Pinball Mod Talk Episode 23: Mod Maker War Room

In Before the Lock Live Streams·video·1h 14m·analyzed·Jan 21, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Mod makers discuss R&D phase, prototyping, and scaling challenges for pinball aftermarket products.

Summary

Rob Wrath (Electric Playground) hosts Davey Price (Stumblor Pinball) and guests Jimmy Lifeam (86 Pixels/Pin Lights) and Brad Robach (Pennovation/Pin Grips) for a discussion on mod-making fundamentals. The conversation covers the R&D phase of mod development, including market research, product validation, prototyping iterations, manufacturing considerations, and scaling challenges. New products highlighted include Pin Lights Pro (RGB interactive playfield lighting), Pin Grips (lockdown bar grip accessory), and future utility tools.

Key Claims

Pin Lights Pro (fully reactive immersive RGB playfield lighting) launching within 4-6 weeks, certainly by TPF 2025
high confidence · Jimmy Lifeam, on-air product announcement
Davey has gone through approximately 20 iterations of 3D-printed parts before mass-ordering, with some complex mods requiring many more
high confidence · Davey Price describing his design iteration process
Pin Lights mounting system is on revision 23 due to vertical clearance differences between 1975 and 2025 machines
high confidence · Jimmy Lifeam discussing design complexity of universal mods
Pin Grips are manufactured using bamboo/FDM 3D printing with PLA materials; injection molding would cost $10k+ for tooling
high confidence · Brad Robach explaining manufacturing material selection and cost constraints
Successful mod makers time releases to ride the hype cycle of new game announcements from major manufacturers
high confidence · Davey Price on market-driven R&D strategy
Pin Grips are shipping as of late December, priced at $30/pair including shipping
high confidence · Brad Robach on product availability and pricing
Pin Lights demand is exceeding supply ('flying off the shelves')
high confidence · Jimmy Lifeam on current product demand
Tippy Awards (community pinball awards) received over 7,000 votes, the most ever
high confidence · Rob Wrath announcing voting milestone

Notable Quotes

“really what I do is wait for a new game to come out...by following that release schedule of the manufacturers you're sort of benefiting from their hype as well”
Davey Price@ 21:54 — Core insight into market-driven mod development strategy
“if you just Chase everything then you'll never get anything out and you'll just be chasing your tail the whole time so you sort of have to be a little bit strategic”
Davey Price@ 22:54 — Practical advice on prioritization in mod development
“the problem with that is things are fun when you're building 10 of them right you're giving them to your closest friends and when you need to build 4,000 of them a year that's a job”
Jimmy Lifeam@ 34:58 — Captures the scaling challenge from hobby to business
“it's such an unglamorous side of mod making...ensuring that you've got enough parts to build something ensuring those parts are sustainable...one of the most important things”
Davey Price@ 27:48 — Highlights supply chain and inventory management as critical but overlooked
“we didn't want to get totally crapped on right out of the shoot so we sent some to some players and got some really good feedback”
Brad Robach@ 29:58 — New mod maker's validation strategy with influencer testing
“shipping is a huge issue in terms of breakage so we're constantly thinking about building it for shipping at the very early phases”
Rob Wrath@ 27:02 — Design-for-shipping as a cost and quality factor from inception

Entities

Rob WrathpersonDavey PricepersonJimmy LifeampersonBrad RobachpersonElectric PlaygroundcompanyStumblor Pinballcompany86 PixelscompanyPennovation DesigncompanyPin LightsproductPin Lights ProproductPin Gripsproduct

Signals

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product_launch: Pin Lights Pro (RGB interactive version) launching Q1 2025 within 4-6 weeks, before TPF expo. Current Pin Lights products flying off shelves due to demand.
high · Jimmy Lifeam: 'coming up here in the next oh I'd say four to 6 weeks certainly by tpf we'll have our penlights Pros which are fully reactive immersive RGB'
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product_launch: Pin Grips lockdown bar grip accessory launched late December 2024, priced at $30/pair including shipping; available on Pinside and pennovation design website. Pin Grips Plus (side armor extension) also available.
high · Brad Robach: 'we started in late December and...we're shipping we're taking orders off website and uh off inside'
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manufacturing_signal: Pin Grips prototyped through multiple material iterations (silly putty, resin, FDM). Final choice: FDM 3D printing with PLA due to color limitations in resin and warping issues. Injection molding considered cost-prohibitive at $10k+ tooling.
high · Brad Robach: 'we ended up um getting a using a um the bamboo printer 3D printing and we're using a pla uh type materials...nice if it was injection molded for the strength but um you know just just the number that gets bandied about...as 10 grand for the mold'
?
manufacturing_signal: As mod businesses scale from small production to 4,000+ units/year, mod makers transition from hobby to automated/outsourced manufacturing. Jimmy Lifeam uses sub-assemblies from manufacturing partners with final assembly in-house.
high · Jimmy Lifeam: 'when you need to build 4,000 of them a year that's a job...we've tried to automate everything...we get sub assemblies made uh by our manufacturing Partners...final assembly gets done here'
?

Topics

R&D and concept validation for mod productsprimaryPrototyping iterations and 3D design refinementprimaryManufacturing material selection and cost trade-offsprimaryScaling from prototype to mass productionprimarySupply chain and parts sourcing sustainabilityprimaryMarket-driven mod development strategyprimaryShipping and packaging designsecondaryNew product launches and announcementssecondaryCommunity awards and recognition (Tippies)secondaryHomebrew game designmentioned

Sentiment

neutral(0)

