Building customizable ergonomic keyboards

So we’re here with Erez Zukerman, who makes an amazing family of ergonomic keyboards. Welcome to the show, Erez.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

I guess we should start with ergonomics in the first place, because Adam and I are both admiring the keyboards you all make, and they’re so cool, and we’ll get into all the details of these things. And Adam says to me, “I wish they just made a regular keyboard.” And I said “Well, he’ll probably sell you on the benefits of ergonomic keyboards…” So I figure that’s probably where your story starts, is ergonomics… Or how did you get into this in the first place?

Sure. Yeah, no, those are really two questions, I guess, somewhat related… So I’m a procrastinator.

Welcome to the club.

Yeah. If you give me a task, I will spend an obscene amount of time trying to figure out “Okay, what is the best way to do this?” It would have taken me an hour, but no, I’ll spend the 10 hours like “What’s like the best…?” And years ago, I was a writer. I used to write for PC World, I used to write and edit for MakeUseOf which was another tech blog… And that’s a lot of typing, it’s a lot of writing. And that kind of got me into a rabbit hole of “How can I do this better? This feels weird.” Even before that, my very first keyboard was an ergonomic keyboard. It was the Microsoft Natural 4000, way back when. So I kind of had it in the back of my mind that it can be better. Like, I don’t have to use a laptop keyboard. I don’t have to use like a crappy, mushy keyboard. And then basically I switched to a better keyboard layout. So I was still using the same hardware, but the keys were arranged differently. That’s a layout called Colemak. And if you’re listening to this and you’re feeling uncomfortable typing, that would be the first thing I would suggest. Don’t even buy anything. Just switch to a better keyboard layout, with a keyboard you already have.

And Colemak was interesting because there’s this graduated system of learning it. I was getting paid by the word. I was writing for a living. So it was kind of scary to switch to a different keyboard layout, because at the time - this was years and years ago - there wasn’t really great dictation software, or anything like that. So if I can’t type, I can’t write, I can’t pay the bills.

So I transitioned over to Colemak using this graduated system called Tarmak, where at first you change like three keys, and I kind of lived with those… It’s like quirky, but three keys are in like the wrong places. So I lived like that for a month, got over that, changed a few more keys, a few more keys… And ever since then I’ve been typing like this with Colemak. So that was kind of not the start, but step two. But it didn’t stop there, obviously… [laughter] I was comfortable using Colemak –

The rabbit hole is deep.

Yeah. I was comfortable using Colemak, but I was like “Man, I’m sure there’s better stuff out there.” So I got this wonderful keyboard that’s made to this day, this was the Kinesis Advantage. And that’s a keyboard that’s like a – it’s like one massive thing, and your hands are slightly separated, and there’s these bowls that your fingers sink into. It’s very cool. And I got it blank. You could get it with no, nothing on the key caps, because by that time the key caps would have been wrong for me… So I got it with nothing. And my wife loved that, because I was relearning to type, yet again, and like completely… But within a couple of weeks I was able to type pretty well on this blank keyboard.

And then I loved the hardware, it was lovely for me, but I wanted it to do more. I was like “Man why does one key do only one thing?” I mean, what if I hold it down? What if I tap it twice? What if – you know, all those things. And then I kind of got into the possibilities of what’s possible, what’s out there in terms of smarter keyboards… And I found the ErgoDox. And this was an open source design by Dominique Pouchain, a Quebecois… And at the time you could buy it as a box of parts from Massdrop, before they were called Drop.com. You would pay hundreds of dollars and wait a couple months and get a box of parts, including surface mount diodes, which are these teeny-tiny grain of rice things you have to put on a circuit board at exactly the right place and the right orientation, and solder down, again and again, because there’s many of these…

[08:06] I looked at it and I said “You know what? I’m probably not the only one who wants a keyboard like that, but isn’t going to go through the trouble of assembling it myself.” So that’s where my partner, Dima, my business partner comes in. He’s the managing director of Tibbo, which is a Taiwanese company I used to work at. I did a whole bunch of stuff before; I used to work with Tibbo. They make really nice industrial gear, very high end manufacturing. So I contacted him… This was a few years after I was done working there. I contacted him, I said “Hey, Dima, listen, I think I’ve got something here. Let’s make a keyboard. Look at this design. We can make it. Nobody can take out the trademark. We don’t own the trademark ErgoDox. Nobody can.” But I told him “It’s not about the trademark. Let’s do it, and do it well.”

And he kind of thought it over, and he found one on eBay. Somebody was selling an assembled one. So he bid on the one on eBay, and got outbid at $400 US at the time.

Wow.

Yeah. This was nine years ago. Factoring inflation. Yeah.

$2000…

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Then he emailed me back and said “Okay, you know what? There’s something here. But we need money to get off the ground.” So here comes crowdfunding. And we did a crowdfunding campaign, our first, and so far our last; I’m in no rush to do that again. It was March when we launched the campaign. And I was telling people “We’re going to ship in December. Back us now; we’re shipping this keyword in December.” And we did.

We ran the campaign for two months. We raised 80,000 US, which was what we needed. And in December, the first ErgoDoxes were being shipped to customers… Which is really the accomplishment here for me, because crowdfunding campaigns for hardware are notoriously late… And it’s a position of trust. People were really trusting me to deliver on this thing. I was unknown. “Who is this guy even?”

Yeah, I was gonna say, “Why do they trust you?”

Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe I came across as trustworthy within the video, who knows. But it was actually funny. There was a whole thing around the crowdfunding, because some people initially thought it was a scam, actually. Some people thought, “Oh, these people are just – who are they even?” Because the keyboard world is very much a community. It’s tight-knit. And I was not of that community. I’m not really a social media type of person, and I don’t hang out on forums, and stuff, it’s not something I enjoy so much, so nobody knew who I was. So in fact, some people at the very beginning thought “Oh, these guys are scammers. They’re trying to cheat people out of their money. They’re never going to ship this. Who is this guy even?” So we actually had to revet at some point with Indiegogo and tell them “No, no. Here’s Tibbo Technology. This is the company that’s going to make this. This is a real manufacturer in Taiwan, all lined up”, and they were like “Okay, fine.” And then yes, we did ship. But it was definitely a leap of faith for the people who backed us, and we rose up to it. I was happy, and the people who got the keyboard were happy.

This was nine years ago? Is that right?

2015.

Wow. It was a different time then. I think it was very popular. It still is popular, but I’m not sure how very popular, popular it is.

Crowdfunding or keyboards?

Crowdfunding was very popular a decade ago, basically. Even more so.

Trendy even, at that point.

Kickstarter was a big thing… Trendy, yeah. That was the place to launch a new, innovative thing. And I think if you’re going to break the mold on keyboards and do all the assembly, all the hard parts of – I mean, it’s already hard to change your keyboard layout. It’s already hard to even change your keyboard, let alone have to learn how to assemble and build it to do the change. You know what I mean? Like, you’re cutting out a lot of things in that process.

Oh, yeah. No, for sure. Having something that comes nice out of the box - you just simply take it out of the box, you plug it in and it works. And there’s also the whole configuration aspect of it; that really has to do with what is ergonomics.

[12:19] It always gets me when I see ergonomic keyboards that work one way. So I know it’s probably ergonomic or comfortable for hopefully the person who designed it. I guess it works for them. But maybe my hands are a different size, or maybe some of my fingers are more or less nimble than others. So there’s the whole question of “Once you plug the keyboard in, can you customize it?” Can you adapt it so that it works for you? And before, with these keyboards - and with some of these keyboards to this day - you go to the source code. There is a beautiful piece of code called QMK, stands for Quantum Mechanical Keyboard, and that’s a spinoff of TMK, which is an even earlier mechanical keyboard firmware… But QMK is very, very powerful. It lets you do many, many things with your keyboard. You can have layers, you can have one key that you can tap, and hold, or tap-tap, or like a whole bunch of – like a combo, where you mash six keys at the same time and you get something on your screen. All sorts of stuff. But –

My password, matching certain keys, for a length of time [laughter]

Exactly.

There you go.

It’s like, don’t need to actually type something in, or it can actually bypass the biometric. Because if you’ve got this crazy keyboard anyways… I’m thinking like Mission Impossible, when they break into the person’s –

Yeah, go all in.

