Making a company that's Big Enough with Lee LeFever of Common Craft

Episode Title

Making a company that's Big Enough with Lee LeFever of Common Craft

Bio About The Guest

Lee LeFever is the co-founder of Common Craft and author of two books: The Art of Explanation and Big Enough. Since 2007, Common Craft has won numerous awards, worked with respected brands like LEGO, Google, Intel, and Ford, and created original explainer videos that have earned over 50 million online video views. Today, Common Craft produces educational guides, ready-made videos, and digital visuals that are used by educators in over 50 countries. Lee and his partner Sachi are Common Craft’s only employees and work from their home off the coast of Washington State.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Lee and I spoke about...

• What is the good life?
• Having a healthy perspective on life and richness
• Time freedom and autonomy
• Designing a business

Resources

Big Enough - https://leelefever.com/bigenough/

Common Craft - https://www.commoncraft.com

The Art of Explanation - https://leelefever.com/the-art-of-explanation/

Connect With Lee LeFever

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/leelefever/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/leelefever

Website - https://leelefever.com

Connect With Daniel Hoang

Follow me on Instagram – https://instagram.com/danielhoang

Follow me on Twitter – https://twitter.com/danielhoang

My website – http://www.danielhoang.com

My company – http://www.nineteen80.co

Join Our Membership

https://www.nineteen80.io/signup

Date recorded
July 30, 2020

Transcript

Daniel: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome to the 1980 podcast today. I am excited because I have one of my favorite guests coming today. We have Leela fever. He is the founder and owner of common craft and the book publisher of the art of explanation. And he just is writing a new book. That's coming out soon called big enough today.

[00:00:19] We're going to be talking about Common Craft and how they blew up that in the Dane with explainer videos, just about building a business. That's good enough and let's compare it to 1980 and what I'm building with this business. And then just living slower, which is what Lee is all about. And I'm really excited to figure out what this new world is.

[00:00:39] This is about let's get started.

[00:00:44] Welcome back. My name is Daniel Hong and today. Joining with me is one of my favorite guests by far so far. My favorite guest for this podcast, Leela fever. Hey welcome Lee, how are you doing?

[00:00:54] Lee: I'm great, Daniel. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:55] Daniel: I'm really excited to talk about your book because there's a lot of correlations.

[00:00:58] The reason I reached out to you is because in January, after 15 years in the consulting business and I was going on this rat race of trying to grow, I finally stopped and I started my own company. A few weeks before the pandemic. So I'd had no idea that this whole pandemic was going to happen.

[00:01:13] And so I started to venture out, start my own business. It's called 1980. And the intent of it was just to create something that was scalable, that lived with my lifestyle. I have three kids and I didn't want work for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something that allowed me to stretch myself, and also of be sustainable.

[00:01:28] And so I was very in your book. So why don't we start with, you know, what's big enough, all about I'm really excited.

[00:01:34] Lee: Yeah, well, first of all, congrats on making the big jump. I think that's awesome. I really. Big enough is about that journey. You know, it's about, it's about doing that. I think that, I think big enough is really trying.

[00:01:45] There's really about a search for the good life. in a lot of ways, it's like, what is the good life? and I think over, you know, over the last decades, you know, I think I lived through the eighties. I think if your company is in, in 1980, I wondered if that was referenced to your birthday, maybe.

[00:01:59] Daniel: It is.

[00:02:00]Lee:  So, you know, I think the good life for a long time has been get as rich as you can. And I don't think that's. For me. I don't think that's necessarily a healthy perspective. I think that there's lots of ways to be rich. And I think that money is one way and there's, if that's what you value then that's great. But I think that you can be rich with time. I think you can be rich with freedom, autonomy. Things like that. And I think the question for entrepreneurs is how do you design a business that helps you be rich in those elements? And along with, I mean, we all need money. I mean, we need to be able to pay the bills and we need to be able to support ourselves. But, along with being. rich with time is kind of a recalibration of what you value. What makes you happy? What, what is the good life to you?

