Bryan Farris is an accomplished entrepreneur, full-stack developer, and expert strategist. With a decade of prowess in shaping groundbreaking web and mobile applications, as the President and CEO of Goldfish he oversees a skilled team that offers a comprehensive array of end-to-end solutions.
With a (trademarked) Motivation-Driven Design Process, they are able to offer business strategy consulting, mobile and web development, project management, media and graphics, and investor pitch preparation. They are the go-to partner for clients seeking 360 Degree Consulting to successfully launch products.
Bryan’s proficiency encompasses software programming, coupled with a talent for crafting robust database structures and developing backend servers and REST APIs. Writing code that matters with an emphasis on the business model part of it makes his project management mastery effortless, from initial planning to seamless distribution.
Bryan is passionate about driving social and environmental impact through his work, having previously worked in affordable housing in Pakistan as a 2010 Acumen Fund Global Fellow. Away from the digital realm, Bryan is a passionate world traveler, having explored 134 countries and territories.
When he’s not building products, you’ll find him playing ice hockey, watching the San Jose Sharks or American Football (shoutout to the San Francisco 49ers!), reading, or watching the news.
What you will learn
- Unpack the importance of software in today’s world, with insights into how it’s transforming industries
- Get a deeper understanding of AI’s role in the software industry
- Explore the concept of user motivation in product design and development
- Uncover the secret behind ChatGPT’s prompt engineering
- Learn more about the evolution of app development
- Explore the concept of using ChatGPT and AI to create “bait” applications
- Understand the challenges involved in navigating the fast-paced software industry
- Plus loads more!
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:05 – 00:00:55
Hi, everyone and welcome to the Jeff Bullas show today I have with me, Bryan Farris. Welcome to the show, Bryan. It’s great to have you here. And just before we have a chat, I’m just gonna go through his story. He’s an accomplished entrepreneur. He did a degree in science in Berkeley. He’s a full stack developer and expert strategist with a decade of prowess in shaping groundbreaking web and mobile apps and the president and CEO of Goldfish. He oversees a skilled team that offers a comprehensive array of end to end solutions. They’ve trademarked a motivation driven design process. They are able to offer business strategy consulting, mobile web development project management and the list goes on. They’re the go to partner for clients seeking 360 degree consulting to successfully launch products.
Jeff Bullas
00:00:56 – 00:01:32
So Bryan ‘s proficiency encompasses software programming coupled with a talent for crafting robust database structures. Bryan ‘s passionate about driving social environment impact through his work. Having previously worked in affordable housing in Pakistan, I’d like to hear more about that, in as a 2010 acen fund global fellow. Away from the digital realm, Bryan loves travel he explored 134 countries and that’s a lot. So I think there’s only a 200 odd. So you’ve just got a ways to go, I think. But you’re well on your way more than most people. So, welcome to the show, Bryan. It’s an absolute pleasure.
Bryan Farris
00:01:33 – 00:01:35
Thank you so much. The pleasure is all mine.
Jeff Bullas
00:01:36 – 00:02:06
So, we just had a chat before the show and you sort of described yourself as a bit of a techno geek. So when did that all start? And why is, and we’re going to ask you to ask? So why is software important? Because there’s a great quote by Mark Andreson. And he’s actually a long article called Why Software Is Eating the World. We might talk more about that as well as a talking point. So, how did the geek start?
Bryan Farris
00:02:07 – 00:02:48
Well, I think it’s, it’s a little bit intrinsic. But back when I was a, a kid, you know, going to school for me, I, I started learning code because of school presentations and writing, you know, creating powerpoint slides in class. I realized I could do cooler animations if I opened up visual basic and, and built some little tools and whatnot. And that’s what got me started. But over the years, I’ve just become, you know, someone that’s very passionate about technology and who understands kind of the inner workings of how it’s working under the hood which makes it that much more exciting to learn more.
Jeff Bullas
00:02:49 – 00:03:06
Yeah. So, , so the reality is software is eating the world is actually quite true. I really do believe that as in the reality is that you must look anywhere and there’s code running things, isn’t there?
Bryan Farris
00:03:07 – 00:03:10
Absolutely. It’s in your toaster now.
Jeff Bullas
00:03:11 – 00:04:09
So it’s, and then we go right through to AI as well, which is basically, again, software. And the thing is too a lot about this stuff. It’s like a black box to the average user, it’s invisible frankly, it just does stuff. What I find fascinating is that most complex things like software, you give them a friendly user face and then they become easy to use. The Google search engine is a piece of software. It’s full of algorithms that define it and yet it’s just do a simple input, right? Just a search box. What do you wanna do if you want to get AI to do some work for you, you go and do a prompt and raise a question in chat GP T now. So, but behind it lies some incredible power. So
Jeff Bullas
00:04:10 – 00:04:18
in terms of AI, how is AI impacting, you know, the software industry and why should people care?
Bryan Farris
00:04:20 – 00:04:58
Sure. So just to put it in the context of everything you were just talking about software is really just a tool and just like any tool that hans have been creating and using you know, going back to the caveman days is we’ve been building tools that have made things that we do on an everyday basis, easier to do. And so software is just doing that. It’s helping hans become more efficient and become more powerful with their time. And ultimately, you know, in the 21st century where we’re really focused on businesses and ro I and all this kind of stuff, you can see
Bryan Farris
00:04:58 – 00:05:27
that AI is enhancing the ability for businesses to gain more efficiency. And that like at the highest level is how I would describe what AI is doing. But it’s just the next thing in a long line of a trend of things that have been coming for decades. So, for example, right now, any company in the world would not dream of operating without some computer, right?
