Nitin Bajaj

(0:02) Hey everyone, welcome to the industry show. (0:05) I’m your host Nitin Bajaj and joining me today is my good friend and mentor Luke Freiler. (0:11) Luke, welcome on the show.

 

Luke Freiler

(0:13) Hi Nitin, it’s great to be here.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(0:15) It’s great to be here with you. (0:17) I don’t know why it took us so long to do this, but here we are. (0:21) So let’s start with who is Luke?

 

Luke Freiler

(0:25) Yeah, I am the CEO of a company called CenterCode. (0:30) I am the father of two wonderful kids aged 12 and 14, boy and a girl, and the husband of a wonderful wife of 15 years.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(0:43) Awesome. (0:44) Looking forward to getting our audience to know you a little better. (0:48) I’ve had the pleasure of knowing you more than 10 years now.

(0:51) And what I would love for you to share with us is the journey of CenterCode. (1:00) Why did you start this? (1:03) What’s the mission, the vision, and more importantly, the impact that you and the team have created in this community?

 

Luke Freiler

(1:13) Yeah, great question and a somewhat fun, long journey. (1:19) So this is a company that I started very much out of a personal passion. (1:25) In my early 20s, I had already been within the professional tech space for a few years, started my career at Samsung, went over to Ericsson with a group of people that were close peers.

(1:36) And it was there that I fell in love with, at the time, what was called usability, the idea that technology should be useful and accessible to a lot more people than just the most savvy of the time. (1:48) And for me, this sort of came out of a place of I grew up supporting technology for friends, for family, for school, and it always just seemed much harder than it should be. (1:58) So I kind of fell in love with this new movement around technology becoming more accessible and decided that’s where my career was going to go.

(2:07) At the same time, I was running a web team at Ericsson and a product manager came to me and said, hey, I need you to run a beta test for our product. (2:16) And I said, well, what does that mean? (2:18) And his answer was, well, that means we get a bunch of customers together to try it.

(2:21) And I was like, no, I understand what a beta test is. (2:23) Everybody knows what a beta test is, but what does it mean at Ericsson? (2:27) How do we do it?

(2:27) What’s our process? (2:28) Where’s the book? (2:29) And he said, well, we don’t have one.

(2:31) Just figure it out. (2:32) And I was like, that’s not possible. (2:33) We have a four-inch guide for how to use the logo.

(2:37) There’s no chance this isn’t a solved problem. (2:40) And he said, look, man, best I can tell it isn’t. (2:43) Just make it happen.

(2:44) And I dug into it and I came to realize that he was right, first of all, that Ericsson didn’t have a process for this. (2:52) But then as I started to look for help within my network, I figured out that this was not constrained to Ericsson, that virtually every company was sort of in the same place. (3:01) And all of a sudden this light bulb went off that there was an opportunity here.

(3:06) There was an opportunity to create something and solve a problem, a growing problem, a gap in the market, but also to directly target something that I was very passionate about in doing so, that this was a way to connect companies to customers in a more meaningful and productive way to ultimately produce a better product that works for them, that the company sells more of. (3:26) Everybody wins. (3:28) It truly is a win-win environment.

(3:30) So I left Ericsson to create that. (3:33) We bootstrapped it. (3:34) I brought three people with me from Ericsson to start the company.

(3:37) And we set out on this journey to initially build a platform, but ultimately also offer services to help companies sort of orchestrate these customer relationships as part of bringing a product to market to ensure that that product does what the company wants it to do. (3:53) And more importantly, the customers want it to do. (3:56) And again, everybody wins.

(3:57) So I was about 21 when I started the company, obviously much older now. (4:03) It’s been a long, long, fun journey, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. (4:07) It’s something I’m incredibly passionate about.

(4:09) I do really firmly believe that technology should solve real problems. (4:13) And this was sort of my way to have as big an impact on that as possible. (4:18) And in doing so, initially we expected that we would be working with very small companies and small products with tiny audiences.

(4:27) And the reality was, it turned out that this was a big problem for lots of large customers. (4:32) And in the end, we ended up impacting products that have been used by billions of people. (4:37) So most of the biggest names in techs have leaned on our products and our services to help bring their products to market.

