Episode 411: 🛍️ 💳 Work, Life, E-Commerce Evolution and Business Central 💳 🛍️

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, hosts Kris and Brad chat with Chris De Visser about the rise of e-commerce innovation. They explore how maintaining work-life balance, structure, and human connection is key in a virtual world, especially for junior employees who benefit from face-to-face learning. Chris introduces Commerce Build, an ERP-first e-commerce platform that integrates with Business Central, offering flexible solutions for B2B and B2C markets. He highlights the importance of understanding client needs, seamless implementation, and adapting to payment and PIM integrations. 
🛒 Commerce Build is an ERP-first platform tailored for diverse e-commerce needs.  
🛒 Client-focused flexibility and innovative implementation drive e-commerce success.  
🛒 Technology shapes user expectations, influencing online transactions and convenience.  
🛒 Conferences remain vital for networking, with content and logistics at their core.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics
Corner.
Do you need e-commerce in yourbusiness?
I'm your co-host, Chris.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
And this is Brad.
This episode is recorded onFebruary 24th 2025.
Chris, chris, chris, with anextra Chris.
E-commerce In 2025, manybusinesses, if not all
businesses, can benefit frome-commerce 2025, many businesses
, if not all businesses, canbenefit from e-commerce With us.

(00:30):
Today, we had the opportunityto speak with Chris DeVisser
about Commerce Build and itse-commerce solution.
Hey, chris, did you know thatyou can use AI in Business

(00:52):
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(01:14):
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(01:34):
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Speaker 1 (01:59):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Good morning, hey guys.
How are you doing?
How are you Very well, verywell, hey guys, how are you
doing, how are you Very well,very well.
That office looks familiar.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, it's what can I say?
It's probably it's a WeWork,right.
So there's like a couplehundred of these.
Oh, very cool.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
How long have you been at a we work?

Speaker 3 (02:30):
um, I mean on and off , I would say almost 10 years oh
so do you have I'm one of thefew people that, because of the
pandemic, went into the office.
Uh, it's because, um, my wifestarted working home, we had our
daughter born and we just hadto uh somebody, somebody had to
leave the house.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
And that's why you're still married, because you
chose to leave the house.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, it's um, it's uh.
I'm sure anybody with youngkids recognizes it.
Of course I love my kids, butwe have three of these
youngsters right now and whenpeople say happy Friday, I have
like a reverse reaction fromwhat it was a couple of years
ago and I'm like, oh God, it'sthe weekend.
It means hard work, it meanslike not being able to think for

(03:20):
myself and just live by thegrace of these minions.
And then on Mondayay I'm like,hey, I can think again.
I have like my brain for myself.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
yeah, I get it having the separation between work and
home is important and you, yousaid so much and I have so many
things to say and mypsychologist tendencies are not
really one, I just pretend to beone on tv and you are
absolutely correct, smallchildren or children in general

(03:53):
are a lot of work I think, yeah,it's just.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah, I think you go in in parent mode, which
automatically means, uh, like Imean, and maybe it's um, it's
self-centric or something, butit automatically means I can't
really think anymore.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
No, no, and it's also when you want to spend time
with your kids and do kids.
They require attention.
It's to make sure that they'resafe and they're doing things
and they're not growing up ontelevision and such.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, and sometimes what you do at work is like kind
of blends in how you handleyour kids and vice versa.
Yeah, so that's funny.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
No, the separation is good.
So have you had the same officeat the WeWork for that same
period of time?

Speaker 3 (04:38):
No, I've been at the same building, but I've been
changing units either by choiceor by force.
I the first time I got here waswith Sana Commerce, my first
employer here in the States, andwe grew the team quite big, so
we had we needed bigger unitseach time, which is the big

(05:01):
convenience from, like a sharedoffice.
Set up a little bit, um, andthen I left them, and then, I
think, a little while after they, they left the building
altogether.
I think they now left New York,um, but, um, uh, then I like
what was it then?
The pandemic was 2020, right,uh, early 2020.

(05:22):
Um, I had a killer lease, ofcourse, like I could negotiate
like crazy.
They almost gave me money to,to, to show up.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
I was going to say it was a 10.
They probably gave you 10 amonth and a free coffee every
day or something.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, the coffee is always free, uh, and in the old
days they had unlimited beers.
It was crazy like, oh, wow, andit's.
It's a building with 17 floors,um, and each floor had its own
um, draft, um, and they would,they would list, uh, like the
special, like the beer, the typeof beer for each floor.
And then, uh, we tried oncearound the holidays to start at

(06:02):
the top and drink a beer onevery floor.
Got kind of messy like around,like floor, floor nine or
something.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I mean 17?
Yeah, I think yeah, by eight.
Well, it depends how longyou're doing it, but if you're
doing it after work, for thequick rundown, 17 beers can get
a little messy I, so the costcovers that Not anymore.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
I mean, I don't know how many people saw the WeWork
kind of collapse.
Right, they were going to go tothe stock market.
They were worth $60 billionbecause they were this SaaS
startup scale-up solution.
And then the bubble popped Likethey turned out to be a real

(06:47):
estate company that had to sign20-year leases with the building
owners.
Well, their tenants had monthto month, so COVID happened at
the same time and everybodypeaced out and they were stuck
with a 20-year lease andeverybody else could get out of
WeWork, so they had no moremoney coming in.

(07:10):
And I think just because,talking about amateur psychology
, I remember like the sunkencost trap from from college as
one of those traps soft bank, Ithink at that point poured in
like billions and billions andbillions that they had to double
down on it because they couldnot walk away from it anymore.

(07:31):
And they bought off the guy forlike $9 billion to go away.
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
I gotta check out that documentary.
I know there's a documentaryabout it and I never quite
understood that we work.
I mean because you know, atleast for me, I've been working
at home, so I never had theopportunity.
But there are times when I'mworking at home and I want to
work somewhere.
I just wanted to be somewhereelse from my home office to to

(08:00):
get away.
Because if you work at homefive days a week and then your
family's home, then you're homefor the weekend.
This is, yeah, you know, workat home five days a week and
then your family's home, thenyou're home for the weekend this
is yeah, you know you're hereseven days a week.
It's third credit.
It doesn't disconnect, so goingto like even a coffee shop was
like a big treat for me, right?
So an office space would beawesome there's more to it.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
It's the separation of from work and home going
someplace.
Working from home is great.
There's a lot of flexibility.
There's a lot of advantages.
Some of the disadvantages arethe inability to sometimes focus
, I think, because you have atendency to oh, I can just go
throw in a load of laundry,which is it's a blessing and a
curse in a sense, but also tohave the distractions home,

(08:40):
whereas if you go to office, yougo to the office, you get to
prepare for your day on yourcommute in, you work all day,
you unwind on your way home, yougo home and you just do home
life, whereas if you're workingfrom home.
Sometimes, if you don't have adefined workspace that you only
use for work, you have thatdifficulty with the transition.
But, chris, also they havedifferent plans you can do.

(09:00):
Yeah, you can rent an officethat's yours all the time.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, that's what I have, so I leave my stuff here.
I got the screen.
I got everything here.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
I got a bookshelf.
You can lock your office andeverything, yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
And there's even like a spare desk here, like
occasionally my wife works fromhere or something, if she can
get to the office, or one of usneeds to stay home to pick up
the kids or anything like that.
So, or my daughter sits hereand just kind of like callers a
little bit.
So, no, yeah, I can close it.

(09:33):
But you have like what is nicetoo, and that is the big benefit
of WeWork over some of theother providers they have a
global network.
So I had meetings in Vancouver.
I can just like in an app, booka room and like a second later
my key pass works and I can justbust myself in and walk in.
And it's kind of like whathotels try to do too right,

(09:57):
where you get a level offamiliarity.
So you get like the same coffee.
You get like the design is likethe same coffee.
You get like the the, thedesign is is all the same, so it
feels familiar even thoughyou're in a complete different
location.
So, yeah, we had a meeting invancouver for a couple of hours
and I just booked it on the spot.
Um, if I go to amsterdam, I can,I can walk into an office there

(10:19):
and, um, have a meeting there,or book a book, a workspace for
the day, um, and I think theyare now experimenting that you
can also like book, um, like ascreen right, so you're not just
on your laptop, you actuallyhave like a second screen and
you can really sit down behindthe desk.
Um, but I think they're stillrecovering a little bit on the

(10:43):
money front.
So in a city like New York Cityit works right, Because I agree
with the commute element.
I mean, I worked from home,home for four years or something
and you need to be reallydisciplined and body check
yourself to get the stuff done.

