Full Transcript for When the Workaround Is the Product | Alex Peacock

00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:20.240 Fifteen years. 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:21.759 How many products? 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:25.199 More or less, how many products did you were part of? 00:04:25.759 --> 00:04:29.120 I would say north of 50, less less than 100, probably. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:31.519 Wow, that's a lot. 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:33.279 A lot of products. 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:38.639 And do you realize that you are really helping a lot of founders to build dreams? 00:04:38.879 --> 00:04:40.879 That's really awesome. 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:45.199 I mean, I'm a founder, so I know how difficult it is to build products. 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:49.920 And now that you are helping them to do all these type of things, it's it's really amazing. 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:57.360 Do you have any you cannot of course you can name it or not, whatever you feel comfortable? 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:04.160 But do you do you remember your favorite one or favorite feature that you build during all these years? 00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:17.199 Uh I mean I can't entirely take all the credit for this, but one of my favorite features, if I go back to the to the Netpulse days, we had a white label app for fitness operators, and we had a feature called X Capture. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:33.600 And at the time it was a feature where you could use the camera on your phone to take a picture of your console on your on your piece of cardio equipment, and it would record the workout summary at the end of your workout and put it into your workout history. 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:42.959 And it was one of the features that has I've I've known every single time I demoed it, it had a kind of an instant reaction. 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:45.920 It was like a wow, a wow feature. 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.879 So um that would that one stands out for me. 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:54.480 I think it was just one of those things that was so simple and so effective. 00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:57.920 At the time it sort of felt like witchcraft. 00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:01.040 Now it doesn't sound uh down sound super impressive. 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:10.160 I mean, everybody's scanning their expenses receipts and you know AI's processing images every day, but but ten years ago it was uh it was pretty unique in what it was doing. 00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:19.199 When you were building that or with your team and everyone, or what was your feeling in that moment, like re really impact you today? 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:22.480 I think it was simple, but it was solving a problem. 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:29.279 For for us at the time, we were looking to try to create universal appeal. 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:31.920 So it was the sort of the generality of it. 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:41.040 The okay, well, um, you know, making all of your your gym floor connected and collecting all the data from all the equipment, it's gonna be so complicated. 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:47.600 Wouldn't it be great if we could build something

that actually just took all of that noise away and just worked every time? 00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:54.560 So I think in that context, it was we could see that it was gonna be a real differentiator for us. 00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:59.439 On the point of like simple, is do you feel like when you're a builder, right? 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:05.759 You're a builder, you've been doing this, you've been obviously sometimes in a leading role, in a delegating role, in a building role. 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:14.480 Like, is simplicity sometimes that one ingredient that actually makes features versus kills features if it's getting too complex? 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:16.560 What's your take on simplicity? 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:27.279 Yeah, yeah, I think it's it's something that is one of the most common things that that we see is products or apps that are sort of trying to be everything to everyone. 00:07:27.439 --> 00:07:31.279 Oh, we have to have a feature that solves this, we have to have a feature for that. 00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:42.800 And I think it's hard to have enough conviction in in one particular area to say, okay, this is what we want to be, this is where we want to go. 00:07:43.040 --> 00:08:00.879 But it's so important to have that focus because it that really helps in terms of actually when you come to making the hard decisions about priorities, then you need to have that kind of clarity and and and simplicity of thought to be able to navigate those conversations. 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:05.199 Is that a product challenge or is that a company challenge? 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:06.319 It it's both. 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:10.639 I mean, it starts with the company, it starts with clarity of vision. 00:08:10.959 --> 00:08:22.240 If you understand what your vision is and what problems you're trying to solve as a company, then it becomes much easier to then build a product vision against that. 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:29.600 But if the if if the vision from the top is is kind of fuzzy, then it's you know it's hard to create clarity lower down. 