Full Transcript – David Lee – Wild Business Growth Podcast #357

This is the full transcript for Episode #357 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring David Lee – Nex Playground, Active Video Games for Your Living Room. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
Oh, it’s Steve Nash and the wrong David Lee go on stage.

00:19
Hi, welcome back to Wild Business Growth. I am your host Max Branstetter from MaxPodcasting. This is where you can hear from a wild entrepreneur turning wild ideas into wild growth. And this is episode Heinz 357. You’ll need to catch up on that joke. Today’s guest is David Lee, the co-founder and CEO of Nex, spelled N-E-X. They are the creators of Nex Playground.

00:47
The little smart cube that sits below your TV in your living room transforms your living room with all sorts of cool games. And here’s the best part, it’s without a controller. In this episode, you’ll hear all about that, including their subscription model. You’ll hear about the company that David sold to Apple and his experience there and with that. And…

01:13
everything from who the real David Lee is, whether it’s him or the former NBA player, to aliens. It is the real David Lee. Enjoy the show.

01:34
Alrighty, we are here with David Lee, co-founder and CEO of Nex, known for Nex Playground, one of the coolest video game gaming console things that you’ll ever hear about. You don’t even need any controllers or anything like that. David, so excited to speak with you today. How are doing? I’m doing really well. Thanks for having me. Of course. We’re going to get into all things gaming life. uh For those of you watching on video,

02:03
This is very intentional wearing of a basketball jersey by me. We’ll talk some basketball as well. But before that, so you’re one of the few people that had an incredible journey of starting a company that then got acquired by Apple. And obviously people can speak forever about how cool the company Apple is and all the innovation and creativity there. So for your journey, you don’t need to give us like the full background, but I’m just curious, what’s the biggest thing that stuck with you or that you learned?

02:33
from building a company that actually could get acquired by Apple? Wow. What a question to get started. The first startup I built was building online spreadsheet. And it was the beginning of Web 2.0. When Reddit is just get first to get started, we are thinking offering get started around that time, building web apps, you know, and Web 2.0 is about like not just, oh, you can build a website, just.

03:02
one way publishing is about, you can also read and write, right? So it’s like, you know, can start editing the web so they’re making contributions. Web apps begin to become a thing. And I remember at that time I’m reading the blog uh of Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator. I was in Hong Kong, so it’s like, you know, he has influence, you know, way beyond America.

03:31
And he talked about like having online spreadsheet makes sense, having a lot of people, you know, edit the same thing to get it makes sense. We were building something similar. We were at that time, we still in like more like an agency helping other people write web apps. say, and I was serving a customer, which is the Hong Kong arts festival. Imagine Hong Kong arts festival. Okay. They are managing millions in budget. All in spreadsheets. They have like 20 something artists.

04:02
you know, organizing the budget. We come in and say, hey, we can do you, we can help you collaborate better. And end up what we deliver to them is like, hey, these guys probably don’t know anything other than operating on spreadsheets. So let’s just make that spreadsheet like, collaborable. the people probably get at the same thing at the same time. I think at the beginning of us building something, solving real problem. And they love it. So we end up with prioritizing that and it become one of the earliest online spreadsheet in the world. We shipped that two months before Google ship.

04:31
on the Google spreadsheets and we have a hell of a ride of like, you know, building that product and getting a lot of people use it. Google joining the market just make so many more people aware of this. And we are one of the top online spreadsheets out there and that eventually get acquired by Apple. It’s part of this, just, you know, you, you think something is right. You have experience of why this makes sense and you build it and you’re obsessed about it and make it one of the world best and people pay attention.

05:01
Um, eventually Apple reached out and say, guys want to join us and we, we joined Apple and, uh, have a way of chance to work for Steve Jobs. And then, you know, spend eight years at Apple build like bringing the technologies we allowed iWork switch to be, to be collaborative. So multiple people can work on the same document at the same time across native apps and web apps. So we, we, uh, spend a lot of time to do just that. When you.

