[00:00:00] Katherine Druckman: Hey everyone. Welcome back to reality Reality 2.0, I'm Katherine Druckman. Doc Searls and I are talking to Zach Kaplan, who is the CEO of Inventables, Zach and Doc, and I have some mutual friends, and so we decided to get together here and, and kind of nerd out on maker culture. We'll get, we'll get to that more in a little bit, uh, Inventables his company makes a really interesting CNC machine that I think kind of makes fabrication of cool stuff a little bit more approachable.

I think we can talk a little bit about that. But before we get started about, you know, all that exciting maker stuff, I wanted to remind everyone to go to our website at reality2cast.com. That is the number two in the URL. You can sign up for our newsletter, which we occasionally send out.

You can get links and, and more info about all of our episodes. So definitely check that out. Also, thank you to our Patreon and Ko-Fi supporters. I haven't done that in a. But thank you all. Um, you help keep us motivated even with even any little bit, keeps us a little bit more motivated somehow. Uh, and we appreciate it.

We appreciate the feedback from all the people who email us and yeah. So thanks. So Zach, tell us, I'm really curious. And, and I think our readers would be too how you got here. So a little bit of background. I don't know how many of our listeners know this about me actually. So I actually studied decorative arts history in grad school, which is yes.

That's a thing that people do. , that's crazy. Right. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. And I went to grad school in, in New York city and I remember at the time, um, I had some connection or somebody I knew worked for a company called material connection and it was basically a library of cool, cool material, like for, for making stuff.

And I thought it was like the cool, it was like Disney world for design nerds. And I always, I remember, you know, every time our mutual friends mentioned you, that's what I thought about. I thought about material connection and, and that was the connection I made in my head. So I, I. Love it. If you could give us a little bit of background on forming your company and how you got here and what you're into and where you are now.

[00:02:02] Zach Kaplan: Sure. Uh, so back I, I went to college for mechanical engineering. And even before that, during high school, I took like a high school engineering class where we got the, it was the first year they had combined the manual machine shop with the digital, uh, fabrication lab. So I was very lucky to be in that first class.

And so I got exposed to sort of both sides of making stuff through the computer and with your hands through it, with machines. So that that's what inspired me to go get a degree in mechanical engineering. What I learned at during the university experience was during high school, it was, it was more project based and mastery based where you had some sort of challenge or engineering problem you were trying to solve.

And then you would iterate and use the math and calculus to figure out a solution to the problem. Once we got to college, it was more like, uh, you know, problem set based. So each engineering discipline was a, um, a different version of calculus. There wasn't my program. There weren't any projects at the time, maybe one project in four years.

So I really wanted to get back to building stuff and more of the kinds of things we were doing in, um, high school during college, I had started a custom software company and that company got bought out, uh, about six months after I graduated. And at the time I was very interested in this company called IDEO.

So if you're not familiar with IDEO, they're headquartered out in Palo Alto, they were famous for designing things like the first apple mouse. Um, so they're that one. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:03:44] Doc Searls: yeah, there was another ID that Twitter came out of, or a name like that. So, but know the one you're talking about that's right.

Yeah. And, 

[00:03:51] Zach Kaplan: uh, so they had this thing that they called the tech box and it was like a collection of all sorts of materials and technologies. They had a database and we chatted with them and our idea was we're gonna commercialize the tech box. And so we started an independent company called Inventables and it, it wasn't, there was any, no like legal or equity relationship with idea.

It was more just like a friendly, um, partnership you might say. And once a month we had like a knowledge sharing call with their curator of the tech box. And we sold this subscription that included. Materials and technologies and processes. And we, we called it, uh, design aid and companies, big companies like Nike and Proctor and gamble, black and deck are subscribed.

And every three months they would get this box that had 20 new materials and technologies. And so from 2002 to 2009, I'd say, um, we were essentially an alternative to material connection. So material connection, you could physically go to their space in New York where our product or subscription was that we would ship it out to you.

So we had about a hundred different companies, R and D groups and industrial design groups all over the country that would get our box every three months. 

[00:05:13] Katherine Druckman: That's really cool. Yeah. Materials delivery. That's like the ultimate, like crafter subscription right there. Super nerd crafter 

[00:05:21] Zach Kaplan: yeah, it, it was all stuff with unexpected properties.

So. Uh, for example, we had magnets, they were soft and squishy, but also very strong magnets. So it was like totally unexpected. Oh, that's cool. That's awesome. 

[00:05:33] Doc Searls: God, I would, I've never thought of a magnet as being anything other than a solid exactly. That's interesting. Wow. 

[00:05:41] Zach Kaplan: That's why they were 

[00:05:41] Katherine Druckman: there, right.

yeah. 

[00:05:43] Doc Searls: Yeah. That's cool. 

[00:05:44] Katherine Druckman: That is really cool. 

[00:05:46] Doc Searls: So it's like, like gummy, gummy magnets, gummy magnet. chewable magnets that's even weirder. Okay. 

[00:05:53] Katherine Druckman: yeah. Huh. All right. I could actually think of some medical applications for that. I dunno what I think about it anyway. Um, cool. So actually, is that, is that what they use when you, when you have acid reflex and you have that surgery where it like magnetizes your esophageal swinger and anyway, um, so, so, so how did you get from the subscription box to where you were now?

Yeah. 

[00:06:16] Zach Kaplan: So in 2008, 2009, you started seeing all of these secular trends around maker culture and. The internet in general. So, uh, things like Shopify came out, Etsy came out, Amazon announced, um, that they would do fulfillment by Amazon. Will they ship your product, even though Amazon wasn't selling it, which at the time was kind of like a, a big deal.

And then, um, the first million dollar Kickstarter happened. So it was this guy who was our, our client at Nike. His name was Scott Wilson, and he did a Kickstarter. I think he was going for like $15,000 to get the tooling, to make it was a watch band for the iPod, the iPod nano, which would effectively make the first apple watch.

And so he was just expecting to get like, you know, $15,000, which would be enough to buy the tool, to shoot the mold. And then he was gonna sell the watch band and he did a million dollars on Kickstarter. Wow. So this was before there had ever been a Kickstarter that big Hmm. And so I saw this and I knew him from, because they were our client at Nike and he, he was an industrial designer.

He worked in their timing and tech lab. And so that was sort of like a pivotal moment in my thinking, cuz I was like, at the moment, I was like, oh my gosh, the designers aren't gonna need the big companies anymore. They're just gonna be able to go to Kickstarter and launch their thing and get funded and not have a company.

