Modern Merchant Podcast [EP 24]: Developing a SaaS for Ecommerce w/ Flxpoint’s Brad Hamilton

Below, you will find a transcript of the episode.

Jamie McCarthy:

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Modern Merchant podcast. I’m your host, Jamie McCarthy. I’m the Head of Strategic Accounts at Flxpoint. And today we have a pretty exciting guest on, one of my friends and colleagues. He’s the Chief Architect of Flxpoint [inaudible 00:00:30], a kite board connoisseur, probably won best hair in his high school superlatives. We’ve got Brad Hamilton with us today.

Brad Hamilton:

Hey.

Jamie McCarthy:

What’s up Brad?

Brad Hamilton:

I’m glad to be here. Nice to see you, Jamie.

Jamie McCarthy:

Awesome. So I’m really excited that you decided to come on because I just feel, in general, Brad’s always just a fun person to talk to about, literally, anything. We’re not going to talk about, literally, any and everything today, though. Today we’re really going to be focusing on SaaS product growth and development and what that means in Brad’s role at Flxpoint.

Jamie McCarthy:

But before we dig into that, Brad, obviously I want to talk about you a little bit, but I also want to talk about the history of Flxpoint and our origin story because I feel that’s super important when we’re talking about growth, we’re talking about development. So I think it was back in 2017 is when I started with Inventory Source, that’s our sister company. That’s where I met Brad and our now CTO, Matt. And I just remember coming to you guys about certain feature questions and I came to you guys for a lot of things. But mainly the overall, overwhelming response to these really specific feature requests or questions I had was always, “We’re going to figure that out in DMX. We’re going to-

Brad Hamilton:

No, the original naming was DMX. That was before we had a product name. That was the only way we need to refer to this new [inaudible 00:02:02] that, ultimately, we want to build.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. So when Flxpoint was still just a concept and not an actual thing yet, it was DMX. And so I just remember from day one just hearing that, just being, “What the hell is DMX? What is this?” So-

Brad Hamilton:

And that was the pie in the sky dream. That it was everything that Inventory Source couldn’t be, essentially.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So if you want to, I guess, just high level or as detailed as you want, I don’t care, tell us how did you guys really … I guess where did the conversation around Flxpoint really begin?

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. So just to look back in time, when I started with the company, we were very small, maybe five or six people. Our software had existed. Inventory Source is around 16 years old now. So there’s a lot of baggage that comes with that. We put in a lot of work to revamp it and get it into a modern infrastructure, modern front end. Something that clients are actually happy to use and is providing the value that they were paying for and getting the product delivered that they wanted.

Brad Hamilton:

However, Inventory Source had a one size fits all solution for our customers and we had dreams of wanting to provide all these feature sets and all this tooling to our customers but we were hindered by the existing customer base, the existing product. And we struggled with the decision for a long time on whether or not we [inaudible 00:03:38] Inventory Source and we tried to bolt on to that existing product and make that, what, ultimately, we wanted, the vision we had for Flxpoint, or whether we needed to start from scratch.

Brad Hamilton:

And so after a lot of debate in many months we, ultimately, came to a decision that we needed to start from scratch because that was the only way to actually build the platform we envision. And also for anyone listening who is in software, they’ll understand this, but the best way I can put … Trying to change existing software, it’s a car driving at 80 miles an hour and you’re, “I want to repaint it. I want to change the wheels and I want a bigger trunk.” And you can’t stop driving the car. The car has to keep going because the speed of the car is your existing customers that are already using the product. So to say, “We want this different car,” is really difficult but you can’t stop it. You can’t pull it over. There’s no pit stops, there’s no changing it.

Brad Hamilton:

So after realizing that, we embarked on the journey that was Flxpoint and we learned a lot of lessons that carried us from Inventory Source about making things … Don’t cookie cutter solutions for people and instead build a flexible product, hence the name Flxpoint, where it came from. That would account for every single use case in the e-Commerce space that someone could bring to it. Whereas Inventory Source said, “You have one way to get to your solution and if it’s outside of those, sorry, it’s just not going to work.”

