Why Most Design-Led Founders Fail (And How to Avoid It) | Jordan Nollman, Sprout

Chris Whyte (: 00:00

Did you test it myself looks like it's getting me though I can see

Chris Whyte (: 00:24

I got the slip on there as well. It's all good to say. It's got slip quality. It's got it. I mean, the coffee's okay. Jordan, really good to see you. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. And yeah, hosted me in Boston as well. Let's just turn that there. I'll start that again. Jordan, really good to see you. Is this in the Yeah, let's try that for you. That's probably better, isn't it? Yeah. Especially as we're probably going to talk that way.

Yeah, right. Let me reset this. So actually, before I carry on, so the intro of guys, you're a multiple multidisciplinary designer and founder and CEO of Sprout Studios, Boston based design consultancy known for its award winning work across consumer electronics, healthcare, beauty, soft goods and more. Over the past 20 plus years, you've worked with brands like Bose, Colgate, LG, Seagate and Honda, as well as dozens of startups.

You've held senior creative roles at IDO, Astro Studios and Zebra, earning dozens of patents and helping generate hundreds of millions in revenue and funding for clients. sound about right. You might want to mention Kohler. Kohler. bigger client right now. Yeah, feel free to jump in at any point as well when I'm doing this.

Sprout's got over 50 employees and has grown into three parts, Sprout Studios, Sprout Ventures, taking equity in startups, and Sprout Labs building your own IP. He's still hands-on with the work, while also speaking at Harvard, MIT, and CES. You're also deeply rooted in the Boston and San Francisco design scenes. And he built Sprout into a powerhouse by balancing vision, culture, and hustle. Yeah. Cringely enough.

for you. Right, Let's set this going. I'm just going to quickly mark on there as well.

Chris Whyte (: 02:28

Cool right Jordan really good to have you on the podcast thanks for making the trip and for being a Yeah, very generous host. It's been and guide to Boston for myself. So Great to finally sit down with you I'm gonna do the really cheesy kind of intro bit now and feel free to Correct me if I get anything anything wrong, but um so Jordan I'm in your a multiply

Multidisciplinary designer, founder and CEO of Sprout Studios, a Boston based design consultancy known for its award winning work across consumer electronics, healthcare, beauty, soft goods, and much more. And over the last 20 or so years, you've worked with big brands like Bose, Colgate, LG, Seagate, Honda, and Cola, as well as dozens of startups. You've held senior creative roles at IDO.

Astro Studios and Zebra, earning dozens of patents and helping generate hundreds of millions in revenue and funding for your clients. Sprout's now over 50 employees and has grown across three divisions. So Sprout Studios, Sprout Ventures, and Sprout Labs. you're helping startups and building your own IP. And you're still very hands on with the work as well. Whilst also speaking at Harvard, MIT, and CS.

deeply rooted in the Boston and San Francisco design scenes. Buildings sprang into a powerhouse by balancing vision, culture, and hustle. And just in the short time that we spent together, in the last couple of days, the number of people you've introduced me to and we've met at various things we've been through. It's clear, you're a well-liked member of the design community. So pleasure having you on the show. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Chris. Not at all, not at all, yeah. Really looking forward to diving into this.

l industrial design studio in: 2025

Chris Whyte (: 04:56

State of the design industry and what's next and then? the Boston design consult and community sorry more you're excited about so Hopefully I've not thrown you off too much because I think we've changed the script ever so slightly, but No, not at all no, let's let's dive in show you so always start with the with the question why design? Yeah, where did it all start for you? What first drew you into industrial design?

Yeah, I mean, guess I'm to go way back to childhood, of course, because that's kind of where it starts for most of us between like curiosity and like, just creativity. That's kind of a big part of it. They also think it's, you know, family history. So like my grandfather was a photographer. also ran his own business. My grandmother was a painter. My uncle was an artist. My dad was a school teacher slash creative writer. My mom started as a camp. She was like an art teacher at camps.

then she got into retail sales. like, yeah, it's definitely like in the blood for sure. So that was like one thing. And then like, you know, as a kid, I think it's like everybody kind of tinkers with stuff. But like for me, it was some of the some of the obvious stuff. I was obviously super into toys, one from the play side, but also like I would like dismantle my like figures, heads and glue them onto other ones. And I take vehicles and figure out some other way to compile them into like.

massive trucks that were just way bigger than what I was getting. And then I'd start building my own stuff. And that would be like with whatever random tools I could find around the house and boards of wood and so on. I think ultimately like a lot of it rolled into like what at least when I was in school, I just drew a ton as a kid. I didn't take any really formal art training, just drew all the time. And then on top of that, think like Legos is, if I think of like one toy that really

find my childhood, I had a Lego Lego kingdom. Like it wasn't the term master builder back in the day when I was a kid. But like I would say on that level, you know, I still play with my kids and build these crazy castles pretty quickly in our own stuff as well. So that kind of got me into it. And then, you know, the reality is like, this is kind of the story that I think of when I found design that brunch with my dad and my uncle.

Chris Whyte (: 07:18

student in high school. D minus just because they didn't want to keep me the extra years and they didn't want to get me hell out of the school. I wasn't an awful troublemaker, but I got enough trouble. But also was smart. I wasn't applying it because I didn't have anything else I interested in. So my uncle and dad goes back to the toys and says, what do you want to do when you get older? was like, I design toys. And they were both kind of like pondering on it. My uncle says, I think that's industrial design. I have a friend that does this.

was like, oh, cool, maybe I can talk to him. So we would kind of meet every other week. We would hang out, my dad and my uncle and I. And then next time he brings this book, this massive book of colleges. And he's like, oh, here's the book of art schools. And here's industrial design. And we just opened up the pages. And my friend, Bob Stjolt, said he's industrial designer. He recommends RIT. And I was just like, oh, what's that? OK, cool. Open the book, see it. I'm like, it's interesting. Literally the next day.

So was a Sunday, Monday going to school. RIT was visiting my high school. I grew up in Framingham, 20 miles south of here. There's already west of here. And so, wow, this is like serendipity or whatever you want to call it. It's just too much to not go. And I like, I'm going. So I show up, there's nobody there, just the one guy from RIT. I get like a full hour with the guy. And he's like, oh, so like, how are your grades? I'm like, they're awful. And he's like, well, let me see your, know, like what else do you do? I was like, like to draw.

Hold up my sketchbook and do a lot of graffiti. was making lots of stuff in wood shop sketches. he's like, you know what you're doing? Um, you know, how's our class here? I don't take our class here. You know, I was like, I take wood shop. I don't really do art class. Um, and then from there, he was like, we should come visit us. This was like, you know, I don't know, you know, what will happen, but you should come visit us. And so sure enough, like next Sunday comes around, meet with my dynamo, go, Hey, we're going go to RIT. Okay. Um, and so I kind of got the bug.

And I kind of started researching. There was no internet back then, so literally everything was just in books. And so I didn't really know much until I got to the school. We show up there. It was like a seven hour drive from Boston. I thought we were going to New York City. I was like, wait, that's the other way. Basically almost in Toronto. Anyways, so we show up and I meet Toby Thompson, who was the chair of the department. And he had like more like unbound energy than any human being had ever met at the time. And he's showing us around. He picks up like a...

Chris Whyte (: 09:37

Model of this like beautiful thing like he was just so excited dropped it over the ground I Want to do this, know, and so did the full tour, you know after that, you know, I'm a Toby but then we did the full department the school and said what I need to do and they said we need portfolio and I was like, that's good stuff, you know, figure it out. My uncle's the artist. So at that point

How am going to do this? It was in the junior year in high school, our 11th grade. And I was like, all right, let figure this out. I worked in the summer and then kind of started taking independent studies all through high school. So I'd go back to play sports and do other stuff. But because I kind of had this one track and I was honestly, I knew there was no other industrial design school. I just thought there was only RIT. This is my only shot. I got to get in. And so I basically moved to my uncle in Cambridge and just started doing art all the time. Portfolio.

the whole thing. I did my resume and I think it was an Amiga computer. mean, it was Macs, but everything was pretty off the heel. A lot of software back in the day, superimposed a picture of this thing we did when I was a kid in it and put a whole portfolio there in about three months. And I show up with about the same amount, or maybe more energy at that point than Toby had with the portfolio. get like the three of us, my dad, my uncle, and me walk into his office.

