Hey everyone, welcome to the second part of my interview with Dominik Xane. Dominik is the creator, the founder of Around, Around.co. Go and check it out. It is an incredible video meeting application, video audio space. It's unique from any other video meeting application I've used in a lot of ways. And I really appreciate the product very much. It's one of the main reasons why I'm having Dominik on the show is because I love the product. Full disclaimer, we did have around as a sponsor. But this episode and the previous episode were not sponsored, and they weren't part of that sponsored deal. I just thought that Dominik was very interesting. Personally has a lot of insight into how to design applications, particularly applications that have some impact on your life. In this episode we end up talking a bit about that separation or the false separation of the work life from your real life, not in the way that you might think where you allow your work to bleed into the other parts of your life, but kind of the opposite, where you start to have a little more fun with your day to day. So I hope you enjoyed the second part of my discussion with Dominik Sam. Let's get straight into the interview. Yeah, combining these things and doing it in a way that if the filters, for example, were distracting, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't work well. And that totally makes sense. And I really resonate with the idea that we're learning as a culture to not blur the lines, but to kind of redraw the lines around work and what we would consider not serious, whatever that is. Because for such a long time, work day, your work day is this professional kind of quarantined time away from your personal life. And a lot of things are challenging that, right? Just the natural progression of people's careers into more fluid careers where a single title may not even make sense anymore for a given person for a job. And working, of course, working remotely, distributing work is changing that. We're working from home, for example, where whatever you want to wear. There's no professional kind of pretense. And so much of that kind of difficult to get over is kind of a big wall to get over. And now we're forced over it in a way, you know, by a pandemic and all of these other surrounding experiences. And so it seems that a lot of tools are training in that direction, not just Slack, not just these communication tools, but even if you look, I remember the Apple event where Mimoji came out. And at first, I thought this is particularly, you know, I couldn't believe that this very serious stage where they announced the iPhone was now talking about Mimoji. But now looking back, I can understand this progression of, you know, all of these things that we kind of held back on for so long, now they're much more natural and kind of fit in our personal lives the way that we would want them to if we didn't have any boundaries. If professionalism wasn't a pretense. Yeah. So that's exciting. It's an exciting time to build a product. Yeah. And I would say, you know, I try to encourage people in my circles and especially in our industry too. You know, give it a try and not just around, but be open-minded for what's about to come and try and see even these potentially absurd ideas. And we look at some products and we wonder, like, that's kind of absurd. And I'm like, wow, I want to try that. Like, you know, why did why did founders think that this is meaningful? Maybe they have some insight that I'm not yet comprehending. And maybe I'm just too slow and in three years we're all going to realize, you know, like this is it. And so just like that Mimoji example, and you know, I think the, it's a phase of experimentation. And that's why I like to encourage that, you know, experimenting as well as a user because some of these ideas are not going to be necessarily valid or they're not going to stick. But those that will can potentially transform how we work entirely and how we sort of deal and work with each other, especially in a hybrid remote world where we're kind of rewriting all the rules of, you know, work culture in the next five to maybe seven years. So that's what I that's kind of like my approach to it in this era. I want to switch gears because we talked about a lot of idealistic kind of pictures of where you have been working the kinds of things you've been working on. I like to rewind to a moment in your career, in your personal path where you felt uncertain or maybe you didn't know what direction to go. And even if that was during the time that you were developing around, maybe you had a moment where you weren't sure that it wasn't going to get off the ground, for example. What is that moment and what is an insight or a lesson that you learned from that time of your life? Yeah, I think we have me personally and you know, our team, we've had those moments many times. Maybe specifically in the around journey, especially when we were starting the company, it's early 2018 and you know, we needed some funding to hire engineers and accelerate the efforts and the development and you know, that initial doubt and you know, we saw that these ideas don't necessarily resonate in venture capital or at least they didn't at that time. And you know, it kind of makes you wonder am I wrong or they're just like not seeing it, right? Just yet. And it's a very common thread with early stage startups is it looks like a toy potentially or it looks like it, you know, it can't be a business or these nuances are not different, cheating enough to be a you know, a substantial business. And so, you