Our first guest is Dan Batten, who's the Creative Director at Hims & Hers. Dan started off as an amateur photographer, and then quickly fell in love with motion graphic design. He spent years working at Gin Lane, a venture studio in New York, that gave birth to brands like Sweetgreen, Hims & Hers, and Harry's.
During this episode, we talk about everything from his early life, his career path, and the people that helped him get to where he is today. We also talk about how Dan unlocks space for creativity & how he uses anxiety as a tool to unlock creativity.
Mike Saloio Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Huddle Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Our first guest is Dan Batten, who's the Creative Director at Hims & Hers. Dan started off as an amateur photographer, and then quickly fell in love with motion graphic design. He spent years working at Gin Lane, a venture studio in New York, that gave birth to brands like Sweetgreen, Hims & Hers, and Harry's.
During this episode, we talk about everything from his early life, his career path, and the people that helped him get to where he is today. We also talk about how Dan unlocks space for creativity & how he uses anxiety as a tool to unlock creativity.
Mike Saloio Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Huddle Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter
Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, cool. Dan Daniel Batten, welcome to the First Huddle podcast. Thanks for being our first guest.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
No worries. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Cool. So let's start off where we just started off. Before we go into your background, I'm looking at you on Zoom and you have a really wonderful Monera plant, but then behind that plant you have a bunch of cameras, which you were just going to tell me about. So why don't we just start right there.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
All right, let's do it. I mean, the cameras to me, I have a crazy obsession with film photography and have So for many, many years it's kind of how I got into design and so much to my partner's dismay. I have a ton of film cameras just lying round that I've collected over the years. And so yeah, I decided to put a few of them on display, keep them out of the way, keep it tidy. But yeah, it also reminds me to use them. I should use them more. I feel like a lot of them just kind of lie around and this is a good reminder to go pick one up and go out and shoot a bit. So yeah,
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That was going to be my next question. What's your favorite one and how often do you go shoot now that you seem like a very busy individual?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, I think that's asking me to pick a favorite child. They each have their own personalities. Good for different things. Yeah, I mean, honestly, probably my favorite is actually one of the smaller ones because it's the one that I often use the most. It's actually one that's not up there. It's a context. And yeah, I think it's just one that I can carry around wherever I go. So it's like I don't have to make an effort to carry around a big bulky camera. It's just one I can have in my pocket. And the best camera is the one that you have with you. It's the same. Cool.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
All right. Well, I would love to start with just your background, where you grew up and my question was going to be how you got into design and you sort of just told us, so why don't we start there?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Perfect. Yeah. So yeah, I come from New Zealand originally. Born there, grew up there, spent the majority of my life in New Zealand up until the last decade. And so that's honestly where a lot of my inspiration comes from. A lot where a lot of my design background developed. And I think what really got me into design where I fell in love with it was in high school. I think as soon as I had the ability to choose my own subjects, I couldn't wait to get rid of math and science. And instead I just filled my schedule with art, history, design, photography, which in many ways is kind of funny cause I'm super nerdy into coding now and how can you not science? And so in some ways I wish I'd kept it that, but at the time I was like, and maybe some of it was just stubbornness of being told what I should learn and more wanting to sculpt my own curriculum and what interested me at the time.
(03:28):
Yeah. Anyway, as soon as I really just dove into everything creative and from there grew a pretty deep passion for photography. I think especially film photography for me, I just spent so much time shooting and in the dark room and it just really felt magic. I think being in control of all parts of the process and it being so manual and you go out there and you shoot a roll of film and then you go and develop it, and then you go print the photo in the dark room and it appears through the chemicals. It was just something so magical about the process and having so much control over it. And that really started kind of a six year love affair with film photography. I ended up studying photographic design at university, and that was what really got me into being creative and understanding my creative abilities. And alongside that, I really started to understand how much of an obsessive problem solver I was. I would just get so obsessed with a single thing detail and dial in on it. And do you remember
Speaker 1 (04:44):
One of the first things you get really obsessed with solving?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, so basically from photography, I then got really into video. And from video I got really into motion graphics. And I think teaching myself how to build motion graphics and build 3D animation and understand the programs, I just went deep. I would do just do tutorial after tutorial and learn everything I could about the software and the mechanics behind moving image. And I just wouldn't let it go. And I got so deep that I was like, okay, maybe I should work in this field. Maybe I should figure out how to make a living from it. And so rather than going into photography after spending four years and a lot of money studying at university, I actually ended up getting a job out of university in a field that I really had no experience or formal education in, which was like,
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, what was the first job?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It was doing motion design for an artificial intelligence startup, which I probably didn't appreciate as much as much at the time as I probably do now.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That sounds like a crazy first job.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It was. It was a London based company. They were dealing with a natural language generation, which funnily enough is, I mean that's what basically chat G P T is built on. And a lot of these emerging artificial intelligence image, sorry, language models that's built on the fundamentals of what this company built. The company was founded actually by a bunch of scientists out of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. So yeah, they really, they've been studying this field for many decades and build a company out of it. So I don't know how I found my way in, but I did and ended up just doing motion design for them and I guess putting my learn skills to the test. And so in many ways I was just fu full on just faking it until I made it. And I think doing that over and over, I really, I built confidence in my abilities to do that, to throw myself in the deep end and realized that I could swim, I could teach myself, I could figure it out, I could problem solve.