And like, kind of just saw the energy and he saw a real portfolio and he's like, are you two out here? And he sat down, you know, within like five minutes, he's like, hold on, give me a second. He went up to my dad, said something, but he's like, basically I finished the whole thing probably 20 minutes later when I come later to find it. was like, he's in, like you guys told him he's in to on the spot, which I don't know they do that anymore, but I was like, that's pretty cool. But he's awesome. And so he was like, you did it. You know, I've never seen a transition like this. Like you've got it.

So that was kind how I found it. And to be honest, like I kind of really haven't looked back since. Yeah, that's awesome. Let's see. You set your sights on something you've fallen in love with the idea and the energy and then you just kind of got at it just yeah, doggy kind of, you know, enthusiasm just went all in. Yeah, yeah. It was great. You know, I mean, in terms of also to have

Chris Whyte (: 11:57

the of my uncle and my family and like a lot of people like when you try to get to the arts if you came from maybe a different family than I had, absolutely not. There's no money in arts. For me they were like, hell yeah, yeah, this sounds good. He was like, this is actually a little bit commercial too. It's not just art. So yeah. That's awesome. Brilliant. So has your you know, has your why evolved over the years? I know you said that you've never

Look back. Not really. think the biggest thing that evolved is I realized I was a young entrepreneur as well, like some goofy stuff, like baseball cards and candy at school and was age, but then like sort of pretty legitimate, like soda business on a golf course in my friend's backyard to the point where the golf course came and sold us with a wad of cash one day and put us in a machine and put us out of business the whole before. You know what? I got the bug early to make money and be an independent and all that stuff. And then

You know, over the years I would like make my products too. know, wood shop, I was making stuff that was kind of mass producible. Yeah. but yeah, so that was an early to think that was the other part that got added to design. And in terms of like the why, no, I don't, I don't think so. design, I'd say the biggest thing is just learning that design is kind of my life. Like I've integrated it in everything that I do. I'm thinking in design sense, trying to figure a system, process to deal with it. you know, anyways, I get really into it, even on like the business and the ops side.

I like the systems that we create that are really based on, you know, user research, like us doing stuff in a studio and saying like, we got to like fix this studio and use all our skills to do it. Yeah, we just finished a two year rebuild of that, which is great. There's a lot to be said for applying design, design thinking to business systems and areas that you wouldn't necessarily traditionally associate with industrial design. Yeah, but it's so applicable, isn't it? 100 % Yeah. Awesome. So

pressure you give us a flyover of your kind of your career from internship three to kind of founding sprout. I know that there's a lot of people that we both know that you've worked with the likes of know, Brett Lovelady is being on coming on the show. Astro, you spent some time at IDO as well. And then, yeah, press Yeah, you could kind of talk us through kind of the other stages. I'll also start at the beginning with that.

Chris Whyte (: 14:19

Um, you know, think one, like being from the Boston area and going to RIT, which I didn't realize now, not then, um, is a big deal because a lot of Brad's in Boston made kind of market penetration really easy. So as a sophomore, was telling the story last night. I'll tell it again. First internship interview ever. Mom took me to get a suit. I'm a big guy. I was pretty intimidating in a suit. I felt really awkward. I walked into New Balance, which at the time was up in Lawrence and their old headquarters.

big mill building, everybody's looking like me today, shorts and sneakers. And I'm like, hold on, I'll be right back. I run out, go into the bathroom, like, basically get down to just a white t-shirt. And I'm like, all right, let's do this. Have my interview. I was hired by Stephanie Howard, who's probably one of the more renowned footwear designers of the last three or three decades or so, two decades.

So she hired me, which was great. And I got the sophomore internship, which is kind of rare at the time. I could stop moving furniture, which was great. you know, everybody I met there and I met probably one of my biggest mentors, um, John Rapp, who's just a good friend. He's been a Patagonian forever. I haven't seen him in a while, but like just, you know, kind of started showing me about both design and life. And obviously that like, I don't know, that work play balance, um, being huge. So it started there.

A lot of the people from there I've kept up with. And just realized networking was also something I was really good at. We'll talk quite a lot about that. And then from there, it was just kind of like the go button. So it was like did an internship. It was called Prodius time. I think you went to Motive yesterday. It's in Motive. That internship eventually turned into a full-time job at some point. It just worked my way around that Boston community. And so it was that connection, guess, with Stephanie because she went to RIT and the rest of community.

Then that turned to, I mean, I'm not going to remember, it ultimately like numbers wise was like 15 jobs in five years in Boston, working at IDEO, working at 11, working at Manta, Altitude. Razorfish was another big one. Proteus obviously. Um, and so I had a lot of like three months contracts and then Razorfish was at the end was about a year and a half later. Um, but that was really cool as well. Um, but again, it's just that community and like learning how to market yourself and like.

Chris Whyte (: 16:42

just always staying in front of people, but not being annoying. Which is kind of what I have to do with clients today too. And obviously there's a lot of crap going on in the economy right now, but I'm like, all right, how do I slowly kind of stay in there? And honestly, like when I got out of college, sorry, I 200 interviews from the time I started to when I finished. And that was because whenever I go somewhere, I'd be like, I'm setting up 10 interviews. I went to San Francisco, I met...

I met Astro at an IDSA conference in San Diego, I think the year before. saw them speak, Bruce gave this crazy speech. It's on for two minutes and he took off because he had to go back to work on a plane to San Francisco or something. And it just made a huge impression on me because it was more of a culture and it was cool work, obviously, but it was more of a culture. Kept in touch with them and went, visited when I did one of these World Wind Tours of 11 interviews. And this was really cool back in the day in San Francisco. Went to all the firms, they were all in Palo Alto at the time.

I remember walking in and like, had an interview with Kyle Swinn. was like, I a run in the studio at that point, know, Robbie, Bruce, and I saw you, Rob Bruce, um, Kyle and Brett started Astro. Um, so I had this interview with Kyle set up. I'm like, you know, actually pretty intimidated. I'm looking around, like this huge guy at the desk. know, um, okay. I'm like, here to like have an interview and Jordan and I'm like, I'm looking for Kyle and he stands up and like, Hey, I'm Kyle. to meet you. Nice guy in the world. Yeah. Proceed to meet everybody.

think I got an internship offer back then, but I could not even think about swinging in San Francisco. I was living at home and I was working in Boston, it was making lot of sense. So fast forward, I guess five years, I'd done all this stuff in Boston, I'd actually started this broach, we'll talk about later. And they offered a contract, six months, it was a good point in my life to try something new. And I realized there was a lot of stuff in San Francisco that I was really into between the tech startup scene, just...

entrepreneurial vibe and then just obviously crazy awesome culture at Astro and they were rebuilding was after the dot com. Also, I showed up there was like five or six people working there. Within like, I don't know, six or seven months, it was doubled, triple, they just kept going. So yeah, that's kind of my design story. We'll talk more about it later. Yeah, that's kind how I got here. Yes. It's interesting because I know we were talking last night about the contract and then staying front of mind.

Chris Whyte (: 19:04

even if you were on a six month contract, you were reaching out every month just to say, Hey, I'm here. Yeah, contract might be renewed or whatever it is. But that's a really, really impressive muscle to kind of train that once you once you build and get into that kind of consistency. You stay in front of mind, it makes it a lot easier to win business, whether it be contract or consultancy. Yes, I I you nailed it is like staying in front of mind is really important. And like, you know,

something could change in five minutes. So you get off a call with a client. They kind of forget about you after two weeks. Because there's so much other stuff coming. And then two weeks later, they get another email from you. Oh, that project came in. These guys would be perfect for it, that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. The amount of projects I've run throughout my career, just because we've had a routine call scheduled every six to eight weeks or so, even if there's nothing currently in the pipelines, we'll just have a quick chat, a quick catch up in six weeks. And it might not even be about whatever.

Job policeman or whatever. It's just like you're catching up. You can build this great relationship with people I mean, it's kind of the funnest part of my job. I didn't anticipate it's just the relationship you know, yeah, people's families or stories Yeah, everything it's great. I've seen their kids grow It's amazing isn't it? But then it makes it so much easier when there is a requirement or an amount of times I've been on that actually it's a good time that We have this call Chris because you know yesterday we just signed this thing that just came out of the blue we've been

It's been in the background for three years. We didn't think it was ever going to come off and now we need some support. I bet you've had plenty of those over the years. Awesome. Well, let's talk about, know, just in terms of the kind of the early career highlights. Are there any projects or moments, you know, that you think back to kind of that really defined you or were kind of of big kind of

Helps shape your trajectory. Pre-sprout or sprout? I can do both. Well, Pre-sprout and then we'll call it kind of pre-sprout. Yeah, I would say, my first real studio experience was in Boston at 11. They'd just finished, I think, Inside Binding. We were working on new stuff. This is from Burton. was Snowboarder. It was super cool. So it got me into just the right mindset, working for the right people with the right culture, which was awesome. And there's four partners.

