Product Is Everything: Building What Matters with 8 Bit Spark's Founders Liz Hunt & Michael Li

What if every business you touch is both a product and a service—and treating it that way unlocks the results you’ve been chasing? Startup Wins sat down with product veteran Liz Hunt & healthcare technologist Michael Lee, co-founders of 8 Bit Spark, to pull back the curtain on how real innovation happens inside messy constraints, heavy regulation, and shifting incentives.

Startup Wins Host Brandon Na prompts Liz & Michael to unpack healthcare, founder fit, and a practical playbook for innovation from idea to impact along with: 

• Market traction through relationships & narrative
• Enshittification and incentive-driven platform decline
• AI as data intake and the power of fine-tuning
• Startup lessons: founder fit, selling first, vows
• Healthcare incentives, capital misallocation, EMR risks

If you’re serious about product-market fit, innovation under regulation, or deploying AI where it truly helps, this conversation will sharpen your approach and your decisions. Subscribe, share with a builder who needs it, and leave a review with the one change you’ll make this week.

Brandon is Managing General Partner of Good People Ventures, former radio show host, and producer of the Edu-focused podcast EduK8, where he interviewed top VCs like Minnie Ingersoll (EduK8 S2 E12) and AI leaders like James Brady (EduK8 S3 E1). He is also the author of UNICORN STARTUPS, available now on Amazon.

Alongside his MGP partner Vikki Meyer Fininen, Brandon entered the venture world and built Good People Ventures. Shortly before forming GPV, he launched Startup Wins to deliver actionable, real-world insights from startup founders, VCs, and world-class experts who are actively shaping the future.

And if you want product experts to help you out with your startup, email Liz at liz@8bitspark.com or Michael at michael@8bitspark.com. 

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Hosted by Brandon Na, Managing General Partner of Good Peoples Ventures

Transcript

Meet Liz And Michael

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Startup Wins. Twice a month we share real stories and smart tips. Subscribe and join the journey.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

All right, we have another episode of Startup Wins, and I am blessed today to have not only my good friend Liz Hunt here today, but her amazing partner who I just met recently, uh Michael Lee. And uh we're gonna have a nice discussion about product, but before we do, let's uh introduce uh both Liz and Michael. So Liz, ladies first.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Well, thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Liz Hunt, uh, and I like to joke that I'm a blonde rocket scientist because I have an aerospace engineering degree and interned at NASA. Uh, I have a career, um I won't say how long, but it has been decades, in product management. I got my start as a software developer, got exposed to user experience design and business strategy along the way, and have worked for hundreds or with hundreds of clients and uh worked on projects like Disney Magic Band, uh Starbucks mobile app, and um the Google, the map inside of Google Maps, and have also had a lot of entrepreneurial adventures. So thank you so much for having us on the podcast, Brandon. It's really good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well, I am so happy. Uh Liz is actually my first repeat guest, uh, if she doesn't know. Well, no, we're honored to have Liz. Um, and that was a wonderful introduction. So we just set up Michael for something to, you know, uh, well, anyway, I'll just I won't even try to go with the analogy. Go ahead, Michael.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

I'm Liz's foil in a lot of ways, but also we overlap in many. We met sailing yachts, so we both race yachts. Liz is humble, she's also a trained pilot and scuba diver, etc. So we live for fun, and that's how we met each other. So, and I'll get into this a little bit later through this conversation. I'm much more focused on service organizations and building really complex operations. So I have uh 20 plus year experience in the healthcare industry and have been a technologist since I was about, I can't even remember how young, but was programming by the time I was 14, making money.

Why 8bit Spark Exists

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Now I'm dating myself, building websites back in the day when that was the heyday of making money off of those sorts of things as a teenager. So I have a background uh undergraduate in health informatics and a master's in health administration. I'm also adjunct at University of Toronto in informatics. So very healthcare-focused career. And in doing so, I've done everything from redesign an entire hospital facility to uh implement electronic medical records in the healthcare industry. So I think I'll leave it at that because I think a lot more will come up, especially around this conversation of product and service and what 8bit Spark offers in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Well, well, speaking of 8bit Spark, this is a new venture that you both have recently jumped on and started. I'm excited to hear more about it. We we did have a conversation before. Liz, I'll be honest, I didn't know you were so heavy into the product. And I it's exciting to hear because as I build my own venture capital firm and we have our first accelerator, I know product is possibly one of the most important functions of literally creating any startup, right? I mean, it is the essence of a startup. And and it sounds like that's what you and Michael are focusing on. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Yeah, we consider product spending both products as well as services because product management can cover both of the disciplines, and our intention is is really to help our clients innovate. And sometimes innovation is creating something entirely new that's never been seen before, and sometimes it's taking existing pieces uh and you know, making something more efficient or building something that's better.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah. In the realm of improvement, I would say. I'm gonna be provocative because I always am and say that there is no such thing as pure product or peer service. Everything is both product and service, and that's what eight bit spar can bring to the picture in the context of this conversation. We spent about eight months looking at our business model and then have refined how we frame it. So the website shows more and we're constantly working on that. It's being pretty hard because we just like to do cool shit. Seriously. Like it's like what needs to be done? Do we want to do it? Is it are are they people we want to work with? Um, are they people that are going to be successful? More most importantly, are they good people that uh are ethical and upstanding? Because at the end of the day, a lot has to be done on trust in any space, whether startup or otherwise,

Canada’s Landscape: Regulation And Funding

SPEAKER_02 5:15

nothing gets done without a level of trust to push boundaries and try stuff. It's there's so many, especially since we're we didn't mention this, but we're based in Canada. The regulation is so much heavier than it is in the US. And I think Liz can really speak to that because everything is regulated, and so much of the economy is based on tax dollars. So much of the startup economy, if you will, is based on government funding too. So different grants without getting into all the details. And I know there's a lot of that in the US, but I would say that there's a much more limited venture capital market up here as a result of the government grant system, which works very differently, but also as a result of the heavy personal tax burden, which means that donating to a foundation or having your own foundation to do philanthropic things is oftentimes a lot easier than what we see happening in Silicon Valley, etc., from a capital standpoint. Yeah. So it's a very different environment, and um, so we really our expertise is around that innovation edge, as Liz says, and figuring out how to navigate all of that. It's not so easy to do. And so, how do you put that on a website? The website needs work constantly, and there's a variety of different projects that we could get into in terms of what we've been up to for the first year and a half or so of the company's existence.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah, but it's a sick way of saying what we do is 8 bit spark helps uh companies bring ideas to life.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Well, let me ask, in the drop-down menu in the forum on the site, does it say are you cool shit? And and if if it if they don't say yes, do they not get to send you a message?

