00:00:00

Audrianna Jacques: Meeting is being recorded. Oh, wow. How sweet. What's. It's. It's a girl.

00:00:08

James Redenbaugh: Yeah. Mitten. Oh, I won't wake her up.

00:00:20

Audrianna Jacques: Beautiful.

00:00:21

James Redenbaugh: Yeah. There's my note. We have too many. Too many note takers. I'm still seeing which one's going to best.

00:00:27

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, I was able to look at. Those are the Fixer, because I got the notification for the Fixers one. I guess it's. It's probably some of. Some about what it's gathering and some about the formatting. Right, the way it's formatting the notes.

00:00:49

James Redenbaugh: Exactly. Yeah. I'll show you real quick. Can I share my screen?

00:00:55

Audrianna Jacques: Yes.

00:01:00

James Redenbaugh: So I think that I'll probably stick with Fireflies, you know, Fixer. I'll keep using Fixer because it's really built for email and it helps me manage my email a lot better. It'll like, draft responses and make sure I see important things and help schedule meetings with clients. But Fireflies makes these really great summaries. So, like, I should have sent this to you, but normally I. I'll copy this and put it into an artifact doc on our website and our own UI and share that with our. With the client. And sometimes I'll even take the. Just to kind of be overboard. I'll take the transcript and feed that into Claude because Claude's my favorite AI And I'll have Claude generate a summary because often it's even better than what Fixer does. But Fixer is cool because it. It breaks things down.

00:02:09

James Redenbaugh: You know, it breaks down the meetings, it gives timestamps and then anything that you want more details on. So, like, Adriana suggests thinking of team needs in terms of different personalities and archetypes. And I can just click a button there and it'll go into its memory and then like, give more detail on that one point.

00:02:31

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, very cool.

00:02:34

James Redenbaugh: And then I can ask questions about the meeting and stuff like that. Right in there.

00:02:39

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah.

00:02:41

James Redenbaugh: But there's also Zoom AI and, you know, I'm paying for that anyway, so, like, maybe we'll just use that. We're figuring it out.

00:02:55

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah. Well, thanks for showing me that. I did look through the one from. From Fixer, and then I. So I take very thorough notes and a lot of times that's for me so that I can stop. Stay really present with what's going on. And so. And then. So it's nice to compare it with the. With the AI and what the AI is doing. And so I. I haven't looked over here in a second. I sent you the A docu sign with the notes. It was, It was kind of a. The outline of what we talked about, too.

00:03:36

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, I saw that. I haven't fully looked through that yet, but I have it up here.

00:03:41

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, so that's where it. That's where I put. Because I think I told you I was going to send you some notes and in kind of like. Like, what can we. What can we do together? So, yeah, you can take a look at that and let me know if you have questions. And then the notes that I have for today was to kind of look more like under the hood of things. You can kind of show me around and in show and tell, if that works for you. And we can still kind of use this, the list that's in that. In that outline as kind of like a guide for things that we can have as outcomes, you know, as we're looking at things together.

00:04:28

Audrianna Jacques: If there are things that can shift or things that can go into some of the things that you're needing right now, then you can use those as, like, outcomes of. Of what we talk about today.

00:04:41

James Redenbaugh: Cool. Awesome. Yeah, sounds good. And I'll give this a thorough read, but overall, the doc looks good. And glad to have that.

00:04:52

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah. Yeah. And I include. I include stuff about, like, my privacy policy and in your intellectual property. And then also. So I do a mix. Sometimes people have me come in more as, like, coaching, but like, on a personal level that also incorporates their business. So I have. I have other things that are in there, but it's just a general, like, other things about personal privacy that I respect, and that's part of the things that I. I do in service to other people. It's kind of a mix in that way.

00:05:28

James Redenbaugh: Awesome. Wonderful. Yeah. Great.

00:05:32

Audrianna Jacques: Hey, so do you want to. Are there things that you feel would be valuable to take a look at together? Do you want to share. Share your screen and take me on a little journey?

00:05:44

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, I thought it would be helpful to kind of lay out for you all the different projects that we're working on at the moment to give you a snapshot of the current state of things. And there's a lot. So I'll try to focus on the most important parts.

00:06:08

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah.

00:06:11

James Redenbaugh: And do my best to kind of paint a picture of. Of what we're doing and where we're at. And I'll also show you the back end of our. Of our system. So I'll just share my whole screen here in case we bring up different apps and things. So most of our clients right now are in our New model, either page. About that, I'm also going to bring up something I'm working around that I think I mentioned, this pattern. Have I shown you this diagram?

00:07:10

Audrianna Jacques: I think you showed it to me in, in a different format but not in the way that you're designing it here.

00:07:19

James Redenbaugh: So this is kind of a visual for how I'm thinking about these different packages or engagement levels with clients. Horizon and Surge are, you know, I don't really want to offer those yet. A lot of clients are at this prism level where they're paying about 2k a month and it's working out where at that level it essentially equates to like one meeting or vision session per week and one like creative push where we're moving things along. So we could be working on two things at once or we could be working one thing and then the next thing. But basically it means that the client's kind of in our awareness in the background ongoingly, but about once a week they have a good amount of my attention during the day and I'm pushing something along and delegating an aspect to someone else.

00:08:34

James Redenbaugh: And so if it's like a more junior person, they might be working on something for a couple days. If it's a more senior person, you know, like a high level brand designer, they might spend half a day on the brand one week and you know, half a day the next week moving things along. But it's kind of like this weekly rhythm. And so then if somebody's at the level below that, it's basically half that. So it's a push every two weeks instead of every week. Or if they're at the level above, at the flow stage, it's like two pushes a week. We can have two meetings in a week, really push things along, bring more intention, also involve more team members at once and hold more aspects of their project simultaneously.

00:09:29

James Redenbaugh: And this kind of rhythm method allows for dynamic switching between tasks based on what they're ready to do and what they need in the moment. You know, it's best for clients that want to use us for a number of different things but aren't sure exactly how that plays out. And I think it's going to be less good for clients that really clearly want a five page website and a brand up by June 12th. And that kind of client I think is generally, is going to better if they're, if they have a more traditional proposal where we scope the whole thing out. We have things that we include in that process and things that we don't and a timeline and then we kind of work backwards from there and make sure we do everything.