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

[Music] [Applause] [Music] what's up everybody welcome to in before for the lock where we talk everything pinball mods welcome to 2025 youve got Rob with the Electric Playground and Davey with stumbler pinball Davey welcome to 2025 man how you feeling robra good to see you man I'm feeling all right I'm feeling good uh brand new year brand new me um the possibilities are endless brand new you I want to hear more about that I say that every year man it's nothing okay okay nice well guys we got a great show for you this is our first episode of 2025 uh we kind of came up with this uh Topic in the last couple days where we're going to be talking about all things making and building mods uh so we've got a great guest lineup for you uh mod makers this show is for the mod makers uh so to bring our first guest on which is a returning guest we've got uh Jimmy lifeam with 86 pixels and creator of just a uh release this year uh pin lights what's up Jimmy hey guys great to be here appreciate it he Jim yeah how's everybody doing good good yeah we're good man we're good what's uh so uh give us give us the quick overview on pin lights and I know you've got some new stuff coming what's what's new on the horizon for you guys sure pin lights Sleek cost effective uh above the Playfield aftermarket Playfield lighting for your 60s 7s 80s 90s uh 2000s and today pinball machines um and uh so far um you know those are flying off the shelves we're trying to keep up with them demand uh but uh coming up here in the next oh I'd say four to 6 weeks certainly by tpf we'll have our penlights Pros which are fully reactive immersive RGB uh above Playfield lighting um all that good stuff so got that new edition coming out this uh this tpf nice so this is a low profile lighting system that goes along the rail correct and uh is your is your current models not not interative with the game and this one is or is it just get the next step they're they're interactive this one's just interactive times a million and RGB uh so the current ones are cool white Warm White and then a UV flasher uh so mostly just solving the dark Playfield problem uh in a cost- effective way that's that's what the current edition does and and not your first mod no uh no it's it's it's it's it's a it's a problem um no uh we we started back in 2020 uh doing the uh pin Vision uh displays now this was before pinsound pin Vision but but uh but uh this was we did the backboard displays uh for Twilight Zone Tron theater magic we did like a half silvered mirror that interacts with the game and plays videos depending on the modes that you're in and all that jazz and um we still make those we just do them in batches now uh so we'll be doing another run of Twilight Bates batches something you should consider as a mod maker well giving it to give you your proper card guys check out uh pin lights uh great great new product great option uh for your game and we've also got Brad robach uh with pin grips no affiliation how you doing Brad hey hello guys how are you welcome to the show Brad uh you uh you reached out to me I think about a month ago uh telling me about a new product that you had coming down the line we're going to talk about it for a little bit today uh can you can you give us an overview and I'll I'll flash some photos for yeah so we uh have developed and just launched recently a product that we call pin grips and it is a I would consider it I guess an add-on accessory to pinball machine and it actually it um snaps in underneath the lock down bar and it just allows you to have a a more comfortable feel on the machine place to put your thumb other than on the glass and then actually when you grip it um it actually gives you a little better grip on the machine as well so we've been um doing all kinds of versions of this and starting to sell and have gotten a very good response so far and uh there's there's another component as well I think I'll pull it up here if I can pull it out you've also got uh a piece that goes on the side of the machine um as well right for um machines like your pro versions and for badley Williams and those that don't have side armor on them if you have that uh you can add what we call pin grips plus you can add that to the um pin grip as well um as a extension help you um protect the cabinet and it also it has a little different feel without with with that on it versus the grip um but it is also an added accessory to that now Brad uh I think Rob was saying this is your this is your first sort of foray into mod making but you've done a lot of product design before is that correct well yeah my background is product design I'm a um mechanical engineer I've been in automotive industry for since I was 15 so that's uh 45 years and so we uh we engineer design and develop um assemblies for automobills so there's um you've taken a lot of that knowledge you've taken a lot of that knowledge into into this product I've taken some yeah they they look um they look great quality I was trying to when I was sort of seeing the pictures of them I was trying to work out sort of what material you've used um to produce them because obviously as a mod maker you you tend to get really Nerdy with this kind of stuff and trying to work out um you know whether it's been 3D printed or whether it was done by a farm or or what product was used um would you mind sharing sharing that yeah of course so we've we started it about six months ago in development ideas and actually the very first one was made out of silly putty so um didn't think that that would really not the not the final version so for some reason I had an idea at night woke up in the morning got some Silly Putty and put them on um so but yeah we tried several different types of materials and printing techniques we actually started with resin printing y um there was some limitations in that uh um primarily uh color limitations and resins to try and get somewhat close to to matching the colors that we wanted and then some other issues with resin we had there was quite a bit of warping during the curing for these thin you can see that there's some thin walls on there there's not a lot of real estate for you to lock get in underneath the lock down bar and lock it in so um we ended up um getting a using a um the bamboo printer 3D printing and we're using a pla uh type materials and um we found that it's the best for printing so far and reasonable durability it's not exactly where we wanted it' be nice if it was injection molded for the strength but um you know just just the number of pretty cost prohibitive to do that though isn't it like I mean the number that gets bandied about when it comes to that kind of stuff as 10 grand for the mold even to even before you start doing anything exactly and you know we weren't 100% sure how the market would accept it so you know we I think we have a product that um you know people like and it's a it seems like it's acceptable the construction and and the options that people have so let's put we put our toe in and yeah uh so you given me a couple of these I've kind of been a little bit of part of the prototyping uh process Davey's got some on the way and and Davey I'm looking to hear what you think but I just kind of want to share kind of some of my thoughts on it I mean obviously the natural the natural reaction to something like this is I don't need that right like and I know we've talked a little bit about that but I will say after getting it there's a couple things early on that really kind of I noticed one the the fit is incredibly snug like you guys have made this thing like stick on there where it feels like it's a part of the game um I also say that uh I know one of your kind of phrases is like getting locked into the game I will say it definitely allows you to have that locked in feel um that that surface just kind of when you put your hands on it like it it feels like it's a natural in part of the game um I know you've got some color options coming which is really cool um I just showed the X-Men one earlier so there's some really cool stuff you can do hard aesthetically complimenting your game but I would say it's what what are they $30 a pair is that yeah we're selling them on our on pinside and on our website for $30 that includes shipping so you know shipping's paid for in there and price yeah yeah definitely definitely worth a shot um are you guys going to be at any shows coming up where people get get their hands on these in person yeah yeah we're actually going to be at tpf uh it'll be our first first show that we've officially um had a booth at so we're excited about that get people to see him and touch him and feel get to meet all you guys over yeah we'll pop over and do some interviews um Rob will probably be over on the first day and then he'll harass me for two days to go and do interviews and I'll come over on the last day yeah to cool where where can people learn more about this BR uh you can go to our website at pennovation design.com and we also have a store on pinside and you can look up uh pennovation design.com or just type in pin grips and it should come up nice nice and are you shipping already or where how far are you we started in late December and uh yeah so we're shipping we're taking orders off website and uh off off inside so everything seems to be working nice nice and and I have to share uh a little