05:31
do something and push it to the world best, then you would have the opportunity to get discovered, have opportunity to basically rise to the global stage ah and make a big impact. What is it about Apple, this seemingly larger than life company? What is it from their perspective you think that attracted them to you, attracted you to them? I always get that messed up. What is it that stood out about that company? Like this is really Apple worthy.

06:00
Let’s talk a little bit talk about like what’s the process of shipping a product at Apple. Oh my God. So we have a product already and the shipper product inside of Apple took us four and a half years. So because Apple want to keep a secret, they keep like the old product running for a long time, for years, know, proxy running. apparently the Edigreed guys just disappear.

06:30
And, but it probably keep running, but we were already working for Apple and building the Apple version of the online productivity suite. Basically making, uh, building web apps for, for Apple. The first three and a half years is literally just keep building demos and to show to Steve many times. And Steve would challenge you to do some of the craziest thing and web apps that worthwhile of.

07:01
the Apple logo is the bar is very high. You know, you need to feel like butter. The scrolling and everything and the rep process, you need to wear it, render it all in piece. All in piece of three million characters on it. Um, I think at that time, Google can only take one million and that’s it. I don’t know how much they can do now, but the bar is very high. It’s also very challenging and everything is like a deep, hard, challenging technical problems.

07:29
and to get to something that’s world-class. So it starts with what you want your customer to have, like high fidelity, you need to render and looks as beautiful as what’s rendered natively. So we need to kind of touch pretty deep technologies on the web and do something pretty crazy. And it need to be fast as well. So we also spend a lot of time on optimizations. Those are the skills that are so valuable.

07:58
And so transferable when we do something else too, basically making something that’s fast, meaning that you, you can be the best or you can be the first, you know, when something you come up and you are the first to have an optimized version of that. And like normally when new technology appear, it always be the person who actually can optimize it in, in, in so well that it become usable. become wow. Um, so what is it in Apple? I think I learned a couple of things in Apple. still like.

08:28
become a little more like life lessons. So there’s a couple of things. First is Steve Jobs, reality distortion field. So people had about, okay, well I still have this superpower, the reality distortion field, distort reality. But if you build an onion and understand, what exactly is that thing that really pull people into ambitious project, is it just a really big idea?

08:57
idea that’s worth doing, idea that’s worth sinking your life into. So, you know, that’s the first thing I learned at Apple. you know, the behind the reality distortion field is actually a really big idea that really pulls minds. You feel in Apple, know, you, when Steve talk about certain thing, you feel you’re drawn to it. You just feel you are, I just attracted to execute that and do that because this is great. That would be great if this thing exists. That is

09:27
The first thing, the second thing is Apple have a really deep demo culture. So the storytelling that all these meetings are centered around demos. Demos actually is a beautiful thing. It’s basically just focusing on the user, how you take user from point A to point B and how you solve a problem. No data.

09:56
Not saying that they would never, yeah, there will be some data inform as well, but the way that you talk about it is talk about the problem and now how like the product take user from point A to point B. Like everything else disappear. So it’s just focusing on the problem and the solution. And you know, that’s the second thing that I learned in Apple. think it’s just become life lessons as well and how we can keep focusing on a user, focusing on the problem.

10:26
and do something great.

10:30
Well, speaking of something great and something with a really, really cool design, which is clearly something that is just everywhere, you know, omnipresent in Apple. Let’s talk next, the next playground. And before we get to next playground as it is today, Little Birdie told me that in the early, early days, the idea actually had to do with basketball. Can you take us back to basketball and what you had developed originally? It was 2017. I left Apple.

11:00
And looking for my next idea. So I did not leave with an idea in mind already. I just left and looking for next thing to do. People know me, know that I love basketball. I go distance in making sure that every week we have a pickup game. Um, and that thing’s going on for over 10 years. So after, after Apple, so, Hey, we connect with myself. We connect with world. What should I be doing? Hey, maybe do something with basketball.

11:30
something that we love and is complete change of lane. feel like, Hey, you build up so much in like being the world productivity expert and full away all of that. And now about let’s do something basketball related, which is extremely rejuvenating and doing something that’s like, you genuinely excited about what we can do there. And we end up building one of the world first edge AI application.

