My friend, welcome to the Badass Agile podcast. This week, I'm bringing back an old favorite. There's very few people that I brought back more than once. One is Karl Locksholm. The other one is Adam Smith. I met Adam Smith when we were working together at one of the big consulting firms, and there was something about him I just liked. I think it was because, like me, he's not terribly corporate. He doesn't necessarily fit in in a great big design firm. Where he does fit in
is serving his customers like an artist. And I think in an age of AI, there's so much sameness out there that everything we look at is starting to look the same. And so what I respect about what Adam does is the integrity with which he treats the practice and his clients. And most importantly, he's an entrepreneur like me, and so I appreciate and respect the way he's been able to dig in and survive through
ups and downs. And I wanna hear all about what's happened since we last saw him back in probably 2020 or 2021. I'm really happy that his firm, Tension, has just passed its 4th year milestone. That's a huge achievement. So please welcome Adam Smith. Adam, how are you? I'm great. Thank you. How are you? I'm wonderful. It's nice to see you. You as well. Always. So first of all, congratulations on 4 years. That's a huge accomplishment. Thank you.
And I'm curious, how has it been? Has it been everything that you expected? Been nothing I expected. Really? Yeah. You know, I I I think in the beginning, it was it was just all wonderful. And, you know, we had some really good traction. Things were going really, really well. And I we hit some obstacles as pretty much every start up or or organization does. And you I can look back, and at the time, I was pretty
negative about it. But in retrospect, I think it was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to Tension because it forced us to take a real hard, long look at what we do and how we do it. And a few things changed. Obviously, we we optimized processes. We figured out how to do things better and faster and more efficiently. But what what's more important are the things that didn't change. And that is, as you said and
mentioned, thank you very much. I'm I'm honored that you mentioned that, but it's our dedication to what we do. It's our love for what we do, and it's the care and painstaking detail that we put into the work that we do because we love it. We love the work. It is art to us and we love making our clients successful. I mean, that's why we're here. At the time, it was a lot. But in retrospect, it it it to be honest, it was everything,
and reinforced why I started the company in the first place. Now you mentioned that when things were tough, that you're a little bit negative about it. What what does that mean, and what do you think you learned from it? You said that it was probably the best thing that ever happened to you. What was the big lesson? It made me take a really introspective look at myself, why I started this thing, why I still want to do it
in the face of everything that we were looking at. And then it my desire to keep tension going and to do the work that we do and and to do it even better than we did before never wavered. The the roadblocks, the walls that were put in front of us, yeah, they got they got bigger. But even even when things felt dark, it was it was never a question of whether we continued. It was about how do we get to a point where we can continue. Which is usually a sign that the work is embossed in
your soul in the sense that it doesn't matter how hard the surfing is. I'm going out every day Yep. And I'm gonna ride. And my question well, you know what a good logical question is to ask here is, what does tension do? Who do you do it for? And why would someone choose Tension? Great questions. So first, we are an experience and design agency and user experience, visual design, interface design. But, really, what we do is more strategy and more getting to the
root of the real problems. Everything else sort of falls into place during that period of a year ago. I came to the realization that there are times now where I find it difficult to start work unless we have gone extremely deep into understanding who our clients are, who their customers are, what their objectives are, and how they want to achieve it. And I for a period, I was thinking back. I was like, you know, when I was when I was younger, just getting started, I could
just open up a document and start designing. At first, I was like, I wish I could just do that again. And then I realized that, no, I can't because now I know what I didn't know then. I know now that if I just try to open something up and start designing without understanding the context, understanding the subtleties of the business or the, of the market, of the product or service we're working on, and the brand and personality of the company we're
working with. I'm gonna do it not as well as I want to and not as well as our customers deserve. So when it all comes down to it, that's what we do. We we we dig in. You know? We have we have this 5 week engagement. Right? And it is an intensive deep dive into our customers, what their needs are, what their problems are, how we should solution them, so on and so forth. Very involved with the clients. It's very interactive, very
collaborative. And oftentimes, we'll walk our customers through what's going to happen. And they're like, yeah. Sounds great. 2 weeks in, they're like, why do you need to know this? And I'm like, well, just bear with us. Yeah? We get to the end of the week, the end of the 5 weeks, and it's just like a light bulb goes off, and it happens every single time. Our clients are like, now I understand why we did all this. Now I understand why you needed to know these things.