bit of the behind the the scenes as far as your pinball experience you sent me these photos and uh some amazing work on uh both Flash Gordon and aball Delux did you do this work yourself or tell us about your your pinball J I did I've always been a tinker and I I do service machines um I actually do all the service for our local arcade here and so I've tinkered with machines for years nice some close-ups on The Flash Gordon I mean you're you did like play swap uh Cav store this is all your work yes it is yeah about about 80 hours into this one I got got a little carried away Dave is amazing it's it's gone yeah I did have one but uh it's um unfortunately it's sunset on Flash Gordon um the back glass scared my daughter too much so um yeah I don't know why I think it was Ming the merciless I think she just didn't like the look on his face what is what is wrong oh yeah he's a little he's a little angry it's yeah it's Ming at the bottom I think that she wasn't keen on I don't know why yeah the eyebrows it's the eyebrows yeah she wasn't K whereas I like I think Flash Gordon's like one of the best games of that era I've got a couple of favorites um Vector being the other one even though that's highly controversial um but yeah Flash Gordon's an absolute cracker um so well wor well worth a a restore nice nice very very cool thanks for sharing those Brad well uh we're gonna we're gonna dive into our our main topic today but real quick uh reminder that today is the last day to vote for the tippies uh which is the pinball Community award so you can go to tes.com and get in on that uh most everybody here not Brad because his his product didn't qualify but Jimmy's on there Davey's on there we're on there so so dig through that and uh see what you uh what you who you want to vote on uh any uh any shoutouts for any uh projects or or products that you guys want to throw out there Davey anything anybody you want to give a give a shout out to yeah I mean I'll always give a shout out to my man Paul jazb um we do a lot of work together very talented dude um runs his own toy company which is essentially the coolest job in the world um which I'm always very jealous of um and got very cool stories about uh you know Lego and and uh Nerf blasters you're not allowed to call them guns Nerf blasters and you know all these companies that he works with so yeah he's got he's got two mods uh up in the twibes as well uh he's got his new Atomic Godzilla uh topper um and his his bond laser uh which is always very cool um and uh yeah and just everybody pay attention to the Homebrew section as well uh you know those guys are just the champions of the pinball World in my uh view uh and the most you know they put in more hours than any of us I reckon more late nights so make sure you get involved in the home brew section and and uh you know and vote for your favorite definitely definitely yeah the most votes ever I think they're pushing 7,000 votes uh which is amazing there's two home brew categories that's my shout out I got to give a shout out to Nick Nel who did the Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Kyle Smith did uh the uh Friday the 13th both two amazing examples and then there's the there's a remake or rethe category as well too so two Homebrew categories you can vote for Brad any uh any any tppy nominees you got your eye on well I think I've got I've got a Godzilla that might need a Topper right here oh yeah okay now I told you you can't you can't sit mention me yeah yeah man we're we got we got a couple of our Toppers in there so you definitely need a Topper yeah I like the home BR that you said too I I um I went to um Expo I think it's been 25 years ago we used to live we lived in Milwaukee for a while so you used to go down so I went there quite a while ago um but yeah I got a chance this year to go back and um got to play some of the home brw the H Tony Hawk was cool I think the what is saw was that a re is that's a well win yeah yeah and that's in the Nom that's in the list as well yeah yeah very well done that that's kind of I that's something maybe I would aspire to do someday I I'm not sure at this point in time but no I mean time time being the operative word in in that sentence yeah Jimmy you got any uh tppy uh tppy shout outs for us yeah yeah so like some of the content creators aside from this I can't plug what we're currently doing here okay can he can so I'd plug away my friend NOP nope can't do it uh shout out to the uh the pinball Mafia down in Houston or Bowmont Texas the you know a group of tournament Players they get together every Sunday for the past 10 years and have been streaming on Twitch no drama just a fun loving family they're all um you know they they get together and and and play every Sunday night and they stream it so uh they're they're on the nominations as well so uh you know big shout out there uh home Brewers obviously Nick you killed it on Tony Hawk i' I've been out of the the the home bre scene for about a decade now but it's like that you you you're pulling me back in with that one like I I see it and I'm just like oh that so fantastic and then of of course shout out to Brad Brad Albright for his work on Motorhead um with Dave P um you know Blood Sweat and Tears just his heart and soul went into that game so my hat will will always be off uh to to those guys and and the next generation of uh you know pinball designers is if they're not you they're gonna be standing on your shoulders so fantastic job all around for sure all right guys I'm gonna I'm gonna flash it up there tes.com if you know a mod maker give him a shout out there's a lot of and content creators tons of content creators and of course all the games I mean the new games like if you look at the new games and you want to vote on new game there wasn't like five new games this year there was like 15 it's crazy so definitely a great year to get in on the votes all right right we're doing this so uh guys we're going to talk today about uh all the things that we've seen uh Heard done uh not done well about making mods uh so the idea here is we're gonna kind of go through you know what at least we've outlined is like kind of the seven stages that you would go through in the process of making a mod and just kind of talk about you know each one um I don't think we're going to get through it all on this episode uh so we're just going to kind of set it out right here this will probably be a multi- part episode uh in terms of you know hitting these and and hopefully we can get Jimmy and Brad to come back and and talk with us more about it uh but we're going to take our time with this if you guys have questions about anything uh throughout the show uh really hitting any area of mod making you know put them in the chat uh we'll try to pull them up uh and hit those so um let's go ahead and kick this off um uh We've we've we're kind of to start at the early stages of mod making which is the R&D phase um and I call it r D research and development it's really just the point where you're trying to decide what to build and of course decide how to build it and think about who it appeals to um so uh Brad uh I know you're new to this with your product but Jimmy and Davey have been through this with lots of products uh Dave you want to start us off and kind of tell us what your current process is for early things yeah I mean mine's pretty sort of low fire I guess um you know really what I do is wait for a new game to come out I mean I think um I think as you know I think sort of the guys who were sort of really trying to turn mod making into a business have sort of come to realize that where the most amount of sales are is going to be new games coming out so um you know by following that release schedule of the of the of the main sort of Manufacturers you're sort of benefiting from their hype as well so uh new comes out there's lots of hype surrounding it there's all the marketing surrounding it and you're sort of riding that wave I suppose so that's where the the orders will come from is from the new game so really um my R&D is led by those new game releases but I guess the the sort of the analysis that you have to do comes from what happens after that release um and that is how well is this game being received by the community um is it going to be a is it is it massive if is it not massive um are there other games coming out later on down the path that are going to be more massive you sort of trying to we out what to focus your time on because um my mods take you know months and months and months to develop and then months and months and months to fulfill um if you just Chase everything then you'll never get anything out and and you'll just be chasing your tail the whole time so you sort of have to be a little bit strategic about what you focus on and what you target um obviously everybody's mods aren't going to be in that basket because um some some people's stuff can be released quicker uh and they can be sort of more reactive to things um but for mine I sort of have to have to sort of make those kind of decisions on a on a new release um then it's down to are there mod making opportunities in the game um are the ideas that I'm coming up with sort of even conducive to my style of modding which is Led sort of heavy um um and then I guess finding out whether there's you know all the other mod makers are piling on or not and whether it's going to be a