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:42.399 Do you think that was more because of the timing, or it was more because the feature itself, you know, it's always like the feature or timing. 00:08:42.639 --> 00:08:44.559 What's your thoughts around that? 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:46.159 It's it's both. 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:55.759 I mean, I think if you're building products, it's trying to sort of strike that balance between being too early and and missing out. 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:58.080 So timing is everything. 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:05.759 It has to be you are you have to be building something that solves a problem that exists today, not a problem that may exist at some point in the future. 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:11.440 But also, you know, that the the further along the process you get, the more crowded the market becomes. 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:13.600 So timing is is pretty key. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.360 Or maybe the the market is pushing at some point, right? 00:09:17.679 --> 00:09:23.600 Because, for example, I can see for example wearable devices like Apple Watch. 00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:26.320 Or even Polar and Garmin. 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:32.639 They're they have have been building wearables since probably 20 years ago, maybe. 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:40.559 And wearables are completely different, you know, they are in a very different momentum 20 years ago that what we have today. 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:44.159 So So that's why I was asking about timing. 00:09:44.399 --> 00:10:01.840 It's timing, the market is pushing, the company is pushing so hard during all these years that at some point someone everyone is going to it it depends if you're if you're if you're looking to create a category, then you've got to have plenty of resources and and and plenty of time at your disposal. 00:10:02.080 --> 00:10:14.399 So uh I I think as a as a startup, if you're early, if you're looking to create innovation, then you have to accept that you know creating a category or opening a market is is not for the faint-hearted. 00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:16.159 It's uh it's a long road. 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:29.759 I want to take actually timing as as an excuse to to do a little bit of a question more about timing on your end, um, because you obviously announced pretty recently still a new company, a new product that goes to market. 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:33.039 Um correct me if I'm mistaken, but it's connect by leisure labs, right? 00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:35.679 Um what's the what's the timing? 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:42.480 What's what what have you seen that was leading up to taking the decision to build Connect by Leisure Labs? 00:10:42.559 --> 00:10:50.480 And then obviously please give us also a short kind of intro to what this new company is about and how this is linked to Leisure Labs in the background. 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:50.960 Yeah. 00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:51.919 Yeah, sure. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:11:08.480 So I mean if I if I start with Leisure Labs, if I if I sort of step back to when we founded Leisure Labs four years ago, we we started the company as a custom development and digital transformation agency, really focused on the fitness and wellness space. 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:24.559 But more than that, we wanted to really solve a particular problem that we saw, which is that a lot of organizations, particularly the enterprise, are really stuck in this kind of buy or build dilemma. 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:34.639 Do they try and sort of solve problems with off-the-shelf solutions that you know may promise a lot but don't necessarily solve all of their problems well? 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:37.600 Or do they build everything they need from scratch? 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:47.120 And of course, the traditional agency model is um, you know, agencies are paid by the hour, so it's in their interests to build everything every time. 00:11:47.360 --> 00:12:01.840 And we we sort of

looked at it and said, well, that doesn't really make sense from uh from a customer point of view, because if there is something that gets you 50% of the way there or 80% of the way there, then why don't you take that and build on top? 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:06.240 So create this kind of hybrid buy versus build. 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:13.840 And and this is really common in a lot of other sectors, but it's really not been historically that common in our sector. 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:23.679 So we started with this kind of principle of we don't want to build stuff that already exists, and that that served us well as we as we scaled Leisure Labs. 00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:36.720 And and in fact, we grew more from just the development side into consulting, and and we did that because we realized that we were waiting for people to come and tell us what they wanted, and and a lot of the time they didn't really know. 00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:48.559 So actually, what we needed was was more product and consulting expertise to help our customers figure out what they wanted to build, and so that part of the business grew. 00:12:48.720 --> 00:13:09.039 And then last year we realized that actually there was the third part of the puzzle, which is okay, they know what they want, they know that they've now got to find something or build something, but now we have multiple customers that are trying to solve the same problems, and actually we can't find a product in the market that solves this problem. 