 Alright guys, this is Matt Beck from freesaloneducation.com, and we are on the road with Millennium Systems International, right? So we're gonna discuss the name change from, it was Harm Software, right? Yes, it was Harm Software, yeah. So now we're Millennium Systems International, with John Harms, founder, and Bob McConie. And we're gonna discuss Bob's official position. I'm not here to tell you what that is, so we're gonna, what I want to talk about first is, I want to thank you guys for having me here, and we talked about it on the podcast this morning. We do a podcast for hairdressers called Splitting Hares, and we do it every week. And we just sit around, we talk about celebrity hair changes and all kinds of stuff. So we did talk about some things that are coming up with Millennium, so I want to go over that real quick during this time, and then, yeah, we'll go from there. But let's start off, and I guess I'll kind of toss this towards both of you, but I want to talk about when you, I guess John first, when you were first thinking about creating software, right? Was that something that you were passionate about from the beginning, or how did it develop? Yeah, basically the passion for software happened when I got my hands on a computer, and back then didn't have internet. Yeah, I was gonna say, what did that computer look like? Yeah, well, it hooked to the television, yeah, it hooked to the television, first of all. And then you would go to the library and copy down lines of code, because you didn't go on Google, there was no Google. So I'd write down all these lines of code, go back, crank them into my computer, see what they did, watch what would happen if I changed things on that code, and I just fell in love with it. So yeah, I was about 16 when I started teaching myself how to code. Okay, and then, so basically for hairdressers out there, coding is just what tells the computer, right, what to do. Yeah, writing a bunch of gibberish that then makes cool things happen. So everything cool that they're playing with their iPhones, everything, it all comes from words, right? Words and software, and when you get down to the basics, one's and zero's, that's it. Okay, so tell me about, so you developed, you decided to develop software, why was that? So basically to pay for college, I mean I was coming, I was a senior in high school, was gonna be, I got a partial scholarship to college for computer science. My sister was a stylist, and long story short, they needed software, and that was the first salon I ever wrote software for, it was called the Village Salon in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, and helped pay for one semester of college. Nice, so tell me, so your sister was a hairdresser, I remember when I first started the salon, I worked at 10 years ago, we didn't have software, and I begged and begged for them to get software, and the owner was like, I don't even know how I can deal with that. Was your sister totally up for it when you decided you were gonna create it? I can imagine if it was coming from a sibling, you'd be more into it than, just some young stylist telling the owner to get. Not really, yeah, I would love to say that, no, I mean she knew that I was pretty capable and was excited about me starting to write software for the industry she was in, but honestly, if you think back to 1987, which is the year this would have been, very few people were computerized at all, there wasn't even Excel really yet, there wasn't next to anything, so the thought of doing any appointment booking or color formula tracking on a computer was pretty out there, believe it or not at that time, so she really knew, probably didn't even fully understand what I was gonna go there and do, to be honest with you. Well that's what is so interesting to me, I guess, because I love creating some kind of company, so I look at the fact that in 1987, people didn't even have computers in their houses, let alone software in their salon, so what in the world in your mind was thinking, yeah, I'll create salon software and maybe we can get computers into salons and then we can get software, so I can only imagine, so my next question would be, and I know anybody starting a company or a salon or anything when they're looking at doing that, in the first year, the second year, it's all a struggle, so was it a struggle, what made you keep going through it and to develop what you have millennium today? The great thing is I was 18 years old, I was young, there was no thought in my head that I couldn't do this or that everybody in the world wouldn't want what I was gonna create and that's the beauty of being young, I can't imagine doing what I did 25 years ago today and taking that risk, so for me it wasn't even risk, it's something I loved and the thought, I remember thinking how amazing it would be that I could actually do something I loved and make money, and you start small, I hope it can help pay for college, I hope it would help me buy a house someday and then you hit a point, which we'll get to in a second on why we changed the name of the company when it really becomes more about everybody else than yourself, but at the beginning it's just about, man I just want to be able to eat