Ep. 28 - Be the Hero with Paul Maxwell | Devs:After Dark

I won't technically be impressed with technology until I can download food. Hello and welcome to another episode of Developers After Dark. I am your host, Nick, and with me is my brother and my co-host AJ. We have a very special guest today. We have Paul Maxwell on the show. I'm going to let him introduce himself in just a minute. But before we do that, let me get out of the way just a couple of little housecleaning items here that I want to talk about. First of all, if you're watching and you're listening, we really appreciate it. You can go to developersafterdarkpod.com. That is developersafterdarkpod.com if you'd like to check out the latest episodes. And if you want to look at a little bit of, uh, some of the backlog for our shows and things of that nature, and every once in a while we'll have some upcoming people who are going to be on the show as well, you can check that out there on the website. And of course, if you're watching this on YouTube, which we are also on as well, that is the YouTube channel for the HubSpot Developers, and that would be @HubSpotDevelopers. Please feel free to click like and subscribe because you're not only going to get us but you're gonna get plenty of other videos from plenty of other people, a lot of them from the developer relations community and the developer relations team here at HubSpot. You'll get videos from Bri Hall, you'll get videos from Brooke, you'll get videos from Hannah. There are tons and tons of educational things there and tips and tricks and then kind of monthly rewinds, if you will, too, of what's going on in the developer community. So do yourself a favor, go there, Subscribe and then like just about everything you watch 'cause it is definitely worth it and definitely going to help you out along the way. And if you also kind of wanna know what's going on around the HubSpot community and the developer community at large, you're gonna wanna go to developers.hubspot.com/changelog. And that's where you're going to find everything that's going on both right now and upcoming in the developer community. Once again, that's developers.hubspot.com/changelog. And finally, last but not least, of course, we have the HubSpot Academy. Now, I must say, I am a frequent visitor of the HubSpot Academy because quite frankly, there's a lot to learn. And as time goes on, there are more things that you come across, there are more things that kind of float across your desk as you're working, and you really wanna stay on top of things, right? You don't want imposter syndrome. You don't want those moments where you say, I've never seen this before. Or I really don't know how any of this works. Well, there's a solution for that, right? And that's gonna be academy.hubspot.com. And most importantly, this is a service for you that doesn't cost a thing. You can get world-renowned certifications. You can learn all of the newest stuff from inbound marketing to SEO, which I have a feeling we're gonna talk about in this episode, but that's gonna be the place to go. So please make sure you go to academy.hubspot.com, sign up if you're not already signed up. And yeah, start getting accreditations and start learning. So feel free to do that. But without further ado, I'm gonna let Paul introduce himself. And Paul, why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you do?

What's up, Nick? What's up, AJ? Thanks for having me on the podcast. I actually am a big fan of the podcast, so it's kind of cool to be on here. But, uh, my name is Paul Maxwell. I'm the CEO of RevOps HQ. We're a certified HubSpot Solutions Partner agency, and we really specialize with, uh, helping businesses to design their business processes as well as to implement the tooling to make those processes realized and effective and efficient. So we also really specialize in the technical side of implementation as well. We tend to attract clients that have more advanced technical needs, whether that's from enterprise systems integrations management or small businesses and startups that want to integrate their custom web app or platform into HubSpot. So we don't, we don't niche down to a particular business size or anything like that. But we're really excited about what we do. We're a really young agency and we've got a lot of energy and passion to serve new businesses.

It's probably safe to say things are a little busy then, right?

Yeah, things are busy. There is no lack of HubSpot work, which is— yeah, it's a great time to be doing HubSpot work. We'll say that. Awesome.

Now you're also too main— and we were talking about this before we went live and everything, but also avid podcaster as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, um, yeah, love the podcast. Um, uh, I'm finding it really like a new medium of expression and just a new playground to think about ideas. I think forcing yourself to think out loud and talk out loud from an outline, it just, it gives you the opportunity to refine how you articulate things, but it also gives you an occasion to interface with, with content and to develop these ideas. Like, so for example, you know, RevOps is in my company's name, but I remember about a year ago I had some colleagues that were in, um, that were calling themselves RevOps specialists. And I thought, you do what I do, but I don't know what that word means. So how are you a RevOps specialist and I don't know what it means, but we do the same thing? And so there are things like that where I realized a podcast is a great— and this is just my recommendation to anybody doing any professional work at all. Start a podcast. It's a great idea to explore those areas of your professional domain that you just may not understand or know, right? So if you don't know what RevOps is or what some of the terms that constitute RevOps are, that's a great opportunity for you to learn and teach yourself and then teach others. And, you know, in the meantime, so, and then I also have kind of a personal podcast where I go more deep into philosophy. I have a background in academic philosophy. And so it's just my way to— even though I don't do that in, you know, in my day job, it's still an opportunity for me to like explore some of those deeper ideas and themes and cut my teeth on that kind of stuff too. So yeah.

When you— I was gonna ask you, when you started like the first podcast, right, the first one that you like, when you came up with the idea, or at least the concept of wanting to do it, did you try to jam? Like, because this is what I did, and I just want to know if maybe I'm not— hopefully I'm not the only one that tried to do this, but like I tried, I tried to take everything I liked about every podcast or every show that I've ever seen, like bits and pieces of it. And I thought, well, if I just take all those things, line them up, and then just squish them all together and just do it in some sort of like meaningful order, I should have like a knockout win no matter what. It should work perfectly because all of those things I love. And if they're all really cool, if I smash them all together, I'll have this like from, you know, second one to like hour. I'll have the coolest thing ever made. And it—

Right.

Doesn't work that way. Right.

Can I ask, what were some of those things? Were they like, like certain segments or certain like things that you, that you saw on other podcasts? Like, what were some of those segments?

