Wired Together

Wired Together: How It All Started (And Why It Works)

• Jason and Melanie Winter • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In this unscripted debut, Jason and Melanie Winter dive into the realities of running a tech business as a married couple in a small town. From the beauty of client relationships to midnight server drama, this episode is part origin story, part love letter to small business — with AI riding shotgun.

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🎧 Wired Together is produced by WinternetWeb Technologies, a family-run web design and tech studio based in Bracey, Virginia.
💻 Visit us at winternetweb.com


Jason:

Oops, I hit the button.

Melanie:

All right, welcome to Wired Together. This is a podcast with Winternet Web. So your host today is Jason Winter and Melanie Winter, owners of Winternet Web. And as always, we have, or we will always have, this is our very first one, the AI. So we're going to direct some questioning to AI.

Jason:

Yeah, we figured... It might be an interesting thing. We're not trying to make it seem like a game show or anything, but it just kind of throws a new element that we could kind of talk about the topics we're discussing, throw something in there. And one good thing is, yes, you could try to pre-script a lot of things or have pre-written questions, but when you're throwing something live at you that you need to respond to, it makes it so much more authentic.

Melanie:

So our purpose is we are a small business. We are a tech business in the middle of a very small rural community. So we are kind of discuss and talk about this interesting dichotomy of small and rural going together with big tech.

Jason:

Right. I mean, I guess it's not a misnomer, but maybe a myth even. that when you're in a small area that you don't have the resources of large areas. And, I mean, that may be so in certain aspects. But when it comes to technology, and we've seen certainly how that landscape has changed over the past 20 years.

Melanie:

Tech's in your

Jason:

pocket. Yeah, tech is in your pocket. And not only do we have access to it, but... It's pretty much required of us. I mean, you used to go on vacation. No one knew anything, even if they had to find you. I mean, it was difficult, but now you're inundated with texts and stuff from work. I mean, the whole thing, I'm leaving, boss, bye, that's kind of gone by. It's not the same. Now they're going to be able to find you. Hey, I know you're on vacation, but can you do this real quick? Yeah.

Melanie:

All right. So what we're going to do is discuss some moments of our daily life. Maybe sometimes start with a story, that kind of thing. And then, you know, how that applies to us and maybe some tips of the trade of, you know, building small businesses. And so small business is the heart of America. And so it's small business is not... to be undersung. It is actually, should be singing loudly. So we were trying to put that song out there.

Jason:

All right, so. Do we have a moment we want to share? We

Melanie:

talked about discussing just our day-to-day. So we had a wonderful customer come in, and she is an owner and operator of a small business in our local area. We absolutely love her, and that is the coolest thing that we get to do on a daily basis, and that is our bread and butter of what we do is we love customers. our small business owners and our community members that come by and whatever their need is, we can discuss very, you know, put something together very quickly and help them with, you know, hey, I'm stuck. This is where I need some ideas and some consulting. So we can't not do this sometimes because that is the challenge. the luxury we get is is being starting those relationships and building them with people

Jason:

yeah i mean definitely in small business gets it's very misunderstood unless you have one i mean it you end up taking on pretty much everything but you know, all the same, you know, tax laws, you know, the same problems. And, you know, there's always a issue of what, when, you know, man, I can get this cheaper from big box, whatever organization down the road and all, but you're missing a lot. And I think one thing we've really appreciate with small business centers is the relationships of it and how you can really, you know, connect with them and what you're able to really accomplish, um, If the Titanic were smaller, it could have navigated away from the iceberg. But small businesses oftentimes can do a lot of creative big things. And that's what our country was built off of.

Melanie:

So this is just one of the reasons that are wise, I guess. Why do we do what we do? you know, the passion for something more tech, something a little more big and interesting, learning all of the new pieces, learning all of the things thrown at us. AI is a big one. And so we can always let AI speak for himself, itself.

Jason:

Himself, herself, itself. Yeah. So we're gonna bring AI in, in this part of the segment, or? Sure. What do you think? Okay, so.

Melanie:

What does AI think about small business and relationships?

Jason:

All right, give me one second. All right, so. He said, that's great. Here's a thoughtful question you could ask on your show to spark a meaningful and insightful conversation. What's one thing about running a small business that no one prepared you for, but you wish they had?

Melanie:

Taxes.