(4:44) So as a result, that sort of halo effect of what I wanted to do has been pretty significant and hopefully continues to grow.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(4:52) And I’ve firsthand seen the impact of that. (4:55) And your wall of customers is the most extensive, going from pure technology to some really leading and cutting edge ideas and services and hardware products. (5:11) So really, really happy for you and what the team has accomplished over the past several years.

(5:17) And of course, there’s a lot more to come. (5:19) Now, as we talk about these day-to-day challenges, and a lot has happened over the past couple of decades in terms of usability, some things we’ve made really good progress, thanks to the work you and the team have done. (5:32) Some are still continuing to evolve.

(5:35) But as you see it from your perspective, what is the biggest challenge you face?

 

Luke Freiler

(5:44) Um, I can answer it sort of two ways. (5:46) I’ll talk about kind of what we face as a company. (5:49) And then I’d love to talk a little bit about the challenges that technology faces.

(5:54) And I can hit both of them. (5:55) For us, the biggest problem we face as a company is the same thing that I think many smaller companies face is just awareness. (6:01) Despite the fact that we’ve got an incredible customer list, and we’ve sort of gained that somewhat virally, people at a company, you know, experience our product, really like it, move on to another company, bring it with them.

(6:12) The reality is, we aren’t one of those companies that invested $100 million or sorry, raised $100 million and then spent, you know, 10 years losing money. (6:22) We bootstrapped this, we’ve had a couple small raises from some very interested sort of minority investors. (6:27) But in reality, we’ve never invested heavily in awareness.

(6:31) So simply knowing that we exist is something that most companies don’t do. (6:36) And, you know, the thing we once heard from a venture capitalist that kind of was the most backhanded compliment I ever got is you guys are the coolest company no one’s ever heard of. (6:45) And I’ll never forget it.

(6:47) I think about it all the time. (6:48) And it’s just, you know, keeps me up at night. (6:51) So awareness, just getting the word out is obviously very important to us.

(6:55) Now, in terms of the world we live in, and what we do, the biggest challenge I see in technology right now, I’ll split it into one is pace, everything is moving very, very quickly and much faster than it has. (7:06) And everything’s constantly evolving. (7:08) Whereas we used to have products, now we have services.

(7:11) I mean, that’s what it comes down to is there was a day when you would release a product, and then 18 months later, you’d release another one, which sort of goes back to Wyatt Erickson, for example, they didn’t have this process figured out is because if you’re only doing it every 18 months, it’s hard to sit back and think about perfecting it. (7:26) But now we live in an agile world where everybody’s developing and releasing continuously. (7:30) And therefore, there’s always introducing new risk into the product market.

(7:35) So that’s a huge challenge that everybody’s grappling with. (7:38) The other side that really threw a lot of companies for a loop is just the connectivity of products nowadays. (7:45) Again, it used to be when you put a product that chances are it didn’t talk to other products, or it existed within an ecosystem that you controlled.

(7:52) Recently, I had a great conversation with Bang & Olufsen, who’s a customer of ours, 98 year old amazing tech company in the audio space. (8:00) And they were explaining how they had this sort of culture shock a while back, in that for 90 of those years, they were able to release a product when it was done. (8:10) They released a product when it was perfect.

(8:12) And these were premium products that they were proud of. (8:14) They were effectively art. (8:16) And for their audience, they expected perfection for the prices they charged, they expected perfection.

(8:21) And now they’ve sort of accepted that perfection isn’t even possible. (8:24) Because so many of the products their products talk to and interact with are so far outside their control, they can’t guarantee that their own product is going to work in the eyes of their customers. (8:36) And so they’ve sort of shifted gears and how they think and they have to invest in things like beta testing and large scale communities, because they need to get as close to perfection as they can understanding that it’s a moving target.

(8:47) And it’s not possible like it was 2030 years ago. (8:50) And again, this was a culture shock for them, a company that strives for perfection is really struggling in this new way of thinking. (8:57) So those would be kind of the two things that I would dig into.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(9:01) And even from the work you and the team do with these companies, 90 years or more of culture is a very difficult thing to change. (9:11) And then how do you bring that into the product? (9:14) How do you bring that to your customers?

(9:16) And how do you and the team intercept and kind of work hand in glove with both sides to really make this come to fruition?