Brad Hamilton:

So the core M.O. of Flxpoint was build a product that it has no use case it can’t solve within the space and solution we’re providing.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. You can’t pull over on the SaaS highway, right?

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. Yeah. So-

Jamie McCarthy:

You’ve got to keep going.

Brad Hamilton:

… that’s one of my favorite analogies to provide to people, especially who live in software because a software system is a living, breathing component or system of components and you can’t just change them and break them for all your existing customers. So that’s a really difficult part about software, is making wholesale changes to existing processes.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah, for sure. And as far as when you do talk about decision making in general, what do you think, maybe besides deciding to just pivot completely and start from the ground up with Flxpoint, within Flxpoint when you guys are building it out initially, what do you think the best tech decision that you guys made was in getting there to the point where we went live in 2019 I think with the early adopters. So even in the early stages, was there any one, “Oh, I’m so glad we did this this way. Thank God, we decided to not go the other route?”

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. I mean, there was a plethora of decisions that came there, but the biggest ones are really the core frameworks and technologies that it’s built on. So we use Aurora, which is an RDS. It’s a relational database service provided by Amazon, and that allowed us to scale our database needs as we’ve grown and really high volume, high throughput database. That decision was really important. And then also the fundamental technologies that were built on are Spring and jOOQ, which that’s a way to interact with databases. Without that software, in particular, a lot of the complexities of Flxpoint would be merely impossible to develop or would be much more error prone, buggy and difficult to extend upon.

Brad Hamilton:

If anyone here listening has used Flxpoint, you know that we have our search screens with all the ability to filter on everything and create custom exports and do all this cool functionality. None of that would be … It’d be possible, but very, very difficult without the software of jOOQ.

Brad Hamilton:

And then, in addition to that, we use Vue, which is a JavaScript library on the front end and it has been instrumental to our success. It really can’t be understated how important it’s been in building our user experiences and our UIs and keeping it simple and allowing multiple developers to collaborate and work together on building good software.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. That’s awesome. And I do … I remember it’s funny. It’s one of the things where it’s all of this is happening behind the scenes that the average everyday person isn’t really aware of.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah [crosstalk 00:08:21].

Jamie McCarthy:

And so I remember I’d come to you and-

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. As end customers, you’re just delivered products and experiences and you’re not supposed to need to know about what-

Jamie McCarthy:

Sure.

Brad Hamilton:

… decisions technically are being made behind the scenes to deliver those to you. So there’s hundreds of those decisions made all the time.

Jamie McCarthy:

That’s awesome. And that explains, I would come to you all the time and be, “Well, why can’t we just do it this way?” And there’s a lot more underneath that I think you guys obviously consider that. Me in sales or-

Brad Hamilton:

[inaudible 00:08:55].

Jamie McCarthy:

… maybe somebody … And customer success doesn’t necessarily always see.

Brad Hamilton:

[crosstalk 00:08:59].

Jamie McCarthy:

But now that you’re really-

Brad Hamilton:

Real quick, though, just to touch on. So in the software space, back to the first question, the fact that we decided to do a rebuild, those companies will tell you, “That is the kiss of death,” and they’ll, “It’s not advised to do that.” However, we are a success story in that regard and-

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah, for sure.

Brad Hamilton:

… and that development process was a black box of 10 to 12 months of just heads down, me and Matt building out the entire product or the initial beta, you know?

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah.

Brad Hamilton:

So and all of you guys were always … Everyone in the company is, “When do we get to see it? Well, where is it at? What’s going on with it?” And it’s just that backroom lab, mixing everything up and getting it to that first phase. So I just want to touch on for the listeners, if you’re thinking about, “Do I start a new product or do I change my own?” Make sure you make those decisions for the right reason, which I think we did.

Jamie McCarthy:

Agreed. And I think I probably just said this, but just to reiterate that too, I think we had more of an advantage because we had a blueprint for, “Here’s what we don’t want to do. Here’s what we want to do to achieve that or to get to the next level.”

