Nicole Bradick, Founder and CEO of Theory and Principle, along with Ryan McClead, Principle at Sente Advisors, join us to talk about their collaborative product Map Engine. Map Engine is an easy-to-use, but powerful data visualization tool that allows law firms to quickly and easily turn their multi-jurisdictional data into beautiful, shareable maps. Instead of the common approach of placing data in flat documents like PDFs, Map Engine allows the firms to tell the story embedded in some or all of the data and allows for the maps to enhance the consumer’s experience through the interactive interface.
Along the way, we also discuss Nicole and Ryan’s individual experiences in launching a startup (without breaking the bank or eating only ramen.)

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Information Inspirations
Bloomberg Law is developing a Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Framework to measure how law firms are meeting and/or surpassing DEI metrics which Bloomberg is developing with experts across the industry.
Steve Embry breaks down some of the problems AmLaw firms will eventually face if they keep moving more partners into non-equity roles, and keep the “old boy’s network” going on in the equity ranks.
The Association of Legal Administrators released a new white paper on “Remote Working as an Effective Recruitment and Retention Tool for Law Firms Post-COVID-19. [PDF]” The firms that remain flexible on remote working options will benefit over those competitors that demand that all work be done in the office.
Clients love multidisciplinary teams (MTD), but it seems that law firms only have a very narrow definition of what that means. Spoiler: only lawyers should make up the MTD.
Listen, Subscribe, Comment
Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

Ryan McClead  0:00

Yeah, well try that again.

Nicole Bradick  0:05

There’s gonna be a lot of editing.

Ryan McClead  0:08

It’s gonna be rough. Okay, sorry, where was I? What did you ask me again?

Marlene Gebauer  0:13

How are you doing? Oh,

Ryan McClead  0:19

it’s been a long couple of weeks.

Marlene Gebauer  0:28

Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focus on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert  0:34

And I’m Greg Lambert.

Marlene Gebauer  0:36

We talk about startups and product launches with a couple of friends of ours on this episode. Ryan McClead, from Sente Advisors and Nicole Bradick, of Theory and Principle, come on the show and talk about their experiences running a startup, with Nicole being a three-time startup champ. And how it doesn’t necessarily need to be a situation where you need to be rich, are live like a popper to be a startup entrepreneur.

Greg Lambert  0:57

Yeah, I think there are some comments about whether ramen and socks are required for being a startup

Marlene Gebauer  1:05

no socks needed, no socks needed.

Greg Lambert  1:08

Well, they also come on to talk more about their collaboration on the launch of the new data visualization tool Map Engine, and how they came up with the idea and filled a need in the industry.

Marlene Gebauer  1:19

Yeah, very exciting stuff. I think everybody will be interested in hearing it that hearing about that. So stick around. But now let’s get to this week’s information inspirations.

Greg Lambert  1:33

All right, Marlene. Well, mine is and I think we both have a Bloomberg law. We do inspiration this week, which is interesting.

Marlene Gebauer  1:41

Bloomberg’s hot!

Greg Lambert  1:41

mine is on Bloomberg developing this diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI Framework with the objective to create a baseline threshold for diversity among US-based law firms and to show how these firms are meeting the DEI requirement. According to the announcement, Bloomberg is developing a methodology to create this framework by working with experts in both the legal industry and the academic experts. So it’s gonna be really interesting. I initially thought that this Bloomberg framework was going to be something that they are trying to compete with the Mansfield Rule, but after looking at the survey questions, it seems to be compiling different data and statistics from the firm’s from what the Mansfield group is doing. I will say that the data that they are asking firms to submit is comprehensive. And, and by comprehensive, I mean, it’s going to take a lot of work on the firm side to complete and submit this questionnaire. It’s it’s thick, the survey is open through August. And if you’re thinking of putting your law firm in on this DEI Framework, I’d suggest getting started now,

Greg Lambert  2:54

Because it’s thick. Thick is good.

Greg Lambert  2:58

It’s thick. But I do I do appreciate that you’re doing this because As the old saying goes, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it. So I’m glad that Bloomberg is putting its substantial resources behind this new DEI Framework project. And, and I hope we can get maybe somebody from Bloomberg on the show to talk more about this.