12:00
So using AI to understand video, to track basketball shots. It’s a really niche idea, I would say. It’s like people who want to check their shots are the people who are obsessed about basketball. It’s just like what we, nerd basketball player would do. Hey, I want to track my shots so that I can count my make, miss, count my, you know, where I shoot it. So we push it pretty far um and we build like the world first.

12:30
password training app called HomeCourt. And it was using AI on the edge to process video in real time to understand password shots, understand whether it make or miss and keep counting. And also how you take it as well, where you take it from and all the mechanics, like the angle, like how high you jump, how fast you move before put up shot, how long you hold the ball before you put a shot, your time taken.

12:58
for that to get a shot up. So all these like, you know, very interesting and we, dive pretty deep into that. And that was the first thing we did before we, uh, it leads to the journey of next playground. But this is the first thing we did, which is pretty wonderful. We especially need home court today, because if you look at the NBA today, people are taking like seven steps and it’s not being called a travel. So we need to watch track that movement too.

13:25
It sounds like something created by somebody who plays a pickup game every, you know, every week for 10 years. So it’s pretty impressive. Yeah. We love that journey too. It’s about how we break down a complicated problem, right? Hey, what a camera can see. You see the hoop, you see the board, you see the lines, you see the ball, you see the players, and we want to understand everything and breaking that problem down and getting to a deep understanding for in front of camera in real time. I think it still is and pretty incredible achievement that we’ve made.

13:55
Just using a phone camera. So it’s a phone camera on a tripod, looking at a basketball court, understand everything and extracting intelligence in real time. It’s a wonderful solution to a very small problem. in that, you know, still focused on home court, the camera and the AI tracking and that, like that’s super cool technology. Well, can you give us some behind the scenes of, I guess the aha moment for that technology particularly? It starts with, we want to do that.

14:25
and break that problem down into smaller problem and solve those things one by one. It begins with, I cold call the basketball coach around my area. So I get to become friend to the basketball coach in Montevista High, Cupertino High, um and all the Los Altos High and all these high school basketball coach around the area. So they allow me to just go into their gym.

14:55
I thought you were going to say Steve Kerr next. Well, we actually went to Duke, so coach K, similar category. Yeah, not bad. He hasn’t done much in his career. To capture training videos. So we actually captured a lot of video and understand how the ball go through the net. And when you go to, when you were in high school, when you go to go to college, you say, wow, college kids can get the ball to go through the net like that.

15:25
every such so fast, so clean. It’s a swish. And, oh, we don’t have this data before. We think this is a miss because it just like go full is so fast. Because normally when you make the baskets made, right? Like the ball kind of go through it, just got the net, like you slow it down a little bit. And when you go to Stanford, for example, wow, the ball can go through the net this fast, can be this good.

15:51
And okay, well, we need some more training data so that we can detect, detect as a make. um So there’s a lot of data collections and I remember drive around to capture like image of basketball hoops, collect a lot of myself. We bang a lot for myself, tens of thousands, probably a hundred thousand rebounds that I did for high school kids shaking their sweaty hands. That was quite a year, a whole year.

16:20
to just do this. It’s a lot of data collection, a lot of breakdown, and a lot of hard math as well. So you can imagine how the, when taking come from the camera, right? So all the chord lines feel distorted. And then we work on an algorithm to basically turn it back to a bird eye view from that. So there’s a lot of camera projection math there. It’s fun. And I remember my team, hey David, I don’t know.

16:48
Whether it is a good, it’s a big problem, but it’s fun problem. So let’s try to solve it first and see how we go from there. It’s challenging, it’s fun and we have a good time. When did the pivot happen? When did you know that actually it’s not just basketball, there’s potential here using this technology for like a video game, know, family play system. How it all started is that we solved that fairly niche problem beautifully.

17:18
To the point where like Apple said, wow, you guys did some amazing. How about you talk about it, you know, on stage in 2018, iPhone XS announcement event. And we did that and we get NBA attention as well. So NBA invested in us the next year, hoping that we have them find the next Stephen Curry all over the world. ah Not just in the US, but all over the world. That was their hope that we, that the app that we created.

