So welcome everybody I think you all hear me. It sounds pretty loud from here in front Welcome to my talk about how to diversify your web service business beyond Drupal My name is Daniel Gerhardt, and I'm one of the founders of amazing labs. I Can't tell you how to diversify your web service business beyond Drupal that works for you But I'm going to try and tell you some stories about our personal experience because we've done quite a bit of diversification in the past few years since we started with our company So some words about myself. So I was born and bred in the united states in switzerland I moved to switzerland when I was seven years old. I studied economics in Basel Then I became a chartered accountant So I worked as a manager with kpmg in the area of international auditing and accounting Then I had after five years quite a change in my career So that's when the amazing story starts and that's what i'm going to tell you more about later on And another big step for myself is what that I moved after many years being in switzerland. I moved to south africa last year So 2007 that was the end of my old career in the start of my new life. That was the time when Facebook had already taken off. So people were going online having social behavior And my husband Gregory and I started spinning the idea of creating a startup creating a platform That centers around civic and social action that allows people to collaborate online To build projects around common ideas and achieve goals with fundraising tool publication tools Lots of features and functions and at the end that ended up that we built that platform around or on Drupal So we kicked off our startup. We quit our jobs 2007 both of us. We founded our company 2008 We went to silicon valley. We had interviews with tech bloggers got Quite some media attention had lots of fun. We're really in this web startup Groove we launched our platform called amaze.com in 2008 first to alpha then a beta Those were really good times Then came 2009 2009 the money was slowly going down. We had some user traction but not really enough Lots of ideas how to further develop our platform and become leading in that space But it just didn't happen And that was when we had first moments of okay, what's going to come next the first team member Left for a proper job away from our startup And at the same time we had that down moment of not knowing how to continue We had some requests from corporates if we couldn't do some customized work for them If we couldn't recreate this platform for them They don't want to have their projects on amaze.com But they do want to work with us and have maybe a known platform for For example for a company anniversary or to just collaborate online internally And so we did three white label solutions of amaze.com in that time That gave us money gave us additional motivation and we did see a new vision We saw that it could be possible to make something good out of what didn't turn out to be so successful And so we did more and more customized work We did it a little bit under the hood So there was still this platform amaze.com where you could log in create your project And then there was a footer with a very small line saying by the way you can call us if you want to customize solution But we didn't really out ourselves. We were still sharing this vision of becoming a leader in this web platform space with our own product So In 2010 we decided we are going to go that path. We're going to become a web service company We're going to out ourselves as a web agency so away from the sexy young web startup to a very common web service company We did a rebranding and we launched in september 2010 as amaze labs So amaze labs.com and that was clearly a web service company based on building Websites on Drupal We had huge expertise with our platform that we had built in the past years and that gave us the kickstart then To be successful in that service industry What happened later in the next years is so we had we had grown quite well with amaze with amaze labs That was about 30 growth per year and in 2013. We had our had our first spin-off. We're going to talk more about that later That's amaze metrics and then we had two geographical spin-offs, which was 2014 We had an office opened in austin in texas and 2015 now a few months ago in june in capetown So maybe back to the topic. So why should I diversify or why should we diversify like away from what we all love most which is Drupal That's maybe just one perspective diversifying away from something that's core I mean, we might want to just ask ourselves like What is our overall strategic company goal? What do we want to stand for we asked ourselves? What does amaze labs want to stand for? What does our group want to stand for if we continue to grow? Ours is to become a leading global web service provider global web service provider That maybe also explains why we have to diversify beyond Drupal because Our strategy and our offering cannot just only include Drupal. It's not we're not only perceived as a technology provider We build websites and provide web services to clients So following that strategic goal is really important. We all know that and to succeed in a goal. It's crucial to just Understand, where are we now? Why do clients want to work with you now? Why do they book you? Why do they ask you to write a proposal? Why do they then Accept your proposal? Maybe it's because you just happen to be the cheapest service provider offering for a certain product that could be But then they still had a reason to ask you in So you do stands for something we all do stand for something we have a reputation And that reputation can be a great technical capacity. It can be being a leading Drupal Service provider, but it can also be something else. It can be that we try to create beautiful websites. It could be that You have a great team of people that people just like working with you because you deliver a good service Maybe it's just generally a service orientation that stands for you and not the technology So only if you understand why you win projects you can follow that strategy And also make the right decisions and where and how to diversify and what to focus on So in our case we believe or we have seen that about 50 percent of our clients Choose us because of Drupal Because we are the largest Drupal shop in switzerland that exclusively does Drupal. We have lots of experience So about 50 percent come they know they want a Drupal website. That's what they're going to do They're going to ask us in But then we have 50 other percent and those are really important. Otherwise we can't succeed and about 30 come Because they want a good looking website. So beautiful web services is something we try to create We try to make it look good And 20 come for other services maybe because they've seen a case a special solution that we've built a community solution Or a second screen solution just something special that they've seen with another client that they think we might have good expertise in So the perception of the agency is not fully based on technology. It's on delivery and experience And that's why our positioning and our strategy must also be quite broad So after having failed with our like social collaboration platform Like maybe on a side note amazing.com did continue to exist for a while But as per end of 2011 we closed that platform and fully focused on the web service side With that platform we wanted to be all to everybody We wanted to achieve it all and we've learned quite painfully that we have to get a few things right to be successful in the business And we also often criticize our clients for you know Creating feature creeps and just wanting to do everything and putting it all in one release But we're all not really immune to adding another service offering It's like oh, could you maybe do this website and wordpress, you know, we have one in triple one in wordpress You could go like yeah, okay Or we also need SEO. Will you add that for us too? Yes, of course not a problem. We need german translations Yes, we'll organize that for you. So I think we all see that this just tends to happen Adding additional services and losing focus Is this now a contradiction to diversify and to to stay focused We decided for amazing labs that we focus fully on Drupal Technology is clear. We do Drupal only if it's not Drupal. It's not within our company It might be another company within our group, but it's not going to be amazing labs Because we believe that we want to stand for being the best in our field. At least that's what we try And that's some something our clients can easily refer to it's like you stand for being Switzerland's largest Drupal company or someone else could maybe be Just the best android app developer, whatever it is So for those 50 percent that come to us for the technology, we want to have a very clear Delivery focus or a very clear reputation Those are maybe the cio's the cto's of the companies those that do the technology decisions that care about what cms is there But what about those other 50 percent? We now tend the larger the project gets the more we tend to talk to the marketing people So usually it's now the chief marketing officer We're talking to when we get the projects and sometimes they don't even care what we're going to build it on They just assume the product is going to work. They even assume it's usable. That's just like the underlying assumption So they are surely going to Look for something else So the reputation is focused of course on different things that we can Deliver along the line as I said one of ours is the design focus And that's how we try and get into the other area and not just impressing like cio's and cto's but also the other part of the business owners and decision makers So if we go one step back into Diversification as a topic there are generally two ways you can go in diversifying you can Have a service diversification of your business or a geographical diversification We've done both in the last few years. We're going to talk more about amazing metrics Which is the typical path of service diversification It's just for example a web designing company starting to offer web design Which hasn't done that before or starting to offering hosting hosting solutions Geographical diversification is quite straight. We have Us being a swiss company starting to offer our services abroad diversification can start very subtle the different means so In switzerland we often observe that we have a very high Cost level in switzerland So there are many agencies that are now only now starting to outsource some of their capacity They hire maybe start very small hiring one or two freelancers abroad Maybe in eastern europe or some other closer place, but still with a significantly lower cost level That is already a form of diversification It might be that that agency does not offer their services yet in another country But they are diversifying because they expose themselves to a different Legal environment to maybe a different currency and that's already part of diversifying a business Just maybe a very subtle way Of course that collaboration can get stronger. They can start looking for partners joint ventures They can merge with other companies abroad. They can acquire other companies And they're getting to stronger forms of collaboration and diversification Or go the ultimate step and just do it yourself Go somewhere start a new branch open a new location be it in a different service area or in a different geographic location There are many many reasons for diversification and this these bubbles here They're not exclusive in a way that they aim To name all of them. These are just some that we've seen we've