By Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
The podcast currently has 22 episodes available.
Show Notes
To wrap the first season of Fixing Faxes Jonathan and Angela continue part 2 of listener questions. Diving into favourite failures, scary stories, emotional rollercoasters, and what we are reading/watching/listening to right now. Next season starts in late January 2021!
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Angela: [00:00:00] Kyla has now texted me and wrote on my Facebook and every, Oh my God.
Jonathan: [00:00:06] Yeah, just toss it to the bottom.
Angela: [00:00:08] Oh my goodness. Are you reading this? Are you reading what she's Oh my God. Who.
She wrote that all these questions, then she wrote all of those are stolen from great interviewers, but are some of my faves for job interviews and icebreakers.
Jonathan: [00:00:27] Oh, okay. Job interview questions. My goodness.
Angela: [00:00:31] She's an HR specialist. That's why.
Intro [00:00:33]
Jonathan: [00:00:35] You're listening to Fixing Faxes a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Jonathan Bowers.
Angela: [00:00:43] And I'm Angela Hapke. So we're doing take two, not take two, part two, not take two part, two of listener questions. Now we're going to get in, like, we're going to get into some deep stuff
Jonathan: [00:01:02] Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Oh, wait, this one's from you.
Angela: [00:01:10] We'll put that at the end. Well, this is okay. Honestly, we weren't getting a lot of questions, so I decided that I was going to throw some in task.
You,
Angela, on entertainment [00:01:21]
well, let's start with it then. Mine are just fun. Mine are just silly fun questions. I just wanted to know Jonathan, who are you listening to right now?
Jonathan: [00:01:31] Uh, I'm listening to a lot of Raffi and, uh, artists by the name of Casper Baby Pants.
Angela: [00:01:38] no, this is like some Baby Beluga going on in your
Jonathan: [00:01:43] Yeah, We do some baby beluga. Casper Baby Pants is nice though. He's got a, he's got an album where he covers a bunch of Beatles songs.
Angela: [00:01:50] that's fun.
Jonathan: [00:01:51] Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Uh,
Angela: [00:01:52] weird.
Jonathan: [00:01:55] Yeah.
Angela: [00:01:56] Okay. Um, okay. On our way to school, is usually when they listened to most of the music and I take Alex to school and she is very obsessed with the Tones and I right now, so like dance monkey, never seen the rain, lots of those. then I drop her off and turn on my own music and Oh, my musical taste has a far range, but today it was Weezer on the way home.
So, yep. but I am more like, uh, like I like to have a lot of background music going on and it's usually very like coffee hose, acoustic chill, keeps my, like me. It can be from vibrating too high. Uh, okay. What's the last book or are you reading a current book?
Jonathan: [00:02:47] I am. So I'm not sure why this is, but I feel like I am, uh, just boring, boring to answer these questions. I'm terrible at reading books because I only read them before bed and I immediately fall asleep.
Angela: [00:03:04] too. This is why it
Jonathan: [00:03:05] I've. so I have, because it was taking forever to get through books. I decided to just not go back and try and reread what I was missing, like what I had fallen asleep too.
So I just continue to plow forward. And so I've gotten through entire books without knowing who, who anyone is or what the main plot was. I just have read all the words. so currently I am reading, Dune, Because I'm like, I I'm excited about the new movie, Dune. I've never read the book, so I'm reading Dune.
but, but reading it before bed, so I actually don't know what's happening. yeah.
Angela: [00:03:39] That's hilarious. I feel that very, yeah, I am right there on that level with you.
Jonathan: [00:03:45] Yeah. I think the last book that I read that I actually completed and was able to. Uh, I don't, I, I'm not sure it's because it takes so long. Like I read one page a night and then I'm out.
Angela: [00:03:57] That's me too. And yes. Okay. I'm so glad that you're one of those people too, because like, like Jackie at work, she reads a whole book a day. Like she can just plow through a book.
Jonathan: [00:04:08] What does she read? Is she the type of person that if you had an office to go to and have lunch, she would read a book at lunch. I didn't notice that of her,
Angela: [00:04:19] I don't think so. No, I think it's like a, it's like an at home thing that she,
Jonathan: [00:04:24] Wow. I'm a little jealous of that also. Not because that just seems like you'd run out of stuff really fast, but she's maybe just always has a book on the go.
Angela: [00:04:32] maybe, I think the last book that I read a lot of, Books too, Alex she's into chapter books. we are on the Taya Stilton series, but I will say, parents out there, if you have kids that are at that reading age, two of the best books that we have read recently, or the One and Only Ivan, which was just recently made into a Disney movie.
And number two, I cannot recommend this book enough is Wild Robot.
Jonathan: [00:05:01] Oh, cool.
Angela: [00:05:02] amazing. And there's now a second books, Wild Robot Escapes go out and get these books are incredible. Um, yeah. Okay.
Jonathan: [00:05:14] your independent bookstore.
Angela: [00:05:15] From your independent bookstore, please. Second hand too. what's your favorite TV show currently?
Jonathan: [00:05:21] Oh, I am really enjoying His Dark Materials.
Angela: [00:05:26] I don't even know this one.
Jonathan: [00:05:27] It's the book, the books I've read the, have I read the books I've listened to? No, I have read the books and listened to the audio books. The audio books are amazing. So the Golden Compass you'd recognize the golden compass. So that's, that's that?
I think there are three books, trio trilogy of books. so HBO and BBC have a, high production TV. Show, they have one season out already. That was last year, the year before, and now it's running season two and it's, I just, I really enjoy it. The audio books are fantastic. Probably my, my friend, Derek, who he's, he that's all he does is like he's plugged in and listened to audio books all the time.
He has listened to that book. Dozens of times. It's really good. I agree. It's it's one of the better, it's o...
Show Notes
Jonathan and Angela asked for questions and listeners submitted all sorts of questions ranging from leadership, entrepreneurship, podcasting, and life. The questions were tough, amazing and required some digging deep to answer; along with many laughs.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jonathan: [00:00:00] I think your renos have created a slight echo.
Angela: [00:00:02] Are you
Jonathan: [00:00:03] it's just, it's just slight. It's fine. We'll leave it in. Cause I, I don't want to deal with it right now.
Angela: [00:00:08] We could put like a blanket over my head or something?
Jonathan: [00:00:11] that's how podcasters do it.
They go in closets because of all the clothing and then crawl under a blanket. I'm not doing that because I'm not bringing this whole desk into a closet.
Angela: [00:00:21] maybe I need like, a blanket tent to go over top of me.
Intro [00:00:26]
You are listening to Fixing Faxes, a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Angela Hapke, and...
Jonathan: [00:00:36] I'm Jonathan Bowers and this is our Q and A show. We've got questions from listeners and we're going to answer them. I'm very excited. Yeah. I'm a little disappointed that no one asked, like really obscure, odd, weird questions about. You know about things that are unrelated to podcasting or startups.
Cause we've, we, you know, we're, we're deeper people than just this,
Angela: [00:01:01] barely. Yes, no, no, we are. Yeah.