00:10:32

James Redenbaugh: And even though we would we have these two different models simultaneously, we can still kind of fit those project based clients into our rhythm based model, even if we're not kind of using the rhythm based model in our communications with the client. So let's say we have a three month website build project internally. We can think about it as a month of flow and then a month of Prism and then a month of flow when we, you know, if that's how busy we're going to need to be to get that done. Because I'm realizing some clients want, they want clarity and they want a budget and they want to be taken on a journey that we've designed and they want to pick a package and also those things can often be priced in ways that are more profitable.

00:11:48

James Redenbaugh: So if we're taking clients through a clear journey that we've designed over years of doing this, then if we do that well and sell that well, we can end up like making a lot more money for the time that we're putting into that because it's more like we're delivering this product that we've designed and figured out and unless like the client is just kind of buying a chunk of our time. So that's a little backstory on the two models. This is a proposal for the fixed cost model. I can send this to you if you like. It's for the client that I ended up not working with thankfully. But I'm glad I, I went through the proposal process because we actually used to use Bonsai for creating our proposals, which is our accounting thing and it has a great template and stuff.

00:13:00

James Redenbaugh: But now we have our proposal template on our own website so we can fully customize it. We can have things that are included across all the proposals and then hop in and whatever the client needs, we can tailor it to them. So I like to generate these images based on our conversations and include kind of context and content about what we're doing for them and just lay everything out in one place. And then this document becomes really important as we go through the process and can go back and be like, you know, well we agreed to, you know, one to two vision sessions here and you're asking for a third. So let's make a budget for that. Or you know, we have five unique pages in this plan. So if we need to expand the scope. We can always come back to this.

00:14:03

James Redenbaugh: So any questions about this or the difference between the two models?

00:14:09

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah. So will you give me kind of an overview of what really, what's like the dis. What's the primary distinction between those two?

00:14:26

James Redenbaugh: So the new model, the monthly rhythm is really centered around the month, and the client picks a level of service for the month. And then we fit them into our rhythm and kind of move things along. It feels like it's like moving things along from behind. Like we're pushing things where the other model is more about the outcome that we want to achieve. The package that we're selling, and it's like we're working backwards in time from a launch date. We want to finish this brand and website by this date. So we're gonna, we can plan all that out. We have a fixed cost for that.

00:15:17

James Redenbaugh: They'll pay 50% up front, you know, and then one or two more payments in the middle and on completion and it doesn't matter how much time we take or how hard it ends up being for us, as long as we are delivering what we say we're delivering where the monthly model is a lot more flexible. If we get into things with the client, they think they want a landing page, but really they want to spend more time exploring the vision or developing a product idea or working on animation, that's totally fine. It's flexible. We want to go with the flow and, you know, just stay in communication and make sure it's clear, like this is where the energy's flowing of this project.

00:16:15

Audrianna Jacques: And how are you, when you are, when you're doing the initial calls with a new client to decide if you're a good fit and how you're gonna support them. Are you, and are you doing a pitch for one of these? Are you taking like, you know what I'm saying? How are you structuring that and how are you presenting it to them as options?

00:16:45

James Redenbaugh: So most of the clients that are in the model now, in the rhythm model just got like my initial Google Doc where I was writing out what it entailed, or one client who signed up for a flow level package for this month, he didn't even need to see the doc. He was just like, sounds great, let's do that. Like, I trust you. So on the initial call, I'm listening for what they need. And if it's really specific, like we need a website and a brand, then the traditional proposal will probably be the Way to go.

00:17:36

James Redenbaugh: But I want to communicate the, about the monthly model also because it's there for clients after we've done initial build if they want ongoing support and it doesn't have to be, you know, $2,000 a month of ongoing support, it can be like 250 bucks a month of ongoing support, which like, keeps them in our ecosystem. We can fix things and we have like one meeting with them every two months to move things forward. And then if they, you know, six months from now they want to launch a new campaign or build a new page or develop some social media templates, it's easier, easy for them to kind of turn up the volume knob and say, let's move up to pulse, let's move up to rhythm and leverage, leverage the support that we're offering. So, and this whole monthly thing is relatively new.

00:18:41

James Redenbaugh: You know, the first client to prototype it started in December. They were an old client that loves working with us and they were happy to try something new and they've really enjoyed the model. It's worked well for them. And now we have about six or seven clients in the new model and are learning a lot really fast while we, while we iterate. It also helps with the proposal process because I tend to take too long on the proposals and because I get kind of perfectionist with them and I want to like, they're a proposal is a promise.

00:19:37

James Redenbaugh: And so I'm saying like, we can do this amount of work by this date and I, I always want to be like, really certain that we can do it and certain that the client is going to be able to do it with us and not have a bunch of hard to meet needs. And so I tend to kind of take too long on the proposals, you know, also because I'm quite busy with other things. And then, and then it can be a week or more until the client gets a proposal back and then the energy of the conversation is kind of faded. So that's un. Ideal. So it's nice to have the monthly model for clients that can, that just want to hop into that and then I don't have to make a unique proposal to them. I just show them the page.

00:20:40

James Redenbaugh: And then clients who really need a proposal, I'll take time to do that.

00:20:47

Audrianna Jacques: That's great. That's really helpful for me. I had a couple of questions that came up. One is, do you want to have like, ideally, would you like to have a percentage of your client base to be in the monthly Rhythm and a percentage to be in the original kind of outcome based model. And do you want to have a way to present these options to clients like on the initial calls to propose it to them?

00:21:22

James Redenbaugh: Yeah. Yeah. And it would be good to have a page on our website with if these are our two models to make it clear like these are the two options and then we have a page for the monthly rhythm. We could also have a page for. That kind of introduces the packages and we can productize them a bit more. So like here's our three levels of brand packages, here's our three levels of website build packages to give the client a sense of. This is what we're using. But your needs are unique. I want to generate a proposal for you and, but this is kind of how this process works.