Yeah, they get into the henchman’s layer, and they go and they access the keyboard, and it’s like “I can’t even operate this thing, because it’s this Tarmak thing, or this Colemak thing…” [laughter]

We were talking to a user in New York the other day and he was showing his keyboard, and he got all blanks. And he says “Yeah, when I ordered from you, it was all printed keycaps. But that was too friendly to people who weren’t me. So I swapped out the keycaps for blanks, and now nobody can use it.” It’s a feature.

Yeah. Memory-only.

There you go.

That is cool.

So you plug in the keyboard and you want to change how it works. So in the past, and in some other keyboards now, you kind of go to the code. You need to know a little bit of C, and be comfortable compiling stuff locally, and building, and installing the make toolchain, and all that. And I felt there was value in having a graphical configurator. A way that I can like click stuff on my screen, and see the keyboard, and just like change things in a browser, hit Compile, and all that is done for me. And then I just get a binary file, it goes onto the keyboard, and all the smarts still live on the keyboard, but I didn’t have to write all the code.

Well, that’s very smart.

Yeah, it’s fun. It allows people to iterate, and it allows people to truly adapt the keyboard to what they need. Because it’s a high-friction process. If it’s really hard to change the keyboard to do what you need it to do, you’re just gonna stick with that as it’s kind of out of the box, and you’re missing out.

So the game is to make it easy for people to adapt it to what they want to do. So you take it out of the box, you plug it in, you go to an app in the browser - which by the way is freely available. Like, you can play with the app before you buy it. It’s right there. You don’t even need an account or anything. So you kind of get a sense for what it can do. You play around with this app, modify, compile, flash it onto the keyboard… All of this happens in the browser, and then you type. And then you realize “Oh man, this isn’t working for me. This key is uncomfortable. It’s too much of a reach for my pinky.” So you go in and you move that key.

For example, I don’t like reaching for the Shift key. So my Shift key is the same key as my Space bar on my Voyager. So when I hit it, it gives me a space, but if I want to capitalize a letter, I just hold down on the same key and it becomes a Shift.

Nice.

[16:08] And that’s under my thumb. That’s why I’m doing the thing. If you’re watching the video, that’s my left thumb. So that level of adaptability makes a difference.

Well, let me ask you a question. That’s the way you do it, right? You’ve got this modified way. Maybe even it’s muscle memory, because you do it daily.

Sure.

And we’re hanging out at a conference and I’m like “Okay, Erez, hop on my machine real quick and do something.” Do you have to unwire your brain to transpose back to a normal keyboard?

No, that’s the fun – well, yes and no. I’m going to go with no for the shape, because as long as you are running Colemak, as long as your letter keys are where my brain expects them, I’m good.

Right.

I have a Mac book, I use the MacBook itself often, just like on the sofa, or when I travel, or… Well, when I travel it’s with the keyboard. But I use the MacBook itself often. It’s just as fast. Because the shape is so, so different. When I’m using one of our keyboards, I’m literally like this - my chest is open, my shoulders are out, and it’s one… The posture is different. Everything feels different. So it’s like using two totally different instruments. I’m just as fast.

Right. I can see that, because your arm placement sort of suggests to your brain “Hey, this is a new scenario.” So scenario A is my way. Scenario B is maybe the B size, where you’re going back to a normal way, and your configuration is different in terms of not the keyboard, but the way your body orients itself to the device.

Another word for it is maybe like a modality. It’s an input modality. So there’s no confusion then. I think if we were to make a normal-looking keyboard - yeah, that would probably be a problem, because the shape is so weird and different, it’s just not a non-issue.

So for our listeners’ sake who hasn’t seen these, we should say, if it’s not totally clear, these are split keyboards. So there’s two halves to these keyboards. I think probably people have inferred that by now, but…

Oh, yeah. So there’s two halves. There’s a cable in between. It’s not wireless. We can go into that, by the way. That’s a whole thing. Our keywords are not wireless, and will not be wireless for the foreseeable future. But there’s cables, there’s a cable separating both halves, and then it goes to the computer on the left side.

Yeah. Good point to clarify, Jerod. Yeah, they’re separated. When we say normal keyboard, it’s a contiguous keyboard, that’s all connected, not separated, like you would normally use.

Right.

But you said it’s weird and different, and yet we’re saying the word “normal”. At least I am. I think you are too, Jerod…

The keyboard?

I don’t want to assume.

Well, I mean, a laptop keyboard would be normal. Mine are definitely weird. I mean, unabashedly so. They’re just strange-looking keyboards. That is what we make.

Okay. You were saying the opposite. You were saying the Voyagers, this style is weird and different. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

I’m sorry. I thought you were saying the normal keyboards are weird and different. I’m like “That doesn’t compute to me.”

No, no. The normal keywords are –

Normal…

…what - you basically close your eyes and draw a keyword out of memory… That’s normal. That’s what a keyword looks like.

Yeah.

Well, I have gone a little bit into this world. I think maybe I use that same Microsoft keyboard that you had, where it was an ergonomic keyboard and it was split, but they were immovable. Like, it was still one big piece of keyboard.

It had the beautiful swooping curve. It was very nicely done. It was a beautiful keyboard.

Yeah. And it was comfortable. And I was using it specifically for a reason, which is probably why a lot of people reach for these, is because they have hand pain from using traditional keyboards. I had pain on the outside of my left hand, my pinky finger. That was getting worse and worse. And of course, as a keyboard typist daily, I’m starting to worry – if I plot my trajectory of pain from now (I think I was in my late twenties at the time) into the future, this is going to become unsustainable.

[19:59] And of course, I’d seen people with the surgeries, and with the straps on and stuff… And I’m like “I don’t want that to happen to me.” And so I got the Microsoft one, used it for maybe a year or two… And then I realized that by remapping, actually, all of my pain was sourced from a single motion, which was fixed by remapping my Caps Lock to Control.

That’s amazing.

Yeah. Just the one key change, that I still use to this day on a regular MacBook, just took that problem completely away. It took me a long time to land on that, and there was pain in the interim. But when I realized - and now I’m also stealing our listeners’ ability to understand, because I’m showing you with my hand… I just did this over and over again, which I’m like tweaking to the left to hit Control. I was getting to that control spot.

Emacs pinky type of thing

Yeah, exactly. And so if I just moved that to Caps Lock and never had to move there again - the problem went away. So I understand 100% the power of just being able to change a few keyboards around and completely change your life in a small enough way that matters.

Totally. It always gets me. We actually hear from people writing now and then, saying “This keyboard saved my career.” I can – because coders work long hours. It’s a cliche, but it’s also true. And then they’re done working and they’re still at the keyboard, because their hobbies involve the keyboard. So yeah, it’s always fun when somebody says “This was life-changing.”

What was the name of the Microsoft keyboard again? I may have gapped that. I want to make sure we stamp it again.

It was the Microsoft Natural 4,000.

Okay. Is that what you used, Jerod? You used that one?

Let me look it up real quick and see if –

At least a version of it. Because they still sell them today, and I was looking it up and I’m like “Is this still –”

No, the 4,000 is like super-duper old. That’s long gone.

Right. Not that we’re trying to advertise this necessarily, but the latest, if this is true, it seems to be called Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard. So is this the latest version of that to your knowledge, based on your usage of it?

Exactly.

Okay.

Yes, Microsoft Sculpt is the one I used.

So comparative to this one, the Sculpt doesn’t have what you have, which is this ability to completely separate. Why is the ability to completely separate the two halves an important factor?

Two main reasons. Posture and movement. Posture, first of all, is - let’s say I were to separate the parts and leave them in one place; just stretch them way out and leave them in one place. Actually, I’m going to go with posture, movement and mobility. I’ll get to that. But posture. If I were to separate the two parts and just leave them fixed in their new positions, I already opened up my chest. I dropped my shoulders. The whole neck area. Oeople get stress and tension headaches because of - this has to do with the monitor placement, but also the keyword placement and the interaction between the shoulders and the neck opens up. And then once you open up, that also has implication for breath. It’s actually easier to breathe, and that has a whole host of other health repercussions, or I guess benefits. To take the positive here. If your breath is working, many things in your body work right. So just open up, calm down, and it reduces stress across many parts of your body, not just your hands.