(11:03):
You need to have a verymeasurable job to also show to
your colleagues that you areworking.
And for some reason still, Ithink instinctively people trust
people who go to an office morethan people working from home,
although I think all stats showthat people can be very

(11:24):
effective working from home.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
so that's anybody would experience.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
I'm not too shy, but what I'm, what I'm sad for is
juniors, right, like, where doyou learn?
Uh?
We were talking about this theother day.
I try to think about thecontext, but, like you're not
learning by osmosis anymore, no,um, uh like you're.
But just by sitting next tosomeone and hear them talk

(11:49):
without, uh like listening in ontheir conversation, you just
learn stuff, right, um, and andyou see how people uh handle bad
, uh news conversations.
Like just seeing someone elsework makes you better, whether
it's good or bad what you see,yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Well, you feel better too with that.
Well, I want to go back to theother.
Chris, they have the ones thatyou get to your office, but you
can also go and just use thespace, so you should get one in
your area.
And then during the summer,take your bike over there or
something.
It would be good for you tohave something like that,
because you could get out, takeyour bike, go do some work.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Some locations have recording studios, like,
depending on the building, theyhave like podcasting studios and
stuff like that as well.
That's pretty cool, see.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I think that, like you said, said, it's a balance
of what fits your personallifestyle, or even professional
lifestyle, because I, you know,I'm far from the city and it
makes sense, for you know, majorcities, you're, maybe you,
you're within five, ten minutesaway.
Yeah, and you can take publictransportation oh yeah, five
minute walk, but like if I haveto and that's the thing too like

(13:03):
if I had to deal with like ahour drive.
Now, if they have one nearby, Iwould totally look into it they
have different types of onesand they are in different
locations.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
They're not all in metropolitan areas.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
There are some right, I gotta find something close
there.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
There are some that are outside of the areas, but
even just to get that, chris say, chris and ch Chris had some
good points with even thediscipline and the trust of
somebody at work.
I agree with you.
Somebody sitting at work for 16hours isn't more productive
than someone sitting at work foreight hours, nor are they more
productive than someone workingat home for four hours.
It's a matter of the individualand what they produce.

(13:40):
But there is also a point tobeing in that office setting
because humans are communal.
So if you have the ability totalk to somebody and your point
about the juniors is so truebecause in a remote work
environment I find that someonethat's starting out or maybe new
is less likely to ask questionsor ask for assistance than if

(14:03):
they were in the office withsomebody, where somebody could
either check in on them and theysay, oh yeah, by the way, I
have a question, or it becomesmore of an effort to talk to
other co-workers or to get toknow them.
So there are some challengesthere.
So if somebody is workingremotely or there is a work, a
remote work organization whichis not what we wanted to talk

(14:25):
about anyway today, but we justkind of went there that you need
to do something to encouragecommunication, encourage the
knowledge sharing, encourage theasking for help.
I've had some individuals thatI said let's just get on a Teams
call and I'll work and you workand we'll just act like we're

(14:45):
in the office it works.
It works.
You can sit and work and talkand say oh, by the way, you just
get some of that small chat.
Hey, I'm working on this and myhead's stuck.
You know what do you think?

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, I've seen too, like with cameras on, with
remote teams.
So even you may have like 20people in one location, there's
another team somewhere else.
Just put a camera on and yousee people wandering.
Like you're wondering, like, oh, is so-and-so in today, and you
can just glance over on the bigscreen and you see somebody
moving around.
You're like, oh, yeah, I guesshe's he has.

(15:18):
I can interrupt him now when ifyou see somebody super
concentrated, you're not goingto bother them, right?
I mean that that is the otherdownside I find of remote work.
You miss kind of the non-verbalcues of if somebody is like
super deep into like complexstuff or it's kind of like
checking his instagram.
Um, uh, right, uh, you don'tknow, when you disturb somebody,

(15:43):
um, and yeah, it's watercoolers fun too.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
I mean it's been a while since been in office space
, but you know that that'salways fun, where you just
coming in and you're getting,you know, putting your stuff
away, getting some coffee orwhatever that may be, and then
you're like stop, say what youdo this weekend.
You know it's like a reallyquick, you know have a
conversation like that.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
It's nice maybe, maybe, maybe that's the pivot to
to talking about uh uh, work,work, um like I I joined
commerce build in august and andit's hard to meet, if even
virtually all all my colleagues,because they're all over the
world, everybody's remote.

(16:24):
Uh like, we have one office andthat's in new zealand where the
developers are.
Everybody else is remote.
Um and um like there's not areal occasion to talk to
everybody on a regular basis.
So, um, uh like it and and Italk to some people several

(16:45):
times a day and to some people Inever talk, right, um, I don't
have a direct reason to talk tothe developers, which is a shame
, because if we're all in theoffice, I would bump into these,
these guys and girls at thecoffee machine, at the water
cooler exactly, and chat.
So we got to come come up withlike a format for that, and I

(17:06):
think there's like tools likethrough Slack and Teams, where
you kind of get randomlyassigned to somebody for a week
and you kind of get forced totake a virtual coffee break or
something.
That's what they had.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Chris, I had talked about this before.
I remember the conversation.
You have meeting rooms whereyou have some companies try to
schedule company meetings orcompany events virtually, which
are beneficial, but sometimes,if you do it in a wide scale,
you have one or two people thatmay spend most of the time
talking so you can force randombreakout rooms that you would

(17:43):
have people talk, but I likeyour idea of having everybody
connect virtually.
Again, time zone related, it's alittle more challenging in a
situation where you have AI canfigure that out for us?

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yeah, but we've done, you've done.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
You could do, for example, like a lunch teams
right when you just show up inthat lunch.
You can turn on the meeting ofthat team's channel and just sit
there and have a lunch orwhatever.
Have it, take a break, I thinkyou need to do more.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
I think you just eat that.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, you want a ceo in vancouver to be connected to
a developer in in new zealand,and if it's a one-on-one,
there's always a window that youcan meet for 15 minutes.
I toyed with this idea and Ispoke to somebody who says, oh,
it already exists, so I droppedit.
But this kind of randomizerthat throw all people in and

(18:39):
every week you get connected toanother colleague at random.
Or you can even say do notconnect to these people because
I talk to them on a daily basisanyway and the system will find
a slot in both your calendarsthat you can talk to each other
and you're forced to like chatwith somebody.
I like that, that you have nowork relation with per se or

(19:02):
work reason to talk to, but, butyou get forced to just chat and
you talk about, like maybe you,you spend a little more time on
monday morning or fridayafternoon about the weekend, um,
and like what, uh, what are yougonna do or what did you do?
And like you, it becomes alittle bit more personal because
, as efficient as as remote work, work and online meetings are,

(19:25):
it does take away a little bitof the human-to-human contact.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
People want to feel included and I think if you had
those meeting rooms where a fewpeople maybe two or three
because that way you can havethe icebreakers and you still
can go for that random rotationbut people will feel included
within an organization, they'llget to know, feel included
within an organization, they'llget to know other people within
the organization and I thinkthey would become more
productive as well.

(19:50):
Because now I know people.
I know there are real peoplethere, I know other people that
have their interests.
It goes with the whole likewe'll move on to the topic in a
moment but it goes with thewhole situation of working with
somebody back when we used toconsult and travel before video
camera or even video camera.
Now, having met somebody, if youonly worked with them remotely

(20:12):
before, without video camera,ever meeting them only
electronically or on thetelephone after you met them,
the relationship was so muchdifferent Because now you have
that personal connection, thatpersonal interaction and I like
the cameras because you get thatpersonal interaction, as Chris
had mentioned, that you can seesomeone's face if they're busy,
if they're in thought or theyare not doing well, if they

(20:36):
understand in a conversation.
So I do think in the remoteworkforce more should be done
for companies and I think thatit would be beneficial to have a
way for the employees to meetwith each other in a sense, but
it's not a forced way.