00:22:25

Audrianna Jacques: Awesome. And then do you eventually want to have like, are you open to how many of your clients are in each model or. I think that, you know, it's, I know that can be kind of like a multi layer question because if you're going to have people in the monthly subscription then you'll have a variety, you know, there's a variety of them of different ones. But have you kind of thought about what would be like a good mix for the company?

00:22:57

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, I think maybe 25% are in the package model. The proposed project.

00:23:12

Audrianna Jacques: That'S currently what it is or that's what you would like it to be?

00:23:16

James Redenbaugh: I think that's what I'd like it to be. It's hard to say. I think it should be determined by the team that we can build and the systems that we end up with. Because my feeling is that the monthly rhythm clients are easier to manage. The package clients are. There's more complexity and more things that can go wrong. And it's more important there that we really deliver on all our promises. Where the, the promise of the proposal is the product. But the promise of the monthly rhythm is the access to our team and the support and the effort. We can give clients a sense of what we can get done by the end of the month. But it's mostly it's like we're saying we can, you know, we're gonna put this much into our engagement here and, and we'll see where we get to.

00:25:07

James Redenbaugh: And if they're not happy with where we end up, then we can offer a refund. But the idea is that we include them so much in the process and are so clear in our communications and co creations that the client really understands at the end of the month. Like, I, I thought we would have a, a landing page at the end of the month, but I see this journey that went on together that was actually a lot more valuable.

00:25:56

James Redenbaugh: And, and so I'm happy, you know, and if throughout the month the client is like, yeah, this is great, but you know, can we get this landing page then of course we're going to prioritize the landing page, but the model kind of allows for that flexible movement as opposed to the traditional model where we might be proposing a landing page and then we go on this journey and the client's really happy about that. But then they're like, but what about the landing page? And, and that was our agreement. And then we end up like doing a bunch more work just because of how we framed the engagement.

00:26:44

Audrianna Jacques: Do you feel like that? I, I know that element well within my own business model. And so I'm curious for you in some of the stuff that we're doing together, is that component of, that of the outcome based model, do you, is there a system that you would like for Iris that would make that process more smooth for the client and for the team?

00:27:17

James Redenbaugh: Definitely, yeah. And I'll share this again. So there's various things that we. Let me see if I can find an example of one of our timeline docs.

00:27:54

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah. Why are you looking for? I just want to say the issue that I'm hearing is it's subtle and so, but, and I'm sure you have like this is the system you have to work with it. But what I'm hearing is that it's when you have the outcome, you've said, you know, we're going to do this for you by this date. And then there are things that come up that are really, that are more valuable and honestly if you're building the landing page without going on that journey with them, the landing page, I, I, I relate to this where sometimes it's like you can't build it unless you get that information and go through that process. Sometimes you can and it's not great, but that this is part of Iris's integrity to go to, on that journey to deliver the promise.

00:28:45

Audrianna Jacques: And so yeah, having a system that is in place either to prepare the client as you're onboarding them with you guys so that they have this as part of like almost like you're sharing like a new belief system for Them, you know, of what the process is and then also a system in place for when that's, that journey begins. And it's like a divergence from the original path.

00:29:23

James Redenbaugh: Yeah. And I think that having clearer resources for organizing the way we all think about the project based work can also benefit that monthly rhythm. So like this for example is, it illustrates how I think about the project based work. We go through these different stages, story and brand design and content development in the proposal. It's, you know, strategy, story, design development. And each of those phases has key meetings, has a clear outcome that we need to move on to the next stage and has different people involved in the process and also has templates and stuff that make the process easier, like our brand guideline, questionnaire and things like that. And so it's like, it's modular and flexible and scalable as well. If it's a bigger process, we can expand all of these stages.

00:30:43

James Redenbaugh: You know, or if a client needs extra attention in story, then we can expand that one stage or they need, they're clear on story, they have to copy, but they really want to focus on design. You know, then we expand. We, we still have to go through these stages to make sure we're aligned and we have what we need to get into design, but they can be streamlined and then we get into design. And so there's going to be a minimal spend to do to make sure we hit each of these stages and a minimal timeline and clear kind of milestones. And so it would be helpful for our rhythm clients to understand that process perspective as well.

00:31:47

James Redenbaugh: So we're not just aimlessly kind of exploring unknown territory with them, but we want to, maybe we make it clear when we're putting on our strategy hats, when we're doing vision work and what that can lead to down the road, you know, and if we, if our process is going to get into web design and result in a beautiful webflow website, then there's like criteria for passing this threshold into design. To do this well, we're going to need clear, you know, creative brief, brand guidelines, site architecture, etc. And then the design process can go really smoothly. And if a client comes in on a monthly level and they're just like, great, I have you guys, let's jump into design then. Like maybe that's the way to go. But we gotta be really clear.

00:33:01

James Redenbaugh: Like we're jumping blind into design, but we're still uncovering these things. It's not going to Result in the kind of website you see in our portfolio, it may like reveal some things, we can see what happens, but it's going to be this exploratory thing because we haven't done this other work.

00:33:28

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, exactly. And when you were talking, I had kind of an idea because I think part of this is definitely for you and the team to be able to predict where are the divergences going to come. Right when you're having, when you're working with a client initially, when you're talking with them and as you're building. But another part of this is really for the client and I would say like this conversation we're having right now goes under like the, I think it was the last point in the doc that I sent you, which would be kind of, oh, number seven.

00:34:10

James Redenbaugh: So.

00:34:13

Audrianna Jacques: Client education around the value of Iris's approach. They can engage as partners, not just consumers. Yeah, I feel like this goes into that and something that was coming to mind is like, almost like giving them a quiz. Like people love quizzes, you know, they love to engage with quizzes and so gathering some information about like even their personality type or their business type as they're coming in the same way that you would if you were working, bringing a team member in, you know, like, are they somebody who just likes, only wants to see the finished product? Are they somebody who really likes the process? You know, and I know that sometimes you're working not just with an individual, but you're working with their company. But who's driving it?