experienced The most obvious one probably for all business owners is revenue growth. The own market might just be too small It's too small to just offer Drupal development in a small country possibly Might see it's very easy to tap into something extended and then grow a significant share of your revenue Risk reduction, obviously portfolio theory All of you know that if you have different pillars you can stand on it's not so bad if one breaks away If you're a one-trick pony and that one trick pony or that pony tends to get weak Then you can be in big trouble So risk reduction on a long term is a very important reason for diversification Extending the service range is another one as we've seen before and Offering new services seems so easy. If there's an ongoing client relationship Where we have happy customers. We've built websites for them with design development It's so easy to tap into that and add an additional service so adding more services along the chain just reduces acquisition costs towards Adding new clients and acquiring new clients the acquisition cost is significantly lower in gaining the same amount of revenue of an existing client Then gaining a new client. That's another good reason for diversification Team maybe not such an obvious one, but we're talking about the service business and in the service business Your team members are One of your biggest assets if not the only asset We don't have anything else Our team members are the ones who sell our products who build our products who are the face to the customer They are everything we have and we invest a lot of money in our team members all of us So we want them to stay we want them to be happy. We want them to be able to expand into different areas That's not possible if we don't grow if we don't give them new opportunities Either to grow within our organization or within different service areas They might just leave much earlier than we would have hoped In our organization, we have very low fluctuation in the past years. We've had A fluctuation of employees of between four and seven percent And we believe that is not only because people like working with us Which is very great, but it's really because they have a career path They have a possibility to expand and even to change their mind We had one early developer in our team who then became a web analyst And that's not possible if there's no not possible if there's no diversification available Then synergies um, of course if you have team members within different Geographical areas, but mainly different disciplines and areas of expertise They can share knowledge you can build more organizational know-how and that's something you can rely on and is a great backup Sales is another good area. We already talked about the service range It's easier to do sales for different companies at once If we finish off a web development client It's quite easy to add on some web analytics SCoSEM because we already have a trustworthy functioning client relationship So even there again, the acquisition cost is very low and lead generation is quite low too Attractiveness as the last point Of course, they're companies. They're maybe based in Paris, London, New York That's maybe the best case of like attractiveness of locations. It's maybe Quite sexy to be able to say you work for such a company. Um It's not always that best case with those towns, but being able to say that you're In different locations with different services can be very attractive for employees. So from an employer branding perspective Diversification can be a good a good argument So how are we structured within our group? We had Amazee Labs that was then created in 2010 but based on the company Amazee.com We had this spin-off Amazee metrics. I quickly mentioned so Amazee metrics is an online marketing company That is focused on SCoSEM and web analytics. I'll talk a bit more about that case later on So that was a new company that we established at the same location of our first Amazee Labs company Then we had two further geographical Diversifications that were also own entities that we built. So a new entity in Austin in 2014 and a new entity In 2015 in Cape Town And when we built the Austin team, we set up a holding company to sit on top Which owns all the companies underneath. That's just how the structure works. So these are all individual legal entities Now we're going to talk about Amazee metrics because this is the classical path of service Diversification which is diversification beyond Drupal Just going to tell you a bit of how this happened. It didn't just come On the way It built up and the spark was actually that we had a large large client for Amazee Labs a big website That we have built and that customer had wanted more from us a very very typical situation And the question was if we couldn't offer web analytics services because one of our developers who was involved with that project Was very strong in web analytics And so we did agree to provide these web analytic services to this company All under the Amazee Labs Zurich roof So at that time We noticed that there's a big business opportunity there. There were other customers tapping into that direction We just identified we could build a business out of this or offer it in addition to what we do Now the question that came up is how was how are we going to promote it? Is it going to be like a new landing page on our website? Or how are we going to now tell the world that we're also offering web analytics SEO and SEM? And we found out it's not going to work that way. Amazee Labs stands so much for Drupal Development That we're going to dilute our branding if we start offering all these things alongside There were other arguments that led to us building a new company One very important one was that Amazee Labs Zurich was very successful at that time And we did not want to take the risk of pulling it down if our new venture doesn't work So diversifying into new services is of course like starting a new venture. You don't know if it's going to work out or not So we made just the strategic decision to outsource or spin off that new branch in order to ensure That the successful running entity is and can stay healthy That the developers or the whole team members of the healthy entity don't get punished if maybe the new one Doesn't work out and maybe we're not even able to pay a bonus or good salaries by the end of the year So we wanted to just outsource that risk into a new entity We also wanted to find a leader for that new team that is in full profit and loss responsibility Not just maybe running a cost center within our organization But being fully responsible of building a team building a service portfolio and having responsibility for the success or the failure Those were the main reasons why we built amazee metrics with a new brand in a new entity But building on the main amazee brand Back to the reason so what reasons really were pulling us or bringing us to do this step Revenue growth for sure that was probably the main driver We did see the business opportunity and we thought we could expand and grow our revenue Which did happen after we started amazee metrics risk reduction That turned out to be a very theoretical thing So portfolio theory would say of course that diversifying reduces risk at that time. It was just increasing risk It was we didn't know if it's going to turn out. We did decide to outsource that part of spin it off To make sure that the healthy entity is not at risk and short and mid term It just increased the risk of our entire group not in a bad way It's fine, but just the risk exposure is higher So it seems turned out to be quite a theoretical thing on a shorter mid term long term. This of course does work out Service range extension. Yes, it's obvious. We now include our The sco scm and analytic services of amazee metrics into all of our proposals It's like an add-on we can tell our clients and by the way when you're done or during the development you could also do this On-site audit or the off-site analysis And actually 40 percent about of our clients do choose to work with our sister company too Which is a very nice success rate and which proves that we had a successful step into extending our service range The team aspect we talked about earlier So the skills and career paths between our two companies there are quite different So there hasn't been any real mingle there yet anyone stepping over from one company to the other But the synergies are clearly there. So the both teams sit together in an office They're very close be it over lunch or after our drinks or just sitting together over a meeting and discussing what can be done together Um, they can do the monthly analytics of our website We can help them with some technical SEO implementation. So they're clearly synergies between those teams The sales side again builds up on our service range So if the Zurich CEO goes to a conference, it's easy to pitch the other service in one Line with it. So it just did also ease sales of both businesses Now i'm not going to go in depth into the case Austin or Cape Town But I quickly want to say that Also there there was a spark why we did this why we went to Austin It was not that we sat at a board table and thought what's the next step It was that we had two enormously talented people living in san antonio working for us as freelancers We tried to integrate them more into the team So at that time we only had a location at Zurich an office location and also only served european clients We wanted to bring them over that didn't work out because of the work permit situation And so we were thinking of alternatives and decided it would be nice to build something around them So if they can't come to us we might go to them And san antonio was maybe not the most attractive place to choose But we looked at other european cities and also at other global cities and found that austin would be a very attractive Place for different reasons our reasons included how interesting is the market how interesting Is the talent how hip is the whole place how tech savvy is the place and austin ranked very well So we decided together with our two team members catherine andrew that will open a hub or open a team office in austin and that they will move there and operate from there Again, then we founded an own legal entity hired a ceo and build the team around our core members catherine andrew Which has been very successful. They're very busy Cape town was again a completely different case cape town was the case that My husband gregory who's my co-founder is have south african and we've been spending lots of time there on holidays And it just has become a personal wish of ours to move to south africa And so we made a plan how to step more out of the day-to-day operations of the syric entity and how we could start our lives in south africa So that's what we did. We found a leader for the syric team hired him And started stepping a little bit back and last october we moved to cape town But we didn't know if we're going to start a business in cape town It was an opportunistic decision that came after we had met the community there So we started stepping into that community meeting people looking at troupel Seeing what's around looking at the market and then just one took the next and we started talking to people We wanted to acquire a small company there or we're thinking about it But then decided not to due to different expectations But hired two local people and started building the team There that was in june actually that we started. Um, it's been very busy I now run the cape town office and been running and trying to solve some legal things and Things don't always run as smooth in south africa as they do