High-Tech Redneck James Hatfield

Steve Doyle (: 00:00

Welcome back everyone to this episode of Bluecaller BS here with my cohost Brad the man Herda. How you doing today, Brad the man.

Brad Herda (: 00:09

You are you are an ass. I'll just go with that.

Steve Doyle (: 00:13

HAHAHAHA

You know

Brad Herda (: 00:17

I will go with that. You've had too many energy drinks this morning.

Steve Doyle (: 00:21

Too many. Yeah, the total of zero today. Zero. This is all natural. Number one, number one today.

Brad Herda (: 00:25

Perfect, so this is all natural. This is great. We're to turn this. Yes, you are number one. So thank you for that warm introduction Mr Doyle. I appreciate that.

Steve Doyle (: 00:35

Yeah, you know, I figured, let's let's just do something a little different today. You know, it's, it's kind of a gloomy day here. So let's kind of liven things up. It was not not at all. So so so Brad, who do we have on the show today?

Brad Herda (: 00:44

All right. And you did. Thank you. That was not part of the rehearsal process. All right.

Brad Herda (: 00:54

this show is not just a show. This show is an event. We are, we have an opportunity to speak to one of the individuals of the family members of the longest running feud in us history here. and we have Mr. James Hatfield who is part of that Hatfield McCoy, legacy battle, James. So his bio here, chief revenue officer at live switch, instrumental and driving company success, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Steve Doyle (: 00:59

Woo!

Steve Doyle (: 01:14

Wow.

Brad Herda (: 01:22

But what I found out in my introduction previously is he's one cool dude and all this other stuff that he does is just stuff for passion and driving energy to create a blue car world that is suitable for all generations. So Mr. James Hatfield, welcome to the show.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 01:40

Brad, Steve, thank you for having me today. And yes, my great, great uncle is Devil Lance Hatfield. If you ever watch the History Channel with Kevin Costner, he's playing one of our fan members. He's the kind of good looking guy to do it. Usually they just don't pick the good looking guys out. know, they just bring the same in Joes, you know, and that's more accurate actually. We're not very good looking.

Steve Doyle (: 01:55

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 02:00

that's...

Brad Herda (: 02:01

Hey, you got a face for a podcast. That's good. It's perfect. worked out. It worked out well for us. It's all good.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 02:03

My momma says I look good.

Steve Doyle (: 02:04

Yeah.

Hey James, before we get too much into the show, I always forget to ask this question sometimes. Which generation do you identify fit in with?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 02:17

Well, I don't know if I identify with anything because I'm straight out of the mountains, but I'll take millennials because that's the badge they give me, you know, but.

Steve Doyle (: 02:23

Hahaha!

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 02:27

I come by it honestly, you the age of when the Atari came out, you know, like, hey, that was a big deal, You know, yeah, getting the first Atari and Nintendo, that was like, wow, what is this? When the internet came, what is this voodoo magic?

Steve Doyle (: 02:33

It was. It was. a couple of them.

Brad Herda (: 02:43

Right. So, so the one thing that you made in our initial introduction, James, that just like I believe you called yourself the redneck tech.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 02:57

High-tech redneck man. That's right. That's it. That's it.

Brad Herda (: 02:58

High tech redneck, that's what it was. How did you get started on your technology path and get to Live Switch?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 03:08

Yeah, well, I certainly wasn't born into it. I was born into blue collar. You know, my grandfather never graduated high school because his dad died and ended up working at tire shop. And then my dad built his own home. His dad died early. I don't really like that theme. Like I've got a bunch of kids. They probably want their dad to stick around. But the theme of dads dying young and leaving their sons to, you know, work hard. And that's, where I came from. I mean, my grandfather wanted me to paint lines on the highway. That was his big dream for me. He's like, you paint lines on the highway. You have made it, my man.