Yeah. So it didn't exactly turn out that way, but 

[00:07:44] Katherine Druckman: no, it depends on, on your Kickstarter project 

[00:07:46] Zach Kaplan: I guess. But the, um, but the idea that like the social media was making it, so you could reach customers without advertising. Like, you know, in the traditional sense on TV or me magazines, eCommerce software and uh, deliver is making it so you could do fulfillment without a big company and now Kickstarter had solved the, the capital piece.

And so we recognize that. The future of innovation, wasn't gonna happen in the walls of the fortune 500 company. And so we started asking the question like, okay, so what is the future going to look like? And we decided it was gonna be more massively distributed. And because of that, we wanted to essentially make what we were doing for these big companies, accessible to anyone with an idea.

[00:08:35] Katherine Druckman: and then, so the, you settled on a CNC. Why? Because that's where you 

[00:08:40] Zach Kaplan: are now. That's where ran out. Right? So it didn't start that way. So the first thing we did was we took the entire library of materials, which was at the time a couple thousand that we were charging about a hundred thousand dollars a year for, to these big companies.

And we put it online for free. um, so we switched it instead of, so it was like, I can't remember if it was Tim O'Reilly or somebody said like information wants to be free. That was like one of the, a lot 

[00:09:05] Doc Searls: of us said that it's not quite true, but it's cool. 

[00:09:08] Zach Kaplan: It's 

[00:09:09] Katherine Druckman: nice idea. It's a nice 

[00:09:10] Zach Kaplan: idea. 

[00:09:11] Doc Searls: It may want, but it doesn't come out that way all the time.

Exactly. None of us care what we want, including . 

[00:09:18] Zach Kaplan: So we were charging about a hundred thousand dollars for this information and, you know, we, we ingested that tagline and spit it out and turned it around and said, okay, the information will now be free, but you'll pay for the materials. So we launched a, essentially a website, or we took the password off our website and added a buy button and we called it the innovator's, uh, hardware store.

Hmm. And so it was growing gradually and we were adding new materials all the time and it made what we were doing available, not just to the big companies, but to anybody with, uh, internet connection and about two or three years in. I was introduced to, um, an open source $600 CNC machine. And so we, uh, essentially partnered with the, the couple people who were part of the project and sourced all the components and put essentially a pre-order campaign on inventables.com and, uh, it effectively quadrupled our monthly revenue when we did that.

Mm it's really like, okay. wow. People want the tools to, to make new products more than they want the materials, and so that was interesting. And so we, we, I think we sold about 12 or 1500 of those. And, um, what we started realize at the time, we just assumed that the CAD cam and machine control software to run one of those, there, there was plenty of it out there was, um, acceptable or, or effectively, uh, Useful enough because there was both free and paid, um, options out there.

And millions of people use SolidWorks. And, um, those types of programs, what we found was it was really too complex for most of the people who were buying our machine. And so, uh, that was where we launched easel, which is our software that runs it. So it's CAD cam and machine control. So three pieces of software that are typically part of the tool, ch the cam CAD cam tool chain.

And we put it all in one. We also put it in the browser. So historically those were all desktop applications where you have to export outta one import into that. So we put it on the browser. So you could enable things like sharing and you, um, you probably see on our website, like the projects. So yeah, it's cool.

Almost 10,000 projects up there now. Um, and you could share things like. You know, the speeds and feeds and projects and collaborate in real time. 

[00:11:54] Katherine Druckman: So that's actually one of the things I really wanted to talk about. 

[00:11:57] Doc Searls: Go ahead, doc. I, I was saying, does that, has it foster community among your, uh, users for those things?

[00:12:04] Zach Kaplan: Yeah. So there, there's about a million people who have, uh, an easel account and about, you know, a quarter million to 300,000 are active in any given year. 

[00:12:15] Doc Searls: So that's a lot, that's 

[00:12:17] Zach Kaplan: a, it's a lot, that's a lot of people making stuff. Yeah. A lot of people making stuff and, uh, there's an active forum. So, and now there's also many, many active Facebook groups.

Um, Wow. Yeah. Last year, two years. I can't remember. Cause the pandemic sort of blurs together. We launched the ability for third party machines. So machines not made by Inventables are now compatible with easel. And I think there's about 60 of 'em in there. Wow. And so now there's not only Inventables communities, but communities of people using easel with other machines and Facebook groups for all, every one of those.

[00:12:51] Doc Searls: Wow. So, so we have, I wanna make sure I have this site you're entirely bootstrapped with this, I guess. Right. Are you 

[00:12:58] Zach Kaplan: well until 2009? So I, I started raising venture capital in 2009. 

[00:13:03] Doc Searls: Okay. Okay. Um, but it's a, it's a, it's a private company or it's a, I, I haven't looked it up, so yeah, no, it's, it's a private company.

Yeah. So your VC should be happy. I would hope at this point , um, 

[00:13:17] Zach Kaplan: one outs always. Uh, so, 

[00:13:20] Katherine Druckman: wow. So can you, for people who aren't in front of their laptop, right? This second looking at your site, like we are, um, can we talk about the, the types of things that, that people tend to make with your materials and tools?

Absolutely. So like, what are the most popular things? 

[00:13:36] Zach Kaplan: Yeah, so, uh, it it's really been a progression. So I'd say in the earlier days people started with signs and I would say making signs was the number one application, gradually signs bled into home goods. So things like picture frames and, um, cake toppers, and, uh, all sorts of like desk accessories.

And then that bled into, um, furniture and cabinets. So. It, you guys can see the, the machine behind me. So our first machine, the, the bed size, I think it was about nine, eight or nine inches by eight or nine inches. So mm-hmm, obviously there's only so many things you can make on that. Yeah. The one behind me is four foot by four foot.

Yeah. And so as we've expanded the size of the work piece, like the, the bed it's expanded, what you can make with it. And so today we have a lot of like cabinet makers and carpenters who are doing things like built-ins and kitchens and, uh, like stuff like what's behind dock. Um, 

[00:14:42] Doc Searls: oh yeah. I'm in a basement, but yeah, it's cabinetry basically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:14:48] Zach Kaplan: And storage solutions. 

[00:14:50] Katherine Druckman: How many people are hobbyists versus people who are reselling? 

[00:14:54] Zach Kaplan: Yeah. So it's, it's about 82% have commercial intent, so, okay. Wow. That's interesting. There there's a line that's blurred on like hobbyist and reseller, right. Hobby business. Now, especially today. So many people have a side hustle mm-hmm right.

Especially in the pandemic, it even gets accelerated further working from home. Um, so that line gets blurred, but then, uh, a lot of the cabinet makers it's their full-time job, so they can be like a contractor or a cabinet maker. And they typically have a company with like one to 10 employees.