really competitive Marketplace for that type of thing um yeah that's that's my thought thought process on on whether to create a new mod or not and then and then sometimes you just come up with such a not a great idea but an idea you really want to pursue anyway you just do it anyway you know which is quite often the case what about uh what about you Jimmy what what's your thought process when you're coming out with a new product uh I guess it kind of depends on the mod right so if it's a utilitarian mod right and one that's going to be generic to every game my R&D is mostly validation of the problem and is this a problem that I can solve across Stern games jjp Games Etc whereas if it's in the case of like the Twilight Zone displays and stuff like that game specific uh that one kind of came about as is I think that would be cool I'm G to make one and I did and then for the most part you're just hoping that you don't desecrate the game and and people think that you've ruined you know the yeah especially with a game like Twilight Zone right right that's like oh this Grail game you know or whatever and so yeah uh but but most of my R&D on the utilitarian side is validation of the problem how easily can I make a product that's generic to the different manufacturers in the space the different regions in which these games sold um before I go out there and just kind of order a thousand of a thing or whatever and then validate it with the market right so a lot of times what I'll do is I'll I'll make a prototype of something I'll record a video we'll drop it on pinside and worst case scenario it's just a hey I'm hacking on this thing thread then you kind of you know vet the response that way and then of course make friends I a lot of my friends you know they they get the products8 n 10 months before the public even sees them because we're testing on that so that's typically how I draw the line in the sand I guess with the different mod types and how I would approach R&D to those but hope that makes sense yeah yeah you know with with Toppers we we don't necessarily always take the same approach because usually the manufacturer either shipped it with a Topper or they're coming with the topper um so we're looking at back catalog quite a bit uh but I will agree that like top of Mind Games is is really critical right whatever that means outside of that Spectrum I mean you like with Metallica Metallica hits the marks you just brought up Davey because like it's out recently and people are really excited about it I think it just hit number one on pin side strongly which it may stick around you know that's pretty impressive so yeah I feel like top of Mind Games is really important um a couple things I kind of wrote down you know get a little bit more into the weeds um around making the thing which is like you know as you as you Source parts or or or or you start to build it like really think about you know how hard is this going to be to assemble in Mass right so like really spend the time to not just think about it from building one but from building many um and and the parts you're sourcing can be a part of that like you know if you're going to be building this for a year or two um are there alternatives to maybe some of the parts you're using um those are things that are kind of beyond the theme but really get into just like the longevity of it which I think the sooner you can kind of ident Identify some of those things the better and then for us like shipping is a huge issue in terms of breakage so uh we're constantly you know thinking about building it for for shipping at the very early phases and we've even eliminated uh creative ideas uh that we felt like you know the shipping could have have an impact on um so uh interesting you mentioned that man because like it's it's such an unglamorous side of mod making isn't it consider I'm going to a and it to you but it's it's such AAL you know and it's all these it's all these unglamorous parts of mod making um that I I like and and you mentioned Parts as well like keep you know ensuring that you've got enough parts to build something ensuring those parts are sustainable um you know and and you know working out how many you've actually got in your share or your Warehouse or whatever it is is such an unglamorous part of mod making but it's like one of the most important things um interestingly I received pulp Pulp Fiction today um I know six months behind everybody else but what I was so surprised at was that all of the foam that they used to pack out Pulp Fiction fitted inside a single um carrier bag like shopping carrier bag like you know when you get a new Stern new box and it's like the phone is just like Monumental you know like it fits in garbage bags like three garbage bags or whatever like their's fit in like a small carrier bag in that now what I want to know is whether that's enough you know to not have people receive it with damage or whether they've just been more clever about it you know yeah yeah well Brad you're uh you're you went through this process probably recent more recent than any of us any you you look back on that you might have done differently or any uh any advice yeah for us um I mean we you know it's my in my background we doot usually do a lot of benchmarking and looking try and improve products but in this case our first product um you know there was really what what what was there to Benchmark was the machines that have been out and the designs for what 75 plus years and so you know we we're walking into something that really has never been done before as an accessory on a machine that I'm aware of and I've never seen one over the years so we were really coming up with a new idea and so um we made first prototypes and got them out to some higher in players just to see what they thought about them you know we um I think it's a very fickle um Market of acceptance you know when you're bringing something out and we didn't you know we didn't want to get totally crapped on right out of the shoot so we sent some to some players and got some high-end players and got some really good feedback that you know hey this is a it's a pretty cool product and um and that's kind of how we started and given us motivation um but we our our company what we're going to do mostly is probably going to be outside of the glass or with um the glass taken off so we're working on another product right now that would be uh a useful Service Tool um for the industry and we think that uh when we bring that out it'll be very good product so we're we're starting to look at that and um and in the R&D also you know we put a lot of lines in the in the water like sending sending parts to Rob just to get people's feedback early on in the process and Rob thank you know he actually gave us some advice on some things on it and we appreciated that so just getting you know we had a group of people that we went and talked to and and got um you know got some got some good feedback now tell us about uh Davey Jimmy like how many iterations of the product do you think you go have gone through before you actually start even ordering parts for the first multiple of these things uh so just like for a 3D printed part um um and I I I mean iterations is kind of a little bit sort of flexible here I suppose but in terms of the exports of the design file that I use to then print with and test with um locally like maybe 20 for some some of my um big mods um and is that all prepaint or is that are you painting those too or is it no no no no like fit testing that's just fit testing so with theater uh which was uh the new uh Godzilla Center building that I did for the back that has like a collapsible wall thing and a Servo that sort of pulls it down um because and sort of fire shoots out the wall because everything was sort of really cramped in and had to sort of skirt around internal opdo brackets and things like that the fit was just you know really really tricky so you'd sort of you know measure up and you'd print one and it wasn't quite right and then you'd sort of you know go through this process and then you'd think you'd have it right and then you'd forget that you hadn't added one of the parts that was needed so you'd add that part in and then suddenly it wouldn't fit again so yeah that that went through you know so many iterations and not everything's like that of course like uh I'm working on uh a mod for Elton John uh at the moment uh which is a lot simpler than what I just described and and that's maybe gone through six or seven printed iter iterations uh before or before it was correct and I think as well as when you get your um get more experience doing these things um you can sort of anticipate problems happening before they happen um just because you've sort of seen it before so you sort of design you sort of Build That Into Your Design before you even start printing it um but that just comes through experience I suppose um what about you Jimmy how many uh how many iterations did you have to go through before pin lights became pin lights I mean certainly more than the limitation on Fusion 360's like trial Edition or whatever right that's like the that's how you know that you've made it right you're like oh okay we're getting there when they won't let you export them anymore um it's yeah I mean I I just pulled the our metal uh mounting system and all that yeah we're on revision 23 of it just because