(07:12):
And so finally I also ended up doing that with my personal life. And I was just, one day I was like, oh, fuck it, I'm going to move to New York. I'd never been to the US before. New York seemed like the hardest place I could possibly move. It was the pinnacle of the creative industry and talent and culture and notoriously hard in terms of a foreigner trying to get a visa. And I was like, all right, let's just see if I can do this. And so I moved, I made the leap and just managed to figure it out. And a decade later, here I am. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I like how you just connected the dots between creative competence and Oh, I could just do this in other aspects of my life as well. Moving to New York, I think it was the opposite for me. I think I moved to New York and then I was like, oh, what else can I do?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So that was really the Kickstarter for you. The confidence builder was New York, and then you're like, okay, here we go. When people used to ask me, what are you most proud of? Originally I was moving to New York because it seemed a crazy, it's like same year, it seemed like a crazy thing from where I grew up, even though it wasn't that far away. Most people didn't move to New York.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, it's a claim. It's a hard place to live, to survive, to build something here you guys have been doing. It's tough, but I think that's why it's so desirable. It's why the best people are here. And
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Definitely. That's why I wanted to move.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Don't tell too many New Yorkers that I'm in Miami now. I don't want to lose my rep.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, we'll keep that hash out. That's fine.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So I love hearing people's early career journeys. It doesn't make sense at the time. And then looking back, it's like, oh, it makes perfect sense, but why don't we fast forward to Gin Lane? And so I wonder, who knows, people who are going to listen to this have heard of Gin Lane. But Gin Lane was a huge inspiration for me when I first got into design studio and startup studio land in New York City. It seemed like everyone was talking about the studio that was producing as a friend recently called it. A lot of bangers were coming out of this studio. It seemed like everything that you worked on was really big. So how did you find Gin Lane? And for the people who don't know about the journey from Gin Lane, the pattern brands, and now what you're working on at Hys and hers. Yeah. Tell us about how you found the studio and tell us a little about the studio itself and the journey to now.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, it, it's a good one. I think it was a funny point in my life, in my time at New York, I actually ended up having this summer where I was kind of out of work. I finished up a freelance project with an agency and I was just having a tough time getting work. And I ended up just kind of pulling some favors and introductions. Introductions from some friends and some old work colleagues. And my girlfriend at the time, she worked at Squarespace and one of her colleagues, Matt used to work at Jen Lane, and he's like, I hit him up and I was like, look, I'm trying to find some work. He's like, yo, you should talk to these guys. They're awesome. They're doing incredible work. And he introed me to Dan Kinger. And yeah, I just went in and ended up speaking to them and just had this conversation with Dan and we kind of clicked and got on really well, and he just took me under his wing. He's like, I got this project for you. I think you'll be perfect. And that was really my intro. And that project ended up being kind of an award-winning project and actually not what Gin Lane is known for. It wasn't like,
Speaker 1 (11:22):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It was for ge, it was for General Electric. They basically, it's kind of crazy. It was a project called Digital Volcano. They had this volcano down in Nicaragua that they had an installed a bunch of sensors inside the Volcano. Volcano. They had this scientist who was known for going inside volcanoes. And that installed, they basically were live streaming data from a live volcano to the internet for people that was open source for people to use that data and build off. It was a crazy project. So we ended up building this full 3D WebGL E experience. I'd been doing a lot of WebGL stuff at that time, my progression from motion to 3d, then went into WebGL and web 3D stuff. And so that's what we ended up doing. We built a full 3D volcano website experience and won all the sight of the day awards, all of that stuff. But kind of funny because it's not really what Gin Lane was known for, but it was a good project and that was my end to Gin Lane.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
That's rad. So how many brands have you launched since you started with Gin Lane and now to Pattern Brands? And just so people get a sense of the type of stuff that you've worked on, what are those brands?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, so there's a long list of, obviously the ones that I worked on, but the ones that are more well known, so him, HIMS and hers, obviously that's a big one. And funny because now I just started this creative director over there. So that's full circle in a lot of ways. But House was another, we launched Galileo, which is a health platform from the one medical guys. I did some work on Sunday Goods, which is a weed company out of la. And then, I mean, in general, gin Lane is not, the team did a lot of work on launching Harry's Sweet Green Smile Direct Club, especially I feel like the last few years of Gin Lane before we ultimately ended up shuttering the agency. We're kind of known for launching the darlings of the D two C boom in a lot of ways, which is funny to look back on.