(20:56):
It has to be in a setting wherethey're naturally going to feel
like they want to talk, becauseeverybody has different
personalities.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
I believe in like the clubhouse for an office, right
Without making it overly casual.
It should feel nice to getthere and to hang out and stay a
little longer and spend time.
And then it's less about likebeing in the office or remote,
and if people like to go there,they'll be there more often.

(21:25):
And sure there's a component ofcost, especially if you factor
in like domestic or eveninternational travel.
And working remote is notalways cheaper, of course,
because people need like anotherset of hardware and the
logistics around that too,security of that.
People just kind of likehacking on their own systems and

(21:47):
having stuff flying around.
But yeah, if you can get to aformat where people enjoy coming
in and hanging with theircolleagues, I mean that's the
secret formula, I think.
And again, it's a little biteasier in urban areas where
there's public transport orwalking or um, but um at the

(22:12):
same time.
Uh, if I see here in new yorkcity there's a lot of people
that are forced to come to theoffice every day and they walk
in to close the door and they'rebasically remote, they, they
just work from a centrallocation.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
So, yeah, as always, the truth is somewhere in the
middle, probably.
So, with that, let's telleverybody a little bit about
yourself, and then we'll getinto the topic that we intended
to talk about.
Yeah, not that we ever intendto talk about anything.
I was going to say like we'regoing to talk about anything.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
We just I was gonna say like we're gonna like free
roll anyway, um, but um, yeah,um, I'm chris.
Um, I am originally from thenetherlands but been in the
states now for almost 12 years,based out of new york city.
I got here for a dutch isvinitially that I worked for
already out of the n to developthe market here.
So it was kind of like thefirst hire and built the team,

(23:07):
built the market, done that forfive years, felt like ready for
a new mission, buildingsomething new.
Through some consulting I did.
I got in touch with Continiaand basically the same thing.
I built it out in a five-yeartime span to a local team with

(23:29):
local partners and doingbusiness here and again kind of
reached like a limit of likeokay, I think I've brought it to
where I can bring it right.
I mean, the company can growmuch further.
But I was not getting theenergy out anymore that I was
putting in and I was already onthe board of Commerce Build and

(23:51):
they were looking to hire a nextgeneration of management, given
where the current management isin their life plan sort of life
plan sort of.
And we started talking kind ofcasually about it and and it is

(24:12):
an industry that I was familiarwith because of my previous
employments and, of course, inan ecosystem, a channel that I
love and where I have a lot offriends.
It became very interesting tomake the jump and for the first
time, I'm not working forEuropeans anymore, but I'm
working for North Americans.

(24:34):
They're still Canadians, sosemi-European.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
You had to go there.
You couldn't just leave thatout.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, I'm just leaving it as like culturally
right.
I'm not.
I'm not making it, tying it toany political events oh no, I am
, that's okay, not okay, yeah,yeah and um, um, yeah, no, and
and so since august, basically,and um, super interesting, um,

(25:05):
uh like.
Less about like starting fromscratch, because there is an
existing market, there isexisting customers in north
america.
The effective far majority ishere.
Um and um yeah, all newchallenges and opportunities and
uh, um, yeah you've been doingsome great things.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I've seen your journey through there and you
know I'll ask you some questionswhen we talk about some events
that are coming up soon.
But what is Commerce Build?
Tell us a little bit aboutCommerce Build, what it is, what
they do, what types of problemsthey solve and I can just not
have to talk for a few minutes,to just throw all that on you.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, well, it, it, I , I not have to talk for a few
minutes to just throw all thaton you.
yeah, yeah well it, it um, uh, II there's a um, a group of
people that pitches like it'sthe uber off or it's the right
um, trying to like, makesimilarities to like a widely
successful platform, um, so, uh,so think of a Shopify for ERP,

(26:04):
despite the fact that Shopifyclaims that they can integrate
with ERP.
So it is a web platform eitherjust a simple customer portal
where somebody can look uphistorical orders, pay an open
invoice, to like a really big,enterprise grade web store where
companies can sell products,spare parts, what have you?

(26:28):
But all relying on the ERP.
So how I'd like to phrase it islike we are an ERP-first
e-commerce platform.
So from the very first line ofcode we've been built to
integrate within the ERP.
We know what data is in the ERP, what is crucial to do business
online inventory,customer-specific pricing in

(26:50):
general, any customer-specificlogic.
Because we're ERP first build,we can easily replicate that
online where, if you aree-commerce first build, your
database structure is kind ofset right, like you expect X
amount of products, x amount ofcustomers, but they all have

(27:12):
more or less the same price andthey all get delivered from the
same warehouse and kind of likethe cool things you can do in an
ERP are not automaticallyassumed in an e-commerce first
platform are not automaticallyassumed in an e-commerce first
platform, so you end up havingto really modify the database

(27:32):
structure from an e-commerceplatform.
There's connectors out there,but who's going to manage it?
Right?
In the old days, I think evenwe had hoped that the ERP
partner could own e-commerce aswell.
But I think, talking to a lotof ERP partners over the years,

(27:54):
it is a different beast andthey'd rather not be the primary
responsible for a website wheremillions of revenue goes
through it's a differenttechnology stack.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, it's important.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
It's adjacent, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
It's that way.
Everyone thinks like oh, I workin IT.
Yeah, I hear that I telleveryone.
If I ever hear them say I workin IT, I just stop talking to
them because that just tells mesomething Because it's so broad.
So even having ERP and being anERP expert doesn't mean you can
be an e-commerce expert,exactly exactly.
And requiring someone to pick upa new skill is also a barrier

(28:34):
for you, because now, like youhad mentioned, it's do I really
need to pick up e-commerce or doI want to pick up e-commerce?
I'm already?

Speaker 3 (28:41):
struggling and you deal with like google stuff
right, like how am I ranking?
And and if people search for myproduct, where does it show up?
And and it's so far away fromthe day-to-day, complex enough
erp business.
Um, so we want to kind of fillthat void in the small to mid
market, like both our pricingand just our platform as is has

(29:08):
been designed for the small tomid market.
There are some giganticenterprise solutions out there
that serve their purpose.
So, like I often get asked alsolike how do you compare to that
player?
How do you compare to thatplayer?
And I think the market is sohuge and each client has their

(29:29):
own unique needs that there isenough space for all these
different players, as long asthey transparently and honestly
communicate what they can andcannot do.
Um, I think everybody would behelped by by that um there's
just a lot of noise in themarket.

(29:51):
Uh, because of everybody,everybody wants shopify, right,
but that works great for for alot scenarios, but it also does
not work at all for otherscenarios.
You almost need independentadvisors to kind of steer you
away from some of that stuff,because obviously when I say it

(30:11):
I'm biased because I have skinin the game.
But there is a lot of noisearound e-commerce, generic
players, very small kind of likeconnectors, where, again, how
I'd like to position us almostas an insurance to both the VAR

(30:34):
and the customer, like, oh, youhear e-commerce, just just call
us, email us.
Like we, we know erp and weknow e-commerce, and and and we
can, we can fill the needs thereum is there a?

Speaker 1 (30:49):
specific erp that you guys are focused on is it?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
yeah, so we originate from the Sage space.
Three different variants there,but since a year, like, we
really productized our BCconnector as well.
So we have a good amount of BCcustomers.
Now all BC cloud.
But we've been eyeing like theon-prem stuff as well, although

(31:14):
that gets less and lessattention, obviously by also the
way Microsoft likes to seethings go.
So in our world it's all BCCloud.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
That's what I was going to ask.
So you hit some key pointsthere.
There's many products on themarket, if anything, and it
comes down to choosing the righttool to satisfy your needs, and
that's, I think, what manyforget.
They may hear the Shopify's,which you summed it up well.
Shopify does great for certainscenarios, and there's other

(31:49):
certain scenarios where Shopifyneeds to even itself have
customizations or use some ofthe other extensions.
I've gone through someimplementations where Shopify
didn't do what somebody needed,but they wanted to use Shopify,
so they had to spend additionalcosts to get it to work with the
way that they wanted to dobusiness.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
And which can be worth it, right.
But you need to all know it upfront, and that's tough.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Well, it's just to know exactly, like you had
mentioned, which tool is thebest for your scenario.
It doesn't mean that one isbetter than the other.
It may be better for aparticular implementation
because of the scenario, andthat's what I think gets lost
with a lot of products you hadmentioned.
Commerce build works.
Primarily, that's what I wasgoing to have.
One of the questions that Ilike to have is which versions

(32:36):
of Business Central does it workwith?
So right now, you're focused onBusiness Central Cloud as a
product.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And to use Commerce Build, whatdoes the customer need?
Is Commerce Build?
Does the web store sit withinthe customer's environment?