00:35:00

Audrianna Jacques: Who's the point person who's managing that, this part of the project so that you can match their personality and have ways of methods of communication to prepare for the things that will come with them, you know, like, do they want to jump to the end? Are they. Non. Like some people are not illustrative communicators. They, they don't want to hear the details and they don't want to be part of the details. Some, but some can't get to point B or C until they've had that illustrative conversation, you know, so that would be cool to construct as one of those systems to have better success in the outcome based model, but also the monthly rhythm too. I think that could beneficial.

00:35:57

James Redenbaugh: Totally. Yeah. And we could even automate a system where the client answers certain questions and that builds a kind of profile for them in our system so that anybody working with the client in the near term, but also in the future, if we Onboard them. Then we have this profile and this shared language for how we understand our clients and who we're working with. And I think about this kind of interface as well, like a visual representation of where they lie on different key qualities. Often I'll do this kind of exercise with clients like these are two folks and we make these different triads, like, where did, where are they on, you know, where do they fall between a focus on, you know, self, other and system or mind, heart and gut and.

00:37:15

James Redenbaugh: And just seeing these points helps us kind of rock where they're at.

00:37:25

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, this. Is this a journey that you take them in so that they are. They have points on this, on the stock.

00:37:33

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, this was part of an initial vision session with this client. And just on the call with them, you know, these different triads kept coming up and it's a very triangular project. But so together I asked like for Rob, where would you find yourself? And then I just kind of these place these points for them. But yeah, I think in general we should definitely think about what kind of orienting questions are most important for the client and also the project. Like, what are the key outcomes we want to achieve and metrics to consider and then in a similar way for our team members as well, to have a similar profile. How do they like to be communicated? What's their availability? Like, what are their skill sets? What are they available for? You know, what kind of clients are they most interested in serving?

00:38:44

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, yeah, I feel like that would be really useful for you and for them. And then it creates that foundation for when the issues, when and if issues arrive in the project, you can look back at their profile and say like, okay, so this person loves the process. In fact, maybe a little bit too much. So we're going to go into this and really keep clear on our outcomes so that we don't get lost in the sauce with them and you. And then if you have someone who's like on the other end of it, who's just like, I don't want to, you know, I don't care, do whatever you want to do, that you have a way to present the value of them going on that journey with you so that you have a different.

00:39:36

Audrianna Jacques: You have that part be a little bit more smooth. This is like the process and the communications and all of that.

00:39:43

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, exactly.

00:39:48

Audrianna Jacques: Cool. So I have a note on that. And then let's go back. So we're talking about the two models and then were talking about what percentage you would like in that ideally. I had one question on that. Does your, are you looking at these different systems and offering them to clients? Are you looking at them also from a budget standpoint as in you need to have a certain number of them in different models in order to keep the business running. Do you have that in a mindset of like, for the growth that you would like the company to have by adding a certain number of them into the monthly based or outcome based?

00:40:45

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, these are good questions. I think we, I want to get clear on what our monthly revenue targets should be and also what our capacity is in this model. How realistically given our team size is like how many clients can we have it at which levels? And while we're prototyping that now we're kind of figuring it out and I'm seeing like we can get clearer on the limits of the model, make sure we're not doing more than what we can afford to give. And I'm also figuring out like what's a good price for these different levels and I think it'll be very commitment based. So we have one slider for the level that people can pick and then I'm going to have another slider for like commitment.

00:42:06

James Redenbaugh: So if it's just one month at one level it's going to be significantly higher than if they can commit to a whole quarter or six months or more. We can offer much bigger discounts.

00:42:25

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, that's great. So it sounds like you would want to get clear on what the monthly target for the company is and be able to kind of break work backwards from that. Is that something that like. So when we talked last week, you and I think yes, and on Monday as well, were talking about having, you know, bringing someone in that could help with managing the accounts payable, you know, the accounting side of things. And as we kind of like, you know, meander into this area, does this question kind of go into that category of looking if, of really you would benefit from having the support of somebody who is really looking at your finances in a monthly way, the financials of the company and able to create projections like that for you?

00:43:25

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, yeah. Let's get into the, the projects and the details of what's like, what this month looks like and then I think that'll get clearer because a part of the system that we're building is really allowing us to see like what can we expect for this month and things like that. So this is just the clients in the monthly model, we're doing like 20k in April for those clients and there's quite a few, they're all, they're mostly old clients that have been working with us in different ways that we're kind of moving into this model. So they're all a little different and it's a new model so it's all a little messy and not as efficient as I'd like it to be. And we still have some clients that, some like project based clients that were finishing up this month that aren't in here.

00:45:03

James Redenbaugh: But this lets us see like what level are people at, how much each client is paying, what's the status of that payment, do we need to invoice them? And then these engagements are also connected to all these other tabs so the people are dynamic and we have a full list of all our clients and team members. And then we have each initiative for each client and then key artifacts which are like generated from key meetings and shared with the clients and all the summaries and stuff from that. And I also have my calendar synced up with this so all my meetings in my calendar show up here.

00:46:05

James Redenbaugh: So if I need to just kind of reference something or see my week, I have this here and you know, and then we can, the different engagement scales can be dynamic so we can add more data to each of these as we get more clarity on them and you know, more specific prices and stuff like that. So it's all coming into focus. And then there's also the interface with our website so our clients won't ever see airtable. They don't need to get into this, but they can have the same data that's in here on their client portal and team members as well. I'm not sure if like core team I think should be using the airtable like I am because it's so quick and easy to manage everything.

00:47:08

James Redenbaugh: But, but creatives will also have their creative portal where they can see the engagements that they're in and the active initiatives and things like that. So this is just an April view of engagements, but I want to build out more forecasting so we can see like who's committed for May, who's, maybe you know, who's, who do we have in June and July and start to have more of a year view as well. And then on the front end we can create interfaces where we really click clearly. See like Lego boxes here Are the different clients at different engagement levels for the coming months.

00:47:54

James Redenbaugh: And also to be able to look back and have that kind of overlaid with our support and our creatives and how much, you know, how much did we get out of each creative and also what were our costs for each creative. So ideally our, you know, our revenue from the clients is greater than the cost of our creatives and we make a profit.