Brad Herda (: 03:23

That would be helpful.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 03:37

And I'm like, all right, grandpa, that's what I'm gonna do. And I was like, well, maybe I'll try to go to college because I like college football. I went to University of Washington, Seattle and then NC State. We had some good years, man. Phillip Rivers years when I was there. my goodness. We never been to the US. But I ended up getting into, I think I mentioned it, the age of Atari, the Nintendo came out, the millennials, right? I got interested in technology. I just was like, wow, this internet thing is crazy. You remember when it made all the beep boop?

Steve Doyle (: 03:38

you

Steve Doyle (: 03:52

Alright.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 04:06

you're like connected. like, what is this magic? yeah, absolutely. But I loved every second of it. Watching the internet come in like a fax machine. Remember that? That's what it is.

Steve Doyle (: 04:07

yeah.

Brad Herda (: 04:11

You were probably about eight at the time when that happened, but that's okay.

Steve Doyle (: 04:23

Yeah.

I do. do. Brad might not, you know, he's getting that age where he may not remember those types of things anymore. That's all good.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 04:28

matching.

Brad Herda (: 04:35

Wow. Wow. Who's my co-host? James? What's his name? James? James Head? What?

Steve Doyle (: 04:40

You

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 04:42

All I know is ignorance is bliss, and more I forget, the better.

Steve Doyle (: 04:48

you

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 04:49

Well, that's a wrap. It's been fun.

Steve Doyle (: 04:51

man. So tell us a little bit more about what's kind of going on at Live Switch for you.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 04:56

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (05:05.316)

Yeah. So, well, I guess let me rewind the clock because this is how we got into it is myself and one of my partners, he ran a landscaping company. I ran a painting and power washing company. I mean, that's what we did. We're both kind of blue collar boys. And then we ended up building a financial technology company somehow. I like numbers a lot. I like numbers a whole lot. And we ended up taking a very small

Steve Doyle (: 05:17

Mm-hmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 05:31

incubator company to Inc 500 Beyond and it's a multi-billion dollar company. Believe it or not, we actually built something and then we got into philanthropy and we decided, hey, we're not done yet. So we purchased this company four years ago. And of course, if you're going to give a technology company, in this case, a live video company, you're going to give that to some blue collar fellas. We're going to make blue collar tools. That's just what we did. And I can take you down the journey, but yeah, I love it. mean,

Steve Doyle (: 05:55

Yep.

Brad Herda (: 05:56

Right, we're gonna garage this thing up.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 06:00

I remember going door to door, knocking on doors, getting jobs for my guys to work for my painting company back in the day. I mean, that's how you did it. Or somebody got the phone book out and called you in the Yellow Pages. People still use this crazy thing called a telephone, you know, and drive out in the truck and bid the job and send the guys out there and do the job. so Live Switch has a way to stop hopping in the truck. You know, save a tank of gas and

Steve Doyle (: 06:29

Mm-hmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 06:29

You know, as much as we like to think our award winning personality closes all the deals. I'm like, no, doesn't. You know, no, doesn't. You're not you're not you're not Oprah. You know what I mean? Like you're not winning them with your award winning personality. I mean, come on, man. That's that's not that's not it. Like the average homeowner, which is all of us, I think, you know, if we got a leak in the faucet or if I need to tag on, you know, gutters fixed or whatever needs to happen, I just want to know how much is it going to be? When can you do it and how fast can you get here? Right.

Steve Doyle (: 06:36

You

Steve Doyle (: 06:59

Pretty much.

Brad Herda (: 07:00

pretty much sums it up.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 07:00

and do you have an award-winning personality? No. I need to shake your hand.

Steve Doyle (: 07:04

Yep.

Brad Herda (: 07:05

Hey, just so you know, James, you are on an award-winning podcast right now. Just so you know, we did win the 2024 Small Business Owner Communities Podcast of the Year. So you are part of award-winning crew, just so you know. Not our personalities, the show. Just so you know.

Steve Doyle (: 07:11

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 07:20

Mm-hmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 07:20

Hey, I like it. This show. And you actually earned it. Unlike today, everybody gets a trophy. But back then when we were in sports, you didn't get a trophy unless you won the dang thing. Hopefully it's because you won the dang thing and not because you participated in.

