Season 4, Ep. 13 – Founder to Founder: With Devon Wright, CEO and Founder, Lumo

Transcript

(THE FRONTIER THEME PLAYS)

Teja (00:05):

Yo, what’s up, guys? Today was an awesome conversation with Devon Wright of Lumo. Devon sold his previous business to Yelp, and then started an orchard, and then discovered that irrigating his orchard was a big problem. [He] asked some folks about how they watered their own vineyards and orchards and such and discovered that there was no compelling solution other than driving around and turning valves on and off. So he invented Lumo, and we get into how it’s like living in Occidental, which is about an hour, two hours north of San Francisco, how he got into the business, and thoughts on social media and how he’s building this company. It’s an awesome conversation. Super enjoyed it, and we know that you guys will too. (THE FRONTIER THEME ENDS)

Teja (01:00):

Okay, so you’re now in the irrigation business. What’d you do before? Like, were you a water engineer?

Devon (01:09):

No, no, I didn’t have any experience in water or in agriculture. I guess that’s kind of like, how I am. I don’t really like, I don’t think you need much experience to dive into something, you know? I never really thought about that as, you know, need a bunch of credentials to justify going and doing something. I just, (Teja: Totally.) I look at a problem, where I see an opportunity, and I just think like, well, that’s interesting. I’m gonna go research that, see if it stays interesting. And then after a few months, it’s still interesting, I put a little more energy into it. And if it keeps staying interesting, you know, a year later, you all of a sudden have like, learned a lot and you have a good sign to yourself that maybe this is something you wanna stick with. So that’s kind of what happened with this one. But this business, I’d moved out to California in 2017 when I sold my first company to Yelp, and I was from Canada, so, you know, we have so much water up there. I didn’t even think water shortages were a real thing anywhere near me, anywhere in like, you know, North America. And then I moved to California, and it was like, peak drought, you know? (Teja: Yeah.) And it was just like, geez, this is crazy. Like, it’s just such a different world when water’s a consideration and it’s short. And I’d moved out to this little town, Occidental, and it was, you know, it’s groundwater fed, everything in this town’s groundwater fed. We have a big ag scene, and they use a lot of groundwater, Russian River water, to irrigate all the crops up here.

Devon (02:39):

And, you know, being in a community that had like, real water shortages, like, where people’s water was running out, and where they had to like, truck water in, just to kind of keep the toilets flushing, it was a big eye opener of like, man, this is crazy. It’s supposed to be like, one of the most developed parts of the world, and we’re still suffering from, you know, water shortage, and when you live in an agricultural community, that’s even more of a thing. (Teja: Yeah.) It’s even more eye-opening, ‘cause, you know, I try and grow, I have an orchard, and trying to grow your own food, and just having, you know, you just take this really like, there’s a big sense of urgency to like, “How do I get control of my water? How do I make sure I’m only using the amount that I want?”

Teja (03:23):

“How do I catch like, leaks, or breaks, or things that could cost me, you know, big tanks of water?” And having a technology background, I was like, I knew there were ways to do it. I knew there was like, the IoT and hardware, you know, that was helping my thermostats stay smart. You know, it was helping my food disposal stay smart. Like, how have those technologies not been applied to irrigation, which is like, the biggest user of freshwater in the world by a long shot. (Teja: Yeah.) So I kept looking. I kept assuming, man, there must be something out there. I’m just a small fry, you know, the farmers must have something better than I, you know, know of. And so I just kind of drove around to my neighbor’s houses and their vineyards and stuff, and I was like, “What do you do?”

Devon (04:10):

“How do you control water? How do you monitor your systems?” And they’re like, “Yeah, we don’t. We just drive around on ATVs and turn it on and off, you know. We’ve tried the stuff on the market, and they just seem too complicated, or too expensive, or not reliable enough.” And so I was like, “Oh shit. That’s a real opportunity. Let me see what I can do.” And yeah, it just kind of, like I said, take it from there, turn it into a business. 

Teja (04:36):

That’s interesting. So like, what they would do, is they would just like, drive around, turn on the spigots, and like, that’s it, basically on a cyclical thing, and that’s what the prevailing solution was?

Devon (04:50):

Yeah, I’d say that’s the biggest competitor for us. It’s manual, doing it manually, set an alarm on your phone, drive around, open a valve for six hours, come back six hours later, turn it off, walk up and down the lines to see if there’s any broken lines, you know. (Teja: Gotcha.) [It’s] pretty labor intensive.

Teja (05:08):

Yeah. So you had the orchard first or…? (Devon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.) Okay, got it. And so you had the orchard and you were like, “This seems like a pain in the to like, keep this properly hydrated. Certainly people have to be doing something like, more innovative than just like, walking around,” and you were like, “No, they’re not,” <laugh>. That’s funny. (Devon: Yeah.) Okay. 

Devon (05:33):

Yeah, and like, it wasn’t just the, you know, annoying part of turning on and off things. It’s like, the cost of not doing it properly, right? Like, if you forget to turn off the valve, or even if you did turn off the valve, but you didn’t know you had a broken line somewhere down the field. I mean, we’re talking large plots of land too, right? We’re talking like, a hundred acres. How do you visually inspect a hundred acres to know if you’ve got broken lines in places? Like, even my little orchard’s only about a half an acre. There’s, you know, the way the topography is, you know, and the way the lines are spread out. I mean, I’ve had the situation where I drove my tractor around, you know, I was mowing and I accidentally caught a line I didn’t see. I broke the riser off. I go up to my house, I come back down, I turn on the water thinking, “Yeah, good. I’ll be back out in two hours,” and I come back in two hours, and my tank’s are, you know, empty. And I’m like, “What the hell’s going on? How did I use that much water?” And then I’d look, walk around, and I find a broken riser, and it was in the grass, so I didn’t see it, and it was, you know, draining my whole tank into the river.

Devon (06:38):

Like, my crops are suffering, but I also just lost, you know, 500 gallons of water. Like, 500 gallons of water is a lot of water, man. That’s like, (Teja: Yes.) you know, when that’s the same water you use to flush your toilets, and to, you know, wash your body like, and drink, and you only have so much in the ground, and you know that your neighbors are running out, you’re like, “Yo, that is not…I don’t wanna lose 500 gallons,” and I’m small fry, man. Like, if you were on a commercial operation, you could be using, you could be pumping a thousand gallons a minute. You know, like, so you, if you have a broken line that you don’t know about, you know, that can be real catastrophic. So that’s the thing I think a lot of people don’t really appreciate. It’s just the volume of water being used in ag, and, you know, the cost of mistake, not just like financially, right?