00:48:24

Audrianna Jacques: Right.

00:48:27

James Redenbaugh: And the project based work, I would want to fit into this for accounting purposes. I'd want to fit into this system even if we're not managing them in the same way for the client. So we see this, we have a four month agreement with a client, but let's say, you know, we're doing 25% of the work this month. I'll put 25% of the budget in this table and then we can see, you know, what are, what's our cost and our revenue in context with everything else. And I'm really excited about this because we have not had this kind of view in the past. It can be really inconsistent month to month, like how much are we making? Because like this, you know, this client happens to pay us, you know, for the last five months, this month.

00:49:37

James Redenbaugh: And so it looks like we had a really great month, but actually it was work we did over the last five months. So it's like hard to see how we're doing and hard to make decisions based on that. So I'm really excited to move into more clarity on this.

00:49:55

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, yeah. I think that this, these are definitely things that would go great for the role of somebody who's doing the accounting, you know, and some of the skills that they would need to have to come in to be able to do these things on a regular basis and organize it for you and even have like, it'd be great to bring someone in who also already knows systems and how to navigate those systems to create these different overlays. I'm getting a very clear visual on what you're saying with, we want to be able to see with all of the revenue that came in that month was their profit after all of the expenses that went out as well.

00:50:44

Audrianna Jacques: And to be able to see it in the different, to be able to break it down into outcome based projects and like money that came in and money went out that went out for those and the same thing for the monthly to be able to say, well, where are we having a leak? Or is there an area that we actually had a lot of Success in. And then to be able to have the one who, the person who's working with the accounting have communication with the teams in some way and maybe that's a project manager that handles the communication there to also be aware of how the team is feeling. You know, like, did we, so we made profit.

00:51:27

Audrianna Jacques: But were, was the team, did the team feel really taxed with that, you know, or did we make profit this month and actually the team didn't feel tax. And was that because we had more clients in the monthly base model, you know, things like that. To be able to draw those conclusions, I think would be really good. Good for the company.

00:51:49

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, definitely. I did a, a retrospective accounting of March. We had far less clients in this model. And I also, I spent, I was in Asia for two weeks and I left my computer here by accident. And, and the, the team member I thought you, I, I'd hope would step up and help move things along just completely did not. So we ended up like losing 9k that month. You know, we made may thousand dollars.

00:52:39

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah.

00:52:42

James Redenbaugh: But it's a big learning experience and good to see like, okay, like that's what that is. And April's going to better and then we can build on that. And the more streamlined our system can be and the more we articulate what we're actually doing, the more can be automated and the more we can bring more people and teams in to have more happening in the system as it grows.

00:53:26

Audrianna Jacques: Right, right. And this is where I really see very strongly that if you have someone who is managing the finances in this way and taking that off your plate, but also like that individual can really spend time with all of the revenue and be able to give you really useful feedback. This is part of, I, I, I believe this is part of like when you're talking about manifesting and you know, creating, evolving, it's sometimes it's about clearing up the plate so that more can come in for you, but just in general. And so I think distributing and delegating that to somebody else is going to open that up for more growth in a creative and financial way, you know.

00:54:21

James Redenbaugh: Yep, yep.

00:54:22

Audrianna Jacques: Y.

00:54:23

James Redenbaugh: Definitely.

00:54:27

Audrianna Jacques: Go ahead now.

00:54:29

James Redenbaugh: What, what were you going to say?

00:54:31

Audrianna Jacques: Well, I was just kind of going through some of the things we've been talking about right here in this area. So we've got the percentage of clients that ideally you would like in the different models and how that really goes under the definite, that can be defined more Defined once you have someone who's managing the finances. And then there's a, there's that's its own kind of concept and has its own pieces. And then there's the other side which is more the front facing and how you're presenting it to clients. Having a way to present clients. Yeah. So that's a different conversation. I was just gonna see if we wanted to go into that or if there's more here with the accounting that you wanted to share.

00:55:30

James Redenbaugh: I'm curious what you think would be most helpful if I should tell you about the individual projects and what we're doing.

00:55:41

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah.

00:55:41

James Redenbaugh: For each of them.

00:55:43

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, let's do it.

00:55:45

James Redenbaugh: Cool. So let's, I'll just kind of go through each one as quickly as I can. So Village Builders, we created a, a brand and a website for them that we launched in December. That was a fixed cost process. I think it was like 7,5K. And they love working with us and they wanted to continue to leverage our support. And so we entered, we've been for two months now helping them with a number of things, mostly designing the interface for their AI app. So it's a lot of interface design, UI design and then more technical, figuring out how to actually make their app work on a webflow website. So they have a chatbot running on a server and we're creating the front end interface for that so that people can actually chat with that.

00:57:09

James Redenbaugh: I'm also consulting with them on how to create a visual companion interface that accompanies the text based interface. So as you're trying chatting with this AI kind of builds a visual model of your relationships and connections and that persists for the user. So you come back and you can see your map and talk about the things that the app is designed to help you with, which is all about, you know, building relationships and creating community and things like that. And then we're also doing some social media templates for them at the same time and Yvonne is helping with the technical stuff. Munia has done a lot on the design, but she hasn't been super involved this month and it's going pretty well. The client's really happy with what we're doing. They love working with us and yeah, we're going to keep it rolling. So.

00:58:27

James Redenbaugh: And they're on, I call it Prism plus because they're paying like 2200amonth and we're doing a bit more than Prism scale, but it feels pretty good, pretty balanced. And then Evolve world. They're A probably my oldest client. We've done a ton with them over the years. We've done all of their web stuff. It's a really big, complex website with lots of moving parts. They have podcast events, salons, courses. They have a whole community platform we built on the communiverse. But this month we're focusing most of our effort on the Interbeing Monastery and building out this offering for their committed students to have a practice space that is like a living temple, essentially a living digital temple space. It's hard to explain, but it's like basically architecting. Even made a architectural plan for it.