Because for us to help create an experience around your business and your product or service, we need to understand your business and product and service as well, hopefully, as as, you know, many of you do, at our clients. Probably not to the granular detail that they do, but we have to get pretty close. Because if we're gonna work on behalf of our clients, and that's what we are, we're we're we're design servants to our clients, right, and extensions of of them with
design expertise. If we're not there with them and understanding as much as they do, then we're not we're not able to deliver it at the level that they need it to be delivered. Right. And in agile, we struggle with this stuff because we've been taught that there should be no upfront planning. There should be no upfront documentation. K. And yet, what are we what are we what spec are we building on if we don't understand these things about a customer? Now not to say that we should spend 6
months planning something before we start building it. But nonetheless, one of the things that agile people don't get quite frequently is what is the business? Who is the customer? What are they what are their desires? What do they fear? What what is it that they want when they experience our product? Some people want nostalgia. Some people want realism or authenticity. Some people want a certain tactileness. Some people want pure simplicity. Just give me one
knob, one button. And it really depends on the context of the customer, what they're doing, who they trust, why they trust it or don't. Like, there's so many questions to answer around understanding the customer that makes future decisions so much easier, and I think most people miss that.
Let me ask you this. How's your business changed since you started it 4 years ago given global pandemic, recession, all different kinds of war breaking out all over the world, layoffs, you know, economic trouble and pressure and inflation. All of these things change the nature of our business. How does it affect not just your business, but what you do? And don't forget by the way, don't forget AI. Probably the biggest single change. We can leave that last one to its own topic.
But I'll be honest. The pandemic never really had much of an impact in terms of change for us because we started the company 1 week before lockdowns. We've always operated in a remote model with our clients. I think that the economic uncertainty over the last year, probably the wars as well, have led to a little bit of less consumer confidence with our customers. Now with the market in general, to be quite honest, everybody was sort of consciously
prepping for a recession. And a recession that, for the most of the country, actually never really happened. It didn't really impact us too, too much in that respect. Most of the changes that have come to us over the last 12 months or so was a re restructuring of the founders of the company. My, my ex founder left in February of 2023, and we had a bit of a a change in how we wanted to to grow and how we wanted
our team makeup to look after that. We've brought in pretty senior people in in in the time since then that, has really helped us and, frankly, me be able to offer better services and, you know, sometimes sleep well at night. I have a question for you about the name of your company. Tension is such a great word. Yes. In storytelling, which is something that I talk a lot about now and in communication, tension refers to the distance
between where you are and where you wanna go. It refers to the constantly changing landscape of getting where you're trying to be. Okay. And it's what makes a story tick. Yep. If there's no tension, there's no roller coaster ride. It's like having a track that's completely flat. The tension is the hills and the anticipation that's released when gravity takes over and you start heading downhill, which is the fun part. It's the thrill part. It's the uncertainty. What
does tension mean? Why did you choose that name for your business? There's a number of reasons behind it. The most important is, with what we do and and what we do in experience design, with what we do and and what we do in experience design, there's often a push pull between multiple parties or or 2 opposing objectives or two sides of the same coin from, for example, customers, business. The tension between those, it's not about one winning. It's not about one yanking the other.
It's about finding that perfect balance that creates the tension between the 2 in the same way that the three points of a sail creates the tension, against the wind and pushes the boat forward. Mhmm. So that is a that is
a huge thing. There's also we are generally multidisciplinary here at Tension and the needs and objectives of so many of what we do, whether it be developer partners that we're working with or marketers or brand strategists or product owners, designers, UX designers, researchers. We all kinda need to know the same thing, and we all
need to start from the same place. What we do with that information is slightly different, but it's finding that tension between those multiple perspectives that allows us to create a single vision that works and is going to drive the ball forward and everyone can work together towards. When I think about like the researcher the research that a marketer would do
upfront, it's very similar to research that we would do. And it also factors into everything that we do, whether it be a click or an interaction or an animation. So there is definitely that tension. There's also a tongue in cheek reference to things like working with me being tense. Is that true? It can be. It can be. Yeah. I'm a I'm a little bit dogged when I believe in something. And I'll push and fight for what I think is right for the business and and for
our clients and and their clients. That's an interesting point because I was about to ask you, why does user experience or experience design matter? Because a lot of people would say, look. You know, I can get chat gpt to generate an interface. And I can get Canva to make me a design. Like, these things are so pedestrian. Why would you write a book with a pen when a word processor is right in front of you make it so much faster?