Bryan Farris
00:05:27 – 00:06:18
Maybe there’s a few exceptions, but for the most part, you’re gonna need a computer. But there was a time when there were a lot of companies operating without computers and the, you know, introduction of desktop computers and laptop computers, the companies that adopted those sooner and made that part of how they did business ultimately won out and beat out their competitors because their employees were able to do more with their time and become more efficient and fast forward to looking at today’s supply chains, for example, there was a big movement with lean six sigma and you know, introducing ways to make the supply chain super efficient and reduce bottlenecks. And part of what I studied at UC Berkeley was industrial engineering and looking at supply chain management
Bryan Farris
00:06:18 – 00:07:00
and all of those tools and you know, just in time engineering and stuff like that, that people applied. these were philosophies, but again, it was just a tool to make the businesses more efficient and to, you know, reduce bottlenecks in your supply chain and therefore empower the company that operated that supply chain to do more with their capital and increase their ro I. So at the end of the day AI is just the same thing. It’s, it’s another level of being more efficient because really companies are just competing for attention, competing for trends and trying to improve their efficiency and margins at the end of the day.
Jeff Bullas
00:07:00 – 00:07:29
Yeah, you mentioned and, and using, you know, software is a tool and it’s right. So basically with software, for example, you’ve got a problem in the supply chain, how can, and like, you know, lean manufacturing, for example, I suppose you go, well, how can I use software to write a program that will actually achieve that strategy or hypothesis that you need to do to implement that, isn’t it? That’s how you’re really looking at
Bryan Farris
00:07:29 – 00:08:19
it. Yep. Absolutely. And we’ve gotten to the era of data and that’s where AI and machine learning becomes so powerful is at the end of the day, machine learning and AI is really just simple algebra, you break everything down to ones and zeros and it looks at that and is able to figure out the algebra, the weighted average formulAIf you will that will result in the highest ro I. ultimately, that’s what AI is doing. And what data engineers are doing is helping to tune the machine learning model so that it’s paying attention to the right things. But yes, there is an element to machine learning. That is a, a black box. Even the engineers don’t quite understand what’s exactly happening inside the neural network. But
Bryan Farris
00:08:19 – 00:09:09
at the end of the day, all it’s doing is it’s taking vast amounts of very simple data, neric data or one, you know, binary data true or false for a certain category. And it’s taking that and it’s extrapolating trends. So I can give you an example because it’s a Super Bowl week where if you ever look at sports analysts, they’ll often you know, do something where they do a bunch of data digging and they find some side by side comparison and they’re able to show a difference in performance. So they might show you know, I I’m a huge 49er fan. So they might show Brock Purdy his performance against the Blitz versus not against the blitz. And it’s, it’s very different. He’s very good against the blitz and same with Patrick Mahomes. Right. He’s
Bryan Farris
00:09:10 – 00:09:55
amazing in the playoffs. And then, I mean, he’s very good all the time, but he just turns it on to another level in the playoffs and you can see that statistically in the nbers. And so there’s binary data there that you use to splitt. And so, you know, with Brock Purdy, it would be, is he against the blitz or not? And so in my data, I would actually just have a true false for each row of data. Is this data against a B A blitz or not? And for Patrick Mahomes, is it in the playoffs or not? And with machine learning models, you’re really just trying to feed it as many true false bits of data as you can because that allows it to really find patterns and it can absorb
Bryan Farris
00:09:55 – 00:10:14
so much data that it can see patterns that us hans can’t quite, you know, start to wrap our heads around. You know, once you you know, add too many plus signs into a calculator, you lose track of what you were even doing. But at the end of the day, it’s just the same thing that you would do if you were to find, you know,
Bryan Farris
00:10:14 – 00:10:57
the right way to average out three different components to get the optimal outcome. But it’s taking that across thousands of different data points that you’re able to provide it and it can learn how to predict the outcome. But at the end of the day, that’s all it does. Even chat GT, all it’s doing is it’s predicting what is the most, , what is the word that is most likely to come after the word that I just said, it’s predicting one word at a time and it, that’s how it’s able to generate all of this custom content is, it’s actually just predicting the next word and it doesn’t have the brain to think through what is the the big picture.
Bryan Farris
00:10:57 – 00:11:40
But that’s why you need, you know, data scientists and technology solutions providers to help kind of navigate this world of AI. So you can take advantage of it and make the most of it because there’s a lot that can be done, but it needs to be structured properly, people kind of misunderstand and think that AI is just this all intelligent thing, but it really is, it’s, it’s really actually in a way quite db. It’s just very advanced at being able to cobble together all of this data and create AAA predictive outcome based on what you’ve provided it. So long as there’s actual trends that show, you know, something is more likely than something else
Jeff Bullas
00:11:40 – 00:12:29
in reality with AI. If it didn’t have all this data, it would actually be quite db because the more datAIt has the smarter it is. And it’s also able to do it at scale globally and its speed, which is just amazing. Let’s go back to the use of data and we used it in sport and it was a great, I think it’s a movie with Brad Pitt in it, which is called Moneyball, right? And this was maybe the first time a coach had extensively used data to make a decision on how to actually coach a team, what players to get, they will go looking for a new player that no one thought was any good, but he used data to identify them. Did you watch the movie? Yeah,
Bryan Farris
00:12:29 – 00:12:32
I’ve seen that movie
Jeff Bullas
00:12:33 – 00:13:02
and you just go watch a basketball game right now. And the whole thing is what’s sitting behind that is data again, isn’t it? So, essentially software is almost coaching the team in a way that and recognizes patterns just like you talked about before and hans were, you know, did have superpowers at pattern recognition, but being assisted by AI now it takes it to a whole new level, doesn’t it?
Bryan Farris
00:13:03 – 00:13:28
Yeah, absolutely. Because you can, you can observe, you know, infinitely more observations. So hans, what we do really excellently and, and the way that we’ve learned since we were, you know, Children or infants is, is pattern recognition. I touch something that’s hot and it hurts. Right. And I noticed that I did that a few times and then I realized I should just avoid touching the hot thing.