Devon (07:31):

Like, the water loss, the crop damage, the, you know, pump that could get damaged by pumping an empty tank, and so on. It just hit me up like, geez, this is a real urgent problem. And ‘cause I don’t think a lot of people are so aware in the tech community, I don’t think they’ve thought really to put their back into it, right? 

Teja (07:51):

So what was the business you had before this? You sold the business to Yelp and so like…

Devon (07:56):

That was my first, yeah, technical company, I guess. I’ve always been kind of making, selling stuff, but my first like, formal company outta school. And yeah, it was like, a local marketing platform. It was like a CRM, almost, or a marketing automation tool. And we originally built it for our band. We were trying to find a better way to connect with people in physical venues. And this was like, 2012, you know, there was like, social media was exploding, and a lot of mobile apps were being built. Everyone was obsessed with like, how do we do stuff on the phone? You know, how do we connect people online? And we were just feeling like, how do you connect people in the real world? That’s still a real problem, you know? Like, if, you know, [the] majority of businesses are actually brick and mortar, and if you’re a band, you know, you especially feel it, ’cause like, no one’s gonna download your band app. No one’s gonna, you know, follow your band page. Your best option is to connect with people at the show, ’cause that’s where they’ve come out. You know, they’re outta their way. They’ve spent money, they’re in the room in front of you.

Devon (09:04):

You know, how do you build something that would allow those people to connect with you live, so that you can then maintain a relationship with them after the fact? So that was the problem we were trying to solve. We ended up solving it through like, this little WiFi innovation, and we hacked a router, and we built a bunch of technology that would allow people to use their phones to connect on-premise. They could sign into the WiFi network, and we would be able to like, get information and, you know, walk them through kind of an onboarding process, and that would allow them then to, you know, end up in our CRM, and then we would be able to see that device anytime it came to one of our shows. So we would kind of bring this router around all of our shows, and someone would come back to the show.

Devon (09:43):

We’d have pre-programmed like, an alert that would say, “Hey, thanks for coming,” you know, “We saw you last week, it’s so cool that you’re here again,” Like, you know, “Now here’s a free beer on the band, you know, for being a loyal fan,” things like that. It was just kind of like, a fun little hacky thing at the time. 

Teja (09:58):

So sick. And so like, I mean, basically, you guys would just bring this router, and then like, the people, they would just connect to this WiFi.

Devon (10:05):

Yeah, ’cause you would auto reconnect, right? If you’ve ever connected the first time, you would auto reconnect, and then the CRMs job was to use that data to like, figure out what were the right messages to say to you. You know, if it was the 10th time you’ve been reconnected, like, that’s a really good fan, right? So then you would say something different, then, if it was the first time someone reconnected or, or first time someone ever connected, then you’d say, “Oh thanks. We’ve never seen you before. Like, thanks for being here.” So it was meant to be like, we called it like, “cookies for the real world”. It was like, (Teja: <Laugh>.) it was meant to connect people in physical locations to the physical location or to the, you know, band or brands that were on premise. And it was fun. It actually got some legs. (Teja: That’s cool.) But yeah, that was, I mean now you talk about it, and it sounds so funny, ’cause I don’t even know if you’d be able to do that. They’ve done so much with like, addresses and privacy. I don’t even know if that’d be possible anymore. But it was back then, it was pretty fun. And then, yeah.

Teja (11:01):

That sounds like, that sounds dope. Like, I could, so like, would you guys, like, when you guys got on stage, be like, “Alright, connect to this wifi,”? (Devon: Yeah, yeah.) Okay. That’s sick.

Devon (11:13):

Yeah, I still think there’s like, a play there. I don’t, I mean I had to move on, you know, it’s like, I’ve done that for like, 10 years, or I don’t know how long it was. Like, five years of building it, and then we sold it, and then there was a few years of doing it at Yelp, and then we pivoted it into being more of like, a marketing platform on Yelp. You know, but still. I had to get up. I had to just like, I’d done it for too long. But I still think that, you know, we’re way too obsessed with how our phones and how our social media connect us to other people online, and there’s not really a killer app for how do you connect with people in a physical venue? Like, how do you walk into a bar, and like, you know, the bar has so much rich content. There’s like, all these people there that maybe you know, or don’t know, or maybe you know someone they know, and like, you wanna meet people at a place. How do you like, figure out who’s in the room? How do you get like, leads on who to connect with? There’s brands in that venue too, right? Like, there’s, you know, alcohol beverages, there’s food brands that are interested in connecting with people on-premise. There’s often live music, or there’s other bands, you know, it’s crazy. You can go around the web, and there’s so much like, tracking and connectivity being used to target you, and like, it almost has gone way too far, right?

Devon (12:32):

Like, you’re like, such a commodity. You’re such a product on the web now. And yet, like, (Teja: Yes.) when you walk into a venue, there’s just nothing like that. You’re like, still just kinda, your phone is just silent, and you just keep it in your pocket, and the only time you pull it out is to remove yourself from the venue, right? It’s to like, it’s to go on Instagram while you’re sitting in this fucking venue, and, you know, there’s something missing, right? The phone should be, there’s some app, there’s something there. I don’t know what it is yet, but it…

Teja (13:00):

No, you’re so right. So I used to live overseas, and one of my buddies, he was like, super into like, I don’t know if you remember Foursquare? (Devon: Yeah.) Like, he’d be like, “I’m the fucking mayor of this such and such place.” I’m like, “What do you get? Do you get anything cool? Like, are they giving you extra money or like, beer or something?” He’s like, “No, I’m just the mayor.” I’m like, “Well, who sees it?” He’s like, “Other Foursquare users.” I’m like, “Do you know who these people are? Have you ever met them?” He’s like, “No.” I’m like, “What the fuck?” So there has to be something like, more dope and like, connected than that. That like, the brand, like, you can create loyalty programs. There’s so much there, for sure. Like, you could meet people.