Yeah, it was. There were, and some of them were like kind of goofy too. I like, I remember watching, um, like years back, and this was before I think even Jon Stewart was on The Daily Show, but, uh, there was Craig Kilborn, I believe, was like, uh, The one beforehand, but they would do like kind of like 10 questions at the end, right? And they would try to make the questions like relatable to the guest and things like that. And then there were just certain ways of like, uh, doing a segment or a delivery that I had watched other podcasters do where I was like, you know, I love listening to that, or this podcast, the, the way the conversation goes. And like, the— it felt, you know, like it didn't feel stuffy or it didn't feel like over-scripted. And so I would take like try to take bits and pieces of that. And then like, for example, one of the things was like talking about like what was happening that week in the news, right? Whether, you know, related to like either tech or, you know, things like that where like Leo Laporte, no relation, but like individuals like him where they, you know, he would have podcasts where he talked about like this week in tech and things like that where they would talk. Like I was like, well, if you cut out like a little, you sliver out like 15, 20 minutes for this podcast and do that here, do the 10 questions there. I mean, you should have a just, you know, a knockdown winner here. There's no, no, you know, no questions about it. But no.

Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. What— so can I ask just one more follow-up? What was it that made you feel like that wasn't working for you?

Because it was one, it was— and shout out to Isaac— it was way too long. And that was one of the feedbacks was like, yeah, you know, it's like, I love, you know, I love listening to it. But like, after an hour and get into almost 2 hours, it's like, And at first I didn't believe it. I was like, nah, that, that can't be. And then I started trying to do show notes, and I was telling AJ and Denison one day, I was like, oh my God, this is our podcast and I can't even do this for 2 hours trying to listen and go back and grab the, you know. So it was, um, it was kind of an eye-opener as, as the, um, it was all constructive, but as the feedback was coming back, I was kind of like, okay, I can see where in my mind that was great, but then like watching it 2 or 3 times, I'm like, yeah, maybe not so much.

And there's also the, there's also the caveat of, um, Dating the episode too, right? You talk about something that's going on in tech and now that, you know, with the way that tech works, I mean, it could be irrelevant next week, you know, who knows? React could go away in a month and something new could come through that's shiny and, you know, cute and everybody wants it. So it's also hard when you speak about topical things in the news or technology that way because then, you know, most of your episode is now dated at that point. So it's not evergreen.

Right. How did, how did you, how did your mindset, did you have something similar or was there like a way that you kind of tried to structure it out?

So for me, I felt I, the, I have to be really deliberate about the way that I design the motivational incentives in front of me. So if it's too complicated, I dramatically reduce the odds that I'm going to do something. And so for me, I have to simplify as absolutely much as possible. So if you watch any of my podcast episodes, you'll notice it starts, there's no intro, there's no, Graphic. There's nothing like that. I go right into it, and when it— when I'm done, it stops. And there's very little fat in the episode. And the reason why is because that's what I like. That's the kind of podcast that I like. Now, that doesn't mean it can't be long-form. Like, I think, um, like, for example, Chris Williamson's, uh, podcast Modern Wisdom is a great example of like long-form, 2+ hours with no fat. And that's like a great, uh, example of that. My episodes tend to be between more like 20 and 30 minutes. But, um, but I found if I go totally stripped down, require zero prep, and, um, other than just a little bit of maybe content ideation, uh, and, and a little bit of research, you know, enough for me to actually say something valuable about this subject, then, uh, like, the less I can require of myself before the episode, the better. And the less that's actually in the episode that doesn't need to be is better. I, I, so I, I kind of new things I didn't like in podcasts. So one of the things I didn't like is when there is a title of an episode that I'm really interested in, I think, oh, that's very interesting, and I click play on that episode and it's 10 minutes of 3 hosts trying to be stand-up comedians that has nothing to— you know, they're just— they think they're supposed to be funny, so they try to be funny on the episode, and I'm just like, can you please get to the subject matter, please? Uh, and so I— so I— but that's totally preference. So other people might really like that, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And I also think it's a matter of kind of knowing what you want your podcast to be. So, you know, for example, if you have a, like a political, like the subject matter of politics is a great example of a show type whose content doesn't need to be evergreen. You want it to be new. That's where all your views come from. You're gonna have a big drop-off. You know that. But that's just kind of the nature of your content. You'll probably get more of a spike of listeners for each episode, even though they're not gonna have as long of a life cycle. Whereas if you create the evergreen content, you know, you do an episode on RevOps 101, you're maybe not gonna have a spike with that, but you are gonna have more of a long tail in terms of like watch time and, you know, more of a relationship with the algorithm. So I think you could do anything that works. I think that what will create the largest likelihood that you will continue to create content, which I think should be the ultimate goal, especially a podcast, is that you enjoy it. And I think one of the things that makes creating podcast content enjoyable is when you're creating something you feel like you would like and you would listen to. So I feel like you guys do that. And so I try to do that as well. Just keep it fun and keep it as something that I feel like I would like this if I, you know, if I was listening to it.

Yeah. And I think that that's 100% accurate because like, you know, there is no like formula for like what makes a podcast a podcast, right? Like you said, it's something, if it's something that you're interested in and it's something that you're passionate about, speak about it. Get other people to— that's where I think the— not competition, that's not the correct word, but the healthy conflict of even if somebody has an opposing idea, being able to talk it out or find that even ground, especially when it comes to things like development, design, SEO even. Everybody has their own flavor or their own way of what's correct, but really all paths are correct when it comes to that. It's just a matter of what you're building for and your the way in which you're building things and stuff like that. So yeah, absolutely, I agree with you on that.

Yeah, yeah.

You started talking about 3 people being stand-up comedians and I was starting to get nervous. I was like, oh no, we may have to cut this part out. I think he's talking about us. Are you kidding, man?

This is gold.

This is gold.

No, no, I, you know, one final thing on all this stuff is I feel like, um, I, this might be a little cliché or people have already heard of it, but Gary Vee has this great saying where he says documents don't create. So this idea of like just pre— or like think Sean Cannell at Think Media has this concept of just press record. That's all it's about is just pressing record. And, um, you know, like I was talking, I met with the HubSpot had like an AI group the other day and they wanted certain— some developers to come on and do that. And they were like, we need— we'd like you to think about creating content on, you know, how to use AI in HubSpot development. And I was, and I was thinking, I was, I was way overthinking it because they were like, well, how to develop a a HubSpot RAG and all this stuff. And I'm like, I hardly even know what that is, right? And then I realized like, well, why don't I just like document, why don't I just like create a Loom of what I'm doing with AI in my workflow, right? 'Cause I'm using it.

