This Might Be the Best Wayto Land a Job at Webflow

0:27Janne Parri: Okay, Matthew, so you work at Webflow and you

0:31Matthew Munger: I do.

0:32Janne Parri: Know a thing or two about what the future may hold. What are you allowed to tell us and what is off limits?

0:39Matthew Munger: Yeah, yeah, I do work at Webflow and so I might know a few things. What can I say? Probably not a whole lot, but you know what? I am very excited about the future for this ⁓ next year. The kind of landscape with AI, agentic workflows, and just the web development space, you know, it ⁓ is evolving quickly and kind of what people's needs and expectations are is shifting. And I actually think Webflow is in a really great position to kind of meet ⁓ those needs and be set up to be very successful ⁓ in the future... And that is because Webflow has been working for years ⁓ to become a ⁓ platform, right? It's not just a tool that does one thing, but it's a platform ⁓ where you bring together your developers, your designers, your marketers into one spot. You can collaborate now with real time. It's opened up a lot. And so, you know, I just imagine in the future, ⁓ you know,

1:31Matthew Munger: There may be some collaborators that maybe are not human. Webflow is set up for that future because we have the platform, the capabilities to make sure that collaborating with AI and with your coworkers can be done in a secure kind of guided way from everyone who's setting up the design systems and the components in a structured way so that can be used by marketers. AI can leverage that as well. I think the future is really good. And Webflow is set up for teams who are ready to scale and not just one shot a kind of nice lead design page.

2:09Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, that sounds exciting. Might we get some classic wishlist items done? Maybe CMS slider or something like that?

2:18Matthew Munger: Yeah, the classic CMS slider. ⁓ Actually... I do believe that this may be the year. I can't make any official promises, ⁓ but we'll just say coming soon. TM, trademark, coming soon. ⁓ Yeah,

2:31Janne Parri: Beautiful.

2:32Matthew Munger: But know that obviously that's one we've known for a long time that's high on the wish list. And while there are workarounds and things that you can do, anytime we can have something built in. Directly in Webflow where it's kind of just one-click magic. That's what we'd love to see. So yeah, I'm very hopeful that we'll see it.

2:52Janne Parri: I'm getting so excited that I will probably butcher this intro, but we have to do it anyways. So my name is Janne Parri. I'm your host today. And my guest today is Matthew Munger. He has held multiple roles at Webflow, the current one being senior Release Operation Manager. Yeah. We'll probably get to that in a bit but you might also recognize his voice from the overflow podcast he hosted while back on top of that he has done all sorts of things through the years like graphics obviously web design videos even AutoCAD So Matthew with all of that how did you end up working at Webflow?

3:36Matthew Munger: Yeah, it's a journey for sure. And it's not one

3:40Janne Parri: You

3:41Matthew Munger: That I would have planned or expected, working at a of a SaaS technology company. If I want to kind of turn back the clock and kind of really explore where this all started, we have to go back quite a bit. So we're talking about like 1992.

3:54Janne Parri: Yeah, bring it on, bring it on.

3:55Matthew Munger: My parents had a sign business. So this is where they would hand paint signs, whether it's like, you know, on windows of shops or, know, like wooden signs that would be posted around town. And they saw that there was a transition coming in and that there wasn't, they wouldn't be able to do that for much longer. There was a shift and that shift was graphic design. It was computers. And so my parents, you know, invested probably most if not all their savings into buying a Macintosh at that time. And this is not in a golden age of Macs either, but they were still the standard for graphic design applications like, know, QuarkXPress and Photoshop and so on, early days. And so that's kind of how I grew up in my formative years is, you know, watching my mom kind of go into becoming a graphic designer and building out a business. And then for me,

4:45Matthew Munger: I had a Mac to play with when I came home from school. So I was doing Photoshop and pushing the limits of what could be done with graphics software at the time. And that just really kicked off this interest in technology for me. And it grew from there. So. When I was in high school, I actually got a degree as an AutoCAD technician. And I worked for civil engineering firms. So I would do hands-on stuff like going out and helping surveyors. So we're like, I'm the guy holding the stick with the reflector on it. They're

5:20Matthew Munger: Scanning, getting the heights and the elevations. And then we go back into the engineering studio and put that in AutoCAD and draft out the terrain. And then this is civil engineering. It's. It's for pipes and road work and stuff. It's not very exciting or like dirt work, you know, and stuff. And so I was ready to kind of continue down that path and go into engineering myself. I was really good at math and I was kind of ahead of my class. And so I was enrolled, ready to go to university. I was actually, I was always been interested in architecture as well. And so.

5:55Matthew Munger: But then I was like I love the design part of it and working with kind of volume and spaces that people move through. But I learned that architects, starting out, like it's very rough and you don't get paid much. And you have to kind of work, you know, decades to be able to have your own studio and to really have your own kind of voice. And I was like, OK, that's not for me. So then I was like, OK, well, I'm it, you know, already in engineering school or. Accepted. So I'll just stay in the engineering school and figure out, you know, a different degree. So I decided, well, I'll just go for aerospace engineering. It's the most technical, the most difficult, but it pays the best. But before I actually started, I some, I don't even remember how it happened. But I was like, you know what, I'm not going to be fulfilled doing this. I had just kind of too much kind of creativity and

6:43Matthew Munger: Stuff in me that I don't know, it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like it was like where my passion lied at the time. So I decided to take a gap year or take a year off since I was ahead of my class. And as far as like how many college credits and stuff I had. So I went and I lived in the UK for a year when I was 18. And, you know, it was a great experience. I eventually ran out of money and so I had to come back. And when I came back to the States, I decided, you I knew I wasn't going to go into engineering or architecture or anything like that. So I had to figure out, you know, what I wanted to do next. And I ended up going to film school and I'd always loved like movies growing up, especially as a teenager, really got into film and me and my friends would make movies ourselves. And this is

7:32Matthew Munger: Back when we had to hook up two VCRs to each other and like were record on one VHS tape and then to edit we would actually play on one VHS and then record on the other and then just like start stop and just like that's how you edit because there were no NLEs back then which is a nonlinear editor and then I remember when I was 16 I had the opportunity to work with a guy who was doing a commercial a local commercial and I was about, but I remember we filmed school buses. And this is when DV tapes were a new thing. So this is he could actually capture footage onto a digital tape. And so we actually, he had connections. We went in to an edit suite. And this was my first time seeing Avid, which is the nonlinear editing software, seeing it in person and be able to work like that and not have to do the whole VHS analog kind of editing.