 

Luke Freiler

(9:26) I mean, the main thing is everybody universally wants happy customers, right? (9:34) At the end of the day, and virtually every company that’s successful has some drive toward happy customers. (9:40) So if it just comes down to the messaging of, look, this is really about orchestrating that relationship and making sure that your customers are heard, and that your product is solving real problems.

(9:52) And then it’s just indebatable whether or not that’s a good thing, right? (9:56) So we’ve yet to run into a company, I mean, you definitely run into companies that are few and far between, but they’re led by one sort of brilliant mind that is either going to get everything right, which doesn’t really happen, or gets enough right, you know, the Steve Jobs of the world to where it’s still sort of outweighs, you know, anything else. (10:17) That’s really not the norm.

(10:19) The norm is a large group of very diverse people who all want the customer to love what they do so that that customer buys more of it, they succeed, they’re proud of what they did, and everything wins. (10:31) So it’s just about making sure that everybody involved understands that that’s the baseline here is that happy customers are getting products that solve their problems. (10:42) And if you solve their problems, and they don’t feel constant friction, and they’re not frustrated by it, they’re going to feel like it’s a win, and you get the other side of that win.

(10:51) So culturally, it’s just an incredibly positive and cohesive message.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(10:57) Makes sense. (10:57) Now, as we talk about positivity, I also want to tap into the opportunities. (11:03) What’s the most exciting one that you’re tracking?

Luke Freiler

(11:08) So the main thing that we’re trying to do right now is make this accessible to a lot more companies and a lot more people. (11:16) So for us as a company, as I said, when we first started this company, we expected we were going to sell to very small companies. (11:23) The reality was very large companies approached us and that became our customer base and sort of willed itself upon us.

(11:30) But as a result, it means that most of our existence has been working in that sort of top tier expensive on all sides experience that really isn’t available to most other companies. (11:42) What we’ve done this year that we’re very proud of is rethink our product line to where we now have a completely free version that, for example, students are using to learn about product development and help bring apps that they’re working on to life. (11:56) And everything is so much easier to get started with in that sense that they can now use a product like ours for literal free to learn and collaborate with their own users and their own customers.

(12:08) And that’s amazing to me. (12:09) That’s something we’ve never been able to do. (12:12) Again, when all of our customers are sort of in the billion range for revenue, this is a whole new territory for us.

(12:18) So we’ve got now a side of our product line that anybody can use for free in a reasonable capacity to run a real test. (12:25) And it’s free indefinitely. (12:27) And then we also have very inexpensive versions for individual product managers who want to solve this problem.

(12:33) And that, again, goes back to that Ericsson sort of source of I had one product manager with a problem. (12:39) He didn’t have a centralized effort at that company to grab a big budget and go do this huge implementation that many people in that company could benefit from. (12:48) He had a problem at that point in time.

(12:50) So we’ve now released a version of our product that fulfills that need that if that person had that problem, they can go solve it for just a simple credit card swipe and very, very little money. (13:01) And then, of course, we still the main source of revenue for us is the other side. (13:04) But our hope is that by a lot more people getting access to this and being able to benefit from it, that we will grow with them.

(13:11) And as it becomes sort of viral within their organization and they see the results and they see the benefits, then we will on the other side benefit as well.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(13:19) What I love about this is this truly democratizes the whole approach to increasing the usability of technology as a whole. (13:30) And one thing is to know what beta testing is. (13:34) The other thing primarily for smaller companies is to say, well, we should be doing this.

(13:39) We should be investing in this. (13:41) And not just in terms of time, but also in terms of process, in terms of what it takes to go through and get validation from customers at early stages, because at the end of the day, it’s going to save you a lot of time and money.

 

Luke Freiler

(13:58) The thing there that was such a big difference for us, and when I talk about sort of what our product is now, it wasn’t about stripping out value and stripping out functionality. (14:08) That wasn’t the market challenge we had. (14:10) The challenge we had is that we had a big enterprise product designed for teams to implement and effectively have full-time resources dedicated to, so only those larger companies could benefit from this.