in other countries. So still chasing some certificates But now it's our third month No, actually our fourth month that we're running and I just hired the sixth person So it's working well and it's keeping us busy Now again, what do these three cases just all have in common and this counts for us It can be different for anyone else, but they all just grasps an opportunity rather than forcing growth So these decisions were made based on something that was around either a personal choice and emotion a situation It's not that we make these decisions at a board table that we sit together every year and say okay now a year is over What are we going to do next? It's that we see something it feels Something interesting. We want to pursue and then see if it's something we can build around We do create spreadsheets after that So it's like the number crunching and all the analytics that follows after that gut feeling and some kind of emotional decision So we do justify that gut that gut feeling with some number juggling Now there are three main areas of challenges that we have experienced The first financial resources Of course, this doesn't work without money You can bootstrap a company you start you can start with few resources But at the end there's no way around getting an office Maybe hiring some resources that you can't fully fully make billable yet. There is some overhead going into this whole process So without financial resources, it's not possible to do any of these steps Although it can be managed and of course bootstrapping is possible One very very important area that we have discovered in the past two years and have experienced also in very painful ways is the increased complexity We have five legal entities. They all need accounting Some of them have different accounting systems. They all need management capacity. They need own contracts. They need own regulations All of a sudden you start thinking about things like cross-billing What if this company works for this one? What if this one starts working for this one? How do we build that different currencies different market rates? Does that work tax wise? All these questions that one maybe tends to underestimate a little bit when you start just offering new services But due to the fact that we did create separate legal entities We did blow up operations quite a bit. So you create a lot of overhead with this and What's also not to underestimate is the increase of the technical complexity. So the processes that become more complex If I look Bosti's not in the room, but our DevOps Person Bosti he's struggling sometimes quite a bit to think of our server setup If we have these clients all over and how do we charge these things and how do we manage these processes? So how did we address that? I mean we Did need lots of management capacity We did build our company out of management capacity. So when we started we had zero technical know-how which made it very difficult for us at that time But we were able to bring in management capacity and just deal with it So when we started a new company, we knew for example amazing metrics, we're going to need a new CEO from day one We're going to need someone to run that business. It won't be possible to just let that team grow organically So either we applied the existing management capacity we had within our founder team or we hired new managers to come in The third area of challenges that we've seen are the cultural challenges and this Is probably worth the talk on its own and I know that there is another talk somewhere in the business track during these days about culture company culture, but also challenges in working remotely with different cultures It starts from different time zone Only a few hours of overlapping working time Higher flexibility expected from the team There's so many aspects that come in It's different lingo. I mean we see that our company language is English Everyone speaks English But English in Switzerland the US and South Africa is not the same One very maybe Many of you are aware of the differences between the american and the english or the european culture But the south african culture brings very new fun aspects in two one example is There are different meanings of now in south african Now means Maybe sometime in south african. Maybe if you're lucky sometime Then there is now now That means probably today And then there is No, sorry. I'm just I just confused. No just now is the next step between now and just now Just now is probably today and then there's now now which means as soon as I get to it But it doesn't mean now So now now in south african doesn't mean now now at this moment It means as soon as I get to it Which could be after I've gone to the toilet after I've had a coffee and after I've done three other things And that's actually as good as it gets you won't find any south african to give you anything better than now now So you're just gonna have to live with that But now imagine a swiss saying do this now and the south african thinking that's good enough if I do it by friday So these things have to be addressed There's nothing you can't deal with it in any other way than making it transparent Bringing it onto the table and talking to your people and saying If you say this this person is going to understand this now You're going to have to find a common understanding and maybe replace now with a date and a time To make it clear for everyone and these are all very tiny things But they can become significant in a project that maybe has a very tight deadline So with all of these challenges, they are there and they are strong But they can all be addressed and we just try addressing them with lots of transparency And we also do lots of mistakes, but we just try and bring it up on the table and deal with it when it's there The nice thing is that it's lots of fun I mean experience and overcoming these challenges is is a great thing and Every company makes Its own choice or the people behind the company what they want to be what they want to stand for what is their vision Our vision is bold. It sounds bold to say we want to be a leading global web service provider But it is true. It's our vision It might be that we achieve that within a few years and it might not but it's something we strive for We want to have that bold vision. We want to explore the borders We want to cross those borders. We want to find the next big project And that's how we define entrepreneurship for ourselves So we like these challenges and to overcome them and we try to just have a good laugh in between if something goes wrong And try and fix the things So we want to give everyone in the team something that they can work for that they can look ahead Work for be proud of And that's something that just keeps me running every day and trying to make a better job with every Next step And that's actually already the end because there's so many more things we could get into detail But I know that the experience in this room the experience is so diverse And maybe this would be just a nice time to open up to discuss a few questions I'm sure you have things to contribute. What are your ideas of diversification? And it would be nice to open up the round for some questions and discussions and anytime if you have questions to me Please address them And here is my contact information if you happen to come to capetown ping me To have a beer and thank you for listening and let's discuss further So any questions any comments? We can just raise that. Yeah So the question is in case you didn't understand if we service our swiss customers from capetown Um or vice versa Yes and no so the swiss company is in charge of dealing with the swiss customers Now what we've started doing and that's also one of our strategic goals Is we do want to reduce cost of our swiss operation team, which is the largest there are over 25 people now in zürich and by outsourcing work to capetown Um, we've started that it's very fresh because we just hired the first people in june and started operations then But we've already had some few things that have can that were able To be pushed down to the capetown office, but they're still managed by the zürich team So the project managers remain in zürich. We just want to add development capacity in capetown And we would serve swiss clients directly From capetown if they were small and not relevant for the zürich team If the zürich team would say look, this is not something we can do Um, it's not it's not a budget we can look after and the capetown team would say Oh, maybe we could then it would be fine. Otherwise it would all run via the zürich team Yes, um, so did everyone understand that question? No, okay, so the question was if Just being solely focused on drupal from a technology point of view is um a big risk If we have ever considered looking at other cms looking at other technologies to diversify within the technology that we offer Um, I mean michael could answer this question better than I can but no actually we do consider that we consider that all the time But not in a serious way that we say we want to go away It's just that we have a half yearly review michael monitors He's so into everything that happens within the whole open source world That we just sit together have a look at the status quo and decide again Are we going to move forward as we have decided? Or are we going to look away? So that's like a half year assessment we do just reconfirming our strategy saying this is what happened in the last half year We think it's still safe to continue this way Until now it was always a very clear decision that we're going to stick to drupal We do believe that this positioning that we have is very strong There are many clients that come to us because we just do that And because we're just quite good at that and if we start diversifying I do think the dilution effect is significant And so until now it was clear, but we do consider it. Yes all the time We don't want to run into a wall and I mean we see the risks now dris addressed it in a good way This morning and I we feel that all and it's not that we can say we're not nervous about what's happening No, that's not a secret at all. Of course not. So the question was how many people work in our office Was it only were you asking Cape Town office or a Cape Town office and what nationalities they are? So we are now by by hiring First of November will be eight people in the Cape Town office Including Gregory and myself who are the founders Nationalities oh wow I have to count so we are Swiss German South African and all the others are South African That's quite easy So the mix of nationalities is much much bigger in the Zurich team the Zurich team covers all kinds of nationalities We just found out this week. I'm not going to say because I think there's going to be like a small Twitter competition going on but we have many different languages in the team and it's quite diverse But Cape Town is quite straightforward. We try to hire locals only Yes, um good question. Um, so the question is that Julian works for a company with seven different locations And how did we or if we did manage to create links between the developers that sit in those different locations? um Yes, we did I mean, maybe it's easier our core has been very strong in Zurich and then the new companies they developed as outposts So when Austin started they started because they were freelancers within our team So the both team members of Austin, they knew the Zurich team very well They've been visiting us. We've been seeing each other at con So there was a personal relationship that made everything very easy with the Cape Town office. It was different These people are new so these links need to be created It's easy