REIN: Hello, and welcome to episode 195 of Greater Than Code. I am your host, Rein Henrichs, and I am here with our co-host, John Sawers. JOHN: Thanks, Rein. And I'm here with our guest, Christina Perla. Christina was born in China, raised in New Jersey and now is residing in Brooklyn, New York. She is the CEO, Co-founder of Makelab, a 3D printing service company. After acquiring a friend's company with her partner, Manny, Makelab was born and Perla hasn't stopped since. In addition to running the business, she also is on the Board of Directors for the global nonprofit, Women in 3D Printing. Aside from thinking of engaging ways to activate the local NYC 3D printing community, Christina works with other Board Members to foster a diverse industry and expand the global reach of Women in 3D Printing through interviews, events, networking opportunities, and resources. Most recently, Christina appeared on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine as a result of Makelab’s response to COVID-19. She’s also been featured and quoted in: ADWEEK, TCT, Grit Daily, The Rising, SWAAY, and more. When she has free time, Christina loves to spend it with her fiancé and their dog, Milo. She enjoys a good, long, strenuous hike anywhere woodsy during the warmer months, and prefers to start every day with a good, usually challenging, workout. Welcome to the show, Christina. CHRISTINA PERLA: Thank you. Hi. Thanks for having me. JOHN: So we're going to kick things off with the way we kick things off always, which is by asking you, what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? REIN: This was an interesting one, but I would say the common theme amongst my entire career is my resourcefulness. I don't need to know something beforehand to be able to execute it well. I can figure things out pretty quickly, and learn pretty quickly, and figure out where to look to learn. I would say that I attribute that skill to my college education at Pratt. At Pratt, in the Industrial Design program, you're often tasked with -- a lot of your projects consist of not only coming up with a design, not only coming up with a research to back your design and having to prove your design to your classmates, and your teacher, your professor, but you also have to figure out a way to make a model of it. And coming from high school, you're not really experienced with making models. So it's a lot of figuring things out as you go. So I would say that years of doing that has made me pretty resourceful in other ways for starting a business as well. JOHN: And you're talking about building a physical mockup of say, an item. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, exactly. So an example is I did this one project I called it the Hamster Play Table. It’s not my best work. But it is a good example of how I had to hack it together. It was my senior year. I was a little burnt out, and I wanted to take a fun spin on one of my final projects. So I decided to make a play table that would fit into an IKEA catalog or something along those lines, a piece of furniture but it also functioned as a habitat for a hamster. And this would be for kids under seven years old. And so you'd be able to interact with the hamster and draw directly on the table. And I had to make a table essentially, and figure out how to put preexisting hamster -- Do you know those jungle gyms almost for hamsters, all the tubes and how they're connected? JOHN: Yeah. Habitrails. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah. I had to figure out how to incorporate that with an actual table and make it stable. So that was a bit of a challenge because I'm by no means a woodworker. So that was a bit of a learning curve. JOHN: So it sounds like building out the physical item in addition to just sort of thinking about how cool it might be is an important part of that educational process and taught you a lot about the process of industrial design. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, for sure. And then to carry it through even a step further, once you had the model for my portfolio, in order to present it properly, you had to make a presentation out of it. And usually, that required a book of some sorts. So industrial designers were taught to make project books kind of at the end of every single project. So, that includes photographing your product or your project, if possible, photograph it in use. So in my case, find, this is going to sound weird, but find a kid. [Laughter] I have a lot of nieces and nephews, so that wasn't too difficult, they were happy to do it -- but find a kid and model it as best as you can. And at the time, I did have a hamster, so I brought the hamster to the photo shoot at the end of the year, a show where they exhibit all the student work. And so my hamster was there, and it kind of stole the show because everyone who walked by was like, "Is that a real hamster?" JOHN: Nice. REIN: How much of that prepared you for starting a business and how much did you need to learn on the fly and be resourceful? CHRISTINA PERLA: I would say that it prepared me maybe 25% and the rest was learning on the go really quickly. But again, using the Hamster Table Project as an example, I had to learn about what tools I needed to paint and finish a table, I needed to learn joinery. Throughout my Pratt career, I also had to learn how to put a project book together. So, that included a little bit of graphic design work. You usually make a website as well, so you dabble in that. We had to quickly execute, and that's very much along the lines of a founder's journey. What you do when you're starting a business, you just have to do it. You have to do it and hope it works. And so just knowing where -- starting with a simple Google search and then quickly finding the answer to the things that I needed to complete, whether it was making a website, or figuring out pricing, or anything along those lines, maybe a training manual. And figuring out really quickly how to look for examples of how people did that, maybe a book or two, and then quickly digest all of that information and spit it back out. I would say that that's very much like the Pratt mindset, at least what they taught us in that program. I even learned a little bit of code. [Laughs] JOHN: So was Makelab the first business you started out of school or did you run through a number of things before you stumbled upon that one? CHRISTINA PERLA: I ran through a few different things. So when I first got out of school, I was working at Converse in the accessories design department. I was there for about a year and a half. I did start as an intern in my last year of college. So it kind of just continued on post-graduation. From there, I went to a wearable tech startup which, fun fact, is now a repeat client of ours at Makelab which is super fun, full circle. And then after that, I had decided that if I was going to take a risk -- and I had this itching, entrepreneurial feeling. And I came to the conclusion now's the time to take the risk because I'm young. I want to fail fast. So I put in my two weeks and I started to freelance for industrial design, and I did product development and prototyping work for clients. And I found clients mainly through Upwork, upwork.com. And then from there, my partner and I decided to team up and do it together. So Manny and I were a team, and we formed a company out of that called Tangent Design. We don't operate it anymore, and it kind of fizzled out once Makelab came into the picture. But we did form a name just to cover the both of us and for legal stuff and contracts. And then from there, throughout the process of having industrial design clients, we needed to prototype often. And so that's when we found a local 3D printing company. We became friends with the owners and then a year, a year and a half later, we ended up acquiring their company when they decided they were moving to China. CHRISTINA MORILLO: What are some of the things that inspire you today? I guess I’m asking because I have a 3D printer, and I also have three kids. And I'd love to get more involved in just kind of the 3D printing ecosystem. But there's so many options that you just become paralyzed. So, how do you get inspired to print something, or to create something, or to solve a problem? CHRISTINA PERLA: A lot of the work that we do, a high-level description is we're like the Kinko's of 3D printing or the Staple's marketing and design department where you place an order for something. You've already done the creative work, but you need it to become real. You need it either -- well, in the case of Staples, you need it out on paper or a poster board or some sort of graphic. But for us, you need the physical part. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Like a prototype. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, exactly. And so we mainly function as a service for people who need to prototype. So a lot of our conversations with clients start after the point that they've already decided what they're going to print. So in terms of the question of what inspires us or what inspires me, for me personally, I love being a creative's right-hand and a creative's tool. We like to see it as we enable creatives, and we bridge the gap between them creating, creativity and creation, by 3D printing. So that's really what inspires me because I've always -- I was just talking about this yesterday with someone, and I really love, aside from work and business, I really like to inspire people. When I started Makelab, I always looked outside for inspiration. So I always followed a number of business leaders, mostly female, not necessarily in the technical space, but I've just really appreciated what I classify as boss moves. And they really inspired me. And I have followed them on social media and whatnot. And so, I really to be that for someone else. I think for me, I just like to pay it forward. I like to complete the circle, and I like to provide value by using my experience. So that's our mission at Makelab. We're experts in the technical realm. We know our printers, we know the materials, we know what it can do. So let's provide value to our clients by helping them bridge that gap so you don't have that overwhelming feeling of, where do I start? Or I got a printer, now what? And then try to look on the forums and then you spiral into this entire -- next thing you know a day later, a year, you've gone through all the forums, and you're still unsure of where to start just because there's so much information, so overwhelming. So we try to take that off of our client's hands who just need to really prototype quickly and they don't have time to get into that. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Got it. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That's pretty cool. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, it's really fun because we see so many different things come in through the various ways you can contact us. Some stuff is straight-up engineering projects, some stuff is straight-up industrial design products. And then we get the experimental stuff, which is really fun. We get a lot of D&D figurines from the gaming industry, people that want to bring what they're playing with at home on their own, they want to bring it to life. And so we get a ton of those models, which is like a perfect fit for 3D printing, actually. We sometimes get 3D scans of people themselves, we'll get that. Sometimes we get wedding cake toppers, sometimes we get architectural models of things that are actually going to go into a building. At the end of the day, we get big sculpture installation pieces. It's really fun because we get to touch every single industry. And as an industrial designer, one thing that attracted me to that industry was never being bored because usually, the career trajectory for industrial designers is you work at a firm. And when you work at a firm, you never know what's going to come through the door. And so it's cool that I get to do that here too. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Are there projects that your company has said, "Nope. Nope. We can't do that. I'm sorry."? CHRISTINA PERLA: Sometimes. As a business, there is a level of risk involved with 3D printing. If something won't print and we print it maybe five times, it ends up becoming a little bit more difficult to manage on our end. And then also it strains our relationship with the client because they're like, "Where's my piece?" And oftentimes, the pieces that come in that fit that description are the ones from people that might not know a lot about 3D printing. So there's a level of not understanding why a print might fail and then [inaudible] me to explain it. But by that time, the client's already frustrated. So, in those situations, we try to analyze risk whenever we can and mitigate it. So we have rejected prints before, or we have gone back to the client and been like, "This could print. As long as you change this, this, and that, then we're good to go. Or we can print it and try it, it's at risk. But we can't reprint it." So we'll try to mitigate the situation rather than just straight up turning people away. JOHN: Did you ever run into things that without even attempting to print you just refuse to on, say, moral, ethical grounds? CHRISTINA PERLA: Not really, actually, not really. I'm surprised about that. I thought that we would receive more especially as the blueprints for 3D printing ammunition and weapons became more available. And I think that happened two to three years ago. I expected a lot more of that coming our way. But I think with our brand, I think we just attract a totally different type of client, and we really attract the creatives rather than maybe someone who's tinkering with things on their own. They might look at our brand and be like, "Why would I use you guys? I have my own printer." But really where we fit in and our client base is the creative or industrial designer or brand designer marketer. REIN: I want to get into the work you've been doing in New York City. Can you talk a little bit about the work you've been doing with Masks for NYC? CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, for sure. Basically, when COVID hit, we saw a decline in our business and we also, at the same time, saw the 3D printing community jumping in and getting involved and really offering up all of the tech that the community had to make face shields. And face shields aren't masks. But in hospitals, they are required, and they do offer a good amount of protection. So when COVID hit, there was just this mass flood of requirements for all PPE and all medical resources. And it was just so flooded. The system was so flooded that there was really no place to get PPE. If you could find PPE, the prices were jacked up. It wouldn't ship on time. They were just a lot of supply chain and logistical issues with ordering PPE. So a lot of hospitals, a lot of dental offices that were still open and a lot of different communities were looking to 3D printing to purchase PPE as well as government resources too. Like the NYCEDC was sourcing face shields as well. So we kind of just took a half a day, we set up our supply chain, we pivoted, and we started making them. It wasn't the most difficult pivot. It's not like there was a lot of setup costs. We just had to source things like the elastic that holds the face shields to your face, the foam that prevents you from chafing on your forehead, and also the clear plastic visor that you see through. So after sourcing those things, it was pretty much go time. We can just put 20 on a machine and have that run over the weekend and come back to 20 face shields ready to go, pretty much. And then assembly work wasn't too, too heavy. And we did these made to order, so we didn't carry too much stock either. So we were able to just stay flexible with the needs of the community. CHRISTINA MORILLO: It's pretty cool. That you kind of -- I don't want to say pivoted but that you kind of took action that quickly. Because I feel like during that time, there was so much craziness that it was really difficult to think clearly with everything going on at the same time and so much fear. So it was good that you said, "Hey, we have these resources. Let's spring into action quickly, and let's do something about it." That's really cool. CHRISTINA PERLA: That was pretty interesting because I totally felt overwhelmed. I felt that 100%. I couldn't think very clearly. We had to make so many decisions all at once. Are we sending our team home? How long are they going to stay home for? How does that impact the workflow? Because we're a lab. We have 3D printers, we need people here. So we had to make the decision to send our team home. And basically, Manny and I were running the factory. And so it was just -- that was crazy and kind of getting used to the idea of all of a sudden tripling our workload. So not only were we trying to be at the front of all these changes and be leaders during this crazy time, we were also running a great deal of the hands-on operations. It was really difficult. And honestly, looking back, I think we could have sprung to action a little bit earlier. We got started around April, the first week of April, but the thought of jumping in and 3D printing PPE that had been on our minds for a week prior. So in my opinion, looking back, just being hard on myself, I think we could have probably sprung to action