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:10.960 So, so what do we do? 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:13.120 We don't want to build it five times over. 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:28.960 So, actually, what is needed is a product fill a gap, and that was where Kinect came from because we said, well, actually, where we see common requirements from multiple organizations and we see an unmet need for a product, why don't we build the product? 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.720 Um, and so we we set up a product company which is Kinect. 00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:42.080 We teamed up with Danny Woods, who's the CEO of that that business, and Danny is Danny is running that, and it it's a it it it's a it's a SAS, it's a product company. 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:55.279 So um it thinks very differently from the the consulting and the the agency business, but it's built against unmet need um and the the first thing that we're really focusing on is building personalization at scale. 00:13:55.440 --> 00:14:03.360 So personalization engine is is the sort of first product out of the gate for Kinect, which is uh something we launched at the beginning of this year. 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:04.799 Awesome. 00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:12.639 And I mean, especially with like the AI hype, the build or buy decision might even be more relevant today, right? 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:17.200 Because a lot more companies will believe, oh, we can build, we don't have to buy. 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:28.399 So like I think that's a pretty strategic move because you you get them so far ready, and then it's or they work with the agency side to get the rest done, or they can actually build on top by themselves. 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:38.720 Yeah, and that that's the flip side of it, is yes, it's much easier to build or to vibe code or you know to prototype, but it's also much easier to connect things together. 00:14:39.039 --> 00:14:53.840 So as you look at kind of interoperability between systems, AI in particular is is making that much easier than it was five years ago to actually take multiple systems and and multiple components and connect them together. 00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:58.879 So you don't need to find the silver bullet, the single product that that does everything. 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:07.679 You can say, well, actually, here are five products that all have a great application in my business, and I just need to connect them together and and you know, AI is really good at doing that. 00:15:07.919 --> 00:15:14.559 I think you see people now talking much more about their own personal tech stacks than ever before. 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:28.000 It was uh that was was not really a thing that was kind of mainstream conversation a few years ago, but now everybody has you know half a dozen AI tools that they use for different different parts of their their own productivity stack. 00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:32.960 So that's happening at personal level and and obviously at an organizational level as well. 00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:34.480 Which is crazy, right? 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:52.000 Now you have this big tool, AI tool, which is like a black box at the end of the day, that you can do whatever you want and you can try things really quickly with your experience and your team experience, you can narrow in the story in a way that the clients can understand. 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:54.559 And that for me leads me a question for you. 00:15:54.799 --> 00:16:06.559 How do you build these new features and everything when you talk with a lot of founders, you talk with a lot of CAOs, CTOs, product managers? 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:09.039 How do you narrow in that story? 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:39.039 Because we as the founders, we at uh C levels or maybe uh managers, we have so many things in our minds, and we recollect data in terms of new features with investors, with our clients, internal feedback, and then you're this third party that it's trying to narrow in everything in only one thing because also we don't have a lot of money, as you well know. 00:16:40.159 --> 00:16:41.519 As a startup. 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:47.519 So how do you play with all these things in your company? 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:49.279 It's a team effort, right? 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.000 So you've got a lot of different stakeholders. 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.919 Uh, and again, it depends a lot on the the stage that you're at. 00:16:56.080 --> 00:17:02.480 So we're dealing with enterprise organizations that have a team of a

hundred in their in their technology organizations. 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:11.519 So we're dealing with all of the different parts of that and the different stakeholders, but we're also dealing with the C level at a startup level, it's very different. 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:25.279 I mean, you may be dealing with a founder or maybe a couple of co-founders that have the different ingredients in there, but ultimately what you have somewhere along the line is you have you've got product, you've got engineering and you've got commercial. 00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:41.920 So, whatever form that takes, if the if the the CEO is the is the product guy, then the role there is going to be to sort of protect the vision and you know protect the how do we build something that is sort of strategically coherent. 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.039 The commercial side, it's all about you know, what does the customer want? 