Devon (13:36):

Yeah, I’ve done stuff to like, see like, to kind of manually do this. (Teja: <Laugh>.) So like, for a while, I would go just up to a random table, and I would say, “Open your Facebook,” and they’d be like, “Who the hell are you?” I’d be like, “Just fucking trust me. Open your Facebook.” (Teja: <Laugh>.) So they would open their Facebook, I’d be like, “Type my name in,” and they would type it in, (Teja: Yeah.) and then it’d be like, six mutual friends, and I’d be like, “Click on that,” and they’d like, pull up the six mutual friends, and they’d be like, “Oh, you know fucking ‘blah, blah, blah’?” (Teja: <Laugh>.) and then, bam, like, the table’s unlocked, and you’re like, talking to these people. (Teja: Yeah.) And now you’re friends. Now you’re like, getting along, and you know something about each other. (Teja: Yeah.) Or you could do the same thing with interests, right? Like, “Pull up your favorite interests.” Boom. “Oh, you love the Leafs, too?”

“Oh, I’m a huge Leafs fan.” 

“Oh yeah, you see the game last night?”

 Like, right away. I’ve done this so many times, and it works pretty much every frigging time.

Devon (14:29):

And, you know, I recognize there’s like, a creepiness factor, and you need to be able to filter it, but these are solvable problems. There’s so much rich, like, information that you could use to connect to people. I’ve done this with AirDrops, too. Like, I’ll take a picture of my face holding a beer and just write, like, “If you find me at the bar, I’ll buy you a beer.” And I would just like, AirDrop it to anyone who’s in the venue that has AirDrop open. And like, (Teja: Yeah.) so many times, I have had amazing nights like, where people will just come up and be like, “Are you the guy who just AirDropped this?” I’d be like, “Yeah, here’s your free beer. Like, let’s start hanging out.” And then like, we would be laughing, and then someone beside [me would] be like, “What are you guys laughing about?”

Devon (15:10):

“Do you guys know each other?” I’m like, “No, we just like, AirDropped this thing,” and then he’d be like, “That’s hilarious,” then he’d be having a beer. And like, we’ve done like, some cool stuff like that. And I’m like, there’s a fucking app for this. I don’t know who’s gonna make it. I’m too old to make it now, man, (Teja: <Laugh>.) but someone needs to make it <laugh>.

Teja (15:27):

<Laugh>. That’s dope. Okay. Yeah, I’ve never done shit like that.

Devon (15:31):

Just try it. You’ll be so blown away.

Teja (15:34):

I will go to the bar this weekend, and I will fucking try it. (Devon: Try it.) That sounds super fun.

Devon (15:40):

It is. Worst case, it’s just funny. It’s just like, your night [is] fun, because you’re just ripping around like, hacking shit. It’s really fun. 

Teja (15:45):

Do you like, what other shit have you tried, sort of like, in the physical space like that? ‘Cause I love those two examples. AirDropping shit, and then just going up to like, a random table and being like, “What are our mutual connections?” Do you have anything else?

Devon (16:00):

Actually, maybe one other cool thing we used to do as a band. I have this friend named Adrian Wynn. He’s the craziest guy, but he’s the guy who like, he’ll try anything. (Teja: <Laugh>.) He has no embarrassment. He just like, he loves figuring out how people tick. He would do this thing, too, where he would try to, basically, when we were playing shows, he would like, watch the dance floor, and he’d kinda watch how the dance floor filled up. And it’s like anything, like, the first while of a show, like, no one’s really on the dance floor, ’cause no one wants to be first.

Devon (16:35):

No one’s there yet. (Teja: Right.) So you know, everyone’s kind of standing on the sideline. And then he would do things like, rewards for the first person to dance. So like, the first person who would get on the dance floor to do this, he would just like, grab the mic, like, “That person, you’re the first dancer, like here’s your free beers.” Like, anytime anyone’s the first dancer at our show, they get free beers, and like, it would immediately unlock the floor, and everyone would join, like, trying to see if there was a new prize for them. And then it actually became like, a thing like, where people would know, like, “If I get there, and I’m dancing first, I get some, you know, I get some stuff,” and then that would like, make the dance party happen earlier, and that would bring more energy.

Devon (17:13):

So there was some fun stuff like that. He was the wizard with stuff like that. He called it “fan gardening”. It’s like, (Teja: <Laugh>.) trying to grow the fan. He was pretty good, too. And he ended up building an app that was trying to do some of this stuff, and it didn’t make it, but (Teja: It’s complicated.) there’s a way.

Teja (17:32):

Yeah. There has to be a way. And it has to be better than fucking like, “I’m the mayor of this place,” ’cause I’m like, what’s the point of that shit?

Devon (17:38):

Yeah, there’s no outcome, right? Like, it’s just vanity. It’s not gonna last for long. (Teja: Yeah.) But it goes to show you, there’s a group of like, even that small gamification is enough of a motivator (Teja: Yeah.) that it gives you an insight. Like, people are willing to do this sort of thing. It’s like, how do you make it valuable for people? How do you create a system of record from it that becomes valuable to that person, either for their own ego, or for their network, or for, you know, their relationships to the brands they love. You know, how do you unlock something so that they wanna keep doing it, and so that more of the network gets involved? I don’t know yet, but I mean, there’s something there, ’cause I think especially like, social media has become so toxic. You know, and if you talk to any parent who’s got like, a 10 or a 15 year old kid…yeah, I read a stat the other day that it’s like, more than 50% of girls between 10 and 15 spent up to seven hours a day on social media.

Devon (18:36):

Like, it’s like your life is gone at that point. Your life is gone, right? If you’re spending seven hours a day on social media, you have a severe addiction, and your life is going to suffer. You are now being pulled away from meaningful human interaction that is necessary for your mental health. And so like, we’ve gotten way too good at connecting people online, and it’s at the cost of their ability to connect offline, and in the real world, and with, you know, more meaningful connections. I think we’ve gone so far in that direction that there is going to be a really strong demand for some in-person or real world social media application, that can use a lot of the same tools that were used to make social media so successful, and fun, and whatever that kept people coming back, but probably with some guardrails, and definitely like, with the intent of bringing people together in the real world. ‘Cause we are like, at a huge community deficit, right? And it’s causing a major, major mental health crisis. So technologists have to think about how to do something to bring people back to the real world, or else it’s just gonna get legislated. 

Teja (19:49):

Dude, it’s too easy to get fucking stuck on an Instagram scroll. (Devon: Oh yeah. Yeah.) You can’t even have that shit on your phone. I like…

Devon (19:58):

No, I delete them all. I don’t have any of ’em anymore, ’cause in 2016, I don’t know what it was, took a turn, and it was like, Facebook became so unbelievably hard to be a part of. Just toxic. And then Instagram was like, pretty cool for a while, but then, yeah. Like, I’d just kept catching myself like, 30 minutes later, I’d go to my phone to like, do something else, and then I’d be like, shit, in there 10, 20 minutes later just like, what am I doing? Right? Like, and those moments of like, boredom that you used to have, and you used to use for like, contemplating the universe, or (Teja: Yes.) recognizing that cats are cool, or like, petting your animal, or like, you know, talking to your spouse. You know, we’re just sitting there doing this. Like, it’s gonna be…I don’t think we’ve seen even the tip of the iceberg on what this is gonna do to mental health. I think we have a long way to go. 