Jonathan: [00:01:05] Uh,
Angela: [00:01:06] I there's so many, I mean, these questions are wonderful and they're beautiful and they're going to get into some, some interesting, things here, but, yeah, there's no like wild or wacky questions for us. So,
Jonathan: [00:01:18] and I apologize that my first response to getting questions was to criticize the quality that criticized the criticize, the questions I just realized that I'm kind of a poopoo.
Angela: [00:01:28] you did you poo-pooed on them? I, yes. Thank you. Let's do it.
Kaileen, on leadership [00:01:34]
let's start with Kaileen because Kaileen jumped on this and I'm so proud of her for like, Jumping on it and putting it out there. So let's start with her. Yay. Yay. Kaileen and, let's jump into the leadership questions that she had. Okay.
So she asked a few questions around leadership and she said that she'd love to hear both of us answer these questions. And the first one was what is a piece of leadership advice you think everyone should know? I know? Right? Just like
Jonathan: [00:02:11] Just
Angela: [00:02:11] head first, right into the deep end. Yes.
Jonathan: [00:02:14] Ah, I don't know.
Angela: [00:02:18] Kaileen authenticity.
Um, we can, we can read all the leadership books that we want to, and we can, try and emulate all these wonderful, amazing examples of people out there. But at the end of the day, being authentically yourself is what I would just tell anybody. If you found yourself in a place where you're in a leadership position in your life, you're, you're doing what we do.
We probably done something, right. So I would say authenticity.
Jonathan: [00:02:47] I think there's a temptation to put on a facade, which does have, which does have its place. Uh, there is a, there's a place for that, but I think generally, yeah, being authentic, Yeah. And just being open, honest and maybe a little bit more vulnerable
Angela: [00:03:03] Yes, please, please. We need more leadership with vulnerability, please. Can we do that? Yes. Okay. Her second question is what is a common myth about leadership you think we all need to let go of? You go first on this one.
Jonathan: [00:03:20] Uh, Oh my goodness. So I haven't prepared for any, I haven't read any of these questions. I just copied and pasted these in, I haven't had time to think about them. a common myth. I don't know what, Ooh. I don't know.
Angela: [00:03:33] Do you want me to go?
Jonathan: [00:03:34] Yeah, I'm struggling. I'm struggling to answer these because I don't, I don't know. Maybe cause I don't read enough books, uh, to know like what are some of the
Angela: [00:03:43] I just don't read enough books, period. Um,
I think a common myth about leadership, but it's also not just about leadership. I think it's about, especially as startup, culture in general is this hustle culture that we have created. And we think being busy is the ultimate, Showcase of success.
It's not at all. It's I think it's quite the opposite. Actually. I think having a lot of room and flexibility in your day, it makes, makes you a much better leader than burning yourself out.
Jonathan: [00:04:23] Yeah, I'm I'm, I'm not gonna offer anything different than that. I'll just, I'll just agree with that. Like, I think that's totally true. even, uh, like Justin, Justin Jackson, he asked a question, we'll get to that, but he shared his calendar
Angela: [00:04:36] I saw that.
Jonathan: [00:04:37] a blank canvas with like two meetings in it.
And I think part of that is because his business partner is away on holidays, but, um, regardless, he's still like, he's still, you know, that's, that's, his goal is to maintain that. And I, I, you know, I really like that. I look at my calendar right now and it is, it has very few holes in it
Angela: [00:04:55] Oh, no.
Jonathan: [00:04:56] stressful.
but that's, I mean, that's just a personal thing. Like, like, I don't know that that's,
Angela: [00:05:02] But isn't that what leadership is like? I mean, leadership is so personal, right? Yeah.
Jonathan: [00:05:07] Yep. So yeah, I would agree. don't hustle so hard.
Angela: [00:05:09] Don't. Slow down. Take a breath free up your calendar.
Jonathan: [00:05:14] this idea that Kaileen and I are kind of batting around a little bit around, taking some of the lessons we learned from endurance training and applying it to, to work in life and things like that. And we we've all, we always say like this isn't a sprint. It's more like a marathon.
And I think putting in the measures and practices that allow you to sustain a pace over the long-term is, I think what will get you there? Not, not sprinting. Cause you can't, you just can't, you can't sprint in this. You're just going to burn out.
Angela: [00:05:45] no, I totally agree. Okay. Like that. Okay. Jonat...
Show Notes
Leaders are commonly praised for their creativity, Angela opens up about feeling less creative during COVID. Jonathan talks about finding a secret to increasing energy levels. They discuss the common thread of exhaustion, creativity, renovations, and alone time during COVID.
Angela mentions GoCleanCo, she mentions a Twitter account however Angela actually found her on Instagram. At the end they mention Angela's daughter cut over 10 inches of her hair off and donated it to Wigs for Kids BC.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jonathan: [00:00:00] I need help figuring out a topic.
Angela: [00:00:02] please. My husband was no help.
Jonathan: [00:00:05] Uh, uh, uh, I don't know what a proce pro Proust provost questionnaire is.
Angela: [00:00:15] Like the writer
Jonathan: [00:00:17] I don't know he's talking to an uncultured. Um, man, I dunno. Proust
Angela: [00:00:24] don't hide behind your gender to say whether you're cultured or not. Come on.
Jonathan: [00:00:33] I don't know who provost is.
Angela: [00:00:36] Yeah. It's okay.
Jonathan: [00:00:40] judged.
Angela: [00:00:41] No. Uh, yes, there was, um, a little bit of judgment there. It was fine. My husband was like this up.
Yeah, perhaps there, he also did not know who it was.
Jonathan: [00:00:54] Okay, sweet. So we're, uh, so far the two things we have in common is we don't know who that is, and we're both men.
Angela: [00:01:02] Oh no, that is all true.
Introduction [00:01:08]
Jonathan: [00:01:09] you're listening to fixing faxes, a podcast on the journey to building a digital health startup with your hosts. Jonathan Bowers
Angela: [00:01:18] uh, yeah, I gave three options.
Jonathan: [00:01:22] yeah. Talk through our meeting today regarding the attention screen and why we push hard on some designs. That sounds good. Staying creative as a leader during COVID. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Um, and doing some kind of questionnaire from a writer or a poet, did you say a poet or a writer?
Angela: [00:01:39] I thought post was a poet and a
Jonathan: [00:01:41] You don't even know.
It's like, yeah. You know, Hemingway. Oh yeah. I don't know what he's written. I have no idea. I know he's a person and he used to frequent, uh, Cuba
Angela: [00:01:54] Are you being serious? You don't know. Okay.
Jonathan: [00:02:00] judge, all you want
Angela: [00:02:01] I'm not judging. Actually. I'm
Jonathan: [00:02:03] Vee who has not watched star Wars.
Angela: [00:02:06] update. I am on the last one.
Jonathan: [00:02:11] really like the, um, what is the last one?