Bryan Farris
00:13:28 – 00:13:56
, and, but with a, I, you’re able to expose it to thousands and thousands of, of observations like that all at once. So it can start to notice much more nuanced things. And, , you know, essentially would be able to tell you exactly the temperature at which it’s too hot to touch. , that as a han, I, I couldn’t quite tell you that. I just know I’ve got 1/6 sense that, that seems like it’s probably too hot. I’m not gonna touch it. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:57 – 00:14:43
So let’s look at data a little bit more in terms of what’s happened in technology history. We’re not, we’re not gonna go back to the PC revolution, which is where I started my career in technology. I became a salesperson of personal computers back in the 19 eighties and I really haven’t left the technology ever since. I then got excited by the rise of the internet. And then the web browser, the Netscape browser that was rose out of mosaic, which is one of the first browsers. But the reality is that individual stand alone computers, which is where I started my career were initially networked to each other within a building
Jeff Bullas
00:14:45 – 00:15:29
and then they eventually got connected to each other via another building. Then eventually they all got connected to the world via the internet that rose essentially in the 19 nineties because the PC revolution was like the 19 seventies. Really? Ok. Where, you know, Steve Jobs and Apple were duking it out with, you know, IBM and P CS and then Bill Gates and the software that rose, that Bill Gates actually sold software. He didn’t have to create. I think the M MS do si think it was at the time? But the reality is that A, I wouldn’t exist unless we had all this connectivity, would it?
Bryan Farris
00:15:31 – 00:15:45
That’s true. I mean, you, you wouldn’t even have the capacity to run some of these AI models without at the ones that are being run at scale without large scale server system infrastructure.
Jeff Bullas
00:15:46 – 00:16:46
Yeah. Well, yeah, just, and I, the nber I came across the other day was that chat GB 23 got trained on AI think, or two got trained on a few billion. The latest nber I’ve heard parameters which is, you know, like different data points if you like. And today I believe that Chat G BT and Bard, which is now about to be called Gemini, I believe, rebranding by Google these big LM, you know, large language models LL MS. And let’s just make an acronym. Makes sense to everyone. Basically large language models need lots of large data. And the nber today I’ve heard is that chat G BT four is being trained on 31 trillion plus parameters. Now, it’s a nber that we as hans can hardly imagine, can we?
Bryan Farris
00:16:47 – 00:16:49
Absolutely. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:16:51 – 00:17:56
The other thing that I that’s certainly in looking at as well is that generally any technology that is complicated, it starts to makes sense to the average bear han. when we give it a friendly user interface. So that friendly user interface, for example, was basically windows for the PC. Then it was the browser interface where you type in a search term for Netscape, then became Google different variations of it. Then basically chat GP T on social media. Again, you had an easy place to actually engage with the world of connection globally on social media. Then we added and chat G BT, even though the technology was there, it was given a friendly face, it was just a prompt box that everyone could just type into. So it’s not until technology is given a han friendly interface that it really takes off. Does
Bryan Farris
00:17:56 – 00:18:48
it? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s, it’s interesting that you’re, you’re, you know, hinting at the fact that chat GP T is a user interface because that’s the way I see it. Absolutely is, it’s it is the new user interface we came out with you know, laptops and then mobile phones. And so suddenly you needed apps that were, you know, geared towards a mobile phone. But now we have this possibility to have integrated live chat that’s specialized to your own topics built into any product and it’s not gonna replace the need for a you know, mobile visual user interface, but it’s a new place where people can interact with your business and ask it questions. But this is where I think everyone kind of
Bryan Farris
00:18:48 – 00:19:34
gets in trouble where they get too focused on just the interface and not on, you know why people are using it in the first place or what, what people are really interested in. And you mentioned our, our motivation driven design concept before and the, the thought that we have there is that when, when you have UX and Uiux is the, the way that an interface is navigated, it’s called user experience. Is it intuitive and easy to use? And chat GP T is very easy to use. And then user interface is, is, you know, how does it look, is it beautiful? does it, you know seem flashy and or is it simple and modern looking and chat GP T is definitely simple and modern looking?
Bryan Farris
00:19:34 – 00:20:16
But what so many people miss in their products is what I call which is user motivation. And it’s looking at why do people want to engage in your product in the first place? Because just because something is easy to use and looks nice and modern doesn’t mean that I care at all about using it. And so as people are starting to think about how they integrate something like chat G BT as a new user interface for their product, what they really need to do first. And this is what I spend a lot of my time helping people do is step back and look at why are your users even here? And
Bryan Farris
00:20:16 – 00:20:58
what are they really motivated by both intrinsically and extrinsically? And how do we give, you know, give them that extra motivation to go through the process and take the actions and steps that you want them to take that are gonna hit, you know, your strategic goals as a business or that’ll, you know, initiate the processes that end up leading towards your strategic goals. So it, it’s one of the exciting things about chat G BT and AI is that it opens up new possibilities for, you know, greater efficiency and for new user interfaces and new ways of, of working, you know, and interacting with your, your customers, your, your users or whoever
Bryan Farris
00:20:58 – 00:21:32
and all of that. But at the end of the day, it still doesn’t solve the motivation problem that all of us hans are faced with. And that’s something that everyone really needs to keep in mind when they’re thinking about these things is it’s not a silver bullet, it’s a very powerful enhancement to what you might already have. But you still need to really hone in on why people are there and how do you, you know, keep them coming back, keep them kind of excited and Yeah, that’s what motivation is all about.