Marlene Gebauer  3:16

Yeah, hint, hint Bloomberg. I discussed non Equity Partners in my inspirations last week, and I’m going to do it again this week. Our friend Steve Embry, reached out to me and shared a piece that he did on his blog Tech Law Crossroads about non Equity Partners and changing law firm culture. Now, Steve highlights that a recent analysis of data collected by ALM intelligence shows that at one of the 151 firms surveyed, well over half the membership and non equity partnership tears grew in 2020. Fifty-one saw growth of more than 5% in the non equity level. And this trend was particularly pronounced among amlaw 50. Now, Steve notes that this move to fewer owners and a more corporate model has its risks. Namely, there may be fewer voices and viewpoints being shared. Why? Well, the majority of the top performer Equity Partners are white males.

Greg Lambert  4:11

I’m shocked.

Marlene Gebauer  4:13

What you’re shocked. You’re shocked, you’re shocked face. Having a smaller group of owners with a similar experience and background and worldviews may lead to poor decision making. Steve also notes that firm loyalty and lawyer autonomy could be impacted. Now, I agree on the diversity point. And you know, honestly, I agree on the other points, although I think on those we were we’ve already been seeing those things eroding for a while, you know, there’s there’s no law firm culture in place, anywhere that I know of that are going to keep most attorneys from jumping ship for a better opportunity. And technology, best practices, risk management policies, you know, they’ve all done a pretty good job at curbing autonomy. Maybe not, not, not in a bad way. Maybe a good way. You know, as I mentioned last week, firm’s really need to take a hard look at their non equity programs to ensure there aren’t they aren’t detrimentally impacting the organization.

Greg Lambert  5:09

Speaking of culture, we’re going to get this transition from remote working to coming back on site. And I’m going to tell you right now, the transition to remote working last year is going to look like a frickin cakewalk compared to what law firms have in store for them.

Marlene Gebauer  5:28

Oh, yeah.

Greg Lambert  5:30

Because they’re already starting to demand that everyone come back into the office. And one area that it’s going to be most apparent will be in recruitment and retention of talent. And the Association of Legal Administrators just released a white paper on this topic called Remote Working as an Effective Recruitment and Retention Tool for Law Firms Post-COVID-19. So Marlene, do you do you remember when we did the episode on remote work way before the pandemic, and you remember the theme was? Well, I can work remotely very well and be efficient. But, all those other people can’t be trusted.

Marlene Gebauer  6:12

No. Not at all.

Greg Lambert  6:13

I think we’re all beginning to hear that theme again, when it comes to who can continue to work remotely, and who asked to come back into the office. So you know, and I think law firms who balance you know, that find that balance, you know, those are going to be the winners of the next couple of yours. But I can see that many firms are going to struggle with this and suffer the consequences if they become too draconian on getting people back into the office. So this ALA white paper stresses that flexibility on remote work, both for attorneys and for staff is going to be critical to obtaining and retaining talent. And that flexibility ultimately benefits the firm as much or even more than it does the employees.

Marlene Gebauer  6:57

Yeah, it’s funny. I mean, I talked to a colleague, and she was mentioning that she knew two people who have taken new jobs because they offer 100% remote and their existing places did not and they just did not want to go back to the office. And it’s the same type of work. Well, Greg, you got your facepalm emoji ready.

Greg Lambert  7:21

Did you hear that?

Marlene Gebauer  7:22

I really hope they heard that. This, this one is for the books. So we hear time and time again from our guests. And we see over and over in surveys year after year, that clients favor multidisciplinary teams that they result in better decision making, and they result in better client service. Yet the message just does not seem to be getting through to attorneys. In the latest Bloomberg law legal operation survey 82% of the respondents believe that MDTs can be made up of only lawyers. I’m pausing intentionally. I just wanted