we're like well okay what's the angle look like on certain games as a matter of fact if you're installing lights on a game made in 1975 versus one made in 2025 uh vertical clearance you actually need a different metal Mount so that the light gets thrown to the right area on the on the uh Playfield and so yeah and and as you've just said Davey I mean we' learned that just through experience and just going through the iterations and and stuff like that but yeah we've we've done close to 30 revs on that part alone and even more on the The Twilight Zone stuff just getting the viewing angles right you know yeah it's just part I was gonna say like given that pin lights is sort of a universal mod in that it's uh you know you're you're aiming to uh get it into every game no matter what the architecture is no matter what the game title is I mean obviously that's that increases your Market massively but it also increases the complexity massively right oh yes yeah you know the the the problem with that is things are fun when you're building 10 of them right you're giving them to your closest friends and and when you need to build 4,000 of them a year that's a job and you're like you're like okay well how do we you know how do we how do we do that you know do you buy shop space do you hire out help or uh in our case what we did is we've tried to automate everything to where we're a sub assembler at that point we get sub assemblies made uh by our manufacturing Partners our strategic partners and then we assemble them here so final assembly gets done here and those are the types of questions as you know you you have to ask and answer as you go from you know tens of mods to hundreds of mods to to thousands and that diff that's going to be different based on your expertise but yeah it's it's definitely changed things for us compared to what we were doing in the Twilight Zone yeah I think that's key too I mean one of the uh one of the uh points we were talking about earlier Rob was like the dos and don'ts of mod making and I think that's like one of the key things that has enabled me to sort of scale um as you know I went from you know selling 30 mods to selling you know thousands of mods is you know embracing as many sort of third party as as much third party help as you can um so cable assemblies you know get all them made somewhere else uh you know you know absolutely anything that can get made externally um get it made externally because that's just going to speed up your process massively and when you are a small business and you only got a certain number of staff and you want to do it in a sustainable way that's not going to you know increase the risk of your business massively um you know getting as much stuff done outside of your business as possible is really going to help in that process yeah I'd agree with that and you'll get better with that over time to kind of identify what's critical and also the timing of that I mean there there are cases where you can you know make it by making them yourself and the quality might even be better than Outsourcing a little bit but it just doesn't make sense to do that long term and and you've got to be patient with yourself to like be like okay you know I'm going to take the time to make 50 of these but I'm GNA also start today to figure out how to get the the next 50 made by somebody else because it does take a lot of time you got to wait for the samples to come in uh make sure they look right build in you know an iteration or two there um and so we're starting to get into production so we definitely want to talk about I think one thing I I want to say too is like what's so special about the pinball space is like everybody wants to help so also as you're in the R&D phase as you're learning new things ask uh you know the people you know they're going to know people um you're going to get a lot of answers pretty quickly so definitely you see it in the home brew uh you see it in the mod making space like people are there and they want to help and ultimately they they may end up collaborating on things too so I think there's a of reason to make that happen um all right so let's talk about production which obviously is an extension of R&D uh I talked a little bit about making decisions about Parts but as you move kind of beyond that product that you know is ready to go uh what are some some things that you're doing differently Davey that you might have not been doing a year or two ago anything come to mind um well I think I've always I mean number one is sorting out the bomb right so the bomb is the Bild yeah um uh you know and and I think everybody who's involved in pinball you know knows knows that term because you know we always talk about you know what bomb goes into a pinball machine and whether it's worth what we pay for them the visual bomb you just look at the bottom of the Playfield and you know exactly how much it cost yeah well your bank balance yeah um so you know and that's and you know even even sort of when you're doing things small scale or large scale you know all comes down to basically an Excel spreadsheet and just having all your all your parts listed what they cost um you know and don't forget how much don't forget shipping factor in shipping into the yeah that cost yeah exactly and and uh you know don't forget tax to import tax um and assembly cost too so if you're if you're doing things at scale you know make sure you're counting the time it takes to put these things together so you essentially want to break it all down in a big sheet I I still like I've automated a lot of stuff and moved away from Excel in a lot of ways because it sort of gets too things get too complex to just doing a spreadsheet but I still do my bomb costs in XL um because it's quite simple uh in terms of uh how you calculate you know what a part costs where it comes from how many of those parts go into the mod uh what it costs for one part what it costs if you're ordering in uh lots of 100 or 500 or whatever it is um what the tax is on that what your uh if you're using PayPal and what your PayPal um charges are um uh and um breaking it all down that way you know I mean that's that's sort of number one that's sort of how I work it out and then uh as a maker you need to determine what your margin is uh on the product um and everybody's got a different um idea on how to calculate that uh it depends on whether you're aiming low or you're Aiming High um on that or with you going smack bang in the middle um and that's not really you know I make a lot of Rec recommendations to uh friends within the the mod sphere about where they should sort of set that thing but ultimately um it's up to the individual themselves and where they want to place their product um and I think in tandem with that lies understanding the market too so you know you know you might want to price your mod really high uh in order to maximize the profit on it but will the market accept that you know are you going to lose sales as a result of you positioning your price at a certain point um so in my view there's there's there's a there's a there's a sweet spot on that you know there's a way to keep your business sustainable there's a way to earn profit um in order to keep going and have a successful business but also sort of encouraging people not to think that you're gouging uh at the same time um so that's a really difficult uh problem to to teach someone and I think that's only something that people can um can work out on their own right I'm BR I forgot a challenge that I'm sure you can sympathize with which is um let's be careful with Bry yeah I was trying to I was trying to be careful yeah that is me being careful yeah yeah so so I've got four bamboos Brad and I'm always kind of asking myself like should I add another right and what is the benefit and am I just do I just want another 3D printer you know like of course I do right so how do how are you thinking about expanding this key tool for building your product well you know I just got back from the skate trip and guess what was on my front porch brand new one nice which is a good which is a good thing you know for um you know people that are in B they using B Bo you know it's it's it's not expensive but it's still cost you know depending on on the products you're going to be make and the volume that you can make so in our case we we took the approach to launch with um with Stern Spike two um we we we have two part numbers if you don't consider color um that can basically cover all of the spike 2 games going all the way back to to Batman 66 I think was the first and you know looking at that market um it's supposedly around 100,000 or so machines so we took the approach for that and then you know for our manufacturing at least to start to have those two two SKS we don't have a a bill of material because it's just one part for us right now um the next product we're working on does have a bomb with other parts that we'll end up purchasing um but yeah we go we we went back and just calculated the you know what if scenario you know what if we got 2% of the 100,000 you know how many would we make a day to be able to fulfill that um you know we when we put out things on pinside like little teasers on a thread for our Jaws on pin grip for instance you know we'll see a flurry of that and I'll usually make some in advance and have them in anticipation um of that but that's the