Angela: [00:02:16] Well, like episode nine, I am on episode. No, um, Oh, Skywalker returns. Uh, the rise of Skywalker. Skywalker is something. And I don't know
Jonathan: [00:02:32] Have you enjoyed them?
Angela: [00:02:35] I'm going to be very Frank and honest. The ones that were done in the nineties were very bad. God.
Jonathan: [00:02:41] Oh, come on.
Angela: [00:02:45] Chronologically the first three released were, were fun and cool. The next three
Jonathan: [00:02:52] Oh, sorry. The nineties. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The prequels.
Angela: [00:02:56] awful.
Jonathan: [00:02:57] Ah, they're great.
Angela: [00:02:58] Nope. And I'm quite enjoying the last three.
Jonathan: [00:03:02] Good.
Angela: [00:03:03] Yeah. I mean, they have very strong female, like lead characters. I'm loving Ray. I'm loving Leah. I'm loving. I'm just loving it.
Jonathan: [00:03:15] Did you watch rogue one?
Angela: [00:03:17] no, no.
Jonathan: [00:03:18] What?
Angela: [00:03:20] Was I supposed to, I thought I was supposed to finish all nine and then watch the what?
Jonathan: [00:03:28] no.
Angela: [00:03:29] Oh, okay.
Jonathan: [00:03:31] You have made a mistake and now you must watch them again.
Angela: [00:03:35] no. I will watch rogue one
Jonathan: [00:03:38] you should watch rogue one though.
You can watch it. It doesn't matter when you watch it, but you do need to watch that you don't need to watch him the solo, the solo. It kind of sucks, but you could watch, you can watch real quick. It's the best. I think it's the best. One of all of them.
Angela: [00:03:52] Okay. Okay.
Jonathan: [00:03:53] it's not even like the Skywalker saga Uh, so are we going to talk about this? Like w what, what do you want to talk about here?
Angela: [00:04:04] No, uh,
Staying Creative During COVID [00:04:08]
Jonathan: [00:04:08] what do you mean by, um, staying creative? .
Angela: [00:04:11] So the two things that I wrote down here were, um, today we had a meeting regarding, well, basically changing the whole look of clinic when the customer opens clinic for the first time. and the whole idea of transparency talking about like how we build clinics and how we make these changes in the app and things like that. I thought this might be a good one. So that's what I was thinking about talking about today because we really kind of.
We threw up a design today that was like, and then we threw it out and I thought that might be an interesting thing
Jonathan: [00:04:52] Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, I love talking about that kind of stuff, I feel like that is related to the second thing that you wrote down here, which is the, the other point that you felt we might talk about, which is staying creative as a leader during COVID,
Angela: [00:05:04] I think this is more of like a personal issue that I'm
Jonathan: [00:05:07] Oh, okay. Maybe we should get the wine
Angela: [00:05:13] Maybe that is another day when we get the white. Yeah. I'm feeling really, um, I'm having a really hard time and these are like not big problems. Let's be very clear during this time, but I like to think of myself as a pretty creative individual and I am having a lot of issues lately with how to...
Jonathan shares a personal experience regarding a specialist referral, it provides an opportunity to refresh on what referrals are. In this episode Jonathan and Angela refer to the Medical Post, September 2020 issue. Topics span personal experience, referral etiquette, lost referrals, and what is really expected of the patient in the process.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Angela: [00:00:00] but your, desk moves up and down. Is that an issue?
Jonathan: [00:00:04] But Nope, no, no, it's not because I'm Mount to everything to the desk. Not, not to like to the wall or anything.
Angela: [00:00:11] got it. So it moves with it. Okay, that makes
Jonathan: [00:00:14] Like watch
check this out. this is sometimes how I come into meetings
welcome to the meeting.
Angela: [00:00:25] this is so weird. Your head's just slowly rising up from the bottom of the screen.
Jonathan: [00:00:33] yeah, just appear. I just,
Angela: [00:00:35] Well, you don't, you don't appearance. Like if you were in PowerPoint, it would be the slowest, The slowest, like fly in
Jonathan: [00:00:44] yeah. I fly it from the bottom. Yeah. Real slow.
Intro [00:00:48]
Jonathan: [00:30:23] shout out to Justin Jackson and, John Buddha at Transistor FM.
You're listening to Fixing Faxes, a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Angela Hapke.
And I'm Jonathan Bowers. I just got back from taking Zack to an eye specialist, a referral that we had from our GP or family doctor. I'm not sure what the distinction is between a GP and a family doctor.
Angela: [00:01:11] There is a very clear distinction between, GPs and family care providers. But that is a topic for another time.
Getting a Referral to a Specialist [00:01:19]
Jonathan: [00:01:19] Okay. anyways, so, Zach, had a bit of a traumatic birth and suffered some nerve damage to his eyes. And so for the first the many months of his existence his eye didn't open quite correctly and that was concerning. and so we got referred to a specialist. Now the specialist did not let us know that they would much rather us go to a different specialist because that specialist is capable of doing the actual surgery that might be necessary. Didn't phone us, didn't find the GP. So we just phoned them many, many months later asking what's the status of this? And they said, Oh, it needs to go to a different specialist. And so we then had to go back to the GP. The GP, sent the referral to the new specialist and, anyways, it was kind of a pain in the butt. And the only reason why he caught it was because Julie phoned the specialist's office and said, I thought I would have heard from you by now and nothing. Nothing happened. anyways, like medically everything's fine. His vision is perfect. I mean not perfect. It's it's good. he has, he has, what's called a Horner's I'm saying this right Horner's syndrome, which, apparently causes people to sweat differently.
Angela: [00:02:34] Interesting.
Jonathan: [00:02:35] Um, but yeah, I don't really know much about it. Either. A friend, a friend of ours has it. and as an adult, like we, we had no idea. but anyways, yeah, the, the eyelid, has recovered well. It's, it's very difficult to see that one eye lid doesn't open quite as much as the other. It's more apparent when we look at him in a mirror because it's it's, the assymetry is wrong.
Um, and his pupil, his pupil is performing well. There's no, there's no damage in the back. He's not going to need glasses. So we're pretty excited, but it made me think of this whole Clinnect journey and referrals and having to manage, having to manage it ourselves to some
degree, to make sure that it was happening.
Angela: [00:03:13] as a father or a parent of a patient, this is a tough one. So you, so your primary care provider sent a referral, they sent a referral to a specialist that, it was probably from the primary care provider's perspective, an appropriate specialist to send it to.
Jonathan: [00:03:33] and it is, it is actually, so we went to the, to the, to the specialist that can do the surgeries. We've gone to see them twice. And then at the end, he's like, there's no need for surgery. Let's send you back to the original specialist because that's a much easier drive. And so then we'd been going and everyone's been great.
It's just the, just the logistics piece that has sucked. So everyone made the right, like it was, yeah, it was the right referral to make.