Jason:

I know. That was the first thing that came to my mind. It's like, so I buy this, I pay tax. I have it. It sits here. I still pay tax. And I know, you know. Anyway, and I... Not down on that hill today, not going down that path. You

Melanie:

buy it, I pay tax. You don't buy it, I still pay

Jason:

tax. Right, exactly. Let me think about this. I mean, I've gotten a lot of good advice, and mainly from other small business owners, because again, it's a unique breed. And largely because, in a lot of organizations, we've been to conferences, and when we first started doing web design, we did it all in code. And it was foreign to most of the people out there because, you know, they're like, so what department are you with? What do you do? It's like, what do you mean what I do? I make websites. And I'm like, yeah, but are you sales? Are you, you know, are you support? And I guess in my ignorance, I was like, aren't... Yes, yes, yes. I thought everyone was all parts of it, you know. Of course, you know, you used the term freelancer, you know, and that's kind of like how we got into the industry. So you... you don't always know how to answer those questions and you realize you're actually part of everything when you're in a small business. So being that is a unique breed, I've gotten some good advice from people. Namely one person said, because yes, we've been doing this for pretty much almost 18 years as a business longer than that in practice. That's another story, but we've gone full time about, to two-and-a-half years ago. And going full-time is a very, very scary transition that many people we've talked to, they can relate to. And one bit of advice was obviously not to undersell yourself. That you are providing a service, and people want to pay for good service. And service has always been important to us, and not necessarily for financial reasons, but just in... That's important, too, going back to taxes. They

Melanie:

still want

Jason:

their taxes. Yeah, you still need to pay people. I mean, mama needs shoes. No, I'm kidding. Mama hasn't had a good new pair of shoes in a while. But anyway, service is important because we're dealing with people. I realize in all industries people are dealing with people. But especially with technology, you're trying to create something that connects with other people. And that is kind of what is really cool about it. Also with that said, and another surprise I had, well anyway, let me get to the bit of advice first. The bit of advice was always be happy to see your client. You don't want to have a client that keeps contacting you for something and maybe not feel like you're being fairly compensated because then you may develop resentment. So the purpose of that was make sure that what you're doing, that you are serving people and that you feel like you're being compensated fairly for it because that business owner would expect that relationship not to become something where now you have a grudge or something. And that's just not how it all should go. I guess something else I found surprising too... When I grew up with computers and things, we didn't always have the latest and greatest. But I also, when I started interacting with computers and when the World Wide Web started coming about, I wanted to share it with my great-grandparents, whom I was very close with, who hardly had a television. So for them to understand what I was talking about was foreign. But fast forward to now, a lot of our clients with the computer repair and unfortunate circumstances of people being hacked and taken advantage of, this is an older population than when I first got into it ever thought would be using computers. Don't mean anything by that, but my great-grandparents, of course, they've passed for some time, so to think of someone in their age group using computers was foreign. But the landscape has changed. Today, that is their connectivity to seeing the pictures of their grandkids or connect with their children.

Melanie:

Sometimes paying bills.

Jason:

Yeah. You've got to be online. You have to, like a lot of the health things, you have to do all of that. And everything is now online for them. And so when they contact me and they say, and I know it's just a computer, it's not important. I'm like, but this is actually your access to the world outside of your house. So this is important. Right. To them, you might think, oh, this is trivial. It's a computer. Or they're trying to justify why it's not important. But I do see how important that really is. I mean, just imagine if that was your... I mean, your, your, yeah, your lifeline. Exactly. To your family. Exactly. So I think we kind of got off topic on that. And, uh, well, you'll get used to that. But anyway, um, So the original question was, what was one thing running a small business that no one prepared you for, but you wish you had? So

Melanie:

the population you were not prepared for. Exactly. Like who exactly was your audience, I guess, was a little change.

Jason:

That's why I love you. Cleaning up what I do. Yeah, let's clean it up. Let's clean

Melanie:

up. I got a summary.

Jason:

You parenthetically justified where I went.

Melanie:

And so also, you know, make sure that you're happy to see people. I always, you know... One of the things I learned very early is smile before you answer the phone. You don't know who's on the other end of that phone. But if you smile first, they hear the smile. And so always be happy to see the people that you are about to see. Really, this is all business. But, you know, not just small business. But really in small business, I mean, you don't have to deal with small business. But boy, does it make a difference when dealing with small business has you walk away going... I'm so glad I did that.