8:24Matthew Munger: Like you might do with film strips where you're actually cutting and splicing. And so that is probably what kind of kicked off my interest in the technology side of video production. And so when I came back, I decided, well, let's just kind of follow that lead, since I've always had an interest in graphics and video. And yeah, went to film school and did not graduate because I chose to start working. And so like even to this day, I don't have a bachelor's or a master's or anything like that. My wife makes up for it. She has multiple master's degrees. I don't have

8:58Matthew Munger: Any. I've more just been like my journey like I'll just say right now, I don't believe in career paths or career ladders or anything. Life is much more fluid than that. And I think you need to be more flexible getting degrees. I'm not against getting degrees, obviously. You know, I have my oldest is in university right now So it's like, you know getting degrees is good, but it wasn't what I need So it's not like a one size fits all like everybody needs to go to university to get a degree like if you want to go into tech, know now do you need to go and get a computer science degree? Probably not you know that

9:33Matthew Munger: You can get in you can learn a lot faster other ways, know through online courses or being self-taught or now with know, Claude Code or, you know, AI to actually kind of teach and coach you. But yeah, so so what left film school and for about 12 years, that first 12 years, I was my title was kind of creative director or media director at that time. And so I was doing everything from in video production. So this was TV shows, commercials.

10:07Matthew Munger: Music videos, I also did live production. Did AVL work? So AVL is audio video lighting. You know, from technical directing, live productions, you know, with multiple camera shoots, know, did everything from being Steadicam operator, jib cam operators, all kinds of stuff. And so it was really fun. And I got to really kind of follow a lot of different creative visual disciplines in that time, you know, from I really enjoyed kind of leaning into my architecture interest back in the day. You know, I got to build sets, so I would design them

10:45Matthew Munger: And I would use AutoCAD and SketchUp and Cinema 4D and things to like actually build these out. Out the plans and then either I had a volunteer team who I would utilize to do the construction or I would be doing the construction myself. And this was everything from I built sets that were miniaturized where it's like and I actually used my girls when they were young they were like I don't know probably like five at the time a bunch of like imagine a bunch of five year olds a set that's built to their scale. And so

11:16Matthew Munger: It was like a coffee shop but it was built at their scale and then like we had this guy who was like six foot something come in and like try to order some coffee. And it was just, was really humorous. But it's like got to build everything from sets like that to big stage productions where we're like building skyscrapers and walkways and kind of all kinds of things that fly in and out or roll in and out of the stage. And I always kind of liked that kind of the puzzle of how do you fit all these different things together and how can they all work kind of seamlessly and I'll kind of jump ahead quickly because with websites and building websites for me it's the same kind of problem solving as I would do for building something in the physical space you know like with that kind of architectural design.

12:07Matthew Munger: It's like when somebody is visiting a site, I think about how are they flowing through the space? What are they experiencing as they scroll or as they click as they, you these transitions happen. To me, it's very much exactly like architecture. It's just, it's in a digital space, you know? So, so yeah, so I worked in kind of video production towards the end. I was mostly kind of leading a post-production crew. You know multiple people everyone from after effects motion designers to graphic designers and video editors and stuff and yeah a lot a lot of fun we got to do a lot of different creative disciplines and it's kind of like whatever we thought you know we could were kind of allowed to do so it was great as far as the creative freedom that we had and then yeah

12:59Matthew Munger: I left that and I went freelance. And so I was mostly doing video editing animation as a freelancer. And during that time, it was just where I was living. It just wasn't, I was actually living in Lesotho in Southern Africa at that time. That's why I transitioned out of the role and went freelance so I could work remote. And... It became really difficult to do video work remotely at that time. Where I was located did not have great internet. It was 0.3 megabytes on a normal day, one megabyte speeds on a good day. So, yeah, it would take me about 12 hours to upload an edit, edited video to Dropbox. And then because of time zones,

13:42Matthew Munger: It would be like another day before I got feedback. You know, and then not have a day to like make revisions and then upload it again. It's like it didn't work. So that is when I made the transition to web dev and my first experience with working with websites goes back to like 2008 and this is where I was an art director for a website, which is not something you would hear about today, but it was very important back then. I was literally the guy saying, this drop shadow is off by one pixel, or this

14:16Matthew Munger: Horizontal line, and something's wrong about it, or whatever it was. So it was very different back then. And yeah, so I remember having to work with the developers, and it was a pain back then to work. Between design and dev. We also, I don't know if you remember this time, but kind of mobile devices were still pretty new back then. This was like 2008. So this is pretty recent after iPhones had come out and responsive design wasn't a thing. You couldn't do that with CSS, right? So you had to have a separate website that was designed specifically for mobile.

14:55Matthew Munger: So basically just imagine like the content, everything you're basically doing all the work twice, just in two different designs and layouts. So that's how that was my first experience building websites. And then over the years I'd done worked on other projects, know, where developers were building things out in Drupal or WordPress. You know, I did stuff in Squarespace myself, even kind of before it turned into like this really template. Driven sites. So during that time in Lesotho when I was building sites, was mostly doing a Squarespace sites doing custom dev. I was a Squarespace circle member, so part of the program,

15:34Matthew Munger: And just hacking on top of Squarespace sites. And that is what honestly really pushed me to learn CSS. Is because I had to understand how to overwrite what I didn't like about the templates. And yeah, during that time where it was frustrating, it was like I'd make one design change and then hit save in Squarespace. And it would take like 30 seconds for the page to save before I could preview it. It was a pain. And then I know I had seen Webflow in 2014. For some reason, it didn't stick or I didn't stay with it. I just saw it. So my account today says 2015 is when I created the Webflow account that I still have today. And I remember

16:17Matthew Munger: When I actually dove in and started building Webflow, I was just so in love for many reasons. First of all, I love the blank page. And I know that scares a lot of people out there, but to me that is the most exciting thing is when I open a creative design tool and I see that just white box and maybe it goes back to my origins and just opening Photoshop and Illustrator and just starting from nothing. It just to me that's like the creative freedom at its ultimate. And then in Webflow I could build whatever I imagined.

16:52Matthew Munger: You know, this was before mega navs and I was building all kinds of complex like kind of drop downs and integrating CMS and stuff. And it was just like, wow, I can actually do what I envision as far as, know, what would be good for the kind of the site, the context and the UI. And then not only that, like I said, not very good internet speed where I was.

17:15Janne Parri: You

17:16Matthew Munger: So. Once Webflow loaded, which at that time on that speed, and you can think of it as like 3G speed, if you remember that time, it's like that. The Webflow designer would load it, maybe take 30 seconds or so, but once it's loaded, I can work and everything was just snappy. It didn't, I didn't have to, well, I would see that auto save check mark in the top corner and that was like peace of mind. You can't imagine knowing that if the internet crapped out or something happened, the browser crashed or whatever. Was like knowing that everything was automatically saved and I could just pick back up where I left off. Or once the designer loaded, I could just work freely and not have to wait on things loading to be able to switch pages and silly things like that. Yeah, it was amazing. And then we got IX2.

18:05Matthew Munger: And then CMS and all this stuff. It's like, yeah, I just, I loved it. So, so yeah, I'm almost to, how did I end up at web? I'm almost there. I'm almost there.

18:15Janne Parri: So before we go to the actual like workflow roles that you have had about all the things that you have learned through the years there has been so many things that I point towards but in your opinion or experience if there are like young folks that are just entering scene and they do not remember the world before smartphones. What could you tell them or advise them there's a checkout or maybe look into in order to learn some important lessons that you have learned through the years.