(14:04):
But yeah, it was kind of in a lot of ways a life changing experience working with the team. The team was incredible. Honestly, Emmett, the founder, co-founder of Gin Lane and Pat and Brands, he just did a phenomenal job at building a legit all-star team, some of the most talented people ever worked with. And not only talented but egoless, and we were all just friends. We all just would hang out after work. And it was, I don't know, unique. I've never had that with any other company in the same way. And I feel like it's a hard thing to do to build a team of such a high caliber that generally all get on really well together. It's kind of a skill in itself. And as I said, Emmett did a fantastic job of that.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Can you talk a little bit more about that? That's something I'm super fascinated by. Given what we're working on at Huddle, which is essentially assembling creative teams, design and build teams, marketing teams, what were some of the other factors other than people being really talented at what they do that contributed to the team working so well together or just developing that chemistry?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, this, that's a good question. I mean, I think the social element plays in into it a lot. And I think it's, it's obviously something that's hard now in a work remote environment, but the office environment at Gin Lane, the location of where their office was and off East Broadway and the Lower East Side, and I would say extracurricular activities that we did, there were always barbecues. We had in the backyard, we did a bunch of speaker series and talks where we got interesting people in. And I don't know, it just created this environment where the pressure wasn't always on the work itself. And I think that's kind of important where it's like we didn't work crazy hours, which is also kind of rare for agencies. We weren't up all night trying to get stuff done. People were out of the office by six. Everyone just was productive. And I think it's because they felt fulfilled in other ways outside of just the work that we were doing for the clients, that there was the social elements, the personal life elements that kind of helped to foster just like, and what is many ways a very easygoing work environment. And again, for the caliber of work we were producing and the pace of it is funny to look back on. I don't know how that worked.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
That's so cool.
Speaker 2 (16:47): Yeah,
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I love hearing that everyone just bounced at 6:00 PM It's proof.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Go just get beers together across the road
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That that's proof that you can produce amazing stuff without being burned out.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, honestly, something that, I mean, I carry to this day and it's something that I really try and push with my teams now as well. And I mean maybe we can get to this in a minute if you want to talk about pattern. Sure. First, but yeah, I truly believe that the era of the nine to five is well and truly dead and everyone being productive at the same time for eight hours a day is a ridiculous idea. And so having being able to sculpture work day, maybe we can get into this in a bit, but there's a whole idea that I've, I try and push around how my team structures the day and let's talk about that productive.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, I mean, let's just go right into it because I was going to ask, hey, what is the difference between working at an agency, producing a brand versus working inside of brands, which basically is what you've been doing at Pattern because you're stakeholders in those companies. But why don't we start where you just left off? That's super interesting in terms of getting teams to be highly productive. Because last time we talked when we were prepping for this, I was joking about some of the rhetoric on Twitter around one side of the VC spectrum. We're not investing in any companies that don't have an office and all this other stuff. And then there's another, most of the smart creative classes, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to work when I'm most productive. So yeah, t t tell me about the transition to essentially owning a brand or being the owner of it, and then talk a little bit about how you brought that sense of work when you want or ultimate creativity into your team today.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, so I mean I think the transition from Gin Lane to Pattern was quite an interesting one. And it happened at such an interesting time as well. It was, yeah, mid 2019 when we shut Gin Lane, and we Pattern for those of you who don't know, is essentially a holding company for home goods brands. Our initial thesis was like, we're going to build and launch brands from scratch ourselves, do everything from develop the brand identities to the business strategy to create the physical products, set up the supply chain, literally everything. And we did that. We launched two brands, realized it was extremely difficult to do, especially launching one brand is hard enough, let alone trainer, build out a family of brands and do that yourselves. And so we transitioned to a model where we acquired brands and that was the way that we were going to build out our family of brands within in the home good space.