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. I mean, we had an existing revenue stream through Inventory Source. We used that to fund the development. We also had a handful of people with a decade plus in the e-Commerce space with tons of knowledge. And you know all the things you should do, all the things you shouldn’t do. So starting new projects with that knowledge backing you and also a revenue stream to piggyback on, really it can be understated how important that is.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. That was huge for us.

Jamie McCarthy:

And so now … Okay. I think we launched officially with the early adopters back in 2019. We officially changed the name from DMX to Flxpoint for legal reasons. No I’m just [inaudible 00:11:01] because you would … Maybe you’d … I don’t know. But so we did that. And then really with the early adopters we learned a lot. That first iteration of Flxpoint, while it’s the same, it’s the same concept overall, there’ve been a lot of changes and most of that was from those early adopters who really helped us lay the groundwork and build out the roadmap for future features we want to incorporate, making everything a little bit more intuitive, a little bit more user friendly.

Jamie McCarthy:

And so that never stopped, which is, I think, for most SaaS companies, ideal. You don’t want to just release a product and say, “Okay, cool. Enjoy,” and then never continue to iterate on it, never to continue improving, never to continue releasing new features.

Brad Hamilton:

[inaudible 00:11:53].

Jamie McCarthy:

So we’re doing that all day, every day. But specifically recently I know that you have been focusing more on product growth now. We have Flxpoint, you’re doing well and it’s a current state, but I know there’s a lot that we want to continue expanding on, there’s a lot of features we want to add. And so now that you’re more in that role of product growth, tell me if product growth necessarily means … What does that mean to you, I guess, is the question?

Brad Hamilton:

So there’s two facets of product growth in my eyes: There’s nail your core competencies and what the overall marketplace expects, right?

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

Make sure you have feature parity with your competitors and just ensure that whatever experiences are being delivered are fully rounded out. So that’s the capstones of making sure your product is growing in the right ways.

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

And those we put through are we know all those things. Sometimes new ones come up but we mainly have the overall understanding of what all needs to be developed to round out our product. And I see that as that’s one side of growth and that’s put your head down and just get it done, side of growth.

Brad Hamilton:

And there’s the other side of growth, which is how you really differentiate your product and understanding just, “What don’t we have that customers don’t even know they need,” right?

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

And that’s where growth gets exciting because you’re actually thinking outside the box and saying, “Regardless of what our competitors are doing, what could we delight our customers with and really help give them a competitive advantage in their particular ecosystem or marketplace, whether it’s fulfillment or listing side, whatever it is? The sky’s the limit and that’s the side of the growth that it gets me excited and that I’m really focused on in today’s landscape and world and the role I’m [inaudible 00:13:56] into.

Brad Hamilton:

But those are the two areas of growth. So you have the standard, make sure your system’s doing what it’s supposed to and then don’t drop the ball and become a dinosaur because, like you said, SaaS never stops. You have to keep improving because it’s such a competitive landscape in the SaaS world that if you stop becoming better, then there’s no real reason to stick with you or pick you over alternatives.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. Yeah. And I like that too because it’s one thing for us to just be better, faster, stronger in the space. It’s another thing to be innovative, right?

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. To be differentiated and innovative, that’s how you capitalize. Obviously, reliability and cost, those are the foundational pillars, but the things that you … How you lure new customers in is by doing things in a way that they didn’t think to do them or provide them with tools that just make their life so much better that no one else can provide them.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah, for sure. And I think that that’s super exciting. I’m super excited obviously to see where we go from here. I know the roadmap is complex, but it’s exciting. There’s a lot that we’re looking to add and expand on.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. It’s one of those things where there’s always ideas and there’s a backlog and there’s only so many hours in a day and it takes a long time to really build out proper features that are worth releasing. So it’s exciting and it’s we’ve got a lot of things that we want to release. It’s just about prioritizing and starting to see them through.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. So I know the answer to this, obviously, because I’ve learned my lesson, but for everyone listening or maybe watching, what’s the approach then? If someone comes to you with a new feature request, how do you guys prioritize that in Product Council meetings? What’s the overall questions that you guys are asking to figure out how to prioritize features on the roadmap?