Angela: [00:03:56] Yep. It was so their primary care provider made, from their judgment, the best call to a specialist that they could have made. Yeah. That communication though, from when that specialist received that referral and saw that referral as, possibly appropriate but given the, the, the circumstances with Zach, I'm thinking that maybe there would a surgery would be needed, that that referral then should have been either forwarded to the surgeon with the indication back to your primary care provider that this referral has been forwarded to the surgeon, or that specialist should have.
Gone back to your primary care provider and said, actually in review of this patient, we think they're better off to be seen by a surgeon first just to maybe rule that out. Which was eventually what happened. Yikes. And how long, how long did you wait?
Jonathan: [00:05:03] Oh, I don't remember. It was, I want to say a month or two.
Angela: [00:05:09] So we're talking about and how old is Zach?
Jonathan: [00:05:12] How old was he? Oh my goodness. Oh,
Angela: [00:05:14] would have been only,
Jonathan: [00:05:16] One thing I've learned is that having a child, you don't remember anything about anything?
Angela: [00:05:21] that's true. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to Parenthood.
Jonathan: [00:05:25] he was quite, I mean, he was quite young when we took him the first time.
Angela: [00:05:29] So a baby,
Jonathan: [00:05:30] Yeah. Oh yeah, baby. I mean, he's not even two now. He's, he's under two and this has, we've done this for, we've gone five times, I think, to the, to the different specialists. and each with like several months in between, so
Angela: [00:05:46] Which that part is pretty typical, right. That, that follow up piece. but that initial piece had you guys not phoned, what do you think would have happened?
Jonathan: [00:05:55] Honestly, I'm not sure. I think it would have just, I think it would have just gone on forever and we wo...
Show Notes
This interview with Kristy Ehman was originally release a few weeks ago, but we had to delay publishing it. If you happen to have already listened to this episode, go ahead and skip this one. See you next time.
Kristy Ehman of Hyon joins Jonathan and Angela to talk about her journey as a tech founder. Kristy and Angela met at Metabridge in June 2019 and have been talking weekly since. Listen in to get a glimpse of what they talk about; product challenges, users, parenthood, and fundraising.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jonathan: [00:00:00] I see, I see you've typed up no notes for this.
Angela: [00:00:03] Oh, I sent, I sent a text to Kirsty. Does that count?
Jonathan: [00:00:07] That counts.
Angela: [00:00:08] Wow, Angela. Good work.
Introduction [00:00:12]
You're listening to Fixing Faxes, a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your host, myself, Angela Hapke and Jonathan Bowers.
And today I'm excited to say that we have guest with us. Kirsty Ehman is joining us today. Good morning, Kirsty
Kristy: [00:00:30] Good morning.
Angela: [00:00:31] can you tell everyone just a little bit about you, where you're at right now. And then we're going to talk about how we met and we're going to go into a few other things around why we talk every week.
Kristy: [00:00:43] Well, let's talk about how we met. We actually met at Meta Bridge a conference uh out of Kelowna last year. I think it was the 10th year anniversary when we met, patio overlooking the lake, gorgeous.
Angela: [00:00:53] You spotted me from across the
room?
Kristy: [00:00:56] It was love at first sight, one, one tall female founder, to another tall female founder where I don't feel like I'm overpowering the room and we connected.
And that was it.
Jonathan: [00:01:05] Are you also tall?
Kristy: [00:01:07] Jonathan, are you tall or are you short? And this is intimidating.
Jonathan: [00:01:11] I am a medium height. I'm five foot eight and three quarters
Kristy: [00:01:16] That actually counts
Jonathan: [00:01:17] yeah, the three quarters counts.
Angela: [00:01:19] The three quarters count. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Kirsty, tell me, who, who are you? What are you doing?
Hyon, Connecting Local Sellers with Local Item Owners [00:01:28]
Kristy: [00:01:28] So my name is Kirsty Ehman, founded a tech company two years ago and we've pivoted the company one massive pivot. We believe there are two types of people in the world. You're either someone that would do the work to sell your used items, or you ultimately can't be bothered. And our technology connects those two groups.
Angela: [00:01:45] Cool.
Jonathan: [00:01:45] I like how concise that
was.
Angela: [00:01:47] she's been practicing.
Jonathan: [00:01:49] She has rehearsed
Kristy: [00:01:51] No, I've just, I've said it a million times. It's my only thing. It's the only scripted thing in my life.
Angela: [00:01:57] I honestly thought you were going to go into a 15 minute pitch there for one moment. I was like, Oh, and here we go. We are about to hear the Hyon pitch, everyone. I loved it. how'd you get started how long ago?
Kristy: [00:02:10] a couple of years ago we had a, New baby and a three year old and they have a lot of stuff. And so we had been introduced to consignment events for kids. Thought it was magical, created our own developed software for our event realized we never want to run events. software could be interesting.
Realize the software market for consignment events is not big enough to be interesting. So we pivoted the company to consignment. uncovered that there's these two groups of people. And so if you're someone that can't be bothered, you're pulling up to value village and ringing the doorbell or stuffing your stuff in the bins, in the corner of a, of a parking lot.
Angela: [00:02:45] I am a stuff, your stuff in a bin.
Kristy: [00:02:48] We call you Jordan. And if you're a, if you're someone who's super active on, on marketplaces, you're, you're on Facebook marketplace, Kijiji ,Craigslist, you brag about how much money you make on these platforms.
And we call those people Alison. So our world revolves around
Jordan's and Alison's.
Angela: [00:03:05] I love it. And your software connects Jordans to Alison's because Jordan's like myself do not want to be bothered with going on to Facebook marketplace and taking the time to list products and deals with people. I like humans. I don't like people. And, they connect to somebody like myself to, somebody, an Alison that really likes doing this kind of stuff really loves going on and selling stuff.
And so your, your product, connects those two types of people. Where are you guys at right now? The product is built.
Kristy: [00:03:44] Products built. So we're in a commercialized beta. Primarily in Saskatchewan, but we do find ourselves coast to coast. We're kind of sprinkled all over the place and we are starting our integration to, uh, into accepting payments from the States. So we'll be crossing borders in a
Angela: [00:03:58] Ooh, we haven't talked about that yet. That's fun.
Kristy: [00:04:02] this is my weekly update.
Angela: [00:04:04] Everybody's tuning in now to the conversation that Kirsty and I have each week,
Jonathan: [00:04:09] I'm excited to be along for the ride here a little bit and listen to listen to the conversation that you two are having, but I am curious, the, what you're describing is that sort of classic two sided market. how did you figure out how to put the chicken before the egg in this two sided market?
Kristy: [00:04:26] As far as where we go first, like, who are we trying to attract
Jonathan: [00:04:28] Yeah. Like, how do you get these two sides together when you don't have enough of one to entice the other
Kristy: [00:04:33] So, our focus has primarily been on Alison's. So how can we pull these people out of the weeds who are extremely proficient at selling online and by developing that network of Allison's, we can then start to attract Jordans. So as soon as someone requests a pickup and says, Hey, I have a snowboard.