Greg Lambert  8:02

all this again, this is this where I do my facepalm again,

Marlene Gebauer  8:05

yep, perfect. Okay. Okay. So many of the respondents justify lawyer only MTDs through reasoning that lawyers in different practice areas at different seniority levels, or from other firms can make a team multidisciplinary. Alright, fair. Okay, that that’s true. You can bring all of those types of folks in. But I think next year, Bloomberg law should make definitions very clear. Because that definition of multidisciplinary is not the common one. A traditional composition of an MDT usually includes a group with diverse professional backgrounds and skills, working together to solve a problem. So people with different skills who offer diverse perspectives on business solutions, like project management and technology, are working with legal experts to solve client or internal problems. Now, respondents did note several purposes for mdts, strategic planning, process improvement, technology, vetting, marketing and spending. Yet many seem to think that the professionals who actually handle that sort of work for their firms day in and day out, won’t have any valuable contributions to the conversation. The Bloomberg article offers some suggestions, but they’re pretty obvious. And I just am so disheartened. I don’t want to even go into them, Greg. I just I just I feel like so many are still missing the clear message and not adjusting to it.

Greg Lambert  9:37

Yeah, well, and I think one of the things maybe the parallel that we could use is, it’s like, the old game of telephone, where you know, you whisper something in somebody’s ear and then it goes around and then comes back to you and, and it’s the same thing instead of having the experts in the room to talk about the technology to talk about the project management has talked about the process improvement. They are being told later by whoever was in the room. Okay, here’s what the client wants. And again, you’re playing that game of telephone. Is that really what the client wants? What if I have follow-up questions for that? And I’ve seen some firms who are much more at ease of getting people who are not the practicing attorneys for the firm, not in the room with them in order to have those conversations. And it just, you know, it just makes a lot smoother. And yeah, it makes a difference. So.

Greg Lambert  10:45

Yeah. And with that, facepalm that wraps up this week’s information, inspirations.

Marlene Gebauer  10:55

Two of our favorite people join us today to talk about their lives running a startup. And in one of their cases, they are on startup venture number three. These two separate companies have come together to fill a need in the industry when it comes to providing data visualization in a way that helps law firms tell the story behind the information they’ve compiled.

Greg Lambert  11:19

We’d like to welcome Nicole Bradick from Theory and Principle, and Ryan McClead from Sente Advisors. Nicole and Ryan, thanks for coming on The Geek in Review.

Ryan McClead  11:27

Thanks for having us.

Nicole Bradick  11:28

Thanks for having us. Ohhh, jinxies!

Marlene Gebauer  11:31

The first question and it’s about how startups well, startup. This came up on Twitter about a week or so ago, Kristin Hodgins was asking how people managed to begin a startup without going into debt, or being a trust fund, baby. And you know, by the way, that’s my stretch career right there. Lots of lots of people commiserated, but Nicole, you had a really different experience. You’ve done this a few times and didn’t go into debt and didn’t have a trust fund. And, Ryan, I don’t think you did either. So tell us how you did it. And what people who were thinking of taking the plunge should know.

Ryan McClead  12:06

Who’s taking that one? Am I taking that one?

Marlene Gebauer  12:07

You both taking that one.

Ryan McClead  12:08

You’ve done it, you’ve done it twice. Nicole,

Marlene Gebauer  12:11

Nicole go first?

Nicole Bradick  12:13

I’ve done it three times.

Ryan McClead  12:14

Three times.

Nicole Bradick  12:14

Yeah, I think that the startup story of somebody living in their basement on living on ramen and not being able to afford socks is, is a tale that that is that happens for sure. But I think it’s a tale that doesn’t need to happen. And I think it serves only to dissuade people who might be interested in becoming entrepreneurs who are not willing to not be able to buy socks. And for me, I, you know, when I started my first company, I started while I was practicing law, so I had income. So at one point, I dropped down to part-time because I started to get revenue from my company. And then I left the practice of law when I had revenue to sustain life. And, you know, similar similar path with my last couple of companies. So every step that I’ve taken in my career has been a risk. But it’s been a very moderate risk as compared to somebody who just dives all in and takes a second mortgage on their house. And I and I will say that my companies have all been mostly service businesses, which is quite a bit easier to bootstrap and to do so without draining your bank account. But I think even for SAAS companies, there’s opportunity to think more carefully about creating your MVP, think more carefully about your fundraising strategy. And so that you never really have to get to that point where you’re, you have to be extra human. And I think that sort of extra human myth is where I think we dissuade a lot of people who, who may otherwise want to start companies.