a little bit quicker. But in the grand scheme of things, it still was pretty quick. But we felt that pressure 100%. CHRISTINA MORILLO: And in all fairness, I think April was quick because in April I was still trying to figure out where my head was at. I was like, "What do I do now? What happens? You mean I can't go outside?" So yeah. So kudos to you though. I mean, don't underestimate that power. CHRISTINA PERLA: I honestly didn't even -- I was so shortsighted too. I just didn't even know how long this quarantine would last. So on a personal level, I was just -- the gyms are closed and everything. So I'm like, "Oh, you know, we'll be back in a month. They'll be okay. Let me just -- This is my time to pig-out, eat junk food, stress eat, all this stuff. And then three months later, I'm like "Oh, okay." [Laughter] JOHN: You're not the only one. So how did you end up finding connections to local businesses and people who needed these PPE resources? Was there any sort of clearing house for those sort of orders, or how did you get into that? CHRISTINA PERLA: A lot of it was inbound. We didn't reach out to people. The most that we did was put it on our social media and did an email newsletter blast. And that was pretty much it. And we set up a website, so we set up a separate website for ordering and also requesting donations. Two weeks into it, we set up a GoFundMe, and we set up a donation request form so that we can just donate shields. The hospitals acquiring funds, I'm not sure what the process is like but we just wanted to be ready. We didn't want the money part to slow things down. So that's why we created the donation so we can just do it. But in the beginning, a lot of people actually came to us. We had clients that worked with us prior to COVID that either had connections to the medical community or had friends in the medical community. So they had a lot of contacts, and so they would organize their own donation buttons, and then they would take our pricing into consideration. So if it's $9.25 per shield, how much money do I need to donate 50 shields? And they would make that their goal. So as the money would come in on their own donations, they would just contract it out to us and then we'd deliver it right to their destination. So we did that for a few clients, which was really cool because that's just so -- seeing the community spring to action like that was so inspiring. But then also we had a lot of dental offices need face shields because dentists in their everyday work they use face shields quite often. And so I think with the shortages, they just had nowhere else to go. So they went the 3D printing route. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Diversify Tech is for people like me who are underrepresented in tech. It's a central place where we can find scholarships, events, speaking opportunities, and jobs. It is also for all of us in the tech industry who want to make it a welcoming and inclusive place. Companies can learn about diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as connect with candidates looking for jobs. Allies can also support and advocate for underrepresented people in tech. Make sure to join their newsletter at diversifytech.co. What could we say to other women in design and tech and just any other industry unrelated or related that want to follow a similar path and maybe start their own business from their apartment and then end up in a big factory like you and your co-founder are today? CHRISTINA PERLA: If you're a designer engineer and you want to start your own business, you know how to do the work really, really well. I feel like business owners that come from talent backgrounds struggle with connecting with the customer and running the business. So I would say since you know how to do the work, get your process down but focus on the things that you don't know. It takes some time. So you can at least figure out how to do things like manage a team, that's really hard. Or do things like the marketing side of identifying your customer and how to target them, how to reach them, how to talk to them. And that should be innate knowledge being that if you are a technical co-founder or technical founder, or come from a design background, you are a customer of your own product. But sometimes it can be difficult or it takes a little bit more thought and work put into it to connect the dots and be like "Oh, this is what got me in the door. So let me then trace back and do the same thing for other people and figure out a system behind it." And so really connecting those dots, I think are extremely important and just staying close to your customer. That’s my one piece of advice. CHRISTINA MORILLO: That's excellent. Thank you for sharing that. JOHN: And you talked about wanting to be a role model for other women starting businesses, and you're definitely involved in the Women in 3D Printing organization. So talk a little bit about what's involved there and how those two relate. CHRISTINA PERLA: So Women in 3D printing -- I got involved probably close to a year after Makelab started. I was at a trade show. I felt so uncomfortable at that trade show. It was a really big one in the industry, it's called Rapid. And I just had imposter syndrome to the max. And so I found out through a connection about a Women in 3D printing happy hour that was happening that day. And so I was really tired from walking around in the trade show all day, but I forced myself to go. And I ended up meeting the founder of Women in 3D Printing. And that's when I was like, "Can I do this, but in New York?" And that's when they had started to develop their local chapter and ambassador program as well. So she said, "Yes." We got to talking. And that's how it started. So basically my role as ambassador is to gather the local community, gather and activate all in support of the mission. And so with that, we have our monthly happy hours. We have a lot of freedom that we can propose event ideas. And so one thing that I did do pre-COVID was an event called A Conversation With. It was supposed to be a quarterly event. Three or four times a year, I would put this on. And I only got to two before COVID hit, but I would basically be on the other side of this situation right now. And I'd be the interviewer interviewing someone on stage for 30 minutes or 40 minutes. And then prior to that, I would have four speakers give lightning talks that were just seven-minute overviews, all relevant to the theme of the event. So the first event was called Being a Pioneer. I interviewed Lizz Hill Wiker, who was formerly at Coach, and she ran their 3D printing department there. Now she's at Formlabs who is a printer manufacturer. And then the second event was all about community. And that's where I interviewed my friend, Diana Verdugo. She is the partnerships and community lead over at Formlabs. I didn't mean and intend for this to be all Formlabs. But those two events really -- aside from the monthly happy hours, I wanted to put something on that was a little bit more educational and inspirational and gave all the attendees something to talk about during the networking phase. Sometimes happy hours can be a little awkward. I feel awkward going to happy hours unless I'm the host because then I know what's going on, and I understand what the point is. But I feel really uncomfortable at networking events. So something like a guest speaker event kind of disarms people a little bit more, and it tends to be a little bit more productive. So I wanted to put on something a little bit more. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Plus one to everything she just said. JOHN: Yeah. I've always found networking is easier at a conference because you can always open up with the "Well, what was your favorite talk today?" And then boom, you're already in a conversation. CHRISTINA PERLA: Exactly. You already have the entire -- you all sat through the presentations together, so it's really easy to pick up. Whereas the happy hour you're coming in after work and you're like, "Hi?" [Laughs] It's just a little awkward. REIN: What have you learned about organizing a community like that? What worked? What didn't work? Maybe what was surprising? CHRISTINA PERLA: I find that a lot of people go to community events to promote their own businesses. But the more you can stray away from that and kind of just see other attendees and audience members as humans and finding a common thread to connect with, maybe even outside of the work, starting there is always for me -- looking back, in my experience, has proven to be really great industry friends, just connecting on something else. We don't have to talk about the work at first because obviously, that's why we're all here. But who are you as a person? Who are you as a human? What do you like to do out? What are your hobbies? And then getting to the work or including that in some capacity during the night tends to strengthen those relationships. And also going into any networking or industry event thinking, "Okay, I brought myself here. I got through the door. Let me make at least one connection tonight, at least one." So it's worth it for everyone. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Networking events are so awkward unless you know some of their faces. I know for me personally, they're really difficult because -- or it can be difficult for me because I actually like to cultivate relationships organically. And in these networking events, it feels kind of forced. Like, oh, I have to kind of connect to one person. It's like, I don't know. What if I'm not in the mood? Or I just want to kind of chill, and I just want it to be more organic. CHRISTINA PERLA: I feel the same way. In November, Manny and I went to an event together and when you go alone, sometimes it's better because you're kind of forced to interact with someone else. Whereas if you go with someone you already know, it's like let me just stick around this person. But one thing we did was we split up, especially when they were serving food. And I realized I tend to strike conversations on the food line. CHRISTINA MORILLO: [Laughs] CHRISTINA PERLA: It just disarms me and other people a little bit more and a little bit better. It's just a little bit more casual. It's without that pressure. So I just realized just talking about it now that I tend to stick around the food and the beverages. [Laughs] CHRISTINA MORILLO: Food brings people together. CHRISTINA PERLA: Exactly. [Laughter] JOHN: The kitchen at the party is always the busiest place. CHRISTINA PERLA: It really is. And you get so much exposure. You see everyone. That's kind of a good tactic now that I'm thinking about it. I'm just going to do it purposefully. [Chuckles] CHRISTINA MORILLO: We need to pin that tactic. That's so true because then you could ask questions. It's a good icebreaker. Like, "What wine is that?" Or "What are you drinking?" or "Is that good?" Or "Let me try it." And then, "Hey, how are you doing this evening?" or whatever. I don't know. Just strike a conversation that seems a little bit more natural. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, exactly. I remember I was at a holiday party, and I really knew no one. Well, I knew a lot of people, but I hadn't met a lot of people. So I was in that place of do I approach them and kind of fangirl a little bit? What do I do? And so I felt really awkward. And so I actually ended up just staying by the food because I was also a little hungry. And then that's how I ended up talking to a lot of different people because we would talk about the food. They were serving oysters, and so we were talking about like, "Do you like oysters?" And just casual conversation that really wasn't productive. But that was like, "Oh, by the way, what do you do? Why are you here? [Chuckles] What brought you here?" And then so from there, it would just span into a lot more productive of a conversation. CHRISTINA MORILLO: So I have another question for you. So, as far as Makelab outside of kind of being a service, and providing prototyping, and being customer-facing, and outside of networking events that you personally host, do you also do community-based learning events whether at your facility or externally in partnership with other companies here in New York? CHRISTINA PERLA: I would like to do more of that. I would like to co-host or even sponsor more. But it's really difficult. It just gets really busy when you're trying to build your own company. So I've found that sometimes I'll overcommit and then I'll get stressed out because I want to do everything. I want to say yes to everything, but I just physically cannot. There's just not enough time in this world. But I do like to attend other events too. I have attended The Girlboss Rally. There was this one I just attended the other day, it was virtual. It's called Funders and Founders. And so Makelab is going for a round of funding this year, and we're starting to pitch. And so for me, diving into that community that's really supportive and where I can learn from others is really important. And that's one of the ways that I kind of start to learn about something new. Like, I have no idea how this world works. I've never done this before. So I do try to make it out to things especially where I need to learn, and I try to always expose myself. I feel like as a founder, it's really easy to be very much in your bubble of your day-to-day and just be like, "Oh, I'm going home. I just want to relax. I don't want to think about anything. I need to recover and prepare for the next day." But I feel like falling into that habit too often can be really detrimental not only for you and your growth as the founder but also for your team. Part of our responsibility is to look ahead, but it's really difficult to look ahead if you're not bringing new things into your world, into your bubble. So I always try to expand a little bit and meet other people that aren't in this industry and just cross-connect and cross collaborate. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Yeah, I agree. I think that's important as well. But yeah, I mean juggling a lot -- definitely don't overcommit. Overcommitting equals burnout. Burnout is not fun. [Laughs] CHRISTINA PERLA: I definitely did that. I would say a lot more in my first one or two years. And that's when we made a really big pivot. We just tried to span across different services I guess under the realm of 3D printing. But we eventually shut the other attempts down and just stuck with the 3D printing service because we had simply overcommitted. It was so difficult to manage, and Manny and I ended up filling in a lot of gaps. It took away our ability to think ahead and think forward. Instead, we were head underwater, not head above water. And so we eventually shut that down even though it was a good source of income, especially for a startup. It was great, but there was no long-term goal there. CHRISTINA MORILLO: Well, I think that's good foresight right there. You were able to say, "Hmm. We need to let go of this in order to focus better on this." CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah. I feel like in small businesses and startups, too, you can either go one of two ways. You can give yourself a really nice life and have a small team and stay like a small business for a really long time, which a lot of people enjoy and honestly, it sounds a little bit less stressful. Or you can go the route of really wanting to build a brand and scale. And so at that time that we pivoted and shut the other two streams of revenue and services down, that's when we really defined what we wanted. And that's why it's really important to stay connected to your one-year goals, three-year goals, five-year goals, ten-year goals. JOHN: Tell me about how you went about figuring out what things you were really there for versus what things you thought you might be there for, or what you should be there for so that you could get that focus. CHRISTINA PERLA: So to go a little more into detail, basically two years ago, we had a full functioning finishing shop. So we would 3D print things and then we would sand them, paint them, finish them so that they didn't look 3D printed. They looked like plastic, beautiful, glossy, shiny, nice-colored plastic and sometimes multicolored. And while those excited us, I noticed a trend in myself personally as I had to jump in, or as I had to manage the team that was doing it, I just felt I would get a little frustrated. And I would have this feeling of I wasn't moving fast enough. I have to go back to the shop to finish this, but I needed to do other things. And then I kept hitting this wall of, where should I put my time? And for me, I can recognize patterns pretty easily, especially emotional patterns. And that's what I like to call the gut feeling. But once I noticed I was getting frustrated at the process of making money, I'm like, "That's a problem." I shouldn't be frustrated when we're bringing in revenue. And so that kind of indicated to me that there was a problem with the process, or -- not that there was a problem with the process, but I had a problem with the process. And it wasn't my process, and it wasn't the process that I wanted to grow and scale. And I hit way too many walls to be able to continue on that path and really think deeper, dig deeper, and execute well. So when it came to either a lot of manual hands-on work versus something where you can send it