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Well, you should know because you sent us a message out of the blue on off the website, probably, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

So unfortunately, I think I'm in too many spaces uh these days. I don't even remember what I've done a few hours ago, but everything you and Liz have said so far would be what my uh fiance would say 100% is correct. So I I I completely agree. Well, let me let me ask though, how how did this come about though? I mean, I know you kind of addressed this to a certain degree, but you both are very experienced. And I imagine, I don't know, are there other product specialists, product consultancies? Did you see some huge need in the marketplace where people are not getting the right advice? I mean, I I imagine, and you you know this, and this is why I'm gonna have you guys hopefully take part in our accelerator. Is a lot of startup founders just don't know what the hell they're doing. And and they they they think they do, and then they, you know, they try to do the quote unquote product market fit product again, right? And is that how you guys evaluate it? I'm just curious how this came about.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

So when we met on the sailboat, uh we started joking about some of the electronics and um things that are embedded into the sailboat and how bad their user interfaces were, and how many ideas we had on how we could do things better. And uh we would, you know, brainstorm in a joking sort of

Finding Customers Through Bio And Fit

SPEAKER_03 8:50

way, but then also joke about the product market fit in the sense that sailors are notoriously frugal, um, even bordering on cheap, and they wouldn't pay for any of that stuff. Uh so over the years, we just kept enjoying having these conversations and uh uh started thinking about hey, you know, maybe we might want to collaborate more officially together in the future and started brainstorming. I think initially our ideas were more focused on uh like the human growth story, the fact that so many folks in management and leadership roles really get put there without any experience, without any mentorship, without any support or any education, and how both of us in our careers having reached that point of leadership and and developing our own style that we've been told is is really effective, uh, wanted to find some way to bring that out. But again, that from a product market fit perspective doesn't have a huge potential for repeatable sales. It's more of a vitamin rather than the painkiller, as they say. Uh and so we just continue to brainstorm from there. And then I'll pass it to Michael so he can talk about the the second half.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Sadly, no one will pay for leader education. There's a huge pain point in transitioning someone into a new management role, especially now with the advent of AI, I would say. It's very like all companies want people who are senior like us. Well, how are the next senior people going to get trained? Um, that hasn't really been thought of. But when we reflected as a business, we were like, we can't sell this to anybody. No one's gonna pay for training for new managers. It's one of those like to do things, but not must-have to do things. And so we started ideating further, which is another thing that we believe in sort of blank sheet and starting to just put ideas down and stress test them. And what we landed on is that innovation is really something that a lot of folks seek. And only certain individuals, though, actually, I would say most people are just flying by the seat of their pants trying to get through the day. So that's not our customer, that's not who we're targeting or who we would likely work with. We've tried, but it hasn't really panned out. And so I would say in evaluating the market, there's a niche market for folks like us coming in as innovators to help other people who think forward, who are strategic, who want to see the world be different, who want to see it improved, and understand that that requires innovation to get there. So, interestingly, unlike traditional business school stuff or startup stuff, we didn't build a persona ahead of time. What we did was we got ourselves out there and just had a whole lot of chats with a whole lot of people. And I know that is part of uh the gestation of a startup too, but really with uh a very quick pivot around what would actually get the second conversation. And it turns out that what got the second conversation was more our bios and our backgrounds and our how we complement each other and how we uh how we overlap with each other's skill set too, as opposed to some UVP mapped out in bullet points and groomed by an AI. And so we very quickly flipped that to the top of the story and then started looking at who would call us back, and then from there started to figure out persona mapping based on who would call us back. So maybe a bit organic, maybe a bit backwards, maybe not, but that's really been the story of 8bit Spark so far. And we've I know we haven't got into this part yet, but we've worked in everything from healthcare to entertainment at this point. And quite different industries if you think about the relationships, the culture, and the networks.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, well, I I I you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna quiz you guys right

The X Pivot: Incentives And Insidious Design

SPEAKER_01 13:20

now. Um and hopefully you guys won't be too surprised. While I quiz you, uh, I'd love for you guys to think through what you would recommend to startups in this process, because I think your answer may be the advice that startups actually need, but it's kind of an interesting startup. It's a startup that's been around for a long time, and now they pivoted, and now now they call themselves X. And so this this startup years ago under Ev and Jack's leadership was you know, this 240 character, I can't remember what the original product requirements were. 160 160, right? Now they're 240 or something like that, and it's a fascinating product to to do these ephemeral, not just ephemeral, but I would argue these very short messages that can become so powerful called tweets or whatever the hell they what this other guy, I can't remember his name. Is it was it Elon? I I can't remember his name, but anyway, this guy thinks is is thinks this platform's worth 30 to 50 billion dollars. Now he's pivoting, you know, trying to supposedly he's trying to protect the free speech that we are all supposed to have in this world. But I ironically, yesterday just got my account suspended. So no longer can I speak on this platform. And it's not just me, I've seen it to multiple people on the platform, coincidentally, all who know each other. And and I I recently, you know, spoke up and said, hey, we should get off the platform and use another platform. And so there may be a tiny chance that I I bumped heads with some snowflakes that are in the organization, including maybe the head snowflake. And so I'm kind of curious from your guys' perspective. This is an interesting product. I mean, the other thing that you guys don't participate, and I can't wait to maybe. I mean, Liz has participated in Clubhouse years ago, but they have a version of Clubhouse called X Spaces right now, and they don't do anything with the product, it actually gets worse and worse and worse. The technical uh details of the product, it just like it glitches when you go from Wi-Fi to cellular data, it it dies, or you get knocked out of your rooms, the rooms close on their own, and they don't care because they they keep on bragging about their 550 million MAUs now that they have, which is true. They have grown. And and it was around the product of getting users to create more content for them, right? So that they would get paid, and then they stopped paying these guys and gals, and then now they're fighting the people are fighting for their you know content. What would you do? I know you guys don't have all the uh insight in details, you don't know how how I'll just say it idiotic their management is. You know, you don't have all that insight, and they they didn't pay you to do this, but what would you recommend to them? Um, I mean, we can have kind of a small conversation around what your gut feeling says, because, like you said, a lot of senior leaders don't even have education, right? A lot of these people just politic their way up to the top and they maintain their positions. I mean, Liz and I have had this conversation back in our Google days. Some douches that run the organization. I I'll call them out. They're truly douches that run and then stay in their jobs because they get paid what $500,000, $600,000 a year. So they'll do everything they can to keep their jobs and say the right things to their higher ups. So, okay, this isn't supposed to be political, but let's go. So, Liz.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