[00:02:46] **Daniel:**And I assume you were, you brought this book before the pandemic happened before

[00:02:50] Lee:  I did. Yeah, it was supposed to come out in may.

[00:02:53] Daniel: And so timing wise, I mean, like this is impeccable, right? Because I think the one thing I learned with the pandemic was it was an opportunity for us to see that we were honest unsustainable path individually, but also as a country or as a company, right. We were on this path of consume more and more and more, more. And I think with the pandemic, what it's doing is forcing us to all slow down instantly. And we went and we hit the brakes and now we're stopped and it's giving us all a chance to reevaluate everything. And so I think your timing is impeccable.

[00:03:19]Lee: I'm. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. I didn't ever, of course. but we've been feeling Saatchi and I, my wife is named Saatchi and we're a partner at Common Craft. we've been thinking about these ideas for a long time. I was a little bit concerned when the pandemic hit that like, Oh, now everybody is already experiencing all the things that I'm talking about.

[00:03:38] And I hope that this book is not redundant, which I don't think it is. I've joked that I'm going had that, you know, the book is not about how to have a good handshake or something, not, not work so well, but, yeah, I think the, the ideas of big enough, thankfully fit quite well, into this new environment, we're all living in and I think you're right, there is, a recalibration or a reshuffling of things.

[00:04:00] And, you know, adding to that, last year we moved out of the city. We sold our house in Seattle and moved to a small Island off the coast of Washington. And that's another example of like, we didn't know the pandemic was coming, but we somehow were prepared.

[00:04:17] Daniel: There's something magical to that. Cause I, I personally, I live in Seattle, but my wife also has a home in Vashon. We have a mixed family. three kids. And so we spend half our time on bash on, on a piece of property. That's about 15, 20 acres of land and farming and everything. And so I get to experience both sides of the house, right from, from urban lifestyle to living in rural lifestyle. And I think with the pandemic, just being resilient, just being able to self sustain yourself for me, that's been just the comfort of knowing that I can sustain myself without the need of the entire system.

[00:04:48] Lee: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's really true. That's at the end of the Big Enough, I talk a little bit about that, that, um, again, going back to the good life, like, I think that self-sufficiency is a huge part of, of this new version of the good life. You know, we, you know, you asked about the book, so I will go a little bit more about that. So. It kind of covers the last 12 years or so of Saatchi and I basically conducting one experiment after the other with our company, common craft to try to transition it into a business that could support us.

[00:05:24] But also didn't ruin our life. and, that meant, for instance, agreeing we started in 2008, we decided we would never have employees, like whatever happens, we will never have employees. And that was a constraint that really guided a lot of our decisions over many years because there's, there's a lot of business models that just don't work that well without employees.

[00:05:43] So we looked for ways to, for that to work and that meant. Looking at intellectual property for it, for instance, in China, too, figuring out how we can make videos. That we owned and that we could sell on the internet essentially. And, and that became a big, big thrust for when the UN ended up supporting us at common craft.

[00:06:03] Daniel: And so you, you were a very early adopter in this space and I see you, I think my brother called you the OGE of social media.

[00:06:09] Lee: Wow. You know, if I go that far.

[00:06:11] Daniel: I think so because you guys, I only made one of the first viral videos back in the day with common craft. And do you mind if I play a low clip just on the audio, is that okay?

[00:06:19] Lee: Sure.

[00:06:19] Daniel: Yeah. I'm going to play a little bit. This is a common craft, social media and plain English. So this is how I discovered you back in. About a decade plus ago. So let's play

[00:06:28] with the buzz. Social media may be the next big thing. What's it all about? Let's take a visit to scoop ville. All right. I'm not going to play the whole thing because it's, it's, there's a lot of really cool stuff. So for the audience here, go to common craft.com and back in the day, like before, infographics, before all these explainer videos have proliferated all over the internet, you guys really kind of created this niche where you use little paper cutouts to explain very complex topics in a very simple way.

[00:06:54]I'm physically holding your book called the art of explanation, which is making your ideas, products, and services easier to understand. And so for me, the majority of my career has always been just taking really complex business ideas, visualizing it, help explaining it. You did it in a very cool way with kind of paper cutouts.

