Ep 28 - Be the Hero with Paul Maxwell | Developers: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 and we have a very, 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 house cleaning 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 developers after darkpod.com, that is developers after darkpod.com if you'd like to check out the latest episodes and if you want to look at a little bit of 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 at HubSpot developers, please feel free to click like and subscribe because you're not only going to get us, but you're going to 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, send, subscribe, and then like just about everything you watch because it is definitely worth it and definitely going to help you out along the way. And if you also kind of want to know what's going on around the HubSpot community and the developer community at large, you're going to want to 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 or more things that kind of float across your desk as you're working and you really want to 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. I really don't know how any of this works. Well, there's a solution for that, right? And that's going to 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 going to talk about in this episode. But that's going to 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 going to 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 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 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 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 you're also too. And we were talking about this before we went live and everything, but also avid podcaster as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Love the podcast. I'M finding it really like a new medium of expression, 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 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 that were calling themselves Rev Ops specialists. And I thought, you do what I do, but I don't know what that word means, so how are you a revop 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, 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.

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 another podcast? 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 like years back and this was before I think even Jon Stewart was on the Daily show, but there was Craig Kilborn, I believe was like the one before him. 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 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 way the conversation goes. And like 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, 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, like individuals like him where they, you know, he would have podcasts where we talk 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 two 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 two hours. Trying to listen and go back and grab the, you know, so it was, it was kind of an eye opener as. As the. 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 in, like, watching it two or three times, I'm like, yeah, maybe not so much.

There's also the. There's also the caveat of 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 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 I'm done, it. 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, like, for example, Chris Williamson's podcast Modern Wisdom is a great example of like, long form, two plus hours with no fat. And that's like a great example of that. My episodes tend to be between more like 20 and 30 minutes, but I found if I go totally stripped down, require zero prep, and other than just a little bit of maybe content ideation and a little bit of research, you know, enough for me to actually say something valuable about this subject, then, 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 as better. So I kind of knew 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 three 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? And so I, so I. But that's totally preference, so other people might really like that, you know. And, and I also think it's a matter of kind of knowing what you want your podcasts to be. So, you know, for example, if you have a, like a politic, 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 going to have a big drop off, you know that. But that's just kind of the nature of your content. You probably get more of a spike of listeners for each episode, even though they're not going to have as long of a life cycle. Whereas if you create the evergreen content, you know, you do an episode on RevOps101, you're maybe not going to have a spike with that, but you are going to 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, I think you could do anything that works. I think it's, 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 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 make, keep 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, you know, get other people to like, you know, that's where like I think the not like competition, that's not the correct word, but like the, the healthy conflict of like, even if somebody has an opposing idea being able to talk it out or like Find that even ground, especially when it comes to things like development, you know, design, SEO even. Everybody has their own flavor or their own way of what's correct, but really all paths are kind of correct when it comes to that. It's just a matter of what you're building for in 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 three 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, one final thing on all this stuff is I feel like I. This, this might be a little cliche 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 press or like think Sean Cannell, I think media has this concept of just press record. That's all it's about is just pressing record. And 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 and 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, and, 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, with AI in my workflow, right? Because I'm using it. And so it's just like, let's, let's just do that and let's, 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 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 going to 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 CEO 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, 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 two things. Number one, it's being practiced in speaking off the cuff, which, which is definitely a skill. I remember. So this is like a different part of my life, but, but like, I went to seminary and got my PhD in theology and all this stuff, like a long time ago. And, 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 they're wizards. Like, this is insane. And then they're doing it every week and they're doing it Sunday mornings. And it's new content all the time. And once I actually got into training and all that stuff, I realized it's like it's two things. It's hours and hours of prep every week. And 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 the practice of speaking extemporaneously, but it's also a drilling of the messaging, 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 two things, you do get people coming off speaking very authoritatively, very persuasively, because it's. It's. It's designed, it's curated to come off in that way, you know, so. Yeah. So podcasting, I think, does help, though, 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, you know, about these things. Yeah.

No, no, go ahead.

No, I was going to 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.