Chris Whyte (: 21:30

time, everybody's very different. And it's good to get to kind of meet those guys. I think I've said this, but one thing I really value through my career is that I've always been treated almost as an equal, even at a young age. And I think it was just because I was curious and interested and asked enough questions, but not annoying questions. Anyways, and being president always, know, honestly, one little thing, if, you know, for younger designers, it goes a long way to like every day before you leave to ask if there's anything else you can do to help, like just kind of manners.

Yeah, so to speak that goes a really long way. So I was always kind of eager. Um, for that stuff. that was kind of the beginning. I got to go to audio. saw like the first redo of the Polaroid cameras come out. I think I've hit myself in the foot. think it was Stratzky. Stratzky put this thing on my desk. He's one of the old owners of essential. Um, it's like, what do you think? I was like, I kind of went off. I wasn't really into this design. was very objecty and whatever the product was called it did. And I like to bring back the brand. was like,

And I didn't kind of realize even what I was doing at that point because was so young. And then after that, I got to end up working on a Sella Cafe car for the train here from Boston to New York, which was great. guy, Mark Nichols, worked on some cool little arrays for mics. But it was cool to get into the methodologies that IDO has with their design. And that office was really just full of amazingly talented people that have gone on to do great things.

Um, and then obviously, I mean, there's a ton more in Boston. Um, you know, think being at Proteus back in the day, it's grown a lot to like Bill Balls, who is my, I guess my first full-time boss that we're working for over a year. He's with us at Sproke for a while as well. Um, but really just helped me to grow into like a solid all around designer. Um, and you know, Proteus was, it was a lot of hostwares type products, which was super fun and hardware stuff. Um, also, you know, I wanted to jump to the West coast to get more into tech.

Um, and then obviously Astro, I mean, can't have any more impact than that. I day one, there's massive Herman Miller models everywhere. You know, by the third week, I mean, we were working on Nike stuff. were doing early Alienware gaming stuff. Um, and then the Xbox project was really amazing because this showed up with like six models. Maybe Brad will tell you about it when talk to him, but six or maybe even more, maybe like 12 models from every known designer in the world. was a Mark Newsome one. was, um, you know, every other design agency had done one.

Chris Whyte (: 23:52

And they were like throwing it all out. We need to do something different because they testing well or I can't remember what the reason was. And then to watch like, you the second coming of the, ended up being the Xbox 360 from the life. Super impressive in terms of process and time and studio and just learned so much there. The Xbox 360, was that the second generation? Yeah, that was like the white one with the inhale.

Yeah, a little language guy Matt Day was, whole studio worked on it, but Matt Day and Mike Simone were really the ones that pushed that design forward. We all get to throw down concepts, but it was really cool. And it was a fast-paced project. It started to finish, I feel like it was under three months, and we were starting to figure out production on it. That's nuts. And to think, I mean, the pressure of having kind of all the competitors models there as well, and they're not good enough. I mean, they were beautiful. I can't even tell you, like, would love to look at those today, even to see that line up.

Concepts, know and then I get a studio we can do the same thing. We have a 12 of our own We don't figure out which ones we're gonna present. Yeah, really cool Yeah, that's I didn't know that know that that didn't come up when I spoke to Brett I knew obviously They designed the the Xbox 360 amongst other many kind of awesome things. Yeah, and they kind of Over the years, but yeah, that's that's fascinating insight that kind of is that here's a conveyor belt of all the beautiful failed stuff

But it makes it better. It's probably the story people thought I don't even know if it's failed. mean, again, I think like a lot of this was like back in that day when you had that much money for a project. Yeah. It's kind of a bake off kind of not. Okay. want to see what was going to happen. That's awesome. Yeah, that's really cool. So yeah, in terms of kind of let's talk about kind of sprout then because mind signing is that it's been an evolution hasn't it started as a kind of correct me if I'm wrong here.

. Yeah, way over. So: 2001

Chris Whyte (: 26:14

basically for the lead for the Boston Design Friday. was nobody else in the office. They bought 450 person software company. They wanted to add product design. Tucker was running New York with Martha Davis. guy Steve Johnson, used to run IKEA. It was crazy. mean, first day at work was, know, hey, we'll pick you up tomorrow. What's your address? I should open a black card, take a private jet to New York to go pitch Hayworth. Day one, know, Tucker and some of these pretty experienced vets were in the room to run the show. And I was like,

years old. Yeah, this is like: 2000

give this big speech in front of all 450 employees, you know, and they start off by like saying thank you for making our dream come true and like, know, then it gets bad and so forth, you think in layoffs, but you know, .com thing, they were great. I think they would totally succeed. It just wasn't happening. But being like one of the few ID guys there, I had just kind of seen the writing on the wall and I was like, I want to take this package. got six month package to start Sprout basically. when somebody's like, you know, here's your...

Here's your, uh, severance package. Oh, I'm not going to like blow this. I'm like, I'm going to start a company with it. Yeah. Incorporated like the next day, immediately some of the clients that I was working with there that they had to drop contracts. didn't have any work on them called. So it like, started with like Coors light fidelity as a client. like, was freezing. And then all the other stuff I was doing on the side. Yeah. Um, it was going well. And then I went to this design, another idea, say conference, you know, the Astro guys in Monterey. I was like, Hey, you know, like.

What do you think about trying it again? You know, checked out my new portfolio, all that stuff. And I was like, yeah, what do you got? Like a six month contract. It sounds amazing. I went home and told my friends and family, packed everything I had into two suitcases and, uh, and into bikes and shipped them out there. And then like, sure enough, like the turnaround on that was just like amazing to see like that transition. I kept, sprout nights and weekends because on contract for think about two years.

Chris Whyte (: 28:36

got the full-time gig, did a bunch of stuff. 2008, kind of got gently nudged out the door, which was fine. It just really wasn't, for me it was like, time to really go. I had a lot of contract work and like, last year was great, but I think they were like, you know, should probably go and do your own thing, which was awesome. Oh, that's cool, yeah. It was like a tough day. I mean, I had a kid and all that, but like at the end of the day, this was like something that was like probably the best thing that ever happened to me. And I think like,

and talking to everybody after the fact. I don't know if I would have started this, but I could have just stayed in Astro for years. It was so much fun. Anyway, so I went that way. I did about a year and half, I think, still in San Francisco. Started building it up, lots of startup stuff, which was great. And then just kind of had this unbelievable opportunity to come back to Boston and run the CCO. That was like the new title at the time. That's when that was becoming a hot role. Chief Creative Officer. Chief Creative Officer for Clio Designs.

And the plan was to like literally just build as much product as we could ship it in basically the personal grooming and skincare categories. And I got to run Sprout, out of Clio, no problem. I could use my interns, get interns for them, hire staff. was really great. Kind of a once in a lifetime deal. So I moved back. You know, my daughter was one and a half, tested out Cambridge, make sure my wife was okay with it. It was all good.

Fast forward to: 2014

Then we moved to the south end where we are now and we're flat to it around 25 for a while, then 35, then 50 people as contractors. mean, just great growth over the years. And really that's been the 10 years that I really look at. It's kind of the second coming of Sprout, but the reality is I was never fully all in until then. Yeah. Where does the name come from? It's about growth. I mean, it's pretty simple. It's very obvious where it is. At the time, there was a lot of...

Chris Whyte (: 31:04

I had a lot of angst around like what's the name going to be, what's name going to be, like, know, because I'm a big guy, I was like, I always thought it'd be something about that, but was like, no, it's really, it's just about growth, and it applies across all of our different categories of business. You know, what we're doing for our different business models, and just growing, you know, whether it's growing client relationships, client business, our own businesses, it works really well. And also, obviously, in the startup world, and entrepreneurial side is a good name. I love it. Yeah, it's awesome. So.

You've mentioned that obviously the growth of the last 10 years into the headcount and where you started in the basement. mean, that's pretty chaotic. Nine guys in there. I mean, literally like, yeah, it was just people bumping into each other. Like, would hit my head on the ceiling sometimes. Yeah, was, yeah, was tight. Family upstairs, business downstairs. Yeah, which was cool. Like, I do think that was probably one of the best things for my oldest daughter Maya. She could come down after school and she would and she would come and hang out.

