Hey, it's got Austin here. This week, we've got another podcast episode where I get interviewed. This one's a little bit different. It's not so much about Shopify. It's more about me personally and my development or growth over my life.

So, I hope you, enjoy listening to this one.  Onto the episode.

Think of the people you interact with every day. Would you want to spend a day in a canoe with them? Hi, I'm Nathan Massaro, CEO of Planning Alternatives. We're a disruptive brand in the financial planning space, with a point of view that true wealth has nothing to do with money. Growing up in a small town in Canada, I experienced examples of families with money and without.

It started me on this journey of understanding wealth, and the idea that spending a day in a canoe with someone could be one of the best investments you could make. Join me as I sit down with leaders, entrepreneurs, creatives, rule breakers and friends to discover their perspective of true wealth. And maybe you'll start to shift yours.

I'm excited today to be joined by Scott Austin. Scott was a co-founder and president at Porch Startup that achieved significant growth and then exited and went public beyond porch. Scott's run multiple ventures currently leading JD Puma e-commerce agency Product Graph B2B software company and brings over a decade of experience from Microsoft. Scott, you are a fellow podcaster. Your podcast, the Shopify Solutions podcast, helps build digital products for ecommerce brands.

Welcome to day in a canoe. I don't know if such a profound tech guy, you know, can handle this technology of a metaphorical canoe. How does that land for you? Well, thanks for having me, Nathan. First of all. And then, you know, the metaphorical side of things you know, I'm I'm slightly on the spectrum. Like, I was never diagnosed that because I'm 58 years old.

So today I would have all these, you know, resistance to doing anything that's uncomfortable for me. But I grew up in the 80s where, you know, your parents smacked you on the head and said, just go do it, stupid. So throw anything you want at me. I'll see what I can do. Great attitude. Well, when you interview people on your podcast, what is your initial approach?

What are some of the questions that you might ask a guest who, who you're interviewing? Anybody listening to my podcast is going to realize really quickly, I'm not in a small talk. Right. So we don't talk about the Chargers. We don't talk about the weather. And I get straight to it. In my podcast, the title says it all.

It's the Shopify Solutions podcast. So every episode is a topic that is one solution. So I'm not trying to be inspiration for people. I'm trying to be instruction for people. Yeah. And every podcast has its own niche. And I found that there were lots of podcasts that inspired you to do things, but didn't help you figure out how to do things.

And I fully believe in today's world of, you know, modern technology in 2025. Everything is just way too freaking hard still. Right. Whether it's setting up your domain for the first time in GoDaddy and connecting it to a Shopify store, there's a learning curve behind everything. So I'm trying to help people quickly understand the 15 steps, five steps, whatever it is to how to do things.

So to answer your question of, you know, how do I approach a podcast? And, you know, how do I, you know, ease into the questions? I go right to it. Let him give me a little introduction about what they do. And then we say, so here's a problem that you've solved in your brand. Let's talk about it for other people that are listening so they know how to solve it too.

On the topic of technology, AI has been this evolving massively, folk growth focused theme. How do you see AI integrating into solutions for people, whether they're the listeners of your podcast or just tech in general? I think podcast has become an essential tool for anybody with common sense today. Right? I think I started in chat GPT three or for you, right when it first came out, kind of thing.

I think I've done eight episodes on AI in my podcast since then because it just keeps getting better and better. Right. So you can be a technical person getting technical solutions like it's great at editing code and those kind of things. I also just use it. This morning we rolled out a new product for a client. Palm Bells, they sell a pompom and cowbell joint, little noisemaker thing.

And we just rolled out their wedding on Bell, so I, you know, came up with what I thought would be decent copy and said, hey, good French app GPT three, take a look at the crap I wrote and make it good. And it made it better. Right? And now I handed it off to the store owner and they're going to edit it from there.

You know, because I fully believe that AI is a great idea generation tool, but you should always edit it so that it's true to your brand and your voice and to your audience kind of thing. So, you know, my overall summary and I, I absolutely love it. The key thing is people must realize it's misnamed. It is absolutely artificial.

It is absolutely a which I call information. There is zero intelligence behind it. And if we start with that assumption, we're going to treat it way differently than a lot of people are treating it right now. And so what would be some of the cautionary tales or advice points on how to treat the tool? Well, for me, the biggest one is just, you know, the hallucinations, right?