18:48Matthew Munger: Hmm. Yeah. I have lived through some transitions for sure. First, personal computers was a big one. And everybody thought back then, everybody's going to be out of a job because computers are everywhere. And then it's like mobile devices. And it's like, we're all going to be hunchbacks walking around. Looking down at our phones and we're going to be blind. And then the internet came along and it's like, we're all going to be dumb because we don't have to, which I don't know, I kind of do feel dumb now that I have to use GPS to navigate anywhere around

19:21Matthew Munger: My city. And I used to be able to do it just by memory or know all the names of streets and stuff. I don't know, like, yeah, even like thinking towards the current shift that we're in with tech, which is AI and we are in a bit of a bubble and I don't mean a bubble like it's going to burst and everybody's going to go bankrupt. A bubble as far as in development and web, you know, we're on the kind of the edge of technology. And so I think like it's still going to be a while. For

19:51Matthew Munger: Normal people kind of catch up and are using AI in their everyday. So I think there's still a lot of time for us to figure out culturally and ethically, like, how is this all going to shake out? How are we going to use it in the end? So there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of fluctuation happening right now. And so I just don't worry about it. It's like, I remember hearing about AI. As a kid in the 80s. And you know, really the origins of it go back to the 60s. If you look into it. So it's like and even what we call AI today is not really AI. You know, that's kind of the thing that

20:26Matthew Munger: Bugs me. It's pattern fancy pattern matching and stuff on top of that. So to truly get to intelligence right now, it's like a perceived or projected intelligence. Now. It's very useful and that's where I think, you know, I always try to focus whenever these shifts happen in technology, you know, whether it's a new camera came out or a new computer, a new device or a new software. It's always looking for like, where is the kind of utility or the way that these, the tool or the technology allows me to do something I couldn't do before or to do something better than I could do before. Like do it more efficiently and.

21:05Matthew Munger: Yeah, that's kind of the basis of my advice is just don't freak out. Just look. Don't feel like you need to try everything because it's impossible right now. I definitely feel that at times. It's where like, I'm so behind. I haven't tried this. I haven't tried that. And it's like, things will shake out. Things will calm down. Don't worry about it. Just look and see where you can find tools and tech that improve. Improve your life or improve your work, whether it makes it more efficient or it allows you to do creative things or have things accessible to you that weren't accessible before. So with tech, I've always been what's made me good at troubleshooting and eventually getting that QA job at Webflow is I love to push on the edges of technology.

21:55Matthew Munger: And it's like, OK, if I take this tool, combine it with that tool, or this app and that app, or this workflow with that workflow, and see what comes out. And because for me, creativity, it's like nothing is really original. Everything is really a remix. And it's inspired by something, or it builds on top of something else. Originality is really, really hard to do. For me, that's how I work creatively. It's problem solving and then seeing how I can remix or combine things to get a new result that maybe I haven't seen before. So yeah.

22:28Janne Parri: That is nice. That is nice. So you already mentioned the QA job. So that was your first role at Webflow and did you just old-fashioned way applied for it and got it or was there longer story behind

22:43Matthew Munger: No, yeah.

22:44Janne Parri: That one?

22:45Matthew Munger: It's just like all my stories. They're unique, winding paths. So I was using Webflow starting in 2015 building insights for clients, mostly working with nonprofits, just because that's kind of the sphere that were in. We were doing nonprofit work down there in Lesotho. And yeah, so I did that through 2019. That was like my full-time thing. And at one point, I'd have to go look and see when I created my forum account, if I can still see that. But one day I was like, I needed help with something. So I went to the Webflow forum and posted. And while I was waiting for answer, I looked around and I saw other people asking things or needing help with things. And I'm like, I know the answer to that. Or, ooh, that sounds like an interesting challenge. Let me see if I can help them.

23:32Matthew Munger: And so one thing led to another and I was just always, it was a very, it was a hot bed for the community early on. And, you know, everybody was kind of on there and, know, still have great connections that I made, all the way back then starting in 2015. And I eventually became a moderator on the forum and, and, Webflow started posting that it's like, Hey, we have a beta for this feature, that feature. This was like Webflow e-commerce back way back then, the original. And so of course I'm like, yeah, I want access to early access to features and beta features. And like I said, I love trying new things and seeing what's possible and kind of pushing the edges of tools and technology. So it's like, yeah, sign me up. And so yeah, I don't know. I guess I got a reputation with the Webflow staff back then.

24:26Matthew Munger: Because I would give these very detailed reports about, you know, what I did, what I experienced, what I expected, you know, and how the result was different or, you know, it's like, I think I found a bug, but maybe it's intended, you know, it's like, here's the breakdown and here's a recording. So, so yeah. ⁓ So then one day, Vlad posted on the forum ⁓ and he was a regular back then and he's like, Hey, we got this, ⁓ you know, role open. For QA, for a quality specialist. I was like, that's interesting. Never thought about that. One thing I didn't like about freelance is chasing after clients or the next job.

25:01Matthew Munger: I still, I feel for freelancers and that struggle because I can relate to it a lot. But for me, because I don't like selling myself, even though it's strange, I've been involved in marketing for a long, time, lived in the kind of marketing. Adjacent world through media and but yeah I don't like the selling part of it doesn't come naturally to me so I'm like full-time job that sounds nice the salary position hadn't had one of those in years so yeah so I don't remember I think it was just an email just email Vlad like yeah I'm interested ⁓

25:35Matthew Munger: And yeah so I had one interview and it wasn't really even an interview, but yeah, I just got on a call with Vlad and he's like, yeah, we want to hire you. And I think it was because of, you know, all that work that I'd put in on the forum, being a moderator and them knowing that I was good at testing and reporting. So yeah, I, but I actually didn't get the job. He, yeah, he started the call

25:57Janne Parri: What?

25:59Matthew Munger: Off and it's like, we want to hire you. It's like, but we can't

26:03Janne Parri: So what happened?

26:03Matthew Munger: And so basically they needed somebody in the EU. And so it's funny. So Mark Willis, who was also a foreign moderator with me, he's still at Webflow. He got the role instead of me. And Vlad's like, we'll have more roles open, you know, I'll get back in touch. So, yeah, it was a few months later, yeah, when I got the email. I was kind of not expecting to get a call back, but I did. Yeah. And so was like, he's like, the email was very simple. Like, you still interested? I'm like, yep. And that's it. So yeah.

26:38Matthew Munger: Onboarding was very different back in those days. This was when were less than a hundred people at Webflow. And it's like, I got my invitation to join Slack and that was about it. Not now when people join Webflow, like it's a, it's a totally different process, which is kind of very foreign to me. Cause my experience was very different. But yeah,

26:59Janne Parri: I'm just picked.

26:59Matthew Munger: Was not something I expected, you know, what would happen. It's like working for a San Francisco tech company, you know, it's like.

27:08Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, I'm just like imagining like emailing to Vlad like quite casually and having a call.

27:13Matthew Munger: Yeah, yeah, it was very different days back then,

27:19Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. The job seekers of today might be a bit jealous of one interview process, but yeah, you had all the groundwork that you laid and I believe there are some similar stories from familiar names also on the internet. But what happened then? What were the steps to the current role and what is the current role about?