Teja (20:47):

Yeah, so like, what are some of your like, personal habits, in terms of technology use? ‘Cause you seem very like, strongly opinionated on it.

Devon (20:55):

Yeah, like, so no social media, you know? The only thing I have is LinkedIn, and by the way, they are getting quite good at getting you to just scroll, too. Like, I do catch myself in there. I’m like, “Ah!” But I, you know, for me, with LinkedIn, I personally use it, because it’s like, my business, right? And it’s my business network, and I, you know, I work through it, you know, I’ve found really great relationships through it. The content I put on it has helped me attract employees. It’s helped me attract investment. It’s helped me connect with other founders. So as much as I do find it pulls me in, I mean, it pulls me in during the eight hours a day that I work in, anyway. So it’s like, to me it kind of makes sense.

Devon (21:33):

And for some people that, you know, Instagram makes sense, ’cause that’s their business, too, right? But I deleted, you know, I never had TikTok. I was too old to have that. So that’s probably not a choice, as much as, I just like, I’ve, yeah. That’s for the generation below me, I think. Instagram, I’ve deleted Twitter, I’ve deleted, although Twitter, I’ve been using more and more as just like, a news source. You know, try to do that. Facebook, I’ve deleted. I mean, I work in the Valley. I’ve seen how good they are at their job. They will get your attention. They’re spending billions, and billions, and billions of dollars with the smartest PMs and the smartest engineers in the world, (Teja: Right?) focused on how to get you to keep picking that thing up and keep scrolling, and they have no intention of it being educational for you.

Devon (22:25):

They have no intention of it being, you know, healthy for you to connect with the, you know, they’re not sitting there being like, “Oh, my North Star is, ‘How many times did you call your mom this week?’” Or, “Oh, my North Star is, ‘How many times did you like, you know, play chess and learn something this week?’” Their North Star is like, “How many minutes did you use on this thing?” And then the questions of like, was it used yelling at people over politics or, you know, virtue signaling, or (Teja: Yes.) you know, being angry, they don’t care. They do not care at all. They have no interest in that, and so, when you see that, you’re like, you have to be insane to think you are going to outsmart them, and that you are going to be able to win your time back.

Devon (23:03):

You have to be actually clinically insane. This is like being up against NASA, trying to like, with no resources, trying to beat them to the moon. You’re just never, ever, ever gonna do it. So I just felt super out gunned. (Teja: Yeah.) I felt them taking more time, and I was like, I just want that time back. I wanna write a book. I wanna, you know, play with my cats <laugh>. I wanna like, you know, plant my orchard. I don’t wanna be sitting around doing this all day. So (Teja: <Laugh>.) I had to get rid of those. And then notifications, I mean, one of their main ways, one of any apps ways get you, is the notification or the bubbles. “Oh, shit. One extra Like. Oh, I better get back in there.”

Devon (23:42):

So I delete, I turn off all notifications on my phone, as well. That way I, and by the way, I still get in there, you still are trained. Oh, I gotta open up and see if I have an email. You still do it, but at least you, at least you aren’t being pinged into it all the time. So that’s another thing. But other than that, those are kind of the two major ones. I also try to like, push the apps. Like, I have a lot of pages on my like, home screen, so I have to like, scroll to get to like, apps that are less, you know. So the things I need, I put on the first page, and the things I just like, want to be less and less in my life, I push further to the right so that I have to like work to get to ’em. Other things like that. (Teja: Totally.) What about you?

Teja (24:21):

No, I’m a hundred percent the same. I try to check all the social media shit only once a week like, on the weekends, you know, because it’s a nice way to stay in touch with friends and family and shit like that. I feel like Twitter and LinkedIn are useful for business, but then it’s funny. Like, I always think I’m like, I look at some of the shit that people say on Twitter. I’m just like, “Aren’t you embarrassed with this point of view?” Like, it seems absurd, and it’s hard. It’s hard, because I’m like, “Shouldn’t we be promoting shit and shouldn’t have a point of view on this and that?” And I’m like, dude, this is…if somebody walked up to me in a bar and was like, “Why doesn’t anybody do…why? This seems so useful.” (Devon: Yeah.)

Teja (25:10):

And then people reply, and they’re like, “Yeah, that’s great. I love that thing.” I’ll just be like, what a ridiculous conversation. And that’s like what Twitter seems like to me, so it’s hard for me to buy into it. (Devon: Yeah, yeah.) But yeah, I think Twitter and LinkedIn are probably pretty useful. I haven’t been like, following what has happened to Twitter after the like, Elon Musk purchase. I imagine (Devon: Yeah, yeah.) it’s probably good, you know? Who the fuck knows. 

Devon (25:35):

Seems similar. (Teja: Yeah.) Maybe that was the point. I don’t think we were meant to see the  exchange. He fired 70% of his engineers and didn’t have any change, so maybe that’s a testament to…

Teja (25:45):

Well, totally. I mean that’s how Silicon Valley fucked up over hiring.

Devon (25:49):

I do use much Substack. I’m a massive Substack user. That’s my go-to now. I use that more than anything on my phone, for sure. I’m hoping it doesn’t become like, somehow toxic, ’cause it feels like it’s in a really nice place. I use it, and I use the, like, it reads to you if you need it to read to, so I use it when I’m driving. They’re winning more, and more, and more of my time. I really like it.

Teja (26:11):

There’s this one dude that I really like. I actually, like, a long time ago, I remember like, I used to date his sister, and I went over to their house for Thanksgiving, and this dude like, smacked me down in a debate. I mean, he was like, a couple years older, so maybe my brain hadn’t formed yet, but I was like, “Holy fuck. This guy is so goddamned smart.” And lo and behold, he has like, a super popular Substack now. So I like reading his, and then…

Devon (26:33):

What’s his name? What’s his Substack?

Teja (26:36):

Michael Solana. Yeah. (Devon: Michael Solana? I’ll check him out.) Yeah. ROY is very fucking good. He’s got like, these like, just very interesting takes, like, non-obvious takes on things. Everything from like, the whole Titan submarine fiasco to, you know, I don’t know, things in politics. It’s super interesting. I like his shit a lot, because…

Devon (27:00):

Michael Solana Substack…there he is. Billionaire media tycoon? And mayor of San Francisco? 