Mm-hmm.

And so it's just like, let's just do that. And let's just like do a Loom and a workflow and then like try to create a blog that way. It's not like how I would typically think about creating content, but it's like that whole idea of Gary Vee, document, don't create. And using that because like your whole life is content. Everything that's always happening is content. It's just a matter of creating a pipeline from what you're doing with zero latency in your day into a package that people can interface with and benefit from. So yeah, that's why I think podcasting is valuable.

Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, no, that's a really good way of looking at it too, is the document portion of it. But I was gonna ask you, with like, with doing podcasts and with being able to kind of like exercise that muscle in particular, did you find that that kind of helped? Because I imagine, and I've, you know, as a CEO, I, you know, there's that, that layer that you kind of have to, you know, you have to both— I don't want to say like, you know, speak with authority, but, you know, but there's that kind of like, you know, every, you know, you— for me, I'm just Speaking like, you know, personally, like, you know, there's certain, you know, I listen to CEOs speak and I'm just like, man, how do they, how do they do that? I'm like, how do they? Because, you know, there's, there's that attention grabbing. There's that, that message is clear. It's concise, not emotionless, but like, but that has to take practice, right? And does, does doing podcasts kind of help you with that?

I think so, 100%. It's when you see those CEOs speaking in that way, that's practice. It's 2 things. Number one, it's being practiced in speaking off the cuff, which is definitely a skill. I remember, so this is like a different part of my life, but like I went to seminary and got my PhD in theology and all this stuff like a long time ago. And I remember watching preachers, right? And I remember watching these preachers speak extemporaneously, just off the cuff, coming up with stories and all this stuff, right? And I'm like, how are they doing this? This is like—

Right.

They're wizards. Like, this is insane. And then they're doing it every week and they're doing it Wednesday nights Sunday mornings, and it's new content all the time. And, and once I actually got into training and all that stuff, I realized it's like, it's 2 things. It's hours and hours of prep every week. It actually— there's a lot of time that goes into it. But then that prep time actually gets less and less and less as you mature as a professional in that way. So I think from the CEO perspective, it's, it's the practice of speaking extemporaneously, but it's also a drilling of the messaging, and which is why Messaging and product marketing and product design and all of that and just the go-to-market messaging design is so important. So CEOs, they take that ability to speak with authority extemporaneously, but then they apply it and they drill down to the actual messaging that they have for their product, for their company. And when you combine those 2 things, you do get people coming off speaking very authoritatively, very persuasively, because it's, it's, um, it's designed, it's curated to come off in that way, you know. So yeah, so podcasting I think does help though, uh, as a way of becoming practiced at that kind of thing for sure, because if you're not doing it with podcasting, you've got to find some other outlet to practice talking, uh, you know, about these things.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

No, I was gonna say long gone are the days of like, you know, you have to sign up for a speech class in high school or something like that, right?

Oh, no.

You know, like, I remember taking, I remember taking a course in college where it was like you had to speak and like the first, the first time you have to speak, you're always nervous, you know, but by the end of the semester when you have to speak again, it's like you're comfortable, you know everybody in the class, you know, you're in an environment that you're used to. And I feel like that's probably the same for CEOs. Once they're in an environment where they're established and they've been at the company for a long enough time, it gives them even much more comfort in speaking about the company in which they lead because they know it inside out by that time and things like that.

So, right. There's a low barrier of entry now versus before, you know what I mean? Like, you can— anybody can— not anybody can start up, but you know what I mean? I don't mean it like in that sense where it's like— but to be able to do it is— I mean, listen, if I can do it and me and AJ and Dennis can do it, I mean, like, it's, you know, there's hope out there for everyone, right? So there's But it's, yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, at first I was always kind of nervous about even trying to attempt something like this, but now it's one of those things where I'm like, yeah, if you can do it, no matter who you are, regardless of the vertical or the niche you might be in, there's benefit to being able to be a better communicator just overall. So yeah, that to me kind of flipped my whole thinking about just like, Attempting things of this nature just in general. So it's, uh, it's one of those things where, yeah, I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I didn't kind of do one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's a great idea, we're gonna totally do this, and then like never end up doing it. Just is one of those things where it's like, oh man, I wish I would have done that. So yeah, no, I, um, and yeah, and, and I always have the utmost respect for, you know, like people like yourself, Paul, who, who take on that task and do that. And it's, you know, it It really does show, you know, the more and more you do it that it's like— because it's like, it's those people, and I can't remember, I probably mentioned this before, but there's, you know, it's one of those things where it's like there's people that you listen to that you're just kind of like almost entranced, right? You're kind of like, what they say, there's a way they deliver it, you know, how they talk, and, you know, the messages that they're kind of putting out there, whether that's like, you know, a tech podcast or whatever, but it really draws you in. And for me, there's nothing better, even if it's just therapeutic, right? Just to be able to listen. So like, I just used to do that with Leo Laporte. Like, you know, he would— like This Week in Tech, I would listen to it and sometimes I'd forget I was actually like listening, listening to it and didn't like— but I was just hearing it, you know? And it was almost kind of like his delivery, you know, the tone and everything. And it was like, it was just, it was nice. But yeah, I think it's something that everybody should try if they you know, get the chance or can do it, you know.

So completely agree.

Yeah.

And it's one of those things too, just to make one final comment on podcasting, is that like, I think when you talk about that experience of watching somebody talk with authority and persuasion and passion, we all know, like, I don't think I know anybody that doesn't have that in them with their close circle of friends or their family. Like, you know, if you put them in a close context of their— somebody they've known 20 years, like somebody that's maybe even really shy or scared of public speaking, but then you put them with their best friend and they're talking about Pokémon Go or something, and, and it's like they're very passionate and they could talk forever, right?

Right.