(32:56):
Is it something that you manageand host?
Or, if somebody goes to startusing Commerce Build, what do
they need on their end?

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Well, again, it depends a little bit on their
needs.
It's all hosted, we provide itas a service and it has all the
security.
We have all kinds of tools thatcan also avoid DDoS attacks and
what you can expect from.
We've been around since almost20 years, so we've been in this

(33:32):
business for a while, butbasically we offer two flavors
of our product.
We have our, our own interfacewhere people put stuff in their
shopping cart, very easy tomanage, to use, but maybe not
all the bells and whistles thatyou, that you see in the major

(33:54):
platforms out there.
And we've seen a development inthe market where clients do ask
sometimes for the more coolthings, the shiny things.
Some are very transactional andwant a simple environment, no
distractions, directlyintegrated, and others are
looking at Magento, shopify,bigcommerce, like all the

(34:16):
generic big players out there,and are like, oh, in this
platform I can do so and so CanI do that in yours, and we don't
have the development dollarsthat these parties have, right?
So we've been trying to find asolution for that.
So we've been starting to offera WooCommerce front end in

(34:37):
parallel to what we do with ourown platform.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Similar to WooCommerce.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
It is WooCommerce, oh it is.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
WooCommerce, yeah, yeah.
So we integrate that to PC.
We have the technology to stillbe as integrated as possible
without like really losing someof that real-timeness that a lot
of the B2B clients require.
Multiple warehouses, like allthe things that ERP-first

(35:10):
companies need, are often notpossible in the WooCommerce's of
this world because they're notdesigned for that right.
So we found a happy mediumwhere we think that our
integration offsets some ofthose downsides and for clients
that want to go that path, wehave a solution and we have

(35:30):
clients that run in parallel.
They have their B2B on theirown application and they have
their B2C on Woo.
And I think I saw a statsomewhere like over 40% of the
websites in the world runs onWordPress and WooCommerce is the
e-commerce engine fromWordPress.
So we, I would say, at leastonce a month, get somebody like.

(35:52):
I would say, at least once amonth, get somebody like oh, I
have Woo already, but I'mstruggling with getting pricing
and inventory to Woo and ordersback into my ERP Right, and

(36:14):
again, there are connectors outthere, but who's going to pick
up the phone?
Who's going to like, apart frommaking it work once like,
what's the ongoing service model?
What, if you want to dosomething different.
You want some additionalchanges.
Microsoft Business Central isnot going to answer the phone.
Woocommerce or Shopify orMagento is not going to answer

(36:36):
the phone.
Your ERP partner, as weconcluded earlier, is probably
want to stay out of that, sothat's how we really want to
position ourselves.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
You had mentioned both B2B and B2C.
Is this targeting someone whohas both B2B?
Excuse me, is it targetingsomeone who is a B2B, a B2C, or
do you support both?

Speaker 3 (37:00):
We support both and again, it depends a little bit
on the needs.
If somebody is super easy B2C,they don't need that hardcore
ERP integration.
Right, Then a connector istypically just fine Because,
again, the complexity of the ERPis not making the front-end

(37:21):
changes necessary.
If you're b2b, having more thanone warehouse is super
challenging for some of thesemore generic platforms.
What inventory numbers shouldthey look at in the ERP?
They don't't know because theirintegration only connects to
one field.
Right, and as basic as thatbecomes really complex to build

(37:46):
and maintain in a system that'snot designed for that.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
So then that's when you bring in WooCommerce to do
that, to handle all the crazycomplex because I've been in an
e-commerce project and sometimesthe things they ask is like
it's wild.
So that's the solution thatyou're providing to your clients
.
They say, hey, we can't handlethat.

(38:10):
We maintain the connector sothat you don't have to worry
about the data coming out of ERPor, in this case, business
Central Online, so that you canhave this complex requirements
on WooCommerce.
Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
It's those clients that have the need for heavy
marketing, b2c-like experiences.
Woo is a perfect option and wehave a technical solution to
integrate that with the ERP sothat the downside of these

(38:47):
traditional B2C platforms don'tcome into the ERP with all kinds
of like missing of data.
And if that's what they need andthis is back to your original
question, brad if that's whatthey need, it does put a little
bit more onus on the customer.

(39:08):
To have a team that runs theweb store on a day-to-day basis
right, but then it's part oftheir business model.
Then they probably make enoughrevenue that they have at least
one, but typically a few peoplein-house working with it.
Or and it's the beauty of aplatform like WooCommerce
there's tons of e-commercespecialists out there that know

(39:32):
Woo but then don't know how tointegrate that with the ERP.
Right, so a customer could getWooCommerce integrated with
Business Central from us and thecrucial support that they need
to keep that alive and runningand developing over time.
But they can also hire somebodyaround the corner that does

(39:53):
everything else WooCommerce forthem, so it gives them a certain
freedom there as well.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
So with the.
It's a great product, it sounds, because you have a lot of
flexibility for yourimplementation, where you can do
B2B, b2c or, if you have anexisting B2C, that's something
that's in place.
You can also augment it withadditional staff of your own as
part of the implementationprocess.

(40:22):
Is it something that you, asCommerce Build, sets up and
works with them for, or would itbe the partner?

Speaker 3 (40:31):
No, we own it and the partner can be as involved as
they or the customer wants.
But we do the kickoff, we runthe entire project until you're
live and then you roll over toour account management team and
then any ongoing needs you have,apart from support, of course.
I mean if there's a situationwhere I don't know you're down

(40:53):
because of some kind of DDoSattack or whatever, then we jump
on that through the supportteam.
But as you use it, you wantchanges, right, like a house you
buy, like as you live there,you start to see things that you
would like to modify and thenyou just bring us in and we do
it for you.
Or if it's really just strictlyrelated to the woo element of

(41:18):
it, you can go anywhere withthat because we already have the
house built so you can go toany other contractor to make the
changes.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
What do you think would be the typical
implementation?
It's a blanket question becauseit's how big, how long is a
piece of string is what I liketo say.
What would somebody expect tobe an average implementation
time from the time that theychoose to go through and set
this up Again?
Complexity, I understand, andanyone listening, complexity and
scenarios are going to dictateif it's something can be shorter

(41:52):
or longer.
But for the ease ofimplementation, is it something
that they, if they have likebasic products, basic pricing?

Speaker 3 (42:01):
I get the question a lot and I understand, of course,
why I would ask the samequestion.
I think there's a couple keythings that determine the
timeline.
One is is it a net new ERPcustomer right?
Are they on Business CentralOnline?
Do they have their pricing,their products and everything

(42:22):
set up there?
It is much easier because we'renot building the train as it's
leaving the station.
If it's net new, it alwaystakes a little bit of time
before the ERP is ready with thedata that we need to populate
the website.
So that's an important one thatcan cause delays.

(42:46):
And then the other one is howmuch experience does the
customer have and how much dothey want to do themselves to
build the website out?
Of course you have itemdescriptions and things like
that, but sometimes in the ERPthose are still very internal,
written right, just like blackbox, 20 pieces, 10 pounds.