00:59:42

James Redenbaugh: We're architecting this digital space where people can come and do this interbeing practice together, which is a. It's kind of a meditation that's very focused on the intersubjective. It's about our experience together and what moves through us and less about me and what. What's happening for me and. And in my life or my awareness. And so we actually built. I'll show you this little preview. We're using a custom live call API to create our own video interface. And this is something I've wanted to do for a while. Wasn't even sure if we would be able to do it, but it works. So this is a test I did last night of like five of me, but we can have as many people as we want in a room. And it puts you in a circle instead of a zoom grid.

01:00:44

James Redenbaugh: And it's just a page on the website. So members enter the page and the space is always open. So at any point you can go in and practice and meditate together or. Or dialogue. And when you speak, it moves you to the center of the circle and. Yeah, anyway, so that's this kind of unique thing. And I say that they're kind of in the model because they're down for whatever. But basically I told them it'll cost about 6k to. To. To build the whole thing. We're going into May and it's. It's going pretty well. I'm going to be very busy the next few days putting it. Putting all the pieces together, making it work. But they're. They're pretty happy. And that's. Munya worked on the design. Yvonne's helping build it.

01:01:50

James Redenbaugh: Peter, we work with who used to work with us, but I told them to just hire him directly. But he's a part of the team. He's helping with aspects of it and it's going well. And I'm meeting with them about. Have been Meeting with them once a week. And now that we're getting towards launch, we're having a lot more meetings to move things along. We're a little behind schedule because I didn't realize. We thought we would launch with a simpler version of the video but the pre built thing wasn't working so I had to figure out this custom solution anyway and ended up doing the circle thing because we could. Because it was custom. Hollow Movement has been in the model since December.

01:02:49

James Redenbaugh: We started like, I think it was four and a half K a month for two or three months and then they've moved down to 2K. We built this website for them over the last couple of years in previous agreements. But the, in the monthly model we focused on building this page for this event that they're doing in Asheville next month and different things around that. We also kind of. Anything that breaks down on their website we help them with. There's a few complicated parts so like our team's available for requests and now we're mostly focused on redesigning the homepage of the website. We're going to launch that in a couple weeks. And mostly Ivan at this point is working on that on his own without a ton of oversight from me, which is great. And the client seems pretty happy.

01:04:11

James Redenbaugh: And so that is going well. Where did my air table go? Air table. So that's also a kind of Prism Plus Rainbow Land is another longtime client that we're creating a really unique website for. It's, it's all about this project in Lancaster that's like the super sustainable regenerative architecture with a social mission. It's for this guy, John Rambo, who has Ms. And survives on. I forget what it's called but like public funding basically like many disabled people in the country and with the money that he gets every month from the government, it's like barely enough to survive. You know, he affords like a very rundown house. Can't afford a vehicle, isn't allowed to say even save up for a vehicle because then they would say he has money that he doesn't need and you know, can't afford the healthy food that he needs.

01:06:00

James Redenbaugh: And so these architects came together and were like, well, what if we took all the money that would be spent on John over the course of his life and instead built a regenerative architecture project that would pay for itself, it would have no ongoing cost and would take care of all of John's needs And then Also, after John passes, can be a home for another disabled person and take care of their needs perpetually into the future. So instead of just like forever funding these people with these little amounts of money, what if we took that money and built something that not only serves John, but serves the community and serves the ecosystem in the neighborhood and the nature. And it's like there's a community farm. There's all this cool stuff.

01:06:59

James Redenbaugh: And it's also a, you know, a very experimental regenerative architecture building that demonstrates all these different systems and, you know, better ways that we can live in harmony with the. With the planet. So we developed this really complex website to explain this very complex project. And it's been such a journey working with these guys because we got into it last year and they didn't realize how complicated it was going to be to achieve what they were getting into. So we've kind of iteratively moved along and then in the last month, they agreed to just get into our new model. So we're doing 2k a month to move this along and meeting once a week. And it's going really well. We're making steady progress. Things are coming along and. And we want to finally launch a.

01:08:02

James Redenbaugh: A working version of this by the end of next month. And that's been me working with the client and then my team in Kosovo helping with development tasks. So I give them some development tasks to work on every month to fix things and move things along. And then I meet with the client, update them on. On progress. And I'm doing some things myself as well. And then endemic the divinity school, these guys, we've been working with them for a long time as well. They're in a monthly rhythm now. We're kind of doing as much as we can. We're probably doing too much for the level for like a Prism level, but I kind of told them, like, let's see how much we do, and then we'll figure out a cost for that. And they don't have much funding now, so we're kind of.

01:09:05

James Redenbaugh: They're kind of going into debt with us as we help them out because we're doing stuff on their website. We're doing art generation, we're doing video editing, animation, design, and then we're also doing some custom development like this interface. This is pretty cool. So they're launching this divinity school, which is kind of like the intersection of future biotechnology and consciousness and theology. And they have this beautiful curriculum. And a big part of it are these different, what they call advanced beneficial technologies. And so we're creating this interface for exploring those on these two tracks in this dynamic way using webflow cms. So that's one of like four initiatives that we're pushing forward to simultaneously, I think, because we're trying to do so much at the same time and our agreement's really unclear with them and they don't have a lot of money.

01:10:18

James Redenbaugh: I think none of them are happening as fast as they would like. But it is what it is and they like working with us and they really like the results. They just wish it would be faster and I wish they would pay us faster. So that's endemic. And then yoga with Kaya. We didn't end up doing a full Prism scale for Kaya this month. We'll do a full one next month. But we're. She's also a longtime client. We built this WordPress site a long time ago. We're doing kind of regular support where Rob is handling breakdowns in their system and fixing things as needed. And then we're also doing a brand overhaul, brand guidelines, not redoing the logo and stuff, but just redoing the system for how things are created on their website because there's inconsistent fonts and things that could look better.

01:11:30

James Redenbaugh: And we have a backlog of stuff that we can improve for them over time. And we're just going to be moving through the backlog over the coming months. But Kaya is great. She's really fun to work with. They do really well. They do like 300 plus thousand a year in online yoga teaching on this WordPress site. So it's easy to justify the monthly models and say like, you know, you can afford to have us on your team moving things forward. You can. It's just her and one assistant, so she could really use support. And if we can increase conversions by even a small percentage, then it like, it pays for whatever we want to charge.