It's just absolutely freaking horrible how badly it'll just lie to you and tell you how wonderful you are all the time. But you can help it not be such a sycophant by telling it. Hey, I want you to cite all your sources. The first thing I do in any or the last thing I do in any query is I say, cite your sources.

So if it says something, it's gonna have a little link, and I can go look at it and verify if that fact is true or not. And many times it is, but also many times it's not, but also coaching it a lot like what I always tell my brands to do with AI is get the first thing you're going to look at it.

It's not going to be right. Just tell it what's wrong. Like, hey, you're being way too excited here. Tone it down a little. It'll listen, right? Or hey, you're being which you flagged here. Up the enthusiasm a little bit. It will listen to you if you work with it. So I think I is best done in an iterative process where you coach it.

And of course, you can set up ChatGPT or GPT and ChatGPT, where you give it those rules and structure for everything that you're doing. And that's super helpful for brands. Now, on the day in a podcast, we love to hear founders stories, people who have been entrepreneurs or they've navigated challenges and opportunities in life. Take us back to the Scott back in the day.

Where'd you grow up? Where to start? Where'd you get that itch from? Development of whether it's creativity or entrepreneurial ism? Oh, that's a long story. So I'm going to try to keep it a couple minutes. So Scott Austin was born in December 28th, 1966, and a large memorial hospital in New London, Connecticut, and my twin brother and I broke the hospital record for size of twins.

Together we were 18 pounds, which is just ridiculous, right? My poor mom almost died that day. She didn't, but it was a painful time for her. So I grew up in Connecticut. Came from a family where no one had ever gone to college. So I was the first person in my family to go to college. I got into the Coast Guard Academy because I didn't realize there were things called student loans.

So I thought the only way you could go to college if you couldn't afford it was to have the military pay for it. So I applied to all the academies and ended up picking the Coast Guard Academy. Spent ten years doing that, you know, a great learning experience. For me, you know, being, you know, someone from Connecticut, the good character was actually four miles from my house.

My grandfather actually worked there. But the cool thing was, I met someone from every single one of the 50 states. Right. So that started my broadening of, hey, the world is bigger than Connecticut. You meet everybody in different states, and then we all go off after we graduate. And like, I went to Hawaii and then I went to Seattle and I went to New York and learned lots of stuff, met lots of new people.

And then in New York, I also started meeting people from around the world. Right. Because in New York, nobody's a New Yorker. Most people are from outside. And then, you know, you end up, you know, lots of, you know, people from around the country and from around the world. So once again, broadening my horizons kind of thing. After that, I ended up in Microsoft for 12 years, you know, and that I started doing business around the world as international teams.

I think it did to 35 countries or something like that. So for me, you know what the cool parts of my life was always broadening my horizons and understanding, you know, the differences in people. I remember actually sitting in a bar one time in 1992 talking to this woman from Australia was traveling the world, and she thought, you know, people were all different.

And I was arguing, oh, people are all the same, right? If I could talk to that same woman today, I would totally agree with her. Right. People are different, and I, I now appreciate that a lot more about people based on, you know, their culture, their upbringing, their values. You know, there's a wide variety of people in the world and that's something I'm happy to have been exposed to and seen.

Right. And so just unpack that point. What are some experiences or stories or people that helped open that door of perspective to say, wow, there's there's differences here? Well, I'll give you one example. I remember from Microsoft, we were we were I was working in MSN at the time, Microsoft Network. People younger than us probably know MSN is, but it was the Microsoft Network back in the day, and we were thinking about rolling out a subscription product globally called MSN seven.

I think when we first started it and we were surveying people in every country like, you know, trying to understand, would you buy this subscription? How much would you pay for it? And in Japan, like nobody said they would buy it. And that's an exaggeration. There were some people that did, but basically Latin Japan. In Mexico everybody said they would buy it once you get a little bit of an exaggeration, but in the end, the exact opposite happened.

Nobody in Mexico bought the subscription rolled out, but everybody in Japan or more people in Japan bought it. And, you know, we learned the differences of, you know, people's expectations, what they'll say and then what they do and just how one, you know, culture is more optimistic in their aspiration, but completely pessimistic in execution. And the opposite for another culture.

So that's like one of many, many examples of understanding the nuances and differences between peoples and culture. And in that example, what was the driver of the why purchase in Japan or the driver of no, not to purchase in Mexico? Well, we think it was a little bit of a balance, of course, between price sensitivity and, the feature set.