[00:15:28] Doc Searls: so I I'm, I'm I'm, as I'm looking around your website, which I can't help doing. Cause it's too, it's too interesting. Um, I, it, it seems to me like, I mean, it, it has your gear like become like the way to do this stuff or is, or do you have competitors here doing similar things at this point? 

[00:15:49] Zach Kaplan: We do have competitors, but, um, It's really with, within what segment of the market.

And so if you're in the segment of the market that wants it to be extremely easy to use, and you're more focused on the output than the software and the technology mm-hmm then we're, we're the, the, the favorite choice. Mm-hmm um, if you're more interested, like on the hobby end, if you're more interested in tinkering with the hardware, like there's more, um, kit based versions that people are into where it's more about the machine and tinkering with the machine than the output mm-hmm 

[00:16:24] Katherine Druckman: What is the, the startup cost, let's say, okay, I want, I want one of your big machines and I want enough materials to get started.

And I wanna go, let's say, hardcore hobbyist, how do I, how do I get into this? I'm asking for a friend who is me, I wanna make this micron pen holder. So no I'm serious with them. So what is the startup cost for me as a nerd? 

[00:16:47] Zach Kaplan: So as a nerd, like what I would say, the first thing to do is just use the software and we have a free version and it's free.

Um, awesome. And so the, the, the first thing you can do is just get in there and start designing what you wanna design for free. And I would encourage you to get into the one of the communities and find somebody near you who can carve out whatever it is that you wanna do. Oh. And then you could go over to their, either their maker space or their garage and carve it.

And so that two things will happen there. One is you'll get a firsthand experience of carving something. Two is, you'll make a friend who knows more about it than you. Um, and three is, you'll see if you like it before you put any money into the, the whole thing. Good advice. Um, but then, okay, so you decide, yeah, this is pretty cool.

I have a spot. Um, there's, there's sort of, we offer two machines currently. There's the ex carve and the ex carve pro. Yeah. And depending on your plan, you know, if, if you wanna just do it for the love of it, if you wanna have some sort of income come from it, or if you want to be your full-time thing, there's different ways you can pay.

So for the little one, it's about 2,500 bucks, but we will offer it, um, through a firm, which is like a by now pay later mm-hmm so you can get the fully loaded one for $73 a month. And so I actually recommend, if you are trying to make a. A business audit or at least earn some sort of income from it that you do use the affirm financing, because then you're not out any money.

You can use that money for materials. And then you just have to sell enough stuff to cover the 73 bucks, plus your cost of materials each month, which is a pretty low bar. And it keeps you focused on, um, you know, just little bit by little bit building your business. What we find is the, you know, you, you make a couple things, you mess up a couple times and then you make something and you're like, what do I do with this?

People give it away. So you start giving you, make stuff and start giving it away. That giving away then gets people who see the thing that you gave. And then you start getting inbound. Like, Hey, so, and so showed me this thing you made. Can you make me one and that's your first sale? And then it tends to be a referral business.

Like lots of people have put stuff up on Etsy. It's very hard to make a financially successful business on Etsy, cuz there's so much competition at that point. You're basically selling a commodity, right? The, the sweet spot that, um, our customers get into is that they actually carve out a niche and they either have a very specific community that they're, um, servicing or a local.

They become the local person who knows how to do this stuff and can do it custom. Right? 

[00:19:36] Doc Searls: Yeah. So if you do like, uh, really cool house numbers, I'm just making that one up, cuz we're looking around our community, right? Yeah. And it's an old, it's an old, all the houses built in 1900 roughly. And uh, we're looking at one right now.

Um, but if somebody like has one of these things and gets into like really cool house numbers that look kind of like this community, then they, then, then people see those and go find that person. And everybody knows each other. Yeah. That's really cool 

[00:20:02] Zach Kaplan: because if you go to like the, the big box store, you know, they don't have that style.

They've got the mass manufactured one from overseas. Yeah. So today people all want it to be like unique and special to them. 

[00:20:15] Katherine Druckman: Yeah, there's some really cool projects on here. I, I, if you're listening, I hope you're you're yeah. You've already gone to inventables.com/projects. Um, but yeah, it's uh, so I, I have this problem where I, I wanna make all, all of these things and I think I'm gonna buy a second house just to, you know, I think that's what I would have to do.

I, so one of the things I really wanted to ask about was furniture making. Okay. Because I, you know, it it's something that just interests me in general. I, you know, the history of it, the, the, the industrialization of it, the, the design of it, all of the things. Um, and I wondered, you know, I, I see, I see a lot of examples here.

I mean, you know, you mentioned cabinet makers, linking custom cabinetry and, and furniture and stuff, but I always, I, I've also noticed you have some, like some people who are modding Ikea furniture, which is kind of a, kind of a fun, you know, idea, different kinda creative outlet there. And I, I wonder, like how.

How hardcore do people get with furniture design? I mean, what, I mean, there are limitations to what a CNC machine can do. Obviously you're not talking, you know, hand carved, you know, uh, decoration or anything like that. But, but I I'm, I'm kind of interested in like, is that, was that the last thing?

Like where, when did people start making furniture? I think you kind of, you mentioned it a little bit. Yeah. It's, it's really when 

[00:21:30] Zach Kaplan: complex does it get it, it gets very complex, but, um, you know, complexity is free with digital tools, so yeah, the furniture, it, it didn't come about cuz of that. It came about cuz the bigger machine came out.

Oh, right. Okay. Yes. So almost everybody who's doing furniture is using the bigger machine. Right. Just cuz it's, it's more practical. Um, but yeah, I mean you can do very intricate stuff. There's a, a tool called the V bit, which basically comes to a point. And so you can do a lot of like the, um, you know, intricate lion heads and um, Louis Sullivan type, uh, floral.

Decorative, uh, trim pieces today, a lot like the most popular types of, um, cabinet drawers are either flat or shaker style Uhhuh . And so we see a lot of people doing that with the CNC, you know, you can do things that, uh, traditional cabinet maker or, or even furniture maker isn't able to do, uh, quickly or, or EF efficiently.

And so we've got some customers who are doing like rounded wood, uh, side tables, because the CNC is really easy. But, um, you know, doing that by hand you'd waste a lot of wood. It would take a lot of time. Yeah. Um, we we've seen people do a lot of like parametric art and parametric furniture where it's got all sorts of cool waves and stuff like that.

Um, I'm looking at a paper, you know, right now to, to make a cabinet by hand, to cut, to cut all the parts out, you know, is probably if you have a table, so it probably takes an hour or two, you know, you gotta measure it, all, cut it all on this machine. Like, um, I've done one about 15 minutes, right? Cause you just load the material and click the button and then do do that's 

[00:23:21] Katherine Druckman: so cool.

