yeah, like, ton of events, ton of things that you can do in New York if you use SeatGeek. It's not sponsored, but we hope that they do the 4th time I mentioned them.

So, so you mentioned that you go to a lot of restaurants, and I have to ask if you've been to this one because I came across it and I sensed it's Dennis right away because I think it was over near him, but it's called Enoteca Maria. Yeah, it's where, like, known as Which one is that?

Sorry, I haven't heard of it.

Anataca Maria. It's it's a restaurant on in Staten Island right after you get off the ferry. I have been there and I've had it's basically a bunch of nonnas making dinner like a different different grandmother every night or every week something like that. Yeah.

Okay, you're gonna have to.

I have to go if I go to Staten. I'm going to that place. Like that just sounds amazing. That's awesome.

Please please slack it to me. I'll go.

I'll go.

I'll go.

Yeah.

I only live like. less than 30 minutes away from Staten Island, so I can probably figure out— and I'll try it, I'll let you know. But yeah, Slack it to me, I'll try it.

I had sheep brain there, as a matter of fact.

Oh, that's interesting. What was that like?

It was not bad. It's— I mean, it's a little chewy. It's not— the consistency wasn't exactly what I wanted to be, but it didn't taste bad. I'm not sure if that's a strong endorsement.

You're not selling me on it, but I mean, that's all right.

All right.

Don't let anyone tell you that Dennis isn't unique.

Is there—

I was gonna ask you, Ricky, is there any type of like throughout your career or it doesn't even have to be career, it can be actually on a personal level too, but a lot of times we like to ask mentorship questions, right? Because we've had that, SJ has the mentorship program and within HubSpot alone, There's a sort of, um, kind of aura of like being a mentor and like mentoring others. Um, has there ever been any kind of like advice you've ever gotten throughout that kind of really stuck with you that anyone's ever met? Because I mean, you know, depending on who you talk to, like there can be a million of them, right? Like you could— there's people get advice throughout their lifetime really, and you know, all of it's pretty good. But has there been any of that you've especially like— because You know, no secret, like, you know, you're fairly new to HubSpot. So I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people as well that have kind of given you kind of advice as far as like, I mean, there isn't really much of a, from like Microsoft to here, there's not a very big, they're both big, right? Like as opposed to like some others who have come from like smaller places to a big place like this, like some of that advice like kind of changed perspectives. Have you, has anyone ever like, You can go back as far as you want, but is there anything that anyone's mentioned as far as like that'd be considered like mentorship advice that really kind of stuck with you?

Yeah, I feel like, I feel like I've had a ton of mentors throughout my life that I've been super grateful for. Um, in terms of advice, like I actually mentor a bunch of other people as well too, like on their careers and things like that. So I, I always get like a kick out of doing it whenever I like see them accomplish something. It makes me really fulfilled. So One of the best pieces, one of the first pieces of advice I've ever got from my first ever manager when I used to, this was an internship that I had at GE, General Electric, their aviation department. That was super cool. I was a DevOps engineer and I think it was like my very first job ever and I was like so overwhelmed. Like this is like a giant company. I was actually in Ohio, in Cincinnati, Ohio for like a summer. So I was like, like, I was so young. I was in a brand new place, like trying to figure out how all this works. Like I only had like a couple programming classes under my belt. And then my manager always told me, he's like, you see this giant building? Somebody somewhere knows the answer to exactly what you're asking. It's not me, but somebody's in there. You go find them. And it just really taught me to like, I thought he meant like go up to every single person and talk to like, hey, do you know like how to do this? But then I think what he meant was like, you have to be able to know how to go find a lot of these answers yourself before you go ask anybody. And that's something that's stuck with me since day one. And I feel like people that are really experienced in their careers, like you guys, like you guys know this, like do your own research, do your own due diligence before you go reach out to somebody to show them like, hey, like they really tried and they're actually stuck.

Mm-hmm.

Not like me bothering AJ every day about changing something. But it's more so like learn how to do your own, you know, like being able to, to just do your own due diligence and being able to be not scared to ask people to build those relationships. Like that's kind of how, like a lot of like where my progression in career has come is just through relationships that I've built through asking people for things. How do you do this? How do you do that? People love to talk about their own interests. So yeah, like really invoke them to talk about it and, and teach you things because everybody's got something to teach you.