(19:59):
And that provided a lot of efficiencies. We didn't, were buying good products already and establish supply chains and we could focus on some of the more creative parts of it around marketing and growing the brand, which we were really good at. That was also a big learning curve of, hey, we launched all these amazing brands that were super successful at Gin Lane. We can easily do that ourselves. And naive in many ways I think of just, that's only a part of what goes into launching a successful brand. And there's so many other functions and disciplines that you have to do well. And we had to hire into that. We had to change the way that we thought about our process about design. So it all happened at a funny time of just before the pandemic hit, we launched our second brand Open spaces like a month or two before everything kind of kicked off. And so we were very quickly thrust into a work remote environment where suddenly we weren't all together. And in that kind of magic that I spoke about of that kind of came over from Gin Lane of the office and the culture and the people suddenly wasn't there. And we had to really think how we recreate that. And we quickly learned that we couldn't. So it was just an entirely different way of working. And this is kind of a longwinded way of getting where I'm going, of structuring your workday and being a bit more in control. I think ultimately there is a school of thought of being in person. You are more productive. And that is true, but I think only in part and for certain types of jobs. And I think the pandemic has really helped usher in an era I think, of employees being more in control of their workday than the businesses are.
(21:56):
And so you see this dynamic now that you were speaking about of businesses reinstating these mandates of you must be in the office of X days a week or full-time and employees being like, fuck that. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to structure my own workday. If this is the policy, I'll go somewhere else and see that a lot. The control has shifted. And I kind of think that's an important one because as a freelancer you have that control in many ways. You have the control to typically work remote, to structure your workday how you want to, and you typically didn't have that control working for someone in house. You were at the whims of a set series of working hours of meetings of what was dictated to you in terms of policy by the company. And I think what we all realized is it's not an efficient way to work for the most part.
(23:02):
And I think everyone's productive at different times of the day. Now, working remote, you have people in different time zones, you can live all over the place. And so for us it really shifted to how can we encourage that a lot more? How can we really tap into that? And rather than try and force a square peg into a round hole, how do we give some power back to our teams in terms of structuring their workday? And for me, I was just adamant of, yo, protect the time that you're productive, block it off. Be sacred about that. Make sure that people aren't booking meetings over that time, that time that you're productive. Sometimes that's only a few hours a day, but you get so much done and whatever around that, do your meetings, do whatever else you have to do. But an eight hour workday is not eight hours of being highly productive and executing so much more That goes into it.
(23:59):
And for me, that was also about infusing parts of your work, your personal life into your workday. And so I would find that making sure that I could go work out or to go take a walk or catch up with a friend during my workday to take time away from my screen, you end up spending so many hours working at a screen, especially working from home as opposed to in an office. You don't have those natural breaks of going to chat to someone or taking a walk. And so having that time away made me more productive. It made me more creatively energized to do better work and to get more done. So that was something I would really push with my team was like, yeah, go work out when you want to go work out. Go take a break. I don't care if you go work, walk your dog and have lunch for two hours in the middle of the day. That's totally fine by me as long as you're getting your work and you guys are tapping into when you're productive. Awesome. That's great.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
That's cool. Any other sort of rules of thumb that you, not rules, but in the ethos of your teams work when you're most productive? Guard your time. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah. I, I don't know mean a lot of this is obviously from my own experience and everyone, everyone's different. Everyone finds their inspiration and their energy in different ways. And so while I would maybe structure some of this from my own personal experience, I definitely left it open to people to structure also their days themselves. And what I was kind of saying was more of a reference. And so let me lead by example and how I structure my day. And hopefully you guys can then find your own routine, your own combination that really works for you. Cause I think mean, maybe this is a funny segue into where I get my creative inspiration or my creative energy, I think going back to where my kind of obsessiveness comes through from and certain things and I would really just dial in on something and just go all in until I was exhausted and I'd have this creative inspiration and just burn the fuck out of it.