Yeah, just those are good times, you know, they have a snow day. We all walk Harvard Square with her at lunch. Yeah, snowman and like just nice to able to spend that time because you know, one of the regrets, one of the questions you had in there was on the grants is like, not so much for design overgrads, but I wish the years after when you move downtown, I could have spent more time but to build a business. Yeah, I mean, so much you can really do. You know, I was going to San Francisco, 10 times a year. It's exhausting. Yeah, I mean, one of the questions I

that was in my head when you've got kind of your work so close to home literally in the building, you know, yeah. And obviously, there's a lot of people that feel out there with kind of COVID and working remotely, you know, how do you kind of create that separation and kind of pull yourself away from work? But it sounds like you actually a really good balance. It was easy. mean, in the regard that we would live on the top two floors of the house, and there was a floor in between them. Our neighbors at home.

So it wasn't like she was right there. It wasn't too chaotic. And it was only one kid at the time. So if it was two kids, that would have too much. Absolutely. So well, so how has the studio's vision kind of changed over time then? I mean, this is kind of the story we always tell. And ironically, business has changed such that it really favors what we do. But obviously, we pitched every big d-

Chris Whyte (: 33:24

know, Fortune 500 we could when we were starting and they were all kind of the same, which was like, you got no track record of your own. You got a great resume. Call me in five years if you're still in business. That's kind of what it was. And I was like, shit, that's real. You know, we get some small projects here and there for big companies, but they were one-offs. And then I kind of realized, like this startup thing is like, and that's a big part of also coming back to Boston was when I left, it was all software.

When I came back, there was a massive hardware push in Boston. So consumer electronics caught up here. MIT, Harvard, all the universities are killing it. Super smart kids. And I was like, all right, that's how we're going to do it. And so we really focused, at least the first five years, on just startup business, which is awesome because it's like three months and you're done. I think when we also started with startups, it was always just about the design, primarily focusing on AD. I'd say after the first project, there's such a bigger opportunity here.

don't all of it because everything was, it was just a mess. Like there was no cohesion across all their creative deliverables. Then I'm like, also I have all this business knowledge that I've gained that they don't have. You know, I realized, I'm recommending CPAs to them, legal to them, structure for companies, like all this stuff. And I'm like, this is like really cool. So I'd get deeper involved and that became one of the staples of our investment criteria for like any venture was like, you can't just do an ID. We could just do an ID project.

but we're not going to give you as deep of a discount in equity, because we always do some cash, some equity. And so we would just kind of insert ourselves and become like a behind the scenes CEO whisper, lack of a better word, in where we could. Especially when you get into manufacturing and all the other stuff that goes into building a product. At that point, I guess I had over 10 years of experience, so I'd done enough of it to really be an asset. I guess your time at Astro as well. I think it gave you some great insights there.

So speaking to Brett, is it is more than just the design? I considered going back to business school before I went to Astro and started to study for the GMATS and all that. That's a great entrepreneurial business program. Locally one of the best in the world. I got my MBA sitting behind Brett. Yeah, like just saying nothing. Just listening, seeing the way he carried himself. Yeah, like everything he did for the team and for the clients was really amazing. Big props to him. And then also

Chris Whyte (: 35:45

Kyle just like keeping the studio in order to keep the quality of work up. It's like a tough thing to have a partner. At least from my knowledge, in almost 10 years of being there, never saw them argue. I mean, that's something, isn't Pretty amazing. Yeah. I was going to say, to answer what was the original question, was trying to get back to that. How has the studio's vision changed? so yeah. So all that stuff about the startups, think.

To kind of finish that off, what happened is after five years, we started working with all of these larger clients that we have today, the Colors and the Staples of the World and Kubota or whatever. And the reality is they all want it quicker, faster, smarter. And to have that kind lean startup mentality and just to be able to go quicker, but also integrate into their system, that's really helped our business. Because I think for us, we end up being an extension of our team with these larger clients. And we learned that from the startup world.

I think that's the big takeaway. So we practiced for five years, really honed it. And now it's like we come in, it's kind of like a soup to nut skunk works, whatever you want. So well, you've got that you got the credibility, you got the case studies, you've got answers to all the questions that you might have. Or you've got more questions. think that's okay. If you don't have the answer, you've got more questions. Yeah. I think, you know, going after the big kind of brands, can offer, you know, it's great to have in that.

on your portfolio or kind of on the wall, you know, here, look at all our amazing clients. But I for a lot of consultancies, in whatever professional service it is, you know, quite often, getting that brand on on the wall or on the portfolio is really, it's hard work if you can, can do it because that relationship that you have, it's very different to the relationship you'll have with a with a founder or a small business, because with them, you're able to offer so much more value and insight and

consultancy, you know, as a partner, whereas quite often, at start of a relationship with a big company, it's like, you're just a supplier. Yeah, you're just a commodity. We need this thing from you. Yeah, rather than we want to work together. It's interesting, you mentioned the logo on the wall, right? That's always the first thing is like goes up on the website or wherever. But the bigger thing is to keep that logo on the wall. Yeah, right. And so that's like staying relevant, you know, and being able to flex. I mean, think I've said flexibility is

Chris Whyte (: 38:07

Probably one of the few times already, but it's one of the biggest things is a consultant says you just got to stay flexible. know, I get more in it later. No, that's all cool. So, um, yeah, you mentioned obviously, going back to growth. you know, was it 15 people you've hired in the last year? Is it? Yeah, it's insane. And you know, considering how difficult the markets been like in last two years or so, you know,

When I started coding, like calling people last January, and it seemed like most like two out of three designers I speak to just been laid off. It's just especially kind of in Boston and New York. So for you guys to grow 15 heads is remarkable. And again, this is a combination of full time contractors. But really, I think for us, the two main driving factors are one, we need a little bit more management later. So we've always had project managers that sprout.

A lot of the things they worked on didn't have, and it was chaos if you were trying to project manage and be the lead designer on stuff. So there was a little bit there on the management layer, but then also like the visualization business. And so really at the end of the day, it's rendering is animation, but it's just content. Like the world right now, because everything is on your device, which I'm so happy is over there and off.

Is you know is content and so whether you need it for online sales and you're ecom or you need it for the newest? Instagram post or whatever. It's like we're just pumping this stuff out and then also like photography There's a million reasons depending on what type of products you have where CGI is just better to do it Especially if it's a small is a small kind of quickly rotated through lots of cmf Yeah, it's like massive thing like construction equipment doing those photo shoots is insane. Yeah, and then

Something changes on it and you can't you got to go do a other photo shoot whereas for us we can just re-render. So anyways, it's been an interesting business and yeah, you know big props to our CEO CGO, you know Dan Riley helped me write the business plan for it back before he even left staples. Yes We started the business for staples. now it's grown into you know, probably the Big man, I'd say it's as big as ID. Yeah, maybe bigger this year even. wow. Yes, you've kind of

Chris Whyte (: 40:19

Diversify, but I'm guessing it's still for the same Target clients. It's just you able to do more Yeah, and because we you you get clients coming in for ID or for branding stuff And then they find that you do biz or vice versa and so it's just another they all work well and really the reality is we were doing it at the end of every ID fees anyways and I think there's a lot of CGI agencies out there that are more like

Like overseas type of folks and they just don't have the attention to detail that a product does and so I think that's why at least we're doing this kind of like higher-end storytelling and beautiful renderings Yeah, that's why people would come to us versus a low-cost solution We're not the top of the line doing crazy crazy motion stuff, but like in terms of rendering I think you know we can hold anybody. It's all connected isn't it? that's like safe. You can get it cheap offshore kind of

to the story, you're going to get kind of a mixed results, probably to be fair, isn't it? So that's fantastic.

In terms of your experience and the realities of kind of running a studio, running a design consultancy, you know, it's quite a sexy kind of thing to get into, isn't it? Can every designer wants to have their own consultancy, but I think very few understand the actual trade-offs. So what do people kind of, what most people misunderstand about kind of what you do? Do you think? There's a lot. First time I look at my notes, but

No, I mean, think the first trade off, like I talked about when you're starting is like, you kind of have to be 24 seven, you know, and I still am what needed, but you know, now we're more established. like, I know I kind of gave up a lot of my.

