Ep. 34 - A Design Link To The Future with Chad Pierce | Devs:After Dark

With that being said, here he goes.

Hello and welcome to Developers After Dark, the show that makes null pointer errors feel like relaxing acupuncture. We are here today with a very, very awesome guest, a member of the community and good friends of all of us. We'll let him get to introducing himself in just a minute, but before we do that, I just kind of want to let you know that this is going to be the only site you're ever going to need, and that's devsafterdarkpod.com. One more time for Dennis, that's devsafterdarkpod.com.

Yeah.

The reason for that is that's where you're going to be able to go back and see all of our previous episodes, learn a little bit more about the show if this is your first time watching it, or if you've, uh, want to tell a friend about it and want to share it, we also appreciate that as well. But that's going to be the place to do it. You can watch all of our episodes as well on the HubSpot Developers channel, and that's going to be at HubSpot Developers on YouTube. That is a place that you can go not only to watch us, but there are plenty of other things out there as far as instructional videos, things not just from HubSpotters but from the community as well. Uh, there's a wealth of knowledge there. It's one of those places you can go and lose yourself for hours watching.

Lose yourself.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And a special little shout out too that I want to give, uh, because if you were— if you've been watching us for the last couple episodes, we just posted an episode last week about the HubSpot Developers website, uh, and, uh, AJ, ours truly here, was one of the ones that helped, uh, kind of spearhead that and really work towards making that something absolutely fantastic.

Mm-hmm.

Just to kind of show everyone real quick here, we've got the website right here. And, you know, it's an amazing, an amazing redo of this website. I mean, there's, there's just so much here. And if you go back to the, um, the previous episode, I believe it's episode 33 or 32, uh, we go, we talk with both AJ and we talk with Brooke, who were 2 of the people that helped make this humanly possible. So, uh, you know, when you've got a chance, go ahead, take a look at that. There's also a little survey here that's going to help shape our roadmap for 2026. You know, depending on when you watch this video, go ahead and take that survey as well. Like, the feedback we get is always amazing, and we appreciate it. We listen to it, and we action based on it. So go ahead and do that if you can. But we, again, AJ, Brooke, and Ashley, and everyone else really appreciate the work. It was really Really a fantastic site redo.

Thank you. And if you do submit feedback on /feedback, we do actually read it. Like, humans read that.

So, oh yeah, absolutely.

And I highly recommend just generally complaining about AJ through the feedback form if you've got a chance.

Yeah, of course.

Do it. It goes into our database. Like, it'll be out there. Go for it.

Now you will notice too that Dennis is back this week, and he came back at just the right week because I don't know if AJ and Dennis, if you know, there's something very, very, very special about this week. Do you know what that is?

Is it mental health awareness, right? Because that's the month.

That's the month.

But Chad's here.

There is, it is actually the one-year birthday.

I was going to guess that.

Yeah. That is the cheesiest graphics thing you have done.

This is hanging on the screen there for way too long trying to find all the things.

This is what happens when you leave me alone and don't supervise me. This is exactly what happens. But no, yeah, this is our birthday week. So this has been 1 year since what me and Dennis sat in Inbound and said, you know, we should start a podcast and from there and then talked with AJ and then from there, this is—

It snowballed.

Yep. Love it.

Absolutely. Evolution. Evolution. And yeah, no, here's to hoping that there's, you know, at least another year or 2 more of this, at least. You know, um, so I want to at least hit 1,000 episodes. That's kind of where we kind of want to be at. I would hope.

Yeah.

Oh, so be prepared.

Be prepared.

This is gonna get a lot grayer over those years.

Yeah.

I'm sure if we literally played like a progression of all, like a montage clip, you would just see the gray just start coming in.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Well, why don't we— I'm gonna let our guests introduce themselves and then we're gonna get right into it. So, uh, Chad, why don't you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Oh man, uh, my name is Chad Pierce. I am the executive owner— no, I'm just the owner of a little firm called A Design Link. Uh, been, uh, on, on my own. I started out in the, uh, in the, uh, agency world, but where I was introduced to you fine, fine gentlemen. But, uh, I went on my own in 2018. I've been on my own ever since. Uh, so we specialize in mainly CMS, CRM, uh, integrations and web builds, uh, and a lot of, uh, lately a lot more, uh, integrations and stuff like that. But, but, uh, yeah, that's, that's who I am. Father, father, husband of one.

Sorry.

No, long time.

You, you were CMS for a long time. So when did, when did you actually make that leap over to the CRM side to do more integration stuff?

It just came naturally. Um, like, so like, I, I never stopped doing CMS. That's still my bread and butter.

Yeah.

And I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. But the, uh, the, the main, um, the main thing for me was that like a lot of the CRM, because HubSpot is HubSpot, the CRM integrates very tightly with the CMS. So it's like a natural thing to want to be able to do stuff with the CRM as well. Uh, I don't, I don't, uh, I wouldn't say that we do ginormous integrations. We're not like integrating a whole nother CRM into HubSpot or anything like that in general. But we do, uh, we do a lot of stuff that, uh, it becomes vital for our clients as far as, um, uh, integrating maybe their tool, their internal tools or something like that so that they can, the data that can then be used in the CMS parts and CRM parts and stuff.

Nice. Bread.

How about— I was curious, like, how did you first— like, what first sparked your interest in technology in general? Or was there a, a, in like an interest at the very, very beginning?

So, uh, I actually have a degree in drafting and architecture. So, uh, or most of a degree anyways. Uh, I actually got out— I actually got— I dumped it before I got my bachelor's, but The, uh, I was always interested in art, so drawing, that kind of thing. And my, my parents would, would get after me because I would ignore them because I was literally in a, like, an encyclopedia or something like that copying pictures out of the encyclopedia. That's, that was my, that was my childhood and, uh, pre-iPhone. And, um, and so it just kind of grew from there. I had a couple jobs where They're like, hey, we were— we just fired this guy that was doing ads. Do you think you might be able to learn how to use Photoshop? Or, uh, you know, it's 2000— or yeah, it's like 2005, and we need a— we need a simple website. You know, what, what can we do? Uh, well, I can learn.

Have you heard of tables? No, I'm just kidding.

Believe it or not, I started right at the end of like when tables were I mean, uh, not, not a great way to build the web. I came in in floats, if anyone.

Yeah.

So if anybody out there is like, I remember those, you're a familiar— if you know the word clearfix, you know, all are clear, all, right?

It's always a clear.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that— you mentioned that, you mentioned some of the, uh, art, uh, was there any type of, um, because I, I remember At least through high school and into some community college, I did a lot of— was there like painting, draw, like any type of—

It was mainly pencil drawing.

Okay.

So just, just pencil, pencil art. Um, but it's like, because I have like this back of this, the studious background in architecture, what happened was I learned a lot. Like, not, not— I, I still enjoy architecture to this day. Like, don't get me wrong. What I did not want to do was like some engineer's red lines all day long, every day for 20 years, you know, like I didn't want to correct somebody else's design. So what I decided to do is just go a different direction. So I went into like sales and the marketing. And, um, the, the, the design part, I, I kind of intermingled the two because I was able to take like, okay, so I kind of understand how people think and how people act. and, you know, what makes for some— what makes for a good experience. So I was able to use that in design and development. And so I, in, in architecture, you have to design how something's going to be built. So, and back then, because the web still was kind of sort of infancy, still, like, there's still the kind of the Wild West going on. A lot of people were still designing the web as though they would design like a Like a magazine cover or something like that. Yeah, super difficult to do those kinds of things. So I took it upon my shoulders to build things or design things that were actually buildable. Appreciated that. And I kind of like, hey, this, this could be a career. And so I literally started going door to door, like as a salesperson that I was, Uh, started going door-to-door businesses and like knocking on doors and it's like, I can do these things. I can do your ads. I can do your websites. And everybody's like, yeah, we don't need ads, but we need a website. We need a website. We need a website. And that's really where it came from.