to create the links because we founders are now down there So we can somehow create these links, but we also do it through some structure So there is some structure that goes above the legal entity just to give an example There is for example Sasha who's sitting here too. He runs, um, uh, I think monthly or every three weeks and the front's tuesday The front's tuesday is just an hour where all the front enders of the group sit together and talk about topics And the same we have for back end for site building and for project managers So we do have meetups that maybe run on a three to four weekly basis Where everyone not meet up physically, of course, but meet up on a hangout and chat together And this has become very important because first of all, they start building a relationship But there's lots of knowledge exchange between the groups that would otherwise not happen Um, so maybe I don't know if that's a way or if it's something that your organization has considered But creating a level of meetings not to overdo it But in some routine that is above the legal entity and that links the people together that work in the same functions As I mean until now has proven very successful for us The people enjoy it they like chatting to the other people. Yeah Yes, yeah Yes, it's emerging. So the question is um, we know that in austin and in europe We have strong communities in drupal. It's very adopted But what about south africa because that's quite exotic on that whole landscape. It is exotic. Yes, um It's emerging. So when we came there first last year, it really felt a bit when we start as when we started in 2007 I really feel it's like Rewind eight years or seven years. That's how it felt. It's a very small community But very enthusiastic Um, not building two complex things yet You see that the adoption of drupal has not happened yet so much in larger south african companies But what's very nice is that some governments in south africa have started to adopt drupal And they are pushing that now much more and We have seen that Us now being there has also moved something. I mean, we've been organizing or co-organizing A camp now. It was the first triple camp in capetown. It happened on the 4th of september There were over 100 people coming which was quite a success because the community is really not that big But there's lots of enthusiasm in the community and I think it will grow significantly in the next years But it's still at a state where maybe lots of european countries were like seven eight years ago In terms of adoption of drupal within the developer community, but also within the the clients and the adopters Yes, it depends on on our entity So we have different metrics for each organization because suric, of course has a higher level because they're Larger organisms. I mean larger organization with more specialized functions They only take it. I mean except larger projects Just to manage the complexity. Otherwise we can't justify our setup with having project manager front and back and side builder all that But for example, austin is more flexible. They're more targeting a medium range of project and capetown is a real startup It's just like we're looking at whatever comes in and see if it's doable or not so the the management and the process behind Accepting a project is very different if you just look at the metrics where it's not different Is in the style and what we want to assess and what we want to know of a client So we do try and bring in some general values To give to leave a footprint. So all amazelabs products should have the same footprint But they're completely different metrics in terms of size Does that answer your question? How hard was it to leave the suric office and leave it to someone else? That's a good and very personal question. It was hard and it started quite a bit before we left For me personally, maybe I was always or I am in charge of the whole financial part of the business That's of course my background, you know, my previous life being an accountant. It's obvious And that's a very difficult area to let go of because it's lots of control involved if you control the finances and all that And I must admit that I still do that. I'm still running the finances of the suric office Um, and that's a good thing and it works. Well, it keeps me close to the team It keeps me in control of what's happening Um, and that the loss maybe is not that big We found of course a new CEO to step in to run the everyday business But one can maybe not underestimate the loss of Founders It's just something that has somehow been important to the team until that point and it's not only me. It's been greg and me Both leaving so we did have to prepare it very carefully, but I must say I do think it was very smooth There were no real major hiccups It's maybe small things that were happening, but they were all we just put them on the table and try to fix them And it was hard because letting go is hard Depending on what kind of person you are, but I think the majority of us will agree that letting go is not easy But it's also a relief and seeing that it works And it was running perfectly well. The success of the office has been great Since we left so it's not like It can't work without us But it's just it's a it's a process that you need to address and it's a very personal thing And I need to go through these steps and just find out what I need to do to let go But I'm not letting go. I'm still there. Uh, so that's nice I'm very good question Yes I'm very good question. So the question in summary are cost reduction We've talked about that with Cape Town, of course being at lower cost Has it any stage been a risk that the Zurich team all of a sudden would feel threatened by the Cape Town office growing And maybe taking away work that was the first part the second part was Do we see any risk that our brands could be negatively associated with outsourcing if we start pushing work to Cape Town You know that we become like a kind of outsourcing company that does the you know the work in a cheap country Good questions the first one. So first one. No, I I mean I can't answer it because I'm not sitting in Zurich But I really I think I can confirm that at no point the Zurich team would feel Threatened by Cape Town and this has many different reasons The first of all the hourly rate in Cape Town is so significantly lower than in Zurich that we can't even compete it's not that It's not that we would do projects in Zurich that need um quality work delivered, you know by by Zurich teams and we can't It's like it's two different worlds. They couldn't It can only mix if it's being run by a Zurich project manager and of course The leaders of that the Cape Town team or I would never allow us to take work That would be possibly work that could be done by the Zurich team. So if there's a client that has a capability to Get a project running with our Zurich team based in switzerland It's never a project that the Cape Town team would accept So it's clear that we all talk to each other and if there's a project coming in there's a funnel That sees like okay, this is a european project Zurich is going to take it over only if they would say This is not something we want to do. They don't have budget or not enough. It's too small It's not interesting, but maybe you want to do it in Cape Town Then that would be the discussion. So that threat is not there. We're not independent companies in a way that we make fully independent decisions Does that Answer your question and the second part because of the outsourcing We don't want to we're not an outsourcing company. We are a global web service provider So we believe that we need global presence and the fact that we are present in South Africa And that we have lower costs there doesn't mean that we are an outsourcing company there We have global presences all over the world and we try to follow a strategy of of course optimizing cost if we can So I would never consider us selling us as an outsourcing company And I also don't think we would be perceived of that Because mainly we have local teams working for local projects and if we can Get in a large project some overflow working From another location that is cheaper. That totally makes sense But I must also say that right now we have a case where the opposite is happening Austin is very very busy and they needed capacities from other people and they now are drawing capacities from Zurich Because they need lots of backend capacity and we happen to be able to give that to them That is nice because we don't have to then hire a new person We can on a short term optimize our capacity planning Even if it's maybe not the most efficient thing on a long term because the rates are different on a short term It might really make sense Does that answer your question kind of? Are there any more questions any more comments Any more experiences to share If not, I'll guess we'll close Yeah, we're still on time. I think time enough to get a coffee and to move to the next session Thanks very much for listening and enjoy the rest of the conference thing


You knew this was going to happen. We've been talking about it for years, decades, disruptive change, new solutions to all problems, faster speed and nothing will ever be the same again. Sure, we were talking about smartphones, robots, artificial intelligence, not a virus, but the essence is the same. The way you handle change will determine your future success. Well, change is here. We're in this crossroad right now. This way here is fear. This is for the ones who want to protect, to save, to make sure to, as soon as possible, come back and continue and do whatever we were doing before. Now, the other way here is opportunity. This is for the ones who can see a vision of a whole new future. A lot of new problems, but also a lot of new opportunities. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to diminish this. The crisis we're in right now is a tragedy. So much suffering for so many people everywhere, but we will come out of this. We will make it. So the question isn't if you're suffering. Everybody is in different ways. The question is what comes out on the other side? How did you reinvent yourself? You can think of the corona pandemic as any disruptive change, like the Internet. Here we are. It's in the beginning of the 90s and you just heard news about email, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Spotify, Bitcoin. What are you talking about? There is nothing like that yet, but opportunities. Since the change right now is so overwhelming, it's fair to assume that many will lose a lot. But that also means that many will come out of this stronger than before. We just learned how important it is to flatten the curve. Billions of people, everybody on the planet knows that reference right now. So you can apply it to sustainability. The capacity of Earth is limited, just like the capacity of the emergency room in a hospital. So we need to flatten the curve now to not face a disaster in the future. How many future success stories do you think will come out of that? Ideas on how to flatten unsustainable curves. We need sustainable systems, cities, buildings, transportation. We need to make sure to protect the free and open society. Make sure surveillance technology isn't ruining democracy. We need more sustainable healthcare, not only hospitals and medicines. Since we have problems like mental disorder and loneliness, and now this pandemic reminded us that there is this one thing that is crucial to all 21st century problems. They have this one thing in common. We can only solve our problems with cross-border collaboration. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. You knew this was going to happen.