That’s one benefit of split. But the other benefit is being – well, and I guess actually to go more in position, another side benefit there is that you can tend to them. You can control the angle relative to the desk, and actually make a little roof. And it doesn’t have to be the same angle on each half. So one can be like really severely angled to an almost handshake position, the other one much flatter. That’s fine. The keyboard can do that. That’s not a problem, because it’s split. It’s two totally independent halves, right?

[23:57] And then you can also rotate them as whatever works for you. You can have them rotated o you’re coming in from the side like this, or you can have them rotated outwards… And again, you can change each of them independently. But that brings me to movement, which is the second one. You can actually - you can, and I’m going to say you should make those changes throughout the day. Move around. Like, one thing that really gets me is those ergonomic posters and infographics that show you like the right typing posture… And you have this robot-looking person that’s all right angles, and the head is exactly straight, and the forearms are exactly straight, and the knees… Okay, that’s one way to do it, sure; for 5-10 minutes. But really, what we are meant to do as humans is move. We are meant to shift our position throughout the day. And I definitely think you should take movement breaks when you work. You should stand up, you should sit down.

I have this very cool little thing here called the MoveMate, actually, that’s like this wobbly platform that you can stand and kind of play around on… But a part of that is being able to just shift your keyboard around; draw it in closer, push it far, all that. And that also has other advantages, of course… Less movement-based, but let’s say you’re gaming. No problem. You just unplug the right half entirely, chuck it out. Lots of room for your mouse, and the left half can now be this super-powered macro pad just for your game, if you’re like an MMO type of guy. So that’s the second one.

And then the third one, the third good reason for a split - it packs down. It’s really easy. When you type, it’s a full size, spacious keyboard, because you have all this room to spread out… But when it’s time to take it somewhere, there is an included carrying case which is small, because it’s like a sandwich. It’s basically the footprint of one half. So you’re just going to smoosh it together…

Stack them.

…stack them… Yeah, they’re separated, with layers of fabric there. And it’s a soft case on purpose, so you can kind of squish it in as you need to, take it, and go. Small.

This probably doesn’t work for hunters and peckers, people who can’t touch-type. People who are looking down and poking across the board; less skilled typists, perhaps? Or no? No problem?

No, not more; sometimes less of a problem than skilled typists. Because when you are a skilled typist, you have some unlearning to do. It’s jarring. Like, I often say, the immediate effect of putting one of our keyboards on your desk - it’s basically like you’ve got a brain injury. Because a moment ago you could type just fine. Now you’ve got this thing and you have no idea how to type. You lost the ability to type. And that’s something you need to take into account. Like, there is definitely a learning curve. You’ve got to know this if you’re getting one of these keyboards. And if you are used to 100, 120 words per minute, it’s going to slow you down. It’s going to slow you down for a while. It takes people three weeks to recover, to go back up and sometimes beyond their previous speed. But it’s going to take you time. Versus if you are a hunt and peck type of user, you don’t have that unlearning. You can just start from getting faster.

The learning curve you will have there, or you may have there depends more on your background. If you are a non-technical user - we do have non-technical users. We have all sorts of lawyers and teachers and many people who are not necessarily programmers. Obviously, if you’re a lawyer, it doesn’t mean you’re non-technical, but I’m saying people who are not coders. So there is sometimes a learning curve, not so much around the physical act of typing, but more around getting your head around “Wow… What can I do with this thing?” All of the options… It’s so wide open to customization and to change; that takes a little bit of getting used to and experimenting.

[28:20] I do remember even with the Microsoft Sculpt, which I think was the one I was using, and it’s split enough that I did have a little bit of a slowdown… And I remember realizing that my left index finger was doing too much work. It had been reaching across the keyboard to the right side to do stuff, and I couldn’t do that anymore, because they were split. And so it actually kind of fixed my form in that way. I was like “This finger shouldn’t be doing that much work. It should be staying over here on its side.” And so yeah, there are certainly things that you would learn along the way.

I want to go back to what you mentioned about – unless, Adam, on the split stuff, do you have more, or can we move back to the wires?

Just one thing I want to mention on the split - and it’s not necessarily the split, it’s the ability to try without having to buy. I’ve found this resource on your site… It’s a full-size printout of the ErgoDox EX. So that way you could just print it off and put it on your desk and at least get a feel for it. And you can cut the paper and fake it, essentially, and just kind of get a feel for it, with just a print; print the paper. That’s it.

Yeah, exactly. We have one of these for each of our keyboards. You just print it out at a hundred percent… It even comes with a little ruler, so you can put a real ruler next to it and verify you got it right… And then yeah, you just place it down and figure out “Okay, where is this going to go in my space? Does this even feel good?”

Break: [29:45]

I’m down with wires, Jerod. Talk about wires, man.

Well, Erez is down with wires, and he’s out with wireless. I mean, I think you’re going to say latency, but I’m wondering what your – you made a strong stance on wires. Like, we use wires and I think you said we’re always going to use wires…

For the foreseeable future. For as long as – nothing in the pipeline wireless.

Okay.

Yeah, I have many feelings about wireless stuff. I have many emotions. It’s not actually latency… I don’t think that’s the thing for us, because we are not particularly low-latency. I mean, we’re not targeting that, we’re not for gamers. For me, I really want to make a keyboard that people can use in 15, 20, 25 years, to have a reasonable expectation of being able to use this thing. So what does that mean? It means that the parts I use – first of all, it means the hardware design, it’s something you should be able to open up. You should be able to open up and poke inside, replace bits and pieces.

Of course, as long as I’m in business, I also sell replacement parts, but many of these are non-proprietary. You can just get them anywhere; key switches and whatnot. It’s a mechanical keyboard, so it has moving parts. And the number one moving part is of course the key switch. So the key switch should be hot-swappable. You should be able to just pull it out like you pull out a tooth, and stick a new one in. Because that part will break over time.

We were, by the way, one of the first hot-swap keyboards in the world. Nowadays, it’s kind of a common feature, but if you dig through the internet archive, you’ll see us as one of the very first to get there. So it’s a lot around repairability. Or if you take the firmware, for example - again, QMK. QMK is open source and is not – ZSA sponsors QMK development. We’re one of the few companies that actively pay for a developer to work on QMK. But we don’t own the codebase, and we don’t control it. Which means if ZSA were ever to go out of business, the firmware is still there. You can totally flash it. Like, imagine if Sonos went out of business. I’ve got Sonos speakers… Imagine if Sonos tomorrow packs up and that’s it.

Preach.

Okay… At least their new stuff has Bluetooth, but… I don’t have the Bluetooth ones. I have the IKEA thing, and a couple others… And if Sonos were to call it quits, “Okay, now I’ve got paperweights.”

Right…

So repairability goes to the firmware. It goes – not using glue, not using clips that break on people… Just using sane and normal screws, in shapes that people actually have bits for. And we have teardown guides for each of our keyboards. We show you in detail how to take it apart. Except for the ErgoDox EZ; that teardown guide is actually by iFixit, who tore it down and gave it 10 out of 10 on repairability.

So what’s that and wireless? What’s the connection? Why am I going on a big repairability rant when we’re talking wireless? Because wireless means batteries. To make a product wireless, it must obviously include a power source. And those batteries - there is a lot there. First of all - I mean, there’s a whole like sustainability aspect of even making them, which I won’t go into, because yeah, obviously myself, I have a battery in my laptop. I have a battery in many gadgets I use. But it does take resources to make them. But more than that, they will die. A battery is basically like a timer for a product. This to me is like planned obsolescence to the max. If it’s a laptop, or a camera - let’s take a camera. A camera, obviously - okay, I need to take the thing outside for it to work. So it needs a battery. Laptop - I’ve got to travel with it. Okay, I accept that. Phone. Some things need a battery. A keyboard is going to literally live on my desk its entire life, within - I don’t know - 10 inches of a power source. It does not need a battery. And by putting one in, I’m effectively guaranteeing that in a decade, or 15 years, it goes to the landfill.