Yeah. I always remember the days where you'd like early on where you'd get handed, like, let's say it was like a, you know, a Photoshop file or something to build and you look at the design and be like, I, I, uh, I don't know how we're going to do that now.

Slice tool. Just saying.

Isn't there an HTML button in Photoshop, right? Can I push that?

Dreamweaver, right? Yeah, build it all in Dreamweaver. It's fine.

Let me ask you, Chad, you— yeah, because I know you mentioned, uh, I know you said— had said that you use Dreamweaver. Like, did you ever get any kind of like— like, I remember— I can't remember how far back this was, but I was moving from one job to the other and they asked me like, what are some of the tools that I use? And I had mentioned, uh, Dreamweaver just like in passing, right? It wasn't like one of the main ones that I used as far as like Um, you know, like you would like a Sublime or something else. Not, you know, at a certain point, but like the, the person who was interviewing me gave me like the weirdest look and said like, oh, so you use a WYSIWYG? And I was like, what is a WYSIWYG? And it rubbed me such the wrong way because I'm like, that's not the intention of me using it. Like I would still like code. And it was, did you ever get that?

So, so I was in and out of Dreamweaver within a month. So I quickly realized how difficult it was to make to make web pages that looked like— not just look good, but like the word— that looked the same, uh, you know, in Dreamweaver. And especially back then, it was like Photoshop version 7. So Dreamweaver, I think Dreamweaver was still Macromedia.

Macromedia, right?

Yeah.

And so it was, it was a, you know, everybody was raving about how good, uh, uh, you know, Flash was, and I was not the Flash guy. Like, I, I thought it was awesome, but Like, I went down the different— I went a different direction than everybody else, which ended up working out good for me. But, but yeah, Dreamweaver was very, very short-lived. Like, I was like, if I'm going to actually do this, I need to be able to understand what's going on under the surface here. So I quickly— I still was using Dreamweaver, but I wasn't using the WYSIWYG part. I was using the HTML editor part. And then I said, this is like, this is terrible. So then I started using Coda. Uh, back in the day, Coda was— and technically Coda, the company still exists. Panic, I think, is the name of the company.

Yep.

I've got a whole nother code editor. But, but, um, but then eventually, obviously, VS Code came around. But, but, but I went through a couple different iterations. Sublime, I think, was another one.

Yeah, that, that— I, I use Sublime mainly because of, uh, the Emmet extension for like the— yeah, yeah, quick coding.

That was a big deal, bro. That was a good one.

You ever remember TextWrangler?

That was my, uh, first, uh, code editor.

I remember there, there was back then, there was, it was like today, like with AI is today. Like there's so many popping up everywhere.

Yeah.

It was the same thing with code editors and stuff. So I was like, if I keep switching around, I'm never going to get anything done. There was one called TextWrangler.

That's, that's, that's me now. Yeah. Yeah. There wasn't, yeah, there was a point in development where I was just like, cause everyone, Like I'd start, I started a place and they'd be like, oh, you got to use Sublime. And then it was like, switch to the next thing and the next thing. And like, at one point in one year, I had flipped, like you're saying, Chad, like I flipped between 3 of them and I was like, oh my God, I'm never going to get anything done because I have to like the extensions. I had to go back and find the extent. And it was just like, I spent more time in setup than I did in actual like doing something. And it was, and I didn't realize it until it was too late, obviously, but I looked back and I was just like, wow, that was a big waste.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had to learn that really quick, man. Super quick. Because like I said, I, I was, I was trying to build something and like switching code editors and everything just wasn't like— I was just like hyper-focused on learning the actual, the actual underpinnings. And it wasn't until like 2010. 2010 is when I really like— when I started working for, if I'm allowed to say their name, Blue Leads. You might need to bleep that out, but, but, um, but Blue Leads, which is now an Elite partner, I believe, last time I checked. And, um, I was with them for 6 years. So like, Eric Baum, God bless that man, he, he like introduced me into the world of HubSpot and, and, uh, in like early 2010, like we're talking like early 2010 and, uh, like January, February. And, uh, so like I was like before the CMS existed, any of that stuff. Like, he was like, he's like, here, we got this, this blog that we need this custom design on. And I'm like, well, where do you edit the CSS at? Because I'm used to like using HTML or PHP or something.

Yep.

And he's like, this little bitty box that has no, no anything, and you have to import everything. That was where I started. So, uh, and then, uh, yeah, 2013, I believe, is when the CMS the beta launched in 2013, and that was right around the time that, uh, that I, um, was like— I, I came— I was actually in South America for 3 years, and I came back. I came back to the States, uh, like late 2012, early 2013, and, and, uh, that's when I got a hold of the CMS and was like, this is a game changer for HubSpot. Like, I started this stuff and I I knew the engineers knew me by name because I was calling them literally like 20 times a day being like, hey, this is not working right. Can you help me fix it? And they would like email me back like 15 minutes later and be like, try it now. And it would be fixed. So like, that was before— the CMS is obviously many generations away from that removed. But that was where I started out with Blue Leads doing that stuff. And, uh, just snowballed similar to the podcast.

I remember that. Like we, we had our, we had like a group chat, a bunch of us and we were in like a talkback.

Yeah. Yeah.

I remember that.

That was, that was a lot of fun too. And I remember like, yeah, we were always like blown away by the response times. And, um, I'm going to call him out. Matt Coley.

Yeah.

Like he was, he was detrimental. Like you'd be sitting there, like we actually joked and thought he was a robot for a little bit. It was like an autoresponder because he was responding to us at random times of the day.

But like the first AI chatbot ever existed.

Honestly, like it was a real person. Yeah.

I want to say he was the first non, like leader type person that was requested for a hug. Like he was one of the first engineers ever to be requested for like a developer. It was a developer focus, but a HubSpot user group. And we kind of like, we kind of shocked him, I think, is like he wasn't expecting either. We're like, no, we want you to come here and explain developer stuff. And he's like, that's not what hugs are for. And we're like, it is now.

Come on board. Like, it changes the mold, right? Let me, let me ask you, Chad, what are— when you first got started, as far as like the career path that you're on now, what were some of the things that first surprised you? Because I know you just mentioned like when you first saw HubSpot, you felt it was like a game changer. And like, were there other things like when you first got into this career path that kind of surprised you or kind of like took you off guard?

Uh, man, I was— I, I think I had like rose-colored glasses, uh, honestly, because I was so enamored by the fact that you could like build something and like everybody could see it, and you didn't have to have like a publisher's license or anything like that. You just had to live by me, man. Um, and you know, that people would actually give me the opportunity to build something for them. And then when I started working for, for Eric Baum at Blue Leads, it was, it was a We were literally— I was— there was one guy he hired before me, before I got to the United— back to the United States. And so I was literally like employee number 1 or 2 for Blue Leads, uh, back when he started it up. And, and it was a— it was like, like I said, it was kind of Wild West-y feeling, but it was like in a good way.

Yeah.

Like, it's like all hands on deck, kind of military, militaristic in, in a sense that We all had a goal and we were just trying to build stuff and trying to figure out this whole inbound thing. And, you know, I always had this because I came from sales and marketing. I always had this. I didn't just have a mental— I didn't have any type of mental block when it came around for like dealing with people or being able to understand how like— sales worked or, or marketing worked, I kind of understood it. And so, and so that was— that always helped me advance or work with my clients, you know, and work with the other marketers, because, you know, I understood why marketers always came for— always came back to the developer for little stupid things like changing the color of a piece of text or, you know, I got it. You know, I mean, not that it was super easy to do some things back in the original CMS, but But I always had this like conviction that I'll like make it easy for the marketer to modify. And that was that to this day, that's like my mantra. And so like when I'm building something, I'm like overbuilding it. But, but to answer your question directly, nothing surprised me except for everything really, because such early, so early that. Everything that, everything that I was experiencing was for the first time. So, you know, when I needed to do something, and I didn't know how to do it, there was nobody else like there for me to do it. And when I first started, there was maybe like 2 or 3 websites, like Smashing Magazine was just starting. Yes. Just starting. Websites were vital in my, my, you know, my enrollment in the mastering all things web.

