Podcast Notes
- Has been at Macrofab for over 5 years
- Currently the Director of Customer Success
- Previous life, he was the CTO/CFO of Litigation Records Services
- A records retrieval company in Texas managing litigation records for both Plaintiff and Defense attorneys
- Application support for Presensoft Inc. for almost 11 years
Customer Success
- How do you figure out how customer’s act?
- What is the advice you can give to engineers?
- What is the weirdest thing a customer has ever done?
Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!
About The Hosts
Parker Dillmann is MacroFab's Co-Founder, and Lead ECE with backgrounds in Embedded System Design, and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. He also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas.
Stephen Kraig began his electronics career by building musical oriented circuits in 2003. Stephen is an avid guitar player and, in his down time, manufactures audio electronics including guitar amplifiers, pedals, and pro audio gear. Stephen graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Podcast Transcript
Host 2
Welcome to the Mac fab engineering podcast a weekly show about all things engineering, DIY projects, manufacturing, industry, news and customer success. Were your host electrical engineers Parker Dolan, and Steven Craig. This is episode 330. And this week our guest is Jerry McDaniel.
Host 1
Jerry has been at macro fed for over five years and is currently the Director of Customer Success. In a previous life. Jerry was the CTO CFO of litigation record services, a records retrieval company in Texas managing the litigation records for both plaintiff and defense attorneys.
Host 2
Thank you, Jerry, for coming on our podcast finally. It's been You're welcome. I think I asked you like the first year you were here at macro fab. And you said no.
Host 1
We had to prove to Jerry that this is worthwhile.
Host 2
I think so. Yeah.
Host 1
I wanted to make sure this thing was gonna have some legs.
Host 2
So Jerry, what? What do you do for macro fab? Actually, as I'm gonna get there yet, what do you like to do Jerry?
Host 1
What do I like to do? You know, as we were just talking, I like to play guitar. I used to like to tinker with amplifiers. I like fast cars, and now economical cars. And for the past five years, I've mostly focused on helping macro fab succeed in any way possible. I'm one of those fellas that just kind of immerses myself in a project and macro fab has been it really?
Host 1
So I remember from from hanging out with Jerry back when I was there, but all the guitar and the fast car stuff. But I'm curious about this. Economic cars. Now. What, what's what's going on with that?
Host 1
Well, one, I had my high powered car stolen, so I replaced it. And I didn't want to drive it. We moved to a new office, I would have to park in a parking lot. So I bought a Mini Cooper and I now have gone from 11 miles a gallon to 27 miles a gallon. I fill up once every couple of weeks, although I don't drive that much. So no, I've stuck my toe into the small economy card thing for the first time in a long time.
Host 1
You sit come.
Host 1
That's pretty cool.
Host 2
Yeah, I wish I had my chiefs were a little more economical. I will say that right now.
Host 1
Yeah, it's, it's, it cost a lot of money to fill up the mini the other day, and I still run premium in it because it's a turbo and you're supposed to. But even still, the Hellcat if I, you know, I need a tank of gas every three days if I drive it regularly. So yeah, I've jumped into that.
Host 2
So, so Jerry, you how'd you get involved with macrophages all like five years ago at this point? You came in right after we moved from Hutchins street over to where we're at now, which is over on a governor's circle. And so how did you decide to want to do customer because you came in on what it was so called customer support. At macro fab.
Host 1
It's sort of an interesting story and how deep we want to go. But let's just say there was a period in my life after I was in a software company. I was the Director of Customer Care success. I was a solutions architect there that was present soft, and we sold it. And I went to work for the folks that bought us for a year under a contract to train them on what we did how we do it. And I knew that was coming to an end. And I can't remember where I found macro fab. But I saw that Stephen, a dude that had something to do with amplifiers was involved. And then I read churches bio, and I'm like, and I've always liked to work for people that I can learn from that are challenging that, you know, there's a reason to work for them. And after reading churches biome like, Dang, this guy seems pretty smart. I can probably learn from him. And so I applied and like no one took me seriously, I guess. I mean, I had quite a bit of experience. I think it was an entry level job. I was not working and actually really didn't intend to go back to work much but then I needed to get out of the house, let's just say so then I escalated my efforts. And I guess Finally somebody read my resume and I came in and got the job. And I was just a support person, me, you know, taking inbound calls, trying to, you know, provide support where I could, I learned a ton from YouTube guys, because the guys that hired me, I don't know how much they knew about printed circuit boards or anything. So fortunately, I was, like I said, you guys were super big help. I'm really good with software and software platforms. I've developed software in my past life at litigation, record services, we were the first company to use the internet, if you will. We had our own ticketing system that I developed, we sent out surveys and things of that nature. And then moving on to present solve that was heavily involved in software applications. So learning the macro fab platform, to me was something that I really liked doing. And I like training people on it, showing them how to use it, the benefits of it. And then it just kind of grown, I guess, they needed somebody on the leadership team that was from customer support. So default I was in. And so that's where I'm at now.