(26:29):
I would go until I was burnt out. And so I'd have these periods of being really creatively inspired and feeling very, very productive, but not manage it in a healthy way. And I'd end up super burnt out and then I'd just have to step away. I couldn't function periods of time, I would just feel so drained and kind of depressed and it just wasn't healthy. But it took a long time for me to realize that and to take action on it. Honestly, only until recently I figured out what gives me creative energy and making sure that I, in a stupid cliche way, what fills my creative cup to do that more often. And I mean that plays into sculpting your workday. I would make sure that I'd include some of those things in my day so I can constantly feel like I'm being re-energized and not burning myself out. And for me, what gives me creative energy is completely stepping away from a screen and getting away from the over stim overstimulation that the internet and everything that, especially in our fields, we are immersed in can often do, which is just over how the fuck out of you. We grow up on the edge of the internet where everything is a avail available to you at any time of the day. And that's amazing. But it's also so intense.
(27:56):
So
Speaker 1 (27:57):
That's one of those things that people tell you and then you go do and you're like, oh yeah, that's really simple. But I have a beautiful neighborhood across the street from my apartment in Miami and I just go walk around the neighborhood for 15 minutes and I'm a different human being at the end of that walk. And that's the only thing I've done differently in my routine in the past couple of months. And it's wild how much, just more common, even keeled I feel
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Walking is amazing. It truly is. And again, to your point, it's such a simple thing that feels so obvious, but I think it's, yeah, I think it is just taking a break as simple as taking a walk can have a massive impact and take some time away from your screen. I think that's health healthy for everyone. And obviously again, everyone has their own probably version of that. And yeah, I dunno, for me, I really love to surf as you can maybe see in the background if you surfboard, it's kind of leaning up, but I don't know, for me, that's my meditation. It's like, you know, can't have a screen or a phone when you're out surfing. So it's forced time away on one hand, but it also is just, it's just super relaxing. It's the moment where I can be still and present and focused on one thing.
(29:23):
And I think that kind of made me realize that focus for me is actually what gives me peace. And I get a bit fren, frenetic sometimes with creative inspiration and work and everything out there that can be consuming as much as I want. And I often do over-indulge in trying to consume too many things and oh, this is cool, I want to do that. This person's doing interesting things, I want to try and do that. And just being able to focus on one thing is powerful. Again, a very, I think sent simple sentiment, but something that took me a long time to I think realize about myself.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, it sounds like getting moving and doing something in general, walking, surfing brings you back to present. You said maybe this will be a funny segue into your creative process, but I'm really fascinated by, how do I say this? I'm really fascinated at how different people overcome the fear to create anything. I feel like it's a little bit my mission as well. How do we get more people to do the thing they want to do, create the thing they want to create? And part of that is education and resources, putting people in the right spaces and the right support system. But part of it is very personal, at least it's been, for me, entrepreneurship has been the wildest journey into my own brain that I could have possibly ever heard. I can imagine. Yeah. Imagined, yeah, this, it's because in the beginning I was just like, why isn't this working? Why I get up every day? Why am I not taking action or why am my actions not leading me to, so anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I love how you take literal action even if it's not on the thing you're creating. What are the other ways that you've sort of overcome the fear to put something out into the world? Or do you have that fear?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, I still have that fear I think
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Because a lot of what you said just sounds like you're kind of tinkering and exploring. And then now I have an award-winning project.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I think the fear is good, at least it has been for me, again, it's that kind of sink or swim, throw myself in the deep end type mentality. And as much as I try and maybe balance it out with some things, I think maybe the fear and the anxiety around are people going to like this? Is this the right path? Is this the right decision? Is what motivates me a little bit. It's like what gets the juices going a little
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Bit the right kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, exactly. I think it's straddling that line. And I think in a funny way, therapy also helped me to channel or understand my anxiety I think a bit more, which is an interesting one. Anxiety always a bad thing. And I think it has, it gets a bad rap and there's so much stigma around it is if you suffer from anxiety, which almost everyone does in some form, not always bad. And I think understanding your anxiety and understanding how to channel it is, for me, at least for me, was a massive unlock. And to understand that it's actually part of me, it's part what drives me, it's part of where I actually get some of my motivation from to do something. I think that underlining fear, whether it's fear, whatever, fear, anxiety, it's, it kind of forces me to overcome it. Again, I throw myself in the deep end to try and get past it and that's worked for me. It might not fair for everyone, but I feel like I enjoy the single swim