know, we had some doubts but we also thought we're creating this for ourselves. And so ultimately, you know, we were passionate about having a product that we would love to use for ourselves. And those I think were, that was giving us some confidence or level of excitement that, you know, even if nobody else wants this, we want this. And it was a personal journey in a sense that, you know, it is almost like a lifestyle. I think I am working with a remote or partially hybrid remote team. And I'm thinking, you know, how can I make my own life better? And so we were driven by that idea as well that ultimately we're going to benefit from this every day on daily basis. And sometimes those little you know, nudges and excitement can allow us to withstand like some sort of initial resistance potentially. And we just sort of like go forward and stay patient and keep building and keep building. And then we show it to people six months later and they're like, okay, this is awesome, right? And so, and then, you know, we turn some skeptics into believers. And so I think that's that helped us in our case and me personally to just, you know, keep moving forward and stay patient, keep building the product. Yeah. So it seems like if I'm hearing you right, it seems like there is, you know, this kind of external fear that the product that you're building is not going to be validated. It's not going to live on because either you're wrong or other people can't see the light. And in that moment, instead of trying to push through that particular struggle, you instead looked for a parallel motivation, something else that can keep you going and internal motivation that, hey, you know what, even if the investors don't want this, we do. And if we do, then probably somebody else does. So we're going to find whoever that is after we've built something really awesome. And then you do that. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, thousands of themes around the world use around today and come to tell us like, I don't even know why this is better. It's just like a hundred little things and around that are better. I'm having, you know, a challenge explaining this to people when once they start using around, they say like, oh, yes, you were right. This is so cool. I love the, I love coming back to around, which people can necessarily always say about, you know, Zoom or Google Meet or other more traditional products. And that, you know, that is awesome to see on daily basis. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Is there a feature or something that you tried that you really had a lot of belief in or a lot of kind of confidence in that just totally failed or didn't meet the expectation that you thought it would, didn't work like you thought it would? Yes. And maybe it's a surprising in a different way. It's not so much a feature, but maybe it's all about how people come to a consensus and agreement when they're adopting new tools. And so we found that, you know, it's not necessarily a team that immediately has a conviction that, you know, this is what we're going to use. People need new ideas to, you know, they need a little bit of time to agree and accept and discover and explore. And so in any team, you may have a couple of believers. They're really excited. They're like, wow, this around thing phenomenal, right? And there's three people on a team that say, like, hmm, kind of interesting, I'm okay, you know, let's we can try it. And there's probably like two people that are going to be like, well, but I have like this and that. I love my tool. I have my habits, you know, and so we realize it's not a team that makes a decision because they're maybe not ready to collectively make a decision. And so when you think about the onboarding experience, are you creating a team or are you creating a workspace? And are you confident like who's going to make that decision? Interesting. Especially if you have, you know, potentially some initial disagreement or concerns, right? And so it takes a little bit longer for people to explore and discover. And so the feature that we thought will work was to set up a team. And then we quickly realized, no, they're not ready to set up a team. You know, it's two or three individuals that want to, you know, that are believers. They want to try, they try it. Then they feel empowered. It's more like it almost like a subgroup. It's not necessarily a team yet. It may not even have to be the manager or the CEO or the leader. It can be, you know, an individual that is more, you know, a designer or an engineer. And so that's how it all starts. The teams is potentially not a feature. It is actually a friction point when people are still figuring the things out. And so we reorganize our architecture, the onboarding flow and the user experience in a way that it doesn't say anything about a team because people are not ready to think about a team. They're thinking about how is this going to benefit me and Michael's as buddy and maybe another buddy. And then a two weeks later, you know, you have, you've gone from three people to 15 people and it took some time for people to, you know, an individual team members to absorb that is cool. So yeah. We're going to take a quick break to talk about today's sponsor compiler. Then we'll get back to the episode. I had a chance to sit down and talk with Brent and Angela. They are the hosts of the brand new red hat podcast compiler answering questions about the tech industry or at least starting conversations about it in a new episode of compiler Brent and Angela discuss technical debt. And hopefully, even