[00:07:09] Now. It exploded. I mean, like you, you kind of just created a space, it exploded and I would expect anyone else to just take this and run with it and kind of create the next big mega conglomerate. And you and your wife chose not to, you kind of intentionally kept it small at scale. Why?

[00:07:24] Lee: That's a really good question. Um, it came out of nowhere. Um, the, uh, we saw that social media was becoming a big thing and. We thought it needed better explanations. We wanted people to adopt social media. This was in 2006, 2007. So YouTube was just getting started, Twitter, social, networking, wikis, all those things were just getting started.

[00:07:46] And we thought, man, we could, if we can just explain this better, then there's a need out there for that. And, um, We, uh, did it on a Lark in a lot of ways. Like we didn't put a lot of thought into it. Um, it was Saatchi's idea to use the paper cutouts and, um, we just wanted to explain social media and yeah, it kind of came as a huge surprise to us that people were so into it.

[00:08:11] And that you're right. It was a viral thing, which is. Really down to timing. I think we hit YouTube right in the early days where people were looking for that kind of thing. And, you know, we started off with, in services, like making custom videos. That was our start, in terms of making income from our videos, because we've always published, you know, especially in the early days, one video a month that were our property along with working with companies to do their videos.

[00:08:37] The second video we did explain Google box. and that was a really early a fun video. and you know, we're both very entrepreneurial people, you know, Saatchi has an MBA. Not that that really is, matters that much, but with our students of business and we knew the difference between products and services, but we weren't sure how to, uh, how to do it, do that with our videos. And it was really out. Our like a question that we always ask and continue to ask is, you know, when looking at a business opportunity, you can ask what if it works? Like if this works and people come to us and want it all day, every day, what does that do to the business? What does that do to our personal lives and in services?

[00:09:18] If it works, then you have to hire. You have to have a team of people because a human can only work so many hours in a day. And that's where your income is. Your income is tied to the humans, uh, with products that the income is tied to a scalable product, a product that can be sold, made, wants, and sold multiple times.

[00:09:37] And we saw that early on and thought, um, you know, these are videos, these videos are different than. You know, Microsoft PowerPoint, but really they're kind of the same. They can be sold online. Um, and we asked what if it works with that model. And we luckily had people asking for downloads of the videos and, um, we saw the potential to slowly transition to, uh, Our business to being small and choosing, never to hire a to try to protect the opportunity so that we could stay in control of it, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, go in one direction and then things get out of control. Um, and we tried to stay in control.

[00:10:19] Daniel: And then, so you could have just grown this into a big production house where you're just pumping up videos for companies all day long and making lots of money. Um, I think you did sell some licenses to your paper cutouts. You did some sort of membership program for common craft where you can subscribe and get, I mean, you were, again a very early adopter back in the day before subscriptions were even a thing.

[00:10:37] Um, and, and other business models I actually use, uh, I use VR, which is kind of like an online. Animation video. And then they have an option where I could use one of your product, your paper cutouts as, as one of the templates as well. And so you explore various different business models. What's your guiding path? Like how do you figure out how to make some of these really tough decisions?

[00:10:58]Lee: I think it really just comes from, from mine Saatchi's perspective of what we want Common Craft to be, for us. I think that, again, it kind of goes back to the good life idea, but we found that. we could be happy and satisfies serving a relatively small group of customers.

[00:11:16]And you know, kind of, I don't know if you remember in 2008 or so Kevin Kelly published an essay called a 1000 true fans. And it was really influential for us. And I still think it holds true that basically, if you can figure out a way to sell your work to a thousand fans a year, that you can make six figures and support yourself.

[00:11:36] And there's a couple of constraints, you have to work directly with them. You know, there's no middle people and things like that. And, That's always been sort of our, our, our guiding principle is not trying to be the next Slack or microphone soft or anything like that. We don't aspire to that. We aspire to have a scalable business that can, that can grow with our customers, but I'm also B.

