Spencer: [00:00:00] Come to prototyping again, this phrase that I have going on is if a picture paints a thousand words, then a prototype paints, a thousand pictures. So where the prototype, you are able to get a feeling of what a thing is not just verbally, a product could be.

[00:00:26] Chris: [00:00:26] I'm Chris. O'Hare your quick win CEO and as a CEO I've run many businesses, founded startups, consulted for others, and even won awards. But on this show we'll be talking to entrepreneurs and experts to help you understand key concepts for your business, along with three Quick Wins that you can take away and apply to your business today.

[00:00:46] And every week, we'll be finding out about the entrepreneur themselves and diving into a different but important topic. And at the moment we're giving away 10 of my favorite business books, including Lean Startup, a Business Model Canvas,  with one lucky winner. And these are great for all levels of skill from a CEO, to a founder. And to answer all you need to do is go to Apple podcast, subscribe, scroll to the bottom and leave a review. And it doesn't have to be detailed. You could just say that you love this podcast. And once you've done that, email me on [email protected] To say that you've entered.

[00:01:23] What a show we have installed for you today Spencer Ayres from Make Ideas is an expert in getting a startup, out of your brain and into reality, clients of his include Samsung, Power MBA and Digital Catapult. Spencer came onto my radar a few months ago when he and Nick Himowicz started to create a YouTube series.

[00:01:43] And I immediately saw his wealth of knowledge or startups. And first we get to understand Spencer and his entrepreneurial spirit before diving deeper into his expertise of prototyping, where we talk about how to start building an app and different forms of prototyping, along with the various tools to use, including Marvel and PowerPoint.

[00:02:02] Before Spencer rounds out the show with his three Quick Wins and tells us where you can learn more about prototyping, your very own app. Your going to enjoy this show so here we go. Spencer Ayres.  So tell me that, the last thing that you read or watched, or did that left an impression on you? It could be a Netflix series, funny video book that you read or a quote you heard.

[00:02:27] Spencer: [00:02:27] I watch, a huge amount of YouTube videos, as you can imagine, when you're trying to create YouTube videos, it's one of the biggest places, the most important places to get inspiration from at the moment, I'm basically binge watching a guy called captain Sinbad. Have you seen this guy, Captain Sinbad.

[00:02:44] He is awesome. I showed Nick him the other day. He's a bit less like keen on him as I am, but this guy is basically trying to match up or pair kind of comedy. Comedy videos with with like self-help and self-improvement videos, but done in a really nice way. He's a cinematographer. He does these, this series.

[00:03:06] This is so funny. He does a series where he does the things about the first viewing of a really famous YouTube or really famous director or something. So he did basically a thing about Pete McKinnon, where he basically copied Pete McKinnon's at all the things that he does. He was like, Boom, coming out or whatever it is, that's different.

[00:03:25] You can beat, we could, it does. And it's absolutely hilarious. But the thing is it's done like homage to these amazing people, right? So he's a massive Pete McKinnon fan and he does this amazing sketch about pretending to be Pete McCann and pretending to be Gary V that's another great one, pretending to be grant Cardone, all these great people.

[00:03:45] And but the other thing is he's got these really funny videos, but then on the other side, He does these videos where he's just looking at camera, like we are today and talks about his journey. Really I don't want to say I'm going to say vulnerable because that's a it's a hot thing at the moment.

[00:04:02] People trying to be vulnerable or opening up their hearts, people. Does it in a really, nice way. And his journey has been really interesting of his like production values and all that kind of stuff. But also the, content that he's creating is just for me, it's just on-point and I'm definitely trying to emulate some of those things in the kind of content that I'm creating as well.

[00:04:24] So yeah. Check out, cuts in Sinbad. He is amazing doing some really interesting things. That's a really fine balance. Isn't it? Between actual. Information that you're trying to get across and teaching people about a really interesting point, but keeping them entertained. And we've spoken about a lot about this with YouTube and you're taking that that, that.

[00:04:50] Role of making sure that they keep their eyes and they're engaged and they don't leave your video. And that's what a lot of B roll is all about. So that's really interesting. So I'm thinking again, check out, cuts in Sinbad. S I M B a D. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, absolutely. But on that point, like I think it's right.

[00:05:09] We, we have this conversation constantly and it's about, I think there's various points that suit different people on that balance between pure entertainment and I guess like educational value or learning, or yeah, like impact that it can have on you or whatever that, is, that, that other end of the scale.

[00:05:29] For me, when I'm watching videos, I want to get something valuable out of it. So I want to feel like I've made use of that time. The kind of opportunity cost is a thing that's constantly going around in my head. If I'm watching this video, what am I not watching? So I want to be making sure that the stuff that I'm watching is of high value and it's at that point almost where I.

[00:05:47] I shouldn't or push away stuff that is just purely for entertainment or purely for joy, because don't see that as a good use of my time in some ways, that's it's a bit of a bind. It's a bit of a problem that I have because anything cause like I I get annoyed. I do myself when I'm just watching something purely for joy, but I guess you've got to try and find that balance between for your own as a consumer, but also try and find that balance for yourself as a, kind of a creator as well.

[00:06:12] Really interesting. Justin that's the entrepreneurial issue that we have is that we have to always get value of everything we do. But even when we're enjoying ourselves, we have to enjoy it because we need good RNR for the Monday morning where we pick ourselves back up and really grind out the days because our days aren't as fun as a lot of people may think.

[00:06:40] I think he might be right. That might be you might've hit on something. There is that constant need for progress and to improve yourself and when you're entrepreneurial or when you're trying to do an entrepreneurial kind of venture, every second really does count. And yeah, I think that's definitely a really, big part of it.

[00:07:02] Yeah. But it's that kind of striving for, better as well. That mindset of the 1% every day kind of thing. I got asked this the other day I was doing it wasn't, like a job interview, but an interview around doing some work for someone. And they said what do you do? What'd you do when you're not working.

[00:07:21] And I was like what do you do for fun? I was like, bye work. And what'd you do when you're not working? And I was like, I there was the hardest question for me to answer. And I was like, okay, luckily I've looked outside, I've got this garden. I was like, ah, my family, two things in my family.

[00:07:40] Like I, but it was because I was in, she focused work mode. It was like a it was, hard. It was always be guessing that it's this other life that I have as well. Yeah, no, it's awful. I'm sorry, family. If you ever watch this kids, I love you.

[00:07:57] Chris: [00:07:57] Luckily, I don't have a family yet, but I'll probably do the same, so don't feel so bad, Spencer, but I, have the same feeling like, what do I really enjoy doing? And I, go out and I'm like, I just want to go home and progress and move forwards. And, when I go out, I'm like, Oh, I just want to get fit.