I needed some help selling, or I have a bunch of kid's stuff or I have some farm equipment. we can go into ou...
Is feedback fatigue a thing? If so, Angela may have been experiencing it this week. Clinnect, as a social enterprise, has sought out and encouraged feedback from all stakeholders. Angela talks about how the process of creating a product with transparency and welcoming feedback can take a toll personally. Jonathan reminds Angela of why she is doing this and gives some real life examples from his own career.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Angela: [00:00:00] Yes, my child named Alex might have been messing around a little bit with it. She pretends to do podcasts.
They're really bad.
Jonathan: [00:00:10] I bet. what does she talk about?
Angela: [00:00:11] She kind of makes up stories, but then they don't really have any logical like sequence and to the stories they're very, just weird.
Jonathan: [00:00:21] I wish we could, set it up to record her and then like, just listen to a story that Nora or sorry, Alex.
Angela: [00:00:29] yeah.
not for this podcast. She doesn't know anything about this stuff.
Jonathan: [00:00:33] That's fine. We don't either.
Angela: [00:00:37] Oh my God. That's true.
Intro [00:00:39]
Jonathan: [00:00:39] You're listening to fixing faxes a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your host myself, Jonathan Bowers.
Angela: [00:00:48] And I'm Angela Hapke. So it is October 29th.
Jonathan: [00:00:52] Oh, we're going to divulge the date. People are going to have expectations.
Angela: [00:00:56] Yeah, I know. I know. And it's okay. It's okay. Halloween is in two days.
Jonathan: [00:01:02] Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Angela: [00:01:03] my daughter is going to Alex is supposed to be dressing up tomorrow. She has been wanting well, she's changed her mind a million times of what she wants to be, but she, she finally, decided on being a bunny. we left costume making to last minute last night, it was like all falling apart.
Everything was not working. I couldn't deal with it. I lost my ever-loving mind. Alex then decides to drop the bomb. Well, mum, after you bought the bunny costume, I actually didn't want to be a bunny anymore, but I knew you had bought all the stuff to make the costume. So I didn't say anything. I really want to be a bat.
Oh, I didn't even know what to say. So many things were going through my mind at that moment.
taking an old black tablecloth that I have. I will make a poncho style wings for her. She's going to wear black leggings, little face makeup on, and she will be the bat.
She's always wanted to be. I can't deal with Halloween
anymore.
Jonathan: [00:02:12] There's no time for those kinds of hobbies right
Angela: [00:02:14] No, there's no time. I, totally, just, I don't know what the word is, but I, I just did whatever. I, I didn't make Nora's costume. She wanted to be a bear. I bought a costume. she loved it. It just fits her thank goodness cause that also came yesterday and her biggest concern was, if I am a bear, maybe I shouldn't crawl around outside, but rather should walk.
So the cars don't hit me.
Jonathan: [00:02:47] She's very safety conscious. I like that a lot. I mean, there's a number of reasons why you shouldn't crawl around on Halloween in a costume, but that, that I think is the most important one.
Angela: [00:03:04] she was though, this child was testing me by saying that she was testing me to see if that was appropriate or not, because she really did want to crawl. So she was more like I'll test the waters. And see what mom says about this. And then when she says it and I'm like, that's a good idea, Nora, you shouldn't crawl.
Jonathan: [00:03:23] Well, happy Halloween. Hope everyone had some candy,
Angela: [00:03:26] And you were smart about your venturing out or not venturing out during Halloween? Segue should just say that everybody know
Jonathan: [00:03:38] Yeah. Just say, just say the word segue,
Angela: [00:03:40] segue,
On Receiving Feedback [00:03:42]
I did have a topic in my mind that was bothering me today.
Jonathan: [00:03:45] Yeah, let's talk about it. Was it bothering you earlier on the call?
Angela: [00:03:51] Explain yourself, Jonathan. Why would you
Jonathan: [00:03:53] There was just a few moments where you were sitting there. Purse, lipped,
Angela: [00:03:58] Not pursed my lips.
Jonathan: [00:04:02] occasionally. Yeah. If you're thinking, well, no, it's not like a, not like that. It's more like they get thinner. Like you'll, you'll be thinking about something and then
Angela: [00:04:12] Is that what I do is
Jonathan: [00:04:13] I can't, I can't do your face.
Angela: [00:04:15] Ah, I wish she could, because then I'd know what I
Jonathan: [00:04:18] we'll start recording everything so that I can point it out to you.
Angela: [00:04:22] So we really do nice debriefs, like in sports where they, your coach goes over things later about how you're really, really screwed it all up.
Jonathan: [00:04:31] I'll circle your lips and say, Casey here this moment here, I read this as, and then the eyebrow knit.
Angela: [00:04:38] Oh, there's a lot of eyebrow action. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep. Um, yeah, it ties in. It ties in,
so okay. In the last year of building Clinnect, and maybe, well, actually, I'm going to ask you a few questions around this too. In the last year of building Clinnect. I have tried to lead, a company that is also a social enterprise in a very transparent, hence obviously this podcast too, in a very transparent, inclusive way where I invite people to give me feedback, because I know.
I know we have a small team, so I know our team really well. I know our users really well. I know a lot of them by first name. I, my, I have a big, group of founders and, investors and stuff. And I know, I know everybody really well, and I think that I have welcomed and created the welcoming of feedback a
Jonathan: [00:05:46] okay. Okay. okay. I have a feeling I know where this might go.
Angela: [00:05:53] And I wanted that. I wanted this to be a social enterprise where people felt, they had a say in, or not even a say, but rather, a place to be heard about something that was being built that ha I believe has, is going to have such big impact. In the last week and a half, I feel like that all has come, not come back to bite me a little bit, but has certainly made ...
Fresh off a second design sprint, Angela and Jonathan discuss how the sprint uncovered the evolution of not just Clinnect but possibly the evolution of patient referrals. Angela & Jonathan discuss how the new features will create a shift from static patient referrals to dynamic ones with ease. Taking examples from other industries and applying the patterns to Clinnect was an organic next step; but the impact this uncovered for both patients and care providers is what they delve into in this episode.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jonathan: [00:00:00] Uh, yeah, I have to turn the, my little desk heater off. Cause I think it, I think it travels up the arm and makes a bunch of racket. So now I'm sitting in the cold
Angela: [00:00:10] oh, is it like a really loud one or something? Is
that why I was just about to turn mine on and now
Jonathan: [00:00:18] No, keep it off. No, no, don't turn it on. We're recording. You have to suffer.
Angela: [00:00:23] Frick fine.
Intro [00:00:25]
You're listening to Fixing Faxes a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup, with myself, Angela Hapke.
Jonathan: [00:00:33] And Jonathan Bowers. I made a blanket fort with Zach this weekend.
Angela: [00:00:39] blanket forts I love blanket forts.
Jonathan: [00:00:42] it's our first ever blanket fort.
Angela: [00:00:44] Yay.
Jonathan: [00:00:45] He was in there for like five minutes and then he got bored, but it was still super fun.