Teja (27:06):

That’s not, I mean that’s just the fucking troll.

Devon (27:08):

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. (Teja: <Laugh>.) I mean, I didn’t know. Maybe he was a media billionaire tycoon, but then he said he was the mayor of San Francisco, which I know isn’t true, so it’s like, ah. (Teja: <Laugh>.) He got me.

Teja (27:19):

Yes. Yeah, he is a smart dude. 

Devon (27:25):

I’ll check him out.

Teja (27:27):

Yeah, there are a couple other Substacks that I like, but his is the one that I really, that I like the most. And I feel like, I don’t know. If you have smart friends, generally they tell you about like, what’s going on. Like, you don’t need to like, read the news. You just like, are hanging out at dinner, and they’re like, “Have you heard that there might be a coup in Russia?” And you’re like, “What?” And like, you go and you read the New York Times, you’re like, “Ah, I see. This is kinda crazy.” Other than that, yeah, I don’t know. I like jiujitsu, so sometimes I’ll catch myself like, scrolling like, YouTube videos on like, training videos, and then I can lose like, 20 minutes that way, but I generally can avoid like, you know like, just the stupid, vapid, like, motivational stuff, which I have gotten sucked into before. Like, if you’ve had a TikTok, you know. It’s like some jacked dude working out, and you’re like, okay, cool. Next one, next one, next one.

Devon (28:20):

Yeah, yeah. I’ll have to check them out. I’ve never even used TikTok, so I’m way behind here.

Teja (28:26):

Save yourself, dude. 

Devon (28:28):

Okay. I will try. I will try.

Teja (28:29):

Yeah. There is like, sometimes though, like, so I have a small garden. Like, I’m sure it’s like, nothing like yours, but it’s like…there is some stuff like, topical stuff. If you’re interested in like, obscure subject matter, it is very good at funneling you into an interest zone. (Devon: Yeah.) Like, you know. Yeah. I mean, for example, this seems silly, but I learned like, you have to clean like, your dishwasher filter like, quite often like, more often than you’d expect, thanks to TikTok. Now I’m like, dude, I didn’t even know this was a thing. 

Devon (29:00):

I’ve never done that. So I am like, gonna die <laugh>?

Teja (29:05):

Nah, you’re gonna be grossed out, though. I’ll tell you that. (Devon: Oh, man <laugh>.) <Laugh>. You’re gonna be like, “Oh fuck!” <Laugh>. Yeah, it’s real easy. It’s not hard. It’s just not a thing that you think about. 

Devon (29:20):

Yeah. It’s like, totally. Unless it gets clogged, I never go in there, and when it has gotten clogged, I was like, <vomiting vocalizations>.

Teja (29:25):

Oh yeah, dude.

Devon (29:27):

But I just assumed that was like, a one-off time, but I guess that’s just what happens over time.

Teja (29:31):

Yeah, totally. Well, ’cause like, you know, I don’t know if you, so like, probably previous to your current property, I don’t know if you may have rented before, I mean, (Devon: Yeah, I did. Yeah.) you’re just, you’re moving in, the landlord maybe took care of it, maybe didn’t, and you move before it becomes an issue. But if (Devon: Yeah, yeah.) you’re at a place for like, two years, three years, year two, you need to clean that shit. 

Devon (29:50):

Yeah, I know what I’m doing at the end of this podcast now. I’m gonna get…(Teja: <Laugh>.) <laugh>.

Teja (29:56):

What Substacks do you like, by the way? I gotta get a couple new ones.

Devon (30:02):

Man, see this is one of my biggest fears, is people are very judgemental, nowadays. You know, like, and it’s tough to…I actually have my Substack as an anonymous account, ’cause I don’t share what I’ve been after, because, especially here in the Bay Area, people are not very tolerant of views outside of their own views. And I actually share many of the views out here, by the way. I’m not like, I’m not wanting to come across like, “Oh my gosh, this guy must be like, reading like, Ku Klux Klan articles.” (Teja: <Laugh>.) Like, I’m from Canada. I very much have the Canadian progressive liberal values in my life, but the value that I have most is like, tolerance for other people, even people that I significantly disagree with, (Teja: Yeah.) and that’s not okay here. In fact, I don’t even know, that might be all of America right now. There’s like, very little tolerance for people that don’t think the same way as you, right? No one’s really interested in a debate. They just wanna like, decide whether you’re in their tribe or not, pretty much as soon as they meet you, and then they either like you for that or not. So I don’t share what I read, even if I think you and me are aligned, even if I think your audience would be like, “Yeah, I’m with that.” I just don’t, I won’t do it, because it’s guaranteed that like, you just immediately are put into a tribe, and then people wanna fight with you. And I’m like, what? And not just fight with you for like, the reason of like, debate and coming to a common conclusion or learning about someone else’s life.

Devon (31:28):

It’s like, they want to tell you you’re an idiot, and that you need to change, and if you won’t, then they hate you. So there’s like, actual real costs nowadays to like, sharing what you like and don’t like. And if the wrong, you know, person comes across it, and you were hoping to, you know, do business with them or work with them, it can be weird. Not that you’d want to, after you found out that they hate you for something that you think, but still. You just never know, and it causes, to me, it actually causes more friction. So unfortunately, I’m not gonna share them. I’ll share that with you after. You and me could chat after, but I don’t put it out there. 

Teja (32:04):

I’ll stop recording but I’ll ask you again. (Devon: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.) Well, what’s interesting is like…actually just did it. So we sent it like, a weekly newsletter like, every Friday. Some dude straight up just replied to my newsletter email with like, “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you, Teja.” Like, that was the reply. And so, I mean, it’s like a thing, because when you’re sending emails and like, somebody’s like, “Didn’t I unsubscribe to this shit? Fuck you. You guys suck ass,” you know, that type of shit. (Devon: Yeah.) Like, people get really upset. And so I used to not be on this podcast. This was actually run by like, a previous set of marketing, the podcast and the newsletter. (Teja: Is it you?) And I’ve just kind of been stepping in as we look to like, hire like, a new VP for the role and scale that team. (Devon: Yeah, yeah.) And the first couple of times I’ve been on the podcast and writing the newsletter, I’ve been like, really careful about like, not having a point of view that’s offensive and like, not swearing and like, not saying potentially offensive swearing.