[00:08:19] I want to, go out. So I go cycling every weekend to make sure that I'm keeping up the exercise, but that's mainly to make sure that I'm got the energy to crack on with my grind, my daily grind every day. So it's really interesting that. This is a conversation for another day, a hundred percent, but the entrepreneurial issue.

[00:08:41] Spencer: [00:08:41] Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a really interesting point because I totally agree with you. And a lot of people talk about the balance particularly around kind of mental health issues and these kinds of things. And without going. Down that track specifically. Cause that is a, that's probably a part two for is at some point.

[00:08:56] But I do firmly believe that in order for you to do your best work in order for you to be the most present that you can be with your family, you've got to focus on yourself first. And if you don't get yourself you're never going to get your work. And you're never going to get your relationships.

[00:09:11] So actually I, do ruthlessly prioritize my own. Mike myself first. And some people come to that. And when I talk about that, they go, but it's surely it's your family, shorty, it's your kids. I'm like, no, because if I'm not my best for my kids, then there's no way if I'm not my best and there's no way I'm going to be my best for the kids.

[00:09:30] So I think that's a it's a, it's definitely an interesting conversation. Let's do that apart team and that'd be awesome. Yeah, both of that already. But anyway, let's So we've been talking already and no one really knows who you are. So give me in your own words, Spencer, what it is that you do, what's your business?

[00:09:49] Chris: [00:09:49] What drives you as an entrepreneur? What makes you get out of bed in the morning? Maybe we've already spoken getting away from the wife and kids seems to be a big part of that. But it's just, give us an understanding of what it is for our viewers. Yeah, honestly, this is such a difficult question because every time every person that I speak to a probably present myself in a slightly different way, because I do a lot of different things.

[00:10:13] Spencer: [00:10:13] I guess, if you looked at my Instagram or YouTube or, LinkedIn profiles, you'd see that I'm a product person, a product designer, I'm a facilitator of kind of workshops that kind of stuff with, organizations, I'm a content creator. So I do a lot of videos really. I'm like I've, all of the experiences that I have had over the last 20 years, probably 20 years plus maybe have surfaced or have, all joined around these three kind of ideas of technology, wanting to be around and work with technology, wanting to be.

[00:10:50] So that's the first kind of bucket for me. The second one, if you think of a kind of a Venn diagram would be Broadly design or newness or creativity, see stuff doing, new things. It's a really big thing for me. And then the third one is adding value, which is where the business side of things comes, together for me.

[00:11:07] So right in the middle of that, Is like right in the middle for different people will be different things. But what that means for me is that I'm really interested in helping people create new products, ideas, new content, new stuff for different audiences that helps people solve their problems. I have this real, I have had this real problem in the past of self a designer because I didn't train as a designer.

[00:11:35] I'm not necessarily a graphic designer, although I can do elements of that. But I think all of those things combined really mean that I am. I'm a designer at heart. I'm an entrepreneur. I think entrepreneurs are often come from a kind of a design background or at least think in kind of design in terms of that kind of design thinking mindset.

[00:11:52] So I guess like the simple answer to your question is that. I'm a product designer. I help people do new things. I'm particularly focused on that very early stage of kind of product ideas, which is what we're going to continue to talk about through this through this podcast. Yeah. But I think it would be really interested to hear what it is that drives you.

[00:12:14] Chris: [00:12:14] So what's a thing that makes you get out of bed. And is it the success? Is it the is it the love for what you're doing? Cause you got to love what you're doing. Yeah. Not all entrepreneurs to have that drive, but what is it that gets you out of bed that makes you go right? This is a new day.

[00:12:31] I'm going to smash it. So I think there's loads of things, probably all of those and more, but I'll try and pull them all together in some way. So firstly, if I come back to that point of. My ruthless prioritization on me being really selfish again, as I am. Part of what drives me is me, my improvement, me getting better at whatever it is that I'm doing.

[00:12:55] Spencer: [00:12:55] Honestly, every single job that I do, every gig that I do, whether that's a two day thing or whether that's a longer term piece of work with a client I'm learning constantly. And I'm trying to push myself that bit more. So I really get a massive buzz out of doing that. I've tried to develop this practice of reflection.

[00:13:14] So I can actually Pat myself on the back and I can see where I'm learning and where we're failing and what I need to improve on constantly. So that's the first thing for me. Massive driver is this nonstop desire to improve what it is that I can do. I think the second thing is seeing other people improve.

[00:13:33] So I was a teacher before I went into this entrepreneurial world. I was taught. Computer science me media film, loads of stuff with creativity, but with technology, if that makes sense. So that kind of perfect intersection again, and that was all about helping people be better with their skills.

[00:13:51] And there was nothing. More incredible than seeing one of your students do something that you've never seen before surpassing your expectations of them, but also supports in your abilities like when, the pod one becomes the master. And like that is a joyous, totally joyous thing. And which is why I'm opening up with that with the kind of content and trying to support people that are trying to create their own content and trying to support people to create new products and design stuff as well.

[00:14:20] So I think those two things are. Massive drivers. I think the third thing is and I see those as kind of process drivers. The third thing for me is a bit of an outcome driver, which is when you see work that you've done out there published, and you see people interacting and you see the communities that you can create and the contacts and the connections that you can create with people.

[00:14:44] That's a really powerful thing. So for example, today, literally today where Samsung launching a program called solfa tomorrow, Nick and I actually did a video for them all about design thinking and that video has been launched today. So I am. Cannot wait to check out this video, although I've seen it probably a million times in the last couple of weeks can't wait to see it live, actually getting people, watching it and see how that goes.

[00:15:12] So that, that, kind of final thing is the, is seeing the the harvest, your fruit, the fruits of your labor, so that's yeah, that's the third thing that kind of drives me and motivates me. Yeah, I would agree with all of those with myself. And I think it's the long-term gains as well.

[00:15:31] Chris: [00:15:31] For me, it's the where I'm going to be in 10 years time and looking at, cause I'm always looking in the future. I'm always looking. What's the next thing. What's the thing that I should be doing after the, what I'm doing today. And, I feel like I have to go on a personal journey to get there.

[00:15:48] And I have to build myself into the person that I need to be to get to the point that I need to be at this place in 10 years time. And a lot of people don't do you know what I was listening to a podcast the other day? And it was about the 50 year plan. And I was like, The 50 years, 50 years, I was like I couldn't, quite get my head around 50 year plan.

[00:16:14] And I was like, man, I'm like, I can't even begin to think about 10 years, nevermind. 50 years. And so now I'm looking even further. Now I'm trying to. Plan what in 50 years, because you can essentially, we compound compounding interest, right? If you're getting better every day, you potentially could be where you want to be in 50 years.

