Jordan Samuel Fleming
CEO smrtPhone & host of Supercharged!

Episode Summary

In this extra special episode our guest host Pete Cuff (CEO of Future Solutions and frequent guest) turns the tables and interviews Jordan Samuel Fleming, CEO of Gamechangers and co-Founder of smrtPhone!

In this episode Jordan talks about his initial entry into Podio and how he developed from a user to a Podio Partner, and there are lively discussions around what Podio is and what it should focus on. Jordan talks about the mistakes he made when he first started working in Podio and about some of the key design principles he has learned and leveraged into the systems that Gamechangers builds.

This is a great episode to hear more about how to get started designing in Podio and how you can grow your Podio understanding over time, as well as a great episode if you’re thinking about starting a business building Podio for others.

Thanks to Pete for being a great guest host!

Show Links:

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to powered by Podio. Automation is everything. Supercharge your business with Podio. Get ready for another episode of supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming , your weekly dive into the awesome impact workflow and automation can have on your business when it’s powered by Podio. Join us each week as we learn from the top Podio partners in the world as we investigate system integrations and add ons and hear from real business owners who have implemented Podio into their business. Now join your host, Jordan, Samuel Fleming’s , CEO of game changers for this week’s episode.

Pete: 0:44

Hey everybody. Welcome to this episode of supercharged! I’m your guest host Pete Cuff here to talk all about power of workflow and automation when your business is Powered by Podio. Today is a very special episode of this podcast as well. We turn the tables on the podcast host Mr. Jordan Samuel Fleming from Gamechangers. It’s an opportunity to let him be the guest for a change and to talk about his thoughts and ideas about the wonderful world that is Podio. So hello Jordan. Welcome.

Jordan: 1:15

Hi Pete. Thank you very much. It’s very strange to not have to prepare anything. Uh, but it’s also kind of nice. Let someone else do the lifting.

Pete: 1:25

Good stuff. So , uh , as regular listeners to the podcast, we’ll know , uh , we take a deep dives into , uh , different Podio partners around the world , uh , both users and developers of Podio. And one of the first questions that you like to ask people I would like to ask you, which is always interesting to hear your journey about how you discovered Podio in the first place , uh , how you started to use it. So tell us all about you.

Jordan: 1:50

Yeah, so I got involved in Podio. Uh, I can’t honestly remember the year at this point. It’s a while back, it’s years ago. Um, but what happened was, I was, at the time, I was running a sort of marketing/management consultancy company, you know, a , a consultancy business. And , um, I had been using a product called daylite, which is a Mac based sort of , um, well it’s now an online SaaS, but, but, but then it was a desktop app. Um, and I’ve been using that and it was fine. It was like, you know, a license was whatever. And it was, it was what it was, but it wasn’t very flexible. And more importantly, it was Apple base , which of course my company was, but not everybody else’s. So collaboration, working with designers, getting them involved in the project management process was like, do I want to spend 150 bucks so this guy can, you know, and back then, I mean the business smaller, you know, and so, you know, when you, there are times when business where you’re like, whatever, 150 bucks is nothing. And there are times in business where you’re like, I don’t know, 50 bucks, Jesus Christ. I do. I want to spend that. And, and, and I, I was just looking for a bit more flexible solution. And weirdly, what happened was there was a very well known daylite partner who had won a lot of awards in the kind of ecosystem. Not quite the same as a Podio ecosystem, but there was like a forum and there was like a partner network. And she, I won’t name names because I’m not sure that’s fair. Um, but she, she was well known and won a lot of awards in daylite and PO , and she moved over to Podio. and she’s sort of told us all she was doing it, which was a bit shit for daylite. And, but that made me go, Oh, what’s this? Right. And she had the Podio shirt . She was like recruited by Podio in some ways. She was, she was, from what I understand, she was like approached as, Hey, you know, this is when they were doing popup shops and California back in that, those days of Podio . Um, and I looked at it, I had no idea what the hell was going on. Um, I remember she added me to her workspace. And then when I said, why do I have all these contacts? She said, well, when you work with me, I’ll tell you how to remove it. And that immediately turned me off her. And I was like, fuck this. Uh, you know, and, and, and at the time we had nothing to do with building systems. We were a consultancy. And I, but I, and I built a system and I kind of, I went through the journey that I think a lot of people do. Um, where I built something which was horrible, complicated. Um, yeah , it was, it was too minute in detail. It tracked too many things. It was too complex. Um, but I, but I, but it , but I could build something and, and then at the same time I was doing it, Podio Flow now Globiflow or then GlobiFlow and now whatever the hell Citrix is calling him , um, which they should just call it Podioflow, right. We should just call it Podio flow. They bought that domain from Andreas , call it Podioflow. But , uh, at the time that you Andres launched Podio flow, Mmm . And , and the first version of GlobiFlow came out and it made you go, Oh God, so you can go if this happens, do this. And , um, you know, and I , I was on, you know, and I was on like the fourth , the , the $11 a month tier, cause it was 14 and they gave everybody a discount something. And , um , and that’s how I, I figured out and then the cut to now when all we do is build business systems and software, sort of a weird journey. But at the beginning it was just, I was looking for something to run my consultancy and collaborate.