You find that topic, that thing that lights them up, and, and it's, it's in them. And I think it's just a way of— because I know a lot of people, it's funny, I have friends that I'm like, I've heard them just talk for hours over the fire, like just, you know, fireside cigars or whatever, just about lots of topics very like eloquently. But they're like, I could never go on a podcast or do a show or something like that. And it's like, it's just finding a way to translate or kind of like give them baby steps into that space. And it's like, you have it in you. It's just in your mind that doing it in front of a camera is different. It's completely psychological, I think. So if you can find a way to overcome that mental barrier, then you're good to go. And I think there's actually an analogy there for programming. I think there's a big analogy between podcasting and programming because, you know, you listen to Leo LaPorte and you hear him, you know, speak just eloquently and off the cuff, and maybe he's funny and he has technical expertise and he's like fluent in all these things. And like we've talked about, it's very practiced in the sense that he's just been doing it a long time. In the same way, you might, like, if you're first— if you're new to development, and this is really my passion, is helping people like get into programming and get into coding, 'cause I have so many friends that are struggling in the job market right now and just— are lacking confidence and don't know what to do. And I'm like, I keep, I get sick of saying it, but I'm like, dude, you should learn HubSpot. You should learn to code. Like there's a lot of work to be done right now, you know, but they like, but you see somebody maybe doing coding in React or doing a tutorial like a HubSpot CMS development tutorial, right? And somebody's like building a single page application using HubSpot CLI. And it's like, this looks really complicated. I don't think I could do this. And you start getting this imposter syndrome, right?

Right.

But it's just saying like, listen, That's just a different domain. That's over there. And in the same way that I get maybe intimidated watching a podcaster do their thing, I'm like, how do you get to that place? In the same way— but there's totally a road there that's just through being practiced and creating baby steps for yourself. It's the same thing with development. I think that you, you see somebody doing something cool, you have no idea how to do that, you understand 10% of what they're saying. But the result is awesome. And you're like, you have 2 options. One option is you think to yourself, I'm never going to be able to do that. The other option is, I wonder what the steps are to be able to do that where I can do that fluently, you know. So, so yeah, I think that's, that's the same mindset that I think enables you to get into podcasting is the same mindset that enables you to get into maybe something like coding or HubSpot development. It's just that growth mindset of thinking instead of, instead of feeling blocked, you just think, how can I get to that place? What path can I create for myself to be able to get there?

You know? And reverse engineering is a great way to do that too, 'cause you could do that with podcasts. You listen to them, you break it down and how they did what they did. It's the same thing with code. You know, that's what I did when I first started is literally would copy a webpage and their sources and everything and pull it into like, gosh, what was it? XAMPP and stuff when you were doing things locally, like back in the old days when you're doing local development with WordPress. And it was like, you just break it, you take a line out, see what happens. Okay, that's what that line does, you know, and like, you just kind of sift through it a little bit. But yeah, deconstructing things and rebuilding them is such a great way to learn.

Yeah, totally agree.

Let me, let me ask you this, Paul, in that same vein of first getting started and first trying something out, like, what was kind of the Maybe the first thing that kind of sparked your interest when it came to both like the technology and the coding aspect?

Yeah, so for me, the translation was when I was in academia, because this is a second career for me, I start— well, kind of a third career, really started in academia, was an adjunct philosophy professor for a little bit, then got into marketing, as many people who get into HubSpot do, transferred from marketing into more serious HubSpot work. And so the transition from academia to marketing was on the content level, right? So I was doing a lot of writing and writing articles and teaching and speaking, all this stuff, and that translates. And I was doing some ghostwriting and I worked for a publisher, so I was more deep into the content side of things. And then I got into working for a SaaS company that just needed a content strategist. It was like a low-level content SEO position. I took a bunch of Ahrefs courses, you know, learned technical SEO and SEO strategy for the first time and kind of merged those skill sets and did that. And then we needed to get onto HubSpot, and that's where I started, you know, interfacing with HubSpot more and learning more about CRM world. I didn't have the language at the time, but things like RevOps and go-to-market and how this existed as part of a broader business strategy and business process ecosystem. And so I actually asked our app team, because I saw they were building these applications on iPhone application. It was a heavy iOS development company. And so I asked them, you know, like, how do you do that? That's insane that you do that, because I know how to create things with words, but it's like English, and it felt to me like very one-dimensional, very flat. And writing in English prose, for example, can be a very rich form of expression. I don't mean to denigrate that at all, but when you compare what you're doing when you're writing, for example, just like an essay to what you're doing when you write code and you compare that to all the APIs that are available. I think Apple development and iOS development is a very interesting way to conceptualize coding for the first time, which is how I got into it. Because for me it was just, okay, I can do things with words and concepts, but like the actual things I'm doing with words is a very limited set of things. I'm describing things, I'm exploring things, I'm expressing things, I'm researching things, I'm maybe ideating. But with iOS, I have access to all of the hardware within an iPhone. There's physics sensors and audio sensors and movement sensors and a gyroscope, and there's a camera, and there's AI and ML APIs, and there's this list of 200-something completely unique sets of APIs within Apple development. You're actually manipulating the real machine, but it's abstracted enough that you don't need to know computer science to do it. You just have to have the idea in your mind. Apple really makes it easy enough to develop those things that pretty much you could do it the same way that— pretty much with the same time it would take to maybe go from 0 to 60 with React, you could do with iOS development. It's not that complicated. For me, I think it was just the idea, it just seemed like such a richer template. In my imagination, I thought, wow, I could create so much more than an essay with code. I could actually create an application and it could do whatever I wanted.

Right.

I had just access to all of these different APIs and capabilities. within the iPhone itself. I thought, that's very cool. And for me, something snapped in me where I just thought, this is what I'm doing now. And I had this completely unrealistic sense of how easy it would be. I thought it would be way easier. To this day, it's never been easy for me.

I was gonna ask you about the difficulty. Yeah, I was gonna ask about the difficulty, 'cause that seems like a whole— I mean, you're going from— This relative, like, size-wise, like, as far as, like, you know, like you said, like, creating the content, you know, like, whether it was, you know, you know, um, like blog posts or, you know, video or going into the code, like, it kind of, like, it blows up, right? The amount of things that you have. And like you said, just with, like, hardware and the APIs, like, what you have access to.

Yeah.

Talk to us about, like, the difficulty factor, because for me, like, I kind of had that same thing where I started in the SEO world first. And to me, that was— I don't want to say that's small in comparison because I don't mean it as insignificant, but I mean, there's still tons of things with considerations in SEO in general. But when I started going from that to being like, okay, just whether it was just frontend development or trying to understand SQL databases and It felt exponentially bigger, overwhelming sort of. But yeah, can you speak to that with the difficulty?