approach that we took we just kind of looked to see and then you know wasn't too difficult for us to expand at this time to have additional manufacturing I I love that you threw out 2% and I want to reinforce that so what he's talking about there is looking at the entire market and looking at 2% is is a success right like if you can hit and succeed by selling to 2% of entire possible Market that's that's a great place to start I don't know Jimmy and Davey how you feel about that one but I think grounding yourself in a number like that can be really beneficial so how do how would you find out what the total Market is in pinb uh for to be honest with you uh so we were at um and when we were at Expo we went to the the stern party because we're part of the stern Army as well we run tournaments and so we we had the opportunity to have a fireside chat with Gary Stern and Seth Davis and uh and and I've heard it I've heard it another place before that there was approximately or 100,000 or so Spike two units out there in that ballpark range interesting I don't know I don't know if you guys have heard that but I've heard it a couple different times no next time you have that fireside chat can you ask him how many Godzillas they've sold yeah 2% 100,000 way more than that love that stuff we looked at that and we said you know like that's why we started there as well um that that we had if was if there's anything that was going to give us a chance to be successful then we we targeted that market Jimmy you've had a lot of success in mind making me talked about that but I'm quite certain you're probably making more pin lights than anything you've made before in terms of volume is that true oh yes yes so what's that been like insane uh you know it's it's it's been insane just just because um you know we didn't really know what the response was going to be in terms of offering a simpler product right I mean usually you don't be like oh we're going to be successful by removing features um but uh in this case it was a formula that turned out to be a a well workk formula simpler in terms of your competitors or something you had before yeah yeah it was so it was it was basically also in terms of also in terms of your own products right Jimmy like is is this I mean outside of the uh you know the app that you've written to support the product which is incredibly complex the product itself you know is it correct to say it's it you know it is a simpler product than sort of pin Vision was by by far by far uh in terms of the installation in terms of How It's manufactured uh how it's programmed all that type of stuff as a matter of fact most of my time now is spent on the production side of the house not the product development inside of the house like so as we get into more generic products I've found that my my mental capacity has been pulled in the other direction more so that's where you can optimize right or that's where your creative your creativity can provide value yeah yep yep just different side of the brain but uh yeah it's it's it's been uh it's been nuts but um most by far most of the games we sell into are the the Sterns I mean yeah so it doesn't surprise me Brad to hear those figures um just based on how many units we have leaving that that just get slapped on the latest you know the spike 2 games yeah there's got to be a ton of them out there uh let's talk about evolving the product during production are you guys finding yourself kind of making tweaks that and and why are you making those tweaks uh when you're actually making real product what's what's happening there anybody oh yeah should I um I jump in yeah yeah it's my turn yeah I'll jump in um yeah yeah no constantly like right up until the point okay good you're making me feel better yeah I mean stupidly as well you know like I mean Jimmy was just talking about how a simpler product has been wildly successful and that's awesome Jimmy and I you know I'm so I'm so pleased and happy for you this has been such a huge success but I think it's also incredibly interesting that um and it's the same thing sort of with with my products too like Tokyo neon the the sign that you know started it all has been far and away our biggest seller and it's far and away the easiest thing to assemble the easiest you know the simplest thing out out of everything we've done and yet my you know my trajectory has been to make things more complex and harder to assemble and and um you know we've just been working on the Jaws buoy um you know trying to get the first 50 out the door um for the last 3 months and the first the first build run you know uh we've been working through assembly issues and screws not fitting and all kinds of things just because the bomb's grown the complexity's grown and you know while that keeps me creatively satisfied because I'm pushing the boundaries um from a business point of view it doesn't actually make a lot of sense um you know we we would be better off making simpler stuff because you know actually it you know do does does the consumer want more complicated things or am I just satisfying my own creative Ambitions to make more complicated stuff um and it's not really it's not really a question I've solved yet um but uh the Elton thing that I mentioned earlier is going to be simpler than than you know what we've done in the past so yeah we'll see we'll see whether that's you know more of success or less of EX and a lot of things can drive success though too right like um you know I mean jerk and Elton sold well maybe should have maybe not yeah better than most yeah probably better than Avatar right slightly better than Avatar yeah but possibly not as uh as much as uh Harry Potter will but we shall see um yeah so yeah to answer to get back to what we were originally talking about yeah I'd make tons of changes through the process either pulling in uh feedback from people in Threads or ideas or just wanting to pursue sort of a creative Outlet yeah I I do make tons of changes through the process Jimmy sounds like you guys are constantly tweeting as well yeah well I mean it kind of depends on the the nature of the changes right like you can't for example feature changes you can integrate every feature that gets suggested to you because otherwise you're going to have a big Ru Goldberg machine product that is impossible for anyone to install but you also kind of take your licks as you're going through the production cycle and and and you get feedback forced feedback that's like it doesn't work in these situations or it fails in a certain way so yeah we're we're constantly tweaking things one one thing was recent you know turns out that EMB barrels of fun they have two different uh cabinet no boards that you can potenti get one has 11 pins the other has 13 pins well it's stuff like that that you've just got to you know kind of keep on top of but uh and in those cases yeah you you you better be making revisions if you you know if you want to have a successful product I that's that's gonna be my response there but yeah it's constantly constantly so you're I mean you're talking about sort of after the fact too isn't it because um you know there's there's there's tweaks through the through the development process I suppose um but then tweaks after things you know go live and how you respond to that as well and I mean that's an art in itself isn't it like how you how you manage those problems um both from a consumer uh facing point of view and also from a design point of view you know responding to those issues quickly um but not in a knee joke reaction that could potentially create more problems and that balance when things go wrong I think is incredibly difficult and I think Brad could could speak to this better than anybody just on the product driven development side of the house you know that that often goes into these things but from a technical perspective as well it's okay if we have X number of boards in the field and I send out a firmware update that bricks those boards I have a really big this is not a hypothetical problem this is a okay now all of a sudden we have a very expensive problem on our hands and so there are those types of limitations but you know most certainly you know we're constantly tweaking sending out updates and stuff like that but we we definitely do have to be careful that we don't break the experience for everybody else but yeah it's a fun feedback cycle don't don't don't get scared dear listener it's it's fun a lot of fun yeah so uh so we've made our products here we go we got we got these guys ready to go are you guys ready to move on to the fun part yeah yeah yeah let's do it all right so so we mentioned earlier we're probably going to break this up and we're definitely going to have to break this up um so let's let's spend a good amount of time kind of talking about what that experience is like leading up to launch like what are you doing obviously you're building but what what have we found amongst the group here that has kind of contributed to success and maybe some things we we wish we' have done differently in the past soad yeah what's your last month been like Yeah in our case that that was huge for us because we um I sent many many many parts out in prototypes to people to get feedback back and so you know you get various ranges of feedback depending on people's what they're looking at the the part you know I got people that said these