When 'Afternoon T' met 'Bits & Bytes' | Chris Hobbs, TTT Studios

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Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Bits and Bytes. Today we have a special guest, Chris Hoggs. Hey Chris, how about you take over the instructions, introduce yourself and what you do.

Well, fantastic. I guess I've been known to talk a little bit. So. Chris Hobbs, president and co founder of TTT Studios. We used to be called two Tall Totems, but then we got corporate, which was one of the first moves. So we make software for clients all over the world, mostly on the enterprise side though. We definitely work with a lot of well funded startups, but you know, it's the greatest job in the world because we get to solve business problems, leveraging technology and working with kind of the latest and greatest tools and design patterns to create value and impact in our world.

Awesome. And so from my understanding, you co founded TTT Studios with your twin brother, right? So how is that, you know, like, how did you guys both start the idea and everything?

You know, it's funny, people always ask me, what's it like to be a twin? And I always have to counter with what's it like not to be a twin? You know, it's, it's at the end of the day. But you know what? Well, I co founded with, with, with, with the wonderful David Hobbs as well as the amazingly talented Josephine Wong. We have to give her a shout too because she's incredible. But David and I, we've been doing startups since, you know, just basically getting out of grad school UBC way back in the day of the dot com years. And he's a guy I can trust. He's incredibly handsome and very smart and you know, we had this special understanding of boundaries in terms of we always, whoever gets the message first always picks it up and you know, you always, you always respect what each other one's doing and it's just a great way, it's a great person to work with. Who wouldn't want to work with, you know, one of their best friends and kin daily if they could?

Awesome. And I really, I know you probably hear this all the time, but is it true, like twins have this kind of like subconscious like connection where you guys want you to communicate as much, like verbally, but you guys, oh no.

Is that a fair enough answer? Is that no? You know what I mean? The irony is once you get to know us, you actually realize we're very different people. And you know, but you know, that, that old Corsican brothers thing, I mean I can try hitting but it doesn't seem to cause any pain as much as I've tried.

And so then I guess since you don't have that, you know, twin telepathy, like, there must be some kind of, like, challenges sometimes. Like, working with a sibling for your own company.

Like, no, again, I've seen it as a blessing. I think we've been. We've been around each other, I mean, even before we were born, to really just kind of understand, you know, we're here to create greatness together. And we have our boundaries and our respect that, you know, really allows us to, you know, be a one, two punch, as awful as that sounds. And I hated saying that, but really being a one, two punch to, you know, creating greatness. I said creating greatness a lot. But, you know, I really do believe that. So let's go with that. I'll hit you with a trifecta soon.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Like, it sounds like you have a great team with David and with Josephine to run TTT Studios. So I understand that it's not just TTC Studios that you founded. Like, okay, let me try to list this as much as possible. So you're the president of Vidya. You've also founded Study Guide Systems. You also have tea time for our podcast, Afternoon Tea.

Sorry, we got some tea involved.

And then you're also a contributing writer for Forbes Technology Council. And let me guess, it doesn't stop there. Like, I'm sure you have so much on your plate that you juggle. How do you manage to, like, juggle everything? Like, how do you keep going?

I have an amazing team and family to support me. I should throw out some love and, you know, gratitude to the wonderful, amazing Mrs. Chris Hobbs. Is it weird to say that? I'll just say Mrs. Hobbs, who keeps me grounded and allows me to do, you know, so many things. But at the end of the day, you know what? It's a team effort from. Well, I mean, Study Guide Systems. I mean, I could touch on that. That's honestly a perfect business. Cause I think I answer an email once a year. And it's an automated education play that makes money and involves very little work. I highly recommend you try to find one of those businesses that you're selling. Nothing. Because effectively, you're selling a product that's completely free and scalable. Not free in terms of cost, but free in terms of the ability to multiply it in a very easy A system that supports itself. So didn't do that for 20 years. And in fact, if I didn't have that system, there would be no ttt because what I was doing. It's actually a real estate school in the States that my brother and I have is one of our businesses. And it used to make quite a bit of money, to be honest, with doing very little, I shouldn't say quite a bit, but a comfortable amount of money. So I used to spend six months a year traveling with my family. So my kids are very well traveled. I think we counted by there 13 or 15 now or 15 in a couple days, but I think we count. We did about 76 countries and, you know, by the time they started elementary school and, you know, we actually founded TTT for two reasons. One, because the 2008 crisis happened and people weren't getting as many real estate licenses as they were at the time. So we realized, okay, well, I guess we gotta start working for a living again. And on top of that, you know, my kids started school, so I realized I gotta get grounded back into Vancouver. And this was a really ttt. It was an excuse to get out in the community and meet more people. Because with study guide systems, I was living in the cloud like it was living without. Actually, most of our clients, or 100% of our clients, probably don't even know we're Canadian. As a company. There's no reason to be telling that point because they might think the education isn't as good as an American one, which is far from the truth. I mean, there's the double blind test right there. We do fine without saying that, but that's really where that is. And then the other things from video and the contributing writing, I mean, that's just part of the job of what we do. We're here to not only enhance the community and make Vancouver or Canada a great place to do tech business, but also to enhance the world's knowledge. Because the more we can push and the more that we could be at the head of the spear with the information that we help push, be it with Forbes or through a meetup group like Vidya, the more that we can showcase our expertise and our ability to create amazing products.