What I will say is an overarching thing, and it's not unique to X. Uh, it's becoming endemic now across um all the industries. It's a concept that uh word that was coined by Corey Doctoro, it's insidification, and this is the insidocene, uh as the parlance goes. And the business strategy is deliberately to make the product and the experience worse. Um and there's a there's a whole life cycle that happens, and it's uh a way of extracting more capital out of the all of the entire users. And so for a lot of these social networking companies, um, they're dual-sided or triple-sided marketplaces in the sense that it's uh, you know, you you you pay for what you get for, the usage is mostly free, although, you know, X and some others have paid tiers. Um, it's all about advertisers and um and you know, some of those folks are pay to play and some of them are getting paid. And so I I think it's a deliberate strategy. So I wouldn't even spend or or I'm gonna say waste any time trying to advise on how they can make it better because that is not the current goal. And you know, I could be wrong, but I don't think so based on uh internet research and other assorted research and conversations that I've been having.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

That's fascinating, Michael?

SPEAKER_02 18:05

There's been this movement from the early days of Facebook, say, being the first social media platform of any degree of popularity, from a product for you to you being

AI, Data Exhaust, And Platform Motives

SPEAKER_02 18:20

the product. And I think that's well discussed. I don't know how well discussed that is in startup circles, but it's certainly discussed in policy circles, especially as it comes to social media regulation. I know regulation is an evil word in the US in a lot of ways, especially with the current regime, not to get political. But I do think from a health science standpoint, so I'm going to shift gears a little bit momentarily, we miss the boat on regulating social media. There's even uh some early studies now that say the amplification of social message can't be fixed, it's so endemically built. And this one study I was looking at actually used AI agents to use a social media platform and then watch behind the scenes what happened to the agent. So something you can't really do that well without an AI agent. And so ask yourself why do you not really get updates from your friends anymore on Facebook? It's all marketplace listings and dubious news and you know, like celebrity gossip, right? So, I mean, there's a whole history of news and media around that, going all the way back to William Randolph Hearst, but at the end of the day, you are the product very heavily at this point. So, from an 8 bit spark standpoint, I would say you gotta think about that. Now, the most recent trend is that these social media platforms are an intake to train AI. And so I think Elon even moved. You'll have to fact check me on this. But I do believe he moved X as a cost center under XAI somehow. And so perhaps that's in order to some fancy accounting. But at the end of the day, it's very clear what Meta is doing, it's very clear what X is doing. That the product, quote unquote, that you use, or the user interface that you're using in different parts of their ecosystem, is simply a vehicle to funnel data from you as the product into an AI, into whatever that company's AI product is to train that AI. Most recently, for instance, and this probably has to go through several more legal proceedings, but I did see that there was finally a settlement around copyright claims relating to books and AI training in the order of 1.5 billion. Anthropic. Yeah, exactly. But more to come on that.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

But Altman just admitted the dead internet theory and said he's actually worried by how many uh LLM driven or bot-driven users there are on social media sites.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

So at some point you you pollute your you know the the training data becomes bot generated or so convoluted and and infused with you know truthiness.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

But if you think about all this, if you are the product on X and there's all this AI slop happening, your your information in every chat and everything that you're I guess they call them tweets still, um anything you're putting in there is invaluable. It's getting more and more valuable. And so, I mean, that was a very long explanation as to what's going on in that market, but as a result, coming in as a product and service specialty company and innovation company, we would look at all of that and understand how to further engage users in order to get that data into the AI training ecosystem, which is what we would be asked to do. To be honest, I'm not sure I would want to do that kind of work. And there are certain circumstances where that can be helpful. For instance, we have a conversation going with the Canadian Mental Health Association and trying to figure out how to build advocacy for

Optimistic Fixes: Human-Centered Networks

SPEAKER_02 22:40

regulation around AI. And that involves also some other partners in the mental health space looking at what responsible AI usage is and even building some product against it to compete with like Facebook companions and things like this, which if there's a market, as we all know, from a startup standpoint, then it'll get if there's a demand, it'll get built by supply. And so a lot of the public bodies agree that we miss the boat on social media regulation, and AI is even more powerful. So rather than just write a bunch of regulations, can there be a product that's provided that's safe and built with different intentions leveraging the same technology?