are great you know it's exactly what I wanted and then I've talked to other people that you know they have a maybe a little more Keener I um had the opportunity to stop to talk to Scott Danesi about them and uh he's an engineer and he and so we talked about some things that I didn't really recognize they they weren't major but just some tweaks that he suggested and you know just getting that feedback um to make them better um you know and just to just to make them more robust before we were doing it and getting that feedback from several different people you know it can't happen in every case but in ours we were able to do that and you know I I'm still sending sets out for just um I call it marketing just to get marketing feedback I've sent many many sets out just for free even people that order them from us now I'll send them even one or two extra sets for other games that they have in their collection just to you know just to get get more feedback and Brad did you did you when you were when you were developing this product did you have like a like a date when you were going to go we're going to go live on this date and we're going to to announce on this date we're going to put up a pinside post or a Facebook post or whatever it is like talk us through particularly as a as a I guess a newbie in the mod sphere and stuff like how you um like what your thought process was around that launch day yeah so we had a Target um so probably thought about the idea in um let see September probably in August time frame or maybe May July so we had the our and we didn't have a at that time we didn't say we want to be launched by January March of next year so we kind of did it in Step so we had our first Target was to have some prototypes to take to Expo and we we met up we didn't know who we were going to partner not partner is not the right word but we had um a exhibitor there allow us to put our prototypes on the machine they were the first ones and we just stood there and took um got got some feedback and so that that was a goal first goal for us to get initial Market feedback from the public other than our friends and family and people that we knew and then our so our next Milestone after that is that we we said we wanted to start selling uh by the end of the year and um so we we were able to achieve that goal and just also just for first term games and now now we've got a Target set uh where we had targets set to do other games as well other machines and so we've just now um launched for balet Williams and it just so happens balet Williams is the same as Jersey Jack same balet Williams Construction so yeah um you we we didn't we didn't initially say we wanted to do it by this time but just because we hadn't never been through the process of doing that and in supplying to the market and even thinking about would we sell just on website or through pinside and you know having to do add all that on to you know your product development and getting stuff made and then you got to deal with all of the you know actually you know we we got to sell this somehow so we did have those yeah just that little you know that little detail of having final end but yeah it's the pointy end it's the pointy end yeah for sure um yeah it's it's interesting isn't it because um you know I think coming coming at it from I guess an Outsiders point of view I mean the rest the rest of us who have sort of gone through a couple of different products um you know you sort of just follow the same processes you you followed for your other ones and you probably evolve it slightly every time maybe gets a bit more sophisticated or you cover a few more channels um but my Approach the these days is you know I've been sort of collecting an email marketing list for a while and so you sort of hammer that email marketing list uh you put up a pinside post you put up a Facebook post you put a post up on the mod makers channel on Facebook and put up an Instagram post and and you do all this like you know in quickfire uh procession in order to try and cover as many bases as possible on that on that launch day I mean we've even you know amongst uh people behind the scenes talked about what day is the most frequented on pinside you know as to when you put your post up so it'll you know be seen by the most amount of people and the consensus is Friday in case anybody's in case anybody's wondering yeah cuz people are at work and they don't want to be at work and so they're like browsing pinside when they should be at work and stuff like that I don't actually know if that's true or not I actually started harvesting the pinside numbers using like a script to and work out when the best day was to post these things and it's pretty even through the week so well G Gary Stern told me it's Friday it's Friday yeah fir side chat it's Friday yeah another thing to that too is that um you know our product also it wasn't in sync with a with a game release and so we wanted to take our time being being the first ones out you know probably Jimmy was in the same situation where you you launch something like that and you don't want to have to go go back um because it's going to be there and be used on many many different machines and you know so we weren't in a hurry to do it we wanted to try and do it the best we could and take our time when it came out so yeah taking your time is important I'd say like the the traffic you're going to get on day one day two day three like that is going to be a vast majority of your traffic so you want to make sure your media is right your messaging is right um when you're when you're talking with customers talk about pricing like I'm not saying change your pricing during the pre-launch phase but I think you do want to kind of get some feedback and figure out how to position things um get your photos right because like I said it's just like I feel like if you just look at the traffic it's all it's all in those first first couple of days as far as compared to the the life of the the product beyond that at least that's what we've seen have you guys uh done any when you're when you're when you're showing it off to customers are you doing pricing and feedback at that point or how are you looking at pricing this late in the game absolutely I mean it's it's easier when you have a competitor right it's it's easier because you can anchor to to their price you say okay we either have to be around here below here or if we're above it we have to quantify what our value ad is right like why is it worth that much if you're uh honestly when we launched the Twilight Zone stuff it was a shot in the dark first price on that one was $369 why cuz for every unit I I assembled I wanted to make at least $100 that was literally the math that went into it I said bomb is this production time this this is what I want and keep we we're both doing this Dave yeah I know sorry man of these close mics isn't it I know what will I not hate myself over yeah yeah that was that was really what it was but then also I was like and Engineers I I if you're listening you're wanting to make good stuff you're probably going to price too low that's common you don't know how to value your own work that's a common thing but I remember launching that mod at the price that we launched it at and I was like I'm gonna get spit on for this right like they're going to run me out of town and then it turns out that it's like no actually we were we were we we underpriced it um but it it really is kind of a shot in the dark but yes we do talk to people while um you know while they're testing it or whatnot but in reality you don't learn until you launch because when the person gets it for free sure it's worth whatever price you think you're gonna sell it at right they're G to lie to you or they're gonna be like they're they're going to try to make you feel good right yeah sure I'll do it uh but once we launched you know any of those products to pinside and then the money hit the bank account that was the validation that we were looking for yeah look I think I think when when it comes to pricing my and you know like I said earlier like everybody's view is different on this but my view is you put it as as low as you possibly can in order to create a sustainable business for yourself like you don't want to make it so low that you know you're like scraping by um because then your business won't survive and you know you won't be able to continue um but you know so so but by by placing it just that Sweet Spot um you're going to maximize your orders and so therefore you know you do it on volume rather than on just trying to make loads of money on smaller amounts of sales because I think I think that creates a nicer environment to to live in as a business as well because um you know your your customers aren't going to feel ripped off that they paid a certain amount of money for something that they actually don't think was worth it um but obviously everybody fills different you know uh positions in that market and you know personally I'm glad that they do you know I'm always glad that you know people price themselves above me because then you know that just makes me in the middle rather than at the top and I don't want to be at the top how do you guys look at volume day one volume day 30 day 90 and and why are you making those decisions uh on any product uh Jimmy what what did you guys do with pin lights volume available to the