Notes

If you've ever tried to find a product image on a manufacturer's dealer portal, you know what I'm about to say.

I spent years working with about forty different manufacturers, many of which had their own dealer or "partner" portals, and none of them necessarily made my life easier. Every portal had its own login, its own password rules, its own expiration schedule, and its own completely unique idea of where to put things. Spec sheets under "Resources" on one. "Marketing Assets" on another. "Dealer Tools" on a third. One of them had a tab called "Literature" that hadn't been updated since what I can only assume was the early 2010s.

And the product photos. I could write a whole separate post about the product photos. If your product image looks like it was taken on a folding table in a warehouse with a fluorescent light buzzing overhead, your dealers are not excited to sell that product. And when the image is postage-stamped size, it's not super helpful when trying to make your product look good on screen or in print.

The real problem is that these portals were built for the manufacturer's internal workflow, not for the people actually trying to sell their products. And when your partners have to fight through dozens of different logins and treasure hunts just to find a brochure, some of them are going to quietly stop fighting. They'll just sell the product from the manufacturer whose portal doesn't make them want to throw their laptop out a window.

This is fixable from both sides. If you're a manufacturer, your portal is your partner's first impression of what it's like to work with you. It should be at least as good as your product. And if you're a dealer or distributor drowning in logins, something as simple as one organized page in your own system, with every portal bookmarked, labeled, and annotated with where things actually live, can save your team real time every single day.

I build both of these now. The bar is shockingly low.

For 25 years I Googled "random password generator" every time I needed a new password. One day I just built my own so I'd stop doing that. That became Boltkey.

Then I needed to practice songs in a different key, so I built SetKey.

Then I needed to track expenses without bloated software I'd never fully use, so I built Account Rendered.

Three problems, three tools, zero subscriptions. Sometimes the best app is the one that only does what you actually need.

rendereddigital.io

Along with the new company announcement yesterday, I’m really proud to announce the release of the SetKey app for Mac from Rendered!

SetKey for macOS

As a part-time bassist in the worship band at August Gate church, it was difficult for me to practice along with the reference track (usually on YouTube) of a song because it’s almost always in a different key than we plan to play it in.

For context, when I say what “key” the song is in, it’s kind of how low or how high of a pitch that the song starts in and stays in throughout. Sing the “Happy Birthday” song to yourself, starting in a low voice. Now start it in a high voice, and notice how much harder it might be to hit the higher notes as the song progresses.

In a similar way, when a worship leader or a band decides to play or compose a song, they’ll consider the person that’s going to be singing the lead on the song and where that person’s natural “range” is, so that they can comfortably sing the song from start to finish without struggling or their voice breaking. Then they’ll find the “key” for the song that provides that range.

Since the keys can vary so much, it was nearly impossible to practice alone at home on bass to a YouTube track that was in a different key than we were going to actually be playing it in. Not helpful.

So I built SetKey to detect the original key of the YouTube track, and then allow me to change the key of the playback so that I could play along.

This was a pre-release version of SetKey running on my MacBook Pro at home while I practiced bass this past Saturday.

That led to a nice looping feature that allowed me to woodshed on tricky parts and passages of a song without taking my hands off the bass. Which then led to the addition of MIDI footswitch capabilities that allow for total hands-free practicing of tracks.

Download it for free from setkey.app and try it if you think it’ll help you prepare for service, a gig, or just to help you practice personally. Let me know if you like it, and share the link!

https://setkey.app

Last Thursday, I said, "Big things are afoot." Here they are!

I started a company called Rendered. There are two arms to it: consulting and digital product engineering.

Rendered Consulting is where I work with businesses directly. Brand, marketing, web. I sit across from an owner, figure out what they actually need, and build it. No templates, no WordPress, no five vendors when one person can see the whole picture. If your business deserves better than what it's got online, that is the work I do.

Rendered Digital is the product side. Free tools and custom apps, built from scratch. A password generator. A pitch transposer for musicians. A community reporting app for the Metro East. More on the way!

I've been building toward this for a while. The "big things afoot" from last week. Now they have a name!

If you're curious what I'm focused on at any given point, I keep a /now page updated.