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:47.200 Well, what is the customer asking for? 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:51.359 And then you know, engineering is always going to want to build the best thing that possibly can. 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:55.119 So you've got that sort of tension between those three. 00:17:55.279 --> 00:18:01.440 And in in different companies, it's you know, it's whole teams of people that are represented across those three different areas. 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:04.160 But in a startup, it may be one or two people. 00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:13.039 It's rare for it to be one person that's doing all three, but often you'll you'll have sort of product and commercial here and then and then engineering, the CTO, co-founder. 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:31.119 But our role really is to figure out okay, who are the stakeholders, who's responsible for the product and the product vision, and who's responsible for what the customer wants, the voice of the customer, and then who's responsible for the kind of the technical feasibility, what we're building, and and are we building it in the right way? 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:34.000 And sometimes that's uh it's different people. 00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:35.200 Sometimes it's us. 00:18:35.599 --> 00:18:37.759 And how do you cut through the noise? 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:42.319 Because it's like uh too many, too many people talking to you to build something. 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:46.240 How do you define which one do you have to hear? 00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:51.279 I mean, you have to you have to listen to all three to to some extent. 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:58.079 The most important thing really is to try and sort of create consensus of outcome. 00:18:58.319 --> 00:19:10.240 So, okay, the customer is asking for this, product want to build this, engineering want to want to do this over here, but actually, does everybody have the sort of same shared vision for where this product is going? 00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:18.079 Because if the voice of the customer is not focused on the right customers, then you're going to get the wrong messaging

coming in. 00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:28.799 If engineering are building an enterprise platform, and actually what you're trying to do is create a sort of an early prototype, then there's a problem there. 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:38.160 So it's it's really the first thing to do is okay, does everybody here have the same vision of what we're actually creating, what we're building? 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:49.519 And then if if not, then you've got to try and create some sort of consensus of outcome before you can even get into the the sort of the healthy tension that you see between those three areas. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:03.119 So that means that you help to align the vision at some point, or it's because do you have any story where everyone has a different like idea to build something and it's for you to take that decision? 00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:10.000 Um I mean we've had situations this doesn't go away in big organizations either. 00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:24.000 I mean, we we have if I think about in startups, it's it's almost easier because you've got a small team and and they're usually a lot more invested in in success and and they're they're really invested in an idea. 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:34.400 But the larger the organization gets, the more competing priorities you get, and the more, I guess, different motives you get, the business becomes much more complicated. 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.480 So I'd say in some ways it's actually harder when you have larger teams. 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:50.319 We have examples where actually customers will bring us in, and this is where I spoke earlier about, you know, we we started more on the building side, and actually we've grown the consulting side of the business a lot in the last couple of years. 00:20:50.400 --> 00:21:02.000 And the reason for that is actually we found that particularly larger organizations, they want somebody to help them navigate that internally, or you know, in some cases get out of their own way. 00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:14.720 And actually, we'll we'll often come in and we'll we'll run a workshop or we'll we'll we'll run a series of programs where we can sort of help an organization create internal alignment around what they they're looking to achieve. 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:16.319 It's it's a process. 00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:29.359 Like, did you ever come to a situation where you were like, internally you are so not aligned, we can't help you until you don't really align internally on what you want to actually achieve, what you actually want to build? 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:32.000 Yeah, I think I think we see pockets of that. 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:48.000 So I can't necessarily point to an example of completely stepping away from an entire project or an entire engagement, but this happens a lot in pockets where it will be, I think you need to figure this piece out first, or I think we need to come back to this in six months. 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:52.000 Why don't we why don't we look at tackling this problem first? 00:21:52.240 --> 00:22:10.240 So we'll often sort of help guide our customers on the timing of things and the sequencing of their efforts when you Because it's difficult to try and you know force something in that there are other factors in the organization or other things that need to be considered before you can actually start to create alignment. 