Pete: 6:13

And how many were in the team at that time? So when you, when you made that change, cause that’s, that could be quite impactful upon an organization.

Jordan: 6:24

I want to say there was about five of us. It was a , is a , there’s about five people , uh , mainly working from one office in Edinburgh. Um, and I want to say there’s about five of us when we made that change,

Pete: 6:43

but that if I’ve understood that right, that that change was to your fundamental business process. So your fundamental business platform transition from system system X does system Y met ?

Jordan: 6:57

Yeah, we got rid of daylight. So what was that, what was that journey like? How did you, how did you convince people that this new system was going to be the one that you, you should put your eggs in the basket for ? Um, probably not. Well. Um, yeah, I mean I think there was definitely a collaborative nature to Podio that facilitated, and this bear in mind, this was before we really , um, you know, this is before smrtPhone and before , uh, I, you know, email integration to the extent we now do it. So we didn’t even have that kind of all singing, all dancing integration. Um , but I think the ability, you know, we built out a project management process first. Yeah . And it was too complex and our tracking and like availability versus, you know, capacity tracking and we built some very complex things that didn’t necessarily work all the time, but between that and the integrated chat, et cetera, it became a sort of, okay. You know, like I don’t recall there being much of a, an argument. Um, and uh , you know , uh, but I, I would say there was, there was probably , uh, a learning curve for that. We all went through together on it that really didn’t get much pushback .

Pete: 8:38

Okay. And what, what was that, what kind of some of the common mistakes or misunderstandings that you think that new , new Podio users tend to have about either what it is or what it can do or kind of to draw on what you’ve said on there , how they should be using it?

Jordan: 8:55

Well, I think I , and we see this as a, as a Podio consultancy now. Um, we see this all the time and that is your first version. If you build your own Podio version, your first version is almost always convoluted and complex. It’s almost always way too much of everything. Um, and you, you know, you, you have to find a balance between usability and tracking between people living in , breathing and being, you know, and, and using a system to make sure that progress is maintained and um, and, and something that people can use on a day to day basis without going insane. And part of that is like, I always, when we built our first project management system in Podio, we overbuilt it. We massively overbuilt it into like, if this status in this happens and move to this status and do this and you know, because that’s the, but then life doesn’t work like that. So then you’ve got a system fighting against you saying, well no, you should be over here now. And like, yeah, but we’re not over there right now. And so, you know , um, and , and I think you’re the can you go into building your first Podio a lot of times and you overbuild it into like the m inutia of detail thinking, God, I’m finally g oing t o be able to track all this and do all this. And the truth of the matter is that actually is, it works against you and you have to p are things down a nd, a nd, and think about what d oes, how a system works in real life.

Pete: 10:43

There’s a saying in the design world that less is more. Is it , is that your kind of feeling about Podio?

Jordan: 10:50

Um , simpler. It’s not the simpler, simple key, you know, keep it simple, stupid. Um, uh, you know, there, there are, there are, there is a compulsion I think for some people. And some business owners to think, Oh great, now I can track everything. Okay . And that’s not necessarily going to work for you. It’s , you know, it’s just not, and , and I mean I , it’s just, it’s going to potentially add more heartache and more pain.

Pete: 11:22

Yeah. I think one of the things that most organizations around the globe will , uh , would hold their hand up to is the , the, the victim of the , uh, I’ll just CC X person into a , into an email so that I know that I’ve told them they’ve covered it or they’ve seen it or something. Do you feel that that something that Podio addresses?