Host 1
And when you first started, it was you and one, maybe two others doing customer support.
Host 1
It was me and two others that were supposed to be doing it. Yes.
Host 1
Yeah, Derek came in, yeah, rearranged some things and change some things, that's for sure.
Host 1
I think I had a little more focus than they did. So and then one of the guys to be fair, he moved into more of a sales role. And so then there was another fella, and he did what he could, but you know, this has been sort of a life science and art for me for 30 years, what now we look at as customer success, customer service, technical support, metrics, understanding customers, you know, I was doing it before it became a thing. So I have some insights there mostly in the art of it the science. Sure, we can all look at metrics, and I like looking at metrics and understanding our customers. But really, I like the platform. I like what we do, I like how, you know, if you have the right files, if you've read our DRC, you can upload to our platform, and you can place an order for a printed circuit board, without back and forth between Engineers Without doing quoting processes, and things of that nature. I think it's a beautiful thing that we've created.
Host 2
So I've got a question for the about the science of it. And you were saying that you like understanding customers? How much do you understand customers? Or is that always like, is there always a customer that just will straight up surprise you?
Host 1
Well, I was talking about more about analyzing groups of them and behavior and why they do and don't order why they do and don't increase their spend. But oh, yeah, we have customers every day that, you know. It's never the customers fault. It's just sometimes the customers expectations don't meet what our model is there for. You know, we have some customers that do want to engage, and they want to exchange designs, and they want to, you know, review something on the back of a napkin. And it's just like, you know, I can't really help you there. We get customers that they just have an idea. And they you know what design help, or they want to understand how manufacturing works. And I tried to help those but really, you know, as the business grows, or the business changes, some of its focus also changes. So our focus while I try to give every customer to a fault, the same service level is I would you know, a guy that's a maker to somebody at one of the large logos up, you tend to just by nature understand, okay, what are we trying to do? Am I going to be able to scale this company with a with some of those who have these unique questions? Or am I gonna be able to scale with folks who have, understand our platform are ready to place orders ready to move forward with their prototypes, and have a potential for being a scalable customer. But we get we get some surprising requests, if you will. And we try to do what we can for those customers.
Host 2
What are this might be a weird question as to but like what is like one of those weird ones then like what's the one of the weirdest requests you can remember?
Host 1
Well, I mean, maybe weird may be the wrong word. But I mean, we get some requests for instance. Okay, do you want to watch one place an order for 20 boards importing. And the one is to D and P parts on one set and use another set of parts on another set. Well, that's two orders for us, we really don't have a way to do that kind of thing. So we have to try to work within the boundaries of the platform to try to help that customer succeed. Now, we haven't had any, like, really bizarre requests to deuce, you know, something? Oh, well, one of the unique ones that really came out well was we had a customer and I can't remember her name or the product. But she wanted her printed circuit boards pink. And we don't have a vendor that does pink circuit boards. But I reached out to our main vendor, and they mixed up a batch of red and white, called it a color did it. And it was all over her Twitter account, it came out beautiful. So I mean, that's, you know, that's a request. I remember that one. Yeah. Yeah, they came out beautiful. And I think she'll be ordering some more again. But are they're not weird. It's just unique request that we have to try to resolve, again, within the confines of the platform, because I mean, we don't we don't have a way to build multiple iterations of a board with one order to the platform. It's each in order. So we constantly struggle with those who, you know, they rightfully so they want to test and using an x component, and 10 using why well, that's really two orders, where they want to D and P some parts. But the platform orders parts automatically. So okay, well, the platform is going to order parts to populate 10 boards. So we have to work with them in that regard. The uniqueness is really again, it's about the platform, because I for those who don't know, we have two paths. My path is what we call the SSU, or self service folks who use the macro fab platform, we also have folks that can go through our sales channel, those are usually larger customers where there can be more customization, more things done to their PCB. So we're limited to some degree. And I know we're making changes so that they'll people will be able to do more. But we get requests to do things that sometimes the platform can't do. And, you know, we do what we can, sometimes against our better judgment. We've been bitten a couple of times that we've tried to reel that in
Host 1
Saying yes to things that are difficult to do once you actually get in the trenches.
Host 1
Yes, yes, yes.
Host 2
And you know how it is here, Steven?
