Benjamin Johnson, CEO of Particle41, discusses technology optimization for business growth. From a periodic table of business tools to application modernization, Ben shares insights from his 20+ years of experience, including tech stack assessment, custom solutions versus off-the-shelf software, fractional CTO services, and practical approaches to legacy system updates. The conversation includes case studies, AI, and how emerging technologies can impact business transformation.
Episode Transcript
Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS
Benjamin Johnson: We’ll always find easier ways to build things. But if those things aren’t the right thing, so if we don’t have a way to communicate the vision and communicate the adoption and all of those types of steps, our technology won’t connect with humans.
Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on marketing and advertising produced weekly by Bigeye, a strategy-led full-service creative agency growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. Today’s marketing is increasingly data-driven, and delivering personalized customer experiences means the need for robust, scalable, and flexible technical solutions has never been greater. Navigating the required software development, data science, and cloud engineering can be daunting. Our guest today is an expert in helping businesses optimize their tech stacks and modernize their applications. Benjamin Johnson is the CEO and founder of Particle41, a firm that supports application development, data science, and DevOps projects. With over 20 years of software development experience, Ben is also a serial entrepreneur. His company, Particle41, works with a range of clients, from marketing agencies to managed service providers, helping them navigate the complexities of modern technology solutions. To discuss his unique approach to optimizing clients’ technology stacks, I’m delighted that Benjamin is joining us today from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Texas. Ben, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Benjamin Johnson: Thank you for having me.
Adrian Tennant: Could you give us an overview of Particle41 and the services you provide?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, so we love helping people from the boardroom to the code review. So we do CTO advisory, software development, software engineering, also cloud engineering, DevOps, and data science, data engineering. So we’re an engineering firm with a global presence serving businesses in the US.
Adrian Tennant: Particle41 uses what you call a periodic table of business tools to help clients understand and choose the right technology solutions. So Ben, can you explain how this periodic table works?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, so when I’m working with clients, usually the first time, especially under the CTO advisory, oftentimes I like to talk about this periodic table of business tools. This helps me to figure out their technology stack. What technologies do they already have in play? Are they a Google Workspace customer or do they like Office 365? And then What kinds of CRM? So in this periodic table, we have all the Gartner upper to the right solutions that people usually put together to run their customer experience. In the end, it’s all about the customer. And so we help them first see what those things are, identify any missing holes, because what we’re trying to get to in the end is high need versus high value. So we all need things to run our business. We need accounting softwares and a general ledger. We need a place to store information. We need compute resources to help us do the things we need to do. So when we’re in that high-need category, we want to be good at partnering and good at configuring. And then as we move up the stack to our customers’ unique challenge, the thing that we really want to be known for, we start to do more integrations. And then at the very tip of the spear should be something that we’ve either built custom or we’ve heavily customized to meet that specific need. So for some businesses, this might be a mobile app or a portal or something that we know that we’re going to be. It’s the tip of the spear and how we’re going to interact with the customer. I have seen customers make mistakes where they’ve decided that for their end customer, they’re going to take something off the shelf and they’re going to put that in front of them. And not only do they have struggles with differentiation when they do that, but they also run into the limitations of that commercial software. So we try to map that out so that they’re not over-investing in custom things or trying to reinvent the wheel, as they say, and that we understand their unique particle, the elements that comprise their unique particle, and drive their customer experience forward.
Adrian Tennant: The Particle41 website discusses the concept of application modernization. Ben, can you explain this and why it’s important for businesses today?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, so many businesses did digital transformations back in 2015 or earlier. And not that that year is specifically important, but we’re starting to get over 10 years old. We’re starting to reach a place where it may be more expensive to continue to maintain those things. rather than reimagine them with what’s available in the market today. So it may be a time to modernize to say, hey, you know, it’s costing us a certain amount, or maybe our customer needs are new. We also have tools like AI that are emerging. And our older digital transformation tool sets may not be allowing us to take advantage of those modern advancements. So We have just really focused on the service of application modernization. It’s sometimes done in conjunction with a cloud migration so that you can benefit from the cloud. But many businesses invested a whole ton of money into data centers and things that are just aging out. And so we want to speed up that process and help them get into the latest and greatest technology with purpose for a reason. But we’ve really leaned into the service of application modernization.