and have a house. All right great, so Bob, so let's get into Bob here, so Bob came along when, so in 1996 and he actually was one of the early adopters back when I was building this even though he wasn't using salon solutions it was called at the time, he was actually an early adopter to computers in the salon which was very unusual. Salon solutions was what you were calling it? The first product I wrote was called Salon Solutions. I was automated for about two or three, maybe three years prior to meeting John, but an old DOS system which was really limited in its capabilities but that's how I got into it. And so you, but you have an interesting story too because your family's all, I grew up in the industry, since 61 my mother had salons, she, I forget what year she graduated, Wilford Academy in the Bronx, New York. Okay. I remember that because I remember going there as a kid and eating donuts waiting for her to get out of the classes. I was excited to go, that's how far back my memory goes with that, but it was interesting. But yeah, she, as we grew up, there's three, I had two other brothers, she raised all three of us on the beauty. She was kind of alone, so she went to school, got a degree in style, I got her license and started working and that's how I got involved little by little. And then you, I heard that you got married and that's how your first salon came about, right? Yeah, I got married and my mother at, and my wedding didn't really give us a wedding gift. She says, don't worry, I'm going to take care of you. And then a little while later on, she had built, she was in the process of building salons in New Jersey and she built a really big one down south Jersey called Shampoo. Okay. And then she said, here's your wedding gift. And she gave me an old senior citizen in Washington, brown paddling, four station, the big beehive type dryer. And I'm in construction. I don't know anything about running a business in this salon. My wife's just getting out of cosmetology. So that's how, yeah, I'm sure you're, you were super excited about it, but look what it was scary. It was scary going into a business. I knew nothing about it. I was at the time and little by little, I started going to trade shows and I got a software and then then I met John. Okay. So then John, why, when did you change the name to Millennium from Salon? What was it? Salon Solutions. So Salon Solutions is the first product that I originally wrote 100% on my own. Okay. And that was until 1999. And then with the new Millennium coming, we needed, we, I started to write with a couple other people collaborating now to create something even bigger and better than Salon Solutions. So I decided to call Millennium because it was coming to the year 2000. Everything was about, you know, the new Millennium. Okay. So that's, and I also wanted to get away from anything that specifically spoke to only a certain industry because I knew we were going to be selling to spas, and medical spas, and, you know, even though salons have always been our sweet spot, you know, people that in a spa don't want to buy something called Salon Solutions necessarily. So it was a generic name that allowed us to really hit the beauty industry as a whole. Nice. And then what do, so let's talk about, you changed the name. So I wanted the name of the company, the name of the company, right? So it's still Millennium, but now it's Systems International. Well, the company was Harm Software. And so the real story behind that is I started talking about it about four or five years ago is, you know, as we went from 10 people to 30 people to 50 people to 100 people, and keeping that culture tight that's so important to us and trying to make it a place that I'd still want to come to work at if I didn't own it. Right. It was really important to me. So as we continue to grow, I realized that this Harm Software really started to bother me because I wrote Salon Solutions all on my own, you know, Millennium. I wrote half of it probably. And the new system that's coming out Mevo, I wrote next to nothing in it. Okay. So it's really about the team. And I wanted to portray that. So and everybody started to know us as Millennium, Millennium, Millennium anyway. So I said, it's not about harms. It's not about me. It's about the company. So we changed the name to Millennium Systems International. And that's the thing that I've always loved about hanging out with everyone from Millennium, because I feel like I've been to the experience a couple times, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But I just feel like that was kind of it's my thought process as well as why I never named my salon, the Map X Salon or anything I do you don't really see my name on it so much, because I feel like it is about it takes more than just one person. I'm not the only one here today, you know, and it's just there's a whole team behind it. So I loved it. You guys have a company like that. And that's what has become especially after as it's growing. It's like it's growing and it's gotten to this big. And now you're like, you know what, I'm going to take harms out of it because it's huge. Yeah. You know, normally they'd make their name bigger on it. So I think that that's it's