00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:11.119 It is. 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:13.279 And that led me to another question. 00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:21.359 And do you remember a company saying something like this feature will save us? 00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:34.480 Or in other words, like this is going to be the one that it's going to help us to move to the next revenue stage or maybe to engage with the end users or with our customers. 00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:39.279 And you had that feeling that it's not going to work? 00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:44.720 I think we saw a lot of that in 2021. 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:54.400 And I think a lot of brick and mortar fitness operators believed that they needed to suddenly become digital companies. 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:57.680 And every other conversation was about omni-channel. 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:00.079 How do we create an omnichannel brand? 00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:05.440 And how do we we want our digital community to be as big as our as our physical community? 00:23:05.519 --> 00:23:06.880 And that wasn't one company. 00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:11.279 I mean, that was that was everybody in the industry for a for a period of time. 00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:21.920 And I think it took the industry a little while to figure out that actually the strength is in the human contact, the physical community. 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:27.920 People want to go back to the gym, they want to go and work out, and they want the human connection. 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:34.640 Trying to compete in a digital marketplace when you're a brick and mortar company doesn't entirely make sense. 00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:43.119 And I think a lot of companies put an awful lot into that effort, which they've you know subsequently rode back on quite a bit. 00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:46.799 So um yeah, I think there are many examples of that. 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:48.480 It's crazy, right? 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:53.599 Those days when we were in COVID, it was like a bubble, right? 00:23:53.839 --> 00:24:13.839 And I remember omni-channel was the worst in all the conference, everyone was talking about omni channel and Netflix, Peloton, you know, all the big brands doing different types of things in the in in the fitness space for the omni channel was really crazy. 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:15.519 General speaking, pandemics. 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:24.240 If you think about it, everyone in their own houses working and doing fitness, and it was really crazy, crazy moments. 00:24:25.279 --> 00:24:35.839 I wanna I wanna change gears again a bit and and go back a bit more to like the conflict or the

challenge between vision of a company versus product vision and product roadmap. 00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:50.000 It feels like things are just accelerating at an at a crazy insane speed, especially and it's a lot through the hype of AI that people think now we can do what we've planned for like the next four or five years, suddenly all in in just a year or two. 00:24:50.319 --> 00:25:01.279 How do you manage expectations with clients and partners of yours now that maybe accelerate company visions and then where roadmaps actually can't really hold up? 00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:15.680 Because there's still a reality of like a gap between what is possible with these new technologies versus what is still needed to be done at the back of these vibe coding tools, at the nicely quickly set up of front-end solutions. 00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:16.960 There's there's a lot more to it. 00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:32.559 And you know that you've been building for such a long time, like the whole back-end sides, how connectivity works, there's regulated spaces where data privacy, cybersecurity things that that's often not really covered or discussed in when you see just the quick vibe coding. 00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:43.359 Like, yeah, how do you manage really expectations of clients and partners versus reality of roadmap and backlogs, um, especially in this Accelerate space today? 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:58.000 I think what we're looking for really is if we think about the product roadmap and the product vision, we're looking for kind of stability at a high level and flexibility at a low level. 00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:12.400 So what I mean by that is the long-term vision and the long-term uh objectives and outcomes and problems that you're trying to solve need to kind of stay relatively stable. 00:26:13.039 --> 00:26:19.680 But at uh you know, a quarterly level, you're going to be constantly reassessing how you how you meet those priorities. 00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:35.440 And then on a day-to-day level, I mean the sort of the sprint level execution is going to be changing all the time, and it's it's gonna be the day-to-day priorities are gonna be moving constantly, and the quarterly priorities are gonna be moving based on okay, we've we've now seen a shift here. 00:26:35.519 --> 00:27:07.599 I mean, we we were we were working on a product uh a few years ago, which was a chat product, and we were working on it before LLMs were released, and and so we we were kind of aware of this thing that was coming, and you know, halfway through building a a sort of simple chat agent, suddenly we had access to to these large language models at an enterprise level, and we were able to kind of plug into that. 