Chris Whyte (: 42:08

30 into my 30s, 40s, you know, I'm almost 50 at this point. And so I gave up a lot of that to grow this business. I'd say until we moved to our current location, really until Dan joined as COO, it was all me at end of the day. And that's, it's great. And this is something I actually want to touch on being an independent design firm owner, just independent owner of any business. It's a totally different thing than having partners and partners can be good and bad as well. I'm not saying that, I mean, there's very few in industrial design, you know, I think of

off the top of my head, mean, Scott Wilson at minimal, Dan Hardin at Whipsaw, there's only a few independent business owners that are out there. And so it's all you. So that's a trade off right there. And then I don't know. It's a lot to give up, isn't it? Like when you in terms as you scale as you're growing that business, you know, you've got to delegate to scale, you've got to bring people in and

trust with your kind of your baby. I mean, that's the next step. So like I'd say like after, you know, about when we were leaving from our location downtown Boston to the one in Albany Street. So like we call these all different levels of sprouts was like sprout 2.0 to 3.0, right? That was when I got sat down by my creative directors at the time and they were like, you got to be in or out. It's one or the other. And like, you know, right now it's kind of disrupting the team. You got to trust us.

I don't know you guys for a long time. Like even before I hired, you know, other creative director, for director rich, was like, yeah, you're right. And I got to do it. And that's when we were able to really grow when I was like, all right, you guys are going to run stuff. The project management was starting to have me like one at the time. And it just, it just evolved from there. You know, we tried a few different people in kind of an operational role until we had Dan, it didn't really work. but overall what did start to work was trusting the team and not stepping out of design. So big projects, fun projects.

Personal things that I have passion for I'll get involved in like that I still get to be creative every day But I realize like the networking you know the business development side of stuff strategic side You know getting involved in these early phases of projects that you bring them up is more important and sitting there going like no Fix that radius which I do do it on occasion. They probably make fun of me for it You know it is what it is you can't get into the details if you're you got kind of bigger things to do. yeah

Chris Whyte (: 44:27

If you want to work on the business, can't be working in the business. It's the trope, isn't it? But, you know, we've been through turbulent times. Well, you've seen a fair few throughout your career. But how does, you know, how does Sprout cope or ride the waves of kind of I've now seen four. I mean, I saw it before when I was younger, I didn't know what was going on. That's how I saw the dot com bus, around 2000, 2008.

saw that with, you know, just that was another mess before on the real estate side in the States, just, know, sunk the whole financial situation. Like everything was nuts. Um, COVID obviously, and then now tariff mania, whatever you want to call it. Um, I've been the same the whole time. It's always like, you know, there's that poster, keep calm, carry on. Yeah. Keep calm, design on like that's it. It's not.

never sunk us before. I've seen ebbs and flows in the business. I've seen lots of different stuff happen. It's just stay positive, stay focused. We really haven't ever had to like lay people off. had a little bit of a couple folks over COVID that we've been furloughing about time we were at Ironbat. They got another jobs. But like overall, like we've been able to kind of maintain and like, you know, we stay lean, you know, we do make sure like we've got a nice looking office, but we, you know, we kind of, we're in a basement. We're still not, we don't need to go to class day, you know, it's like, we're fine with what we got.

Ironically, the office thing is like you're maxed out before COVID. And we've always kind of been hybrid because of our design director, Mattress, he's two hours from Boston. So he was already set up COVID well before, so it made it easy. But yeah, now we might have 15 people in the office a day, depending on what we're doing. Really only come in to collaborate within the teams and then otherwise just more efficient and better for everybody to stay out of Boston traffic.

Absolutely. And so, um, I know we've talked about this, but you, um, you've got a really strong process in terms of kind of the networking, leaning into that kind of being curious, getting yourself out to events. I'm guessing that's just consistent kind of sales in business development. Yeah. mean, before it was just natural and it was something I really loved to do. And as I've gotten older and want to spend other time doing other things, it was kind of hard in the COVID for that reason. mean, was aside from all the

Chris Whyte (: 46:51

Bad things that happened, but I loved it. I could commute back and forth until have a home and southern meme, just wait about an hour and 15 minutes during COVID, because there was no traffic, which I can't do anymore. I've always kind of just been on that. Sorry, lost the question. Go back. mean, it's a mock-up. Yeah, was going to say, maybe we can rewind it. I want to get some water. I'm kind of harsh to self.

Chris Whyte (: 47:18

You know what I think would help, at least for me? You just have to think of the question. I'll start spinning, but that maybe should be. Don't worry about it.

Chris Whyte (: 48:06

By the way, that's the other founders product out there, the water machine. yes. I was trying to hook you up on my buddy's wife. Yeah, I to her. was a little bit nervous about doing a podcast. I heard that. was like, oh, you should just do it. Anyways, what was that question, by the way? Sorry. I was kind of rambling around a little bit. I think it was kind of dipping into business development and.

you know, networking consistency. yeah, I think it was was off the yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah, we're talking obviously about the dips and the kind of especially kind of COVID you know, yeah. A lot of a lot of professional services industries design and recruiting, you know.

they experienced a massive wave of kind of in bounds kind of inquiries coming out of COVID. And then it just fell off like a cliff in 20 and 22 early 23. Yeah. And those are I've noticed, you know, looking back is companies that set up in COVID. Yeah, especially

kind of managed to ride that wave a lot more because they were already in, they had to start from scratch. They were already in the business development mode and it was something they were consistently doing every day and every week. So what I was getting into where I was going with the COVID thing was like, was great for a lot of reasons, but like it was a lot of like, I basically weekly, would write 10 meetings with people all around the thing from clients to other business owners. It was just to stay relevant, but it got so comfortable to just be at home in your pajamas doing that.

that like when it came back to travel, which you know, I was kind of the first one to start doing it. It was hard. It was actually hard to do it because you would be like, I'm coming to San Francisco and like every client was like, where have I been in the office? We're not going to be there for another year. So I had to pump the brakes after two years, you know, after it. then like eventually it started up, but it was like, it'd been so long. I kind of had to retrain myself to do it. And this year I was like, I literally have done, call it like the death march. Yeah. I don't think.

Chris Whyte (: 50:09

probably twice a month since January I've been at a show or did a business, clients and whatever and it's been exhausting. We'll take the summer off from the travel side. But yeah, but it's been good. It's been awesome to network with all these people and just share insights. I went to the design week in Milan, which I hadn't done for 20 years. I with Scott Wilson basically.

kind of neighbors, got not adjoining Airbnbs, but a few blocks away and like every morning we would just start off. It was really like, he was kind the only guy that I knew that was going bumped into like two other folks that we knew.

100 plus people that were amazing. It was so fun to just be there. None of this like political stuff. No one's talking about that. was just literally like, who are you? What do you do? Yeah. What do you love about what you do? And just kind of brought me back to like, why design? And I was like, yeah, super fun. And, know, the creativity behind it. Absolutely. Yeah. I think getting out and seeing people meeting face to face. Yeah. You know, it's

I think one of my favorite things to do and it's also it's one of the you know things that It's so easy to pull off, you know because you're busy because you know, you know projects to deliver But it's it's the thing that just pays off time and time again for me. It's like we met CS

kind of knew a guy, Dan Carter, that works in product design, you know, I've known him for a few years, we basically buddied up at CS. And so he's a designer, I'm a recruiter. And it was great because we'd go to these networking events. And he'd introduce me, I'd introduce him, we're like playing wingman for each other on the the network. And it's like, we both kind of did well in terms of, you know,

Chris Whyte (: 52:04

You never go to these things expecting to come away with with business or deals or anything like that. For me, it's all about kind of getting out there, asking questions, building up those relationships because you never know. Yeah, and it takes a long time. mean, as you know, I we look at like a larger client where like we know that just based on the data analytics we have from what we've done for the last 10 years, it's like typically somewhere between.

one and half to two years to kind of land that first deal and then it can work really well after that, but it takes a while. And so starting those conversations earlier and more often, you just open your odds.

But yeah, you've got you just got to convey about your systems just moving and then you keep in regular contact, you go into the shows, people start recognizing you and thinking seriously, you know, before you know it, it starts to snowball. It's like compound interest. Yeah, it's really, really good. Yeah. And it is interesting is go back to the one thing versus all those other shows. And I feel like the other shows is like, you know, Jordan, owner of Sprout, from a text amount of employees that does this stuff. Whereas like in Milan, it was like, I'm Jordan, the designer. And this is what I think is great about design. Yeah.

nice to get back to that and it made me want to go back again I did end up in New York Design Week as well which is kind of a mix of that vibe but also the business vibe yeah stayed a lot of client meetings when I was in New York yeah anyways but it's an interesting thing and I think that is kind of wearing the dual hats you know I am a Gemini so I guess I can be the business guy or the creative guy depending but yeah it's definitely

interesting and makes all of that travel on top of like being ready for business and all the other reasons like on the personal level like yeah so many friends and even this one thing I feel like they'll come visit or I'll go back and visit them like I feel like I've met the first time I've met this many people all at once in like 10 years yeah almost going back to college kind of thing yeah that's awesome

Chris Whyte (: 53:58

We're just going to move the cameras. That's me.