This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Hey, hello, and welcome to Stand on the Energy Man here, a week before Christmas and all through the studio. Anyway, welcome to Stand on the Energy Man, I'm Stan Osserman from the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technology. I'm here in Honolulu working for the state on my lunch hour, so we can talk to guests, and I don't have to charge the state any of my own personal time. They get me for free here over at Think Tech. We'll be talking energy things, all things energy in. Today we have a great guest calling in from California, from the University of California at LA. University of Southern California, LA. Anyway, that's been working on hydrogen for quite a while, and in fact, I've actually been over to see some of their work and didn't know him, but now I'm connected to him. So Michael Dre is our guest today, calling in, and Michael, good to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. Aloha from Cal State LA, Hydrogen Research, Stan. Glad to meet you. Nice shirt. I put this on in your honor. We love it when you do that. Michael, tell us a little bit about how you got into doing what you're doing over there in the hydrogen world and some of the things that we'd find interesting about what you do. Well, Stan, my background has always been in power. My early career was in power plant operations and chemistry, and eventually later in life, went to law school, and I've worked for oil companies and energy installations around the U.S. over the years. But I saw this opportunity here at Cal State LA for this hydrogen research and fueling facility and was retained to get the station online. The station was a little bit in peril as it was originally constructed, but we got it righted and got the ship going here, and we've been online now for several years. Great. And, yeah, I noticed that you had a legal background when I was looking at your stuff, and it's interesting. We have a lot of folks here in the energy world in Hawaii that also have law degrees, and that actually helps out quite a bit because we end up working with the legislature and making things happen. And there's no doubt that California leads the charge on hydrogen. We've got a lot of vehicles over there up to like 5,000 now and 38 stations or so. But you guys are the leader. We bow down to you and bow down to the east and look towards California for all things hydrogen so we can copy you because we don't have the resources. But thanks for all the stuff you're doing over there.  Was it a rideshare program? Oh, that's right, Stan. We've recently deployed, just a matter of the past several weeks, the initial wave of, no pun intended, five wave cars. They're called wave cars as far as the fee is waved to use these cars for the first two hours. So we're deploying these in conjunction with a tech company out of Santa Monica so that students, faculty, and staff on the campus can actually drive these cars. We've got 30,000 students nearly on campus now. Parking is a problem. We're right at the intersection of the intersection of two major highways near downtown LA. So these cars are allowing folks to drive them for free for the first two hours. And then after that, it's a nominal fee, I think, of $6 an hour. So this is enabling exposure, wider exposure of the technology to the public. And these are all Tucson's, Hyundai Tucson's. Yeah, they're great. I think I told you I was at that conference a couple of years ago, and the Tucson is actually a nice vehicle. I was really impressed. I don't like to tell my Toyota friends that the Hyundai was my favorite, but the Mariah is my second favorite, but the Hyundai actually was impressive. Had a lot of get up and go. Yes. Was really peppy, really quiet. The cockpit was really well laid out. The vehicle itself felt really solid on the road and felt really comfortable. And we don't see any of the vehicles here. We have some rise on Island, but I'm trying to get Hyundai to bring some vehicles in because I really like their vehicles. They're good too. And I think if you have Toyota and Hyundai and they can get Hyundai in there too, we'll be up giving you a run for your money with vehicles on the road. But our local Toyota dealers have stood up a station over here. So we only have one commercially available station in the state of Hawaii right now. And then a couple of us have some military ones around, but we're getting there. We're trying to give you a run for your money, but we learned everything from you. So the next slide we have. We're all J2601. Thanks to you guys and looking at everything. The next image we have is the kind of behind the scenes of the station. And most people don't realize. And when I show people our station and I show them this viewpoint, I say, look, what you're looking at on this footprint is basically just the same size as a regular gas station, except that it's the entire oil field and oil pipeline and oil tanker and oil refinery and everything. And it's all sitting behind the wall here in a 20-foot container and a couple of compressors and chillers. I said, this is the entire process to make hydrogen on a clean water and electricity and totally carbon-free. And it all fits in the same footprint as a regular gas station. So maybe you can describe some of that equipment there. Yes, yes. Yeah, this station is a little bit unique stand in that the designers incorporated a visitor's gallery. So we're one of the most unique stations around so far as we can bring groups of the public inside the wall and show them the various components. And what you're looking at is probably on the right-hand side, the container that you mentioned. That's the electrolysis unit. That's built by a company called Hydrogenics. It's a alkaline-type electrolyzer where we take renewable electricity, pump it into water and split that water into its chemical components, oxygen and hydrogen. We jettison the oxygen, the atmosphere, but of course collect all the hydrogen, purify it to 5-9's purity. And then you'll see that there are several compressors in the station shop there. There's one in the very center. That's a low-pressure compressor, which takes that hydrogen from the electrolyzer at 150 psi roughly, up to about 6,000, and then lays it up in storage tanks. That's enough to fuel one of these light-duty vehicles halfway. But to accomplish a full fueling and to get the maximum range out of the vehicle, we have to compress it further with the big blue compressors in the shop there. Those take the hydrogen upwards of to 12,000 pounds per square inch. Final step is chilling the hydrogen with the coolers to the right. We chill that hydrogen to subzero temperatures. In our case, minus 20. The newer stations go to minus 40, and then to the dispenser itself. Let's talk a little bit about why we chill it and why we do that, because most people aren't familiar with gasses in general, especially we're used to pumping liquid fuel into our tanks. But when you're pumping a gas under pressure, you have some different things to think about. Can you explain to everyone how that works? Well, sure. Under the gas walls, when you take gas and you compress it, you generate heat. That's the simplest way of describing it. It runs the hydrogen. Also, hydrogen has some unique chemical properties, and that's a great coolant. And that's why it's used in some turbo generators as cooling, as a cooling medium, actually, because it absorbs heat from its surroundings like nothing else. So when we're pumping this hydrogen into these vehicles under high pressure, the tanks themselves are made of polymers. Some are metal lined with substances such as aluminum, but the new Type IV tanks are almost completely polymeric, and then they're wrapped with carbon fiber. Well, those tanks are cured somewhere in the temperature range of plus 300 degrees Celsius in these ovens, right? So we don't want to overheat the tanks, and we worry about the cyclic effects of repeated fuel wings and heating and cooling the tanks. So the magic number on a hydrogen vehicle, a light-duty vehicle is 85 degrees Celsius. We do not want to exceed that. So all of our station programming is designed, all in fact, all the stations are designed, that if you start to approach those temperatures, the station will automatically throttle back the fueling rate, and will actually terminate the fueling if you achieve 85 degrees Celsius. But typically, our temperatures run about 40 to 50 degrees Celsius during normal fueling. Again, we don't want to weaken the polymeric structure of the tanks. That's the whole rationale. Okay, and then also we follow the protocols to keep the tank cool enough that we can measure the gas as a standard unit of measure, because if you have a gas and it heats up, it also expands. So if you pumped a bunch of hot gas into the tank, the driver drives away and a half hour later, they got three-quarters of a tank instead of a full tank, and most of that's just from getting back to ambient temperature. So the chilling gives you a standard fill and also gives you the safety factor on the tanks. That's absolutely right. That's a good point, Stan. I can tell you're well versed in some of these technical issues are very involved, and I'm impressed that you realize that, yes, you want to get a consistent state of charge on those tanks also. That's correct. And controlling the temperature narrowly in a narrow band allows you to get closer to that. And here in Hawaii at our regular gas pumps, the Department of Agriculture puts a little stamp on the side of each pump that says you get a standard measure. How's that being done in California with the hydrogen stations as they're dispensing a gas instead of a fluid? It's being done the same way, Stan. Our county and our state waits and measures folks who are responsible for certifying everything from the scale at your local butcher shop to your gasoline pumps also test the accuracy of the fuel delivered by these hydrogen dispensers. And in fact, we were the first in the world certified by waits and measures agency to sell to the public by the kilogram. That was an epic achievement for us. In fact, let's throw the next two slides up in kind of rapid succession. We have one slide there that shows the two cars in front of the station. And then the very next one is that first sale, if I'm not mistaken, where you dispense the first commercially distributed fuel. So the next slide shows you with the receipt there from the first one. And you point out too, it's actually a Volkswagen. Is a hydrogen fuel cell Volkswagen vehicle was the first customer? That's absolutely right. They had they had flown over a fleet of fuel cell vehicles for the LA auto show back in late, late 2013. And they had negotiated with us secretly to fuel those same vehicles once they got here on the ground. So, yeah, the Germans very good to work with. We fueled not only the Passat, but they also brought Audi is an A7H Trons, which are beautiful cars. And we also fueled those. So, yeah, we had just been certified and we were waiting for that first customer and happened to be Volkswagen. All right, we're going to take a quick break here, Michael. We'll be back in 60 seconds. Aloha, I want to invite all of you to talk story with John Wahee every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii, who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday. Aloha. I just walked by and I said, what's happening? And they told me they were making music. Hey, welcome back to Stand Energy Man here a week before Christmas 2018. And we're talking to Michael Dre from California. He's probably one of the more experienced individuals we've had on the show to talk about the actual practical application of dispensing hydrogen and, you know, getting it established. And as we said earlier, Hawaii is recognized as one of the also one of the leading states doing hydrogen work. California is far away doing a lot more putting a lot more state money. I think they do a hundred million bucks a year to help put stations online. They have a great gentleman working in the