Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
It’s no secret that Graham and Ashkahn are shutting down the podcast (check out the resources for details on how to call in for the finale), but why?
Today, Graham and Ashkahn talk about all their projects that they’ll be dedicating themselves too now that they don’t have a daily podcast to rush to, everything from the mundane to the insane.
Show Resources
An Important Announcement from the Daily Solutions Podcast
If you’d like to sign up to ask a question on our two-hour call-in show, November 29th at 3 pm PST, go to floattanksolutions.com/dsplive.
HelmBot.com for more details on the HelmBot.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: So concludes the Mr. Epsom saga.
Ashkahn: Quite a tale.
Graham: I am Graham.
Ashkahn: I am Ashkahn.
Graham: And together we are Grashkahmn.
Ashkahn: We can answer your questions.
Graham: We are answering another question today, but before we get to it, quick announcement.
Ashkahn: Yeah, you probably heard by now, so we’ll just the highlights.
Graham: Yeah, we’re winding down the podcast, we got our final episode on the 29th.
Ashkahn: It’s from three to five o’clock PM Pacific time. It’s a live call-in show.
Graham: Be there or be square.
Ashkahn: We’ll be videoing it. If you don’t know what we look like, it’s gonna be …
Graham: We’re not just illustrated for starters.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: We’re real people. You could find that out if you-
Ashkahn: You’ve probably been picturing in your head one of those statues of Greek gods.
Graham: And you’d be right.
Ashkahn: Yeah, prepare to be even more impressed.
Graham: All right, today’s question is, “What else do you have going on that’s so important you gotta end the podcast for, huh?!”
Ashkahn: Getting some guff, okay.
Graham: Yeah, and we got a lot of write-ins of congratulations and how much people have been liking it, and also some, not hate mail, but questioning emails. So this is pretty representative, I think more on our side ’cause I thought this was a hilarious question.
Yeah, I don’t know man, probably finally start my-
Ashkahn: We’ve got lives to live.
Graham: Start my dream of actually creating all-terrain animal feet. I really wanna have animal slippers that you can go hiking in.
Ashkahn: Slippers, okay. Not feet? I thought you were talking about genetically modifying animal feet.
Graham: No.
Ashkahn: You’re just talking about slippers.
Graham: Animal feet slippers, yeah.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we’ve talked about this. There’s basically, we think, a very underserved market out there of people who want fun things typically made for children in much more robust adult form. Like really nice animal slippers, or I’ve wanted a really nice bow tie that squirts water out of it. But if you go to get a bow tie that squirts water out of it …
Graham: White tie umbrella hat.
Ashkahn: Yeah, they all look super hokey and cheap and you can clearly see where the squirting is. It’s like, come on.
Graham: Yeah, bring it.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And we will, we will bring it, so.
Ashkahn: So.
Graham: That’s where we’re gonna be spending most of our time on from here on here on out.
Ashkahn: Yeah, adulttoys.com I think is what we decided …
Graham: I think that one might be taken.
Ashkahn: We’re still trying to figure it out.
Graham: Don’t go there, we’re not gonna put that one in the show notes. Yeah, that would be awesome, that is actually one of my dreams, that was not a joke but that is not what we’re immediately spending time doing.
Ashkahn: No we’ve had this plan for a while of really wanting to make sure that a properly well-established moon colony exists.
Graham: It’s true, it may sound silly.
Ashkahn: It’s time, we can’t keep putting it off.
Graham: It sounds silly to me.
Ashkahn: The moon’s just gonna keep getting further away, we gotta act now.
Graham: One potato chip of weightless per year is what you weigh on the moon. Yeah, so that’s … If you have money, a lot of it and you wanna contribute to-
Ashkahn: Yeah we’re missing that part.
Graham: The development of humanity, then this is your freaking chance.
Ashkahn: But we have a name already.
Graham: You could be a hero.
Ashkahn: It’s, I’mgonnagetmooned.com.
Graham: I don’t know if that’s probably taken. We’re not gonna put that one in the show notes either. Now that I think about it. Yeah, what should we … That’s pretty much it, right? That’s the big ones.
Actually, what we wanted to spend some time doing, we hoped, was a petting zoo. but instead of animals … No, so we … Part of the weird thing about being Float On is that we immediately started five companies instead of just running a float tank center.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And turns out they all take time and attention and –
Ashkahn: A full amount of time each.
Graham: Yeah. So we work five full jobs each, which is crazy and we switch back and forth and really focus on different projects. And fortunately a lot of the things we’ve been doing are stabilizing and able to run themselves a little bit more. We’ve hired androids to take up our role on this podcast for example.
Ashkahn: Yes.
Graham: I am Ashkahn. And the thing that we’re going to be focusing on, at least for the next couple of years probably, is trying to transition more into spending some time on the Helm, and both improving the software for existing clients in the float industry and branching out into some new other industries outside of just floating.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s been seven, six years, something like that. It’s been a lot of years since we started Helm.
Graham: Feels like lifetimes.
Ashkahn: So it’s developed a lot, it’s got a pretty nice foundation and it’s really fun for us to work on. We love working on it, and so when we were talking about the work we really enjoy, we kept coming back to the Helm, because I think we’ve been really satisfied with programming and how magical it feels to do something once that then prevents you from having to do the same thing a million times. Making buttons for things.
Graham: And it’s cool. Yeah as we do it, it’s saving everyone in the float industry time. We can add these features that not only benefit us in Float On, but immediately upon implementation, are available to every single center out there. And hopefully can help people save a little more of their time and actually fill up more of their tanks. So in terms of important work and satisfaction per hour spent, it’s also, the Helm feels very productive in that sense for being useful.