(43:10):
Yeah, that's not a descriptionyou can put on the website.
Somebody needs to write that upand there's all these cool AI
tools.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, I was just going to say we had to throw it
in there.
Yeah, that's the whole reasonfor the marketing copilot, the
marketing description featurewithin business central.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Exactly and by saying this, this podcast will rank
higher now, of course, becausewe did some product placement.
Of course, because we did someproduct placement, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
I think now we're starting to see where there's a
trend to not talk about AI.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Yeah, somebody told me that they counted the amount
of times AI or co-pilot wasmentioned in a keynote at Summit
.
I think it was over 100 times.
It's kind of funny.
I try to do my sessions.
I try to do my sessions.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
I even said it at a session I did recently.
I went almost the whole entiresession without mentioning ai,
because I mentioned it, becauseI wanted to make a point that I
didn't mention it, because wehear it all the time and it's
nice to go an hour withouthearing it.
Yeah, yeah, but I ruined itanyway, uh, sidetrack.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
But if they have a lot of experience and and assets
, they understand, becausethere's always homework involved
in getting a website live, likethere is homework involved in
getting an ERP live.
Yes, we've done it hundreds oftimes.
You guys bought on the ERP side, I did on the e-commerce side,

(44:36):
but yet it's their business.
They need to tell us how theywant to run their business,
either in the ERP or in the webstore.
So we're going to need theirinput and the better they are at
articulating it, the betterthey are at having the assets
ready, the quicker the projectgoes.
There's also clients thatrefuse to go live before they're

(45:03):
100% satisfied and there'sclients that say let's just do
this strictly necessary, let'sgo live, let's get some
learnings in, let's get thefeedback from our customers.
Same, absolutely, because it'sfocused on the result, it's
focused on progress.
And what do they say?
Never let perfection be in theway of good, or something like

(45:30):
that.
Right, I read a study whereprocrastinators and
perfectionists are very oftenthe same type of people.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Exactly Because they wait and wait and wait.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Because it's not perfect.
They don't even start becausethey don't have a path to
success and like to throw inanother one-liner that I
actually often use internally.
It's like how do you eat anelephant One bite at the time?
It's just, you got to startsomewhere.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
It's so true.
It's so true, it's so true.
Well, we talked about itrecently on an episode that
hasn't been released yet.
It should be released soon.
It's progress over perfectionis what we spoke about.
And it's so true because if youwant something to be 100%
perfect, I don't think it's everachievable, because every time

(46:18):
you look at it you'll seesomething different that you
want to change, and sometimesthose changes you make aren't
going to make an impact, whereaswhat you had mentioned get it
to a point where it's secure,you can process the orders in a
manner maybe not a hundredpercent the way you're thinking,
but at least you can get outand get the customer feedback to
see how they're using it, tosee how it's used, to see how it
flows.
Then you can build upon thatinstead of waiting and waiting,

(46:41):
and waiting, and waiting andwaiting, and those end up, from
my experience, costing a lotmore.
It costs a lot more becauseyou're always trying to make
changes, you have scope creep,you have a lot of things that
are moving and sometimes you'reundoing some things you've done,
but also it takes you longer toget to market.
So if your business does, inthis case, rely on the

(47:01):
e-commerce sales.
You run the risk of not maybegetting as many sales because
you're waiting.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, exactly, and I think you look for like a
partnership with the people,right?
Like both on the client side,on the ERP side, and and for us
as an ISV, without making itsuper soft.
But I think if you dare alignand have super transparent
communication, you can overcomehurdles and you can call each
other out on nonsense.
I mean I sometimes have to bodycheck myself a little bit.

(47:36):
If we talk to a customer, itsays, well, I want it in
so-and-so way, and then I'm likeasking them could you explain a
little further?
Like what's the benefit for youthere?
And then I get a vague answeror like and it probably comes
down to because that's theircomfort zone, that's what
they've always done.
And they probably done it thatway because the previous time

(47:59):
they implemented the system itcouldn't do half of what the
systems can do today.
This is the time to reinventyour processes, not to make your
software do the same thing itdid 10 years ago.
Thank you, and it's so muchcheaper to change a process than
your software.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
I'm holding back on that, I'm being more reserved,
but that's one of the things Isee all of the time.
If you're going to move to anew platform or move to a new
system, it could be upgrading,migrating, however you want to
phrase it moving a pile of, Ihave to be nice.
So, chris, we don't have tomarket moving a pile of poop
from one system to the othersystem.

(48:38):
Still a pile of poop, and youyou mentioned the most.
A lot of times, I findrequirements are based on a
limitation that don't exist,because they existed 20 years
ago, the old.
Well, we've always done it thatway, or we.
This becomes the requirementbecause our process has always
been this way, because we had todone it that way.
Or this becomes the requirementbecause our process has always
been this way, because we had todo it that way, versus oh, now

(49:00):
we can do this in the newersystem because that feature may
already be in there, we may haveslight changes and we can gain
some efficiencies.
It drives me crazy every timewhen people think that, okay,
I'm just going to move to a newsystem, I click a button and
it's done, and they want to dothings the same exact way and I
always have to ask them then whyare you upgrading?

Speaker 3 (49:19):
why are you?

Speaker 1 (49:20):
migrating why are you moving like if you want the
same thing?

Speaker 2 (49:24):
why are you moving?
Just ask yourself that, why areyou really moving?
Yeah, yeah, and then workaround that.
I'm sorry I keep interruptingno, no, it's's good.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
I mean, it's a dialogue, right?
Or what do you call dialoguebetween three people?
Is that still a dialogue?

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Trilogue.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Trilogue.
Yeah, this reminds me of a casethat I had.
I'll try to frame it to revealnot too much about the

(50:07):
organization or the people thatwere involved.
But we had an old license modelthat was like your on-prem
situation kind of, where you payannual enhancement, and we
changed that to a moreusage-based pricing.
But we understood customersdon't always like change of
pricing, so we need to be supertransparent about this and we

(50:31):
need to give them an option forat least a few years to stay on
the old pricing.
So we had like a way tocalculate, to display like this
is what you're paying now inannual enhancement.
This, which your current usage,is what you would pay in the
new model.
You choose right, choose rightand, interestingly enough, for

(50:57):
the far majority the new modelwas cheaper because it would be
a more fair system, because ifthey didn't use it that much
they wouldn't pay that much,right.
So I call a client and I saylisten, exactly that.
This is where you are now.
This is where you would be inthe new model.
You choose, like I'm.
I I'm really independent inthis.
You, you choose, but obviouslyyou would pick the lower one,

(51:21):
even with a doubling of usage.
In his case he would still beoff cheaper on a month-to-month
basis than than with the oldmodel.
And he got mad at me because hehe thought I trying to finagle
him into a scam or something.
I'm like dude, I really don'tcare.
You tell me.

(51:42):
And if you want to tell me nextweek, that's fine as well.
This is the data I have for you.
You tell me, you choose, youlet me know, I'll tell finance
and that's how the billing willwork for the next few years, and
if you don't like it, you canalso just pull the kill switch.
In fact, with the month tomonth, you can do it anytime by
stop using it, um, where now,with your annual enhancement,

(52:05):
you can only do that once a year.
So so you buy yourself morefreedom.
But he was so suspicious of meoffering him something at a
lower price that there had to besomething to it.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
You're asking for logic.
It's hard to grasp.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
And he was furious and to the point that I was like
, okay, he started kind ofswearing and like this is how
all those software guys work.
And like I was some cheap carsales guy or something.
So I was like it's okay, allthose software guys work.
And like like I was some likecheap car sales guy or something
.
So I was like it's okay, likeuh, let's hang up.
And I I called the bar that wason the call.
I was like I don't know, likeyou ask him what he wants,

(52:46):
because I don't even want totalk to this guy anymore.
He was so uh, rude, um, and I'mnot a very sensitive person,
but it just hit me in my corealso because I like to think I'm
very ethical in the way I dobusiness.
But yeah, it's like what is themost logical thing is not

(53:09):
always perceived as such andyeah, it's interesting Old
habits die hard.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
It made me realize about talking about some logic
that goes through whenimplementing e-commerce.
Chris, like, how do you handlechallenges when it comes to when
you especially that new, whenyou know where e-commerce is
brand new to the organization,never done it before, you know
clearly you can help them withthe marketing materials?

(53:36):
Like, how do you handle withthe rest of the product
materials?
I think what we call them inthe past PIM solutions, where
you may have some images andthen they may not have some, so
they take like random photos ormaybe start with one photo,
things like that.
Like, how do you handle thatwith Commerce Build?

