Terms

"I was born and raised within Southern Vermont," starts Max Mackson of Maximilian Mackson, LLC. I attended homeschool until high school, which allowed me to work on my computer. I was able to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as the main languages on the internet, and then I continued to play with my side projects."

At the age of a young adult Max went into a theater program. "I was taught how to conduct myself professionally; we had a director who was demanding which I'm happy to have done because he taught me to always be on time and ensure that you're prepared," he adds. Max's first IT job came about at the time of this interview. "Between my sophomore and junior year at high school, I worked at a country club located in the town. I was there twice a week, updating their website. And it was God horrible! They were using some crazy third-party system which took about half an hour to complete tasks that would have been done with WordPress would take just two minutes." he explains.

Face-to-face conversations with people while solving the technical issues certainly made a difference the process, says he. "I'm obsessed with personal connections. I gain a great deal from relationships. In the summer at our country club everything was in high gear all the time. So if the printer in the kitchen failed, I had to run into the kitchen. It was hot and busy everyone was moving about me. It was like we were "in the zone" right there!"

Max enjoyed seeing first-hand the effects of his work and trying to combat the stressful relationship that we share with technology sometimes. "When I worked with people, I would say "Okay, I've just uploaded an update on this machine And I'd get to determine if it helped them or if they were confused. I could see all the various perspectives, and see the way people react to technology. Many IT folks will just say, 'Okay, this is what is happening currently; it's the latest update', and that irritates me. I love working with people."

Max discovered that having a good grasp with technology can help people's lives. At the time of his country club days when he was a teenager, his resentment for printers began "They just never seem to work when you want them to work!" he smiles. A significant portion all of his work time consisted of fixing printers; working with hardware gave him an understanding of systems architecture "I eventually had to rework every system they had over time. I continue to work for them now," he adds.

He is stumbling around by himself

For a formal education, Max went to Champlain College located in the northern part of Vermont but learned something other than the syllabus. "I was one of a dozen information technology majors and it was hilarious since, while I was at school it was decided by the school that they were going to sunset this specialization! They took us to the room, and they said, 'Hey, guys, that's why you'll be able to complete your degree. But we're not going to provide your degree after this year'!"

Max was able to enter the field of audio-visual production because of his theater background. "That meant more fixing the technology as all of the classrooms relied upon a computer, projector, and projection screen" the actor continues. "When it went wrong it was when we'd walk into the classrooms that were full of people and everyone would stare at us. Then we'd be seated at a table to swap out a projector bulb!"

"I stayed in college for just two years. I dropped out because I found it to be difficult to follow. The web world moves at such a rapid pace that by the time you end up learning something in college the subject is outdated in the real world. For the professors having to learn and to push this knowledge to the students, it's some time," Max adds.

Of course, the pace of innovation hasn't slowed in the least - actually, it's increased and the pace and goal of education in formal school ultimately led Max to starting his own company. One reason why that he quit was due to the fact that his outlook for the career didn't align with that of his college: "They liked to say they got 99percent of their students a job right out of college - this is awesome, but they make sure everyone gets the corporate environment. I like working with other people but not so much in that way; it did not appeal to me."

Thus, Max decided to go on his own , and set off searching for his first client. Max had recently attended an online course and the person conducting it was looking for reviews. Max remembers: "I sent one in, just thinking I'd practice my copywriting skills, but at the bottom, I put 'PS - If my abilities could ever serve you, let me know'. And he replied, 'Well, what are you able to do?'"

Max looked over the site and wrote a bulleted list of improvements: "No BS, just right to the point" and Max was greeted with a straightforward reply: 'Text me' and a phone number. "That was the way I was able to get that job. He's still a good client!" Max smiles.

Services and Projects

"You have all these different components of software powering your businesses, but none of it's talking to one another. I'm the person who understands that software talking perfectly," Max says. He says this makes an even more efficient single system, which is able to drive business growth while reducing time and energy. "I am an integrator and systems architect. Most people even my parents just call me"the IT man!" he jokes.

Max Explains that an average client's tech stack could comprise 100 different pieces of software that are all silos. "You must bring the pieces together so they communicate with one other. I started working with a few clients on web design and then I started to work on integration on April 20, 2021. one of my customers wanted to establish a member-paying exclusively community."

Max had been working with this client, an evangelist and health influencer for some time and things were going smoothly. Max had no prior expertise with memberships, however he already anecdotally knew exactly what the issues would be. "I found myself researching a bunch of different membership software companies. I've got a method of researching where I look at various lists of the best software, and I'll compare them."

Max selects the software that will provide an optimal user experience on both the admin side and from a client side so that customer support is less time-consuming in the long run. The simplicity of the software is vital. "I can be in a more complicated setting, but I can also see what happens when something is at a stage where it's unusable by everyday users. People want to buy some thing, and they'd like to gain access. This is a common scenario: when one signs up on the website, I'd aware of the reaction at their faces. I'd start explaining the process and they'd simply glare!"

Integration styles and the future

"Integrations can be deceptively complex," Max muses. "They have different types and different levels. So for a native integration such as Mailchimp you click a few buttons, it's authorized, and you're good to go. There are no-code and low-code integrations, such as Zapier's Zaps, and completely custom ground-up integrations where you code everything from the ground up."

"Generally I am in the zero-to- low-code sphere, because it is generally effective for my clients. But for one particular integration, my client was looking to really go into it. They desired to incorporate all the capabilities of native integration however, they wanted to do it through Zapier. It took me a dozen different Zaps to have the entire thing wired up and to make it feel like native and I still needed to include some code that was custom."

What made that particular initiative particularly interesting was the amount of interaction. "The first day we launched it, we ran the task of completing 50,000 that was crazy! I needed to improve it a lot for it to be worth the cost. I managed to get it down to less than 5000 tasks a day. That's pretty ambitious."

He adds: "That was the first time I had worked with a customer of that magnitude using Zapier. I've been involved in a variety of different projects, some that were more design-oriented, others which were more technical but this was the standout."

This greater scale of innovation is what will drive Max's next steps. Max says that: "Longer term, I would like to create software to help businesses." He says he thinks about software frequently because it's an integral part of his career and because so many programs have been getting worse with time. "It is becoming bloated and slow and isn't user-friendly anymore. It's constantly releasing UI updates that just increase the difficulty. As of now there are a lot of users who expect software to suck!"

He says he's trying to offer a better, simpler, end-user experience. "It's very early on the process of design, however I have some interesting thoughts. It's probably around six months or more since I prefer to be a solo worker most of the time. I do not like working for an agency. They hand an idea to a new, unnamed developer who is then locked up inside an unlocked closet! I'm not a fan of that kind of environment and prefer to be a team player in a one-on-one manner."

Max has his thoughts on the latest news and offers preferential treatment to subscribers of his mailing list (which Max affectionately refers to as the "#MilianFam"). In addition, as an exclusive benefit to new subscribers coming from  the list, Max has designed an extra bonus program which, as of the date of writing, he has never ever offered in any other place, at the price of.