governor's office that that's really good. Whenever there's a new station standing up, it's nice that he calls down to the county offices and says, hey, I'm from the governor's office and I'm here to tell you that we're watching the station go up and we're really excited about it. So if you have any issues, give me a call. And when somebody from the governor's office calls down to your local community and tells you're permitting and fire marshal and he's interested, things seem to go a little quicker. And we have this issue with permits here in Hawaii. They don't go as quick as most people like. So Michael, the next shot we have coming up is actually some of the other equipment that you feel besides cars. And it's a neat piece of equipment that we've actually looked at purchasing over here. So the next slide shows the, I think it's a GTM Lux for GPAC and the unit, it's in the back of the pickup truck. It's just a single unit, but I think you can put up to three of them in the back of the truck. Can you kind of tell us how that works and why you would want to have that in the truck? Well, sure, those units are very useful in the event that a vehicle runs out of fuel on the road. And it happens. Sometimes people will have emergencies. Sometimes they'll miscalculate their trip planning. For whatever reason, if a customer or driver runs out of fuel on the road, you obviously can't just take a gallon of fuel and pour it into it. So you need a platform where you can deliver hydrogen under pressure. And these GPACs, and there's a later version of these out now with more capacity, but they typically, they can be fitted with a compressor if they want to boost the pressure, but we could fuel them to say roughly, even without a compressor, you can fill them with say, 5,000 PSI. And that's enough to where you can just let the hydrogen cascade through a hose and through the nozzle connected to the vehicle receptacle. All you really need in these scenarios stands a way to get a kilo or so into the vehicle. Enough to get you along to the next fueling station. So that's an innovative device, a lecture. We've supported them by fueling it. We've benefited from this by being able to share it with the public and add it to our portfolio of research, per se. Applied research and fueling different devices and figuring out the nuts and bolts of these vehicles. Yeah, it's a single kilogram. I'd get you at least 50 to 75 miles anyway, right? That's right. That's right. And here in California, if you're within range of a station, you've got to just calculate your mileage and just have to do a little planning. I drove one of these vehicles, one of the first ones, one of the first two, that I've lost for several years. That just takes a little, there's a little learning curve. But once you get used to it, it's no big deal. Yeah, because, you know, again, when you only have one or two stations in the state the size of California, you do have to do some planning. But the more stations that come online, the less you have to think about it. You know, the battery plug-in guys have the range anxiety thing. And when you first get started, you still have the same issue with the hydrogen vehicles. Right, right. And I'd be interested to know, Stan, that this week three new stations came online in one week in California. That's terrific. There's a new station that, yeah, several have opened. And that's almost unheard of to get three stations commissioned and up online in the same week. They put one in Citrus Heights, Palo Alto, and LAX all this week. So that brings a total amount of 39 public stations. Perfect. And if we could get three stations in Honolulu and two on the Big Island, we'd be rolling. So we need this five for the two islands that are really getting into hydrogen right now. I don't know what's with Maui. They seem to just not want to do hydrogen right now, but they should be. And there's another piece of equipment that we have, a picture that we'll bring up on the screen here. And this one I'm not too familiar with, but as you mentioned, you know, we look at hydrogen as a very transportable fuel as a medium versus batteries. So this trailer here does what? This is another Luxor GTM product. This particular trailer has capacity for about 80 kilos of hydrogen at six pounds, roughly 6,000 pounds per square inch or 350 bar. That's the convention. But in this particular application, this trailer can be pulled to remote cell phone towers where they've installed station areas, fuel cells as emergency power supplies. So the power gets knocked out of the grid, you know, for first responders or just for general communication. It's important to keep those cell phone towers operable. So with this trailer, they can go out and they can fuel those sites. The telecommunications folks in California use the hydrogen a lot in their cell towers as backup. I mean, could you give us a rough order of magnitude of how many are out there? You know, I can't. That's not really in my wheelhouse. But I know that IGX does supply quite a bit of hydrogen, not just in California, but across the nation to these types of towers. Okay. So essentially that trailer has expanded GPAC on a trailer instead of in the back of the truck. Yes. And what are the dilemmas on the legal side? What is the Department of Transportation? At what point did they start looking at the transportable versions of hydrogen dispensers in a different vein than a tube trailer, say? Well, traditionally, you know, the Department of Transportation has weight limits. That's one aspect, but also pressure limits on, you know, how much pressure you can put in a trailer as you told it around the highways. I just read an article that that was like 350 bar for a long time. But just in the past couple of weeks, I noticed that an article where one of the tank manufacturers was actually awarded approval to move hydrogen at something like eight or 900 bar, which is fantastic because the more pressure you can have in the hydrogen when you deliver that hydrogen to a site, a fueling site, the less compression you have to perform on that gas. Exactly. Well, that's great. There are breakthroughs being made in that area. Some just moved just very recently. Okay. Yeah, because we're, you know, we're looking at hydrogen vehicles over here for the first time and, you know, getting our safety checks. I know you guys have small control checks and things. We haven't even got all the standards stood up by our regulatory agencies locally to start talking about the vehicles, let alone moving the hydrogen around. But transporting the hydrogen is going to be important. Like you said, until the stations are out there, you need some way of getting some hydrogen to vehicles or remote sites. So we have the next. Right. That's right. Next one coming up, let me see. We've got some of the things and I really got to give you kudos for this, too. You've talked a lot about having the gallery there at the station and things and the outreach that the university is doing is critical. We've recognized that as vitally important here in the state just to get people exposed to the technology. So right now we have your display vehicle up with your placards and everything that you're doing outreach with. Can you tell us a little bit about your outreach program? Absolutely, Stan. That's a big part of our program here. We're not just the regular fueling station. We mentioned that we do applied research. We do public outreach, bringing members of the public. Everything from school kids, grade school children, high school students, college students, folks from industry. We've had about 10,000 visitors here the last two years. So what we're able to do here is take them on a tour of the facility, show them all the basic components of the station, how they integrate together. And then we also educate them about the properties of hydrogen. We teach them about safety. We teach them about the vehicles. So it's not uncommon for guests to walk away from the station after one of these tours and say, I had no idea. If I knew about this, I would get one of these cars in a heartbeat. But you're right. Public outreach and education is critical because a lot of people still don't know about the technology. Right. And the next slide we have coming up is I think one of those where one of your folks is educating some students. And I'll have a comment here because we do a little bit of outreach too. Rachel James and I went to an event with about 150 students attending in groups of about 40 or 45 each, 50. And the first group that came in, I said, how many of you have ever heard of the word Hindenburg? And only four hands went up. And I just started clapping and said, thank God we don't teach much history anymore. Because in my generation, you say hydrogen and it's Hindenburg and H-bomb. And you got an uphill battle from there. Actually, you're right. I understand because I used to do the same thing. And what I discovered was that the student, I mean, I'm dating myself here, but the students today don't even really know about the Hindenburg. So I don't raise it as an issue anymore because it's niche. And the fact is that we have so many ways of mitigating the risk of hydrogen now that there's really no comparison. So we just don't even bring it up anymore. It's old news, old news. I took my staff to Proton on site up in Connecticut when we were doing an East Coast tour. And a lot of people don't realize that we've been making hydrogen and submarines for decades. I mean, that's how the big nuclear subs and stuff get their oxygen is using electrolysis. And they throw the hydrogen away. Now, as a military guy, if you've ever tried to get the military to certify any piece of equipment, to go on an airplane or a nuclear submarine, it's an incredibly rigorous process to get it all safety certified. So it's just amazing that the safety that's built in is just unbeatable. And when people realize it, like you say, they just go, wow, if I only knew. And so we try and make those points really clear. So let me see. You also got some international groups coming through too, right? The next slide, I think, shows some of them. Sure. We get lots of folks from all around the world, from Europe, Asia. Recently, we've been getting a lot of interested folks from China. China has been very aggressive lately in pursuing fuel cells. Of course, they have terrible pollution problems. So they're familiar with the concerns, the public health concerns. So we welcome them and we share whoever it is, Stan, comes from around the planet. We tell them what we know. We're not in this to compete because we're a government entity. You understand us. Our duty is to the public. So to inform and educate the public. So we share this information with folks from China, Korea, Japan, all over Europe and so forth. We also take international students here as part of our engineering college. They work on their masters and their PhD programs while studying here at the station and doing research. We're going to wrap in succession. I'm just going to have them throw the last three slides up while we wrap up here because we're at the end of our time. There's first responders looking at stuff. The next slide is some of your cohorts with a light cart in the background. We have two of those light carts in Hawaii and the last one is a light cart by itself. It's really cool equipment like we talked offline. It's really reliable, really good, and really quiet. People are really impressed when they get chances to play with this stuff. Mike, I'd really like to thank you for being on the show today and spending some time with us and sharing. We've seen her Hawaii sharing your manateau with us. We'll definitely have you back on the show to talk a little bit more. Thanks for your time and thanks for being with us. I hope you have a great Christmas. Thank you, Stan. Appreciate it. Everyone else have a great holiday season. Enjoy your Christmas next week and take some time off and relax because that's what Stan's going to do. I might even crack a cold one and share with Michael. Until next Friday.