[00:12:00] Also operate in a scalable way where it's mostly self-service, it's designed to be lightweight terms of management and overhead and to not have a lot of overhead. Um, I think that ultimately overhead, whether it's your personal overhead or your business overhead, if that low, then it doesn't take that many customers to support what you're doing.

[00:12:19] Daniel: Um, And then being in a pandemic right now, you're probably feeling pretty good and right, not sitting on a massive overhead or having a gigantic agency with cameras or as an equipment and, and, and lots of people on payroll and trying to figure out how to manage through that through a pandemic. And so you must be much more resilient. You're probably weathering the storm much better than the average company I'm assuming.

[00:12:38] Lee: Right. I think we were positioned well for that. I'm not again now because we thought ahead about a pandemic necessarily, but it's just the nature of our business. I think that our, our business has, um, It's been, it's fine.

[00:12:53] It's not like we're not zoom. We're not a, I think Khan Academy is doing amazingly well. They they're, you know, they're a different model. They're all free. So a lot of people are looking for free sources and I totally get that. But yeah, our overhead is low enough that we can kind of go into a mode where we reduce expenses super low and can weather a storm.

[00:13:12] And that's really one of the big messages of big enough. There's a whole chapter devoted to something that I call the moratorium. And it's like a moratorium on spending money and we've been doing it for over a decade when we have a, like, if we're wanting to do a house renovation or if we wanted to travel, we might spend a few months, or even a year.

[00:13:28] We are more in this mode of living where we do away with luxuries and extraneous expenses and cook at home and an entertainment home and don't travel and all these things. And that's our way of. Of transitioning our lives into a mode where we can in that case save money. But that mode also works in terms of weathering a storm too.

[00:13:50] Daniel: That that's a perfect segue because I wanted to get a little bit into your personal life a little bit, if that's okay. And then I'm going to end this rapping just on a business level, like getting back into the call to action for everyone with this message here. But. Let's get to know Lee a little bit personally, I'm looking at it, it looks like you're in an apartment right now, and you're, you're doing some home renovation in or building a home or in you're an orcas Island.

[00:14:10] And for those of us who are not familiar, it is an Island off the peninsula in Washington state. So if you look at Washington state geographically, there's a bunch of tiny little islands. Orcas Island is one of those I live in; Babylon is another Island closer to this Southern Seattle area. Tell us a little bit about orcas Island. How'd you guys land into there and a little bit your lifestyle there.

[00:14:30]Lee: Yeah, about three years ago, we were camping here on orcas Island and thought like, wow, it would be really cool to be able to have property here. Like we didn't think we could build a house or anything, but we thought orcas Island is probably going to be growing in popularity.

[00:14:45] And if we could reserve our spot, we could, we could, you know, someday build. So within like six months, we had like started looking around and eventually found a nice piece of property with a, a little rundown house on it. And, that started this whole journey over the next few years, saw us move completely to the Island, sell our house in Seattle and just make Orca silent home.

[00:15:07] And we have no regrets about that whatsoever. And it also gets. Again by surprise. So yeah, right now I'm living in a place apartment over a neighbor's garage. It's all one room you can kind of see a little bit. And, we, after selling our house, we started a project down the road of building our forever house, common craft headquarters.

[00:15:27]down the road from here and we're probably about four or five months from moving into that. So I'm in a really weird phase right now where my book is coming out. I'm moving into a house during a pandemic all within a few months and a presidential election. Not that I personally have a connection to that, but it's all happening all this fall. So it's going to be a pretty wild fall, I think.

[00:15:47] Daniel: Wow. So you're building this home. Is this the G antenna building kind of like studio space or a workspace as part of your business?

[00:15:55] Lee: Yes. I like to work in an office. Saatchi works on couches and other places around the house, but I need an office and I'm really looking forward to setting up something similar to what you have. Eventually, we, you know, I've, I know that you've said online recently that you feel like everybody. you know, we'll be doing media of one form or another. I saw that you were experimenting with the mmhmm app too. And I just recently got my invite, so I would love to do that.

[00:16:18] Daniel: Yes!