Host 1
I trust for Trust me, I've said yes to things. And then when they actually hit our manufacturing line, I'm like, Oh, why did I say yes to this? Like, I ended up creating work for a lot of the people who work with me and I feel terrible. Like, it's like, I said yes to a part that like, can't be placed by our machine. And I thought it could and it's like, okay, well, we're hand placing a bunch of stuff. Sorry, guys, you know,
Host 1
We've done that also.
Host 1
Every contract manufacturer I've run into has these issues, that none of this is unique. In fact, it seems like the majority of the kinds of things are that your questions that you're getting are communication that you have. It's more about understanding the platform itself, as opposed to understanding manufacturing.
Host 1
That's true. But we did turn when COVID came about, I would say the conversations that we had with a lot of customers were about parts shortages, and understanding lead times, which is tangentially manufacturing, you know, and then also we get questions that people want to do something that will stop our manufacturing line, which is, you know, sending his cut tape and not enough overage or wanting to DNP some parts, we have to explain, you know, manufacturing is relatively rigid. And especially when you've got a digital manufacturing platform, stopping breaking changing, happens a lot with consigned parts, folks that send us parts, you know, it's got a schedule, if you're late, we can't just the minute you get your parts here, put it on the line. That's kind of not how manufacturing works. So in essence, we get manufacturing questions, but boy howdy. During the height of the pandemic, and shutdowns and supply chain, it was difficult to explain to folks why parts would go out of stock while we're looking at a bomb online.
Host 1
Yeah, oh, yeah, I ran into that where I'd quote a customer and be like, hey, you know, we this quote is, is true for the second Do you look at it and basically only the second you look at it, because tomorrow, these parts might be out. And lo and behold, most of the time that actually was Drew. Yeah. You know, I'm actually curious, a little bit of a tangent question. But during COVID, did you happen to get more questions from people like, Hey, I've got an idea for a widget, and I want to make it. Personally, I saw more of that, during COVID, where people had more time at home, and they're like, ah, can invent the next best gizmo. I got way more requests on that. We really
Host 1
No, I don't, we didn't really have an uptick in folks, you know, coming to us, like we did early on in macro fab, where it was almost more of the way we were doing, it was more for the hobbyist. So we in know, to answer your question straight up. Now, we really, I didn't know maybe some of the salespeople did that I'm not aware of but ours was really wire parts going out of stock.
Host 2
Yeah, way, way back, man during that time, for COVID. Like you would, you could make a quote in the platform where like, place an order, but it didn't, you didn't really have to pay for it for like a couple of days, it would be valid for I think it was valid for like seven days or something like that. And of course, you know, lead time would bump out every day you didn't pay. And then the moment that all the supply chain started happening, we had to change that to like 10 minutes. If you've placed an order, you need paying 10 minutes.
Host 1
Now, we used to have it when we first started our when I first started quotes were open, I think indefinitely, customers could see their quotes. And we'd have somebody you know, four or five days after creating one want to pay for a 10 day order or whatever it was at that time. The fastest is like wait, no witness Sunday. The clock? Well, I think when I started I don't know, did we have a 10? Day five years time flies
Host 2
Five years ago, we No, we did not have a 10 day. We actually at that point, we had just gotten rid of our five day. We had a for whatever though, you came on. Jerry, we had a five day option. And it was basically someone would place an order and then like Steven or I would like buy all the parts by the board. parts would come in and then one of us would build the board.
Host 1
Oh, it was? Yeah. It was like instantaneous babysitting from for the next five.
Host 2
Yeah. So basically, you paid for an engineer, like five days of an engineers time?
Host 1
Well, at any rate, at one time, we did show customers their quotes, and they would get you know, pay for it then want to know, now like it can't be the same lead time. But obviously we've changed things like that we've changed a ton. And that's, that's one of the fun things about working at macro fab is the ability that we have to make changes relatively rapidly based on the market based on customer demand. It's fairly amazing. I don't know that many people realize I mean, okay, yeah, you're a contract manufacturer. But we have so many things to offer folks and so many different ways to get things done. And so many people working in the background to get it done. Right. And everybody is dedicated. It's it's, you know, I'm not here to to macro fabs board on macro fabs engineering podcast, but
Host 2
As as the Director of Customer Success of macro fed.
Host 1
Yes. No, seriously. I mean, you know, I've been in a lot of companies, I wouldn't say it if it was a true I mean, it is relatively amazing. The amount of dedication every team has to making macro fab and our customers succeed. It's, it's true.
Host 1
I'm looking at the the max web webpage for supply chain right now. I bet you that gets an enormous amount of hits right now. Just just continually, like, how am I going to get my parts? How are these people going to support me getting my parts?
Host 2
Well, go ahead. Go ahead, Jerry. Gotcha. Yeah,
Host 1
I was gonna say we have seen a lot of people just upload bills of materials. Not yet.