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, you and I are suckers for good service. We are. We've been in places before where I spent a lot more money than I planned to. But the level of service and the trust I had in the product beforehand, I mean, I was willing to spend it because, you know, it was just such a great experience. Yes. And connecting with people. The person makes the difference. The connections make the difference. Definitely. So, yeah.

Melanie:

The people make

Jason:

the difference. Right. So in a broader landscape of the importance of service and relationships, I think that kind of hits on the uniqueness of small business. Absolutely. Yeah. Do we have any other questions or anything that... Or we could throw in AI for a follow-up question. Yeah, let's throw in AI. Let's see what you got to say, AI. AI is new to us for this episode. So are we. So it's kind of like our third chair. Yeah. Let's see. Do we want to put it in a certain direction or just... I'm going to let it know what we're talking about. One plan we have while I'm doing this, maybe I can talk about, is for these podcasts, we're hoping that after the podcast, we can transcribe what we've talked about into a script. So then AI can then understand what was talked about and everything. So... We're pioneering an idea here where then the AI, learning what we've talked about, what we maybe went into but didn't go in much depth over, it can then jump in with stuff and maybe something out of left field to make us just really make the conversation authentic. All right, so... All right. We have... How have the relationships you've built, whether with clients, vendors, or even competitors, shaped the way you do business today? I need to think about that.

Melanie:

The need to continue to do it is one thing. Before we started full-time, it was a which direction do we go? We had so many clients that you couldn't walk away. And it was taking more of the time of being, instead of being small freelancing, it became a little more involved in the the more involved it became actually the more we wanted it to be. So our building of those relationships was so much more important than I guess the other industries that we were in. So then it was deciding those people are our most important reason. Our community is important and so if we can really dive into that. And, you know, a little bit, not just a little bit, a lot. Our family's important. And so between, and so we will actually get more into this with different episodes, but small business and running a family at the exact same time with the way that we operate now, we are able to build our own scheduling. And so, and we are able to actually work together as we are husband and wife, of course. So that's, that gives us uh flexibility with family which was also uh as far as relationships our relationships right became very important and then the client relationships to the point where we wouldn't have done it without it

Jason:

sure and i guess another tidbit that may come up later um We've always talked about the business, of course, WinternetWeb, as WinternetWeb baby. It's our little baby. It's our little baby, I know.

Melanie:

Sometimes it cries.

Jason:

See, our baby is what can drive now. Our

Melanie:

baby is 17. Yeah,

Jason:

our baby can drive and watch movies that are maybe not something you'd want your baby to see. But we always saw it as a baby because... Just like in a family where everyone has needs, sometimes the family needs to sacrifice for the needs of the business and the time that needs to go into the business for the sake of the family. Just

Melanie:

as sometimes the business has to sacrifice for the sake of the family. Exactly. It's like trying to navigate. You're trying to give... We have two children, so trying to give both children 100% of your time is not possible. So you navigate around that.

Jason:

Exactly.

Melanie:

Who's on fire first?

Jason:

Sure.

Melanie:

So we have three children because sometimes it is Winter net Web that's the one that has to be... Okay, this one needs to be fed before everybody else gets

Jason:

fed. Exactly. But I guess part of that is just understanding that that's going to happen and then being able to bend because it's like, yep, well... We need to put the time into that, too, because it's all part of the family ecosystem. And when you're in a small business, you're dealing with families. And that's the other thing, too. We talk about how often it's important people have these campaigns like Shop Local because that money goes to these people that are working hard for their families and everything. But, I mean, we've had situations. I think we were at a steakhouse about three years ago, maybe two years ago, where... I got a phone call, something went wrong. And I mean, something like really went wrong. That wasn't necessarily my fault, but we were migrating servers and something was left out of the migration. So pretty much Melanie and the kids had to sit there and I'm trying to text her updates when I'm in the parking lot. She packs up my food for me so lovingly. drives while I'm still on the phone you know on chat by texting people trying to call people at the same time trying to fix the issue by 2.30 in the morning I think we were good to go but the baby cried I just thought I'd have to give it a bottle for 10 minutes but nope I'm going to have to hold this thing all night long so you just don't know what you're going to expect but again you know it wasn't like oh my gosh you know Melanie's like hey because we've already had this understanding it's like It said, we're not at web, baby. She said, all right, baby, you do your thing. I got this. And that's also one good thing about working together is we can read each other. We work together so we know if someone has to go down that rabbit hole and do something and put a lot of time into it.