27:41Matthew Munger: Oh yeah. Yeah, so even my journey within Webflow since I've been here Webflow, which will be seven years in March. I like sticking through with things that I commit to, whether it's companies or what or ideas, whatnot. Just to kind of aside, I've that life is very cyclical. In nature and often it takes time to see to see things come to pass and often I see it takes two to three years for something to really kind of pay off or to come into existence and you know that's in kind of personal life but also just in work and things and so so yeah so I've been here seven years and you know so I guess

28:31Matthew Munger: On kind of the job thing. It's like one thing I do see in the tech industry is people who will stay at a company for two years or sometimes even less, sometimes as short as six months. It's not something I like about the tech industry because it's the easiest way to climb the ladder, to get a pay bump or to get a more senior role. The easiest way to do that is to jump between companies and I don't like it because people leave work unfinished, right? And things just get interrupted, you know, it slows things down. It's like, when with my work, with my roles, I want to see things followed through. I want to actually see change happen. I'm not just there to earn a check or salary, even though I appreciate that, you know? But it's like, I actually want to,

29:18Janne Parri: Yeah, obviously.

29:19Matthew Munger: Yeah, I want to actually make a difference. And that takes time and commitment. So that's why I'm still at Webflow. That's one of the reasons, just kind of my personal ethics there. And within Webflow, it's been a winding road. So I started in QA as a quality specialist manual tester. And I loved it. I worked at it was somewhere between 11 and 13 different product teams. Often, I was on two or three teams at the same time. When most QA specialists would be on one team, maybe two, I just really loved joining new teams that were spinning up and really helping to bring my perspective, having been a customer and still using the product. Like I still have

30:03Matthew Munger: You know, clients on the side and still do work. You know, it's like, so I have a very unique perspective being embedded in working with the teams, building and planning the features and also being on the other side, actually using those features and understanding how it works in practice in a team or when you're building a site. And yeah, I just wanted to bring that kind of help to as many teams as I could. And I really saw that where. The value was. So yeah, I did QA for two and a half years. And yeah, it was a great time. The reason I transitioned out of it, well, I wasn't planning on transitioning out, but I did see there was a trend coming and that was led with automated tests and such. And so there was a shift happening there and kind of that part in that role.

30:51Matthew Munger: And I just, I'm really good at HTML and CSS. Even JavaScript is like hard for me. It doesn't work with my brain. I have a thing where it's like, languages are hard for me and JavaScript it's called, you know, they're coding languages for reading. And for some reason, JavaScript just doesn't click with my brain. And it's like, you know, there are occasions when I can like manipulate the code and like edit or adjust it. And understand what's going on, but writing it, no, it's not gonna happen. So anyway, so I kind of knew that like going into automated testing like really wasn't gonna be a strength for me. I was open to kind of exploring new things. And that's when there was a role for a product expert. And I...

31:35Matthew Munger: Can't remember. Think it may have been posted on the public job listings. And I was like, OK, that's interesting. What is this? A product expert, that's what I always kind of considered myself as QA, like a product expert that was embedded in teams. So I like, this is interesting. And it was on the education team. I was like, oh. And I love the education team. Great people. And I have a background in production as well. So was like, well, that would be kind of interesting. So I applied for the role. More just out of curiosity because I wanted to talk with the team and understand where they were trying to go with the role and stuff. And I ended up getting offered the position. And I wasn't expecting it. Like I said, it was more just out of curiosity that I applied. And so then I had to actually decide, OK, do I actually want

32:20Janne Parri: You

32:20Matthew Munger: To this role? It would be a shift. And like I said, I knew QA wasn't going to be for term, and now we don't even have a QA team anymore at Webflow. So it was a good call. And the reason is quality. Like I said, we have automated tests. There's a lot of different tooling that we have available now. And everybody is responsible for shipping quality code. So if you're an engineer, you're always responsible for what you ship. Website developer or you know you're a full stack engineer Webflow or another company you ship the code you're responsible but yes where's I going with that so yeah this role as a product expert so they were trying something new which was an advocacy team which was on the education team under the education department and yeah

33:07Matthew Munger: I went there and I worked with, under Waldo Woodbrook, let me know from, he was real big in the community back in the day as well, helped start up our customer support department at Webflow and was spinning up this team. Nelson Abalos, Pixel Geek was the other one. So it was kind of the three of us and one other person who was hired from the community. We started up this team and... Yeah, just through kind of personal circumstances, after a few months, I was kind of the only one left on the team. And so was like

33:38Matthew Munger: The original kind of vision for it didn't quite work out. And so here was Matthew, just kind of a team of one inside the education team. And so that's kind of how I joined the community team is because like we need Matthew needs to go somewhere. So it's like, OK, well. You're really connected with the community. So join the community team and you'll still be, know, product expert. So I was still kind of doing the same things, but it gave me a team to belong to, which was really nice. And most of the time that I was there was working under Emily Lento. So it was a great team that we had, really enjoyed that.

34:18Janne Parri: Yeah, was this the part or the phase when you produced the overflow podcast?

34:25Matthew Munger: Yeah, that's right. So 2023. Yeah, it was my idea because I was trying to think of ways to well, no, here's how it came about. So as a product expert, you know, and being embedded in the community every week, I was talking with people from the community just to hear from them, you know. You know, what things were like on their end, know, if they're a freelancer in part of an in-house team or an agency, you know, what did it look like, you know, from their viewpoint, what were their struggles, you know, what did they love about what flow, what did they wish Webflow had that it didn't yet, you know, all those kinds of things. Was having those calls and I like hearing people's stories, their backgrounds, you know, meeting people from.

35:11Matthew Munger: All kind of walks of life all around the world. And so I was just like, I'm having these calls with people every week. Wish every, I was like, I wish more people could join these conversations. And so that's kind of how it can be. It's like, well, why don't we just record it and release it as a podcast? And yeah, so that's what we did. And my goal was to do one episode a week for a year. It got to, I think, released episodes. So it almost got there. It bugs me that it didn't quite meet the goal. But yeah, it really pulled together what I was doing at Webflow at that time, along with my production experience background. I knew how to produce a podcast. I knew how to run cameras and mics and all that kind of stuff.

35:55Matthew Munger: Yeah, so that's how the overflow podcast came to be. So the first, I would record with guests from the community and like the first hour we would talk about them and just who they are and their experiences. And the idea was to help community people get to know each other better. And I actually got feedback that where it's like, somebody knew someone who was a guest on the podcast and they're like, I learned something about this person who I thought I was really close with. You know, it's like, cool. You know, that's the goal is like to really get to know each other better and, kind of foster community. And so I would edit that first part of the recording down to 15 to 20 minutes, really tightly produced audio edit only wouldn't work in video format, but really tight because at the time there were, there was

36:45Matthew Munger: There were a couple other podcasts in the Webflow space, including Webflail, which was kind of on the longer end or mediumish end. And then the one with Emily Giordano. Gosh, what was the name of that book? The great Design lead. Yes.

36:58Janne Parri: Great design lead. Was it that one? Yeah.