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. So there’s quite a few that go into that but, I mean, what it really comes down to is how many users are going to get the most value out of this and is it a game changer? Is it meeting requirements? Is it the left side of the growth that I talked about? Just hit feature parity and make sure your product’s doing the full life cycle of what’s expected of it?

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

Or is it something out of the box and creative and would take us to another level? And Flxpoint is complicated because we service a lot of different customer profiles, maybe around five. And so we tend to focus quarter by quarter on certain profiles and ensuring that we’re delivering the best experience to them, rounding them out.

Brad Hamilton:

So we could backlog an idea that’s for one customer profile, but right now, for the next two quarters, we want to stay focused here. So even though it may be a good idea, it may not be prioritized necessarily. But when a lot of things … Because Flxpoint is so flexible, a lot of times something comes up and there’s actually ways to glue things in ways you wouldn’t expect to get jobs done that you thought weren’t possible already and Flxpoint can actually already do it. It’s just not as straightforward as you thought. So step one, when someone comes to me with a feature request or something, I’m going to step back and go, “Can we not do something close to this already?

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

How close can we already get? Can we hit the 80% of it? How important is the remaining 20%, et cetera.” And then beyond that, we have to put it in frame of reference of there’s only so many hours, there’s lots of good ideas.

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

So is this going to help all of our customer base or is it just for this one particular customer? What does it really look like as it evolves? There’s a ton of questions there and I’m not solely responsible for answering those. It’s a team effort.

Brad Hamilton:

But really we look at multiple data points there to decide what actually is, what should be prioritized? There’s no straightforward answer to that question, though. There’s some gut feeling, there’s some market analysis and then there’s some, “This has to happen because everyone expects it to happen,” right?

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah.

Brad Hamilton:

So-

Brad Hamilton:

Sure.

Brad Hamilton:

… I’ve got to look through each of those boxes and dig at it.

Jamie McCarthy:

And so that you just mentioned, it’s a group effort. I know Travis has talked about on some previous podcasts … Travis is our CEO … About The Product Council. Can you just touch on that a little bit and let us know?

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. The Product Council: So I don’t know if that’s jargon or a terminology or a process that other companies have. I’m sure they probably just have it in a different name, but that’s where we take the core leadership of the company and we assess at risk tasks and talk about, “What’s going wrong here? Should we pivot? Should we pull this?” Then also look at requests that have been made by customers or ideas that we have. It doesn’t have a set structure so much. It’s all of us just making sure that the distinct parts of the company are all in unison on some of the bigger initiatives and things we have going on. And, also, say we turned a big customer and we might all talk about, “Why did this happen? And could we build new processes to prevent this?”

Brad Hamilton:

So it’s our brainstorming meeting of leadership to just say, “Is the ship sailing in the right direction and are we executing on the right things appropriately?”

Jamie McCarthy:

Arguably probably one of the most important meetings I feel, for sure.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s always evolving. We’re actually making some big changes to how we manage a lot of things right now. And that meeting might go away, but it’ll just come back under a different name really. But, in a company, you can’t just operate in silos. You have to bring all the different disjoint parts of the company under one roof at some point in time each week or biweekly and just make sure everyone’s cohesive. So-

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I feel some of the best features that we’ve released before have really come from that group think where it’s a customer success manager mentioning, “Hey, I’ve got somebody who’s requesting X.” And then someone from sales even chiming in saying, “Yeah, I just ran a discovery and somebody mentioned that they need the exact same thing.” So it really is. And it’s without that group effort, you are, you’re working in silos, you don’t really know what … You don’t really understand, I guess, the direction of the product. You don’t really understand where you’re headed if you guys aren’t all on the same page.

Jamie McCarthy:

So I think that The Product Council … And then all I can think of really is the meme that I think Travis put together. I’ll have to see if I can find it.

Brad Hamilton:

Oh, is it the owl?

Jamie McCarthy:

I don’t know. No-

Brad Hamilton:

[inaudible 00:20:59] it’s the owl meme where it’s an outline. It’s how to draw an owl. Draws the circles and then all of a sudden it’s just draw the owl and it just draws [crosstalk 00:21:07].