And I think there's a— there's, there's probably a very, um, not enough appreciation that goes into like someone who can also, or someone who has the experience like, uh, like you do on the marketing side of things, who then goes into the development side of things and is able to kind of, um, the best way I, I always put it is it's sort of like, it's sort of, it's sort of like a translator that's between 2 languages, like, like figuratively and not literally as in like C# and something else, but Like that communication, uh, always, uh, I feel like most places don't appreciate it or don't realize how important it truly, truly is when they have it, uh, to be able to kind of bridge that gap. But, uh, you know, from, from what you're explaining, like you've, you had the experience in the marketing aspect beforehand. So it kind of gave you that sort of, is it safe to say like sort of like almost like inside knowledge of like how to, the, how the communications should go, uh, back and forth.

Well, you're right. Like, it— like, you're able to speak, you're able to speak on at a level that, that they, that they understand, and you can, you can talk to them about what they understand, you know. And so, so like, I, I just— I never— obviously you never like to, you know, talk on top of somebody or over somebody, but— or in a way that they don't understand. But, but yeah, I It, but it, I think it was more than just being able to speak to them. It was like being able to really like get what, what they're trying to accomplish, you know, and understand, understand those things and thereby being able to make it happen. And if it wasn't possible to do it, figure it out, figure out a way to actually do it, you know, like, or, or some semblance of what they're looking for, you know, because that was another thing with the early, especially the early HubSpot, like.

Yeah.

It wasn't everything. I mean, it had a lot of it. They added, they kept adding stuff on. And when the CRM got added, that was when they really, HubSpot really started to like grow dramatically. But when they added the true CMS, that was, that was groundbreaking for me, but there's still, it was still limited, right? It really was limited. So we had to, we had to figure out ways to, to do what the client wanted. And, you know, sometimes we were faking it, you know, frankly. Uh, you know, when things like the Hubble and, uh, uh, the HubDB tables and things like that were just like transformative.

Yeah.

In my world, there's like, unlike, unlike most people today, a lot of people today are like, they're, they're kind of like, I'm going to use this in air quotes and I don't want to offend anybody, but full-stack developers. And I was never a full-stack developer. I was always a front-end developer. So I hyper-focused on CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, and then in all the connections between there. And I did— I was dangerous enough with like WordPress and stuff to, to build a theme. And but like HubSpot took the— it gave me the ability to, to, uh, HubSpot gave me the ability to figure out a templating language that was not overly complex And then I, I, it made sense to me.

Yeah.

So, you know, cause I came out of a world of other templating languages that were not the same, but very similar. And so, and the fact that I didn't have to maintain a site, a server and all that stuff was nice. Yeah.

And I was, I was reminded of the, the conversation we had with Nathan Gifford about the, uh, like the 10,000 plugins that you had to update at any given time. And then it was bad. Like, cause there was PHP version switches to like, you know, whatever, 5.2 and it's like, oh yeah, everything You've ever seen, nothing works.

Congratulations. And then you needed a plugin to alert you when your other plugins were out.

Right. Seriously.

Right.

Chad, do you think, um, avoid the update plug, the update button at all costs kind of thing?

You, you believe, Chad, that, um, the value that you add by being able to speak to the marketer, being, you know, a developer is something that is still like the newer generations. Are they able to do that? Or are they, like I just said, are these full stack developers going in? They have no idea how to really make that translation to the marketer.

Like, so I, I, I get what you're asking. Like, I, it— I'm dealing— I'm, I, I'm gonna take a step back because I'm kind of dealing with something like this with my son.

Mm-hmm.

And the— I think there's this, like, almost— at least in my son's generation— my son's 20— there's like this fear to, to, to step out. I don't know why. Maybe it was because of COVID or I don't know what it is. But, but I read the other day that like 70% of Generation Z has had their parents go to an interview or sit in an interview with them at one point or another.

I did read that.

70%.

Insane. Insane to me. Like, and so like, I, I had this ability to put myself out there and learn different things. So like, When I— when I've been working since I was 14 years old, so, so I started out like dishwasher. So I worked in the kitchen, worked in the kitchen for like 6 years. And then I went from that to like doing something else, washing cars or something. And then I, you know, I was helping a friend of mine, you know, rebuild like old cars. And then I was doing other things. And eventually I got into sales and, and then sales led to art and design and then design led to development and So like, and then through schooling and all that stuff too, some of the techniques and philosophies that I learned in school, um, and, uh, in architecture and drafting school, um, those— I took all that and I kind of compounded it over time. And that's, that's kind of where I am, where I'm at. So I'm not expecting everybody to have to go through that. I mean, I did it out of necessity, but I think there's something to be said for people that like, like put themselves out there and just like learn us— learn something new. Yeah, like, you know, like going to school and like learning how to code React, like, are you missing something? Like, you know, okay, maybe start with JavaScript. But there's this— there's a whole nother side of the world that doesn't exist in a computer. And the thing that I would like to— I would like to get across to the younger generation especially is that, is that these other things aren't, aren't just different. Like, you can actually learn things from them and then apply them to your daily jobs, you know.

Yep.

You know, whether it's just like, like, if you, if like somebody, it's, it's a, it reminds me of people that maybe started in tech and then moved to sales. Um, and the reason why they do that is because they understand how it works and they can easily sell. They understand People.

Yeah.

Well, I'm advocating for the reverse.

Yeah.

So like, so like somebody who is originally a marketer or salesperson, maybe out of necessity learning how to design and develop websites, or, or now, now with AI, you know, people learning how to, uh, vibe code apps and stuff. And that just, it's scary and it blows my mind how easy some of this stuff is nowadays.

Mm-hmm.

Blows my mind.

I think there's something to be said too about kind of that into the, you know, out of the frying pan and into the fire type of like experience that I, and I don't know if like that still exists, you know, today in a lot of like industries. And plus too, I do assume it depends on like the size of the organization in which you're, because like, I'll be honest, like, and Dennis is back this week, so bringing up real estate seems very apt. You know, in a brokerage where there's, you know, where you have a staff or from, at least from the technical side, in the dozens, if not into the hundreds, you're not going to get that same sort of like, and I always use the story. I, you know, at the place I worked at, it was when SEO started to become a thing. It was like, do you know it? I'm like, no. Well, you're gonna.

And that was it.

Like, that was the conversation.

Yeah.

So I think a lot of that doesn't happen as often, if at all anymore, which I think There's a, there's a, there's an experience there, like you're saying, where it's, you may not be, that may not be the thing you, you like were, you had, the focus was on, but like learning that, that stuff, I was able to learn.

I think that's where we are with AI at this point.

I agree.

AI, I mean, obviously nothing stays new forever, right? But right now we're, it's been out a few years, but like it, this last year has literally been like What I feel like the launching point for true, true AI. Yeah, my daughter, my youngest daughter is going to be AI native.

Yeah, yeah.

She's just this, you know, she's 8 years old, she's learning how to use technology and stuff already. I didn't even know there was— I didn't even know the word tablet. I thought, I thought that was like the Ten Commandments, you know, when I was— yeah, you know, that was where— that's how I grew up. So Uh, you know, I was— these, they— that's not— that doesn't exist anymore. A tablet is an iPad, you know, uh, you know, an iPhone, you know. These things did not exist when I was growing up. So all these, all these young, these young kids that are now growing up to become teenagers and then adults, they're going to be natives, AI natives. And what are— what's, what's left before that? It's us. And we kind of have to pave the way for them. But But we also have to learn what it is, how to use it, how to use it correctly.

Not just throw somebody into it and be like, best of luck.

I love it because exactly what you're saying does translate across, right? Like it translates in your job, but it translates in parenting too. Like there's new things happening. You have to keep up with it or you're not going to understand it. Because like my daughters are 9 and the same thing. I show them a picture and they're like, oh, that's cool. Is that AI? I'm like, no, it's literally like your Uncle Nick. Like, no, it's not AI. Yeah.