17:48
like help to bring training to, kids worldwide. And then with that find the next Stephen Curry. But we know this is a very niche problem. So who in the right mind would take their phone out, put it on the tripod and track their own shots. And when they’re doing shooting workout, very few people in the world would do that. Uh, we want to do more. want to make some things that meaningful to more people. So we begin to.

18:17
Think about what are the use cases we can do. So home court on a tripod, use the rear facing camera to capture what’s in front of it. Then we say, hey, maybe we can use the front facing camera as well to give some interactive feedback when you’re other form of practices, like your ball handling or your agility. So can we do more there? So we begin to explore those applications and then pandemic hits the next year.

18:48
Those part of Homecourt went viral, grow much faster than the short tracking part of Homecourt. The agility one grew 40 times. So 40 times usage. All of a sudden, like half a million people, wow, like we thought we have a pretty niche app. Then like half a million people is like using it. You know, this we reach like half a million monthly active user. People come in and they’re not even playing, they’re not even basketball player.

19:17
They’re a player for all kinds of sports. So that’s give us inspiration to do the first pivot. Hey, how about we take those things out and we create another app called Active Arcade and see how that goes. And Active Arcade went even more viral than Homecourt. But we begin to learn what’s actually working. And we find that the retention of using Active Arcade on iPad is three times of Homecourt.

19:45
And the retention of anyone could connect the phone to the TV or tablet to TV and use it there is 10x the retention. we finally discovered we actually building for the wrong platform. Uh, we need to find what I called at that time, a 64, 65 inch iPad, big device with camera and have processing that can do it. cannot find one. So end up that one of go find, Hey, let’s just build one. And that’s how we.

20:16
uh, begin the journey of building next playground and get to where we are, get to where, we are today is a hell of a journey at the hell of a pivot. Um, from home court about the training app all of a sudden to, uh, like a motion game console, we call it an active play system. So it’s a quiet journey. Well, I have to say that you have the cutest game console of all time. Cause anybody look it up or if you’re watching on video.

20:45
It’s like uh a cube that what is it like a few inches by a few inches? Yeah, it’s pretty small. Yeah. Yep. Three inch Cube. That’s what we have here. So like if you have in your living room It doesn’t disrupt the space at all and then when you watch the videos and what this thing can do is unbelievable the different games ah Now you’ve gotten to the point where you’re partnering with like pep the pig uh Bluey all you know our daughter I’m sure is soon to be favorite things, you know on the latest flight we were on she was just she liked the seatback screen so she was just

21:14
Fast forwarding through all those, but in time she’ll sit there and watch those. anyway, anyway, you know, this thing has really exploded in terms of the potential and, you know, the sales now as well. On that, uh, design note, how did you, you know, channeling your inner Steve jobs, how did you guys get to the point that you’re able to put all this amazing technology in, in camera in like such a cute little box, if you’ll call it. When we explore the industrial design of it, we write

21:44
the design brief. you know, our VP of design, Josh Finno, who also spent a lot of time in Apple before leading that effort, but he cannot do everything himself. So we do go out to a couple of industrial design firm, give them the brief and ask them to come up with a proposal of what that could look like. And then we get a proposal from, from Laval, who is an industrial design firm.

22:13
Momlad, this industrial design firm based in San Francisco, their design is different. They find out, we get it. It’s like, you when you say, hey, you build a game console and someone come in with something looks like a game console. And they come in with something very completely different. When we see it, we just fall in love with the design. And it’s our, they call it design rubik. It’s just like, it look like little bit look like a rubik cubes.

22:41
is we need to do a lot in, in after that, is it even, is it even possible to do it like this? When the design come out and we just like, wow, this is great. And then the work begin to try to make it work. That is the, when something click, it just begins the quest. Hey, I know it’s difficult, but, then more people want to pick up on that challenge because it’s fun when it become a challenge to our.

23:08
like mechanical design and like the rest of the hardware design need to basically fit everything into one small cube form factor. You get, you get to see everybody actually excited about working on that project. It’s like, and like go back to the Apple thing again, it’s just like when you have something great, you just pull people in. People want to make it, make it happen. People want you because like Nix all by itself cannot do everything. It’s important that we, at that point, when we start building Nix Playground, we have 40 people.