[00:16:36] Obviously there's always those obstacles and all those, all the things that might come up. But if you've got that vision in your head, you're more than likely going to get the, if you keep plugging at it with. But compound interest, it's a really interesting one kind of counter to that slightly is there's an amazing, I don't know if you've ever seen this amazing Oscar speech by Matthew McConaughey and it's just blew my mind.

[00:17:03] Spencer: [00:17:03] I watched it. I remember it from years ago. I think it was 2014, something like that when he got his Oscar and he does this speech where he's talking about this story of. So when asking him who he, wants to be, who's your hero. And he said give me some time to think about this.

[00:17:18] Barbara came back. His hero was him in 10 years time. So in 10 years time, the same person comes back and says, did you do it? Did you, become your hero? And he was like no, I'm not even close. Nowhere near being my hair. I was like what happened is my hair is too and years away, it's me.

[00:17:33] And 10 years time. So it's this idea of. Every single day, every week, every year, your hero has to be someone who's further away from you. So it, and it keeps getting worse further away because you've got something to strive for. You've got progression going on all the time. Yeah. I love that idea of like never reaching it, but striving for it.

[00:17:52] And I think that's a really a really interesting way to look at things. Are they obviously the council that again you always got to have meaningful goals, right? Because then you never get that hit that reward for, actually achieving things and never giving yourself a Pat on the back. And that, that's a real issue with entrepreneurs once they've hit that thing, once they've succeeded or once you know that they never actually enjoy it, they always move on to the next thing.

[00:18:22] Chris: [00:18:22] It's definitely something I've struggled with. I think, as a. As an issue from an entrepreneurs as a whole that balance is super key, but that comes full circle, which is a nice way to end this section. Anyway, you've got this amazing business where you're helping people develop prototypes.

[00:18:41] So there's going to be a lot of questions. Like where do you even begin to start with getting an app done? And most people will think they just need to go straight into developing an app. They just, they commission a developer and they go this is the app and this is what I want to do.

[00:19:00] But there's a step before that. Or the several steps before that. Now you're the prototype master. What is it? What is it that you think people should begin with when they first start thinking about developing an app? It's a really, good question. Really good point. I think you're, totally right.

[00:19:24] Spencer: [00:19:24] A lot of people get hamstrung by this desire to build, or they just jump into trying to build something if they can straight away. And I think that is a sure fire way to maximize the risk of failure. And the reason for that is because. If you just think of how busy successful businesses or unsuccessful businesses, I think that the reason, the biggest reason that businesses fail it's been, proven apparently or whatever it is is because there wasn't a need for the product that was created.

[00:19:58] So you have to really firstly understand that what the problem is that people are looking to solve in their lives. And then. Test and validate that problem exists even before getting to the solution. So I, have this mantra of falling in love with the problem not, with the solution. So that's the first thing how do you find the right problem to solve?

[00:20:19] That's a whole challenge. I think this is where this idea of design thinking or this process and mindset around design thinking is really important. It's these five steps of empathy, understanding. Your customers, your potential users, what problems they're having, what pain points they're having, those kinds of things really important early on.

[00:20:38] And that can happen through observation, through customer interviews or user interviews. But just observing the world around you and trying to find out where people are struggling with different things. The second thing would be to define what that problem. Actually is, and then start to investigate and move on to the third stage, which is investigate possible solutions and ideate essentially come up with as many ideas as you possibly can before prototyping a couple of those.

[00:21:05] So if you think of those stages with which trying to understand people, understand those pain points, those problems trying to. Really define what exactly that pain point is, and then move into lots of different ideas that you could prototype and then test with different users and tests to validate whether it's a real thing.

[00:21:23] So I think that process is really important. It's it's. you don't have to follow exactly this kind of design thinking methodology, but understanding who your trying to serve is a really important thing. You're not your users. You need to find out who your users really are, and that is done in a bunch of different, but when it does come to prototyping again, This phrase that I have going on is if a picture paints a thousand words, then a prototype paints, a thousand pictures.

[00:21:53] So where the prototype, you are able to get a feeling of what a thing is not just verbally, what products could be, but actually get a sense of how it would impact your life. Is it actually going to solve some of those challenges that you might have and prototypes take so many different forms when sometimes when.

[00:22:13] When we think about prototypes, we might think about prototype cars, which are like really actually like fully working things quite often. But prototype can be, pretty much anything. I remember the first, very first prototype. I think probably the first prototype that I made was when I was doing, I was in a master's in education back in the late noughties, sure. Let me get your age. Yeah. And I know I created this prototype of the, where people learn and it was basically a shoe box built around like a kid's bedroom. And it basically, the point was like, learning happens anywhere, right? This was back then learning happens anywhere. It doesn't just happen in schools, but this kind of prototype to model what was going on, opened my mind into this world of prototyping.

[00:23:02] And now I prototype, I probably prototype daily. And it's not it's a, part of my practice and it's not a big thing. Like right now I've got to go and prototype. It's just, I'm constantly prototyping. I'm constantly testing and validating ideas, be that sketch or be that a high fidelity app prototype or be that some kind of footage that that I'm, working on for a video or whatever.

[00:23:29] So I think prototyping is For me again, it's a mindset. It's like a way of being in a state of mind to get yourself into, in order to understand you and collect your thoughts as well. So that's pretty deep, but I think that's my firm belief. It's really good point. I love your quote that a prototype paints, a thousand pictures and it really sums it up nicely for me that, because it's about.

[00:23:58] Chris: [00:23:58] It's about getting meaning or understanding from what it is you're trying to achieve. And there's nothing like a picture to get across meaning and understanding. Okay. And then you take that a step further and the prototype is taking you for the whole workflow and their process of exactly what it is you're trying to achieve and, the pains you're trying to solve.

[00:24:19] So I think that's nice. And that should be your aura. You should be on the Greystone that I spend says quart right there. Yeah, that's a really, yeah. You famous. That's your first book, Spencer. Whoa.

[00:24:40] Spencer: [00:24:40] That's got to happen. It's got it. That's what I love about talking to you because it's just these these ideas coming out constantly.

[00:24:48] Maybe that's what I need to do is prototype the book about prototyping. That's getting pretty meta it's extra layers of like inception of Metta going on here. I love this. Love it, And talk about layers, right? So you always have these layers. And I think you were touching on it briefly, but. For a lot of people, most people think that our prototype is very static, a very very one dimensional thing when it just happens once and then you get onto it.

[00:25:17] Chris: [00:25:17] And I've always tried to tell people that this is not the process of prototyping. Processed prototyping is a process of a long business journey, right? It's forever more. You've got to be moving forwards and learning about what it is that you're trying to solve. And that can be pivoting is a big word for that.

[00:25:38] But prototyping is really important for pivoting, right? How the hell do you know where a pivot, if you don't know what you're trying to solve and what that, what you're learning from those prototypes? So just give me an understanding of. The, prototype layers that you would necessarily go through.