Devon (32:59):

Swearing, I can’t help. (Teja: <Laugh>.) You’re the same way, I guess.

Teja (33:03):

I can’t not, dude. I grew up in New York, so it’s just, this is what it is. And so, but over time, it might have cost us some dollars, but I actually kind of feel like owning like, my own beliefs, this is for me. It actually, like, for people that like, genuinely know me, it actually increases like, their trust of me, ’cause they know like, I’m the same person in every domain. And like, you know like, people that I work with closely in the company like, know that I’m like, know that I have some sort of like, let’s say, I have a certain belief, and it may not be the typical tech CEO belief, and that’s okay. You know what I mean? And like, they’re either cool with it, and they like to work with me, or they’re not cool with it, and they’re strong enough on that stance where they’re like, “Fuck this guy. I don’t wanna work with him.” Why even operate a company, if you’re not going to make it like, a reflection of like, things that you believe in? That’s my point of view. So I don’t know, who knows? I might get fucking stoned to death in San Francisco, though, so I don’t know <laugh>. 

Devon (34:08):

<Laugh>. It’s a lot of places, man, and like, you’re seeing it more and more. I mean, covid was such a good example of that. (Teja: A hundred percent.) I mean, honestly, there was no conversation about what things we should and shouldn’t do. It was just like, “The people on the TV said this is how we do it, and I have no data to back that up, and I don’t wanna have a debate about it. You either believe that or you don’t. Like, we either keep kids outta school, because that’s what the big guy said to do, or you’re the Nazis,” and you’re like, “What? Like no. Like,  I think there’s just a real conversation about like, should kids not be allowed to see each other for years?” (Teja: A hundred percent.) “I think that’s a worthwhile debate. And also like, we should just look like, are they at like, major risk? Like, let’s just have a conversation. Let’s just bring up the data.” And it was like, “No.” Either you want to go to war, and I’m just not in a phase of my life where like, I need to be going to war all the time over shit. I wanna save water. I wanna focus on that. And so the more you share and talk about these other things, the more you get dragged into it, and then you’re just either like, being libeled, and then you have to respond, because you wanna protect your reputation, and now you’re sucked in, or you don’t get involved at all, or you don’t say anything about it, and then you just get libeled.

Devon (35:23):

So it’s like, I don’t know, it seems like it’s not worth it. I don’t know, I don’t have the profile that’s good enough to actually make an impact on these people anyway. And so it’s like, whatever.

Teja (35:36):

I get you, especially like, when you have a team, you have investment, you have customers, it’s like, you have like, a duty, like, a fiduciary duty, to like, execute for them and like, make sure to stay focused on that, and it’s real easy to like, waste away your emotional energy.

Devon (35:51):

Well, and you have channels to communicate to them directly. Like, believe me, I share what I believe in, my values, on my Slack. I share it to my team. I share it during my hiring. I tell them everything, but I don’t need to share it on, you know, in front of a million other people, because I don’t care about those. Like, I don’t know those people. I’m gonna certainly not change almost any of their minds, but I am certainly gonna enrage a lot of them, and then what? So there’s all this cost downside, and then there’s like no upside, and then you’re like, “Well, if I care about informing my team, I’m just gonna use a different channel. If I care about talking to my customers…” I mean, I literally have every single one of their phone numbers. I just reach out, right? I don’t need to…yeah. So that’s why I just try to be careful, ’cause unfortunately, it feels like that’s what I was saying in 2016. It feels like it all changed, man, it all changed. ‘Cause before that, it felt like there was a lot more openness to have debate and conversation, and then all of a sudden, it was just like, yeah, no. That’s not gonna happen anymore. So then I just stopped sharing online. Didn’t make any sense for me. 

Teja (36:56):

You don’t have to do this, but I challenge you at some point, good sir, to start dripping out some of your controversial opinions. (Devon: Yeah.) See what happens. 

Devon (37:06):

Yeah, yeah, no. It’s a good challenge.

Teja (37:08):

It’s hard but, you know, I don’t know. Half the time, though, I think Chris and Abbey, they’re like, “Reign it in, Teja. You can’t say that,” (Devon: <Laugh>.) <laugh>. Fair.

Devon (37:21):

Ah, “reign it in.”

Teja (37:23):

Okay. So how far is Occidental from San Francisco, by the way? It’s like, an hour? A few hours?

Devon (37:29):

Like, if you were driving on a good day, hour and a half. If you were driving on a very busy traffic time, it could be over two hours.

Teja (37:35):

So when did you guys move out there to Occidental? A couple years ago? 

Devon (37:40):

Twenty-nineteen. Just before, yeah, before covid.

Teja (37:44):

Oh, damn. Okay. 

Devon (37:46):

Yeah. Before it was cool. Before it was cool. 

Teja (37:48):

<Laugh>. Yeah, I know. So you missed, basically like, the lockdowns and all that shit?

Devon (37:54):

Yeah, I was already living up here. It’s a town of a thousand people, unincorporated little rural community. So not to say there wasn’t like, you know, restrictions. There was, but, and you know, it certainly hurt some of our local businesses. (Teja: Yeah, that’s tough.) Yeah, my kid was super young, you know,? So she was zero, just born, and we live up, yeah, in this like, piece of land out in the middle of frigging nowhere. So honestly, it was just kinda like we were up here for a weekend, thinking it was just gonna be two weeks to flatten the curve, and then like, 2,000 days later we were like, had two kids and we had all these animals and shit, and we saw in the news like, what was happening, but we, you know, we were already like, pretty isolated so we would just like, invite friends over and drink wine and then our town was pretty cool.

Devon (38:35):

They opened up pretty early, and like, some great restaurants and stuff kind of kept rolling and gave us some stuff to do. But yeah, we were pretty much out of it. 

Teja (38:46):

So what does like, rural California feel like? Does it feel like, what I imagine like…I mean I’ve been to like, SoCal, like, Orange County, never been to LA, and I’ve been to San Francisco a couple of times, and it has a certain feel to it that’s, I don’t know, almost like, depending on where you go. If you’re going out at night, the city feels like, crazy and incredible, but if you like, walk around in certain parts of San Francisco in the day, you’re kind of like, this is kind of sketchy. (Devon: Yeah, yeah.) Does, I mean, do you feel any of that in Occidental, or is it like, a totally rural town?