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:25.279 And the change in terms of the product that that we were able to deliver almost overnight was it was completely 100x, but the problem that we were solving and the the actual the actual customer experience itself wasn't that different. 00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:33.119 It was just suddenly this this opportunity had opened up to basically leverage these models, which we'd never been able to do before. 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:49.599 So that's the kind of thing where the last thing you would want to do at that stage is to say, oh, we're just gonna ignore this new thing, this new AI tool that's out there, we're just gonna keep building uh simple chat and we're gonna not take advantage of any of this stuff that's coming out. 00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:51.680 That would be totally the wrong thing to do. 00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:59.920 So you've got to have that flexibility and approach, but it didn't change what we were actually looking to create in the problem we were looking to solve. 00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:01.839 That makes sense, yeah. 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:05.519 It's it's still challenging, right? 00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:09.200 Uh especially I imagine this more like you being as a third party. 00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:11.599 I see it internally, just to give an example from our end. 00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:19.440 Like we obviously see always like we have our bigger picture vision, we have the roadmap, we do our planning for the roadmap and the backlog. 00:28:19.759 --> 00:28:22.160 And then obviously you get a lot of pressure from the outside world. 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:29.440 You see competitors moving extremely fast, you see other companies doing a lot of new things, launching new products, and you're like, okay. 00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:32.720 Um, and you start pressuring maybe even your own team. 00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:46.799 So, like, and now I imagine still, like, if you work with a third party and you representing that third party, Alex, then I feel like there's it's even easier that these companies will pressure you on like, hey, Alex, we need to move faster. 00:28:46.960 --> 00:28:51.839 Like why is the competitor moving so quick and why can't we move faster? 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:59.119 Like, because even since it's like outside, easier to push the pressure to someone, I guess, than than if it's the internal own team. 00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:02.880 So yeah, what's how do you how do you is that happening a lot? 00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:04.720 Is that something you feel constantly? 00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:07.920 Is that something that's managed through expectation? 00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:08.880 For sure. 00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:14.799 It's always about the kind of the iron triangle as well, in terms of you know, what what is the constraint? 00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:18.400 Is it time, is it cost, or is it scope? 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:25.200 So do you want to build the best thing you possibly can, regardless of how long it takes and how much it costs? 00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:37.599 Do you want to build as quickly as possible and you know get to market quickly, you know, for as for as little money and as possible and build the kind of the MVP, build the smallest thing you can? 00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:42.240 Or

is it like this is the amount of money we've got to spend, how do we make it go as far as possible? 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:46.480 So it's that uh it's the triple constraint effectively of those three. 00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:54.240 And and the first thing that we do with any uh with any project or any client is try and understand what order are those in? 00:29:54.400 --> 00:29:57.200 What is the number one of those three constraints? 00:29:57.279 --> 00:29:59.599 And then, you know, how do we how do we go from there? 00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:02.960 So are we trying to build, you know, as fast as possible? 00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:09.039 Are we trying to build the best thing possible, or are we trying to do it, you know, make the money go as far as possible? 00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:12.240 But it's very abstract, do you think, Alex? 00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:24.799 It's like uh also trying to define MVP or build as fast as possible, or even you know, for me it's very abstract. 00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:26.240 I'm as a builder. 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:30.480 Trying to build an MVP, it's like uh okay, what's an MVP? 00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:39.440 I know, I know that I know what that means, but it's like uh meeting expectations of the clients, it's really complicated. 00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:47.839 And nowadays with AI, everyone thinks that you can build the complete product only with the with one script. 00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:52.079 So, how do you fulfy this to your clients? 00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:56.720 Because again, align expectations it's really difficult. 00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:02.079 And more if you are a third party, how do you handle these type of things with your clients? 