Awesome, Chris. So I want to diverge a bit because I definitely want to get back to the community piece, but I think what doesn't get talked about enough, and you and I both listen and participate in a ton of these types of podcasts. We're talking to co founders, we're going to do the journeys and the superhero origin stories, right? And that's fine, but I want to emphasize something you talked on specifically about family, right? Obviously you started this with David, family member, but in terms of, you know, being a founder, being an entrepreneur, being in charge of, you know, I don't, I forget this number of staff that TTD Studios has. Like, what does that, what effect does that have on, on, on, you know, your kids, your, your, your wife? And like, how, how do they. Because, because I think one of the things, and I'm losing the words to say this because I do believe that it is, it is a team effort. Like, like without, without everybody being in full support. And support can mean many different things. Like you don't get to where you are. And I'm kind of jumping ahead and saying that. Right, but like, what specifically about, you know, your family support kind of allowed you to have, you know, the success that you've had to date?

Well, I mean, founding a company without full support of your family, especially when you're a little bit more mature and you're, you know, this isn't, you know, right out of university age, you know, you need that support. Especially because we probably went a year, two years without really getting paid. And it's hard to explain that to, you know, to your significant other and the kids that hey, without your help for doing this, this isn't going to happen. And you know, I honestly, I just cherish, you know, not only their support, but also the support of my brother and his family because we wouldn't be able to do this. I would also say that one thing that we did in the early days that we, Josephine, David and I all agreed on is this is a family first company in the sense of family always comes first. And if there are something that we need to do, no matter how important the, the client and the customer and they are always important to us, don't get me wrong. But there is, has to be, you know, a priority and family is a priority there. I would also argue, you know, two things. Here is one, our kids honestly believe that they are part of ttt. My daughter used to come in and give every single one of our staffs, you know, pre Covid a nickname. So she would actually, that was her, that was kind of. Her thing was to come up and give everyone a nickname, which I thought was great. And one other thing that's a blessing is my wife comes from a family of entrepreneurs. Her family, all of her father, father to brothers and all that, very successful. And I witnessed this through my mother in law. They're all in Korea, but I witnessed this in my mother in law, how supportive she is. And I can feel the same energy from my amazing, you know, my Amazing. Eun Jung or Catherine. And I see how she comes in to support all the things that we do. And I can see that, you know, in her soul, this is her company just as much as ours. And I think that's important because we all have to have ownership in order to, you know, do what we do. And, you know, with both feet in the water, jumping forward.

That's fantastic. I just want to kind of, you know, draw back and just kind of focus a little bit back more on the team as well. You know, you got the family side and your family is pretty much as well as your team. But like, you know what, talking a little bit more about your actual team members, like, how did you. I mean, first off, like 50 people on your team, that must be crazy, like having so many people to handle it. Do you still find that, you know, when you were smaller scale to where you are are now, do you find that there was more of like a challenge managing so many employees, or do you still find that you still have that like, cohesiveness within TTT Studios?

Oh, well, you know, one of the blessings I think I have is an amazing gentleman by the name of Jose Hernandez, who's actually the CEO of TTT now. He gets to do the day to day and he does it so well. And I trust and love the guy. He actually, I'll say this on the air, he makes the calls like David and I, you know, at the end of the day, I guess we write the checks, but he makes the calls and we support that. And you need to have that trust in there. And I would say, you know, as we scaled up in size, setting up the right people so that I don't have to worry about it, to be honest, I don't even know what a lot of our projects are. I don't know the details. You know, I talked to Jose. He knows everything, which is why we need, why we need people like that. But really, I get, I'm blessed because I get to do things like this and I also get to work on things like, I'll say empathy and team morale. And I get to do the things with our, with our staff that are fun. You know, I mean, I won't officially say that I've visited all of them during terms of COVID from a distance, but, you know, bring them cookies, make sure they're okay. We have like today we have standup and it's actually, you know, originally when we started our stand up, our team standup, it used to be a. This is what I'm working On this is the problems I'm facing. These are my blockers. This is the answer to the fun question. But now it's just, here's the fun question. If you have any problems or anything, our doors are always open, your managers are always open, the middle level managers are always open. We're here to support you. But right now this is about just team building in a social and loving way. And we're all huggers here. Okay? Our hiring rule used to be just no hipsters. It's evolved. But, you know, if you're not a hugger, it's not really a TTT thing for you. Don't really want to join us. But really it's all about just making sure that people are, especially during COVID mentally, socially and spiritually, you know, doing great and making sure that we do still have bonds that ties. I mean, we used to be Vancouver only and recently with, you know, because we've scaled up quite a bit in the last couple months. We have people now that are in New Brunswick and Toronto and, you know, Calgary and the tools are great. We've realized that our process and everything allow for that. I mean, it used to be that we would never have that because quality was too important that we thought that you had to locally be represented. I used to have the rule and the joke, and it's nothing but a joke. But if you can't strangle someone, you can't work on a good project, right? Be what that is. But the reality is, you know what I like to say, if you can't hug them to show support, care and love, then you shouldn't be working. But honestly, the tools have been so good that we've been able to do that and actually continue the bond. I can see how much fun we have in our standups, and I think they're incredibly important. And I think, you know, you do a time cost, you know, analysis of that, that stand up probably cost us $2,000, you know, $3,000. It's significant in terms of treasure, but it's significant in terms of making sure that everyone realizes that we are a team. We work together. We're not a bunch of mercenaries just trying to get a job done. You know, we're here to make sure that we create greatness. I mean, it's hard to see this is a podcast, but, you know, we have our vision, which is on the wall here, and it says that we create software that impacts a billion lives. And now the reason why we chose that as our vision statement is because our team is honestly, I go to war with Google. I go to war with Apple. Like all of them, they are the best at what we do. Okay? Now, if we start taking projects.