[37:47] I had the pleasure of talking to Kyle Wiens… I know you know his name, because he started iFixit. He came on the show, I want to say at least in the last year. I feel like it was - yeah, March this year. The show is called “We Have a Right to Repair!”, exclamation point, because that’s how I felt after talking to him. And he said this; I’m going to quote something he said in that show. He said “If you buy a thing”, and this is concurring with what you’re saying. “If you buy a thing with a battery, you’re just renting it.”

Love it.

“The battery is going to wear out.” That’s a consumable. So anything with a battery that has a lifespan of 500 to 1000 charge cycles, you’re just renting it, depending on how they configure that battery. So he went on to say about the Apple AirPods, which is a very popular wireless – and I like them. I love – I don’t know how you would make them with wires if otherwise; that is kind of the feature of the thing. But it’s still true that they’ve got about 500, maybe 1000 charge cycles. How frequently do you charge your AirPods? I don’t know. Daily, nightly, constantly… Maybe you get a year or so out of them battery life-wise; you’re just renting it. That’s what he said.

That’s really, really true. And that’s also an interesting segue… It’s interesting that you mentioned the AirPods, because there’s this company, the company that makes the Fairphone… Have you heard of the Fairphone?

No.

Okay, so this is a European –

Is it the black and white one?

No, it’s not black and white. It’s an Android device. It’s basically a mid-range Android device; just a phone. But the thing is, they actually make it repairable. So the battery that they need to use is user-replaceable. The whole thing is repairable. And they recently announced wireless earbuds. And they look kind of like the Apple ones, but they have a battery that you can replace. They actually were able to design the thing so you can open it, take out this tiny battery, pop a new one in, and ta-da; a new lease on life. So if you need a battery, at least make it easy for me to replace. But if you don’t absolutely need a battery, if your product is going to just be stationary for the most part and live right next to some sort of power source, such as a computer… My keyboard requires a computer to do anything; that computer should give it power. That’s a whole bunch of obsolescence we avoid right there. And I have people who backed the original ErgoDox EZ, back in 2015, got it early 2016, or December 2015, and writing in to this day, saying “Yeah, I have a question”, or this thing, or… They’re still using it. And the configurator, by the way, still works with it also.

That’s cool.

Yeah.

I agree with you. I think that’s a really good reason. I think that there are probably contexts - and I can think of some - in which a wireless keyboard is really a nice thing to have… But I understand as a trade-off perhaps that doesn’t make it worth it. And I think even in terms of simplicity of manufacturing and production, probably keeping your prices down as well, as a business - there’s probably some concerns there as well. Like, make these things as simple as possible. Or is that not a…?

No, not a huge concern. As a business, actually, our costs are super-high. Our economics are weird. Much more of the total cost of the keyboard that you pay goes into actually making the thing… And I’m fine with that, I’m okay, because again, we make them – we make the keyboards in Taiwan, and they’re made by people who are employees; not our employees, but Tibbo’s employees. And they’re paid well, and… The whole thing is just expensive to make. When you do something right, it tends to be expensive. And if I really believed that wireless was the way to go, value-wise, I would go for it. Even if it made the keyboard more expensive, that’s fine. That’s not – I don’t compete on price.

What do your margins look like, if you don’t mind us asking? Percentage-wise.

[41:51] Not amazing, but sustainable. It’s really a question of what game are you trying to play as a business owner. If my game was to grow and grow and grow, and become another Logitech, I should look at my margins. But if my game is to provide something of supreme value to people who recognize what that is, and understanding that my thing is a niche, I make a niche product, and I want to build for and optimize for longevity; not for scale, but for longevity, to still be here in 5, 10, 15, who knows how many years, I’m good. It’s a question of what game you choose to play. That also goes with the fact that we don’t have investors. Our Indiegogo backers are the OG investors, in a sense. They invested in a keyboard, they got a keyboard, and that’s how we got our start, and that’s it. We are fully, fully… Like, I say no to capital. I have people trying to give me money every now and then and I’m like “No, sorry. No, we’re good.”

That’s good. This person you mentioned who bought the OG ErgoDox EZ back in the Kickstarter day, I guess… If in the Indiegogo days, sorry. I used Kickstarter because it’s like Xerox, you know… Is it a Xerox, is it a copy? I don’t know. This person, or that kind of person, that persona, let’s just say, when it comes to a business - when you look at that kind of person who’s purchased nine years ago, or the oldest of purchases, how much money do you make off of that person? Do they come back and rebuy anything, because you have this sustainable – which I totally agree with. I’m just wondering how that hits the bottom line. And I know that you’re optimizing for that sustainability and longevity. But realistically, a customer who is that old, or that length of a customer, and they buy the thing one time way back - how do you make more money off of them? How do you kind of vertically grow within one customer? Is it referrals? Is it recommendations? Is it happiness, and they’re doing a talk at a conference and they’re showing off their keyboard, and it’s infectious because they meet people and they’re an influencer? Or just whatever. How does that work?

It’s a good question. It’s not something I think about, and it’s not something I optimize for. For me, what I care about in kind of an ideal scenario is you buy the one keyboard once, and you are done. Keyboard people call that end game. You got your keyboard, it’s working, and this is it. And for many people, we do hit that, and we provide support in firmware for a long, long time, and our warranty is fairly generous as well… So there are many people who buy the one keyboard, and they’re done. But those people then often do two things. One is they subscribe to our newsletter. I’m sorry, I’m being very immodest here… We have a very good newsletter. It’s called The Ergo. It’s not about only keyboards. It’s once a month, and we put a lot into it. And those people subscribe, and they stay engaged. I get fan mail for the newsletter every month. I get people writing back and saying “Oh, I loved this issue. I use this.” We recommend tools from across the web, we recommend resources, whatever… So they remain engaged.

And then the other thing they do is - yes, they talk about us. We pretty much rely on that, because we don’t work with influencers. We don’t advertise at all. We don’t work with a PR firm. Like, you guys came to me, and I’m very happy to be here, but it’s not like somebody reached out to you and like “Oh, can you –” It’s just all organic.

And what I’ve found is that there is a ton of goodwill. When people sense that you’re being real, that you’re not trying to scale, that you’re not thinking of your software as a service move, and how can I charge a subscription fee for this keyboard or for this thing… When you’re just simply making a good thing, and trying to keep doing just that, it really resonates. And we have people who really like ZSA, and who like our keyboards, and they do share with friends, family, coworkers.

[46:17] And it also helps that the keyboard is so weird-looking. You have it on your desk in an office, if you work in an office… People do routinely stop and say “What is that?” And then our customers really talk. They really do open up. They’re not like “Ah, it’s a keyboard.” No, because it’s kind of more than that, for them, for customers who get it. So yeah, that’s kind of how it works.

I noticed on your homepage for ergodox-ez.com, a couple of scrolls down, “Linus Tech Tips. Watch the full review.” How did this come about? You said you don’t work with influencers. Was this natural?

Yeah, they emailed me.

Is that right? Because they said, “We finally are reviewing this thing.” Like it’s been a wait. They just emailed you and like “Hey, give us one and we’ll review it”?

No, so that’s not how I work. I’m pretty selective. So they reached out, and… I know they’re big. That’s great. It doesn’t mean that they’re the right people to review the product. So then I always have a call, and I kind of get to know them, and set expectations, and like “This is it.” To review a keyboard like that – if you think you’re going to review my keyboard in two or three days… No, that’s not going to work. You need to have some time with it. You need to really spend time. You need to have a little bit of background, if you are a reviewer. You need to know what else is out there to have comparables. So I had a call with them, looked like a good fit… I sent them a keyboard, they took their time, and eventually they published.

I don’t often read the comments, but on this same post - we’ll link it up in the show notes, because it’s linked from your homepage as well, but… You might like this comment. It’s kind of funny. We’ll see how it goes. Jake Boom five years ago says “I feel like if I invested in this keyboard, my life would inevitably spiral out of control.” There’s a twist, I promise. “I’d fall into a vicious chase of ergonomic custom keyboard perfection. Six months later I’d be under a bridge somewhere, frantically swapping key switches to scratch that itch I’ll never quite be able to reach.”

Wow…

How does that resonate with you?