Jeff Bullas
00:21:32 – 00:22:22
Yeah. So motivation comes very much from the bigger the problem, the bigger the motivation, isn’t it? Or the better, the pleasure, the better the motivation as well. In other words, why do people use an app, for example? And if it’s about money, if it’s about sex, if it’s about finance, if it’s about happiness, they tend to it, it gives people a pretty powerful intrinsic han motivation, let me say. So now I’m going to lean into, you mentioned UX user experience and user interface. Have you had a look at the new GP T store? that chat G BT has launched and it launched with 3 million apps by the way. And
Jeff Bullas
00:22:23 – 00:22:57
also by the way, a lot of them are crap. and some of the apps in there and I’m about to write an article on it because it’s just fabulous out of these 3 million apps. There’s going to be great ones, there’s going to be medi ones and there’s gonna be crap ones. I saw a software user interface, user experience expert give a review of what he thought of the GP T store. Now, you’re a software engineer very much about us experience 360. What do you think of the GP store interface?
Bryan Farris
00:22:58 – 00:23:26
Mhm. So I think it’s very interesting. It makes sense for chat GP T to open up a store because they’re not going to build out these hyper custom iterations of their own product for specific use cases that other people have. And that’s sort of their model is they want to be the platform, they, they don’t necessarily want to own every vertical and that’s why everything’s, you know, very open source with them.
Bryan Farris
00:23:26 – 00:23:55
And it, so it makes sense for chat GP T to do that. Now, the tricky part, as you mentioned is that some people are really just using it as a, a way to put a wrapper around what they already do. I, while you were talking about that, I was just thinking about how right after 2020 Zoom suddenly came out with the Zoom App Store and all of a sudden everybody
Bryan Farris
00:23:55 – 00:24:23
a Zoom app and it was really just kind of some sort of wrapper around a small piece of what they do in the zoom interface. And in some ways, I, I think that some people use these app stores as a way to just increase their organic search visibility. Because if you’re able to get into the Chat GP T store, someone might discover your, the rest of your product through that store rather than
Bryan Farris
00:24:24 – 00:25:07
through, you know, a Google search or whatnot. Because Google searches are seo is highly competitive, right? It’s very hard to break to the top of the rankings. But when the App Store on I OS came out App Store optimization became a big thing and it was very possible to get to the top of App Store rankings early on. It’s much harder now, but it was early, very easy to get up there when you couldn’t get on Google. And so some of these stores are, are opportunities for that. But you’re, you’re spot on that out of the 3000 apps, how many of them are? 3 million? 3 million? How many of them are really enhancing, , those experiences? I’m not sure.
Jeff Bullas
00:25:08 – 00:25:33
Yeah, one of them was found in your girlfriend, for example, a hot girlfriend and another one was, , there’s a one with one’s called Jesus, which is basically right in a tone that Jesus would write about. The list goes on. It’s very, very funny. And, , but some people want to be connected to Jesus via an app, I suppose. So that’s really good. So,
Jeff Bullas
00:25:36 – 00:26:06
what do you think about the pace of change for you? You’re working industry now that I think even software industry would be in the middle of a lot of change as well, wouldn’t it like? , so how much change is there in software? And why should people care about that? But, and that, that was good two years ago is now crap today. So, what’s the pace of change like in the software industry? And of course, it’s been very much impacted by AI tell us about that.
Bryan Farris
00:26:07 – 00:26:54
Well, it’s one of the very exciting things about being in this industry is just keeping up with what’s next and, and what people are excited about. , you know, as you recall, NFTS was the huge rage there. For, you know, most of 2022 and 2021 people were looking for anyone who could have, you know, Blockchain or NFT coding experience. And now it’s very focused on LL MS and building tools with LL MS. So it does keep things interesting for us. It, it keeps us on our toes to be, you know, studying and learning new technologies. But I would say that as time has gone on and I, you know, cause I’ve been in this industry and space for well over a decade,
Bryan Farris
00:26:55 – 00:27:41
I, you start to see the patterns in these changes and they start to all sort of be the same but it’s, it’s not as revolutionary, you know, to your point that in some ways chat G BT is just another interface, you know, for example, I could go on to Amazon and I could search for a product in the search bar. But you know, before I know it or maybe they already have it, maybe it’s one of those 3 million apps, I can just ask a chat GP T and, but at the end of the day, it’s just a, a way for me to find the product that I need. And when it comes to implementation details, of course, each of these is an evolution of each other. But after you’ve learned new ones,
Bryan Farris
00:27:41 – 00:28:07
it starts to just become very standard. Yeah, that was something I had to, I had to kind of figure out how to explain to people because you know, back in my earlier days, I was really focused on iphone apps and people would ask if I had experience with a particular Apple SDK, you know, have you done a maps application or have you done you know, this a store kit application?
Bryan Farris
00:28:07 – 00:28:57
And at some point, it, it became well, they’re all kind of the same, they serve very different features but how you use them is is fundamentally the same and, and you know, you have to keep in mind that’s probably gonna continue because these tools are being built by software developers for software developers. So we, we kind of all approach them in a similar way and create similar interfaces just just like you’re accustomed to having a login and logout button on every product you use. us developers have a, a nber of things that we’re accustomed to being able to leverage when interacting with a new, you know, third-party tool or technology that we’re sort of expecting. And I’ll spare you the all the details of those things. But
Bryan Farris
00:28:57 – 00:29:25
you see it if you hop from docentation, developer, docentation from one product to another, you, you’ll start to see, you know, it’s all kind of similar looking. And when you look at it from a developer’s perspective, it’s, it’s more about learning what is possible with what is new. And then the implementation itself just comes down to practice and trying it out and you know why developers are still around. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:29:26 – 00:30:18
So you talked about that in your early days, you were very much into mobile apps and mobile apps is where you develop something for the mobile phone. You go into the Apple Store, the Android Store. But the software was that you used was basically not part of Apple or Android. It was basically you wrote an app and then had to meet the requirements of the store to actually get it to be placed there, isn’t it? Whereas chat GP T is, you know, the GP T store as it’s called is basically there’s the store where the platform you’re using is the coder, isn’t it? Is that correct?