Steve Doyle (: 07:23

the show.

Steve Doyle (: 07:28

That's right.

Brad Herda (: 07:35

Yes, yes, at least four people voted yes.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 07:38

I know.

Steve Doyle (: 07:39

the

Brad Herda (: 07:45

panel of six apparently so for it got past the.

Steve Doyle (: 07:49

man.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 07:53

I don't even know how to transition from that, but I'm telling you, award winning personality is not needed. Now you need to be a nice person, but I'm sure we've all booked work from someone we didn't really like that much, but they did a great job. You know, it was worth the money. We didn't hang out and go on three dates afterwards either. They just showed up, did the work and left. know, I mean, that's there's nothing wrong with that, you know, but what we're seeing, you know,

Steve Doyle (: 07:53

man.

Steve Doyle (: 07:56

you

Brad Herda (: 08:09

Correct.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 08:21

Remember the next tell walkie talkies guys, did you guys have those? That was like the thing you have made it if you had that boo boo or you're in the restaurant, you know, in the diner in the morning and you're getting the you got the thing on the dinner on the dining table. was the thing. Well, I believe this thing is the next tell walkie talkie. I remember, you know, just like coming up with this stuff. Okay, you can't make this stuff up. So I run product for our company I did for a while and now I'm helping out with the revenue side but

Steve Doyle (: 08:24

yeah.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 08:52

We got the chance to reinvent the 911 telephone call with the chief of police in Washington, DC. That's where this thing came from. And you know, the worst part of your phone, it's ironic, isn't it? Is the phone. Like everything else is great, but the phone's like, it dropped. Can you hear me now? Well, it's on telephony. It's like basically a fax machine and it's terrible. You know, it doesn't work that great. And so in the future, and I hope you guys never have to experience it, you'll get a text message and you'll tap it and you'll just point your

Steve Doyle (: 09:01

What?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 09:21

Smartphone at the situation and that video feed from your phone will go right to the police car fire truck or emergency medical So can see what they're driving into it's called situational awareness All right, and so We're still government takes forever. I know shocker. All right, but we were like We got the dodging maybe we'll go a little faster

Brad Herda (: 09:38

No, no, we got the dodge thing going on now. It'll go much faster.

Steve Doyle (: 09:41

Wow, we're gonna make this political show. All right, I'm in. I'm in. I think we might get a pickup now.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 09:45

Hey, we just lost all the listeners. Where'd they go?

Brad Herda (: 09:51

You

Brad Herda (: 09:55

It's going to go faster, James. We got Dodge now.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 09:55

Steve Doyle (09:57.976)

Who is it?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 09:58

It's all right. It's all right. But you know, I was like, who else could use this thing? Because you know, just things take forever unless you know, we get the speed demon coming. So of course, I start knocking on doors. And I meet this guy who takes care of the Nashville, Tennessee Titans, the NFL football team. This guy is in 20 years in the FBI. And I'm showing him our emergency response system. He's like, Hey, man, that's all well and good.

Steve Doyle (: 10:06

Mm-hmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 10:27

I like it a lot, but he's like, got the stupidest question. I'm like, what? He's like, can I just text my guy across the arena when the trash cans fall over and he can show me so I don't have to hop in my golf cart? Cause that would help me out a lot. And that was the aha. was like, absolutely. You can do that. That reminded me of the next Milwaukee talkie that I was talking about. That's when we started approaching home services. Like you got to check this out. So.

Steve Doyle (: 10:44

Mmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 10:56

I get in front of this guy, a moving company. He's a serious guy. He's with it. He's running these conferences and I'm showing him everything and he runs this moving company. He's like, you have no idea what you got. I'm like, what do mean you have no idea? He's like, you know how we're going to use this? He's like, I'm going to use this where I can text my prospect and they can just walk me around the house and show me what my team needs to move and I'll give them a quote. And he was right.