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. You know what I mean? Like, you can. Anybody can. Not. Anybody can start it, but you know what I mean? I don't mean it like in that sense where it's like. But that to be able to do it is. I mean, listen, if I. If I can do it and me and Ag 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. 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. It's one of those things where, yeah, I'm. 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 going to 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. And, yeah, 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 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 have 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 to, 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. 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. 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 Pokemon go or something. And. And it's like they're very passionate and they could talk forever, 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. Then you're good to go. And I think there's actually analogy. An analogy there for. For programming. I think there's a big analogy between podcasting and programming because, you know, you, like, you listen to Leo Laporte and you hear him speak just eloquently and off the cuff. And maybe he's funny and he has technical expertise, and he's 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 get into programming and get into coding, because 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 get sick of saying it, but I'm like, dude, you should learn HubSpot. You should learn to code. There's a lot of work to be done right now. But you see somebody maybe doing coding in React or doing a tutorial, like a HubSpot CMS development tutorial, and somebody's 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. 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. And, like, how do you get to that place and the same way, but there's a 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 see somebody doing something cool, you have no idea how to do that. You understand 10% of what they're saying.

But.

But the result is awesome. And you're like, you have two 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. 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, because you could do that with podcasts. You listen to them, you break it down and how they. 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, Zamp 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. 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 ghost writing and I worked for a publisher so I was more deep into the constant 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 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 interfacing with HubSpot more and learning more about CRM World. I didn't have the language at the time, but things like Rev Ops 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 very limited set of things I'm describing, things I'm exploring, things I'm expressing, things I'm researching, things, maybe ideating. But with iOS I have access to all 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. And 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. And 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 like maybe go from 0 to 60 with React you could do with iOS development. It's like not that complicated. And so for me, I think it was just the idea. It just seemed like such a richer template. And in my imagination I thought, wow, I could create so much more than an essay with code. I could actually create an application that could do whatever I wanted. And 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, 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 asked you about the difficulty. Yeah, I was going to ask about the difficulty because 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, like blog posts or, you know, video or going into the, 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 small in comparison because I don't mean it as in, like insignificant, but I mean, like, there's still tons of things to, you know, with considerations in SEO in general. But when I started going from that to being like, okay, just whether it was just front end 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 they 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. It's way more easy to fatally fail in coding. Just that the number of different universes or versions of abstraction from computer science itself, for example, 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, then the thread that ties all that together is system design. And 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 code base? Do you build a monolith or a microservice? How do you design your. Do you use an abstraction vendor like Vercel or do you build it in a cloud vendor like Google Cloud Platform aws, like this. Endless levels of like, decisions and it's like, 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. What you realize is that never comes. 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, and I said that to my, to my colleague who was also a developer, I said, I'm not, 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 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 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 then to like, you know, close the gap between those two 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 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 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. That's these mental switch I think you have to make because it never. And maybe other people experience it differently, but for me, it never got easy. It never was easy, and it never got easy. 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 going to feel weird and you're not going to like it. And then. So I think for me, it was the thing that helped me persevere through that, that discouragement. And I think it's really 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, was developing a daily habit of coding. Even if it was five minutes a day. I would use like the Memo app or the solo Learn app, or I would be working through tutorials or projects even, even, even for a minimum of five 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 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 like, very, very long time. But I was, you know, 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, like, can you help me? Like, 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 basis 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 going to get a project again or they're going to take me off this project. When really admitting that you don't know it is so much more better up front because then you can work towards a solution and learn as you go as well.

That's so key.

That's fair. 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. 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 mushed. But that, 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 five or six 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. That'll always. 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 was. 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 I, that there was a name for it because I knew I'd always felt that thing. But there was this, 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 go, yeah, but. Right, but yeah, but it was. But no, it. 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, and 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, 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 want to lose that passion or drive either.

So 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 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, 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? This is also where AI can assist people in being like, hey, this is what I'm building. Make me a three day plan or five day, like how to plan to step through stuff. And I think that's where like, you know, people say like, oh, AI is going to replace developers. I don't think they're ever going to 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 and I think people are going more towards replacement every time. But really it's more of, it's assisting people more because I just had to build something in JavaScript a couple days ago on something I was working on. I did it and I was like, okay, cool, post It. And 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. As a developer, you know, things can conflict, but like, 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 more capable you are of doing things in an analog way, the better you're going to use AI because you're using it more as a. Oh, I'm gonna totally blank on the term here. But you're using it as like an appendage, basically. Right. Like it's, 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, 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, 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? Right. So. And I think so. So coming at it from a way where you're coaching the AI to think in first principles when it, when it naturally wants to rush towards a solution, whereas actually you're pumping the brakes on AI itself and 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 minimum five steps. Break this down into minimum five steps. Right. And then help me understand what I need to do to coach you through this or to critique these steps. So 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 everything feeling so complicated with coding. Coding is like, I want to say it's like semantically overloaded, this concept of coding or programming. It encompasses like DevOps and system design and computer science and cloud architecture. And all the tiers of abstraction are so innumerable between the high level abstraction and low level and multidimensional. One of the things that's helped me is realizing that I never really thought about it this way, but 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, because 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 two or three. It's like, well, we don't, I don't know, technically it's whatever you want it to be. Right? It's the same thing with anything, with code. Everything. 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. So I think, 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 is a reason to them. Like there is a logical way to get there. But, 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. I'm going to immerse myself into a world somebody else builds. Think of it like a fictional world. Think of system design like a fictional world. And like you're playing D and D and you just need to learn like, like why, why magic works against fire, creatures and like all these things. You know, you just like have to kind of accept, say, 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, 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, then you don't. Not that you wouldn't take it seriously, but it's you, you don't take 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. Yeah. So. But no, I, I love that. I love the, the way you put it in a DND perspective because I think that's just fantastic. But along that same. And 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, but along that same vein with like big challenges like that, what are some of. Are there any, you know, challenges, Big challenges that you're facing right now with some of the stuff you're working on?