Yeah. Are you limited on the type of wood you can use 

[00:23:25] Zach Kaplan: up to four inches, but you know yeah, just the size, any type of wood, four foot by four foot by four inches, tallest thickest, but most cabinets are made out at three quarter inch by. On three quarter inch MDF. Yeah. You 

[00:23:39] Katherine Druckman: can do go mid-century or something.

with a lot of, uh, 

[00:23:42] Doc Searls: plywood I'm, I'm looking at the, uh, at some of the Facebook stuff and you're right. It's massive. Um, yeah. Um, I, and when I'm even ones that are liked by people, I didn't even, I didn't even know they like this stuff, but there it is, you know, Steven Vaughn, Nichols is like a writer on open source things.

And, um, but it, a couple things strike me. One is there, is there any symbiosis with this and the 3d printing world, because it seems like there's something similar in the way that these things work or the kind of sensibility it appeals to. 

[00:24:15] Zach Kaplan: Uh, yeah. So, I mean, I would say there's a little bit of overlap in the communities.

Mm-hmm , but not as much as you would think. Um, people who are doing stuff with our tools. You know, it's a lot of, it's more things that you can either use or sell where a lot of the 3d printer stuff, just because of the nature of the medium and the parts that come off, it, it, it tends to be more hobbyist, um, tinkering around at least in the, in the residential environment.

Yeah. Or, you know, super expensive, $150,000 machines in the industrial environment, which is sort of outta scope for right creativity. So ours sort of, um, I, I would say it's almost more, a little bit more symbiosis with lasers than 3d printing. Um, cuz the lasers also tend to make stuff that you can sell.

Um, it lasers do a good job with like acrylics. And so sometimes, you know, you'll see mixed media where they do the wood on the CNC and the acrylics on the laser and then have some sort of assembly. 

[00:25:23] Doc Searls: do you have a lot of schools buying these things? Yeah, it's 

[00:25:26] Zach Kaplan: like about 10, 10 or 15%. Wow. Wow. That's cool. That is cool. Yeah. A lot of the schools today are going for the ex car pro the big one.

Yeah. Yeah. And they put, they put it in the sh like the wood shop. Yeah. That's cool. And the user also for the first robotics, um, Team, you know? Oh yeah. 

[00:25:45] Doc Searls: That's very cool wood shop for me was wow. We got, in addition to the, to the bench saw, now we have a radio alarm saw and a, and we don't have a lathe yet, but we do have a drill press.

I mean, that's how primitive it was. Yeah. 

[00:26:04] Zach Kaplan: Imagine a kid coming up today and middle school or junior high. Oh, so much better. You have access to like a digital fabrication facility. Yeah. No, it's 

[00:26:11] Doc Searls: pretty crazy. So cool. 

Do do you get the sense like this is outta control ever? I mean, it seems so successful that, um, You know, you gotta, uh, I mean, it seems like you've got problems people would wanna have, but I mean, I mean, people are making every damn thing in the world.

I mean, there's a, a steering wheel. Oh my God. A wooden steering wheel. Um, you know, uh, uh, the signs for Griffindor and Slitherin and, uh, and these other Harry Potter things, lots of YouTubers that are authorities on this that are on YouTube talking about it. And, um, I, it it's, this is one of those moments. I wish my father who was, who died many years ago, but he was a carpenter I'm I'm like the first in like five generations.

Who's not a carpenter in my family though. My grandkids, that last name is carpenter. So my daughter married a carpenter. So that might make a difference. But, um, it's this exciting stuff. I mean, I really have a sense. It's like, you know, you created something that's, but it's, maybe it's not out of control because you actually you've got.

A few simple things. I mean, what you've got is inherently simple, I suppose, in the sense that you don't, you don't have a lot of SKUs, right. You're not dealing, correct. You're not dealing with that. You, you have like two basic or several basic SKU. You've got the easel software, which is endlessly improved, I suppose, by, uh, interaction with your, with your constituencies.

So, um, that tends to be self-correcting I suppose. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:27:46] Zach Kaplan: The, the, you know, the complexity is sort of out there in the community and I guess you could say complexity or energy. Um, yeah. Cause the scale of the activity is quite high and I think that's the exciting part is it's also growing. Um, yeah, I think that there's, this is early days and you're just now starting to see enough density of applications and uh, enough density of community that's doing it.

Where, where new people every day are discovering that this is even possible where if you think back, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, To, to make a cabinet or, you know, a piece of furniture, you had to be like a trained tradesperson with years of experience and probably an apprenticeship where now yeah, you just click the button on our website and pay $73 for the first month you get the machine shows up, the software is free.

Like you don't even your first projects. You don't even have to design it. You open you go to the projects section and click one. You like click carve and you've like fabricated. The first one you gotta like assemble it. But the barrier to entry has dramatically reduced and every year it's getting lower and lower and lower both in terms of.

Um, accessibility and cost, 

[00:28:54] Doc Searls: so upstream on, on materials, right? Yeah. So I imagine that's, is that interesting right now with the, with the supply chain squeeze? Oh, yes. 

[00:29:04] Zach Kaplan: and by interesting, you might wanna say expensive. 

[00:29:06] Doc Searls: Yeah. Right. There's there's a, uh, again, Howard, more, uh, what's said at this thing called how to speak Minnesotan and, um, interesting means bad and you bet means good.

Right. So

so that's probably just a subject of the forums as well. So people are looking for all kinds of sources for, for stuff. What's the most common material, is it some kind of maple or, or what? And, I mean, so what, what are people mostly working with when they're yeah. 

[00:29:35] Zach Kaplan: How is pandemic and pre, uh, war in Ukraine?

I'd say like Baltic Birch was probably the most commonly used material for furniture and cabinets because just of the quality and. Cost comparison, but you know, the Baltics include Russia. And so now the supply from Russia is gone. Mm. So that's driven the cost of Baltic BCH up. There's other countries out there.

I think like Finland also supplies, Baltic Birch. So that's being worked out it's Canada 

[00:30:07] Doc Searls: now planting Baltic Birch. probably . I don't know. I would, if I was there say, well, wait a minute. What's what's Russia doing? They're Arctic too. So let's uh 

[00:30:18] Zach Kaplan: yeah. I don't know if it grows up there, but if it does, I'm sure they're 

[00:30:21] Doc Searls: doing it.

It probably does. Um, 

[00:30:24] Zach Kaplan: you, you also see a lot of the manufactured stuff like MDF and every year there's new innovations, the MDF of 20 years ago is not the MDF of today. What does 

[00:30:34] Doc Searls: MDF stand for? Uh, medium density fiber board. Oh, real, very good. I wouldn't have known. Okay. I'm actually what CNC exactly means too.