Adrian Tennant: How do you help clients balance what you call high-need versus high-value solutions when designing their tech stacks?
Benjamin Johnson: So we look at high need would be things like hosting, the cloud is taking care of a lot of things. So these are things that are widely available for configuring and customizing. But we look at like, what is that that they’re working with their customers directly on? What’s touching the customer? And at the high value area is the customer interaction and the high need is any of those things that are widely available in the market.
Adrian Tennant: Ben, what are some common mistakes you see companies making with their technology stacks?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, it’s really what I had mentioned around taking an off-the-shelf software and putting that in front of the end customer and not being recognized for the unique voice of a particular functionality. So this happens in e-commerce sometimes when your e-commerce platform is an off the shelf software, but then as you want to bundle and combine and package, then that becomes a, you know, a challenge or a friction. Now, we would not propose to build an e-commerce platform all from scratch, but this is the rub, right, is we want to offer to the customer these unique things. And so by using the high-need, high-value framework and the periodic table of business tools, we can get to those rubs quickly and then figure out if there’s a deeper integration that’s needed with those platform tools or if something custom needs to be built.
Adrian Tennant: Particle41, of course, serves many different types of businesses. How can marketing teams and advertising agencies in particular benefit from the services Particle41 offers?
Benjamin Johnson: As you’re learning about these customers and you’re learning that they really need to differentiate themselves, we work really well on those differentiating tool sets. So as the customer is marketing and identifying what it is they really need to be known for, what’s going to make them different, then that’s a great place to insert us into those most custom things. So we have a design service that will design that differentiated product. But marketing agencies have this unique ability to identify like what is really going to make them different. and then see that across the market landscape and understand that while you have something really unique, this is the place to lean in. That’s where our services really shine in building robust custom products that are not found elsewhere in the industry and then integrating those with products that do exist in the industry to move their product development ahead quickly. Many of our customers figured out a need and a unique value proposition. And we were able to get them into market in 90 days with something new that they could start testing and leveraging with customers. And this tends to fit the agency timetable, right? Most agencies don’t have two years to wait for a product to be built. But if that unique need is identified and we see the types of supply chain technologies that can work into it, then we can create that custom-branded experience that integrates with all these other tools. Most of modern technology these days is really a glue that fits multiple platforms together to offer something unique. When I started my career, I was in the travel business. And so the unique thing back then was to offer a vacation package with air travel, hotel, you know, put the whole package together. And many modern softwares and modern products are like that. It’s a package of custom software, leveraging a supply chain of existing toolsets. And because of that, the barrier of entry for new product development has really reduced. And agencies have this unique way of saying, if I just had this unique piece or this package of software combined in a branded experience, and so they can leverage us as the execution arm to fulfill that vision.
Adrian Tennant: Well, there are several case studies on your website. So Ben, could you share maybe a couple of examples of how Particle41 has helped your clients accelerate their businesses through technology optimization?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, one of my favorites is Forte Lessons. We have a case study with them. In all disclosure, I’m an investor with them. They came through our venture studio, so I advised them at an early stage. And then we put together their initial experience, still in the COVID timeframe, where they were already kind of geared up and ready to do music lessons with remote music lessons. So you have a student who might be in the Midwest. You have a Juilliard teacher. Forte makes the connection between the highly qualified music instructor and the student. And then on the platform, magic will happen. Most video conferencing platforms don’t allow for the sound dynamics that an instrument requires. So we built a better than zoom or a better than what’s out there experience where the bezel of the tool is gone and it’s just the teacher, the student and a piece of music and they’re working together and they’re collaborating in a high audio quality web-based experience. And this was extremely fun for us to work out, to really figure out the boundaries of sound quality and really develop something that could work for everyone. Also challenging the types of devices that this experience could take place on and how people might want to set up their different studios. whether they wanted a camera to be over the top of a keyboard, so a dual camera set up so that the teacher could see the face of the individual, but also see the instrument. And so we had a lot of fun building that. The initial prototype was available in the market in 90 days, and then we continued to iterate and improve it. And they’ve gone on to create a wonderful business, just recently announcing an amazing partnership with Sweetwater, so that Sweetwater could provide the instrument and they could provide the music lessons.