Jordan: 11:44

Yeah, I , well from an email point of view , um , I , uh, I mean I did it this morning so I can’t say that. Um, but uh, yeah shit, but in general, cause it’s a new employee. Um, in general , uh, if you CC me on an email now I’m going to think you’re insane. Um, there is simply no need to do that. And CC, the only time you should CC someone, like my view of it is if you’re cc’ing me, it’s because you want the client to know I’m involved. It’s not , not internally. I can see the goddamn email, you know, don’t waste my time. Um, where you CC me is where you want the client to know by the way, Jordan’s in on this and he knows this. And so like, you know, so like when my accounts person is chasing an invoice, it’s like, and now I’ve actually elevated this to the CEO, you know, so that the guy who owns the company is in this chain. But , uh, yeah, I mean the , the collaborative nature of Podio. I mean we’ve talked about this in many conversations, but you know , my team is spread across the Philippines, Europe, USA, different countries in Europe, mainly Poland now actually , um, and the USA and Canada. And we work so seamlessly on things. It’s not even a question like it the, and you almost sometimes have to step back and Marvel at our , at , at the ability that we have as businesses now. And that Podio lets you , um, collaborate in, in a way that you don’t even notice you’re doing it. Like, you know, I mean this, this whole thing right now, I mean this is is April in 2020, which means we’re all self isolating in , in our homes. Um, from a pure business perspective, aside from clients, you know, aside from the business worries of like, will people survive and will we have clients paying and, and all of that, which is obviously a big worry. The transition for everybody working from home. Who cares when you’re working in an environment like Podio because you, you, you have no loss of anything. Um, and any capacity. And that’s something that , uh, I think people, you know, the, the, if you, if you really want to understand the power of Podio, it’s the power to be able to collaborate first and foremost.

Pete: 14:19

Now that I obviously completely agree with you, a slightly bias myself. Um, but how do you think therefore that the Podio compares to other, other similar platforms that are all about collaboration and online communication ? So, you know , you’re basecamp asanas, trellos , uh , even the dirty word that is Salesforce is of this world.

Jordan: 14:42

I mean, I think it beats the shit out of them all , uh, personally. Uh , um, the, the, the simple fact is , um, you know, and, and in sales pitches to people, it’s always the difference between Podio and almost every other system. Now, you could argue that things like bubble and even air table are closest to being competitors , um, because of the flexibility of being able to change fields and like, you know , um, but they each have their own, you know , problems as well. Uh , but when you, when you look at Podio, the biggest advantage is that you can build Podio to your process and, and simply put, and with GlobiFlow with the automation, with the API automation, GlobiFlow brings in the ability to uh , quickly build elements and link them together and create all the automation you need. Podio beats everybody. It beats them on price. It beats them on functionality. It beats them on speed of access and , and , and , and launch. And, and it, it beats them on the ability to integrate multiple different functionalities across your business, into one system. You know, Salesforce works great as a CRM and a sales pipeline tracking its shit as project manager can’t do it. It’s not built to do it. Asana, okay. You could say it’s a good project management tool if you like it, if it fits the way you work, but it can do a good job of doing CRM or it can’t do HR. Um , okay. Zendesk is real good at, at like , um, customer interaction and, and ticket based kind of interactions. But it’s ah , it’s not going to do a good job as your sales or your HR, your finance, your projects. So your choices are either spread all these things out, not really have them syncing up brilliantly and having people move from system A, B, C and D to accomplish everything or bring it into one system, let the data aggregate together and give it into one combined. Uh, you know, universal place that is collaborative. It’s no brainer. Podio beats them all.

Pete: 17:07

And that’s, that’s probably an interesting point there is there is a very , um, very active and vibrant , uh, Podio extensions market . So people who have built upon the Podio API , uh, in order to what they would perceive to be fill the gaps that patio has left. Um, are you as obviously the owner of smrtPhone and other extensions for Podio is your, is your view that Podio should be doing more and that it should be a big, a big, a big a product? Like, for example, when it purchased GlobiFlow and said, right now we’re doing all of this big automation, but we’re going to do it in house now rather than being a third party extension. Or is your view that Podio should be simpler, cleaner, more straight forward and have more extensions to it, more opt-ons, more options?