mentality. And again, going back to problem solving, I'll figure it out. I'll make sure I fucking figure it out and yeah, I don't know. And as a creative, I don't know, I think you always have a fear of is this good enough? Is well, you've invested so much of yourself into your creative work and of course I'm going to be anxious about what the world thinks, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I want to stay here for just a minute. I'm so glad you went into reframing anxiety. This is one of those things I'm almost scared to talk about sometimes in today's environment because a lot of people really are suffering from anxiety. At the same time, I've had some of my biggest breakthroughs both personally and professionally, creatively by leaning into anxiety. I actually had this thought on anxiety or on the other side of anxiety, I had this thought, which is like, oh, anxiety's not a bug. This is a feature of being a human being a
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
And people don't treat it like a feature, they treat it like a disease. And so a lot of the world is trying to get rid of it, but the more you try to get rid of it, anyone who's had anxiety can tell you this, the more you try to get rid of it, the more it sticks around. It's not until let it be what it is. So I'm really glad you say that because I think it could help a lot of people to know that it's totally normal and there is actually a lot of positive things that come from, I dunno how else to say it, kind of letting it be or looking at it, okay, here's happening. What is my body trying to tell me?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, I think that's it. What is my body trying to tell me as much as your, what is my mind trying to tell me and anxiety manifest in mental and physical ways and yeah, something we should talk about more. I feel like we don't, everyone does suffer from a form of anxiety at some point in their lives, some much more than others. And you knows anxiety can be debilitating as well. And again, I think it's just having a deeper understanding for your own body and your own mind and how you react to cer certain things is healthy and good no matter what. I think everyone should talk about it more. Everyone should explore themselves more. Yeah, it's one of those things that, I mean, maybe it's just being in my mid thirties and being more self-aware of aging and getting older. Not 35 is not old by any means, but I think, I feel like I haven't fully understood a lot of myself until the last half decade of my life. I think maybe that's normal for most people. I don't think you really know who you are in your twenties.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I totally figured agree. I totally agree. All these self discoveries I've had that I attribute to entrepreneurship, maybe it's just about where I'm at, you know? Ta. Yeah, I'm 38, so similar ages. And then you talk to anyone who's around our age and they're like, oh yeah, I just learned that same thing through a different lens. But I do think taking risks and entrepreneurship, whatever, it doesn't have to be entrepreneurship can be, I mean, starting a family can take your risk, moving can be a risk. A lot of these things are risks that we take, but they definitely show us who we are.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
A hundred percent. Yeah. Other things that shape you. I think they test your ability and ultimately make you more comfortable taking those risks, being out of your comfort zone. The more you do that, I think the more you can channel that you know can understand your boundaries more. Taking risks doesn't have to be scary.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
No. Maybe your
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Threshold changes, I dunno.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
I think the threshold changes. Yeah, but it's always scary. So let's pivot the conversation a little bit. That was really fun. As we close out our discussion here, I have a couple of remaining questions, one of which is, what or who are you most grateful for in terms of getting to where you have gotten today?
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I love this question. This, I
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Mean, I'm glad because I was nervous to ask it.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
No, this is a good one.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
It's a simple, but it's a powerful one.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
It is. This is honestly, I mean this me means a lot to me in that I've been incredibly lucky to have some amazing mentors throughout my education and my career. And that I honestly wouldn't be where I am with it without those people. And so I have a lot to be grateful for. I think I'm probably just going to run through the list kind of quickly and there's some funny stories in between. But yeah, I think Lee Gibson, shout out to Lee. He's, when I was studying my first year of design, he was head of first year design at Massey University in Wellington. And for whatever reason, he must have seen some potential in me and took me under his wing and got me working on a bunch of freelance projects of things that he was working on on the side. And I had no fucking experience or idea what I was doing.
(39:38):
It's first year design, my eyes were big, but I had no idea on what I was doing. But he, he really just showed me the ropes. And one project, which is kind of funny actually, he started a shoe company called Tobe with who is now with Tim Brown, who is now the founder and CEO of Allbirds. And so we worked on this shoe company for a while and launched it to the world. It was me and Tim and Lee launching this company. And it's funny because obviously Tim now wildly successful with Allbirds, a massive shoe company. And then Lee is actually design director at Nike working on Jordan. So Wow. Obviously the Schumers shoe game, very strong from day one. But yeah, anyway, yeah, just big shout out to Lee. He was a massive inspiration for me and just gave me a ton of confidence.