[00:25:56] Step one, two, three just, run through what you would normally do and one of your workshops. Yeah. And so I think thinking about. Your audience entrepreneurs, people that may be looking for technology kind of businesses tech, startups, perhaps as well. There's always blending that tech side let's use for simplicity.

[00:26:16] Spencer: [00:26:16] And for that audience, this idea of building an app, right? Cause that's just something that everyone understands. It's pretty familiar with forwards. So I think those layers are really important. It can start and. When I'm running a design sprint of doing some facilitation, they're not essentially use these three or four steps every time.

[00:26:34] And so the first one is just get your ideas out of your head. It's jotting notes, it's making little drawings here and there. It's getting into that habit of getting it out of your head is really important thing. And even that can be in a way it's a prototype because you're almost using that as a, sense check on what you're thinking.

[00:26:53] Even I sometimes. Get to this point. And it's funny that I'm pausing now because I don't sometimes don't know what I'm thinking until I either say it, wait until I draw it and wait until I model it until I prototype it. And so that first thing is getting it out of your head and drawing something the second.

[00:27:10] Layer, if you like the second step up from that would be okay. What does a wireframe essentially? What does a screen look like for, this idea for this app? And I've just got a book here and this, my book is full of these kinds of things. I've picked out like a random page then if you can, if this is working here, but it's basically like an app.

[00:27:31] That gives me some buttons and takes me on a journey. And it's just trying to get out what are those steps? There's touch points on a journey that someone's going to have to go through in order to successfully solve that problem that they had. So always thinking about that problem at every kind of step of the journey as well.

[00:27:48] And what I can do from this is these drawings are fine and there's some explanation, but if I was an end user and I wanted to test this, there'll be like I don't really. Get it. I can't click on anything cause it's a piece of paper. So what you can do is actually take a photo of this, put it into an app like Marvel app.

[00:28:06] Not to be confused with Marvel Avengers. This is Marvel app and this is look, you can just take your phone, take a picture of it and then create like hotspots, essentially these areas around a button that you can link to another page. So when, people are then. Having to play with this on their phones.

[00:28:25] They can be swiping, clicking on things. Essentially. It feels like a real app word, but it's done in a very low fi way. There's no design, there's no colors. There's no kind of graphics. There's no great brand elements at all. All you're trying to do at this point, they say, Can we, can I get someone to progress their journey there, where they're going to solve this problem that they've got?

[00:28:48] So that's a low fi life, low fidelity prototype. You don't have to be brilliant at drawing. You just need to get it out there and get it out of your head. And then start to use that with with, clients, with users, et cetera. The third stage I think moving on from that would be.

[00:29:04] High-fidelity prototype. And this is where some software can come in to play. We could use something like Figma. That's great because it's free and it's all online. It's browser based, Figma, Adobe XD sketch. Again, Marvel. There's a bunch of others as well in vision. All of these tools basically help you create a visual prototype so you can get high fidelity graphics.

[00:29:29] You can create buttons, you can link a button to another page. You can have swipe Interactivity as well, you can even get animations and this whole thing, then when you get it onto your phone or when you want to test it with someone, it feels, and it looks like a real app, but there's nothing behind it.

[00:29:47] It's what I sometimes kind of call a facade. Imagine there's a castle or looking at it. It looks like a castle or like a film set that looks like a castle behind it. There's nothing. It's just scaffolding. There's no rooms. There's nothing else. That's a similar kind of thing that we're trying to create with this, facade prototype essentially.

[00:30:06] Journey that process that they go through would be the same. And that's what you're trying to test, because you don't want to know whether it's feasible to build, whether you've got the talent to build it. You want to know whether your customers, whether your users are actually going to use the thing and it solves the problem.

[00:30:22] That you intending to solve. So there's like whatever that was, I think four stages of, kind of prototype development, get those ideas out, sketch things, stitch it together with a, with an app where you're taking photos and then build out a more high fidelity prototype using one of those tools as well.

[00:30:39] That's really nice that you've listed all the tools as well. And there's got to be a lot of people that look at these tools, but some of them can be quite intense in terms of the feature set that they have. If they just really want to just get, on and get going and not really think about the complexity of the, app itself in terms of the, tool that they're using to process, like what's the one that you would recommend first and foremost, every time.

[00:31:08] So I would say you can, this is really my mind to start with. But. Keynote. If you're on a Mac or PowerPoint, it sounds ridiculous. And I'd never, I so rarely would I recommend someone's going to use PowerPoint because of all of the death by PowerPoint presentations and stuff that we've had over the years, the PowerPoint can actually work.

[00:31:32] And keynote is the one that I would prefer. But you can do it. You can change your screen size. You can create hotspots for buttons. You can link them in different ways. You can basically do everything. That you would want with, something like that. So that's something that people are familiar with, but they're only familiar with it often in the kind of mindset of creating a slide deck of creating a PowerPoint presentation for some, reason.

[00:31:55] But actually switch that mindset, switch that focus away from that and into a screen. And it works in just the way it, same way. In fact, if you want it to prototype a website, you can do it. Basically with exactly the same layout as you would do with a normal presentation. Just start to think. Websites have got a menu quite often, so let's just draw a menu at the top here.

[00:32:17] They might have a menu down the left hand side. They might have a big call to action button instantly is to think about some of those patterns that you're familiar with from other websites. Then you can start to create something very quickly. So I think that's a great tool, really nice for quickly mocking things up and getting them into people's hands I'd say into hands or into into the computer.

[00:32:40] Maybe it's zoom at the moment is I kind of default for a lot of this work. But that can be so quick. We can literally get something done in the next 10 minutes and I could send it over to you and you can go. Yes, no, this is good. This is rubbish. And you can learn from that instantly. And I think the learning is that is the key part of the whole puzzle.

[00:32:58] Ready. I'm so glad you said PowerPoint because it's one of those things that, unless someone tells you, you just would never discover it on your own. And I first saw it once when someone had asked me to test that rap and they were like Oh, can you check out this PowerPoint? I was like, What are you talking about?

[00:33:20] Chris: [00:33:20] If you don't go, if you're not gonna JPEGs or something like that, I can just have a look at it no, it's a PowerPoint. And I started playing with it. I was like clicking through, clicking on the buttons. And I'm so amazed at what, it is that I could feel like I was on the journey.

[00:33:37] And I got the idea of what the app could do through PowerPoint. Blew my mind. So I'm really glad you've you've picked that up and said that it's a really interesting one. It's something that I think about quite a lot around creativity. Sometimes you need to go through a struggle. You need to use tools in different ways in order to, get that creativity muscle going, that creativity flow.