Host 2
And we just recently came out. We used to only have like two or three vendors that you could select on for SSU or sell sign up orders. Two or three vendors that you buy parts from and I think now was it at now like eight cherry something like this? Yeah. Which helps a lot.
Host 1
Also, the whole uploading gear bill of materials. That's that's a pretty nice little trick for design engineers as you're going through your product as you're designing it, like just upload the bomb and see the impact of what's happening like That's a it's a really quick way to get metrics about your design as you go. Yeah, I
Host 2
Know, if you're using Altium, though, this is awesome. This is hashtag add, I guess. If you use Altium, I don't know if it's 100% public or not. I know it's public knowledge, like, so I can say this, I think you have to ask permission to use ultimate aid, or I don't know if that's something you can just get now. But um, there's like an old there's an ultium macro fab plugin that in Altium, will show your pricing and stuff through macro, Feb. shows the impact of your work. Yeah, I don't know if it's in beta, that plugin is in beta, or is it been released yet? I should ask about Jared, you know.
Host 1
You know, it's I, it is a limited release. Yeah, I think he has been doing some approvals on Yes, yeah. But my team manages that. But we have had some orders as we're still fine tuning the process. But yeah, again, folks uploading a bomb. You know, as an engineer, maybe that is a suggestion. If you haven't design, throw the bill of materials up at macro fab and see if those components are available. As our API, we'll go out and look for it at digikey, Mouser, arrow, etc.
Host 2
Yeah, what I do is, once I get my bill of materials, mostly set, right, like I get like kind of like the schematic done. Like basically just like I just have all the parts like in this schematic, I don't want to have all the netlist done or anything like that. I'll flip over to the board. So this is an eagle. So I flip over to the board side. And I'll draw like a bounding box of what I think the product size will be. And then like, I take that I save that. And I just actually upload the whole thing to macro fab. Because then it gets the bomb, and it gets the board outline. And it's like 95% the way price wise there already lessly types,
Host 1
I think that's excellent for like, if you're doing project management, and you need to get, you know, milestone progress reports and say like, this is this is the art ballpark price range, like you can actually get something that's fairly grounded in reality, as opposed to, you know, an Excel spreadsheet that you're trying to go and get prices for every single part. And it's going to be invalid tomorrow anyway, just upload a macro will be I mean with with all the pricing stuff. So yeah, yeah, it's way easier than trying to manage that, as a single engineer, just upload the macro fab and get an answer.
Host 2
Yeah, it's funny to think about, but it's like, we wouldn't have built it if it wasn't something we would use. And yeah, the macro platform is like one of those things like I, I wish it were something that existed, you know, 12 years ago, when I first started being a PCB engineer. So exist now though,
Host 1
I don't have any experience with others. And actually, as y'all both know, I'm not from PCB manufacturing. But I've learned a lot. I mean, again, my expertise is back rubs and foot rubs or customer care. But, you know, it seems to me when you have the right files, and you understand our design rules, and you've created the manufacturing package. I mean, the magic is fairly amazing to me. I mean, maybe there's others that do it the same way. But you know, just to watch, whenever I see a customer, they send me files, I upload them for them, or I'm on the phone or doing something with a customer. You know, it's just there and you can tweak your Bom, you see your files, you see the rendering, you know, you're ready to go. And I I call it the magic whenever, you know, I've hired a couple of new folks lately and I'm, I send them a file and I go be prepared to see the magic and I mean it is it's pretty cool.
Host 2
Also on that jury is you mentioned you just hired some new people because for a long time, it was just you on customer successful while. So how many people you got on your team now?
Host 1
Right now I have four plus myself. So five of us because I still do a lot of work with a platform. I mean, my team is really busy with taking an order from the minute it's placed, we reach out to the customer walking it through order review with the order review engineering team, making sure that it goes through procurement as it should if there's any challenges there, making sure manufacturing is done correctly and then getting the product to the customer. And that's a full time job for the three of them. The new fella that I hired like I said, I'm training him so Only on narrow focus macro fab platform, how it works, what files are needed, what the DRC rules are having him understand that so he can take over that role. I have another guy that I'm probably going to be being bringing on board that may be a hybrid sort of both. But yeah, we have four plus myself three are really dedicated customer service representatives, they have assigned customers, and they deal with each of that book of customers. And then I'm kind of the cleanup guy if you will.