Marlene Gebauer  13:48

And Ryan, before we get to you, I will say that I did see the Oscars last night and people may not even need to wear socks anymore.

Nicole Bradick  13:55

Was that right? Oh, good news.

Ryan McClead  13:56

I’m taking mine off right now.

Nicole Bradick  13:59

Except I have I have a song from elementary school called Black Socks that I sing to my children all the time to bother them.

Marlene Gebauer  14:05

Well, now you have to sing it for us.

Nicole Bradick  14:06

I don’t want to do that.

Ryan McClead  14:07

that could be the outro music.

Ryan McClead  14:11

As for me, I’ll agree with Nicole. Starting a services business, I think is easier. You don’t need as much capital to get going. That said, I left my job and didn’t take any income for six months, lived off of savings, racked up some credit card debt. So that that’s a normal part of that, I think, but thankfully did not have to sustain that for very long. And, you know, January 1, paid off the last of that credit card debt. So it’s not been not been an issue for us.

Greg Lambert  14:46

Well, good. Well, we brought you want to talk about your collaboration on Map Engine. But before that, Nicole Do you mind just telling me about your mission there at Theory and Principle.

Nicole Bradick  15:00

Certainly. Our official mission is to improve the legal experience for all through thoughtfully designed digital products. As a company, we’re essentially an agency that serves the broad legal community. So, so we work with large law firms and nonprofits and legal tech companies, on the design and development of software. We are an end to end provider, and are really focused on bringing good design into the legal industry where design has been noticeably lacking.

Marlene Gebauer  15:38

And Ryan, we had you on the podcast back in December of 2018, believe it or not, when you had first launch Sente Advisors, how have things progressed since then?

Ryan McClead  15:48

it’s been great.

Greg Lambert  15:49

He’s paid off his credit cards

Marlene Gebauer  15:50

He’s paid off his credit card, sign up, that’s a win.

Ryan McClead  15:54

We’re doing great. Sente Advisors is going strong, I was going to make a joke that we actually needed to pivot to this map thing to figure out. And the reality is no, we’ve got great clients, we’ve got great projects, everything’s going very well. And this was an opportunity that we were excited about. It wasn’t necessarily something that we planned from the beginning. But we recognize that we had an opportunity to identify needs in the market, given specifically the kind of work that we do.

Ryan McClead  16:29

So how did this collaboration come about? I know you guys know each other way back. But what how did the idea spring?

Ryan McClead  16:38

We’ve known each other for for many years now and never really had an opportunity to work together. Part of what Sente Advisors does is technology evaluation for our clients. So they come to us with a problem, we’ll look at what are the tools that are in the market that they could use to solve this problem. And we had a couple of clients that came to us with the need to map jurisdictional information, specifically around COVID, primarily last summer, and we went out and looked at the tools that are available. And there’s a number of tools available. But neither of those clients wanted to move forward with any of the available tools. They were all too expensive, or they were too difficult to use. They involve coding, or they just weren’t well suited, either from a security standpoint, or they were I know, it’s it’s an odd thing to think. But many map programs are actually geographic and not jurisdictional in nature. So it’s not terribly useful in a legal context. So when we recognize that none of these tools fit the bill for our clients. It wasn’t something that we were going to go out and do. But we wanted to work with the best in the business. So went to Nicole and pitched the idea and said I think there’s something here. Are you interested?

Greg Lambert  17:59

And Nicole, I take it that since there’s a product now, you were interested?

Ryan McClead  18:05

She had no choice.

Nicole Bradick  18:07

This is all, it’s all under duress. Yeah, so as you know, as an as a product development agency product is our specialty, right? We know how to take problems and turn them into really usable solutions. That’s what we do really well. And Ryan was very close to the problem having worked with the clients. And so for us, it was somewhat of a no brainer, because we’ve we’ve wanted to bring start bringing out some point solutions to market, we had a partner who would handle things other than product. And so we can focus on what we really do well, which is product, we spent a good amount of time talking to Sunday’s clients and designing and building the products. And I think we’ve developed and brought to market a solution that clients are really excited about.