Why does this why does this still matter? I think the word processor processor to pen, analogy is is really fitting. There's a tactile nature to user experience in, in the same way there is, a feeling the, the, the ball or a ballpoint pen roll over nice paper. Right? Can you create user experience? Can you create visual design through AI? Sure. Sure you can. But is it going to embody the personality? Is it going to embody the brand? Is it going to give the user and hold their hand when you know
they particularly need to have their hands held? Not necessarily. There is so much more to it. And as you inferred right at the beginning, there it's an art and it's very much a unique expression, balancing the the customer, balancing the business, and baling balancing the objectives of the application. What you get with AI is a facsimile of the most popular other ideas that are already out there. Right. So it's it it it's very much an echo chamber. Mhmm.
And if if that's all that you wanna do, like, you wanna copy Uber or copy some kind of an application, Probably gonna be enough. Sure. Is it going to make your customers or your users feel loved and appreciated? No. No. Right. And so so here's a question for you. I think what I'm really getting at because this is the essence of you is that you're creative. And I think in 2024 and beyond, creativity is gonna become more important than it ever has been. And here's why.
Here's a perfect example. When you go on YouTube, every video thumbnail, every what they call a cover is the same thing. It's the owner of the channel with their mouth hanging open in some sort of mock, shock, and surprise gesture pointing at something on the screen, usually the title or a device or the thing that they're unwrapping or trying to sell. And that's what catches attention and makes people think, well, this is a glossy video. This
is a professional. I should pay attention to this. But when all of the videos look the same way, aren't we lying to everybody? Aren't we just creating noise like so much stuff, so much so much,
signal and nothing really stands out. And I think to me, the word tension means in this aspect, creativity going against the grain, doing not what others are doing because we know it's scientifically tested to attract attention, but rather doing what we believe is our truest and most authentic expression because that's what describes the brand accurately. It's honest. It's authentic. And it may not be faster, better, or cheaper Okay. To get what we're trying to do done, but it's more right.
And I think in 2024, people want more right. What what's your opinion on that? Yes. That's my opinion. That is that is my philosophy described probably better than I've ever thought about it myself. It's about doing the right thing for regardless of what's popular, regardless of what's standard or the way things are normally done. None of those things really factor in for me because when you
operate and I'll I'll jump back to, like, really understanding your clients. When you look deeply at the problems that are actually being faced, and you look at them holistically and understand the audience that are facing those problems, It's really difficult to just take an off the shelf solution and and try to make it work. What you're going to do in that scenario generally is via ripple effect, create more problems. So for me,
it's it's never been about faster. It's never been about hypergrowth, at least for me or for, the organization, my organization. It's about doing what's right. And when you believe what you're doing is right, oof, it's hard to get off that train. Is that what's kept you going for the past 4 years? Is that, like, at this point, if someone said to you, you know, the entrepreneurship thing, it's not paying off real big. Why don't you go back to the kind of job you used
to have? Working for someone else's agency, working working in a shop, working as part of a consulting business. Would you be able to go, I mean, it's not perfect, but sure. It's work. Or is it like, I can't like, dude, I can't. I I I I've spent the better part of my career significant better part of my career, independent. Mhmm. And it it allows us a freedom with our customers that you just don't get in other models. We work with
them directly. Like, we we we talk to them directly. We talk to their customers. We can influence them and work with them to help them understand the implications and ramifications of their business. It's far more than what anyone who would hire someone as a user experience designer or, interface designer would allow the, audacity to try to solve, you know, and and we get to work on bigger, deeper
things about this way. You know, I I was just thinking, and having a conversation with one of my employees today that he's he's been exposed to a way of working with customers that is just unnatural for a lot of user experience folks. And the expectation of how our ideas are received by our clients is is relatively unnatural, and and,
hopefully, he never leaves. But if he does, he's in for kind of a rude awakening, at the next place Jim goes because we we work with such a level of trust with our customers that in the same way that in those first 5 weeks in the middle, they're like, I don't know what's going on, but
let's see what happens. Once we've gotten past that, once we get into prototyping and testing and validating and and, they can see how our work is being shaped by the voices of their customers and their own internal processes and how that sort of molding and, like, evolving into a product. That level of trust there is really, really powerful. And to be honest, I think we have we have probably some of the best customers ever, but I think we've also manufactured them through our process. Yeah.
How how so? Explain that. Oh, so because of your process. You know, I, I'm about as transparent and candid as you get. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I, I try to make our our work environment enjoyable. I try I try to make our engagements enjoyable. We have candor. We have an openness. There's always an open ear, for our customers. Everything that they have concerns with, we'll we welcome.