SPEAKER_01 23:27

I'd like to make sure we round off this conversation though, with hopefully a little bit of optimism, I'll be honest, because uh frankly, I would agree with everything you all you will say. Again, like she would say, 100%, but I don't give up. And and that's why I'm obviously not gonna give up this account. I'll just find some other way to communicate, and whether it be on chatter, uh an alternative platform, or it will be through the VC firm, and then buy Twitter away from that's my plan. I'm just gonna buy it for $50 billion, even though it's not even worth it, and actually truly protects you know the First Amendment rights, actually do what Elon had said he was planning on doing in the first place. But I would love to finish off that in more of an idealistic manner. So I'd love for you guys to kind of think about like what would you do despite the conditions and maybe even the management and whatever. And then I'd love to pivot to more of a healthcare um conversation because that's obviously Michael, your background. But I think it's a huge problem in the United States, as Liz, you and I probably could talk about forever. And it's being solved in other countries in some of the most interesting ways. Like I go to Korea to get my health care. I don't I don't stay in the United States. I refuse to use any medical service here because it's just it's a waste of time and waste of money. And Canada's obviously a little bit different, and that might have been part of the reason why, Liz, you you migrated up that way. But but finishing off this particular one, because social media is so impactful in one way or the other. What are maybe a couple things you think you would fix and how would you fix it? And uh, you know, maybe throw out some ideas and maybe maybe the startup could actually even help compliment sell them some product. I don't know. Um, maybe chatter needs to be bought by Twitter. I'm just scared that the management would would screw chatter. But uh any optimistic thoughts, you know, for this problem that's actually growing as as you guys are kind of talking about?

SPEAKER_03 25:25

It is, and it's a complex space. If I were given a mandate to help improve the user experience of any of these user networks, I would really focus on the user research first, try to find out what folks who are uh using these apps and these networks want, and do a variety of different research techniques. I would partner with researchers because that's never been my specialty. I've worked very closely with them in the past. And there's a lot of different ways that you could make this more of a user-centered or human-centered, which I think is more important process. And, you know, with the super users of like an audio neat app that you're talking about, there's different use cases there than the Instagram, Facebook things that Michael was referring to earlier. And so, you know, really take the time to understand that domain and the kinds of relationships that can be forged between people in these audio spaces. I experienced it in Clubhouse. I've heard a lot of stories from you and I've read a lot of things. There's a number of luminaries out there. Um, some famous, like Corey Doctoro, others not as famous. Um, my approach is to go out and read a lot of voices, try to find medium articles or subtacts or post on the various social media sites and glean those pearls of wisdom and then test things out. And there are ways that I believe we could incrementally improve this. We could turn things around. And if you could find most importantly, a way to generate revenue that is in an opposite direction of the identification, then

What Startups Should Do Now With AI

SPEAKER_03 27:11

you'd be given a lot more mandates. So it's how can you make, I don't even know what you would coin the word that's the opposite of that, you know, but something optimistic and values-oriented from an internal value, not necessarily a monetary value, but if you could monetize the value, you could get the approval and the support that you need from executives and the board to do some really amazing things. And so absolutely there's there's room for optimism and to me, co-creation and focusing on the human-centered component, all the people in the ecosystem who are using a product or service is the key and the best way of doing that. And uh launching things from the bottom up is really, really important. So there are alternatives out there, federated um tools like Blue Sky, which you know solve some problems and have their own set of unique problems. But there's a lot of places that innovation could be happening. So a lot of hope.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Good, good. And and when I listen to you, uh I I feel like uh I I wish I would be responding to your text a little bit faster and hearing from you more because everything you say just it makes me it just reminds me of how thoughtful your you know answers are and your thoughts about society and why Google hired you, why Michael wanted to partner you. So thank you, Liz. Um how about you, Michael? No, it's seriously some of the best stuff whenever I get to listen to you.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Uh Michael, any any other although I am a technology Luddite as a paradox, um I hope I didn't come off as negative because that's not what my intention was. Uh, I think part of it is demonstrating the analysis that a Brit Spark would look at in terms of product market fit to understand what's going on, what the intent of the business and where the market's going before hopping in and just tweaking a UX UI thing or feature selection or B2, MVP, POC, all that kind of stuff. There is no good or bad technology. Technology can be used for good or for bad. And we can go all the way back to the discovery of nuclear fission and how we got both atomic bombs as well as nuclear reactors out of that. There's no way right now we could power the world without nuclear energy. Yet it could also be used for making a bomb. So the way that I see this AI revolution coming at us is exactly the same. And am a practitioner of AI. I've built it from I platformed it from the basic levels using Python, Hugging Face, you know, CUDA, all of those things that you need to do in order, all the libraries that you need to do in order to understand how it works. Um that the AI revolution is interesting because it's turning out at this point in it, the fine-tune is much more important than the model selection. And by fine-tune, I mean having an expert sit there with, say, a thousand cases. If we're talking healthcare, say we're trying to detect alcohol in written case notes or sepsis or something like that. Well, it requires a very skilled clinician to sit there and look through a thousand rows of data and note all the intricacies of is this a case or is this not a case, all these kind of things. Is the model correct or not? That fine-tune is critically important. So when you look at social media, that's part of what's happening with your data. It's because you are human and you're you're able to help fine-tune certain models. What I think is inspiring though, getting back to the question, Brandon, around what feature or what