00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:14.559 So AI is is actually massively helpful in this because it means that we can go a lot further in the very early stages. 00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:34.640 So, what used to happen with with development is that you would have, you know, the customer would try and articulate what they what they wanted, you would try and put it into user stories, they would sign off on the user stories, you would go through this whole process of you know traditional development and then the designs, and you'd go back and forth on the designs, and then you'd build it. 00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:45.119 And at every stage it would be, ah, okay, that's not quite what we thought, or that's not quite working in the way that we thought it was going to, or that's not quite what I meant. 00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:49.759 So you're constantly course correcting and and recalibrating. 00:31:50.079 --> 00:32:01.519 Whereas now with AI image generation and and vibe coding, you can say, Okay, I've heard what you said, now I've built a prototype of what we think that looks like. 00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:03.359 Is this what you mean? 00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:06.240 Ah, okay, yeah, that's oh no, that's not what I meant. 00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:07.279 Can we move this over here? 00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:23.519 So suddenly, before you even get into the process, I think the most important thing is this distinction between a proof of concept that you can build in, you know, now in a few hours versus a production-ready product. 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:50.160 But what it is helpful with is the ability to make sure that when you do build a production-ready product, whatever that looks like, you're not suddenly unveiling this thing at the end and it's not what the customer was expecting it to be because you've been able to iterate, and in some cases, you've even been able to do you know, you can do user testing so much earlier than you ever could before, because you can build a build a thing and and vibe code it and test it. 00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:58.880 And actually, it's it's not difficult to to build different versions and an A-B test, and the opportunity in product development is huge. 00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:12.559 So we find that it's being really helpful in actually unlocking a lot more of that clarity much earlier on because we can bring things to life much earlier in the process than we ever have been able to before. 00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:14.079 I love that part. 00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:15.920 On that note, I wanted to jump in. 00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:21.039 Do you have a lot of partners and clients now reach out to you and they already have something vibe code? 00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:34.640 Like they they did already a pre-work, being like, I think that's what we need and that's what we want, or or is that still more on your end that you just use this as a tool to show prototyping and get sign-off from a partner from a client? 00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:36.000 It's a mixture. 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:40.400 I would say it's probably 20% of the time they would come with something vibe coded. 00:33:40.559 --> 00:33:42.640 I think maybe we'll see that that increase. 00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:49.519 But what we will often do now is we will actually go through that process with the customer. 00:33:49.759 --> 00:34:01.920 So where we might do a product workshop, historically that would have, you know, we'd have a vision board or a, you know, at the end of it, we'd have a lot of post-it notes on a wall, and we'd have to then sort of go away and capture that. 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:10.800 But what we'll actually do now is is we can workshop with the customer, and we can actually have a vibe-coded proof of concept at the end of the workshop. 00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:14.000 So what you're coming out with is a very different outcome. 00:34:14.159 --> 00:34:31.199 And and to be able to say actually we'll get to that in you know, in a workshop of a day or or or two days, and at the end of it, we'll we'll have actually worked with you to sort of build this proof of concept that we can then go away and and and deliver, you're creating the the certainty there and then. 00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:37.599 So that that's probably the most common thing that we we do is is we'll actually you

know we'll co-create it with the customer. 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:42.000 That's really interesting because maybe not in the future. 00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:44.639 I think this is something that we are living today. 00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:55.280 Maybe the new founders and the new startups, the the founders are not going to be technical founders at the end of the day. 00:34:55.360 --> 00:35:01.599 And they are going to be more focused on the dream, more focused on the product. 00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:13.039 Maybe they will build something with lovable or base 44, all this vibe coding, and then they will send you everything to you, and then you can build the real good stuff, right? 00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:33.519 And you will have more tools to build because now you are not going to be only extracting the what they say, but also they will you will have this like okay, this is what they want, let's improve it, let's make it very secure with whatever they need to build, like HIPAA, GDPR, whatever. 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:38.400 And then you will have more like tangible product, right? 