Chris Whyte (: 54:08

It's all good. All good. I think most people listen to anyway, just be for for G. I was gonna ask you to watch or listen. That's something we're working on. the Yeah, I've got a Jeanni who does does my marketing for me.

Remit is to maximize kind of coverage of podcasts I do the little clips little shorts get them out on to Instagram and tick tock and all of the places I don't really understand. Yeah, and We're already starting to see traction on on Instagram We've pushing it all out onto YouTube Even like YouTube at least the way that I a lot people use it with their work put stuff on and listen to it to they just Yeah, there's a channel Spotify or absolutely

It's just got to be as easy as possible to consume. And then all the little clips should be pushing it back to the longer form content. And then ultimately, yeah. I understand only because of CGI business. And we'll do these animations that are minute long and then 100 different cuts from one video. we're like, all right, that's cool.

content it's well just speaking to Christian Reid and it's like he's the kind of content king and he does awesome content by the way don't know if seen his little tricks it's brilliant yeah yeah but it's you know so yeah we're talking about sprout but you know it's all relevant in terms of design you know taking those that 20 minutes a day just to create like a little clip or kind of a little kind of bit of writing or whatever yeah before you know it you're building up a catalog

that you can then just keep repurposing and it's the combine that with networking. It's just the gift that keeps giving. exactly. Awesome. Let's talk about business development, because it is very connected to networking. mean, do you feel, know, what do you do have a dedicated business development function? Or is that kind of mainly funneled through yourself? It's me and Dan. Don't get me wrong.

Chris Whyte (: 56:12

We get, I mean, you know, again, we get a bunch of inquiries. Mostly, I'd say when we started it was all in network. Now we get the combo of kind of in network and then just people finding us. We've been around long enough. Yeah. We put money into marketing with marketing director. We definitely kind of understand that aspect of it in this business. Although it changes all the time, depending on algorithms and different channels you're trying to do this on in terms of the online side of that advertising.

But no, business development, really, it's me. And at the end of the day, that's what you want. You want the owners. And again, Dan too. So I would say in general, I'm handling a lot of the industrial design type stuff. Some of the Viz side, the CGI side, it's mostly Dan. And then we always come together on the branding and the strategy, the innovation side of stuff as well. I mean, those are separate things.

Yeah, I guess I maybe go a little bit more into the brandy. He goes a little bit more innovation strategy so it's not a You know a specific kind of outbound kind of you you're not cold calling people. It's no we will Well, actually the one thing we're gonna do next year We've been making like a pitch list, which I never believed in and this is definitely more from the advertising world Yeah

of like going and pitching clients. There's a couple of clients who really want to work for that we think we're perfect for and we have some great ideas for. And so what we're going to do is like kind of a mini project for each of them and pitch it, not even knowing. know, so we'll pitch an innovation strategy to them and see if they bite. And then maybe we'll do some more spec work. Just, you know, also it's good for your portfolio. It's the of stuff you can show if you're not getting paid to do it, you know. So that's the only new thing we're going to try. I don't know if it's going to work. But then, you know, on the other side of it, I mean,

I would say it's the majority of it's the network and also like, know, you have to have the right reputation. and I think, you know, one thing about Sprout, was like, as I was like preparing notes and stuff is like, with us, there's no ego. Like we don't do good with ego. don't want employees that have ego. We kind of like a little attitude, a little bit of an edge, but not like in a bad way. It's kind of what you want, like to question it or like, you know, we get a brief from somebody and we usually send back a page of notes asking, and do you think about this? What about that? And it's not cause we're, you know, trying to do anything other than just.

Chris Whyte (: 58:26

you know, show like, this is kind of like this whole process that we offer. And even though you just wanted this one thing, like maybe there's more stuff that plays into it. And they're like, oh, half the time, didn't even think of that. Yeah, add that in. Other times, let's get this done and then we'll move into that stuff. And other times, like, no, we just need next time. Yeah, it doesn't hurt to ask. And, you know, again, just think if you're doing it without the ego side of it, you're going to stay humble. It works really well for that stuff. I had a, when I was just getting into sales many moons ago.

Someone recommended a book called Go for No. Really short book and it was written like a short story but the basic premise is that you know most people are afraid of failure and afraid of hearing a no. But when you you twist it around and you actually target kind of

to get rejection, you end up getting more success. I've heard of the book, I haven't read it. But on the other side of it, it's like, you know, it's a startup lesson, right? So fail, fail fast. The other thing is when we don't get projects like I'm

I'm not adamant about it, but I try to really send a genuine email. I'd like to understand why, don't have to tell us who, whatever, but I just like to understand the rationale because hopefully it will help us on the next one. And we invested a bunch of time to put a very unique custom proposal together for you, so it would be great to understand what the issues were. And honestly, like 75 % the time, I'll get a great reply back. It's so valuable, isn't it? Yeah, it's literally almost better than the wins. Massively, yeah.

The reason I mentioned it was the cross selling opportunity and the added extras. Because if you just take the first yes, or I want to just industrial design, and then you don't ask what else they might want, then you're leaving money on the table, you're kind of maybe not doing the best service you could offer to the client as well, because there's more stuff that you could bring to the table. Yeah, really, really, for anyone interested in sales, it's a very accessible, very straightforward concept as well.

Chris Whyte (: 01:00:21

But we'll get onto book recommendations for yourself at the end as well. I forgot to that out. Yeah, that's cool. So

In terms of hiring, obviously, we've been doing a lot kind of over the last year. What do you look for when you're when you're hiring? I mean, is there is there a specific kind of spark or really depends on the position. So this is where it's changed, right? So you should just be designers. That's an easy one. Typically, it's always portfolio like that's you got to kind of come through within the first minute of flipping whatever you're sending us.

and his portfolio. then number two is always personality. I mean, it's just cultural fit. And like I said, it's like, it's hard to know. But you know, if you see an ego or somebody that's like, know, all, like, that's not going to typically fly. It's no matter how talented they are, no matter what a great deal they are, you know, whatever it is, it's just like, you got to be the right cultural fit. It's right. We just something is huge for me. And that's something like we push like, I think different. And this is from some of the different books that I've read. But

things I latched onto, you culture of candor, which is basically just treating everybody the same way. So like, however you want to be treated, treat them that way. Don't say anything you wouldn't want the person to hear. And speak up. If there's something wrong, like let us know. So that's kind of the one big thing of it. And then I think on the other thing for us, which is different from a lot of firms is financial transparency of the business. want them to understand what decisions are being made. If we, know.

whatever it is, whether it's buying equipment or software or when we can and can't, when we lose a big deal with that, how that impacts the team, not to put blame on anybody, but just to say like, you saw the trajectory of the company and now this one just vanished and now it's down here. shoot, we got this huge win. We're going to be over. So just sharing that with them. we do that. We were doing it quarterly, but honestly, it's just been so busy. We've got to twice a year now with the company and like.

Chris Whyte (: 01:02:15

It just kind of helps, I think, to incentivize them and help them grow as designers, right? Because you started as a junior designer, you're just thinking, I'm going to create all day. And then think as you get older and become more of a manager, you kind of start to need to know that stuff. And there are people that will do the design track their whole life and never get into management.

general at some point, I think so you don't burn out. It's good to kind of learn both. Yeah, absolutely. But also it gives you know, when you've got people in the business, that communication, like communicating the vision and the strategy and kind of how the business is performing. Yeah, you know, it might seem like a bit of a you know, just an exercise, but it's super important just to keep kind of people engaged and know what they're working towards. Also kind of

you know, makes those mistakes or those kind of those wins. Yeah, a lot more real. It gives a context. Yeah. I mean, there's like high fives and we wouldn't you know, we actually want a project. I was thinking that boiler room or something when they get somebody. But yeah, there's like good excitement within the studio and we get when we get a good sale or a new project.

Are there any specific questions that you ask or tasks that you give that help you spot kind of talent that's going to thrive in your culture? We have like question sets that are the same that we've really owned and things like that. To be honest, it's it's we have like three levels of interview. So we have like the first is like kind of preliminary after we've really whittled it down. Typically, we try to get to like three candidates. Ideally, sometimes it's five.