(40:41):
I think being a very, very young designer, learning design in the world for the first time, having his guidance I think gave me that confidence to take risks and also just believe in the way that I thought about design and the world. And then that kind of segues a little bit into Steve, Steve on a face, very, very talented photographer in New Zealand. So after first year design, I then specialized, I majored in photographic design and I quickly got very, very frustrated with the degree because I thought it was very, it was all conceptual, very kind of, which was great. I still loved that, but I felt it kind of lacked the real world skills and application that I think would actually, that I thought would be useful to me as I finished my degree and was thrust out into the world to figure it out for myself, I really wanted to make sure that I had that real world knowledge of how do I as a photographer work with other creatives or work with agencies?
(41:52):
How do, even just from a business standpoint, how do I deal with invoicing and all of that stuff. Often you're not set up for that when you study, at least not in my degree, I wasn't. And so very early on I made a conscious decision that I wanted to work in the industry while I studied. And so I became an assistant photographer for Steve. And he really kind of honestly taught me everything I know now that I carry forward in my work around photography. He is an absolutely meticulous, he just had this insane obsession over how he would create his images. And I think that very much bleed into my approach as well. He was just had the most insane attention to detail when it came to lighting to composition, how he worked with other creatives and interpreted their vision on set. And so we worked together for just over three years and became very close friends.
(42:58):
And that relationship was insanely important to me, I think in terms of his mentorship, his friendship, again, continuing to give me the confidence and the tool set I think to go out into the world. And so yeah, I have a lot of love for both Lee and Steve. I think very early in my career they were two people that just had such a massive impact and very, very thankful. And then more recently to round it out with Gin Lane, I think Dan Kinga, as I mentioned, he really took me under his wing and gave me the opportunity Gin Lane. And Pat is such a massive part of my personal life and my career, personal life, my partner I met at Gin Lane, we work together at Pattern, we have a beautiful daughter now. So it's infused in my life, not just from a career standpoint but from a personal standpoint. And so very grateful to have had that opportunity and for Dan to have seen the potential in me and to bring me into that world. And then Emmett Emmett Shine is, and I'm sure probably a lot of you listening will be familiar with Emmett, and if not, definitely look him up. He, he's incredible. I can't stress enough he, he's just such a great mind from a creative standpoint, an absolute genius from a D two C branding standpoint.
(44:38):
He's taught me a lot, not only about the creative process, but I think about building brands and businesses. And that's such a fundamental thing that I'm going to carry forward as it's not just design, how you actually build a brand. And there's so much that goes into that. And so while Emmett can sometimes be in absolute pain in the ass, and we definitely had our fair share of creative arguments and budding heads, which was a healthy part of our relationship and our friendship. But yeah, no, he's a dear friend and someone that, again, I'm very thankful to have had in my life to help guide me in my career. And so yeah, I've been very lucky to have a lot of strong people that have helped me along the way. And I only hope that I can be that to people moving forward, to be young designers, to be that type of figure. It's something I believe is very important and has absolutely shaped me. So I hope I can pass that on.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Nice. Those were really epic acknowledgements. It was really, really awesome to listen to. I
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Hope they're listening at some point. Big shout out to all of them.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
We'll send it to for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Nicely.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Alright, right. Cool. So my last question is, I'll preface it a little bit. One of the things we talk about at Huddle a lot, and we kind of made this a focal point on our recent rebrand, but Steph and I are big believers, is that the best way to predict the future is to create it and love that we really talk about this a lot. And so the way I originally phrased the question, which I sent over to you is what's your utopian view of the future? But even just listening to myself say this now, it's really about what is the future you'd like to be a part of creating?
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I love this question. This is a good one. So it's funny because I feel a lot of this utopian future, maybe I need to reframe this moving forward because I feel like it's here already in a lot of ways. We're on the precipice of this big change. I think from a technological standpoint, a societal standpoint, a creative standpoint, things like crypto, we have three ai, it, it's kind of fundamentally changing the way that we work. And that to me is just super interesting. And I don't know, I think it plays into this, I think it's actually a funny kind of link to what you guys are doing at Huddle in that the way that you build a brand, the way that the tools that you have as a founder is, has kind of changed considerably in the last few years. And I think no longer do you necessarily need to raise a crazy amount of money or build out a crazy team to be successful and get your idea to market.