(14:24) We realized long ago that we can’t just hand that to small companies and expect them to succeed because it’s designed for a very, very hands-on approach. (14:33) So when we talk about these new products, it’s not really just about, oh, we stripped out features and made it cheaper. (14:38) No, what we did was add an enormous amount of automation and sort of more of an on-the-rails prescriptive path to success.

(14:46) When we set out to do this, the initiative I gave the product team was I want somebody to be able to achieve, let’s call it 70% to 80% of what they would achieve full-time in our product, but with 20% to 30% of the time invested. (15:01) We sort of set out those metrics as how can I put in significantly less time, and I’ll never quite achieve what a true professional team could do, but I can certainly get a lot closer to it than I would otherwise. (15:14) So it wasn’t, again, just about, okay, here’s a cheaper version of the product with everything stripped out.

(15:18) It was, no, this is a version designed for an audience that doesn’t have the time or the experience, and therefore they can lean on the system to do that heavy lifting for them. (15:28) And that’s where we’ve seen success in this and how more product managers and whatnot can really take advantage.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(15:34) Love it. (15:34) Super excited for that. (15:35) Super excited for more people to get their hands on and really drive this change at a level where this is impactful because it’s going to really spread across many, many more folks.

(15:47) So that’s awesome. (15:48) Now, I want to take a step back and look at the rear view mirror and talk about two moments in your life, in your career, one that blew your own expectations became a success beyond your imagination. (16:04) And another one that did not work out as you had expected was a failure became a lesson.

 

Luke Freiler

(16:12) So the first one I’m going to change a little bit because I’ve already sort of teased it out there is when I started this company, I never, I expected it would take a lifetime to have the impact on the breadth of audience that we ultimately got to touch. (16:30) We expected, as I said, that this would be a small thing we’d grow organically. (16:35) And while it wasn’t a huge company, it had a huge footprint.

(16:39) And to me, that’s a really, really strong thing. (16:43) I never wanted to work around just tons of people who just go to work every day. (16:47) I wanted to work around as few brilliant people as possible to get the job done.

(16:53) And I feel like we got to do that. (16:56) And that’s been a fun part of the journey. (16:57) And we’re still on this journey.

(16:58) We still have a lot of twists and turns to come, I’m sure. (17:01) But the idea that we got to impact products that are in virtually every home in the U.S. and in many cases, the world at this point is mind blowing to me. (17:10) I still am astounded by that.

(17:12) And I still will go visit a company and act like a fan boy of whatever their product is that they’re putting to market. (17:19) And, you know, go to Peloton or Sonos or Roku and just get so excited about what they’re doing just because it’s cool and it’s often bleeding edge and it’s new takes and old ideas. (17:29) And it’s just very interesting.

(17:31) I just love all the destructive markets we get to touch. (17:34) It’s super great. (17:35) In terms of the other side and kind of where things went off the rails, I definitely say that there was two sort of things that held us back.

(17:45) The first is that we didn’t raise capital. (17:48) And we in some ways, I wouldn’t say I regret this because I have the experiences of that true entrepreneurial spirit of my co-founders. (17:56) We’re all sharing an apartment.

(17:58) And, you know, we lived off of, you know, very, very inexpensive burritos. (18:03) And all those very classic stories did happen to us. (18:06) But the reality is, had we had more capital, we could have grown faster.

(18:11) Now, we started this at a time when it was typically incredibly difficult. (18:14) And we decided very early on that we can either put all of our energy into building the thing we’re passionate about, or we can become, you know, bankers. (18:22) And the reality is we were product people, we were engineers, that’s what we loved.

(18:25) So we just went out and built and hoped that it would align with the market. (18:29) The other thing that was a big challenge, and I think a lot of people could learn from is, you know, I often say we were very early to market, and we were kind of ahead of the curve. (18:38) And if you haven’t been in my shoes, that might sound like bragging, but it’s actually the opposite.

(18:44) You know, the reality is, I saw a problem, and I experienced that problem. (18:48) And I believed many other companies were experiencing it. (18:52) And to some degree, they were, but it was brand new, and they hadn’t really woken up to it yet.

(18:56) They didn’t even understand the pain. (18:58) So we were very early to market and lost a lot of time in that respect. (19:03) But, you know, glasses half full, we use that time to learn, we use that time to build.