23:39
We lean in on our partners to help us to bring their superpower onto the table. So we have partnership with the SOC vendor AMlogic, who is a leader in set-up box chipset manufacturing. We are working with Skyworth Digital, who have bring in the manufacturing and mechanical design capabilities into the project and level.

24:06
doing industrial designs is like, you know, it’s next in the center, but we pull in a lot of great people to make it possible. It’s just incredible to see. You can’t think about in the 20s of 2023, we actually did it in one year. I was in the beginning of 2023, I was just carrying like a 3D printed model. Hey, we want to make it happen and just keep going around and asking for help to build this product.

24:35
And the whole thing happened in one year and the singular focus, the whole team coming together, not just next, but like our partners come together and make one thing possible with one goal to make sure the first 5,000 people got it. We only have money to create 5,000 units, but at that time, so that’s all we have. And we’ve only one goal to make the first 5,000 units. Or for first 5,000 customers, we’re happy about our product is a highlight of the career.

25:06
You hear people talk about beauty and constraint and how much amazing things come out of that. uh One of my old coworkers, a mentor of mine, Ken Krasnow, back when I was in the corporate world, he’d always talk about beauty and constraint. And apparently there’s some stories about Mick Jagger would learn to dance in like very tight quarters. like, that’s kind of why he dances the way he does. anyway, you had the physical constraint there of like, cool, how do we get everything into the box? And then…

25:33
basically a time constraint there as well. did this all in one year. How do you think you and the team were able to achieve such like a seemingly impossible task and stay so focused on that? First of all, that is the last bet that we can make. I don’t think Nick can come around to have another try if that fail. When it becomes clear, hey, this is the possibly last thing.

26:03
we can do together at that point is 2023, right? The company started 2017. So we are like, you know, more than five years in already into this. And, and over the five years, we build a tech, we start building content, uh, with home, connective, RK and subsequent something, other things that we also build on mobile as well. But mobile was the wrong platform for the experience we’re creating. So we now end up.

26:31
decorating the platform so that our tech, our content can shine and become that unifying factor that get everyone to do one thing only. And the team is incredible. Try to do everything right. I can, I remember those times I can only be really thankful that like we all pour our hearts into it because it’s not just that one year, but it’s all the work that accumulated before. Finally.

27:01
get to a point where this is arguably the best experience that we ever, we ever create and deliver to our customers. And it ended up with what cut through the noise as well. It’s really inspiring just hearing about like the design, like the actual hard product, like the actual physical product and what went into that. And we barely even talked about the games yet. So like I was just binging earlier, absolutely loving.

27:30
clips about what the actual gameplay looks like and what, we mentioned the Peppa Pig and the Bluey, but you’ve partnered with these really, really cool franchises and TV shows out there, and Sesame Street as well, and creating games that fit those brands incredibly well, but are also super fun for families, especially kids. What is your philosophy in terms of adding more games that are

28:00
playable on next playground. the beginning, we don’t have all these partnerships yet. It’s a small company who would trust us. But because we have Homecourt, because NBA behind Homecourt, when we start building motion experiences, we have an early partnership with Hasbro. um We are still really thankful for Hasbro to be the first one to believe in us. And they offer us Peppa Pig.

28:29
which is like certainly one of the crunch roll IP. And I remember the one thing that we are promising them is this is a big franchise and we cannot do any harm to the franchise. That’s the beginning of that. We deeply care about trust and safety. We are creating something that is certainly unique to the brand. Like Peppa Pig, you think about jumping in a muddy puddle very quickly with

28:57
next playground, can really jumping in a muddy puddle. Um, so we managed to get the license of creating a Peppa Pig game. So Peppa Pig is actually one of the game that is, is shipped in playground when we launch. And we have 18 other original IP titles that we created and the kind of accumulated over time. We ship AcuPrk there as well. And then we, we have other things we have.