if you think you know about it, you'll take the time to listen. I wonder what our listeners are going to think like when they hear the title and they they bring, like you said, bring their preconceived beliefs into what this topic is. And even, even if they know what technical debt is, you hear this word, you kind of understand it if you're in tech to a certain degree, but what do you know about it really? Right? And I think being able to kind of peel that onion back and hear the explanations of how it comes about. I think people are going to change their opinions about technical debt and, you know, they're part in creating it or trying to lessen it or something like that. I think our listeners are going to be able to really relate to Brent in this in that we're going to bring these notions with to this podcast. And in listening to it, you're going to say, Oh, okay, I think there'll be a lot of that on this episode. And this is why we have so many voices and so many different voices on the show. Like even just between Angela and I, like Angela, bring so much technical expertise and experience, you know, and I am not that, right? Like I'm like the complete opposite, you know, I bring, I'm a writer, I'm tech adjacent, you know, like I write a lot about technology, you know, but I, you know, I have a PhD in the humanities and social sciences, like, right? And then, you know, we go off and we interview a lot of other people to do. So on any given episode, you'll hear six, seven different perspectives on the question. Everyone in the audience is going to be able to likely identify with one or two. Yeah. Yeah. You can find the newest episode of compiler. Do we want a world without technical debt? Wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks again to compiler for their support of Developer Tea. Yeah, because I, you know, I'm thinking through my, you know, working at PBS, I'm thinking through how would I introduce this to my co-workers? And I think the best way that I could do it is to just say, Hey, I want to just try it on a one-on-one call. Yeah. Tell me what you think. And then try it with somebody from another team, maybe another manager, and kind of get them thinking about it. Because otherwise, if I'm having to go through this formal process of collecting email addresses to add people to the team, and I feel like, I'm not really even sure, like I don't even know if I'm allowed to do, you know what I mean? And I'm sure that, especially in a startup environment, there's a lot of people who have that same feeling of like, we haven't established norm here. I don't want to break the norm, but this thing is really cool. I'd like to just try it for fun, right? Or just, you know, through, in an ad hoc meeting that I'm really in charge of, I'm in charge of a meeting. I can definitely know that. And so I can always create a meeting all day long. Creating a team sounds like a big deal. Exactly. Especially if I meet cross team, right? That would be even another hurdle where I feel like, oh, wait, are they a part of my team? Am I trying to make this thing for the whole organization? Or is it just my small team? Yeah, that makes total sense. And it's kind of an interesting finding because what you've, what it seems like you found is like this point of friction. And I'd be curious, you know, were you, were you gathering feedback from users to find out that this was friction? Or what were you looking at? Was it some kind of analytics process? How did you figure that out? Yeah. And the early stages we basically really just wanted to talk with people that used around it. We had a private data. So we basically structured it as a private data and gave around to friends and people in our circles. And I found that at that stage, it's really difficult to run formal surveys or maybe have analytics. And because the demo is in the details and sometimes it's all about what people don't say and, you know, about your product. Not necessarily what they said, but what they didn't say. And, you know, sometimes we would have a conversation with friends or teams that were trying around in our private data. And I was expecting that they would immediately bring up some topics that I was personally interested or passionate about. And they never mentioned it, right? They never did. And I realized, wow, they don't even care about that feature or that experience at all. Otherwise, it would have, you know, been brought up. And then, so those nuances can only be, I think, captured in, and, you know, we can better assess what is signal, what is noise. When we truly listen in that conversation and give ourselves time and just observe and look and see how people react and what they don't say sometimes. And so those nuances would, we would never capture in a survey or analytics. And that's how we learned about some of the, you know, frictions and the onboarding process as well. So I, you know, my, personally, I, you know, I'm a big believer in just talking with people and not leading them with sort of like our own beliefs and leading questions, but letting them speak and letting them show you how they use the product. That's great. And it lines up, I think, with probably the, the important ways that we talk with people where you're just talking about kind of influencing their answers and not leading them. It's very easy to believe that the thing that's in your mind is also in someone else's mind, the hope that's in your mind is also in theirs. And so, yeah, it's, it's very, I would imagine it's, it's definitely a skill to not lead somebody down the path of kind of confirming