And yeah, what's real and what's not real is gonna get real muddy here soon.

Yeah. And that, I have to say, that's probably the hardest part is not only just like educating kids, but like educating coworkers, educating others of like, hey, you saw something really cool. Guess what? That's not really a real thing. Like, we gotta make it, but that's not, it's not that easy.

So I use, I use AI for many things though. Like I, I use it, like I use it with my daughter. Like I'll sit in bed with her. Uh, I haven't done this in a while actually. I should do that soon, but I'll just pull up ChatGPT and, and I'll ask her like what she wants to hear a story about. Yeah. And I'll just— ChatGPT will like literally generate a story and then you can either tell it to read it to you or, you know, I can read it to her or have her read it now because she's reading now.

And so you can do like the choose your own adventures too. Like you can. It's crazy.

Yeah. And so, you know, things like— it's— I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate it not just into my professional life, which I already have obviously, but also in my everyday life. Because where do I want this to actually be involved in? Because like, I've already got like Alexa in every room, although I don't view Alexa as being like an AI, although it probably is going to be soon. But But the, um, you know, we already have that kind of thing listening to us everywhere, every day, everywhere, you know. So, you know, like, we— I always take my family on like road trips and get them to see the world because seeing it through a screen, uh, like I mentioned a few minutes ago, like, what's going to be real and what's not going to be real is going to be very difficult to tell.

Yeah.

So like showing them, showing them the— what actually exists in the world. Like, we, uh, 2 years ago we went to, uh, Niagara Falls. And that was, I mean, that just floored my kids how majestic that was. And that's something you can't get from AI.

Touch grass. When you're talking about the, you know, the storytelling, all that, and also back to when you said you went door to door, like trying to sell, you know, businesses, the social aspect of things is what I'm actually most chief worried about, you know, and the fact that, I mean, using AI is cool. That's great. And the fact that you did it as a family, I think is you know, so important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm a, I'm a huge family person. But, but it— I'm sure our parents were worried about other things that are— that were happening in our world when we were coming up, our generation coming up. But it seems like, it seems like things are progressing faster than they used to, you know.

For sure.

You know, with technology begetting technology, it's not It's not like a human has to do everything anymore. Like, you know, we're, we're literally generating stuff with AI that would have taken months sometimes to do, and we can do it in what seems like an afternoon.

I remember, I remember talking with AJ about just like with our dad and just about the, um, the policing aspect of it where it's just, just being able to like safeguard. That was never like when, when our, you know, when we were growing up, like, you know, our dad was a programmer for the, the county here. And, um, you know, it was like, it was DOS programming essentially, right? Yeah, you know, black screen, green letters, and it wasn't like— so when, when that computer was in the house, we weren't worried about like, well, what are the kids viewing online? What YouTube channel or what YouTube are they watching? And it was just like, yeah, the progression from that to this, it just, it blows minds, you know?

Yeah, back then you didn't care. Yeah, I still remember the first time I, I clicked on youtube.com. Yeah, I was like, what?

Yeah, right, right. Yeah, but yeah, it's just, it's one of those things that I feel like the worries from one generation to the other are always there, and they're probably similar in some respects, but I think just the amount of things. Yeah. And the complicated— and the complication, like keeping your kids safe, you know, in general has always been a worry, but like the The nuance to it is just, there's so much. And it's not just in one avenue anymore. It's not just the computer, like you said, like a tablet, a phone, like your refrigerator, like your Samsung that the kids are tweeting from. It's like, okay.

TV.

There's so much more. And it's very complex. But I think, like you were saying, I like the approach that you have, that you make it Because it's somewhat of an inevitability. Like what Thanos says, Thanos is essentially AI. I am inevitable. But you're doing it in the sense of like, as a family, as a, you know what I mean? To be there to not control it, but you're helping usher that in from the family aspect as a group. And I think that that's fantastic because—

Yeah.

I mean, you know, my daughter is, my oldest daughter is in university now. I've got a big gap between my youngest and middle. But the— she, she— some of her classes allow them to use AI or specific or particular AI, right? Other ones, others are, you know, heavily against it. You know, there's a lot— this— we are in the Wild West right now when it comes to AI. So like, there's a lot that's going to change, I'm sure, in the next 5 to 10 years. But I don't think it's gonna go away. It may be, it may quiet down because it just becomes a part of your daily life. But, uh, you know, when you go to the, when you go to the, you know, to get your prescription filled at the pharmacy, it may be a, maybe a talking to a computer in 10 years, you know, you don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I always imagine like, uh, what was it? Was it I, Robot with Will Smith with the, the robots walking around? Like that's it. 'Cause I think that's the, uh, I think that's the kind of weird thing too, because like, depending on who you are and how much exposure you've had to like AI just in general, as far as like making things better, there are people on one team that believe that that's what's going to happen. And then there are people on the other team that are more like, it's a hybrid. It's more of a, it's replacing repetitiveness or redundancies and things like that, where you have these 2 camps that are wildly different as far as like, There's, you know, the Terminator versus, oh no, it's going to be the Jetsons. It's, there's a very, like, do you know what I mean? There's a, there's no gray area so far that I've seen.

I've got this, this, uh, philosophy around AI when it comes to work that I, it is, it is only a tool. So like, so like I try not to, I don't use it to replace me. Okay. But I use it to make me more efficient.

Yeah.

When I'm actually working. So like, for instance, I needed to— I had a, uh, this is at the beginning of the year this year, but I had a client of mine that had a, um, uh, they deal in AI when it comes to like, uh, uh, not Big Brother, but like if you go to a stadium or something like that, there's cameras everywhere and they want to be able to track like, say, somebody that's suspicious with a package or something across multiple cameras, or they want to be able to to detect things like fires or somebody left the door open or whatever, and they're using AI to do that. But they needed a tool that allowed somebody to go in and say, hey, I've got this many cameras on this channel and this many on this channel and this many on this channel, and here's all the different tools that I want to be used, the AI tools that I want for that particular channel. and then output a range of, or the number and range of different, uh, servers that they're going to need to run this. Okay. And, and it was a pretty, pretty intense algorithm. And all I, all I was, all I needed to do was use— before it would have been much longer, it would have taken me probably a month to build that. But the algorithm, the, the, the algorithm to do it was built Within like 2 to 3 days, just testing, just because AI was able to generate the math that I needed to do it right.

Mm-hmm.

And then I, you know, you can— I use it to test my code as well. So like, if I— or explain to me what's going on. Like, like, for instance, I get, I get into a chunk of code that I've never seen before, and I— it's gonna take me an entire day to read this. To figure out what the heck's going on, I just literally copy or now it's in the it's in the editor now. You know, explain this file to me like I'm a fifth grader, and and it will explain the file to you step by step on what's going on. And so things like those are the things that make me feel good about AI is that it allows the it allows like in my kid my my. my instance, the developer, to do maybe do things that took longer for me to do before, or had maybe I had to, because it took longer, I had to hire them out a lot more. Um, uh, you know, whereas like before, you know, I'm, for me, it made it take an entire day, somebody else, it might have taken them 2, 3 hours. So it was cheaper for me to just pay somebody to do it. Now I can do a lot of that stuff myself because, because the tool helps me a lot. You know, I understand what I'm trying to do. I understand what it takes mostly to do it. But then that little edge that you get from AI that, that kind of helps you along and figures, figures out the complicated stuff that maybe, maybe you get stuck on, you know, that I would, I would spend hours and hours in Stack Overflow on or something like that. I don't have to do that anymore.

You know?

Yeah.

I've used it to help me do like, I'm the worst when it comes to You know how they say like, show your work, like when you're in school, like, oh, you do your math work. I, I'm the worst at writing PR summaries. Like, I know what I did and I can explain it how I did it, but like other people may read that and go, eh, I don't know. So like, I literally created a rule that literally goes and it just, it basically gives a summary of what I did in like 3 paragraphs.