Jordan: 18:04

Hmm . That is the question, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, I had, funny, I had a call yesterday , uh , for smrtPhone with ’em , one of the SVPs at Citrix , um, Kurt , um, uh, who’s in charge of the digital sales for America, for SMB market to show them smrtPhone. Um, and you know, I think if we boil down what, like you could argue that Podio could integrate more CRM elements. You could argue that, and I did argue in the past that, you know, why don’t we have an email app, an inbox functionality? You can build that though. Well, you could argue , um, and I think you could successfully argue Podio would benefit from some visualization of data more than the relatively shit charts that we have access to as, as premium customers. Um, or the pretty ugly God awful things you can do in GlobiFlow. Um, so you could argue that that would be a good idea and I think that one you’d be potentially successful. You could argue that you should be able to do what X, Y and Z to take advantage of a project management functionality or to take advantage of HR functionalities or whatever else. But really is that… Why? You know…Podio, I am, if Podio works and is and is smooth in terms of its stability and all of the things around that. I actually, you know, you know yourself on the GlobiFlow forums without fail every three to five months someone’s gonna post a bitching comments thread about how Podio isn’t innovating and that was Citrix is killing this and I’ll , you know why other products like air table are doing this or bubble are doing this and without fail, those con, those are , they happen every three to four or five months. And it’s like, Oh here we go again. And you know, the truth is let’s, what is Podio really, really amazing at ? And that is giving you the tools to build a system that meets your business and everything else is secondary. Like, like the Podio is core functionality when it , when all is is working as it should is exactly what Podio should focus on. It’s a platform, it’s not an HR system, it’s not a CRM system. It’s not a sales pipeline management system. It’s not a project management system. It’s a platform on which you can build functioning tools.

Pete: 21:10

Isn’t one of the challenges that therefor that presents is the fact that people come along, especially in kind of modern, modern world and especially for business owners who are looking for, well the solution they go, I’ve heard a lot about this thing. Or maybe they’ve never but anything about Podio. And they come along with and because they’re looking for a CRM because they’re looking for project management because they’re looking for pipeline tracking. They go, so where is the function to turn on the sales tracking? Where is the CRM button? And when the response comes back off, well, you can use it that way, but that’s not the only thing it can do. Isn’t that kind of conflicting? Isn’t that confusing to new users?

Jordan: 21:57

Yeah, but, but tough shit. I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, yes it is. And, and there, there could certainly be better efforts to , uh , onboard people better and like onboard new completely new organization owners. Um, I argued for years with Citrix that they should , uh, they should , um, utilize the partner network and run monthly or weekly Podio webinars with partner network . Because if you think about the active partners out there of which, you know, okay, there’s probably only, well, you know, a small percentage of which that you’d actually say are really, really active. But there’s enough that we would only have to commit to once or twice a year running a free hour webinar. Um, and I, and I think that would be brilliant. A standing webinar and we all, you know, everybody takes a turn , the partners take a turn hosting it and answering questions and showing them things. There’s definitely onboarding bits. But the truth of the matter is…or are we trying to beat Asana at Asana’s game or are we trying to beat Salesforce at Salesforce’s game or are we trying like what, where, where, where is the market? Kind of like smrtPhone. To give you an example, the smartphone , um, our core, what smrtPhone is as a platform is a phone system. It aint’ rocket science. It’s a VoIP…not that it’s not complex to build Jesus Christ, but it’s, it’s a phone system. You make calls, you receive calls, you make texts, you receive texts, you can do it , the sales dialer or you can listen to your calls or what, but you know , there’s voicemails and recordings and all that. It is a phone system. We are not the only one. There are lots out there. There are way bigger than us are, but our niche is full integration into platforms. I. E. Podio right now and probably others in the future. What is Podio? Is Podio going to go toe to toe with Salesforce as a sales CRM? No, because they’ll lose, you’re not going to win that game. And is it going to go toe to toe with QuickBooks online as a finance system? No, you’re not going to win that game. Um, we, we can’t try and, and play, I’ve always argued this, when Citrix tries to focus Podio’s marketing on like project management or CRM, all we’re doing is setting us up for us fail. And does that mean that it’s maybe a slower growth or it’s a, it’s a harder growth? Sure. Yeah, it is. But you know, I , I don’t, I don’t, the moment we start trying to, to sell Podio as a CRM, a tool out of the box, you’re fucked. You’re absolutely fucked .