Host 2
Pitcher hitter. Yeah, I
Host 1
Mean, I get called a lot. Well, it's because again, I know, it's, it's a unique product field, we have you every day. It's not like, I mean, I have written I don't know how many Confluence articles I can't match engineering. Who? You guys, that's crazy. But you know, trying to detail every single process, every single sort of permutation iteration thing that can happen. And it's just very difficult to do so. Because every day we get a question. Okay, how can we do that? How can we solve that problem? For our customer, and it's a challenge we take on and when we we appreciate. But sometimes there is some uniqueness to the questions.
Host 2
I think part of the problem is one that you solve and your team solves all the time is engineers are not the best at communicating their ideas to the outside world. And so that's a huge hurdle to overcome. Stephen and I are kind of unique, because we do a lot of customer facing stuff, and we run a podcast, and we kind of we're will you call them a call us? Well adjusted engineers?
Host 1
I think that'd be fair. Yeah, sure. I'm alright, with that title. Well, I think it's it has to bring a lot of difficulties too, because you are trying to support somebody who is the expert in the thing that they are trying to get you to make. And they have the technical expertise. And customer service has to be able to, in a way match that technical expertise. And that's just got to be difficult.
Host 1
Creates a challenge from time to time. Yes. And we do our best, I think, you know, we many customers are satisfied with macro fab. I mean, you know, we do all sorts of Net Promoter scoring, customer surveys, customer satisfaction, customer effort scores. And, you know, from what I've heard other contract manufacturers routinely rate or lower than we do. So we're able to overcome those challenges, mostly, but just by grit and determination. You know, and again, the platform provides a lot of options. There's a lot of things that we don't have to do I think that other contract manufacturing support teams might have to do. Ours is again, we're here, because there's some sort of problem or some sort of issue or some sort of challenge, if everything worked perfectly in every aspect of manufacturing. Okay, do you really need customer success, it's a digital manufacturer Customer Care. It's a digital manufacturing platform, enter your files move forward. But there's always going to be challenges people upload, non 270 4x Gerber's, or they upload odd PNG files or PDFs, I mean, you know, there's just things that that take minimal support there. Sometimes we have new versions of a EDA tool that are come out that are challenging. And a lot of it is just again, once we train a customer once a customer understands the platform, and that's always been my thing from long time ago, is training and making sure that the customer understands what your process is. And those customers are the best customers you'll ever have. Once they're well trained. Understand, hey, during the pandemic, we had some old time customers that knew that macro fab was really trying that new our processes they were cool. We had some new customers that probably had been to another contract manufacturer had a problem there. Well, let's try macro pebble we're gonna have the same problem. We we can't find so and so part or the platform may have said so Park was available, but it vanished in a nanosecond. Well You know, or sometimes with file uploads sometimes with a bomb. You know, it's again, it's just training. It's like a well educated customer on what it is you're doing is your best customer.
Host 2
Yeah, that your your story about, you don't know what the customer is gonna be uploading. That reminds me of a story when we had we had Greg from xometry on and he said someone uploaded a scissor lift to the 3d manufacture 3d printing manufacturing service. Like the entire model, though, like, all full size every the full size and everything. So like an entire, just that story of that, because we've seen some pretty crazy stuff that people have uploaded to our platform in terms of just like, you'd be like, Why is that file there?
Host 1
I mean, like, a PCB with 40,000 resistors on it.
Host 2
We do need to get that made some day, but I feel bad making operations make that board? Yeah, yes. How much? I think that would that's an edge case that's like, the platform might not figure out that how long that board would take to make.
Host 1
We calculated if I remember right at the max speed of the of the machine, and it was many hours of constant placing resistor.
Host 2
Yeah, for different resistors be it last time I tried uploading it kind of melted the server in terms of the bomb, the PA lasers, let's just say that's an edge case. Totally 40,000 parts on one, like five inch by seven inch board.
Host 1
But but you know, parking, I've talked about it a bunch of times, I think the one of the nice things about macro fab is once you do learn all the just how to use the platform, because there is you know, microphones fairly easy to use. But you do have to learn it in a way. What's nice about it, especially from an engineers perspective, is you can kind of retreat into what did you say we were well adjusted. And you could you can be a not well adjusted engineer, and you could buy your entire product without talking to anyone. And there's some there's something really nice about that, once you figured it out. You know it regardless of if you're putting production or prototype in you can do the you can get your entire product made with just your browser.
Host 1
Well, that's true. And I think one of the unique things about macro fab is you have that option. You if you want to just retreat, you can but we have a lot of customers that like the fact that we do give a personal touch to them all. You know, we're not it's not just a dry thing. They understand that we're here to help. Having a you know, I assume other contract manufacturers have a same similar dedicated team. But our approach to customer success and making sure that the outcome for the customers are, you know, one that delights them as opposed to just doing what they expect. I think that's helped micropub A lot.