Angela: [00:00:49] Isn't that the thing like these kids, like you spent 20 minutes building these darn forts and then they don't even want to sit in them.
hot tip on blanket, forts fitted sheets.
Jonathan: [00:01:04] Okay. Yup.
Angela: [00:01:05] For the roof?
Jonathan: [00:01:07] Oh, interesting. Well, I was, I was sort of propping it up amongst a bunch of other things. I know a fitted sheet would have helped me in this case. Um, I have, uh,
Angela: [00:01:15] chairs and things like that, fitted sheets the best,
Jonathan: [00:01:20] but other, other blanket Fort tip. Many years ago now we decided we were just going to make Christmas presents. That was what we were going to do for Christmas. And for my nephew, I made him a blanket fort kit. I don't remember if I included a blanket or not. but I got, some rope, some special clamps, yeah, clamps, like clamp blankets onto
Angela: [00:01:42] Absolutely.
Jonathan: [00:01:43] it was, it was awesome. And now, now that I tried building a blanket fort, without any of those supplies, I'm thinking I might have to build myself up a little blanket fort kit.
Angela: [00:01:53] Uh, one year Santa brought Alex, what we called an engineering kit and it also had ropes and clamps and pulleys and, Oh, my goodness. That was probably three years ago. And she still uses all of them,
all the pieces all the time. And now Nora, the clamps. Oh my goodness. Like you can go to the dollar store and get just like these little clamps.
If you have kids just go get clamps, they will find all the uses for clamps.
Jonathan: [00:02:22] Excellent. Okay. I'm going to go buy some clamps.
Ah-ha Moments From a Design Sprint [00:02:26]
So what are we going to talk about today?
Angela: [00:02:28] Well, I have an idea.
I was thinking about considering we just spent the last three mornings, doing a design sprint. and I thought, well, it's fresh in our mind. It might be really good to, talk about considering we've always already done a podcast on a design sprint, but also this design sprint, uncovered something very, very interesting for me for Clinnect.
Jonathan: [00:02:55] Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I feel like, I feel like the design sprint itself produce the results that we wanted it to, which has got us to some really, a lot more clarity on the designs for the product and some of these new product features.
Angela: [00:03:09] For sure.
Jonathan: [00:03:09] and I don't want to talk about the design sprint, we've talked about that, but tell me about what clarity it brought for you.
Angela: [00:03:15] Okay. I think I need to give a little bit of context around this because the, so, just for a refresher. Clinnect is a software product in which referring providers can send patient referrals through to specialists in a way that's never been done before. And with that, patient referrals have always been these static entities that go and are composed and created and packaged up and sent from a referring provider through to a specialist and kind of what I've always joked as they kind of get thrown over this, like, Wall.
And hopefully somebody catches them on the other side and everything's taken care of. And that's the way like, historically we've always dealt with patient referrals is okay, I've packaged it all up. I send it away. And I care about this patient and they care about their journey, but my piece is done. And Clinnect was very much built on, on, this idea of that a patient referral is created, packaged up and then sent over. And that's how our beta product does work is we allow a really amazing way to do that. That is for more, effective and patient centric and provider centric. then that originally with just faxes and e-faxes. But then we did this design sprint because we had three new features that we wanted to include that have now changed everything. No, to be dramatic. But so the three features that we're looking at implementing in Clinnect is the ability to add additional attachments to an already sent document. So already we're starting to create a referral as something that could now.
Jonathan: [00:05:10] right. It's not just a, it's not just a, an envelope of stuff that you put in it throw over the wall, but now you're like, Oh, by the way, uh, let me throw this other thing over the wall at you. I forgot.
Angela: [00:05:21] And hopefully it makes it with that other package already said. Right. so that's the one feature that we're, we're adding on. the second feature is a. And we haven't come up with a name for this yet, but it is, basically a patient referral history or journey log. And what it is is we see this in other applications and it's sometimes so subtle that you don't maybe even realize what you're seeing, but you're understanding a flow of a project or a communication or a document or something like that. So what we're looking at putting in is this, this history of the referral was sent from doctor A to doctor B on X date. The referral was changed in urgency from A to B on X date. So really having a, a transparent process around what is happening with this referral...
If you have any questions you would like us to answer, please reach out on Twitter, @FixingFaxes.
We discuss the pressure that is often put on founders to sink your lives into your company and the toll that takes. Even for people who reject the "exhaustion as a badge of honor" culture, it's really hard to find balance particularly during COVID.
Justin Jackson tweeted, "The best thing you can do for yourself (and your business) is to give yourself more margin in your life" with a link to his original article "Good business have margin". We talk about how little margin or buffer we have.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jonathan: [00:00:00] maybe we should take some questions from listeners.
Angela: [00:00:03] Love that. Yes. Okay.
So are we putting it out there to listeners to ask us questions
Jonathan: [00:00:09] Yeah. How do they get ahold of
us?
Angela: [00:00:10] well on Twitter @FixingFaxes
Yeah. DM us on Twitter.
Jonathan: [00:00:20] Yeah. Or ask a question like just reply public reply. That's fine too.
Angela: [00:00:24] Yes. I also think a lot of the people listening, uh, know us personally. So,
Jonathan: [00:00:29] Yes. You can also just fire off a message to one of us.
Angela: [00:00:35] I was so focused on getting Kristy and Tim on as guests that I'm like, Oh yeah, we needed a topic for today.
Jonathan: [00:00:43] Oh, well, um, are we prepared? Sweet?
Introduction [00:00:49]
you're listening to Fixing Faxes a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Jonathan Bowers.
Angela: [00:00:57] And I'm Angela Hapke. So I don't know what kind of list we got on. But my LinkedIn and my emails are being hit with all these people that want to help us grow and, um, look for the use of word, accelerate a lot and venture money and all this kind of stuff, but it's very focused on, um, them helping us try and find money.
So do you know what I do?
Jonathan: [00:01:30] do you just hit spam?
Angela: [00:01:32] I actually have replied a few times saying, thank you for your interest. I have no interest in pursuing this right now. If you'd like to hear more check out this podcast about where I talk about bootstrapping, instead of looking for additional funding.
Jonathan: [00:01:48] You're channeling that into, you're trying to farm listens out of spam.
Angela: [00:01:56] They clearly have not done their research. And so they should do the research
Jonathan: [00:02:02] That's funny. I I've been getting a ton of different kinds of email, um, because my email address is the one that shows up. I th I think it's like linked to the
podcast somehow. Um, so, but I get it chests or, sorry, I get emails about podcast stuff. Like we can help you grow your podcasts. We can help you share your podcasts.
We can help you do this with the podcast. Um, we'd love to have, we'd love to have our, uh, Our, uh, we have an extensive list of high, high profile guests that would love to be featured on your podcast. And it's so
irrelevant and so spammy. but if anyone is feeling like super, super lonely in their inbox, just start a podcast, you will get a ton of great comments from people and they're getting kind of tricky, like
Angela: [00:02:44] Oh, like you're you're you're are you almost convinced?