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Yeah.
So the nice thing is that wecan be a bit agnostic there.
Um, in the end it's just abunch of files or a bunch of
text fields and we can run animport right.
Um, if there's a professionalpimp setup, we can integrate
with that.
I mean, most pimp systems arebuilt for that purpose right,
where they can also have outsideaccess to assets in there.

(54:23):
We run into like less and lessof the net new ones.
I mean, my e-commerceexperience goes back 15 years or
so and those days it was a lotof net new.
It was people like oh yeah, Iheard about this thing, the
internet where I can sell myproducts, and I guess again

(54:43):
because of like developments inthe B2C world, like we all buy
on Amazon.
So we understand the benefitsof an online platform where you
can buy stuff, the benefits ofan online platform where you can
buy stuff.
What I at this point considernet new in our world is people
coming off of the B2B side ofAmazon right, where they just

(55:07):
upload a bunch of basic stuffand they sell through Amazon and
then they slowly but surelyfigure out their business is
growing but they lose a hell ofa lot of money on every
transaction because somebodyelse is getting the money first
before it comes to their bankaccount.
Um, so I think those are kindof like today's net new
e-commerce clients, um, that usean outside platform to to sell

(55:28):
and want to own that a littlebit more.
Um, yeah, but yeah, then weintegrate with.
Like, the question is theone-time import or is it an
ongoing kind of um, uh, sync?
You need to, uh, need to handleum, but there's, there's plenty
of solutions out there to dothat.
Um, ideally it's again singlesource of truth, right, um, so,

(55:52):
um, we, we assume that the ERPis a single source of truth, but
sometimes there is a one pointfive source of truth and with a
with a, with a with a PIM thathandles some of those product
assets because the ERP can't doit Right, like it's not that
long ago that we had toconcatenate descriptions to just

(56:16):
say anything meaningful about aproduct, because the ERP
couldn't handle it.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Yeah, like brochures, right, like if they want to add
a brochure.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
Oh yeah, Especially assets and stuff like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
So with this solution , another big portion of
e-commerce and erp is financee-commerce.
Customers can pay many ways.
I've seen you can use creditcard, you can use on account
payments.
If you have terms in such a b2b, how does commerce build work

(56:51):
with credit card payments or thepayment options?

Speaker 3 (56:55):
Yeah, so, um, and this is going back to like
what's the business model of, ofthe e-commerce platform?
Um, and our business model isjust month to month, uh, based
on the type of package you buyfrom us, that's your price.
But there's e-commerceplatforms that have a GMV model
where they take a cut of yourrevenue or a cut of your credit

(57:20):
card transactions or they forceyou to use a certain credit card
provider because they have abetter deal with them.
So it's a tough question toanswer because everybody kind of
handles it differently.
But we want to be agnostic onthe payment side, again, because
there are some historicrelationships in place that

(57:42):
cannot be changed.
For a lot of people.
They have their own paymentgateway or they have their own
way of tracking that in the ERP.
Right Again, this is one ofthose things often overlooked
when people pick an e-commerceplatform.
How does the ERP right Again,this is one of those things
often overlooked when peoplepick an e-commerce platform how
does the ERP ultimately knowthat when they hit ship, the

(58:03):
payment needs to be captured ona credit card, because you do an
authorization when it getsbought, but there needs to be a
trigger when it gets shippedthat they actually collect the
money.
How to do refunds, partialrefunds, right.
You want an as integratedsolution as you can, especially
with high volume, like if thishappens once a month, it's fine

(58:25):
to do it manually, but if ithappens a hundred times a day,
you want to automate it.
Because you can do it manually,and so we're agnostic.
We integrate with the commonplayers in our channel and even
in some cases, with the moregeneric players out there for
payment.
We want to stay out of it alittle bit too when it comes to

(58:49):
like hardcore PCI compliancy.
That's a whole differentballgame.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
So for payment processing, if a customer that
wants to switch to use commercebuild or start using commerce
build, they can keep theirexisting payment processor if
they choose, so they can find adish one.
Do you help them find a new oneor is that something that you
have partners that you work withto help them determine the best

(59:14):
?

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah, we defer to the VAR if they have a go-to party,
especially for the in-channel,in-ecosystem kind of players.
Yeah, we obviously on the backend know which ones work better
in some cases than others, butagain, we try to stay agnostic.

(59:35):
I mean, if somebody asks aquestion, we'll give them an
honest answer, but in the endit's the VAR that, I think, has
to have a say in that as well,because there's a lot more to
payment than just collect thecredit card information.
When somebody places an order,do you want to keep it on file?

(59:55):
Is it compliant?
Again, what do you do withrefunds?
That touches more on the ERPthan the e-commerce,
interestingly enough.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Yeah, like Apple Pay, Google Pay, you know like they
sometimes they want thosefunctionalities available and
sometimes, like you know, isthere a reason if you're doing
B2B versus B2C, Like, why wouldyou want that?
Are your other businessespaying in Apple pay?

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Well, yeah, like again, you try to.
So everybody is kind ofspeculating how someone else is
going to use the platform, right?
So, yes, from my point, I'mspeculating how our clients are
going to use the platform, butthey do the same thing.
They have hundreds of B2Bcustomers and, depending on the
nature of the business and we'veseen this completely different

(01:00:50):
amongst our customers and theircustomers some only get orders
at the end of the day becausethey sell to mom and pops.
They're busy during the daywith their own stuff, so the day
is closed, they close the doorand they place the order for the
new stuff for next week orsomething like that.
And we have clients who haveclients that sell or purchase

(01:01:15):
like the whole day long becausethey have full time people
managing that, right?
So it is difficult to like lookso many layers deep and
understand how people use it.
I mean, if I think about itmyself, there are things that I
buy on my computer behind thebig screen because I just like I

(01:01:37):
feel like I need to see it onthe big screen.
I have that with flights, forexample.
I like as easy as it is to buyit in the app of the airline, I
do it on the big screen, butthat's my personal preference.
And then other stuff I just doon my phone with, like, just my
thumb right.
I don't use anything else.
I double click Apple Pay, boom,everything is pre-populated and

(01:02:00):
it's in front of my door thenext day.
So it is the type oftransaction, the type of
consumer, how often it happens,and in the end I think you need
to tailor to every buyer youwant to reach um and um where
you have success is where you'regoing to put more of your money

(01:02:22):
and and double down on yeah, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
The options are important with that, and I'm
thinking of all these e-commercethings.
And you mentioned the flights.
I'm the same way with flights.
To be honest with you, I haveno idea why.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
Yeah, I can't explain it either.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
It's rare, I mean I will do it from time to time if
I'm in a pinch.
Sometimes I need to do it frommy phone, but a lot of times I
prefer to go back to my computerAgain.
Another digression.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
That's interesting.
So it's a matter of real estate, because I I don't mind, you
know, booking a flight throughmy phone.
To me it's convenient, um, butthere's some things that I shop
for, like I need to see on abrowser so that I can maybe read
more about it or see morecontent regarding this, this
product.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
So, yeah, I think I think for the flights it does
come to real estate for me.
Like I want to.
I want to see things side byside.
I want to do a quick likevalidation of, like price or
something like that, and justthe the multi-browser thing on
my phone.
Um, I consider myself prettytech savvy.
I mean, I'm the ones gettingall the phone calls in the
family when something breaksdown, um uh, but but still, like

(01:03:36):
, handling multiple tabs on thephone is just not as convenient
as it is on the computer no.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
And then some websites.
If you switch tabs, you go back.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
It's the page has to refresh and the little pop-up
box comes up.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
We have to enter.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Oh, I can't or the worst is the windows in window
right on your phone.
Like you, you see some stupidad on instagram or something.
You click on it and then itopens the the in instagram
browser and and then thenavigation is completely
different the checkout processand you you do something wrong
or it loads wrong and and, likethe whole thing, you're gone and

(01:04:11):
you're like screw that, I'm outright and it's.
It's meant to be convenient sothat mark zuckerberg collects
your dollars and not the webstore.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Um but I do say that sometimes I think things are
purposefully inconvenientbecause they either are meant to
frustrate you and you just say,ah, forget it, I'm just going
to do it like buying a car froma car salesman, your car
salesman reference.
But uh, yeah, you know,sometimes it may not always be