I love it. So it’s all a question of what game are you playing. For some people, it is a hobby. Yes, there are people who get an ErgoDox EZ, and then that’s kind of their gateway, and they play with it, and they’re like “Oh, wow, that’s great.” And then they go and they build one, because nowadays there’s kits, there’s really great kits… You can even get like pre-assembled kits. Everything is so much more developed now than when we started that, that yeah, for sure, we do see it all the time. But some people just want to get their work done. They get a keyboard, they’re happy, and they move on with life. But as a hobby - I’m biased, obviously, but keyboards are very cool, in my opinion. It’s quite a fun hobby.

I almost feel like I need one of these, Jerod. [laughter]

I feel like they’re right up your alley, Adam.

I feel like I need to taste the rainbow. I need to taste this rainbow, bro.

I think you do. Here’s my question in light of that, Erez - why a product line? Because you have now Voyager, you have Moonlander…

Yeah. No, that is such a great question. I love that question, because I had never imagined we would get here. When we started, we made the ErgoDox EZ. That was the Indiegogo. And then it was time to make a website to go with it. So I got ErgoDox-ez.com, because that’s what we were making, and that was the thing.

Yeah.

[49:47] And then for a good few years, that was it. And then we got this idea. We were like “You know what? What if the thumb cluster moved? What if the whole keyboard was way, way thinner, and you could actually move the thumb cluster?” And we started playing around with that, and we realized that makes a significant difference. We basically – again, the ErgoDox, the OG ErgoDox is not my design. It’s not by ZSA, it’s by Dox, by Dominique. And it was optimized for hobbyists originally. People would make it out of a sandwich of acrylic. They would take a few layers of acrylic, and that was the case. Acrylic. Then the circuit board, then some more acrylic, and… You know.

And when we made it into the ErgoDox EZ, obviously we modified it, we redesigned everything for manufacturing… But it was still that ErgoDox at heart. For example, when we came out with a backlit version - not all keys are backlit. The thumb cluster is not backlit. Not because we got lazy, but because the original design did not allow for it. So we were kind of stuck with that. And after a few years we felt “Wow, there’s enough interest here. We have enough of a community. Yeah, and we have a good idea. Let’s do it.” And that was the Moonlander. And then the Moonlander was out for a few years… It’s all kind of organic.

We looked at a laptop and we thought, “What if there was a keyboard that really went with it? A keyboard that you could lean up, you could tent it against the sides of the laptop.” We don’t show an image like that on the site, but it’s very possible with a Voyager, and it’s something that people do. And you just kind of set both halves of the keyboard, each half kind of so that it’s half on the laptop, and mostly on the desk. We even have rubberized sides to support that, so it doesn’t slide on you. These are secrets. These are not things you necessarily see on the website. We don’t highlight them. But we did a lot of work for those rubberized sides. The shell is a double-shot shell. The shell of the Voyager is made from a mix of ABS and silicon, that we inject very precisely for those legs.

And we had this idea… And then these very thin key switches called choc switches started appearing, made by Kailh. And for a long time, I was a little bit on the fence, because it is a proprietary part. If you look at the Moonlander and the ErgoDox, we use Cherry-style switches, and the patent on those expired, which means they’re going to be around for a long, long time, because anybody can make them, and many companies do. So when the time came to make the Voyager, we really wanted an ultra, ultra thin board, still with like a steel backplate, something that’s very rigid, but very thin. So we opted for those switches, and we opted for an even more minimal layout, like fewer keys. And yeah, and that’s where we are today.

Love it. It makes a lot of sense in that context. When I just land on the website, I kind of get the paradox of choice of like “These all look good. How am I going to pick the one that’s not right for me?” You know that problem?

It’s a huge issue. And not just that, there’s real costs to picking, because it’s not like – there’s nowhere to just try them out. So if you pick one… Yeah, that’s something I think a lot about. And we try to be very clear about the differences, and we have those printouts and everything. Most people tend to be happy with their choice, but we do have people who are like “Oh, I want to ship this one back and get a different one instead.” And they do that. They ship, they get a full refund… And the shipping is on you, unfortunately, which is expensive, because you do ship back to Taiwan. So that’s expensive. Or some people resell locally, to friends or people like on Facebook Marketplace or whatever, and then they get another one… But again, that’s a minority. For the most part, people do tend to be happy with whatever they choose.

[54:05] Yeah. The Voyager looks rad as a laptop user. I love the idea of just butting it up on either side of my laptop.

I love it. I’ve gotta say, out of all keyboards, my personal favorite is definitely the Voyager. Again, I’m biased, because the Voyager, my little secret there is the Voyager was the first keyboard where I personally designed the geometry. The location, the position of every key on the Voyager, the exact angle of the thumb cluster - that’s me. And that happens to be very, very comfortable for me, for my particular hands. What do you know…? So I have been typing on the Voyager since it was just a circuit board. Before it had a shell, when we were just starting out, I got the first functional circuit boards, they had little rubber feet on them… I just plugged in the circuit board, put keys on it, and that was it. Voyager ever since.

Nice. Now, do you use a traditional mouse?

I use a trackball, personally. I use a trackball called the Kensington Expert Mouse. It is a trackball. I don’t know why they called it that way. It looks like something designed in the late ‘90s. I’m pretty sure it actually was. It’s massive. It is wired… I love it. I’ve been using the same physical one for I think 11 years now.

And where do you place that?

In between the halves, closer to my left half. I’m a lefty, so I use the pointing device with my left hand. I have the two halves shoulder width, so they’re pretty far apart… And then right up against the left half is my trackball.

Gotcha.

From the inside. I’m moving my hand inwards –

You move it inside of the keyboard, not to the outside.

Yeah.

Yeah, input devices are kind of the rub, because I am a trackpad fan boy… Haven’t used a mouse for years. Never particularly liked mice. I’ve used trackballs… I actually really liked the nubbins, which is what I call it, on the old IBMs, now Lenovo, I suppose, where they put it right there inside the home row, and it’s that little red rubber thing…

You liked that, huh?

I liked that, because my fingers could stay at the home row, which is also why I like the trackpad. It’s so proximately close to the spacebar. I mean, you’re just right there. I’ve always felt like the mouse was like a big motion out to the side. Of course, you could put it right next to your keyboard, but… That’s why the Voyager is attractive, because I still would want to use my trackpad. I wouldn’t want to adopt a mouse.

That’s right. I use my laptop in clamshell mode, with an external monitor, so for me, the keyboard is just on the desk. But if you actually really do use the laptop on your desk, then you kind of prop the Voyager halves on the laptop, and then yeah, your trackpad is right there by your thumb.

Adam, you use like a Wacom tablet, don’t you?

Yeah, my setup is interesting. So I have trackpad, like normal, way over here on the left…

Wireless…

Wireless. Keyboard, also wireless, right here in the center… And then a Wacom… What is this? An Intuos Pro.

Oh, wow. Do you draw? Do you create digital art?

No, I just prefer it over a mouse. I just like to write – I’ve never had any wrist pain anymore.

That’s awesome.

So I just keep this thing in my hand I’m writing, and I mouse with my pen.. And it’s just natural, the way it fits into my hand. I don’t have to – you know, people get into this mode… I’m making a claw.

The claw, yeah.

Right. The claw is what really gets people. And so I can always, like you said, keep motion, earlier in the show. You said keep moving around. This method allows me to move around. My trackpad is independent, my keyboard is independent… And the Intuos Pro is like my mouse, and it’s independent. So I can move around a lot.

[57:57] That is very cool. That’s a really cool use of a Wacom, actually. You just use it as a mouse.

Yeah. I’d never heard of anybody do that until Adam.

Yeah. I can’t go back… I like to – so my trackpad’s on the left. So my left hand is what I scroll and move, and things like that with. And obviously, I’m clicking and moving windows and stuff like that with my right hand, with the Wacom. And then the keyboard’s in the middle. So when I’m dedicated to typing, or doing whatever, it’s just right there in the middle.

So you’re, you’re cutting down on a bunch of repetitive movement right there, because you’re basically splitting your mouse hand. Stuff that other people do with the same hand, and in the same posture, you’re using two hands for, and in different positions. That’s so interesting.

And it’s cool how it just works in my brain, too. I just feel like I can scroll, and tap… It’s just so fast. It’s really just a fast –

Because you’ll be scrolling with one hand, and then clicking with the other hand. Interesting.

Yeah.

But do you do that – well, there’s no really scenarios where you do that at the same time, are there? You don’t really need to scroll and click at the same time.