Lessons Learned: Founder Fit And Selling First

SPEAKER_02 31:05

what suggestion would we have for startups, is look at the automation side of things. Because more and more tools are coming out for that. Uh whether it's building POCs and lovable from an architecture standpoint, it kind of drives me nuts, but it's still something that can get you off the ground pretty quickly. And Meta, for instance, is looking at automating the sales chain or the business development chain, if you will, so that you can write a media advertising campaign using uh uh an AI prompt. We'll see how far they get with that. But it does enable these kinds of things. And there's a lot of business opportunity either assisting in that ecosystem, say other startups, other small businesses, or being one yourself that brings a certain feature or uh solves a certain pain point with a product market fit in that automation landscape. So, although you hear a lot about AI and robotics and NVIDIA, that's really the outer edge in a lot of ways, despite having used it in quite a detailed way, I would say. I still see it as just fixing a problem, and maybe this is the startup part of me, fixing a problem that there was already a shitty solution for that technology couldn't fix. So OCR. Remember our scanners, and then we scan something, and it would take 10 times as long to fix the thing later because there would be random spelling errors or it didn't really qu work quite well. Well, a lot of computer vision is just that. It's better at that use case. And even um dictation software, for instance, back in the day, again, so many corrections you would have to go through and peck through every word and make sure you didn't miss anything. And now a lot of the AI scribe functionality is better speech to text. It's just a dictation software that actually works now. So lost in all this conversation with all these startups making yet another open AI API wrapper is the fact that it comes down to what pain point are you actually solving for someone? And either through automation or improvement, there's all these problems that were never properly solved, and now the technology is there to beef them up, improve them, or even enter new spaces that couldn't have been solved with technology before. And it's almost as simple as that. Uh, I don't think most of us will be playing with an NVIDIA robot as part of our business anytime soon. There's gonna be some, but that's not gonna be a realistic scenario. All these other scenarios are. Makes sense. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Um, so let's do this a little pivot because obviously we only have the one hour. Uh it would be great to continue on this this this thread. But uh, I actually have before we jump into maybe healthcare, uh, if that's okay, uh, have a question real quick that hopefully you guys can answer pretty easily. You both have been a part of startups, you both have been a part of different organizations that that employ startups, and you've both been in, I believe, in larger organizations and you know, as small as individual, you know, opportunities. What are some things that you guys have both learned over the years that now you're implementing that you didn't do in the early stages of doing a startup? Like one thing that I can tell already is you methodically chose each other over a long conversation, right? A conversation over and over and over just to make sure there was founder fit, right? Which is, I believe, one of the biggest challenges for a lot of startups is picking the right people who you trust and who finish your sentences, who honestly uh um are going to invest in you both financially and time and everything else. I think this is like one of the biggest things startup founders need to do better. Uh, but what else have you both kind of learned through your previous experiences and would love to share with other future startups that you've learned? So again, back to Liz.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Sure. I mean, I've learned a lot over the years, and I've always tried to apply what I've learned to the next opportunity that presented itself for 8 bit spark. I would say the biggest one, in addition to reinforcing what you said about making sure that the partnership was very strong and had a very firm foundation, is that making sure that whatever great ideas we came up with would sell. And really focusing in on the business development side first, um, to the point that Michael in particular is

Stress Testing Partnerships And Vows

SPEAKER_03 36:05

our first person who's out there. The primary phase of the organization is selling because though I can help in a lot of respects, and I can I love building relationships. Yes, I had some successes, but it took a lot of work. I didn't enjoy that aspect of it as much as I did all the other aspects. So I chose to partner with somebody who had, you know, amongst other very strong strengths, had that as a primary thing that they were bringing to the partnership. And, you know, you can be the best salesperson. Um in fact, we really focused more on the relationships and any traditional sales. But uh, you know, that's all well and good. You could have that as, you know, you could be magical at that, but if what you're trying to sell doesn't have value, if people don't want it, it doesn't really matter. So, you know, that time that we spent with that, you know, kind of slow ramp up before we incorporated and taking some of the pressure off ourselves in order to ensure that, you know, there was it's gonna resonate with folks. Um, and and it is, you know, we could have more work than than we handle. We keep a throttle on it so that we keep the quality high. And most importantly, we keep um our health important, our our lives outside of work important. Um, we don't want to do, I think they're calling it 996 now. I I mean I slept under my desk at my first jobs, and I don't want to have to do that again. So uh just to repeat, it's really focusing in on making sure that you know what you're coming up with will be purchased by somebody and that it adds value.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Makes sense, Michael.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, so to be all sales oriented, I'm gonna start by that way and say we have a founder's letter format that we use with our clients, with ourselves that's written non-legalis. It's kind of like vows, our commitment to each other, and running through every scenario. Like, what if somebody dies? These are things no one really wants to think about, right? When there's fervor around starting a new enterprise, a new idea. And so we run through all those kind of scenarios. It's not something that we're making a ton of money off of, obviously. It's not really like some some killer product that we're selling, but it uh gives us an opportunity to work with you if you're interested in working with us in a way that's very frank and vulnerable because you have to go through all of these permutations. We spent, as I mentioned, about eight months getting to know each other from a from a business context in the sense of what are our goals with the business, mapping all that out. We did personality testing with each other, we ran through different scenarios, and most of all, we brought Liz's boat across from Vancouver Island to Vancouver. The engine died due to bad fuel. And uh, long story short, the Coast Guard was called, but they sent a tow for us instead, and we had to deal with all that without killing each other. Meanwhile, Liz was pretty seasick, and I I said to her, Well, you handle the radio comms. I'm just gonna make sure that we go in the right direction with the sale right now. And so pretty stressful and a good bonding opportunity, but it's not every business relationship that would survive that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

No, no, I think we need to implement this with every every new startup. They all need to get on a boat and then have to hail the Coast Guard. And if they survive, they get to do the startup, you know. Um if they don't, well, too bad. Uh, you know, the world moves on. Um, I've always advocated if I have. Kids again. I'm just throwing them in the middle of the forest and then seeing if they survive after a week. And if they survive, well, they get to have the rest of their life. So that's how I'm developing grit moving

Where 8bit Spark Engages And How

SPEAKER_01 40:10

forward. And maybe I'll do it with startup founders as well. Um, so anyway, no, that's awesome. Uh, great, great thoughts on this. Um, I think as as I've I've hoped for, this podcast gives um actionable thoughts to startup uh uh founders who are listening. Obviously, they're gonna get to listen to you guys a little bit more on the topic of product. Here's your next question uh about product. Okay, so the United States, um, in contrast to Canada, in contrast to, I believe the UK, in contrast to definitely South Korea, sucks as far as the medical system. What's one of the biggest, or maybe two or three of the biggest problems here? And how would you fix it? How would you fix it via a product? Um, have you had companies come to you already? Um, since you've you've worked in uh as a hospital creator, I don't want to call it administrative, but someone who actually developed the whole hospital system, it sounded like. What do you think about the medical system in the United States? You know, you both obviously have experience with it or or know about it. So again, we're gonna start with Liz and uh uh we'll get to you, Michael.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Well, uh as a pay former patient in the United States healthcare system, there are pros and cons. Probably the the greatest potential con is that uh it's a for-profit industry. Uh, and everybody from providers to insurance companies are there uh with the fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for shareholders, and these shareholders uh almost all the guys are not the patients. I think one thing that politically and um from a policy standpoint that would probably be very hard to do unless you had executive fiat is you know find some uh governmental public version of the healthcare process or or the at least the insurance. Um but uh it's it's a tricky one. Um and most of my perspective of it is from a uh from a patient, as I said. You know, if I had had uh appendicitis recently as a startup founder in the states, um that might have been the end of everything. That might have bankrupted me, right? Luckily I had a appendicitis and appendectomy in Canada, and thank you, Canada, you know, it cost me zero dollars.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