37:01Matthew Munger: Yes. Yeah. So and it's funny, all three of those podcasts are not going today anymore. They were good. So

37:10Janne Parri: You

37:10Matthew Munger: At that time, we got new folks stepping in. I appreciate it. So at that time, it was like, OK, I didn't want to compete with them. I wanted to make that really good. So the format is like, let's keep it really short, something that people can listen to during their commute or while they're doing some kind of chore around the house, just something really quick. And you're not learning some technique. Or anything about Webflow. It's just about the people. So you don't have to focus and listen and try to learn something. So that was the first part of the podcast, which was called overflow. Then there was a second part of the podcast called overflow Hidden.

37:55Matthew Munger: Yeah, there you go. So yeah, we thought it was a very clever name when we came up. So this was like the internal version of the podcast just for Webflow. And so this is where I would talk to the guests about their experiences with Webflow. How did they find Webflow? What do they love? Or what are their frustrations? So we could of learn from that feedback and share it with the team.

38:20Janne Parri: Do you remember

38:20Matthew Munger: It was.

38:21Janne Parri: Like learning something specific about those hidden episodes or familiar themes or something like that? You could tell us.

38:30Matthew Munger: It's been putting me on the yeah, it's

38:32Janne Parri: You

38:32Matthew Munger: Been a couple of years. So that was 2023. You know what? I think... None of the feedback was new. It was more like it added context. It was like, we know that people want Webflow to have this feature, or we think Webflow should have this feature. It's more that it put names, faces, stories to that. And so that is what was very helpful. And anytime there's feedback, having that context of, what is somebody's role? What are they trying to do and why? Having that background, just having a quote, a wish list quote of like, I want this feature because I want to do this. That's great and that gives us a data point, but it doesn't really help us know the reasons why somebody wants that feature and if in six months would they still want that feature? If it takes us.

39:23Matthew Munger: So much time to develop it, you know, or. Or just, yeah, just understanding the reason why and the situation and getting that customer empathy, right? To go along with the feature wishlist, because feature wishlist is just a dry static thing. It's like, no, we really need to understand why people need this. What's their motivation? ⁓ Because oftentimes, if you develop products or ⁓ maybe even working with clients building sites, it's like, they say one thing, yeah, they're like, I want this. But it's like, well, why do you want that section? Or why do you want that page? Why do you need it? Like, let's actually dig in here and kind of understand the core. Because maybe the solution

40:01Matthew Munger: Is not what you think it is, right? There may be a better solution out there. Yeah, just kind of, again, problem solving. Love it. So it's like, let's get to the core of what's really going on here. And then. We can evaluate solutions. Whereas the wish list is like people coming with solutions to Webflow and saying, I want this, I want that. It's like, well, let's understand the situation, the scenario, and what you're really trying to accomplish at the core, and then see how we can meet that need.

40:34Matthew Munger: That's what I think how the podcast helped the most internally

40:38Janne Parri: I'm thinking that should be more used like way to gather insight from the customers. I'm obviously not in the UX role right now, but I'm wondering are people doing that because in hindsight that sounds like quite obvious thing and good way to give actual experiences from the users to the people inside company.

41:01Matthew Munger: So now at Webflow, I don't remember when it started, but we have a user research team, or what we call an insights team. And so it's both the data side, but there are also researchers there. And that's what they do, like is they're every week talking with customers about specific problems they're trying to solve. And yeah, and then we get to store that in our tool and be able to surface those insights, you know. To the team. Yeah, that kind of the spirit of what that overflow hidden part of the podcast was doing still lives on. It's just not me doing it. We have whole team

41:38Matthew Munger: That focuses on that.

41:39Janne Parri: Okay, we're not even yet at your current role. So

41:43Matthew Munger: Jeez.

41:45Janne Parri: Was that the next step at what does a senior release operation manager do?

41:51Matthew Munger: Yeah, yeah. Well, this was a role that was kind of presented to me if it was an opportunity I wanted to take and I did. I always felt like it kind of, brings me back to working with engineering and product directly, which was always something I loved, but it also keeps my connection with customers as part of the. And the reason is, as release ops manager, I'm in charge of the operations, automations, all the things related through getting a feature from what we would consider early stage, like alpha, all the way through GA. And so mostly that's if we're doing internal testing.

42:33Matthew Munger: Which I created this thing we call the Alpha Arcade, which is kind of a fun way for us to get together every week and test upcoming features before they become betas and get into customers' hands. But then, yeah, then I work with the teams on recruiting and kind of rolling out beta features to customers. And then working with our go-to-market team on how we GA those features. So. Yeah, it's an ops role, so it is a lot of behind the scenes, like working with docs and workflows and automations and just constantly trying to streamline the processes, wherever those kind of bumps are in the road, make it easier for both the customers who are

43:13Janne Parri: Minutes.

43:14Matthew Munger: Helping us out with these early releases or for the internal teams, whether. They're working cross-functionally between different departments internally at Webflow. Webflow is a pretty large company now. Like I said, it was under 100 when I started, and now we're like over 800. So it's like communication is hard at scale. And so we're always trying to figure out ways to optimize that and improve things for. For all the different apartments that are involved. When it comes to go to market, there are a lot of teams who are

43:48Matthew Munger: Affected or are involved in that process.

43:51Janne Parri: I can just like imagine and obviously the product the tool itself has grown and it's way more complex than it used to be so kudos to you for for like keeping it all together but I'm like wondering what is it like to work at workflow and do you have like multiple locations probably some remote like remote roles and so on and what does it look like

44:20Matthew Munger: Well, so when I started working for Webflow, were living in Costa Rica, which is where my wife is from. So Webflow has always been a remote first company, which this is back in 2019. This is long before the pandemic, the COVID pandemic, when remote work really became something widely known. Webflow was really early on in that, which was good because when the time came, were already remote first. So it didn't affect us too much as far as operationally. So yeah, Webflow's remote first. So yeah, I remember using Zoom and then having to teach people Zoom when the pandemic came. Was like, let me show you about this amazing tool. Now Zoom's just like, Zoom, gotta use it. But back then it was like, yeah.

45:09Matthew Munger: It was amazing to be able to have meetings and see people crystal clear and have almost unlimited number of people in a meeting. Whereas with other tools back then, you know, like Google Meet or I don't know what else would we have used back then Skype. Don't know. It's like, you know, you get like three, four people in a video call and like things just start breaking apart. So Zoom was pretty revolutionary. Zoom and Slack, right? With those two tools, it actually worked. And yeah, those still stick around our core today. So yeah, remote first, Webflow does have entities around the world now, like in Ireland, UK, Argentina, Mexico. I can't even keep track anymore. It's expanding so much now. There's an office in London now.

45:57Matthew Munger: I'll volunteer, I'll go work there. But a lot of hiring going on in Argentina right now for our engineering team. There's a great talent pool there. Yeah, Webflow is expanding and there are a lot of opportunities. Yeah, people should definitely go to webflow.com slash careers if you're interested. For me, you know, what I love about working at Webflow, well obviously the product is, I'm passionate about the product because I'm also a user of the product and I know its impact and what it can unlock for people, you know, all the way from freelancers to in-house teams. Because I've experienced it and you know, it really can change people's lives and I know it's...