01:12:16

Audrianna Jacques: Right.

01:12:21

James Redenbaugh: So she's great. And then we're doing a brand process for Devin Martin. He's an executive coach. He's done really well as a coach. At one point he was the highest rated coach in New York City. He's very integral guy and he found us and he's been working with me and I've been working with Monia until she got sick. We had like so much for Munia to do this month. I said we'll use all of your time. But then she got sick with this thyroid stuff. So she hasn't been able to do as much as she Anticipated. So I'm trying to pick up the slack there, but I told Devin like we wanted to finish the brand by the end of the month.

01:13:13

James Redenbaugh: It's the end of the month today and we're not finished the brand but we've done a ton of exploration and research and explored a lot of ideas with him and done a bunch of sketching and now I'm trying to bring it into clarity and like a solid set of brand guidelines. I think we have too many ideas right now. We've done some cool animation. You kind of looking at how do we move beyond atheism and theology, kind of transcend and include all the religious and scientific perspectives to create new mythologies and layers of meaning for our 21st century world. And so he's interviewing, he's got an awesome list of people he wants to interview in his network that you know, I'm sure many of which that you would know. And we're making the brand for it.

01:14:19

James Redenbaugh: So it's a fun challenge to start this thing from scratch with him. And we're kind of figuring it out. And you know, right now it's basically me on that because Monia's recovering and I'm Tina. She pushed my mouse off the couch. Look at this cat is. She loves sleeping. That's all she does now. He's a pro sleeper. Yeah. It's hard to like be the brand designer on this because I'm like, wait, how do I brand design? Because there's so many other things that I'm doing right now. So we're kind of navigating our way through. Hopefully we can make it happen for him. And then Alali, they're basically at a prism level. But I told them too like we'll do as much as we can. They just raised a bunch of funding but they won't have it until June I think.

01:15:43

James Redenbaugh: They're a land based project in California. They're doing a bunch of cool stuff and we've been helping them with their decks, their pitch decks and we're redoing their website and creating a bunch of custom icons for them. We're doing a lot and you know, payment is kind of unclear, which is hard. But it's also, even if they could pay for a higher level of support right now, it'd be hard for me to fit it in with everything else we're doing. Especially with Munya being sick because she's been the main person on this. She's Done an awesome job making all of these icons in this visual language for the project. And, you know, and then we're kind of trying to respond to their most urgent needs quickest.

01:16:56

James Redenbaugh: So we've made a coming soon page for them and these decks that they're using to raise more capital, but they're a. A really beautiful project conscious folks. I'm happy we get to serve. And then Trifora, these guys, they just signed up for one Prism scale in March, and then I was not able to do a whole lot in March because I didn't have my computer. And so we end up doing a lot more in April. I just met with them today and I was like, basically like, we. We had one. You know, they've paid for one Prism scale and we've probably done like two and a half worth of work. It was really ambitious to try to get a landing page up for them at 1. One month of prism support, especially because were doing all this preliminary vision stuff.

01:18:12

James Redenbaugh: But I really, I like them a lot. I really like the. The work that they're doing and where they're coming from, and they really want to include me in it. And we're doing this gathering next month on Vancouver island, and they're prototyping this. This interface that I'll tell you about in a minute. And so I'm kind of like letting this be as it is. They'll. They'll hire us for more when. When they can, but for now, it's like, I put so much time into this, and then I also. Munya put a ton of time into this, and my team in Kosovo put a ton of time into this. And so I'm proud. I probably won't. I'm probably not making any money on my time.

01:19:16

James Redenbaugh: And I, I hope that I'm not just like actively losing money on this one, but it's okay because they're like dear thought partners. And working with them has been really helpful in thinking about the new model and then also thinking about this interface or app that I've been developing in parallel to all these projects. And it's a similar to the video model I showed you, but for static content, where it's designed for groups to have a space that keeps them connected. Connected in between opportunities of meeting together in person. So we have a. A retreat with a group of people. We spend a few days together with an intention. They're all like conscious leaders and interesting folks and something. And magic happens, you know, and we feel this. This fire between us and it's like, wow, everybody here is so amazing.

01:20:43

James Redenbaugh: Something really awesome happened this weekend. I get to participate in a lot of these things either like paid retreats that I get to go to for free or think tanks that I'm invited to where like leaders in different industries are brought together. And you know, for years I have the same experience and talk with everybody about the same experience that this kind of peak experience happens together. And then we have our WhatsApp group or we have our monthly zoom call or we have our Facebook group or maybe even a mighty networks or something like that, and the energy just fizzles out and we forget what happened. And like, maybe I'm in touch with one person that I met at this thing, you know, or maybe three people that were there, teamed up and did something else.

01:21:34

James Redenbaugh: But it's like the integrity of that group does not persist. Even if there's like an intention to do the same thing next year. Let's come back around the next year and relight the fire and keep this energy going and support each other in our fields and our work. And so I see a need for an interface or a technology that persists and connects in ways that the list based and the feed based interfaces cannot hold. So like a WhatsApp group where we just see whatever messages are there along with all the other WhatsApps that I get. It's like awesome to like share with my integral facilitator as a life update, but I don't feel like I'm with them. I'm on a list and I can't even see all of them.

01:22:30

James Redenbaugh: And this is a really simple solution to that where everybody has a little profile. They, they persist in a circle. And then in the center of the circle we can have something that we can all get around. Maybe it's a fire, maybe it's a little animation of a fire which connects to our tribal roots. Who's sitting in circles around a fire or a candle or a Taurus or avoid. And then I just have it kind of sketched over here in this one. But around the outside we can see time passing. We can see the year, we can see how long it's been since were together in person. We can see any calls that we have scheduled in the future and we can see any opportunity we have to be together again in person. All kind of demarcated in a visual language.

01:23:26

James Redenbaugh: And that would keep spiraling out as time goes on. So anytime you come on here, you see the spiral of time in this group. And then you can also see things that people have shared and then you can also see connections that people are making to each other. So if I, I was on a retreat with these people, but then Audrey and I have a collaboration call, you know, or a friend, you know, or just a catch up or we're working on a project together that can get illustrated in a line and people have to make an effort and come and like show that they've made that connection in some way or share a note that connects this person.