Pete: 25:18

I think, again, one of the things that , um , interests me about it at all is that people tend to kind of come looking for an answer to a problem that they have. And so let’s take Salesforce going, right? That is a great CRM. So I’m going to use that for my CRM. And that would be a , uh , a horizontal. It would be , um, something that can be applied to lots of different industries. They all use a CRM system or they all use a finance package. And so that’s a horizontal and then you’ve got things like go the other dimension, which is the verticals of we’re going to create a complete solution for the real estate industry in the States or something like that. And it’s kind of cradle to grave of that whole process from sales lead through to invoicing and follow ups and so on. Great. I kind of feel that Podio is positioning itself in neither the horizontal nor the vertical market, but more going where a box or where a square, you know we’re, we’re a , we’re a thing that can be anything. What would you like it to be? And part of that trouble therefore is explaining what that is. When people say, but I know what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a CRM or I know what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a real estate management tool.

Jordan: 26:30

You’re 100% right and that’s where the marketing, and I used to work in marketing, so I’m going to bitch out Citrix marketing for a second. That’s where they have always positioned Podio wrong. Stop trying to say we’ve got the box and start telling people you can make the box you want. Stop trying to say we’ve got the tool and start trying to say, you know you can make the tool you need for the job at hand and that’s a real, that’s okay. That may sound like the same thing, but it’s not. It’s a difference between saying, Hey, why this shiny CRM and we’ll do these things and Hey, you want to you, you want to build the best customer relationship tool. You can, we can , you can build it with us. And then that’s a really that from a marketing perspective, that’s where Citrix in my opinion has always gotten Podio pitched wrong because the marketing people in Citrix want to position Podio like sharefile. Well , sharefiles easy. It’s a fucking file management system with some bells, right? Like, but it’s, it’s, you know, sharefile is, it’s a file folder of stuff. It’s a file management system with, okay. Yes. You can add the bells of of HIPAA compliance and the bells of e-signature and the bells of even Microsoft word being office online, being in there and all that. But essentially in as a folder structure, it’s a file management tool. That’s what your sharefile is. So you can say, Hey, sharefile, is it file management system? And everyone goes, well I need a file management system and in great. And so they try to apply that marketing logic to Podio and it , it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it doesn’t work because then you come in expecting, Oh, I’ve got a project management system tool. Well where is it? And an okay, yeah, you can say I’m looking and it’ll install some apps, but that’s not the, that’s how the argument we should position people. We should position people into, okay, think about your, think about what you want to do and then build some simple apps. See how easy that is. See how easy it is to collaborate. Think about your business and how you can improve it . And that’s where partners like us come in. But Citrix should be doing a lot better job at that. In my opinion. They’ve always pitched that wrong.

Pete: 28:53

Yeah. I think, I think probably one of the things that people, the twin when you said it’s a [inaudible] , the intermittent bitching that people do saying and where is, where is the innovation in , in Podio? Where is it? Where’s the next stuff coming from? That’s probably cause lots of these other platforms that we’ve talked about today are quite forward and coming out with saying, we’ve released this new feature, you know , and some, some are releasing new features weekly and um , it looks like huge progress is going on. What probably isn’t being shouted about in , in the Podio land is all of the bespoke solutions that are being created every single day by organizations around the world using this one platform. So they don’t, they don’t need , um, follow on tasks because somebody built a follow on task process. S o t hey, b ut, but nobody writes about that to say, you know, f rom, from Citrix HQ, from Podio HQ saying, look at all of these i nnovative solutions. Your one i n your brain is just around the corner. What is it?

Jordan: 29:59

Yeah. And , and that, no, I mean there’s no question and the people, but the thing is like, okay , smrtphone , um , really release new features all the time. We’ve just released a new iOS app, a version two, which has got full text messaging capabilities. It’s not an un-complex thing to do. Um, that’s fine. Well, we’re a phone system. Podio isn’t, and, and that’s where like, you know, like if Salesforce releases them a new functionality that’s around, you know , chances are it’s going to be around increasing or changing or upgrading or making better their core proposition. And when your core proposition is a CRM or a sales pipeline tool, great release features that relate to a sales or you know , CRM or a sales force , that’s not Podio’s core proposition, you know, now could Podio , uh , would it be nice if we saw some improvements in Podio? I mean, there are some things I think we’d all like that will also impact on performance. Sure. But what we can’t go down the line of, in my opinion at least to go down the line of, of you know, let’s add this functionality, CRM functionality for instance, you immediately negate the strength the box Podio can play in and win right the game. Cause if you, if you try, you put Podio up against Salesforce , they can lose, they’re going to lose. If you go toe to toe, you know, you are putting me up against Mike Tyson in that game and I’m going to get knocked out. Um , both give them a good fight I would run. Um , but , but like bubble take, bubble for instance It’s, have you ever used bubble?