(01:04:42):
so purposeful, but maybe it'sjust that I'm old too now at
this point, uh, yeah, we'reguilty as charged on on like the
things that we blame ourclients for.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
Right like, uh, we don't want to change just uh I
just wanted the same as 10 yearsago.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
I just wanted the same as 10 years ago.
Well, sometimes it was easier.
You don't have to do as much.
Technology simplified a lot ofthings, many things, most things
, but in some cases it did notadd another level of complexity
in other areas, in my opinion.
So we've had a lot of benefits,but in other areas it's like,
wasn't it just?
I used to remember that withvideo games Like, Pac-Man was

(01:05:15):
the greatest because you had thelittle stick and the button
that was it and then as you grewup, and now you have these
controllers with like oh, morethan the amount of fingers.
You, you have.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
Yeah, exactly, you have like I stopped playing at
fifa 99.
So I, I loved fifa, the soccergame being european, um.
And then I think it was aroundthe fifa 99 that they changed it
and like it became so insane.
Well, it was less on the pc andmore on the on the consoles, um

(01:05:47):
, but it was like, okay, I'm, Ican't do this anymore, I'm not a
full-time player, I'm notinvesting in the learning curve
here, um, and and I I need morethan two hands like I'm out it's
crazy because you have allthose buttons and this and you
gotta like do these combinations?

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
push the stick in, go up on this pad, press the thumb
button, like you have like atrigger, a bumper and this.
I look at an xbox control andit's.
It's like I just want to sitdown and blow off some steam
like and just play a quick game.
I can pick up like Pac-Man andjust done with the joystick.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
I freaking love Duck Hunt man.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
That was the game for me, oh that was the best with
the little gun that was the bestSee back.
Then it was much simpler.
But even the technology behindit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
Right, like it.
Just, I'm mesmerized by some ofthat, like, mesmerized by some
of that like it.
Have you?
Have you ever read into how itworks?
No, so, when you, uh, when youpull the trigger, like the human

(01:06:49):
eye cannot see it, but itchanges the, the screen
completely.
The contrast, um, uh, so um uh,like it's in in a flash, uh,
the human eye cannot see it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
uh, but the laser oh, that's from the tube TV.
Not by pixel, right, it's bythe reflection or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah this is like CRT, kind of like don't
hold a magnet too close to yourTV, otherwise it will explode,
kind of this was the first thingI know when I was a boy, so I
don't even think you were alivethen.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Duck.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Hunt.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
No, I've been playing duck hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
That was a fun game yeah, yeah, I played it at my
cousin.
He probably, like, was like acouple generations further with
his, with his uh consoles, but I, I just loved the old stuff wow
, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
I didn't.
I have to read how that worked.
That's interesting yeah.
Are you heading to DirectionsNorth America in April?
Jesus?

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
Next month.
Basically Low sugar, chris, lowsugar, low sugar.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Do you have a booth there or are you just…?

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Yes, we do.
Actually, it's my first timewearing two hats as a board
member of Directions and asponsor.
I've always gone as a sponsor.
I've not missed a conferencesince 2011.
And I joined the board lastyear.
So it will be interesting tosee how how it is to be there in

(01:08:09):
two roles, but I prep my teamthat I might not always be in
the booth.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Well, I know understandably if you're on the
board.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
Yeah, no, it's.
Um, it will be nice.
No, it's, and it's promising,uh, to be a really cool
conference.
Um, the venue is is reallyamazing.
Um, I'm not the biggestVegasgas fan, but but, um, it's,
it's a pretty cool setup itmakes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
It makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
I mean yeah like what I love about directions north
america, and I've been to othersbut, like of conferences in
general, I like that kind ofresort vibe, right, where you,
um, at the end of the day, stillget, get to hang with your
friends in the channel and yourcompetitors and like your

(01:09:00):
enemies and like everything inthe middle.
But that's what I like, right,you just stroll back to your
room or you go to the bar, yougo to the restaurant and
especially in recent years, itwas pretty much a buyout of the
venue.
Everybody there is is is therefor business central, um, as of

(01:09:24):
our, as an isv, it's partnersonly.
So it's a little more casual.
Nobody's hunting for like thatone deal that's going to make or
break their year and, yeah, thesize we're getting to is making
less and less venues available.
Unfortunately, even in theStates where everything's bigger

(01:09:47):
, to find a place where you canbook up to 1,500 rooms for like
a week exclusively, it's tough.
Like you got the mega resortsand then there's like 20 other
conferences going on, or youhave the little ones where you

(01:10:07):
have to make sacrifices in theexperience with like different
places where breakfast is versuswhere the expo is, and Vegas is
one of those places where wedon't have to make too many
sacrifices as an organization,on behalf of the sponsors and
the visitors of the conference.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
It is a challenge with the number of people, at
least in Vegas.
I'm not a Vegas person myself.
I've been there plenty of times.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Vegas, to me, is one of those.
You show up on Friday afternoon, you leave Sunday morning and
you've had your fill, that'swith just las vegas.
I'm not talking of some of theother surrounding attractions.
There's many things to dohoover dam, grand canyon, a lot
of other things you can dooutside of vegas but at least
with vegas you hit the point.
With some of these conferences,I think the proximity of where
people are staying to the venueis important if you can't stay

(01:10:54):
in the hotel.
To have like a two-second walkis advantageous.
We we did summit in san antonio.
At least they were fortunatethat they had the convention
center and then they had a a fewhotels, so if not everybody
could stay in the same hotel,but at least a few were across
the street from each other, alittle bit up the road, so it
made it nice.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
So fortunately vegas doesn't have a shortage of
hotels yeah, no, exactly, andand um, uh, I mean I remember
the last directions in vegas,which is great too.
It was off strip right and itand it again kind of red rock.
They gave that intimacy.
Yeah, the red rock, yeah, theintimacy of, was it like?

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
that intimacy at red rock.
Yeah, the intimacy of was itlike 50 bowling lanes or
something in there?
That's right, that's right.
There was like a 4d theater atred rock, but then you were so
off the strip so a lot of peopleleft to to go to the strip, you
know and it was kind of a drive.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Yeah, I mean, that's the dilemma, right.
Like you want people to feellike they're not just there for
the conference but at the sametime, you want to keep them at
the conference, because that'sthe dilemma, right.
Like you want people to feellike they're not just there for
the conference but at the sametime, you want to keep them at
the conference because that'slike it's the people that make
the magic happen.
So it's finding that balance.
It's the same always with, likewhat do we do for the partner
celebration?

(01:12:10):
Like there's people that lovethe amusement parks orlando and
there's other people are likereally, do I have to sit in the
bus for that for an hour or uhso you're going to tell us about
the partner celebration?
oh yeah, I know I can't.
I think, um, I would have tolook at the website if it's
already published there.
That's that's my single sourceI'm trying to get something out

(01:12:30):
of you, uh, but, uh, but it willbe good.
No, it will be a lot of fun,we'll be logistically easy and
something for everybody.
I think there.
I mean, if you look at like thepopulation that we aim to serve
, like the, the needs and thewishes are like extreme right.

(01:12:53):
There's people that want to beable to sit down and have a
five-course meal and there'speople that just want to dance
and and have a drink in hand andand don't care about anything
else.
Um, uh, and then all the shadesof gray in the middle there and
then there's me, who wants tobe in bed by nine yeah, which is
six.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
That'll be 6 pm for you yeah, no, no, well, yes yes,
6 pm 1800 will be my bedtime,so we'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Let's see how I do, I'm afraid everyone's just
waking up.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
At that time, man, come on, it's big, that's that's
that's why we honor theconference right a couple days
early, so you can come in andacclimate and, uh, you'll be
good.
No, I will, I'll come in.
I think I come in and acclimateand you'll be good.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
No, I will.
I'll come in.
I think I come in a day or twoearly and I get in in the
morning.
This time I never can.
Sometimes you can get in atmidnight the night before then
the conference starts at eight,but with the time difference.