Yeah, absolutely. So I've got a couple projects right now. You know, I, I really enjoy front end developments and I really enjoy middleware development and database development. But I'm moving into a couple 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 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 just kind of forcing me to get into the ergonomics of CMS development. It's different than building React custom cars 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 HTTP requests all the way down. It feels simple to me in that way. But cms, you've got the Hubble syntax, you've got the stuff that I've avoided and didn't really want to get into too much. So I'm getting up to speed on a fluency level with that. And it's a lot of fun doing that. But it's just, I think it's. Yeah, it's one of those projects where I'm like, I just never took on those kinds of projects and now I am. So it's a challenge for sure, 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 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 what's working and what's not? I think right now that's just a big project that I'm working on that's a little outside my comfort zone. Yeah. What else are we doing? I think also we're working on another project that's very cybersecurity aware and where the company has a lot of cyber liability concerns. And so billing 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. 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. 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 has 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 chat. GPT.

So, yeah, now there. There is a question I wanted to ask you because I wanted to make sure. Because I liked. I like the answer, and it's probably one of my favorite questions that we. We frequently, if not almost on every episode, ask. Because. And a couple of our correspondences before the show and stuff we. About mentor advice and. And the answer. Can you elaborate on the answer you gave? Because I. 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. Yeah. Okay. So this is. 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. And this was as I was kind of still building my confidence as a developer, but the advice was. So the project felt very impossible to me. And 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 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 it's configured in a way that makes it possible. Sometimes the barrier to possibility is not the tool set itself, but the way you've configured or arranged the toolset. So, yeah, that was a big mindset shift for me because I realized I was letting myself off the hook so many times by telling clients, this is not possible. We can't do this. Like, HubSpot, 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 he wants.

Like.

And so. So having that mindset, I think, is just forces you to be more creative and puts you in situations that are impossible. Like, if you've ever seen that movie, Apollo 13, that run, the old Ron Howard movie with Tom Hanks, there's a scene where they. There's a scene where they have to create, like, an air filter with the materials that are on board. And so all of the. All the engineers in, you know, in the engineering room. Yeah, yeah. They. 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. And it's like, all right, let's get to work. You know, and that's. I. 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. You've cut the greatest HubSpot promo that I think has ever been seen ever. So we're going to make sure that we. We're going to make sure that we highlight that timestamp.

Love it. Love it.

Yeah. With the. 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. So, 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 the 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 are out 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.

You know, 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 want to play pickleball sometime on. So it's like, even the tennis players are getting, like, you know, bitten by the zombies of pickleball. So I got. It's going to, it's going to happen. 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 in theology, got my PhD in theology, ended up teaching philosophy, that kind of thing. That was kind of a different life. And, and, and what I loved about that was just the curiosity. There's just that there's, like, in philosophy, there's just an endless space for your mind to explore. And 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 how you do it and how you think and 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 going to, 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, 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. And that's what I've also learned kind of with. With HubSpot development as well. I learn, like, you know, in marketing, it's really easy to go into a context in SEO or advertising and have all these, like, creative crazy ideas and say, let's try this and let's try that, and who really knows if any of it's 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, 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 let. 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, that was such a circuitous way of answering your question. Who's Paul outside of work? Which is the answer is he works. But 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 in which to be curious and, and to. And to innovate meaningfully and to add value. And I feel like I 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 are. 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 Lensch, 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 two new, at least two new podcast subscribers here. 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, 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, and like your approach on tackling these things are. I. 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. 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.