Pete: 31:56

Yeah, I’ve used, I’ve dabbled around with it. Like explain what bubble is.

Jordan: 32:00

Well, I bubble is in essence a low, low slash no code solution may claim it as it’s not completely true . If you want to get more advanced, like anything , uh , any , any like, like Podio, Podio is a no code low code solution. But if you want to get more advanced, Oh shit, sooner or later some things need to be coded . Um, whether that’s a calculation field and knowing, you know , how many people know how to change time zones in a calculation field date. Um , it’s not complex. It’s not hard coding. Um, it’s a JavaScript , uh , command. But you , until you know it, you would know how to do that. You would never know how to do a .TZ Code, right? Um , so, so bubble is a, is a low code option like Podio, but with the added benefit or drawback, depending on how you think about it, where the user interface can be changed, can be completely customized , uh, and which, which sounds great except that that opens up its own complexities. One of Podio is great strength is, and people always bitch about the user interface of Podio. And I’m agree, I agree. Could use a refresh, a bit of a modernization, but would I change that much? No, because it’s consistent and once you start to know how to use Podio, you can add in any bit of functionality you want and your team won’t bat an eye because it will always look and work the same way. The moment you start doing custom UIs and you start changing, that is the moment you start putting in a barrier to new functionality where people have to learn it. You know, you can’t just drop this in and be like, yeah, Oh well it’s , it’s different. Oh no, you , this is how you have to use it with Podio. That’s not , not the same. Um, I think there’s a real, we have to look like, to me, if I was Citrix, the question is what game are we going to fight and where, how are you going to position this product? Um, and , and to me the answer is as a platform on which you can build any tool business tool you want, if you start positioning it as a CRM or the sales or HR or anything, you start ending up having to fight the big boys who are investing their technology into specific functionality that fits that business process. And that’s not where Podio needs to go.

Pete: 34:37

So I’m interested in kind of draw together a few strands here that we’ve , we’ve talked about , um, the both the kind of simplicity and potential complexity of Podio. And all the things you can do with it. And the fact that there are the desires to have some things to work straight out of the box, there are some things that can be achieved with extensions. Uh, and that the first platform that people tend to build can be all over the place and , and very, very advanced in its ambitions, shall we say, and perhaps throttled somewhat on its deliverables and ability. So how techie do you think you need to be to get the most out of Podio? Do you , do you think you need some level of techie ability before to even get started properly?

Jordan: 35:24

No, you need common sense. And that’s the thing that most people don’t have. Um, and that’s something that I didn’t have when I started. Um, I, I’ll give you an example. The other day, a friend of mine on LinkedIn , uh , a client, actually one of the, one of the guys who works for a company that’s a client of ours and a longterm client of ours , um, they , they had a connection on LinkedIn and she was like, I need a CRM. And, and he, he @ mentioned me on LinkedIn and said , you really need, you should talk to Jordan cause they, he built us, we use Podio and he built this system and it’s great and blah blah. So she and I had a video call and you’ll appreciate this ’cause you bang on about this law. Of course she didn’t , she didn’t need a CRM. She said I need a CRM. She didn’t need a CRM. But my point is this, in 30 minutes I showed her how I built three apps with her over video. Just simple apps with not a lot of fields, not a lot of the, I said, look, you can see these fields, you can drop in the shit you want. But the point is her thinking was around an Excel spreadsheet and she knew she wanted to do something. She knew she wanted to track some things and the simple act of understanding how one app can link to another, forget GlobiFlow, forget automating it. That can be, that can be your next step. But just having your data organized in a collaborative space where logically you can link, Oh, here’s my app for suppliers or here’s my, you know , for them, I think her says , you know, here’s my site’s app and here’s my project phases, apps and , and how a site can have one project phase of each and how each phase can have be linked to a different person who’s delivering it and timelines and link to suppliers. Just in 20 minutes. I built out three or four apps with minimal data, but then I linked together so she can understand how to visualize her data in a different way and how to see things in a way that Excel couldn’t simply couldn’t do. Um, you don’t need any specialist or knowledge other than the ability to understand that first step because the light bulb went on for her and she went, Oh God. So that means, so I can just have, I can have an app for this, not for this. I can link this together. And then, you know, then she started saying about , well, another business functionality. And I said, well, new workspace and dah, dah, dah. And that, but you can link the two. And that immediately made her think about her data and the thing she’s trying to do in a Podio sense. 20 minutes. She, she understood that. Um, and from someone who’s just starting out, my advice is always number one, don’t do what I did. Don’t overcomplicate. Don’t think you know. Whoa . Um, but the second thing is think, think logically about one business functionality. Don’t try and do your whole business. Think logically about one functionality okay, a sales functionality. What do I need for my sales functionality ? Well , I need my prospects. I need my, you know, my, my pipeline and , and I need to be able to track certain bits of it. No one, I’ve got this great, you know, now visualize that in Podio. How do you want things to link together? How do you, you know, do we want a supplier lists ? So we have a supplier ? Is that we’re going to link to pipeline or do we want a customer lists ? So we do that. Think about one business process and think about the different elements and business , uh , business, sort of a core objects that go into that and simplify it, get, get something very, very simple working. Um , you can get that done in like an hour in Podio and that at least lets you visualize a bit of data and, and, and understand how the Podio ecosystem of being able to relate all this information together , um, can give you, forget automation, forget all the things we do with Podio to , to make the wizardry happen. Sometimes it’s just about seeing shit and linking it together and that’s how you can get started.