[00:16:19]Lee: But yeah, I really do want to set up something similar and do more streaming, do more, you know, live we've talking, talking head kinds of things like that, I enjoy that.

[00:16:29] Daniel: I'm going to push my audience in all of us. The reason that I've been pushing us so hard is because I think the world needs this right. The world needs more. Sensemaking. Understanding on what's going on and what I'm seeing right now in our country. And, and I'm getting a little political, but just a lack of leadership in explaining to people what's going on, how are we handling the pandemic? How do we, he adjusts for a recession then, and, and working in a global economy in an, as the U S becomes no longer the number one economy in the world. Like, what does this mean to all of us? Right. And I think what you and your wife's doing what with Common Craft. Was a way of just explaining very complex ideas in a way that people can understand.

[00:17:08] And I loved what the paper cut out approach. I also love, I think there's some correlations with big enough, right? And for all of us, it's like, do we really need to be in this constant consumption economy where we're just growing, growing, growing, growing, because what I see, whether you personally, in your wife, what you're doing is scaling back.

[00:17:23] I'm doing the same for myself, which is. I'm only working hard because I'm trying to get that next big thing. I, you know, I want the bigger house and the fancy car and this and this and this. For our, for what reason? And so what purpose? And so for me, like I think as leaders, as a message, how do we communicate more inspiring messages and impact more human life, how to make everything better.

[00:17:46] And I think you can do that through communications, through relaying powerful messages, being passionate in your message. And so I think that's where I find a lot of inspiration in your work.

[00:17:57] Lee: I appreciate that. Yeah. I think we do. I do, we do need more of it. One of the reasons that I wrote the art of explanation is I think that we're all better off with more explainers and people who actually approach communication from a way that it focuses on clarity and empathy and things like that.

[00:18:12]it is unfortunate that. So much communication does not do that. It's a, mean, there's a lot of it that's focused on selling, which, you know, I think that commercials are probably as much as I don't like commercials. They're oftentimes great explanations. Like when there's a sales motive, it motivates people to really look for ways to communicate clearly.

[00:18:30]but when it comes to things like government and society, it's really tough, for people. And, but I think that your, you know, your point about other people, people like us being media stars. I like to think that the conversation we're having today is something that shows real people that shows empathy, that shows connection.

[00:18:48] And I think that's what gets people engaged in new ideas. I don't think it has, it definitely doesn't happen in press releases. It doesn't happen in necessarily news stories. I think journalists are great explainers, but they also are very much in the journalist kind of style of that. I mean, Vox as a client, people that are doing work like that, dude, that do that in amazing ways too.

[00:19:09] But, yeah. One of the things, a little anecdote about that is, you know, I wrote. The art of explanation in 2012, or it published in 2012. And we started making videos in 2007. And I think that I had this idea that what people were missing was a, uh, a presentation of facts, facts. Like if, if you could just present facts in the right way, They would get it and they might change their minds and they might change their perceptions.

[00:19:36] And unfortunately, what I've learned through the last few years is that's true. For some people, there are a lot of people for whom, their tribe matters more. their, their personal connections to ideas matter more. And you can't explain something to someone who doesn't want to learn it. And that's been something that I've kind of struggled with.

[00:19:58] Like how do you think about that as an explainer? Wouldn't knowing that your explanation, no matter how clear, no matter how backed up with sources it is, it's just not going to matter to some people. And that's kind of a struggle. You know, I wish that I had the answer to that, but I think that empathy, personal connections, conversations, that, that really helps a lot.

[00:20:18] Daniel: I think, as a comms professional, I do communications internal within companies. And a tool that we use is just, you know, what do you want your audience to think you'll do. Right. And like you said, you mentioned a lot of facts. And what I see typically when I'm working with leaders and other people that are trying to sell something or kind of create some sort of change, they stay on the facts, facts, facts, and what's sometimes missing.

[00:20:38] Is that feeling component, right? How do you kind of create something where people have empathy to you or you start tugging at the heartstrings? And so things can be super complex, but at the end of the day, you need something that has just some, some sound bite or some little piece that really resonates and it stays in the heart and the longer it stays there.