Bryan Farris
00:30:18 – 00:30:19
How do you mean
Jeff Bullas
00:30:20 – 00:30:27
you use Chat G BT to put a wrapper on something and solve a problem? And that sits within G BT store? That’s what I’m saying. Is, is that correct?
Bryan Farris
00:30:29 – 00:31:23
Yeah, so you’re using their underlying engine. But I would say in the same way that yes, you’re correct. The mobile app itself, the code is not written on the mobile phone, but the, the entire experience you’re building for is the mobile phone. The app itself is sort of useless outside of the, the mobile phone. There are, you know, common cross platform coding languages that you can use now to write code that you write once and it’ll compile and publish for an I OS app or an Android app. But that is, well, at this point, I wouldn’t say it’s relatively new, but there used to be a time when you couldn’t do that and you had to write code and compile it natively for I OS and write completely separate code and write and compile it natively for Android.
Bryan Farris
00:31:23 – 00:31:42
And in other words, the code that you wrote couldn’t be used anywhere else. And it’s really only for that mobile app. Whereas, you know, and it’s sort of sort of similar like this, if you write code for chat GP, T it’s going to be for a chat G BT implementation.
Jeff Bullas
00:31:42 – 00:32:34
Yeah. So one thing he did mention which I found actually hadn’t thought of it this way, but it’s true is that you would have created a mobile app. So you get visibility the app because it’s easy to rank nber one or nber 10 as opposed to competing globally on Google search. So I started writing back in 2009 and back then it was just through blunt force traa, not any technical seo skills. I just wrote a shitload of content and I ended up ranking and getting a lot of organic traffic today. There’s many much more complicated, more algorithms. So, but being found online, like peering on page one and a special position, one is like opening you up to tens of thousands of visits per month just for one keyword.
Jeff Bullas
00:32:36 – 00:32:55
So let’s say you’ve got a client, they’re trying to solve a problem. They want more visibility, for example, would you recommend they maybe do a GP T store app? So, and if they did, how would you do that? And how quickly could you do that?
Bryan Farris
00:32:57 – 00:33:42
So for all of those questions, it does really depend on what their underlying business is. That’s where always gonna start is looking at, you know, their business, their strategy, their financial goals and you know, the, the resources that they have at their disposal. So we can kind of evaluate that with, against other options. But with that being said, let’s asse that, you know, we determine that, you know, building out a chat G BT application would be great for their brand, but that there isn’t really much behind it in terms of the use cases. Because if, if there was, then I would say we invest heavily in that, but if there isn’t,
Bryan Farris
00:33:42 – 00:34:18
then it is possible certainly to, you know, spin up a very simple application that leverages Chat G BT and basically is leveraging it out of the box without very much custom information. And you could do that really fast in order to, you know, do whatever it takes to meet the criteria to publish that app in the Chat G BT store. Now, if they have 3 million apps already, it may be hard to break through. It’s gonna
Jeff Bullas
00:34:18 – 00:34:43
be hard. That’s, that’s part of the problem because it took Apple, I believe five years to reach 1 million apps, right? Chat G BT opened with 3 million apps after announcing their developer path to creating an app, I think in October which is let’s do the math, I think it’s four months.
Bryan Farris
00:34:44 – 00:35:32
So I’ll tell you a secret of how chat GP T works under the hood. When you are messaging with chat GP T on their website, you feel like it’s a chat, right? You send a message and it replies to your message. But actually when you press send, it’s going to that chat model. And it’s saying, hey, here’s a user, this user has asked you these questions already and here’s what you told them before and now they asked you this and what do you reply to that? So you, it’s called prompt engineering. You basically, it provides the entire history of the conversation to the model in order for it to generate the next response. And so
Bryan Farris
00:35:33 – 00:36:13
you can also practice this when, when you use GP T, if you’re a little bit more of an advanced user. You’re not just typing to it. You can say things like please give me your responses in the style of my favorite is to ask for it in the style of a pirate. And you can give it a series of instructions and a series of rules and and inform those as your header and then send the message and what you’ll get back will you know, adhere to that. And so a simple app, if you wanted to make a simple, you know, pirate GP T app,
Bryan Farris
00:36:13 – 00:36:56
you could just make an app that all it does is exactly the same as chat GP T. But it inserts at the top of every message it sends, remember to respond as if you’re in the style of a pirate and suddenly you, you’ll have a chat G BT that feels like you coded something amazing, but all you did was just added one instruction that goes with every message. And so I believe that that’s probably what a lot of these products are doing. Obviously many of them are connecting you to their underlying services, which is a little bit more complicated but it, it it’s something that you can do relatively easily.
Jeff Bullas
00:36:58 – 00:37:12
So let’s say you develop software for someone. So, so you, I’m sure you, I think you, you’ve done a lot of software as a service type products, have you before or not. Is that an area you specialize in?
Bryan Farris
00:37:13 – 00:37:24
Yeah, absolutely. Our, our clients usually are making apps or websites that are software as a service sites or apps.
Jeff Bullas
00:37:25 – 00:38:07
So, and that then on top of that, and so basically that becomes a paid app, doesn’t it? Or a monthly subscription to use that? So this is what I’m thinking. And in that maybe you go, well, I’m gonna create an app on chat G BT. That’s free because that enables people to maybe familiarize themselves with the company. It’s a simple application of software as a service which is premi free, whereas a software as a service is a premi version of that. For example, in other words, you are getting them in the door, making a small commitment using an app. So we go from free. The freemi model has been used now for decades in
Jeff Bullas
00:38:08 – 00:38:30
on the net, hasn’t it? So you get people to use something for free and they go, oh, you want to do X and you want to do Y and you want to do a and you want to do B oh sorry, that’s now $30 a month. So could you use chat G BT to actually be the bait to get them to software as a service subscription?