Right. And that the features we were rolling out were like parental controls, secure browsing on the internet, things which are still needed in today's world. Nebo we were doing that literally 20 some years ago. But then we also, you know, Japan is a much more affluent country than Mexico and Japan. You can roll out most subscriptions for ¥300 per month, which is about three bucks, and they'll buy a pretty quickly and easily.

But Mexico was much more, cash and carry market. They weren't into credit cards. They weren't into subscriptions. So there were also, you know, cultural differences between how they pay and the type of business models they like to pay and just, you know, more things to learn as you get deeper into this. I'm a huge believer in cultural awareness from a curiosity standpoint.

And, there's so many things to learn from others that it's available. If we just put the curiosity hat on and, and usually listen, that's where the, the biggest learning happens. From my experience.

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So take us back to the timeline that you're in Microsoft 12 years. Like where we are on the on the Scott Austin timeline now. So after Microsoft, I, left Microsoft because I, I lived in San Diego for six months in 1998 and and then I went to Microsoft.

A friend of mine got me a job at Microsoft, and I was like, I can't turn this down, even though I just moved to my dream location, San Diego. Every day I went to to Seattle. I knew I was going to come back to San Diego. But then, you know, a couple things happened. One is Qualcomm blew up in San Diego when the real estate market went through the roof.

So I thought I'd be gone for two years, come back with enough money, put down on a house. That didn't happen because, you know, the Qualcomm you know, back in 99 had Qualcomm stock went up sold into the San Diego real estate market rapidly. So every day I made more money in Microsoft. It wasn't enough to live in San Diego.

Which is a fun thing. And then I actually end up having a great time at Microsoft doing fabulous jobs. But after 12 years, I was like, I just got to get back to San Diego. I need sunshine. I cannot stand for those who haven't been to Seattle, you probably think it rains. It doesn't rain in Seattle. It threatens to rain in Seattle.

Nine months of the year. It's gray and just a little bit of spittle in the air, just enough that you don't see the sunshine. And it just it was annoying. So I finally came back to San Diego, and that's where I ended up with my first startup. I was at active X when they went public and then started my own entrepreneurial, you know, start my own companies and, and, you know, did three, 3 or 4 of them now kind of thing, which, you know, I never thought I would have done.

It was one of those. Yeah. I remember in my 20s, I was quitting a job and my boss was like, why don't you start your own company will be your first client and you can work in our offices, like, totally gave me, you know, a gift from the heavens. And I was a stupid and b knew my strengths and weaknesses and said, no, I don't want to run my own business.

And it took me over 20 years before I actually did run my own business because of all the things that I went through and learned and grew and all that kind of stuff, I realized I was ready to do that. And I also I kind of needed to do that. And along the way, who was a contributor that stands out in your journey because you said you started?

Hey, I, I didn't believe I could do this or envision I could do this. Now I'm doing it. Who helped you along the way or what? Even what moments did you learn along the way that stood out that became a catalyst for continuing that journey? Yeah, between the Coast Guard and Microsoft. I worked in it for a bunch of small companies.

And so I'm the tech guy, right? And some of these companies had real estate, some were law firms and were accounting firms. They did a whole series of them in a couple of years time. And what I realized is like, you know, I'm going to sound like an ass here. Well, because I am an ass, right? So I'm, I'm watching these people and going, you guys are making the best decisions, right?

But I'm just the tech guy. I'm on the back end guy. They don't want to listen to my business advice. Right? So, you know, I'm like, oh, I could do that better. They could. But you know, I didn't. So I went to Microsoft and my first job there was building their, tier one operation center for their internet services for Amazon.

They'd never had one before, and it was a totally fun job. But it is the most reactive job at Microsoft. We're doing a tier one, 24 by seven, 365 data center operations control room. Right. And we just have to respond to everything that breaks. So I started at the most reactive job there was. And after that, every job I took at Microsoft at eight different ones over 12 years, every job was more proactive, less reactive, step by step by step.

So by the end, at Microsoft, I was running Games Marketplace for Xbox, where I started in 2008, and I had an $80 million, revenue goal. And then four years later when I left, I need $100 million revenue goals. So I grew them ten x, not me personally, I was leading it, but there was a whole team of people, a whole set of circumstances that I was fortunate to fall into.