And you know, the only way that, you know, I would not have been bankrupt is if I had kept my Google insurance, which meant that I would have remained a Google employee or any other, you know, large uh company that offers a decent health care plan. But as a startup founder, you know, working off of the normal healthcare marketplaces, it'd be you'd have quite the hefty copay. And that you might have sunk all your money into your startup and you might not have had enough money to cover that, you know. And then you also need the good business partner who says, Oh, okay, you're out of commission for a few weeks. That's okay. I've got it covered. So I answered it maybe not exactly in the way that you were hoping. I think Michael can talk a little bit more from the healthcare industry perspective.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

You want a healthcare policy blast on this one? This could be its own podcast, honestly. Let's do a minister version of it, sure. It's not necessarily minister, but you'll see what I mean when I speak about this. Uh, wait lists are a byproduct of a monosopy in a healthcare system. So, single healthcare system in Canada, really, you can get into the fact that provinces all have a slightly different implementation of it, means you have to wait your turn. Um, and so that in the in the states, that isn't necessarily the case. The other thing is the tax, the personal tax burden, as mentioned, is very high here. So in some ways, you're prepaying for that safety net. There's a misnomer that it's free. So when we get to the US, there are several problems. Actually, the operating cost is and the the insurance, the insurance environment and even the Affordable Care Act, which is a band-aid solution on a heavily fragmented insurance landscape, is one of the problems. But in my mind, if and I don't know how many of your viewers would have read Thomas Piketty, Capital, etc., um, where he talks about how the disparity in capital really is driving a lot of um disparity in society, essentially. So when we think about that in the context of healthcare in the US, there's a massive overinvestment in capital infrastructure to compete for

U.S. Healthcare Problems And Incentives

SPEAKER_02 45:00

patients. So whereas in Canada, for instance, at a very hospital that's considered, say, quaternary, very complicated patients, there may be a handful of beds that are cardiac monitored. It's expensive equipment to buy. In the US, there are a lot of hospitals where every single bed is because you come in, they hook you up to a cardiac monitor if you even have the slightest inclination of chest pain, and then they're charging you for it. So that is an expense that may or may not be medically warranted. I'm not a doctor. But at the end of the day, this sort of division of capital amongst the population is totally warped in the US healthcare system because there's incentive to compete, every hospital having a PET scanner in the area, for instance, and then having to advertise that. So there's a lot of money that's misspent in this kind of way that isn't talked about as much as the insurance landscape in the US. As a result of private businesses, hospitals being private businesses as well. Not all of them are, but there's problems such as I've seen electronic medical record implement implementations go belly up, and those cost in the billions, and then the entire hospital is bankrupt. So what is really a service for the community becomes problematic because if you can't operate it due to that kind of insolvency, then you're losing a critical, a critical community resource that allows the population to be healthy and productive. A bit of a blast there, I could go on for a long time, but there's some gems in there, I'm hoping, that will allow people to look up other concepts.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

No, I appreciate it. And and uh I think the listeners will as well. The one thing I would love to talk about, though, to just at least hit before we uh get into these three questions that I always ask at the end of the show is we've obviously talked about two larger issues, social media and hospitals or the medical uh or healthcare issues, more on a macro level. Now, you guys with 8bit Spark, and this is not a commercial, by the way, 8 BitSpark did not sponsor today's show or anything like this. These are friends of mine who've started a company, and I'm really curious because I've never heard of a product consultancy or a product agency or a product, you know, specialist organization. And and I'm I'm kind of curious from let's say a startup perspective, like where do you come in? Does it matter at any, is it at any stage of the startup? Is it the startup, the scale up, the enterprise level? Where do you guys feel the most comfortable? Where do your you know current clients feel the most comfortable? Just curious. I mean, this is again not a sales pitch because it's more just out of curiosity. What like how do you you know engage? Uh so again, we'll go to to Liz and then Michael once again.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

Uh every situation and every client's need is unique. So we try to bring that um that sense of uh improv, the yes ending and the ability to uh kind of jump in anywhere. So from a product or service lifecycle standpoint, we can jump in um at any aspect of that because as we mentioned earlier in our conversation, innovation could be creating something entirely new, or it could be a series of iterative improvements that's you know making things better uh for everybody in the ecosystem. From a company standpoint, uh we have worked with like the nascent, you know, just have a basic concept, haven't even incorporated yet startups all the way to large organizations who you know are well established and one could argue no longer startups. Uh and so I think we could jump in anywhere along that spectrum. The offerings that we would have would be different based on all the. So for you know, a nascent startup, um, Michael mentioned it before. We do a lot of coaching around, let's solidify your foundation. Have you had these conversations with each other about what your roles are? Is there enough overlap that you can appreciate each other's strengths? Is there enough differentiation that everybody has

Capital Misallocation And Hospital Economics

SPEAKER_03 49:30

a sphere of excellence where they can shine and bring something unique? You know, can you handle angels, advocate, and devil's advocate situations? Does it relate to personal lives and business lives? Have you talked through potential exit strategies? And uh we tend to do that work. Uh it's kind of a pay-forward concept. We uh we've learned a lot, and you know, we hope that you know after we've had those conversations and they've solidified their business, um, that they'll want to engage with us. But it also gives us a chance to see if we'll want to engage with them.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