Adrian Tennant: Yeah, just in case listeners are unaware, Sweetwater, I guess, is the leading online retailer of musical instruments, recording, studio equipment, and anything and everything associated with music production.
Benjamin Johnson: That’s right.
Adrian Tennant: That’s right. Excellent. Now, I know that Particle41 follows a three-step process in most of your engagements. Ben, could you walk us through it?
Benjamin Johnson: Well, we want to first like really get to know our customers. You know, we want to do discovery just to fully align. But what we’re really interested in is this idea of engaging from the boardroom to the code review. So handling the details and the integration, but also understanding the vision. for the product and how it’s going to be positioned in the market. So we really want to offer this end-to-end service that not only assists with the execution and the staffing and the talent that’s going to drive the product forward, but that we’re also fully engaged in the optics and the planning So we want to get moving quickly and show results all along the way. So we tend to spend a little bit of upfront time getting to know and then get into the regular operations of technical delivery and then just continue to recalibrate so that we can make sure that we’re hitting those business goals.
Adrian Tennant: You also offer fractional CTO services. What are the benefits of this approach for businesses?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, so this is a way to get senior technology guidance without the equity or the high price tag. So this is really a way that I love to get to know entrepreneurs. I’m a serial entrepreneur myself. Five businesses, scaled them and exited them. It helped them move through their industry, most of them in different industries. And so I love working with entrepreneurs and business leaders around their tech strategy. Usually when you hire a technical co-founder or CTO, you need to give a pretty big equity package. And then you also, it tends to be one of your higher salaries. And so we really want to offer a lot of the senior management on a tech initiative, fractionally to reduce the overall budget, and then really invest in the team and the talent that’s going to go move the product forward. and allow you to iterate two or three times faster than you would if you had to spend that budget on the senior management first and then have the senior management own it. So we have high ownership at a lower cost.
Adrian Tennant: How do you see the role of a CTO evolving in today’s, of course, always changing technological landscape?
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah, I think some businesses will think of everything as I.T. This is a bit of an older way of thinking where it’s all I.T. So the keyboard that the operations team is using and those devices tend to separate. And we see the way that people are going to do their digital work as kind of a separate thing. So if we called that I.T. mouse and keyboard and a screen, if we called that physical environment I.T. Modern CTOs are worried about the execution and in the product. The worst thing for a CTO is not getting an ROI on the technology spending. I think these are even more separated now where the IT is in one category And then the role of product owner or product visionary and technical execution are getting merged together in the CTO role. Or if you don’t have a vision for the product and you don’t understand the results that the team is trying to deliver, and you just speak a solutions language, I think you’re going to have a disadvantage working with most companies. So the role of the CTO is really to say, okay, you want these results, I’m going to go get the solutions that will drive those results. And they can keep translating the results language from the solution language. Because most business leaders, they just want to stay in the results language and not have to worry about the solution. So the CTO needs to be a trusted partner to go figure out the right solutions for the desired results.
Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message.
 | Adrian Tennant: In partnership with our friends at Kogan Page, this month’s Bigeye Book Club selection is “Marketing in Web 3.0: Artificial Intelligence, the Metaverse, and the Future of Marketing.” |
Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Benjamin Johnson, CEO and founder of Particle41, a firm that provides application development, data science, and DevOps services. Particle41 leverages a remote team with developers all around the world. Ben, what are some of the challenges and benefits of managing a global development team?