Devon (39:18):

No, no. Yeah, we’re really far away. Like, California, I think…I’m not American, and I’ve only lived in so many places, it’s hard to generalize, but from (Teja: Yeah.) my experience, this is the strength of America. This is why I really love it, being here, the diversity of people, and of views, and of ways of living (Teja:  Agree.) is dramatic, just from like, county to county. (Teja: Yeah.) Like, the county north of me is so different than this county, is so different than Napa, is so different than San Francisco, and then so different than Marin, and you don’t need to go far to have like, to get an entirely different experience, an entirely different, you know, philosophy and viewpoint. That fragmentation’s really cool. It’s been, like we said, it’s turning to be unfortunate, online, that that kind of fragmentation’s has been taken advantage of to create anger and clicks. (Teja: Yes.)

Devon (40:15):

But in the real world, it actually is quite a strength, ’cause you know, it can be, you can go, if you don’t like San Francisco, you can move one and a half hours north, and you can have an entirely different experience. So my county, you know, to use a generalization, is like, it feels very hippie. It’s like, (Teja:  Uh-huh <affirmative>.) and it was that way when…but the old hippies, not today’s hippies. (Teja: <Laugh>.) The old hippies that were like, you know, anti-government, not the hippies that are like, you know, today’s hippies. I’m also just making a joke, ’cause they’re obviously not anti-government. It’s like, this is where the communes were born, like, back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. This is where like, magic mushrooms kind of came, you know…Terence McKenna and others lived here for a long time. (Teja: No shit?)

Devon (41:03):

Some of the Grateful Dead played here, some guys from some very iconic bands have moved and lived in Occidental. There’s a good music scene out this way. And then there’s the wine community, and the wine country, so there a cool blend of like, some hippie sentiments and mentality, mixed with some of that money that’s coming from the Bay, mixed with some of the music and art scene that’s kind of been, you know, big in and around Marin and in Sylva Counties for a long time, mixed with the wine community and the rural attitude, so it’s a cool little blend of a bunch of different topics. And then, because it’s not a big city, you know, a thousand people, Sebastopol’s maybe 10,000, 20,000 people. I don’t know, something like that.

Devon (41:45):

Healdsburg, this beautiful little town with a lot of wealth, but it’s, again, not very large. So we don’t, you know, fortunately, I guess we’re just not big enough to like, deal with a lot of the things that occur in a large city like San Francisco or LA, (Teja: Yeah, totally.) but it’s totally different, and I love that about America. I mean, you just drive from county to county, you just get a totally different vibe. And I’m just talking about a tiny little region you drive to. The Central Valley is a totally different vibe. You drive into LA, totally different, by Orange County, totally different vibe. So it’s kind of cool.

Teja (42:17):

Yeah, that’s dope. That’s cool, man. Okay, so where in Canada are you from? I should have asked that earlier.

Devon (42:24):

Just outside of Toronto. (Teja: Okay, gotcha.) Yeah. A little town called Whitby.

Teja (42:29):

Okay. Did you grow up like, in a city, or were you just like, small town? 

Devon (42:33):

It was like, a mid-size suburb town. It was right on the edge of like, where the rural part of that area begins, and then Toronto. So it was sandwiched right in between, and anyways, like, that was how I was able to live. You know, like, I definitely didn’t go to the city much as a kid, but you know, it influenced us a lot. And then, you know, also, you could drive 40 minutes in one direction and be in the middle of nowhere on your friend’s dad’s farm and like, having beers out there. So it was cool. It was a cool part of the country. 

Teja (43:06):

Totally. You know, I mean the one observation that I’ve made is like, the tech industry attracts like, people that are very independence-minded and like, individualistic, but then to kind of like, succeed in parts of the tech world, you kind of have to join like, the hive mind, and then I think people get to a certain point where they’re like, “Fuck this. I don’t wanna be a part of this,” and then they migrate to like, I don’t know, northern California, or they go…(Teja: Tennessee, Austin.) Yeah, a hundred percent. And like, this loop where I could see like, you get a guy who, or a girl who goes and works at Facebook for like, two years and is like, “This actually sucks,” leaves and then moves to like, I don’t know, fucking Jackson or something. But I guess Jackson’s also now like, super popular.

Devon (43:52):

There’s an archetype for that, for sure, but I know lots of people that stay, and they, (Teja: Really?) yeah, they stick it out, but yeah, definitely covid changed a lot. Like, now when people could work remote, I think, yeah. I think this must have happened in most cities, but certainly happened a lot in San Francisco. Just, I could speak to it, ‘cause I was there, but a lot of people were like, “Why would I pay so much money to live in downtown San Francisco? There’s not really that much going on, when most of my time, I go hiking in Tahoe anyway. I’ll just go live in Tahoe.” Or, “Most of my time I go surfing down in Santa Cruz, anywhere, I’ll just go live there.” Or like, “Yeah, I love Austin. I love the vibe out there, and like, why would I, you know, I just want to try my hand at that.” So that definitely created a migration, for sure. And we see it up here, even. You know, a number of young families have moved up this way and basically just said, “Yeah, like, I get way more for my money. I get a bunch of land, nicer weather, wine country’s right next door, you know? I’m always in wine country anyway, so why wouldn’t I, you know, I might as well pay half the rent and get 20, 30 minutes less drive,” or I don’t know the rationale, but I think you saw that.

Teja (44:58):

Totally. So, okay, so with Lumo, are most of your customers kind of like, vineyards, or do you guys…

Devon (45:05):

Yeah, we focus a lot on vineyards. That’s like, our biggest area of focus. I think we’re applicable to pretty much any drip irrigated crop at this time, but we like, focus, focus, focus. (Teja: Cool.) It makes you better for your customers when you know them better, you know? 

Teja (45:21):

Cool. Yeah. So how do you build like, an irrigation technology company? What’s the team composition like?

Devon (45:28):

If I knew, man, I’d already be, (Teja: <Laugh>.) you know, a unicorn, but you know, doing my best. 

Teja (45:34):

Hey, you’re on your way. I mean, you got the passion for it, so it’s just, you know, matter of time. 

Devon (45:40):

Yeah, I mean, the way I try to do it, is just try to go be an irrigator, man. Like, literally, I went and worked as an irrigator, you know? Like, you’ll know what problems they have by doing the job, and by spending a lot of time with customers that do the job, and just asking them a lot of questions, looking at their competitors and how they’re using them and not using them, and I think that’s like, my number one kind of philosophy is just like, customers first. Go see the customers, go live in their shoes, and you’ll come out of it with a lot of like, well, you’ll come out of it with one or two really big ideas about what needs to change. And then you’ll also learn their language, which helps with your marketing, you know? You’ll learn their network, which helps with your sales. So that was what I did. I just decided like, fuck it, I’m gonna go be an irrigator. (Teja: That’s sick.) And I still kind of do that, you know? Now I’m a plumber. I plumb in all of our stuff, but again, it’s like, I’m trying to learn how does my product get installed, right? It’s not gonna get adopted if that installation process is shit.