Yeah, well, I think that in SEO world, there are disproportionately more ways for something to succeed than there are for them to fail, because you can fail on so many levels and still win with SEO, still get traffic and still get leads and still look like you're winning. even though you're messing up in all these different ways. Whereas with code, there's disproportionately more ways to completely stop yourself in the tracks and break everything and nothing works. So it's way more easy to fatally fail in coding. And just that, the number of different universes or versions of abstraction from computer science itself, So, for example, like database theory and going into SQL versus object-oriented programming and going into JavaScript versus the abstractions on top of object-oriented programming like React and the frameworks on top of that. And then the thing, the thread that ties all that together is system design. And then you realize more and more and more when people say things like learn to code, yes, you are learning the grammar and the syntax and the language itself. But it's also learning all of the different kinds of abstraction and the interactions between those abstractions. So you learn SQL, great. You learn JavaScript, great. How do you interact with a SQL base within your React codebase? Do you build a monolith or a microservice? How do you design your— you know, do you use an abstraction vendor like Vercel or do you build it, you know, in a cloud vendor like Google Cloud Platform, AWS? There's endless levels of decisions, and it feels like it just branches out into an infinitely expanding universe of complexity when you get into code. And I think that's what's overwhelming is you're feeling— you're searching for this sense of expertise at some point. You're like, at some point I'm going to feel like I know this stuff and I understand this stuff. And what you realize is that that never comes.

Yeah.

You have to give yourself permission to feel like you can identify as a software developer. I remember there was this, a year into my first developer position, it was as a HubSpot developer at a HubSpot Elite agency. I still didn't identify as a software developer. And I said that to my colleague who was also a developer. I said, I'm not really a developer. And he goes, like, you're writing code all day. You're a software developer. What are you talking about? And he— and it wasn't until he gave me the permission structure to identify as a software developer. And then from then on, that's how I introduced myself. And that's how I identified myself. And so I think the difficulty gives you a false sense of imposter syndrome, whereas what you, you know, what you really learn is how to— Build with what you have and to learn to close the gap between what you can envision as an outcome with your mind's eye and the skills that you have to get you there. And, and then to like, you know, close the gap between those 2 things. I think that's the skill that you have to come up with. If somebody gives you a project, either you give yourself a project or somebody else gives you a project, and you say this needs to be the outcome. And to— and instead of saying that's impossible or I don't know how to do that, you say Okay, let's do it. And you figure out how to bridge the gap, you know, there. I think that's the real skill of being a software developer or a HubSpot developer is saying yes when you don't know how. So, and that's, that's the, that's these mental switch I think you have to make, um, because it never— and maybe, maybe other people experience it differently, but for me, it never got easy. It never was easy and it never got easy, but, but I loved it and the love of it never went away. It only increased. The more I code, the more I love it. And I think it's like, yeah, it's that creating the habit, you know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about how like you have to work out until not working out feels weird. Like initially it's gonna feel weird and you're not gonna like it. And then, so, so I think for me it was the thing that helped me persevere through that, that discouragement. And I think it's really the, the real trick of becoming a programmer is the emotional journey and the resilience you have to build to, like, pushing through and remaining committed. But it was developing a daily habit of coding, even if it was 5 minutes a day. I would use, like, the Mimo app or the SoloLearn app, or I would be working through tutorials or projects, even for a minimum of 5 minutes a day. But it's the first thing I would do when I woke up every day. And it's still a habit that I have to this day. And I think that That is what carried me through the times when it really felt difficult in the sense that I felt like I genuinely wasn't making progress for a very, very long time, but I was.

And I think one big thing too, as a developer, you have to be able to admit humility and be like, I don't know this, can you help me? There is really something to be said that is like, you can't be the smartest person in the room because there's always going to be somebody smarter, especially when it comes to coding. So, like, being able to say— because, like, we've had conversations in our team where it's like, oh, hey, this is where we're at. And I'll be like, hey, this is the part where my knowledge is gapped. So, like, if somebody can help me fill in the gaps, like, let's work together. Like, and that's how you grow as a developer, honestly. And, you know, quick plug that we have our mentorship program. And that was one of the bases of it is, you know, people need direction. They need— they need somebody that they can go, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And I think you know this more than me. Let's talk. And I think that's just a huge piece that a lot of developers are kind of afraid to say that they don't know something. In fear of, well, if I say I don't know it, I'm not gonna get a project again, or they're gonna take me off this project. When really admitting that you don't know it is so much more better upfront because then you can work towards a solution and learn as you go as well.

Mm-hmm. That's so key.

That's fair. And, and I like the, the point you made too, Paul, when you were talking about like not, you know, at the very beginning, just not understanding how things connect, right? Yeah. Like you're exposed to these, I'll never forget, like I think it was the very first like real, I guess you would call it a real coding job that I had for like the first year out of school. I had a position, but it was more like we were kind of just editing websites very slightly. But it wasn't until my second job where I was starting to really get exposed to these kind of more complex elements. And I'll never forget the one day, like, it was probably like a week or so into the job or I can't remember exactly how far in, but far enough where on my lunch break, I just went into my car and sat down and I was like, how does this all come together? I don't understand. Like, I'm like, I'm sitting there in my head, just like, it felt like my brain was just mush. But that was literally the question I was asking myself for an entire lunch hour in my head was just like, how do all of these, like, I'm learning like these like 5 or 6 new things that are, I'm understanding it conceptually, but I have no idea how these things talk to each other, work together. or make this final thing that we're working on as whatever the project was at the time, right? So yeah, that'll always give me nightmares, like that concept, because I always remember that particular day where it was just like, that's where I felt like that. That's where— and that's the thing that always kills me too, is it's like I've always— there's been times where I felt imposter syndrome, but it wasn't until I got to HubSpot that there was a name for it. Because I knew it, I'd always felt that thing, but there was just like, there was never a label I could put on it. And not like I was trying to, because I was like, I don't want this feeling at all. I don't care what it is. It needs to go.

Yeah.