Jonathan: [00:02:49] um, so, so I like the ones that are not trying to trick me, but are using really clever, like really clever tools are really clever. Uh, techniques to get my attention. I really dislike the ones that are trying to trick me. Like the ones that the ones that come through is as a, like, it looks like a forward from some underling at an employee.
And the forward is like, Uh, the CEO saying like, Hey, you should check out Jonathan from Two Story Robot and, or you should check out Jonathan from the, from the, uh, fixing faxes podcast. Um, I think, I think it'd be a great to work with. And then, and then that person sends me that email and then comments.
It's like, Hey, my boss told me to reach out to you. Like what bunch of bull, whooey is that.
Angela: [00:03:24] Wow. That's a, that's something else. You got to flip that script. Just do what I
do
Jonathan: [00:03:31] I just, I just Mark them as spam.
Angela: [00:03:33] now. I know just bugging you is getting listeners that have my, uh, my spam.
Jonathan: [00:03:39] I do like that though. I'm going to try that. I'm going to try that.
Angela: [00:03:42] Well they're very specifically asking me about something that we released a podcast saying that we wouldn't do right now. So I'm like, well, if you want to learn more about it, then listen to this podcast because I go into exactly why I'm not looking for money right now. Oh my goodness. Sorry. I have stuff at my teeth and it's gross. I'm so glad we're not recording the video. It's just
Jonathan: [00:04:06] Do you so let's get real vulnerable now. Cause you just picked your teeth in front of me. Um,
Angela: [00:04:11] Sorry,
Jonathan: [00:04:13] I like sometimes go back
Angela: [00:04:14] doing?
Jonathan: [00:04:17] and then like pick the
Angela: [00:04:19] Alright,
Jonathan: [00:04:20] yeah. And the back of the, yeah,
Angela: [00:04:23] I get it. I just did that in
Jonathan: [00:04:25] It's like you get that like fresh from the dentist, feeling at home with your fingernails because,
Angela: [00:04:30] Cause those are clean.
Jonathan: [00:04:31] and that's what you're supposed to be doing is
Angela: [00:04:33] Right now in your mouth
Jonathan: [00:04:36] just right in there.
Angela: [00:04:37] Oh no, don't do it wrong.
Jonathan: [00:04:40] on the topic of hands in your mouth, um, children just sneezed directly into your face and mouth, nose, eyeballs, and ears.
Angela: [00:04:47] Yeah. They're gross. Kids are gross.
Jonathan: [00:04:50] I'm going to get sick. I'm pretty sure. Um, which is fine. Cause I. Don't have, I don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. See anyone, but Julie can't.
Angela: [00:05:02] Julie, can't get sick.
Jonathan:...
Show Notes
Building a team while building a product can be a wild ride. Angela doubles her team in the last couple months, she discusses how that feels at a time that the product is being built out. Jonathan gets into how and why he has added to his company, and the outcomes of different hires.
Jonathan talks about taking his son trail running in a stroller, the Thule Chariot Sport.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Angela: [00:00:00] september is a very, very, very hard
Jonathan: [00:00:02] Yeah.
Angela: [00:00:04] in many different ways. Oh, my God, are we both burping? This is going to be amazing podcast.
Introduction [00:00:11]
You're listening to Fixing Faxes a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your hosts, myself, Angela Hapke.
Jonathan: [00:00:22] And I'm Jonathan Bowers and I took Zack for a trail run for the first time this weekend.
Angela: [00:00:27] Wait in a stroller or was he running?
Jonathan: [00:00:33] he, he could run actually, cause we go on our walk. Uh, he's pretty fast.
Angela: [00:00:41] fast for his age.
Jonathan: [00:00:42] yeah. I mean, it's a walk at my pace,
Angela: [00:00:44] Ah, so you went trail running with Zach in a stroller. What kind of stroller do you have that you can take trail running?
Jonathan: [00:00:53] Well, let me tell you about the stroller I have. It's a, uh, it's a Thule Chariot Sport. it's spectacular. It's a little wide to be taking down trail, but it was fun.
Angela: [00:01:07] Does it have suspension in it
Jonathan: [00:01:09] Yeah,
Angela: [00:01:09] Zack? Yeah,
Jonathan: [00:01:10] it has, it has not full system essential, but it's got suspension on the back and then, disc brakes, which is really nice.
Angela: [00:01:18] Did he like it?
Jonathan: [00:01:19] He, he really enjoys being in the, in the chariot. It's like, yeah, he loves it. We go for runs, weekly, at least. But I was getting sick of the same kind of getting bored of the same route and decided that trail running is something that I should start doing to mix it up a little
Angela: [00:01:36] Okay. Yeah.
Jonathan: [00:01:37] boy, is it hard pushing a stroller with a child up a pretty steep hill?
Angela: [00:01:43] Do you do much trail running anyway?
Jonathan: [00:01:45] Nope, I do one or two trail runs a year.
Angela: [00:01:48] Oh, see, we're like, not only am I going to try trail running, I'm going to try trail running with a stroller and my child,
Jonathan: [00:01:55] Yeah. Yeah.
Angela: [00:01:57] I love it. Well, good for you. That's amazing. Are you training at all for? I know there's no races right now, but
Jonathan: [00:02:07] Ironman Canada has, sent off their email saying that Ironman Canada, 2021 is a go as best they know. So they canceled 2020, and we got a deferral to the next year. So I've signed up cause it's the. Who knows. So I'm be training for something that might get canceled again,
Angela: [00:02:26] Oh, right. It would be frustrating. Full iron man or half. Oh, good for you. That's exciting. Where is it?
Jonathan: [00:02:37] Penticton BC?
Angela: [00:02:40] Okay, we'll get updates on that as you go.
Jonathan: [00:02:44] Yes. That is going to be a new focus of my life again.
Angela: [00:02:48] Oh, God, we're going to have to talk about all those things, all the things I don't do, running biking or swimming. Okay. It'll be great.
Ah, okay. Let's jump in.
Growing a Team [00:03:02]
so I, well, can we get Kristy on, but we'll get her on next week. And so then I didn't really have a topic. So then I asked my husband, I said, since he's an avid.
Jonathan: [00:03:17] Listener.
Angela: [00:03:19] Of Fixing Faxes. Is there something that you wanted to like, is there a topic we haven't hit on that's obvious or blah, blah, blah.
And he said, he goes, you know, I think you should start, start talking about building your team, like how you've built a team and things like that. And I was like, Ooh, that might be a good one. So. I was thinking today, it might be kind of fun to talk about. the way that Two Story Robot has built their team and the way that we've built our team, while we've built a product at the same time and how that all kind of goes. And in the spirit of Fixing Faxes, we're going to talk about things as they happen. So as we build our team, we talk about that.
Jonathan: [00:04:02] not about the, not about the job application process that requires people to submit faxed resumes to you.
