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The Build

About the show

The build that changed everything.

Every business reaches a point where the way it has always worked stops working. The platform won't bend any further, the spreadsheet can't keep up, and the workarounds have quietly become the job.

The Build is about what happens next. Each conversation follows one build - a platform, a system, a piece of software, sometimes just a decision - that changed how a business operates.

The technology matters, but it isn't the point. The point is the turning point: what the business was trying to do, why the old way couldn't do it, and what became possible once it changed. Not every story ends in custom software, and none of them are sales pitches.

The shape of a story

  1. 01

    Before

    How the business worked, and why it worked well enough for a while.

  2. 02

    The problem

    What stopped working. The friction, the workarounds, the tools being forced to do things they were never meant to.

  3. 03

    The decision

    The moment someone decided to change it, and why they built rather than kept adapting.

  4. 04

    The build

    What they actually made. The trade-offs, the risks and the parts that went wrong.

  5. 05

    The change

    What became possible afterwards, and how the business runs differently now.

  6. 06

    The lesson

    Knowing what they know now, what they would do differently.

Two kinds of episode

40-50 min

Conversations

Founders and operators on the build that changed their business. One company, one turning point, told by the people who lived it.

15-20 min

Solo

Joel on the same world from the other side of the table: when to build and when not to, inheriting other people's software, and what building his own products has taught him.

Your host

Joel Male

Host of The BuildManaging Director of Pixel

Joel sits on both sides of The Build.

At Pixel
He helps businesses work out what to build, then builds it: the software that changes how they operate.
On his own
He builds products of his own, including Rethread, and lives with every decision he makes.

Produced by Pixel

The Build is a podcast by Pixel, an Australian custom software agency. Pixel funds and produces the show. The conversations are not sales pitches, for Pixel or anyone else.

Visit Pixel