But, uh, but yeah, but it was, uh, but no, I, I, um, I love that point though, that it's like, it's all about once you start making those connections, right? And then staying passionate too was the other thing you mentioned where it was like, these things are difficult. And yeah, you don't want to lose that drive and fire because I mean, once it's hard to get, you know what it's like? It's like, it's like working out, right? It's like, like you're mentioning Arnold Schwarzenegger. Once you stop, you know, once you do that, once you have a good routine and then you stop for like Couple weeks, it's almost like you're starting all over again. So you don't wanna lose that passion or drive either.

So, right. I think anybody who's ever taken a week's vacation from work can come back and be like, what was I doing before I left? Everybody gets that like mind block for at least, even if it's like 10 minutes into your day, you're like, I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee real quick while I think back to everything that I forgot. Yeah, no, totally. And nowadays too, when it comes to like learning coding and stuff like that, especially like, for instance, like building a module on HubSpot, right?

Mm-hmm.

This is also where AI can assist people in being like, hey, this is what I'm building. Make me a 3-day plan or a 5-day, like, how-to plan to step through stuff. And I think that's where, like, you know, people say, like, oh, AI is gonna replace developers. I don't think they're ever gonna replace. I think if anything, if you know coding and you're willing to learn, you are going to advance faster than most because you will be using it as an assistance rather than a replacement. I think that's where people— there's assistance and there's replacement. I think people are going more towards replacement every time, but really it's assisting people more because I just had to build something in JavaScript a couple of days ago on something I was working on. I did it and I was like, okay, cool, post it. Yeah, it worked for a little bit, but the second somebody filters something, now it's not working. I'm like, oh, because there's other JavaScript code. That's right. I need to see what's conflicting.

Right.

As a developer, you know things can conflict, but one-off you're just like, oh, I'm just going to quickly build this and copy paste. Works great at first, but not always. And I mean, I still run into issues with things that I built myself that break every now and then, and I'm like, oh, let's get the whole picture again, come on.

So, right, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great way to think about AI, is that the more, the, the more capable you are of doing things in an analog way, the better you're going to use AI, uh, because you're, you're, you're using it more as a, um, Oh, I'm gonna totally blank on the term here, but you're using it as like an appendage basically, right? Like it's an extension of your mind and you're using it more as a source of convenience or a source of education. So I think that those are two things. Either teach me how to understand what I don't know here so that I can prompt you in an educated way. I think that is a big mistake that I see with people using AI right now. There's just like, it's broken, it didn't work, the code you gave me sucks. What do you know that like this isn't good? Whereas rather than saying, okay, this didn't work the way I wanted, what do I need to understand about programming or what mental models do I need to have here to prompt you to help me implement this? I think so coming at it from a way where you're coaching the AI to think in first principles when it naturally wants to rush towards a solution, whereas actually you're pumping the brakes on AI itself. Then you're also requesting Phased approaches is another prompt design thing where I say, don't do anything. Like if I'm in Cursor or I'm doing something with AI or Cursor or v0 or whatever, it's like, don't change any code. And sometimes it literally doesn't listen to me, but like, like, don't do anything. Give me what would you do in at least a minimum 5 steps. Break this down into minimum 5 steps, right? And then help me understand what I need to do to coach you through this or to critique these steps. So Using it, using AI in a more extended way like that, I think, is definitely the way to go. Another thing too that came to mind, just a little bit of a callback earlier as far as like everything feeling so complicated with coding, is coding is like, it's such a— I want to say it's like semantically overloaded, this concept of coding or programming. It encompasses You know, like DevOps and system design and computer science and cloud architecture and all, like, the tiers of abstraction are so innumerable between the high-level abstraction and low-level and multidimensional. And so, I think one of the things that's helped me is realizing that, like, I never really thought about it this way, but, like, computer science is actually a soft science. It's not a hard science. It's actually made up. And so all of these things. So if you think about like, what's the difference between an orc and a goblin and a troll? It's like, well, it's whatever you want it to be technically, 'cause those things are all made up. But there are conventions that tell us certain answers to those questions and people buy into those conventions. So if you want to interact with a broader world of like, I don't know, fantasy roleplay or Dungeons and Dragons or something like that, you have to kind of buy into some of these conventions made up as they are by other people. And if you think too hard about it, well, like, Well, how many stomachs does a troll have? There's 2 or 3. It's like, well, we don't— I don't know. Technically, it's whatever you want it to be, right?

Yeah.

It's the same thing with anything with code, everything from the languages themselves into like, what's an API gateway? What's a database index?

I don't know.

Like, people made it up. Like, these— it's— I think of all of these programming— I used to think of them as like, why don't I understand this concept. And it's like, oh, I don't understand it because somebody made it up. So think of it— thinking of it like fiction. Like, these are fictional concepts that have been made real. And so think, okay, so that's why they're a little tough to comprehend sometimes, is because it's— they're kind of not natural. There's a logic to them. There's a reason to them. Like, there, there is a logical way to get there. But, um, but, but if it feels like I'm not grasping this, it's like, well, there, there was some magical thinking that went into like why we're doing it this way and not that way. Or so you kind of have to think about it, think of it as like, I'm going to immerse myself into a world somebody else built. Think of it like a fictional world. Think of system design like a fictional world and like you're playing D&D and you just need to learn like why magic works against fire creatures and like all these things, you know, you just like have to kind of accept, take certain things on faith, I guess.

I love the fact that we're talking about Dungeons and Dragons. I'm completely serious. I love this. This is great because it's like, that's— yeah, I was— yeah, I definitely played when I was younger for sure. But no, that's— I like that analogy. It is actually— that's brilliant. It really is because it's nice to be— because if you think about it, it ended— you don't— not that you wouldn't take it seriously, but it's— you don't take it it so seriously because you don't feel so like, oh my God, I'm so dumb because I didn't know this, or I didn't know that, or I wasn't aware.

Exactly.

Yeah. So, but no, I, I love that. I love the, the way you put it in a D&D perspective because I think that's just fantastic. Um, but along that same vein, because, because it's a, it's a big challenge as well to like move in that and think in that mindset then and kind of let go of some of that, like, and a lot of it's kind of almost like self-criticism because you're kind of like, I don't know this. But along that same vein with big challenges like that, are there any big challenges that you're facing right now with some of the stuff you're working on?