Angela: [00:04:11] Could you imagine if I asked for faxed resumes? Oh my God. It's should just shut up shop now if that was the case. yeah, no, no. I was thinking no in the spirit of talking about things as they happen instead of
Jonathan: [00:04:25] Yeah. So you've, you've just hired a couple of folks.
Angela: [00:04:32] we have just added a full time visual designer and we added a part time intern,
Jonathan: [00:04:41] We've talked about one of these people in the past.
Angela: [00:04:45] You talked about, Megan as the intern in the past, but I don't think we've talked about, Ammara is, now our new visual designer and she's working remotely out of Mississauga, Ontario. So not only did I add a new person, but I also added a fully remote, different time zone person. Uh, So before it's Jackie and myself, are the full, are the full time people on Central Referral Solutions.
Doubling from two to four [00:05:16]
And then we have Rosemary. Now Rosemary kind of sometimes gets forgotten about, cause she doesn't work on Clinnect, the product she works, for the general surgeons in town. And I always call her my, my research and development department, um, and she's and she's part time. So we kind of like. Almost, I feel like almost doubled our team with the addition of, of, two, two people to, to only three.
Jonathan: [00:05:40] That's a big, that's a big jump.
Angela: [00:05:42] Yeah. Can we talk about that?
Jonathan: [00:05:44] Well, I mean, it's, it's when it's two, it's you and Jackie like back and forth, and
Angela: [00:05:49] re and Rosemary ...
This episode delves into working remotely, and how Two Story Robot responded to the pandemic. Jonathan designed his company as a remote-first technology company and there was a lot of benefit to this when COVID hit. They found themselves in a unique position, ready for remote work but still had to deal with the pandemic. At the forefront of remote work they had a lot of knowledge to share, and we dig into this.
Check out the blog post on this topic they published.
Find Us Online
Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca
Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com
Credits
Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke
Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)
Transcript
Jonathan: [00:00:00] Hey, just a heads up. This episode of fixing faxes does have a couple of swear words in it. They're not like the big swear words, just some of the lower order swear words. Um, but they're still swear words. Anyways, if that matters to you. Maybe skip this one.
very few bongs last time that was better,
uh,
Angela: [00:00:20] was very, uh, trying very hard, not to whack anything on my
Jonathan: [00:00:26] I had, I had four more far more bongs, uh, in mine. I'm not sure. Cause I've moved my mic over here. I'm not used to it. I want a different boom. Uh, Justin Jackson posted a picture of him and I was like, what's that thing? It's cool. It doesn't have it's. It's like all the, all the mechanisms are inside the arm.
It looks very, very cool. Um, it's not that expensive, but it doesn't, it's not going to help me cause it's not, it's not longer. I want something longer.
Angela: [00:00:51] Oh, you want like a,
like a professional
Jonathan: [00:00:55] yeah. I want something to come down from the roof and maybe on like a track that I can just like short
slide it around and it can help me in and out of, in another of the bath. Um, that sounds awesome.
Intro [00:01:09]
You're listening to Fixing Faxes, a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your host, Jonathan Bowers.
Angela: [00:01:17] And myself Angela Hapke. So Nora got to sent home with a book on Friday.
Jonathan: [00:01:25] I thought you were,
Angela: [00:01:27] Just got sent home from
Jonathan: [00:01:28] She got sent home with a cold.
Angela: [00:01:30] Nope. She got sent home with this book on, on Friday and I found it in her, in her, her bag that she comes home with and I said, Oh Brad, I think Nora stole a book from daycare and he goes, Oh, Nope.
Uh, actually her daycare, uh, teachers sent it home specifically for her. Uh, for us to read to her because of it's all about a froggy, but needs to share his pond.
Jonathan: [00:01:58] subtle hint.
Angela: [00:01:59] no. It was nothing subtle about it. She was very clear. So it's September there is, there's a big transition change in daycare. Lots of new kids starting Nora is one of the older kids now at the right, the old age of three. And, um, It's having a wee bit of trouble with the new children and sharing her, sharing her pond, uh, including friends and space. So Brad reads the book to Nora, uh, and I'm laying with her, she's going to sleep last night. And I say, Oh, did you know, did daddy read you a book tonight? Yeah. Nora is it about a froggy who share a pond. And I was like, Oh, well that sounds like a really good book. She's kind of silent. And she goes, there are a lot of new kids at daycare and I was like, yeah.
And sh this is what she says. I'm not prepared for that. Yeah.
Jonathan: [00:03:01] She's Oh, she's three. So she she has not only the self awareness to know that she's not prepared, but also understands that this book has been sent home to help her cope with that and create some strategies to share.
Angela: [00:03:16] Oh, never underestimate your children.
Jonathan: [00:03:23] That's so funny.
Angela: [00:03:24] Anyway, I had to tell you that story because it was just too adorable.
Jonathan: [00:03:28] I love that.
Angela: [00:03:30] I not prepared for that.
Okay.
Jonathan: [00:03:34] that's a big word prepared.
Angela: [00:03:36] I know she says "p-pared", but yeah. No. I know,
Remote Work [00:03:46]
Yeah. So today we wanted to talk a little bit about, um, working remotely. This is a huge topic right now, uh, with, uh, COVID and a lot people working remotely, a lot of people that have never worked remotely are now working remotely. A lot of people that have worked remotely or some, what worked remotely are now a hundred percent working remotely and just all the, the spectrum of, of working at home to working in the office.
And Two Story Robot does a really. Um, a really cool way of, of handling remote work, um, because you guys have done it by design right from the get go almost. And I just, I thought it'd be really cool to talk about that.
Jonathan: [00:04:31] Thank you. Yeah. Um, It is by design, but it doesn't account for a pandemic.
Angela: [00:04:41] Fair enough.
Jonathan: [00:04:42] Like we, we have been, we have been remote pretty much from the beginning. I mean, most of us actually do work out of, out of one office. Um, there was six of us that have one office and then a few sort of scattered about everywhere.
Um, but we've always, we've always taken the stance that if you can do your work remotely, then the work in the office will just benefit from that. And that, that, that has proven true. Like, we were very good at documenting. We're very good at communicating digitally. Um, we don't have to have meetings and when we do have, uh, zoom calls, they tend to be, um, Better than the average zoom call that I've attended for other teams, just because we're used to it, we understand the process behind it and the empathize with everyone.
part of it came from the MBA program, actually.
Yeah. Cause I did what we did. We both did the MBA at Sauder and I was, uh, although we had to go down for the actual courses and the classwork. A lot of the project work happened remotely. And so, um, I got to experience both, uh, working with a team that was physically close to each other so they could meet.
And then I was the remote one and then occasionally there was like, all the remote people were put on a team and we would work remotely. Those meetings always went way better.
Angela: [00:05:58] Yes. I found the same thing. I usually got put on the PR on the team with all the remote people also. and let's also be clear that you didn't just finish your MBA. That is over it's over 10 years ago now, right?
Jonathan: [00:06:12] uh, 2010, 2011. About 10 years
...
The podcast currently has 22 episodes available.