(19:08) So now the world is kind of caught up to, if you look at that, everything’s connected, everything’s continuously developed, products have much less savvy, more mainstream audiences. (19:17) Now there’s 10 times the need for what we do than where we started, and we just put a lot of time into it. (19:24) So being too early to market, again, if you sort of, I’m not saying I’m brilliant, and I had this idea early, I’m saying I had this idea too early, and probably wasted a lot of cycles on it.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(19:34) So as long as we learn, it’s not wasted. (19:37) And I know having seen you and the team iterate on the product, where it was, and where it is, I mean, that’s amazing. (19:47) And for us to be able to learn through all of those different experiences and find different market fits, it’s not just, you know, one size, one market, you now have different tiers of offerings that cater to a whole different set of audiences.

(20:05) So that’s amazing. (20:08) I’d say you cheated on the second one because you didn’t really talk about a failure.

Luke Freiler

(20:12) If you enjoy learning, there is no better job than entrepreneur.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(20:17) Yes.

 

Luke Freiler

(20:17) Hands down.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(20:19) I agree. (20:21) Now, I want to switch gears and ask you about what do you do for fun?

 

Luke Freiler

(20:29) So for one reason or another, and I don’t think it’s deliberate, virtually everything I do seems to involve technology. (20:36) When I started my career, I was going to go one of two paths. (20:39) I was going to go music technology, or I was going to go, you know, more traditional technology.

(20:45) And the reality was more traditional technology paid the bills. (20:48) But I’ve always had a lot of fun with music. (20:50) So if you see behind me, there’s music gear, it’s all over my office.

(20:54) Having a bit of a midlife music crisis, I think. (20:57) I went through my 20s, you know, starting a bootstrap company. (21:00) So I was pretty poor.

(21:01) Now I’m at a point where, you know, the way life works is as you gain the revenue, you lose the time. (21:06) So I can now afford all the equipment, I don’t have any of the time to use. (21:10) But I do, when at all possible, try to play with that.

(21:14) And that’s been kind of my recent resurgence in my life has been really getting back in and writing music and working on studio stuff and just having a great time with it. (21:23) And again, many of our customers are in that space, which goes back to me being a fan boy of every single one of them. (21:29) So it’s really fun to not only use it as a hobby, but also know that our company helps benefit and make it better for everyone as well.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(21:36) That’s awesome. (21:37) That is icky guy there right there. (21:40) Now, this brings me to my favorite part of the show, which is the one line life lessons.

(21:47) I’d love for you to share a few of yours with us.

 

Luke Freiler

(21:51) Yeah, this is a tricky one for me, because there’s those things you think about constantly, but you don’t necessarily say out loud that they do drive you. (21:59) So for me, a handful that come to mind that you’ve kind of got me thinking about today is one of them really is to choose your battles. (22:07) And this is one that sits on every level, everything from, you know, having a successful marriage to choosing the right things to do within a day at work.

(22:16) And it’s something that really, really drives me. (22:19) An extension of that is sort of something that I’ll admit I’ve done a little less of as I’ve gotten older, but I think it really did put me in a great place in my 20s and 30s is I’m the kind of person that wants to know everything about something or nothing. (22:34) And by that, I really sort of came up with this idea of we all have a limited energy pool.

(22:40) And if we put a little bit into everything, we’re not going to get much done. (22:43) So it was really about picking a passion and going for it. (22:47) And that was always really, really important to me.

(22:50) Another one that came to mind, this is a line I will admit I stole from an employee who stole it from somebody who stole it from somebody, but it really stuck out to me on both a personal and professional level. (23:00) And what he said was, you know, don’t play to win, play to learn. (23:05) And that really got me.

(23:07) I have a son who is at an age where anything frustrating, he doesn’t want to continue with. (23:14) And if he’s not amazing at something from day one, he wants to give up. (23:16) And I’ve been working as a parent to try to get him around that.

(23:19) And I think that lesson really coincided with that idea that, you know, don’t play to win, play to learn. (23:25) And if you play to learn, you’ll eventually win, but you’ll be happier along the way. (23:29) And that’s just super meaningful to me.

(23:32) Now, something that isn’t maybe as succinct, but again, drives us and it really drives the culture of my company is one of the first things we tell everyone when they get hired is it’s okay to make mistakes, just don’t keep making the same ones. (23:46) And that’s something that, you know, we very honestly said to our company, we’ve never fired someone for making a mistake. (23:52) It’s never happened in 20 plus years.