And so we do that first round of interviews, which is more the junior team. Then we bring in like the management, like the director level people. And then I'll do the last one. But I'd say the biggest thing is like just calling the references. Like it sounds so.

Chris Whyte (: 01:04:00

obvious, but people don't do that. Yeah, that goes a long way. Figure out who that person is, make sure that it's not like, you know, their roommate. But no, and like, it's like often, you know, I know them. So it's really good because it's just like texting a friend and be like, Hey, so and so worked for you four years ago. How are they? You know, and you get like a great answer right away. And I'm like, all right, I know this person I know I'm asking. Yeah, they're saying this about this person. It's, know, depending on what they're saying, it's a yes or no. It's that simple. It goes back to that, power of networking as well. It's like keeping in touch with people

worked with and you've made shows. yeah, it makes that that's like a superpower. Awesome. And right, we're approaching the end, but we've got a got a big one to dive into now then state of industrial design. You know, we've been through shifts, as you mentioned, four shifts, but and the tools are available now in terms of AI. And that industry's changing so fast. you know,

Is it evolution or revolution? know, kind of how is the role that I think changed for you? I'll unpack it. I mean, I think it's evolution. Just like, you know, I can bring up a million analogies and just an article for ODSA on kind of like...

Kind of comparing this to when I was in last class at RIT to do hand drafting and next year we got introduced to CAD with MicroStation, which is also gone by now. like, you know, it's people were up their arms in it. You know, the old people that either were just very stuck in their ways.

Also, some of them were really open to change. You know, it just, you know, you have this same thing that you're having with AI right now. I'll get more into AI in a second. Yeah. Um, but I mean, I give you just like my thoughts, like statistically on it. And again, I've spent this last six months really kind of getting out there and talking to like minded business owners and just business owners in general in this field. And like, feel like it's probably about 25, maybe a little bit more, percent less ID work out there right now. I feel like there's multiple drivers for this, which is, I mean,

Chris Whyte (: 01:05:59

the new one, is obvious, the attack, terror thing, and people just being skittish, which is a lot of, what that translates to is a lot of start stop right now, which is now more start as of like the last few weeks, which is great. So that's one thing. I think the other thing is because of COVID, right? So like people saw, let's keep, you know, let's do line extension, simple stuff, CMF, like really, really simple things to just keep it going and packaging.

low hanging fruit and they survived. And so it let them know, I think this is really good for the environment by the way. And then we don't need to churn. mean, Apple probably still keep doing a new cell phone every six months or maybe they're to a year now. But I think it let people know that you don't need to have the newest hottest thing all the time. It's super groundbreaking. Yeah, go for it. But I mean, just to go and make a new keyboard and mouse just every six months to do it, it doesn't make sense. So things like that, I think have helped to kind of slow.

our business a little bit. And then also just think there's just harsh reality of like all the startups from the last 15 years that just shit the bed. the VC money is just not there. I you can think of your share, at least for me, I think a lot of Kickstarter flops or like, you know, some big public, you know, companies that went out and everything started with the Pebble Watch was like another blog.

VCs put a ton of money into hardware and it's like, you know, I use this all the time, you know, and I got some different things that we've written white papers over the years about it, but like hardware is hard, you get this all the time. Software is not easy, but you can like rev it and fix it and it's quite easy, but you have like a hardware recall, you're starting over. It's expensive, the tool, like there's so many reasons that you can kind of get into it. So it's like, you really gotta have the right product. I think people have just gotten smarter to it. know, again, the VC money is a little bit...

I wouldn't say completely dried up, I mean, just they're going to do more diligence around all of that stuff. And so I think that's kind of affected the hardware startup community. There's still some great stuff, you know, I think that's going to come out and still going to happen. There's just a little bit less of it. And then, you know, the other side too, I think we're seeing some great projects these days, but often, you know, budgets are challenging. So, you know, you do what you got to do, you know, for us, it's like, it's really important to keep ideas a core part of us. And so, you know, we just make sure that we can, you know, compete both on a

Chris Whyte (: 01:08:13

you know price level but also keeping it work really high quality and you know just try to keep as much of it in the studio as you can because it will come back around. I do feel I guess to conclude all that I think we'll see another boom for physical product design too. I just think right now it's a little touch and go getting better. It certainly kills it doesn't it but then you know a lot of the consultancy owners that I speak to they

they will reference freelancers kind of winning work from them because they're cheaper resource in some respects.

saving money that you potentially create other problems because you've got a bunch of different freelancers. It's like they're not all working on the freelance side. think what I actually would say is like an interesting one. But like when somebody leaves a corporation that they really like and they want to go freelance, do their own thing that will draw some business from these two corporations because they want to you know, they already trained this person and they love working with them. And you know, they're all right, well, they're in the system. So that I think will but in terms of just there's always been bunch of freelancers out there. Yeah, absolutely. What about you know,

China or kind of the factories kind of getting better at design as well. Obviously they've always been really good at engineering but yeah, I mean there's a little bit of this but I also feel like communication becomes a big part it depends who the clients are yeah and I mean again like I don't know you told me and I look at like award-winning work and yeah there's more overseas firms doing it and Asian firms doing it but I don't know still seems like it's it's

It's not that big of competition yet. You know, I do like, we work with a few of them, quite honestly, some of them are boots on the ground, you know, they can go and really kind of bring a product into production and really help with that stuff. You're not too worried about that. I think I have a, I guess a bigger thought on industrial design. It's like, it's still just a really small profession. And even though there's a decline in work, I do still feel like there's enough work. think...

Chris Whyte (: 01:10:35

The biggest pinch right now is I think for like young students coming out and they really need to kind of just figure out what their track is. There's lots of ways for them to go. But for them to find a specialty or niche right away is tough. It's definitely harder to get an internship coming out of school. It's harder to get a junior level job right now than it's ever been. I think we were talking about last night, like typical internships we would get 150, 200 applicants a year ago. Now we're twice that.

And I feel for him, you know, and like, I kind of give him all the same advice, is like, keep your head out, do that thing where you're kind of people without being annoying, know, stay in front of them. Yeah. And you just kind of put the work in and deal with it and hopefully get by. You've got to treat the job search as a job. When you're at that level, or if you're out of work, as a more experienced designer, you know, then they you only need one. There's also like my little more combative answer, which is like, hey, like you're like, for me, like being a designer, actually,

I think if I had to describe what I am, actually a creative problem solver that goes across business and design. So you have a problem right now you need to creatively solve. And does that mean doing really cool, innovative projects on your own to stoke your portfolio? Does that mean doing your own startup? know, and go and raising some money, know, whatever it is, it's like, I don't know, like, I'm sure there's a billion sayings, but like, you know, sometimes you get a raw deal and you just gotta figure out and get by and it's...

It's just part of life, unfortunately. And I don't want to sound like a hard ass because it's the last thing that I am. again, keep calm and design on. Figure it out. Yeah, that's great advice. think just treat it project. Get stuck in. Do the work. Good stuff will happen. Make sure you're doing something you love. Also, hey, you're going to pick your own projects. Make sure that's something you really want. So you went to the store. like, this doesn't exist. I want to make this. Oh, I'm trained to do that. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Cool, we're gonna wrap this up then with a, talking about the Boston design scene and kind of what's coming up. You clearly deeply embedded in the Boston design scene. I've been privy to that just the last couple of days. What do you think makes Boston a good place?

Chris Whyte (: 01:12:47

I mean, for me, I also know I'm always at the numbers and the stats, but like when I started, know, everything that I, the network that I built was all through the IDSA. Back in the day, that was really it. And there was Core, there's some other things. Now there's a lot of stuff. But I was the chair in Boston when I first got out of school, which is kind of a track. lot of people that I've known have done, which is great. We had the biggest chapter. I we were like 500 paid members and it's declined just as an organization over the years because of all of the other organizations that are out there now.

always been huge here, you know, and designer wise, there's lots of other design disciplines in Boston too, whether it be like on the UX side of stuff or that. So it's like, it's an easy community to be into. I think it rivals San Francisco in a lot of ways in terms of the sheer size. You know, there's only like, I mean, there's other cities that have it in the US, like Boston, Chicago.

Seattle kind of northwest area gets a little bit Portland and you get like the San Francisco is like a huge hub a little bit through us, California and then New York, which is just this massive different design of the wall kinds of design, right? But the community here is like and it's also why I kind of move back with Sprout and another reason I didn't really think of it but I kind of did was like just retention like people here are like

I know, it's a little bit more personal and people really kind of go out for each other and they'll go to bat for each other and they'll make sure that people can find work. Once you're in that network and you've met enough people, it's always giving back. And I've always been like a pay it forward kind of guy. So whether it's making donations to do events or doing our own events to kind of help. do...