Jamie McCarthy:

Just draw the rest of it. Yeah.

Brad Hamilton:

With the incredible detail and everything, it’s just do it. But there’s a process in there.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. A hundred percent. So knowing that there’s a process, knowing that you guys have laid the groundwork and the foundation for a lot of good stuff, what would you … And I don’t want to say if time travel existed, I actually had that written in my notes. So we know time travel doesn’t exist. We did actually just bring on two new interns, though.

Jamie McCarthy:

So maybe not what piece of advice would you give Brad from five years ago, but what piece of advice would you give, let’s say, the new interns or the new guys coming onto the scene, when you first started building Flxpoint?

Brad Hamilton:

I don’t know if I [inaudible 00:21:50]. I have advice I’d like to give myself. That advice would vary from advice I’d give to an intern. So I’ll give the advice I wish I gave to myself probably.

Jamie McCarthy:

Okay. Well, let’s pretend time travel existed. We’ll do that.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. And I’m going to … They’re a bit more technical.

Jamie McCarthy:

Okay.

Brad Hamilton:

One, is we actually just had, unfortunately, a pretty … One of our largest tech incidents we’ve had to date, which we’ve publicized it. You can go read the post mortem on it, anyone listening to this. But when we built our database, our primary keys were integers. And what happens is integers have a max value in the two billion range and we actually hit those values, those max values, on some of our tables and they would have relationships all over the place. So that could have been easily avoided by just not using integers and using what’s called big integers which, basically, the limit is you’ll never be able to reach them.

Jamie McCarthy:

Got it.

Brad Hamilton:

So if I go back in time and rewrite our database with all of those, we could have prevented a massive amount of headaches. So that’s one.

Brad Hamilton:

And then another is we didn’t start our process, our development process, with an API first focus, which is now we are completely … We’ve been putting in lots of work over the last year and a half, which you go look at our API docs, they’re really good now. They have, pretty much, anything you can do inside our app, you can do via our API. At first, those were all black box processes and they weren’t exposed via public API. They were just internal APIs that weren’t documented. Now, we are, basically, … Anything that a customer uses through our API is the same thing we use so you know that it’s getting the utmost quality and attention and QA on it.

Brad Hamilton:

So if I could go back in time and make it where we didn’t ever write those internal APIs and only wrote in our public API, we would’ve saved ourself a massive amount of energy and time.

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

So those two. And then I feel I have one more, but it’s eluding me right now.

Jamie McCarthy:

I will say, though, our API docs and obviously, again, from maybe a sales rep’s point of view or customer success point of view, you initially probably think, “Oh, all APIs are the same. They’re all created equal.” And they’re really not.

Brad Hamilton:

No.

Jamie McCarthy:

And I know that Matt, our CTO, has put, literally, his heart and soul and has got almost no sleep while he was building that out, creating the docs for all of that too. So if you guys have a chance and if that’s something you’re interested in checking out … I don’t know … Maybe I’ll post the link somewhere for everybody to see that.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. I’d say for being a SMB, our API is some of the best you can find in our headcount company. Obviously once you go to companies like Stripe and Shopify and these big, big dogs, they have incredible APIs with incredible documentation. We’re a limited team with limited amount of resources, but I will say that we can pat ourselves on the back and say that it’s quite nice.

Jamie McCarthy:

So knowing that that’s the advice you’d give yourself, integers and API first,-

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah, [inaudible 00:25:13].

Jamie McCarthy:

… what about the interns’ question then? Is there anything that you would advise them, if you haven’t already on?

Brad Hamilton:

Really, it’s just don’t … Whatever preconceived notion you think … Anytime you think you’re right, you’re probably not. And you will be right, but really when you’re at that stage in your career, you just want to be a vacuum and you just want to suck up every bit of knowledge around you. And don’t be hardheaded and ignorant and think that you already know it all because, I mean, I was guilty of that when I was in my early 20s. Every young 20 year old thinks they’re the hottest thing to ever live and that they know everything and that they shouldn’t have to listen to anybody.