29:26
We and we also bring in a few partners to create for the platform. So we ship the initial product with 19 games and now it’s grown to over 60 already. But the journey is more like that. We create a platform that’s focusing on trust and safety, focus on safety, privacy, security, because it’s a platform designed for families. And once we have that unique position, create a safe space for brand to connect with, like, you know, the family that we are serving.

29:56
So we are serving also have our own segment that we serve in family of young kids first. And then when Pepper is there, Sesame Workshop come on board. We are partnered with Sesame Workshop and then others like Mattel and Barbie and NBC Universal with Gaby Dollhouse, How to Train the Dragon, uh Kung Fu Panda and then Paramount with TMNT and then Prui come on board. And then we build out our

30:26
Big portfolio of licensed IP games and original IP games on the platform and create a rich experience for our customers. And we have exciting content roadmap for this year as well. I’m really excited about it. So that’s how we build up a library that I think that subscription model just works so well in a way that we don’t need to think about other ways to monetize our customers. Unlike, you know, games on mobile.

30:55
Or even games on PC, not just premium purchase, something with the LC, like, you know, some are as supported, some are having other mechanics. We don’t need any of that. We just, hey, like a simple, honest model of $89 a year, access the whole library of games, and we keep surprising our customer for a whole year. And we keep doing that. It’s exciting and liberating as well.

31:21
So we can be only focusing on how we bring in great content, great partners, great original IP onto the platform and keep serving our customer better and better. That’s something that’s transferable across so many different types of businesses. We’ve seen companies do subscription models really well, and then we’ve seen other ones totally butcher it and, you know, can make or break a company. What advice do you have for fellow entrepreneurs out there that are considering a subscription model? So subscription model.

31:51
mean one thing, you need to build a deep relationship with your customers. You need to have your customer at heart. You need to give more than you take. And the beauty of subscription model is when you have a bigger base, you will have more resources to invest in the offering. Essentially, basically your customer help you make the product better and better. So we have this idea of that, we’re from this model. We actually keep coming back.

32:21
to the market every week with a better product, because we keep shipping updates, new games, um you know, on ongoing basis. It’s really about building trust. It’s really about like, it’s a non-transactional relationship. It’s really about solving our problem that is recurring as well. Yeah, just deliver the value that you you are to deliver.

32:51
you know, serving what I call timeless consumer needs or timeless human needs. You know, our position is to serve the needs to move, the needs to connect with family, with friends, the needs to grow and the need to have fun. And we would always thinking about everything we do, think about our customers, think about how we surprise and delight them. It’s a commitment. It’s an ongoing commitment to do something that’s better and better.

33:22
Well, you absolutely read my mind and I think you AI camera track what’s going on in my brain too, because we’re going to wrap up with something fun here. We want to wrap up with some rapid fire Q and A. You ready for it? So we have a basketball competition. There’s a hoop behind. No, I’m just kidding. All right. Let’s, let’s get wild. Speaking of basketball, who is an NBA player that you say you try to model your game after the most?

33:53
That’s a great answer. well now he’s known as the Lakers coach, before that, I remember growing up, you know, because people are very either hate Duke or love Duke. He was at the time one of the most hated and hateable college players of all time, but that’s because he was so good and you know, like one of the best three-point shooters of all time. So it is more just on court and off the court as well. So catch and shooter.

34:21
And it’s also my role. I’m a student guard too, when I play catch and shoot. There’s a lot I can learn from him on that play style. And second, he’s so articulative. He speaks so well. I remember one time he’s also investor in Next as well. Oh, that’s all. Congrats on that. And we have a chance that we can, you know, interview him. Wow. Just listening to him and how articulate he is. Give me goosebumps.

34:52
So, teach your redneck 100%. Yeah, modern day Renaissance man with basketball player turned podcaster turned broadcaster, now coach, investor as well. It’s really cool. You’re getting to work with them a lot. All right. I saw that you study at the University of Hong Kong, which is something that’s probably just a couple hour flight from me. uh No, it’s probably very, very long from me, but you study computer science among other things.