Host 1
For sure. And let me let me preface what I was saying there by saying like it the purpose is not to avoid human contact, I guess I guess nobody is but Well, no, I mean, like it let's say I have a product that's been proven. I've already made it to the McAfee web platform. And I just need to order it again. Like just being able to go on click a few times and get my next production run. Easy done. That's fantastic.
Host 2
Well, and the lead times and that kind of stuff, too. That's all been there. You don't have to go through this whole email chain of figuring out if, when you're you're going to get your next lead time.
Host 1
And well, and it's not it's not it's not new every single time you want to place it. Like if you've been through it, you can just get it done again.
Host 1
That is a true statement. Some do that. I mean, some everyone, there's people that I know order from us quarterly, maybe twice a year, and they'll just all of a sudden come out and hey, how's it going? I'm getting ready to play what where have you been? But you know, you then you go look and they've been in working on their PCB or doing something. But it's an interesting subset of customers. I mean, again, this is my first foray into dealing with engineers. I find most of them, you know, nice folk. Some of them. I think it's like any other customer base, really. Some of them were very chatty. Some of them are not very chatty, some of them are dry, some of them get it, some of them don't. They do well, in the software business, you know, the software that we had was on people's PCBs recording their instant messaging conversations. And it was mostly brokers on the New York Stock Exchange and another brokerage houses. And we famously shut down Ameriprise one day where All of their brokers and traders could not communicate with each other. Their recordings for the SEC were blocked due to a software rollout. Well, that was a super challenge. And it but they weren't. I don't know. I mean, he was in New York kind of thing, but they weren't like bitter or upset or pitching a bit. They weren't very happy to the culture. And we have had a couple of customers that were bitter. And you know, I don't know if that's just because they're bitter to begin with, or what, but it's, I always find it interesting what it takes to get somebody over the edge, where they're, you know, super frustrated. I understand a lot of it, but some of it is, you know, you stepped on your own toe. But I've seen that in every industry, but I really enjoy working with engineers, for the most part. It never knew very many engineers, I think, Parker and Steven, you both maybe the I mean, I don't have in my circle. I don't have engineering friends. I don't know why. It's not like I've instant engineers,
Host 2
They're typically not well adjusted Jerry.
Host 1
No, but it's been a great experience working with the engineering people that I have. And I've learned a lot about how they think and what they do. And it's, you know, it's a science, and I get it. And there's some math involved, which is why once I figured out how to balance a checkbook, I really don't need any more math.
Host 2
So I got a question, Jerry, because we were talking about like the science and all that stuff behind customer success. What can you dive a little bit more into that? Like, What are y'all looking at?
Host 1
Well, you know, we have a product team and business intelligence in us, we're always looking at different behaviors and customers. And right now we're doing is we're going through looking at customers that have uploaded files, but we're unable to move forward and place an order. But that's just my singular focus now, because we've kind of had a bit of a change in what we're way we're reporting and things of that nature. So we're looking at trying to figure out why in terms of what could the platform do better for customers, so that when they create a PCB, they are successful in finishing it, getting the right files uploaded. And so it's constantly looking at their behavior. From that perspective, we have different teams looking at their behaviors, where do they click? Where do they go? What was the most time that they spend? For me, also, it's our knowledge base articles, what knowledge base articles do people spend the most time looking at? It is macro fabric, wire design files. So there's, there's in the product team, they look at a much broader range of things that are more customer success related. Our team really were called the customer care team. And you know, Customer Success is a sort of a sales role. And it is looking more deeply into customer cohorts, understanding their behavior, what what impetus they have to be returned customer, which are theory, my theory is, if they have a successful journey, they'll be back. You know, there's a lot of things that we can do. Is it pricing? Is it lead time? Obviously, it's the quality of the board, where did we deliver the board on time? Was it defect free? Man, there's just a ton of things that one can look at, but for me, I'm looking at and trying to understand more, so that I can report the product. What are the roadblocks to customers getting their boards ready to order? And that's, that's, it's interesting in a lot of it, and it's sort of amazing, you know, I shouldn't talk out of turn on a podcast about customers. But I mean, when you log in a macro fab, you are presented with pop ups that say do this do this. But yet folks don't do it. And so we need to understand how, how can the platform better support those that have rogue, if you will Gerber's or what we can do to guide them betters. Their wrote the Gerber's myth, because we do, and I think sometimes I'm starting to believe this more. We have more people looking for bear PCBs, and I think we know because they're not uploading a manufacturing packet. They don't have placement data or they don't have a bomb. They just have Gerber's, I will cover so Gerber, but they just don't blow smoke. You know? So Parker, it's a lot to the science that goes into that. I mean, we have so many tools that we use every day. For me, I try to look at the art of the individual, how can I help that individual get over the goalpost? And how can I try to make that person, a promoter of macro fab? Somebody who champions macro fab, on the outside helps us expand our customer base, and as a champion for macro fab. And that's really, my team's focus more than a success in terms of okay, what's your average spend? How do we increase that spend? For new and existing customers? We think it'll happen somewhat organically. Now, leadership may think differently, I hope that it does. visa vie our actions when interacting with customers and providing that excellent customer experience.