46:40Matthew Munger: It's a very silly thing to say, for technology, it actually is one that can because it is a tool for professionals to use to make a living, to accomplish their goals on the web. That's one thing I love. But other than that, like, it doesn't matter which team I've been on over the years, the people have always been great. And, you know, I just, can't beat that when... The culture, the culture is just, and it goes back to the founders and Vlad and how they really started everything from the beginning. It was built with empathy and relationships and really trying to empower everyone to build for the web. So that core has persisted through the years so that the people and the mission.

47:25Matthew Munger: Are great reasons to join. So if you see a role that you think you know you'd fit for and you're interested, yeah apply for sure.

47:32Janne Parri: Yeah, there might be someone

47:33Matthew Munger: Never have, never have listened.

47:34Janne Parri: Listening and thinking that it would be so cool to work at Webflow. But if there is not a certain role or specific role for somebody, but they heard you talking about your groundwork before you got into Webflow, what would you advise for them? What should they do?

47:55Matthew Munger: Yeah, I mean, for me it's about following your passion and your interest and the opportunities that come your way. You can try to generate opportunities and kind of brute force your way into making things happen. I don't think that works out long term for either you or the employer. So it's like... Don't try to force things. But yeah, I know recently we've hired a bunch of solutions architects. You can think of five folks that came from the community. We have our internal web creative brand team. A lot of people from the community come through there, including friend Corey Moen, friend of the pod.

48:41Matthew Munger: Johnny Gomez and others. So there actually are places where people from the community actually do fit in. And I love it when I see people from the community join internally. It's always exciting. Keegan Leary is on the university team. And actually even going back to that QA team, myself and then a few others, like I got to see them recently at our Webflow kind of annual kickoff last week. It's like catching up with a handful of folks who were on that team, you know, seven years ago. And it's like now, you know, one of them is a product manager, you know, one of them is working, you know, on our engineering productivity team. One of them is a front end engineer who's helping to build out.

49:24Matthew Munger: Things in the style system and interactions. And then me doing whatever random thing I'm doing at Webflow

49:30Janne Parri: You

49:30Matthew Munger: At the time. So it's like, can kind of get in the door and you kind of find your way around and see where your skills are best used. But yeah. Just apply. Don't know. It's like, if you're interested, just try and go for it see. And I know some people who've tried multiple times and they finally get in. It's a company. It's not like some magical place. If you

49:52Janne Parri: You

49:54Matthew Munger: Believe in the product, it's a great team. If you can find a role that fits kind of your passion and your skills, yeah.

50:02Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, beautiful.

50:04Matthew Munger: .

50:05Janne Parri: I'm getting excited. I might go and check what

50:08Matthew Munger: You

50:08Janne Parri: What roles are open. But there's one thing I want to ask you about, you mentioned before the before we started recording that you have some experience producing the Webflow Conf and the demos back there. So what is that like? What happens behind the scenes?

50:28Matthew Munger: Yeah, chaos. So yeah, first of all, I'll talk about how I got into the position to do the demos and then talk about the process. So like I mentioned, I was on the as a product expert on the community education team. So just by nature of that, the education team at this time like four-ish years ago, no more than that, maybe five years ago, was actually producing the content and everything on stage. And so I was pulled in to help technically produce the demos, so just making sure that the sites were set up correctly for us to demo the features, making sure the features were enabled properly. So it was a behind the scenes role. And I was fine with that, because I got...

51:17Matthew Munger: I've actually been to every Webflow Conf since 2019 and,

51:21Janne Parri: Thanks.

51:23Matthew Munger: You know, Webflow has had me come out and I've been kind of fortunate in that aspect. Cause usually it's so packed that if you're not working the conference, even if you're part of the community, like we don't have seats for you unless you're working. So I've been lucky. That sense. And the funny thing is this year, so I think it was 2022, yep, it was 2022. And it was the conf was in SF. And I had, this was the first year setting up the demos, we had two machines. So we had one, we had a backup, everything was set up. And then about 30 seconds before

52:06Matthew Munger: Vlad was about to go on stage and kick it off, everything stopped working. So I,

52:10Janne Parri: Absolutely everything.

52:12Matthew Munger: Yeah, everything. No, so I don't remember how it initiated, if I saw it gone up to the computer or somebody else, and we saw that Webflow was not connected and things weren't working and we didn't know why. And ⁓ so it was like Vlad and McGuire freaking out ⁓ and somehow I remained calm and I kind of gave credit to all those years of experience I had in production doing live production week after week. ⁓ And it's like, I can't tell you how many times when we're live on the air, you know, whether it's online or on television and I am underneath a console, ⁓ hot swapping cables or

52:51Matthew Munger: Trying to figure out some kind of camera issue or something with the decks and it's like you can't panic. You know, it's like when you're in a live situation, if there's something you can do, you do it. If there's nothing you can do, you just figure out the best way to move forward. So, so I kept calm in the situation and it's funny. We had, so I needed to go and do something on the computer to try and troubleshoot this. And there are some people backstage and we didn't want to risk spoiling anything on the monitor of the computer because I need to actually touch things and go around. So a few people formed a wall, like what you might see in soccer or football, you know, like when there's a penalty kick, like a free kick. And they formed a wall in front of me so that nobody could see the computer screen. And then I started troubleshooting, ended up figuring out it was an internet issue. And it's like, of course, always at these conferences and life, it's always an internet issue.

53:44Matthew Munger: So anyway, we ended up getting the issue resolved, but I guess me staying calm through the situation just left an impression on people. And so then it was next year. Like, you're coming back to work on demos. I'm like, OK. And so ever since then, yeah, I've been on the keynote demo team. So it's kind of fun because, again, it's one of those situations where it's like my past experiences. Come in handy in a situation I wouldn't have expected, similar to even how my architectural interest early on can still be applied to designing websites. It's like everything eventually connects and feeds into each other. It's like, this is why you can't predict your career path. It's like things are more kind of fluid and fortuitous than that kind of strict ladder.

54:28Matthew Munger: So now what our process is for keynotes. It's usually about a few months out. We are able to lock in, like, these are what we think the features are that we're going to show. We start working on the script. Script takes a lot of time. And then while we're working the script, we're figuring out which features to show live, which are just going to be in kind of graphics or clips. And at Webflow. It's live. Live is always the default option for a demo. Part of me would love some really nice produced video instead, which we

55:02Matthew Munger: Can do really well, right? It's not that Webflow can't do that. We still have a really amazing video production team, and they can create those videos in no time. But yeah, we opt for live. I want to do it for real. There's something about it that it's like the authenticity of that. And you know, it's not vaporware. You know, we're not showing off. You know, sometimes we can show off something earlier than we'd like. You know, people always want things that day, but yeah, sometimes we gotta wait for things to actually be finished, kind of cooking. But.