your suspicions in those kinds of discussions. Exactly. Two last questions for you here, Dominik. These are questions I like to ask every, every guest that comes on the show. The first question is, what do you wish more people would ask you about? Let's see. I think, I think I would love more interest in details and subtleties of remote work and hybrid remote collaboration. Because I'm finding personally that there is no one size fits all solution. And, and so, as an industry, as, you know, society, it's just going to be a new normal. And that's how companies are going to be competitive. That's what people like, you know, some of the most talented creators and makers and builders will just want to have a certain specific lifestyle. And we still want to work with them, right? That's how we remain great and competitive. And so, we have to be now as a society, as an industry, you know, creative and think about products, culture, process, and all kinds of new creative ways. And it's going to be a set of hundreds of details. And we can't apply a one formula to every single company, you know, and I think I would welcome more conversation about what are we learning? You know, what have you learned? And I go back to, you know, other people and I ask, like, what have you learned as a manager or as an engineer? Do you have a trick or maybe you found a certain routine or maybe you found a, you know, a set of tools or maybe how you guys decided to communicate in your group? How does it impact your, you know, personal life? Do you have like a, you know, specific end of your day? Do you work specific, you know, hours in a different, in a specific time zone? And there's so many nuances and can even, you know, two people sometimes work together when they're remote. There's certain, I'm sorry, there's probably circumstances where they either need to be really close together or maybe at least in the same time zone. And so, you know, discussions about that would be our learning collectively and starting to make that as a successful new normal, not as like something that seems like a challenge, but it should feel like an opportunity. And so, I, you know, I think I would love if people started asking more about that. Yeah. Yeah, it does feel like we're in the infancy of developing good practices around remote work. We've developed kind of some minimal practices that get us by, but what are the kind of highest level ways of doing this? And I love the, the angle that you have on this, which is nuanced and that it's not a one size fits all. Or we can't just turn on the remote switch and say that we're done. There's a lot more to it for sure. And especially because like you said, you know, part of the value proposition of remote work to begin with is I have my own life that I want to live. And so, how can I, you kind of form my life in a way that I want to form it and work in concert with it rather than forming my life around work? How can I form work and life together kind of mold those and sculpt it together? Absolutely. So, so if anybody sees Dominik at a conference or something or on a call, I suppose, ask him more about the nuances of remote work, I guess. The second question is an even higher level question, if you can believe it. If you could give software engineers just 30 seconds of advice, what would you tell them? I think the most important thing is to stay really open-minded and keep trying new things and keep failing. And that's both in tools or, you know, tools, process, languages. And treat everything as an experimentation. And if we don't succeed, that's fine. And maybe we stumble upon, you know, something phenomenal, some passion excitement, you know, and that turns into a great feature, a great product. And I think, you know, just not being discouraged even if the ratio seems kind of off. Maybe I fail 80% of the time. But the 20% what I succeed can be magic, right? And so that bringing that spirit, I'm just going to try these tools. I'm just going to see like what happens. Maybe I'll find something in it. And being open-minded about that, I think helps a lot with discovering new opportunities, new challenges, accelerating their, you know, career. And I'm finding that some of the best engineers that I've worked with have never been afraid of failing. Yeah. That is definitely a theme on this show to invite failure, not just tolerate it, but to make it something that's good in your life to some degree. So that resonates for sure. Dom, thank you so much for coming on Developer Tea. Can you tell me if I wanted to go and start an around call right now? Where should I go? Yeah. You just go to around.co and you can sign up for free. And one of the coolest thing is actually you just, you can claim your personalized URL. So you can have meet.orround.co slash Jon. If it's still available, right? And because we're relatively early as a company, there's still a lot of cool names available and that link is very memorable and easy to use. So I would encourage everybody to go inside up. Awesome. Dom, thank you so much for joining me on Developer Tea. Thank you for having me. Have a good day. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. If you missed out on the first half of my interview with Dom, make sure you go back and listen to that. It will make the second half that much better. This episode was sponsored by the brand new podcast from Red Hat compiler. You can find a compiler wherever you get podcasts. Make sure you go and join the Developer Tea Discord if you want to continue having conversations like this one. And until next time, enjoy your tea.