really all about everybody else here that works so hard. And and you know, again, early on with Bob coming on board, you know, just the relationships he's been able to build, you know, I'm a software guy. I always joke around that I'm schizophrenic because I can actually really hang out with hairdressers and understand them to the right brain. Right. The left brain. I write code. So, you know, I write software. So that's impressive. Like Bob that is just Mr. Relationship and just understands the industry has been, you know, a big piece of, you know, getting our company to where it's gotten as well. Well, I know in every event I've been to I see Bob and he's always mingling with everyone. So yeah, it's cool. Yeah. The funniest thing is when they walk past me and they go up Hey, it's Bob Harms. Bob Harms. And they go right by me. I love your company. What you're doing with it. He's like, it's my company. No, I don't ever say that. But the Bob Harms part, Bob Harms, that is fun. We get mail address to Bob Harms. Yeah, nice. He loves that. Oh, that's great. So I guess last couple of questions. This one's important to me because I have I have a young kid. And I know that you have children and you have your children are here. And so tell me throughout this this venture, how did you find the balance between the career and being at home or or just all that stuff? I think everybody's gonna that's listening to this is going to have that same thing even as a hairdresser, the hours that you got to do Saturdays are your best day. So it's tough sometimes. Definitely early on, my wife was very understanding. She used to we were just joking around. She used to bring broccoli and gavadillos to the office at 10 o'clock when we were there and I'm coding and he's testing and eating. So you know, I think with even for the hairdressers and the owners out there, it's we all do the best we can do. And I think the thing that's best for me is to involve my family in it to an extent where, you know, the only thing is is my wife will tell you that dinner becomes kind of boring, because now it's all about the company sometimes. Yeah, you know what that's like. But um, but that's that, you know, the balance is important. But finding time for my family, anybody that knows me knows I'm all about my family. Yeah, I mean, I usually see a piece of family with you at all times. So it's cool. Okay, last couple of questions. What excites you the most about technology? And I actually have a really good idea that I want to pass along to you. But I don't know if I should tell you in private, I was telling that on the way up. I'm like, maybe we don't want other people to know this idea. But what what excites you the most about what's happening with technology now? Okay, so technology is changing in a really cool way, especially for the beauty industry, because if you think about the way software used to look, you know, you look at spreadsheets and you just look at these kind of gray looking screens, they actually call the battleship gray, you know, the old windows. And what's exciting is the tools that they're offering up to developers now allow like a graphics designer to create something absolutely absolutely beautiful. And then we code around that. So what's great and exciting and technology for me is the cloud and begin to pull all these different things we used to do in 20 different spots, including accounting and social media and marketing and and running my business into one solution. So that's exciting. But the most exciting part of it for what we do here is the beauty of what we're able to create now. Right. Absolutely. I agree 100% with the way we're creating our new software with the Mevo. I got I got a chance to play with it. I just took it to a show just to debut it. And it's just amazing, beautiful product that people want to touch it. Actually, you want to come up to it and just start touching it. Well, anymore, it's more it's it's probably, I would say 70% about the look of it. And then then the functionality. And what I like is that you guys haven't this was two years ago, I know you were talking about Mevo and doing a kind of a soft launch of it. And it was it's you're perfecting it. And that's it's not like it's full blown, you know, just get it out there to get it out there. I mean, I my favorite thing is I've had companies contact me about software. Obviously, I won't name who that is. But you know, I'll start asking them questions because they'll get me on the phone. And they just don't they don't understand the guts of what software is. It's about education. It's about teaching your because who cares if you can put a frequency of visit number in your software or if you can't teach people what it is and what it's all about. Then it doesn't matter. So very, very cool. Oh, and my idea is if you have so Google Glasses, right? So I'm thinking, well, what if I had Google Glasses on my client walks and I can totally tell who she is, what her formula is, and it's all telling me right in my glasses, right? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I'm everybody thinks like I would just be like that total technology guy. Yeah, I don't have a Facebook. I I write my no no pads, like little sticky pads, right? Like, and I will never wear Google Glasses. I won't either. I'm just what that is a very cool idea. And and the watch stuff that's happening. You know, for me, though, I think I think I even have my limits. You know, at the end of the day, I'm more in love with the business of beauty than the technology to be quite honest. And I think that's been part of our success as well. Exactly. We recently graduated to your calendar on your phone. I actually just in the last couple of weeks, actually, I'm using outlook on my smartphone now. Okay, yes. All right, I'm advanced. Okay, so let's what's coming up with Millennium Systems International? Anything big? You want to talk about? Our big thing is really the whole company is revolving around Evo. I mean, and you're right. If you look at what happened with the healthcare.gov and all the stuff, if you rush this stuff, yeah, you can fail. And that's just not an option for us. So we've had this thing in testing. We've we've been, you know, building the product, adding to it, making it faster, making it better. And so we're really excited about the full blown launch of it in one month. Okay, so in one month, it'll be out and and we'll have full specific date on that March 1. Oh, yeah, we're boarding people and it's for real. All right. Very, very cool. Okay, so so that's exciting. And then we have the experience coming up. So do you want to just talk about what's going to be really cool there? Well, Bob's going to be the keynote. We didn't tell him. Okay, so congratulations. Bob loves to speak. Bob Harms will be up there. All right. See somebody faint on stage. Have me. Yeah, we might actually do that as an opener. That would be great. So see, Bob's Bob's good one on one with people. I'm good in front of a lot of people. I'm not good. Well, I'm the opposite. Yeah, you put me in front of 5000 people and I'm you know, I could be inspirational and I come on stage and they come and meet me and like this guy's boring. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've done it once. So experience. We're very excited about it. We do it every year as you know. And people go not knowing really what it's about. It really is the probably the in my opinion, one of the most well rounded events in our industry where you're getting the the business side of it, the fun side of it, hair shows, people like yourself that are speaking. We don't bring in people that talk that don't understand our industry. So someone like you, someone like Robert, someone like people that really get our industry. And and I think the reason our software is as good as it is in our companies where it's at is we listen to our customers. So when we're at the experience also, as much as we're giving, we're listening and getting back and making the product better. So the experience for us is something we looked we we look forward to. But at the same time, it's just so much to put on that kind of an event that you guys have a busy few months. But yeah, it's exciting. So yeah, we I was telling everybody on our podcast this morning that every time that I've been there, the thing that I love about it most is not a hair it's not a hair show of 5000 people where you can't get close to the artist. It's a very intimate, you know, 1000 people very intimate. Everyone feels we're all having lunch together. And I just love I love everything about the event with a lot of new friends. Exactly. And a business mind. And I'm pretty proud of the caliber of people that go if you think about the people that go there. It's really the people that want to learn more about the business of beauty and the hair side of it to and listen to somebody like you. But what you're what's great about you and I'll give you a plug though is what I love about when Matt said our conferences that, you know, he's cutting hair, he's explaining the stylist side of it. But at the same time, talking about retention, frequency of visit. So that's what our conference is really about. Yeah, that's awesome. And we and it's funny because your conference is the first one I've been to where it's out of resort. And at noon, you go to the pool, and no one's there. Yeah. It really is like they're actually loaded in the classes. So I'm excited to see what's going on this year. And I'm sure there'll be more to come from that. Do you guys have anything else you want to? It's June. I'd have you plug your Facebook. Oh, yeah. 20 seconds to the 24th. We'll be posting it all over the millennium experience. I'll put a big, big huge ad on the front of our website and everything. So thank you guys so much. I always I love being here. Honestly, I just got away from the salon so that I could be here. Well, we love when they tell us you're coming. Everybody gets excited. It's funny. So thank you guys so much. Check out millennium si right.com. Okay, I thought so. I didn't want to mess it up this morning, but millennium si.com. Check them out on Facebook as well. Follow us on Facebook, free salon education. And that's it. Great. Thank you. On the Facebook or the Twitter. Yeah, I don't I don't have it. All right, guys. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you on the next episode. Today, everything changes. Hello, world. Meet Mevo.