No, but like consecutively, right after one another perhaps. But yeah, not simultaneously, I would think.

So as an example, I’m just scrolling on this website called ZSA. I’ll say it your way. ZSA.io/voyager. I’m scrolling it and like mousing around so I can touch things and click things and buttons. So my left hand is scrolling up and down the page to scan, and zoom, and look and whatnot. And I can easily click on “Try Oryx” or whatever else you’ve got, because my hand on the right side is this mouse, and it’s just able to move along, while scrolling with my left hand.

Wow. That’s super-interesting, because what you’re describing is a split mouse.

It is.

We’re talking about split keyboards, but what you’ve got there is a split mouse, which isn’t really something I considered. That is so interesting.

And honestly, Wacom has no competition as a mouse. So I use this as a mouse, and I have been for 15 years. I mean, just so long. I’ve just never – I think I’ve had to buy… And to your credit, maybe on the sustainability side, I’ve had to buy several over the years. And I think it’s mainly been because they eventually wear out, the pen wears out, I can’t get replacement parts for it… Some of them switch out, but like I might lose it… I don’t know, just things happen. I think I may have bought three, potentially, over my whole entire usability career of doing it like this.

Yeah.

And I think that’s a lot, because it’s about 300 bucks each, roughly. You know, 200 bucks. So that’s quite an investment. But it’s nice. I would encourage you to consider my way, and maybe make a Wacom killer… Because you can make it better, that’s more sustainable. To their credit, they do a great job with the surfaces being able to be replaced. So over time, the surface - because I’m always rubbing my full hand on the surface.

Right. Probably getting grease on it.

Yeah. Like, my hand gets greasy, you see a pattern there, all this stuff… You can peel that off and replace it. And I’ve done that several times, too.

I did not know that.

I’ve graduated from smaller ones to bigger ones, which I think was mainly why I upgraded over the years, or I got a new one, was like, I want more space in my area. Now, there are some, I guess, compatibility challenges, which you will always have in a third party device that is not first party native keyboard… Which is one of my other concerns, is like “Well, how compatible can it be with every application?” And you can only do so much customization. But the point is, is that I think there’s room in there, because this does way more than I need. I don’t use any of the extra keys. I just don’t have a need for it. Maybe I can find a use for it, but I just haven’t… So I basically just disable everything that is the tablet, and I’ll only use it for an input device. And that’s it.

That’s super-interesting. How’d you get the idea? What got you started on Wacom?

[01:01:49.21] I think a friend of mine, a long time ago - his name is Donald Kilgore. DK is what I call him, because it’s his initials, DK… He did it, and he’s a left-hander… And I have in the past been an illustrator and done more in creative programs, but… So initially, I got it for those reasons, because I wanted to have a true input device for it, but then it became my way. And I do that stuff less now, but the way stayed with me. So I didn’t abandon the ship because I did less illustration or less in Photoshop, or whatever. It was very helpful in those applications, but now it’s just the way for me. So I was influenced by somebody else… And I think they did it similar, where they had the trackpad like that, this configuration. I tried it out too, and just never stopped.

That’s awesome. That’s really interesting.

I am thinking though how the Voyager can fit right here in the middle for this keyboard.

So it’s a funny setup, actually. Your setup is the opposite of most people’s, because most people - they put the keyboard, and then there’s lots of room in the middle for a cat. [laughter]

Okay… Well, I have no cat.

We actually have a whole page on the site dedicated to photos of cats in the middle. That’s a whole page.

That’s hilarious.

Cats and keyboards.

Yeah, it’s feline-approved. But in your case, it’s like you’re going to have the keyboard in the middle, and your split mouse off to the sides. That’s really interesting.

Have you ever considered accounting for the mouse somehow, like split keyboard integrated mouse device?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Actually, just this month we published an amazing tutorial by Robin, one of our support people, who created a trackpad for the Voyager. It’s an amazing – right now it’s a DIY thing. It’s like a mod. We’re super-DIY friendly. People 3D-print all sorts of attachments, and things like that… And we tend to share those out and highlight them, or whatever. They color their keys, and stuff like that. But this particular mod adds a circular trackpad right next to the Voyager… And it looks like it was made for it. Robin created a beautiful thing there. And once I saw it, I was like “Oh, maybe we can make something like that.”

So the DIY version is out right now. People can go in and make it, actually. And some people already are. But we are definitely looking at offering something more polished and built in.

Yeah.

Break: [01:04:21.11]

What does it take to go from this DIY proof of concept to adoption and production? What would it take to make that become real?

Oh, a whole bunch of things. So first of all, when you have the mechanical design, even if you have something you can 3D-print, you need to completely redo it, because designing for 3D printing and designing for injection molding is two totally different things. So you make the shell. And then of course, once you have a shell, you pay for the tooling. That’s very expensive. That’s depending on the size of the mold, but it can get in the tens of thousands of dollars for a mold, things like that. Then you’ve got the plastic done, and that’s a bunch of iterations, because you also iterate on things like the surface texture. How does it feel?

And injection mold tooling is interesting because some things are irreversible. It’s literally a physical mold. So if you decide to make a change, you can’t put it back later. Some changes, when you decide, it’s like, if it doesn’t work, you need to scrap the mold and literally start over again. So it’s a fairly intense process, and that gets you the plastic at the end. That is if you just go ABS. For the Voyager shell, we had to do it even more complicated, because like I said, that shell is made of two materials. And that’s a whole other thing.

Then you’ve got the electronics. So for the electronics, when you make them at scale, when you’re like a real manufacturer and not a hobbyist at home, you need to get the electronics certified. CE and FCC certification, which means that it’s up to code, it can be legally imported, it’s not going to burn your house or your computer… It’s a real thing. And that certification is pretty grueling. They go and they literally zap your product. They shock it with an electrostatic – they have a little thing, like a mini cathode prod thing that they stick in there… They find whatever gaps you have in your case, then stick it in there and they zap your product and see what happens. And make sure that it actually reboots, for example, and continues to work, and things like that.

So then you have certification. And then for us, of course, a huge part is going to be the software around it. It needs to be easy to configure. The keyboard would have to work well without it, and it would have to be easy to add it on and customize it in ways that make sense. And then of course, there is explaining what the heck did you do, which is its own thing. There needs to be just a sane-looking webpage that clearly and truthfully and without hype explains what the thing is… Which is a lot. It’s one of the things I actually do last. I think some companies start there. I do it at the end, because I like holding the thing when I write the copy.

The copy on the website is mine. I wrote the copy, across both sites. So by holding a very late stage prototype, let’s say, I can write without feeling that it’s marketing BS. I can write and say “No, this is really the thing.”

That’s cool. I would say there’s a path I would personally take, not this DIY method… Because I’m just thinking through what it would be like to use a Voyager in this configuration, since I’ve walked y’all through how I do it. I think I would probably just take this existing Apple trackpad, because I already own it - like you said before, take what you already own - and I would pop it right in that corner, or somewhere on the inside of the left keyboard, so that I can still be spread out. And I might change my configuration, but my hand that does the work is still doing the work. And so the left side of my keyboard can go on the outside, the left outside of my trackpad. The trackpad would be on the inside right of the left side of the keyboard, and then my Wacom can be to the right of the right side of the keyboard that’s split on the other side.

Exactly.

And kind of split it like that to see if I like it… Because I think that could actually work out. That’s assuming I like this split keyboard.

[01:14:25.09] And then if you have access to a 3D printer, you could possibly print out a really simple wedge, that just kind of lifts your trackpad a little bit, and maybe angles it inwards just a bit.

Yeah.

Or rather angles it towards the keyboard, I should say, which is really outward, but it’s toward your left hand. And it will be the right height, and will be leaning towards you ever so slightly. Yeah, I think there’s something there.

Yeah. Because those bottom two keys on the left side I imagine would probably get in the way of the trackpads too close.

You could have it like poke out the top a little bit. You could lift it so that the top of the trackpad is higher than the top of the keyboard.

Can we talk about voiding warranties?

Sure. We have many tutorials for fun ways to void your warranty. We are all about that. So one thing people should know - opening up a product… If you spoke to iFixit, I’m sure they mentioned that as well, but some people still don’t know that. Opening up a product does not void your warranty. The warranty is still – you can flip a product over, open it up, look inside, warranty is still valid.