So, oh, 

[00:30:42] Zach Kaplan: CNC stands for a computer numerical 

[00:30:44] Doc Searls: control. Oh, wow. Very good. 

[00:30:47] Zach Kaplan: Okay. We actually call it 3d carving. That's better. Easier to understand than CNC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, you can use woods, you can use plastics, you can use soft metals, like aluminum brass copper. It's, it's really broad.

Um, the different types of materials you can put in the machine, all you have to do is change the bit mm-hmm and then, um, easel will recommend different speeds or feeds based on what bit you've chosen for the given material. Mm. But a lot of people they'll, especially when you get started, they'll use like pine, just cause it's inexpensive, relative to, um, expensive plywood or supply woods, or, um, just scrap wood from the scrap bin.

the cut go to go to the back of the home Depot and find the off cuts. And 

[00:31:30] Doc Searls: so, so has this, uh, penetrated lows in home Depot, by any chance, like they say, wait a minute, enough people around here making, we should start supplying some of that Nordic, uh, wood and whatever. 

[00:31:41] Zach Kaplan: No, not really. Um, yeah,

I would say, um, home Depot and those are really servicing the building construction type materials. Right? Yeah. You don't see a lot of furniture, grade stuff there in most towns. You've got like a lumber yard that has the more furniture grade plywood. Yeah. Um, they tend to, to be more of like a local shop or 

[00:32:05] Doc Searls: online.

Yeah. All right. Right. 

[00:32:09] Zach Kaplan: But it gets heavy. So shipping is a little impractical, the ship, the four foot five, but sheet of Alch, it's like, okay. 

[00:32:15] Doc Searls: Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that would, that would argue if we're going to the local, actual lumber yard or hardware store, which is knows their market better. Whereas exactly.

[00:32:27] Zach Kaplan: And also people like to like inspect it's wood, right. It's not a manufactured material. It's natural. So people like to like inspect their wood and see what the grain pattern is. And if there's. Notches or depending on what they're doing, like if you're making a table. Yeah, yeah. Like the, the material behind you is probably melamine.

Um, which is the manufactured. Let's 

[00:32:49] Doc Searls: see. Hard to tell. Yeah, it it's, it's not, I don't think it, well, this might be wood. This might actually be wood. The framing is wood, the doors. I'm not sure. Um, the screws behind the handles have an Ikea ish feel to them, but okay. I'm feeling them. So they're not, no, there's not an Allen wrench hole in there, so I'd probably not.

So uh, but yeah, 

[00:33:17] Zach Kaplan: but melamine is like that white material. That's sort of a manufactured. 

[00:33:21] Doc Searls: Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think this, this is old enough. It's built in the eighties. So maybe not. Okay. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm renting here. This is, um, this is not my place, so I have not. Given it a deep inspection. My main concern down here is that it's had a smell of death for a long time.

Like something died in the wall, but because hasn't gone away, I'm beginning to think it's gas, but there's, there's not a gas house. They don't, they don't use gas here. It's all electric. So maybe there's something out. I don't know. It just, that occurred to me today. so off topic, but interesting. Um, but I mean, looking at your stuff, I mean, I, yeah, you know, we're, we are looking at a house here.

We're thinking of getting a house here. Um, you know, the, and I was looking at the basement in that house, which is actually at a, at a level where you can actually drive into it. So it's like, uh, There would be room in there for that thing. yeah. Yeah. For your, for your ex carve there, you know, and, and if it's software and so forth that we wanna build out a bunch of stuff inside, that's kind of an interesting thought.

[00:34:28] Zach Kaplan: I just talked to a guy who he's thinking about starting a cabinet business, but rather than doing that, his first thing is he bought this to do his own kitchen. Oh really? Yeah. I was like, I'll see if I like it. If I like it, maybe I'll 

[00:34:40] Doc Searls: start the business. Well that's yeah. I, I wouldn't think of starting a business.

I'm too old to start any business at this point. But, um, but the, but the thought of building some custom stuff in there, you know, like a couple of rooms there need some cabinetry, some closets, the house is built in 1900. All of 'em around here are built in 1900. So yeah, so they have these tiny closets and bathrooms that, that replaced the privy that was out back when they built the PLA the original thing.

These were 

[00:35:09] Zach Kaplan: custom cabinetry, custom closet that adds up. And so, yeah. Yeah. You know, if you, if you've got time and you're retired, Then yeah. You know, it could end up being the same 

[00:35:18] Doc Searls: cost. I don't have either. not retired. And then the time I'm old enough, like, you know, most people, I know my age are retired or dead, so it's, , it's terrible, but I'm, I'm busy.

so I'm not doing that, but, but the fantasy is still there. I mean, it it's, it's a human thing. I mean we're yeah. We have opposable films for a reason and brains. Right. So, um, and people like to make stuff. This is a, this is, I mean, you've tapped into like the most human urge there is, I think, you know, to make things.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Look at surnames, you know, Smith and Cooper and you know, carpenter they're these are people who you have ancestors that made stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:36:09] Zach Kaplan: People like making stuff and then they like storing it. Really nice. 

[00:36:13] Doc Searls: I know there's so much junk. Oh my God. You know, so that's, we've moved enough so that we've unloaded most of our junk, but you know, my, my, a friend of mine in Los Angeles, her husband died and he actually had a room that she was forbidden to go into.

That was mostly his stuff. She pulled tons, literally measured them, tons of stuff out of there, including layers of old printers that, you know, for which there's no ink now or whatever, you know, just crazy, crazy stuff. So. It's sort of the opposite. This is coming into the front end of that.

but this, I, I imagine most of the stuff that gets made by your customers. Yeah. Doesn't like, doesn't go straight to, or, or even indirectly to the, to, uh, Goodwill or the landfill. I mean, it there's, I mean, when I look at say, and I don't mean to insult this company, but like at home goods or a lot of these places.

Yeah. If you look at a pie chart of where stuff ends up in five years, you know, there's the, you know, the, this much for I'm using my hands and most people are listening. Um, they're all listening actually. But I mean, I, I, I think of a, you know, what, what comes out of. You know, a, a jewelry store, none of it ends up in the, in the, in the landfill or, or goes to Goodwill, but what comes out of Walmart as you know, or, or home goods or a lot of these other places doesn't, you know, doesn't, you know, goes through, I, I have this whole thing thought out, but I'm not expressing it very well, but, but when you make stuff for yourself as different, right?

Yeah. I mean, it, it really is custom. It really is yours. It's more yours than other stuff. 

[00:37:58] Zach Kaplan: Yeah. And even if it you're making it for somebody, like it's custom for them, right. So they put, they know exactly what they want and they can't get it at whatever the 

[00:38:07] Doc Searls: store is. It's also much more considered purchase.