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
That is good to know.
The schedule is slightlydifferent from previous years,
right?
So people that have gone toDirections EMEA are maybe more
familiar with the flow.
But there's a bit of a changefor logistical reasons.
So the keynote is actually onMonday in the morning and not on
Sunday in the afternoon.
So there's a slight change inthe schedule there.

(01:14:11):
For those people where theyjust blindly go and book the
same thing every year, justdifferent location, they got to
keep an eye on the actualschedule.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
And the partner celebration is the last day.
Typically the partnercelebration is the day before
the last day, which the last dayis the half a day, so there
isn't a half a day at thebeginning and a half a day at
the end, it's all full days.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
Yeah, yeah.
So we have more space for morecontent, which is ultimately
what people are there for Atleast it's what they claim.
And so now we and that's againbecause of the venue we have the
space to do more sessions.
Right, because even there wehit bottlenecks.
As a conference to just findmeeting rooms where people can
do presentations, a conferenceto just find meeting rooms where

(01:14:57):
people can do presentations.
There's only so many placeswhere you can put I don't know,
10 parallel sessions with atleast 30 people in a room.
So that's great about thisvenue there will be a lot of
super cool content.
I think the final decisions areabout to be out any moment.
I don't know when you guyspublish this, but check the

(01:15:20):
website directions and a dot comfor all the session information
.
There's a lot more than ever.
And, yeah, we have three fulldays now.
We do a little bit of a welcomereception on Sunday night.
People can get their badge.
They can slowly kind of hangthere.
They can already socialize alittle bit of a welcome
reception on Sunday night.
People can get their badge.

(01:15:40):
They can slowly kind of hangthere, they can already
socialize a little bit.
And then we start sharp Mondaymorning.
Three full days of conferenceand then, yeah, the party at the
end and then, depending on whenpeople want to fly back again.
This is this is also a littlebit East Coast, west Coast
dependent Vegas being prettywell connected, I think people
have options, but of course wehope that everybody kind of

(01:16:05):
stays through the Wednesdaynight and leaves on Thursday
whenever the flight schedulesallow or even connect a couple
days.
I think I'm actually going tostay a couple days longer.
Yeah, I was considering thesame.
I want to check out the GrandCanyon again.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
It's been 20 years I've never been, and that's what
I'm still trying to narrow downthe logistics.
I go to all these places.
I tell everybody I've beeneverywhere but I've been nowhere
.
Yeah, it's bad, I go to so manyplaces I fly in, do what I need
to do and leave, whereas this isone case where I want to leave
Vegas.
I don't want to stay in Vegas.
I may stay a night to do a showbecause you know I'm expecting

(01:16:46):
with the conference in theevenings.
I like to talk with everybody,see everybody, but I'm hoping
that Thursday I'll get theopportunity to do a show and
then maybe leave early fridaymorning to head south and go see
the grand canyon, hoover damand those types of things I'm
thinking doing the very snobbynew yorker thing and just take a
helicopter um to the grandcanyon yeah still talk to me

(01:17:11):
that's.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
That's possible too, because it's well worth it to
see it it's it's a mind-bogglingI've done it from from grand
canyon with a helicopter andit's the most incredible
experience.
So if you're gonna go in ahelicopter anyway, you may as
well just take it straight fromvegas, um uh, to say you're
yourself logistical on ahelicopter to go take you

(01:17:35):
directly to.
I have to look into a recentpricing because the last time I
checked it out is about 10, 15years ago.
My wallet might not allow me tobe so snobby, but hey, maybe if
we share a helicopter ride webook it as a group.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
Maybe We'll see.
I'll try to narrow down mylogistics this weekend so I'll
definitely catch up with youwhat's today monday this week,
I'll know.
In the next couple days, I'llknow what I'm doing, because I
still have to book mytransportation back and I was
holding off determining if I wasgoing to spend a couple extra
days there.
But if there's a helicopterfrom vegas and we can get Vegas

(01:18:16):
and we can get a few of us to go, then the economics may be a
little bit better for you snobbyNew Yorkers.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
The sphere seems to be amazing From here people who
went there.
It's like crazy, like if youcatch a good show there, it's
incredible.
And what I've done when it wasat the Red Rock there is a I
don't know if it's a reserve orlike Red Rock Canyon or
something I went on an earlymorning hike there.

(01:18:43):
It was fantastic and I couldjust take an Uber from the hotel
and it was a little bit likeclimbing on rocks, so you should
be ready for a bit of a workout, but you have an amazing view
from the mountains onto LasVegas.

(01:19:07):
It is a really cool kind of likecheap, right, especially if you
have a rental car.
But even Uber wasn't that crazyexpensive and while you're
there, it free, um, uh, and itwas cool, like, and it's uh,
it's uh, um, there's signage onon the hike, um, so, um, I
recommend that one for peoplethat like to be outdoors and are

(01:19:29):
early risers.
Uh, just beware of therattlesnakes because they warm
up on the rocks that stay warm.
So I saw one there when we wentwell, yeah, I mean April.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
You're still nice and cool, but you're right, as you
progress, throughout the day, itgets warmer and they come out,
and that's when you see them andthe rocks hold the heat longer
too.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
A lot to do Well, Mr Chris, thank you for taking the
time to speak with us again.
It was a pleasure having youback on.
I look forward to talking withyou more after this to see about
the Vegas trips and also I lookforward to seeing you in Vegas
for that beer that you alwaysprovide.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Lots of office, not just beer.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
He can get you a cocktail.
Yeah, I'm on a lot of mocktailsthese days, so it might be a
little bit easier.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Top shelf right they make, they make top shelf.

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
Is that guy in denver ever bother you after that one
night anymore, or, uh, or was itwas a gal right, was she?
Was she unhappy about you?

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
which one saying you had to buy me a beer, but uh no,
like the the bartender in uh indenver oh, that's right that's
right, she got angry that'sright.

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):
I forgot about that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
I forgot escalated out of nowhere nowhere she, just
she gave you a hard time shedidn't want to look at you dude
like I don't even know what wassaid.
It was like because we were allsitting there and there was
just normal conversation and sheall of a sudden, I think she
ended up, I think actuallycaught up with her afterwards.
I think she was just having abad day time.

Speaker 3 (01:21:12):
Yeah, I think she apologized, didn't she apologize
?

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
yeah she did.
Now that it's coming back to methey were short-staffed and
that the it wasn't coming in,the conference wasn't supposed
to have so many people.
Yeah, so that's right, me justasking her a couple additional
questions.
I think she finally just saidscrew it.
And just got pissed off, Ithought because she's like I
thought she was like this guy'sfrom Boston.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
I could tell these guys are rude.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
No, she did.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
I remember when we came back, she was actually very
nice.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Yeah, I think she just caught a bad day.
So, yes, I think that was allsmoothed over, but that went
from for no reason.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
It was zero to 100, man Like what's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
And again I just had, I think, one drink, or I wasn't
even drinking because I know Ihad a lot of you know, mostly
mocktails when we were in denver, so it was crazy, but uh, thank
you for taking the time tospeak with us again.
How can someone get in contactwith you to learn more great
things about commerce, build andthe solutions and the problems
that can help an organizationsolve?

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
yeah, easiest is an email.
Uh, chriscommercebuildercom,linkedin is always easy to
connect as well, or in Vegas atDirections, of course.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
Excellent.
I definitely see that I lookforward to seeing you there.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Looking forward to talking with you soon.
Thanks, guys, and thanks forall the stuff you guys do.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
Thank you, chris, for your time for another episode
of In the Dynamics Corner Chair,and thank you to our guests for
participating.

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
Thank you, brad, for your time.
It is a wonderful episode ofDynamics Corner Chair.
I would also like to thank ourguests for joining us.
Thank you for all of ourlisteners tuning in as well.
You can find Brad atdeveloperlifecom, that is
D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-Ecom, and youcan interact with them via

(01:23:00):
Twitter D-V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E.
You can also find me atmatalinoio, m-a-t-a-l-i-n-oi-o,
and my Twitter handle ismatalino16.
And see, you can see thoselinks down below in their show
notes.
Again, thank you everyone.

(01:23:21):
Thank you and take care.