Steve Doyle (: 11:26

Mm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 11:26

He was right. have hundreds of movers all over the world now using this every single day. And it's blown me away. But it's like one of those things you kind of stumble into, you're like, I kind of knew this would help. then, you know, if you listen well enough, someone else gives you the answer to the test. I mean, I always had to get the answer to the test. You know, I don't know, Brad or Steve, if you guys were looking at other people's desk when you were growing up or just putting CCCC as the answer and everything.

Brad Herda (: 11:50

Usually it was, well, I had to fill in the circles, right? So you'd kind of go back and forth and try to follow the pattern and see what's there and go, okay, I don't know these. Hey, there's like four D's in a row. No, can't be, can't be five. So I got it. There's gotta be an ARB here somewhere.

Steve Doyle (: 12:02

Yep.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 12:06

That's it. I was always told the secret is if you don't know the answer, just circle C. That's your best guess. That's it. That was it.

Steve Doyle (: 12:11

Yep. Pretty much. Pretty much.

Brad Herda (: 12:17

Yeah, the demo that you did with me, James, was I was blown away by its ease of use and its simplicity and the user interface. So how have so how are you making it so that grandma, grandpa who aren't technology savvy, who might be remote, who need the service or work, they could be in a rural area. How are you making it so that that technology is

easily transferable and usable, I guess, because to me that would seem like a barrier to entry potentially.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 12:53

apps, it's a barrier to entry for anything. Right? Like the reason the phone actually works so well is because it rang and you just pick it up. You're like, pick it up. okay. And that's about it. That's about us humans. That's about all we can do. Don't give me a second step. I'm gonna forget. I got to hang it up now. That's okay. That's it. Right. So our whole goal was you got to make it so easy. It needs to be easy as a phone call or easier in a phone call and wait till I talk about some other magic we're doing. Right. So

Steve Doyle (: 13:10

Yeah.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 13:21

We knew the computer science under the hood was incredibly hard. We're only one of like four companies that do this. And when my engineers speak, I know they're speaking English, but I don't understand the word coming out their mouth. Like I think that's English. I don't know. But it's incredibly hard to connect two people point to point anywhere on the globe. And that's what we do with no apps. Cause no one, you know, it's not going to work. Hey, can you stop and download an app for the books that you're talking about, Brad?

Steve Doyle (: 13:32

Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 13:49

I hate that.

Steve Doyle (: 13:50

yeah.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 13:51

We need another app like we need another hole in the head, right? Like it doesn't need to happen. So we don't do apps like forget apps. It doesn't, it doesn't work. So if I'm, I mean, we take, we teach people how to use our stuff in less than a couple of minutes. If you can send a text, you can use our stuff. You literally just tap into the person's phone number and hit send. That's all you have to, that's what I do as a, the, the guy, if I'm running the painting company or the power washing company, I just put in your number and hit send. And then the person on the other end that

gets a text and all they have to do, Bradley, remember you just tap the text and then you connect. That's it. There's no. That's it.

Steve Doyle (: 14:29

Hmm.

Brad Herda (: 14:32

It was, it was very phenomenal. It was very, very interesting. think our, our listeners need to be able to find out more about that for home service folks. even, even inside a large manufacturing facility, I could see that being something of value, right? Like you talked about the guy at Titan stadium. Okay, great. I got to figure this out. Well, show me the problem before I, so I can deploy the right resources instead of.

Steve Doyle (: 14:33

Interesting.

Brad Herda (: 14:59

Somebody calls up and says, walks around, loses a half hour, go back and forth, get a cup of coffee, shoot the shit for 20 minutes, machines down. What's really the problem so we can go solve it. That's really cool.

Steve Doyle (: 15:11

Mm-hmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 15:12

Yeah, the problem we're trying to solve is everybody knows how to use a phone and talk, but I need to see sometimes because of, know, they say a picture is worth the, you know, a hundred word or whatever it is. Well, video is worth 10,000 words, right? To be able to see when you can't explain it, like especially in the emergency situation we're talking about, when you're compromised, like I'm in Asheville, North Carolina. We were doing river rescues a month ago down at the bottom of my hill, five minute walk, and we're pulling people out the river. But when you're compromised, I don't even know which way is up. So now you just.