Right. You know, than, than, uh, just the impulse buy that you had on Amazon. Right? Exactly. I'm out of, I'm out of batteries. I need some more, whatever. So Katherine, does this make you fantasize about your other house? She's unmute. So , she's 

[00:38:27] Katherine Druckman: talking well, that explains a lot. That's a good thing. I muted out some of the words I just said.

Oh, so, uh, the funny thing, so what, it really appeals to me, um, you know, in the buying extra houses to store all my stuff, uh, line of thinking. So I, I really like historic houses. So you mentioned that, you know, you're, you're looking at a house that's, you know, all the houses in the area are built around 1900.

I, I prefer older if I can get it, frankly, but that's a whole other, I, I have in the past when I was younger and had more energy worked on restoration and, and stuff like that. And something like this, there's always a challenge, especially like if, imagine, you know, restoring a Victorian house, there's always some little intricate piece of woodwork.

You're never gonna match it, but with this, you could design and you know, that kind of thing, appeals to me tremendously that you could, you know, really, really get into some, some, um, Just better restoration because you can better reproduce decorative elements and, and, and things that, that, you know, have gone by the wayside over the years.

[00:39:29] Zach Kaplan: And yeah. Yeah. Like, so if you had a Victorian house, you can actually scan some of those. Yeah. Like if, if you have, I was thinking, yeah, the one on the right side, the left side got broken and then mm-hmm, carve a duplicate. 

[00:39:41] Katherine Druckman: Yep. I'm totally ordering one of these. And when I get that Victorian house, I don't own yet, but I will.

Right. I'm gonna 

[00:39:47] Zach Kaplan: actually's think it's so drawers, like, um, organization, you know, you open up your drawer and there's just a bunch of stuff in there. So there's this whole community around it's called Kaizen foam that they typically use in like mechanic shops. Huh. So a lot of people are now doing that for their own shop and their own drawers and garages and things like that.

Where if you know, what's in your drawer, then you cut out the template and then you put all the stuff in there. so for like cosmetics or for mm-hmm your bathroom, your camera stuff. Drill bits, whatever it is, 

[00:40:20] Katherine Druckman: custom storage. Oh, that's that sounds, that's a whole other con we could do an entire episode on people organizing your stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. I, I, a lot 

[00:40:30] Zach Kaplan: of times the first projects people do and we even have a whole section on it, you can see is storage, shop gear and tool storage. Right. So if you go to the project section and click, uh, shop gear tools, you could see all the different . 

[00:40:45] Katherine Druckman: I instantly gravitated toward a, a, a little, um, storage, uh, holder for your, for your, uh, your fancy pins.

And I was like, like, oh my God, I need that. The micron pin holder. I need it desperately. I don't know. Very appealing oddly. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I can see. Yeah, it's, it's interesting that I, I really agree with it. What doc said earlier that you really tapped into this very human desire to pick up a tool and make a thing for yourself that is yours and yours alone.

Um, aside from the co and that's, you know, completely aside from the commercial application, but, but, um, yeah, 

[00:41:19] Doc Searls: there's, there's another interesting urge, which is, uh, there's a, a wonderful book by Stewart brand, which I probably mentioned before on the show. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um, called how buildings learn and it's, it's basically about how buildings change over time.

And it has a bunch of wonderful one liners that like, like form follows funding. Right. and, um, and, and one of my favorites, I dunno if it's from that or from one of the other things he said, which. , there's no urge, more human, including the urges for food and sex than the urge to alter a permanent structure.

So , you know, you move into a house and you immediately wanna like eNose the porch or open the porch or put in a dormer or, you know, you know, pave the drive, whatever it is, you know, it takes, this wall, goes out, there's gotta be access to this bathroom. That one goes over there. I don't like the way they did this, you know?

And I'm actually encouraged by the house that we looked at today. The door frames haven't changed. The doors are all from 1900, you know, and the floors are still mostly from 1900 and most of some art squishy, but, um, you know, but, but still. You know, there's been some crappy things done. Like we put in the wrong, you know, like another closet here doesn't look right.

And, and they added a bathroom where makes those sense, that kind of stuff like that. Um, so everybody wants to change that stuff. So when you do that, I mean that, I mean, not all of that stuff is gonna be done the way using your tools, but yeah, but I, I think a lot of the finishing work for sure is gonna be like that, or I'm even looking at things like, um, you know, like the, your you're ceiling cans up there, where with the recessed lights, right?

Yeah. Well maybe I wanna, I want a different border on that. I, I, I want to match the doorframes, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a wooden one. I'll look, you know, there's a size here. I'll fit it on there. There it goes. 

[00:43:08] Zach Kaplan: Absolutely. Yeah. Love it. Form follows. Funding is a, it's 

[00:43:13] Doc Searls: a great line. 

[00:43:14] Zach Kaplan: great line. But also if you, I was recently looking it up, so.

I think it's about cabinets alone is about 12 billion a year in the United States. Wow. So I started asking like, where are all these, like, why do we need all these cabinets? but it's, it's exactly 

[00:43:31] Doc Searls: what, well it's. Have you ever seen George 

[00:43:34] Katherine Druckman: for our micron pens? Of course. I 

[00:43:38] Doc Searls: advice everybody listening to go to YouTube or wherever and go to George Carlin's, um, a place for my stuff.

You know, it talks about one of my favorite lines in areas. Have you, have you ever noticed that your shit is stuff and everybody else's stuff is shit.

You wanna keep your stuff? And as soon as you're gone or belongs to somebody that it's just shit, just when people want, you know, they need a place for that stuff. Right. You know, and it depends on what you keep, like, because we move a lot, some of the cabinets back there, this whole wall back here is nothing, but these.

And they're deep. They're like about three, uh, two and a half, three feet deep. So, you know, everything that I've got here, that I'm gonna move, you know, the, the, this mic and a bunch of other things, I saved all the boxes and the boxes are in there, you know? Yeah. But if I didn't have that cabinetry, those boxes will be gone.

Right. They totally would be gone. You know, we got a flat screen TV. I kept that cuz it's only six inches deep the box and it fits on the wall of the garage is a garage here. But if we don't have a garage of the next place, that box is gone, it's gonna move the thing to the next place and then it's gonna be gone.

Um, but a lot of people just wanna keep whatever, uh, you know, there's 

[00:44:58] Katherine Druckman: yeah, I have that problem. Keep all the things I either, I think I, I think, uh, you're fundamentally a collector or you're not a collector. It's just personality type, you know, 

[00:45:07] Doc Searls: Yeah, it's kind of like having, wait, what is it in, in chemistry, have a positive or negative valance, you know, you're you're so you can form a compound.