00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:41.920 So maybe this is going to happen more and more. 00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:42.960 For sure. 00:35:43.119 --> 00:35:48.239 Um, I think we will see a lot more of that use of those tools. 00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:57.199 And the good thing is that you can be non-technical or or moderately technical and be able to actually get a lot further. 00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:09.679 You know, you once you get, I come back to my point about scale, and when you get to a point where you're you're actually building something for for production for scale, vibe coding it is is a dangerous game to play. 00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:23.840 And we've seen all sorts of horror stories of you know vibe coding products going to to mass market and and being out there and actually you know realizing that nobody actually understands how this product was built or how it how it works because it was all built by AI. 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:42.159 So so I think uh there is a there is a point at which you know it you need to you need the human in the loop piece, but to actually get to uh articulate an idea in in a product, you can go a lot further without any real sort of technology background, which is interesting. 00:36:42.239 --> 00:37:05.440 And I think the other the other aspect of that to consider is not just the fact that customers can come to us with much more clarity, but if you actually consider the impact it has on on investment, you know, as someone that's you know been through that and and been out and raised capital, you know how hard it is to convince investors that your idea is is uh is you know bring your idea to life in a way that interests them. 00:37:05.679 --> 00:37:21.920 So actually, if if you can do that without having to to go out and and you know do any sort of heavy, heavy engineering lift, but you can actually put a product in their hands and this is what we're we're creating, and you know it creates a different story for investors as well. 00:37:22.400 --> 00:37:25.679 Back in 2021, everyone was raising on a on a presentation. 00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:27.440 Now it's on the vibe code solution. 00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:28.400 Exactly. 00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:29.440 Exactly. 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:32.960 Coming slowly to a closing, Alex. 00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:37.280 Um, and based on the motto of our podcast, this feature will save us. 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:41.840 We have to make the question of so what is the feature that's gonna save us? 00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:44.880 What's the the killer feature, the next feature on the horizon? 00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:50.000 Uh anything you can share from own products to from connect to clients. 00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:58.079 I think I would go relatively broad with this and say hyper-personalization at scale. 00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:22.480 So I think this isn't you know one single use case, but actually the thing that is going to really be a step change for our industry in particular is the ability to actually do deliver proper hyper-personalisation and whether that's really, really effective workout prescription or whether it's personalized recommendations, personalized content. 00:38:22.800 --> 00:38:28.960 I think that's what is going to be a step change for us from a technology standpoint over the next 12 to 24 months. 00:38:29.119 --> 00:38:34.719 And I think we're starting to see, I don't think anybody's really doing it well yet. 00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:48.480 Um, but we're starting to see some really, some really interesting kind of early signs of now, now that it is possible to have a completely personalized experience, the technology, the infrastructure exists. 00:38:48.639 --> 00:38:56.639 I think you know there's a lot of companies investing a lot of money in this, so I think we're gonna really start to see some some results over the next year or two. 00:38:57.039 --> 00:38:57.599 Awesome. 00:38:57.760 --> 00:38:59.360 On this note, that's great. 00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:00.800 We'll close it out. 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:02.719 We appreciate you coming on, Alex. 00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:10.480 Uh for folks, Leisure Labs, uh, they can find you on LinkedIn, personal, as well as as as the company, right? 00:39:10.559 --> 00:39:12.559 Or what's the best point to Yeah. 00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:15.360 Link LinkedIn is always the best place to find us. 00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:18.800 You can check us out online at at leisure labs.co.uk as well. 00:39:19.360 --> 00:39:19.679 Awesome. 00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:23.440 We will link this as well to the first episode that will go live. 00:39:23.679 --> 00:39:24.159 One more time. 00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:26.320 Thanks so much, Alex, for being the first guest here. 00:39:26.719 --> 00:39:27.440 Thanks for having me. 00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:28.320 Great to chat today. 00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:29.840 Alex, what's a pleasure? 00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:31.039 Thank you so much for your time. 00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:33.360 That's a grab on this feature. 00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:34.159 Will save us. 00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:39.519 If you are building with wearable or hell data, check out what we are doing at tryrook.io. 00:39:40.159 --> 00:39:44.480 And if this episode was useful, share it with the one person on your team who needs to hear it. 00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:45.519 See you in two weeks.