Benjamin Johnson: Well, one of the benefits is we get to experience the diversity from all these different cultures. We get to learn new things about folks, you know, in India and South America, in Eastern Europe, we get to experience all of this. So we increase, one of the greatest benefits is the increase to our worldview. So I love that part. You know, most of my teams have been highly diverse because of the international nature of our teams. One of the challenges is really a challenge of remote work in general. So the location becomes secondary and the idea of how do you collaborate, how do you have an engaging cultural experience, work culture meaning experience, and how do you not allow anyone to fall behind, right? So we can say things like no man left behind, but how do we actually practice that? in a work culture. And so we’ve implemented a small group structure, we call it squads. They’re about groups of eight. And so even though within our software development org, it’s pretty big, we’ve kind of grouped it together in these small groups. And then I deliver content a set of discussion points that are going to be discussed in each squad meeting. So we ask our teammates to be engaged with their team, who’s delivering results for clients, and also in this small group, their practice area. So it’s software developers or DevOps engineers are grouped together. And this is a way we can interact as people and we can explore how we’re doing with things like increasing capacity and stepping outside of our comfort zone. and work on being T-shaped. So not just having good technical skill, but also having good soft skills, good communication, and being a well-rounded professional, both personally and professionally.
Adrian Tennant: Excellent. The more high-tech our environment becomes, the more the high-touch skills become important.
Benjamin Johnson: For sure. And I think with the things we see coming out every day in the AI world, this is more and more the case, right? Finding out what is needed and what the right thing is, is paramount to actually executing it. We’ll always find easier ways to build things, but if those things aren’t the right thing, so if we don’t have a way to communicate the vision and communicate the adoption and all of those types of steps, our technology won’t connect with humans.
Adrian Tennant: I know when we were preparing for this podcast, you mentioned that personal branding is crucial for service-based businesses. What advice would you give to other business-to-business service providers about leveraging personal branding?
Benjamin Johnson: So there’s no such thing as being the behind-the-scenes founder anymore. So the book, “Founder Brand” has been inspiring for me. As you increase your influence as a founder, everything else becomes easier. So as I become more influential, it’s almost uncomfortable to say like I in the past, I would not have thought of myself as influential. But as my influence expands, as my reach expands, everything that I do becomes easier. Even I can help promote the client’s work that we’re working on. So we build a client thing, I can help launch and help get the word out about this great thing that we’ve done together. So the time spent on LinkedIn, giving some of those thoughts and really exposing what you see on social media is you see a sort of professional voyeurism where people are allowed to see inside of your world. And that is very captivating. And it’s very fun to be a part of where we all have those folks that we follow that have no idea who we are, but we love experiencing their journey. And I really enjoy some of the CEOs that are sharing their journey, sharing their growth, sharing their learnings. And they’re really living out their brand because of that. I love to buy their products because I feel like I know them and I know their story and I empathize with them. And so I think we’re all in a world where that is a huge plus. And yeah, as we grow our influence, everything becomes easier. Everything benefits from it. It’s a multiplier. If you’re founding a services brand, you need to be out there talking about what you’re learning about the service. And since your audience is mostly marketers, we really are in a place where we have to give away a lot of value in order to win the trust. You know, to have them want to go deeper in relationship with us where they want to actually pay for something, you know, in the past, it was just like, well, I’ll give you the first one for free. And then, you know, then you’ll want to pay for the rest of it. Right. I’ll give you samples. And so the influencing and the social media is really a way of giving those free samples so that people, when they’re need aware and ready to buy, we’ll come to you and speak to you and move forward.
Adrian Tennant: You know, just a few weeks ago, I was talking with Gordon Glenister, who has a book called “Influencer Marketing Strategy.” One of his really interesting observations, I think, is the power of what we’re now calling influencer marketing for business professionals – and that we might’ve previously considered you a thought leader, but now you’re a business influencer. So interesting to see the evolution of this.
Benjamin Johnson: Yeah. And then I think the, the idea of being an, a thought leader is just commoditizing where we’re like, it should saturate, right. You know, we all should be kind of sharing our specialized expertise somewhat freely so that people can make a buy decision really before we’ve had to start engaging. And that’s really efficient for the buyer and for the seller.
Adrian Tennant: What advice would you give to companies looking to modernize their legacy systems?