See people have a negative stuff, valance, I guess. And they acquire lots and lots of stuff. My old business partner, I forget, which is, which is a negative valance where you acquire an electron or is it positive? Valance? Some of us must taken chemistry at one time. I, 

[00:45:29] Zach Kaplan: I took it. I can't remember, but I think it's negative.

[00:45:31] Doc Searls: Yeah. I know. It's like it it's, it is like father Gucci's five minute university. He teaches only what you remember after five years economics supply and demand. That's it? That's all. Yeah. That's all that matters. Spanish Como west way beyond. That's the end of it. That's all you remember. Uh, but, um, Anyway, but I was thinking that, you know, my, my old business partner had, he tended to acquire pens and I tended to lose pens.

I never kept pens. if pens, pens departed from my company. Uh, but he had a negative pen, valance. He acquired pens. His, his desk would have 50 of 'em on there. And I have none, you know, things are like that. I acquire, I acquire cables. These are there's one right here. Just laying here because you can never have enough cables.

It seems. Nope. But I did throw out, I did throw out like two cubic feet of, of like parallel cables and serial cables that work with old printers and stuff. Um, but 

[00:46:23] Zach Kaplan: you never know 

[00:46:24] Katherine Druckman: when you 

[00:46:24] Doc Searls: might need one of those cables. There's zero need I'll ever need those zero zero, zero chance I'll ever need 

[00:46:31] Zach Kaplan: those. Oh gosh.

That's 

[00:46:32] Katherine Druckman: funny. I feel like we could segue into, remember that we did an episode with, um, uh, about archiving. Who is your friend on a boat that, that converts? I feel like there's a. There's a, a, uh, related, uh, conversation here about archival formats. And anyway, but that's a whole other conversation, but I think that's somehow this is related.

I don't know how, but it is. 

[00:46:54] Doc Searls: Yeah. But I, you know, it's sort of like, there's a, a constant war between the need for human invent, the urge to invent and, and the urge to move on. But you're on the supply side of that. so you're looking good that that $12 billion cabinet business is working for you. 

[00:47:17] Katherine Druckman: that's incredible.

[00:47:18] Zach Kaplan: That's the other, the other part of form follows funding is a, a big part of the reason that there's so many cabinets that are needed is over the last few years. With interest rates, solo, these big, uh, housing development companies built these massive neighborhoods and used the absolute cheapest possible cabinets always.

Yeah. And 

[00:47:39] Doc Searls: then you have to builder a specialty, 

[00:47:41] Zach Kaplan: call them huge five years. Yeah. Builder special. So then after like three years, people are like, yeah. So we should really redo our cabinets 

[00:47:48] Doc Searls: yeah. Right. Because the handles fell off and the hinges, you know, pulled out of the, the cork board that the crap rock that they were made out of whatever that stuff is.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's how, you know, that's how it goes. It it's an exciting thing. You're there, it, it. Wow. I mean, do you ever just go into just go onto your website or so, and say, I had no idea if they're doing this stuff cause 

[00:48:17] Zach Kaplan: oh, every day, every day, it's unbelievable. 

[00:48:20] Katherine Druckman: how, how did you build, I mean, so obviously you have this kind of a nice little web app thing to facilitate this community and sharing and people sharing their designs and I see instructions and lists of materials and all of those things, but how did you build the community?

I mean, how much was of, it was just organic, but how did you get it started? How did you sort of foster this environment that created 

[00:48:39] Zach Kaplan: it? Yeah, so initially, um, it was really done on the forum and we were in there on the forum, helping people and making friends with people every day. Yeah. Um, and then, you know, you had that core group that you started start getting con concentric circles and concentric circles.

And as we added more machines into the world, it just started just like any other kind of community. Growing beyond the core. Yeah. And now it's massive and there's micro communities. And, so yeah, it started, it started small. 

[00:49:14] Katherine Druckman: Do you feel like you have to do you know how much care and feeding of it? Can you do even at this point and how much do you do?

[00:49:22] Zach Kaplan: Yeah, so initially it was a tongue. Um, now it's obviously a lot less and we sort of put more, uh, high quality content into the community. Mm-hmm but I think the biggest thing we can do for the community is create new possibilities in the software and the machines mm-hmm because, um, a as we add new functionality, you see the community make new stuff.

Mm-hmm um, and so, and especially as we make functionality really easy to use. You see more people in the community latch onto it. Cause pretty much anything you wanna do is possible with some tool out there today. Yeah. But you know, it's like a pyramid of like how expensive and how expert you need to be to be able to do it.

And so as we make it easier and easier, you fan out who can actually do it. 

[00:50:17] Katherine Druckman: So here's a weird question for you. content moderation, surely you must do this, right? Because that's an interesting one. Okay. I, you know, anytime you have a community and this is based on some of my personal experiences, but uh, anytime you have a community, you will have bad actors and I've noticed I just searched dildo and found nothing.

Um, because, but somebody out there must have attempted to upload some sort of fancy sex toy or something adult in nature. How do you handle that? 

[00:50:46] Zach Kaplan: Yeah. So we've gone, you know, through the peaks and valleys of that. Um, we, we do have, uh, community guidelines, but also now it's like, well, beyond our website, right?

So we can't, we have no, 

[00:50:59] Doc Searls: yeah. The Facebook groups are not you, there are other people, so 

[00:51:02] Zach Kaplan: other people, 

[00:51:02] Katherine Druckman: and by the way, I feel like I have to just qualify. I'm not saying that making sex toys makes you a bad actor. I'm just saying it might require content moderation, but there will be in fact, people doing something that you really, really don't want on.

I mean sure. Adult or otherwise a 

[00:51:17] Zach Kaplan: lot of that stuff, because, because of the weapons, I don't know the community standards or guidelines we have on our site. They'll just go to Facebook. Okay. yeah. And then some of 'em are open. Some of 'em are closed, right? Yeah. You know, it's the internet. Right. So, 

[00:51:30] Katherine Druckman: right. So somebody's out there making something.

[00:51:32] Zach Kaplan: I mean, somebody somebody's gonna make a pretty much everything. Yes. Yeah. Interesting. If you can think of it, somebody's doing it or done it you're you're never the first one. 

[00:51:41] Doc Searls: right. No, no, no. It seems. So, what are your long term ambitions here? Are you just gonna kinda ride this and just see how it goes?

Or how many people are you? I mean, I I'm just in the company that we're, we're about 50 people 

[00:51:56] Zach Kaplan: right now. Yeah. Um, yeah, so we're trying to bring manufacturing technology into the hands of millions of people. And so we're not there yet. Um, we've made a lot of progress, but that that's the true vision is like, how do we get all of these tools sort of reduced down and complexity in cost?