All right, yo, it's good everyone. Nick Smith is back Here is a new episode of the Camilo Anthony my career series and in this episode we're starting off in the new season Obviously after last episode we we had free agency and we decided to stay with the Denver Nuggets Just because I feel like it's a little bit more realistic Obviously in the last episode we had the choice to go to the nicks the lake is the heat The bulls which a lot of you guys been disappointed. I didn't go to the bulls But that just lets me know that after this season Maybe I'll go into free agency again and head over to the bulls or the nicks or the heat or just a new team But as of now Camilo Anthony, he rocks a new hairstyle. He's rocking a little bit sure He had a little bit of haircut. So he has the shorter dreadlock not dreadlocks cornrows As you can see his cornrows are a little bit shorter, but Obviously after season progresses they'll get a little bit longer So I can change its cornrows up throughout the season and he also got some new tattoos. He's now rocking two sleeves on either arm Obviously, you can't get the exact same sleeves as what Mello has in real life So this will have to do but let's hop into the first game of the season up against James Harden and the Houston Rock That man good to see you. How's the family? Is he good? Yes, he's good. They're all good Nice knowing your family to have you back all the time. Sure. Gotta keep that support system in place Make a big difference over a long season. Good luck tonight, man Thanks, man. Hey, you know, we're taking this one, right? Not a chance for you So I took Galanari spot in the starting lineup and as you can see I've earned a new trophy because I'm a starter now It's a new season. I'm a starter and I'm rocking the number seven I showed you guys in the last episode, but yeah, I'm rocking the new number seven because we did lose JJ Hixon He went to the Brooklyn Nets in this might in this my career series. So yeah, JJ Hixon On the Denver Nuggets anymore, but as you can see I'm rocking number seven now And I'm actually playing a little bit of defense right now because you know Kamala Anthony He's not really known for his defense, but in this in this my career series I'm not gonna make him exactly like Kamala Anthony where I get like to assist eight rebounds 30 points you know, I'm gonna play a little bit of defense here and there I'm gonna get some assist and It's just gonna be like a really fun my career series as you can see I get a quick steal right there feeding it feeding it up to Moodio who gets the quick slam dunk to go and If you guys weren't paying attention or you just don't really know We didn't win too many games in the first season. I'm not even a lie We lost a lot of games and actually actually can see look at my stat line right there I got six rebounds already three minutes left in the almost four minutes left in the foot in the first quarter Which is pretty crazy, but I didn't say right on that one in those that was like 50 bounces and it finally went in but uh, yeah um, I Take a nice cut right there But like I was saying we didn't win many games in the first in the first season which is something that we got to try and improve on as a team and I asked you guys I think it was a while ago, man It was probably like first or second episode of this series, but I asked you guys Is there a way to bring teammates down to your team like can I bring? Not teammates. What am I talking about? Can I bring like other other teams players? Like can I ask Dwayne Wade or can I ask LeBron James? Can I ask Dwight Howard James Harden any place Steph Curry to come down to Denver? Is there a way that you can do that this year because I remember last year you could I think I remember watching Chris Move he brought like Dwight Howard down to New York or something like that. Maybe they just got him in free agency I don't really know but um, can you guys comment down below if you know a way and Because I don't know if you can do it this year. I know the last year you could But yeah, like I said, I don't know if you can this year. So that's a bit annoying Hopefully you can because I think that We need to get someone down here. Even if it's not like a superstar player I mean just a player because you know mellow when he was on Denver He had some pretty good teammates come a little Anthony when he was on Denver He had Allen Iverson for a little bit. Obviously AI wasn't 76 AI, but he was still a pretty good player for a few years in Denver And then he also had a pretty good JR swish.  What did 2k do right now? Well to the first two quarters at least turnovers have been a big issue What are they doing that is causing you so much trouble? So going back to the my team talk what is 2k doing, okay I don't know what these guys are doing as my phone goes off real quick But I don't know what 2k is doing bringing players like Louie Scholar J.R. Smith Brandon Jennings To diamond players In 2k like I understand. Oh jeez look at that dunk by Trevor Reed I'm gonna have to show a replay of that. Nurk has got posterized I tried to come in for the for the block behind him, but yeah, I didn't get that I pretty much got dunked on right there, but I won't even lie But yeah, no seriously. What is 2k doing with those my team cards? I don't know I thought it was a joke after that Brian Scala bringing amethyst thing But these guys these guys have no chill at 2k man Louie Scala You're telling me Louie Scala is a higher-rated player than Alan Arvison even on Denver I don't know about that 2k.   That's all that's just ridiculous. So anyway, let's get back on track It's the fourth quarter I'm grabbing this rebound right there and that gives me my first double double in the end just kidding I've nine read downs. I was getting a little bit excited right there I almost get a turnover, but now I'm in the post up against James Harden. You know, this man doesn't play defense So he has to found me right there And I'm going to the line for two getting pretty hyped on James Harden James Harden is not too happy about that as you can See right there. I make my first free throw giving me 20 points. I'm making it Points right there. So I'll take that. We we have a two-point lead right now Oh my goodness settle down man, you just posterize one of my teammates. That's not cool Do I hailed he gets a rebound right there kicking it up to a razor down to James Harden who lays it in and Suddenly the Houston Rockets are up by five points. So we have to come back right now We have to come back. I feed it up to Will Barton who feeds me. I'm going inside. I missed the layup I get my rebound. That's the double double and I put it back in for two I get some fans right there and yeah, I get my first double double in the NBA. I'm pretty sure So that's pretty cool right there 23 10 and 6 as a stat line I'm going to try and get my scoring up a little bit right there So Moody I guess the steal and he's going all the way for the easy slam done Yeah, I mean, it's only a three-point game five minutes left. We can come back in this game I hope you get a win. Look at mellow sit down.  Oh, that was insane. I was going so high when I got that slam done. That was insane I was like mellow you got no chill right now. I know you're dead for mellow. I don't know how you had that in you But uh, yeah four-point game four-minute 20 left in this game. Look at that. Don't flop But I miss that would have been so sick if I got that Step back move to go after that flop right there by Ty Lawson for my Denver Nugget player Ty Lawson, but yeah The game are not looking good right now. We're down seven We finally get a miss to go because these guys won a huge run the Houston Rockets They're up seven points with about one minute 45 seconds left.  Like I'm come all the way Anthony, but uh, yeah, I Moody I guess the still look at that move this guy Moody. Yeah, he has really good handles I might I might have to pick this guy up in my GM one time. I mean He just has crazy handles especially in my career. I don't know what's up with him He always does this in and out move that they get defenders slipping and sliding. So that's pretty cool But yeah, we're back in this game. It's only a three-point game 40 seconds left in this game and then the dagger comes right there by Patrick Beverly making it a six-point game I take a three and I miss this shot, but uh, yeah, that's that's pretty much the game right there I get subbed out. I don't know why I get subbed out, but I get subbed out And we end up on a pretty good kind of stat line. It's not too bad a double double We did lose the game unfortunately. So that's not the best, but uh, yeah, the stat line was all right 27 points 11 rebounds sixes two blocks and two steals. I uh, I gotta limit up on the turnovers though I gotta limit my turnovers as you can see I had four turnovers, which is actually pretty good for me to be honest I get a lot of turnovers and Moody ain't got that double double as you can see right there He also had four steals, which is pretty good. But uh, here is an interview I'll leave it up to the to these guys interviewing come of the wansney I'm out leave a like if you guys want to see the next episode peace So we take this the fact you're here you're wearing a nuggets jersey that you're Can at least be here for a while or how long do you expect to be? Come on chris I'm here man. I'm you know, I'm I'm here today You know, whatever the future holds it holds Um, like massage said, I'm not you know, I'm I'm not going to discuss what made him talk about It was a good conversation. Actually, it was a great conversation. So I'm here today Practice starts tomorrow At the end of the day, I think the goal is to win the championship Your goal and championship are you worried that the nuggets might have a lot of salary capacity next season? I'm I'm I only could focus on right now at the moment, you know, and that's starting tomorrow And the goal is you know to win the championship