01:24:18

James Redenbaugh: But the idea is over time we would see like a basket weave between the people and see these different connections form and know like I, I've only talked to four of these people in the last nine months since were all together in a mountain in Austria. But those four people talked to those four people, talk to these four people and actually we're all still connected. Whereas without this, I don't, I don't feel that connect. I just know I've talked to these four people at these random times. I'm not seeing that. And the memory of this experience will fade. So this is an interface that I can see getting used in different ways and customized in different ways for so many of our clients, almost all of them. And then there's also the video component.

01:25:16

James Redenbaugh: So if we do meet in person as a group, we can meet in the same interface and see each other live right there. And so we're developing that, as I put it in our initiative list, even though, you know, we're not being paid for it because it's taking an amount of my, mostly my effort right now. But then Try four is going to use it for this gathering we're doing next month. I'm speaking at the Hollow Movement Conference next month and they want me to present it as a prototype there. So I'm working on it for them. We're doing a version of it for the Interbeing Monastery, so we're going to use it there. We will probably end up using it for the Divinity School in some way to connect people there. It's just this kind of something will come of it.

01:26:25

James Redenbaugh: We might end up packaging it and selling it as a product. It's built into webflow so it can be tailored to the needs of anybody. But there's a membership layer so that, you know, people can log in, create their own profiles, share things right in the space and have this custom thing. So anyway, that's that. And then I also, there's like one smaller project that we're doing a little bit of work on. So I. You know, I didn't even talk to him about the model yet, but I said, like, that's our. Our. I don't even know what I call that. That level of support, but, like, 500 bucks a month because we're doing a few things for him. And then I also put Iris. The.

01:27:24

James Redenbaugh: The development that we're doing on the Iris site is like, basically a flow level, because we're doing a lot on that, on these new pages and the system that we're building out. So it's like, if we. If weren't doing that, we would have a lot more capacity. So it's important to put that in the same system so we can see how what that's taking up. And then I also put, like, the wedding planning that Emily and I are doing, because that's basically a flow level thing for me. Even though I'm not involving the team, it's definitely requiring a lot of my time and holding awareness. And so that's in there. And. And that's it. That's everything this month. So kind of a lot, I guess.

01:28:21

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for taking me through all of that. It's amazing to see all of the different projects and, like, to be able to just dip into them, you know, and see how much is going on. But also the projects themselves are really beautiful, not just visually, but their purpose and. And what the services that they're providing. I know that we're kind of at the end of time, I believe. Let's see. Let me just look at this day. Yes. And I don't have to, like, rush off, but I do have to close out because I have something else that's coming up. So what I'm feeling right now is I want to go. You provided me with amazing information. I'm super excited to go back and review the notes that I took.

01:29:12

Audrianna Jacques: And, yeah, I feel like this is really important to go into where all of your energy is going on big levels, but also on micro levels, you know, because it's. Even if you're not working in depth with the project, it's still taking some of your awareness, and. And so that's gonna affect overall what you're able to do because of all the different places that you're planted, you know, their energy has been planted. So, yeah, thank you for taking me through that. And I'm thinking that for the next meeting and just to, like, kind of set eyes on the next conversation that we have, I Want to mold what we talked about around those objectives that I put in the outline and start to kind of create progress on. Like, you know, have we.

01:30:16

Audrianna Jacques: Have we touched on them at least so that I'm with you in the way that you're looking at it and then be able to move those into stages of like, are we doing anything to address the issues? You know, are those things that we're doing together on the call or things are those things that you're going to be doing independently? And then updating me on. Like for example, we talked on Monday about the different archetypes and person and characters that you're embodying that you. We want to manifest for you outside of yourself and the things that. And who has those qualities that you may already know that you don't have within yourself that you need this. These additional characters in your storyline to have, you know, and so I want to keep that in the mix and you know, track if you're.

01:31:19

Audrianna Jacques: If you're able to work on it independently or if that's something that we want to move into the time that. Where you and I are connecting on the calls.

01:31:29

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, you can definitely give me some homework. Can take that as. As homework to do independently. We can make the most out of our time together.

01:31:39

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, I think that piece will be. Because I remember when we talked on Monday, it's like these characters are really going to help with all of the things that are going on. So I think that would probably be really useful. A useful one for you to do and to get clear on and then share with me once you've developed it. You know, we can have a conversation with it. But for you to really dream in that way and be. And be the wizard in the tower and bring these characters to life for yourself and just as the. As a kind of like starting point.

01:32:17

James Redenbaugh: Awesome. Great. Yeah, sounds good.

01:32:21

Audrianna Jacques: Cool. So I'll look over this. Do we want to set another time this week or next to meet?

01:32:29

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, maybe Monday to give me time to. To do more of that.

01:32:33

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah, very cool. Did we. Are we liking this time? Does this time of day work for you on Monday again? It looks like.

01:32:45

James Redenbaugh: I. Two years on Monday. I have a three to four Eastern. It's 3:37 now. We started at two.

01:32:57

Audrianna Jacques: Do you want to move it up an hour?

01:32:59

James Redenbaugh: Yeah, I could start at one.

01:33:01

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah.

01:33:02

James Redenbaugh: Great.

01:33:04

Audrianna Jacques: All right. I will make a note of that and send you the invitation. Cool. Thank you so much, James. This is really lovely. I'm really enjoying talking with you and learning with you and seeing into this beautiful organic living tech machine that is the work that you're doing with clients. Yeah, I'm really. It's really amazing. Thank you for sharing it with me.

01:33:28

James Redenbaugh: Thanks for witnessing and asking great questions and being here in all of this.

01:33:35

Audrianna Jacques: Yeah.

01:33:36

James Redenbaugh: Appreciate it.

01:33:37

Audrianna Jacques: Beautiful. Thank you, James. Have a good rest of your week. I'll send you over some notes once I have them and then I will see you on Monday.

01:33:47

James Redenbaugh: Sounds good. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend.

‍