Pete: 39:50

Awesome. Yeah, I think I couldn’t agree with me more. I think it goes back to what we said before. Sometimes less is more. If you, there’s a temptation when you start and learn about all the things that can be possible with Podio that you come in and try and do it all instantly as opposed to, you know, the first time you got in a car and started to learn

Jordan: 40:10

suddenly on the Le mans circuit and add and tear assing or are you just worried about putting the fucking c lutch i n? You know,

Pete: 40:19

so every day is a school day and , uh, with, with Podio, I feel that, you know , everybody is learning more and more and more about what they can do and the different ways that different people are using it , uh, every, every day. The forums on online and the GlobiFlow forum especially is , um, is a very useful resource, I think for anybody looking to get started the gun , um , find out , uh , everything they need to do. Um, finally I just wanted to ask, what would be your , your proudest moment, you think in your and your Podio career that either a system you’ve built for one of your clients or transformation that you’ve gone through yourself , uh , you or your team would be great , uh , great interest .

Jordan: 41:01

Mmm . I , you know, at heart I’m not really a delivery guy. Mmm . Uh, you know, I, I, in my heart of hearts, I’m real good at galvanizing people together and getting ideas happening and I’m not really a delivery guy. Um , I need delivery people around me to get things to happen. Um, uh, but I would say that I’m pretty good at making things start happening. Um, and you know, for me, you know, a couple of things, if from a Podio perspective , um, speak out , um, number one, just , uh, I’m very proud of the team I have right now and how they’ve developed from being, most of them were never even near Podio and now they’re whizzes at it way better than I am, which is great. Ah smrtPhone is certainly one of the, a proud moment for me. Um , because, you know, we took a concept and, and delivered now a $1 million business, u m, and, u h, it’s grown arms and legs. And then the final thing from a Podio perspective is , um, you know, like things like the European partner meet ups . That never happened. And I, you know, I stuck my hand up one day years ago and said, Hey, why don’t we meet up? And , um, and that happens in Copenhagen every year , um , and they’re wicked fun. So , uh, you know, for me it’s about all the things that other people have been able to deliver because I would never be able to execute them, but at least maybe I made the start of the ball. I pushed the start. Um,

Pete: 42:44

that’s fantastic. Yeah , I get it . The thing that’s quite a lot of people don’t have is that ability to start, get going, take a chance to make something happen and push it forward. So , um , fantastic. Jordan’s been brilliant to turn the tables on you , uh, been , uh , really interesting to hear your views on a wide variety of topics. Thank you very much indeed again and have a great day.

Jordan: 43:09

Thanks very much Pete, for uh , bringing me onto my own podcast.

Speaker 1: 43:14

You’ve been listening to supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming . Subscribe today on iTunes, Google play or Spotify for your weekly dive into how you can supercharge your business by making it powered by Podio. Be sure to check out our website. We are game changers.com where you can learn more and arrange a 30 minute call with Jordan Dow BW . Understand how Podio supercharges you.

Jordan Samuel Fleming

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