(47:55):
And that's a lot of what you guys are doing, doing. You're providing a fractional team, you're providing an alternate way for these founders to build what they want to build without crazy overhead and having to spend a ton of money up upfront. And I think as we dive deeper into ai, especially from a creative standpoint and as a creative, things like Mid Journey, things like Dali Chat, G P t, while they may be scary to some people in terms of job security, I think that actually going to be an incredible asset to removing a lot of the repetitive tasks that we have to do as creatives to be able to ultimately focus more on being creative and strategic. And I think the more that you can optimize and automate your workflow, the more time you have to be creative, the more freedom you have. And so it's something that I've kind of been assessing about the past few years, especially as I've built out a team at Pattern and had to really think about how we do that in an efficient way with a small team.
(49:03):
We had seven brands, a singular team that was pretty small. How do we continue to grow without rapidly growing the team? You know, see so many companies running into issues these days and having to let go through these rounds of layoffs because they massively overhired and it's just not the way that you need to approach it. I think in this day and age and having options, huddle fractional teams having services like Mid Journey or Dali or Chat G P t or services that are built on top of those, you can actually do a lot of that legwork in a really efficient way. And I think especially with the AI stuff, I think you can look at them more as creative partners, less of less as replacing your job. I think that mid journey is an incredible way to concept and visualize something, right? It's, it kind of breaks you out of your biases of the types of inspiration you look at or what you're familiar with.
(50:05):
You can prompt and expand your visual world and a very easy way. And same with chat g p T, right? That's crazy because you can have a fucking conversation. It's not just a prompt in an answer, it knows context. You can riff on something together that's amazing. It's literally having a writing partner. And so as you're thinking about for a founder a deck, you can work with chat g p t essentially as another body to help you get there. And that's not going to be perfect. Sometimes the answers can be a bit generic or averaged out, but it gets you started and it gets you to kind of 70% and gets you going. And so in a funny way, let's go back to therapy. The role of a therapist is not to give you the answers. The role of a therapist is to make you realize the answers yourself.
(50:54):
And I think a lot of these services are just that. They're not going to give you the end answer to what you're looking for, but they'll help you along the way and do it in a much quicker way. And so, I dunno, that's the fun utopian view of the future is I think we're going to have these services, this technology that is really going to accelerate the way that we can work. And I think it's ultimately going to allow us to be more creative because it's going to take a lot of the league work out and it's going to free up our time. And that's exciting to me is of course I want more time to be creative. I don't want to have to do all the repetitive administrative tasks that are often part of my workflow. How can I automate that? How can I reduce the amount of time that takes on my day? And so I don't know, it's fun. It's here. The future is here, the future is now. I think it's going to be a really exciting five years. And then see how this develops.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Well, I hope that many people you can view the tools that way. In other words, the context that you're creating about these tools is one that's really based in possibility and opportunity and just in a positive way. I think it's really interesting that you went to chat. G P t understands context, but that's actually a good thing because maybe it'll help people shift their context from fear to love or from negative positive or whatever, all how it occurs to us. So I love that you love that you pointed out these things that people are in the press, there's a lot of polarized views and a lot of them are really negative. And I love how you just said, yeah, actually these are great, they're great. If we say they're great, they're great. If they occur to more people as great.
Speaker 2 (52:54): I mean also I think in a funny way, the people that are using these services and these products are actually going to shape how they develop. And so if we make a more conscious effort to find positive ways to use them even in a personal way, I think that's going to inform how they evolve on a large scale. And I don't know, it's going to happen regardless. Don't be scared of it. Don't shy away from it, don't shun it. Figure out a way to make it work for you. And I think that's ultimately technology changes quick. We got to keep up, especially in our fields, in our industry, it's part of the job is evolving and not just being static and sitting still. It's like you got to keep learning and that's good. It's healthy.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Cool. Any last words for the audience before we close it out?
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Just a big shout out and thank you to you guys. This was really fun. Thank you for having me on. It was fun to kind of just chat and ramble. Hopefully I didn't ramble too much and hopefully there's some good insight in there for someone. So yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Yeah, I acknowledge you and appreciate you for being our first and thank you for being part of the community that we're building. It's been great having you. And yeah, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Of course. Excited to see who you have next. I'll be following along. So
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Big shoes to fill.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
I hope so.