Ryan McClead  18:55

Agreed

Marlene Gebauer  18:55

So we’re really big fans of data visualization here. And I would like you guys to explain what it is that Map Engine does that helps the data tell the story?

Ryan McClead  19:07

Yeah, so it’s it’s a great question. And it’s it’s funny, because I’ve been spending the last couple of months digging through primarily lawfirm websites, looking for information and data that I could use to test the tool. And one of the things I’ve discovered is there’s a lot of data out there in various forms. But there’s, there’s one universal problem almost every law firm makes, its that they put the data out in a table or in a flat format without telling a story. They will give you a large table of information, maybe with a headline, but then you have to dig through that data to figure out what how does the headline relate to what I’m looking at You know, it’s like someone saying there’s this little girl with a Red Hood. And she’s got a basket, and she’s got a grandmother and the grandmothers in the woods, and there’s a wolf. And then someone comes along and writes a headline, Wolves are Dangerous. Okay, and now I got to go figure out how all of this fits together. I think one of the things that Map Engine is going to allow firms to do is take that data and say, Okay, what is relevant here? What is it, we want to highlight and illustrate for our clients? And then what is the bit of data that we can use to, to make that story obvious at a glance? So I’ve been doing it a lot recently, where I will go through and try to figure out what’s, what are all the different stories I can possibly tell with this information. At the very least, I think it’ll be useful as we’re working with our Map Engine clients to help them figure that out for themselves. But also, it’s helping me and us understand what other features and functions and capabilities, we want to build into the tool so that they can more easily tell the stories they want to with the data that they’ve got.

Greg Lambert  21:20

Yeah, and I think one of the examples that I can think of, and I see this time after time when I go to law firms, because a lot of times we’ll go look to see what what other law firms have done, before we jump into a project. So you know, why why reinvent the wheel if some other law firm has already gone to provide us the answer, but most of the time the data is, it’s not even in an Excel format, where you can read it, it’s usually a PDF that why do you know, and one of the things with data visualization tools, rather than just printing it out in a PDF, is that that can be a big challenge. I’ve had a lot of extremely intelligent people walk away from me, if I were to say, Hey, can we can you just put this in a pivot table and do it? You know, and that’s fairly basic. So if I’m using the tool, do I need to be a data scientist in order to really tell that story?

Ryan McClead  22:23

No, you definitely do not. No, I think it’s more. In fact, I mean, pivot table, we’re not doing anything remotely that complex in Excel, it’s, it’s basically fill in the table, upload the table to Map Engine and you get your map. You don’t need to have great Excel skills, pretty basic skills will get you by. You do need to have the ability to look through your data and identify what that story is that you want to tell. Or recognize that maybe you gathered the wrong data. You need to get the right data in order to tell the story that you want to tell.

Marlene Gebauer  22:58

you have to know what data to use.

Ryan McClead  23:00

Right, exactly.

Nicole Bradick  23:01

And we opted to instead of building out a UI for the law firms to input that jurisdictional data, we opted to start with an Excel upload, because that’s where law firms are comfortable and happy. And for law firms who aren’t as comfortable, we actually have a Excel template that they can download that has all the fields laid out and explains things pretty easily so that it really is not rocket science.

Marlene Gebauer  23:28

Okay, so we’re just sort of touching on this now, but what are what are some examples of Map Engine outputs?