55:35Matthew Munger: But yeah, so yeah, we work on the script and the demo scripts kind of simultaneously. And it's kind of a back and forth, designing the script, designing the flows and the steps for the demos, and also the sites that will actually show off these features. So it's a coordinated thing. And it takes a few months. Then about a couple of weeks before, we actually start rehearsing, going. Going through the scripts and doing the demos, which while the speaker's talking and I'm going through the motions of the steps and this last year was something. I basically had to memorize, because I did all my step-by-step notes for each demo and it was 60 pages.

56:27Matthew Munger: 60 page deck of all the steps. And I had to memorize it. And not only just memorize the steps and how like, sometimes it's very intentional, like the cursor needs to go up and then over, you know, and the speed and the smoothness of which I do that. Like it's very, it's very exact. You know, it's like when I hover over something in a menu, like which items do I hover or which do I skip over or, you know, how do I exit? How do I transition from one to another? It's choreographed, highly choreographed. And I found this last year, like my notes were very extensive, but I did not have the time to glance down, look at the notes or to like swipe up

57:04Matthew Munger: On the iPad to move between the notes is like it was just too much. So it's like I just had to rehearse and rehearse until it was just memorized. And it's just like. It is just intuitive, like. Like a dancer, like I said, that's just memorize the choreography until it's not, doesn't come out rehearsed anymore. It just kind of flows. So yeah, was, it was intense for sure. And it's always like, it takes, it took me about an hour to decompress and come down after that kind of adrenaline rush and that like mental focus.

57:35Matthew Munger: I just remembered there's, I told some people this, but I hadn't experienced this before, but this past year doing the demo, I was in such a mental focus state that I've never been before, but it's the closest thing I've ever experienced to time travel. It's a weird thing to say, the way I can only explain it is like, sometimes I have troubles, with my memory and stuff. So I have. Like an accident when I was 16 and so I have some. Problems with memory occasionally. And I used to have like this vivid like photo memory before that. So sometimes it's frustrating, but you know, it's life. We gotta deal with what we have. So, but anyway, I was in such an intense focus state that the memory of

58:20Matthew Munger: Doing the keynote the year before felt like it was yesterday. And I've never experienced it before. But it's almost like I got into this tunnel and it's like time was compressed or something. I don't know. It was really weird. Kind of adrenaline and focus and everything. Just like nothing I've ever experienced. So yeah.

58:43Janne Parri: Yeah, is it like when you smell something and that smell like brings back some memories in a way, the situation and all the adrenaline brought up the last years? Yeah.

58:55Matthew Munger: It's probably similar tricks of the mind. Yeah, and just association. It's just like, yep. Yeah, keynotes. They're intense. They're fun. Unfortunately, I do have one problem with the keynotes. Is that we're maybe too good at doing live demos that

59:14Janne Parri: You

59:16Matthew Munger: People question that they're actually live? And so if you have any ideas, like how can I prove that? Do I need to make mistakes? Like, how do I prove to people that no, we're really doing this live. It's the real product. You know, we're doing all the risky things, you know, it's where you were using the internet, you know, but yeah.

59:34Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe

59:35Matthew Munger: You

59:36Janne Parri: You could take that just as a compliment.

59:38Matthew Munger: Yeah, it is for sure.

59:39Janne Parri: And in a similar way, I might say for the community, even if it's not my place to say, but I feel that people are always hungry for the keynotes and hungry for the new features and such. We are like never satisfied that might feel like it, but in a way. That could be seen as a compliment to that Webflow is playing on such high level that there is raving fanbase that wants everything now here, please. So yeah.

1:00:10Matthew Munger: I'm part of that as well. Yeah. I'm always, never satisfied. Yeah. And always like, what's next. What's next. But yeah, but one thing I think is cool, ⁓ is Webflow. Like we don't hold features back for the conference. And it's not like ⁓ we announce and ship things once a year, and then we go quiet for the rest of year. It's like, no, we're constantly shipping and no, like GSAP or interactions with GSAP, we could have easily held that a year and waited till the next conference to show it up. It's like, no, we shipped in the middle of the year, right? And I don't know, that's kind of unique.

1:00:48Janne Parri: Remember once it before the last Webflow Conf because there were so many little updates, those mighty but tiny updates. I was like worried that is there going to be anything left for the Webflow Conf. So I can totally see that there is features coming up through the year. So that is exciting. Okay, we have talked a lot about your work at Webflow, but I wanna like, maybe take it back a bit. And I'm curious because you seen so much, you have done so much. Do you have any like side projects, something like totally unrelated to Webflow that you are working on your free time? Maybe something to decompress or compress something, I don't know.

1:01:35Matthew Munger: Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I do, I guess. And kind of along those lines, I just finished sabbatical, which talking about like working at Webflow, that's one of the really nice benefits after five years, you get five weeks off and a little bonus to kind of refresh. So I just finished that just over a week ago and came back from that. And yeah, I did exactly that. I decompressed. I kind of unplugged. From the computer, from the internet mostly, and yeah, got to work on side projects. So I did some genealogy research, tracing my family roots like back to like the 1500s. Yeah, which was fun. A lot of like English roots, also Scots, Irish and German. You know, my name comes from the German side of my family. So that was kind of fun.

1:02:22Matthew Munger: Still that's kind of gonna be a long process kind of dig in there, but I did like a another good chunk like my second like push digging in there. I like board games. I've got some on the shelves behind me. So played a lot of board games as that's kind of regular part of life every week is playing board games and for me it's like buying a board game. You know, whether it's, you know, lower end one that's like $40 or up to like $800. It's like actually buying a board game that you can play and have hours of a good time or, you know, and play it multiple times over the years or even sell it or re-gift it afterwards is a lot cheaper than going out, you know, to dinner and a movie

1:03:08Matthew Munger: Or whatever activity. So I actually like when it comes to like entertainment value, like really, really love board games. And again, it comes to that kind of like problem solving and creativity. It's like, you know, I got this goal and it's like, how can I creatively, you know, get there? For me, it's not all about winning. It's about problem solving. So, but I've dabbled in like designing board games just for fun. So I started that many years ago, but yeah, I did more

1:03:34Janne Parri: Yeah, that would...

1:03:37Matthew Munger: Of that during my break. So. So that's one of those side projects where it's like kind of always there in the background and I get ideas and I work on one game for a little bit. I also do some solo play testing for a board game publisher, a well-known publisher. And they have their games in kind of major stores around the US and worldwide distribution. So they're a well-known publisher. I can't mention the name, but if you knew, you'd probably have seen their games. So I've been doing that for years, and that's always a good way to do something that's different with my hands, whether it's printing and cutting out prototype pieces to actually doing the play testing and keeping track of the scores. And it almost comes back to it's kind of like QA, but physical QA for the board game and actually saying,

1:04:24Matthew Munger: This part of the game is broken, or I got really unexpected results for this. And sending that back to the developer. But yeah, there's a few things. Obviously, I like LEGOs. You can see lots of LEGOs

1:04:32Janne Parri: Yeah, board games are so fascinating. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:38Matthew Munger: Behind me. LEGOs and Middle Earth, Star Wars. Those are kind of hobbies and things I like.

1:04:45Janne Parri: Yeah, the Legos are doing some really big stuff with the audience or the Legos that are intended for adults. I do have one Lego there. It's just around the corner. But yeah, I just would like to buy more Legos. But I was about

1:05:04Matthew Munger: I know.