Devon (46:40):

You know, I can never build channel partnerships if I built a product that is only able to be installed or supported by a very specialized group of my team. So getting out there and learning like, what is the actual physical process to put one of these in? What’s the physical process to run one of these? What’s the physical process to have an irrigation meeting? Who’s at that meeting, and how do they talk about what’s upcoming and their plans for irrigating and, you know, how do they then open my platform and try to use the buttons and the interface to get that job done? You know, just taking notes and notes and us sharing it to the team, making the team come and do the same thing, you know, like, putting everyone in the field as often as you can.

Teja (47:22):

How do you balance like, let’s say you go to like, an irrigation meeting, and I assume you have like a guy or girl who like, runs your technology department, like, and probably the software interface for the thing, and you’re like, “Oh, okay. I see that they’re getting stuck here, they’re getting tripped up here.” How do you actually give them the notes? Or are you like, “Go join the next meeting?” Like, how do you try to bounce between letting them do their own thing, versus like, you see a problem, you want them to fix it?

Devon (47:47):

That’s what the PM’s job is, is to take all the…is to know the customer really well and to know what that customer needs to be successful, and then to set the North Star of what, you know, how are you measuring that success? How are you measuring that that, you know, customer is getting value out of the platform, and then looking at every request that, either they’ve come up with, or you’ve asked them, or they’ve seen in a meeting, or the engineers identified, or or customers have emailed, and to try to rank them, in terms of their impact on the North Star, and then their job is to decide which ones to build. Not my job. My job is to just like, try is to desperately try to represent the customer as best I can understand it. And that’s often very compelling, and it often does make for things to rise to the top of the order, but I don’t, I mean, I tried to make sure the team doesn’t think, “Oh, that’s just how the CEO said to do it. I need to go do it.” I try to just like, only bring things from the lens of the customer, when it makes sense, and then the PM’s gonna have me as one input and all these other inputs, and it’s up to them. 

Teja (48:58):

That’s fucking cool. I admire that. 

Devon (49:00):

Well, because if you don’t do that, my first company, we didn’t know how to do that, and we had a lot of churn, a lot of just like, building so many features and doing so many things, because I would be dumb enough to wake up one day and be like, “Oh, you know what would be really cool? Like, this seems cool.” I wasn’t doing it thinking like, “Now go build it.” (Teja: Yes.) I didn’t do that, but I didn’t appreciate that like, (Teja: Yeah.) me saying that was gonna have this weight, and then like, people were gonna go away and be like, “Well, he said we gotta do that thing. Like, let’s go build it,” and then I’d come back two weeks later, and I’d be like, “We built this thing,” and I’d be, you know, but then the sales team would be pissed, ’cause they’d be like, “Did you build my thing, that thing that actually is gonna drive dollars, or actually gonna drive usage?”

“No, I built the CEO’s thing, ’cause I heard him say this was important, or this client was calling him, telling him they work with us, had this stupid feature and no signed contract, no commitment.” Then the deal doesn’t close, and now you’ve got too many features and too much churn. And so, I’ve tried to like, get out of the way of doing that, and I’ve also tried like, really only to do that when my conviction is coming from like, a direct experience with paying customer or someone who I know has got a commitment, right? 

Teja (50:11):

I have the tendency to like, I’d be on a sales call or something, I’ll be like, “This guy said this, we need to fucking do it like, right now,” and then my team is like, “Are you sure?” Like, so I have to kind of watch myself and make sure that there’s some good customer data coming behind my opinions on shit. (Teja: Yeah, totally.) Alright, well sweet, man. I want to stop recording and then ask you, actually, what you like reading <laugh>?

Devon (50:39):

I can give you good water books. I can give you all sorts of good stuff related to that. <Unintelligible>.

Teja (50:42):

Actually, yeah, yeah. Tell me like, what’s a good, if I wanna understand like, the water problem, or if I wanna understand more like, maybe just about like, the pain that somebody who’s like, growing crops and shit feels around getting enough water. Like, what’s a good starting place?

Devon (50:59):

The Water Paradox (Teja: Okay.) is so good. It is the best book I’ve read at highlighting how we’ve built our kind of systems around water, around appropriation, and what needs to change to shift towards like, efficiency thinking and being better with the resource we have. Awesome book, really recommend it. Easy read, well written. And then the other is Let There Be Water by Seth Siegel. And that is just a killer, well-researched story of drip irrigation, and Israel, and how Israel kind of went from being this place that no one really thought could sustain populations, because it’s in the desert and didn’t have like, much water, to being, you know, five times bigger than they expected and to being a net water exporter and a net agricultural exporter, and it speaks specifically to the story of drip irrigation, which I think is just like, such an exciting technology and has so much potential to grow and will grow. It uses that story to kind of dive deeper into the Israeli culture, and policy, and relationship to water that is so healthy and cool. And it’s a nice read to follow on after The Water Paradox, ’cause it’s a good anecdote of people doing it right. (THE FRONTIER THEME FADES IN) People recognizing the need for change and efficiency and making it happen through, you know, culture and technology and lots of fun stuff, so also very easy and good read. Those are the two, for sure. They’re great. 

Teja (52:26):

Awesome. Where can people find you on the interwebs? 

Devon (52:29):

Linkedin. That’s the spot.

Teja (52:32):

Okay. Go to Devon’s LinkedIn, everybody. I’m sure he’s got some good stuff, and that’s the only social platform he uses, so it’s probably…

Devon (52:39):

I’m on there all the time. (Teja: <Laugh>.) It’s the only one that sucks up all my attention. 

Teja (52:43):

Hell, yeah. Awesome. Appreciate you man. Thanks for having us.

Devon (52:45):

Thanks for having us.

Faith, via previous recording (52:46):

Thanks for listening to the Frontier Podcast, powered by Gun.io. We drop two episodes per week, so if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe on your platform of choice, and come hang out with us again next week, and bring all your internet friends. If you have questions or recommendations, just shoot us a Twitter DM @theFrontierPod, and we’ll see you next week. 

(THE FRONTIER THEME ENDS)