We address it as best as possible, and and we create this environment where we are just essentially, like, extensions of them. And we show that with our deep interest in how they work, how their customers work. You know, oftentimes, we'll we'll be in situations and I'm when I say often, I mean, like, 80, 90% of the the time, we're talking to our clients, telling them what their customers are going through and they don't know.
They don't know. It's and it's not that they don't talk to their customers. They do. It's just the questions that we ask, the scenarios we put those customers in, just things come out. And we become like, when I say we're an extension, it very much so is, and that's a really sweet spot to be in. And they can see that we're working diligently and and with with a level of passion and care for their business. So those things combined really creates symbiotic, but it it it's it's very
much a relationship based on trust. You know what it sounds like? We were speaking about tension before and the concept of a roller coaster. So think about one of those modern roller coasters where it's usually just like one, it's like one beam. You know, it's not a set of tracks. It's one beam. And the car has wheels wrapped around that railing. And it's very secure and it's very smooth, but it's almost like saying, okay. Forget the car. I want you to ride the ride on your bike.
You know what I mean? It's the exact same ride but there's no rails. And so all of the tension now comes from the fact that it's up to you to stabilize and balance on that ride. So the freedom that you describe, Agilists will understand this natively. Many Agilists love their process. You said you had a process. I'm gonna bet. If I saw your process, it's a heck of a lot less prescriptive than even a modern Agile process, much less a project management process.
And so the freedom in having a process that's lightweight, meaning we can make our own decisions, we're free to suggest what we want, we don't have to follow anything rigorous, and we certainly don't have to get approval from the big boss to recommend what we think is best for our client, means that the whole terrain is unknown. Unless you're being asked to repeat something, it's like that thing that you did for, you know, Downey. Can you do that for us too?
Unless you're dealing with highly repetitive work, which you're not. Everything is a blank slate. Everything is adventure. Everything is risk. And the biggest challenge we have as Agilist is convincing other people on the team, other people in the organization or the leaders, the people who are paying for our services to just trust that process. And that failure and cocreation and collaboration is what's gonna drive us to a desirable outcome. Would you say
that's true for your organization? And the second part of that question is that the future of work, would we be better off with less process? Because we're not we're not running jig saws and band saws. I'm not worrying about you cutting your thumb off here. It's just a question of you make a drawing and the client doesn't like it. It's not the same kind of risk. Should the future of work be more free in your opinion? It has to be. For people to be creatives, you
need that freedom. You need that risk. You need that fear. And I don't mean, like, a deep seated, like, sitting in the corner shaking fear, but the the unknown is one hell of a motivator. And whether you whether you choose to make it known or avoid it is up to you. But those with the freedom to explore, to investigate, to play within a problem space, and a willingness and desire to make the unknown known, yes. That is absolutely the future of work. It has to
be. And I don't I don't particularly mean somebody who's traditionally considered a creative. Solutioning in anything is an act of creativity. And as long as you're working to solve real problems, then solutioning is pretty important regardless of how Mhmm. How you how you implement, whether you're an accountant, developer, or a designer, really. Maybe creative accounting. Let's let's strike that from the record. Sure. But I think everyone everyone has the opportunity to be creative.
It is kinda scary because with creativity comes paramount accountability. Mhmm. It is on you, You know? But we've create and and in corporate, we've created a world where it's easier and safer to not be creative because it's easier and safer to not put your neck on the line and throw an idea out there because it's because it can be wrong. I love being wrong. I literally love being wrong There you go. Because it allows me to figure out where I need to fix it. Our entire process is, like, exposed.