Ryan McClead  23:36

So there’s, there’s a number of them I’ve as I’ve been building them out, let me just read through some that I’ve got here. Obviously the COVID-19 shut down and open up information is big. Telemedicine regulations, pay equity protections, vaccine exemptions, cannabis decriminalisation. And there’s a lot of them, it really is anything that is multi jurisdictional, and you’re going to have variation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. I think you can, you can tell an intriguing story with that data in a map form. The other thing that goes back to something that Greg was saying about the PDF with the voluminous information, that work doesn’t go away, right? The map doesn’t replace that. It enhances that, right. That is that is still useful if someone wants to do a deeper dive. But where I’ve seen it be most successful is when you combine a visualization that tells a story, or maybe multiple visualizations to tell different stories within the same content, and then link through to that content so people can drill down into it and get to the more in depth conversation and information that you’ve written,

Nicole Bradick  25:05

And slightly more technical detail on the output of the product. We, when you generate a product, which takes truly, like 20 seconds, when you generate a map, you are able to get a unique link for that which can be password protected. So you can use it like internally, you can use it externally for clients. But then we also provide the code snippet for an iframe if they want to embed it in something because law firms love iframes. And so there’s sort of multiple ways to share the data. And you know, some data, you might want to keep internally some data you might want to have just for one client and not for another client. And so this sort of allows a lot of that gating.

Ryan McClead  25:45

One of the things that I’ve I’ve been struggling with, as I’ve been going through all the firm’s websites looking for this data, is the firms that have been giving me data, it’s often data that is intended for an individual client, it’s not something they’re going to put on their website. And usually it’s not, it’s not all 50 states, you know, it’s not just 50 state surveys. it’s specific to a client that has offices in certain states, and they need to keep up with with regulations in those states specifically.

Greg Lambert  26:21

And is the product a cloud based product? Or is it something that the firm would need to have there IT involved into an install it?

Nicole Bradick  26:30

It’s all cloud based. It’s hosted on AWS.

Ryan McClead  26:33

Yeah, it’s it’s very easy to log in, it doesn’t require ITsupport. It doesn’t require much in the way of support from us to be frank, the demonstration that we do is, you know, five minutes if it’s a long demo, and then, you know, even if we have a 30 minute call set up, we’ve got plenty of time for conversation about how people would want to use it and what they could do learning to use it is not difficult.

Greg Lambert  27:02

Who are the people or the types of either firms or individuals who are using Map Engine? And who are you pitching the style of visualization to?

Ryan McClead  27:13

So we primarily work at Sente Advisors works with Knowledge Management and innovation teams at large law firms. And that was sort of our first audience. That’s who we expected to see it first, to start pitching it to. But I’ve seen a lot of interest from marketing. Firms who want to use it, both in terms of sharing what the firm does in different jurisdictions with their clients, but also using it internally for various things.

Greg Lambert  27:45

Yeah, I was wondering as the marketing team had gotten a hold of this yet. This seems seems right.

Nicole Bradick  27:50

I had some interest from from nonprofits who have different use cases, as well.

Ryan McClead  27:57

Yeah, I think there’s, I think there is a market beyond legal. I hope there’s a market beyond legal. I hope there’s life beyond legal.

Marlene Gebauer  28:11

Amen

Nicole Bradick  28:12

Heresy!

Greg Lambert  28:13

You and me both.

Ryan McClead  28:16

But, you know, this was very specifically a problem that we saw that that firms and and legal organizations had. So we set out first to solve their problem. And, you know, the hope is, we will meet with other people in other industries that have a similar type of problem. And hopefully, we can solve that as well. I have had calls and emails from other industries, a couple of alcohol companies have called very interested in using maps to make sure people within their companies know what is allowed, it isn’t allowed in different jurisdictions.

Marlene Gebauer  28:57

Very interesting. Alright. So again, you know, we’re talking about some some potential opportunities outside legal. So what’s next for both Map Engine and your individual companies.

Nicole Bradick  29:10

And in our near future pipeline, we want to add maps of other jurisdictions, other regions, so Canadian provinces, European countries, and thinking about things like federal district courts, US federal district courts and federal circuit courts. We are sort of relying on feedback from our users to tell us sort of what we should be focusing on feature wise for the the product in the near future, we have a number of requests that we’re going to be sort of chipping through based on a priority basis and how important it is for the users. Continuing to improve the product, expand the product, expand the offering, as well as gaining new clients from Map Engine. I don’t know if Ryan, you want to add anything to that before I talk about Theory and Principle.