Ashkahn: And it’s not just… When we first started, it was like, “Yeah, this is fun. Get a couple of float centers.” And now there’s a bunch of float centers using it, and so it feels really powerful to be able to work on it and improve it and really impact that many people. And hopefully, have other people like massage and stuff like that save people from some of the other generic spa software that they’re using out there.
Graham: Yeah, so things like eventually developing software for escape rooms and all kinds of different silly things like that too, yeah. But yeah, that’s probably gonna be the future for us, is a lot of Helm work and of course, we’ll still be around, we might even pop back on, do Occasional Solutions Podcasts.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Is a rough idea. But yeah, we might do some special broadcasts every few months and hop on and see if there are new questions coming in, answer them or just chat about important developments in the industry too. So don’t think we’ll be totally gone.
Ashkahn: Yeah we’re still here.
Graham: Yeah you’re stuck with us.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Like it or not.
Ashkahn: We’re just gonna be having these conversations at each other without microphones. But we’ll still get together every day and answer a question that I come up with from now on.
Graham: Or if you have other ideas for not just float related questions you’d like to hear us answer, let us know. We’re open to more general solutions. All right, I think that’s pretty much it-
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: For this episode.
Ashkahn: And yeah, if you’re on the Helm, get pumped. We’re gonna be taking it to the next level-
Graham: Yeah, you’re about to see some-
Ashkahn: In the next year or two.
Graham: Yeah, pretty cool improvements coming your way.
Ashkahn: Yeah we’re shipping every single float center a real Helm robot to do tasks for them.
Graham: Don’t hold us to that, that might be …
Ashkahn: Helmbot is going to be alive.
Graham: All right. Don’t forget to tune in, coming up right around the corner, November 29th.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Live two-hour call-in extravaganza, three to five PM, Pacific time.
Ashkahn: Yeah, buy a couple of extra phones just in preparation.
Graham: All right, we’ll see everyone there.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: Everyone. Bye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Best Insulation for Soundproofing – DSP 259
This is another fantastic episode that challenges the question on its face.
Graham and Jake (still no Ashkahn, unfortunately, but he is in the intro) talk about soundproofing basics and what type of insulation is a good idea for your float rooms. As it turns out, insulation isn’t doing much of the heavy lifting though, so soundproofing probably isn’t the highest priority when selecting insulation.
How to Make an ADA Float Room – DSP 258
Graham and Jake are in the studio again while Ashkahn plots his marvelous float industry event.
This time the guys are talking about how to make a float room ADA compliant. Lots of it is going to vary from state to state (and sometimes even city to city) but there are some useful tips and tricks for making sure you hit all the right marks for compliance when planning your build out.
Jake and Graham share construction ideas, ways to think about ADA requirements, and some fun stories about Float On’s own adventures in making their building accessible.
Best Quietrock for Float Rooms – DSP 257
While Ashkahn is off doing whatever it is Ashkahn does when not on the podcast, Graham sits down with Jake Marty the Float On construction guy (and co-owner of Float On), to talk about Quietrock.
Now before you rush to the Resources section to see which ones are best, this episode lays out the reason to use Quietrock, when (and how) to compromise for more affordable options, and where you may not want to use this when planning your build out.
Marketing to Older Demographics – DSP 256
Some communities have a much higher retiree population than others. It can be difficult to reach customers who don’t utilize social media as much, so how do you get their attention?
Derek and Graham strategize on how to market to the retiree community for float centers. This episode is filled with bingo jokes, rambling examples, and solid advice for reaching out to any demographic that may not spend a lot of time on social media.
Our Top 10 Marketing Book Suggestions! – DSP 255
Alright, this is a dense episode. Ashkahn is busy planning the Float Conference still, so Derek and Graham nerd out on marketing books (and blogs, and podcasts) to give the industry some of their top recommendations for marketing books that might be helpful for the float industry (or anyone, really).
Check the resource in this episode for links to all their recommendations!
Latest Blog Posts
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #20
We now follow the trail of our ancestors, Meriwether Lewis & William Clark, whose expedition started in St. Louis and would, eventually, lead them to Oregon – just like us.
Except, unlike them, we didn’t actually start in St. Louis, don’t have a tour guide from the Lemhi Shoshone tribe, and aren’t carrying flintlocks (except for Graham).
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #19
Chicago is home to one of the oldest float centers still in operation – SpaceTime Float Tanks.
We had the misfortune of timing our visit as they were moving to a larger location, the only time in 34 years that they have ever been closed. It is with great regret that we were unable to see their historic float center in operation.
They were trailblazers even before there were trails to blaze – so many float centers in the entire Midwest trace their roots back to a single float at SpaceTime.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #18
We made it back to America, everybody. It was a harrowing experience being in an uncivilized country where they think gravy and cheese curds on french fries is a meal but, thankfully, we’ve crossed the border back to a country where we know that chili and shredded cheese on french fries is a meal. Civilization.
Quite honestly, we might be in love with Canada. We’re definitely making another trip up there. For now, it’s about to MPH not KPH.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #17
We hosted our second Float Tour Workshop here in Toronto and stayed in town a bit longer than we normally do, allowing us to get acquainted with the city. The sprawling metropolis is an amalgamation of old world pioneering days and modern multiculturalism. It was founded in 1787, and some of the currently standing buildings pre-date even that. Ancient architecture stands next to contemporary monoliths, weaving a tapestry of antiquity and avant-garde in this fair city.