Hit the text and hold the camera. You know, the same thing happens in a work situation when you're just talking to one of your other coworkers. Can you just show me what's going on? Save me a trip in the truck. Save windshield time. We had a fella who hangs TVs. He has a TV hanging business and he does speakers and all that. And he was so pumped for two reasons. One, he's like, James, I got a 90 year old to use it the other day. I was like, let's go.

Brad Herda (: 16:07

What's up?

Steve Doyle (: 16:08

That's that is great.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 16:10

They loved it. And they'll at the end, say, why isn't everybody doing this? Because now in the age of Amazon, my son started basketball this week. And hopefully you can't hear my dog barking. I'm sorry, guys. got a delivery guy at the door, the UPS guy. That's it. Well, he is howling. I'm telling you, he's howling out there. But anyway, hopefully it's flocking out. anyway, he's he's afterwards.

Brad Herda (: 16:21

It's all good. This is a real show. This is real people, real show, real life. It's all good.

Steve Doyle (: 16:22

I not good.

Steve Doyle (: 16:27

Yeah, it's all good.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 16:37

like people in the age of Amazon, like, why isn't everyone doing this? Like my son and I were starting basketball this week. And I was like, can you take them to the mall to go shoe shopping? And I was like, I can't think of a worst thing I would want to do on my Saturday, go to the mall. No way I want to go to the mall. How much are you going to pay me to go to the mall? So like, I felt like, okay, I got I probably got to do it. I got to be a good dad. But I was like, hey, let's just go into it. I looked I took it. I was like, give me your current shoe. I look inside the shoe. says

Steve Doyle (: 16:53

Right?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 17:06

six and a half in size. I was like, all right, he needs a seven now. We just go on to Amazon and I'm like, pick one. Boom. It was awesome.

Steve Doyle (: 17:13

You

Brad Herda (: 17:13

Man, you missed the two hour opportunity to spend time, one on one quality time. Have those conversations, build rapport.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 17:21

Well, you know what we did instead? We went in the driveway and we played basketball together. Because you know what's better than the mall? Playing basketball in the driveway with your boy.

Steve Doyle (: 17:24

There you go.

Steve Doyle (: 17:29

That's right. Fair enough.

Brad Herda (: 17:29

Fair enough. Alright, at least you did. At least you did something together, right? That's good. Many times it doesn't happen.

Steve Doyle (: 17:34

Fair enough.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 17:36

No, no, I just fall asleep on the couch and take a nap.

Brad Herda (: 17:39

Right. Exactly. Watch an NC State or something.

Steve Doyle (: 17:40

Yep. So James, for you from a adaption standpoint, thinking of the different generations and your tech, which generation have you seen adapt the tech the quickest?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 17:58

Definitely the younger generations, right? Because they grew up, I think when you're born now, they hand you a cell phone. I mean, think they went to the infant, they just give the infant a cell phone. Exactly. Right. And so what will end up happening is if I have an older generation who owns the company, and this has happened to me so many times, I can't even tell you, where they'll say, hey, James, we went from having to use your stuff whenever we had to to

Steve Doyle (: 18:03

Yeah, I think so, pretty much.

Brad Herda (: 18:06

It's right next to the birth certificate usually.

Steve Doyle (: 18:09

Unless you're my kids. And the answer is no.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 18:27

Now we're never driving out again. We only drive out whenever we have to because they get addicted to it. he's like, my whole staff likes it. And it just saves them time in the car. Like my guy who's hanging the TVs was like, he gets two hours back every day with his daughter because of our stuff. And he went from doing four bids a day to eight bids a day. I mean, if he was on the show, he's like, yeah, my top line, I can equate it right to when I started doing these, they're calling them virtual estimates. And that's just part of what we do, but it, it definitely is one of those things that adoption happens.

Steve Doyle (: 18:31

you

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 18:57

Always with the young, you know, when it comes to tech. then once the old guy who's on Facebook all the time now, I think my my kids, grandparents, you know, my parents are on Facebook more than I am now. I never get on the thing and they're always they're addicted to it. You know, my family was like, I don't want that cell phone thing to now. My dad's got the latest thing. I remember trying to get him on a Gmail. I like, there's you got to go to Gmail. But he's like, what is that? But what now?