Melanie:

Someone, usually you.

Jason:

Yes, okay, yeah. I don't know

Melanie:

the server situation. I'm the design and consulting.

Jason:

Right, so, I mean... But you also trust, okay, well, this is necessary. He'll explain later or whatever. And in the same vein, sometimes I'm just deer in headlights. And you're like, okay, well, let's do this. Or we need to get you into the place of switching hats from this to this. Or

Melanie:

sometimes it's just, oh, are we recording now? We don't have a script. Yes, we're recording now. Let's do this.

Jason:

Yeah, and that's kind of how this whole thing started. Today. It did today. And we spent... Part of the day yesterday, just like, how do we talk about this? Because it's important for us to have this podcast to, one, talk about the unique part of small business and husband and wife team. This is not uncommon, but it's also not very common. And we get asked all the time, how do you all work together? And it's like, well... It does take work, but it's also been something we've kind of trained ourselves into over time. And I mean, I'm sure in this and future episodes, we'll talk about some of our bad moments and it's going to be for, you know, anybody.

Melanie:

It's not a perfect system, but it is a good system.

Jason:

Yeah, definitely. So let's take a look down the list there, babe, and see if there was something else that... random topic we wanted to get into we're at about 22 minutes now and we're hoping to make these about 30. okay

Melanie:

well we are gonna um explore different parts of our um different episodes are gonna go into of course small town life

Jason:

oh yeah different topics um

Melanie:

and we are gonna get into um as far as maybe AI in the workplace, um, which is a very interesting, very new topic,

Jason:

new topic. Yeah. And,

Melanie:

um, you know, maybe even concerns about technology taking over. Um, and you know, how do we work with politics in the workplace? How do we, or not workplace so much as small business? Where, where does that belong?

Jason:

Right.

Melanie:

You know, um, And, again, more little stories of us together, us with raising children, raising animals, raising the bar, raising Winternet Web as the Winternet Web baby. He's so close. He's almost there.

Jason:

Almost there.

Melanie:

And we did have a little piece. This podcast won't solve your problems. We haven't solved ours, but we hopefully will. It will hopefully make you feel less alone while you try.

Jason:

That sounds good. Sounds like a good set of things, too. And I know no one is hearing this live because, of course, we're putting it in the podcast form. Editing's awesome. Yeah, editing is awesome. No, but I mean... The thing, the reason why we wanted to do the podcast and not necessarily do it live, one, we're, of course, small business lifestyle. I think that was already answered earlier. But... Being able to put something together like this and put it out, a lot of people like listening to this. I mean, you could be driving in your car right now listening to it and just having that passive activity of listening to something while you have idle time. That's really how podcasts have become strong as a technology. But, yeah, so this is our idea. Again, we were talking about... it being wired together. And I think hopefully everyone picks up on the play on words that are at play there. A lot of wires in this business, from computer repair. Of course, web design is a big thing we'll talk about. But since we've gone full time. Wired and

Melanie:

unwired.

Jason:

Wired and unwired. And wired from coffee. So it's many different layers there.

Melanie:

Wired with coffee is

Jason:

how we run. Then I could get into Java and JavaScript and all those bad jokes. But we're thankful that we're able to do this. And going full time has allowed us to be able to do the computer repair and so forth having a storefront because there's only so much you can do out of your home without having a more of a public facing place there are people there yeah there are people there they are and it's

Melanie:

difficult to be out of the home

Jason:

sometimes it really is and you don't know what you're going to face you don't know what distraction is going to be there because you know when you're working home and there are a lot of people that do and they do really well but um I mean, even look at the industry of writers. I mean, a writer isn't going to rent a place to write. They're going to write from home. And they're often seen as, oh, well, you work for yourself. You're at home. You're always available for me to bug. You're not doing anything. You come on and do this for me or whatever. So priorities and things get construed. But yeah. So we look forward to doing this again shortly. And for our... random inaugural podcast here you go this is us certainly in the raw we really just you know half hour ago said let's hit record and see what happens so you are definitely getting the authentic jason and melanie but over the course of this i hope you get to know us a little more and we would love to you know make this something that is part of your day so he's signing off from winter net web this was jason winter

Melanie:

melanie winter

Jason:

Have a wonderful day.