Brilliant.

That's the, yeah, the other piece of advice that I've recently started giving people though is this, in some of my mentorship sessions is take a break because I've experienced burnout and a lot of the times people forget to just be like, yep, I need like 2 days off or I need like a week off. Take those breaks because you'll come back even stronger. You'll come back more sharp and you'll come back more ready to tackle this with fresh new ideas. I think that's something that I didn't really do when I was really earlier in my career. Like, I was like, what's the next thing? What's the next jump? What do I need to learn next? Mm-hmm. I think for me now it's like, take your time, really relax, and just try to enjoy the ride of whatever life is or whatever your career brings you. So.

Are there any flags that you can help me with? Like when I should know that I'm getting close to that burnout, like I need to take a break. Yeah. Are there other things, indicators?

I think it, it differs for every single person, but for me it's when I like, when I have a really short like attention span for something, like it just like, I just kind of feel it internally where I'm like, okay, I know that when I like need like 5 cups of coffee to go to like push onto the day, I'm like, probably need a break.

Yeah.

Um, or it's like, I feel like when small things overwhelm you because it's just piling up and adding to the list, that's when I'm like, Yeah, I need to stop, or I need to say no to whatever I'm doing, and then just take a step back and then retackle it again. I think for me, it's just that mental checklist starts to get too much. That's kind of when I take the step back.

Yeah.

I'm gonna take a break now, by the way.

It's important for people to know too, like, that's okay to do, because a lot of people like have that guilt, and it's not something you're gonna learn overnight. It is definitely not. I mean, I'm still working on it, and I've been actively working on it for Like 4 or 5 years now trying to do that. I just happen to have the lucky break of I married a therapist who literally goes, you're burning out. Like, I got lucky. But, you know, it's one of those things where, like, I'm still, like, even to this day, like, I'm like, I'm taking next week off. And it's partially because, like, I've just been doing a lot of work, but also having a manager that knows as well to say take time off is a big help.

Mm-hmm.

And I think, like, anybody who's a manager out there who may be listening, It's really good to be aware of like, hey, my employee hasn't taken time off in like 6 months. Maybe they should, you know, maybe we should see if they want to take some time off.

Like, that also helps too.

Yeah, definitely being like, uh, saying out loud, the manager saying it out loud, like, so, you know, the employee knows for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you ever find it hard to stop at, you know, like the— let's say 5 o'clock is the, you know, the cutoff. But do you ever find it hard to To just kind of break away from that? Like, I, I am probably the worst offender of that where it's like, it's 7:30. I just gotta just do this one thing real quick. It's just bothering me. And where it's like, do you have a hard time doing that?

Yeah, I feel like I still struggle with that to this day. Um, that's something that I'm still working on myself too. I think it really helped, um, the fact that a lot of the folks on HubSpot are in the same time zone as me. I think before a lot of my team was on the West Coast, so So, when it was like my time to log off, it was almost like their time to— like, that was like the middle of their day where a lot of their meetings started to pick up and go. Um, you know, there was really good ways that I worked to draw barriers there, but still, like, even then, like, I can't help but check my phone sometimes when like a new message comes in.

Right.

Lately I've been putting my work phone or like my work laptop in a completely different room or like in, like in a drawer. And I'm like, oh, I can't check it till the morning. So that's— I've been trying to do that more and more, but, um, that, that's something that I've been— I'm still literally working on fixing that to this day. So no advice for you there other than like separation. Try to separate as much as you can.

It's, it's definitely a hard thing to do. I mean, there's times where like Nick and I are at like a family party and also next thing you know we're talking strategies and like other stuff and, you know, everyone else rolling their eyes like, oh my god, it annoys the hell out of everybody.

Yeah, it is. It's, it's a horrible, horrible thing. Like, but it's, yeah, it's—

That was okay. That was one of the craziest like things that had ever happened to me when I think like Melissa told me that you two were brothers or something. And I was like, no way. Really? That just like blew my mind. And then I, I started to see the resemblance. I'm like, oh wait, their last names are the same too. Uh, that just like blew my mind. I was like, I've never seen somebody like work so closely with their sibling. Like in like, like a real work setting. And I was so blown away. I was like, that is so cool.