Steve Doyle (: 19:19

Yep.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 19:25

He's amazing with it. It's one of those things that the harder it is to get in, it's the harder to get out. But once you get in, it's never coming out.

Steve Doyle (: 19:32

Right. Right.

Brad Herda (: 19:34

Yeah, I got the 911 emergency tech tech call from my dad on earlier this week of I can't can't get my Chromebook to work. like, OK, what do you do? I don't know. I'm in guest mode and I'll drive out there and I look and put in the password that we work through and said, here's what he said. Says it was changed four hours ago. Like, what did you change it to? I didn't change it. OK.

It tells me right here it was changed four hours ago.

Brad Herda (: 20:11

So, yes, he's not very tech savvy, but it's like, just care. If you care, you'll get through it, right? If you care to learn, you'll learn. Humans will adapt.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 20:22

Yeah. Yep. Well, because the majority of our customers have blue collars and it's a good thing. It's a great thing. Some of them don't want to adopt new apps, tech, whatever. So we knew that if we were going to have any fighting chance, this thing better be simple, not just for the user and the owner, but the prospect and the customer. And that's name of our game. Everyone's like, well, what are you putting all this or that? We're we're not. Once I make this more complicated and if I have my engineers over engineer it.

Steve Doyle (: 20:33

Mm-hmm.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 20:51

Guess what's going to happen? People are going to stop using it because it's only cool for engineers and the engineer has like engineers, my coders. I know you got soft hands, you know, you can type at 80. You got no calluses, but like you got to go. We try to actually try to take my coders to the, we send them to the business, the blue collar businesses. Like sit down and spend a day doing that. So you can actually see the people use your stuff. Watch them. You know,

Steve Doyle (: 20:55

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 21:03

You

Brad Herda (: 21:14

That's awesome.

Brad Herda (: 21:18

Right. Ask the question. Ask what would make a better user interface. What would make it simpler? What would make it not so clunky or cumbersome?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 21:29

Absolutely. And the nice thing is that my partner and I, both ran blue collar businesses. So we know what we like, you know? that's why we ended up where we're at. You know, we were just coming full circle back to being the high tech redneck.

Brad Herda (: 21:43

or what got you out of paint and power washing into financial services?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 21:47

I like numbers a lot. Like numbers just came easy to me. in high school way back in the day, I was the little freshman in a senior math class. I guess I was like academically gifted or whatever they call it. I would just math just came easy. Like I wouldn't have to study. I would never look at the book. And then when we took, you know, the standardized test, I get perfect scores. That's why McCoys hate me.

Brad Herda (: 22:08

This is why the McCoys hate you.

Steve Doyle (: 22:12

Hehehehehe

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 22:14

Because I can add two plus two.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 22:20

Yeah. So it was one of those things where like, I guess just because I had that brain, I got into college, you know, and then I put myself through college, working in a blue collar business while I was college. And then this guy I met, he went from doing landscaping to he was really good with numbers too. And what he did is he created an expert system that changed plain language. Excuse me, changed income statement and balance sheet to plain language. So blue collar guy could understand what the numbers mean.

See, we're always trying to help the blue collar guy. Because what they like to do is they like to use confusing language with acronyms and big words. They sound smart. So they think we don't know what they're talking about. So they can charge us a lot of money. Does this sound familiar? Sounds like a law firm. we do not, we don't allow our team to use acronyms. We don't allow our team to use five syllable words. Like, no. And it's not a knock. It's actually, we have a book we make everyone read called Simple. It's actually a really thoughtful thing.

Steve Doyle (: 22:50

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 23:01

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 23:01

Mm-hmm. Right.

Steve Doyle (: 23:13

Yeah

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 23:18

to be easy to understand, to be clear and transparent.

Brad Herda (: 23:20

What was the book again?