to the printer multiple times and it just kind of does it, and you revisit the printer later and take it off the machine, that was just a much more scalable business. And there were a lot more factors that we could predict in the long run. We can predict inventory, we can project sales, we could identify the customer. So it's just we had a lot more insight and knowledge to that side of the business where the other side of the business was just so unpredictable. You can spend 5 hours on something, or you can spend 15 hours on something. But that variable is too difficult to handle whilst trying to scale a business. REIN: John is our resident expert on recognizing emotions. JOHN: [Laughs] CHRISTINA PERLA: How so? JOHN: So I have a talk that I give it at tech conferences called Hacking Your Emotional API. So I use the API metaphor from code to talk about if your emotions were API responses that you return in response to things that happen to you, it can help sort of just understand something that's not really that understandable. So I was noticing when you were talking about that, you were paying attention to the parts of the business that you were enjoying versus not enjoying. And I think that's a really useful thing to be able to notice. Sometimes you think, oh, this is just what work is like. Work always sucks. I don't work, blah, blah, blah. You could do that and then you'd be ignoring that valuable source of data about, well, if I'm not enjoying this, either we shouldn't do it or we should find a way to outsource it or just find a way to have me not be doing this because there are these other things that I am enjoying. So I think being in touch with that is, again, a good business skill. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah. I feel like it's so necessary as a founder. And as you were talking, I was thinking through, I was like, "Oh, you know what? That's actually really true." I didn't think of that as a business skill before. But being really in touch totally is because the way I see it is I left working for someone else to work for myself because I didn't enjoy it. And we spend most of our awake hours working. It's 40+ hours a week working. If you don't enjoy that, then what's the point? To really simmer down, that's where I'm operating from. I think that everyone should enjoy their work. I've seen so many people not enjoy it. I don't understand how you can keep doing that because then you run into walls and roadblocks a lot quicker. You stop questioning what you can change and you eventually lose your own power to be able to question things and be like, "Why do we do things this way? It would be better if we did things that way." That's a power. But you have to feed it and by feeding it, you have to be happy in order to do that. You can't operate that from a pissed off standpoint. You have to be in a good state of mind. And as a founder, you just need to be able to recognize those things really quickly. So it's better for everyone, and it's more responsible if you can be in touch with your emotions I think. CHRISTINA MORILLO: I think fear has a lot to do with that too. And people realize that, not too late, but just instead of realizing it sooner, they realize it later. And by that time, you have responsibility or some people have responsibilities, and families, and bills, and commitments. And you're kind of too deep in and that brings a whole other set of problems. So even if you're not happy, you kind of just reluctantly say, "Well, it's just a job, and I just have to get through it." And you're right, you end up living a life of misery. But a lot of people feel stuck. So it's a matter of hey, how do you get that power back? And one way is looking at other people that have done it and have moved past the fear and that a lot of times inspires people to kind of take that leap of faith. But I know a lot of people that are not happy, but they have to work. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, it's tough. Change is tough especially when you're not just living for yourself and you have to support a family, you have to support your kids maybe even your lifestyle if you are single. It's just always tough to rock the boat per se and take that risk. It is a big risk. It is something new. And it's also uncomfortable because if you're changing up your lifestyle, you probably have to start from a lower level and relearn a few things and that can bring on the level of discomfort and especially after you've built up your career to a certain point and you're like, "I've got this. I've got this." To be able to say, "Let me start over and let me be the new guy again." that definitely takes a bit of courage, and it's a little, not a little, it's very intimidating. JOHN: Yeah, it opens you up to that same attack of imposter that you probably had early in your career. I mean, I've had that too when I'm switching frameworks or learning a new language. You're like, wait, I thought I was good at this stuff. Maybe I was just lying to myself. Or what is it? And then thankfully, I can look back like, wait, I've actually done a lot of stuff. So this is just a feel, and I can let it go. But yeah, it's hard to do that. CHRISTINA PERLA: And especially in the tech field too. If I were to keep pushing forward in this field and I didn't like it, and it was just a straight-up 3D printing service, I think that would take the human aspect out of what we do, which is what sets us apart. So we would just be another, basically a 3D printing factory. And that's it. You can forget about the support, you can forget about the workplace culture, you can forget about the environment, you can forget about your relationship with your teammates. And it would just be a factory. But I feel like being able to bring that to tech humanizes it. And I see that in a few companies, and then I see it not being implemented in others. And it's directly related to the founder's emotional state at that time. It really is. JOHN: And I feel like when you were talking about being stressed out, and doing things you don't enjoy, and overcommitting, and being on the edge of burnout, that's always going to impact your creativity. And it's sort of self-perpetuating because you stop seeing those creative solutions to the problems that you're currently dealing with. And especially as a founder, you need that creativity. CHRISTINA PERLA: Exactly. You need to constantly be iterating on your own product and constantly be slightly unhappy to the point where it inspires you. And you might be a little delusional, but that's part of it. [Laughs] CHRISTINA MORILLO: So I want to really drill down on that a little bit more, not to belabor the point, but just to understand if you've reached that point, for folks who are listening, and say, "Damn. I'm there. I'm burnt out. I'm not inspired. I really want to get my creative juices back." How do they do it? What is the first step? How do you move past that point in your life and get those creative juices flowing again? CHRISTINA PERLA: I feel like there's a few different ways. I've definitely felt that before. And so what I do is either I step away for a minute because sometimes stepping away from the problem enables you to see the entire picture. And as a founder, you probably have the capability to do that. It's just a change of environment that's needed to spark that change. Another thing that I like to do is talk to other people. And I also love doing interviews, and I love helping other people. And so that brings me back to my why. And when I go back to my why, that's when I find I can do the most. When I feel really connected to why I'm doing something, I can just go on forever. Probably not good because I might reach burnout again, but it gets me started. Anything that can bring you back to your why whether it's stepping away or stepping to the side, I would say. CHRISTINA MORILLO: I love that. Thank you for that. CHRISTINA PERLA: [Laughs] CHRISTINA MORILLO: Yeah, I think we all need those reminders especially during this time where people are facing all these different issues whether it's work, and life, school issues, and just changes. Like, working from home for some people has been super impactful and not in a positive way. And so I think that it really gives us time to gain new perspective on living the life that you want to live today, not tomorrow and how important it is. So I think that those reminders are important. CHRISTINA PERLA: And it's also good to note that you can prevent those stages of burnout too by reconnecting with your why even when you don't need to. So we just had a lot of change at Makelab. We just moved into a space that's four and a half times larger than what we were operating at, which was