We have another client who, you know, they they've had a series of business together and and they had some assets that they wanted to monetize, and that was about as far as they thought it through. And uh, you know, with them we took a look at their assets, took a look at uh the industry and started brainstorming different applications. And one of the potential avenues that has brought fruition and they're about to uh sign a contract is you know, an app and making use of um some assets that they had. And and we've helped them throughout that entire life cycle of that offering. Um, and so it really can take the full gamut.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Excellent. Michael? Getting back to why it's hard on our website to describe what we do, because we also work with government clients, like large enterprises or other um not-for-profits. We have a partnership deal with the film festival coming up here, the Vancouver International Film Festival. And so a lot of different types of orgs. It's not just the scrappy startup coming out of an incubator in a university or Ycom or other things like that. It's actually how I would summarize it is we want to work with people who want to innovate, but also who will actually go do it. There are too many people in this world that won't do the thing. And so part of our evaluation on where we spend our time is with people who have a track record of actually getting shit done. Because it's just all too easy, whether spinning different startups or whether in large government organizations to just turn the crank. Right? So there's different reasons for that, but what we're trying to identify in how we do our work is who are those innovation ready folks who are going to be successful. Honestly, probably with or without us, that's not a good sales thing to say. But at the end of the day, like like-minded people kind of clump together in this regard, and that's what we're looking to do. An interesting facet of the management consulting environment right now is due to AI. A lot of the big consulting firms are trying to switch into this space as well. Essentially, innovation consulting and looking at how do you bring that extra gear of value to something because AI is going to automate a lot of that, the turn that exists in society and in organizations. And so when you look at that fueled with a tech background that we both have, then you start to see the possibilities, I believe, of what we can help with. So it's it's it's interesting because sometimes it's very advanced. Sometimes it's more like our work with the film festival. There were more basic needs there around understanding how to uh unify technology and analytics, even at a very basic level. But we're not picky about how complex the tech aspect of what we're doing is. We're more looking for what I said around those that will actually get shit done.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

So professors, no need to apply. No, just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Uh um have actually startup ideas.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Really? Okay. Yeah. Sorry, I've had too many professors profess and not getting it done.

SPEAKER_03 53:38

But anyway, that's a Yeah, no, the stereotype, I totally agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Yeah. Um, that's awesome. These are great thoughts. Uh, so we end the show always with the uh it used to be five uh questions. Uh I've reduced it to three, but I will ask you one of the legacy questions because it's been very important to me more lately than ever to

Resilience, Community, And Mental Health

SPEAKER_01 54:00

at least listen to different perspectives. Liz, you gave this answer before, but I'm gonna ask you again because this is a couple of years later. And that is you've had some shitty times, you've had some you know challenging times. How do you get through those? And we're gonna listen to Michael's answer because that'll be new today. But what do you do today when when you have these hard times?

SPEAKER_03 54:22

I would say I'm gonna guess one of the things that I've learned since the last time we spoke about this is that sometimes you just have to make the choice, the decision to move forward. And um, and sometimes that choice has to be made on a daily or on a really bad day, an hourly basis. Uh making the choice and and deciding um uh to try to solve or work around or go under or go over and go through. And when you can, reaching out to the your loved ones and hopefully they're there too.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Great. Thank you, Liz. And and to give you a little bit more background, Michael, the reason why I asked this question is because my cousin killed herself in her mid-20s, and my ex's cousin also jumped off the 13th floor of the building um in his 20s, and you know, they had a harder time with this question because obviously they decided to not move forward. A recent friend of mine, she was 35 when she took hers, and you know, I got to see her pictures, you know, after the and she was such a funny person. It's just it's so so confusing that she she decided to do it at 35. But we didn't know, and honestly, I I dedicate this to Elisa, to Shauna, and uh my ex's uh cousin because hopefully for other people who are going through the same struggle, they'll get to listen to what Liz just said. And then, Michael, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 55:53

So interesting. This is full circle. I've spent a lot of time actually working in mental health in the healthcare system, and it's what we haven't talked about on this podcast so far is that 8 BitSpark wants to do impact work. This is one of the areas that we're actively discussing how we might contribute to. So I think it affects all of us. And as much as I'm in a different phase of my career, yet again, having had worked in healthcare for government for a long time, um it's still there. And it's about community. So the support comes from community and the the caring and the tragedy. So it's all about human connection and relationships and what we do and how we support each other, and it's the most important thing to me. And I'm so grateful to have Liz as my partner, but many others as well, including my wife, my family, and a very strong community network that I can rely on for different types of support that I need.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

That's wonderful. Just as a heads up, uh, what what some of the past folks said were doing what you're doing is helping others. Uh Ran Fishkin, one of the more recent godfathers of SEO, said he, and he he's been profiled by CNN on on his depression. And he said one of the things that he finds solace in is helping others. And it gives him some form of value, it makes him feel better, and and and then he moves on. Others like a younger guest, Angela Maw, um, she spoke about going out and and just uh experience what you guys do on the sailboat is is experiencing nature and uh uh realizing you have this ability to go on a sailboat. You know, other people don't have this chance in life, or we can't, you know, the proverbial, you know, smell the roses, you know, once you smell the roses, then you'll start to realize shit, other people don't have this opportunity. So life is

Heroes, Role Models, And Joy In Food

SPEAKER_01 58:00

pretty damn great. You know, I personally have experienced a lot of depression in my life, and and I've gone through these struggles, and I couldn't answer that question um that well. And so that was another reason why I've asked this question. This is um for future, hopefully, no more bouts. But I personally have figured out that you need to have purpose kind of related to what I just spoke about. You need to exercise, you just have to be physically you know fit. And frankly, you need to have these conversations, you need to be social. Our brains need to be constantly, you know, activated in some form, and these conversations kind of help. And that's why I'll be honest, I spend way too much time on X Spaces, is is I get opportunities to talk to random people, crazy and sometimes intelligent and really beautiful. So thank you for those two answers. This is great. All right, these next three questions are pretty standard, but you know, I think they kind of address some important points. So, Liz, who's your hero?