What was the book, James?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 23:24

It's called simple. I'm looking at it over here. Let me go grab it for grab it.

Brad Herda (: 23:28

because we'll put it in the show notes.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 23:30

Yeah, it's this book called simple. All right. And the author is Alan, a L a N Siegel S I E G L. We require all of our developers to read this. We require the engineers who want to have acronyms and crazy words that I don't understand. And I'm like, you need to talk to me like I'm five. Like I need to understand it. So we're constantly in this battle. And because we believe that simplicity is thoughtful and simplicity.

cells and simplicity, people like to use stuff that simple. You know, it's why you're

Steve Doyle (: 24:01

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 24:02

doesn't mean it makes sense. Yeah, have you challenged them then to make it simple from the user perspective, even though it might be complicated for them?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 24:14

Correct. I don't care how hard it is under the hood. That's what people are paying for. I don't need to know. When I hop in my car, I just want to start the car and it needs to work every time. I don't need to know how the engine works. I don't even know how the computer in there works. Now, I used to love rebuilding engines. I can't do it anymore because they put a computer on my engine. now I just want the thing to start and I want to go get my hamburger and I want to come home. That's what I want to do.

Steve Doyle (: 24:32

Mm-hmm. Great.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 24:42

But there's a lot of engineering happening under the hood that my user could care less about. nor do they need to care about that. I just want it to work every time. And people expect tech, they give a lot of grace to technology. makes us so angry. It's because technology is all these engineers. I'm like, it doesn't work this time. Well, it needs to work every time. anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.

Brad Herda (: 25:07

No, it's all good. if you so if you could go back in time, and you knew what you know now, what would you tell yourself back then when you got out of school to do differently or the same or more of

Steve Doyle (: 25:08

It is all good.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 25:23

Go paint the road like my grandpa wanted me to.

Steve Doyle (: 25:26

hahahaha

Brad Herda (: 25:29

So grandpa was never happy with you. That's what I'm hearing.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 25:32

That's right. That's right. He's like, what are you doing messing around with all that technology? You know, it's like, crap, but look at my big glasses. You know, come on. I don't know why I'm so different. I don't know why the girls don't like me.

Steve Doyle (: 25:41

Yeah.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 25:47

I'd probably tell myself to buy some apple stock.

Steve Doyle (: 25:50

you

Brad Herda (: 25:52

You

Steve Doyle (: 25:53

that's funny. That's funny. That's funny.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 25:56

man.

Brad Herda (: 25:57

All right. How do people find you? James, how do people find live switch? How do they get their opportunity to experience greatness that you guys have created?

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 26:11

Yeah, liveswitch.com, L-I-V-E-S-W-I-T-C-H.com, liveswitch.com. And you'll get me or one of my wonderful team and we will let you touch the tech and you'll see how simple it is and how you can start using it straight away. I've got people that look at it, train the same day, use the same. Like I literally have a, you can watch one of my videos, one of my landscapers being like, yep, I bought it in the morning, use it in an afternoon, save me a $200 trip out and back the same day. Yep. That's what it is.

So.

Brad Herda (: 26:41

I was massively impressed. you know, like I told you on our initial call, right? When I saw the bio, saw all the stuff, saw your assistant come in here, this would be great for this. Like, this will be challenging, but no, are, you are a down to earth tech guy for sure from a tech, not from a blue collar. So awesome. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story, at least part of it. We're going to have you back to share more of your story.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 27:03

Thanks for having me.

Brad Herda (: 27:10

as this technology continues the ramp. Because I think there's going to be another 2.0 version of this that's going to be just awesome.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 27:22

Thank you again for having me, guys.

Brad Herda (: 27:24

Steven Doyle, got anything? You're good? All right. All right, James, thank you so much, and we will talk to you soon.

Steve Doyle (: 27:26

I'm good, man. This has been a great show. Yeah.

James Hatfield (LiveSwitch) (: 27:32

All right, thanks guys. Have a great day. Appreciate the time.

Steve Doyle (: 27:33

All right. Yep.

Brad Herda (: 27:34

Thanks.