basically a 200 and something square foot room, which was insane. And we had a few changes in the team and just this new post-COVID world getting used to. I just started to kind of feel those changes whereas before, I was just plowing through it and just trying to get through and stay strong for everyone and lead the company into good new territory, I guess. But at every change in your business or every change in your career, it's really good to have those moments of self-reflection. So even if you're not at burnout, regularly going to events or going to places where you can connect with someone else that's maybe not in your bubble or just find ways to connect to your why is really important because you have to redefine that at every single stage and every single change. And I feel like you might not think you need it, but it's so necessary because it can easily escape you. [Laughs] CHRISTINA MORILLO: Agree. REIN: I'd to talk a little bit about -- you mentioned before we got started that you are planning on keeping some amount of your revenue to devote to responding to current events. Can you talk a little bit about that? CHRISTINA PERLA: One of the beauties about 3D printing is that you can print anything. If you have a digital file, you can print anything. So I think the whole global pandemic situation and all the effects that we all saw and monitored super closely and all the very interesting things that came out of it kind of showed that 3D printing really does have a spot in emergency situations because we can make anything. It's a perfect scenario and use case for 3D printing too because PLA plastic won't last forever. But if you're using it as a stopgap solution for something else, like if reusable PPE and face shields will last 30 days as opposed to the normal 60 days, that still provides a good use case for 3D printing PPE. And I think that can be applied across other future scenarios as well. So another thing that we started printing during the pandemic and during quarantine, well we're still in the pandemic, was custom fit mask fitters. There's an app called Bellus3D, and there are a few other companies doing things similar but basically, it uses your iPhone 10 or higher and the face ID feature to 3D scan your face. And then from there, it will generate a mask fitter. So then you can turn a surgical mask into something that was a little bit more safe. So it's basically improve the seal around where there would normally be gaps in your surgical mask, which are really cheap to acquire. So the thought behind this was pay a little bit more for the mask fitter, pay a little bit less for the mask itself. And so that was really interesting because that wasn't only a supply chain thing. That was a customized, scalable solution. And it's so interesting to see how we as an industry can do these things. And so I just want to be ready for anything. So we just want to keep that on our minds so we can dedicate a portion of our resources when we need to step up and jump in. And during quarantine, we did allocate 75% of our machines to manufacturing PPE. It was crazy. We had so much PPE everywhere just because there was such a high demand. But during those times just knowing in the back of our head, okay, when something goes down, we'll dedicate X amount to this. It helps us plan a little bit better, and it takes away that shock value for when something does happen. So it's just something that we said to ourselves moving forward. REIN: That's really interesting because the value of 3D printing comes from the variety that it enables. If you are going to manufacturer the same thing over and over again, custom tooling would have a lower unit cost. But if you're a widget manufacturer, then you can't just switch to make masks overnight. CHRISTINA PERLA: Right. Having the ability to just pivot real quick without -- I mean, it really wasn't too big of an investment to switch over to PPE temporarily because the biggest investment in making PPE would be the plastic headband portion and the bottom headband portion. So being able to print that on-demand using our already existing supply chain, and most of our business is we print different parts every single day. Every single part that goes on the printer is different from what was previously on there. It really falls right in line with what we do as a service bureau. REIN: I suppose if you were a 3D printer you have to seek out variety because if you're not, then you're not taking advantage of what's unique about 3D printing. CHRISTINA PERLA: Exactly. Exactly. REIN: I guess my other question is, so is the plan to withhold an emergency fund or how is this operationalized? CHRISTINA PERLA: Because we're able to allocate machines so quickly, it's not much beyond just planning for it, and not even resource allocation. It's just knowing that you can load up a bunch of material on the machines and go. There really isn't much prep work. Most of the time just in our daily operations, we have a lot of stock for materials, so we're ready to go at any given point. And like I said, I think the PVE getting up and running for a small amount, it was about $1,000 to $1,500. So it wasn't even that big of an investment. It was just a matter of setting it up and having enough space in the shop to have different stations. Like, here's an assembly station, here's where all of our raw materials are, and just staying organized. That was really it. REIN: You're the expert on 3D printing. So probably you've spent more time thinking about this, but it seems like this sort of thing makes 3D printing categorically different from traditional manufacturing. Where in traditional manufacturing you would need to source specific parts or specific things, in 3D printing, you source sort of like the universe whole material. And then you would translate that into whatever form you need. So the inventory you keep on hand is different. You don't have to figure out how many of this do I need versus how many of this? Because it's just like there are different types of filament or whatever, but there's just one thing. CHRISTINA PERLA: Exactly. It was such an easy pivot. I hate to oversimplify it, but it was pretty simple logistically for us, at least. I mean, if we were a printer manufacturer, it might be a little different. We might not carry as much filament on hand. But I would say the hardest part of this was sourcing the clear plastic visor because that was out of stock on the entire East Coast. So what we did was we got creative and we used Avery plastic binder dividers clear, and we just cut off the tabs. And as a stopgap solution, because it is a temporary solution, there isn't really a need to make this last forever. It was a stopgap solution. So when demand is so high, it leaves some flexibility to be a little creative and crafty. Of course, there were craftier solutions. I'm not going to degrade what we did in quality. But it was -- you can go to Staples and buy Avery clear plastic binder dividers and just cut off the tabs, or not, and use that. It was really that simple. And it was really the community of makers that really put the file together that enabled this to happen. So that's another point. It was the file. But most companies that are able to 3D print also have resources or know themselves how to 3D model. So in terms of what to print and how to optimize that's -- Give it two iterations and you're good to go. It was such a simple -- We didn't have to set up molds, we didn't have to set up jigs. There wasn't too much support removal. We didn't have to cut away material. It was pretty simple. Off the printer, you detach your stack of shields and you're good to go. REIN: I'm kind of thinking about an analogy to software prototyping where these are the only two situations where the prototype really is the thing that goes to production. So in software, oftentimes you'll implement some simple incomplete version of a bigger product as a prototype to sort of get an idea of how things work. And the received wisdom is that you don't ship this thing to customers. You use it internally to test things out. And then you put it aside and you build the real thing properly. But what happens in almost all cases that prototype then gets shipped to production and then keeps getting added onto. And you don't ship prototype cars to production. CHRISTINA PERLA: No. [Laughs] REIN: It's a weird thing to do. CHRISTINA PERLA: Well, only if it's a concept car because those are forever prototypes. REIN: Well, I guess all software is concept car in a way. [Chuckles] JOHN: [Laughs] CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah. We're venturing into that world a little bit more. As we're scaling, we recognize the need and the beauty of pairing hardware and software together to make the perfect product or the perfect service or the perfect workflow, if there is even such a perfect thing, but that's the vision. No software is perfect. That's what I'm learning. [Chuckles] JOHN: Oh, yeah. CHRISTINA PERLA: It's always iterating. There's always bugs. There's always things that could be done better. You're always going back to the drawing board. REIN: It occurred to me while we were talking, this is probably something you realized years ago, but 3D printing is sort of the ideal implementation of lean manufacturing. You keep no inventory on hand. Everything is pull-based. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah, there are quite a few businesses that are formed off of using the technology to supply and manufacture their own products online. So if you look on Etsy, for example, there's a big market for 3D printed desktop items and Planters even. All those companies, and all those brands, and all those businesses, they don't carry stock. It's all made to order because you can fulfill an order within a day. Again, depending on how you're set up that's a logistical problem but very, very high level, you can fulfill things same day using 3D printing depending on how large the file is, how long it takes to print if there's any post-processing needed, but it's definitely doable. And so it kind of does transform e-commerce a little bit. There's a big business in cookie cutters too, 3D printing custom cookie cutters. That's a business where you're constantly iterating, making new shapes, making new geometries. And those files are so easy and light to print that it just makes it a very attractive business to get into. And a lot of people do. REIN: Maybe this is a question that's only interesting to me, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Have you worked with larger companies, more traditional manufacturing pipelines to build a specific part of the pipeline 3D printed? CHRISTINA PERLA: Absolutely. Kind of. Again, 3D printing has plastic, so it doesn't always make it to the end-use product, which is something that I think that the industry's evolving to but not there yet. It needs some work. There is metal printing. That's another note. But one of our clients, for example, is Prose. Prose is a custom haircare product where you feel out your online questionnaire and you get in the mail custom shampoo and conditioner, and maybe a hair mask specifically just for your hair based on your desires and so with that, each bottle is custom labeled. So they've been a long-time client of ours since 2017 or 2018. And so they order from time and time again custom jigs to help apply that label. But it's things like that where 3D printing is really useful because if they change their labels a little bit, they need to change their jigs, and they need to change their manufacturing jigs. So you can go injection mold and get that injection molded. But there's a big setup cost for that. So 3D printing, if you only need 100, for example, you might as well go 3D print it. It might be a little bit more costly than if you were to injection mold it or injection mold 10,000 units. But being that you need such a small volume, that's where it really plays into its strengths. But yeah, totally, manufacturing jigs are definitely a thing. I think Ashley Furniture uses Formlabs. They just did a case study on it. I think last year they used Formlabs parts for various jigs and various tooling because otherwise, they would have to get that molded and get that made to make their product. So the cost can be really high. But if they only need 5 they can 3D print it. REIN: I'm fascinated by the [inaudible] of building the tools that build the tools. That's really cool. CHRISTINA PERLA: Me too. That's something I learned in my Pratt days is if you're doing something multiple times or you need to align something right, you need to make a tool to help you make the product. I think I picked up a book at a used bookstore called The Art of Jigs or something, and it was wonderful. JOHN: So for those of us that don't have the clearest concept of what a jig is, can you explain a little bit more? CHRISTINA PERLA: Gotcha. Okay. Let's use the example of Prose again. So say you have a round bottle and you need to put two labels on it, one on the top and one on the bottom, and you need to do 100. How are you going to place that perfectly centered every single time so that you represent the brand well in the product? If it's all crooked and stuff, it might just decrease the value of your brand. So, in cases like that, you need something where you don't have to figure out alignment and hover over the product and take a long time. Jigs are tools that make your job easier, but then also more efficient and a little bit more perfect, so to speak. So a jig, in that case, would be like a piece of material or it could be 3D printed. It could be made out of wood. It could even be a sticker just for visual alignment, but it's a tool to help you make something else. So, in this case, it would just help you place these things faster and easier with less mistakes. JOHN: Okay. So perhaps an example might be when you put a screen protector on your iPhone, they give you a plastic jig that helps you align it on the screen so that you don't always get it off to the side or whatever. CHRISTINA PERLA: Exactly. That's a perfect example. JOHN: Cool. Now I know the name for that thing. CHRISTINA PERLA: I actually didn't know even during my Pratt days. It wasn't until Manny explained what it was. And I was like, "Oh yeah, those things." I never knew what to call it." I would call it a thingamajig. Well, that's funny. Thingamajig has the word jig in it. But yeah, I didn't realize the name for a while either. I just recently I've been really hell-bent on the people side of tech and how important it is to address the humans behind the tech, which plays into what Rein you were saying earlier before we started recording. It's just so important and sometimes it's overlooked, but that really determines the success of your business really, is being able to connect with others and the people's side, whether it's a customer or your team, it's everything. And I just feel like sometimes it's very overlooked. So it's great that you guys are really hitting on that point. REIN: Actually, I'd to talk about that a little bit more if we could. So one of the ideas from Resilience Engineering is that the way we adapt to challenges is that people share their capacity to adapt with each other. The epitome of this is probably Mr. Rogers's 'Look for the Helpers'. So my question is, what have you learned from doing this work in the COVID world about connecting with your local community, about figuring out how to help people? CHRISTINA PERLA: People make things move. The only reason why we were able to implement so fast was because we connected with people. A step before the connecting is the intent to connect and that can be hard in times of uncertainty because I think one of the strengths of a good leader is being able to be vulnerable and say, "Hey, this is what I don't know. Let's put our heads together. Let's go back to the drawing board a little bit. Let's iterate on this together. I can't do it by myself." Because no one can do it by themselves. But a lot of people I feel don't like to put themselves in that vulnerable place where you kind of have to go back a few steps. So first step is doing that, is just saying, "Hey, I don't know. I'm staying on top of this. Suggestions are welcome." and kind of embracing the times of uncertainty together. But then just being able to put that also out into the world, you never know what you're going to get back. One of the biggest things I learned, I think in 2019, I was super shy. I am super shy, not as much anymore. I used to be very, very, very shy. I would second guess every Instagram post I put out there, every LinkedIn post I put out there for fear of being judged in some sort of capacity. But then I realized who cares? Because if I don't put it out there, no one's going to know what I'm doing and no one can jump in and add to it. And then I can't do that for other people. If I'm so afraid of putting it out there and cultivating that community, then I'm going to be an island, and I'm going to silo myself for the rest of time. So I think a big part is embracing that discomfort a little bit and experience it emotionally and get it out, but then work past it, lean into it, and really try to problem solve. Because if it wasn't for our community and our client responses to our email newsletters about pivoting to do PPE, I don't think that we would have been able to make as much. Our community is really what made