Where the warranty becomes void is any user caused damage. Let’s say you opened it up and then you spilled Coke in there. That’s hard for me to cover. But basically, the warranty - it’s a two-year warranty at the base. You can extend it to four years, and you can extend it at the time of order. I don’t do the thing like Apple do, where you can extend it after you buy, because that feels like kind of a desperate upsell to me. Like, I don’t love it. I think it’s more respectful of people to just say “Well, you looked at the accessory store, that was your decision. I respect your decision. That’s it.” I’m not going to haunt you with “Are you sure you don’t want to pay a little more for two more years?” But if at the time of purchase you make that decision, you get four years. And that’s a very no BS warranty, in the sense that if there’s any problem, our support team is amazing. We are 11 people in the company, not including the manufacturing side. Four of us are full-time support. I would say four and a half, because half my time is in the support inbox. But four of us are full-time support, extremely good at what they do. That is the core of our marketing, really.

I think it’s shocking to people when they buy a product and then they need help, and then you actually help them. People are so surprised when that happens. It’s quite funny. Some people write already being very defensive. They write with a sort of attitude of “I know you’re not going to help me, and I’m pissed, but I’m going to just lay out my case right here.” And then we go “Okay, yeah.” And then we help them, and they’re like “What just happened? Somebody listened, and it wasn’t like some AI chatbot thing?” So the warranty is comprehensive. It’s handled by human beings, who do not make you go through a bunch of forms. And if you want to mod the keyboard, we are all for that. We show you all sorts of ideas while making it very clear that when you’re modding it, you are doing away with the warranty. Some people actually wait for the warranty to expire before they do that.

But bottom line is, I think if you own something, you should own it. It should be yours. You should be able to void the warranty on the thing productively. I can certainly void the warranty on my iPhone, but I can’t do anything productive with that. I’ll just have a broken iPhone. So… You know what I mean.

[01:18:15.27] I asked that question because I’ve found on your very well-designed, I would say, and then also well-written blog, “Spray painting your ZSA keyboard. Not a render.” I saw this, and I was like “This is cool.” And it’s an article on how to spray-paint your keyboard. And the very first thing it says in Important Disclaimers is “This will void your warranty.”

Yeah. Absolutely.

But still yet, it’s just like iFixit, you kind of have similar – you’re kind of cut from similar cloths as iFixit. And the fact that they care about repairability, they care about owning, they care about rights to access and fix, or mod, or change… I do wonder – now, I don’t know how your business could work with this, but if you can have a modified warranty; if you followed a guide to do this thing, could you have a modified, where the core components of the keyboard functionality, of the key pressing is still warrantied, when all you did was take it apart, spray-paint the thing, and it’s a cosmetic thing. I just wonder. That might be too hard to enforce though.

Well, what we do there – so it’s a really interesting question, because it’s very important to be honest with people, set the right expectations, and not disappoint. And the word warranty has a lot of connotations to it. It means we’ll pick up the tab; it’s ours to take care of. And once you mod it, that is a statement of ownership. You own the thing. So what we’ll do there is not so much warranty, because you took the responsibility…

Fun fact, by the way. In Hebrew, my first language, warranty and responsibility is the same word.

Is that right?

Yeah. It’s the same word. Warranty and responsibility, it’s one word in Hebrew.

And what’s the Hebrew word? Can you say it?

achrayut

Okay.

“Okay…” [laughs]

So you took responsibility for your possession, for your thing, so you are warranting your own work. But not having warranty does not mean not having support. The warranty can be void, but we’ll still support you, which means if you need parts, we’ll sell you parts. You don’t need to buy a whole new keyboard. It’s not a gotcha type of thing where “Oh, you messed it up. Now you need a new keyboard.” No, no, no. If you messed up just the circuit board, we can sell you just that circuit board. We sell individual parts and pieces for you to fix whatever happened. And we’ll spend time with you to help you troubleshoot, figure out what went wrong, and all that.

Have you written that up?

Yeah.

Because I would then go back to every guide you’ve written. And from point number one, not just tell them you void the warranty, but even if you do void your warranty, link to this thing where you still have support. Because that’s unclear

That’s so interesting. Yeah, I guess I should. I guess I should. It’s like, I’m so careful of upselling, of trying to –

Yeah…

Because I don’t want to make it seem like “Yeah, we’ll sell you parts. Like, we make a bunch of money on these parts.” We don’t, actually. But it’s like “You can always buy parts.” Like, I’m afraid of that tone.

I hear that. But I think if you want to go down the iFixit Kyle Wiens direction, they unabashedly sell products.

Yeah… No, you’re right. We should probably link to We Sell Parts. We have a whole post, by the way, called “Right to Repair”, directly inspired by iFixit, where we list what parts we offer, and we even list prices for the parts right there, so you’re not surprised when you email to ask for the parts. It’s all right there on the blog.

To the note of expectation and clarity, I think that sets more expectation and clarity than not seeming like you’re upselling, because I don’t think you’re trying to. You’re just trying to give “Hey, have fun, DIYers. Have fun, modders and hackers. Do it.”

[01:21:57.28] Yeah.

“And if you do, we’re still here for you. We won’t fix it on our dime, but if it needs fixed, we’re here to help you, and we have not a whole new keyboard to sell you, but just the one part that you may have accidentally spray-painted on when you’re modding this thing, and you’ve still got that support.” I feel like that’s a bit more of a net than feeling like you’re trying to upsell people.

I’m taking that on board. I love it. Maybe by the time you listen to this episode, if you go to that spray-paint blog post, the link is there.

Put it there. Yeah, especially if you’ve written it up. I mean, if it’s already there…

Oh, yeah.

I think if you overly explain even your generosity and your desire to be sustainable, I think if that is your brand, then it won’t feel like what you’re trying not to feel like. It will feel like more support than it will feel like upsell.

I love it.

But I like this, too. I was like “That’s cool.” And I was surprised by the guide to spray-paint it. And I was even more surprised by the very first line, which was “This will void your warranty.” It’s cool that you disclosed that, because I might venture into uncharted territories, or voyage into uncharted territories… [laughter] And void my warranty unbeknownst to me. But you’ve told me, and you’ve given me a path to fix my stuff if I break it. And you’re right, if I choose to mod my thing, I’m taking ownership. It’s a choice to own.

So Erez, you have a lot of business practices that I would say are laudable, of our ethos. We vehemently agree with a lot of the things you’re saying… And yet they’re counterculture. Things like “We don’t advertise is.” I mean, that’s counterculture. That’s not even necessarily one that I agree with, but a lot of your right to repair ownership, longevity, things that matter to you, your customer service emphasis is refreshing. Of course, I’m curious where a lot of this stuff comes from, in terms of where do you learn these things, pick them up, then you learn them as you go… And then I want to eventually, somehow, weave our way into - you also made a deck of cards.

Oh, yeah. [laughs]

WTF, you know? [laughs]

Yes, that’s true, we made a deck of cards.

Which is, again, kind of like out there in left field a little bit, but… Where’s your decision-making process with a lot of these things, or where’d you learn to be like this?

It’s a good question. So I like to read. I started with Seth Godin, who talks a lot about permission marketing, and all that. Then there’s this denim, this jean maker in the UK called H.I.U.T. That’s the company. The guy’s name is David Hyatt. I’m probably mispronouncing his last name… And he’s been doing some really interesting things around marketing, and he wrote a book called “Do Open”, which is a book about email marketing. And before that, I spent years working on an email marketing product. I used to be a developer for Mad Mimi and then GoDaddy, and that kind of exposed me to the power of email marketing, which is really all the marketing we do, that one email a month. And that email carries the company in terms of like outreach, let’s say. Obviously, there’s other forums, like the support I mentioned, but in terms of like us telling people about what we do, it’s that email.

As an individual, I can be somewhat picky. I have opinions. So a lot of our marketing practices and non-practices are me expressing my emotions productively, shall we say. If something makes me mad or I disagree with – like, I don’t love being inundated with ads. I don’t love watching videos online, trying to decide if I want to buy something, and not knowing if the person talking was paid to say what they’re saying, because not everybody discloses.