It's it's right out there in front of our clients. They're watching as we go. We're building. We're changing. We're learning what wasn't right. And there's no let me explain it this way. The first thing we ever do with our clients when we're talking about an experience, once we figured out what the real problems we should be solving are, what those solutions should be, first thing we do is we hand them a paper sketch because I could care less if
I crumpled up a paper sketch and throw it away. There's no ownership. Exactly. None. Am I accountable for that idea? Yes. Is it wrong? Yes. Yeah. A lot of times compared to final outcomes, yeah, it is. Mhmm. Can you can you tell that it's a couple generations before that evolution? Yeah. Absolutely. But we're okay with that. Being okay with being wrong is is absolutely critical, and it's part of our process. In fact, being wrong as early as possible really defines our entire
design process. Right. There's there's no pride. There's no pomp and circumstance to it. There really isn't. Right. What would you say then is the most important quality that you need when you're working with someone, I e, an employee Mhmm. Or a partner in the organization? When you're working on a team, what is the most important quality they need to have, and what is the most important quality that a client
needs to have? Great questions. So an employee needs to be able to to draw upon the experience that they have, but but be instantly willing to drop what they've learned in order to learn something new or apply it in a different way. Oftentimes, you know, it's like, well, this is the way it's done. We're gonna do it this way. It doesn't. It doesn't. Obviously, the the years of experience that a
practitioner brings to the table is tremendously important. What I like to think about the way I like to think about it and the way I I I I like to to communicate it to my team is it's like you know, those those engineering animations where they'll take a object and then they'll blow it out and then you'll see all the little pieces. I like to do that. Like, that's that's the way I think our our operation works. My brain works for sure this way. I'll take it apart
and I'll take something else apart. I'll take a piece from over here and a piece from over here and a piece from over here, remix it, and hit it back to you. It's it's being able to take the ideas and notions and extract them from the structure from which they existed previously to create something new and a new structure around it, and be absolutely comfortable with putting it out there. And as I said, being wrong have to be wrong first. So that's interesting. I call that the concept
of novelty plus, familiarity. So in all studies of virality or memorable, what's the word I'm looking for, memorability? That's probably probably not the right word. But things that stand out in our memory are generally something that's comfortable enough for us to accept it and embrace it without too much resistance, but novel enough to, again, create a bit of tension. Because
tension creates attention. And so you're basically saying the same thing that if we're if you're making a Super Bowl ad this year, you don't want to make something so crazy that nobody can relate to it. But you want to make it different enough that it doesn't resemble last year's winner because that's not what clients are paying you for. They're paying for you to get that one piece of attention in a 32nd spot that never comes again.
And so for your work to be memorable, I can understand why people need to be free to take some risk to find those edges. I always say it's like a pizza dough. When you pull on a pizza dough at first, it goes back to where it wants to be. But eventually, you keep tugging in all of the edges and it becomes a crust, not a ball of dough. So the second question was, what do you need your customers to embrace? Who do they need to be to work well with you? Open minded, for 1.
Passionate about their own business and their customer. We can't be sec we we can't be successful if they're not. Like, we just can't. You know, I don't think there's many things that that that I can speak to about our clients in terms of their market or their industry or or their technology. None of that matters. It's a culture thing. And a a willingness to to be open to to new ways of approaching
things. And, you know, hopefully it's not something that's crazy out there because generally as a rule, if it feels crazy and out there and unfamiliar, to your point, we're not gonna we're not hit hitting the mark. But sometimes you gotta go there and then pull it back a little bit. Right? It depends on the client and the situation. But I really think it's about openness and and willingness to learn. And and, again, willingness to be not necessarily the
authority on all things. Oh, yeah? Yes. We have most of our clients know their their work and what they do way better than we do. What we can do is bring that lens with the same level of of rigor to their customers and find the balance between them. Because ultimately, what you're doing is creating relationships with the customer. Right? You're not doing this for the people that you work for. You're doing this for the people who buy things from the people that you work for. I had
a question for you. Do do those characteristics that you just described, would you call them courage? Because I'm fascinated with the notion of courage. Because you meet people in large organizations, and they're like, we're not usually trusted with that decision. We're not we're not sure this is the right move. We're not comfortable with being wrong sometimes. And so all of this is new, and change requires courage
to fully embrace and adopt. Would you say that's true? I'm just trying to think because generally, I I I think of it as belief. Belief in self, belief in the idea, belief in outcomes. Mhmm. But courage is yeah. I mean, I feels weird. Yeah. I'm a courageous person, but I would imagine that courage is an absolute requirement to have steadfast belief in something. True. Very true. Here's a question that I have for you. You mentioned something before that I wanna shine a light