[00:33:59] Spencer: [00:33:59] If I remember when I was first making music with computers back in windows 95, 98 days. And I had Cubase 3.5 save or something like that, I think. And I didn't have a keyboard because I'd like I must've left my keyboard somewhere, whatever it didn't have a keyboard. So I had to use, just use a mouse.

[00:34:19] So one of the naming conventions for my songs was just like one letter taken away because all I could do was highlight something, click and press delete. But that pain that I went through and the challenge that I went through actually spurred on this interest in creativity. So I do sometimes think that people have all of these tools at their disposal.

[00:34:36] It's almost like the paradox of choice. There was too much out there. So know which way to go, which should I go and use this? Or should I go and use this? Should I go and use this? And sometimes just going back to basics as using something you're familiar with, but in a different way, it's a really interesting challenge and actually can spur on that creativity as well.

[00:34:54] I think so. Yeah. Don't always jump for they're the best the search, what's the best prototyping tool. Don't always jump for that. What can you build a prototype with? With something that you're already familiar with, that would absolutely be the best, way to approach it.

[00:35:10] Start with. It's a shiny object syndrome. Isn't that?

[00:35:14] Chris: [00:35:14] That's definitely what it is. We're all just a bunch of magpies, rarely. We always want to go for the best shiniest nicest thing. But there's always that learning curve, right? There's always a learning curve and this is what I always try and tell people is that if you're, if you, got to achieve something, you will not learning curve to be as shallow as possible because you're never going to do it.

[00:35:37] A hundred percent.

[00:35:38] Spencer: [00:35:38] I think I'm so glad that you say that you do, because you need, those quick wins. You need that that you need to see that progression. Yeah. Something if it's, too great to leap, so easy to get de-motivated so you're absolutely right. Yeah. I think that's the thing.

[00:35:56] And we talk about this quite a lot as well is just prioritizing creating stuff, just and, get into this habit of practice because practice makes progress. And I said that to my daughter, she's no, it doesn't. It makes perfect. I was like, no, definitely does not make perfect.

[00:36:19] It makes progress. Every single practice that you go through, every round, every loop and every cycle that you create is making progress for yourself against something. So that's totally the right way to do it. What have we learned today? We've learned that you don't love your family and your shower or your daughter.

[00:36:39] Chris: [00:36:39] Oh, no. You're going to say, sorry. There's no tree roughly moving. All right. So we're talking about learning and we're talking about moving forwards, but how do you learn that? What it is that you've done is right. And where do you go on that next iterative improvements? You've made a prototype then?

[00:37:01] How do you know what the second version of that prototype should look like now? How, you what, are the things you're looking for?

[00:37:10] Spencer: [00:37:10] Yeah, that's a really, great question. Because often, as you said earlier, a lot of people think that you build a prototype once and that's it. And actually it needs to be, there needs to be cycles of this and cycles of iteration improvement.

[00:37:22] One of the things. If I talk about a bit of a process, bit of a flow that I use quite often, I generally try to start with a hypothesis or an assumption that turns into a hypothesis. And the difference there is that assumptions, just to gut feeling that you have, you think something might be true, whereas a hypothesis is something that you can prove to be true or disprove.

[00:37:40] To be true, if that makes sense. So you've got you can, prove it out. So I think there's this tool or methodology approach that I use called a hypothesis mapping or assumption mapping, which is where you come out with a load of gut instincts, a load of things that you would like to be true, and you hope maybe are true in order to be, to make your product successful.

[00:38:01] So just to give a bit of a flavor on this, it could be that you have a hypothesis that says. I thinking about a previous startup that I had here I think people if people are given the right thing to learn at the right time, they're much more likely to go and learn it. So if they've given the right piece of content, As in a recommendation for the right piece of content when they need it, they're much more likely to learn something valuable, right?

[00:38:27] So that's a, it's quite a big hypothesis to have, but the way that you do that, as you think about a test that proves or disproves that hypothesis. So what we could do in that instance is going test that with users, we could do a whole load of there's so many different ways to test. In fact, I've got a book on my shelf up here called testing business ideas by the strategize, a group there's 44 different.

[00:38:49] Different tests that you can do that are all based around prototype testing, prototypes. So you could go and speak to users. You could create a landing page and go and see whether people sign up for your, Products for your service for your app, whatever. But the key thing is not just about the data that's gathered it's about, or they're the kind of numbers, the quantitative data that's gathered.

[00:39:12] It's also about the qualitative, because that's going to inform where you go next. It's very easy to come to conclusions based on how many click-throughs you get, how many signups you get, those kinds of things. But actually the really important thing is the, conversations that you can have with people.

[00:39:28] So I think at every stage there has to be some kind of. The conversation that happens with people in order to know where to go to next. And it's not that you, have, you should do everything that everybody says it's about seeing and identifying where these patterns are, where these reoccurring themes are, of where people are hitting challenge or what people's thoughts are.

[00:39:49] And that's the thing that should go basically into your. Load map or into your next phase of, kind of development. If I come back though really quickly about this hypothesis mapping, the way that this works is that you have a scale from left to right about the things that versus the things that you don't know.

[00:40:08] So what do you have evidence for? And the other one on the other axis is like a two by two matrix. Then the other axis is how important that is for you. So you want to be focusing on the things that are really important to you as a business existential threats, you need this to be true in order to work as a business, and also things that you don't know because you don't have the evidence for there.

[00:40:29] The things that you should be going and testing as quickly as possible, the things that are really important and you do have evidence for go and build it. Really simple. That's the stuff you should go and do, but anything you don't have the evidence for you haven't validated or, got the proof that it's going to work, you should go and test it in whatever way you can.

[00:40:47] So as an again, build on this example, we did a last startup that I was running. We did some landing page tests. So we came up with 10 different ideas that are all about a similar theme. We built 10 different landing pages. We serve them onto serve them. We put them onto the web. So we had 10 different versions of our site page one, page two, whatever it was.

[00:41:12] I think we had code names for them all. And then we served some ads. So we went onto Reddit. Facebook actually read. It was amazing for the, ads. And we got people to sign up with a sign up button to these 10 different platforms. And what we found was that one came out really strong, 10 times, better signups than all the others.

[00:41:32] There was one that came out fairly well and would have been okay. Because we did set a threshold of how many signups we were looking for to validate the success. Two of them went over it, but one of them got 10 X returns, 10 X, what we were expecting. And then of course that's okay, because then we go let's double down on this idea and see what else we can do, but what else can we tell was the important thing.

[00:41:54] And then we did a pricing test. So we. We did the same landing page, but we did it across maybe five different price brackets. So one of them was like $6 a month. One of them, $9 a month, one month and $15 a month. One was, I think our maximum was like $49 a month. That's $79 a month. I'm actually got a couple of people to sign up at that price.