What's up everybody? Jason here for Jasper's Case Brace.com and another Wax Party Promo Break, Hip Raid Limited 10 box case break plus a 2021 Spectra football 4 box break. Random teams number 1 mixer just sold out. So again guys all card ship a case of limited and a 4 box break of Spectra. Here's the dice roll, here's the customer names, there's the teams all teams in roll it's a 5 and a 6 11 10 times 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 5 to 6, 11, Carl down to Tristan, 5 to 6, 11, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, twins, down to the race. Alright so Carl with the twins, David with the White Sox, Carl with the Rangers, Jeremy with the Blue Jays, Carl with the Mets, Dodgers, Guardians, D-Backs, Braves, Cardinals, Rich with the Cubs, Red Sox, Carl with the Giants, as well as the Brewers, Padres, Nancy with the Tigers, Michael G, Yankees, Eric with the Rockies, Carl with the Angels, Ryan with the Phillies, David with the Nationals, Carl with the Mariners, David with the Orioles, Eric with the Reds, Carl with the Royals, Jesse with the Marlins, Jeremy with the Astros, Carl with the Pirates, Eugene with the A's and Tristan with the Tampa Bay Rays. Alright well if anybody wants to trade I'll give you guys a quick minute. Alrighty guys here we go. Let's go with Spectra first and we'll end up with a hip raid. Alright this is 2021 Spectra so obviously different year from 2022 and now we're on 2023. So a couple years ago now guys. I think this Spectra is the same setup as basketball and all the other ones just four cards a pack. Here we go guys. El Manoa, number to 75 for Toronto, just Jeremy, then Salvador Perez, number three of eight for the Kansas City Royals, Carl. And we have a high voltage, Isan Diaz to 15. Nice patch right there though, three color patch. That's Miyami, Jesse with that one and then Anderson Tejeda to 199, a little RPA and that is Texas Ranger's going to Carl. We have a Andrew Vaughn, looks like a psychedelic which actually is not numbered but I thought these were supposed to be numbered though but definitely looks like I had a five psychedelic. Ozzy Elbis, number to 45, that's Atlanta, Carl. And then a four out of eight, Arsidia Zekina. Is he still on the Reds guys hands? Dude, had like an amazing like start to his career the year before his rookie year, technically in the hobby and then just really fell off. Justin Dunn, catalyst, autographed to 25 for Seattle. Seattle Mariners is Carl. Andrew Vaughn, I think so too Stephen, I believe it too. Lorenzo Cain out of 50 and then we've got a patch autograph here or a patch sorry autographed, Carl's Korea for Houston, Gwen and Jeremy. That one is not numbered it looks like, I think he's in Japan now it looks. Zack McIntry to 199 for the Dodgers, RPA, LAD, Gwen and Carl and then last pack here out of the first box, Ian Anderson to 20, that's Christian Yelich is just the base. Brent Rooker, nice patches there and again, I think these should be numbered guys but I think they forgot to stamp the psychedelics honestly that's the parallel right there because you can't tell me that these patches are not going to be numbered. That should be out of five honestly but Brent Rooker, Minnesota, twins going to Carl and then we got a Nolan Gorman to 25. St. Louis, Cardinals going to Carl. Alright, next box, Nick Madrigal, Rookie Aura to 35, Andy DeGugoris, Chris Davis to 8 and Andy Young to 199 for Zona going to Carl, Christian Javier and then a gold Gary Sanchez, 4 out of 10, nice one there for the Yankees Michael, Ryan Mountcastle again that's another like psychedelic or out of four, I out of five that's not numbered but still nice hit the Ryan Mountcastle for the Orioles going to David. I could have sworn that your people were saying that they forgot to stamp those cards then a Kyle Hendricks USA signatures autograph, Chicago Cubbies, Cubbies is rich. Chenichi, Dragons of Nippon. Well at least he's still playing baseball. Luis Garcia to 45 that's Washington and Anthony Rendon for the Angels going to Carl, 30. Then we have a Gavin Luxe, Game Day Spectacle, number to 50, Dodgers is Carl. Then a Bobby Delback to 25, nice RPA right there, three-color Patrick there as well. Nick Madrigal out of 25, Victor Reyes for Detroit, Detroit Tigers is Nancy and how about a Jazz Chisholm patch autograph there that's for the Marlins, Marlins is Jesse, two boxes down, two more to go and then we'll go with the hip hurt case. We have Mickey Maniac, number to 45 that's a Phillies edition, Phillies is Ryan and then George Springer, not numbered. Luis Garcia to 75, building blocks, triple relic that's for Washington going to David. Then we got a Casey Meyers to 99, Detroit RPA, Tigers going to Nancy, Andreas Jimenez, Jim Encho out of 30. Now the 25, Jami Jones, nice jumbo patches there that's Baltimore Orioles, Baltimore that's David M and then Pavin Smith to 99, RPA there for Zona going to Carl. Alright guys here we go, let's continue on Christian Javier out of 30 and Austin Hayes out of 75, out of six or six out of eight, Evan White, nice little Nike swoosh there, nice three color patches, Seattle that's going to Carl. Yeah it must be rough man but honestly you know you're still playing the sport you love and you're still getting paid for it so it is going to be definitely a big change out of 99 Ryan Jeffers but at the same time I mean the hope is obviously you know you continue to try to get better to get back to the league but then there's times man where like you kind of already played in MLB or and then you're kind of just kind of ending your career but you know what let me go make some money playing overseas because I'm gonna get paid way more you know kind of how it is for basketball sometimes you know like Dwight Howard right now he's just like living the life over there in Taiwan getting paid so much but um but you know for a lot of these players though I don't know where our students Aquino is from but I assume he probably is not American right I mean unless he was born here but I think for him it's kind of the same thing he's still going to a new environment, a new country, a new city so obviously has to adjust like he did before but yeah it's just it's tough but I mean you still get to do what you love and get paid for it so Alex Kearlaw from Minnesota, Carl, Twins and then Adolton Varshota 199 another RPA for Zona yeah exactly so yeah that's what I mean and I'm probably not bad living in Japan honestly different culture shop that's for sure though there's Alec Bohm that's a rookie 12 out of 15 Philly's Ryan base Nick Gonzalez to 50 we have a dual rookie jersey autographs neon marble Mickey Moniek and Nate Pearson all right let's take a look at that one because I got to make sure to see if that's uh if that's a randomizer or not and yes that is a randomizer technically Philly's Mickey and Nate Pearson Blue Jays so Philly's would be Ryan and then Blue Jays would be Jeremy so what the randomizer at the end we'll leave that over there a few more packs Kurokazu for Boston a 45 rich with that one then we have a Andrew Ben attendee to 15 kind of sitting whoa there we go these are one of the case hits here you aren't on Alvarez for Houston going to Jeremy I forgot what they call these deep space there you go these are awesome cards nice little case it there Jeremy nice you have a 75 Trevor Rogers out of 199 Luis Camposano for the San Diego Padres for the car after San Diego two more packs and then we'll go to the hip parade Joe Adele rookie or a number to 75 and then George Springer to 30 we have Austin Meadows for Tampa Bay to 50 and then Dean Kramer to 49 three killer patch and autograph last pack here guys we have a gold Nick Madrigal that's Chicago White Sox go six out of ten White Sox is David you got a Gary Sanchez die-cut Bobby Whit jr. little relic next era and we got Joe Adele to 199 angels going to Carl all right you guys well there you go there's the first half I mean man that was a long break but a lot of car did the top load in you know four hits a box it's kind of a lot but this should be rather quickly so now we got a limited case here guys and good luck guys just one hit per box ten boxes so again the second half of the case first spectra is already on the website with the other case of hip parade so you guys can run it back tomorrow here we go and we got a quick pitch Rafael Devers gold six out of ten for Boston rich with that one man there you go that's a sweet hit and that's because it's a frame about Ronald Acunha Jr. that's a case hit in museum collection the gold frame seven out of ten Atlanta Braves going to Carl good couple of 2018 rookies right there Devers and Acunha at 2018 class can end up turning out to be like one of the best draft classes ever all right Acunha Devers, Acunha Devers, Otani, Juan Soto we have a MLB icons that is a Gary Carter New York Mets five out of 25 Mets is Carl and nice little Miguel Cabrera that's awesome 82 out of 99 it's a nice case Detroit Tigers going to Nancy all right guys after this box for half way through and we got a Alex Kearlaw to the 2021 top silver pack series 2 autograph rookie PSA 10 number to 99 that is Minnesota Twins Carl all right guys five more hits have a little buster posey from the diamond icons patch autograph one out of ten nice and there for the Giants going to Carl and then we have a Glaber Tars also part of that 2018 class I believe that's a patch autograph from inception in 2021 Yankees Michael G all right three more to go and about Frank Thomas the big hurt two out of ten red for the White Sox White Sox is David M all right two more boxes guys here we go we have a Brandon Marsh for the Angels 17 out of 299 rookie autograph so of course angels that is going to Carl last box of the mixer guys you guys like this you guys can run it back tomorrow guys and Alec bone I smash autograph look at that out of 99 for the Phillies Philly is going to Ryan Stewart and there you go folks very nice solid case right here boom Brandon Marsh Frank Thomas they were Taurus Buster Posey Keeloff you got a big Miguel Cabrera Gary Carter Acunia and a Devers Gold not too shabby at all so I'm gonna randomize it here for that dual autograph there and then of course we'll do the randomizer for the wax party so again Phillies and Blue Jays for that randomizer there all right so we're going to do the Phillies and Blue Jays randomizer and then of course we'll do the randomizer for the wax party okay roll for both it is going to be a four into two six times here we go one two three four five six and going to the Phillies four into two six times so we're gonna give that to the Phillies congratulations Phillies that's Ryan and we're gonna go six times now on the list of names this is for the wax party promo spot one two three four five and six six times six six and Carl there you go man congratulations after six times so let's paste your name here and this would be hit parade with spectra baseball mixer RT number one thank you folks like I said the next one is in the store we're gonna back tomorrow guys thank you