[00:20:55] And that's how you really affect change because we're surrounded by facts all day long. And that's what I'm trying to see.

[00:21:00] Lee: Yeah. There's um, Oh shoot. I have a video in our, we have a explainer Academy as a course where we teach courses, we teach explanation, but we, we made a video. I can't remember who it was, but it was a great philosopher who had the elements of persuasion and it's like ethos, logos, and, Yeah.

[00:21:18] Yeah, but that's kind of what you're talking about. There's like facts, there's feeling there's logic and like the that's a, you know, I love how the Greeks kind of were among the first, along with Eastern philosophers to kind of understand. You know that a lot, that sounds humans actually think about things, but I think it's really true. Maybe I'll send a link out to that video. If you're interested.

[00:21:39] Daniel: I would love it lately. I feel like I could talk with you all day long of this stuff, because this is incredible. You're going to be doing more podcasts as part of this book launch. Is that I hope so.

[00:21:48] Lee: Yeah. I've got a couple scheduled.

[00:21:51] Daniel: You know, people like yourself, myself, I'm pushing myself to be out there and being more front facing.

[00:21:55] Cause traditionally I'm the person behind the cameras filming or I'm the person behind the camera or doing the animations and editing for explaining for someone else on behalf of someone else, I would love people like yourself, myself to step out in the light and be on the spotlight because I think I'd love, you have a really powerful message.

[00:22:14] You have this book that I'm really excited to read and share with others. Um, I'm in this cutting edge niche called no coders. People are that building techniques, algae using apps, web flow, or other tools out there that's super easy to do without code. And they're building lifestyle businesses, they're building products and services, and they're, they're really excited.

[00:22:35] And, but I think there's, there's a balancing message. And for me, like this is what 1980 is about his, because 1980 in a world before the internet, I grew up in the world where I use dial up modems. I use a rotary dial phone, and I think there's something about. We've gone so far on the digital side, and there's a little bit of pull back that I want to do with the world.

[00:22:54] Right? Like how do you get back to some of the nature, be connected to nature, be connected to human relations, like talking to someone as opposed to simply, always transacting by digital. And I love. Where you're talking about building something that's scaling with your lifestyle, but I think you can also scale with society kind of build stuff.

[00:23:11] That's sustainable build stuff that makes the world better. And so much of our talent today, is, is really centered around marketing and selling stuff. Like so much of our Facebook.

[00:23:21] Lee: That's the, yeah.

[00:23:22] Daniel: Wait, is it a way just, just trying to market you to buy crap that we don't need. And I hope that you and I can help relay a message that there's something greater out there than simply selling more crap.

[00:23:33] Right. And I think if we tap into that talent and I'm, I'm speaking mostly to the gen Z, this new generation that's coming up, you have everything that's possible in front of you. Every piece of technology that's available, you have the internet, and then you have amazing people like Lee that I'm talking to you here.

[00:23:50] Who's bringing a very powerful message is you can take what, you know, you can take your capabilities and put it towards good. Rather than simply just putting it towards selling more ads or selling more things. And I hope some people take this message and really, truly build the next app. That's going to make the world better or build the next service or product that's going to make the world better.

[00:24:12] And you, I think you and your wife are good at living example where you don't need to be a multimillionaire living in some gigantic mansion. Like you, can she be on the land and still produce digital stuff remotely?

[00:24:25] Lee:  Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate that message. I really hope that we're all successful in, in having that come to fruition for things like a gen Z. I totally agree. You know, a couple of things that that kind of brings to mind. I was just talking to Saatchi the other day about, you know, the prevalence of zoom calls now and how, you know, when we would work with people in the past, it would always be just a normal phone call. And even though it's digital mediated, we're doing zoom now.

[00:24:50] Like it's just like, Oh yeah, I guess we'll do a zoom. Um, and like you see their faces and it's like a, more of a connection than we had with phones. You know, even, even when the internet was here, we were still using phones for a lot of things. Like the dream of the video call is alive now. And we can finally do that.