Yeah.

And then gives full details of like how to test, how to do this, how to do that. And it's a rule I set up, so I just gotta mention it every time. And then it goes and it checks on my, my PR stuff. So it's like, for me, that was easier because I could explain it to the more technical folks, but also have this like summary paragraph.

The, the, that, that's a great example. Like my, I hate documentation. Like I hate creating documentation. So like you, you literally, I've been, I've been using Claude lately and in Claude, all I have to do is tell, look into the the piece of code that I'm— or the block of code, maybe it's a few files— and be like, hey, can you make a README for this? And it, it just spits it out.

Yep.

And there's a lot of times I have to go in and make some modifications to it and stuff like that. But, but the, the act of actually generating the file and like all the, all the example code and stuff like that, it just does it. And that, that was the, the arduous part for me. It was like doing that stuff. So like allowing it to do those things for me. Whereas before, you know, it would— it would take me an hour or 2 to do that. And that's unpaid time for me. So, you know, it just kind of helps me along, you know, and it actually helps me help other people easier too, because before you just put like a piece of code up there and like pray, pray to the code gods that they understand how it's going to work, you know.

Yeah.

Making the documentation, you know? Uh, so, and, you know, make it, dude, like seriously, like, and I mean this in all genuineness, genuine, being super genuine, creating an example website for the code, the code library that you just generated. You can now do that like within like 5 minutes using Claude. And it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to show the example of what you're trying to do. And then turning that into a GitHub page is like effortless. Yeah. So there's a, there's a lot that stuff that I just didn't do before because I had to work, frankly.

Yeah.

I'm finding myself using tools like that. Even like, uh, like Lovable is a good one, right? Like a lot of people have probably seen or heard of that. I, I was playing with it because like, for instance, we have a bunch of old like 45 records that our grandmother had, right?

Okay.

And I was like, I'm like, I got to catalog these, but I'm like, okay, well, am I going to sit there on a spreadsheet manually typing them in, doing whatever? No, I just went to Lovable. 2 hours later, I've got a working prototype where I just take a picture with my phone. It takes it because, um, I think with Lovable, it's got, I think it uses Claude in the background or ChatGPT-5 or something to do its own AI. But like, literally it's analyzing the images and it's just pulling all the info for me. So now I'm just taking pictures.

That's great. I just saw a post where, um, Somebody tried to create their own. It's like a version of Netflix, but they sourced, like, open-sourced and legitimate and legal, like, feeds of, like, different channels or different shows and different things and, like, put it together in their own, like, version of Netflix for themselves. I don't know if it was Lovable.

It could have been.

I, who knows? Like, at this point, like, every time I try to watch a YouTube tutorial, like, I get bombarded with at least 5 to 10 different Lovables or Base44s or something like that. Like, I can't, it's insane.

Yep.

Because like you said, Chad, there's like a million of them at this point and it's like exploding exponentially. But yeah, that was one that I saw that I thought was really, really interesting where it's like they're not even— it's not that they're not creating something new, but they're just taking something that's more of an enclosed, more of a walled off, if you will, by pay and just saying, well, I'm going to create the same thing except with free open source resources. And yeah, so it's impressive what they can do.

It is pretty crazy. Um, I mean, you know, they're— but, but, but it's always, for me, it always goes back to how does that tool make my life easier and allow me to not have to focus so much on non-billable items or non-helpful items for me, at least in my world.

Right.

Uh, you know, you know, whereas, whereas before, before I just ignored it, you know, I mean, frankly. It's not that that's a good thing. I don't recommend that. But when, when you're, when you're me, myself, and I, you're doing sales, and you're doing, you know, you're doing development, you're doing design, you're doing the teaching, you're having meetings and all this stuff. I need, I need more time in my day. So this tool that allows me to capture some of that time, you know, I definitely do not trust it to do everything because—

Yes.

I mean, For, for God's sake, right now it, it sometimes it creates some absolutely terrible stuff, but, but I've learned, I've learned, I've learned to prompt better and, and that kind of thing. So it helps a lot. But, um, one of my favorite features of Claude is the projects feature. And, you know, put projects together. So it's this kind of like self-contained knowledge base of information about a project that I'm working on. And it makes it easier for it to, to like understand the context of what I'm looking for.

So I think, I think Gemini does that too. Yeah.

Yeah. They had that.

Yeah.

That's where all of them are copying each other, but right.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

There's, there's so many out there and there, there's just so many popping up. Uh, one of the sites that I came across is called, uh, lmarena.ai. And basically it's like a battleground. Like you can ask a question and it will go through all of the ones that are out there and show you like stats of people who are saying like, which one's better.

That's funny.

They have a battle feature where you could say, like, describe, like, a webpage and, like, take Claude versus ChatGPT and see what builds better. And then you vote, like, yeah, it, it's really, it's really interesting. But, like, it just goes to show you, like, how many there are out there and, like, there's so much that they can do that—

Are you guys paying for subscriptions or no?

No, no. I just, I just came across the site to see it and test it. I haven't, I haven't, like, really dove into it, but they have, like, a leaderboard where, like, all the votes go. For people so you can see like who's voting, like what's doing best for general answers or, um, coding in a certain degree and, and things like that. So it was like, it was a really interesting find.

My Google feed today had an article. I haven't read it yet, but the, the title was something of the fact that, um, uh, people love ChatGPT so much nobody's paying for it, or it becomes so popular nobody's paying for it. You know, like, like, so I'm curious to know if you guys pay for your own subscriptions or.

Or I don't have a paid subscription yet.

No, no, really.

Yeah. Well, I take that back.

I did, I did sign up for it myself for, I think like a month or two, but I, but I think the reason I stopped was because, uh, to kind of go along with what you were saying earlier, Chad, it was just the, uh, like I was using it to create, like to generate images and stuff. And I just, I, I like it, but sometimes I just don't trust it because like it makes me look like a 12-year-old. Like I was doing the stuff for the podcast and like it was me, AJ, and Dennis's picture. And I was putting it together and making like a montage for the site. And it would always make them look— well, one, it would make AJ look 7 feet tall, which is totally false. We're not tall people. And then I would look like I was 12 years old every single time, no matter what. I would look like this little kid next to big Dennis and big AJ. And it was insane. No matter how I prompted it, it was like, yeah, no, I think you're a child. I don't care.

Yeah, that's funny you say that because like you see these ads for like make a, make a profile shot or whatever. It's these AIs that are supposed to do this especially. And every time I even attempted that, I just— it was— it becomes this hilarious thing in my household because it makes me look like somebody— it's like, it's like if somebody tried to draw me from memory and wasn't quite right.

Mm-hmm.

Like my nose would be too big, or my lips are too small, or my ears are, you know, in the wrong place. Some weird things and not, it didn't look unreal. It just didn't look like me, you know, it looked like, it looked like my cousin or something like that.

So it wasn't a glamour shot is what you're saying? No, like laser rays.

And I thought, I thought, you know what, I could take one of my existing pictures and make a more modern photo out of it, you know, and it did not work at all.

That's, that's the one thing that always worried me. Like, so like, you know, like I have a Pixel phone, right? So like I could take pictures, I could use AI and clean things up and do things. And it's like, Sometimes I don't want to, like, you know, like, and, and like, I have twin girls, so like, for me, it's like if one's not smiling, I could just copy paste a smile from one to the other, none the wiser, right? But like, at the same time, it's like, I, I just— yeah.

Here's a perfect example. I wanted to bring this up. Here's a perfect example of what Dennis and AJ send me, uh, when they're, when they're in their free time, uh, basically, uh, ice cream socials. And I, being a diabetic, I don't normally just don't eat ice cream in general. And so this is what AJ and Dennis decided to send me, AI generated. So I was like, okay, I'm like, that's great, guys. I'm like, real cool.

But you can see it looks nothing like us.