Yeah, absolutely. I've got a couple of projects right now. I really enjoy frontend development and I really enjoy middleware development and database development. But I'm moving into a couple of projects right now that are very heavily HubSpot CMS focused. And to be honest with you, that's just never been my forte. And so, so, so now we're just like moving into a place where we've got this one project that's like building a pretty robust web application on HubSpot Content— HubSpot CMS Enterprise. And it's just really stretching me quite a bit and, and just kind of forcing me to get into like the ergonomics of CMS development is different than building React custom cards or serverless functions or custom behavioral events or whatever else that you're doing in HubSpot. For some reason, all that stuff makes more sense to me because with everything else in HubSpot, it's just like HTTP requests all the way down, kind of. And so I can— I just— it feels simple to me in that way. But CMS, you've got the Hubble syntax, you've got this stuff that I've kind of avoided and didn't really like want to get into too much. So I'm kind of like, Getting up to speed on a fluency level with, with that. And it's, it's a lot of fun doing that, but it's just, I think it's, you know, it's one of those projects where I'm like, I never, I just never took on those kinds of projects, and now I am. So it's a, it's a challenge for sure, but, but it's a very good one. Sometimes I think the challenge is not knowing, is this a bug? Am I doing something wrong, or do I need to create a HubSpot ticket? and kind of letting your experience as a HubSpot developer be one where you're saying, okay, half the features I'm relying on are betas, so who even knows like what's working and what's not? So yeah, so I think right now that's just like a big project that I'm working on that's a little outside my comfort zone. Yeah, what else are we doing? Yeah, I think also we're building another— we're working on another project that's very cybersecurity aware and where the company has a lot a lot of cyber liability concerns. And so building these applications in a way that is compliant with broader, really granular standards is something that I've never worked with this particular set of standards before. Usually there's like a technology or a platform or a set of tooling I can use to just kind of COVID that, you know, or like there's a third-party vendor that enables me to just check that box. But in this case, we have to be really specific about the way that we use certain tools and make sure data doesn't get passed from one platform to another in a haphazard way because it would just be a breach of compliance. It's not even a matter of security or safety, it's just, it's not compliant.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, these are all challenges. I think the challenges that I have right now are just like, hopefully challenges I'm always taking on, which are just things that I've not done before, I guess. So yeah, but AI's been really helpful with that. Yeah, just kind of understanding like, you know, things, things that would have taken me a long time before to understand. AI has been very helpful there, just having ChatGPT. So yeah.

Now there, there is a question I wanted to ask you, uh, because I wanted to make sure— because I liked, I liked the answer, and it's probably one of my favorite questions that we, we frequently, if not almost on every episode, ask, uh, because in a couple of our correspondences before the show and about mentor advice. And the answer— can you elaborate on the answer you gave? Because I really do like the— I really do like the mentor advice that you were given.

Oh yeah. Oh, this mentor advice. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, okay. So this is, um, this is— this you've probably kind of felt this a little bit, but like, I remember I was given a project by somebody that was, um, and this was as I was kind of still building my confidence as a developer, but the, the advice was— so the project felt very impossible to me, and I, I basically went to the CEO of the company I was working for. It was an agency, and I was like, this is not possible. I don't think there's a way to do it. I think I've definitively determined that, um, like, we can't meet the client's needs here. And the CEO said to me, What you need to do is have the mindset to be the hero. Be the hero in this case. And I'd never heard anybody say that to me before because, you know, we've all heard, like, if you've read Donald Miller's book StoryBrand, which I actually really like that framework, the StoryBrand framework, where he says your job as a service provider or as somebody that's selling their services or a product is not to be the hero, it's to be the guide and make your customer feel like the hero. But I think that's— and I don't think that that's wrong. But sometimes the client or the customer just wants you to be the hero, and their need is for you to save them. And so it takes a lot, it takes a kind of a big leap of faith in yourself to say, all right, I'm going to be the hero here. How can I be the hero? How can I come in and fix this situation for this person in a way that feels You know, in a situation that I feel like is impossible. This is an opportunity for me to kind of rise above my own current standards for myself, raise that bar, and say, I'm going to try to do the impossible, and I'm going to try to deliver a win in a context that feels impossible to deliver a win. And I think we did deliver a win for that client. Sometimes it's a compromise of educating the client on what's possible and helping them to lower their expectations while still meeting their needs and bringing the solution as far as possible up to a place that still kind of gets them where they need to go. Sometimes it's fully overcoming the impossibility by educating yourself and realizing that there is a way. Sometimes it's redesigning the solution so that you're— it's configured in a way that makes it possible. Sometimes the barrier to possibility is not the toolset itself, but the way you've configured or arranged the toolset. So, so yeah, that was a big mindset shift for me because I realized like I was letting myself off the hook so many times by telling clients, this is not possible, we can't do this. Like HubSpot, like, like something I don't say anymore. I used to say this, something I no longer say is HubSpot can't do that. I used to say that to clients. I used to say HubSpot can't do that. I don't say that anymore because pretty much you can make it do whatever you want. Like Like, um, and so, so having that mindset, I think, is, uh, just forces you to be more creative and puts you in situations that are impossible. Like, if you've ever seen that movie, um, Apollo 13, that Ron— the old Ron Howard movie with Tom Hanks, there's a scene where they— I've seen it a lot. Uh, there's a scene where they have to create like an air filter with the, um, materials that are on board. And so all of the— all the engineers In, you know, in the engineering room.

Yeah.

Yeah, they dump all this stuff on the desk and they're like, guys, we have to make this square fit into this circle or whatever. And it's like, all right, let's get to work, you know? And that's— I see that as like the perfect metaphor for like what HubSpot engineers, developers, what HubSpot workers have to do every single day, where clients say, guys, I need to fit this square into this circle, and your job is to say, okay, Let's be the hero in this situation.

You've cut the greatest HubSpot promo that I think has ever been seen ever. So we're gonna make sure that we highlight that timestamp.

Love it, love it, love it.

Yeah, with the time we have left, I wanted to be able to have the listeners and those watching like kind of learn a little bit about you. So tell us a little bit about like who Paul is outside of the CEO.