1:05:05Janne Parri: To say about the board games. Those are fascinating too, because there is the balance on how complex game you want to play with with the specific group. And obviously, if you find the right people and the right game, that can be magical. Yeah.

1:05:23Matthew Munger: I do take on that role of solving that puzzle before you even sit down to play game. It's like, OK, what is the group? What's the group size? What is the dynamic of the group? How kind of aggressive or passive is the group? Do we want something that's or not? And it feels good when you're like, you get the right game to the table with the right people at the right time. And it's like everybody has a good time. Yeah, it feels good.

1:05:49Janne Parri: Yeah, I have one memory playing that it was a cooperative game called Pandemic during the actual pandemic. That was weird multiple levels.

1:06:01Matthew Munger: So the designer of Pandemic, and he's done different iterations, but there's a recent game that just came out this year. I haven't got my hands on it. I can't wait to, but it's called Fate of the Fellowship. So it's the Pandemic system, but adapted for Middle Earth. And so it's kind of the story of Lord of the Rings, War of the Rings, and like the map is Middle Earth. And instead of the Pandemic, you know, the virus spreading around the world, it's actually the orcs and the Nazgul that are actually spreading around Middle Earth and trying to track you down as you're trying to achieve your objectives, you know, and destroy the ring and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I can't wait to play that, but it actually sounds more fun than trying to survive a virus.

1:06:43Janne Parri: Yeah, especially if you are

1:06:45Matthew Munger: That matter.

1:06:46Janne Parri: In the Lord of the Rings world. Okay, Matthew, I need to let you go at some point. Are a couple things

1:06:53Matthew Munger: I guess.

1:06:54Janne Parri: I want to leave for the very dedicated listeners, watchers. But at this point, if someone wants to follow you or contact you where should they go?

1:07:06Matthew Munger: Yeah, so my website is matthewpmonger.com. Yeah, hopefully you can find all the links there. I've got some visions for how I want to redo my site and start sharing some more things. So fingers crossed I'll actually follow through with that site project. But what I really love with Webflow and web dev is like really doing experimentations and trying new things. So I want to be able to like do more of that and share it more publicly. Look for that on my website. On socials, really, now I'm just on LinkedIn and Blue Sky. Well, I guess I'm on YouTube, but I haven't done a video in like five years.

1:07:39Matthew Munger: Yeah, so I used to, right before joining Webflow, yeah, I was doing kind of the YouTube thing and doing tutorials and different things. But I have some ideas I might spend the channel back up. We'll see. I don't know. No promises there. But yeah, that's kind of where you can find me. And also the new Webflow

1:07:56Janne Parri: Add all the relevant links.

1:07:58Matthew Munger: Community. The new Webflow community. Just yeah, community.webflow.com. Yeah, I'm on there. And now that I'm back from sabbatical, I'll be more active. But I helped to kind of build out the platform as well and administrate it. So yeah, you'll see me around there.

1:08:13Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, it looks sleek So kudos for you to get that up and running. And I will obviously put all the relevant links in the description. But yeah, now the deep end. That's a semi secretive thing I want to ask you about. And it is this thing called ACE program. Could you tell us what is the Webflow ACE program?

1:08:36Matthew Munger: Hmm. Do I want to share? Yes. Actually, yeah, I do want to share about the ACE program. So ACE program is started in 2023. It was co-founded by myself, Corey Moen and Nathan Huening. ACE stands for Advisory Council of experts. And so this is a group of customers that we bring in and are really close with our kind of product engineering teams. Research teams as well. And we're able to get feedback on the roadmap, upcoming features, as well as get kind of early sneak peeks at releases and testing different features. So it's a way to bridge kind of our product development teams and our actual like really passionate experts. And these are experts who range from

1:09:25Matthew Munger: App developers to marketers, designers, visual developers, know, people who are freelancers, agencies, in-house teams, enterprise or not, you know, it really, it's a wide breadth of people in the program. And so, yeah, it started in 2023. We did a pilot with like a dozen people and now we're, yeah, the program is well over a hundred and we're looking to grow it even more. So it's kind of been an invitation only program up until now. And so we've actually got plans to make it where it's equitable and people can know about the program, but also know how they can earn their way into the program. So yeah, that's something you can be on the lookout for, you know, later this year. If people

1:10:11Matthew Munger: Are interested and getting involved. Yeah, with Webflow and helping to see the future become reality. Yeah, it's a great way to get your voice and your experiences in there and have direct connection with the Webflow team.

1:10:25Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. And that is actually where we first met. And I have to say there has been quite a few ace members on this show.

1:10:36Matthew Munger: Yeah, that is another benefit of the program is it's a really kind of tight sub community. And because it is a private space, you're able to kind of openly talk about things, challenges maybe you're trying to solve that other people might have. You know, the answer is the experience to kind of help you. So, yeah, it's a great like little network as well.

1:10:57Janne Parri: Okay, are you ready for the last section? Do you know what's coming?

1:11:00Matthew Munger: Yes. Yes, I do know. Well, yes, I know the format of what's

1:11:05Janne Parri: You

1:11:06Matthew Munger: Coming, but I don't know what you're going to what the saying is going to be, obviously.

1:11:11Janne Parri: For those who are not following, the last section is the weird little Finnish section where

1:11:18Matthew Munger: Thank

1:11:19Janne Parri: I tell a Finnish saying or an idiom, I will translate that to English and then Matthew in this case will try to figure out what it is or what does it mean. And today,

1:11:31Matthew Munger: Does it mean?

1:11:32Janne Parri: Today, this might be quite easy. I'm not sure. This is so familiar to me that it feels like easy. In Finnish it is... And in English it is... So what does it mean if I say that I just filled some years?

1:11:52Matthew Munger: You've felt some years.

1:11:54Janne Parri: That felt, field, like you feel a bottle.

1:11:57Matthew Munger: Filled some years, filled some years. I mean, it kind of reminds me in English, we would say like time flies. Like kind of feels like that. Like where did the years go? Like time is has gotten compressed thing and moved really fast. Yeah.

1:12:13Janne Parri: Yeah, it's a good guess. Not exactly right, but on the right topic. So it actually means to have a birthday. Just simply. If I say I just filled some years, it means that I just had my birthday. So in a way, when you get one year filled, that's a birthday. That's the logic.

1:12:35Matthew Munger: There you go. Yeah.

1:12:36Janne Parri: Yeah, that's a weird

1:12:37Matthew Munger: That makes sense.

1:12:38Janne Parri: Little thing I have to do at the end of every episode.

1:12:41Matthew Munger: No, I enjoy it. It's a great way add a little personal touch at the end.

1:12:45Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, I feel so too bad. Have to root for our little country and language. Okay, Matthew, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. And hopefully

1:12:56Matthew Munger: Yeah, pleasure.

1:12:56Janne Parri: We get to meet at some Webflow Conf. I believe you have a spot for Boston. I'm still thinking if I can make it. But yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. And for all the listeners and watchers, we'll see you in the next one. Bye!