Bryan Farris
00:38:32 – 00:39:12
It it could be. But again, I, I would want to look at what the company’s, you know, strategy is and, and their financial goals because on the other hand, Chat G BT is, is more expensive. In terms of pay per use, you have to pay for however many tokens you use, which is basically how many words are in the responses. It can be cheaper to operate or to open up access to your, your primary existing services. So your mobile app or your your website and whatnot, because in those cases, you’re running a server that makes those applications available,
Bryan Farris
00:39:13 – 00:40:08
that doesn’t really have a very significant incremental cost for one additional user, whereas one additional user on a GP T platform might actually introduce real cost to your business. So what I would consider would be in some ways seeing if the, if the experience of your product is enhanced through GP T and then offering that as one of the services that you get as part of the premi model. But again, it’s, it’s very dependent on, on the strategy and it can be a, a neat way to get attention because maybe someone is excited to try something out because of the novelty of the G BT type user experience. I’ll make it easier to get people on board. So those are the kinds of problems that I, I love to tackle and help people walk through every day.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:09 – 00:40:15
Cope. So part of your approach is motivation driven design and process. In other words,
Jeff Bullas
00:40:17 – 00:40:40
why would someone use that software, for example? And then the other question would be, is it, are we solving a big enough problem? So, do you ever talk to a client and advise them not to do it? Because you don’t think it’s a big enough problem. There’s not enough motivation for the users to actually engage with your software. Have you said bad idea?
Bryan Farris
00:40:42 – 00:41:28
I, I try to do it very gracefully but yes, there’s been many times where I’ve had to kind of help a client see the risk with that approach, whatever it is that they’re proposing where you know, perhaps you’re opening yourself up to a lot of development work, that is based on sort of a hunch that people will appreciate that. And part of what we do to derisk those things is help people find simpler ways to test the core hypothesis of what they’re assing is motivating people in their, in their application and whatnot. So, it’s, it’s all about streamlining and, you know, finding ways to simplify
Bryan Farris
00:41:28 – 00:42:03
the actual user experience to test if people are gonna be interested in the, in, you know, the kind of the key offering that you’re bringing to the table for them. And then, you know, take it from there. because a lot of times people really wanna over invest and go big before really proving out the demand, which there are times and there’s always a time and a place for different things and it, and it really does depend on the context of the industry and other, other competitors and so on and so forth. But sometimes it’s really important to just focus on
Bryan Farris
00:42:03 – 00:42:20
something that you, you have a question mark about and putting out ways the simplest, cheapest way of testing that hypothesis, all of entrepreneurship, all of business technology solutions. It’s all a science experiment with a hypothesis that you want to prove.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:20 – 00:42:31
So that sounds like to me that you would be taking an approach within your general approach would be a minimal viable product or an MVP approach as
Bryan Farris
00:42:31 – 00:43:09
well. Yeah, absolutely. And, and a true MVP. So many people that that’s become such a catch word that clients just use it all the time now as what they think of as their their first version. But in my mind, version one is really when you’ve gotten to the point where you have everything that you want built in your initial idea. Whereas an MVP could be a shell compared to version one but often times takes a while to navigate that discussion.
Jeff Bullas
00:43:11 – 00:43:35
OK. So what, what’s been, what’s maybe some of the most interesting software projects you’ve taken on and you can reveal names or you don’t have to. But like you’re going, this is bat shit crazy and it worked. Do you have any examples of those sort of projects that you could tell us about?
Bryan Farris
00:43:37 – 00:44:14
I’ve worked on a lot of fun project. There, there is one that I absolutely love because, the guy, you know, pitched it and it, it just, it just made a lot of sense that, this, we worked on this, by the way, the context is that we, we were building this during COVID. And what it was is it’s, it’s called the Trivia Bar, the Trivia bar.com. And basically the idea was you wanted to be able to replicate the Trivia Bar experience. , but, you know, with actual cash prizes kind of thing, but
Bryan Farris
00:44:14 – 00:44:40
remotely online. , and that was a very, very fun product to build out where basically there’s a whole series of trivia games, , everything’s real time. So there was a lot of technological challenges. , we had to put in protections against cheating and so on and so forth. , but it was a, it was a very fun product and I, it’s one that I’m very proud of that’s out there. So how
Jeff Bullas
00:44:40 – 00:44:41
well did that work?
Bryan Farris
00:44:43 – 00:44:58
And the business took off? , yeah, I, I don’t have the exact nbers but, , there were, there were lots of very large cash prize games that were going on with that one, right?
Jeff Bullas
00:44:58 – 00:45:02
Ok. Anything else that comes to mind apart from trivia?
Bryan Farris
00:45:04 – 00:46:01
I’m trying to think which ones I’m, I’m able to swear about. , there is, , one that was, , you know, one that I’m very excited about, that’s actually we’re working on some interesting stuff in the realm of chat GP T for that is in alignment with my focus on impact and my time in Pakistan, like we discussed is Impact Wave, which is a social media application for influencers that’s focused on, you know, collaborating and sharing ways to have a greater impact in the world. And you know, it’s, it’s a kind of a meeting place for where people can discuss based on a very variety of, of different topics. you know, ranging from
Bryan Farris
00:46:01 – 00:46:28
the wellness of the ocean to, you know, an environmental concern, to, you know, mental health concerns, to you know, how women are treated in different parts of the world and so on. And so you can kind of focus in on whatever area you are interested in and, and share stories and tips and tricks and it’s very much like a social media application, but its user base is highly focused on, on the world of impact.