[00:42:16] Yeah. But it generally found out that between nine and $15 a month was a point that people would be willing to basically give us their credit card details. And this is the key thing you've got to, not just, it's not about getting intent. What you, need to do is prove intent. That they want that thing to the point where they're giving you money, they think you give they're giving you money.

[00:42:40] And so we actually took credit card details. We actually charged people for an app that didn't exist. And I forgot to turn the Stripe integration on a platform off for about six months. And we were charging people for six months for an app that didn't exist. So anyway, yeah. I had to apologize to them, gave them all their money back.

[00:43:00] And actually they became loyal fans because we turned this around for them. Anyway, I'm digressing. The point is you need to get the intent and then move on to the other things that you want to test from that landing page test. We started to build out prototypes. We tested with those early users.

[00:43:15] We've got it into their hands. We talked about what that, whether it was meeting their expectations, whether it wasn't meeting their expectations, why it was that they signed up all of this data was really, valuable in us in order for us to validate the viability of this this business idea.

[00:43:31] That's sorry. That was long.

[00:43:34] Chris: [00:43:34] Oh, I loved it. And I was, hoping you were gonna champion about landing pages because I think there's a really, viable option for people to understand whether the business solves the problem. And the fact that if you ask your friends and family about whether they would pay for something.

[00:43:51] 99% of them they'll was like yeah, I'll pay for that. Yeah. A hundred percent, but actually giving you the money. That's a massive one. And that barrier does an emotional barrier. And I definitely think that if you want to prove that, that your, app solves a problem, it needs to stick a payment gateway in.

[00:44:10] A hundred percent. I totally agree.

[00:44:12] Spencer: [00:44:12] I don't think you can properly validate the viability of a business unless you've done that. You can validate the desirability. Do people actually want this thing? Is it attractive to them? That kind of thing, but actually it's the viability, which is the all important thing.

[00:44:28] And when people talk about minimum viable products, it's often that viable thing, part that they're missing, they're doing the smallest thing that they can. In order to try to validate it, but it's not necessarily a viable. Product a viable solution that they're, testing. So I think it's really important that you, really do that.

[00:44:48] That kind of mum test idea you tell, your mum, you tell your family, unless you've got that. I was going to be harsh about my family again, then I can't possibly do that. Okay. But I showed something to my mom and I do this she'll Pat me on the back. Oh, great.

[00:45:06] Well done. Of course, absolutely love it. She might absolutely hate it but there you go. But that's yeah. Getting the money, get it, get the money. That's the only way to really test and really know that you're onto something interesting. Yeah. A hundred percent.

[00:45:23]Chris: [00:45:23] So how far do you go with cram prototypes?

[00:45:28] Do you keep prototype in. I keep prototyping or did you get it into the hands of the customers and actually just build the thing, get the MVP out there. What was, the line? It's, is it the same or does it change depending on exactly what you're learning? I think you can change.

[00:45:47] Spencer: [00:45:47] I think it's okay to accept that it's going to change.

[00:45:49] We we We're living in this desire for agility. And I saying that slightly smiling because of knowing so many clients that I'm working with and have worked with in the past that talk about being agile and anyway, that's probably another, that's probably part of it, but we're striving for this agility, but I think it's really important.

[00:46:13] That and you set the expectations of your team and other people, what's a prototype and what's a production ready design. And there is a big difference between those two things. So I can knock up a prototype in hours, minutes, days, depending on the fidelity and the, size of a prototype.

[00:46:30] But when it comes to the handoff for production into an actual. App into an actual software solution. The attention to detail is so much, more important. You've got to really be thinking about every single element working on the page, the user experience and the journey that you want can be tested in the prototype stages, but actually the kind of specific UI elements.

[00:46:56] It's a kind of a different, thing altogether, in some ways it may, and I think this is a big point of confusion for a lot of the people that I work with, that they go you managed to do a prototype in a day. Why has it taken you a week to, to build the actual design stuff? And it's because every single pixel you need to be thinking about and representing that in this, in the right way, you need to be thinking about your you're padding, your margins.

[00:47:19] You're the kerning on the text. You need to make sure that. All the fonts are consistent, that they've got the right waiting so that when you do that handoff to a developer and they know they can maybe pull out the CSS or whatever, so that they're able to really understand and get all of that detail there, the code, the hex codes for the number, all that kind of stuff, all that good stuff.

[00:47:40] It's a completely different world that we're talking about. It's a different way of designing in some ways. So I think you have to be able to set those expectations. So with that being said, that you've got these two separate things. I'll come back to the prototyping end of it. Rather than the kind of handoff for design, because you can be in a perpetual state of prototyping yourself as a design team, as a product team, you can constantly be going through these cycles of prototyping, but it's also really important that you identify the points that you need to hand off and you need to get that design over to development in order to, get.

[00:48:15] Rather than the prototype into the ed, into user's hands. You need to go through that MVP stage. You need to get that product out there in a, working form so that you can then continue to learn and develop out that prototype that that product from there. So I think you can, be constantly in a, prototyping phase, but it's really important that you differentiate that work that's happening from the production ready work, and you almost then have to have this.

[00:48:43] The way I look at it is this kind of two-stage handoff. So rather than from, just from design to development, you have to have this handoff. Maybe it's just a mental handoff that you have for yourself from prototyping into production, ready to design, and then. Into development. So that's the way that I look at these, this stage of three stages.

[00:49:02] So again, that protein prototyping is all about ideas, right? It might be, I've got this idea for a new feature. It might be there's a sticking point in the flow from, a landing page into signing up fully for the app and then downloading the app. So how can I smooth off that journey? And that would be a prototyping thing.

[00:49:23] Then it goes into like right now let's design that properly so that the dev team properly know exactly what's going, on. And so they almost don't need to come back to you. Constant communication is a really great thing, but if they don't need to come back and ask questions, because it's also clear that's a much smoother, smoother flow, and of course you can then bring in those principles around agile and the rituals in order to make sure that that communication journey and progression continues to happen.

[00:49:59] So I think, I don't know whether that fully I've forgotten the question. If I'm honest, but hopefully that kind of gets somewhere, close to this. So the question you were answering.

[00:50:09] Chris: [00:50:09] Yeah. It was about, how far do you prototype before you really so that's you summed it up beautifully.

[00:50:17] I mean it changed and it, definitely depends. But that kind of raises another thing. It's what can go wrong with prototyping, right? Can you essentially get stuck in this perpetual design phase where you're actually always just designing and not actually get getting an app out there and Sometimes when you ask people for feedback on your particular apps, is that misleading is, that the thing that actually.

[00:50:48] Gives you the wrong direction and you go off of you make something like how, w what is it that can go wrong with prototyping and how can you prevent these? Yeah, it's a really, great question. And so the first thing that came to mind when you start to talk about this was false positives.