public is like volume available ready to ship ready to ship sure GL ask yeah for for us it was it was a minimum order quantity right so it was a hey we know what our um our partners minimum order quantities are in terms of getting metal stamped we know uh or actually our first product was Extrusion um was actually extruded plastic so we know that we need to run at least several hundred of these things right so okay if a mission critical part I needed 500 of those or in in the realistic case it was 100 so the the the Fab wouldn't run less than a 100 of them at a time for us I knew that I was going to price everything based on a minimum volume at 100 knowing that I was going to kind of surpass that but so day one we made we had enough Parts on hand at least to make 100 units and that's you we bought we brought probably 20 of them or so to tpf and we're kind of handing them out to people and stuff like that but that's that's how it started similar with the Twilight Zone uh it was what's the minimum lot of displays we have to buy in order to validate this then at that point it you know it was scale kind of as fast as you can to get the cost of line I just want to note that I did not receive one of those and I'm not you didn't want one you did not it early wasn't good wasn't ready this is an interesting um is every got my sound okay I'm getting sound you you kind of wear a little little shallow but you're okay take you up a little bit this is actually is an interesting uh point to make as well as a as a maker um because obviously Jimmy you're producing to order aren't you so people can order on your site and you send a product out and so essentially You're Building Product on the expectation that you're going to get orders um or in the hope that you're going to get orders uh in some cases maybe not for you but for other people um whereas uh you know the way that uh I'm approaching it is different in that I essentially get a list of interest um and use that to um you know ascertain how many sales I'm going to get and then I buy product based on those list numbers um and I build in uh the expectation that 30% of that list is going to be wiped off with people who don't respond or cancel or whatever is um and it usually tends to be around 30% for me depending on the product um So for anybody who's listening and I hope that people are trying to work out whether they're going to be you know mod makers or not there's there's various approaches that you can do to try and work out your Market I suppose whether you you know I think that from in terms of Jimmy's approach uh the benefit of that is that um you don't have that drop off you know people order the product you send it out to them and then it's just a case of making sure that they're happy with it and that there aren't problems in shipping and things like that um but the drawback in that is that you have to essentially go all in on having stock that you might not sell it's fascinating how different all four of our products really are like uh for for Brad you've got a much simpler product to build similar kind of Market size as Jimmy Jimmy has a more complex product to build Dave you're an nice things aren't aren't the same at all because like you're making way more units but then I'm probably investing way more man hours and making a similar amount of unit of course there's a price reflection right but if you look at Dave's go to if you're a modmaker go to Dave's website and look at what he's doing with like the amount of data he's providing to his customers on how many people are on the weight list how many has he sold how many people bought in the last 24 hours I mean it's like in a Live marketplace it's a crazy approach like no one in this space is doing it like you see this in other spaces of course but uh what you're saying Dave is you're leveraging that data to make decisions which is really awesome um so so definitely look at what Dave's doing and and ask him all sorts of questions about why he's doing it when you get a chance but uh it's pretty cool to see this is something I was going to bring up as well and and obviously I'm in a benefici Ben beneficial position because I'm a coder by trade anyway but any anybody who's starting a small business whether it's mod making or anything just automate the out of everything as as much as you can automate Automated Amusements um and that can sometimes come down to simple stuff like uh you know emails and responding to emails is a massive uh job when you're running a small business and it's an important job um and it's it's one that you shouldn't Sher because you know it's a direct connection to your customer um and you can form bonds through those emails uh you know if done correctly however the same questions get asked time and time and time again um and if you're writing the same response to things 100 times you know one of those responses will be the best response and 99 of them will be not quite as good as the other responses the one good response so it would be better to get that good response that has all the information the pertinent information and be able to send it out the same way every time and so you can just you can do that easily just by keyboard shortcuts um so when people ask questions about the splitter or about um combining uh parcels and stuff I send them the same response um just by doing a keyboard shortcut so number one that saves me a ton of time oh yeah what do we got here you're talking about the splitter yeah yeah the splitter yeah oh yeah of plus there it is yeah definitely that's all that like working through that during pre-launch is critical like you know you're you're you should be working on your support documentation you should be working on General FAQ which could lead to email responses and the reason you want to do that in that phase is because you don't know what's coming during launch like you're going to be inundated you're going to be hitting up opportunities you're going to be probably going to shows that you weren't planning on going to and the last thing you want is for the people who are getting your product to get your lackluster installation manual because you thought you had time and you just didn't so Davey Saving Time on emails is gonna GNA contribute to that too I mean I I 100% agree yeah and you know uh you know obviously not everything you can respond to with a keyboard shortcut and stuff but there is a ton of stuff qu like repeated questions you get asked all the time and obviously having uh faq's is is a is a wonderful thing uh and you know I enable people to be able to check their list positions on the website and stuff and a lot of people do do that but then some people are still just going to email you and ask you know um and so you know that is that is part of the job uh you know I've taken to wak up really early in the morning and cracking through my emails um just to get you know to get that part done and dusted and to move on with the day um but there's a ton of stuff you can automate um uh you know and and a lot of online tools that can do it these days you know if this then that is an online tool that you can automate a lot of stuff like you know paing Gmail uh messages and and doing certain things chucking them in an Excel or a Google doc spreadsheet or whatever it is um and so just lean into that lean into that Automation and just try and get repetitive jobs done uh by the computer um and it will save you heaps of time and free you up to do the things that you know you've actually got the skills to do or that you can add value to as you said earlier Rob which is you know design and running your business definitely so guys we've covered R&D production and pre-launch we're definitely going to have to hit the rest of this on a future episode which I'm excited to cover uh because that really gets into the kind of the meat of it and uh we want to talk about uh maintaining your product we want to talk about when issues arise how you're dealing with that from an external communication perspective uh I want to talk with Davey about end of life of products so like when is the right time to take something off the line um and make room for new products uh that type of thing and of course expanding too uh so working with new partners hitting new machines we're going to cover all that uh Jimmy Brad thank you so much for being here hopefully you guys are down for coming back and we'll we'll continue this in the future yeah thanks for having us guys it's all been awesome thank you anytime been fun thank you Jimmy thank you much Brad thank you much Davey um we're gonna be back probably in a couple weeks uh we did uh have an awes awesome video on D and D we got to go to stern and check that out so if you guys want to dig into our videos we've got a video on Dungeons and Dragons I had a great time plan it uh props to stern for putting out a Mech that is above and beyond anything I've seen from them uh in a long time uh have you guys got a chance to hit that up yet uh probably not Dave I know he's not your way Jimmy have you have you got to play it yet no not in person no I've only seen those videos it'll be uh it'll be a tpf I'm sure so so um this group all of us will be at tpf and uh we hope to see you guys there that's March 21st 22nd so just in a couple months um so guys thanks again man uh we will uh see everyone soon take care great thanks see you bye bye bye [Music]