But it was, you know, the culmination of going from one of the most reactive jobs to 12 years later, one of the most proactive business jobs. And it took eight steps to get from A to B kind of thing. And there were definitely people along the way that helped me with that. But that was, for me, the journey that made me realize that I could be a business person.

I could have business opinions, I can formulate strategy, execute, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. So were you taking your problem solving skill set and just applying it to the next problem, and then it cascaded from that? Or did you say, here's my five year vision strategy board reverse engineer to today? How did you tactically move through those years?

I'm a big believer in what I call the leaf in the stream philosophy, in that I'm a leaf going down a stream, and the stream is taking me the direction it wants to go, but I can see a rock coming up in front of me, and I can steer left or right around that rock. Some people probably take the salmon in the stream strategy of life, where they're swimming upstream against the current.

I don't. Right. So for me, there's there's been many opportunities in my life where I get to make a decision left or right, and I've done a pretty good job with those. I'm very happy with some of the decisions I've made. I'll give you a real example of one. I was a civil engineer in my bachelor's and master's and my first, job out of the Coast Guard of working at a civil engineering firm, and I was 50% engineer and 50% computer geek.

One day, my boss called me in and said, hey, we need you to commit to being one or the other full time. We need a full time computer geek, and we always have full time engineers. With an engineering company, you get to decide what you want to do. And it took me a good 1.4 seconds to say computer geek, thank you very much.

And yeah, but that decision changed the course the rest of my life. But I and I've had many of those. So I like, you know, I see opportunities and sometimes I make them happen for myself. Like there are two jobs, at least at Microsoft, that I can think of, where I created that job for myself by writing a white paper and talking to people and, and, you know, lobbying for what I thought was the right thing.

And there were other times where, you know, I just was in the middle of a reorg and ended up doing something completely different than I thought I was going to do. And that was also pretty cool. We have a belief that true wealth is available for people has nothing to do with money. We've actually defined six currencies. You strike me and one of the currencies as possibility that you strike me as someone who's really focused on possibility.

Another currency is creativity. But I also see in the notes that you coach a youth roller derby group, which is just about physical well-being and building community. What's what's true wealth mean to you at this life stage? Like what is it that you value most? And C is the, energy source for you? I'm a big fan of contentedness, if that's a word or a happiness.

Right. You know, for me, I remember being a child. My mom, you know, was a very cheap person. We didn't have a lot of money. And she cut all sorts of corners to make it work for a family of five. Right. And like on our street. And we thought we were the richest people on the block. We were probably the poorest, right.

Because my mom did such a good job. We always joke she'd never buy anything unless there was a double coupon on sale and a rebate. And that was almost literally true, right? But for me, I it I didn't like that. Right. And I felt embarrassed by it. And one of my life motivators was, I always want enough money to not have to worry about money.

I am not rolling in dough, but I don't worry about paying the mortgage or paying the electric bill. My electric bill goes up. I don't think about it right. I have enough money that I don't worry about those things. For me, from a financial side, that was a goal I came up with when I was like eight years old.

I want to make enough money that I don't have to worry about money. And after that, then you start to get to focus on other things, right? You got your Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Well, for me, you know that. Get the money one out of the way. It was a good one. Like I wanted to go to college, that I can get a better paying job and end up doing things, you know, working at a bigger place, you know, bigger companies and, you know, start my own businesses so I could do those kind of things.

And at this stage, what is the what is most fulfilling to you now? For me, I'm super proud for I'm a single man. I've been divorced for, 20 years now. I guess I'm super proud as a 58 year old single man. My friends. Right. I don't have a lot of friends. I can count them on my hands, but I have some really good friends that I could call up in a moment's notice, and they'd do anything for me.

And the same thing would happen back. And I see, you know, in today's, you know, society where loneliness is a big problem I'm super happy and proud of. For me, I actually have a really good set of friends, and I really enjoy that. And it brings me so much happiness. Connectivity to one another is such a valuable asset.

And it's not about quantity, it's about quality and the depth of the relationships. And we encourage people to explore that and just look in their circle, at the friend group that's available. And that's part of the journey to true wealth. Scott, really appreciate your time. Fascinating story. Your great storyteller. So I'm so glad our paths crossed and, hope to stay in touch you in the future.

Thanks a lot, Nathan. It was a pleasure to talk to you.