To be honest, we do probably eight of them a year. do kind of office hours and we invite, we do digital and then we do it person every other month. And we kind of got that down now, which is great, but that's like our giving back to the community because we can't give everybody an interview, but that's your opportunity to come in either physically or be there virtually and find out whatever you can from spread. And we give like, sometimes up to three hours per session and sometimes there's 10 people and sometimes there's 40 or 50 people. It's kind of crazy.

Chris Whyte (: 01:14:53

It's interesting to think where kind of where it all sprouts, know, where people go off after kind of being in my recession. We're doing our 10 year anniversary and I'm working on just kind of like what we're going to do creatively is a round-fick party on 17th September. We'll be sending public announcement out and things like that soon. But yeah, part of that is actually I want to do this like Polaroid timeline. Like there's been over 100. is, last time I just pulled was a year ago. We had over 150 people.

That had been through Sprout. Just pulled from QuickBooks. like, everybody's never been paid by Sprout. Pretty wild, yeah. And so all I really want to have on there is a picture of them, this Polaroid. they can't show up, we'll just make one. basically, the year they were in Sprout, maybe the apartment they were in, and where they are now. It's freaking amazing. At some point, we had two excellent Sprout employees, and we went from Sprout 2.0 to 3.0.

Yeah, go to Apple and they were like, you know, the way Apple recruits is crazy and spot on and they're so good at it, right? It's like, you know, talk to both of them and they were like, kind of like, awful. This is the biggest compliment I've ever got. know, you're looking at like, there's nothing I can say here other than go. Absolutely. Well, that's you know, it's

It's hard to lose staff, but it's you know, it's also like to be mature enough and progress. mean, one of the two has come back and done projects with us. I would say like, I'm still in contact with like, was the over like 90 % of the people that worked at Sprout. I mean, I go to New York and we had old interns and an old employee there. We were hanging out when I'm having stuff at the ICFF. I mean, just super cool to see these guys kind of spread their wings, guys and gals and

Yeah, it's been, it's been really, really interesting as a business owner, but also like, again, like I'm, I always joke on the CFO, but that's the F as in for finance for fun. So I like try to make, you know, it fun is different these days as well. It's not always about, you know, going to bar after work anymore, but we're, know, we do some great content for our people. We've had awesome off sites all through the years. you know, my family, was most of the employees that have been through Sprout. It's great, you know, and

Chris Whyte (: 01:17:06

Although you know, I say we're more of a team than a family. I think after spread is more feels more like family than team. Yeah. So that's awesome. And book recommendations. And do want to get your phone out? First it got me into all these books. I should get my phone out. But I mean, Tim Ferrars for our work week that was my that was how I think I was like, originally able to scale because just delegation and

Not about going to get my work and all this stuff from the rough, but just kind of the methodology behind doing that. You're all the Malcolm Gladwell books on the marketing side. You know, name which one they're so great. And I my phone. Yeah, yeah. I get I bike a lot and I listen to these somewhere between podcasts and these books all the time.

Chris Whyte (: 01:18:08

There you go.

Chris Whyte (: 01:18:22

I love those things where you're in the four hour work week I've got the 12 hour sorry 12 week year yeah on my reading list I'm

Yeah, is on my list. By the way, I looked and I'm like, there it is. Yeah. I mean, there's a whole ecosystem of books around traction and like my fiance, I ordered a bunch of them. Yeah, it's around like the the entrepreneurs operating system. Yeah. And so traction is about the business and how you kind of

set the vision and the systems in place to scale a business. But then the operating system that kind of sits in the middle, you can then apply to your life. So you talk about kind of your life goals and what you want to do and all that kind of stuff. And it literally comes with a diary that you can fill out. My partner thought it was hilarious. So kind of going into this self helps of what I think, if anything you can take away from those to apply to business in your life, you know,

I love it. think the only problem I have is how do I, I then start thinking how can I apply this to my business? Yeah, totally. Your head's not spinning, but no, it's awesome. I've got a couple. mean, it's a basic ones like Phil, Tony Fidel. That's just an awesome hardware book. Yeah.

Atomic Habits is like just in terms of success. think that's really good. These two kind of go together, but Dopamine Nation, is like, sorry, Dopamine Nation. Just a good read on kind of like just in general, like what keeps people going and what's going on in society today. this led to this other book, The Anxious Generation that I'm reading as well, which is kind of around screen time and just instant gratification that we're used to and like.

Chris Whyte (: 01:20:14

You know, for me, I just, feel like this is one of the subjects. two right now that are like personal to me that I'd like to do some creative problem solving. And one is like this just not so much anxious generation, but the phone, which is causing it, you know, just downtime from the screen and people.

around every day. I love just putting my phone away. It's like my favorite thing to do when I can. know, it's something someone said, I think I was on a training course once or like a round table and someone in the group mentioned one of their advisors has this kind of power play or power move when it comes to the phone. Yeah. It will take his phone.

put and say, can you just, I don't want to look at this. Like you sat across the end, I don't want look at this. Can you just hold on to that for me? then it then almost forces the other person to do the same and they put their phones away and then they're in the conversation and they're engaged. I thought, I mean, that is a proper like,

manipulation of human kind of kind of psychology isn't it but it's also it's like it's brilliant yeah it's a big deal like it really is like taking time out I mean also like mean just get outside for a walk if you even have 15 minutes you know even shitty out whatever yeah just stop what you're doing take a break you know for me it's like these long

long being like two or three hour bike rides. You're just getting this rhythm. It's almost like a flow state. I can be like five super hard problems I can't figure out and I get back from the bike ride and I got it. I figured it out and it's just getting away.

Chris Whyte (: 01:21:48

I found them. I found all the books. This is awesome. And I love all these books. I let my people go surfing. So Yvonne Chouinard, Patagonia. This is like the whole live work. Just make sure that you play hard, play harder, whatever you want to call it. Amazing. No Rules Rules, So read Hastings from Netflix, but their culture. And that's a lot of that culture of candor and again, just treating your people right to scale.

Yeah, Malcolm Gladwell who blink is one of the books. There's also a bunch of stuff going in books that are awesome and then Just trying to see Howard Schultz. I forgot about this one. This one's great. So the founder of Starbucks, okay? We're hurting to it. Yeah, great great book again kind of around product and businesses

Anyways, I mean, think those are, I've got way too many books in here. Like that's a good sample of it. And you know, I think it also like kind of ranges from stuff that's like very design minded to just like stuff that's good to know and kind of going as you've been. Absolutely. Have you read Creativity, Inc? You mentioned Kanda quite a bit. So that's the...

forget his name, but it's the it's one of founders of Pixar. And he talks about when he was planning to retire, he wrote memoirs, and it came creativity, but it's essentially, you know, it's a blueprint for creating a creative workforce at scale, maintaining that kind of culture. And at the core of it was the is a radical candor, and the kind of brain trusts and kind of

in these kind of brain sessions, everyone's appear. There's no hierarchy regardless of what your job type says. Everyone has a say at the table and everyone is listened to and everyone is honest with their feedback. And you all understand like whatever is said in the room is with the view to make the project the best it can be. Nothing's personal. We criticize the project. We don't criticize the individual and that kind of stuff. It's like...

Chris Whyte (: 01:23:58

One, it's a really interesting story because of the, you know, his background and where they started with Pixar, working at Lucasfilm, working with Steve Jobs as the... Definitely got to it. It's quite poignant towards the end as well. But then there's so many lessons that you could apply to any business. Yeah. So there you go. There's one for you. Write it down. Yeah. Traction and creativity.

Absolutely fascinating stories. Nice. Well, yeah, John will wrap it up then. It's been a really interesting conversation. I've loved getting to get diving into that and getting to know you as well as us days. I'm very grateful to have you on the show. Thanks. I'm super happy to be here. Honestly, I think kind of brought it in at the beginning. I'm like, you know, I feel lucky that I fell into this profession, but it's just brought me so much joy and all the people I've met in the years.

on. It's just such a great thing. And you know, it's done from one thing, I was thinking like one parting word here was like, my dad would always tell me like, you gotta do something you love. And so I just feel like really lucky to have found it. It just Yeah, this is great. Opening up and you know, sharing the stuff. I love that. It's a nice way to bookend the conversation as well. go back to start. Awesome. Thanks so much. Right.