that move. We only supplied it. We didn't create the demand. The demand was just there. We just had to activate it. CHRISTINA MORILLO: That's good advice. I sometimes still feel that way. Do I really want to say this? Do I really want to put this out into the world? Is there value? Is it going to be controversial? Do I really want to argue? CHRISTINA PERLA: I found that the times that I was the most uncomfortable with putting something out there were the most fruitful times though. Because most likely if I was feeling it, at least one other person would feel the same way and then you connect over it. And most likely, that other person wants to talk about it too. So if you can connect over it and then you kind of talk about it together, even if you really hadn't talked to this person before, it's an opportunity to connect, to grow, and cultivate a relationship, gain a follower, gain a friend, gain a two-way support system and something will come out of that. It will. It just has to. JOHN: Yeah, I think you sort of touched on a really good point. Something that I've noticed a lot in my life recently, which is that it's hard to be the first person to step out and say the thing or to bring up a topic or even just express what it is you're dealing with. But that is the ultimate invitation to other people to connect with you and just sort of sitting home alone thinking I'm really lonely only gets you so far. You can't just assume everyone else is just going to drive by, and reach out, and make a connection to you. It has to start with you. And it's certainly a hard thing to do. I'm not going to say that it is not a challenge. But like you said, sitting with that discomfort and really feeling it and saying, "Well, this is really uncomfortable, but I'm going to do it anyway." is a great place to start from. CHRISTINA PERLA: I like the way that you said it. It starts with you, and it's an invitation. Those times are invitations for something different. REIN: I would like to point out, not really for anyone here but more for our listeners, that not everyone has the same experience when they try to do that. Actually, I think one of the problems is that often the best way to lead is to cultivate expertise in other people. But there are people in society I'm thinking mostly about black people and women who have to continuously demonstrate their own competence, and this actually gets in the way in addition to being shitty for them, which is the first problem. There's a secondary problem which is this gets in the way of actually leading other people. CHRISTINA PERLA: I agree. It's easy to do and practice this once you've already done it and you've gained some clout, I guess is the word in your community or on a social media platform. But to get started is the hardest thing. So in that regard, I would say you're not completely alone though. There's got to be someone out there that feels the same way that you do. And just even having a bouncing board for your emotion and be like, "Oh, I feel that way too." It gives you a lot of confidence. And so I feel like it starts with just that first step, even if it's in private, even if it's not public, just in some form connecting it and getting out of the mindset, I'm alone in this. That's the most harm I think that you could do as a person to yourself is to get into the habit of thinking that I'm alone, I'm the only one. REIN: It's almost as if there's a reason that a global nonprofit like Women in 3D Printing would exist. CHRISTINA PERLA: Full circle. Yes. But touching on another point that you said earlier, it is really tough because I too sometimes feel like I have to keep on demonstrating. I'm always starting from square one, and that's just pretty shitty and it makes it harder to stand up to that and be like, "I'm going to keep doing this." But the only other option is to get into that negative mindset. So the way I see it is it's really shitty, but if someone doesn't do it, who is? And getting into that mindset, maybe this could be super naive, but I'm also just unusually optimistic about things most of the time. If at least five people who are in that position can push through and be strong for others, hopefully, it inspires five more people per those five people. Now you have, five times five, 25, and then so on and so forth. I just feel like things are pretty infectious. And again, this is insanely optimistic and that's just the way I like to think about things and what keeps me going. But I have to think like that. Otherwise, what's the point? When does the cycle stop? REIN: Yeah, a great note to end the podcast. [Laughter] REIN: No, this was great. I agree. There's a difference between acknowledging the situation and being pessimistic. And there's a difference between believing that things can be better and being naive, I think. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah. JOHN: And Christina, I think you made a good point about it how there are varying degrees of publicity in which you can do this. And so for the people for whom it's much riskier to be vulnerable in public or to admit ignorance or not be super on top of everything, finding those smaller communities, for example, Women in 3D printing where they can find support and can make those bids for connection without having as much risk associated, I think is powerful. CHRISTINA PERLA: And I think too, even going a step smaller, you can even start with your own friends and family and just having those conversations and exercising that muscle I feel like a lot of this is about exercising the muscle just getting uncomfortable in a place where you normally feel safe might be a good place to start as well. I've done that too. I've brought up the sociopolitical climate with friends and people I went to high school with. And it was scary because we hadn't really talked about it that seriously before. Or I didn't really put myself on the front line of one side so that was intimidating. But doing it, I grew from it even if it was just within my very, very small circle. JOHN: So we've gotten to the time on every show where we go into reflections, which is each of us is going to talk about the things that struck us about the discussion we've had today and maybe the takeaways, things we're going to think about more. For me, it's definitely going to be that idea of being in touch with your feelings as a business skill. It was kind of funny. I hadn't thought about it in exactly those terms until it actually came out of my mouth. And so I was as struck by it as you were. And I was like, "Oh yeah, I think that freezing is really useful." And I'm definitely going to keep using that when I talk about these things in the future. CHRISTINA MORILLO: I think for me it's really about reflecting on what Christina mentioned about just being happy. If you're not happy at work, if you're not happy with what you're doing, you really need to take the time to understand your why. So I think for me, my reflection is just to remember my why. And every time I'm feeling kind of disconnected, or confused, or unhappy, and potentially facing burnout to just kind of stop, drop, and remember my why. CHRISTINA PERLA: I like that. [Chuckles] REIN: I was thinking about Christina's plan to be able to redeploy her business towards responding to current events and so on. And in order to do that, you have to maintain a capacity for maneuver. You can't be so stretched out by all of the work that you're currently doing that you have no room to move. And the challenge here, of course, is that businesses are under constant pressure to not have any slack. And so striking that balance seems to me both really difficult but also really important. And actually keeping track in some way of your capacity for maneuver, how much slack you have, not necessarily just in terms of utilization of hours and things like that, but also in terms of how many changes you could make now if you needed to and how many changes you're currently undergoing and things like that. CHRISTINA PERLA: And then for me, I really was intrigued by John, your concept of emotion as an API. It's a different way of thinking about it for me because if you think about it, it is very pattern-based. It is taking a step back. It can be a level of predictable, recognizing those patterns, that's exactly what a software does. That's exactly what AI does. And so just thinking about it with that spin, I think I'm going to really sit on that a little bit more. And I think it's a good way to explain it deeper. Thank you. JOHN: You're welcome. I'll send you a link to the talk. CHRISTINA PERLA: Yeah. I'd love to see it and hear it. REIN: Good work, everyone. CHRISTINA PERLA: Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.