[00:51:06] Spencer: [00:51:06] So there are, at times there are indicators that take you on a journey. And what I mean by that is so when we, when I'll come back and explain it a bit better, hopefully when we're trying to validate a hypothesis, this is really what we're looking for is indicators about validation. We can never truly prove out something categorically to be correct.

[00:51:27] I think that's one of the things we have this scientific approach, but it's not a binary. Yes or no. It's often a yes, I think. But still, it might not be, is where you want to get to. But you do get false, positives. You also get false negatives. So there can be situations where you've done the wrong test for the PO for the prototype that you've got.

[00:51:48] And actually it comes out negative kind of a negative result there, things shouldn't doesn't work or whatever, but it might be that you've done the wrong test. So that's a, so I guess there's false positives, false negatives they happen. So what you need to bear in mind is that every test that every experiment that you run is an indicator on.

[00:52:04] Validating that thing. And that's one of the caveats, there was a point of course, that you go enough testing already. Like we, we know that this thing is, it's got a chance of being successful, but we don't, we're never going to know if we don't release it. So you've got to get that point across now.

[00:52:23] I was working with an organization quite recently that had gone through it and I worked with them a few months ago. I did some really quick rapid prototype and stuff over a couple of weeks, we did a bunch of testing with it. But he found that there were some things that were resonating really well.

[00:52:37] Some things that weren't, I went on to often did some other work with some different clients, came back after about five months. And really what I'd found out was that for that five month period, they had a really experienced person working with them that was focusing on products. But they've really only focused on, and I say only it's like a really big part of it, but they'd focused so much on user interviews and validating things through conversations that they, and they hadn't designed anything else.

[00:53:02] And I found out they were still using the same prototypes that I built in a couple of weeks really quickly after six months was still using those to validate stuff and they hadn't improved any of those things. So they were even this perpetual cycle of. Of user interviews and they hadn't gone to the next stage of prototyping and or proper prototyping and, testing that out.

[00:53:23] So when I came back to work with them, that was the first thing I did was prototyped as quickly as I could so that we can validate that as quickly as possible. Now. What I also did is we made sure that we were going to prototype and release as quickly as possible. So we went from not having a prototype at all to actually getting our first, app on the app store this week.

[00:53:44] And that was in the space of less than four weeks. You can move really quickly when you're focused on the right goals. So I think coming back to a point, we had way back about goals and not having this perpetual cycle of trying to improve and trying to know more and more. You've got to put a stake in the ground.

[00:54:03] You've got to set yourself a deadline. You've got to go right by this day, I'm going to be able to deliver, I'm going to get this published. I'm going to get it out there. Then I'm going to go through more cycles of learning. It's not about privatizing the prototyping. It's about prioritizing the learning that can happen, and that can happen in a bunch of different ways.

[00:54:19] So there were a couple of traps that you can fall into. As I said false negatives, false positives, perpetual cycles of, prototyping, perpetual cycles of user validation or user research that can happen. Result really that the big thing that you need to be focusing on is what's that stake in the ground.

[00:54:36] What's that flag, that goal that you're aiming for, give yourself a timeline give yourself a that goal and work backwards from there sometimes as well as a really good way to go about doing it. Yeah.

[00:54:53] Chris: [00:54:53] I sent it's the there was some quick wins popping out other, so I think it was a good, time to actually talk about what's your top three quick wins that if you were going to give to your, to the audience about how to get started with prototyping or just to maximize bang for their buck and get the most insight in the short smile time, what would those top three things be?

[00:55:17] So I think the. I'm going to, so the first thing that I'm going to talk about is talking actually, the quickest win for you to get to understand whether your idea has any substance is talk to people, never forget whether you're CEO, CTO, whether you're a developer where you are within the organization, prioritize talking to people.

[00:55:46] Spencer: [00:55:46] Doesn't have to be called a customer research. Doesn't have to be called user research, just talk to people about their problems and what you're trying to do. That's the first thing. And it's so easy, right? Quick. When you can send out a message to someone you can get on a zoom call within minutes, like that's, doable.

[00:56:02] People think it's hard, but it's not. It's really easy to be doing. Speak to people, constantly try and speak to someone new each day. That's that would be an amazing thing. So that's number one. Number two is. Get ideas out of your head, get thoughts, whether it's a brand new idea, whether it's a hack for for, converting people on a landing page, whether it's a new feature that you want to have, whether it's a new.

[00:56:31] Color for, but anything, just get it out of your head, make lists of things. And my, my buddy, our good friend, Nick, he talks about this creativity muscle that you have to try to create. And it only comes from constant repetition. It's like trying to lift weights. You're never going to get big and bulky, unless you put in the reps, you've got to keep rapping.

[00:56:53] So making lists of, ideas, it's a really good thing to do. So my second tip would be. Jot everything down, get out of your head, get it onto paper as quickly as possible. The third tip, similar theme, but like we've talked about this so much is, get those ideas into some kind of tangible form. Draw a screen out, draw what you think a journey is that is a prototype in a sense, essentially, you've got to be able to draw out this flow because sometimes it's really hard to, figure it out in your head.

[00:57:22] And it's just not a good use of your time. It's not good use of your, brain power. Drew out the steps that it takes get a prototype. I've literally got them. If I can, I've got them up here. I might, can you see this on my wall? There drawings, hosted notes. I'm working on live and it's my. It's just my way of constant connection to what I'm doing, even though I'm in high-fidelity mode over here, coming over there to look like what was that thing that I was trying to do.

[00:57:53] So it's really valuable to go through that, that hand-drawn process as well. It doesn't matter how great or poor you are at drawing. Just got to do it, get it out there. Yeah, those are quick, right? Quick wins. Talk to people, write all of your thoughts out and start drawing screens. Come on. We can all do that.

[00:58:11] Chris: [00:58:11] We can all do that today. So audience you're listening, you should definitely do that. I guess the next thing is if people want to learn about prototyping work, where can they go to learn more? What's the books that you recommend. What's the resources online that you recommend that, that gives them this and keep in in, in, theme with the the poke cost itself quick wins CTO.

[00:58:36] Spencer: [00:58:36] What's going to be the thing that's quick for them to, learn, or this might, Oh we know there's an infinite, pository out there of incredible courses, videos, et cetera. YouTube is our friend. YouTube is a place where I probably learned more stuff than I do from anywhere else. If I'm honest I, could give you a bunch of courses, but if I'm honest, I don't learn well with courses.

[00:59:05] And this is quite ironic given that I'm a former teacher and a kind of learning specialist. But I don't do, I don't learn courses very well. So I could I've got 20 you to me courses that I've bought and I've not doing any of them. I've not progressed to any of them. So I think that courses do serve a purpose for some people, but they're not the best, but there are things like you, to me, there's some really good courses on Coursera.