No, nothing at all. It got me, but it made the two of them look like I don't even know who those people are. I have no idea.

So I mean, Dennis looks like the guy from Arrested Development.

Blue. I know, the guy who dyes himself blue, right?

No, no, no, the son that ends up with the hooker.

No, that's the— oh yeah, I'm thinking of, uh, yeah, I'm thinking of Tobias. Uh, no, yeah, I know what you're talking about. He's also in a couple of other things too where he plays really funny like that.

Yeah, but that's like AI like that, like hard to trust. Sometimes it's fun, but like, yeah, other times, like, I don't— like, when it comes to like our family pictures and things like that, I don't want AI or anything.

It's like, absolutely not. Yeah, well, I, I had a— I had one the other day, speaking of Pixel phones. We took a picture at the beach And, uh, uh, the— and we did, uh, the, the guy who used my phone to take a picture, his head was like down in the bottom corner and it only caught like the edge of his head. And he had hair, like his head hair was kind of spiky. So I used the Pixel phone to kind of crop him out of the image. And when it did, it turned his hair into a, into a seagrass bush.

That's awesome. I can relate. I can relate. It happens. Yeah, I can relate.

Oh, that was awesome. That's thinking, that's using your head there.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this. Let me transition to this one a little bit, because one of the answers that you gave us, I really liked it because there was a lot of really, it sounds almost like really good advice within the answer, but it was like milestones and pivotal moments in your career thus far. Because I know you had mentioned something about there was a certain piece of learning that you had that I thought was just, it was a really nice piece.

Oh man, um, what, what, what? Let's see here.

Uh, you had mentioned that, Laura, you— I've got it actually, because I— it really was— it was learning that just because you don't know something doesn't mean you can't know it, which I think is—

Yeah, yeah, it is just about what I talked about earlier, where you— where back in the day I had to scratch to learn something. You know, like you fought to learn something. There was like a, there's like a kill what you eat kind of mentality. Um, but that is, that's something that I think, going back to our earlier conversation, that's something I think, uh, a lot of, a lot of younger people have kind of lost. They don't, they, I don't know if they don't want to do that or whatever, but you, you can garnish a lot from doing something else. So like figuring something else, like. Um, there's a saying, uh, to be— to learn something, truly learn something, you teach it.

Mm-hmm.

So, so, you know, when, when— if you want to, if you want to figure out something, like for instance, if you need— if you never use Next.js, for instance, ever before and you need to learn it, you know, then there's this tree of learning that you can go through. But quite frankly, you can just learn Next.js. You can learn how— you can figure out how to do it and figure out how to get something done. Um, and that is kind of the idea behind it, but that spreads throughout all of life too, you know. Like, uh, you know, like, uh, these days I don't do much in the way of like mechanic work or anything like that, but I like grew up with grandparents and a parent as a mechanic. So like, you know, I learned— I garnished that. I learned that from my, from my dad and my grandfather. I learned how to, uh, believe, believe it or not, if I could, I probably could still do it. I learned how to crochet from my great-grandmother.

Uh, yeah. Yeah.

Um, you know, I learned how to, I learned how to cook. I learned how to, uh, detail cars from one job that I had. And just because somebody, I asked a question and somebody took the time to invest into me. And so I don't know if you want to call it, uh, tutors or if you want to call it, uh, you know, whatever you want to call it, teaching.

Mentorship.

Mentorships, but like looking for those kinds of things, especially if you don't know how to do something. Like, I get the question all the time from, from these kids that are in university around me. They're like, like, well, I want to do this. What do you— what do you— what places do you think I should go to learn it? And I was like, well, first of all, you don't need to— you can learn a lot in university, but you absolutely don't need to go to university to learn how to build websites.

Right. There's a hands-on approach there that is—

Yeah, absolutely.

That, yeah, that's, it's, it's, it's, it's going to be very hard to mimic that in like a, like a textbook learning style setting.

But it is a, it is a desire. You gotta want it, seriously want it, because quite frankly, learning the web today, if I had to go back and learn everything that I know and have forgotten, oh my God. I don't know. I mean, I know where I would start.

Yeah.

But like, it would be a long process. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been doing this since 2007, 2008, building on the web. So like, almost 20 years now. So like, it's, it's, it would— geez, people ask me, why are you so good at this? It's because I've been doing it for 20 years.

But you had mentioned too, you asked the question and someone took the time to show you something. I think like, I wanted to get your opinion on this, but I, I, I kind of feel like people's, um, ability to do that, or not even ability, but I, there's like a fear of being able to say, or just being able to admit, I don't know. I don't know that.

Right?

Like whether it's even, whether it's like something like simply like, show me how to do this, or even within the job setting itself, like in a group setting, in a group meeting, in a sync or whatever the case may be.

Like, it's like a performance scare or something.

Exactly. Like, almost as if, like, every moment of your life professionally is some sort of performance review where it's like admitting any type of inadequacy in anything is an automatic knock against you. Like, there's no way to, like, fail in order to learn. Doesn't exist anymore, which seems silly to me.

Yeah.

Go— going back to Eric Baum, the owner of Blue Leads, one of the things I, I used to hate I, it really like burnt me was when I would tell him, well, you just can't do this in Upshot. And he would say yes anyways. And I would have to figure out how to fricking do it. And so, and so I hated that because like, stop doing that. You're telling these people something that you shouldn't be able to do, but you can figure out how to do it right now. I have to. So we figure out how to do it or, or figure out a way to do it some way to do it. But whatever, whatever it was, but, uh, like back when like HubSpot was absolutely had nothing to do with e-commerce at all. Like he's like, we can build a, we can build a simple store on, on HubSpot, can't we? God, Eric. Uh, no, but I mean, that, that, those are things that figuring out how to do something doesn't have to be necessarily be done, like you were saying, on your own. Like asking, asking somebody for help. That's one of the reasons why I love the Slack, the Slack group that we have. The dev Slack is like, especially back in the day, like we were all on it like 24/7. It seemed like trying to figure stuff out, asking questions and how did you do this? How'd you figure this out kind of thing? And somebody somewhere knew how to do it. Well, now there's like seems like 10, 20, 30, 100,000 people on there now. It's crazy. But the There's so much more availability, but it still seems like the same people are answering questions, right? You know, every, you know, every once in a while you see somebody new, but like, like the same, same few people seem to be answering the same questions over and over again. Well, like, imagine if like, if like everybody just kind of took, you know, an hour out of their time a day and just got on the, got on the, the dev Slack and just started helping people out. Learning, learning things, teaching people stuff, you know. And I think that's, you know, that's, that's a form of it, but there's other ways to do it too, right? Like if you're—

Mm-hmm.

If you work in office space, one of my, one of my favorite things to do when I worked for Blue Leaves, because we worked in the office, uh, back then, um, was, was I would walk around to all the devs and be like, hey, is there something I need— you need help with? Is there something I can help you with? Because I was the person had been working at HubSpot the longest at that point.

Yep.

Now there's plenty of people that know way more than me. I mean, HubSpot's gone way beyond anything that I could even hope to grasp the entire thing. But back then, like, I knew a lot about the entire platform. And so, you know, and so it's, it is a, it is a, uh, it is something that I don't know, dude. I really don't know why. Like, I guess because of when I grew up. Maybe that has a lot to do with it, how I grew up. Um, maybe it's my, my, my history, like how, how I came along in my, my, my career. Um, maybe it has to do with like COVID, the fact that we were all kind of like shut away and we are content still technically shut away from everybody now. Like, I mean, we're working remotely and I have for a long, long time, but I, I've— but it's relatively new thing, like in the last 5 years.

Yeah.

Working remotely.

So, you know, maybe people just aren't gotten back around to it yet. But I think really, we need to set up these like, these like, like meetup meetups, you know, where we used to do a lot of dev meetups and stuff in town. Now there's only a couple that I, that I really know of in my area that still do that. But like CSS Tricks back in the day used to do that. And so did Chris Collier. What's that? I'm having a brain lapse here. What's the tool that everybody uses to do samples?