Benjamin Johnson: That is a great question. I really appreciate you asking it. What I think we need to do is go back to the basics. What are you really trying to accomplish with that legacy system? And what part of that is high need versus what part is offering high value? And then let’s just re-enter that analysis to see if there are market-available tools that can come in and cover some of those high-need items, and then how we need to meet the demands of the customer. And let’s see that customer experience. I was talking to a customer recently that was still using access databases and things like this to manage huge amounts of business. And so we just looked at, okay, well, what’s an approach that we could use? Is there any reason why this needs to be custom? And they had drivers around the use of AI and things they wanted to do in the future that kind of drove that solution. True differentiators that a GPT would be able to help them with that would almost alleviate just a ton of cost and really provide new value. And so we took a fresh look at that legacy system. So oftentimes it’s not just about recreating, but it’s about jumping forward. And so we put that plan together and then, you know, can help you figure out a budget and it often feels like it’s going to be a just massive investment. And we’ve been finding that with that target of leaping forward, we’ve been able to really just target that leap and what we need there, and then come up with a data migration strategy where business continuity can be maintained. Every situation in this concept is unique. But we have a really great track where we’ve done about 12 legacy system modernizations. And in most of those cases, we were able to jump forward and the cost to maintain, but also the values that were created definitely shifted.
Adrian Tennant: Excellent. Now, Ben, looking ahead, what emerging technologies or trends do you think will have the most significant impact on marketing and advertising in the next few years?
Benjamin Johnson: I mean, I think everyone will talk about AI here, but we’re using AI in this very broad sense. And AI is really like the cherries on top of a bunch of data engineering and data availability. So the amount of data we can collect, even as a small business, is becoming tremendous. It’s just a huge learning curve. I’m just thinking of like a million-dollar business or something somewhat small. They figured out product market fit. But now they’re trying to figure out how to reach their customers and just the data responsibility that even a small business has. So I think managing data is the barrier of entry. And my hope is, is that becomes easier and easier without having to deploy five, six, seven different tools. We tend to have tools at the beginning of the funnel, the middle half, and then the middle, and then the end. We tend to have all these different tools. It’s very challenging for an entrepreneur and a business owner to pull that all together in a single pane of glass. And this is really what my data engineering teammates are so engaged in is what tools are currently available. How can we bring all of that data together? Because only then will AI really be able to do amazing things for us as business people. And so my hope is that the barrier around data aggregation and data warehousing reduces so that small businesses can take even more, you know, get an early start on putting their foot in the right direction with data.
Adrian Tennant: Ben, if IN CLEAR FOCUS listeners would like to learn more about you or the services that Particle41 offers, what’s the best way to do so?
Benjamin Johnson: Well, I am very free with my Calendly link. It is on my website. It’s on my LinkedIn. I love just talking to people. And so it is one Google entryway, Particle41.com, book an appointment. Those come straight to me. And I would love to just speak with anyone who’s interested in what we’ve talked about or our services. Or I’ve even enjoyed lately just folks saying, Hey, I want to know what I should do with my career. And so I would love to just talk with people. So book an appointment with me and let’s get to know each other one-on-one.
Adrian Tennant: I’m sure listeners will be taking you up on that. Ben, thank you very much for being our guest on IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Benjamin Johnson: Thank you.
Adrian Tennant: Thanks again to my guest this week, Benjamin Johnson, CEO and founder of Particle41. As always, you’ll find a complete transcript of our conversation with timestamps and links to the resources we discussed on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at bigeyeagency.com. Just select ‘Insights’ from the menu. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00: Introduction
00:17: Welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS
00:39: The Importance of Data-Driven Marketing
00:59: Meet Benjamin Johnson of Particle41
01:59: Overview of Particle41’s Services
02:18: Understanding the Periodic Table of Business Tools
04:44: Application Modernization Explained
06:22: Balancing High Need vs. High-Value Solutions
06:58: Common Technology Stack Mistakes
08:05: Benefits for Marketing Teams and Agencies
09:31: Case Study: Forte Lessons
13:07: Particle41’s Three-Step Engagement Process
14:11: Fractional CTO Services Explained
15:28: Evolving Role of the CTO
17:05: Break and Book Club Promotion
18:21: Managing a Global Development Team
20:41: The Importance of High-Touch Skills
21:08: Leveraging Personal Branding for Service Providers
24:39: Advice for Modernizing Legacy Systems
26:51: Emerging Technologies Impacting Marketing
28:36: Connecting with Benjamin Johnson
29:19: Conclusion and Thanks