[00:59:27] There's some great stuff out on. Oh, there's a really great place for learning. Product UX design stuff, prototyping calls it's called  ux.io. I think it is. It looks really nice. Really nice webpage. That's really cool. It's a bit it's paid for, but it's not like crazy prices. I think there's so much stuff on YouTube though.

[00:59:50] Really do, but the key thing is when you're watching YouTube, it's not just to sit in a, be a passive observer and a passive watching of these things. Pause the video, go and try it. Go and experiment. Play around with some of these tools because that's the best way to learn. It's the best way to firstly know whether you enjoy doing this stuff.

[01:00:09] But then that's the the second thing is that it's, a great way to learn. You've got to be active in your learning, I think. But yeah, definitely YouTube. And my channel on YouTube. Definitely everyone should go subscribe to as, yeah. So it's a really good point. In terms of courses and doing a course that's self-motivated is almost impossible, right?

[01:00:40] Chris: [01:00:40] I never, I've never completed those myself, but doing one that you ha you were set a task and every week you went off and you had to do something and then you had a community to support you on that. Essentially what we're doing at the moment, right? So I'm making videos and you're supporting me on that and it, keeps me moving forward, but it also is really important to understand that we should only be learning about things.

[01:01:06] When we're trying to deal with the problem, right? So I only ever go on YouTube and I'm building something or making something to find the solution for that problem that I'm in that, moment. And in, in the time that I'm actually doing it. And, that's because. You, may have iterated on or spoke about earlier.

[01:01:27] It's the brains don't really get good at remembering it's going to processing and, digesting and, actually problem-solving, and that's the way I problem solve. And that's by looking at other ways of dealing with that problem, would you agree with that? This is such a perfect summing up of, a problem.

[01:01:49] Spencer: [01:01:49] And some people, naturally just have this. Incredible ability to learn anything and just have this. And I have this curious I've got a curious mind, but not to the point where I'd be happy to go and learn just for the sake of learning for, and actually can relate this to kind of product development and stuff as well.

[01:02:08] So if we think about our users needing solve a problem, That's the best way to build a product for a problem that really exists. It's the same thing with our, learning, right? Our own development. If we don't have that problem, that's stopping us. That's blocking us that stop in our, the development of an app.

[01:02:24] We're not gonna, we're not gonna learn that stuff. So I think it's a really good, way to look at that is what's the, thing that's driving you forward and then go and learn the stuff that you need in a tactical way. To get you over those, barriers those, challenges.

[01:02:45] I think it's such a, good point. Motivation is one of the hardest things to have, but if you have it because you have a pain and you're looking to improve, then wow. One of those things. Okay. I'm waffling a little bit, but one thing that really strikes me as interesting is we're gonna, we're about to go through the biggest crisis in terms of employment.

[01:03:07] We are we're right there now. Biggest crisis in terms of employee, but it's in an employment that we've ever had perhaps in generations, certainly, but yet, and we've got this big problem around skills development and getting people to get the new skills that they ha they need to have.

[01:03:25] But yet every single. Bit of knowledge exists out there on the internet accessible for free and at the touch of a couple of buttons for every person in this country, yet they still don't learn. And why is that? It has to come down to that motivation. It has to come down to them not seeing that this is there's probably other factors, but at its core, it's probably about motivation. I really hope that when. When people are going through the real challenging points and they're maybe struggling financially struggling from employment, that this is a big enough motivating factor for people to re-skill to go find things it's all out there.

[01:04:09] You just need to do a little bit of searching. If you can't find stuff about UX, get in touch with Chris or myself, because we will be able to point you out in the right direction. But yeah, it's there. Just waiting, to be consumed and waiting to be given to you to, help him, help me if you want.

[01:04:28] I don't know. Yeah. There's gotta be a way that we can help those people even more it's something that I've always thought about.

[01:04:35]Chris: [01:04:35] And I think. Having easy access to this information and, holding the hand down this process of relearning and re-skilling, and re-tooling right. If I go down to the manufacturing way of thinking is the big thing.

[01:04:51] And I think it's just taking that leap and getting that confidence. Yeah. I think that sums already nicely. And we'll wrap it up now today, Spencer, but what I want to give our audiences to how, can they connect with you? How can they find out about your workshops that you do and, work with you because if anyone needs prototyping or wants to get started on a business idea, should definitely check out Spencer.

[01:05:21] Thanks man. Really appreciate it. Yeah. So you can get me on YouTube. It's probably the place where I'm putting out the most content at the moment. That's just Spencer Ayres. So youtube.com forward slash Spencer Ayres. Also Instagram, which is annoyingly spence as SPENCEA Y R E S. Instagram's

[01:05:40]Spencer: [01:05:40] a good one. LinkedIn, of course, Spencer search me there, but also the business. I think we were talking about business earlier, but not really mentioned what it is. Make ideas.co if you were to go there today, you would see that there is no, not a landing page yet. It's as a bit of a all the things that I said, and I haven't got a landing page for our website yet, but there will be very soon make ideas.co is where all of this stuff kind of stuff comes together.

[01:06:07] Essentially product design product agency, but also content agency as well. So we create a lot of video content for that for the people as well. So basically if you have needs around. Building new stuff about prototyping, about facilitation for ideas, or indeed about creating content, business, content, innovation content, then definitely head over to make ideas.co that will be very shortly, really beautiful website put up.

[01:06:31] I'm sure. You ha you have to now because it's going to be go people go into it. Thanks, Spencer. Really appreciate that. Always insightful. And I'm looking forward to our next ones because genuinely it's going to be pretty awesome. Awesome mate, this is absolutely joyous. And so glad that you're doing this loads of people are going to get huge amounts out of it.

[01:06:51] So I can't wait to watch your progress and your stuff as well. Thanks man.

[01:07:01] Chris: [01:07:01] Fantastic insights about prototyping there loved hearing about how a prototype tells a thousand pictures, what a vivid illustration about it works. But what was your favorite bit of the show? Tell me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram tick-tock or YouTube. Yeah, you can find me with at HEDIS store and don't forget, you can also watch your show on YouTube or listen.

[01:07:23] All major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify. I remember I'm giving away 10 of my favorite business books, including lean startup and business model, canvas to one lucky winner. It's a great all levels of skill from a CEO to a founder and Sorento, or you need to do is go to Apple podcasts, subscribe and scroll to the bottom and leave a review.

[01:07:47] It doesn't have to be detailed. You can just say that you love this podcast. It just takes a few moments to do then email quick wins CEO ahead of this stuff, but thank you for listening. And until next time, I'm the quick win CEO signing out.

 

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