on. That is all solutions are creativity. I believe when we make things, they're almost birthed onto the world, and now they're here. And now they're undeniable, and they're irreversible. And those things have the potential to create ripples. We satisfy a customer. We create an experience that connects with them emotionally, either through nostalgia or a feeling of being cared for, being part of something special. Any of those things
can happen because of a solution. And I also think that one of the ripples that we create is the culture that we change, whether it's for our clients, for ourselves, for the community. And I don't know if you see yourself this way, but I do. I see you as doing something that's radically different than what most people do. It could be because you're small, because you're nimble, because you're hungry, because you're new, because or it could
be because of you. And I know you would never take all the credit for something like this, but I still want I still want to assign it. And I still want to say that a big chunk of why I like talking to you so often is because you're that creative person. You understand the impact of what you make. And so I want your thoughts on that. Is that something that drives you? Is that something that you're
able to see in what you're building? Yes. Sometimes resulting in an absolute disregard for everything. But, yes, I I I don't I don't see myself that way. I I I don't I know that I do things a little differently, but I don't really know what's going on inside the heads of anyone else. So I I I don't truly know how they think and how they operate. For me, there is no other way. This is this is
it. And Yeah. It's the one defining factor that that is consistent in everything that we do, and has been consistent with everything that I've done for the last 25 some odd years. Mhmm. You know, it it's it's going in and and just being stubborn about finding the right thing. Yeah. Most rule breakers and hell raisers would say the same thing. I'm just being me. I don't see myself as a pioneer. I don't see myself as anything special. I'm just being
me. But that insistence, and you mentioned this earlier too, your insistence on doing it in the way that you feel is right is nonnegotiable. Like, there's just no going back to what I did before because I didn't belong there. I'm not a rule worshiper. I'm not a rule follower. I'm not a template stamper. And so I think that's a big part of what makes tension so
interesting. And one of the cool things that you're doing, by the way, that people need to know about is that you actually, in celebration of your 4th anniversary, ran a sort of contest. Can you tell us about that? So in celebration of the of surviving 4 years, we're actually giving one selected company in either the spatial computing space or the AI space, a complete product strategy through dev ready design engagement at absolutely no cost. My my employees told
me I was crazy. And, yeah, it is a little crazy. Yeah. But we've had some really, really outstanding clients. Not like we need to find something that's fun to work on. We're like, everything that we work on is fun. But we've built this company thanks to startups. And that's not to say we don't have large enterprise clients. We love them too. But our company exists because of startups. And something that I've always wanted to figure out is how do we get
what we do in the hands of more start ups as early as possible. And this is a this is a great way to do it and to give back to the community that allowed us to be here today. Maybe by the time, this airs, we'll have results and we'll be able to share that. But, yeah, it's, it's we've got some really interesting stuff
coming in. That is very exciting, and I'm sure it's a fun way to get the word out and get people who otherwise wouldn't encounter you in front of you and to choose a challenge that's maybe unique and something you've never done before. Congratulations on that. Congratulations on the 4 years. Where can people find you? I want people to know about Tension and where's the best what's the best way to engage with you? LinkedIn, obviously. Tension Consulting Inc. Obviously, our website,
wearetension.com. So we are Tension is my, my son's URL choice. Uh-huh. Decide to run with it. Anything from there, always works. LinkedIn is all I'm I'm always on that. Direct email through the website always goes straight to me. So When I interview you next, because we know we're going to, where do you let's say that's 2 years from now. Where do you think you'll be? Maybe a a larger team by a bit. I'm not here for hyper growth. I'm not about multiple locations and trying to franchise this. I
just wanna work on cool projects, man. I just wanna do good things for good companies. Dude, that is awesome. But that's why I think that's why what you're doing is working because your reason is good as they say. My friend, it's so great to talk to you. I enjoy all of our conversations, as I said, and I love having you on the air. And I hope that more people get to know you because of this show.
And I look forward to the next time we get to talk. In the meantime, everything about Adam is gonna be in the show notes below so that you can check him out. And please do because he's doing fantastic work that in in our modern age, I think runs the risk of being bypassed. We think that design, intentional design, and focus on the customer is a luxury when really it's the reason for being here. And I think Adam is someone who gets that, and I think that's why he's doing so well.
So not only can Agilist learn from this, entrepreneurs can learn from a fellow entrepreneur who's done it and has done it, as Frank Sinatra used to say, doing it my way. And I really dig that. So thank you, my friend, for being on the show. Always. Great to talk. Well, there he is, my old friend, Adam Smith. If you're in the market for some expert UI UX services, do me a favor. The very least go check him out at weartension.com. Follow what he
does. He's an artist and I really respect his work and he's got great insights into modern delivery that any Agilist could learn from. And that's about it for this week. As for me, you can check out my products and services at learning.fusechamber.com. We've got some great discounts happening right now on the forge cohort 8 starting in June 2024. Reach out to find about some special discounts and some volume pricing if you wanna bring a few people from your
company. I'll be back next week with some new stuff, so make sure you stay tuned. And until then, thank you for listening and stay badass.