(23:54) But we have fired people for not learning from their mistakes. (23:58) And that’s just, again, it’s a homeless and it’s a work lesson. (24:01) It’s very, very important.

(24:03) I’ve already said one that I do believe is again, both to me, I’m starting to realize maybe even throughout this meeting that I really struggled to separate home and work almost to a fault. (24:17) And that’s somewhat deliberate at the same time. (24:19) I don’t feel like I’m working all the time in that capacity, but I’ve said it already.

(24:25) I believe it to be very, very true. (24:26) And it really drives me. (24:27) It’s part of my mission in life and all aspects is I believe in technology.

(24:31) I believe in the value of technology, but I believe technology should solve real problems. (24:35) And I think that’s an important thing. (24:38) I think that’s really critical.

(24:40) Two more I’ll give you. (24:41) I have no idea how many I’m at. (24:41) I’m either at three or 12.

(24:43) I don’t know. (24:44) But something that somebody said to me recently that I really like, and it’s more on that business sense, but it’s just, it’s a line that he said that I’ve thought about a thousand times since, which was scale with electricity. (24:55) And this is something that as we’ve thought about growing our company, again, I’ve never found the right words to describe it exactly, but I want to be around as few, you know, brilliant people as necessary to get the job done.

(25:09) And then I want to use technology for the rest. (25:12) You know, when I started a company, it wasn’t for power. (25:15) It wasn’t for authority.

(25:17) It wasn’t for ego. (25:18) It was because I wanted to solve a problem that was bigger than myself. (25:21) And I wanted to do that as optimally as possible.

(25:24) And I wanted to do it with people that were as passionate as possible. (25:29) You know, a weird kind of a side story, but somebody once tried to recruit me to work for another company, which is a weird thing because when you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t really get recruited from my position. (25:39) But he’s a friend who we’ve wanted to work with each other for a long time.

(25:43) And the guy was so smart because he walked me into a room of people that had done some really, really brilliant things that I was aware of. (25:50) And he didn’t talk to me about compensation. (25:52) He didn’t talk to me about anything except, wouldn’t it be cool to work with them?

(25:57) And to me, that was such a brilliant thing of like, it wasn’t about attracting me to make more money or anything like that. (26:04) It was literally about being surrounded by brilliant people, sharing ideas together, just such a cool thing. (26:10) The last one I’ll say, and I could spend hours describing it, but I won’t, is the concept of context is king.

(26:18) Going through business, all the lessons you learn, everybody’s going to try to tell you exactly how to do a thing, what the playbook is. (26:25) But what they generally don’t know when they go into it is what the context is. (26:29) And what I’ve sort of realized is that concept of analyzing everything that surrounds something to form what your current version or your current answer should be is something not enough people take into account.

(26:41) They just want a playbook. (26:42) They want a lesson plan. (26:45) And I just think that the world is so sophisticated, so rapidly changing, and there’s so many moving parts that you can’t do that.

(26:51) So really wrapping in that context, understanding as much as possible, and then making the best decisions is really key. (26:56) So that’s some, there’s probably more. (27:00) I really like this question.

(27:02) I’ll probably have 10 more. (27:03) I’ll just text you in the middle of the night, but it’s good stuff. (27:06) That’s fun.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(27:07) Please do. (27:08) And your texts are always welcome at any time in the day. (27:12) And I love receiving them.

(27:13) Look, it’s been an absolute pleasure and we should do this more often. (27:19) And the next time we bring you on, we’ll have it all decked out with your equipment. (27:23) So you can even play some music and we get that pleasure.

(27:27) Happy to use some of your customers equipment. (27:30) So they also get spun out.

 

Luke Freiler

(27:31) We’ll do. (27:32) Yeah. (27:32) Happy to.

 

Nitin Bajaj

(27:33) That’d be great. (27:34) And it’s been, it’s been amazing and wish you and the team continued success and happy to be a part of this journey. (27:43) And yeah, looking forward to bringing you back on soon.

(27:47) Thank you. (27:48) Appreciate it. (27:49) Thanks.