[00:25:05] And I think it's, I think that's good. Um, In the process. The second thing is in the process of doing all the house stuff, I'm, we're making a lot of decisions about like citing and debt material and these big, big, big decisions. And, um, I started just picking up the phone and calling people and talking to him.

[00:25:26] Yeah. You know, this is not on zoom in this case, but, versus like just using the website, using a contact form, trying to talk to someone in email, it's like, that's was my approach for decades to dealing with things. And now. I just like picking there's no replacement for actually having a conversation with someone.

[00:25:45] Daniel: I had to pick up. My I'm picking up my phone right now and there's this green app on my phone. I've never actually used it before. It's a slight, slight joke there, but I think for most people, I think growing up, I remember it. The only way to communicate back in the day was to actually literally pick up the phone, right? The internet didn't exist, email didn't exist, websites didn't exist. And so there was something about human connection, picking up the phone and talking, it's almost, it's very nostalgic right now that even you'd have a phone call, especially a more of a digital native.

[00:26:15] But I think this newer generation is like the concept of, I do everything over the internet. And the other day I actually did take out where I called and talked to a person and I showed up as like, Hey, I was that person on the phone and said nice to meet you. I received some things from you. Plus they're just doing like an Uber delivery or something.

[00:26:29] Lee:  Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. I think that, being, being here on the Island has been interesting in that, in that way. Of course again, pandemic mates. It makes it a little bit weird, but living in Seattle, I, you know, so many people are involved in tech in one way or another, that there's an acceptance of tech in the next expectation of tech.

[00:26:48] And, you know, I was. And I got a first version of the, uh, you know, Amazon echo. and we still have it. We still use it. And people on the Island are like, you let that go thing into your house. And I'm like, wow. I mean, it has a micro your phone, but so does your computer. And so does your phone like, and that's been really interesting to see a different version of how technology is perceived by people and used by people and like. I think in the big enough idea of simplifying and maybe living in a rural place.

[00:27:21]I don't think that message is like, Oh, and stop using technology. Like that's not it like one of the things we can be here is we have a fiber optic internet connection at our new place. It's faster connection than we can get in Seattle. And that's really been the big, a big change that's supporting this move for us.

[00:27:37] And a lot of people like us, and maybe it's the same on Vashon for you is that the infrastructure is changing along with workplace. Like workplaces are allowing you to be other places now. And, and I like to think that people can, like you're doing and like, we're going to be doing soon as like finding a place that makes you happy.

[00:27:55]You know, like you might not question whether you could live outside the city until the business says you can, and then you think, wow, maybe I could do that. And I think there's some happiness to, to that. And also, some efficiency.

[00:28:12] Daniel: Right? Very, very wise words there. Lee, let's close out and your book is available. It looks like it's coming out September 15th.

[00:28:20] Lee: That's right. It's available for pre order right now.

[00:28:22] Daniel: I'm going to get a copy of myself. So big enough, building a business with scales, with your lifestyle. And then also we can check you out at Commoncraft.com.

[00:28:31] Lee: That's right. Yep. And the book is at Leelefever.com. That's where the, you know, the sales page is for it too, but I've been blogging almost everyday at Lee Lefever.

[00:28:40] This is kind of like a inspired by what you're saying. Well, this is kind of indicative of what you're saying is, is my version of putting myself out there as blogging more. I do want to do more things like you're doing too, so maybe someday I'll interview you for my awesome. From my office with the awesome camera and microphone.

[00:28:56] Daniel: I used to be a blogger back in the day and I stopped. And then I think the internet, you know, Facebook and everything kind of took over social media. And I think there, I love going back to just owning my own blog and only my own space and just producing content and getting out there. Just the purity of content, not for likes, not for the comments and hearts, but really just for the purity of it. So I really enjoy it.

[00:29:16] Hey, thank you Lee. For joining. I hope everyone enjoys this conversation here. There'll be had. Definitely. I'm going to go check out the book, Big enough, Building a business that scales with your lifestyle. Thanks for joining me.

[00:29:26] Lee: Happy to be here.