But you guys probably never— I don't, I don't understand how we can do it, but it's, it's really like we have a really good way of separating work and not work when it comes to like our stuff. But like personally, we, you know, work, work-life balance is not good. But between us, we're like, oh yeah, we can separate those two.

And this isn't even the first time we worked together at another place too, like locally, like in the city.

Really?

At least a year or so. Yeah, different floors, but like it was just a 2-story building, so we saw each other all the time. But yeah, we've worked together a lot.

We worked together in a warehouse for a couple of years.

Oh, there was a summer job too. Yeah, I was, I was just counting like, like real, like full.

Yeah, so that's—

there's been a, there's been a lot of crossover there. So it's—

Did you guys, did you guys start at the same time?

Uh, no, no, no, he's—

no, here he's 2, what, 2 years?

I think 3, 3 years younger than you.

No, no, no, I mean starting here.

Like starting here, starting here.

It's not like birth at the same time.

Oh, you are?

Obviously I'm older.

Like, uh, no, I, I think I started— I, I have a year more than you, I think.

But yeah, you had your sabbatical.

You can—

yeah, you got one coming up.

Yeah, because he, uh, for like an entire year while I was still working at the other place— I'll say Dennis so that way I don't— I'm only mentioning once. He like, for, I don't know, maybe like, what would you say, AJ? Every other week was trying to like, hey, look at this position, or hey, look at this. I'm like, why? I'm like, I know you like working there. You just started there. I mean, like every place you just start, it probably sounds as great. And you know, it's like, you know, the orange colored glasses and all that. And I didn't believe him for any of it. And I was just like, so finally after like enough of those, I started looking at the positions. I was like, wait a minute, this one sounds pretty interesting. And then when I got here, I was like, I had to apologize to him about a million times. So I was like, yeah, everything you said was right. I just didn't believe you.

Sorry.

So, you know, it was a pretty good thing, that's for sure. But, um, the advice that you were talking about, like, that's kind of like one of those things too that you have to— it isn't just a one-off thing where you just say it once. It's kind of one of those things that you kind of have to reinforce, right, over time. Because just like, um, the not being human on Slack, right, and forgetting to like just ask, like, that type of stuff is things that you can easily kind of fall back into that habit, right? So is it something that you kind of when you're doing the mentorship that you kind of have to keep continuously reinforcing with people?

Yeah, I feel like being able to— like, I feel like that's one of the reasons why I love mentorship is that it really puts my own— the advice that I tell, like, I have to take it too. Because I feel like a lot of people give advice, but they don't take it. Me telling like a bunch of people like, oh, you should do this, you should do that. It makes me stop and think like, I should do this too. Like I should, like now I'm gonna start like do a better job of catching up with people more on Slack and like before I ask for questions. I think that humanizing that experience is really good advice that I'm gonna take away from this. Sorry, Dennis, I just did it to you yesterday. I was like, hey, can you do this? But yeah, like I, I think like Mentorship really, like, it's kind of like doing what you preach or like putting in your hours for practicing for the advice that you do. I try to do most of it as best as I can, but there are times where I forget to do it, like yesterday. But I think for me, like, I've gotten a lot better at like stopping myself, catching myself a lot more as the years went on. So for sure, like, I try to put all this into practice into everyone that I talk about. talk with too.

So, so from now on when I go to message Ricky, I'm just gonna be like, Jesus, Ricky, you're not doing anything, what's going on?

Or ask your life story every single time. It's like, don't I sound human now? Don't I sound new? Yeah.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna use an AI to talk to you just for that. There we go.

Get an animated avatar. We'll be— everybody's gonna be well, be just fine.

It's gonna be great.

Small talk AI. That's— I want to build this.

This is—

that's— you need that.

That's the next million-dollar idea right there.

Yeah, I mean, the, the MVP can just be asking about the weather. I mean, you already got that on you right there. Raining over by you? I mean, that's 90% done.

Yeah, good. I, I think one of the most interesting things when I like transitioned from like going to school, it's like going to work, I'm like, why do people care so much about the weather? Or like, why do people like just care so much about like what I did this weekend. Like, that was like one of like the biggest like learning things. I'm like, are we friends? I was like, I didn't really like know how to like make those dots connect. But then I was like, why does everyone care about the weather? Like, I don't even care about the weather here. But that was like, it was super interesting.