Host 2
Alright, so I got one more question, then Jerry. What advice can you give to engineers that might be thinking about using the Mac fab platform?
Host 1
Really, it's read our DRC and read our required design piles.
Host 2
If you are on that there is a knowledge base for the DRC. There's a bunch of files that you can download, and load into the popular EDA tools. There's an Altium, one eagle CAD dip trace. I think there might be a cadence one, maybe it's been a while since I've looked at it, maybe not.
Host 1
Anyways, but it's spelled out anyway, if you can just enter it in yourself
Host 2
And turn it in. But there's also files that you can get it I think, for all TM two, there's files for, like all the standard stack ups that the platform supports. You can plug in your own custom one, of course, but if you want the standard ones, you can play that into Altium already. So you can get all like the impedance control stuff ready to go?
Host 1
Yeah, no, it's all about that. DRC because, you know, obviously, you want to make sure it passes are DRC. And you're not doing a redesign. If your design meets those criteria, and you create the manufacturing using an ego Brd key CAD file Altium, etc. You plug it in, you drop in an XLS x as your bomb, platform, digest that and boom, you're
Host 2
Off and running. No, Tom's needed.
Host 1
No, Tom's needed. So yeah, DRC is your friend and creating the manufacturing package. Because you do not want to have to hand roll your ex yrs data.
Host 2
Yeah, I wish there was a better way for that, because it's just, I can't even think of one though. Like, if you're not pulling straight from like ODB plus plus or straight from the EDA tool, it's like, you're gonna have to be doing some kind of manual jumping through hoops to get an x bar s file that works.
Host 1
So I have worked with multiple contract manufacturers outside of macro fab. Many that are don't have automated platforms that the classic just email me your files. I've even played around with some that have platforms similar to macro fab, where you upload all your stuff. The bomb, and X, Y or s data is always the part that is the most manual, shall we say, like you have to do some work. There's some scrubbing there. It just it's not necessarily fully standardized across EDA tools or file exports. It's just that's it's been my experience that I spend 90% of my time there like getting Gerber's and dropping them into a browser. Like, everyone's got that let's put it
Host 2
That way. I would say I think one way we can make it easier at macro fair for placement data, because the bomb honestly works really well. Like you drop in a spreadsheet, and it works really well. It's actually if it was the same process for placement data, so you can just drop in any formatted, you know, because usually it's a comma separated or a spreadsheet might be the placement data. And it works the same way as the bomb. You can choose the columns, basically what what it is.
Host 1
Well, and I don't know that much about the outputs from EDA tools, it's just been my experience, that those who don't have it seem to be challenged to create it. And I don't know if they're having a challenge creating it and getting it our format, or they don't know how to explain it. So that is in in a format I don't know.
Host 2
So when we started macro fab eight year eight and a half years ago at this point of whatever it is. There was not a standard for placement data at all, like every EDA tool outputs it differently. And so, honestly what we did Is I made up a format called dot x Rs That is a made up format that I came up with. And I was like church, this should work. This has all the information we need to build a board and he's like, good. And then we made documentation for it.
Host 1
Right. So so so in other words, EDA tools don't spit out, you know, dot Parker format.
Host 2
Yeah, they don't. But no one no one no EDA tool is the same, the output Exactly. And so it was like, well, we need a format to make it. So this instead of picking Eagles or picking ultimatums, it's like, we'll just make our own that make. And we made sure though it contains all the information we want. Whereas because a lot of them don't have everything, so we kind of made our own format up. And it's funny to see that style of file propagate through the internet in terms of being a thing now. We made our own standard. So well,
Host 1
That's where we want to be we want to be the standard in manufacturing. So that's that, that can be a challenge, but it can be overcome. But boy, I can tell you that's manufacturing package, and you're good.
Host 2
So if we have nothing else for you, Jerry, there's some questions from our chat. He wants to feel them.
Host 1
Sure. Let's see. I
Host 2
So this is from Rostec. In our Twitch chat is how many years jury Have you been at macro crab? Five, five years? Yeah, I think we said,
Host 1
Great. No, I was gonna say I think there were like, 18 of us when I started maybe. I've tried to count I don't really remember. I know there were five or six on the floor, or as you to church, a couple of other people roaming around and for developers. And now we have 170 plus. So
Host 2
Is that where we're at now? Yeah,
Host 1
That's crazy. Yeah, I was I was employee number nine. And I even remember when we moved to the new shop and got Jerry was like, this place is big.