Right.

[01:26:05.08] So as a company, we will never, ever, ever pay for coverage. Because as an individual, that decision is not informed by business considerations, it’s informed by my lived experience as an individual, where I want to be able to watch something online and trust this person, and know “Okay, yeah, they weren’t getting paid.” Maybe they got the keyboard, or maybe they got whatever it is they’re reviewing, and they’re disclosing that, but at least they didn’t get paid.

So a lot of those decisions come from feelings. I think emotions are a valid decision-making tool… Not necessarily in the moment. You shouldn’t make a decision in anger. But if I’m feeling a certain way, I can sit with it for a while, and think about it, and then come up with something productive to do or not do there. I don’t know if that’s a good answer.

Well, it’s a good answer. You pointed to a few resources, you told us about your personal experience and how a lot of your – a lot of it is taste; it’s your taste expressed into a business.

Yeah, it’s a very idiosyncratic type of business.

Sure. Yeah. In the newsletter we send out every month, I pick five things I liked from across the web. Those are not articles, they’re usually tools, interesting resources… And I share those. And then we went and made a subscriber only-archive. And as a subscriber, it’s free, but for people who are subscribed to the newsletter.

Sure.

And you click in and you go through years and years of these. And for me as the guy who found the links, it’s so weird and interesting, because it’s like this personal archive of stuff I liked, but it’s all shared, it’s all out there, and it’s this work that I’ve been building for years.

Well, here’s how we get to the card deck, because this newsletter, which is so important to you as a business to have that connection with your customers, potential customers and the people who come across you on the internet, this monthly newsletter has a carrot on a stick. And the carrot is if you sign up - it’s a free newsletter - 10% off ZSA cards, which is your card deck. Now, that’s a nice little carrot, I think; it’s not like giving away too much, but it’s giving away something. And this card project is unique and different. Can you tell us about it?

For sure. So I had this idea, “Why don’t we make some merch?” It’d be fun to have merch, to have some things that say that people can maybe wear, or whatever. And I thought, “Oh, T-shirts.” And then I went to sleep and I woke up super-bored at the idea of making T-shirts. Like, really? T-shirts?

And at the time – I’m quite into board games, and tabletop, and things like that. Not RPG so much, but certain board games. And I was thinking a lot about your standard deck of cards, which is such an incredibly versatile tool. I’m talking the deck of cards you can get at any store, not mine; just your regular 52-card deck.

Sure.

You have one of those in your pocket or in your glove compartment. That’s a gaming system. That is a portable gaming system. Just a regular deck of cards. You can do so much with it. Like, one-person, two-person games, you can have four people… And there’s entire books, and there’s websites.

By the way, an awesome website, PAGAT.com, that’s a website dedicated to card games. All you need is a deck of cards. And I saw that, and I was like “Wow. Man, I wonder if there is a way to make a deck of cards that is even more versatile, that you can do even more with and use in even more ways?” And what do you know? I’m not the first who had that idea.

[01:29:59.14] And I embarked on a little research expedition, and I’ve found all sorts of – these are called multi-decks. I’ve found all sorts of these so-called multi-decks. And one of them was particularly great… It is; it’s around. It’s called the EverDeck, and it’s by this very talented designer called Will Su, Wilhelm Su. And he did something super-creative there, with very elegantly adding on cards and fleshing out the idea of a card deck, but making it super-powered. So I emailed him and I said, hey, well, maybe we can do something. Maybe you can advise us on our own card deck that would borrow some of your data structures.” Because a card deck is really a data structure, if you think about it. So that would let us borrow – or it’s really multiple data structures bound up together.

So if he could help us kind of design that, the data architecture. And he helped us – he was very gracious, very generous; helped us come up with what would be the numbers on the cards, or things like that. And then I took Oblique Strategies… Are you familiar with that?

No.

Okay. So that’s Brian Eno, the musician. And he, way back in the seventies, I think, came up with a deck of cards that just had slogans on them, had phrases, that would help you break through creative ruts. And that was really inspiring to me. And so I wanted to include, not those direct ones, of course, but in similar vein. And slowly over the course. And then of course, we wanted some of the cards to have graphics on them. All the cards have graphics, but we wanted some in full color. So then we made that into a complete art ensemble project, where we paid eight different artists, each to make a part of the deck in their own style. And then we get to feature those artists and share who they are and all that.

And then of course came the manufacturing part, which was also its own adventure, because this product is made in China. It’s actually our first product that’s made in China. And that was a whole exploration around “Okay, so how do I guarantee manufacturing conditions in China?” And it turns out the toy industry has its own certification to make sure that the product is made ethically. And how do I make sure the paper is sustainable? And that was a whole adventure there. And ta-da, a deck of cards.

It’s 120 cards. They come in two boxes. Like, you have an overall big box, which then contains two smaller packs that are like pocket-sized. And you can play any card game with it, any existing card game with it, but you can also play a bunch of modern, different card games with it.

We are actually in the process of writing an entire book about ZSA cards right now, featuring both how you can use it for games, but also how you can use it as part of your creative process, or in a team building context, as an icebreaker, to open up communication there. Or in two people, as conversation cards. So if you are a game designer or you know one who might be interested, email me, and we’ll talk, because we’re currently working on this book, and collecting games.

That’s so wild. That’s deeper than I ever imagined.

Yeah, it was an adventure. It was like a good – a deep one, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I love the thought process, I love all the – it’s not just attention to detail. I would just say probably thoughtfulness. I love card games. We recently took up a game called Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And it’s so cool. My kids love it. I mean, we could just play that for hours and it’s so fun.

That is a fun one.

And obviously, my youngest is usually last to slam his hand down, and so I take the cards on his behalf, as any dad should, you know?

Love it.

It’s really cool though. I can explain the game, but it’s not part of the show. I’ll do it in post-show if necessary.

[01:34:10.05] That’s awesome.

I would recommend the game though. That’s cool to use this as a team building exercise, and just all the thoughtfulness, in a way, to extend a card game, really.

Yeah. And it’s actually interesting that we got there from marketing, because this is my marketing tool. Like, every card has the ZSA logo on it, and when I showed the deck to someone for the first time, he kind of took the card and flipped it over and he was like “What’s ZSA?” I was like “Score! It works!” I mean, that’s exactly– I’ve found it fun and interesting to create a marketing product that actually takes people away from the screen, and into contact with other humans in the same room, and doing something socially. I thought that was very fun to try and contribute to.

You know there’s a good idea well-executed when you hear about it and you’re like sitting over here thinking “Why didn’t we do this, Adam?” This is so cool. I wish it had been us, Erez. That’s how good this is. I love it.

Thank you very much.

Yeah. Cards for the win.

Yes.

That’s awesome. Thank you.

Well, what haven’t we plumbed here? What haven’t we asked you that you expected, or is interesting…? Anything else that we’ve left on the table?

Yeah, no, I think this was a lot of fun, honestly. I always feel like I spoke too much. I hope I didn’t say anything too silly… [laughs]

No…

Nah…

But yeah, no, I think it was quite wide-ranging, really.

I suppose we should now give a shout-out to our listener who requested this episode… Sam Edwards, who pointed us towards Erez and these keyboards. And honestly, we probably wouldn’t have found you otherwise… So thank you, Sam. We’ve been doing this for a long time, hadn’t found you yet, so… Happy that we met now, and got to have this conversation.

You probably have some future customers here, as Adam and I have been selecting our favorite keyboard throughout this conversation… And honestly, that deck of cards looks pretty rad, too. So your unassuming sales pitch has worked on me, Erez. [laughter]

That’s exciting. Thank you.

Very cool. To our other listeners - of course, you also can request episodes. We love to serve our audience, and there’s no better way to know that we’re making at least one listener happy by actually doing episodes requested by you, all the listeners. So if you haven’t yet, go to Changelog.com/request, fill out the form, let us know what you want to hear about on an upcoming interview. That’s all for me. Adam, anything else?

I’m going to zsa.fun RN, just to see the cards. So there you go. Very cool.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It was an awesome conversation. Thank you for all of your thoughtfulness, as I said before, but just really just like the way that you carry yourself in your business. I mean, you’re countercultural in so many ways, but you shouldn’t be, and I think that’s cool.

Thank you very much.