Brad Hamilton:

Honestly, that’s the worst place to be in. And just being an open book and a vacuum and just sucking up all the knowledge and all the hard work that people have laid the foundations in companies. And that’s whether from tech or just process, structure, management, just look at all of it and suck it all because if you ever want to run your own company, they’re all things you’re going to have to deal with. So that’s my biggest piece of advice [inaudible 00:26:25].

Jamie McCarthy:

For sure. And I would say that applies to 10 year olds too, because, Connor, he also thinks [crosstalk 00:26:31].

Brad Hamilton:

Well, it really should apply to all of them all the time. We should never stop learning. And when you’re right, you’re right but you don’t ever operate on the pretense that you can’t be wrong. So-

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. A hundred percent. And there’s always somebody who would probably do things a little bit different than you, could probably suggest a better way. And so why not take advantage of … Especially being around guys like you and Matt and the rest of the team, super valuable.

Jamie McCarthy:

All right. So what software component has had the most impact do you think on Flxpoint as a product?

Brad Hamilton:

So early, with the way iOS was, you had to tell Inventory Source, “We gave you a presale. Mark a product up by this percentage or this dollar amount.” And that’s a fixed solution that you can’t escape and it’s only in one spot. And so-

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

… when we started going Flxpoint, we realized that we can’t make these decisions and cover every use case for how you might want to modify data or change it as it’s flowing through the system.

Brad Hamilton:

So there’s two elements that have synergy with each other and that’s the mapping templates and our workflow engine. So the workflow engine, basically, is a set of No-Code tools, which everyone listening has probably heard the term No-Code. It’s, basically, coding in a UI environment where you can tell it how to manipulate or do anything you want. So we have a whole set of No-Code tools, which we call our workflow engine, which allows you to manipulate and manage and change data in all sorts of ways that you can … It’s like a big Lego box and you can just manipulate everything as much as you want.

Jamie McCarthy:

It’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty powerful.

Brad Hamilton:

[crosstalk 00:28:10]. Yeah, it really … That plus the … That sits at the heart of our entire system, along with mapping templates, because mapping templates for anyone listening, what that really is is it’s just a way to say, “I’m getting data from Shopify. How do I want to ingest that into Flxpoint?” Rather than us saying, “We always pull it in this way,” you’re actually in charge of saying, “I want this to go here and I want to run rules to manipulate it before it gets pulled in.”

Brad Hamilton:

So those two fundamental software components and principles of ways of thinking about not defining how someone should do something or how it should be done, really is what made Flxpoint what it is today. It can’t be understated how important those two components have been in shaping what Flxpoint is and how it’s used.

Jamie McCarthy:

Yeah. I think a hundred percent. And I think the challenge for us when it comes to requesting certain features, it’s always that, like you mentioned, that initial approach of, “Well, can we already solve this?” Right?

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah.

Jamie McCarthy:

We have this wildly flexible tool that can solve a million different use cases and it’s really understanding exactly what the feature request is and determining, “Hey, we could probably already do that. Or we probably can’t do that,” is that first step and defining what new features we’re going to be adding.

Jamie McCarthy:

And I think, from my perspective in sales, when I’m speaking to users, I mean, we have a number of different users with a number of different personas. We work with retailers, traditional retailers, we work with brands, we work with distributors, and it’s all because of that. It’s not this in the box solution, “This is what you get. Figure it out on your own.” It’s, “Hey, we’re giving you all of these tools. We’re giving you all of the mapping templates, we’re giving you the workflows and we’re allowing you to decide how you want to use it.”

Jamie McCarthy:

And so I think you’re spot on that the mapping templates and the workflow engine are really Flxpoint. That is Flxpoint.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah, it is the heart and soul of Flxpoint. Everything is built around those. And, in addition to that, we define core operations and the fact that we don’t tie … You might get data from Shopify, but you want to send your POs to pick one of the platforms. I’s the fact that those aren’t coupled together-

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

… and that you can mix and match all the different ways. FTP or EDI and all of that can be combined within one warehouse, is also tremendously flexible and what we provide.