Ryan McClead  29:58

So I think one of the things that we’ve discovered through our beta test and through the a lot of the work that I’ve been doing is that telling that story sometimes requires multiple maps. So we’ve got a number of users asking for ways different ways to group their maps, or combine their maps or share their maps as a suite. So finding, figuring out how we can do that how we can use the mapping tool to tell different stories with data, I think is going to be going to be core as we move forward.

Greg Lambert  30:31

So Nicole, what about Theory and Principle?

Nicole Bradick  30:34

Yeah, we are continuing to expand our footprint in both the US and Europe. We are working with more and more large law firm clients. And we also do a lot of work in the justice sector as well. So continued expansion on those fronts, we also have a couple of other points solutions that we are contemplating bringing out to market in the next year or two, seeing how it goes with Map Engine is sort of our first foray into bringing a product to market. And if all goes well, then we’ll look it up for other opportunities.

Greg Lambert  31:06

And Ryan, what about for Sente Advisors,

Ryan McClead  31:10

Sente Advisors? Well, we’re continuing to, to run our consultancy, even as we spin up, Map Engine, map engine is going to be a big part of our immediate future. As Nicole said, they’re doing the product side of things. And we’re focusing on the business in terms of running subscriptions, and billing and sales and all of that. So. So that is going to be a big part of what Sente is doing. But we are looking to expand, we’ve still got a number of clients, we’ve got a number of new clients coming on. So I think there will likely be some additional Sente Advisors in the near future. And how exactly that’s going to work? I’m not sure. But I might also need some Sente Advisors to help me with map engine. So looking forward to new opportunities.

Greg Lambert  32:06

And in real quick, how can someone take a look at map engine, is there a website they can go to?

Nicole Bradick  32:11

Yep, they can go to mapengine.io. Or they can also email info@mapengine.io for a demo.

Greg Lambert  32:19

Well, Nicole Bradick of Theory and Principle, and Ryan McClead of Sente Advisors. Thanks again for coming on the show.

Ryan McClead  32:26

Thank you.

Nicole Bradick  32:28

Thank you.

Greg Lambert  32:32

It was good to have both of them on on the show. I think one of the things we didn’t cover, I think both you and I kind of volunteered to test some things out with Ryan, when they were just in the initial stages of this. And so to see it progress over the time has been kind of kind of fun to watch.

Marlene Gebauer  32:53

Yeah, it was very rewarding to see this product grow from basically an idea into sort of a full fledged, you know, fully operational product. And it seems that the there’s a lot of interest. And I gotta say, yeah, they were talking about well, this is where we’re, we’re focusing first, but there’s just so many applications for this. I mean, I’m thinking okay, government, education, like, just so many.

Greg Lambert  33:22

Yeah, and the simplicity of it having you and I both had worked on entering data into it. And it’s fairly straightforward in and so I was joking about the the pivot tables, but it’s, it’s really fairly simple, just filling out the form. And then obviously, real simple got a heat map of 50 states survey or tobacco laws, or marijuana laws or whatever. So it says, really kind of, kind of cool to see it from through the whole process.

Marlene Gebauer  33:52

And I like that they’re doing the templates, too, because I mean, you’re right, like and Ryan was right. It’s like, you know, you need to be able to know what data you need to put in and you know, maybe sometimes that’s not the case. So some of those common types of things that people need. Absolutely make it easy. Make it easy.

Greg Lambert  34:08

Yep. Making it as easy, but making it easy is difficult. And I think they’ve pretty much have made it easy. So well.

Marlene Gebauer  34:15

Good luck to both of them.

Greg Lambert  34:16

Yeah. So thanks again to Nicole Bradick and Ryan McClead, for joining us.

Marlene Gebauer  34:21

Thank you guys.

Greg Lambert  34:23

Before we go, we want to remind listeners to take the time to subscribe on Apple podcast or Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast and take the time to rate and review us as well. If you have some comments about today’s show, or suggestions for a future show, you can reach out to us on Twitter at @GebauerM, or at @glambert. You can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 or you can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.

Marlene Gebauer  34:52

And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thanks, Jerry.

Greg Lambert  34:56

Yeah, thanks Jerry. Alright Marlene, I will talk with you later.

Marlene Gebauer  35:00

Okay, bye bye.