Host 2
Now it is to us at HQ right now. I cannot wait to go to our new facility. It is ridiculous at HQ right now. All right, next question. Top three guitars.
Host 1
Oh, no guitar guitarists.
Host 1
Oh, top three guitarist Whoa, gosh. Well, it depends on your genre. But let's go with Billy Duffy from the cold. Um, I guess. I really like Steve Stevens. Who would be my third I mean, you know, I get through Hendricks are a classic guitar player and they're Joe Walsh. You know, help. George Harrison. But you know, I am a different style it guitar player. So I would go I really like Billy Duffy's way of playing, you know, the big Falcon and the reverb. Steve Stevens serious technical stuff, and I guess I'll throw Dave Mustaine in there.
Host 1
Dave Mustaine that's a cool one.
Host 1
Top three guitar that I tried to emulate.
Host 2
All right. This is this one's This one's pretty good. How do you see macro fab in five more years? So on your 10th anniversary at macro fab?
Host 1
Well, that's interesting. We had a retreat a couple of years ago, and our CEO think it was maybe 10 years or something like that. I mean, I will be global. I think we'll have distribution centers and across the planet will, you know, continue to expand our network of factories, our factory partners, I think we'll have places where parts will be stored or shipped to and then from those fed to the factories, then back to central QC department. So I mean, I believe macro fab will be global. I think we will probably take over and be the largest, most trusted, most valued contract manufacturer on the planet. Due to a lot of the efforts that are ongoing and we just continue to grow I mean, we have such great ideas and so many things. So I would say where will we be? A four letter word? Huge? That's a good answer.
Host 2
All right, one last question. Percentage of customers that a hobbyist versus professionals, which is a weird, because technically like Stephen and I are both that, like we have a professional life, and then also hobbyist life in the same field. And I thought, it's funny because like, for both of those I place orders through macro fab. So
Host 1
But but five years ago, the six macro fab was, you know, a huge percentage hobbyist, and that has very likely flipped. So Well, yeah. What kind of ratio? Do you think that is? Now?
Host 1
You know, if I had to, I would think it's like 10%, or hobbyist. But I mean, now taking out the idea of the mix of folks that are do this as a profession that work at someplace where there have a company or they are the design engineer for somebody that they do multiple projects. I don't think we have more than 10% that are folks that, you know, come to macro fab and want to build one or two or five or 10. And then that's it. That, yeah, that to me as a hobbyist. There may be recurring hobbies, but it's a relatively low percentage. Now, it was a lot larger, but we have it a different business model 567 years ago.
Host 1
Right. Nope. Jerry,
Host 2
I want to thank you. Sorry. Jerry, I want to thank you so much for finally gracing us with your appearance on our podcast. It's been something that I've been looking forward to the past five years for you to be on our podcast.
Host 1
Well, thank you both for having me. It's been fun to be here. My first experience was when we were down in that cave at the old post office. And that was a lot of fun. And yeah, I I appreciate being here. I hope everybody enjoys my diatribes, if you will. So thanks again. I appreciate it.
Host 2
It's gonna be unfortunate because you won't have a macro engineering podcast episode to listen to this week. Are you gonna listen to yourself?
Host 1
I still have my steak and baked potato tomorrow. Yeah, my girlfriend wants to watch it. So sure. Awesome.
Host 1
Rock'n'roll. Thank you so much, Jerry.
Host 2
So Jerry, where can people talk to you? Let's say not about with macro fab. So they want to like just contact you because you're a cool dude.
Host 1
I'm not much on social media. I am on Facebook. I Jerry McDaniel on Facebook. I don't do Twitter anything else because I'm too busy here. But so if you want to look at the strange life of Jerry McDaniel, you can check out my Facebook page. Otherwise you know if you have questions regarding manufacturing and macro fab Jerry at macro fab.com
Host 2
Thanks again Jerry. All right,
Host 1
Thanks guys.
Host 2
That was the Mac fab engineering podcast we're your hosts Parker Dolman
Host 1
And Steven Craig later everyone take it easy
Host 2
Thank you yes, you our listener for downloading our podcasts if you have a cool idea project or topic. Let's do it. I know Tweet us at Mac Feb at Longhorn engineer or at analog ng or email us at podcast at Mac feb.com And you heard it Jerry at macro fed.com to also check out our Slack channel. You can find it at macro fed.com/slack And we have a live stream of the podcast six o'clock central time on Tuesdays. twitch.tv/macro Fed