Brad Hamilton:

And just thinking of one of the use cases too, we’ve been asked a lot about Amazon Repricers and it’s, “Well, technically we can’t do that, but we can generate you a file which you can drop on an FTP that’s picked up by … Pick any number of the Amazon Repricer tools out there, and there you go. You get it for free.” So that’s one of the things where, “We want this.” “Well, could we leverage another third party provider that we can just drop them data already and then it would, basically, close the loop and get it done for you?”

Brad Hamilton:

So lots of interesting ways to be able to mix and match everything because of how flexible the whole system is.

Jamie McCarthy:

For sure.

Brad Hamilton:

Okay.

Jamie McCarthy:

Last question. We’re going to wrap up here. But this has been a … In those early years building out Flxpoint or DMX, we always had this … We’d come to you with a feature request or a need that we’d get from user. And, really, it was, like you mentioned before, when you are evaluating a new feature, you want to make sure it’s something that is requested across the board from multiple users, it’s something that’s going to provide value to the overall product and experience.

Jamie McCarthy:

But all of that to say we used to joke all the time, “You guys can do this because anything is possible with code.” So my question is, Brad, is anything truly possible with code? And, if so, what’s one if you could create, or maybe you have already, but if you could maybe create your own app or your own piece of software just as a side hustle or a side project, what would that be?

Brad Hamilton:

Okay. Is anything possible with code? I used to think, “No,” but nowadays I’m thinking more and more, “Yes.” We don’t have real AI yet. We only really have … Everyone marketed … AI is a marketing pitch used by managers and sales people because there is no true sentient AI. We just have machine learning.

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

But I do think that once we can maybe create a biological computer that mimics the brain that really anything is possible to code … Because we are, essentially, just like our genetics are code if you think about it. So it’s really, is code running through a CPU cable or anything? Probably not. But in terms of if we abstract that away and think can sets of instructions make anything possible? Yes, I think. So-

Jamie McCarthy:

Interesting.

Brad Hamilton:

And then you asked if I could build anything. So before this I had a handful of software companies before joining with-

Jamie McCarthy:

Right.

Brad Hamilton:

… Inventory Source and Flxpoint. And I’m an avid surfer and kite boarder. So watching weather is what I do all the time when I’m not coding because I constantly want to know if I can go surf or kite board. And I actually had a surf forecasting website prior to this. I won’t mention the name but, if I could, I would go rebuild a global weather surf forecasting and kite boarding app. It would look a lot like … I almost don’t want to do it because there’s already one out there that, basically, is everything I’d want to build and it’s called windy.com. If anyone listening hasn’t heard of that, go check it out. It’s going to blow your mind.

Brad Hamilton:

But that’s really … Because the two things I think about are our company and our space and then surfing and kite boarding. So really there’s not room for much else in there. That’s really all I think about.

Jamie McCarthy:

It’s one or the other.

Brad Hamilton:

Yeah. It’s one or the other. So outside of what we’re already doing, that would, basically, be it.

Jamie McCarthy:

That’s awesome. You should go for it.

Brad Hamilton:

No, there’s not enough time to go for it for me.

Jamie McCarthy:

One day.

Brad Hamilton:

[crosstalk 00:34:58].

Jamie McCarthy:

One day, for sure.

Jamie McCarthy:

Well, thank you so much for your time. I’m super pumped that you agreed to come on. I wasn’t sure if you were going to look at me a little bit crazy when I asked you to.

Brad Hamilton:

Oh, I mean, I enjoyed it and I’d be happy to do it again in the future.

Jamie McCarthy:

For sure. We’ll definitely have you back but, till then, I’ll see you.

Brad Hamilton:

All right.

Jamie McCarthy:

All right guys. Thanks again so much for tuning in to another Modern Merchant podcast episode. If you want to learn more about us, check us out at flxpoint.com. That’s flxpoint without the e .com. We’ve got our Modern Merchant blog up there. It’s full of the latest eCommerce information and news. Also, go ahead and subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on socials at Flxpoint.

Jamie McCarthy:

We’ll see you again next week with another episode.