So a, a larger, uh, long tell community of people can use them and make more custom considered stuff, as opposed to the old model, which was, let's have a big factory and crank out a bunch of stuff that might end up in the landfill. And so I think we, you know, we we've got a good start, but we've got a lot of work to do to realize the vision.

[00:52:41] Doc Searls: Here. Here's a, and I haven't looked far enough into your, uh, your shop shopping, uh, thing. There's the, the world seems to be moving toward everything is a subscription. Yes. Um, have you looked at that, is that part of where you're coming from at this point? Or are you just kind of amused by it? That' that it's happening?

Cause everybody wants, we have a subscription. We have subscriptions. 

[00:53:06] Zach Kaplan: Yeah. Yeah. So we have subscription to the software when you buy the machine, it actually comes with three years. Yeah. Uh, a subscription included. We also offer the opportunity so you can buy the machine outright or you can essentially lease to own it.

Mm-hmm um, kinda like a car. 

[00:53:22] Doc Searls: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So have you noticed an increase in opting first the subscription approach rather than the owning approach on the part of customers? 

[00:53:32] Zach Kaplan: Yes. On the machine side, that's the fastest growing part of it is, um, Paying for it monthly, especially if you're using it in a business context.

Mm-hmm because it gives, obviously you don't have to have all the money into it. Yeah. You can sell it. Like there's a liquid market for these things. Mm-hmm um, so you can sell it, you can upgrade, um, and, or you can make back the money of the machine before you owe it. Mm. Because it's, it's a tool to make money.

Right. So that way it's, it's almost like, um, a no money down house. Right. Where you're mm-hmm you buy it and then sell it for more and then didn't have to put the money in. 

[00:54:12] Doc Searls: Yeah. One of the things I'm sort of studying right now is. The subscription is not so much an economy. It's just kind of this option.

Everybody wants it, you know, pays are going up in front of every, you know, newspaper and magazine. This is simplest one. Yeah. But there are lots more like everybody wants you to go into a recurring payment thing and it works for people. It's not like it's a bad thing. I just think it at some point, um, right.

Um, we hit peak subscription, which is, you know, um, I mean, in, in our household it's like, uh, okay, we're paying for Hulu, Netflix. I, we have all of them right now, except for, I think PMA. I, I, I, I don't, it just somehow that happened. Right. And, and of course they're hitting you. Like they come in cheap and then they hit you for the full, full thing in a few months.

Yeah. And. And it's kind of crazy. Um, so I'm sort of looking, you know, toward when that happens, but it's a little off topic for you, but I, but it's, I was just curious to see if, if that's a bigger part of your business over time. Yeah. So, 

[00:55:14] Zach Kaplan: I mean, we offer monthly subscription, annual subscription and three year subscription.

Mm-hmm um, and we, we give you a discount for the, the longer duration. 

[00:55:26] Doc Searls: Yeah. Yeah. But I imagine staying on top of that must be a substantial part of your business. Some of those 50 people working for you were looking at that. 

[00:55:36] Zach Kaplan: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's all digital, right? So like, you know, it's all credit card and digital.

Yeah. You're, they're not paying cash or anything like that. 

[00:55:45] Katherine Druckman: right. So it seems so softer subscription, you know, I mean, it's an established model. We could, you know, it seems a little bit more reasonable when you're paying it for a subscription, you know, for a tool that, that, you know, allows you to make things and make money than for example, BMW charging you to, uh, use your heated seats.

But that's all . Yeah. That's a different 

[00:56:06] Zach Kaplan: conversation. Well, the, the flip side of it is it's always improving, right? So we have, right? Yep. You're always doing it's. It's like 12 or 15 engineer designers, engineers, um, working on it every day. So you're paying the same money, but you're, you're getting more features than you got last.

Yep. That's pretty cool. Or last year. 

[00:56:26] Katherine Druckman: Yeah, your, your heated seats, aren't gonna be better next year. That's no, that's just definitely not happening. Yeah. I I've read about that several times in the last week. So , it kind of amuses me, but also 

[00:56:38] Zach Kaplan: like the, you know, the value of what you can make when your machine improves over time.

Right. Cause really like the machine can do anything now it's just, do you have the software skills to do it? And so as we improve the software, add more features or functionality, then your machine could do cooler and cooler things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

[00:56:58] Doc Searls: I like it. And, and try to keep it simple at the same time, which is that's the, that's gotta be a tough one.

[00:57:03] Zach Kaplan: Yeah. That's the unique sort of niche we have in the market. 

[00:57:07] Katherine Druckman: Well, I don't know about you, but I'm gonna, I'm I'm gonna go find the community of people that, that restores old houses using their theirs. I'm gonna plug into that in preparation for, yeah. That one day, when I, when I find my, uh, ridiculously old house, that's incredibly, InterG efficient and I will boil in, in Texas.

But, um, but yeah, it'd be great. I'll have fun with it. Carving, uh, Victorian embellishment anyway. so I think we, I think we've, I think we've hit an hour. Um, yeah, I wanna make sure, uh, I'm borrowing this from that other show that I occasionally get to do with doc. Um, is there anything that we, we haven't talked about that you wanted to talk about? 

What do you make you, I, I should have asked that. What do you make? You must make stuff. I mean, the 

[00:57:53] Zach Kaplan: biggest project we did during the pandemic was we made a model theme park in my basement with my kit and my son.

Oh, that's cool. Cool. 

I would just say, yeah. If people are interested in learning more, they can go to, um, the software is free at easel.com, www.easel.com. Or if you're interested in learning more about the X car X pro, you can go to inventables.com. Cool. Check it out. Yeah. 

[00:58:14] Katherine Druckman: I I'm guessing, you know, my local Makerspace, which I haven't been to in well a few years, cause reasons.

Um, we'll have one and I, you know, I'm kind of anxious to go check it out. That's easel with us, that our listeners 

[00:58:29] Zach Kaplan: have the same, just like it sounds E a S E L easel E com or Inventables I N V E N T a B L s.com. Right? 

[00:58:37] Doc Searls: Yeah. Got it. 

[00:58:40] Katherine Druckman: I'm pretty impressed. You got the domain name easel. That's that's pretty great.

I bet there's a story behind that 

[00:58:46] Zach Kaplan: for a different podcast. Yeah, 

[00:58:50] Katherine Druckman: cool. Uh, well thank you very much. Um, for, for sharing the story, it's been fabulous, talking about really interesting making stuff and nerding out with us. All right. I, I suspect our listeners will be super into it and, uh, and yeah. Give us, shoot us an email.

If you have any feedback or, or even questions, maybe we can help get them answer. Um, so yeah, until next time.