I think the best bot you can make is a Midwestern chatbot and it takes 30 minutes to say goodbye to you.

Yeah, exactly.

The epitome of the Midwest of The Midwestern goodbye.

It's so true.

It is.

It really is.

It's— I'm so guilty of it every time.

I can't tell you how many times we've— I've been like talking like at family parties with us and it's just like, yeah, we're gonna get going. And then it's like a few hours later, it's like half an hour later, we just— I gotta go. I'm like, let's just do this. So yeah, I totally get that. Um, we're gonna— we're gonna be running up on time in a little bit here, so I, I just wanted to I just want to just say, Rikki, this was fantastic. Love talking with you. And thank you for coming on and telling everybody about, you know, the DevTools and the Spring Spotlight. And I mean, your mentorship stuff is— it's fantastic. I mean, it's like I said, it's something that people need to be reminded of. It's not just one of those like one-off things where you crochet on a pillow and it sits in a corner somewhere. Like, you have to continue to— like, you really have to continue to kind of— it's almost like a muscle you have to continue to use because Because like we said, either with that or even with the stuff Caitlin talked about, shout out to her again last week, it's, uh, you can lose it very quickly, right? Because you just get wrapped up in everything else. So, um, huge thanks. Huge thank you.

Sure. No, thank you. Thank you to you guys. Like, it's been a great, like, beginning to HubSpot, like getting to meet all of you people, um, and just being able to do this. Like I told you guys, I was like, I've never done a podcast before, so this is completely new to me. Thanks for making it. like a really fun conversation. I hope that you guys will invite me back again in the future and I didn't bore people from like a year from now to see like what my, what my like progression has been. Sure.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, just a little inside baseball, like I was telling, I was telling Ricky, I was like, it's kind of like our first time doing it too. This is, this is, this is our first one. This is, we just like literally me, AJ, and Dennis like just thought of it one day and we're like, me and Dennis were sitting in the same room room and we're just like, we should do this. And AJ's like, yeah, we could do this. And it's just kind of just sprang up from there. So yeah, it's, um, but no, I'm glad you had fun. And like, that's, that's the goal. It's just to have a conversation. So I mean, nobody, nobody takes me seriously anyway, so I don't like to make things too serious. So, um, it kind of works out well that way.

But the one thing I'll close with so that we can hit the Nick is wrong button— You spelled my name wrong on the title.

Oh, that's good because that's not me. I didn't do that.

Okay, I don't get it. I can totally edit this part out because it's totally not my fault.

I, I don't have a Dennis is wrong, uh, I mean, I'll take the admonishment for it, but like, Dennis did it. I just wanted you to know that Dennis did that. So, uh, just, just to be very clear about blaming Dennis because I don't get to do it that often. You know, it's usually it's me.

Uh, but so am I still at zero errors throughout the entire season?

No, there was a musical error that you made, or just like, uh, there was like a—

it was like a really famous musician, you had no idea who it was, and it was just like—

I said the wrong musician, I think.

Yeah, was that what it was? Yeah, yeah, it was really bad. Yeah, it was like— no, you're not— you're guilty too.

Yeah, we lost that record label as a sponsor too. It was horrible.

Losing sponsorships is not what we want to be doing, guys.

I think we have Coke Zero Oreo is the only thing left, I believe. I think we got left now. So, but, um, but no, again, thank you so much for, uh, you being a part of this. Uh, you know, these— like, the way this goes, the way this conversation went, the way this all— this is exactly what the 3 of us dreamed of, like, from day one. And it's like I said, I, you know, maybe we're just really lucky, but like, never been disappointed yet. And it's—

No.

We're blessed to be able to do Do stuff like this.

Let's not stress.

Yep.

And I will leave everyone with this little, I'm gonna butcher this guy's last name 'cause I've never actually read it. I've only, I'm not sure, I've never said it out loud. So I believe it's David, it's either Bebb or Beebe, but really great quote that content marketing is like a first date. If you only talk about yourself, there won't be a second, which kind of explains why none of my dates ever called me back. So I mean, this makes perfect sense now. So I'm glad, I wish I would've read this a little bit closer to college age, But, you know, you live and you learn. So that's kind of where we're at.

You do.

All right.

All right, y'all, keep wearing those sandals.

Thanks, guys. See ya.