.io.

Anyway, it's this tool that you go and create like a simple, like an example something, you know, like a CodePen. CodePen. Thank you. Like CodePen.io. Like the CodePen too used to have like these meetups that He would literally like pay for like coffee or whatever to have coffee at your meetup. And he did like send you little giveaways and stuff. And, and, uh, we'd have like 20, 30 guys there, even guys, gals, all everybody there. And they, they just get up and show somebody what you've done. You know, that's how we, that's how we did it and learned. And, uh, I think that's something that we need to go back to.

Yeah.

I think what I'm hearing is Developers After Dark developers meetups, a Winnebago, and a tour around the country. That's what I'm hearing. Maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

We need my official and get this After Dark meetup here, you know what I mean?

I was— it could have been my speakers, but I think that's what I was hearing. I'm just saying, it could have been.

That would be awesome, dude.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's something too that we had talked about here, just like, just me, you know, AJ and Dennis. Where it was just like, these are the type of things that we want to do again. Because not only that too, but then you do get to make those connections with individuals who like, you know, have these skill sets that, you know, quite frankly, like just might be missing in your, like in your, in your either your atmosphere or in your life where it's like, they, it isn't just this kind of thing where it's just like, oh, I met this person. Yeah, that was cool. It was like, it fosters these, you know, type of things. And then there's like this kind of almost 2-way communication that ends up being created. Because I know that, that's kind of how it happened with at least a lot of the people that I still talk to on, on the developer Slack with regards to like themes and modules and that. It all kind of came to fruition, you know, from these, um, whether it was inbound or whether it was like going out to, you know, Boston or, you know, just the continual conversations over time. It really fosters some really great relationships that, you know, with a share of knowledge there that I just, you wouldn't have been able to, you couldn't buy that if you tried, basically. So, but yeah, I think that's really, really valuable.

Well, I think also like, to your point, Chad, when you were saying like, there's no, there's not as much communication happening or not as much people putting themselves out there. I think it's, I think it comes from like, if you think about like, look at the industry as a whole, right? And look at the support for forums for developers and You see, like, you go to Stack Overflow, you ask a very simple question, you get hounded on how you don't know something so basic, you know? Or like, if you go to other forums and people are like, what do you mean it's this function? How do you not know? Whereas like when you step into like the HubSpot realm, it's not like that.

No, it is not.

It's so different. And I mean, that's what drew me to the community when I first started doing everything is that like I could go and be like, I don't understand HubSpot. Like, I don't get what this means. And like somebody would be like, oh, well, it's actually, you know, it's Jinjava. Here's like resources. Blah, blah, but you use it this way. And it's like that, I needed that. I needed that example. And it wasn't like their example. They asked me what I needed and gave me my own example back. And like, I think that's just, it's so different in how the community works within HubSpot that like, you don't have to be afraid to ask a question. No one's going to say that's dumb or, you know, you're an idiot. Like, we're going to say, if you don't know, let me explain it. Like, let me help you.

Yeah, man. And, and it is a. Uh, that's, that's exactly it. Like, that's, that's the— it's, it's coming alongside your fellow developers and myself.

And now along those lines of mentorship, I was going to ask you, is there, um, is there a piece of advice that you've gotten over time? Uh, it could be career, it could not— like I said, it doesn't even have to be within like the vertical of your job because even as you've mentioned previously, there are things that you do outside of that that help influence what you do either as a career or, you know, just in general. Is there a piece of mentorship advice that's kind of stuck with you?

Um, I would say, uh, the probably some of the best advice that I've ever gotten, or one of the best advices that I've ever gotten, has, um, been just to make sure that he— it was, it wasn't like a phrase or anything, but it was, is the essence was Make sure that you teach other people, you know, because it's almost like a—it's almost like a the shit, like a Shaolin thing where you know you're the grandmaster. You've been doing this for so long, and you get stuck in a rut, and you get stuck doing like your own thing day in and day out. And like, who have you actually reached? You know, who have you touched? You know, with that knowledge and that that experience, you know. And that, that would probably be one of the biggest things for me is, is, you know, make a, make a point at least a couple times a year to try to help point somebody in the right direction, you know?

Right. Because that knowledge dies in darkness if you don't, do you know what I mean? Like, if you have all this, like, these tips, these tricks, these really great ways of doing things, and it's, and you're not sharing it with people, it's sort of like, it always, it always reminds me of that, that kind of, um, and actually I was just reading, uh, With regards to like SEO, I'll always scan a couple of things on LinkedIn every once in a while. And there was somebody that had mentioned something about like whenever, when everybody has that phrase where it's like, I found this, this new thing, that's a surefire thing to do in SEO, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's like, yeah, you know what? Okay. Thanks. I appreciate the humble brag. It's like, okay.

Click this link for more and then spend $30 for my one-page ebook.

Right. Yeah. And I mean, I'm not against like, if you have a course that you want someone to take, but it was like, it's almost like this, like, Yeah. Compete, like over overly competitive advantage. And I get away and I get, you're not, don't give away the secret sauce. Like I'm, I'm not advocating for that, but like there are certain things where it was like, you know, it was something even as basic as, and I'm just throwing an example out there. This might not have been it, but like, you know, whether it's like redundancies of H1s, like really just simple stuff where it's like, well, I can't tell you, I'm not going to give you, you know, like I'm not going to help you out. Why would I do that? Then you're going to be a better SEO.

It's like, Okay, maybe.

But I mean, like in the grand scheme of things, especially now with as fast everything moves and the amount of free resources you can get the courses, the, um, you know, the Google, all like all of those like courses and things you can that are trying to teach you for free anyway. It seems really weird to be so guarded against, um, the littlest things sometimes.

I'm gonna double down on what Chad said about teaching somebody because I know, yes, you do get to educate a person, but that perspective can really assist in how you understand the subject matter as well. Like, You will have a deeper appreciation and understanding of it if you are able to teach it.

Yeah. Yeah. And especially if you're doing it over and over again, you know, you kind of, you kind of like, I used to want to, I used to want to like full, full-on mentorship people, you know, where I'd be like, meet with them weekly and, or every other week and we'd go over what they were doing and stuff like that. And now it's, now to me, it's more about just like, like just being there, being there for them to answer questions. You know, uh, helping them along, along their, along their path, because their path is never going to look exactly like your path.

Never.

You know, you know, trying to force them into that, it's just going to make them— like, I learned that with my son at first, you know. I tried to get him to come along me, and he would sit right there, right there behind me, and he was learning all these different websites. And it, it got to the point where he just, he just didn't want to do it. And I, I realized that one day, and so I literally fired him because I'd hired him on to teach him. I turned around one day, I was like, you know, you don't want to be here. And I said, I mean this with all love and respect, but you're fired. Wow. And that was one of the best things I ever did. Because now he gives him the freedom to go do what he really— go find something that he wants to do. Because nobody showed me, nobody told me, hey, you should become a web developer. I kind of developed that skill and that, right? Yeah. You know, and that's something that, that I want for him is, as lost as he may seem to me sometimes, like, I know one day he's going to get there, but that's kind of like that. And that's, that's kind of like where, where I go with my mentorship nowadays.

Chad, if your son has an interview and he needs to have a reference from his last employer, would you give him a quality reference?

I've known him for 20 years.

Last boss fired me and told me to touch grass.

I must be too old because I still don't get that reference. The other thing that— the other, the other thing to answer your question, and we touched on this before, was that tools are just tools. You know, don't let them, don't let them Don't let them become your, your how or your why. You know, like, if something is not working, don't use it, you know, or figure out a different way to do it. It's just, there's, especially nowadays with AI and stuff like that, there's so many ways to do things nowadays. But, you know, figure out how to do it and just, just, just do it, you know. Like, I love HubSpot, but HubSpot to me is a tool. It's a, it's a, it's not, it's not necessarily a methodology. It's a way.

Yeah.