SPEAKER_03 58:53

Uh today I'm gonna say Amy Smith. I might have mentioned her last time, I don't recall. Uh, she is the lead founding creator of MIT D Lab. So she has created this amazing network of innovators around the world, and through her organization, she has hosted hundreds and hundreds of these incredible summits that uh bring people together not just to solve problems but uh to build lifelong friendships. So a good number of my close friends now are from that experience.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

Amazing. And how about you, Michael? Who's your hero? Can I say Liz?

SPEAKER_02 59:35

Or is that too schmaltzy?

SPEAKER_01 59:38

Whatever you want to say.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

He is definitely one of my heroes. Um, I would say, though, if we're thinking about like big, big influencers, not that Liz isn't one, but I would say Brennan Brown. And part of that is because the way that she brings rigor to her research. Research on vulnerability and shame, and the way that she's able to express herself around that. And it's just such a different worldview than what is typically in tech. And so that's where I've always led from putting my vulnerability on the table first, telling my whole story with my whole heart, which she talks about as well. And being authentic to a fault. So it's done me well so far, but now managed to navigate a lot of very difficult things through life by doing that, even though oftentimes we're told to be more guarded over that what's viewed as courageous. And so this is a lot of her mantra, and it's oftentimes what I live by. I think often we get our guard up when we don't feel safe to be vulnerable. But when I push myself to be vulnerable, that's always led to better things.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

And just for the audience, who's Breni Brown?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

So Breni Brown is she is one of the probably most viewed TED Talks out there. And she's a University of Texas Austin professor and social worker.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

Great, great. The next question is very similar, but people usually answer someone different for some reason. Um so Liz, who's a good role model, however, beyond maybe even the hero that you could say today we need. I feel like today we need better role models overall, just given the state that we're at.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

I wish I could give you one name throughout my life. I've never really thought about that as a single individual. Instead, what I do is uh I I look at everyone I interact with, whether it's in person with a real human or virtually with a character, and I try to find elements of what they do or of their values or of their character that resonate with me. Um, examples that that that I find meaningful that I try to incorporate, uh, and also the what I call anti-examples, the things that I want to avoid uh or not do. Um and then I also try to to think about the ways that I can continually improve myself and continually learn. I have a I love learning and I'm so I um I consider myself a lifelong learner, and and for me that's how I find um that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

Great, great.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

And Michael, I'm gonna go fictionally here and say forced gump. And the reason for that is just so little judgment, right? Just constantly putting one foot ahead of the other. There's that scene where he just keeps running, right?

How To Reach 8bit Spark And Closing

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

And obviously not a real person, but I think a sentiment that we all aspire to in some way, shape, or form. Otherwise, that movie wouldn't be so popular. So uh is someone like that always gonna meet the president? No. But just the the the accomplishment coming through lack of judgment as opposed to more judgment. We we don't need more judgment in this world, and it's really hard to stay out of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:27

Out of the couple dozen people I've asked, no one's answered that question, and Liz, no one's answered the question you you the way you address. And it's weird, most people give very unique answers to both of these questions. So those are lovely answers. Last question is really easy, and uh, I think Liz, you gave me a tip on salt lick, or is that what it's called? The barbecue, or one of you two did, I can't remember. Um, so I did go there, it was pretty damn good. Okay, but but what what's your favorite food? You know, maybe you can say barbecue if you really want.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

That's not my favorite food, that might be Michael's favorite food, but it's still my favorite food.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

All right, so tell me what your favorite food is.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:08

My favorite food is breakfast tacos. And uh, Brandon, you have just moved to the heart and soul of the land of breakfast tacos, and you have your homework if you haven't gone to my favorite breakfast taco spots. But as I moved further and further away from Austin, I realized I had to learn how to make my own breakfast tacos, and it took decades of experimentation. Um, but I can proudly say that I can now make very tasty wholesale own breakfast tacos at home. And of course, breakfast tacos need spicy salsa, but to me that's just part of the breakfast taco experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:47

I think you said this on the last podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

I might have, because this has been a constant in my life. Breakfast tacos and topo chico would be my answers to favor beverage for a while now.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

Those are those are great. I got the Topo Chico at least. Uh so good, good. Yeah, thank you. Um and Michael, what's your favorite? Is it barbecue?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:06

Specifically smoked beef brisket.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

Well, the Salt Lakes uh smoked beef brisket was very good. Uh, just as an update, it still remains pretty good. And uh the place was packed. I went to the one uh to the west side. So um, yeah, it was a great recommendation. Well, thank you both so much for the time today. Um, I do want to give you guys a chance, though, to let other uh people who either want to reach out to 8Bit Spark uh or or want to do more podcast interviews uh with y'all. So tell us how we get a hold of you. What is your availability? Is this the last podcast interview you'll ever make in your entire or do in your entire life? Uh just let the audience know um your thoughts as far as how to get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

So we had a spontaneous choice of name. We were sitting around shooting the shit at my place one day, and I said, What about 8bit spark? And we checked the domain registration, it was available. And so we registered it on the spot, and we're like, we're doing this thing. So I know you're an SEO expert, Brandon. We have had instant SEO on that. Um, now I'm probably giving away too much.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

But that's how you reach us our website, 8bitspark.com, and our first names at 8bitspark.com. So Liz at and Michael at.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

And the website has a contact us button as well, if you'd like to go that way. So dead easy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

And you both are in LinkedIn as well, I assume. So people can yeah, no, Michael, you did give away one of the secrets of SEO. Just pick a unique name that nobody else has, right? And then you'll beat everybody out on the surf. Um, at least for branding. And for unbranding, I'll help you guys out later. So yeah, wonderful to have you both. Thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:59

Yeah, thank you for inviting us. It's so great to be back on another win of your podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Yeah, we're very grateful to have this opportunity, Brandon. And thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

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