Jeff Bullas
00:46:29 – 00:46:48
So, because the term impact investing is used quite regularly, so it is a tool to help the, the investors or to help people who want to invest at that, you know, in a fund or something that makes an impact is, or is it, is it a two sided marketplace? What is it? Well,
Bryan Farris
00:46:48 – 00:47:12
it’s, it’s it, it would be very helpful for investors. It’s not directly targeting investors. But, , more for just anyone that’s interested in, , impact, , the entire community that would be interested in nonprofits or, , you know, any kind of impact oriented causes or charities?
Jeff Bullas
00:47:14 – 00:48:02
Ok. Maybe a couple last questions. One’s going to be is what brings you the greatest joy. , , because I like to ask that of my guests. In other words, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do tomorrow? Ok. That’s, I can answer that. That’s been my last question. But in the meantime, has the software has gone through there so much change? It used to be, you know, like it costs you millions of dollars to develop an app or software. Now, in terms of pro productivity for software. Now, where are we up to? And in other words, if I’m a, a business owner and I want to solve a problem using software, whether it’s internal or offer a product, what’s happened in pricing over the last decade or so?
Bryan Farris
00:48:03 – 00:48:07
Are you referring to how much it costs to develop a product
Jeff Bullas
00:48:08 – 00:48:21
that’s like saying, how long is a piece of string? I understand that. But has it dropped enormously the cost developing software as composed 10 years ago? And is it gonna get cheaper?
Bryan Farris
00:48:21 – 00:49:09
I would, I would say that it’s simultaneously a yes and a no. It’s, it’s a yes in the sense that if you are trying to build the same thing that you were trying to build 10 years ago, you could probably do it so much cheaper and quicker. But the difference is that the expectations have expanded. And so what people want included in a product has, has grown tremendously. And in some ways, it’s almost that the cost of creating products has, has remained constant. But what can be included for that cost has grown exponentially if that makes sense. So yeah, it’s it’s getting cheaper. But as a result people are investing in the new cutting edge things. So for example, we spent a lot of time today talking about chat GP T. Well,
Bryan Farris
00:49:09 – 00:49:43
that’s starting to become a thing that I’m seeing as just part of the requirements for several people’s ideas. And you know, obviously it, you know, it’s a whole new feature, a whole new user interface that you have to build for and the overall cost of products pro probably what we’re charging to build out a product five years from now. It’s probably not going to be that different from what we’re charging today adjusted for. But we’re going to have chat G BT interface as a very standard thing that we always do. That was never part of it today if that
Jeff Bullas
00:49:43 – 00:50:02
makes sense. So I suppose for example, you developed software and then someone wanted a mobile app to actually be able to use it on their mobile phone as well. And then now we’re going oh not only do we want that done. Now, we also want chat G BT app developed for us as well. So, like you’re saying, it’s the expectation has almost exploded over time, hasn’t it?
Bryan Farris
00:50:03 – 00:50:41
Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, there, there used to be, you used to have to write I OS and Android apps completely separately to code bases. Now you can use flutter react native. Now, Microsoft just came out with Maui, which I’ve been dabbling into. those are all things that you can use to write more cross platform where you can write for web I Os and Android all in 11 code base. So it dramatically shrinks the amount of work that’s necessary. But then you add in new new interfaces as well, so it will always continue to kind of expand like that.
Jeff Bullas
00:50:43 – 00:51:15
So where’s the future going for for Goldfish? You know, your company software development. Where do you see yourself going in the next 10 years in, in the software world and helping businesses identify the motivation to do, create some software to either sell software as a service. Where do you see goldfish going? What are you leaning into that? You see as the future for software in your particular niche, which I think is more in the software as a service area. Is that correct?
Bryan Farris
00:51:15 – 00:51:54
Well, we, we don’t offer software as a service ourselves. We offer development services and consulting services? But most of the products that we build, I would classify as software as a service products that we’re building on behalf of someone else. So really where, you know, where, where we’re focused is in the motivation driven design aspect of things and the 360 degree consulting piece, because I think that development itself is becoming increasingly commoditized and it’s very easy, you know, to find someone who could write code that does a certain thing.
Bryan Farris
00:51:54 – 00:52:32
But what is different about goldfish is that we’re bringing solutions to you and helping you build something that’s designed for han use. Also, as you see all these technology trends emerge come and go. What’s the constant is the user and even the constant across different industry applications. So people often ask, how can you, how can you kind of jp from working on something like the trivia bar to a social media application to an ecommerce application in three different industries?
Bryan Farris
00:52:32 – 00:53:08
And the reality is that I see all of these products from the lens of we are building something that is going to be used by hans and that hans need to feel some sort of attachment and motivation to use those products. And so we’re really focused on that lens of things. And you know, hopefully over the next 10 years, we’ll build out a bigger team of consultants to guide our clients through the work that’s necessary in order to enhance their products and, and you know, obviously have a solid development team to back that up.
Jeff Bullas
00:53:10 – 00:53:13
So that does that mean you’re gonna be hiring neuro neuroscientists?
Bryan Farris
00:53:14 – 00:53:19
Oh, yeah, we’ll be hiring, We’ve, we’ve got open job applications at the moment too.
Jeff Bullas
00:53:19 – 00:53:37
Ok. Because neuroscientists were used and continue to be used in social media because social mediAIs designed to be addictive. So do you design your apps to be healthily addictive for users?