It's a, it gives you the ability to do something really great. You know, uh, I look at WordPress the same way and I look at Google Analytics and, uh, Core Web Vitals and all these things as just tools to help you out, help you do something great, you know? And so that's probably my other, my other piece of advice for people.

As we, uh, we're getting, as we're getting close to time here, I did want to, um, just kind of ask you a question or two about like, who is, uh, who is Chad in real life, like outside of work, like, like, especially if you're not If you're not coding and you're not developing and you're not designing, like, what are some of the things that you do to kind of break away from? Because I mean, let's face it, what we do, like, in a— I know we all do something slightly different, but like, in a certain aspect, it's, it's not that it's a 24/7 and on all the time job, but it can, the lines can blur sometimes, especially if you're AJ. But, um, like, it's, uh, true. So what do you do to kind of like break away from that in like real life?

So for me, that's difficult because I don't necessarily believe in work-life balance. I believe in more— I believe in more of like, you know, build your life in a way that your life works well with your job. Okay. Because I think if you try to make a balance, like try to Oh, it's stop at 5. Like, for me, especially as a business owner, I could miss out on a lot of potential opportunities. So, you know, for me and my relationship with my wife, for instance, she understands that. And I, I try to make it a point that if I'm not doing something like vital that day, or if it doesn't have to be done that day, that I'll stop. I'll stop at 5:30, 6 o'clock. Sometimes I go a little longer if I'm in the zone or something, but But, um, but I just stop what I'm doing and, you know, when, when the lights come on outside, then it's time for me to go inside, you know. So, but, but, uh, I, I literally— my office is literally 20 feet behind my house. So like, I can just walk across the patio and I'm home, you know. And then, you know, so I leave my, I leave my work here. Like, I know some of you guys are working out of your, out of your home. Uh, you'll— it looks like you're in your home office in your house. I was fortunate enough in 2020 to see the writing on the wall. I was like, I better build a— I better build an office out back here while it's still cheap.

That's awesome.

So, so I built myself a little office, but the, the— I, I don't, I don't do work-life balance, but what I do do is I just try to make time for other things. So like, you know, I plan vacations. I, you know, Uh, my, my, uh, uh, as far as my personal life, I'm involved a lot with my church and people in my church and, um, my family, a lot with my family. Uh, my bro— my brother is recently retired from the military, so I'll be able to see him a lot more. So that's cool for me. Um, but, but the, uh, but I just— that's, that's it. I love to do things like, uh, bowling. Um, I'm actually hoping to get my son on the, in the league here the next, next year because he, he didn't want to do it this year just because he wanted to— he's still looking for a, a full-time job.

But, but, um, weird, I can't find a job. So it's got weird, weird hours.

But, uh, reference from his dad, I've been very good. Yeah, but, uh, but he is, um But, but that is, that is it. Like, I, I, I'm big into, like, huge— like, I love to bowl.

Um, that, that brings up probably the most important question, I think, in this entire podcast. So anyone who's watching, I mean, this is going to be the pivotal moment. Uh, Kingpin or Big Lebowski? Which one's better?

Oh, Big Lebowski. Yeah, it's, it's not—

it's the right— wait, wait. Judges say yes, that's correct. Absolutely. Absolutely.

You gotta like the dude.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. No, but that's good though, that like, it's, uh, that you're probably, I'll be honest, dude, you're probably one of the very first ones that we've ever interviewed that actually doesn't, not that I don't wanna say doesn't believe, but like, it's not work-life balance. It's your set, the way you've described it is, is a, is a different approach to it, but yet that is just as easily obtainable and successful as Someone who mentions it or describes it in the arena of work-life balance, if that's the way that we want to talk about it. But like, no, I think that's a really good thing because it's as easy as it sounds as far as like, well, you just need to fit. Like, there are a lot of people, you know, I'm related to one of them and I am one myself that just, it's sometimes it's just, it's hard to like just to turn off.

Yeah. There's days I work till 8, 9 o'clock at night. I mean, frankly. I mean, it doesn't always happen. That's why I say work-life balance is not really, in my opinion, it's not a real thing. Like, it can't— it's hard to do, right? Obtain. I just think that, you know, when, when your kids need you to go to a thing at school, you make time to go. You know, don't make excuses. Your, your responsibility as a father, you need to go, you know, or whoever you are listening. Just do it. You know, your work will always be there, I promise. You know, right?

Yeah.

You know, there are times— there have been times when, like, especially, especially when I was early on, like, I was like, we were on the struggle bus trying to get this thing going. So like, I was working many, many hours overnight and stuff like that through the evening, you know, through the wee hours of the morning, you know, 1 or 2 in the morning. But like, I'm, I'm 40 flipping 6 now. I can't— it's, it's hard for me to work till 2.

Yeah.

And then wake up the next morning and put my daughter on a school bus, you know? That's, that's—

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I—

So I don't do it anymore. I just, I, I was like, you know what? It'll be a day longer than, than I, what I expected it to be, but that's okay. It'll be fine. So, yeah. So, uh, that's, that's basically it, you know? And when, when it's like 5:30 and I'm like in the zone and I look down and it's almost time for me to go to bowling on Wednesday nights, I stop and I go bowling. Nice. So that's, that's it, man. That's all it is. It's just, it's not, it's not really complicated. I don't want to sound philosophical or anything. It's not. I'm not trying to be. I just, you know, if you got to do something and something needs to be get, needs to get done, just work's not everything, you know. You know, you can make more money tomorrow.

So thank you. No, I, and listen, we're running up on time here because I mean, I feel like we could talk like for, for hours and this is Fantastic. This is one of the reasons why we like doing this is because like, and especially, you know, a special thanks to you as well, Chad, because the community and everything about it is not or would not be what it is without individuals like yourself. So we really do appreciate not just coming out here and talking.

I totally appreciate that. Thank you.

Yeah, not just talking with us, but also like what you've done. And is there anything that you wanted to shout out or mention As far as like—

you asked me that and the only thing I could think of is, uh, I've got a cousin of mine who, uh, owns a, uh, a school in Kenya, Africa. And, uh, it's called Canopy Life and, uh, canopylife.org. And they teach, uh, Africa school is not free, not like the United States. So Canopy Life teaches kids how to basically, they start to start out from the youngest all the way to the like, like high school, and they live on campus and they teach them how to do— to not just learn their ABCs and 123s, but they teach them other life skills and ultimately how to get a job, technology, how to build websites, how to weld, things like that. So she started that, oh God, probably 15, 20 years ago now.

Wow.

I think it's that old now. But, um, but yeah, that canopylife.org, if you're interested in anything like that, they even do like, uh If you're really interested in it, they do like on-site tours and like week-long or like 10-day things that you can, you can really like get your hands on it and like figure out like this is something that you like doing. And I know we're in a tech, we're in a tech podcast, but like, uh, I just think it's so cool that, that they're, they're taking a generation of kids that maybe not have a chance and giving them life skills, even, even technology skills, which is Like the next thing.

That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, well, that's very cool. I like that. That's really cool. Um, yeah, no, thanks again, Chad, for coming on. This has been really, really great. And again, obviously, Dennis, AJ, without you this isn't possible, so thank you both. Uh, it's good to have Dennis back. Video editing was, uh, I had to relearn it again, so that was, uh, that was fun. That was really fun. Um, but no, yeah, no, thanks again. And for everyone out there, please don't forget to like and You know, you can find us not only on the YouTube channel here at the HubSpot Developers, but we also are on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts, I believe, as well. And I mean, I would be remiss if I didn't do the little—

there you go.

Oh my God.

Like I said, I've been practicing. I mean, why not?

Yeah, why not? We gotta put permission controls in. That's it.

Like a 5-year-old, I'm gonna be— it's gonna be like all like Nick-proofed the next time I log in. But no, you know, as the, you know, as the Big Lebowski says, the podcast abides. So, you know, we'll see you next week. And, you know, thanks for tuning in.

Awesome. You guys have a good one.

You too.