Yeah, totally. You know, I love to work. That's like a really boring answer to that question, but like, I love to do HubSpot work. I'm in a season of my life where like, this is what's interesting to me. I play a lot. I mean, just to indulge your question a little bit, I play a ton of tennis. I live in upstate New York. I love winter sports. I'm not good at winter sports, but I love winter sports. So we've got lots of great— we've got Gore Mountain, we've got A ton of great mountains around here. We got Lake Placid right here. Do a lot of hiking, the Adirondack 46 Peaks. I'm working on getting all 46 peaks down. Um, you know, have you caught the pickleball bug over there?

Is that—

is that— Dude, I'm— it's, it's, it's impossible for me not to. I haven't yet, but, but literally, I played a tennis match this morning and my partner was like, do you, you want to play pickleball sometime? And so it's like even the tennis players are getting like, you know, bitten by the zombies of pickleball. So I got— it's gonna, it's gonna happen. Um, Yeah, so, you know, I just love to do that, man. Like, I love to do HubSpot work, but, and I love to get outside and be active and hang out with my friends, but I'm like pretty boring in the sense that I just love to do this work. And right now, like, this is what's fascinating to me. You know, like, when, like, my first career, what led me into, like, my story is I, I, I was not raised in a very religious context, but I became religious kind of later in my teenage years, and I was kind of inspired to learn the biblical languages like Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic. I was like, I want to be able to translate the Bible, you know. And so I went to the school that taught those things, and I got my bachelor's degree in linguistics. I did that, got my master's of divinity, focused more on theology, got my PhD in theology, ended up teaching philosophy. that kind of thing. That was kind of a different life. And, um, and, and what I loved about that was just the curiosity. There's just— there's like, in philosophy, there's just an endless space for your mind to explore. And, um, uh, I loved learning how to do that excellently. And a lot of what it means to do something excellently is that you learn how other people have done things in the past, and you incorporate those methods those tools, those little packages and tricks into, into how you do it and how you think. And, and what makes— what sets you up to add value is that you're entering into a previous conversation. So the difference between like the average stoner on the street corner who's gonna like, you know, tell you the meaning of life, and Martin Heidegger who's going to actually tell you the meaning of life, is that like Martin Heidegger is entering into a previous conversation according to the conventions of that conversation at a professional level. And so if you can elevate yourself and your discourse and your ideas and your methods to enter into that space as well, then you can participate and benefit from those conversations. And I just use that as an analogy for everything else in life. So in HubSpot, I think, like, so, so I think what I learned in philosophy and what I learned in academia was that, like, by conforming, like, the best way to innovate and the best way to become creative and express yourself and do new things is by entering into existing streams of conversation and existing conventions and to express yourself through and within those things. That's what I've also learned kind of with HubSpot development as well. I learned, like, in marketing, it's really easy to go into a context in SEO or advertising and have all these creative, crazy ideas and say, let's try this and let's try that. Who really knows if any of it is actually working? Things end up working out one way or the other. But with business process design and integrations implementation and all of these different little, like, microscopic ways that you can do HubSpot work, like, the more you invest in existing streams of ideas and existing conventions and existing conversations, like, the more I learn about business strategy, like I did Harvard's, like, core— they have this like little core curriculum that's like a little micro, micro, micro MBA. Like, the more I try to educate myself in standard historical conventional ways of business process design and development and things like that, the less I try to like, you know, like reinvent the wheel and express myself in authentic and creative ways. And the more I just root myself in traditions of the past, the more able I am, I think, to add value. And so To answer your question, that's like, uh, that was such a circuitous way of answering your question, who's Paul outside of work, which is the answer is he works. But, uh, the, the— yeah, so, so my answer is like, just to give you a sense of like, I'm not trying to skirt the question, but like, I think that I— what really drove me into academia was this endless space within which to be curious and, and to, and to innovate meaningfully and to add value. And I feel like I've, I've found a new home for that. In HubSpot work and in development work, which is why it doesn't feel exhausting to me to do these kinds of things.

So no, that's great, and those are good transferable skills too, right? The curiosity and to be able to— no, so no, I think that's really, really fantastic. We are running up on time here, so I wanted to be able to give you an opportunity if you wanted to shout anything out or, you know, make anybody aware, because I know you're on— like you said, you have multiple podcasts. Where can people find you?

Yeah, totally. So I think just definitely check out our company website, revopshq.com. We've got a YouTube, RevOps HQ. You can check out my personal podcast if you'd like, which is paulmaxwell.dev on YouTube. I'll give you guys the links. And then finally, me and another solutions partner named Will Lynch, who's the CEO of a solutions partner agency called We Simplify, we have a new podcast called HubSpot and Chill. Where we're just kind of talking through new features each week, and it's really for HubSpot customers and clients. It's not really for agencies or partners so much. It's more for HubSpot users, HubSpot clients, HubSpot customers, HubSpot admins, and we talk through new features, best practices, kind of from an agency perspective. So check those shows out and we'll have plenty of content there for you.

Awesome. No, thank you. I really appreciate you coming on and No, fantastic. And you definitely have 2 new, at least 2 new podcast subscribers here.

Love it.

Dennis as well. We'll make sure Dennis does that as well. But no, I want to really want to thank you for coming on. I really like a lot of the, you can call them philosophies, but, you know, approaches to things and just kind of way you think about, you know, a lot of these kind of bigger issues and the way you're tying everything together is, I think, something that definitely people should not only try to do themselves, but, you know, be able to hear that from someone else. Because like I said, there's, there's a lot of crossover there where a lot of the things that you've experienced and like your approach on tackling these things are— I believe other people can learn from that. So I, to me, that, that's really, really important. So thank you for coming on and thank you for being able to share all that. We do really appreciate that.

Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. This is a lot of fun.

Yeah, no, thank you. And, you know, I'll leave everybody with this. You know, as a diabetic, it's very hard to like find things to eat, you know, or good things to eat. So I won't technically be impressed with technology until I can download food. But thanks again, everybody, for watching and listening. For all of you out there, don't forget to like and then subscribe to the HubSpot Developers YouTube channel, and we'll see you next time.

Mm-hmm.