Bryan Farris
00:53:38 – 00:54:35
That’s something that I’m very focused on in motivation terms, we call it kind of are you white hat or black hat? So when you are doing things that are, you know, very kind of gimmicky in the sense of a limited time offer, you know, if you, if you don’t do this by this time, you know, you create scarcity or you create unpredictability for people or, or this idea of they might lose out on something those are really powerful decision making motivators that get people to take action right now. But they are not sticky motivators, it doesn’t keep you engaged long term. So, you know, it’s really important to make sure that people see sort of the bigger purpose, the bigger meaning. and then providing users with opportunities for creativity
Bryan Farris
00:54:35 – 00:55:24
and for a sense of accomplishment and purpose, those, those are the types of things that really motivate people longer term. And it’s possible to kind of apply those principles to, you know, applications that are really sort of focused on just everyday usage. That’s what ways was all about ways. Not only is it, you know, a helpful tool, but it presents everything as this, you know, epic battle against the monster that is traffic that we are all collaboratively helping out to solve. And so it created this sense of purpose to people that, you know, they should use ways because using ways gives back to ways and we’re all gonna, you know, gain efficiency together.
Jeff Bullas
00:55:25 – 00:55:30
Just so what’s ways and how’s that spelt? Is that an application gaming?
Bryan Farris
00:55:32 – 00:55:43
It’s a, it’s a, it’s a driving routing application competes with Google Maps. Actually, Google Maps bought it out. So I guess it no longer competes, it feeds datAInto Google Maps now.
Jeff Bullas
00:55:43 – 00:55:43
But
Bryan Farris
00:55:46 – 00:56:40
when it came out, it, it, it competed with Google Maps and it’s you know, driving directions and it’s where you report report things like, oh, there’s a, there’s a policeman with their radar gun right here. So slow down when you get close to here. And oh, there’s an accident right here and it a lot of those features and, and that kind of data people take for granted now. But when waves came out, I think it was 2007, 8 or nine, something around then. it was super revolutionary but the, but the ideAIs really that they created a, a sense of, of unity and purpose for all of their users. And so, yes, it did create, I guess you could say addiction but not in the
Bryan Farris
00:56:40 – 00:57:13
mental health, negative way more in, I’m part of something way which is very positive and makes people feel good about themselves for their contributions and, and feel like they’re part of society and it’s kind of mimicking the things that have made social groups work really well offline in the offline world for centuries, right? Is when you feel like you’re giving back to the community, That’s gonna make you feel good and, and you know, as hans, we, we like to do that and we’ll come back and do more. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:57:14 – 00:57:56
Yeah, because the whole there’s this 50 shades of gray from white to black if we want to go, you know, in terms of motivations from scammy and spammy to being authentic and good motivation. So you’re almost like you want to create an addiction for good habits, maybe such as healthy eating rather than, you know, taking drugs, for example, or drinking too much, you know, alcohol. OK. Here we are. Last question. I’ve just very curious about if you had all the money in the world, what would you do tomorrow? What would bring you joy and satisfaction? I’m curious about what that is for you.
Bryan Farris
00:57:58 – 00:58:47
Yeah. If I had all the money in the world. I would say that very little would change about my day to day life. But what I would start to do is I would start to take that and invest in building organizations that are helping with international development. That’s an area that I’m super passionate about with all the travels that I’ve done. I’m very interested in what is similar about, you know, hans around the world. Part I think actually to be honest, part of my interest in motivation and, and in han centered design is the fact that, you know, hans across the world and all of my travels are, are very similar and people that are poor that are, you know, really at the bottom of the pyramid, if you will,
Bryan Farris
00:58:48 – 00:59:28
are facing similar challenges and what I would wanna do is set up organizations that through one way or another are providing jobs to people in poorer areas of the world. Because ultimately, I’ve, I’ve come to the opinion that, you know, the best way to alleviate poverty to make the world kind of a better place for those that are struggling is, is to provide them jobs. There’s, it’s not the only way and there’s a lot of other things that charities and nonprofits can do to really help. But ultimately, a paycheck is what gets people into a better place pretty quickly. Yeah,
Jeff Bullas
00:59:29 – 00:59:34
so really, what you’re saying is, don’t buy people fish, teach them to fish.
Bryan Farris
00:59:34 – 00:59:38
Yeah. Yeah. And, and get them a job on the fishing boat.
Jeff Bullas
00:59:38 – 01:00:11
That’s right. So, if they can fish they can go on the fishing boat and get a job. So. Yeah. Bryan . Thank you very much for your insights. I’ve learned a lot today and I looked a bit under the hood of the software industry. I plan technology but I’m crap at programming. I’m just wired that way. So I chose something else within the technology space. So thank you very much for showing your wisdom and expertise and ex telling us your stories. Thank you very much. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Bryan Farris
01:00:13 – 01:00:16
Thank you, Jeff. I really appreciate talking today and the opportunity.
Jeff Bullas
01:00:17 – 01:00:20
OK? And all the best with Goldfish in the future.
Bryan Farris
01:00:20 – 01:00:22
Thank you.
Jeff Bullas
01:00:22 – 01:00:26
I have heard the rumor that goldfish have very short memories. So where do actually where did the name come from?
Bryan Farris
01:00:28 – 01:01:09
Oh my goodness. The name, the name came as a actually as Children. My brother and I used to make home videos and they were just silly home videos. But we were always eating goldfish crackers in every video we named our video company Goldfish Productions. And so at some point, I was trying to put a, a name that meant something to me you know, forward for this company. And just kept thinking about goldfish and all the fun that I had doing that and wanted to bring that kind of spirit to what we do.
Jeff Bullas
01:01:10 – 01:01:33
Awesome. Yeah, it’s good to have a name with a story, isn’t it? Thanks Bryan for sharing that and look forward to catching up with New York one day. In fact, I’m heading off there in about a month and a half. So great. So I might say I’m in Harlem. Come join me for a beer.
Bryan Farris
01:01:34 – 01:01:37
That would be great. We can swap more stories.
Jeff Bullas
01:01:37 – 01:01:39
Ok. Fantastic, Bryan . Ok. Thank you very much.
Bryan Farris
01:01:39 – 01:01:41
Thank you very much.