35:20
What specific class was the most challenging class that you studied there? Embedded system. Sorry, say it again. What’s the first word? What system? Embedded system. Yeah. I remember that was a project that we need to program a train. It ends up, it’s a bit excited. Like, I think like, you know, we have a couple of teammates and there’s so many projects going on. It’s a hit. You guys deal with it. I have you deal with other projects. That’s what happened. That’s one of the harder costs.

35:49
I would be uh absolutely toast at any of that. All right. Steve Jobs, you hear so many stories about him, you know, larger than life figure. What was Steve Jobs actually like in terms of giving feedback on something? You know, as much as I wanted to be in the same room with him, he normally keep his meeting very small. So I have not been in the same room with him, but I would be sitting outside.

36:17
Every time there’s a debrief talk about the feedback he give. It’s always some, wow, is it possible? It’s always, always kind of, you you know, have that challenge that it’s both difficult and exciting at the same time. Sometimes it’s just the feedback is simple, but actually it’s very hard to achieve. But you’ve got to achieve that. Like that thing no longer is just being

36:46
something is transparent and something that’s like, don’t know no longer bothering you. So it, for the years is also trained for me and train a really good eyes for things that’s like irritating. And sometimes we moving those irritations could be simple. Sometimes it be really, really hard. Yeah. So that’s feedback from Steve is always challenges. right. So we’re going to go from that.

37:13
Seemingly almost fictional character they call Steve Jobs because it’s unbelievable all he did in his life to Somebody in a realm I guess adjacent to that so last one Let’s say you could have dinner with any video game character ever Who would that be? Has been alien so before? Somebody in the in Starcraft I am

37:42
Before my daughter was born, I’m big Starcraft II fan. Wow, it’s like so long time ago, like 14, 15 years ago. Probably meeting with someone from Protoss. It would be fun to speak with an alien. Because I’m a big, alien fan, and I’m hoping that the declassification really happen. Big alien fan and… No, I’m just curious. I’m just curious about those things.

38:12
Something that makes humans feel smaller, something that unifies us more, because when we are not alone, I feel that’s very unifying. When human beings are not alone, it’s very unifying too. Because I’m hoping world peace, hoping that we can drop our differences now that we know we’re not the only one out there. I’m hoping for that effect when we know a little bit more about those things.

38:42
It’s a great message and a much more heartfelt message than I expected when I asked about dinner with a video game character. So I appreciate how you keep the surprises coming. David Lee, which by the way, you’re a basketball fan. you familiar with the former Knicks player David Lee? Cause it is funny. There’s the same name. Yup. And I tell you a funny story. So when I go on stage with Steve Nash on Apple stage in 2018, when we talk about how Homecourt use AI to track motion.

39:11
and password shot in real time. I remember somebody make a joke, oh, it’s Steve Nash and the wrong David Lee. Go on stage. You’re the right David Lee in my book. David, thanks so much. Congrats on everything with Next, the Next Playground and Homecore and everything there. So excited to see what you guys do next and, and, and cover, enjoy more of it. So.

39:36
Thanks so much for coming on. Where’s the best place if somebody wants to learn more about Next or Next Playground or just connect with you online, what’s your preferred place for that? Well, you can connect with LinkedIn. I also wrote a blog called playthatmovesyou.com. We have a user community. So if you have a Next Playground, please join us on Facebook or Reddit or follow us on social media. And you will actually see me replying your message there. And I’m actually pretty active because I think listening to customers, interacting with them are very important for Next.

40:06
So I’m championing those effort to be out there and just talking to customers And further proof that you are the right David Lee Last thing final thoughts just like a few words ah Maybe a mission or motto words to live by whatever you want. Take us home here next mission is to connect families and friends through active play and We want to build next into a 100 year company

40:34
and a 100-year company will serve timeless human needs to move, to connect, to grow, and to have fun. That’s what we live by. And we will keep building from here.

40:52
keep building and keep building in particular, tiny smart cubes that are so cute and so awesome. Thank you David for sharing your next playground story, for coming on Wild Business Growth. Thank you Wild Listeners and Wild Viewers for tuning in. You know where to subscribe or follow if you’re not already. And on YouTube it’s @MaxBranstetter for the video versions. Anything else? It is MaxPodcasting.com.

41:21
said in that voice exactly. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!